FIC: Divine Intervention (Part 1/2)
Title: Divine Intervention
Rating: PG
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Genre: AU, pre-slash
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: 10,532
Summary: AU. After making it out of a fire Dean never should have survived, he starts to get the feeling he's being watched. Little does he know that what's stalking him is an angel, and it has a purpose.
Author's Note: This was originally written for ladyyueh in round two of cloudyjenn 's Twitfic Exchange over on twitter. The prompt: AU, Dean is a regular guy, and Cas is his angel stalker. A huge thank you goes out to pyjamagurl and awesomepants87 for acting as betas... you guys rock! Any and all remaining mistakes are my own.
Divine Intervention
It’s a Thursday when the firehouse bell rings. It’s just after noon, and Dean feels a thrill of adrenaline course through him when he hears the clang run through the station. The rush to suit up, the drive to the site of the fire is a blur. It’s only when he arrives at the two-story Victorian and sees flames shooting into the sky that time seems to slow down and details become crisp and clear.
A small family is gathered on the front lawn, and Dean can see three policemen holding a man back from running inside the burning house.
“There’s a kid missing,” Victor’s voice sounds over the radio in Dean’s mask. “A girl, ten years old.”
Dean curses, and waits for the ok to enter the house.
When he does, he can barely see for the smoke. But he’s been doing this for a few years now, and his training kicks in. He searches the downstairs quickly, talking to Victor and Jo and the other firefighters over the radio, and finds a staircase leading up. He doesn’t hesitate, tests each stair before putting his full weight on it.
He goes by instinct, can’t explain how he finds himself kneeling on hardwood floor that’s hot even through his protective pants, and yanks open a closet door. It takes him a moment to see through the smoke, but then he spots her. A small girl curled into herself. Her face is pressed into her knees, and when Dean places a hand on her back, he can feel her rough breathing.
“Found the girl,” he says into his mask. “Upstairs.”
“Right behind you,” Victor says, and Dean pulls the girl into his arms.
He curses when the girl barely responds.
Victor meets him at the stairs, and Dean hands the girl off to him.
“Pull out,” the chief’s voice comes over the radio. “The roof’s gonna collapse.”
Dean nods, and Victor turns just as the wall to the left caves in. Dean doesn’t have time to react, simply holds up his left arm. The wall crashes into him, all ash and flame, and he feels as if he’s been hit by a truck.
“Dean!” Victor’s voice is blurred over the radio.
Dean coughs, and as he takes another breath in and heat scorches his throat, he realizes his mask has been pushed aside.
“I’m good!” he shouts, hopes Victor can hear him. “Get the kid out!”
He can’t see Victor, but he knows he’s gone when the radio goes quiet. Dean tries to move, but the wall has him pinned by the shoulder against the banister. He’s coughing now, choking on smoke, and his free arm won’t move properly when he tries to move his mask back into place. His left arm is useless beneath the press of the fallen wall. The crackle and roar of flames increase around him.
Warmth closes around him then, and he thinks Well, I guess this is it and prepares himself to feel the burn of flames consume his suit and melt his skin.
Only it never comes. There’s only a comforting warmth that settles slowly around him, and he opens his eyes just a slit. There’s so much smoke. He knows he should be having trouble breathing right now, with his mask askew. Instead, he’s pulling in shallow breaths and his lungs aren’t burning anymore, and when he looks down at his legs the flames are dancing away from him. He squints harder, and thinks he sees shadows circling his calves, clinging to his thighs and repelling the flames.
But then blackness starts to cloud his vision, and the last thing he feels before darkness consumes him is the comforting warmth again, followed by regret that he’ll never get to say bye to Sam.
**
Dean wakes up in the hospital. His skin is sensitive and every muscle in his body hurts, but there are no burns, and other than a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder he’s okay. No burnt lungs, no complications from smoke inhalation, nothing, when he knows he should be dead.
