Fic: Long Black Cloud Coming Down (5x22 coda, Dean/Castiel)
I wrote this, and then I got sidetracked by Glee, Tumblr and the AEcon. In short: I'm posting this before I come across something shiny again. XD
Title: Long Black Cloud Coming Down
Author: moodymuse19
Rating: R, because Dean has a foul mouth ;)
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel
Warning(s): spoilers for 5x22.
Notes: I needed repair fic. Don't we all these days? Title taken from Knocking On Heaven’s Door.
Summary:
The first time Castiel visits him, Dean is drinking a large Scotch. He's also drinking on Castiel's second, third and fourth visit. You get the idea.
+++
The first time Castiel visits him, Dean is drinking a large Scotch. He's also drinking on Castiel's second, third and fourth visit. You get the idea.
Castiel arrives uninvited, and stays even when Dean says little to nothing. The first time Castiel visits Dean at Lisa's house - Lisa's, never Dean's, Castiel knows better than that - the only thing Dean says, rather awed, relieved and angry all at the same time, "I thought you'd gone for good."
Castiel‘s once ever-present head tilt seems to have returned hand in hand with his angel mojo. "Why would I leave you after everything that happened?"
Dean doesn't know what to say, which is a good thing, and takes a drink from his glass, which Castiel frowns at. Dean ignores the look and watches Castiel sit on the sofa besides him to watch House reruns.
Dean is tired of House, but these days he can’t watch a lot of things that are on TV. Dr. Sexy, corny medical ads, even game shows remind him of Sam too much, and now that he’s at Lisa’s, he has to remind himself porn is out of the question entirely. He likes House’s snark and it entertains him. Most of all, it doesn’t remind him of Sam, which is the main criteria these days for choosing what to watch on TV.
Castiel, of all things, gets hooked to the episode, mostly because he can’t read anyone’s mind to find out what happens and has to wait like every other person. If this had happened months before, Dean would’ve laughed at him. But Castiel is silent and doesn’t speak a mile a minute - like Ben - and doesn’t feel the need to fill every silence with conversation, like Lisa. For once, Dean is grateful for Castiel’s unnervingly silent company.
When Lisa gets home she frowns at the stranger in her living room, but Dean looks less dead than he has for the past two weeks, so she simply says hello and lets it slide.
Later, when Ben is doing homework and the stranger from the living room is long gone, Lisa asks, "So who was that?"
Dean takes a long time to answer, "Just someone I know", and the time he takes to reply completely invalidates the dismissive tone of his answer.
*
The second time Castiel visits, he stands between Dean and the TV, blocking the view.
Dean sighs. "What do you want, Cas?"
"I want to know why you've given up."
Dean doesn't answer and stares forward as if Castiel wasn’t blocking the TV. He takes a sip of the today’s alcoholic drink of choice and leaves the glass on the little table besides the sofa.
"I haven't," he says, and continues to stare at Castiel’s thighs as if they weren’t there.
Truthfully, Dean isn’t staring at Castiel’s thighs, he’s staring at his crotch, because that’s exactly what is at eye level with him. Honestly, it's not a bad view and it does more for him than that one and only awkward night with Lisa three days after he showed up at her doorstep. It should worry him that a socially impaired angel with a personal space invasion problem does more for him than beautiful, bendy, understanding Lisa.
But there are things in his life Dean can't change, and this is the one he's worried least about.
Castiel still doesn't move. "There are places we could go, research, find a way to bring safely Sam back."
Dean looks up: Castiel has a stubborn look all about him, much like he had when he announced he was going to look for his Father. It doesn’t deter Dean. "I promised Sam I wouldn't. I promised Sam this would be my life, he wanted a good life for me, and I'm having it."
Dean’s known Castiel for two years and he knows what to expect: confusing at the new, odd humans ways he keeps discovering whenever he spends time with Dean. Why humans do one thing when they want another, why humans are so damn odd.
But instead of confused, Castiel looks disappointed. "I made no promises," he says.
Dean stands up, and it's the first reaction of any kind that Castiel has seen from Dean in days. "Cas, he asked not to."
Castiel seems to grow a few inches under Dean's stare. "He asked you. I promised him nothing but keeping you safe," he says. "I'm not going to leave Sam down there with my brothers to suffer for an eternity when his rightful place is Heaven."
Dean rubs his face with his hand, feeling anger build up in him. "Cas, fuck."
Castiel takes a step closer to Dean. "You don't hold the monopoly on feelings for Sam. Bobby misses him, too. I miss him."
Dean sags, loses his drive, slumps back on the sofa’s arm rest. How can he battle someone willing to bring his brother back from hell because he misses him? "Shit."
"And if there's a safe way to bring him back, I'll find it." And with that he's gone.
Dean sighs, and while he doesn’t truly believe there’s a way to bring Sam back safely for all parties involved, he realizes that at the very least he believes in the drive behind Castiel’s words.
*
Castiel keeps visiting, usually whenever Lisa and Ben are not there. Little visits here and there until Dean is almost used to his appearing out of thin air again. Dean gets a job at an auto shop three blocks from Lisa’s house and eventually even his coworkers get used to seeing the guy in a trenchcoat around the place. For these times, though, Castiel is benevolent enough to walk in through the door.
Dean barely reacts at all, whether Castiel is helping him yank something rusty and completely stuck to a beat up old car or if Castiel is telling him how things in the hunting world are going - his old world, Dean muses as he wrestles with a stubborn screw of a Ford Crown Victoria that is in practically pristine condition and has been making him salivate for days on end.
Sometimes, Castiel tells him about the leads he’s following for finding something to get Sam out of hell. These times, Dean dives in under the car he’s working on and pretends not to listen, Sam’s voice in his head saying over and over again, ‘You got to promise not to try to bring me back’.
Ben gets home early one afternoon while Castiel is still in the house. Dean stiffens, grabs Castiel's arm, but it’s too late. Ben and Castiel have spotted each other and are already exchanging greetings - Ben a bit weirded out, Castiel rather stiffly; the meeting comes off as extremely normal and human, and Dean almost laughs. Almost.
But as Ben exchanges a few words with Dean, randomly excited about his day, Castiel tilts his head and frowns. "That boy will grow up to do great things," says Castiel once Ben's gone to ransack the kitchen.
Dean doesn't know if Castiel means Ben will be the next president, the next Einstein or the next messiah, but Castiel is grinning at him placidly and Dean is still holding his arm and discovers he doesn't care.
He knows he’d care and worry if Castiel had said Ben was in mortal danger, that he had some monster tailing him. Dean would worry, fight, protect. Lisa can count with him in that case.
It’s the only thing he’s ever known how to do well.
But he can’t sum up the strength to play dutiful dad to Ben, to be overjoyed that he got an A, that the summer camp he wanted to go to had a spot open for him, he doesn’t have the strength to run around with him. Dean doesn’t care.
It worries him, but Dean is an expert at denial, so he’s okay.
*
Dean shows proper human emotion for the first time when it's one month that Castiel started dropping by.
Dean has been changing a tail light of the Impala that some idiot smashed him, Castiel hovering close by watching. When Dean feels Castiel is about to disappear again, he stands up, grabs his arm and says "Cas."
Dean's tone of voice alone clues Castiel in that this isn’t something trite and irrelevant. "Yes, Dean?"
"If you find a way to bring Sam back... don't let it be at the expense of someone. You, me, Bobby, no one. No one's soul, no one's grace. As much as I’m…” He swallows, Castiel frowns at how difficult it is for Dean to get the words out. “I know Sam would rather stay in the pit that be topside and knowing he condemned one of us to take his place down under. And Sam would hate himself if anything happened to you because of him."
It's the most Dean has spoken to him in months. Castiel looks at where Dean is still holding on to him. He looks back up, looking decidedly less serious. "Sam wouldn’t. Of course."
Dean clears his throat and lets go of Castiel's arm. "Well, he wouldn't like it either," he says and goes back to work on the Impala.
The time for thoughtless or selfish sacrifices has ended, and Castiel wasn't planning on sacrificing himself, or Bobby, or anyone for Sam because he knows Sam would hate being alive while a friend of his died for him. He knows that much about Sam.
But it's still nice to hear all that coming from Dean.
*
On Castiel's eleventh visit Dean asks, "So what are you now?"
