not at all what I'm supposed to have been working on
... and the title is an inside joke with my sis, who doesn't read my journal. *shrug*
Title: there's no such place as Cicero, Indiana
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Dean, Gabriel(?)
Warnings: None
Notes: A continuation of my post-Season Five story Ice Cream and shockingly still gen. Dean goes back on the road. ~2500 words
The man who might be Gabriel made circles around the room, poking at everything -- bed, drawers, curtains, closet. He made a move towards Dean's hastily packed duffel; Dean moved it out of reach. Gabriel huffed but continued exploring. It wasn't that big a room.
"Would you sit down, you're making me dizzy."
"Oh, are we talking now?" He settled on the bed, scooted back to lean against the headboard, and cocked an eyebrow at Dean.
"Now that we're not breaking you out of a hospital? Yes."
"Right, 'cause they would have been able to hear us from the car. Nice, by the way." Dean refused to be flattered by compliments to the Impala, and anyway Gabriel barely paused. "So, Mr. Secretive. You seem to know who I am, but you're not telling me or the authorities, and you're comfortable sneaking in and out of places." He grinned. "I'm a master criminal, aren't I? What is it -- con artist? The Mob? Are we partners or rivals? Oh, or maybe I'm your boss and you were hoping I'd disappeared?" He lost the grin and spread his hands. "No hard feelings, I promise."
"They really let you watch too much tv in there. Master criminal?"
"Explains why I used multiple names, and I had to be good at it since my prints weren't on file." He sounded disappointed that that wasn't the case.
"Ok, well, you're not."
"Then who am I? Who are you? Why did you come back for me?" The questions came out in a loud rush, and Dean... didn't have good answers for any of them.
"Look, it's complicated, and you don't even know --"
"I know things. I know plenty of things. I just don't remember. I saw that Bible in the nightstand drawer, and I know there's always a Bible in motel rooms. I know that this is a cheap motel from the crappy comforter, the lack of tiny bottles in the bathroom, and the presence of the slightly skeezy 'Magic Fingers' machine. But as far as I remember, I've never been in a motel room before. Just tell me."
Dean considered it. "What does 'hunter' mean to you?"
"People with hideous orange vests and rifles sitting around in the woods, mostly."
Dean made an annoyed sound. Of course, he wouldn't claim to know anything useful. "Then this conversation's going to have to wait til tonight." He pulled out his laptop and booted it up.
"Why, what's tonight?"
"A job," he muttered. Hopefully, one that was a straight-forward as it looked for once.
***
It was.
Gabriel came with him -- that was the point, after all, if it weren't for him, he wouldn't be hunting anything, he'd be in Cicero with Lisa trying to live that normal life like he'd promised.
Now Gabriel was staring at him wide-eyed. And now that there was no way for Gabriel to pretend he didn't know the world was full of monsters, Dean could explain things... just in case he really wasn't Gabriel anymore.
"I've been a hunter all my life," he said, wiping the blood off the blade before it could tarnish it. "I kill the kind of things that no one believes in -- until it's coming after them. I save people, try to, but these things... well, you've seen. Sometimes they look like people; sometimes they start off as people, but something gets into them. Gets into their blood and changes them and they can't be saved, just stopped. I stop them.
"We met through work, and when I met you, there was something old and powerful riding you. It was dangerous, toyed with us- with me. It played games with my head. But in the end, it saved my life. Died doing it and took its human host with it, and now something has come back in that same body. I was told that the thing you carried burned its hosts out completely, left nothing but a drooling shell behind, but other than the memory loss, you seem fine. So I don't know whether you're as human as you seem -- or just a monster playing another game."
"Where does that leave us?" He eyed the silver knife in Dean's hand warily.
Dean sighed and put it away. "I'm not sure."
"If I am a monster, can you kill me?"
"Yes," Dean lied.
"Then I should stay with you until you know for sure." He nodded, problem solved, and started crunching through the underbrush in the general direction of the car. His voice, now turned cheerful, echoed back off the trees. "Are you hungry? I'm hungry."