“You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Winchester,” the doctor tells him, and Dean nods distractedly.
“You idjit,” Bobby tells him when he visits later that day. Sam hasn’t stopped hovering beside Dean’s hospital bed since he woke up, but he makes room for the mechanic by Dean’s head. “Next time you go barging into a fire, remember your training.”
“Yes, sir,” he says. “Who pulled me out,” he asks Sam. “What happened?” Because the last thing Dean remembers is being trapped under burning dry wall with flames dancing up his sides.
Sam shakes his head. “No one pulled you out, Dean. You were lying just outside the door, on the porch.”
Dean frowns. “I was upstairs,” he says.
“You must have blacked out.” Sam leans forward and adjusts the pillow behind Dean’s back. Dean bats his hand away. “The floor gave way, so maybe you fell through.”
“Sure.” But he knows he would have been bloody pulp if he had survived a fall like that. He knows he definitely wouldn’t have survived the flames.
“At least you’re safe, boy,” Bobby says. “No matter how you got out.”
Dean shrugs, is about to argue the improbability of it all, but catches Sam blink back what looks suspiciously like tears. “Yeah,” he says instead, and rests back against the pillows Sam’s fluffed up.
**
The first time Dean notices anything strange, it’s two months after the accident and he’s been back at the firehouse for three days now. The guys have decided he’s been out on recovery for long enough and that it’s his turn to cook dinner.
But cooking has never been Dean’s strongest skill. He curses when he turns from the sink to see dark smoke coming out of the oven, and nearly trips over the table in the room trying to get to the appliance before the fire alarm goes off and he forces the firehouse to answer its own call for help.
When he opens the oven door, his eyes sting from the smoke. He coughs, blindly reaching for the pot holder on the counter, and thinks briefly that it would figure he’d survive last month’s accident only to die in a cooking related accident right in the firehouse.
Something touches his elbow, a soft touch that ghosts over his skin, and he barely feels it but for the warmth that spreads out from that slight contact. For a moment, he’s brought back to the burning house, to being wrapped in comforting warmth that seemed to keep the flames at bay.
He blinks, and his eyes no longer sting. There’s a black charred lump in the middle of the oven, and he grabs hold of the pan and chucks it and the ruined pizza into the sink, his curse audible over the clang. Expecting to find the kitchen full of smoke, he turns around and steps towards the windows to open them and let the smoke out, but the air is smoke-free. A glance to the window shows him they’re all closed.
“What the-”
There’s movement to his right, and he turns in time to see a flash of a tan coat disappear around the corner.
“Hey!”
By the time he reaches the doorway, whoever he saw is gone.
**
Dean doesn’t think anything more about the kitchen incident. Besides the slight teasing his co-workers give him about ruining a simple DiGiorno pizza, and the shit they give him for needing to order out, the incident is pushed to the back of Dean’s mind.
He’s at the grocery store two days later, working his way down the grocery list Sam gave him that morning, when the next odd thing happens. He’s pulled over to the side of the cereal aisle, contemplating if getting Reese’s Puffs instead of Raisin Bran is worth it enough to deal with another one of Sam’s you’re-getting-older-you-can’t-keep-eating-junk-Dean speeches when he feels the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He looks up, but he’s alone in the aisle.
He goes back to glaring at the boxes, trying to decide, but he can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching him. Another glance around the aisle reveals there’s still nobody there.
He coughs into his fist, throws the Reese’s Puffs into his carriage along with the Raisin Bran, and starts towards the meat section, hoping the feeling will simply go away.
It doesn’t. It stays with him while he’s picking out hamburger meat, as he moves into the frozen foods aisle and chucks a bag of frozen green beans and carrots into his carriage. The feeling still hasn’t left him when he stops in front of the milk. It’s late, 9pm on a Friday night, and there’s barely anyone in the store. The only person he sees is a man in a trench coat standing stiffly in front of the cheeses a few feet away.