It's late June, it's hot, Dean is in a t-shirt, jeans and barefoot in Lisa's backyard, a soft breeze blowing over and the sun baking the Impala enough that the only one who can touch her without getting burns is Castiel.
Lisa is working, mostly because her work has a killer A/C, Ben is upstairs with a friend, both not moving from under the ceiling fan.
"I'm an archangel," says Castiel, leaning on the Impala as Dean sits on the grass and wishes Lisa’s house had a working an A/C.
Dean is about to say something when Castiel gets a weird glint in his eyes and suddenly they're not in the backyard anymore, they're not even in America. Dean stands up, bare feet not stepping on sun-warmed grass but rather on floor tiles, cold and worn soft from years of been walked on. Dean looks up to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Dean feels like falling to his knees. He doesn’t, because he's been through too much, but it's enough of a relief for him that he can still feel like this at all.
Dean turns to look at Castiel, who's looking at him as if the master work of art at the moment was Dean himself and not the Chapel. Dean doesn't look dead, at least not right now, and Castiel seems to sigh in relief at that.
"You could do the relocating thing before, Cas," says Dean, bending his neck at an impossible angle to look at the ceiling and snorting at the depiction of angels. "This is nothing."
Cas does grin now. "Dean, we're not actually in the Vatican City," he says.
Dean frowns at him. "Meaning?"
"We're still at Lisa Braeden's house. We’re still in her backyard."
Dean does look impressed now. "Jesus, you built all this?" says Dean, and his voices echoes in the gigantic room, the lights spills in through the high windows and whitens out details in the upper level of the place. "Like Gabriel with the TV shows?"
"Yes," he says, a hand touching the walls. "Although I believe reproducing the Sistine Chapel is a greater feat than reproducing a TV show set."
Dean looks amused. "Pride is a sin, Cas."
Cas looks amused. It’s a good look on him. "I'm still right," he says, and the Sistine Chapel dissolves into the average American backyard, with the baking sun, the car, garden tools strewn all about, a grill off in a corner. Dean feels oddly small and out of place.
"Wouldn't mind going back there sometime soon," says Dean.
Castiel nods. "I'll take that into account."
A pause. Then, "you're an archangel, Cas," he says, a bit awed but decidedly proud, and Dean smiles at Castiel for the first time in months.
They look at each other two seconds longer than they usually do - which is already ridiculously long by anyone else’s' standards. They're just starting to drift closer to each other when Ben screams from inside the house that the weather service is predicting hail storms for tonight, and he better park the car inside Lisa's garage and oh, could he bring up a couple of sodas?
Dean sighs.
*
Later that night, Dean gets his phone out and texts to Castiel: Sam would've loved that. He doubts phones work in heaven, he doubts God bothered to bring Cas back with his phone still working. But thinking Castiel won't receive the text is Dean's main reason to send it in the first place.
Barely a minute later, Castiel texts back: I will show it to him sometime.
*
Castiel knows better than to think Dean’s good mood from the Sistine Chapel visit was going to stick around for much longer; it’s gone entirely the next time Castiel drops by.
Dean’s had a bad day at work, a boy is bullying Ben, Lisa’s been sick and could lose her job, but the thing that puts Dean in the most foul of moods is that his current problems are so fucking mundane he has no idea what to do with them. It’s not like he wants all of hell on his ass again, but at least he’d know what to do then. This, now? He doesn’t. Threatening is his first response to everything: threaten the kid who’s making Ben’s life impossible, threaten Lisa’s boss, threaten his own boss for blaming him for ignorant, know-it-all clients.
Dean has to force himself to stop from reaching into the Impala’s trunk for a hunting knife. He has to force himself to just stop altogether, think, what normal people would do.
Or rather, what would Sam do?
He gives Ben the best advice he can, which isn’t much, and ultimately tells him there’s nothing wrong with both punching back and going to the principal, because kids these days are scarier than demons. He fakes a doctor’s note and sends it to Lisa’s boss (he goes a bit to the extreme and fakes the note so well Lisa’s boss gives her a full week at home to recover, with full pay.)
By the time night falls and both Lisa and Ben are asleep, Dean’s is well into his umpteenth beer of the day and torturing himself watching Sam’s favorites shows on TV, his mind going numb from the beer and the grief.
"You shouldn't drink so much," says a gravel voice behind him, and two fingers to his forehead sober him up instantly.
Dean is extremely pissed he’s sober, but instead he says, "Said by the only being in existence to ever drink Ellen Harvelle under the table."
"Under the - " says Castiel, frowning, and thinks better of asking for clarification of the expression. "I mean it, Dean. You should not drink in such large quantities.” Dean groans and takes a drink. “Dean, when I healed you in Stull Cemetery, I also healed two arteries that were starting to block."
Dean finishes the last of his beer and stands to throw the bottle away. Okay, that makes him slightly more apprehensive. “Blocked as in - ?”
Castiel follows him into the kitchen. “Your every meal consists of junk food and alcohol, even now, here. You will not live to 50 like this.”
The bottle makes a happy blink against the trash can. Dean snorts. “I'll be happy if I don't live past 32.”
Next thing Dean knows he's being slammed up against the kitchen wall, Castiel so furious his wings unfurl and become visible; they’re too big and impressive for Lisa’s small kitchen. His forearm is pressing up against Dean's throat, every inch of his body tense and pushing against Dean’s.
“You gonna beat me up again, Cas?" Dean heaves, voice thick. "Because this time I'm actually looking forward to it."
Any other angel would've taught Dean a lesson. Beat him to a bloody pulp, heal him and beat him again; ship him to Madagascar without a return ticket. Pain, learning, imposing respect.
Instead Castiel kisses Dean. He doesn’t know if he’s acting on his vessel’s leftover instincts or if it’s something deeper inside him, something common to even angels and humans alike, something only Dean stirs. It doesn’t matter why: he still kisses Dean as if he wanted to devour him whole, which is kind of what it currently looks like. It’s a tug he feels not just down there but also in him. He has to have this now, they both do, it’s no longer rational or thought out. They’ve reached a point of no return, there’s no going back even if they could, even if they wanted to.
Castiel smashes his mouth against Dean's, clearly not about love and tenderness but all about power, sex and raw want, a need that suddenly pours off them in waves and crashes up against the other.
It's a good thing Ben and Lisa are asleep.
It happens right against the wall, as soon as Castiel moves his arm from Dean's throat and relocates his hand to Dean’s butt, pulling their groins closer together. Dean removes trenchcoat and suit coat and he helps Castiel with the flies of their trousers; it's a jumble of limbs and wings, of jerking and blowing that's almost over too soon, too fast, but deliciously intense and just plain good.
When they're close to finishing, they're not in Lisa's kitchen but off in a corner of Castiel's Sistine Chapel, which flickers on and off as they both start reaching orgasm. Dean grins wide: an angel is debauching him in the Sistine chapel. Right under The Last Judgement too, near Hell. How very fitting for him.
Castiel kisses the grin off Dean, bites it off him and Dean retaliates with the same intensity, kissing him almost violently as Castiel comes all over his hand. Dean smiles into the kiss and swallows Castiel’s groan, mixing it with his own; they both slump to the ground in a mindless heap, tangled in each other with pants somewhere mid-tight, exhausted and panting, but feeling more alive than they have for months.
“This was a mistake,” says Dean, even as he has Castiel’s face inches away from his and is studying it to find a new angle to kiss all the angelic right off him.
“I know,” nods Castiel, who kisses Dean’s neck, exploring it, studying it.
Dean bends his neck to give Castiel more access. “We still should've done that months ago.”
Castiel nods in agreement and sucks on a spot that Dean reacts to particularly well. “Bobby thinks so too.”
Dean winces. “Don't talk about Bobby when I'm still thinking of fucking you right here and now.”
Castiel grins, kisses Dean once and straightens up. "Barachiel is calling me."
Dean groans. “Fucking Barachiel,” he says, sighing heavily, using one of his legs to bring Castiel closer to him in a vain attempt to bring them back together. “Who's Barachiel?”
Castiel pauses, as if listening to something. Which he probably is, muses Dean. “I leave her in charge when I'm gone,” he says absently, ignoring Dean’s raised eyebrow at Castiel ‘leaving someone in charge’ up in Heaven. Castiel looks at Dean. “She has a lead on a ritual for Sam's recovery.”
