Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here - for guardiancastiel
Title: Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here
Author/Artist: thunder_nari
Recipient: guardiancastiel
Pairing: Dean/Jimmy Novak, Castiel/Jimmy Novak, Dean/Lisa
Rating: R
Warnings: um...sex with a ghost?
Summary: Dean thinks a lot about the good old days. Werewolves and ghouls and vengeful spirits. Ghosts, he really misses ghosts. So it's really kind of funny that he doesn't notice when there's one right there, wandering around Lisa's house and helping out.
Notes: I may have taken a bit of liberty with the prompts. I don't even know but I hope it works. So, loosely inspired by the prompts - "I'm still living with your ghost" - Santa Monica: Everclear (but really just the title...), thrown in with a sort of dark tone and a bit of hand holding.
Thanks to puchuupoet for the beta.
Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here
**
It takes awhile before Dean really notices that anything is off.
He's been living this apple pie life for a little over six months and it's not amazing but it's not horrible. He and Lisa get along but they get along like best friends. Best friends with sex benefits because Dean sleeps in the spare room. They tried to share at first but Lisa's not so good at putting up with Dean's constant restless nights. Where he spends the night startling awake from nightmares or he just can't sleep at all and constantly gets out of bed and back in. Or even where he sleeps perfectly but he's so unused to another person beside him that when she moves, he nearly attacks her he gets so startled.
So sharing a bed doesn't work and it's a quick drift to 'best friends' after that. It's cool. He adores Ben. He gets a job working cars down at a garage and he pays Lisa rent and helps out with things like groceries and broken drawers or loose hand railings. Occasionally he gets no strings attached sex and Dean thinks he has a pretty sweet set up.
As long as he doesn't think too hard about things like Sam. About how there's something missing in his life and that thing is his brother, sure, but there are other things as well. The feel of a gun grip in his hand, a knife hilt. A crowbar. Anything. It's sleeping with a hunting blade under his pillow and days on the road. A certain angel and his surrogate father.
Dean still takes the Impala out for day trips sometimes. He calls Bobby to talk at length over the phone. Cas discovers internet communication via Ash, gets Heaven set up, and they trade emails back and forth when Cas isn't busy looking after his family.
Dean thinks a lot about the good old days. Ghost hunts with his brother. Werewolves and ghouls and vengeful spirits. Fuck, he really misses ghosts and that's the stupidest notion he's ever had but there it is.
So it's really kind of funny that he doesn't notice when there's one right here, wandering around Lisa's house. He doesn't notice because it doesn't seem to be pissed off, it doesn't hurl things or threaten them or even create any really cold spots in the house. It doesn't scratch the walls or flicker the lights. It's the most laid back ghost Dean has ever dealt with.
He notices it over the course of a couple months. Dean will be attempting to cook dinner and the pot of boiling potatoes might nearly overflow but the stove turns off. Or he sets his hand down too late to think he left the knife he'd been using to chop vegetables right there but hey, now the knife is moved over a few inches. He's in the garage giving the Impala a tune up and the right tools are always at his fingertips. His beer is still cool after it's been sitting in the sun for too long.
It's worse than Caspar the Friendly Ghost and Dean thinks at first that it must be Sam. He gets his hopes up, he starts looking for signs that Sam is haunting him, his spirit somehow out of Hell. He's so convinced for the first week after he realizes there's a ghost that he doesn't stop to think how it doesn't feel anything like Sam or that Sam would have let him know immediately.
When Lisa and Ben are out, Dean stands in the middle of the kitchen and says to the empty room, “Sam?” Nothing answers him but he knows that there's a ghost there because he feels a chill down his back and is pretty sure it just touched him there.
Dean isn't deterred. He does what Sam did for him once. He gets a Ouija board and sets it up on the kitchen table. He feels like an idiot, keeps looking over his shoulder but he knows the house is empty except for Sam or whoever, and he sets his fingertips onto the planchette and licks his lips before asking: “Sam? You there?”
For a second, the planchette doesn't move and Dean thinks maybe he's wrong. Maybe no one is here, he just wants there to be so badly. Hell, if it moves, it's probably going to be him moving it subconsciously or some other bullshit. But it does move and when it does, Dean's breath catches and holds. It moves to 'no' not 'yes'. Dean feels something in his chest sink.
“Then who?”
Dean waits with all the patience he has as the ghost pushes the planchette across the board, one letter at a time.
J. I. M. Y.
Dean's eyes widen and he looks up from the board to where the ghost must be sitting right across from him, leaning as Dean is over the table. “As in Castiel's vessel Jimmy?”
The planchette moves to 'yes'.
Dean sits back, lets his hands slide from the board to his lap and turns that over in his head. Jimmy is haunting him, not Sam. Dean wonders if he's snapped but it's ludicrous. Why would Jimmy haunt him? Dean asks, reaching back for the planchette.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The planchette starts to move under his fingers, first one way and then the other, until Jimmy the freaking ghost gives up and gives it a little shove in Dean's direction. It makes Dean jump before he gives a rueful grimace.
“Too much to spell out?”
Jimmy points to yes.
“Well this is just fan-freaking-tastic, man.”
There's nothing Dean can do about it and he thinks he feels the cold touch of Jimmy's hand on his shoulder before he packs the board away, out of sight from Lisa and Ben.
He thinks it should be weird, over the next few days where he knows there's a ghost watching him and he knows its Jimmy, but it's not. Jimmy's kind of helpful and Dean's not sure why the man is hanging around but unless Dean can find a better way than the Ouija board to communicate, he's never gonna know. Honestly, it's kind of nice, having a little slice of the supernatural back in his life.
Of course, Dean isn't entirely stupid. He knows he should find a way to put Jimmy to rest. Knows if he lets Jimmy hang around, this helpful attitude isn't going to last. But Jimmy exploded. Into nothing if Chuck is to be believed and if Dean's own eyes are to be believed when he watched Lucifer do it to Castiel a second time. There's nothing to burn from that. Maybe there's some shards of bone or stains of blood or who knows what, still back at Chucks place but Dean's never going to get it all. It's all been cleaned and shined or tossed into a dumpster and Dean knows a hopeless case when he sees one.
The death was violent but Jimmy doesn't seem to be. And Dean doesn't know what sort of unfinished business Jimmy might have left.
He does some research when he's out of the house, not sure how Jimmy would react to Dean trying to find a way to send him...somewhere else. Heaven, hopefully, which is where Jimmy should be. Dean emails Cas, asks him about Jimmy but Cas tends to take weeks to reply. Something about Heaven time being vastly different to eastern standard.
In the mean time, Jimmy seems to feel that since Dean knows he's here anyway, he doesn't need to try and be sneaky anymore.
Dean can feel Jimmy's presence like he couldn't before. It's a cold spot next to his side and it's rarely not there whenever he's in the house. It's a can of beer floating across the kitchen to him just when Dean's thinking he could use one. It's other little objects just randomly moving or once, the radio station in the garage changing while Dean had been working on the Impala. Jimmy doesn't touch it again after Dean lectures him on garage rules.
Jimmy goes from a barely noticeable presence to touching everything in the house, trying to turn it on or make it work or just pick it up. Dean guesses he's finally feeling out being a ghost and figuring out what he can do. He's careful not to scare Lisa or Ben so Dean puts up with it and it's sort of like having a pet ghost though Dean keeps that thought to himself.
When he's alone in his room, in the night when sleep still doesn't come, and Jimmy is cold air nearby, Dean finds himself talking. Filling the silence since Jimmy can't but Dean bets that Jimmy wants to. Dean was a ghost once and he remembers how much he yearned to talk to Sam or his dad and how scared he was that he couldn't. He talks to make Jimmy less alone and somehow it's a lot easier when he can't see who he's talking to.