Dean watches him. The man seems absorbed in his task. His eyes scan the cheeses, and every once in a while his hand moves slightly as if he’s going to reach out and grab a packet or square of cheese from the wall. Only he doesn’t. His hand curls into a light fist and falls back to his side.
Dean turns away. You’re going crazy, he thinks, and grabs a carton of two-percent milk. He starts pushing his carriage towards the ice cream, Sam’s health speech be damned, and nearly bumps into the man in the trench coat.
“Oh, hey. Sorry,” Dean mutters. The man merely goes from staring at Dean’s carriage to staring at Dean, and Dean’s caught for a moment. The guy’s good looking, dark hair and blue eyes that shoot heat straight to Dean’s groin.
The man is silent for a few heartbeats, and Dean’s starting to go from appreciative to embarrassed to nervous when the man finally nods shortly.
“It was my fault,” he says. “My apologies.”
Dean forces a smile, waves a hand. “Whatever, man.” He pauses, and when the man keeps staring he opens his mouth to ask if something’s wrong. But the man looks down, then, into Dean’s carriage, and takes a step back.
“Have a nice evening,” he says, and Dean shivers at the gravel in his voice.
“You, too.” But the man’s already stepping around Dean. As he passes behind him, the man brushes Dean’s shoulder, and Dean is momentarily surprised by heat and a feeling of goodness that spreads out from the contact. And it’s familiar, too familiar by now.
“Hey,” Dean starts, and turns around, but the man is already gone. It takes Dean a few moments to step away and push his cart to the ice cream freezer, and longer than usual to choose a flavor. But the feeling of being watched is lessened somewhat, even though he still finds himself glancing over his shoulder.
On his way to the checkout, he glances up and sees surveillance cameras scattered over the aisles. That’s got to be it, it decides.
It’s only when he’s helping the cashier bag his groceries that he realizes he never saw the man in the trench coat choose a cheese from the display.
**
Every year, there are a handful of firefighters that are chosen to attend the Local Heroes event in the park. Cops from the local station are present, along with a handful of firefighters and EMTs and doctors. This year, Dean finds himself on the list to go.
Dean grumbles about noisy kids and sticky grabby hands for days before the event. Sam simply smiles and teases him about being a hero. Dean rolls his eyes and grumbles some more.
But when the day arrives, Dean spends it teaching the kids about fire safety and he can’t help but genuinely feel a little bit of regret as the parents start pulling up in minivans to pick the kids up. Not that he’d ever tell Sam.
Nearly everyone is gone when 5 pm rolls around. Sam borrowed his car that morning, so Dean sits on a park bench and waits to be picked up. There are a few kids left over from the event, and they’re running around the playground equipment. A group of three boys are playing cops and robbers, and Dean can’t help but chuckle when one of them uses a hold a policeman showed them today when he catches the kid playing the robber.
Dean barely notices the shadow that falls across him. The first thing he notices is that it’s cooler out, that he doesn’t have to squint in the sunlight so hard to see. When he sees the shadow over him shift, he nearly jumps, instinct making him spin in self-defense.
There’s a man behind him, staring out over the playground. Dean’s defenses stay up, but the man doesn’t make any move towards him. He almost doesn’t make any movement at all. The trench coat the man is wearing is familiar, and Dean remembers the dark hair and the blue eyes.
Dean turns all the way around to face the man. The man’s eyes slide away from the playground, catch on Dean, and Dean knows they’ve done this before.
“Hey,” Dean says.
The man, much to his surprise, simply nods at him.
“You’re the grocery dude.”
The man tilts his head. “Pardon?”
“Uh…” Dean has a moment of doubt. But then his eye catches on the slight movement from the man’s hand, fingers twitching to form a loose fist. “We kind of ran into each other at the grocery store.”
It takes a moment for the man to reply. “Yes. I remember.”
Dean smiles. “Didn’t think I’d run into you again.”