Dean stared after him. In a lifetime of bad decisions... well, this was probably another. He jogged a few steps to catch up.
***
Dean's hair was still damp from the shower when they slid into the booth of the all-night diner. He didn't even glance at the menu -- didn't need to, it'd be like a hundred other diners before it. Gabriel grabbed one, though, studied it like there'd be a quiz.
"What'll it be, boys?" The waitress asked, eyes on the open pad.
"Coffee, cheeseburger, fries."
Gabriel hummed and flipped the laminated page over.
"Gabriel."
"There's a lot to choose from."
Dean snatched the menu out of his hands. "He'll have the same."
She raised an eyebrow but didn't look up. "Be right up." She put their orders through the window, came back with their coffees. Gabriel sulked, arms crossed, until she left again, then started messing with the condiments on the table.
"Gabriel --"
"That was the name the monster went by, right?" he asked while stacking the packets of jelly.
Monster, angel... Dean hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."
"Then I don't want you to call me that." He added a tower of creamers to the stack, alternating tops to bottoms.
"Oh, yeah? You remember a different name?"
Gabriel glanced up from his handiwork to scowl at him. "No."
"Then it's as good as anything else." And a good reminder to Dean of what he probably, maybe was.
He was silent after, though he radiated unhappiness, but Dean had years of experience ignoring loud silences and decided to enjoy his coffee in peace, snagging a sugar packet out of Gabriel's building materials.
The waitress slid their plates in front of them, and Gabriel immediately perked up. "That smells good," he said, practically sticking his nose into the burger.
"Long drive," Dean offered to the waitress who just shrugged. Graveyard shift, she'd probably seen weirder, actually.
Gabriel picked up the burger, took a huge bite and moaned. Dean took a bite of his own, which was good but not enough to explain the noises that Gabriel continued to make. Dean ignored him.
Tried to. After a particularly orgasmic moan, Dean finally hissed, "Knock it off."
"'S really good."
"It's a burger."
"Never had one before," he said, then rolled his eyes. "Not that I remember anyway. They aren't exactly hospital approved." He shifted the burger into one hand to grab several steak fries and shove them in his mouth. "Mm. I like these, too," he announced around the mouthful.
"That's disgusting," Dean informed him, then wondered when he'd turned into S- someone who cared about table manners. Lisa's influence, probably. He wondered if she were worried and if he should call -- not now, of course, Ben would be sleeping.
"Can we get dessert?"
Because he wasn't being embarrassing enough over burgers. Dean wondered what it'd look like if they ordered something to go. Probably not much worse than letting Gabriel continue eating in public. Dean shook his head, but answered, "Get it to go."
***
Six states, three nights, and two motels later, Dean was still trying to figure out what to say on that phone call. If she asked what he was doing. If she asked when he was coming back. If she asked if he were safe. He turned his phone over in his hand, end over end over end, then slid it back in his pocket to pull out the motel key by its giant fob. As soon as the door opened, the allegedly former archangel brushed past him and flopped face first into one of the beds. His voice was muffled by the throw. "Bored." Dean tossed the bag containing his clothes on top of Gabe -- Dean's compromise position between Gabriel and 'anything else, dammit' -- who grunted and flailed behind himself to dislodge it. "Very funny," he told the bed.
"I'm not actually here to entertain you," Dean said, setting his equipment more gently on the other bed.
"So why are you here?" he asked while managing to sound completely incurious.
"Suspicious deaths in the area. Might be nothing, but I'm going to check it out." Since he couldn't very well roll up to Lisa's door with an unknown in tow, Dean had fallen easily back into the habit of letting rumors and news reports set his course. Dean unzipped the bag of the black suit he'd bought en route and started changing. Gabe rolled onto his side to frown at him.
"And while you're off playing Nancy Drew, what am I supposed to do?"
Dean shrugged, trying to ignore the way Gabe still failed at providing the pretense of privacy as he pulled on the trousers. "Watch tv."
"Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am that you rescued me from that hospital?"
"Must have slipped your mind," he said, buttoning up the white shirt.
