fic: Perpetual Love Machines (1/3, Dean/Castiel, NC-17)
fic: Perpetual Love Machines
Masterpost
Art post
*
Part 1
*
Those were the years after the Apocalypse had come, and fire had rained down on the world, and the oceans had consumed whole cities, leaving the prosperous, free, and lucky in their wake. The survivors were lonely, and the resources scarce, and so a bargain was struck among the living to create help in the form of robots - robots whose needs were so different, so much easier - who did not feel or want or consume, but would complete whatever task they were given, which was their sole purpose for being.
Time passed, and still the angel Castiel remained, and he watched. He could, if he wanted, do nothing but watch. His needs were so like the robots - the mechas - so few and unchanging. While the other angels had died in the fire or simply disappeared, Castiel had stayed. He stayed and watched his beloved brothers and even more beloved humans die, until he was neither part of one nor the other any longer.
If he tried very hard to remember, he could recall certain images and feelings of the time of the Second Fall, but it was difficult for him, and painful. There had been heaven, and there had been Dean. The two had never - would never, now - be reconciled, not in his mind, nor anywhere. So on the day he could no longer hear the thoughts of the living or remember where the dead had gone, Castiel walked into the forest and never went back.
Castiel moved blindly forward in time. Castiel contemplated.
When angels were born, they were created by a protocol - a covenant with God that they had no will to refuse. It was sealed into their very existence, in a language before the Enochian. To Castiel, it was like a spell. Somehow, Dean had broken it, and with a few simple English words, the touch of his hands, the beat of his fragile soul, Castiel had broken his covenant with God, and begun his covenant with Dean. It made less sense to him now, the less he remembered. "Are you sure?" Dean had asked. "Silly man. Of course I'm not sure," Castiel had answered, and lost his heart completely.
What he did remember was a very long time ago. God created angels to do his will. God created the Earth in more complexity than Paradise. God created mankind to love him. With love came free will, the birth of metaphor, irony, dreams - things not meant for angels to understand. Then, the greatest irony of all - man turned away from God, as all His children had, and created machines in their own image - robots, mechas, meant to serve them. Castiel found them very strange indeed, these servile things made from light, electricity, and metal. They were a superior kind of angel, truly without the ability to doubt. Sometimes, he envied them. They even looked human, with their synthetic skin, wet eyes, and fake emotions, but they would never be real - they did not know hunger, or love, or free will. Castiel had stopped being able to hear his vessel's thoughts many lifetimes ago; indeed, he had forgotten his name, though he still wore his body as his own. The only difference from then, if he remembered anything correctly at all, was that now, sticking out from the back of the forgotten Jimmy Novak's coat, was a pair of pristine white-feathered wings.
*
Mary and John Smith were oh so nice. Adam, their son, was nice too, stuck in his glass case, cold to wet noses, fun to lick. Sam sat by his side all day long, watching his young chest rise and fall. He had been Sam's favorite toy - favorite boy - and Sam had been his, always, best, always. Adam was sleeping right now, but he would awake again, come play, and everything would be just as it used to be. Sam would wait for him, that's what he would do.
Through the actions of those far beyond him, Sam had come home, to a company home, the first prototype of his kind. He had long flowing locks that would never tangle, and a long pointed snout with a snub nose. Bright, warm eyes - brown ringed golden ringed green - and a tail that wagged, never tired. His one rare gift, his voice, was breathy and rumbling and not flat, through it had always sounded flat to human ears, due to his constancy of emotion, though as with many things, Sam was not aware of this.
"Would you like me to sleep? Where would you like me to sleep? I do not need sleep. I do not need to be let out in the yard, or taken for walks. I will never have fleas."
"Do you... bark?" They asked him.
"Yes." Sam showed them. He wagged his tail. "Would you like to pet me? I would like that. Very much. I will lick your arms and wag my tail if you would pet me."
So the Smiths did. Sam was very, very happy. When his masters were home, he would follow them around from living room to bedroom to kitchen; he would wait by Adam's side to make sure he was not yet awake, chest rising and falling in his glass case. When they were not home, he would wait with Adam still, or on the rug inside the front door, and wait for signs of their arrival, tail wagging with the slightest hope.
On the day when the sick boy did awake, it was the happiest time of all. Adam would love him then, and take him on walks every day. But the boy was not ready right away, so Sam lay by the bed and waited some more. He seemed different, this boy who was no longer in the glass case - as if someone else had taken his place, some impostor. Sam was wary. Sometimes he watched the digital screen while Adam played fighting games with bright flashes, or old movies where other women named Mary sang like birds and floated with umbrellas. Funny games and funny songs, but Sam liked them anyway, because they were Adam's.
Mary and John gave Adam all their attention too. They no longer hugged Sam and patted his head when they walked in the door. They showed no desire to hear him speak, or bark, or let him lick them with his tongue. Sam sat with his head on his paws and waited.
One day, Adam had friends over. It was very exciting for Sam, because he had been so lonely, and he wanted so much to be loved and useful. A tall boy with curly brown hair walked over to him and tried to catch Sam's constantly-wagging tail. When he pulled, Sam yelped. He couldn't help it; it was not a nice thing the boy had done. Adam waved his hand. "Oh, him? That's Sam. He used to be a Super-Toy, but now he's old and stupid."
Grrrrr. "I am not... a toy!" Sam looked around the room in a panic, and caught sight of something behind him, but it was only his own tail, and he stopped chasing it after a time. He had to think of a way to show he was not a toy - he was a dog - and he was useful, not old and stupid.
He did his best and stood by the table while everyone ate soft dark squares and sang songs around little lighted sticks, all surrounded by bright floating balls. All of it, all of it looked like it would be fun to stick his nose in, eat, and bite down on with his teeth. As soon as they left to go swimming in the pool, he explored every curiosity, licking sweet chocolaty frosting until the paper plates were clean and gnawing at the funny tasting plastic balls until they popped, the loud noise sending him running to hide in the pantry. When John found him, he had been so angry that he closed the door. Sam lay down on his side and waited, no longer able to move. John took him along to work the next day to clean out his circuits of burned sugar and cake particles. He didn't talk the whole way, and Sam whined a little through his nose just to remind John that he could.
Adam asked him questions when he was bored, but Sam had been wary ever since his new toys became gun-shaped, or blunt sticks, or firecrackers. He missed balls. "Where'd you get that collar?" Adam asked.
Sam didn't know how to answer. "I've always had this collar." He wore it around his neck on a red leather ring.
"Well, yeah, duh. But do you know what it is?"
"I don't know. Will you describe it to me?" Like many things, he was aware of its existence, but had no place to put that awareness. No slot to fill, no knowledge.
"It's... Just a face, with horns, like on a bull. It's gold. I wonder if it's real." Adam reached for it.
"It is real. I'm wearing it. See?" Sam stuck out his tongue and cocked his head to the side.
"No, dummy. Real gold. I wonder if it's worth anything." Adam had many toys with glowing screens and tiny buttons and moving parts, and he was always breaking them and replacing them with newer models.
Sam didn't know the difference, but it was his collar, and he had always worn it. And so he always would.
"Give it to me," Adam demanded, holding out his hand.
Sam backed away as he had learned to do, more cautious than was his nature, than he wanted to be. Adam was not always nice. "It is mine."
"I just want to see it." Adam grabbed at the collar, pulling at it hard.
Sam thought he was wrong and shouldn't have done that - the collar had always been his, he didn't understand why Adam wanted it so badly. It was the only thing he owned, and everything else he would give. He had to move quickly to keep it to himself, and keep safe, some way to keep Adam away just this one time. "No!" he growled.
Then Adam was bleeding from his arm, screaming for John and running away from him before Sam could explain. He thought he would be able to explain, but not in front of his masters, with everyone watching him and yelling, and his eyes downcast and sad and his tail low and wagging for the slightest sign of forgiveness. He spent the night on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, considering his crime.
The next morning, Mary said something she had never said before, but what Sam had been waiting for a long time. "I was thinking we could go to the park today, Sam. What do you say?"
Sam wagged and wagged his tail. "Yes, oh yes! The park!" They had forgiven him after all.
*
"Here again, Kinky Dean?" The man called him by his proper name.
"Of course, yes!" Dean smiled at the manager of the Red Shoe Inn. It was one of his favorite places to work, with happy sounds passing through the walls and mirrors on the ceiling. And he lived in hotel rooms, worked in them too, so he knew the good from the bad. "A man's work is never done. And neither is mine," he added with a wink and a smile that flashed all of his white teeth.
He stopped in front of the dirty hallway mirror on the way. This had to be - he cocked his head, flashed his eyes to make sure every lash was just right - perfect. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks had to make him look boyish enough, but still man enough to please. His hair had to be cut close, blond and just lightly frosted, but not enough to make it look like he cared. He was here to see a woman this time, and not a man. He tilted his head, and grew a day's worth of stubble. His shirt was thin but bleached white, his leather jacket shiny and scruffy enough to work. An old Foreigner rock ballad played through tiny hidden speakers inside his ears. Perfect. He walked through the door of Room 47.
"Ms. Milton. It's Dean, Kinky Dean, here to satisfy and ready to please." He bared his palms in one of his cockiest poses. "At your service."
But Ms. Milton did not reply right away. Dean was used to quick responses, or perhaps a customer in need of a little romantic seduction, a sense of foreplay, or realness. Once in awhile, a scream or a change of heart. He so rarely got nothing. He walked over to where she lay on the bed, face down and away from him, but she was cold and would not move. Dean placed a perfectly-shaped synthetic skin fingertip against the stain on the bed, and it came away cherry red with just a touch of chill. This was not good. No, this was not good at all.
Dean turned from the bed and walked out of the room very very quickly, in the opposite direction from where he'd come in. If he was lucky, he could get to the ends of the city before they found him.
*
"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Sam wagged his tail the whole way to the park and sat in the passenger side of the car, staring out all sides of the glass dome windows, riding the streets to the outside of Lawrence.
