Hey Brother
Title: Hey Brother
Author: essenceofmeanin
WC/Pairing: 1700, Gen.
Notes: This is my last Sweet Charity fic for the wonderful and patient maychorian. She requested Dean and Castiel lighting candles for the dead, country roads and full circles. I hope you like it. Title and inspiration from this song. Thank you as always to my wonderful betas hansbekhart and girlguidejones, as well as tabaqui for all her help. You guys rock.
Summary: They found God.
The road unspools under his wheels, stretching unbroken to the horizon far as the eye can see. Not even a signpost to tell you which road you're on. Dean knows where he is, give or take a hundred miles. He's always navigated mostly on memory anyway, here's the place with the best Kool-Aid pickles, that's where Dad got shot by those assholes thinking we were after their weed crop. Apparently a lifetime spent trawling the back highways gets carved bone deep. Doesn't just feel like years since he's crossed state lines behind the wheel of his baby; he might have to check the date but he can probably give a count down to the goddamn seconds.
Dean pulls off the highway led more by instinct than anything else. He turns the radio off, sick of spinning the dial and finding nothing. He rolls down the window, lets the airless day roll over him. The cicadas are a solid wall of noise, impossibly loud on the washed out country road. The ruts are up to the wheel wells. Dean slows down to a snail's pace and still worries about the suspension. He sets his eyes far off on the only grove of trees for miles, thinks about the possibility of the road running straight to it. He lets himself get lost in the thought of water, hopes that the stand of willows is hiding a pond deep enough to wade into. Doesn't care much about leeches or mosquitoes, not right now, not in this heat.
It's a church. Dean parks, unsurprised. The engine's about as cool as it'll get before he can bring himself to get out of the car.
The air is murky green under the trees, the walkway choked with brittle weeds grown up nearly to his knees. Probably been decades since anyone's been out here, no beer cans or graffiti even to mark it as a party spot. It looks like a one room clapboard, victim maybe of the Depression. Didn't even bother to board it up before they left, the windows long since blown out. Glass everywhere, crunching under his boots.
Dean finds a late crop of sugar peas growing wild by the front door. The vines are crawling up from under the broken steps, sunken into the walls and slowly prying them apart. He kneels to pick every one he can find, crunches them between his teeth and thinks about before. He'd've given Sam most of them. Sam woulda ribbed him for voluntarily eating something besides microwaved burgers but the truth is those peas are sweet like candy, the best thing they would've had all week. Dean thinks about Sam, wonders if he's doing okay with his big brother away for the first time. Kid still wants to follow him everywhere he goes; probably sleeping in Dean's bed while he's gone.
He shoves the door open, the wood splintering under his hands. The inside of the church isn't much different since the outside came in, littered with glass and leaves. There's sheets of paper everywhere, the handwriting faded to a shadow. Dean doesn't try to read them. Whatever pews or chairs these people sat in for worship are gone, probably stolen, broken down for kindling ages ago.
Superstition or taboo has left the altar mostly intact, still covered with a moldering prayer cloth. Dean spreads his hands across it so that he won't turn them into fists, stares resentfully at the cross hanging on the wall. It hasn't been long enough since he figured out what they'd done to him not to want to break it in half.
He takes a deep breath, counts to ten. Being angry hasn't really gotten him anywhere, not then and not now. He feels like an idiot, not even sure why he left Kansas. He's been driving in circles for days, trying to deny to himself that he was headed north. What was he going to do, stop by Singer Salvage for a spare tire? Drink a beer at the Roadhouse?
Sometimes, even more than Bobby or Ellen, he thinks about Blue Earth, about Pastor Jim. If he was still alive, still a hunter. When all that apocalypse stuff was going on, Pastor Jim was already dead and so Dean never got to ask advice from the one God-guy he ever actually trusted. Dean's not sure what he'd ask him now. Maybe something about God's sense of humor.
There's candles scattered across the altar, grimy and blackened from the years. Dean remembers lighting votives with Pastor Jim when he was younger. He was snide about the prayer candles, how the hell is a candle supposed to pray, that sort of thing. The pastor humored him for a while until, exasperated with one last crack, he told Dean to think of prayer as just thoughts. Thoughts for the dead. It was something Dean could understand.
