Broken Pieces (2/2)
Title: Broken Pieces (2/2)
Author: dragonflybeach
Category: Supernatural
Word Count: 12.8k
Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel, Bobby Singer, Ben Braden, Garth, Chuck, mentions of Sam Winchester, Rufus Turner, Jo Harvelle, Ellen Harvelle, Lisa Braeden, Tim, Reggie, and others.
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, brief Dean/OFC, brief Castiel/OFC
Rating: M
Warnings: violence, multiple character deaths, drug/alcohol abuse, non-graphic sexual situations
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, but if I did, I'd probably write fanfic about it anyway.
Summary: End!Verse - how they went from the fallout with Sam in 2009 to where Past!Dean found them in 2014. How Dean broke, Cas fell, and they spiraled downward, hurting each other because they didn't know how to stop. How good people died, friends became family, and family became the enemy. What happened to the trenchcoat. How they ended up at Chitaqua. Why Baby was rusting and Dean tried to say yes to Michael.
Note - this was posted on my FF.net and AO3 accounts, but I'm migrating everything over here. Eventually.
The following week, Dean organizes a supply run into Oklahoma City. Or at least that's what he calls it. When a Croatoan outbreak hits nearby, he gives it a couple weeks until most of the infected have killed one another. Then the expedition party loots the town for whatever they can get as far as food, clothing, medicine, generators, hygiene supplies, fuel, whatever the camp needs.
You approach Dean alone and ask if you can go on the trip. He tells you that if you're healed enough to fuck half the women in the camp, then he reckons you're healed enough to fight mooks.
You smirk and shake your head and make a comment about pots and kettles as you walk away.
He surprises you, though, by handing you the keys to one of the trucks and telling you that you're going with Brody and Yager is riding with Dean.
As expected, the northeastern part of the city is fairly deserted. You and Brody load up anything useful you can find in the back of your truck, then venture around the corner to help Tim and Pruitt load.
The second truck is just about full when Tim decides to check a car that has plowed into the front of a building. You warn him to be careful. He doesn't see anything useful inside the car, and the building is probably too unstable to go inside, but the gas tank appears to be nearly full. Pruitt brings him a five gallon can from the back of the truck and they start the pump to siphon out the fuel.
The can is about half full when the four of you hear footsteps. You instinctively raise your gun to your shoulder, looking around. There's a Croat on the roof of the building next to the one with the car.
"Get back!" Brody shouts.
Pruitt takes a shot at the Croat, and you can't tell if he actually hits him or not, but the Croat falls onto the roof of the building Tim is still standing in front of. And the building collapses as Tim tries to grab the fuel can and run.
When the smoke and the dust settle, Tim is on the ground, his legs pinned under a pile of debris. You run over and begin digging him out with your hands. Pruitt rushes to help while Brody is covering the two of you with the rifle. Dean and Yager round the corner in the Jeep and you shout for them to help. There's a sound from the other end of the street, and you all turn to look.
The commotion has alerted the rest of the Croats. They're coming. You look at Dean, and see what you already know reflected in his eyes.
There are too many of them. Way too many. You can never hold them off or get Tim out in time.
"Back to the trucks!" Dean shouts, and as the rest of you back away, he pulls his gun and shoots Tim in the head. The other five of you make it back to the trucks safely and roll away.
When you get back to camp, you look at Dean. You don't notice any difference in his eyes from when you left camp. There are no more broken pieces. There's really not anything there at all.
It dawns on you that there's nothing left of his heart to break.
You try to talk to him that night, but he blows you off to go to Tammy's cabin.
Kyla came to yours that night, with her friend Allison. The three of you drink a toast and smoke most of Tim's stash that you've swiped from his cabin. And then you learn that sex with two women at once leads to all sorts of interesting sensations.
Somehow, you slip into a routine that you never intended. You get drunk or stoned or both every night. Most nights, you have at least one female there. Dean gives you dirty looks at breakfast in the morning and you just smirk at him.
Time to start drinking starts getting earlier every day until one day Dean bumps you from a mission because you've already started drinking.
The two of you argue about it later, and you call him a fucking hypocrite because you know he probably had more to drink than you did before setting out. He tells you that he can handle it, because he's been drinking since he was nine years old. You chug a fourth of a bottle of Wild Turkey, then walk outside and proceed to hit the bullseye on the target with four out of six shots from the old .38 revolver that used to belong to Bobby.