“I really wanted it all to work out here,” Dean confesses and knows he has Jimmy's attention. “I tried, for the first time, I really really tried.” He hates it because this is the sort of life he dreamed about and it's good but it's not...it's not everything. Neither is hunting and neither is Sam. No matter what he tries, there's something missing, some sucking hole in his chest because he's so selfish that he wants it all and no one part will do. He wants to just settle down and be happy.
He feels a cold pressure against his cheek and then across his lips and wonders what Jimmy is trying to say to him. Maybe Jimmy has some good advice because he's lived this sort of life before, domestic and settled and content. Dean feels the bitter rise of jealousy and turns over, away from the ghost with a grunted “G'night, Jimmy.”
He wakes up with a cold pressure all down his back and tries not to think too hard about Jimmy the ghost spooning him. It's weird, not just because it's Jimmy and because it's a ghost, but because he thinks he should be shivering but he isn't. Jimmy's always cool but he's never freezing.
Jimmy's breathing on his ear and that sketches Dean out enough that he moves, slipping from the bed and turning to face the general area he thinks Jimmy is. “Dude. We need to talk about personal space. Just because you're a ghost doesn't mean you don't have to pay attention to boundaries and... Fuck.” This time a shiver racks up Dean, originating from his chest and he can just picture Jimmy shoving his arm in there. “Stop it.”
The noise Dean makes when Jimmy supposedly pulls his arm away is not a moan and he swallows it down anyway, beating a retreat into the bathroom. It's the one place he's learned that Jimmy doesn't follow. He slept last night, better than he has in ages and it's a trend that continues.
Dean tells Jimmy about Sam and Bobby and how he kind of misses hunting. How he misses supernatural things in general so he's kind of glad Jimmy is around although he still doesn't get why. It's like keeping a weird version of a journal and once Dean starts talking, he finds it hard to stop. He spills out way too much, probably bores Jimmy, but talking to a ghost isn't like talking to a human. Maybe it's more like talking to a dog. He doesn't mean to say that one out loud and gets Jimmy's arm deep into his chest again, shuddering and nearly falling off the bed with a cry of surprise.
It brings Lisa into his room, knocking softly on the door before she steps in, asking if he's alright.
Dean clears his throat and rubs his hand over his face, across his eyes. “Yeah, uh...nightmare, I guess.”
“You were talking.” She comes closer, sits at the edge of the bed and Dean has this absurd vision of her sitting in Jimmy.
“Yeah...”
“Is everything okay?”
He nods at first until he notices the kind of predatory gleam in her eyes and remembers Ben is at a friends for the night. It makes him grin. “Oh, I'm good.” He's friends with benefits good and he pulls her down onto the bed to the sound of her content laughter.
He knows Jimmy is still there, he knows Jimmy's probably been there in the past, unnoticed. This time, Dean notices. As he kicks the blankets from his legs and Lisa straddles his hips and presses down over his groin, a ring of cold circles Dean's bare ankle. It makes him jolt, eyes widening in momentary shock and Lisa peers down at him in concern.
“Dean, are you sure you're alright?”
Dean takes a deep breath, eyes glancing over Lisa's shoulder to wear he can't see Jimmy standing but knows Jimmy's there because Jimmy's cool hand is still circling his ankle. Dean can make out the press of his fingers and they draw goose bumps up his calf that have nothing to do with the cold. “Yeah. Yeah...”
Lisa smiles, slow and seductive, and reaches her arms to pull off her worn nightshirt. “Let me take your mind off it.” She's not wearing anything under that shirt and Dean moans, grabs hold of her to turn them over so he can get rid of his boxers.
Jimmy's fingers draw down Dean's thighs in the path of them and if Lisa notices how smoothly the boxers come off compared to his usual kicking them across the room, she doesn't say anything. Jimmy's hands are splayed out over Dean's back and Dean's hardly paying attention as Lisa slides the condom down his dick or when she pulls him inside of her. He's hard, desperately hard, and forget the cold, Jimmy's hands on his back are pulling fire from him as he fucks Lisa until she's moaning and straining under him. Overlapping their moans, he thinks he can hear Jimmy chanting 'come on come on'.
Dean does, comes fast and feels a wave of cold in the same instant that makes him shudder so hard his teeth almost chatter.
Lisa asks him again, after they've been lying silent together for awhile, “You're really okay?”
“Yeah. Yes, I'm fine.”
She doesn't notice the cool sheets at Dean's back.
**
Dean doesn't really think a whole lot on it. Okay, it's kind of weird. Ghost Jimmy watching him get off is one thing, Dean guessed Jimmy did that. Ghost Jimmy touching him while it happens is a whole other thing. But what bothers Dean the most is how much it doesn't bother him. He tries to say to Jimmy;
“Look, man, you really need to back off.” All it gets him is Jimmy's cool invisible self touching Dean's chest and his face and a pressure on his mouth that might be Jimmy's lips. It's the perfect kind of cold, like whatever has been boiling up inside Dean over the months of no Sam and no hunting and just nothing all goes numb. When Jimmy's hand lands over his crotch, Dean moans and goes with it.
The next morning, when Dean rolls over out of bed, he gets a floating piece of paper shoved into his face.
I've been practising, is scrawled onto it and this great big smiley face that makes Dean snort laughter.
He waits until Lisa is driving Ben to school and he still has an hour before work, to sit down at the kitchen table with Jimmy and a pad of paper.
“So why're you here?” Dean asks, a safer question than 'why do you keep getting me off?'
Jimmy writes back, I didn't want to freak Amelia out or- The pen pauses for a moment. Make her sad.
“You're kind of freaking me out.”
I'm lonely. Jimmy puts and Dean lets it go. He could guess that one but Jimmy's pen carries on in an enthusiastic scrawl across the page. And who better to go to, right? It was easy. I just kind of thought about you and then there you were and here I am.
“You're lucky I didn't exorcise you. Why didn't you go with the Reaper?” This is the part Dean really doesn't get. Jimmy had seemed pretty well adjusted, angel inside him not withstanding. No matter how Dean wracks his brain, he can't figure out a reason Jimmy would want to stick around unless it was to go back to his wife and kid which he hasn't done. The pen doesn't move so Dean elaborates. “Would have looked like a really creepy old dude. Or a really hot chick.”
I didn't see one. Dean frowns. I was there with Cas, in that house. Then I was there alone. There were bits of me, I guess. Everywhere. I ran.
“That doesn't make any sense. No one gets away from a Reaper just by walking off the scene.” Jimmy doesn't have a response to that and Dean makes a note to bring it up with Cas if the angel ever replies back to him. Right now, he presses on with what he doesn't want to ask. “Why do you keep touching me?”
The pen taps the paper and underlines the words already written; I'm lonely. More words are written next to them. I have been for so long.
Dean sighs. Jimmy’s not the first ghost he’s felt some sympathy towards. They aren’t all evil or whatever. Confused and lost, yeah. Lonely, there are probably a lot of lonely ghosts out there. A lot of terrified ones too. Jimmy’s attached himself firmly to Dean so at least he’s not hurting anyone but still.
“You can’t stay here,” Dean says and watches Jimmy writing something else even as he speaks. “There’s, y’know, better places and all that. We kind of know Heaven exists so why don’t you-“
Jimmy pushes the paper across to him again with the new words, Why do you keep letting me touch you? 'Letting' is underlined twice.
It makes Dean’s tongue trip over his remaining words and he tracks Jimmy’s progress through the table to him by the pen Jimmy doesn’t let go of and then the pressure on either side of his thighs that says Jimmy’s straddling him. It’s automatic to raise his hands to try and grip Jimmy but he can’t see anything and he can’t touch anything. It’s weird and stupidly erotic at the same time. Jimmy breathes against his ear as Dean’s eyes slip closed and Dean thinks Jimmy might be trying to talk to him. Pressure slides up around Dean’s shoulders and suddenly, when Dean tries to touch Jimmy again, his hands land on something solid.
