fic: The Dreams We Seek
Title: (Do Angels Keep) The Dreams We Seek
Pairings: Gen (background Dean/Lisa)
Rating/warnings: PG-13; mentions of alcohol abuse, general S6 spoilers
Word Count: ~3200
Summary: It's Christmastime, and is Dean dreaming of Hell. Castiel changes that. Set between Season 5 and Season 6.
Notes: Written for an anonymous prompter at hoodie_time's comment fic meme. Title taken from one of my favorite Christmasy songs, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's version of What Child is This?. Totally fills my hc_bingo prompt 'Invisibility.'
Dean is sitting on the bed that he usually shares with Lisa. His fingers are numbly clenched around a half-drunk bottle of Jack (he figured that this holiday season, he might as well treat himself to the good stuff) and it’s cold, but he doesn’t move to turn up the heat. Or to just crawl under the covers, because then he’d need to take off his shoes and anyway, it’s harder to get up and vomit in the middle of the night when there’s tangled blankets to contend with.
The house is empty, dark, and quiet, save for the occasional gust of wind that rustles the branches and makes the shutters clack against its side. They were predicting a white Christmas yesterday, and Dean thinks that it’s probably snowing by now. Lisa is lucky that she and Ben headed out early this morning, before they could get around to cancelling the flights.
“You could still come with us, you know,” she says, her voice raised just enough for him to be able to hear her above the sounds of the airport. “There’s another flight out tonight; buy a ticket-”
“Lisa, your parents hate me. I want you guys to have merry Christmas, okay? Besides,” and he had leans down to kiss her then, a light peck on her forehead, “we’ve already celebrated.”
At that she smiles, though the concern doesn’t go out of her eyes. “I hate to think of you being alone on the day itself, though.”
“Don’t think about it, then. Just have a good time. Relax. Tell your parents I said hi. Tell ‘em I love them.”
That gets a laugh and another kiss, much to the dismay of Ben (who, as he and Lisa both know, would have far rather spent Christmas with Dean than with his overbearing grandparents) and then they call the plane, and she and Ben are rushing off into the masses of people, leaving him standing in the airport on the day before Christmas, alone.
He takes another swig of Jack to chase away the image of the departing airplane (which he will never confess to still fearing, not after he’s seen so much worse). The burn is familiar and good, but somehow it doesn’t make him feel any warmer. He doesn’t think that he’s really felt warm for…well, since Sam left.
Sometimes he can reduce it, though, the chill that seeps through him even when it isn’t winter. The past few weeks have been good. More snow and ice means less work, but he’s been busy enough putting together an honest-to-God Christmas celebration for Lisa and Ben. Picking out a tree and decorating it, actually buying gifts from lists instead of surreptitiously stuffing the first thing he sees under his shirt and walking out of the store, hoping that no one notices-it’s exactly the normalness that he once craved.
And damn if he didn’t enjoy it. Having the fucking amazing apple pie that Lisa made, teaching Ben how to hang lights, and seeing the kid smile as he opened up his gifts (and okay, he technically didn’t open them on Christmas, but who the hell pays attention to dates anymore?) all of it was so damningly right that it was hard to believe that it was really his and not some jinn-induced hallucination. Like the whole ‘Merry Christmas’ thing was just a fragile glass ornament that was going to come falling from the branches and shatter as soon as it hit reality.
Dean thinks that it has now, because it’s Christmas Eve, and he’s lying alone in bed and drowning himself in alcohol in order to escape from…well, from a lot of things. Bobby and Castiel, parts of his other life that he genuinely liked. A part of it is probably the memories of monsters and demons, and the indisputable knowledge that he isn’t really safe.