"It's not like I'm going to get out of this alive anyway." You throw up your hands and glower right back at him.
He shakes his head and walks away, but he never bumps you from a mission again.
You almost wish he would, that he would get concerned again and yell at you and care enough to worry about you. But that would mean he would have to have feelings, and Dean Winchester doesn't have those any more.
On the nights when you are alone, which become more and more rare as more female refugees are brought to the camp, you wish you could turn it all back. You don't know what you would do differently, exactly, but you want to try. You have actually considered selling your soul to get the old Dean back, going to a crossroads, burying a box and summoning a red eyed demon, but you can't. Not while there's still a chance that one day, the angels could decide the world is worth fighting for and return. You have to keep your grace-turned-soul intact just in case, because if your powers were ever restored, you would need it to help him.
So instead you and Dean glare at each other and make snide comments and both have been known to punch anyone who has anything to say about the other in front of you. You overhear Christie-with-a-C tell one of the newcomers that you and Dean are like a divorced couple who are still in love but too stubborn to admit it to one another, and you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Life keeps rolling on, and before you know it, it's spring. The first time you drink yourself into unconsciousness is on Ben's birthday, sitting beside the cross with his name carved on it, behind the old cabin. You tell him everything that's happened since he's been gone, how much you miss him, and how you hope his Heaven is beautiful and that maybe he got to see his mother again. You tell him how his last day was the perfect moment before the accident, how much you loved seeing him interact with Dean and how happy the three of you were for those few minutes and how you'll always be thankful for it. The last thing you remember telling him is how much you miss Dean, and then you apologize for saying it, tell him that he shouldn't have to worry about what's going on with the two of you now. You lay down in the grass beside his grave because you just don't want to move, and you think you'll just rest here with Ben for a little while. You wake up the next morning in your bed, to find Dean snoring on your couch. When he wakes up you hand him a cup of coffee and the two of you look at each other for a moment. Something passes through his eyes so quickly you can't get a handle on it, sadness mixed with something else but you don't know if it's for Ben or for you or for him or for the two of you. Then he mutters something you can't catch and walks out with the coffee.
Spring turns to summer, which turns to fall, and eventually to winter. The anniversary of the wreck is approaching, and Dean is planning one of the biggest survivor rescue attempts ever for that date.
It's a coping mechanism, a way for him to keep himself busy and occupied and not have to think, but by this point, you're the last person to condemn someone else for their dysfunctional self psychiatry.
The plans get bigger as they go, so everyone in camp able to fight is going to Texas. Once in town, they're going to split up into three missions. One group will try to round up survivors. The second will gather supplies. The third is going to hunt down at least a couple of the demons who are supposed to be hanging around town. You and Dean are going to be the third group with Yager, Brody, Pruitt and JD.
The six of you are in two vehicles, and for once you're back riding with Dean, because he put Yager, who's become his unofficial second in command, in charge of the other truck. Intel says the demons are using an old funeral home for their headquarters, which for some reason gives you the giggles. Dean just keeps glaring at you, which makes you laugh even harder, because there's just something about having Dean's attention focused on you, even if he's angry, that you crave.
You find the funeral home, and just as reported, it's crawling with actual black-eyes, which means there's something special going on here. The four demon sentries are quickly dispatched and then Dean counts quietly to three and the six of you kick in the door and storm the building. Only a couple of the demons try to fight. The rest all run, mostly heading toward the stairs leading down to the basement. Dean shouts for JD and Brody to take care of the demons upstairs, while the other four of you race off after the ones fleeing. Dean runs halfway down the stairs, then vaults over the handrail to land on his feet and keep running. Pruitt does the same, and you try to. But somehow, you don't land right. Something snaps in your foot as it twists underneath you and you're falling way too fast and your head smacks the concrete floor and everything goes dark.
You wake up laying on the backseat of Yager's truck with JD sitting in the floorboard beside you.
"He's awake." JD announces over his shoulder.
You look up to see Dean glance back over his shoulder from where he's driving. "Good."
The motion of the car is making you nauseous, a sensation you've gradually come to recognize over the two years of being human.
"Stop the truck." You wince at the pain in your head at the sound of your own voice. "I'm going to throw up."