Dean’s eyes snap open and just for a moment, the barrier is broken and Dean can see Jimmy, sitting on his lap with his dark blue eyes and his stubble roughed face. He wears the suit he died in and he’s leaning in to close his mouth over Dean’s. Before their lips collide and Dean’s eyes close again, he sees the half-crazed desperation in Jimmy’s. They’re forced to part when Dean’s hands fall into nothing and when he looks, he can’t see Jimmy, just the familiar cool pressure that says Jimmy’s still there before it all moves down to his dick while Jimmy draws him out and strokes him off.
The shock of cold on his release is familiar and Dean moans as it clenches in his chest and locks down on that empty hollow feeling he’s carried since Sam left.
Later, as he fails to sleep, he thinks back on Jimmy. On that moment where Jimmy had been visible and solid to him. His wide eyes and unshaven face. His wild hair. His desperation and Dean thinks again about how all ghosts succumb to insanity eventually. All ghosts take that turn if they can’t sort out what they want and move on. How far down that path is Jimmy getting? Or if he’s already there and Dean’s getting caught up in it.
Jimmy feels warmer at his side that night and Dean sleeps.
**
Lisa wakes him, pounding on the door before flinging it open. “You’re late for work.”
Dean stares at her, bleary eyed and feeling chilled, Jimmy still warm beside him. He mutters a curse, puts his head back down and listens to Lisa huff a breath before turning to yell Ben out of bed instead.
Dean never sleeps in. No clock can beat his internal alarm but he feels tired and unwilling to move, especially when Jimmy wraps tendrils of warmth around his chest. Fills the hole that’s in it. Dean hadn’t realized quite how alone he’d felt without Sam and Bobby and hunting, until Jimmy had started filling the ache. He doesn’t want to leave and he falls asleep again, oblivious to Lisa’s attempts to get him up or to her giving in and leaving him to sleep half the day away.
He curses when he wakes up and it’s after noon, jumping out of the bed and shivering in the cool air. Lisa turns the air conditioning up too high in the summer. He goes to work, apologizes profusely and forces himself to stay overtime. The whole time, he’s thinking about how much he doesn’t want to be there. He enjoys it usually, working on cars is more like a vacation than a job but it’s getting boring. Taking apart and putting together engines or transmissions or inspecting ball joints. He keeps going through the same motions.
This is what his life is now? Fixing the same broken down cars again and again. Going home to the same place and the woman that doesn’t love him and the kid that isn’t his.
He gets home after dinner and Lisa tells him she put a plate together for him and left it in the fridge, he can reheat it when he's ready. He grunts out a reply, not in the mood to talk and retreats to his room, brushing off Ben's attempt to wave him down. He stays in there for the rest of the night and sets an actual alarm clock for the morning in case he sleeps in again.
Work doesn't feel any easier the next day but afterwards, he sits with Ben and helps the kid with some school project that makes Dean feel a bit better. He checks his email but there's still no response from Cas and for some reason, Jimmy is being a quiet, barely noticeable presence.
Jimmy is present though. Dean can feel the lukewarm pressure of Jimmy's hand occasionally or the whisper of breath against his cheek. Or air. Or whatever Jimmy is doing to shift the currents. There's a lot about ghosts and spirits that Dean doesn't really understand and their ability or lack of to affect the world around them is one. Jimmy still rests at his side during the night and a few times, Dean's opened his eyes to see Jimmy beside him, close and watching Dean in return without moving. Jimmy always kisses him and Dean always lets him.
He goes through work the same for a week. It's not his real job, he's a hunter but he can't be that without Sam. He goes home and has dinner with Lisa and Ben. But it's not his girlfriend because she left him like all the others. It's not his kid because Dean doesn't have any family.
He feels cold even though he can't feel Jimmy anywhere around him. Eventually, he can't take it anymore and he snaps it out over their dinner table.
“Can't you turn the fucking AC down?”
Lisa stares at him for a moment and Ben looks anywhere but at him and Dean is nearly ready to throw something by the time Lisa stands up and walks from the room. “Come with me.”
Dean does and once they're out of earshot of Ben, down the hall and in their small computer room with the door shut, Lisa turns back to him and starts talking before Dean can ask her what the fuck she wants. “It's not even on, Dean, what's the matter with you lately? The last week, you've barely even spoken to Ben and he thinks he did something wrong. Sit down and talk to me.”
Lisa's words deflate Dean. He sighs and sits at the computer chair, dropping his head into his hands. “I don't know.” He wants Sam back is what's wrong. He wants his life back, not this make shift one. But he can't say that to Lisa, he's not trying to hurt her and he's not sure why he's acting like such a dick.
“Dean...” Lisa's voice crumbles from hard to soft and she reaches out to rest her fingers against his. “You're shivering.”
“Am I?” Jimmy's warm hand presses against his back and Dean leans into it.
“Come on. I'll make you something warm and you can rest a bit.”
“Yeah, yeah okay.” He gets up and follows her back to his room and he can sense Jimmy trailing along behind. Inside his room, he reaches out to cup her face, pulls her for a kiss and whispers against her lips. “What would I do without you?”
She snorts, smiling. “You really want me to answer that? Get into bed, you're sick. Take a nap, I'll bring you something in a couple hours.”
Dean's not so sure that's the case but he listens because like a lot of things lately, it's too much effort to argue. Lisa leaves him tucked under the covers but not alone. Before Lisa's even shut the door behind her, Jimmy is touching him again. Dean closes his eyes for a moment and imagines he can see Jimmy. Wild hair and wild eyes and desperate movements. When he looks, he can see Jimmy and he's exactly like that. The view is gone when Dean blinks again and he wishes Jimmy would get the hang of this whole ghost thing already.
“Are you doing this to me?” he asks. Jimmy replies by pressing down on his cock and drawing a moan from Dean's throat. “There's something wrong with this whole thing, Jimmy.” Dean's thought it a dozen times but he's never said it, never dwelled on it. He doesn't usually take the easy way out, doesn't usually have that option at all, but right here, Jimmy is the easy way.
Jimmy's warm against Dean's cold skin and he feels good. He makes Dean feel good when lately, Dean feels miserable. Dean rolls his head back against the pillows as Jimmy's increasingly talented fingers work Dean from his jeans. Jimmy feels different this time, more substantial than ever and as Dean watches, Jimmy flickers in and out of focus above him. There's the edge to his gaze as he watches Dean that's in every ghost's eyes and Dean knows Jimmy's half-mad and Dean needs to do something about it. Get Jimmy out of here. But Jimmy's palm rubs against the tip of his cock and Dean's eyes shutter closed.
When Dean opens them again, as Jimmy's fingers shape around his length and start stroking, Jimmy is looking back with wide sad eyes. “I can never go home.” This time Dean can hear him and Dean gets it because Dean can't ever go home either. Whatever that used to be for him. Sam and a beat up motel room.
Jimmy kisses him. His mouth feels hot but his breath sends tendrils of ice along Dean's veins.
“Jimmy!”
They both jump at the sharp bark of Jimmy's name loud in the room. Jimmy scrambles backwards, away from Dean until he's tumbling off the edge of the bed with a solid thump as he hits the floor. Like a real person. He messes up the blankets as he goes and Dean grips at them to stop them being pulled from his lap and exposing the incriminating evidence of what they'd just been doing.
Dean's heart is pounding and standing right there in the doorway is Castiel who is looking very much like Jimmy's daughter. But Dean would know that stare anywhere, that hard disapproving glare that doesn't look any less menacing for the fact he's in a teenage girl. Right now, it's all directed on the ghost kneeling beside his bed. Dean suddenly wonders why he ever thought he missed the supernatural.
“Claire?” Jimmy's voice is wrecked and his eyes wide in awe.
“No, Jimmy.”
Jimmy's face falls with the realization. “Castiel.” He's on his feet, swaying and taking an unsteady step backwards. Castiel matches him with one forward, and then another, slowly crossing the room until he stands at the foot of Dean's bed and Jimmy has backed against the dresser.