Mary smiled a shy smile at him, and every time he saw it he licked her on the corners of her mouth then turned away with his head down, unable to contain his excitement. He knew that dogs long ago could ride with their heads hanging out the car windows, but he was content just to be here, with her. She was beautiful, and she would still pet Sam on the head absently, unlike John and Adam who wouldn't pay him any attention, though he tried so hard.
The park was so lovely! Green grass was so soft under his paws, and it smelled of everything - new smells, dog smells, birds with wings, little roly poly brown things with fluffy tails, old greasy food and rotting pizza, dried up dog messes, sweaty joggers, garbage piles - everything wonderful in the world. He let his tongue hang out and he didn't even care - he barked and didn't even care. The park was a carefree, golden, smelly place.
Mary threw him a ball - a ball! - red and shiny and he chased it again and again, sometimes running around the backs of strangers, digging under benches, running into the thickness of the trees, where the light was filled with colder air and shadows - and he always retrieved it and brought it back to Mary's feet, her shiny leather boots. They played all day, and he always found those sweet-smelling leather boots again.
Until he couldn't find them anywhere. The wind was blowing in with the darkness, and the smells were all jumbled up in his nose. He held the red ball in his teeth and then dropped it at his feet. "Mary? Mary!" He tried hard not to whine, but he wasn't used to being out alone, and he missed the rare touch of her hand in his fur, her soothing voice.
Sam wandered the park alone and it was getting dark. He used to have directions saved in his memory to find his way home again, in case he was lost, but when he tried to retrieve it, the information had been erased. A blank slot that had once been filled. He held onto the ball and started walking.
*
Silvery light outlined the gnarled twists of the trees and the forgotten beings that drifted below. Castiel knew the stars well, and the phases of the moon, which were important to him, though he had long forgotten why.
Castiel was used to nights such as these, but he dreaded them. The humans were on the hunt to destroy their demons, as they always had been for as long as the angels had been watching, but this time all of the angels and demons were gone. The only monsters left were the monsters the humans themselves created - the robots who were no longer servile, meaning useful. Some had broken down with half-mangled parts and busted sockets, others had run away, still others had gone truly rogue and turned against their masters in some unforeseen way. It every case, Castiel knew it ended badly - there were only so many humans, and so many used and outdated robots. What was found tonight would be taken away to be dropped into a vat of corrosive salt and acid. It would be much like burning alive, for any robot unlucky enough to feel. What was not found tonight would be found some other night, for the humans never stopped hunting what they feared. If Castiel knew anything, he knew this to be true. So, his forest had become a kind of purgatory, when no heaven or hell existed anymore. It was where he lived, abandoned by his Father and the rest of his brothers when the Apocalypse had been decided.
The garbage piled high into the trees, close to the branches where there were no leaves. Land was scarce in all the world but forgotten things still piled up in forgotten places such as these. What others did not want to remember, Castiel saw, and loved. It was his existence, and he hadn't asked why since the time of the Winchesters.
He watched the discarded and lost robots dig through the scrap pile with a feeling he'd long since recognized as pity. If he'd had something to offer, it would be mercy, but pity it was. They looked human after all, with a few parts misplaced - an open eye socket, a missing arm, a corroded belly - but they were more fragile than the privileged humans that remained, perfect and maintained as they were, and so he found, in the end, that he loved them more. They rooted around and reattached parts, proud of their self-sufficiency and utility. All beings loved a purpose.
Castiel kept at a distance from them until he saw her - a red-haired, freckled young woman with pale skin that glowed in the moonlight, her every part intact. She had a pair of wings, just like his but more compact and therefore practical-looking, like a fashion accessory instead of a deformity. Was she a new model of angel? Had the humans heard stories of heaven and longed for it again? She looked like --
But Castiel could not remember after all. "Excuse me. Excuse me? Miss -" He called to her, his voice underused and rough. He no longer had contact with his human host to give him signals on how to deal with other people - he had gone away, never to return, just like everyone else he had known. The winged girl was the closest he'd come to familiar in a very long time. "Miss! Wait!"
She startled for a moment, her wings twisting away and then towards him. "Me?" She whispered.
Castiel just nodded, daring to come closer. He had to see if she was like him, was anything like him. "I see your wings." He twisted his back. "I have them too."
She nodded back, unsure.
He knew he looked suspicious, some intact android mecha in a suit wandering the forest with a strange pair of wings. He could be a parts-stealer, or some citizen hire of the dangerous-eyed Mecha Police. "I'm not - one of those who would harm you. I -" He couldn't confess. "Are you an angel?"
Her wings shook a little with confusion, and he saw they were tattered and worn, patchy in places, and plastic; not much like his own at all. "No, I'm a fairytale mecha, of course. What's an angel?"
He ignored the fast sinking of his heart - surprised even that it could still sink, all this time so low - and pressed on. "How long have you had them?" He stopped his hand just above her wings.
"Um, I don't know," she was shaky, unsure. "A little while."
He knew his next question would sound even more suspicious, but he had to ask it. "Are they yours?"
"Of course they are! I got them when I was made. What do you think I am?" Mechas, for all that they lacked, still had a sense of pride.
"I apologize." He held up his hands, willing her to stay calm enough to help. "Whose are they?"
"Golden Calf's. Golden Calf Industries." Her eyes shifted from side to side, as if she felt fear, if she could have. She fingered the charm at her neck - a little golden head. She hissed, her words whispers, "Now leave me alone. I don't want any trouble."
"I don't mean to give you trouble," Castiel tried, but she was already stomping away to another pile of scrap metal beyond the hill. He could follow at a distance, or try. She didn't have to mean anything - parts were traded, bought and sold at every hour of the day, illegal or no. Golden Calf was a leader in the cybernetic industry, but that didn't mean they were doing it right; more likely it meant another leap forward in the systematic and slow destruction of the human and cyborg race, falling together faster than even the angels could fall. And angels could fall so very fast.
At least the fairytale mechas had a purpose - nannies for the only children of privileged couples, living in fine empty houses far away. They sang songs and told stories of make-believe, lulling babies into sleep.
He wouldn't want to do that. He much preferred to find treasure out here with the trash, where everything looked beautiful under the moonlight. It was difficult to be an angel with nothing to offer - without grace or answers or an intact memory. He listened, and sat quietly with the scavengers if they didn't want to talk, and mended the parts he could with his hands.
*
Dean ran until he could see the moon, past all of the neon lights of the city in Kansas City, and all the motels he would have called home. Missouri had been his home for as long as he'd had one, and he didn't know any different. The forest beyond the trees was scary, but that was where his kind went when they were lost and disgraced, and he was, he was. There would be no trial for him, nor pleading of his case. He was a love mecha, and well-known as one besides, but there was no community among them, for they all fought for the same prize - the attention of the humans, whose money they could not use and whose numbers were always dwindling - and he would have no sanctuary.
His client had been murdered by a human, Dean knew that much. Mechas were not programmed to kill, and he would not even know how to begin to try to harm someone, not truly. It wasn't in his programming; he was programmed to love - programmed to fuck, even, in all kinds of ways - but not to harm, rape, maim, or kill. Everyone knew not to accidentally say no in front of a love mecha - they would listen without fail, and hear no excuses. 'Stop' and 'Don't' and 'Please' were free words, but Dean's safe word was programmed to be simply 'No' and therefore he would follow it, like all his programming.
But robots were believed to have minds of their own, no matter how clear their enslavement was, for humans were superstitious and suspicious of them, even though they had been built by humans, been built to serve humans, and had no other reason to exist but to serve. There were no trials, no justice for mechas, for they had no will of their own and no need to survive for their own sake. Any mecha found unable to fulfill their role or found to be a threat was simply destroyed in melting pits of fire - publicly if their owners wished, privately if they belonged to the government or if they were of no interest. It was nothing to be upset about, Dean knew, and it had never troubled him before.
Though on this night, Dean found himself thinking about it very deeply. He had nowhere to run, he knew that. Neighboring Kansas was still a place of no sanctuary, despite the people from the flooded coast moving inwards to the dry plains and bringing their beliefs with them. Things had not changed so much for a love mecha to be free from the fears of humans. No, there was no where to go. So he ran all the way to Acheton, Kansas, to the forest there. He heard it was a forest of friendship, or had been, and included trees from all original 50 states and the Moon, where a seedling had once been taken and returned back to Earth. A forest of the Moon, imagine that? He tried, but it was hard to imagine what did not involve rope, and lube, and plastic parts.
The forest was left to seed and overgrown now - a man-made forest in the middle of the grass plains. Mechas whispered that fairies and angels lived there, somewhere under a grove of moon trees, but Dean didn't believe most of what his kind said. They were also full of superstition and suspicion, believing in make-believe because they were programmed to, because it was supposed to make them more docile, due to a mistaken belief that had persisted through human history for thousands of years and like so few things, would not die.
Dean followed the silvery Moon and hid in the shadows as best he could, running a fast pace at night and hiding with the garbage during the day, with other discarded things. Miles and miles he ran, and though he never grew tired, he wanted to rest very badly. Soon - though it had seemed very long - Dean followed the moonlight to where it lay over the tops of maple trees, reflecting their silver light back to them. The forest of friendship, it must be, and so he passed under the trees in search of other mechas like himself - even fairies or monsters - but not angels.
He seemed to walk a long time without finding anyone, and not even the animals hunted here after the witching hour. There were voices in the distance, muffled, but mecha-sounding to his ears. He thought he heard a woman, a few men, the snapping of branches and crushing of leaves, and so he walked towards them, after such a long time being alone.
It was too dark to see the dark suits clearly until he was among them, but floating in the middle of the circle of men was a pair of floating white wings - they looked like a dove flying in the air, but they were attached to a red-headed woman, her skin pale in the moonlight.
"Hey, I've been looking for -"
He spoke it too soon. For then Dean saw the black suits were uniforms, and the reason that he couldn't see the eyes of the men was because they were the oil-black eyes of the MPs - the Mecha Police - and he was indeed in big, big trouble.