"We can't stop now, Cas." Dean says, and you struggle to look at him because his voice wasn't cold and heartless for a moment. Or maybe it was just the head injury talking, because he tells JD to give you a plastic bag and roll you onto your side.
You get sick several times on the way back, and by the time you make it back to camp, you aren't sure whether your head or your side or your foot hurts worst.
Dean and JD carry you on a makeshift stretcher to your old cabin, because the father of that family of six who lives there now is a doctor and his wife is a nurse. Yes, he used to be a cardiologist and she worked in labor and delivery but over the past year they've become quite adept at stitching wounds and setting broken bones. He checks you over, diagnoses a concussion and a broken foot and deep tissue bruising on your ribcage.
"You're lucky." He announces as he sets and splints your foot the best he can with what he has to work with. "I was in the supply party yesterday. We found a whole drugstore abandoned that hadn't been looted yet. We were able to get a truckload of antibiotics, pain pills, bandages, vitamins, you name it."
He hands you an old peppermint tin full of narcotic pain pills, and warns you to not drink when you take them. You nod and thank him, knowing that you can never stop drinking now. Your hands shake if you go more than eight hours without some form of alcohol in your system.
One of the children is writing something on an old prescription pad. You think it's cute, that she's doing something that she's doubtless seen her father do many times. The child just doesn't understand there isn't anywhere left to get a prescription filled. Not around here, anyway.
"What's your name?" she asks, looking up at you with big dark eyes.
"Castiel." You reply, and spell it for her.
"What's your other name?" she continues.
You start to tell her you don't have one, but from behind you a deep voice answers "Winchester."
You look over your shoulder, but Dean is looking at the doctor rather than you, and his face is locked and cold again. The little girl tears off your prescription and hands it to you.
"I'll let you write it in." she says, and flounces off to what used to be your room.
Dean thanks the doctor and leaves. Yager is there, holding a pair of crutches saved from whoever broke their leg last. Mrs. M helps him to adjust them to the proper height for you, and then Yager walks you back to your cabin. He helps you get settled on the bed, and sits a glass of water on the nightstand, telling you that one of the women will be by later to bring some food.
"Thanks for getting me out back there." You tell him, somehow knowing he was the one.
He snorts. "Yeah, well Dean handed me his third gun and told me I better not let you get killed."
You stare for a moment, not quite sure how to handle that information.
"Call if you need anything." Yager points to the walkie-talkie on the nightstand and heads out the door.
You open the tin and pop two pain pills in your mouth, washing them down with a swig from the bottle of Wild Turkey you keep on the floor beside the bed. You fold your pillows over double, propping yourself up the best you can, and stare into nothingness. You take another sip from the bottle every few minutes, and a soothing numbness begins to spread through your system, until your arms and legs and eyelids begin to feel heavy.
"Are you trying to fucking kill yourself?" The voice you would recognize anywhere asks.
You look up, and Dean is standing at the end of the bed.
"Would you care if I did?" You ask, because the alcohol has lowered your inhibitions, and you're really fucking tired of these stupid games the two of you play.
"If you want to off yourself, that's your choice." He scoffs. "But you better tell me now, so I know whether I'm sending good men on a suicide mission by partnering them with you."
You put the bottle down and scramble to the end of the bed and stand on one foot in front of him. "After every fucking thing we've been through, that's all you care about?"
"Actually, I don't care about anything at all." He shrugs. "But I have a responsibility to keep these people alive, and if that means you're a danger to them, so be it."
You shove him backwards and his back hits the doorframe and you hobble over to pin him there, the narcotics fueling your anger and suppressing the pain in your leg to the point you're actually standing on both feet.
"You're a fucking liar and a coward, Dean." You growl into his face.
"Don't call me a coward." He snarled. "Fuck you."
"You already have," You smirk. "And you liked it."
You shove your hand into his hair and roughly tug his head forward until his lips meet yours and your teeth bang together and your whole bodies surge toward one another and time stops until the two of you finally break and come up gasping for air, your foreheads leaning together.
You reach a hand down between you and cup the bulge in his jeans. "No, you're not gay, but you have no trouble getting it up for me, do you?" You snicker.
He shoves you away with both hands against your chest and you sprawl backwards, landing with the small of your back against the edge of the bed.