Mostly, though, it’s Sam. And Hell. The two go hand in hand now, and sometimes when he dreams it’s not him on the rack, but his brother, screaming as Alistair carefully skins him. Or worse, sometimes it’s himself that’s got Sam writhing under his knife, weeping as he traces along the spine. Begging him for mercy that won’t come; begging until his vocal cords are raw and the blade is against his throat-
He drinks again. No, it’s not as bad when he’s distracted by Lisa and Ben, and all of his responsibilities to them. When it comes to this, though, alone with his thoughts-it’s like as soon as he’s by himself, the heavy, dark coldness just fills him and weighs him down, makes him unable to get up and act like a normal human being. It just soaks through him and numbs him until he can’t even be bothered to pretend that things are okay. Times like this are when he retreats and drinks until he passes out. It doesn’t warm him, and it hardly ever makes him forget, but it takes the edge off of the pain. And sometimes it stops the dreams, which have always been so much worse on the occasions when he’s felt like this and hasn’t drunk himself dead.
His eyes are growing heavy, and with thick, freezing fingers he sets the bottle down on his nightstand, not caring enough to make sure that it doesn’t tip over. His head is buzzing pleasantly and the air smells thickly of booze as he lies down against the pillow. The dreamless sleep ahead will be his Christmas gift to himself.
But Dean, quite frankly, has always sucked at giving gifts, so maybe it’s not a surprise that he soon finds himself chained down, ashes beneath his knees and sulfur under his nails.
*
Castiel is in his choice section of Heaven, contemplating his recent actions, when he hears the prayer. The words echo in his mind, a litany of Cas, Cas, please, help me, please; strong and clear and unmistakably Dean. Castiel would know if it were Raphael; he’s still strong from the souls that Crowley gave him, and Raphael has not yet been able to gain on him. This comes from Dean and Dean alone.
He pauses only a moment before he begins the flight to Earth. Rachel and Balthazar can hold the lines if Raphael should attack, which he probably won’t. He’s still licking his wounds from the latest fight between he and Castiel, in which Castiel was (surprisingly) victorious.
It’s been awhile since he’s checked in on Dean. Illogically enough, he’s been keeping his distance since he began working with Crowley because he knows that Dean would not approve, and for some reason, the idea makes him cringe and avoid him. A misplaced sort of guilt, he thinks, even though he knows that what he’s doing is entirely necessary and, as such, justified.
But the prayer is loud and desperate, and he expects the worst as he lands in the darkened room that the call leads him to. Blood, death, Sam-this is what Castiel assumes he’ll see, all of Dean’s old life being irredeemably slammed into his new one.
What Castiel gets is so much less than what he expected that he wonders if maybe this call wasn’t a trick of some sort. The dark doesn’t hide any sort of gore or blood. There’s only Dean, alone and asleep, and smelling strongly of one liquor or another. It occurs to him then that the prayer wasn’t said consciously, that Dean didn’t intend to pull him into his life, and he should probably just turn and go back to Heaven.
Unconsciously or not, though, it was made. And Castiel knows that Dean doesn’t make prayers lightly, subconsciously or not; he’s watched him struggle through enough moments when a call to Heaven would have resulted in the edge being taken off of his pain. Dean prefers to suffer in silence when he thinks himself unobserved, rather than asking for help. Castiel recognizes this, and also that something must be of a particularly extreme degree of seriousness for his subconscious to cry out like that.
He advances forward and kneels down next to the bed, remaining unseen, just in case Dean should choose to wake. This close, he can see how fitfully Dean sleeps: his hands are curled, his shoulders shaking, and Castiel thinks that he’s crying. Lines wrinkle his brow, and his lips are parted. Small noises of discontentment slip through them as Castiel watches. The smell of booze is strong on him, and it occurs to Castiel to wonder where Lisa and her child are. She is a good person, he knows, and he’s seen her disapproval to Dean’s drinking in the past. This wouldn’t please her.
In any case, he knows that she can’t be in any immediate danger, or else Dean would have called him. The prayer that brought him here, he is increasingly certain, is a result of a particularly bad nightmare. He’s well aware that Dean suffers from them, which isn’t particularly surprising, given all that he’s been through.
Castiel places two fingers on Dean’s forehead and closes his eyes, concentrating on remaining invisible during the task ahead of him. It only takes a few seconds before he’s there, inside of Dean’s dream.