“You need to stop this.”
Jimmy shakes his head hard, glances towards Dean. “I can't, I...I need.” He shivers like he's suddenly cold again when he's been warm for so long now and wraps his arms around his chest.
Castiel looks between them, at Dean, who stays under the covers and can't stop shivering. To Jimmy who looks scared. “You're hurting him. You infect him with your need so he'll return it but this is not real. You have to come home.”
“I can never go home.”
Castiel softens, the eyes of Jimmy's daughter looking on at him with sympathy and when he steps forward, Jimmy has no where to retreat to. Castiel raises a small hand that cups Jimmy's face. “Yes you can. Your real home, Jimmy, and I'm sorry I didn't come find you to take you there sooner.” Dean wants to look away as they stare into each others eyes but he can't. “You have to stop this now.”
“I'm sorry,” Jimmy answers and there's tears in his rough voice and in his bright eyes. “I'm so sorry.” Jimmy collapses forward, into his daughters arms and they wrap around him. Castiel kisses his forehead and the light that shines from Jimmy forces Dean to close his eyes. When he opens them again, Castiel and Jimmy are gone.
**
Dean spends the remainder of the day in his bed. He feels warm and content, if not confused as hell about what's going on. Lisa still thinks he's sick so she brings him hot soup and asks again if he's okay. He says he is, truthfully this time. The cold is gone, that hollow feeling in his chest is fading, the doubts that had been circling his head for months are little more than wisps of thought.
She stays with him, leaning against his side and then holding onto him through the night. In the morning, Dean apologizes to Ben and says that evening they'll go to a movie or something.
He gets an email from Castiel.
I apologize for Jimmy. I'll return to explain when I'm able.
Dean sends a reply saying he'd fucking better, the address he types in, nothing more than Castiel's name. He has no clue how it works. He has this image of the message downloading straight to Cas's brain but he's tried addressing emails to Raphael similar ways, all full of mocking insults and he never gets a reply. He guesses Castiel is the only angel willing to be jacked in to the information super highway.
In the week it takes Castiel to come back, Dean thinks about the way things have gone over the last six months. He does miss Sam, he always will. There's a distant longing to return to the hunting world but it's not so strong now. More nostalgic. He thinks back and can't quite remember why he and Lisa never worked. He knows it was him that said it wasn't working. Him that said they should have different rooms. He kind of wants to try again but there's something else he needs to do first. Just to make sure.
A few days after Castiel takes Jimmy home, Dean says a temporary goodbye to Lisa and Ben and goes to Bobby. He hasn't visited the old hunter since the days following Stull Cemetery. It's good to catch up, to work on some old cars. Bobby's glad to see him and they share stories. Dean tells Bobby about Jimmy. Leaves out the details because Bobby never needs to know how Dean felt desperate enough to let a ghost get him off for weeks without doing a thing.
“Ghosts make people feel all kinds of crazy,” Bobby says and Dean can only say a hearty “Amen.”
Castiel finds him there, still dressed in Jimmy's daughter and Dean rethinks the beers he'd been planning once Cas finally showed up to talk. He hands Castiel a glass of juice instead and they sit out on the porch steps in the falling daylight.
“Jimmy's where he should be. Well...he's been spending time at the Roadhouse while he waits for Amelia.”
Dean knows all about this. How Heaven's changing and one of those changes is more freedom for the human souls. They wander between Heaven's freely, meet with old friends and old family. Dean approves, even if the angels are still keeping close tabs on their movements.
“Is he okay?”
“He is now. You know what being stuck here can do to spirits.”
Dean nods solemnly and they drink for a few moments in quiet. “You can start explaining any time, Cas.” He glances across at Cas, at the little girl and tries not to think too deeply on it or get too weirded out. Shit, he did not miss this stuff at all.
“When Raphael killed us, my grace was cast away and Jimmy's soul as well. Parting from his body and ending up... I don't know where. Somewhere in the ether where a reaper would not find him. Jimmy's spirit would have been drawn back to his body's death eventually. He might have stayed there but when Jimmy died he was...terribly lonely. I'm afraid I didn't make it any easier for him.” Castiel lowers his gaze, stares into his juice for a moment and in the guise of Claire, Dean wants to offer him a hug. He looks so sad about it. All he'd learned in his final year, all those lessons had come too late to help a few that he could have.
“Do you remember the Buruburu? Fear isn't the only thing that ghosts can infect living souls with. Jimmy died alone and cold and he made you the same way.”
Dean thinks about this for a long time after Castiel is gone. After they've finished their drinks and Castiel has promised to continue to email and Dean is inside Bobby's house on the old couch, failing to sleep. Jimmy would be fine, Cas has reassured. He was among people and Castiel would never cut him off again. Dean was around people and it was time he stopped cutting himself off from them as well.
He goes back to Lisa the next day and asks her if they can try again.
**
They bar is dimly light and noisy. The wood creaks where people step, the balls from the pool tables clatter against each other, and the patrons talk loudly and exuberantly. They're hunters, almost exclusively. Other people as well, that had some ties to the supernatural. Drawn here, where a free Heaven started with Ash and his genius.
Jimmy thinks there's even a couple other vessel's here but mostly he talks to people like Pamela, who he likes because she didn't hesitate to welcome him in. And Jo and Ellen who thought he was Castiel at first. Yeah, he's got some other people he could, probably should, go and see. Roger. He really should go find Roger and apologize for getting him killed. Jimmy will, just not yet. Right now, he wants to be here, with these people who know what it's like getting sucked into the supernatural.
It's warm here, is the first thing Jimmy noticed. He's warm in the bar, which is maybe the alcohol that comes free whenever he wants it. The people around him are warm. And friendly and welcoming. Things Jimmy hasn't experienced in years when an angel took hold and cut him off.
Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Castiel had kept him cut off. But the angel had been there and gone. Hot and cold. One minute reaching for a connection and the next drawing off and leaving Jimmy locked away for what felt like ages. Enough to drive Jimmy insane and he thinks he might have unfairly taken that out on Dean but up here, he's having a hard time remembering.
He looks up from where he's leaning against one of the pool tables, a cue in hand and he's waiting on his turn while Jo pockets one ball after another. Jimmy rarely ever gets a turn when he's playing with her.
Jimmy's not surprised to see himself walk into the bar. Castiel still shaped like him which Castiel does because it's easier on the others here, that's how they know the angel. Jimmy doesn't bother to point out that it's not exactly easier on him, as Castiel catches his gaze and walks over. The last time Jimmy knew Castiel, the angel wouldn't have known how to look so awkward as he does right now. A lot changed in the year Castiel was on Earth without Jimmy and Jimmy sighs when Castiel says nothing and gives the angel a break.
“You wanna grab a drink?”
Castiel nods, looking relieved and they move to a booth, leaving Jo to find another partner.
Two beers appear on the table in front of them and Jimmy reaches for his. “So...”
“I came to apologize,” Castiel says and Jimmy rolls his eyes.
“You don't have to. I knew what I was signing up for.” Which is a lie. He hadn't had a clue. He knew he'd probably die. But he hadn't counted on the months of being shunned by the angel inside him. Of reaching out and trying to get closer and being pushed back into the cold light of Castiel's grace and suppressed. He hadn't thought having another being in you could possibly be so lonely. Castiel was supposed to be his angel but Jimmy had been only a tool.
“Stop,” Castiel says and Jimmy jumps to find Castiel's cool palm against his cheek. “It is thoughts like that which made you a restless spirit and I will not have you be restless in Heaven. You will not be lonely when there are so many here who would be with you.”
Castiel's hand drops, finds Jimmy's and curls their fingers together. Jimmy doesn't have the heart to ruin Castiel's earnest look by telling him it's kind of inappropriate to be holding hands across the table top in a bar. Besides, Castiel's hand warms in his, the bar is close with the laughter of friends, and it feels kind of nice. They stay like that, with the beers between them, for a long while.