"Don't ever touch me again." he snaps and starts to turn away.
"Go ahead and run." You call after him. "Run like the little coward you are, Dean. But that's my handprint on your shoulder, and we've marked each other in places where even we can't see. You can run as far away as you can, or you can throw me out of this camp if you want, but we'll never be free of each other."
He stopped while you were speaking, and now he half turns to face you. "Yeah, you're such an expert on human relations and psychology." He gives you a venomous look. "Did you ever stop to consider that the only thing you were in my life was a substitute for Sam?"
He shakes his head and walks out.
You pull yourself back up onto the bed again, your bad foot no longer able to support your weight as the adrenaline subsides. You scoot back to the pillows and reach for the bottle again and drink yourself into nothingness so you won't think about what he said, so you won't think about what he's doing with Allison right now.
The ladies of the camp take turns waiting on you, and since you don't have much else to do, you spend a lot of the next two months reading, stoned, or having sex with the ladies of the camp who coddle the poor wounded hero, not necessarily in that order. You finish off the pain pills so you ask Dr. M for more. He give them to you but the second time you ask for more, he tells you that you should be better now. You shouldn't need them.
You play it off and you make do with some of the other mind-altering substances circulating through the camp. It's the natural order of things. When you bring together a bunch of people who have lived through unspeakable horrors, most of them are going to chose to deal by not dealing, which means most of the camp are alcoholics or drug addicts or both.
When your foot is finally healed enough to allow you to go on missions again, you find your own drugs. In the American midwest there are lots of veterinary clinics, and for some reason looters don't think to strike there very often, which means they're usually a treasure trove of medical supplies and interesting drugs.
By that summer, you're pretty much staying drunk or high all the time. Dean still gives you hateful looks about it.
You just wish he cared enough to confront you about it again.
Another year goes by, in which the camp slowly starts to fill with survivors, so a second camp is established, run by some of the long-term refugees of Chitaqua. Dean still hunts Lucifer and the Colt. You go with him, because the day he falls in battle, you're going to lay down beside him, and if anyone survives, they'll bring home at least two bodies.
The tarp covering Baby is rotting away, but you don't mention it to Dean, and he ignores it, because if he acknowledged it, he would remember the last few minutes in the car, how happy the three of you were and how it all went to hell in a heartbeat and some shred of feeling might find its way out of the locked iron strongbox where he keeps the broken pieces of his heart, and Dean won't allow that. Not now.
It's the fall of 2014 when the strangest thing of your human life happens. You're getting ready to have an orgy with four lovely young ladies when Dean walks into your cabin. It surprises you a little, because Dean hasn't been alone with you in over a year, since the last time you kissed him.
But when you look up into his eyes, you fall all over again.
There's life in his eyes. Life and warmth and worry and a hint of panic and all the things that haven't been there since Ben died.
And the creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth aren't as sharp.
You realize instantly that this isn't Dean. Not your Dean, at least.
He confirms your suspicions. He's a version of Dean from the past. The thought skitters through your mind of using him to get to Zachariah. Or Michael, even. To try to get your grace back.
But in the next minute he's outside confronting himself, or your version of Dean at least, for shooting Yager. You're so busy watching him that it doesn't even register with you until later that Yager is dead. The past Dean is strong and brave and believes in right and is absorbing all this information around him and thinking of strategy and he's just so much the old Dean.
You can't take your eyes off of him. He makes you smile.
And he makes your Dean give you those looks again. The looks you haven't seen in such a long, long time. The looks that mean he cares about something, and in this case, the attention you're paying to the past version of himself.
It's so ridiculous it's hilarious. He's jealous of the attention you're giving him.
You know it can't last, that the past version of Dean can't stay here forever. That you can't go back with him. That you're going to stay here where you and your version of Dean are going to continue to hurt each other, because you don't know how to do anything else.
But your version of the Dean has the Colt now. And he's going to kill the devil. The devil who took away his Sammy and his Bobby and his Ben.
It's beyond reckless. There is no word strong enough to describe how bad this plan is. It's a suicide mission, not just for him, but for all of you.
When he asks if you're coming, you smile and say "Of course." with one more look over your shoulder at the past version of Dean.
You know you and your Dean are both probably going to die.