"I am not staying in this room all day."
Dean really, really should have seen this problem coming. But he'd been distracted by other problems -- calling or not calling Lisa, picking the next town, researching the next job, remembering the nearest cache of weapons that they- he hadn't raided for the apocalypse, paying attention to the road, ignoring the distractions coming from the passenger seat. He focused on tying his tie. "You can't come with me."
"I can't stay cooped up another day," Gabe retorted. "I'll just go for a walk. See the sights."
"Yes, you can." On the one hand, Dean couldn't bring someone with no training, no particular skills with him on a hunt -- even the researching beforehand could turn unexpectedly messy. And on the other, he couldn't let something with Gabriel's powers just... wander loose with ordinary people. He'd figure something out by tomorrow. "And anyway, a town this size doesn't have sights."
"Small town life -- I don't remember it, so hey, it'll be new to me." He slid off the bed and aimed for the door. Dean stopped him with a hand to the chest. Gabe looked at the hand then looked Dean in the eye and raised an amused eyebrow. "What are you going to do, tie me up? I'll warn you, that trick only works once." Dean did not consider it. Not seriously. Gabe's expression lost its smirk, turned almost pleading. "Look, just give me something to do.
Dean gave. "Okay. But you are not leaving the room."
"Vending machines and back, no further. Scout's honor," he said, holding up three fingers. He frowned. "Was I a Scout?"
"No idea," Dean said, shoving him back at the bed. "Wait here." He went out to the car and grabbed the laptop he'd planned on taking with him. Gabe could take over some of the research. He considered booting it up and making a new login for him, but... well, Gabriel wouldn't have needed a login to mess around, if he wanted to. Dean stood behind the car for a long moment, hesitating, before he popped the false floor of the trunk. He debated another minute, then against his better judgment, he removed his dad's journal from the protected compartment. Gabe would need some guidelines for sorting the useful information from the garbage, and Dean didn't have time to sit and hold his hand.
***
The next day, rain sheeted down across the car, almost drowning out the steady hissing of the tires on wet asphalt. It had rained like this one Saturday in Cicero. Lisa had wrapped them in blankets and said she'd always loved the rain, and at the time Dean could almost see why. A semi passed, throwing a dense fog of droplets up from the pavement. Dean slowed down more. On the plains, he could see the weather coming, but that didn't mean he could do anything about it, not when the next town lay 50, 100, 120 miles away.
Gabe sat quietly in the passenger seat, not at all filling it. He was so focused on reading that he maybe hadn't even noticed the heavy rain or the shift in velocity. So very familiar, a bare inch from normal, and Dean-- Dean really needed to pull over, to stop fighting this rainstorm.
He crept along the highway, forty feeling too fast, watching for unreadable roadsigns, because he'd thought... there's a blur of blue, and not soon enough he's pulling off into a rest area. He parked the car, set the brake. "I'm just gonna--" he said, waving towards the building.
Gabe grunted his non-answer, still reading.
Dean fled -- no, he was just running to get out of the ran quicker, not that it helped. He was soaked through before he reached the doors of the shelter. He ignored the sorry stanchion of brochures for sights no one cared about and the payphone no one used anymore, headed straight into the restroom and locked himself in a stall.
He felt sick. He half-wanted to be sick -- physical problems were easier, immediate and distracting. Fixable.
He was supposed to go back to Cicero, to Lisa and Ben, and a house that could be home. It had been, in a sense, Sam's last wish. He was supposed to want it. He did want it. And yet, he was driving steadily away from Lisa and Ben, and every day he didn't turn -- didn't even call -- made it less likely he could go back.
The truth was, he hadn't felt as close to Sam in all the time at Lisa's as he did now that he was back on the road, nor as far. Traveling again, hunting again, made for a thousand reminders a day that Sam was missing and this time he wasn't coming back. That Dean wasn't just taking a well-earned rest that would end with Sam showing up at his door. Sam wasn't showing up. He'd failed Sam.
Hunting was better than returning to Cicero, because it was worse.