At the sight of them, he could already smell acid and fire in his nostrils, the clink of chains lowering him over the pit of fire. His loneliness must have made him dumb, that was all he could think of to blame for walking into such a wolves' den after so much time spent avoiding just this. It was just his luck, and maybe he deserved no better, but Dean felt something overcome him that he'd never experienced before - like the wave of the ocean, taking him under, and making him want to cry out for help from those make-believe beings he wouldn't believe in if he wasn't programmed to.
"Help! Keep me safe!" He flung his body into the circle, trying to get across, and clung to the girl with wings. She shoved him towards the Police and ran in the opposite direction.
"Where you going, fairy?" A dark-suited man swung a metal club at her head as she tried to get free of the circle. It cut her flesh off the metal and revealed a face of chips and circuits. He continued to smash and smash at her until all the electricity that kept her going was lost. Fires flashed within her, and then she was gone.
Dean could do nothing but stare at the violence. He'd seen it before with the humankind, but he'd always sympathized with the perpetrators before, and never the rebellious mecha, which he was now. "Stop!" He yelled when he could finally speak. The hands around his biceps were tight and unyielding. "She's gone! She's stopped moving. You can stop now; she won't hurt you."
One of the men laughed - his face was long and ruddy, his hair light and slightly coiffed, and a dimple was set in the center of his chin. "We were never afraid of her, don't you worry." He smiled. "Besides, we got you to play with now, and you're a proper love doll, all eager to please, isn't that right?"
Dean wanted to say no, but he couldn't lie. He should have been afraid that the men wouldn't say no either, and he would have to comply, have to serve them in whatever way they wished. As an illegal, he had no protection under any laws of commerce; no one to worry if he was broken or unusable; no one to service him so he would keep making money for them.
But he felt no fear because he was not programmed to. He was theirs. In a way, it was no different. Nothing had changed.
The man holding onto his arms pushed down until Dean fell to his knees in the circle. He was so dirty, and his circuits needed oil, but they didn't seem to care about that. He felt them tear at his clothes until his T-shirt was crumpled and thrown in the dirt, his jeans pushed down his thighs. Thick fists grabbed his hair and fucked their bodies into his mouth, one after the other, and he moved his tongue as best he could like his programming told him to do, and he took them all as deep as he could, and he swallowed down what they gave him, as his programming told him to do. He felt nothing.
It took a long time for him to do his job, and since the men never said no, he couldn't stop on his own. He waited for them to finish, and looked up at the moon as it sank past the trees, and felt the sun rising at his back, the light stretching over the forest.
So when he saw the angel seem to appear out of nowhere at his shoulder, it was strange but also not-so-very-strange, as if the sun had sent him to Dean, if Dean believed in such things. He didn't know why he thought 'angel' and not 'fairy' - angels did not exist, while fairies were made every day. This angel's hands were strong as he shoved the man back and out of Dean's mouth and hair. His wings were more pristine than the girl-with-wings' had been, like they were made out of water-repellent plastic, and almost glowing in the sunlight.
Dean grabbed onto his legs - "Don't let go. Keep me safe! Don't let go!" he called, though he was the one holding on - and tripped the angel up for a moment. He was suddenly afraid - for the first time, afraid - under the gaze of this angel. It was a cool gaze, and weird, in so many ways weird. It made him bare - but hadn't he always been bare? Had never not been?
But then the angel looked at him with blue, blue eyes and laid his hands on Dean's face then, and so Dean let go of him.
It took only minutes to dispatch the men back into the edges of the forest and beyond, for this angel did not have to wait for a no at all, and he did not have to be programmed to fight in order to fight, and he had forgotten his programming altogether, though Dean didn't know that. He just watched him fight with fists that seemed to be made of steel; though he was not man, nothing else about the man seemed mecha to Dean, and Dean was programmed to know the difference between the two.
Dean tried to find his T-shirt in the dirt and pull up his jeans, finger the cracked leaves out of his hair before the angel returned to him, for he was programmed to look neat and presentable in all circumstances. He was failing in most respects, but he at least got his clothes back on. He should have been able to do better, to remake himself as new. This time, when he felt the angel's hand on his arm, he did not flinch because he was not afraid. The angel paused with his arm there.
"What - What is it?" Dean spoke and tried to stand, but the arm pressed him to stay.
"It's not safe." The angel's voice was so calm and silent-like, Dean had to narrow his eyes just to hear it. "Will you let me take care of the problem of your identification? I don't want them to return."
The flat, squared-looking hand rested flat on his identification badge where it was imprinted into his arm. He was surprised that he hadn't thought of it before - his skin badge was the only way to ID him apart from other mechas of his kind, and allow the humans to frame him, and he would not be safe as long as he still had it.
Dean nodded his head and so the angel burned his hand print into his arm over the badge, erasing it and leaving a red welt in its place. A red welt in the shape of his hand. They knelt there together on the ground.
"Thank you," Dean said when he found he could speak again.
The angel smiled. "You're welcome."
"What are you? Are you a fairy-tale nanny? I've heard of those."
"No. I'm different. A unique creature."
"Oh." That bare, irrational voice in his head was back, so strange. "But you're not human? And you're not like me?"
"I'm... close to human."
"Oh." Was all Dean said in reply.
*
*
They knelt together, beneath the trees. Dean shrugged, still looking shaken up, and Castiel longed to comfort him, but he had never been very good at that, even when Dean was alive.
Dean's skin a little green, a strange shade of pale, but freckled. Eyes so bright, hair spiky and never changing. Leather jacket worn and too shiny at the same time, like Dean himself. His mouth full and rounded into that perfect innocent O.
Oh, Dean. Dean. Castiel closed his eyes and silently prayed his name to heaven.
But why? Why would his Father do this to him? Why would his Father do anything. Castiel used to think he understood, all those thousands of years before Dean, but he never had. His Father had nothing to do with this. Dean once was, and then he was no more. Now, it came back around again. That was the closest he would ever come to a reason. It was because it - was. In the end, none of it had anything to do with him. Then why was he still here?
What are you? What are you? was what the look in Dean's eyes seemed to be asking.
It was so painful, and yet so *alive* to see Dean again. He had never seen another like him.
"I... I don't know how to thank you." He felt Dean's hand on the lapels of his coat, his fingertips brushing his tie. His breath came out in perfectly timed exhales, but his lips, his eyes, and everything Castiel remembered was right there again, imploring him in the same way Dean always had, but now, after all this time, Castiel finally understood what the question had been.
Castiel softly picked up Dean's hand by the wrist and placed it at his side. He changed the subject to something big enough to distract him. "Do you remember your parents, Dean?"
"How do you know my name? Oh, right - you've heard of my reputation, I bet." He looked down sheepishly. "I am rather famous."
He had never met another 'Kinky Dean' model, nor heard of him before, but he could not explain. "My name is Castiel."
"Okay. Castiel. I remember my mother, Castiel. Her name was Mary. She was beautiful, and strong, and she used to make me tomato and rice soup to eat and sing me ancient rock songs. She loved me very much, and she's proud of me when I do as I'm programmed to do."
Yes, Mary then. Dean loved her without reservations, without fail. Then it was settled - Dean was one of the mechas programmed to seem as human as possible, but he was not real. He was not Dean.
"And your father? Do you remember him?"
Dean shook his head hard from side to side. "No, no. I don't want to think about him."
Castiel watched Dean's eyes closely, looking for a reason. "But you remember a man who was your father?" This was strange. Mechas were programmed to feel loved.
"No, I don't remember him. I know I had a father who made me - that is all. How about you?" His eyes were still green, and they still shone when he was afraid.
"Yes. My father made me too. I don't know much about him either."
"Okay. How about your mother?"
"I never had a mother."
"Everyone has a mother." Dean's eyes narrowed. "So, you're not human then?"
"No. I already told you that I'm not."
"Come on, spill it. I know you just saved my life but you're sounding like someone who's never been made to take their pills before."
"I have not been made to take pills."
Kinky Dean rolled his eyes. "Well everyone is supposed to take pills. It makes them all normal." He shrugged again. "That explains a lot I guess. So what am I supposed to think? You're not human, you're not like me. So what are you?"
"I'm... something else. Just believe me - I'm not going to hurt you."
Dean sighed just like Dean. "Fine. Whatever. I believe you."
Castiel felt Dean's body relax against his side then, his head falling to the shoulder of a damp trench coat. He knew Dean was just following his programming, and taking contact and warmth where he could get it, but he couldn't fault him for it, when it was something Dean would have done with him on a night like this one, long long ago.
"You should look into those pills, you know," Dean yawned a programmed yawn, making him appear sleepy. "They make lots of different kinds."
Castiel took Dean's advice for what it was worth. He was afraid enough for pills, afraid of the creation falling into false rest and clutching his arm. They stayed quiet in the dark and waited for the sun to rise for they had no reason to sleep.
*
He had walked a very long way. All of the ground looked the same, all brown and dead, and the smells were faded, not fresh. He could smell the difference between mechas and humans, and all kinds of things in between, like real dogs who sometimes scared him, always feral they were and likely to be shot if found, since the only animals allowed to be kept were mecha animals like he was. He had been kept for a while. He'd had a good life with Mary and John and Adam. He'd tried his best.
If he could only get back to them, he would find a better way to explain, something less dumb than chasing after balls in the park and being excited by rides in the car. Sam would find it. He couldn't believe he'd been acting so stupid, instead of showing them how much he could do for them. He could fetch useful things, not slobber on their shoes, not mess up and get into things he shouldn't. He just needed a day - one day to show them - if he could just get back home.
But he wasn't used to being outside. Sam tried very hard to remember the way to the park, and how to trace the way back to the house, but none of it had made sense that first night in the dark. He didn't want to say, but it was scary to be all alone. At least if they left him alone in the house he knew where he was. He no longer knew that anymore. Strange things had happened since he first found the park. Maybe parks were bad; maybe he'd been mistaken about everything.