Hell looms all around him, the old, wild version from before Crowley took it upon himself to redo it. The sky is a sickly bruised color; the ground, ashes with a few flames flickering up here and there. It sounds of screams and smells like sulfur, and in the center of it all Dean is kneeling, unclothed.
His wrists are chained behind his back, and his feet are shackled. His entire body is covered completely in raw, bleeding wounds that would drive a normal man to unconsciousness, if not death or madness. Alistair stands to one side, in the human visage that he once wore. He holds a whip that’s crusted with the blood from the countless floggings before.
“Come on, Dean,” he says lightly. “Aren’t you gonna do like I’m asking? For me?” As Castiel watches, he bends down and grasps hold of Dean’s chin, forcing him to look up. Tears streak Dean’s cheeks, and Castiel feels an ache in his chest.
“Take this, and use it on him.” Alistair twists Dean’s head sharply, and Castiel follows turn to see what he was indicating. This sight hurts him even more, makes him wish that he were unable to experience these occasional feelings, this sympathy, as so many of his siblings are. Existence is far easier without the burden of emotions, but they seem to be a consequence of thinking freely.
Sam is knees-down in the ashes as well now, tied in the same position as his brother. But whereas Dean looks broken, used to this, he is fearful and struggling. His mouth is gagged, but his lips are moving franticly behind the tightly-tied cloth, and his shoulders shake not from pain but from the vigorous twisting of his body as he tries to free his wrists. His eyes dart around desperately, finally settling on Dean. They widen, and Castiel knows instinctively that he’s begging his brother for help right now. That, or telling him to stay strong, to not worry. He doesn’t know what Dean’s interpretation is, but it doesn’t really matter. Both would hurt him.
“Oh, come on now.” Alistair shakes his head, looking as though he’s disappointed in Dean. “This is all your fault. You can’t be a coward now, Deano-though I suppose that’s keeping in line with your character, hey?” He smiles, stroking Dean’s hair. “You got Sammy into this. You’re just gonna have to treat him like any other old soul.”
“I didn’t-” Dean’s dry voice cracks as he tries to protest, and Castiel decides that he has heard and seen enough. He strides forward, keeping himself unseen -Dean didn’t call him intentionally, after all; Castiel assumes that he’s still trying to remain free of all things hunting-related, and he is part of that- and with a thought, Hell, Alistair, and the tortured form of Sam have disappeared, replaced with the background of nothingness that comes about in the deeper stages of sleep. Dean’s wounds and bonds are gone, the smoldering ashes taken from his knees, but he remains in what’s more or less the same position as before.
The dream is gone, Castiel knows, but the pain lingers. And it will still be there when he wakes. Dean is free of hunting, will continue to be so long as Sam, Bobby, and Castiel let him be, but he hasn’t escaped from his past, even though he’s given up virtually everything and everyone from it.
And so even though Castiel is well aware that he has interfered enough, he doesn’t hesitate before going further.
He kneels next to Dean, still unseen, and from Dean’s subconscious he draws forth the memories that elicit the strongest, happiest reaction. He finds:
Mary Winchester from when Dean was three years old, smelling of freshly-brewed coffee and sugar cookies; telling him that Santa came, and won’t he come and see what’s under the tree.
John, being strict and loving at once, in a mixture that Castiel recognizes to be thought of as overly harsh by most people, but still perfect to Dean, showing up late on Christmas Eve once when Dean was eleven.
Bobby Singer, having the boys as teenagers and letting Dean have the good eggnog.
Countless others, like Lisa and Ben and their perfect, traditional celebration; a man called Pastor Jim who read Dean and Sam the story of Christ’s birth and then told them all about how real Santa Claus was all in the same breath; Ellen and Jo Harvelle, who Dean never celebrated Christmas with, but who were family all the same-
And Sam, so much of Sam. He is woven into every one of Dean’s brightest memories. At five, sitting on the lap of a tired Claus-impersonator in the mall, chatting away cheerfully and making Dean smile in spite of himself; nine years old and handing Dean a small package that Castiel knows to contain the amulet that he will one day be the protector of; fifteen, and giving Dean the best present ever by ceasing all of his arguments with John for the night. Just before Hell, making sure that Dean gets one last Christmas.