And reality comes crashing down. Dean struggles to remember his promise to Sam, and forces himself to not go with Castiel, to not bring Sam back or to at the very least not leave Lisa’s house in the middle of the night, because she deserves better than that. “Okay,” he nods.
As if on impulse, Dean kisses Castiel once, taking him by surprise. He can still taste himself all over Castiel’s mouth, the same as his hand is still warm and sticky from where Castiel came all over him; it all turns him on more than anything ever has. Castiel kisses back, a hand at the back of Dean’s head, his little finger teasing the skin at the back of the neck as they kiss as hungrily as if they hadn’t just come all over each other, as if they were getting ready for round two.
Eventually they stop kissing, and Castiel is gone far sooner than Dean would have wanted.
The next second, Dean is slumped up against the wall of the kitchen of Lisa's house, horny, alone, and he suddenly feels so out of place he goes sit in the Impala, looking at the stars and listening to Led Zeppelin for hours.
When he finally goes to bed, he grins when he realizes he had a six-pack in the fridge he completely forgot about.
*
Dean doesn’t see Castiel for the following two weeks, and Dean painfully realizes Castiel had become the only connection to the world he's known all his life. With Cas a no-show, the world could be ending again and he’d never know.
He starts seeing omens everywhere, and when he mentions this in passing to Lisa she rubs his back and tells him to let it go, because there aren’t demons literally everywhere he looks. Dean would like to say, yes there are, Lis, because he’s seen it. He’s seen the eyes of random people turn smoky black, he’s seen fathers and mothers slaughtered only because they were taken over by a demon.
Omens or not, he tells himself he can't go out and check them out because he made a promise, because Lisa needs help getting something from her basement and because Ben is starting to transition from Cool Rock Kid to Emo Boy even though he's only eleven years old.
He loves them both, but he really, really needs to go kill something.
One very early morning he grabs the Impala, checks that her trunk is still full of holy water, guns, salt and knives and skids out of the driveway towards a haunted house twenty miles north of Lisa's house.
The haunted house belongs to a family with three kids. The oldest is Ben's age, and they're being taken care of by an uncle and their elderly grandmother. Dean swallows, feeling right, feeling himself for the first time in months, but he ignores the feeling altogether, because he has Lisa to go back to now. He made a promise.
Dean grabs the first ID that will be useful and walks up the driveway.
Twelve hours later there are three ghosts gone and, in the local cemetery, there are three graves currently lit by fires that, for the first time in two years, don't remind Dean of hell. Sam isn't by his side, and that feels so wrong Dean wants to jump into the fire and stay there, but the first promise he made Sam was to not kill himself, even if it wasn’t fully worded. Bobby and Castiel also don't deserve to find him a burnt carcass, so he watches the fires extinguish themselves, waiting to finish the job and go back...
... home. For a split of a second of human absentmindedness, home is the motel room where Sam is waiting for him, it’s the Impala with Sam bitching inside it, or Bobby's with Sam buried in a book, but then he remembers home is now Lisa and her guest room and he suddenly wants to get into the Impala and never set foot in Indiana, ever again.
For the first time in two months, Dean considers breaking his promise to Sam. He considers it only, and nothing more; but it’s still a first step in a different direction. Whether it’s the right direction or not remains to be seen, but Dean suddenly feels a bit less boxed in.
Eventually he goes back to Lisa, feeling everything in his life is completely wrong, and that maybe as good as it will ever get.
*
Three days later he learns of a little girl showing signs of possession. By nightfall the girl is back with her family, safe and relatively sound, and Dean is back at Lisa’s. He has a bruise on his arm, which Dean claims he got from accidentally banging himself against the doorknob.
It’s a good thing he and Lisa didn’t work out from the beginning, or she’d have seen a very clearly defined bruise on his torso in the shape of a little girl’s hand, blue and angry as it barely started to fade away.
Four days after the little girl, Lisa catches him putting away knives in the Impala’s double trunk. He feels like he’s been caught cheating on her, which is a ridiculous notion considering what happened last at the ‘Sistine Chapel’, and all he says is, “demon took possession of a kindergarten teacher.”
Lisa nods and understands - she is a mother, after all - and tells him to lock the trunk right because Ben is too curious for his own good. Dean is left feeling uneasy, mostly because Lisa is a smart woman: Sam dies and Dean shows up at her doorstep. She might not be privy into everything, but she at least knows Dean’s not here out of choice.
*
Dean is stupidly relieved the next time Castiel drops by, but he's relieved only for a second; as he looks at Castiel's face he knows something is utterly, utterly wrong.
The fact that Castiel appeared during dinner on a weekday is a pretty big clue to it, too. Castiel has been visiting for weeks, months, and both Lisa and Ben glimpsed him in passing once, and not much more.
Dean touches Lisa's arm in a silent 'it's okay, he's a friend and not something after your son' and instantly stands up and goes to Castiel, who's leaning against a chair and looking like he's wracking his brains about something. "What happened?"
“Barachiel and I worked out a way to bring Sam back and not let Michael or Lucifer loose.”
Lisa lets out a tiny gasp; Ben looks more interested in Castiel himself than the names pouring out of his mouth.
Dean nods. “Okay,” he says, and he’s having a very, very hard time not running off to -
Castiel shakes his head. “I already performed the ritual. It didn't work.”
Dean moves them further into the living room, leaning both of them up against the sturdy, reliable sofa. "What do you mean it didn't work? It wasn't the right ritual?"
Castiel sighs. “I misspoke. The ritual worked fine. There was simply no Sam to retrieve from hell.”
Something sparks in Dean’s chest. “What, he's in Heaven?”
“Then I would have seen him there.” Castiel looks at him. “No, Dean. Sam is on Earth. Sam is alive.”
The room spins. “I don't understand,” says Dean.
“Sam - ” begins Castiel, but Dean interrupts him.
“Pack my things. Duffel bag in the closet of the last door to the left of that hallwa - ”
Castiel nods, and Dean could swear he hears a thump coming from the direction of the car. “Done”
Dean starts patting himself for the Impala's keys. "Where did I - my keys, where?"
The keys jingle and Dean turns. Lisa's holding them out for him, looking sad but really not surprised at all. It makes Dean feel guilty, especially when she says, "Don’t do anything stupid."
Castiel is the one who answers. "I won't let him."
Lisa and Castiel barely saw each other once, will see again only a handful of times in passing for the rest of her life and nothing more, and still - Lisa believes him wholeheartedly.
Dean is still in a confused daze, in his head only the name of his brother repeated over and over; another part of his brain is making a list of aliases Sam could have used, places Sam could've gone, reasons Sam wouldn't tell him he's alive, the top reason being 'Sam isn't really Sam anymore', and he suddenly wants to retch.
Castiel puts a hand on the small of his back: he sneaks it under his clothes, touching the too-warm skin of Dean's back with his cool hand, and it grounds Dean enough to clear his head, straighten up, and nod to Castiel that he's okay to drive.
As he drives away, he realizes Lisa and Ben might've been standing on the door watching him go. He waves at them, too late: the street is dark with broken street lights and his foot on the accelerator is pressed firm as they head for South Dakota.
*
Three days later they find Sam in a motel in Custard, Montana, and the size of the little town makes Dean wonder about two things: why a town that's two blocks wide has a motel and just how did Castiel came to the sudden knowledge of where Sam was staying.
But everything is forgotten as soon as he crosses the motel room door and Castiel assures him this really is Sam and not something wearing his skin or anything like that. He launches himself into his brother's arms, drowning Sam’s attempts to explain why he hadn’t called Dean. Dean hugs Sam, not caring at all if Castiel will tilt his head or if Bobby will call him princess. Sam holds him back and says ‘Dean’ in a shaky voice so Dean really, really doesn't care about anything else: there’s something threatening to burst out of Dean’s very self, right from the place he’d felt empty all these months before, and Dean only holds on tighter.
When he finally lets Sam go and he turns around, Bobby isn’t mocking and Castiel isn’t acting confused, they’re relieved, and nothing else.