There’s a half-twitch of the man’s lips, and Dean starts to wonder if the man ever smiles. He doesn’t think he mind so much sticking around to see if the man did.
A cool breeze blows over the playground, and Dean shivers.
“Not to be rude or anything, but… you’re kind of standing in my sun.”
Confusion crosses the man’s face for a moment before he looks behind him, looks up to the sky and straight at the sun. Dean raises an eyebrow.
“My apologies,” he says, and moves off to the side.
“So…” Dean ventures, thinking that if he plays his cards right he might get the man to sit down. “Crazy meeting you here. Some coincidence.” He smiles when the man looks over at him.
“Not really.”
Dean’s smile slips. “Excuse me?”
But before the man can respond, Sam’s voice echoes across the playground. “Dean!”
Dean turns around, sees Sam waving at him from the parking lot. He holds up his arm, signaling for Sam to wait a moment.
“Seriously, dude,” he starts as he turns around. “What-” Nothing is behind him but grass and trees.
“How’d it go?” Sam asks him when Dean gets to the car.
Dean catches the keys Sam tosses him and slides behind the steering wheel. “Fine, I guess,” he says. He puts the key into the ignition, turns it, and feels the engine jump to life, beating a soothing rhythm into his body. “There was this guy, after. He was kinda weird.”
“Guy?”
“Yeah.” Dean turns towards Sam as he folds himself into the passenger seat. “The guy in the trench coat.”
Sam scoffs. “A trench coat? Isn’t that a little overkill for the beginning of summer?”
“Did he look weird to you? Off, somehow?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t see him.”
“The guy behind me on the park bench.”
“I didn’t see anyone behind you on the park bench, Dean.”
Dean freezes. “He was right there, when you finally got your ass over here.”
Sam forces out a sigh. “I didn’t see anyone, Dean. You were by yourself, looking at something on the other end of the playground.”
“But-”
“Can we go, Dean? I have an essay I need to read through again before tomorrow night.”
Dean shakes his head, pressing hard on the gas pedal. He gains a small sense of victory when he catches Sam clutch at the passenger door.
“Bitch.”
“Jerk,” Sam responds, and it’s practically a yell as Dean pulls hard into traffic.
**
There are a handful of other experiences. Dean’s on his way to the firehouse to help repaint the kitchen when he stops at a red light and catches sight of a figure watching him in the window of the hardware store. But when he turns to look, no one’s there. He’s standing outside a small colonial, explaining to the woman who lives there to make sure she turns the burners off when she’s done cooking, when he catches a figure hovering to his left. When he glances up, the only things he sees are a mailbox and a rundown Ford Sundance.
“Dean?”
Dean snaps his gaze to Victor. Victor’s frowning at him.
“Did you see someone?”
“What?”
Dean jerks his head to the left. “Over there. A guy just… hovering?”
Victor quirks an eyebrow at him. “No. There’s no one there. Never has been.”
Dean stares for a moment, just long enough to see Victor’s frown go from annoyed to concerned, before clearing his throat and turning back towards the woman.
“Just pay more attention,” he says, and walks off towards the fire engine.
**
Dean can’t ignore the fact that something weird is going on when the strange things stop happening at random places-his work place, the grocery store, the park-and instead start happening inside his home.
It’s Dean’s first full day off since returning to work. He and Sam spend the morning watching a marathon of The Three Stooges, and Sam drags him out of the apartment to a restaurant near Bobby’s garage for lunch. When five o’clock rolls around, Sam says goodbye and heads off to class.
So Dean is left alone in their apartment. He flips through the channels, smiles when he sees a Dr. Sexy Marathon on the WE network. Sam had teased him about being hooked on the show, but in the hospital he’d had nothing else to watch. It was either Dr. Sexy or Sponge Bob, and with a pounding headache it was a little too painful to watch the cartoon.
Nine o’clock rolls around, and Dean stretches, thinks about getting up and reheating the Chinese he has stored in the fridge when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns, sees nothing but an empty living room.