Castiel takes all these memories, and he does the only thing he can think of to ensure that Dean’s sleep will not be interrupted again for the night: he takes them and he weaves them around Dean, using a touch far more careful than usual to transition from this emptiness to somewhere bright and happy. Dean’s kneeling, naked form, the representation of the agony that he went through in his previous dreams, is soon clothed with the outfit he’s most comfortable in, the jeans and leather jacket that he’s worn for most of his life.
Castiel makes the dream with no particular plan. As he builds, working in the people that Dean is, has always been, the happiest around, he finds that it becomes a sort of party, a Christmas celebration. The figures of memory begin to interact with each other, laughing and chatting as Dean’s subconscious imagines that they would. He goes with this, adding the Christmas tree from when Dean was two years old and utterly in awe of a tree in a house. He finds that the house hosting the celebration-the one that the Winchesters once occupied in Kansas-has started to smell of brown sugar and apples.
Dean, having no memory of the Hell dream, and no idea that this is a dream, sniffs the air and laughs, and Castiel hears him say to a hunter with a buzz cut, “My mom must be cooking. She goes crazy around this time of year, baking so much more than we can eat…” he shakes his head and grins as he surveys the party. “Not that I’m complaining.”
It doesn’t take long for Castiel to be satisfied with his work. As he goes, Dean’s mind starts to fill in the blank spots, adding little elements that he would have missed. Drawings from when Sam was younger show up on the walls, all messily-done snowmen and Santa Clauses that waking-Dean would never admit to caring about. Christmas lights are strung along inside the house in an effect that should be psychedelic, but somehow pulls off being festive. And outside, where the Impala is parked in the driveway, it starts to snow.
Castiel checks once more to make sure that Dean is happy with the dream he’s now having. And he is, talking to Sam and Mary. They’re all laughing together, and Dean looks more relaxed than Castiel has ever actually seen him. He counts this as a success and is above to leave, when Dean looks over. His eyes light up and he calls, “Cas!”
Castiel freezes. Dean shouldn’t be able to see him; this was meant to be done anonymously-Dean doesn’t want to be bothered in this life, and even if it’s a good sort of bother, Castiel does not necessarily expect Dean to see things like that.
Then he realizes that he isn’t being called. Another version of him, a dream-version of Castiel that must have been pulled up by Dean’s subconscious because Castiel certainly didn’t see the need to include himself here, is walking over to Dean.
He relaxes, oddly flattered by the notion that Dean would bother to include him in this, this gathering of all of those that Dean has ever considered to be some degree of family. It isn’t something that he would have expected, and he almost wants to stay, see how things go now that he’s set them in motion. It has been awhile since he’s been away from Heaven, after all; and this is Christmas, the celebration of the birth of the Son, surely it’s justified-
But he thinks that he has interfered enough for one night, and even if he hadn’t, his duty to freedom comes first. So he disappears unnoticed, leaving Dean behind with the dream-versions of everyone he has ever cared about, happy, safe, and warm.
*
Somewhere, across the country, Lisa and her son are sleeping in bed, and maybe they’re not seeing sugar plums, but the visions that dance in their heads are happy enough anyway.
In an alley in California, a man without a soul is engaged in a long, rough kiss with a woman he just met; they’ll end up spending the night together, and it won’t be until later that he notices what day it is.
Bobby Singer, bent over an untranslated Mesopotamian book, grumbles as the clock strikes midnight, and wishes himself a merry Christmas.
In a small house in Indiana, Dean dreams of all of the things that only exist for him when he’s sleeping. He won’t remember this when he wakes up, but he also won’t remember why there are tears dried on his cheeks. And he’ll wake up happy, and so it won’t really matter that he doesn’t know why.
And somewhere in Heaven, Castiel stretches his wings and goes back to war.