Author/Artist: thunder_nari
Recipient: guardiancastiel
Pairing: Dean/Jimmy Novak, Castiel/Jimmy Novak, Dean/Lisa
Rating: R
Warnings: um...sex with a ghost?
Summary: Dean thinks a lot about the good old days. Werewolves and ghouls and vengeful spirits. Ghosts, he really misses ghosts. So it's really kind of funny that he doesn't notice when there's one right there, wandering around Lisa's house and helping out.
Notes: I may have taken a bit of liberty with the prompts. I don't even know but I hope it works. So, loosely inspired by the prompts - "I'm still living with your ghost" - Santa Monica: Everclear (but really just the title...), thrown in with a sort of dark tone and a bit of hand holding.
Thanks to puchuupoet for the beta.
Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here
**
It takes awhile before Dean really notices that anything is off.
He's been living this apple pie life for a little over six months and it's not amazing but it's not horrible. He and Lisa get along but they get along like best friends. Best friends with sex benefits because Dean sleeps in the spare room. They tried to share at first but Lisa's not so good at putting up with Dean's constant restless nights. Where he spends the night startling awake from nightmares or he just can't sleep at all and constantly gets out of bed and back in. Or even where he sleeps perfectly but he's so unused to another person beside him that when she moves, he nearly attacks her he gets so startled.
So sharing a bed doesn't work and it's a quick drift to 'best friends' after that. It's cool. He adores Ben. He gets a job working cars down at a garage and he pays Lisa rent and helps out with things like groceries and broken drawers or loose hand railings. Occasionally he gets no strings attached sex and Dean thinks he has a pretty sweet set up.
As long as he doesn't think too hard about things like Sam. About how there's something missing in his life and that thing is his brother, sure, but there are other things as well. The feel of a gun grip in his hand, a knife hilt. A crowbar. Anything. It's sleeping with a hunting blade under his pillow and days on the road. A certain angel and his surrogate father.
Dean still takes the Impala out for day trips sometimes. He calls Bobby to talk at length over the phone. Cas discovers internet communication via Ash, gets Heaven set up, and they trade emails back and forth when Cas isn't busy looking after his family.
Dean thinks a lot about the good old days. Ghost hunts with his brother. Werewolves and ghouls and vengeful spirits. Fuck, he really misses ghosts and that's the stupidest notion he's ever had but there it is.
So it's really kind of funny that he doesn't notice when there's one right here, wandering around Lisa's house. He doesn't notice because it doesn't seem to be pissed off, it doesn't hurl things or threaten them or even create any really cold spots in the house. It doesn't scratch the walls or flicker the lights. It's the most laid back ghost Dean has ever dealt with.
He notices it over the course of a couple months. Dean will be attempting to cook dinner and the pot of boiling potatoes might nearly overflow but the stove turns off. Or he sets his hand down too late to think he left the knife he'd been using to chop vegetables right there but hey, now the knife is moved over a few inches. He's in the garage giving the Impala a tune up and the right tools are always at his fingertips. His beer is still cool after it's been sitting in the sun for too long.
It's worse than Caspar the Friendly Ghost and Dean thinks at first that it must be Sam. He gets his hopes up, he starts looking for signs that Sam is haunting him, his spirit somehow out of Hell. He's so convinced for the first week after he realizes there's a ghost that he doesn't stop to think how it doesn't feel anything like Sam or that Sam would have let him know immediately.
When Lisa and Ben are out, Dean stands in the middle of the kitchen and says to the empty room, “Sam?” Nothing answers him but he knows that there's a ghost there because he feels a chill down his back and is pretty sure it just touched him there.
Dean isn't deterred. He does what Sam did for him once. He gets a Ouija board and sets it up on the kitchen table. He feels like an idiot, keeps looking over his shoulder but he knows the house is empty except for Sam or whoever, and he sets his fingertips onto the planchette and licks his lips before asking: “Sam? You there?”
For a second, the planchette doesn't move and Dean thinks maybe he's wrong. Maybe no one is here, he just wants there to be so badly. Hell, if it moves, it's probably going to be him moving it subconsciously or some other bullshit. But it does move and when it does, Dean's breath catches and holds. It moves to 'no' not 'yes'. Dean feels something in his chest sink.
“Then who?”
Dean waits with all the patience he has as the ghost pushes the planchette across the board, one letter at a time.
J. I. M. Y.
Dean's eyes widen and he looks up from the board to where the ghost must be sitting right across from him, leaning as Dean is over the table. “As in Castiel's vessel Jimmy?”
The planchette moves to 'yes'.
Dean sits back, lets his hands slide from the board to his lap and turns that over in his head. Jimmy is haunting him, not Sam. Dean wonders if he's snapped but it's ludicrous. Why would Jimmy haunt him? Dean asks, reaching back for the planchette.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The planchette starts to move under his fingers, first one way and then the other, until Jimmy the freaking ghost gives up and gives it a little shove in Dean's direction. It makes Dean jump before he gives a rueful grimace.
“Too much to spell out?”
Jimmy points to yes.
“Well this is just fan-freaking-tastic, man.”
There's nothing Dean can do about it and he thinks he feels the cold touch of Jimmy's hand on his shoulder before he packs the board away, out of sight from Lisa and Ben.
He thinks it should be weird, over the next few days where he knows there's a ghost watching him and he knows its Jimmy, but it's not. Jimmy's kind of helpful and Dean's not sure why the man is hanging around but unless Dean can find a better way than the Ouija board to communicate, he's never gonna know. Honestly, it's kind of nice, having a little slice of the supernatural back in his life.
Of course, Dean isn't entirely stupid. He knows he should find a way to put Jimmy to rest. Knows if he lets Jimmy hang around, this helpful attitude isn't going to last. But Jimmy exploded. Into nothing if Chuck is to be believed and if Dean's own eyes are to be believed when he watched Lucifer do it to Castiel a second time. There's nothing to burn from that. Maybe there's some shards of bone or stains of blood or who knows what, still back at Chucks place but Dean's never going to get it all. It's all been cleaned and shined or tossed into a dumpster and Dean knows a hopeless case when he sees one.
The death was violent but Jimmy doesn't seem to be. And Dean doesn't know what sort of unfinished business Jimmy might have left.
He does some research when he's out of the house, not sure how Jimmy would react to Dean trying to find a way to send him...somewhere else. Heaven, hopefully, which is where Jimmy should be. Dean emails Cas, asks him about Jimmy but Cas tends to take weeks to reply. Something about Heaven time being vastly different to eastern standard.
In the mean time, Jimmy seems to feel that since Dean knows he's here anyway, he doesn't need to try and be sneaky anymore.
Dean can feel Jimmy's presence like he couldn't before. It's a cold spot next to his side and it's rarely not there whenever he's in the house. It's a can of beer floating across the kitchen to him just when Dean's thinking he could use one. It's other little objects just randomly moving or once, the radio station in the garage changing while Dean had been working on the Impala. Jimmy doesn't touch it again after Dean lectures him on garage rules.
Jimmy goes from a barely noticeable presence to touching everything in the house, trying to turn it on or make it work or just pick it up. Dean guesses he's finally feeling out being a ghost and figuring out what he can do. He's careful not to scare Lisa or Ben so Dean puts up with it and it's sort of like having a pet ghost though Dean keeps that thought to himself.
When he's alone in his room, in the night when sleep still doesn't come, and Jimmy is cold air nearby, Dean finds himself talking. Filling the silence since Jimmy can't but Dean bets that Jimmy wants to. Dean was a ghost once and he remembers how much he yearned to talk to Sam or his dad and how scared he was that he couldn't. He talks to make Jimmy less alone and somehow it's a lot easier when he can't see who he's talking to.