So he'd walked a very, very long way.
If he stayed close to the trees, it was harder for people and other scary things to find him. He could be alone with little furry things and chase them and have some fun, forget about his matted fur and loneliness for a while. There were so few trees and forests in the land he was traveling. It made him nervous. Maybe he was going the wrong way. Sam never found any people in the forests, and so he wished for more trees.
When he found the gnarled, overgrown forest, he started to wag his tail despite himself. There were no little furry things to chase, and no smells that he liked, but it was far from the houses and there were no other distractions. He thought he heard voices somewhere deep inside, and he started to trot off towards them, because they didn't seem particularly human or mecha, just voices. They were very far into the forest, though not far for as long as he'd been walking. One was funny-looking with white wings on his back like the flying things had; the other he couldn't recognize because there was a red mark where his ID was supposed to be. He jumped when he saw Sam, and Sam stopped when he noticed him, though he wanted nothing more than to run up to him and sniff his feet and hands. He wanted that more than anything.
And he was so excited, he couldn't stop from speaking. "Where's Mary? Can you help me find Adam? I have to find Adam. Are you taking me to Adam? Mary took me to the park. I need to get back to Mary and John's house."
The maybe-mecha smiled at him. "Hello. What's your name?"
"I am called Sam." Sam thought his smile was the warmest he'd seen in a very long time. "What is your name?"
"I'm Kinky Dean." Dean pointed to the winged thing beside him. "His name is Castiel. Hello, Sam."
"Hello, Kinky Dean." With the words, he imprinted his new friend into his memory. Pause. Name. Pause. Then he turned to the winged thing.
"Hello, Sam." The man called Castiel looked at him and tilted his head.
Sam tilted his head back. This was a strange man. "Hello, Castiel." Pause. Name. Pause. He crawled closer, wanting to touch them both with his nose, his tongue. They would be good and friendly to him, and not leave him in the park by accident.
"You are looking for a Mary, you said?" His new friend Castiel spoke.
Sam barked. He was listening! "Yes. My master's name is Mary Smith. She took me to the park."
Dean smiled even bigger. Sam liked Dean. "Mary was my mother's name too. I don't know her last name, but I know women! They sometimes ask for me by name. I know all about women. About as much as there is to know. No two are ever alike, and I know where most of them can be found."
"Where?" Oh where, oh where? He was so excited!
Dean scratched him behind his ears, in the best best place. "We must go to the cities! The cities of the East, on the coast where the machines are born. Places called Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. There, we will find all the women we need."
They sat down in the dried leaves and talked excitedly, like the best of friends.
*
Castiel listened to the strange logic of these machines, speaking with the voices of the only true friends he'd ever had. He found he'd lived so long without direction, he would give anything to follow a lost dog and an even more lost love doll. They spoke for a time about their plans, and Castiel thought that if Dean had a tail, it would be wagging too.
He hated to be the sensible one. "I know you want to travel, but it can be dangerous on foot. You're a fugitive, and Sam is in danger without his owner's information. It's not safe."
They both looked at him with openness and trust he didn't deserve. Neither probably had any sense of geography unless they had been programmed that way. "Well," Dean said. "Do you have a better way?"
"I don't know," Castiel found himself lying. It was also not fair to lie to two beings incapable of lying. Still, it was mostly true. He couldn't move mechas around in time and place with him. He could barely move himself anymore. Once, long ago, Castiel used to be incapable of lying. Then the world changed, and all that mattered afterwards, was Dean. "I'll find us a car." Finding a car would be close to impossible, and yet they would be in danger on the road without them. Kansas was one thing - the coast was somewhere he never dared go.
Dean nodded, unaware of any danger, and concerned himself with Sam's coat.
*
"Good boy. Good boy." Sam loved Dean's hands very much. They were so firm and warm and full of good things - care, kindness, the press of rough fingertips. Dean was made to pet him, Sam thought.
"How'd you end up here, Sam?"
Sam told the story that still confused him. But maybe his new masters could help him understand. He spoke of his earliest memories with John and Mary, and how he had tried to make them happy after Adam got sick. He spoke of his confusion when he'd stopped being able to make them happy, and how Adam got better and started acting strangely towards him. He spoke of the park, and Mary's strange disappearance, and how he couldn't find his way back without the microchip, and he watched Dean's face turn down and grow long.
He told them about the lost dogs he'd found on his way across the cold brown land, some of them with their mechanical legs exposed, or their metal ribs showing through their skin. He told them about the dark-eyed men in dark uniforms who'd tried to capture him to take him somewhere far away he didn't know where, and how he'd been able to escape when they were gone for too long, distracted by something he didn't know what.
Dean smiled a little smile at him and hugged him around the neck, and Sam decided that he liked Dean's hugs best so far.
The strange winged man had been sitting near them, and Dean spoke to him now. "So you can't take us anywhere?"
"I'm sorry. I can't." He looked at the ground.
"What good is an angel anyway?"
An angel? Is that what he was supposed to be? He barked. "What is an angel?"
"Useless, that's what." Dean looked down at the ground. Sam decided to stick his nose in Dean's chin, and maybe lick the side of his face a little.
Castiel spoke up. "I know where there is a car we can use."
"A car? But they're impossible to use without the right imprinting - you know that. Cars are imprinted for life, just like Sam here." Dean said, his arm still around Sam's neck.
"I know. This car is special, Dean. It knows you. At least, I think it does. It has to."
"You know that sounds crazy, right? I've never driven a car in my life."
"Trust me?" Sam could tell it was a question by the way Castiel asked it, the pinched-looking expression on his face. He looked back and forth from Castiel to Dean, unable to read the thing that was passing between them.
"Fine," Dean sighed. "Where is this miracle car?"
"Rapid City. In South Dakota. We'll have to go north."
Sam got up on all four legs and wagged his tail, let his tongue fall out. They were going on a trip! Suddenly, his legs no longer felt tired.
*
The land was cold and shivery and brushed with dead leaves and old memories. Yet it was the greatest resource in all the world, greater than water and machines and even man. This silent earth.
Dean put one foot in front of the other and followed orders, because that was what he was best at. It made him shiver sometimes, and it made him cold, and it made him the kind of feeling he sometimes thought might be sadness, but sadness was a liability in his existence, and he didn't have time for it. He'd been created to love - what could possibly be better? Nothing, that's what.
He was Kinky Dean and Dean loved all things, no matter how many times he'd been used in the wrong way, or been confused by all that the humans asked of him, or wondered secretly at the future, and where he might end up when he was no longer useful. It wasn't his job to worry about such things. He was supposed to look good and smile and do all that he could to keep others happy.
So it was very strange to have to deal with this angel who'd found him in the forest. He hoped he didn't do the wrong thing by letting him stop the police and agreeing to go with him. After all, he was supposed to do whatever men and women asked of him, and he had to take the blame for the death of his client, whether he was responsible or not. That's what his kind did. It just made the world work better. It was the order of things. Some were meant to lead, and some were meant to serve, and Dean was definitely meant to serve.
Right now, what he wanted was a clothes upgrade and a mirror to look at his reflection and make sure his hair was straight, his skin wasn't damaged, he looked good and clean and proper. He wanted to find the first human who crossed their path and beg them to take Dean with them somewhere back where it was safe. Maybe there was no such thing. Maybe the world wasn't safe, no matter where Dean was or what he was, and his strange companions were the closest he would ever get to safety, and purpose, and sanity, ever again.
They walked through most of the day and into the night over empty grasslands, past tiny farmhouses, and saw only designer livestock, lone electric cars, black birds high in the sky above them. Shortly before dawn, they stopped to rest in a deserted barn, the hay poking Dean in the back as he hugged Sam close to his side. He touched Castiel with his right hand and the angel shivered, lost in dreams or pretending to sleep, Dean couldn't tell. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep; for once, he wished that he could. He wanted to see what Castiel dreamed about, to see if any of this was worth trusting, and maybe figure out what the angel wanted from him. For everyone wanted something, and Castiel was no different - in fact, Castiel seemed to want something more desperately than anyone Dean had ever met, and he hoped that he would be able to give it to him. He was afraid to learn what would happen if he couldn't; if his face grew ever more sad and desperate, if Dean would never be able to make it better.
Sam was a much more comforting companion, warm and soft and resting halfway on Dean's chest. It was worthwhile to pretend happiness for Sam's sake, and it was all that he could do right now. Sam growled a little in his sleep and pressed the length of his face against Dean's chest. Dean just held him tighter and tried to keep his eyes closed, but it was no use.
"Castiel? You awake?"
The angel answered just as he knew he would.
"Will you tell me why you think I can get this car to run? You know, before I let you lead us further into nowhere." Dean waited for Castiel to answer, though he didn't doubt that he would. They continued to stare at the ceiling, but they would wait for each other because they had no one else to wait for.
"The car was old even when I first touched it, but it was maintained through the years. The man I knew who owned it was given the car by his father. Until, one day, the son could no longer drive it either, and he left it at the house of an old friend."
"Does it even run?"
"I doubt it's been driven for over a hundred years."
"Are you serious?"
Castiel shrugged beside him. "Very little about the story this car was a part of makes any sense. I do know the technology exists to fix the car. I think, if anyone is able to drive it, you can."
"Why? Why me?"
"It belonged to a man named Dean Winchester, who had a mother named Mary, and a father named John, and a brother he loved he called Sammy."
Sam perked up his ears and Dean felt his heart beat faster, his throat go dry, heat spread across his ears, just like he was programmed to feel, but he listened too. He listened to Castiel tell a story about himself, but more importantly this family of Winchesters, and two brothers whose love went beyond heaven or hell or any monsters of the earth. He listened past the dawn as Castiel told him a story about the Dean he remembered, the Dean that looked just like him, had so many of the same memories, and whom Castiel was so clearly in love with, despite the passage of years and all sense and memory, the man whom Castiel still loved.