Dean digs the muck from one of the candles with a fingernail. He pulls out the Bic he stole from a gas station half a state ago (along with a fifth of whiskey from the shelves, cursing that the Zippos were under glass and there he was, no fake ID). He hesitates before putting flame to the wick, wonders who to light it for now. Figures it could be for everybody.
It's a long moment of silence watching the candle burn before he realizes that the cicadas have stopped singing. When it comes it's a breath of wind rustling the hairs across the back of his neck, the other candles flickering into life alongside his own.
Dean lets out a long, slow breath. He says, "Took you long enough."
Castiel's elbow to elbow with him in this boneyard of a church like he's been there all along, wearing that trench coat like it's not deep in the balls of the hottest summer this state has had for however long. Like it's still the same world, Jimmy Novak maybe even still alive too for all he knows. Dean's thought for years about seeing Cas again, usually imagined that he'd lead with an uppercut but can't even muster much of a grin to greet his old angel.
"Dean," Castiel says, as if it's some sort of answer. He has the ghost of a smile on his face. Dean turns away from it, not sure what the hell Cas would ever be happy about and pulls his flask from his back pocket. Castiel shakes his head when Dean offers the whiskey.
Dean pulls the best smirk he can manage, says, " 'I took my place in the midst of the world and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated, I found none of them thirsty.' " His eyes tear when he drinks, tolerance not what it used to be. He wipes his mouth with the heel of his hand, his throat burning. Feels like it took him one step back, almost far enough to think straight.
"That's not what that verse refers to, Dean."
It's hard to meet Castiel's eyes, the gulf of a lifetime in the way. Dean shrugs. "Just wanted to show you I still read."
The silence stretches out between them. Dean rattles off jokes in his brain, How's Zach, did he ever pull that dick outta his ass? That jerkoff Michael enjoying the retirement? And where the hell have you been, sleeping it off in Tijuana? None of them make it past his mouth, the real questions caught somewhere in his throat. The smile dies on Cas' face.
"If it matters," Castiel says slowly, "You were never supposed to know."
"That worked out real fuckin' well, didn't it?" Dean brings his chin up, mulish. Castiel's a wall in front of him, his face slack, placid. Dean bulls on. "Kept having these dreams. Felt so real I thought for a while I was going crazy." He laughs, shaky. " 'Fact, I still wasn't a hundred percent sure until you showed up."
"How..." Castiel takes a breath, looking lost. "How is your life, Dean?"
It's not funny but Dean cracks up anyway. "Fine. It's fine," he snorts, "Dad still does that thing where he never washes out his coffee cup so that if we ever DO run out of coffee, he can just pour hot water in there and still kinda get his morning dose. Months this goes on until Mom steals it to wash." Dean shrugs. "I never dared but Mom, y'know, she doesn't put up with his crap." Dean smiles to think of her, tries to hide it with a cough. "I live somewhere. I'm actually finishing high school." Dean leers, "Teenage girls, man!"
Castiel says nothing and the grin slips off Dean's face. He rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, they're not as fun as they were the first time around."
"How is Sam?"
"He's a good kid." Dean yanks his eyes up to meet Castiel's, ignores the pity he sees in them. "Nothing is gonna happen to him like before." He leans back from the implacable stare. "Sam... He. He likes sports. Wants to be a fireman when he grows up. Him and Dad still fight but it's not like it used to be. Not at all." Dean paces to the window, hoping for sunset or the hint of a breeze as the day fades. It's still hot as Hell, silent. "He's normal. I promise."
Castiel sighs. His shoes scrape the ground as he comes to stand next to Dean. He watches the angel out of the corner of his eye but Castiel just looks sad. Dean chews his lip. His eyes roll to the ceiling, burning.
"It was God's will that you should have a second chance." Dean startles when Castiel rests a hand on his shoulder, just like the old days, soldiers on the front lines together. Dean can hear the hesitation in Castiel's voice when he speaks, the words heavy in his ears. It's a wash of deja vu to hear him say, "It was a gift, Dean."
It's quiet for a long time. His chest hurts like someone reached in and squeezed. The sky outside tells Dean nothing, no answers in the trees or in the tall grass or the far off roar of the highway. Dean turns to Castiel to say fix it, but the angel's gone, only the fading warmth of his hand left.