But at this point, dying couldn't hurt either of you as much as living does.
Author: dragonflybeach
Category: Supernatural
Word Count: 12.8k
Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel, Bobby Singer, Ben Braden, Garth, Chuck, mentions of Sam Winchester, Rufus Turner, Jo Harvelle, Ellen Harvelle, Lisa Braeden, Tim, Reggie, and others.
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, brief Dean/OFC, brief Castiel/OFC
Rating: M
Warnings: violence, multiple character deaths, drug/alcohol abuse, non-graphic sexual situations
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, but if I did, I'd probably write fanfic about it anyway.
Summary: End!Verse - how they went from the fallout with Sam in 2009 to where Past!Dean found them in 2014. How Dean broke, Cas fell, and they spiraled downward, hurting each other because they didn't know how to stop. How good people died, friends became family, and family became the enemy. What happened to the trenchcoat. How they ended up at Chitaqua. Why Baby was rusting and Dean tried to say yes to Michael.
Note - this was posted on my FF.net and AO3 accounts, but I'm migrating everything over here. Eventually.
The following week, Dean organizes a supply run into Oklahoma City. Or at least that's what he calls it. When a Croatoan outbreak hits nearby, he gives it a couple weeks until most of the infected have killed one another. Then the expedition party loots the town for whatever they can get as far as food, clothing, medicine, generators, hygiene supplies, fuel, whatever the camp needs.
You approach Dean alone and ask if you can go on the trip. He tells you that if you're healed enough to fuck half the women in the camp, then he reckons you're healed enough to fight mooks.
You smirk and shake your head and make a comment about pots and kettles as you walk away.
He surprises you, though, by handing you the keys to one of the trucks and telling you that you're going with Brody and Yager is riding with Dean.
As expected, the northeastern part of the city is fairly deserted. You and Brody load up anything useful you can find in the back of your truck, then venture around the corner to help Tim and Pruitt load.
The second truck is just about full when Tim decides to check a car that has plowed into the front of a building. You warn him to be careful. He doesn't see anything useful inside the car, and the building is probably too unstable to go inside, but the gas tank appears to be nearly full. Pruitt brings him a five gallon can from the back of the truck and they start the pump to siphon out the fuel.
The can is about half full when the four of you hear footsteps. You instinctively raise your gun to your shoulder, looking around. There's a Croat on the roof of the building next to the one with the car.
"Get back!" Brody shouts.
Pruitt takes a shot at the Croat, and you can't tell if he actually hits him or not, but the Croat falls onto the roof of the building Tim is still standing in front of. And the building collapses as Tim tries to grab the fuel can and run.
When the smoke and the dust settle, Tim is on the ground, his legs pinned under a pile of debris. You run over and begin digging him out with your hands. Pruitt rushes to help while Brody is covering the two of you with the rifle. Dean and Yager round the corner in the Jeep and you shout for them to help. There's a sound from the other end of the street, and you all turn to look.
The commotion has alerted the rest of the Croats. They're coming. You look at Dean, and see what you already know reflected in his eyes.
There are too many of them. Way too many. You can never hold them off or get Tim out in time.
"Back to the trucks!" Dean shouts, and as the rest of you back away, he pulls his gun and shoots Tim in the head. The other five of you make it back to the trucks safely and roll away.
When you get back to camp, you look at Dean. You don't notice any difference in his eyes from when you left camp. There are no more broken pieces. There's really not anything there at all.
It dawns on you that there's nothing left of his heart to break.
You try to talk to him that night, but he blows you off to go to Tammy's cabin.
Kyla came to yours that night, with her friend Allison. The three of you drink a toast and smoke most of Tim's stash that you've swiped from his cabin. And then you learn that sex with two women at once leads to all sorts of interesting sensations.
Somehow, you slip into a routine that you never intended. You get drunk or stoned or both every night. Most nights, you have at least one female there. Dean gives you dirty looks at breakfast in the morning and you just smirk at him.
Time to start drinking starts getting earlier every day until one day Dean bumps you from a mission because you've already started drinking.
The two of you argue about it later, and you call him a fucking hypocrite because you know he probably had more to drink than you did before setting out. He tells you that he can handle it, because he's been drinking since he was nine years old. You chug a fourth of a bottle of Wild Turkey, then walk outside and proceed to hit the bullseye on the target with four out of six shots from the old .38 revolver that used to belong to Bobby.