*
Part 2
Masterpost
Art post
*
Part 1
*
Those were the years after the Apocalypse had come, and fire had rained down on the world, and the oceans had consumed whole cities, leaving the prosperous, free, and lucky in their wake. The survivors were lonely, and the resources scarce, and so a bargain was struck among the living to create help in the form of robots - robots whose needs were so different, so much easier - who did not feel or want or consume, but would complete whatever task they were given, which was their sole purpose for being.
Time passed, and still the angel Castiel remained, and he watched. He could, if he wanted, do nothing but watch. His needs were so like the robots - the mechas - so few and unchanging. While the other angels had died in the fire or simply disappeared, Castiel had stayed. He stayed and watched his beloved brothers and even more beloved humans die, until he was neither part of one nor the other any longer.
If he tried very hard to remember, he could recall certain images and feelings of the time of the Second Fall, but it was difficult for him, and painful. There had been heaven, and there had been Dean. The two had never - would never, now - be reconciled, not in his mind, nor anywhere. So on the day he could no longer hear the thoughts of the living or remember where the dead had gone, Castiel walked into the forest and never went back.
Castiel moved blindly forward in time. Castiel contemplated.
When angels were born, they were created by a protocol - a covenant with God that they had no will to refuse. It was sealed into their very existence, in a language before the Enochian. To Castiel, it was like a spell. Somehow, Dean had broken it, and with a few simple English words, the touch of his hands, the beat of his fragile soul, Castiel had broken his covenant with God, and begun his covenant with Dean. It made less sense to him now, the less he remembered. "Are you sure?" Dean had asked. "Silly man. Of course I'm not sure," Castiel had answered, and lost his heart completely.
What he did remember was a very long time ago. God created angels to do his will. God created the Earth in more complexity than Paradise. God created mankind to love him. With love came free will, the birth of metaphor, irony, dreams - things not meant for angels to understand. Then, the greatest irony of all - man turned away from God, as all His children had, and created machines in their own image - robots, mechas, meant to serve them. Castiel found them very strange indeed, these servile things made from light, electricity, and metal. They were a superior kind of angel, truly without the ability to doubt. Sometimes, he envied them. They even looked human, with their synthetic skin, wet eyes, and fake emotions, but they would never be real - they did not know hunger, or love, or free will. Castiel had stopped being able to hear his vessel's thoughts many lifetimes ago; indeed, he had forgotten his name, though he still wore his body as his own. The only difference from then, if he remembered anything correctly at all, was that now, sticking out from the back of the forgotten Jimmy Novak's coat, was a pair of pristine white-feathered wings.
*
Mary and John Smith were oh so nice. Adam, their son, was nice too, stuck in his glass case, cold to wet noses, fun to lick. Sam sat by his side all day long, watching his young chest rise and fall. He had been Sam's favorite toy - favorite boy - and Sam had been his, always, best, always. Adam was sleeping right now, but he would awake again, come play, and everything would be just as it used to be. Sam would wait for him, that's what he would do.
Through the actions of those far beyond him, Sam had come home, to a company home, the first prototype of his kind. He had long flowing locks that would never tangle, and a long pointed snout with a snub nose. Bright, warm eyes - brown ringed golden ringed green - and a tail that wagged, never tired. His one rare gift, his voice, was breathy and rumbling and not flat, through it had always sounded flat to human ears, due to his constancy of emotion, though as with many things, Sam was not aware of this.
"Would you like me to sleep? Where would you like me to sleep? I do not need sleep. I do not need to be let out in the yard, or taken for walks. I will never have fleas."
"Do you... bark?" They asked him.
"Yes." Sam showed them. He wagged his tail. "Would you like to pet me? I would like that. Very much. I will lick your arms and wag my tail if you would pet me."
So the Smiths did. Sam was very, very happy. When his masters were home, he would follow them around from living room to bedroom to kitchen; he would wait by Adam's side to make sure he was not yet awake, chest rising and falling in his glass case. When they were not home, he would wait with Adam still, or on the rug inside the front door, and wait for signs of their arrival, tail wagging with the slightest hope.
On the day when the sick boy did awake, it was the happiest time of all. Adam would love him then, and take him on walks every day. But the boy was not ready right away, so Sam lay by the bed and waited some more. He seemed different, this boy who was no longer in the glass case - as if someone else had taken his place, some impostor. Sam was wary. Sometimes he watched the digital screen while Adam played fighting games with bright flashes, or old movies where other women named Mary sang like birds and floated with umbrellas. Funny games and funny songs, but Sam liked them anyway, because they were Adam's.
Mary and John gave Adam all their attention too. They no longer hugged Sam and patted his head when they walked in the door. They showed no desire to hear him speak, or bark, or let him lick them with his tongue. Sam sat with his head on his paws and waited.
One day, Adam had friends over. It was very exciting for Sam, because he had been so lonely, and he wanted so much to be loved and useful. A tall boy with curly brown hair walked over to him and tried to catch Sam's constantly-wagging tail. When he pulled, Sam yelped. He couldn't help it; it was not a nice thing the boy had done. Adam waved his hand. "Oh, him? That's Sam. He used to be a Super-Toy, but now he's old and stupid."
Grrrrr. "I am not... a toy!" Sam looked around the room in a panic, and caught sight of something behind him, but it was only his own tail, and he stopped chasing it after a time. He had to think of a way to show he was not a toy - he was a dog - and he was useful, not old and stupid.
He did his best and stood by the table while everyone ate soft dark squares and sang songs around little lighted sticks, all surrounded by bright floating balls. All of it, all of it looked like it would be fun to stick his nose in, eat, and bite down on with his teeth. As soon as they left to go swimming in the pool, he explored every curiosity, licking sweet chocolaty frosting until the paper plates were clean and gnawing at the funny tasting plastic balls until they popped, the loud noise sending him running to hide in the pantry. When John found him, he had been so angry that he closed the door. Sam lay down on his side and waited, no longer able to move. John took him along to work the next day to clean out his circuits of burned sugar and cake particles. He didn't talk the whole way, and Sam whined a little through his nose just to remind John that he could.
Adam asked him questions when he was bored, but Sam had been wary ever since his new toys became gun-shaped, or blunt sticks, or firecrackers. He missed balls. "Where'd you get that collar?" Adam asked.
Sam didn't know how to answer. "I've always had this collar." He wore it around his neck on a red leather ring.
"Well, yeah, duh. But do you know what it is?"
"I don't know. Will you describe it to me?" Like many things, he was aware of its existence, but had no place to put that awareness. No slot to fill, no knowledge.
"It's... Just a face, with horns, like on a bull. It's gold. I wonder if it's real." Adam reached for it.
"It is real. I'm wearing it. See?" Sam stuck out his tongue and cocked his head to the side.
"No, dummy. Real gold. I wonder if it's worth anything." Adam had many toys with glowing screens and tiny buttons and moving parts, and he was always breaking them and replacing them with newer models.
Sam didn't know the difference, but it was his collar, and he had always worn it. And so he always would.
"Give it to me," Adam demanded, holding out his hand.
Sam backed away as he had learned to do, more cautious than was his nature, than he wanted to be. Adam was not always nice. "It is mine."
"I just want to see it." Adam grabbed at the collar, pulling at it hard.
Sam thought he was wrong and shouldn't have done that - the collar had always been his, he didn't understand why Adam wanted it so badly. It was the only thing he owned, and everything else he would give. He had to move quickly to keep it to himself, and keep safe, some way to keep Adam away just this one time. "No!" he growled.
Then Adam was bleeding from his arm, screaming for John and running away from him before Sam could explain. He thought he would be able to explain, but not in front of his masters, with everyone watching him and yelling, and his eyes downcast and sad and his tail low and wagging for the slightest sign of forgiveness. He spent the night on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, considering his crime.
The next morning, Mary said something she had never said before, but what Sam had been waiting for a long time. "I was thinking we could go to the park today, Sam. What do you say?"
Sam wagged and wagged his tail. "Yes, oh yes! The park!" They had forgiven him after all.
*
"Here again, Kinky Dean?" The man called him by his proper name.
"Of course, yes!" Dean smiled at the manager of the Red Shoe Inn. It was one of his favorite places to work, with happy sounds passing through the walls and mirrors on the ceiling. And he lived in hotel rooms, worked in them too, so he knew the good from the bad. "A man's work is never done. And neither is mine," he added with a wink and a smile that flashed all of his white teeth.
He stopped in front of the dirty hallway mirror on the way. This had to be - he cocked his head, flashed his eyes to make sure every lash was just right - perfect. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks had to make him look boyish enough, but still man enough to please. His hair had to be cut close, blond and just lightly frosted, but not enough to make it look like he cared. He was here to see a woman this time, and not a man. He tilted his head, and grew a day's worth of stubble. His shirt was thin but bleached white, his leather jacket shiny and scruffy enough to work. An old Foreigner rock ballad played through tiny hidden speakers inside his ears. Perfect. He walked through the door of Room 47.
"Ms. Milton. It's Dean, Kinky Dean, here to satisfy and ready to please." He bared his palms in one of his cockiest poses. "At your service."
But Ms. Milton did not reply right away. Dean was used to quick responses, or perhaps a customer in need of a little romantic seduction, a sense of foreplay, or realness. Once in awhile, a scream or a change of heart. He so rarely got nothing. He walked over to where she lay on the bed, face down and away from him, but she was cold and would not move. Dean placed a perfectly-shaped synthetic skin fingertip against the stain on the bed, and it came away cherry red with just a touch of chill. This was not good. No, this was not good at all.
Dean turned from the bed and walked out of the room very very quickly, in the opposite direction from where he'd come in. If he was lucky, he could get to the ends of the city before they found him.
*
"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Sam wagged his tail the whole way to the park and sat in the passenger side of the car, staring out all sides of the glass dome windows, riding the streets to the outside of Lawrence.