*
Dean visits Lisa the next day, apologizing for running off like that and never even saying goodbye. He tells her Sam is okay, recovering, and both he and Lisa try to think of a suitable story to tell Ben that isn’t ‘Dean had to leave because his brother came back from the dead’. When he starts trying to find suitable words to tell them what’s on his mind, he realizes Lisa and Ben already know he’s not coming back.
Ben makes him promise he’ll visit; Dean does and holds on to that promise like a sacred oath.
*
Two days later they’re back at Bobby’s house, and Dean can finally let Sam out of his sight and trust he will neither vanish nor suddenly become Lucifer. They’re slowly back to teasing each other, even a tiny prank war is starting, so Dean feels okay to leave Sam on his own to go find Castiel, hoping he hasn’t returned to Heaven.
He finds him still around, making sure things are right with Sam, and Dean is infinitely thankful for that. He’s outside, leaning against the Impala, looking up at the stars, with his hands stuck in the pockets of his trenchcoat, a soft placid smile on his face.
“He’s never slept this much in his whole life,” says Dean by way of greeting. “Not even when he was a baby and had cried all day for mom. Kept me awake all night, too.”
“He’s adapting to his body again,” says Castiel as Dean leans against the Impala besides him. “His body needs more rest than usual so his mind will get acclimated to being alive again, it’ll be gone in a few weeks more.”
Dean grins. “So… he’s jetlagged.”
Castiel turns to Dean, confused. “I don’t know what jetlagged means.”
“It’s - never mind,” says Dean. “I don’t remember sleeping this much when you brought me back, though.”
Castiel gives off a tiny smile. “I think my father and I seem to differ on opinions on how the process should be done.”
Dean thinks about it. “So, your Dad likes the body to adapt itself back to being alive, you… leave them cold turkey?”
Castiel grins in amusement. “Yes.”
Dean doesn’t beat about the bush. “How did you know where to find Sam?”
Castiel tears his eyes from the skies and simply says, “I found my Father.”
Dean’s eyes threaten to drop out of his sockets; he breaks into a cold sweat. “What?”
“I got... angry,” he says slowly. “When we learned Sam was somewhere around, alone and we had no way of finding him. I got angry." There was a 7.8 earthquake three miles north of Bobby's house the day before they found Sam. ‘Angry’, okay. "And he called me."
"God called you... on your cellphone?” Castiel nods, Dean snorts. “Man that's gotta be weirder that having an angel complain to you that he's running out of minutes. Did he tell you where Sam was?”
Castiel nods. “Yes. He said he brought Sam back - ‘consider it a gift for Dean’, he said - a few miles away from Lisa's house, and... I suppose Sam must have chosen not to let you know.”
Dean feels his blood boil and stands up as if to pace. “He could've - ”
Castiel turns to Dean. “No,” he says, and Dean reminds himself Castiel is an archangel now, and can read minds and all that weirdness again. “Dean, you both fought this battle for your freedom. For the freedom to stay human, for the freedom to say no and stay that way. You wanted Free Will, he gave it to you, and the decisions you make are only your responsibility. The good ones and the bad ones.”
Castiel drives the point home clearly. Dean is still angry and very much confused but he can’t really think of anything to object in what Castiel just said. Instead he says, “Then when he awakes I'm gonna have a few choice words with my brother about his latest decision making skills.”
Castiel nods. “That’s your prerogative.”
Dean leans back against the hood of the Impala besides Castiel, the night just a shade of chilly, the sky impossibly clear. “So, God. You found your Dad. What else did he say?”
Castiel doesn’t look at Dean. “That we are both idiots.”
Dean frowns. “What? Why?” Castiel turns to look at him and Dean doesn’t need to read minds to know what Castiel is currently thinking about silly humans and their everyday naivety.
Oh, that, he thinks and has flashes of jerking off an angel in the Sistine Chapel.
Dean clears his throat. “Yeah, well, I guess,” he smiles.
Castiel’s grin grows wider and says, “He finished the book series. He said he was tired of writing about 'long, soulful glances' and, uh, 'borderline eye fucking', I think were his words.”
Castiel saying 'fucking' stirs something in Dean's belly - or maybe lower; a second later he registers what Castiel said and turns sharply towards him. “You're kidding me,” he says.
Castiel turns to face Dean, leaving the night and Heaven behind. “Have you tried contacting Chuck lately?”
“Actually yes, a few days after everything went down. And a month later. He never answered.”
Castiel peers into Dean’s mind and can already see the confusion, the speculation and the oncoming headache later on, so he does the only thing he knows will shut off Dean’s brain.
If the first time was about raw want, need and sex, this time it isn’t. Not yet, anyway. Castiel kisses Dean softly, making sure to press on enough to shut off Dean’s brain but not enough that Dean will take him right there on the Impala’s hood in plain sight of Bobby’s house.
It doesn’t quite work, but at least the sex happens inside the car and not on top of it.
*
Later that day, Dean pokes his head inside Bobby’s library, finding Sam buried in a book Dean currently has no desire to find out the topic. He’s bent over it as if ready to pounce it, his big frame folded into a chair. Dean smiles at the sight, struggling to see the twenty-seven year old man and not the snot-nosed ten-year-old boy.
“Hey. I need to ask you something,” he says, coming into the room and shoving a book aside so he can sit on the armrest of a chair.
“Gonna yell at me again?” Sam says, even though they’ve already mended fences over the little ‘How the hell did you not tell me you were right outside Lisa’s house and never came in’ epic bitchfight of 2010.
“I just wanted to ask something,” says Dean and it’s a sign of seriousness that Dean waits till Sam is sitting down to hand him the beer in his hand and speak. “You made me promise to go to Lisa. Why?”
Sam sighs and runs a hand through his ridiculously long hair. “Dean, I wanted you… to have a chance, I guess. I know you dream of that normal life we never had, I know you think of Lisa that way, now is your chance.”
Dean nods, takes a swig of beer and says, “You wanted me happy.”
Sam shrugs. “As happy as you could be. I’m not an idiot, I know how codependent we are on each other.”
Dean concedes the point. Their relationship may be far from normal and healthy but at the very least they’re aware of it. “Truth is, I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” says Dean, pulling from a corner of the bottle label. “Don’t get me wrong, Lisa and Ben were amazing, but - I didn’t want to be there.”
Sam frowns at Dean. “Then why didn’t you leave?”
“You were dead, Sammy,” says Dean and Sam lowers his eyes to stare into his beer. “You were dead, in hell and not coming back. What else did I have with you dead and Cas up in heaven and Indiana Singer showing off his new legs by hunting everything big and bad that crossed his path?”
Sam grins at Bobby’s mention, but says, “Cas stayed in heaven all the time?”
“No, he visited.” He grins. “He showed me the Sistine Chapel.”
Sam’s eyes glint with envy. “He took you to the Vatican City?” Dean shakes his head, which makes Sam frown. “I don’t get it.”
“Cas is an archangel now. Remember Gabriel?” he says, and yeah, Dean doesn’t need to go on. Neither of them will be forgetting Gabriel any time soon.
Sam lets out a breath. “Jesus,” he says, awed at the idea of Castiel being an archangel. Archangel Castiel. It had a ring to it.
Dean nods. “Yeah.”
And that’s were Sam gets it. “You’re smiling,” he says.
Dean sobers up instantly, as if he was trying to shake sleep from his eyes. “‘m not,” he says, trying to tone down his face from ‘I Had Awesome Sex Last Night And You Didn’t’ back to normal, yet only managing ‘Really Well Fucked’.
Sam stares. “I really messed up making you promise to go to Lisa, didn’t I?”
Dean shrugs. “Not entirely. Down time was nice. And I hear Cas’ organizational skills in Heaven came really handy.”
Sam snorts. “Right,” he says, and takes a drink from his beer.
“By the way,” says Dean when Sam is drinking, “Chuck is Cas’ dad.”
Sam’s epic spittake will remain etched in Dean’s brain for years to come, long after Bobby’s yelling for ruining three of his books has faded away.
Dean smiles at Sam, open and happy, and wonders when the shit will hit the fan again, because that’s what his life is, different shit hitting different fans, and having to learn how to deal with it all.
But he’s currently feeling pretty damn okay, he has his favorite three people are alive and well and still feels the need to go out and kill big and bad things, so maybe, just maybe, he’ll turn out just fine.
Maybe.