Dean folded his arms around himself and shook and told himself that the rain must have been colder than he'd thought.
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Title: there's no such place as Cicero, Indiana
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Dean, Gabriel(?)
Warnings: None
Notes: A continuation of my post-Season Five story Ice Cream and shockingly still gen. Dean goes back on the road. ~2500 words
The man who might be Gabriel made circles around the room, poking at everything -- bed, drawers, curtains, closet. He made a move towards Dean's hastily packed duffel; Dean moved it out of reach. Gabriel huffed but continued exploring. It wasn't that big a room.
"Would you sit down, you're making me dizzy."
"Oh, are we talking now?" He settled on the bed, scooted back to lean against the headboard, and cocked an eyebrow at Dean.
"Now that we're not breaking you out of a hospital? Yes."
"Right, 'cause they would have been able to hear us from the car. Nice, by the way." Dean refused to be flattered by compliments to the Impala, and anyway Gabriel barely paused. "So, Mr. Secretive. You seem to know who I am, but you're not telling me or the authorities, and you're comfortable sneaking in and out of places." He grinned. "I'm a master criminal, aren't I? What is it -- con artist? The Mob? Are we partners or rivals? Oh, or maybe I'm your boss and you were hoping I'd disappeared?" He lost the grin and spread his hands. "No hard feelings, I promise."
"They really let you watch too much tv in there. Master criminal?"
"Explains why I used multiple names, and I had to be good at it since my prints weren't on file." He sounded disappointed that that wasn't the case.
"Ok, well, you're not."
"Then who am I? Who are you? Why did you come back for me?" The questions came out in a loud rush, and Dean... didn't have good answers for any of them.
"Look, it's complicated, and you don't even know --"
"I know things. I know plenty of things. I just don't remember. I saw that Bible in the nightstand drawer, and I know there's always a Bible in motel rooms. I know that this is a cheap motel from the crappy comforter, the lack of tiny bottles in the bathroom, and the presence of the slightly skeezy 'Magic Fingers' machine. But as far as I remember, I've never been in a motel room before. Just tell me."
Dean considered it. "What does 'hunter' mean to you?"
"People with hideous orange vests and rifles sitting around in the woods, mostly."
Dean made an annoyed sound. Of course, he wouldn't claim to know anything useful. "Then this conversation's going to have to wait til tonight." He pulled out his laptop and booted it up.
"Why, what's tonight?"
"A job," he muttered. Hopefully, one that was a straight-forward as it looked for once.
***
It was.
Gabriel came with him -- that was the point, after all, if it weren't for him, he wouldn't be hunting anything, he'd be in Cicero with Lisa trying to live that normal life like he'd promised.
Now Gabriel was staring at him wide-eyed. And now that there was no way for Gabriel to pretend he didn't know the world was full of monsters, Dean could explain things... just in case he really wasn't Gabriel anymore.
"I've been a hunter all my life," he said, wiping the blood off the blade before it could tarnish it. "I kill the kind of things that no one believes in -- until it's coming after them. I save people, try to, but these things... well, you've seen. Sometimes they look like people; sometimes they start off as people, but something gets into them. Gets into their blood and changes them and they can't be saved, just stopped. I stop them.
"We met through work, and when I met you, there was something old and powerful riding you. It was dangerous, toyed with us- with me. It played games with my head. But in the end, it saved my life. Died doing it and took its human host with it, and now something has come back in that same body. I was told that the thing you carried burned its hosts out completely, left nothing but a drooling shell behind, but other than the memory loss, you seem fine. So I don't know whether you're as human as you seem -- or just a monster playing another game."
"Where does that leave us?" He eyed the silver knife in Dean's hand warily.
Dean sighed and put it away. "I'm not sure."
"If I am a monster, can you kill me?"
"Yes," Dean lied.
"Then I should stay with you until you know for sure." He nodded, problem solved, and started crunching through the underbrush in the general direction of the car. His voice, now turned cheerful, echoed back off the trees. "Are you hungry? I'm hungry."
Dean stared after him. In a lifetime of bad decisions... well, this was probably another. He jogged a few steps to catch up.