“I really wanted it all to work out here,” Dean confesses and knows he has Jimmy's attention. “I tried, for the first time, I really really tried.” He hates it because this is the sort of life he dreamed about and it's good but it's not...it's not everything. Neither is hunting and neither is Sam. No matter what he tries, there's something missing, some sucking hole in his chest because he's so selfish that he wants it all and no one part will do. He wants to just settle down and be happy.
He feels a cold pressure against his cheek and then across his lips and wonders what Jimmy is trying to say to him. Maybe Jimmy has some good advice because he's lived this sort of life before, domestic and settled and content. Dean feels the bitter rise of jealousy and turns over, away from the ghost with a grunted “G'night, Jimmy.”
He wakes up with a cold pressure all down his back and tries not to think too hard about Jimmy the ghost spooning him. It's weird, not just because it's Jimmy and because it's a ghost, but because he thinks he should be shivering but he isn't. Jimmy's always cool but he's never freezing.
Jimmy's breathing on his ear and that sketches Dean out enough that he moves, slipping from the bed and turning to face the general area he thinks Jimmy is. “Dude. We need to talk about personal space. Just because you're a ghost doesn't mean you don't have to pay attention to boundaries and... Fuck.” This time a shiver racks up Dean, originating from his chest and he can just picture Jimmy shoving his arm in there. “Stop it.”
The noise Dean makes when Jimmy supposedly pulls his arm away is not a moan and he swallows it down anyway, beating a retreat into the bathroom. It's the one place he's learned that Jimmy doesn't follow. He slept last night, better than he has in ages and it's a trend that continues.
Dean tells Jimmy about Sam and Bobby and how he kind of misses hunting. How he misses supernatural things in general so he's kind of glad Jimmy is around although he still doesn't get why. It's like keeping a weird version of a journal and once Dean starts talking, he finds it hard to stop. He spills out way too much, probably bores Jimmy, but talking to a ghost isn't like talking to a human. Maybe it's more like talking to a dog. He doesn't mean to say that one out loud and gets Jimmy's arm deep into his chest again, shuddering and nearly falling off the bed with a cry of surprise.
It brings Lisa into his room, knocking softly on the door before she steps in, asking if he's alright.
Dean clears his throat and rubs his hand over his face, across his eyes. “Yeah, uh...nightmare, I guess.”
“You were talking.” She comes closer, sits at the edge of the bed and Dean has this absurd vision of her sitting in Jimmy.
“Yeah...”
“Is everything okay?”
He nods at first until he notices the kind of predatory gleam in her eyes and remembers Ben is at a friends for the night. It makes him grin. “Oh, I'm good.” He's friends with benefits good and he pulls her down onto the bed to the sound of her content laughter.
He knows Jimmy is still there, he knows Jimmy's probably been there in the past, unnoticed. This time, Dean notices. As he kicks the blankets from his legs and Lisa straddles his hips and presses down over his groin, a ring of cold circles Dean's bare ankle. It makes him jolt, eyes widening in momentary shock and Lisa peers down at him in concern.
“Dean, are you sure you're alright?”
Dean takes a deep breath, eyes glancing over Lisa's shoulder to wear he can't see Jimmy standing but knows Jimmy's there because Jimmy's cool hand is still circling his ankle. Dean can make out the press of his fingers and they draw goose bumps up his calf that have nothing to do with the cold. “Yeah. Yeah...”
Lisa smiles, slow and seductive, and reaches her arms to pull off her worn nightshirt. “Let me take your mind off it.” She's not wearing anything under that shirt and Dean moans, grabs hold of her to turn them over so he can get rid of his boxers.
Jimmy's fingers draw down Dean's thighs in the path of them and if Lisa notices how smoothly the boxers come off compared to his usual kicking them across the room, she doesn't say anything. Jimmy's hands are splayed out over Dean's back and Dean's hardly paying attention as Lisa slides the condom down his dick or when she pulls him inside of her. He's hard, desperately hard, and forget the cold, Jimmy's hands on his back are pulling fire from him as he fucks Lisa until she's moaning and straining under him. Overlapping their moans, he thinks he can hear Jimmy chanting 'come on come on'.
Dean does, comes fast and feels a wave of cold in the same instant that makes him shudder so hard his teeth almost chatter.
Lisa asks him again, after they've been lying silent together for awhile, “You're really okay?”
“Yeah. Yes, I'm fine.”
She doesn't notice the cool sheets at Dean's back.
**
Dean doesn't really think a whole lot on it. Okay, it's kind of weird. Ghost Jimmy watching him get off is one thing, Dean guessed Jimmy did that. Ghost Jimmy touching him while it happens is a whole other thing. But what bothers Dean the most is how much it doesn't bother him. He tries to say to Jimmy;
“Look, man, you really need to back off.” All it gets him is Jimmy's cool invisible self touching Dean's chest and his face and a pressure on his mouth that might be Jimmy's lips. It's the perfect kind of cold, like whatever has been boiling up inside Dean over the months of no Sam and no hunting and just nothing all goes numb. When Jimmy's hand lands over his crotch, Dean moans and goes with it.
The next morning, when Dean rolls over out of bed, he gets a floating piece of paper shoved into his face.
I've been practising, is scrawled onto it and this great big smiley face that makes Dean snort laughter.
He waits until Lisa is driving Ben to school and he still has an hour before work, to sit down at the kitchen table with Jimmy and a pad of paper.
“So why're you here?” Dean asks, a safer question than 'why do you keep getting me off?'
Jimmy writes back, I didn't want to freak Amelia out or- The pen pauses for a moment. Make her sad.
“You're kind of freaking me out.”
I'm lonely. Jimmy puts and Dean lets it go. He could guess that one but Jimmy's pen carries on in an enthusiastic scrawl across the page. And who better to go to, right? It was easy. I just kind of thought about you and then there you were and here I am.
“You're lucky I didn't exorcise you. Why didn't you go with the Reaper?” This is the part Dean really doesn't get. Jimmy had seemed pretty well adjusted, angel inside him not withstanding. No matter how Dean wracks his brain, he can't figure out a reason Jimmy would want to stick around unless it was to go back to his wife and kid which he hasn't done. The pen doesn't move so Dean elaborates. “Would have looked like a really creepy old dude. Or a really hot chick.”
I didn't see one. Dean frowns. I was there with Cas, in that house. Then I was there alone. There were bits of me, I guess. Everywhere. I ran.
“That doesn't make any sense. No one gets away from a Reaper just by walking off the scene.” Jimmy doesn't have a response to that and Dean makes a note to bring it up with Cas if the angel ever replies back to him. Right now, he presses on with what he doesn't want to ask. “Why do you keep touching me?”
The pen taps the paper and underlines the words already written; I'm lonely. More words are written next to them. I have been for so long.
Dean sighs. Jimmy’s not the first ghost he’s felt some sympathy towards. They aren’t all evil or whatever. Confused and lost, yeah. Lonely, there are probably a lot of lonely ghosts out there. A lot of terrified ones too. Jimmy’s attached himself firmly to Dean so at least he’s not hurting anyone but still.
“You can’t stay here,” Dean says and watches Jimmy writing something else even as he speaks. “There’s, y’know, better places and all that. We kind of know Heaven exists so why don’t you-“
Jimmy pushes the paper across to him again with the new words, Why do you keep letting me touch you? 'Letting' is underlined twice.
It makes Dean’s tongue trip over his remaining words and he tracks Jimmy’s progress through the table to him by the pen Jimmy doesn’t let go of and then the pressure on either side of his thighs that says Jimmy’s straddling him. It’s automatic to raise his hands to try and grip Jimmy but he can’t see anything and he can’t touch anything. It’s weird and stupidly erotic at the same time. Jimmy breathes against his ear as Dean’s eyes slip closed and Dean thinks Jimmy might be trying to talk to him. Pressure slides up around Dean’s shoulders and suddenly, when Dean tries to touch Jimmy again, his hands land on something solid.