Dean passes it off as a fluke, just another trick of his eyes. Just as he’s turning back to the TV, there’s a soft rustling from the kitchen.
“Sam?”
There’s no answer, and Sam never gets back from class until close to eleven.
“Hello?”
The apartment is silent. Dean turns back to the TV, but he can’t help glancing at the reflection in the clock over the TV to keep an eye on the doorway to the kitchen. He makes it through another commercial break before movement catches his eye. It’s almost nothing, but something dark seems to peak around the doorway. Dean’s on his feet in an instant, knees bent and ready to spring into action.
The room is empty.
“Fuck this,” Dean mutters, and he stomps towards the kitchen only to find it empty as well.
“Sam?” He backtracks to glance into the living room. “If this is you playing a joke, it isn’t funny. Get your ass out here.”
A crash from the hallway makes Dean jump, and he lets out a string of curses as he runs towards the sound. A stack of magazines he’d placed near the kitchen is strewn across the hallway, knocked into a pile of paper Sam’s been meaning to recycle for a week now. But what rips Dean’s eye away from the mess is the blur of movement into his bedroom.
Dean grabs the closest thing in reach, a baseball bat it turns out, and runs to the room. As he turns the corner, he prepares for someone to fly out at him, hit him, anything. Instead, there’s a gust of wind, and he hears a rustling again, like leaves blowing across pavement.
Dean flicks on the bedroom light. He takes in a breath when the shadows are gone and leave nothing but an empty room before him, tries to calm down his frantic pulse. He remains still, listening. Minutes go by, but there is no more sound, no other movement.
“Great,” he says, and takes a step forward to close the window. He looks up, and sees the window is already closed. After a few more minutes of silence, he heads back to the living room, turns the TV off, sits on the couch and waits for Sam to get home.
**
“Getting ready for little league?”
Dean glances up at Sam’s voice an hour and a half later to see his brother standing halfway in the front door. His fist closes around the bat in his hand.
“No,” he snaps.
“Then what’s with the bat?”
“There was a fly,” he says. “Bastard kept buzzing around my head. Don’t worry, though. I got him.”
Sam shuts the door behind him, tosses his backpack against the wall. A moment of silence passes, one where Dean tries to ignore the worried stare Sam is giving him. Then, “Hey… Dean?”
“What?”
“Are you feeling okay?”
Dean looks up. “Yeah. Why?”
Sam shrugs, but the worry is still there.
“I’m fine, Sam.” He leans the bat against the wall and grabs for the TV remote, turning the TV back on.
When Sam doesn’t move, Dean sighs. “You got something to say?”
“Dean, something’s going on. You’ve been acting… weird the past few days.”
Dean frowns. He hadn’t realized he’d been acting any different. But then again, he reasons, general feelings of being followed and slight paranoia might be hard to hide.
“It’s nothing, Sam.”
“This isn’t nothing, Dean. You’re acting… paranoid, or something. You’ve been looking over your shoulder whenever we hang out. Even Jo mentioned something when I passed the firehouse the other day.”
Dean sighs, pushes off the couch and heads for the kitchen.
Sam follows him. “Dean.”
“Fine.” Dean reaches into the refrigerator for a beer. “I think someone’s stalking me.”
Sam stops next to the fridge. “What?”
“Okay, that came out weird.” He rubs a hand over his face. “But seriously, dude. For the past week or so I’ve felt… I don’t know. Like someone’s been following me.”
“Following you?”
Dean nods. He’s about to continue when he glances at Sam and catches the renewed concern on his face. “It’s nothing,” he says instead.
“This isn’t some side affect from your accident, is it?”
“Jesus, Sam. Just… Forget it. I’m going to bed.” He slams his beer onto the counter and starts to walk away.
“It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“Then I’m going to go watch some porn.”
Sam huffs. “Dean…”
Dean ignores him and closes his bedroom door behind him.