***
Dean's hair was still damp from the shower when they slid into the booth of the all-night diner. He didn't even glance at the menu -- didn't need to, it'd be like a hundred other diners before it. Gabriel grabbed one, though, studied it like there'd be a quiz.
"What'll it be, boys?" The waitress asked, eyes on the open pad.
"Coffee, cheeseburger, fries."
Gabriel hummed and flipped the laminated page over.
"Gabriel."
"There's a lot to choose from."
Dean snatched the menu out of his hands. "He'll have the same."
She raised an eyebrow but didn't look up. "Be right up." She put their orders through the window, came back with their coffees. Gabriel sulked, arms crossed, until she left again, then started messing with the condiments on the table.
"Gabriel --"
"That was the name the monster went by, right?" he asked while stacking the packets of jelly.
Monster, angel... Dean hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."
"Then I don't want you to call me that." He added a tower of creamers to the stack, alternating tops to bottoms.
"Oh, yeah? You remember a different name?"
Gabriel glanced up from his handiwork to scowl at him. "No."
"Then it's as good as anything else." And a good reminder to Dean of what he probably, maybe was.
He was silent after, though he radiated unhappiness, but Dean had years of experience ignoring loud silences and decided to enjoy his coffee in peace, snagging a sugar packet out of Gabriel's building materials.
The waitress slid their plates in front of them, and Gabriel immediately perked up. "That smells good," he said, practically sticking his nose into the burger.
"Long drive," Dean offered to the waitress who just shrugged. Graveyard shift, she'd probably seen weirder, actually.
Gabriel picked up the burger, took a huge bite and moaned. Dean took a bite of his own, which was good but not enough to explain the noises that Gabriel continued to make. Dean ignored him.
Tried to. After a particularly orgasmic moan, Dean finally hissed, "Knock it off."
"'S really good."
"It's a burger."
"Never had one before," he said, then rolled his eyes. "Not that I remember anyway. They aren't exactly hospital approved." He shifted the burger into one hand to grab several steak fries and shove them in his mouth. "Mm. I like these, too," he announced around the mouthful.
"That's disgusting," Dean informed him, then wondered when he'd turned into S- someone who cared about table manners. Lisa's influence, probably. He wondered if she were worried and if he should call -- not now, of course, Ben would be sleeping.
"Can we get dessert?"
Because he wasn't being embarrassing enough over burgers. Dean wondered what it'd look like if they ordered something to go. Probably not much worse than letting Gabriel continue eating in public. Dean shook his head, but answered, "Get it to go."
***
Six states, three nights, and two motels later, Dean was still trying to figure out what to say on that phone call. If she asked what he was doing. If she asked when he was coming back. If she asked if he were safe. He turned his phone over in his hand, end over end over end, then slid it back in his pocket to pull out the motel key by its giant fob. As soon as the door opened, the allegedly former archangel brushed past him and flopped face first into one of the beds. His voice was muffled by the throw. "Bored." Dean tossed the bag containing his clothes on top of Gabe -- Dean's compromise position between Gabriel and 'anything else, dammit' -- who grunted and flailed behind himself to dislodge it. "Very funny," he told the bed.
"I'm not actually here to entertain you," Dean said, setting his equipment more gently on the other bed.
"So why are you here?" he asked while managing to sound completely incurious.
"Suspicious deaths in the area. Might be nothing, but I'm going to check it out." Since he couldn't very well roll up to Lisa's door with an unknown in tow, Dean had fallen easily back into the habit of letting rumors and news reports set his course. Dean unzipped the bag of the black suit he'd bought en route and started changing. Gabe rolled onto his side to frown at him.
"And while you're off playing Nancy Drew, what am I supposed to do?"
Dean shrugged, trying to ignore the way Gabe still failed at providing the pretense of privacy as he pulled on the trousers. "Watch tv."
"Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am that you rescued me from that hospital?"
"Must have slipped your mind," he said, buttoning up the white shirt.
"I am not staying in this room all day."