Mary smiled a shy smile at him, and every time he saw it he licked her on the corners of her mouth then turned away with his head down, unable to contain his excitement. He knew that dogs long ago could ride with their heads hanging out the car windows, but he was content just to be here, with her. She was beautiful, and she would still pet Sam on the head absently, unlike John and Adam who wouldn't pay him any attention, though he tried so hard.
The park was so lovely! Green grass was so soft under his paws, and it smelled of everything - new smells, dog smells, birds with wings, little roly poly brown things with fluffy tails, old greasy food and rotting pizza, dried up dog messes, sweaty joggers, garbage piles - everything wonderful in the world. He let his tongue hang out and he didn't even care - he barked and didn't even care. The park was a carefree, golden, smelly place.
Mary threw him a ball - a ball! - red and shiny and he chased it again and again, sometimes running around the backs of strangers, digging under benches, running into the thickness of the trees, where the light was filled with colder air and shadows - and he always retrieved it and brought it back to Mary's feet, her shiny leather boots. They played all day, and he always found those sweet-smelling leather boots again.
Until he couldn't find them anywhere. The wind was blowing in with the darkness, and the smells were all jumbled up in his nose. He held the red ball in his teeth and then dropped it at his feet. "Mary? Mary!" He tried hard not to whine, but he wasn't used to being out alone, and he missed the rare touch of her hand in his fur, her soothing voice.
Sam wandered the park alone and it was getting dark. He used to have directions saved in his memory to find his way home again, in case he was lost, but when he tried to retrieve it, the information had been erased. A blank slot that had once been filled. He held onto the ball and started walking.
*
Silvery light outlined the gnarled twists of the trees and the forgotten beings that drifted below. Castiel knew the stars well, and the phases of the moon, which were important to him, though he had long forgotten why.
Castiel was used to nights such as these, but he dreaded them. The humans were on the hunt to destroy their demons, as they always had been for as long as the angels had been watching, but this time all of the angels and demons were gone. The only monsters left were the monsters the humans themselves created - the robots who were no longer servile, meaning useful. Some had broken down with half-mangled parts and busted sockets, others had run away, still others had gone truly rogue and turned against their masters in some unforeseen way. It every case, Castiel knew it ended badly - there were only so many humans, and so many used and outdated robots. What was found tonight would be taken away to be dropped into a vat of corrosive salt and acid. It would be much like burning alive, for any robot unlucky enough to feel. What was not found tonight would be found some other night, for the humans never stopped hunting what they feared. If Castiel knew anything, he knew this to be true. So, his forest had become a kind of purgatory, when no heaven or hell existed anymore. It was where he lived, abandoned by his Father and the rest of his brothers when the Apocalypse had been decided.
The garbage piled high into the trees, close to the branches where there were no leaves. Land was scarce in all the world but forgotten things still piled up in forgotten places such as these. What others did not want to remember, Castiel saw, and loved. It was his existence, and he hadn't asked why since the time of the Winchesters.
He watched the discarded and lost robots dig through the scrap pile with a feeling he'd long since recognized as pity. If he'd had something to offer, it would be mercy, but pity it was. They looked human after all, with a few parts misplaced - an open eye socket, a missing arm, a corroded belly - but they were more fragile than the privileged humans that remained, perfect and maintained as they were, and so he found, in the end, that he loved them more. They rooted around and reattached parts, proud of their self-sufficiency and utility. All beings loved a purpose.
Castiel kept at a distance from them until he saw her - a red-haired, freckled young woman with pale skin that glowed in the moonlight, her every part intact. She had a pair of wings, just like his but more compact and therefore practical-looking, like a fashion accessory instead of a deformity. Was she a new model of angel? Had the humans heard stories of heaven and longed for it again? She looked like --
But Castiel could not remember after all. "Excuse me. Excuse me? Miss -" He called to her, his voice underused and rough. He no longer had contact with his human host to give him signals on how to deal with other people - he had gone away, never to return, just like everyone else he had known. The winged girl was the closest he'd come to familiar in a very long time. "Miss! Wait!"
She startled for a moment, her wings twisting away and then towards him. "Me?" She whispered.
Castiel just nodded, daring to come closer. He had to see if she was like him, was anything like him. "I see your wings." He twisted his back. "I have them too."
She nodded back, unsure.
He knew he looked suspicious, some intact android mecha in a suit wandering the forest with a strange pair of wings. He could be a parts-stealer, or some citizen hire of the dangerous-eyed Mecha Police. "I'm not - one of those who would harm you. I -" He couldn't confess. "Are you an angel?"
Her wings shook a little with confusion, and he saw they were tattered and worn, patchy in places, and plastic; not much like his own at all. "No, I'm a fairytale mecha, of course. What's an angel?"
He ignored the fast sinking of his heart - surprised even that it could still sink, all this time so low - and pressed on. "How long have you had them?" He stopped his hand just above her wings.
"Um, I don't know," she was shaky, unsure. "A little while."
He knew his next question would sound even more suspicious, but he had to ask it. "Are they yours?"
"Of course they are! I got them when I was made. What do you think I am?" Mechas, for all that they lacked, still had a sense of pride.
"I apologize." He held up his hands, willing her to stay calm enough to help. "Whose are they?"
"Golden Calf's. Golden Calf Industries." Her eyes shifted from side to side, as if she felt fear, if she could have. She fingered the charm at her neck - a little golden head. She hissed, her words whispers, "Now leave me alone. I don't want any trouble."
"I don't mean to give you trouble," Castiel tried, but she was already stomping away to another pile of scrap metal beyond the hill. He could follow at a distance, or try. She didn't have to mean anything - parts were traded, bought and sold at every hour of the day, illegal or no. Golden Calf was a leader in the cybernetic industry, but that didn't mean they were doing it right; more likely it meant another leap forward in the systematic and slow destruction of the human and cyborg race, falling together faster than even the angels could fall. And angels could fall so very fast.
At least the fairytale mechas had a purpose - nannies for the only children of privileged couples, living in fine empty houses far away. They sang songs and told stories of make-believe, lulling babies into sleep.
He wouldn't want to do that. He much preferred to find treasure out here with the trash, where everything looked beautiful under the moonlight. It was difficult to be an angel with nothing to offer - without grace or answers or an intact memory. He listened, and sat quietly with the scavengers if they didn't want to talk, and mended the parts he could with his hands.
*
Dean ran until he could see the moon, past all of the neon lights of the city in Kansas City, and all the motels he would have called home. Missouri had been his home for as long as he'd had one, and he didn't know any different. The forest beyond the trees was scary, but that was where his kind went when they were lost and disgraced, and he was, he was. There would be no trial for him, nor pleading of his case. He was a love mecha, and well-known as one besides, but there was no community among them, for they all fought for the same prize - the attention of the humans, whose money they could not use and whose numbers were always dwindling - and he would have no sanctuary.
His client had been murdered by a human, Dean knew that much. Mechas were not programmed to kill, and he would not even know how to begin to try to harm someone, not truly. It wasn't in his programming; he was programmed to love - programmed to fuck, even, in all kinds of ways - but not to harm, rape, maim, or kill. Everyone knew not to accidentally say no in front of a love mecha - they would listen without fail, and hear no excuses. 'Stop' and 'Don't' and 'Please' were free words, but Dean's safe word was programmed to be simply 'No' and therefore he would follow it, like all his programming.
But robots were believed to have minds of their own, no matter how clear their enslavement was, for humans were superstitious and suspicious of them, even though they had been built by humans, been built to serve humans, and had no other reason to exist but to serve. There were no trials, no justice for mechas, for they had no will of their own and no need to survive for their own sake. Any mecha found unable to fulfill their role or found to be a threat was simply destroyed in melting pits of fire - publicly if their owners wished, privately if they belonged to the government or if they were of no interest. It was nothing to be upset about, Dean knew, and it had never troubled him before.
Though on this night, Dean found himself thinking about it very deeply. He had nowhere to run, he knew that. Neighboring Kansas was still a place of no sanctuary, despite the people from the flooded coast moving inwards to the dry plains and bringing their beliefs with them. Things had not changed so much for a love mecha to be free from the fears of humans. No, there was no where to go. So he ran all the way to Acheton, Kansas, to the forest there. He heard it was a forest of friendship, or had been, and included trees from all original 50 states and the Moon, where a seedling had once been taken and returned back to Earth. A forest of the Moon, imagine that? He tried, but it was hard to imagine what did not involve rope, and lube, and plastic parts.
The forest was left to seed and overgrown now - a man-made forest in the middle of the grass plains. Mechas whispered that fairies and angels lived there, somewhere under a grove of moon trees, but Dean didn't believe most of what his kind said. They were also full of superstition and suspicion, believing in make-believe because they were programmed to, because it was supposed to make them more docile, due to a mistaken belief that had persisted through human history for thousands of years and like so few things, would not die.
Dean followed the silvery Moon and hid in the shadows as best he could, running a fast pace at night and hiding with the garbage during the day, with other discarded things. Miles and miles he ran, and though he never grew tired, he wanted to rest very badly. Soon - though it had seemed very long - Dean followed the moonlight to where it lay over the tops of maple trees, reflecting their silver light back to them. The forest of friendship, it must be, and so he passed under the trees in search of other mechas like himself - even fairies or monsters - but not angels.
He seemed to walk a long time without finding anyone, and not even the animals hunted here after the witching hour. There were voices in the distance, muffled, but mecha-sounding to his ears. He thought he heard a woman, a few men, the snapping of branches and crushing of leaves, and so he walked towards them, after such a long time being alone.
It was too dark to see the dark suits clearly until he was among them, but floating in the middle of the circle of men was a pair of floating white wings - they looked like a dove flying in the air, but they were attached to a red-headed woman, her skin pale in the moonlight.
"Hey, I've been looking for -"
He spoke it too soon. For then Dean saw the black suits were uniforms, and the reason that he couldn't see the eyes of the men was because they were the oil-black eyes of the MPs - the Mecha Police - and he was indeed in big, big trouble.