Author: essenceofmeanin
WC/Pairing: 1700, Gen.
Notes: This is my last Sweet Charity fic for the wonderful and patient maychorian. She requested Dean and Castiel lighting candles for the dead, country roads and full circles. I hope you like it. Title and inspiration from this song. Thank you as always to my wonderful betas hansbekhart and girlguidejones, as well as tabaqui for all her help. You guys rock.
Summary: They found God.
The road unspools under his wheels, stretching unbroken to the horizon far as the eye can see. Not even a signpost to tell you which road you're on. Dean knows where he is, give or take a hundred miles. He's always navigated mostly on memory anyway, here's the place with the best Kool-Aid pickles, that's where Dad got shot by those assholes thinking we were after their weed crop. Apparently a lifetime spent trawling the back highways gets carved bone deep. Doesn't just feel like years since he's crossed state lines behind the wheel of his baby; he might have to check the date but he can probably give a count down to the goddamn seconds.
Dean pulls off the highway led more by instinct than anything else. He turns the radio off, sick of spinning the dial and finding nothing. He rolls down the window, lets the airless day roll over him. The cicadas are a solid wall of noise, impossibly loud on the washed out country road. The ruts are up to the wheel wells. Dean slows down to a snail's pace and still worries about the suspension. He sets his eyes far off on the only grove of trees for miles, thinks about the possibility of the road running straight to it. He lets himself get lost in the thought of water, hopes that the stand of willows is hiding a pond deep enough to wade into. Doesn't care much about leeches or mosquitoes, not right now, not in this heat.
It's a church. Dean parks, unsurprised. The engine's about as cool as it'll get before he can bring himself to get out of the car.
The air is murky green under the trees, the walkway choked with brittle weeds grown up nearly to his knees. Probably been decades since anyone's been out here, no beer cans or graffiti even to mark it as a party spot. It looks like a one room clapboard, victim maybe of the Depression. Didn't even bother to board it up before they left, the windows long since blown out. Glass everywhere, crunching under his boots.
Dean finds a late crop of sugar peas growing wild by the front door. The vines are crawling up from under the broken steps, sunken into the walls and slowly prying them apart. He kneels to pick every one he can find, crunches them between his teeth and thinks about before. He'd've given Sam most of them. Sam woulda ribbed him for voluntarily eating something besides microwaved burgers but the truth is those peas are sweet like candy, the best thing they would've had all week. Dean thinks about Sam, wonders if he's doing okay with his big brother away for the first time. Kid still wants to follow him everywhere he goes; probably sleeping in Dean's bed while he's gone.
He shoves the door open, the wood splintering under his hands. The inside of the church isn't much different since the outside came in, littered with glass and leaves. There's sheets of paper everywhere, the handwriting faded to a shadow. Dean doesn't try to read them. Whatever pews or chairs these people sat in for worship are gone, probably stolen, broken down for kindling ages ago.
Superstition or taboo has left the altar mostly intact, still covered with a moldering prayer cloth. Dean spreads his hands across it so that he won't turn them into fists, stares resentfully at the cross hanging on the wall. It hasn't been long enough since he figured out what they'd done to him not to want to break it in half.
He takes a deep breath, counts to ten. Being angry hasn't really gotten him anywhere, not then and not now. He feels like an idiot, not even sure why he left Kansas. He's been driving in circles for days, trying to deny to himself that he was headed north. What was he going to do, stop by Singer Salvage for a spare tire? Drink a beer at the Roadhouse?
Sometimes, even more than Bobby or Ellen, he thinks about Blue Earth, about Pastor Jim. If he was still alive, still a hunter. When all that apocalypse stuff was going on, Pastor Jim was already dead and so Dean never got to ask advice from the one God-guy he ever actually trusted. Dean's not sure what he'd ask him now. Maybe something about God's sense of humor.
There's candles scattered across the altar, grimy and blackened from the years. Dean remembers lighting votives with Pastor Jim when he was younger. He was snide about the prayer candles, how the hell is a candle supposed to pray, that sort of thing. The pastor humored him for a while until, exasperated with one last crack, he told Dean to think of prayer as just thoughts. Thoughts for the dead. It was something Dean could understand.