***
Fin
***
A link: 360° view of the Sistine Chapel (takes a while to load, but so worth it for the poor saps like me who'll never be able to visit it XD)
Title: Long Black Cloud Coming Down
Author: moodymuse19
Rating: R, because Dean has a foul mouth ;)
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel
Warning(s): spoilers for 5x22.
Notes: I needed repair fic. Don't we all these days? Title taken from Knocking On Heaven’s Door.
Summary:
The first time Castiel visits him, Dean is drinking a large Scotch. He's also drinking on Castiel's second, third and fourth visit. You get the idea.
+++
The first time Castiel visits him, Dean is drinking a large Scotch. He's also drinking on Castiel's second, third and fourth visit. You get the idea.
Castiel arrives uninvited, and stays even when Dean says little to nothing. The first time Castiel visits Dean at Lisa's house - Lisa's, never Dean's, Castiel knows better than that - the only thing Dean says, rather awed, relieved and angry all at the same time, "I thought you'd gone for good."
Castiel‘s once ever-present head tilt seems to have returned hand in hand with his angel mojo. "Why would I leave you after everything that happened?"
Dean doesn't know what to say, which is a good thing, and takes a drink from his glass, which Castiel frowns at. Dean ignores the look and watches Castiel sit on the sofa besides him to watch House reruns.
Dean is tired of House, but these days he can’t watch a lot of things that are on TV. Dr. Sexy, corny medical ads, even game shows remind him of Sam too much, and now that he’s at Lisa’s, he has to remind himself porn is out of the question entirely. He likes House’s snark and it entertains him. Most of all, it doesn’t remind him of Sam, which is the main criteria these days for choosing what to watch on TV.
Castiel, of all things, gets hooked to the episode, mostly because he can’t read anyone’s mind to find out what happens and has to wait like every other person. If this had happened months before, Dean would’ve laughed at him. But Castiel is silent and doesn’t speak a mile a minute - like Ben - and doesn’t feel the need to fill every silence with conversation, like Lisa. For once, Dean is grateful for Castiel’s unnervingly silent company.
When Lisa gets home she frowns at the stranger in her living room, but Dean looks less dead than he has for the past two weeks, so she simply says hello and lets it slide.
Later, when Ben is doing homework and the stranger from the living room is long gone, Lisa asks, "So who was that?"
Dean takes a long time to answer, "Just someone I know", and the time he takes to reply completely invalidates the dismissive tone of his answer.
*
The second time Castiel visits, he stands between Dean and the TV, blocking the view.
Dean sighs. "What do you want, Cas?"
"I want to know why you've given up."
Dean doesn't answer and stares forward as if Castiel wasn’t blocking the TV. He takes a sip of the today’s alcoholic drink of choice and leaves the glass on the little table besides the sofa.
"I haven't," he says, and continues to stare at Castiel’s thighs as if they weren’t there.
Truthfully, Dean isn’t staring at Castiel’s thighs, he’s staring at his crotch, because that’s exactly what is at eye level with him. Honestly, it's not a bad view and it does more for him than that one and only awkward night with Lisa three days after he showed up at her doorstep. It should worry him that a socially impaired angel with a personal space invasion problem does more for him than beautiful, bendy, understanding Lisa.
But there are things in his life Dean can't change, and this is the one he's worried least about.
Castiel still doesn't move. "There are places we could go, research, find a way to bring safely Sam back."
Dean looks up: Castiel has a stubborn look all about him, much like he had when he announced he was going to look for his Father. It doesn’t deter Dean. "I promised Sam I wouldn't. I promised Sam this would be my life, he wanted a good life for me, and I'm having it."
Dean’s known Castiel for two years and he knows what to expect: confusing at the new, odd humans ways he keeps discovering whenever he spends time with Dean. Why humans do one thing when they want another, why humans are so damn odd.
But instead of confused, Castiel looks disappointed. "I made no promises," he says.
Dean stands up, and it's the first reaction of any kind that Castiel has seen from Dean in days. "Cas, he asked not to."
Castiel seems to grow a few inches under Dean's stare. "He asked you. I promised him nothing but keeping you safe," he says. "I'm not going to leave Sam down there with my brothers to suffer for an eternity when his rightful place is Heaven."
Dean rubs his face with his hand, feeling anger build up in him. "Cas, fuck."
Castiel takes a step closer to Dean. "You don't hold the monopoly on feelings for Sam. Bobby misses him, too. I miss him."
Dean sags, loses his drive, slumps back on the sofa’s arm rest. How can he battle someone willing to bring his brother back from hell because he misses him? "Shit."
"And if there's a safe way to bring him back, I'll find it." And with that he's gone.
Dean sighs, and while he doesn’t truly believe there’s a way to bring Sam back safely for all parties involved, he realizes that at the very least he believes in the drive behind Castiel’s words.
*
Castiel keeps visiting, usually whenever Lisa and Ben are not there. Little visits here and there until Dean is almost used to his appearing out of thin air again. Dean gets a job at an auto shop three blocks from Lisa’s house and eventually even his coworkers get used to seeing the guy in a trenchcoat around the place. For these times, though, Castiel is benevolent enough to walk in through the door.
Dean barely reacts at all, whether Castiel is helping him yank something rusty and completely stuck to a beat up old car or if Castiel is telling him how things in the hunting world are going - his old world, Dean muses as he wrestles with a stubborn screw of a Ford Crown Victoria that is in practically pristine condition and has been making him salivate for days on end.
Sometimes, Castiel tells him about the leads he’s following for finding something to get Sam out of hell. These times, Dean dives in under the car he’s working on and pretends not to listen, Sam’s voice in his head saying over and over again, ‘You got to promise not to try to bring me back’.
Ben gets home early one afternoon while Castiel is still in the house. Dean stiffens, grabs Castiel's arm, but it’s too late. Ben and Castiel have spotted each other and are already exchanging greetings - Ben a bit weirded out, Castiel rather stiffly; the meeting comes off as extremely normal and human, and Dean almost laughs. Almost.
But as Ben exchanges a few words with Dean, randomly excited about his day, Castiel tilts his head and frowns. "That boy will grow up to do great things," says Castiel once Ben's gone to ransack the kitchen.
Dean doesn't know if Castiel means Ben will be the next president, the next Einstein or the next messiah, but Castiel is grinning at him placidly and Dean is still holding his arm and discovers he doesn't care.
He knows he’d care and worry if Castiel had said Ben was in mortal danger, that he had some monster tailing him. Dean would worry, fight, protect. Lisa can count with him in that case.
It’s the only thing he’s ever known how to do well.
But he can’t sum up the strength to play dutiful dad to Ben, to be overjoyed that he got an A, that the summer camp he wanted to go to had a spot open for him, he doesn’t have the strength to run around with him. Dean doesn’t care.
It worries him, but Dean is an expert at denial, so he’s okay.
*
Dean shows proper human emotion for the first time when it's one month that Castiel started dropping by.
Dean has been changing a tail light of the Impala that some idiot smashed him, Castiel hovering close by watching. When Dean feels Castiel is about to disappear again, he stands up, grabs his arm and says "Cas."
Dean's tone of voice alone clues Castiel in that this isn’t something trite and irrelevant. "Yes, Dean?"
"If you find a way to bring Sam back... don't let it be at the expense of someone. You, me, Bobby, no one. No one's soul, no one's grace. As much as I’m…” He swallows, Castiel frowns at how difficult it is for Dean to get the words out. “I know Sam would rather stay in the pit that be topside and knowing he condemned one of us to take his place down under. And Sam would hate himself if anything happened to you because of him."
It's the most Dean has spoken to him in months. Castiel looks at where Dean is still holding on to him. He looks back up, looking decidedly less serious. "Sam wouldn’t. Of course."
Dean clears his throat and lets go of Castiel's arm. "Well, he wouldn't like it either," he says and goes back to work on the Impala.
The time for thoughtless or selfish sacrifices has ended, and Castiel wasn't planning on sacrificing himself, or Bobby, or anyone for Sam because he knows Sam would hate being alive while a friend of his died for him. He knows that much about Sam.
But it's still nice to hear all that coming from Dean.
*
On Castiel's eleventh visit Dean asks, "So what are you now?"
