The Sensual World - c
Sometimes I know I become
All that's weak in a man, and weak in a boy.
But I keep trying and I won't quit,
And that must be worth something more
Than a strong man who believes
That there's nothing left to try for.
Josh Pyke - Lines on Palms
Sam doesn’t survive The Trials that closed the gates of Hell. As remotely impossible as it seemed, Dean had clung to the hope that Kevin Tran, Prophet of the Lord and Castiel, evermore depressed former angel of the Lord, would be proven wrong.
They weren’t.
As if to cement the reality of Sam’s death, Crowley withered and died upon attaining purification. One minute he was a dazed and confused mortal and the next, age caught up with him and that was that. Now there was just an Armani clad skeleton slumped in the chair.
Dean didn’t move for three days. Then his body woke up and demanded attention. The first thing it told him was that his brother stank. Which told him Sam was dead. Again. The difference being he wasn’t coming back.
His body also told him it was thirsty and hungry. It probably didn’t think whiskey and a side order of beef jerky constituted thirst quenched and body nourishment but Dean’s brain told it to fuck off and die if it didn’t like it. After that body and mind got over themselves and helped Dean deal with the practicalities of Sam’s death.
Dean salted and burned the remains of Fergus McCloud aka The King of Crossroads Demons-cum-King of Hell, Crowley.
Then he got the old blanket from the boot of the Impala, lay Sam’s body upon it, crossed his arms over his chest (breaking them in the process because, well, rigermortis waits for no-one) together with his favourite weapon, his laptop and the only photo of John, Sam and Dean standing together Dean had left.
Dean salted his brothers body, wrapped it cocoon style in the blanket and the drove to Lawrence, Kansas where he dug a new grave over his mother’s and again salted then burnt his brother in the time honoured fashion of a hunter.
Then Dean Winchester gave up. Missouri found him catatonic beside Mary and Sam’s shared grave. The cemetery guard had found him and knowing the family history called Missouri. The Lord moves in mysterious ways as she waited for the guard to finish closing the grave. Together they put Dean in the back of the Impala. Missouri rode shotgun and the guard drove. Neither spoke. They just headed back to Missouri’s house.
Later that evening, after they’d wrestled Dean out of his filthy clothes, showered and changed him and put him to bed, and after the guard had left. Missouri felt Sam’s presence in the living room.
“You can’t stay Sam. You know that.” She said aloud. There was no reply. Then the curtains shifted a little and the room chilled. A ghostly vision of Sam appeared, young, just as she remembered him.
“I’m not going to. He doesn’t need me and I don’t need him any longer. Just, just tell him to ring Garth. When he wants to know the answer tell him to ring Garth.” Sam’s voice echoed about the room.
“Ring Garth, got it. Anything else?” Missouri asked writing the message down so she wouldn’t forget.
“You should angel proof your house Missouri, Metatron tricked Castiel and closed the gates of Heaven. The angels have all fallen. They’ll be pissed, blame Cas and try to hurt anyone remotely connected with him or Dean.” Sam’s voice sounded more focused.
“Sam.stop it! Right this minute!” Missouri rebuffed.
“Sorry,” his voice once again echoing around the room.
“I know sugar, I know. I know what’s happened to heaven’s angelic host and I appreciate your concern, but those poor souls are hurtin’ and I won’t turn them away if they find their way to this door.” Missouri said with a smile.
“I know. Goodbye, Missouri” Sam said and then both his voice and apparition vanished, leaving the room dark. Missouri knew he’d watch over Dean until dawn. Then the spirit of Sam Winchester would return to its rightful home. Heaven. More than that, even her sight couldn’t foresee.
***
Dean slept for a week. He woke up just long enough to use the bathroom, get a drink (mostly alcoholic) and return to bed. His sleep was full of dreams about Sam. The too few good times. The too many bad times and the whole ugliness of the pre and post-apocalyptic years. They fought a lot these dreams. All the words that should have been spoken when Sam was alive, Dean yelled, joked and whispered to him in his dreamscape.
On the morning of the eighth day, Dean woke up. Stumbling into Missouri’s bathroom he nearly gave himself a heart attack when confronted with his mirror image.
“Don’t you be cussin’ in my house!” Missouri’s voice hollered from downstairs. Dean smiled weakly then turned on the shower. Hot Water, he needed lots of hot water and soap that lathered and shampoo that wasn’t plus 95% paint stripper. He could do with a shave and some serious teeth brushwork but it was all doable.
Half an hour later Dean sat at the kitchen table eating a proper breakfast for the first time in, what? Forever. Hash browns, eggs and bacon, toast, orange juice and newly brewed coffee, Dean felt he might just be in heaven.