Dean really, really should have seen this problem coming. But he'd been distracted by other problems -- calling or not calling Lisa, picking the next town, researching the next job, remembering the nearest cache of weapons that they- he hadn't raided for the apocalypse, paying attention to the road, ignoring the distractions coming from the passenger seat. He focused on tying his tie. "You can't come with me."
"I can't stay cooped up another day," Gabe retorted. "I'll just go for a walk. See the sights."
"Yes, you can." On the one hand, Dean couldn't bring someone with no training, no particular skills with him on a hunt -- even the researching beforehand could turn unexpectedly messy. And on the other, he couldn't let something with Gabriel's powers just... wander loose with ordinary people. He'd figure something out by tomorrow. "And anyway, a town this size doesn't have sights."
"Small town life -- I don't remember it, so hey, it'll be new to me." He slid off the bed and aimed for the door. Dean stopped him with a hand to the chest. Gabe looked at the hand then looked Dean in the eye and raised an amused eyebrow. "What are you going to do, tie me up? I'll warn you, that trick only works once." Dean did not consider it. Not seriously. Gabe's expression lost its smirk, turned almost pleading. "Look, just give me something to do.
Dean gave. "Okay. But you are not leaving the room."
"Vending machines and back, no further. Scout's honor," he said, holding up three fingers. He frowned. "Was I a Scout?"
"No idea," Dean said, shoving him back at the bed. "Wait here." He went out to the car and grabbed the laptop he'd planned on taking with him. Gabe could take over some of the research. He considered booting it up and making a new login for him, but... well, Gabriel wouldn't have needed a login to mess around, if he wanted to. Dean stood behind the car for a long moment, hesitating, before he popped the false floor of the trunk. He debated another minute, then against his better judgment, he removed his dad's journal from the protected compartment. Gabe would need some guidelines for sorting the useful information from the garbage, and Dean didn't have time to sit and hold his hand.
***
The next day, rain sheeted down across the car, almost drowning out the steady hissing of the tires on wet asphalt. It had rained like this one Saturday in Cicero. Lisa had wrapped them in blankets and said she'd always loved the rain, and at the time Dean could almost see why. A semi passed, throwing a dense fog of droplets up from the pavement. Dean slowed down more. On the plains, he could see the weather coming, but that didn't mean he could do anything about it, not when the next town lay 50, 100, 120 miles away.
Gabe sat quietly in the passenger seat, not at all filling it. He was so focused on reading that he maybe hadn't even noticed the heavy rain or the shift in velocity. So very familiar, a bare inch from normal, and Dean-- Dean really needed to pull over, to stop fighting this rainstorm.
He crept along the highway, forty feeling too fast, watching for unreadable roadsigns, because he'd thought... there's a blur of blue, and not soon enough he's pulling off into a rest area. He parked the car, set the brake. "I'm just gonna--" he said, waving towards the building.
Gabe grunted his non-answer, still reading.
Dean fled -- no, he was just running to get out of the ran quicker, not that it helped. He was soaked through before he reached the doors of the shelter. He ignored the sorry stanchion of brochures for sights no one cared about and the payphone no one used anymore, headed straight into the restroom and locked himself in a stall.
He felt sick. He half-wanted to be sick -- physical problems were easier, immediate and distracting. Fixable.
He was supposed to go back to Cicero, to Lisa and Ben, and a house that could be home. It had been, in a sense, Sam's last wish. He was supposed to want it. He did want it. And yet, he was driving steadily away from Lisa and Ben, and every day he didn't turn -- didn't even call -- made it less likely he could go back.
The truth was, he hadn't felt as close to Sam in all the time at Lisa's as he did now that he was back on the road, nor as far. Traveling again, hunting again, made for a thousand reminders a day that Sam was missing and this time he wasn't coming back. That Dean wasn't just taking a well-earned rest that would end with Sam showing up at his door. Sam wasn't showing up. He'd failed Sam.
Hunting was better than returning to Cicero, because it was worse.
Dean folded his arms around himself and shook and told himself that the rain must have been colder than he'd thought.
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