Dean digs the muck from one of the candles with a fingernail. He pulls out the Bic he stole from a gas station half a state ago (along with a fifth of whiskey from the shelves, cursing that the Zippos were under glass and there he was, no fake ID). He hesitates before putting flame to the wick, wonders who to light it for now. Figures it could be for everybody.
It's a long moment of silence watching the candle burn before he realizes that the cicadas have stopped singing. When it comes it's a breath of wind rustling the hairs across the back of his neck, the other candles flickering into life alongside his own.
Dean lets out a long, slow breath. He says, "Took you long enough."
Castiel's elbow to elbow with him in this boneyard of a church like he's been there all along, wearing that trench coat like it's not deep in the balls of the hottest summer this state has had for however long. Like it's still the same world, Jimmy Novak maybe even still alive too for all he knows. Dean's thought for years about seeing Cas again, usually imagined that he'd lead with an uppercut but can't even muster much of a grin to greet his old angel.
"Dean," Castiel says, as if it's some sort of answer. He has the ghost of a smile on his face. Dean turns away from it, not sure what the hell Cas would ever be happy about and pulls his flask from his back pocket. Castiel shakes his head when Dean offers the whiskey.
Dean pulls the best smirk he can manage, says, " 'I took my place in the midst of the world and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated, I found none of them thirsty.' " His eyes tear when he drinks, tolerance not what it used to be. He wipes his mouth with the heel of his hand, his throat burning. Feels like it took him one step back, almost far enough to think straight.
"That's not what that verse refers to, Dean."
It's hard to meet Castiel's eyes, the gulf of a lifetime in the way. Dean shrugs. "Just wanted to show you I still read."
The silence stretches out between them. Dean rattles off jokes in his brain, How's Zach, did he ever pull that dick outta his ass? That jerkoff Michael enjoying the retirement? And where the hell have you been, sleeping it off in Tijuana? None of them make it past his mouth, the real questions caught somewhere in his throat. The smile dies on Cas' face.
"If it matters," Castiel says slowly, "You were never supposed to know."
"That worked out real fuckin' well, didn't it?" Dean brings his chin up, mulish. Castiel's a wall in front of him, his face slack, placid. Dean bulls on. "Kept having these dreams. Felt so real I thought for a while I was going crazy." He laughs, shaky. " 'Fact, I still wasn't a hundred percent sure until you showed up."
"How..." Castiel takes a breath, looking lost. "How is your life, Dean?"
It's not funny but Dean cracks up anyway. "Fine. It's fine," he snorts, "Dad still does that thing where he never washes out his coffee cup so that if we ever DO run out of coffee, he can just pour hot water in there and still kinda get his morning dose. Months this goes on until Mom steals it to wash." Dean shrugs. "I never dared but Mom, y'know, she doesn't put up with his crap." Dean smiles to think of her, tries to hide it with a cough. "I live somewhere. I'm actually finishing high school." Dean leers, "Teenage girls, man!"
Castiel says nothing and the grin slips off Dean's face. He rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, they're not as fun as they were the first time around."
"How is Sam?"
"He's a good kid." Dean yanks his eyes up to meet Castiel's, ignores the pity he sees in them. "Nothing is gonna happen to him like before." He leans back from the implacable stare. "Sam... He. He likes sports. Wants to be a fireman when he grows up. Him and Dad still fight but it's not like it used to be. Not at all." Dean paces to the window, hoping for sunset or the hint of a breeze as the day fades. It's still hot as Hell, silent. "He's normal. I promise."
Castiel sighs. His shoes scrape the ground as he comes to stand next to Dean. He watches the angel out of the corner of his eye but Castiel just looks sad. Dean chews his lip. His eyes roll to the ceiling, burning.
"It was God's will that you should have a second chance." Dean startles when Castiel rests a hand on his shoulder, just like the old days, soldiers on the front lines together. Dean can hear the hesitation in Castiel's voice when he speaks, the words heavy in his ears. It's a wash of deja vu to hear him say, "It was a gift, Dean."
It's quiet for a long time. His chest hurts like someone reached in and squeezed. The sky outside tells Dean nothing, no answers in the trees or in the tall grass or the far off roar of the highway. Dean turns to Castiel to say fix it, but the angel's gone, only the fading warmth of his hand left.