Thoughts of Sam overwhelmed him for a moment and he choked on a mouthful of toast. Missouri thumped him hard between the shoulder blades and after a few noisy gasps he gave her the thumbs up and drank some juice.
She sat opposite him and spoke as he continued eating. “Sam’s fine. You know that Dean. When the time is right, you’ll see him again. You know this also. He did leave a message. He said when you want to know the answer to ring Garth.”
Dean said nothing until he’d finished eating. “Thanks for breakfast, Missouri. That’s all Sam said? To ring Garth?”
“When you want to know the answer, yes dear, that’s all he said.” Missouri spoke gently, watching Dean’s every move, seen and unseen. Lord, Oh Lord, give this boy some of your strength, help him see there’s more to life than serving the dead’s memory.
“Don’t suppose he gave you the question?” Dean asked after an awkward silence.
“No. I do know that it won’t be about hunting supernatural.” Missouri said with a smile.
“Great. Even dead he’s a bitch.” Dean snapped automatically, then remembered where he was and blushed. Missouri laughed loudly and after a while Dean smiled. Baby steps, that’s it sugar, take baby steps.
***
In the end, Dean stayed a month. During which time he helped Missouri around the house and garden. Actually that was wrong, Missouri made him help in lieu of rent or kicking his miserable butt out on the street. Dean found he didn’t mind.
For one thing, Missouri knew where every bottle of stashed booze was hidden which forced sobriety upon Dean. At first he bitched long and loud about it, until Missouri got mad and placed a loaded gun upon the kitchen table and asked him where he thought he’d end up if he killed himself because that’s what he’d be doing drinking away his grief.
Dean sat looking at that gun for a long time and the voice of another echoed in his mind.
Dean, I... When I was... bad... and I had all those things - the... the leviathans... writhing inside me... I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I - I - I can't go back…Because if I see what Heaven's become - what I -what I made of it... I'm afraid I might kill myself.
Castiel and suicide, two words that don’t belong in the same thought. Dean didn’t quite know how but thinking about Castiel was like a slap in the face. So he unloaded the gun, got up and went to ask Missouri what he could do to help her.
When he’d fixed everything he could around her house and re-acquainted himself with neighbours from long ago, Dean knew it was time to leave. Lawrence would always be his home town but it wasn’t home. A car and an underground bunker in the middle of nowhere was home. And it was time he got back to them both.
The Impala purred with contentment as Dean headed out of Lawrence towards Sioux Falls. He’d been able to use the garage John Winchester had once worked in and the owner was almost as good as Bobby had been at sourcing parts for ‘classic automobiles’.
It seemed only natural to drive over to what remained of Singer Salvage.
***
Bobby’s place looks different. Dean can’t put his finger on what exactly is wrong but as he drives past the burnt remains of the house and parks in the back garage he knows something isn’t right. So he walks the perimeter, touches up a ward here and there, resets the devils trap he and Sam caught Crowley in and heads back to the garage. It isn’t until he’s leaning against the car, beer in hand from the icebox that he figures out what’s wrong. He can see.
Weeds should be thigh high and nature starting to reclaim the place and while there are weeds and seedlings sprouting, the place is pretty well kept. Drought aside Dean thinks Jodi might be keeping an eye out for Bobby. He knows they were pretty tight, the way Bobby and Rufus were. Friends then enemies depending upon how much Bobby had pissed off the Sheriff.
He looked around the garage again and noticed somebody, Jodi probably, had locked away the tools. Nothing a picklock couldn’t fix and memories flooded his mind touching the tools. Thousands of conversations, mostly the silent kind, where all that was needed was a nod or tilt of the head and perhaps a grunt to convey what five minutes talking would.
Sam, Bobby and Dean had perfected the art of silent conversations and until Castiel appeared in his life, Dean had thought only the three of them knew the solace such conversations could give in times of great despair.
He’d complained loudly about Castiel’s lack of personal space but the truth was that it didn’t bother him quite so much as the way he felt around Castiel’s silent watching. Comfortable. You shouldn’t feel comfortable around a guy whose idea of privacy was to move back a step and continue staring at you, listening intensely to all you said and still missing the point.
A small box caught Dean’s eye and he opened it. There was a business card inside, wrapped in plastic. Dean unwrapped it and read the name and number of a law firm in Sioux City. He turned over and found a terse message from Bobby written on it.
Boys, this idjit’ll take care of everything - remind the bastard he owes me - strongly, Bobby. It wasn’t dated but Dean would bet his life Bobby had been in contact with, Jonas Worthy, sometime after Edgar the Leviathan had burnt his house down. With nothing else to do Dean decided he might as well keep heading south. Maybe he’d call Jodi, maybe he wouldn’t. There wasn’t anything for him here.