It's late June, it's hot, Dean is in a t-shirt, jeans and barefoot in Lisa's backyard, a soft breeze blowing over and the sun baking the Impala enough that the only one who can touch her without getting burns is Castiel.
Lisa is working, mostly because her work has a killer A/C, Ben is upstairs with a friend, both not moving from under the ceiling fan.
"I'm an archangel," says Castiel, leaning on the Impala as Dean sits on the grass and wishes Lisa’s house had a working an A/C.
Dean is about to say something when Castiel gets a weird glint in his eyes and suddenly they're not in the backyard anymore, they're not even in America. Dean stands up, bare feet not stepping on sun-warmed grass but rather on floor tiles, cold and worn soft from years of been walked on. Dean looks up to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Dean feels like falling to his knees. He doesn’t, because he's been through too much, but it's enough of a relief for him that he can still feel like this at all.
Dean turns to look at Castiel, who's looking at him as if the master work of art at the moment was Dean himself and not the Chapel. Dean doesn't look dead, at least not right now, and Castiel seems to sigh in relief at that.
"You could do the relocating thing before, Cas," says Dean, bending his neck at an impossible angle to look at the ceiling and snorting at the depiction of angels. "This is nothing."
Cas does grin now. "Dean, we're not actually in the Vatican City," he says.
Dean frowns at him. "Meaning?"
"We're still at Lisa Braeden's house. We’re still in her backyard."
Dean does look impressed now. "Jesus, you built all this?" says Dean, and his voices echoes in the gigantic room, the lights spills in through the high windows and whitens out details in the upper level of the place. "Like Gabriel with the TV shows?"
"Yes," he says, a hand touching the walls. "Although I believe reproducing the Sistine Chapel is a greater feat than reproducing a TV show set."
Dean looks amused. "Pride is a sin, Cas."
Cas looks amused. It’s a good look on him. "I'm still right," he says, and the Sistine Chapel dissolves into the average American backyard, with the baking sun, the car, garden tools strewn all about, a grill off in a corner. Dean feels oddly small and out of place.
"Wouldn't mind going back there sometime soon," says Dean.
Castiel nods. "I'll take that into account."
A pause. Then, "you're an archangel, Cas," he says, a bit awed but decidedly proud, and Dean smiles at Castiel for the first time in months.
They look at each other two seconds longer than they usually do - which is already ridiculously long by anyone else’s' standards. They're just starting to drift closer to each other when Ben screams from inside the house that the weather service is predicting hail storms for tonight, and he better park the car inside Lisa's garage and oh, could he bring up a couple of sodas?
Dean sighs.
*
Later that night, Dean gets his phone out and texts to Castiel: Sam would've loved that. He doubts phones work in heaven, he doubts God bothered to bring Cas back with his phone still working. But thinking Castiel won't receive the text is Dean's main reason to send it in the first place.
Barely a minute later, Castiel texts back: I will show it to him sometime.
*
Castiel knows better than to think Dean’s good mood from the Sistine Chapel visit was going to stick around for much longer; it’s gone entirely the next time Castiel drops by.
Dean’s had a bad day at work, a boy is bullying Ben, Lisa’s been sick and could lose her job, but the thing that puts Dean in the most foul of moods is that his current problems are so fucking mundane he has no idea what to do with them. It’s not like he wants all of hell on his ass again, but at least he’d know what to do then. This, now? He doesn’t. Threatening is his first response to everything: threaten the kid who’s making Ben’s life impossible, threaten Lisa’s boss, threaten his own boss for blaming him for ignorant, know-it-all clients.
Dean has to force himself to stop from reaching into the Impala’s trunk for a hunting knife. He has to force himself to just stop altogether, think, what normal people would do.
Or rather, what would Sam do?
He gives Ben the best advice he can, which isn’t much, and ultimately tells him there’s nothing wrong with both punching back and going to the principal, because kids these days are scarier than demons. He fakes a doctor’s note and sends it to Lisa’s boss (he goes a bit to the extreme and fakes the note so well Lisa’s boss gives her a full week at home to recover, with full pay.)
By the time night falls and both Lisa and Ben are asleep, Dean’s is well into his umpteenth beer of the day and torturing himself watching Sam’s favorites shows on TV, his mind going numb from the beer and the grief.
"You shouldn't drink so much," says a gravel voice behind him, and two fingers to his forehead sober him up instantly.
Dean is extremely pissed he’s sober, but instead he says, "Said by the only being in existence to ever drink Ellen Harvelle under the table."
"Under the - " says Castiel, frowning, and thinks better of asking for clarification of the expression. "I mean it, Dean. You should not drink in such large quantities.” Dean groans and takes a drink. “Dean, when I healed you in Stull Cemetery, I also healed two arteries that were starting to block."
Dean finishes the last of his beer and stands to throw the bottle away. Okay, that makes him slightly more apprehensive. “Blocked as in - ?”
Castiel follows him into the kitchen. “Your every meal consists of junk food and alcohol, even now, here. You will not live to 50 like this.”
The bottle makes a happy blink against the trash can. Dean snorts. “I'll be happy if I don't live past 32.”
Next thing Dean knows he's being slammed up against the kitchen wall, Castiel so furious his wings unfurl and become visible; they’re too big and impressive for Lisa’s small kitchen. His forearm is pressing up against Dean's throat, every inch of his body tense and pushing against Dean’s.
“You gonna beat me up again, Cas?" Dean heaves, voice thick. "Because this time I'm actually looking forward to it."
Any other angel would've taught Dean a lesson. Beat him to a bloody pulp, heal him and beat him again; ship him to Madagascar without a return ticket. Pain, learning, imposing respect.
Instead Castiel kisses Dean. He doesn’t know if he’s acting on his vessel’s leftover instincts or if it’s something deeper inside him, something common to even angels and humans alike, something only Dean stirs. It doesn’t matter why: he still kisses Dean as if he wanted to devour him whole, which is kind of what it currently looks like. It’s a tug he feels not just down there but also in him. He has to have this now, they both do, it’s no longer rational or thought out. They’ve reached a point of no return, there’s no going back even if they could, even if they wanted to.
Castiel smashes his mouth against Dean's, clearly not about love and tenderness but all about power, sex and raw want, a need that suddenly pours off them in waves and crashes up against the other.
It's a good thing Ben and Lisa are asleep.
It happens right against the wall, as soon as Castiel moves his arm from Dean's throat and relocates his hand to Dean’s butt, pulling their groins closer together. Dean removes trenchcoat and suit coat and he helps Castiel with the flies of their trousers; it's a jumble of limbs and wings, of jerking and blowing that's almost over too soon, too fast, but deliciously intense and just plain good.
When they're close to finishing, they're not in Lisa's kitchen but off in a corner of Castiel's Sistine Chapel, which flickers on and off as they both start reaching orgasm. Dean grins wide: an angel is debauching him in the Sistine chapel. Right under The Last Judgement too, near Hell. How very fitting for him.
Castiel kisses the grin off Dean, bites it off him and Dean retaliates with the same intensity, kissing him almost violently as Castiel comes all over his hand. Dean smiles into the kiss and swallows Castiel’s groan, mixing it with his own; they both slump to the ground in a mindless heap, tangled in each other with pants somewhere mid-tight, exhausted and panting, but feeling more alive than they have for months.
“This was a mistake,” says Dean, even as he has Castiel’s face inches away from his and is studying it to find a new angle to kiss all the angelic right off him.
“I know,” nods Castiel, who kisses Dean’s neck, exploring it, studying it.
Dean bends his neck to give Castiel more access. “We still should've done that months ago.”
Castiel nods in agreement and sucks on a spot that Dean reacts to particularly well. “Bobby thinks so too.”
Dean winces. “Don't talk about Bobby when I'm still thinking of fucking you right here and now.”
Castiel grins, kisses Dean once and straightens up. "Barachiel is calling me."
Dean groans. “Fucking Barachiel,” he says, sighing heavily, using one of his legs to bring Castiel closer to him in a vain attempt to bring them back together. “Who's Barachiel?”
Castiel pauses, as if listening to something. Which he probably is, muses Dean. “I leave her in charge when I'm gone,” he says absently, ignoring Dean’s raised eyebrow at Castiel ‘leaving someone in charge’ up in Heaven. Castiel looks at Dean. “She has a lead on a ritual for Sam's recovery.”