**
“Dean.”
Dean knows he’s in a dream. The lake is too blue, and the leaves on the trees are starting to turn orange and red, despite the fact that summer’s only just begun. He knows this lake. He came here every summer with his Dad and Sam when he was little. He hasn’t been back here in years.
“Dean.” His name sounds again, and Dean doesn’t ignore it this time. He follows the voice, and looks to his right.
There’s a man standing there. He’s wearing a tan trench coat, his hair is dark brown, and his blue eyes are trained on Dean.
“It’s you,” Dean says. He feels no panic, only a brief sense of wonder that out of everybody he’s ever met he’s decided to insert the man he met once in the dairy aisle at the grocery store, and then briefly at the park, into his dream. He’s tells the man as much, and smiles briefly at the confused frown the man gives him before he turns back to the task at hand; fishing.
“This is not a dream,” the man says. And his voice is deeper, rougher than Dean remembers.
“Sure,” he says. “And you aren’t some random dude I met in the grocery store.”
“I’m not.”
Dean chuckles, shakes his head, and starts reeling in his line when he feels a gentle pull.
“So what are you, then? Some stalker or something than can creep into my dreams?”
There’s a pause. “Not exactly.”
Dean finishes winding up the line, and frowns at the empty hook floating just above the water.
“I always catch fish,” he mumbles.
“This is not a dream.”
Dean rolls his eyes, grabs for the hook and reaches next to him for new bait. He’s careless, grabbing for a worm and jabbing it onto the hook. So careless that he moves just a little too quickly, a little too forcibly, and his pointer finger catches on the hook. It’s never mattered before, because in this dream he always comes away without blood, without a tear in his skin. It’s supposed to be his dream and he shouldn’t have to relive that pain and frustration that he remembers from the trips here as a kid.
Only this time he curses at the pain that shoots up his hand, drops the hook when he sees red swell to the surface.
“As I was saying…” the man says.
“What the fuck is this?” Dean growls.
“I did not want to approach you in real life,” the man says. “I did not want to startle you.”
“Whatever.” Dean glances up, glares at the man. “Who are you?”
The man tilts his head at him. “My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Dean laughs. “Sure.” He wipes his finger against his jeans, cleaning it of the blood, and winces at the sting from contact.
“Dean-”
“I’ll pretend for a minute that this isn’t some wacked out dream. I’ll even pretend that you’re… something. But an angel? Sorry, dude. I don’t believe in angels.”
The man nods. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Like Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy?”
“They are… exaggerations,” the man says. “Their namesakes, however, are alive and well.”
Dean pauses. “That’s one way to win me over to the believer’s side.”
“Myth is derived from reality, Dean. How is it hard to believe-”
“Whatever.” Dean waves his good hand in a circular motion. “Cut to the chase. If this isn’t a dream, and you’re really an angel, why are you talking to me? What do you want?”
The man glances away, and Dean has a moment to observe him freely. He’s just as good looking as Dean remembers him, but there’s a strange, still quality about him, a sense of power just underneath the surface. Regret settles in his chest that he let the guy from real life get away so easily.
“I wished to make contact with you,” the man says suddenly, and then he’s staring at Dean again. “I have been observing you, and I have something to ask of you.”
Dean smirks. “Don’t tell me you’re the stalker I’ve been seeing everywhere.”
The man shifts uncomfortably on the dock, but there’s no sound of creaking wood. “I would not call it stalking.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He stands, watches his hand drip blood onto the dock beneath him. “Okay, I’m done with this dream.”
“Dean-”
“Seriously.” He glances down at his hand again. “If you’re an angel, do you mind fixing me up before we zap out of here?”
The man-Castiel-frowns, but reaches forward after a minute. His fingers brush over Dean’s fingertips, across the wound, and a familiar warmth spreads from the contact into Dean. It’s the same feeling from the house fire, the sensation from in the kitchen the day he burnt the pizza, and again the feeling from the grocery store.