"It's not like I'm going to get out of this alive anyway." You throw up your hands and glower right back at him.
He shakes his head and walks away, but he never bumps you from a mission again.
You almost wish he would, that he would get concerned again and yell at you and care enough to worry about you. But that would mean he would have to have feelings, and Dean Winchester doesn't have those any more.
On the nights when you are alone, which become more and more rare as more female refugees are brought to the camp, you wish you could turn it all back. You don't know what you would do differently, exactly, but you want to try. You have actually considered selling your soul to get the old Dean back, going to a crossroads, burying a box and summoning a red eyed demon, but you can't. Not while there's still a chance that one day, the angels could decide the world is worth fighting for and return. You have to keep your grace-turned-soul intact just in case, because if your powers were ever restored, you would need it to help him.
So instead you and Dean glare at each other and make snide comments and both have been known to punch anyone who has anything to say about the other in front of you. You overhear Christie-with-a-C tell one of the newcomers that you and Dean are like a divorced couple who are still in love but too stubborn to admit it to one another, and you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Life keeps rolling on, and before you know it, it's spring. The first time you drink yourself into unconsciousness is on Ben's birthday, sitting beside the cross with his name carved on it, behind the old cabin. You tell him everything that's happened since he's been gone, how much you miss him, and how you hope his Heaven is beautiful and that maybe he got to see his mother again. You tell him how his last day was the perfect moment before the accident, how much you loved seeing him interact with Dean and how happy the three of you were for those few minutes and how you'll always be thankful for it. The last thing you remember telling him is how much you miss Dean, and then you apologize for saying it, tell him that he shouldn't have to worry about what's going on with the two of you now. You lay down in the grass beside his grave because you just don't want to move, and you think you'll just rest here with Ben for a little while. You wake up the next morning in your bed, to find Dean snoring on your couch. When he wakes up you hand him a cup of coffee and the two of you look at each other for a moment. Something passes through his eyes so quickly you can't get a handle on it, sadness mixed with something else but you don't know if it's for Ben or for you or for him or for the two of you. Then he mutters something you can't catch and walks out with the coffee.
Spring turns to summer, which turns to fall, and eventually to winter. The anniversary of the wreck is approaching, and Dean is planning one of the biggest survivor rescue attempts ever for that date.
It's a coping mechanism, a way for him to keep himself busy and occupied and not have to think, but by this point, you're the last person to condemn someone else for their dysfunctional self psychiatry.
The plans get bigger as they go, so everyone in camp able to fight is going to Texas. Once in town, they're going to split up into three missions. One group will try to round up survivors. The second will gather supplies. The third is going to hunt down at least a couple of the demons who are supposed to be hanging around town. You and Dean are going to be the third group with Yager, Brody, Pruitt and JD.
The six of you are in two vehicles, and for once you're back riding with Dean, because he put Yager, who's become his unofficial second in command, in charge of the other truck. Intel says the demons are using an old funeral home for their headquarters, which for some reason gives you the giggles. Dean just keeps glaring at you, which makes you laugh even harder, because there's just something about having Dean's attention focused on you, even if he's angry, that you crave.
You find the funeral home, and just as reported, it's crawling with actual black-eyes, which means there's something special going on here. The four demon sentries are quickly dispatched and then Dean counts quietly to three and the six of you kick in the door and storm the building. Only a couple of the demons try to fight. The rest all run, mostly heading toward the stairs leading down to the basement. Dean shouts for JD and Brody to take care of the demons upstairs, while the other four of you race off after the ones fleeing. Dean runs halfway down the stairs, then vaults over the handrail to land on his feet and keep running. Pruitt does the same, and you try to. But somehow, you don't land right. Something snaps in your foot as it twists underneath you and you're falling way too fast and your head smacks the concrete floor and everything goes dark.
You wake up laying on the backseat of Yager's truck with JD sitting in the floorboard beside you.
"He's awake." JD announces over his shoulder.
You look up to see Dean glance back over his shoulder from where he's driving. "Good."
The motion of the car is making you nauseous, a sensation you've gradually come to recognize over the two years of being human.
"Stop the truck." You wince at the pain in your head at the sound of your own voice. "I'm going to throw up."