And reality comes crashing down. Dean struggles to remember his promise to Sam, and forces himself to not go with Castiel, to not bring Sam back or to at the very least not leave Lisa’s house in the middle of the night, because she deserves better than that. “Okay,” he nods.
As if on impulse, Dean kisses Castiel once, taking him by surprise. He can still taste himself all over Castiel’s mouth, the same as his hand is still warm and sticky from where Castiel came all over him; it all turns him on more than anything ever has. Castiel kisses back, a hand at the back of Dean’s head, his little finger teasing the skin at the back of the neck as they kiss as hungrily as if they hadn’t just come all over each other, as if they were getting ready for round two.
Eventually they stop kissing, and Castiel is gone far sooner than Dean would have wanted.
The next second, Dean is slumped up against the wall of the kitchen of Lisa's house, horny, alone, and he suddenly feels so out of place he goes sit in the Impala, looking at the stars and listening to Led Zeppelin for hours.
When he finally goes to bed, he grins when he realizes he had a six-pack in the fridge he completely forgot about.
*
Dean doesn’t see Castiel for the following two weeks, and Dean painfully realizes Castiel had become the only connection to the world he's known all his life. With Cas a no-show, the world could be ending again and he’d never know.
He starts seeing omens everywhere, and when he mentions this in passing to Lisa she rubs his back and tells him to let it go, because there aren’t demons literally everywhere he looks. Dean would like to say, yes there are, Lis, because he’s seen it. He’s seen the eyes of random people turn smoky black, he’s seen fathers and mothers slaughtered only because they were taken over by a demon.
Omens or not, he tells himself he can't go out and check them out because he made a promise, because Lisa needs help getting something from her basement and because Ben is starting to transition from Cool Rock Kid to Emo Boy even though he's only eleven years old.
He loves them both, but he really, really needs to go kill something.
One very early morning he grabs the Impala, checks that her trunk is still full of holy water, guns, salt and knives and skids out of the driveway towards a haunted house twenty miles north of Lisa's house.
The haunted house belongs to a family with three kids. The oldest is Ben's age, and they're being taken care of by an uncle and their elderly grandmother. Dean swallows, feeling right, feeling himself for the first time in months, but he ignores the feeling altogether, because he has Lisa to go back to now. He made a promise.
Dean grabs the first ID that will be useful and walks up the driveway.
Twelve hours later there are three ghosts gone and, in the local cemetery, there are three graves currently lit by fires that, for the first time in two years, don't remind Dean of hell. Sam isn't by his side, and that feels so wrong Dean wants to jump into the fire and stay there, but the first promise he made Sam was to not kill himself, even if it wasn’t fully worded. Bobby and Castiel also don't deserve to find him a burnt carcass, so he watches the fires extinguish themselves, waiting to finish the job and go back...
... home. For a split of a second of human absentmindedness, home is the motel room where Sam is waiting for him, it’s the Impala with Sam bitching inside it, or Bobby's with Sam buried in a book, but then he remembers home is now Lisa and her guest room and he suddenly wants to get into the Impala and never set foot in Indiana, ever again.
For the first time in two months, Dean considers breaking his promise to Sam. He considers it only, and nothing more; but it’s still a first step in a different direction. Whether it’s the right direction or not remains to be seen, but Dean suddenly feels a bit less boxed in.
Eventually he goes back to Lisa, feeling everything in his life is completely wrong, and that maybe as good as it will ever get.
*
Three days later he learns of a little girl showing signs of possession. By nightfall the girl is back with her family, safe and relatively sound, and Dean is back at Lisa’s. He has a bruise on his arm, which Dean claims he got from accidentally banging himself against the doorknob.
It’s a good thing he and Lisa didn’t work out from the beginning, or she’d have seen a very clearly defined bruise on his torso in the shape of a little girl’s hand, blue and angry as it barely started to fade away.
Four days after the little girl, Lisa catches him putting away knives in the Impala’s double trunk. He feels like he’s been caught cheating on her, which is a ridiculous notion considering what happened last at the ‘Sistine Chapel’, and all he says is, “demon took possession of a kindergarten teacher.”
Lisa nods and understands - she is a mother, after all - and tells him to lock the trunk right because Ben is too curious for his own good. Dean is left feeling uneasy, mostly because Lisa is a smart woman: Sam dies and Dean shows up at her doorstep. She might not be privy into everything, but she at least knows Dean’s not here out of choice.
*
Dean is stupidly relieved the next time Castiel drops by, but he's relieved only for a second; as he looks at Castiel's face he knows something is utterly, utterly wrong.
The fact that Castiel appeared during dinner on a weekday is a pretty big clue to it, too. Castiel has been visiting for weeks, months, and both Lisa and Ben glimpsed him in passing once, and not much more.
Dean touches Lisa's arm in a silent 'it's okay, he's a friend and not something after your son' and instantly stands up and goes to Castiel, who's leaning against a chair and looking like he's wracking his brains about something. "What happened?"
“Barachiel and I worked out a way to bring Sam back and not let Michael or Lucifer loose.”
Lisa lets out a tiny gasp; Ben looks more interested in Castiel himself than the names pouring out of his mouth.
Dean nods. “Okay,” he says, and he’s having a very, very hard time not running off to -
Castiel shakes his head. “I already performed the ritual. It didn't work.”
Dean moves them further into the living room, leaning both of them up against the sturdy, reliable sofa. "What do you mean it didn't work? It wasn't the right ritual?"
Castiel sighs. “I misspoke. The ritual worked fine. There was simply no Sam to retrieve from hell.”
Something sparks in Dean’s chest. “What, he's in Heaven?”
“Then I would have seen him there.” Castiel looks at him. “No, Dean. Sam is on Earth. Sam is alive.”
The room spins. “I don't understand,” says Dean.
“Sam - ” begins Castiel, but Dean interrupts him.
“Pack my things. Duffel bag in the closet of the last door to the left of that hallwa - ”
Castiel nods, and Dean could swear he hears a thump coming from the direction of the car. “Done”
Dean starts patting himself for the Impala's keys. "Where did I - my keys, where?"
The keys jingle and Dean turns. Lisa's holding them out for him, looking sad but really not surprised at all. It makes Dean feel guilty, especially when she says, "Don’t do anything stupid."
Castiel is the one who answers. "I won't let him."
Lisa and Castiel barely saw each other once, will see again only a handful of times in passing for the rest of her life and nothing more, and still - Lisa believes him wholeheartedly.
Dean is still in a confused daze, in his head only the name of his brother repeated over and over; another part of his brain is making a list of aliases Sam could have used, places Sam could've gone, reasons Sam wouldn't tell him he's alive, the top reason being 'Sam isn't really Sam anymore', and he suddenly wants to retch.
Castiel puts a hand on the small of his back: he sneaks it under his clothes, touching the too-warm skin of Dean's back with his cool hand, and it grounds Dean enough to clear his head, straighten up, and nod to Castiel that he's okay to drive.
As he drives away, he realizes Lisa and Ben might've been standing on the door watching him go. He waves at them, too late: the street is dark with broken street lights and his foot on the accelerator is pressed firm as they head for South Dakota.
*
Three days later they find Sam in a motel in Custard, Montana, and the size of the little town makes Dean wonder about two things: why a town that's two blocks wide has a motel and just how did Castiel came to the sudden knowledge of where Sam was staying.
But everything is forgotten as soon as he crosses the motel room door and Castiel assures him this really is Sam and not something wearing his skin or anything like that. He launches himself into his brother's arms, drowning Sam’s attempts to explain why he hadn’t called Dean. Dean hugs Sam, not caring at all if Castiel will tilt his head or if Bobby will call him princess. Sam holds him back and says ‘Dean’ in a shaky voice so Dean really, really doesn't care about anything else: there’s something threatening to burst out of Dean’s very self, right from the place he’d felt empty all these months before, and Dean only holds on tighter.
When he finally lets Sam go and he turns around, Bobby isn’t mocking and Castiel isn’t acting confused, they’re relieved, and nothing else.
*
Dean visits Lisa the next day, apologizing for running off like that and never even saying goodbye. He tells her Sam is okay, recovering, and both he and Lisa try to think of a suitable story to tell Ben that isn’t ‘Dean had to leave because his brother came back from the dead’. When he starts trying to find suitable words to tell them what’s on his mind, he realizes Lisa and Ben already know he’s not coming back.