Dean’s eyes snap open and just for a moment, the barrier is broken and Dean can see Jimmy, sitting on his lap with his dark blue eyes and his stubble roughed face. He wears the suit he died in and he’s leaning in to close his mouth over Dean’s. Before their lips collide and Dean’s eyes close again, he sees the half-crazed desperation in Jimmy’s. They’re forced to part when Dean’s hands fall into nothing and when he looks, he can’t see Jimmy, just the familiar cool pressure that says Jimmy’s still there before it all moves down to his dick while Jimmy draws him out and strokes him off.
The shock of cold on his release is familiar and Dean moans as it clenches in his chest and locks down on that empty hollow feeling he’s carried since Sam left.
Later, as he fails to sleep, he thinks back on Jimmy. On that moment where Jimmy had been visible and solid to him. His wide eyes and unshaven face. His wild hair. His desperation and Dean thinks again about how all ghosts succumb to insanity eventually. All ghosts take that turn if they can’t sort out what they want and move on. How far down that path is Jimmy getting? Or if he’s already there and Dean’s getting caught up in it.
Jimmy feels warmer at his side that night and Dean sleeps.
**
Lisa wakes him, pounding on the door before flinging it open. “You’re late for work.”
Dean stares at her, bleary eyed and feeling chilled, Jimmy still warm beside him. He mutters a curse, puts his head back down and listens to Lisa huff a breath before turning to yell Ben out of bed instead.
Dean never sleeps in. No clock can beat his internal alarm but he feels tired and unwilling to move, especially when Jimmy wraps tendrils of warmth around his chest. Fills the hole that’s in it. Dean hadn’t realized quite how alone he’d felt without Sam and Bobby and hunting, until Jimmy had started filling the ache. He doesn’t want to leave and he falls asleep again, oblivious to Lisa’s attempts to get him up or to her giving in and leaving him to sleep half the day away.
He curses when he wakes up and it’s after noon, jumping out of the bed and shivering in the cool air. Lisa turns the air conditioning up too high in the summer. He goes to work, apologizes profusely and forces himself to stay overtime. The whole time, he’s thinking about how much he doesn’t want to be there. He enjoys it usually, working on cars is more like a vacation than a job but it’s getting boring. Taking apart and putting together engines or transmissions or inspecting ball joints. He keeps going through the same motions.
This is what his life is now? Fixing the same broken down cars again and again. Going home to the same place and the woman that doesn’t love him and the kid that isn’t his.
He gets home after dinner and Lisa tells him she put a plate together for him and left it in the fridge, he can reheat it when he's ready. He grunts out a reply, not in the mood to talk and retreats to his room, brushing off Ben's attempt to wave him down. He stays in there for the rest of the night and sets an actual alarm clock for the morning in case he sleeps in again.
Work doesn't feel any easier the next day but afterwards, he sits with Ben and helps the kid with some school project that makes Dean feel a bit better. He checks his email but there's still no response from Cas and for some reason, Jimmy is being a quiet, barely noticeable presence.
Jimmy is present though. Dean can feel the lukewarm pressure of Jimmy's hand occasionally or the whisper of breath against his cheek. Or air. Or whatever Jimmy is doing to shift the currents. There's a lot about ghosts and spirits that Dean doesn't really understand and their ability or lack of to affect the world around them is one. Jimmy still rests at his side during the night and a few times, Dean's opened his eyes to see Jimmy beside him, close and watching Dean in return without moving. Jimmy always kisses him and Dean always lets him.
He goes through work the same for a week. It's not his real job, he's a hunter but he can't be that without Sam. He goes home and has dinner with Lisa and Ben. But it's not his girlfriend because she left him like all the others. It's not his kid because Dean doesn't have any family.
He feels cold even though he can't feel Jimmy anywhere around him. Eventually, he can't take it anymore and he snaps it out over their dinner table.
“Can't you turn the fucking AC down?”
Lisa stares at him for a moment and Ben looks anywhere but at him and Dean is nearly ready to throw something by the time Lisa stands up and walks from the room. “Come with me.”
Dean does and once they're out of earshot of Ben, down the hall and in their small computer room with the door shut, Lisa turns back to him and starts talking before Dean can ask her what the fuck she wants. “It's not even on, Dean, what's the matter with you lately? The last week, you've barely even spoken to Ben and he thinks he did something wrong. Sit down and talk to me.”
Lisa's words deflate Dean. He sighs and sits at the computer chair, dropping his head into his hands. “I don't know.” He wants Sam back is what's wrong. He wants his life back, not this make shift one. But he can't say that to Lisa, he's not trying to hurt her and he's not sure why he's acting like such a dick.
“Dean...” Lisa's voice crumbles from hard to soft and she reaches out to rest her fingers against his. “You're shivering.”
“Am I?” Jimmy's warm hand presses against his back and Dean leans into it.
“Come on. I'll make you something warm and you can rest a bit.”
“Yeah, yeah okay.” He gets up and follows her back to his room and he can sense Jimmy trailing along behind. Inside his room, he reaches out to cup her face, pulls her for a kiss and whispers against her lips. “What would I do without you?”
She snorts, smiling. “You really want me to answer that? Get into bed, you're sick. Take a nap, I'll bring you something in a couple hours.”
Dean's not so sure that's the case but he listens because like a lot of things lately, it's too much effort to argue. Lisa leaves him tucked under the covers but not alone. Before Lisa's even shut the door behind her, Jimmy is touching him again. Dean closes his eyes for a moment and imagines he can see Jimmy. Wild hair and wild eyes and desperate movements. When he looks, he can see Jimmy and he's exactly like that. The view is gone when Dean blinks again and he wishes Jimmy would get the hang of this whole ghost thing already.
“Are you doing this to me?” he asks. Jimmy replies by pressing down on his cock and drawing a moan from Dean's throat. “There's something wrong with this whole thing, Jimmy.” Dean's thought it a dozen times but he's never said it, never dwelled on it. He doesn't usually take the easy way out, doesn't usually have that option at all, but right here, Jimmy is the easy way.
Jimmy's warm against Dean's cold skin and he feels good. He makes Dean feel good when lately, Dean feels miserable. Dean rolls his head back against the pillows as Jimmy's increasingly talented fingers work Dean from his jeans. Jimmy feels different this time, more substantial than ever and as Dean watches, Jimmy flickers in and out of focus above him. There's the edge to his gaze as he watches Dean that's in every ghost's eyes and Dean knows Jimmy's half-mad and Dean needs to do something about it. Get Jimmy out of here. But Jimmy's palm rubs against the tip of his cock and Dean's eyes shutter closed.
When Dean opens them again, as Jimmy's fingers shape around his length and start stroking, Jimmy is looking back with wide sad eyes. “I can never go home.” This time Dean can hear him and Dean gets it because Dean can't ever go home either. Whatever that used to be for him. Sam and a beat up motel room.
Jimmy kisses him. His mouth feels hot but his breath sends tendrils of ice along Dean's veins.
“Jimmy!”
They both jump at the sharp bark of Jimmy's name loud in the room. Jimmy scrambles backwards, away from Dean until he's tumbling off the edge of the bed with a solid thump as he hits the floor. Like a real person. He messes up the blankets as he goes and Dean grips at them to stop them being pulled from his lap and exposing the incriminating evidence of what they'd just been doing.
Dean's heart is pounding and standing right there in the doorway is Castiel who is looking very much like Jimmy's daughter. But Dean would know that stare anywhere, that hard disapproving glare that doesn't look any less menacing for the fact he's in a teenage girl. Right now, it's all directed on the ghost kneeling beside his bed. Dean suddenly wonders why he ever thought he missed the supernatural.
“Claire?” Jimmy's voice is wrecked and his eyes wide in awe.
“No, Jimmy.”
Jimmy's face falls with the realization. “Castiel.” He's on his feet, swaying and taking an unsteady step backwards. Castiel matches him with one forward, and then another, slowly crossing the room until he stands at the foot of Dean's bed and Jimmy has backed against the dresser.