"We can't stop now, Cas." Dean says, and you struggle to look at him because his voice wasn't cold and heartless for a moment. Or maybe it was just the head injury talking, because he tells JD to give you a plastic bag and roll you onto your side.
You get sick several times on the way back, and by the time you make it back to camp, you aren't sure whether your head or your side or your foot hurts worst.
Dean and JD carry you on a makeshift stretcher to your old cabin, because the father of that family of six who lives there now is a doctor and his wife is a nurse. Yes, he used to be a cardiologist and she worked in labor and delivery but over the past year they've become quite adept at stitching wounds and setting broken bones. He checks you over, diagnoses a concussion and a broken foot and deep tissue bruising on your ribcage.
"You're lucky." He announces as he sets and splints your foot the best he can with what he has to work with. "I was in the supply party yesterday. We found a whole drugstore abandoned that hadn't been looted yet. We were able to get a truckload of antibiotics, pain pills, bandages, vitamins, you name it."
He hands you an old peppermint tin full of narcotic pain pills, and warns you to not drink when you take them. You nod and thank him, knowing that you can never stop drinking now. Your hands shake if you go more than eight hours without some form of alcohol in your system.
One of the children is writing something on an old prescription pad. You think it's cute, that she's doing something that she's doubtless seen her father do many times. The child just doesn't understand there isn't anywhere left to get a prescription filled. Not around here, anyway.
"What's your name?" she asks, looking up at you with big dark eyes.
"Castiel." You reply, and spell it for her.
"What's your other name?" she continues.
You start to tell her you don't have one, but from behind you a deep voice answers "Winchester."
You look over your shoulder, but Dean is looking at the doctor rather than you, and his face is locked and cold again. The little girl tears off your prescription and hands it to you.
"I'll let you write it in." she says, and flounces off to what used to be your room.
Dean thanks the doctor and leaves. Yager is there, holding a pair of crutches saved from whoever broke their leg last. Mrs. M helps him to adjust them to the proper height for you, and then Yager walks you back to your cabin. He helps you get settled on the bed, and sits a glass of water on the nightstand, telling you that one of the women will be by later to bring some food.
"Thanks for getting me out back there." You tell him, somehow knowing he was the one.
He snorts. "Yeah, well Dean handed me his third gun and told me I better not let you get killed."
You stare for a moment, not quite sure how to handle that information.
"Call if you need anything." Yager points to the walkie-talkie on the nightstand and heads out the door.
You open the tin and pop two pain pills in your mouth, washing them down with a swig from the bottle of Wild Turkey you keep on the floor beside the bed. You fold your pillows over double, propping yourself up the best you can, and stare into nothingness. You take another sip from the bottle every few minutes, and a soothing numbness begins to spread through your system, until your arms and legs and eyelids begin to feel heavy.
"Are you trying to fucking kill yourself?" The voice you would recognize anywhere asks.
You look up, and Dean is standing at the end of the bed.
"Would you care if I did?" You ask, because the alcohol has lowered your inhibitions, and you're really fucking tired of these stupid games the two of you play.
"If you want to off yourself, that's your choice." He scoffs. "But you better tell me now, so I know whether I'm sending good men on a suicide mission by partnering them with you."
You put the bottle down and scramble to the end of the bed and stand on one foot in front of him. "After every fucking thing we've been through, that's all you care about?"
"Actually, I don't care about anything at all." He shrugs. "But I have a responsibility to keep these people alive, and if that means you're a danger to them, so be it."
You shove him backwards and his back hits the doorframe and you hobble over to pin him there, the narcotics fueling your anger and suppressing the pain in your leg to the point you're actually standing on both feet.
"You're a fucking liar and a coward, Dean." You growl into his face.
"Don't call me a coward." He snarled. "Fuck you."
"You already have," You smirk. "And you liked it."
You shove your hand into his hair and roughly tug his head forward until his lips meet yours and your teeth bang together and your whole bodies surge toward one another and time stops until the two of you finally break and come up gasping for air, your foreheads leaning together.
You reach a hand down between you and cup the bulge in his jeans. "No, you're not gay, but you have no trouble getting it up for me, do you?" You snicker.
He shoves you away with both hands against your chest and you sprawl backwards, landing with the small of your back against the edge of the bed.