Ben makes him promise he’ll visit; Dean does and holds on to that promise like a sacred oath.
*
Two days later they’re back at Bobby’s house, and Dean can finally let Sam out of his sight and trust he will neither vanish nor suddenly become Lucifer. They’re slowly back to teasing each other, even a tiny prank war is starting, so Dean feels okay to leave Sam on his own to go find Castiel, hoping he hasn’t returned to Heaven.
He finds him still around, making sure things are right with Sam, and Dean is infinitely thankful for that. He’s outside, leaning against the Impala, looking up at the stars, with his hands stuck in the pockets of his trenchcoat, a soft placid smile on his face.
“He’s never slept this much in his whole life,” says Dean by way of greeting. “Not even when he was a baby and had cried all day for mom. Kept me awake all night, too.”
“He’s adapting to his body again,” says Castiel as Dean leans against the Impala besides him. “His body needs more rest than usual so his mind will get acclimated to being alive again, it’ll be gone in a few weeks more.”
Dean grins. “So… he’s jetlagged.”
Castiel turns to Dean, confused. “I don’t know what jetlagged means.”
“It’s - never mind,” says Dean. “I don’t remember sleeping this much when you brought me back, though.”
Castiel gives off a tiny smile. “I think my father and I seem to differ on opinions on how the process should be done.”
Dean thinks about it. “So, your Dad likes the body to adapt itself back to being alive, you… leave them cold turkey?”
Castiel grins in amusement. “Yes.”
Dean doesn’t beat about the bush. “How did you know where to find Sam?”
Castiel tears his eyes from the skies and simply says, “I found my Father.”
Dean’s eyes threaten to drop out of his sockets; he breaks into a cold sweat. “What?”
“I got... angry,” he says slowly. “When we learned Sam was somewhere around, alone and we had no way of finding him. I got angry." There was a 7.8 earthquake three miles north of Bobby's house the day before they found Sam. ‘Angry’, okay. "And he called me."
"God called you... on your cellphone?” Castiel nods, Dean snorts. “Man that's gotta be weirder that having an angel complain to you that he's running out of minutes. Did he tell you where Sam was?”
Castiel nods. “Yes. He said he brought Sam back - ‘consider it a gift for Dean’, he said - a few miles away from Lisa's house, and... I suppose Sam must have chosen not to let you know.”
Dean feels his blood boil and stands up as if to pace. “He could've - ”
Castiel turns to Dean. “No,” he says, and Dean reminds himself Castiel is an archangel now, and can read minds and all that weirdness again. “Dean, you both fought this battle for your freedom. For the freedom to stay human, for the freedom to say no and stay that way. You wanted Free Will, he gave it to you, and the decisions you make are only your responsibility. The good ones and the bad ones.”
Castiel drives the point home clearly. Dean is still angry and very much confused but he can’t really think of anything to object in what Castiel just said. Instead he says, “Then when he awakes I'm gonna have a few choice words with my brother about his latest decision making skills.”
Castiel nods. “That’s your prerogative.”
Dean leans back against the hood of the Impala besides Castiel, the night just a shade of chilly, the sky impossibly clear. “So, God. You found your Dad. What else did he say?”
Castiel doesn’t look at Dean. “That we are both idiots.”
Dean frowns. “What? Why?” Castiel turns to look at him and Dean doesn’t need to read minds to know what Castiel is currently thinking about silly humans and their everyday naivety.
Oh, that, he thinks and has flashes of jerking off an angel in the Sistine Chapel.
Dean clears his throat. “Yeah, well, I guess,” he smiles.
Castiel’s grin grows wider and says, “He finished the book series. He said he was tired of writing about 'long, soulful glances' and, uh, 'borderline eye fucking', I think were his words.”
Castiel saying 'fucking' stirs something in Dean's belly - or maybe lower; a second later he registers what Castiel said and turns sharply towards him. “You're kidding me,” he says.
Castiel turns to face Dean, leaving the night and Heaven behind. “Have you tried contacting Chuck lately?”
“Actually yes, a few days after everything went down. And a month later. He never answered.”
Castiel peers into Dean’s mind and can already see the confusion, the speculation and the oncoming headache later on, so he does the only thing he knows will shut off Dean’s brain.
If the first time was about raw want, need and sex, this time it isn’t. Not yet, anyway. Castiel kisses Dean softly, making sure to press on enough to shut off Dean’s brain but not enough that Dean will take him right there on the Impala’s hood in plain sight of Bobby’s house.
It doesn’t quite work, but at least the sex happens inside the car and not on top of it.
*
Later that day, Dean pokes his head inside Bobby’s library, finding Sam buried in a book Dean currently has no desire to find out the topic. He’s bent over it as if ready to pounce it, his big frame folded into a chair. Dean smiles at the sight, struggling to see the twenty-seven year old man and not the snot-nosed ten-year-old boy.
“Hey. I need to ask you something,” he says, coming into the room and shoving a book aside so he can sit on the armrest of a chair.
“Gonna yell at me again?” Sam says, even though they’ve already mended fences over the little ‘How the hell did you not tell me you were right outside Lisa’s house and never came in’ epic bitchfight of 2010.
“I just wanted to ask something,” says Dean and it’s a sign of seriousness that Dean waits till Sam is sitting down to hand him the beer in his hand and speak. “You made me promise to go to Lisa. Why?”
Sam sighs and runs a hand through his ridiculously long hair. “Dean, I wanted you… to have a chance, I guess. I know you dream of that normal life we never had, I know you think of Lisa that way, now is your chance.”
Dean nods, takes a swig of beer and says, “You wanted me happy.”
Sam shrugs. “As happy as you could be. I’m not an idiot, I know how codependent we are on each other.”
Dean concedes the point. Their relationship may be far from normal and healthy but at the very least they’re aware of it. “Truth is, I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” says Dean, pulling from a corner of the bottle label. “Don’t get me wrong, Lisa and Ben were amazing, but - I didn’t want to be there.”
Sam frowns at Dean. “Then why didn’t you leave?”
“You were dead, Sammy,” says Dean and Sam lowers his eyes to stare into his beer. “You were dead, in hell and not coming back. What else did I have with you dead and Cas up in heaven and Indiana Singer showing off his new legs by hunting everything big and bad that crossed his path?”
Sam grins at Bobby’s mention, but says, “Cas stayed in heaven all the time?”
“No, he visited.” He grins. “He showed me the Sistine Chapel.”
Sam’s eyes glint with envy. “He took you to the Vatican City?” Dean shakes his head, which makes Sam frown. “I don’t get it.”
“Cas is an archangel now. Remember Gabriel?” he says, and yeah, Dean doesn’t need to go on. Neither of them will be forgetting Gabriel any time soon.
Sam lets out a breath. “Jesus,” he says, awed at the idea of Castiel being an archangel. Archangel Castiel. It had a ring to it.
Dean nods. “Yeah.”
And that’s were Sam gets it. “You’re smiling,” he says.
Dean sobers up instantly, as if he was trying to shake sleep from his eyes. “‘m not,” he says, trying to tone down his face from ‘I Had Awesome Sex Last Night And You Didn’t’ back to normal, yet only managing ‘Really Well Fucked’.
Sam stares. “I really messed up making you promise to go to Lisa, didn’t I?”
Dean shrugs. “Not entirely. Down time was nice. And I hear Cas’ organizational skills in Heaven came really handy.”
Sam snorts. “Right,” he says, and takes a drink from his beer.
“By the way,” says Dean when Sam is drinking, “Chuck is Cas’ dad.”
Sam’s epic spittake will remain etched in Dean’s brain for years to come, long after Bobby’s yelling for ruining three of his books has faded away.
Dean smiles at Sam, open and happy, and wonders when the shit will hit the fan again, because that’s what his life is, different shit hitting different fans, and having to learn how to deal with it all.
But he’s currently feeling pretty damn okay, he has his favorite three people are alive and well and still feels the need to go out and kill big and bad things, so maybe, just maybe, he’ll turn out just fine.
Maybe.
***
Fin
***
A link: 360° view of the Sistine Chapel (takes a while to load, but so worth it for the poor saps like me who'll never be able to visit it XD)