At the sight of them, he could already smell acid and fire in his nostrils, the clink of chains lowering him over the pit of fire. His loneliness must have made him dumb, that was all he could think of to blame for walking into such a wolves' den after so much time spent avoiding just this. It was just his luck, and maybe he deserved no better, but Dean felt something overcome him that he'd never experienced before - like the wave of the ocean, taking him under, and making him want to cry out for help from those make-believe beings he wouldn't believe in if he wasn't programmed to.
"Help! Keep me safe!" He flung his body into the circle, trying to get across, and clung to the girl with wings. She shoved him towards the Police and ran in the opposite direction.
"Where you going, fairy?" A dark-suited man swung a metal club at her head as she tried to get free of the circle. It cut her flesh off the metal and revealed a face of chips and circuits. He continued to smash and smash at her until all the electricity that kept her going was lost. Fires flashed within her, and then she was gone.
Dean could do nothing but stare at the violence. He'd seen it before with the humankind, but he'd always sympathized with the perpetrators before, and never the rebellious mecha, which he was now. "Stop!" He yelled when he could finally speak. The hands around his biceps were tight and unyielding. "She's gone! She's stopped moving. You can stop now; she won't hurt you."
One of the men laughed - his face was long and ruddy, his hair light and slightly coiffed, and a dimple was set in the center of his chin. "We were never afraid of her, don't you worry." He smiled. "Besides, we got you to play with now, and you're a proper love doll, all eager to please, isn't that right?"
Dean wanted to say no, but he couldn't lie. He should have been afraid that the men wouldn't say no either, and he would have to comply, have to serve them in whatever way they wished. As an illegal, he had no protection under any laws of commerce; no one to worry if he was broken or unusable; no one to service him so he would keep making money for them.
But he felt no fear because he was not programmed to. He was theirs. In a way, it was no different. Nothing had changed.
The man holding onto his arms pushed down until Dean fell to his knees in the circle. He was so dirty, and his circuits needed oil, but they didn't seem to care about that. He felt them tear at his clothes until his T-shirt was crumpled and thrown in the dirt, his jeans pushed down his thighs. Thick fists grabbed his hair and fucked their bodies into his mouth, one after the other, and he moved his tongue as best he could like his programming told him to do, and he took them all as deep as he could, and he swallowed down what they gave him, as his programming told him to do. He felt nothing.
It took a long time for him to do his job, and since the men never said no, he couldn't stop on his own. He waited for them to finish, and looked up at the moon as it sank past the trees, and felt the sun rising at his back, the light stretching over the forest.
So when he saw the angel seem to appear out of nowhere at his shoulder, it was strange but also not-so-very-strange, as if the sun had sent him to Dean, if Dean believed in such things. He didn't know why he thought 'angel' and not 'fairy' - angels did not exist, while fairies were made every day. This angel's hands were strong as he shoved the man back and out of Dean's mouth and hair. His wings were more pristine than the girl-with-wings' had been, like they were made out of water-repellent plastic, and almost glowing in the sunlight.
Dean grabbed onto his legs - "Don't let go. Keep me safe! Don't let go!" he called, though he was the one holding on - and tripped the angel up for a moment. He was suddenly afraid - for the first time, afraid - under the gaze of this angel. It was a cool gaze, and weird, in so many ways weird. It made him bare - but hadn't he always been bare? Had never not been?
But then the angel looked at him with blue, blue eyes and laid his hands on Dean's face then, and so Dean let go of him.
It took only minutes to dispatch the men back into the edges of the forest and beyond, for this angel did not have to wait for a no at all, and he did not have to be programmed to fight in order to fight, and he had forgotten his programming altogether, though Dean didn't know that. He just watched him fight with fists that seemed to be made of steel; though he was not man, nothing else about the man seemed mecha to Dean, and Dean was programmed to know the difference between the two.
Dean tried to find his T-shirt in the dirt and pull up his jeans, finger the cracked leaves out of his hair before the angel returned to him, for he was programmed to look neat and presentable in all circumstances. He was failing in most respects, but he at least got his clothes back on. He should have been able to do better, to remake himself as new. This time, when he felt the angel's hand on his arm, he did not flinch because he was not afraid. The angel paused with his arm there.
"What - What is it?" Dean spoke and tried to stand, but the arm pressed him to stay.
"It's not safe." The angel's voice was so calm and silent-like, Dean had to narrow his eyes just to hear it. "Will you let me take care of the problem of your identification? I don't want them to return."
The flat, squared-looking hand rested flat on his identification badge where it was imprinted into his arm. He was surprised that he hadn't thought of it before - his skin badge was the only way to ID him apart from other mechas of his kind, and allow the humans to frame him, and he would not be safe as long as he still had it.
Dean nodded his head and so the angel burned his hand print into his arm over the badge, erasing it and leaving a red welt in its place. A red welt in the shape of his hand. They knelt there together on the ground.
"Thank you," Dean said when he found he could speak again.
The angel smiled. "You're welcome."
"What are you? Are you a fairy-tale nanny? I've heard of those."
"No. I'm different. A unique creature."
"Oh." That bare, irrational voice in his head was back, so strange. "But you're not human? And you're not like me?"
"I'm... close to human."
"Oh." Was all Dean said in reply.
*
*
They knelt together, beneath the trees. Dean shrugged, still looking shaken up, and Castiel longed to comfort him, but he had never been very good at that, even when Dean was alive.
Dean's skin a little green, a strange shade of pale, but freckled. Eyes so bright, hair spiky and never changing. Leather jacket worn and too shiny at the same time, like Dean himself. His mouth full and rounded into that perfect innocent O.
Oh, Dean. Dean. Castiel closed his eyes and silently prayed his name to heaven.
But why? Why would his Father do this to him? Why would his Father do anything. Castiel used to think he understood, all those thousands of years before Dean, but he never had. His Father had nothing to do with this. Dean once was, and then he was no more. Now, it came back around again. That was the closest he would ever come to a reason. It was because it - was. In the end, none of it had anything to do with him. Then why was he still here?
What are you? What are you? was what the look in Dean's eyes seemed to be asking.
It was so painful, and yet so *alive* to see Dean again. He had never seen another like him.
"I... I don't know how to thank you." He felt Dean's hand on the lapels of his coat, his fingertips brushing his tie. His breath came out in perfectly timed exhales, but his lips, his eyes, and everything Castiel remembered was right there again, imploring him in the same way Dean always had, but now, after all this time, Castiel finally understood what the question had been.
Castiel softly picked up Dean's hand by the wrist and placed it at his side. He changed the subject to something big enough to distract him. "Do you remember your parents, Dean?"
"How do you know my name? Oh, right - you've heard of my reputation, I bet." He looked down sheepishly. "I am rather famous."
He had never met another 'Kinky Dean' model, nor heard of him before, but he could not explain. "My name is Castiel."
"Okay. Castiel. I remember my mother, Castiel. Her name was Mary. She was beautiful, and strong, and she used to make me tomato and rice soup to eat and sing me ancient rock songs. She loved me very much, and she's proud of me when I do as I'm programmed to do."
Yes, Mary then. Dean loved her without reservations, without fail. Then it was settled - Dean was one of the mechas programmed to seem as human as possible, but he was not real. He was not Dean.
"And your father? Do you remember him?"
Dean shook his head hard from side to side. "No, no. I don't want to think about him."
Castiel watched Dean's eyes closely, looking for a reason. "But you remember a man who was your father?" This was strange. Mechas were programmed to feel loved.
"No, I don't remember him. I know I had a father who made me - that is all. How about you?" His eyes were still green, and they still shone when he was afraid.
"Yes. My father made me too. I don't know much about him either."
"Okay. How about your mother?"
"I never had a mother."
"Everyone has a mother." Dean's eyes narrowed. "So, you're not human then?"
"No. I already told you that I'm not."
"Come on, spill it. I know you just saved my life but you're sounding like someone who's never been made to take their pills before."
"I have not been made to take pills."
Kinky Dean rolled his eyes. "Well everyone is supposed to take pills. It makes them all normal." He shrugged again. "That explains a lot I guess. So what am I supposed to think? You're not human, you're not like me. So what are you?"
"I'm... something else. Just believe me - I'm not going to hurt you."
Dean sighed just like Dean. "Fine. Whatever. I believe you."
Castiel felt Dean's body relax against his side then, his head falling to the shoulder of a damp trench coat. He knew Dean was just following his programming, and taking contact and warmth where he could get it, but he couldn't fault him for it, when it was something Dean would have done with him on a night like this one, long long ago.
"You should look into those pills, you know," Dean yawned a programmed yawn, making him appear sleepy. "They make lots of different kinds."
Castiel took Dean's advice for what it was worth. He was afraid enough for pills, afraid of the creation falling into false rest and clutching his arm. They stayed quiet in the dark and waited for the sun to rise for they had no reason to sleep.
*
He had walked a very long way. All of the ground looked the same, all brown and dead, and the smells were faded, not fresh. He could smell the difference between mechas and humans, and all kinds of things in between, like real dogs who sometimes scared him, always feral they were and likely to be shot if found, since the only animals allowed to be kept were mecha animals like he was. He had been kept for a while. He'd had a good life with Mary and John and Adam. He'd tried his best.
If he could only get back to them, he would find a better way to explain, something less dumb than chasing after balls in the park and being excited by rides in the car. Sam would find it. He couldn't believe he'd been acting so stupid, instead of showing them how much he could do for them. He could fetch useful things, not slobber on their shoes, not mess up and get into things he shouldn't. He just needed a day - one day to show them - if he could just get back home.
But he wasn't used to being outside. Sam tried very hard to remember the way to the park, and how to trace the way back to the house, but none of it had made sense that first night in the dark. He didn't want to say, but it was scary to be all alone. At least if they left him alone in the house he knew where he was. He no longer knew that anymore. Strange things had happened since he first found the park. Maybe parks were bad; maybe he'd been mistaken about everything.