"Don't ever touch me again." he snaps and starts to turn away.
"Go ahead and run." You call after him. "Run like the little coward you are, Dean. But that's my handprint on your shoulder, and we've marked each other in places where even we can't see. You can run as far away as you can, or you can throw me out of this camp if you want, but we'll never be free of each other."
He stopped while you were speaking, and now he half turns to face you. "Yeah, you're such an expert on human relations and psychology." He gives you a venomous look. "Did you ever stop to consider that the only thing you were in my life was a substitute for Sam?"
He shakes his head and walks out.
You pull yourself back up onto the bed again, your bad foot no longer able to support your weight as the adrenaline subsides. You scoot back to the pillows and reach for the bottle again and drink yourself into nothingness so you won't think about what he said, so you won't think about what he's doing with Allison right now.
The ladies of the camp take turns waiting on you, and since you don't have much else to do, you spend a lot of the next two months reading, stoned, or having sex with the ladies of the camp who coddle the poor wounded hero, not necessarily in that order. You finish off the pain pills so you ask Dr. M for more. He give them to you but the second time you ask for more, he tells you that you should be better now. You shouldn't need them.
You play it off and you make do with some of the other mind-altering substances circulating through the camp. It's the natural order of things. When you bring together a bunch of people who have lived through unspeakable horrors, most of them are going to chose to deal by not dealing, which means most of the camp are alcoholics or drug addicts or both.
When your foot is finally healed enough to allow you to go on missions again, you find your own drugs. In the American midwest there are lots of veterinary clinics, and for some reason looters don't think to strike there very often, which means they're usually a treasure trove of medical supplies and interesting drugs.
By that summer, you're pretty much staying drunk or high all the time. Dean still gives you hateful looks about it.
You just wish he cared enough to confront you about it again.
Another year goes by, in which the camp slowly starts to fill with survivors, so a second camp is established, run by some of the long-term refugees of Chitaqua. Dean still hunts Lucifer and the Colt. You go with him, because the day he falls in battle, you're going to lay down beside him, and if anyone survives, they'll bring home at least two bodies.
The tarp covering Baby is rotting away, but you don't mention it to Dean, and he ignores it, because if he acknowledged it, he would remember the last few minutes in the car, how happy the three of you were and how it all went to hell in a heartbeat and some shred of feeling might find its way out of the locked iron strongbox where he keeps the broken pieces of his heart, and Dean won't allow that. Not now.
It's the fall of 2014 when the strangest thing of your human life happens. You're getting ready to have an orgy with four lovely young ladies when Dean walks into your cabin. It surprises you a little, because Dean hasn't been alone with you in over a year, since the last time you kissed him.
But when you look up into his eyes, you fall all over again.
There's life in his eyes. Life and warmth and worry and a hint of panic and all the things that haven't been there since Ben died.
And the creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth aren't as sharp.
You realize instantly that this isn't Dean. Not your Dean, at least.
He confirms your suspicions. He's a version of Dean from the past. The thought skitters through your mind of using him to get to Zachariah. Or Michael, even. To try to get your grace back.
But in the next minute he's outside confronting himself, or your version of Dean at least, for shooting Yager. You're so busy watching him that it doesn't even register with you until later that Yager is dead. The past Dean is strong and brave and believes in right and is absorbing all this information around him and thinking of strategy and he's just so much the old Dean.
You can't take your eyes off of him. He makes you smile.
And he makes your Dean give you those looks again. The looks you haven't seen in such a long, long time. The looks that mean he cares about something, and in this case, the attention you're paying to the past version of himself.
It's so ridiculous it's hilarious. He's jealous of the attention you're giving him.
You know it can't last, that the past version of Dean can't stay here forever. That you can't go back with him. That you're going to stay here where you and your version of Dean are going to continue to hurt each other, because you don't know how to do anything else.
But your version of the Dean has the Colt now. And he's going to kill the devil. The devil who took away his Sammy and his Bobby and his Ben.
It's beyond reckless. There is no word strong enough to describe how bad this plan is. It's a suicide mission, not just for him, but for all of you.
When he asks if you're coming, you smile and say "Of course." with one more look over your shoulder at the past version of Dean.
You know you and your Dean are both probably going to die.
But at this point, dying couldn't hurt either of you as much as living does.