“You need to stop this.”
Jimmy shakes his head hard, glances towards Dean. “I can't, I...I need.” He shivers like he's suddenly cold again when he's been warm for so long now and wraps his arms around his chest.
Castiel looks between them, at Dean, who stays under the covers and can't stop shivering. To Jimmy who looks scared. “You're hurting him. You infect him with your need so he'll return it but this is not real. You have to come home.”
“I can never go home.”
Castiel softens, the eyes of Jimmy's daughter looking on at him with sympathy and when he steps forward, Jimmy has no where to retreat to. Castiel raises a small hand that cups Jimmy's face. “Yes you can. Your real home, Jimmy, and I'm sorry I didn't come find you to take you there sooner.” Dean wants to look away as they stare into each others eyes but he can't. “You have to stop this now.”
“I'm sorry,” Jimmy answers and there's tears in his rough voice and in his bright eyes. “I'm so sorry.” Jimmy collapses forward, into his daughters arms and they wrap around him. Castiel kisses his forehead and the light that shines from Jimmy forces Dean to close his eyes. When he opens them again, Castiel and Jimmy are gone.
**
Dean spends the remainder of the day in his bed. He feels warm and content, if not confused as hell about what's going on. Lisa still thinks he's sick so she brings him hot soup and asks again if he's okay. He says he is, truthfully this time. The cold is gone, that hollow feeling in his chest is fading, the doubts that had been circling his head for months are little more than wisps of thought.
She stays with him, leaning against his side and then holding onto him through the night. In the morning, Dean apologizes to Ben and says that evening they'll go to a movie or something.
He gets an email from Castiel.
I apologize for Jimmy. I'll return to explain when I'm able.
Dean sends a reply saying he'd fucking better, the address he types in, nothing more than Castiel's name. He has no clue how it works. He has this image of the message downloading straight to Cas's brain but he's tried addressing emails to Raphael similar ways, all full of mocking insults and he never gets a reply. He guesses Castiel is the only angel willing to be jacked in to the information super highway.
In the week it takes Castiel to come back, Dean thinks about the way things have gone over the last six months. He does miss Sam, he always will. There's a distant longing to return to the hunting world but it's not so strong now. More nostalgic. He thinks back and can't quite remember why he and Lisa never worked. He knows it was him that said it wasn't working. Him that said they should have different rooms. He kind of wants to try again but there's something else he needs to do first. Just to make sure.
A few days after Castiel takes Jimmy home, Dean says a temporary goodbye to Lisa and Ben and goes to Bobby. He hasn't visited the old hunter since the days following Stull Cemetery. It's good to catch up, to work on some old cars. Bobby's glad to see him and they share stories. Dean tells Bobby about Jimmy. Leaves out the details because Bobby never needs to know how Dean felt desperate enough to let a ghost get him off for weeks without doing a thing.
“Ghosts make people feel all kinds of crazy,” Bobby says and Dean can only say a hearty “Amen.”
Castiel finds him there, still dressed in Jimmy's daughter and Dean rethinks the beers he'd been planning once Cas finally showed up to talk. He hands Castiel a glass of juice instead and they sit out on the porch steps in the falling daylight.
“Jimmy's where he should be. Well...he's been spending time at the Roadhouse while he waits for Amelia.”
Dean knows all about this. How Heaven's changing and one of those changes is more freedom for the human souls. They wander between Heaven's freely, meet with old friends and old family. Dean approves, even if the angels are still keeping close tabs on their movements.
“Is he okay?”
“He is now. You know what being stuck here can do to spirits.”
Dean nods solemnly and they drink for a few moments in quiet. “You can start explaining any time, Cas.” He glances across at Cas, at the little girl and tries not to think too deeply on it or get too weirded out. Shit, he did not miss this stuff at all.
“When Raphael killed us, my grace was cast away and Jimmy's soul as well. Parting from his body and ending up... I don't know where. Somewhere in the ether where a reaper would not find him. Jimmy's spirit would have been drawn back to his body's death eventually. He might have stayed there but when Jimmy died he was...terribly lonely. I'm afraid I didn't make it any easier for him.” Castiel lowers his gaze, stares into his juice for a moment and in the guise of Claire, Dean wants to offer him a hug. He looks so sad about it. All he'd learned in his final year, all those lessons had come too late to help a few that he could have.
“Do you remember the Buruburu? Fear isn't the only thing that ghosts can infect living souls with. Jimmy died alone and cold and he made you the same way.”
Dean thinks about this for a long time after Castiel is gone. After they've finished their drinks and Castiel has promised to continue to email and Dean is inside Bobby's house on the old couch, failing to sleep. Jimmy would be fine, Cas has reassured. He was among people and Castiel would never cut him off again. Dean was around people and it was time he stopped cutting himself off from them as well.
He goes back to Lisa the next day and asks her if they can try again.
**
They bar is dimly light and noisy. The wood creaks where people step, the balls from the pool tables clatter against each other, and the patrons talk loudly and exuberantly. They're hunters, almost exclusively. Other people as well, that had some ties to the supernatural. Drawn here, where a free Heaven started with Ash and his genius.
Jimmy thinks there's even a couple other vessel's here but mostly he talks to people like Pamela, who he likes because she didn't hesitate to welcome him in. And Jo and Ellen who thought he was Castiel at first. Yeah, he's got some other people he could, probably should, go and see. Roger. He really should go find Roger and apologize for getting him killed. Jimmy will, just not yet. Right now, he wants to be here, with these people who know what it's like getting sucked into the supernatural.
It's warm here, is the first thing Jimmy noticed. He's warm in the bar, which is maybe the alcohol that comes free whenever he wants it. The people around him are warm. And friendly and welcoming. Things Jimmy hasn't experienced in years when an angel took hold and cut him off.
Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Castiel had kept him cut off. But the angel had been there and gone. Hot and cold. One minute reaching for a connection and the next drawing off and leaving Jimmy locked away for what felt like ages. Enough to drive Jimmy insane and he thinks he might have unfairly taken that out on Dean but up here, he's having a hard time remembering.
He looks up from where he's leaning against one of the pool tables, a cue in hand and he's waiting on his turn while Jo pockets one ball after another. Jimmy rarely ever gets a turn when he's playing with her.
Jimmy's not surprised to see himself walk into the bar. Castiel still shaped like him which Castiel does because it's easier on the others here, that's how they know the angel. Jimmy doesn't bother to point out that it's not exactly easier on him, as Castiel catches his gaze and walks over. The last time Jimmy knew Castiel, the angel wouldn't have known how to look so awkward as he does right now. A lot changed in the year Castiel was on Earth without Jimmy and Jimmy sighs when Castiel says nothing and gives the angel a break.
“You wanna grab a drink?”
Castiel nods, looking relieved and they move to a booth, leaving Jo to find another partner.
Two beers appear on the table in front of them and Jimmy reaches for his. “So...”
“I came to apologize,” Castiel says and Jimmy rolls his eyes.
“You don't have to. I knew what I was signing up for.” Which is a lie. He hadn't had a clue. He knew he'd probably die. But he hadn't counted on the months of being shunned by the angel inside him. Of reaching out and trying to get closer and being pushed back into the cold light of Castiel's grace and suppressed. He hadn't thought having another being in you could possibly be so lonely. Castiel was supposed to be his angel but Jimmy had been only a tool.
“Stop,” Castiel says and Jimmy jumps to find Castiel's cool palm against his cheek. “It is thoughts like that which made you a restless spirit and I will not have you be restless in Heaven. You will not be lonely when there are so many here who would be with you.”
Castiel's hand drops, finds Jimmy's and curls their fingers together. Jimmy doesn't have the heart to ruin Castiel's earnest look by telling him it's kind of inappropriate to be holding hands across the table top in a bar. Besides, Castiel's hand warms in his, the bar is close with the laughter of friends, and it feels kind of nice. They stay like that, with the beers between them, for a long while.