***
continued - d
All that's weak in a man, and weak in a boy.
But I keep trying and I won't quit,
And that must be worth something more
Than a strong man who believes
That there's nothing left to try for.
Josh Pyke - Lines on Palms
Sam doesn’t survive The Trials that closed the gates of Hell. As remotely impossible as it seemed, Dean had clung to the hope that Kevin Tran, Prophet of the Lord and Castiel, evermore depressed former angel of the Lord, would be proven wrong.
They weren’t.
As if to cement the reality of Sam’s death, Crowley withered and died upon attaining purification. One minute he was a dazed and confused mortal and the next, age caught up with him and that was that. Now there was just an Armani clad skeleton slumped in the chair.
Dean didn’t move for three days. Then his body woke up and demanded attention. The first thing it told him was that his brother stank. Which told him Sam was dead. Again. The difference being he wasn’t coming back.
His body also told him it was thirsty and hungry. It probably didn’t think whiskey and a side order of beef jerky constituted thirst quenched and body nourishment but Dean’s brain told it to fuck off and die if it didn’t like it. After that body and mind got over themselves and helped Dean deal with the practicalities of Sam’s death.
Dean salted and burned the remains of Fergus McCloud aka The King of Crossroads Demons-cum-King of Hell, Crowley.
Then he got the old blanket from the boot of the Impala, lay Sam’s body upon it, crossed his arms over his chest (breaking them in the process because, well, rigermortis waits for no-one) together with his favourite weapon, his laptop and the only photo of John, Sam and Dean standing together Dean had left.
Dean salted his brothers body, wrapped it cocoon style in the blanket and the drove to Lawrence, Kansas where he dug a new grave over his mother’s and again salted then burnt his brother in the time honoured fashion of a hunter.
Then Dean Winchester gave up. Missouri found him catatonic beside Mary and Sam’s shared grave. The cemetery guard had found him and knowing the family history called Missouri. The Lord moves in mysterious ways as she waited for the guard to finish closing the grave. Together they put Dean in the back of the Impala. Missouri rode shotgun and the guard drove. Neither spoke. They just headed back to Missouri’s house.
Later that evening, after they’d wrestled Dean out of his filthy clothes, showered and changed him and put him to bed, and after the guard had left. Missouri felt Sam’s presence in the living room.
“You can’t stay Sam. You know that.” She said aloud. There was no reply. Then the curtains shifted a little and the room chilled. A ghostly vision of Sam appeared, young, just as she remembered him.
“I’m not going to. He doesn’t need me and I don’t need him any longer. Just, just tell him to ring Garth. When he wants to know the answer tell him to ring Garth.” Sam’s voice echoed about the room.
“Ring Garth, got it. Anything else?” Missouri asked writing the message down so she wouldn’t forget.
“You should angel proof your house Missouri, Metatron tricked Castiel and closed the gates of Heaven. The angels have all fallen. They’ll be pissed, blame Cas and try to hurt anyone remotely connected with him or Dean.” Sam’s voice sounded more focused.
“Sam.stop it! Right this minute!” Missouri rebuffed.
“Sorry,” his voice once again echoing around the room.
“I know sugar, I know. I know what’s happened to heaven’s angelic host and I appreciate your concern, but those poor souls are hurtin’ and I won’t turn them away if they find their way to this door.” Missouri said with a smile.
“I know. Goodbye, Missouri” Sam said and then both his voice and apparition vanished, leaving the room dark. Missouri knew he’d watch over Dean until dawn. Then the spirit of Sam Winchester would return to its rightful home. Heaven. More than that, even her sight couldn’t foresee.
***
Dean slept for a week. He woke up just long enough to use the bathroom, get a drink (mostly alcoholic) and return to bed. His sleep was full of dreams about Sam. The too few good times. The too many bad times and the whole ugliness of the pre and post-apocalyptic years. They fought a lot these dreams. All the words that should have been spoken when Sam was alive, Dean yelled, joked and whispered to him in his dreamscape.
On the morning of the eighth day, Dean woke up. Stumbling into Missouri’s bathroom he nearly gave himself a heart attack when confronted with his mirror image.
“Don’t you be cussin’ in my house!” Missouri’s voice hollered from downstairs. Dean smiled weakly then turned on the shower. Hot Water, he needed lots of hot water and soap that lathered and shampoo that wasn’t plus 95% paint stripper. He could do with a shave and some serious teeth brushwork but it was all doable.
Half an hour later Dean sat at the kitchen table eating a proper breakfast for the first time in, what? Forever. Hash browns, eggs and bacon, toast, orange juice and newly brewed coffee, Dean felt he might just be in heaven.