So he'd walked a very, very long way.
If he stayed close to the trees, it was harder for people and other scary things to find him. He could be alone with little furry things and chase them and have some fun, forget about his matted fur and loneliness for a while. There were so few trees and forests in the land he was traveling. It made him nervous. Maybe he was going the wrong way. Sam never found any people in the forests, and so he wished for more trees.
When he found the gnarled, overgrown forest, he started to wag his tail despite himself. There were no little furry things to chase, and no smells that he liked, but it was far from the houses and there were no other distractions. He thought he heard voices somewhere deep inside, and he started to trot off towards them, because they didn't seem particularly human or mecha, just voices. They were very far into the forest, though not far for as long as he'd been walking. One was funny-looking with white wings on his back like the flying things had; the other he couldn't recognize because there was a red mark where his ID was supposed to be. He jumped when he saw Sam, and Sam stopped when he noticed him, though he wanted nothing more than to run up to him and sniff his feet and hands. He wanted that more than anything.
And he was so excited, he couldn't stop from speaking. "Where's Mary? Can you help me find Adam? I have to find Adam. Are you taking me to Adam? Mary took me to the park. I need to get back to Mary and John's house."
The maybe-mecha smiled at him. "Hello. What's your name?"
"I am called Sam." Sam thought his smile was the warmest he'd seen in a very long time. "What is your name?"
"I'm Kinky Dean." Dean pointed to the winged thing beside him. "His name is Castiel. Hello, Sam."
"Hello, Kinky Dean." With the words, he imprinted his new friend into his memory. Pause. Name. Pause. Then he turned to the winged thing.
"Hello, Sam." The man called Castiel looked at him and tilted his head.
Sam tilted his head back. This was a strange man. "Hello, Castiel." Pause. Name. Pause. He crawled closer, wanting to touch them both with his nose, his tongue. They would be good and friendly to him, and not leave him in the park by accident.
"You are looking for a Mary, you said?" His new friend Castiel spoke.
Sam barked. He was listening! "Yes. My master's name is Mary Smith. She took me to the park."
Dean smiled even bigger. Sam liked Dean. "Mary was my mother's name too. I don't know her last name, but I know women! They sometimes ask for me by name. I know all about women. About as much as there is to know. No two are ever alike, and I know where most of them can be found."
"Where?" Oh where, oh where? He was so excited!
Dean scratched him behind his ears, in the best best place. "We must go to the cities! The cities of the East, on the coast where the machines are born. Places called Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. There, we will find all the women we need."
They sat down in the dried leaves and talked excitedly, like the best of friends.
*
Castiel listened to the strange logic of these machines, speaking with the voices of the only true friends he'd ever had. He found he'd lived so long without direction, he would give anything to follow a lost dog and an even more lost love doll. They spoke for a time about their plans, and Castiel thought that if Dean had a tail, it would be wagging too.
He hated to be the sensible one. "I know you want to travel, but it can be dangerous on foot. You're a fugitive, and Sam is in danger without his owner's information. It's not safe."
They both looked at him with openness and trust he didn't deserve. Neither probably had any sense of geography unless they had been programmed that way. "Well," Dean said. "Do you have a better way?"
"I don't know," Castiel found himself lying. It was also not fair to lie to two beings incapable of lying. Still, it was mostly true. He couldn't move mechas around in time and place with him. He could barely move himself anymore. Once, long ago, Castiel used to be incapable of lying. Then the world changed, and all that mattered afterwards, was Dean. "I'll find us a car." Finding a car would be close to impossible, and yet they would be in danger on the road without them. Kansas was one thing - the coast was somewhere he never dared go.
Dean nodded, unaware of any danger, and concerned himself with Sam's coat.
*
"Good boy. Good boy." Sam loved Dean's hands very much. They were so firm and warm and full of good things - care, kindness, the press of rough fingertips. Dean was made to pet him, Sam thought.
"How'd you end up here, Sam?"
Sam told the story that still confused him. But maybe his new masters could help him understand. He spoke of his earliest memories with John and Mary, and how he had tried to make them happy after Adam got sick. He spoke of his confusion when he'd stopped being able to make them happy, and how Adam got better and started acting strangely towards him. He spoke of the park, and Mary's strange disappearance, and how he couldn't find his way back without the microchip, and he watched Dean's face turn down and grow long.
He told them about the lost dogs he'd found on his way across the cold brown land, some of them with their mechanical legs exposed, or their metal ribs showing through their skin. He told them about the dark-eyed men in dark uniforms who'd tried to capture him to take him somewhere far away he didn't know where, and how he'd been able to escape when they were gone for too long, distracted by something he didn't know what.
Dean smiled a little smile at him and hugged him around the neck, and Sam decided that he liked Dean's hugs best so far.
The strange winged man had been sitting near them, and Dean spoke to him now. "So you can't take us anywhere?"
"I'm sorry. I can't." He looked at the ground.
"What good is an angel anyway?"
An angel? Is that what he was supposed to be? He barked. "What is an angel?"
"Useless, that's what." Dean looked down at the ground. Sam decided to stick his nose in Dean's chin, and maybe lick the side of his face a little.
Castiel spoke up. "I know where there is a car we can use."
"A car? But they're impossible to use without the right imprinting - you know that. Cars are imprinted for life, just like Sam here." Dean said, his arm still around Sam's neck.
"I know. This car is special, Dean. It knows you. At least, I think it does. It has to."
"You know that sounds crazy, right? I've never driven a car in my life."
"Trust me?" Sam could tell it was a question by the way Castiel asked it, the pinched-looking expression on his face. He looked back and forth from Castiel to Dean, unable to read the thing that was passing between them.
"Fine," Dean sighed. "Where is this miracle car?"
"Rapid City. In South Dakota. We'll have to go north."
Sam got up on all four legs and wagged his tail, let his tongue fall out. They were going on a trip! Suddenly, his legs no longer felt tired.
*
The land was cold and shivery and brushed with dead leaves and old memories. Yet it was the greatest resource in all the world, greater than water and machines and even man. This silent earth.
Dean put one foot in front of the other and followed orders, because that was what he was best at. It made him shiver sometimes, and it made him cold, and it made him the kind of feeling he sometimes thought might be sadness, but sadness was a liability in his existence, and he didn't have time for it. He'd been created to love - what could possibly be better? Nothing, that's what.
He was Kinky Dean and Dean loved all things, no matter how many times he'd been used in the wrong way, or been confused by all that the humans asked of him, or wondered secretly at the future, and where he might end up when he was no longer useful. It wasn't his job to worry about such things. He was supposed to look good and smile and do all that he could to keep others happy.
So it was very strange to have to deal with this angel who'd found him in the forest. He hoped he didn't do the wrong thing by letting him stop the police and agreeing to go with him. After all, he was supposed to do whatever men and women asked of him, and he had to take the blame for the death of his client, whether he was responsible or not. That's what his kind did. It just made the world work better. It was the order of things. Some were meant to lead, and some were meant to serve, and Dean was definitely meant to serve.
Right now, what he wanted was a clothes upgrade and a mirror to look at his reflection and make sure his hair was straight, his skin wasn't damaged, he looked good and clean and proper. He wanted to find the first human who crossed their path and beg them to take Dean with them somewhere back where it was safe. Maybe there was no such thing. Maybe the world wasn't safe, no matter where Dean was or what he was, and his strange companions were the closest he would ever get to safety, and purpose, and sanity, ever again.
They walked through most of the day and into the night over empty grasslands, past tiny farmhouses, and saw only designer livestock, lone electric cars, black birds high in the sky above them. Shortly before dawn, they stopped to rest in a deserted barn, the hay poking Dean in the back as he hugged Sam close to his side. He touched Castiel with his right hand and the angel shivered, lost in dreams or pretending to sleep, Dean couldn't tell. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep; for once, he wished that he could. He wanted to see what Castiel dreamed about, to see if any of this was worth trusting, and maybe figure out what the angel wanted from him. For everyone wanted something, and Castiel was no different - in fact, Castiel seemed to want something more desperately than anyone Dean had ever met, and he hoped that he would be able to give it to him. He was afraid to learn what would happen if he couldn't; if his face grew ever more sad and desperate, if Dean would never be able to make it better.
Sam was a much more comforting companion, warm and soft and resting halfway on Dean's chest. It was worthwhile to pretend happiness for Sam's sake, and it was all that he could do right now. Sam growled a little in his sleep and pressed the length of his face against Dean's chest. Dean just held him tighter and tried to keep his eyes closed, but it was no use.
"Castiel? You awake?"
The angel answered just as he knew he would.
"Will you tell me why you think I can get this car to run? You know, before I let you lead us further into nowhere." Dean waited for Castiel to answer, though he didn't doubt that he would. They continued to stare at the ceiling, but they would wait for each other because they had no one else to wait for.
"The car was old even when I first touched it, but it was maintained through the years. The man I knew who owned it was given the car by his father. Until, one day, the son could no longer drive it either, and he left it at the house of an old friend."
"Does it even run?"
"I doubt it's been driven for over a hundred years."
"Are you serious?"
Castiel shrugged beside him. "Very little about the story this car was a part of makes any sense. I do know the technology exists to fix the car. I think, if anyone is able to drive it, you can."
"Why? Why me?"
"It belonged to a man named Dean Winchester, who had a mother named Mary, and a father named John, and a brother he loved he called Sammy."
Sam perked up his ears and Dean felt his heart beat faster, his throat go dry, heat spread across his ears, just like he was programmed to feel, but he listened too. He listened to Castiel tell a story about himself, but more importantly this family of Winchesters, and two brothers whose love went beyond heaven or hell or any monsters of the earth. He listened past the dawn as Castiel told him a story about the Dean he remembered, the Dean that looked just like him, had so many of the same memories, and whom Castiel was so clearly in love with, despite the passage of years and all sense and memory, the man whom Castiel still loved.
*
Part 2