Thoughts of Sam overwhelmed him for a moment and he choked on a mouthful of toast. Missouri thumped him hard between the shoulder blades and after a few noisy gasps he gave her the thumbs up and drank some juice.
She sat opposite him and spoke as he continued eating. “Sam’s fine. You know that Dean. When the time is right, you’ll see him again. You know this also. He did leave a message. He said when you want to know the answer to ring Garth.”
Dean said nothing until he’d finished eating. “Thanks for breakfast, Missouri. That’s all Sam said? To ring Garth?”
“When you want to know the answer, yes dear, that’s all he said.” Missouri spoke gently, watching Dean’s every move, seen and unseen. Lord, Oh Lord, give this boy some of your strength, help him see there’s more to life than serving the dead’s memory.
“Don’t suppose he gave you the question?” Dean asked after an awkward silence.
“No. I do know that it won’t be about hunting supernatural.” Missouri said with a smile.
“Great. Even dead he’s a bitch.” Dean snapped automatically, then remembered where he was and blushed. Missouri laughed loudly and after a while Dean smiled. Baby steps, that’s it sugar, take baby steps.
***
In the end, Dean stayed a month. During which time he helped Missouri around the house and garden. Actually that was wrong, Missouri made him help in lieu of rent or kicking his miserable butt out on the street. Dean found he didn’t mind.
For one thing, Missouri knew where every bottle of stashed booze was hidden which forced sobriety upon Dean. At first he bitched long and loud about it, until Missouri got mad and placed a loaded gun upon the kitchen table and asked him where he thought he’d end up if he killed himself because that’s what he’d be doing drinking away his grief.
Dean sat looking at that gun for a long time and the voice of another echoed in his mind.
Dean, I... When I was... bad... and I had all those things - the... the leviathans... writhing inside me... I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I - I - I can't go back…Because if I see what Heaven's become - what I -what I made of it... I'm afraid I might kill myself.
Castiel and suicide, two words that don’t belong in the same thought. Dean didn’t quite know how but thinking about Castiel was like a slap in the face. So he unloaded the gun, got up and went to ask Missouri what he could do to help her.
When he’d fixed everything he could around her house and re-acquainted himself with neighbours from long ago, Dean knew it was time to leave. Lawrence would always be his home town but it wasn’t home. A car and an underground bunker in the middle of nowhere was home. And it was time he got back to them both.
The Impala purred with contentment as Dean headed out of Lawrence towards Sioux Falls. He’d been able to use the garage John Winchester had once worked in and the owner was almost as good as Bobby had been at sourcing parts for ‘classic automobiles’.
It seemed only natural to drive over to what remained of Singer Salvage.
***
Bobby’s place looks different. Dean can’t put his finger on what exactly is wrong but as he drives past the burnt remains of the house and parks in the back garage he knows something isn’t right. So he walks the perimeter, touches up a ward here and there, resets the devils trap he and Sam caught Crowley in and heads back to the garage. It isn’t until he’s leaning against the car, beer in hand from the icebox that he figures out what’s wrong. He can see.
Weeds should be thigh high and nature starting to reclaim the place and while there are weeds and seedlings sprouting, the place is pretty well kept. Drought aside Dean thinks Jodi might be keeping an eye out for Bobby. He knows they were pretty tight, the way Bobby and Rufus were. Friends then enemies depending upon how much Bobby had pissed off the Sheriff.
He looked around the garage again and noticed somebody, Jodi probably, had locked away the tools. Nothing a picklock couldn’t fix and memories flooded his mind touching the tools. Thousands of conversations, mostly the silent kind, where all that was needed was a nod or tilt of the head and perhaps a grunt to convey what five minutes talking would.
Sam, Bobby and Dean had perfected the art of silent conversations and until Castiel appeared in his life, Dean had thought only the three of them knew the solace such conversations could give in times of great despair.
He’d complained loudly about Castiel’s lack of personal space but the truth was that it didn’t bother him quite so much as the way he felt around Castiel’s silent watching. Comfortable. You shouldn’t feel comfortable around a guy whose idea of privacy was to move back a step and continue staring at you, listening intensely to all you said and still missing the point.
A small box caught Dean’s eye and he opened it. There was a business card inside, wrapped in plastic. Dean unwrapped it and read the name and number of a law firm in Sioux City. He turned over and found a terse message from Bobby written on it.
Boys, this idjit’ll take care of everything - remind the bastard he owes me - strongly, Bobby. It wasn’t dated but Dean would bet his life Bobby had been in contact with, Jonas Worthy, sometime after Edgar the Leviathan had burnt his house down. With nothing else to do Dean decided he might as well keep heading south. Maybe he’d call Jodi, maybe he wouldn’t. There wasn’t anything for him here.
***
continued - d