The man takes a slow step away from him. “I’ll be seeing you again, Dean.”
Dean shakes himself out of the moment, forces a smirk. “Sure.”
When he wakes up, it’s morning, and he stays buried beneath his blankets for a few moments trying to shake off the dream. He flops over onto his back, glances at his alarm clock. It’s just after nine. The apartment is quiet around him, which means Sam’s probably off doing research at the library already, and he decides that going to the diner for breakfast would be easier than making something for himself. He stretches before he gets out of bed, and tries to ignore the memories of the dream that keep coming back to him as he brushes his teeth. As he’s filling his cupped hands with water, he catches sight of something on his pointer finger.
It’s a small white scar. Dean can’t remember having a scar there before, and he rubs it absently, listening to the water fill the sink.
On to Part 2...
Rating: PG
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Genre: AU, pre-slash
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Word Count: 10,532
Summary: AU. After making it out of a fire Dean never should have survived, he starts to get the feeling he's being watched. Little does he know that what's stalking him is an angel, and it has a purpose.
Author's Note: This was originally written for ladyyueh in round two of cloudyjenn 's Twitfic Exchange over on twitter. The prompt: AU, Dean is a regular guy, and Cas is his angel stalker. A huge thank you goes out to pyjamagurl and awesomepants87 for acting as betas... you guys rock! Any and all remaining mistakes are my own.
Divine Intervention
It’s a Thursday when the firehouse bell rings. It’s just after noon, and Dean feels a thrill of adrenaline course through him when he hears the clang run through the station. The rush to suit up, the drive to the site of the fire is a blur. It’s only when he arrives at the two-story Victorian and sees flames shooting into the sky that time seems to slow down and details become crisp and clear.
A small family is gathered on the front lawn, and Dean can see three policemen holding a man back from running inside the burning house.
“There’s a kid missing,” Victor’s voice sounds over the radio in Dean’s mask. “A girl, ten years old.”
Dean curses, and waits for the ok to enter the house.
When he does, he can barely see for the smoke. But he’s been doing this for a few years now, and his training kicks in. He searches the downstairs quickly, talking to Victor and Jo and the other firefighters over the radio, and finds a staircase leading up. He doesn’t hesitate, tests each stair before putting his full weight on it.
He goes by instinct, can’t explain how he finds himself kneeling on hardwood floor that’s hot even through his protective pants, and yanks open a closet door. It takes him a moment to see through the smoke, but then he spots her. A small girl curled into herself. Her face is pressed into her knees, and when Dean places a hand on her back, he can feel her rough breathing.
“Found the girl,” he says into his mask. “Upstairs.”
“Right behind you,” Victor says, and Dean pulls the girl into his arms.
He curses when the girl barely responds.
Victor meets him at the stairs, and Dean hands the girl off to him.
“Pull out,” the chief’s voice comes over the radio. “The roof’s gonna collapse.”
Dean nods, and Victor turns just as the wall to the left caves in. Dean doesn’t have time to react, simply holds up his left arm. The wall crashes into him, all ash and flame, and he feels as if he’s been hit by a truck.
“Dean!” Victor’s voice is blurred over the radio.
Dean coughs, and as he takes another breath in and heat scorches his throat, he realizes his mask has been pushed aside.
“I’m good!” he shouts, hopes Victor can hear him. “Get the kid out!”
He can’t see Victor, but he knows he’s gone when the radio goes quiet. Dean tries to move, but the wall has him pinned by the shoulder against the banister. He’s coughing now, choking on smoke, and his free arm won’t move properly when he tries to move his mask back into place. His left arm is useless beneath the press of the fallen wall. The crackle and roar of flames increase around him.
Warmth closes around him then, and he thinks Well, I guess this is it and prepares himself to feel the burn of flames consume his suit and melt his skin.
Only it never comes. There’s only a comforting warmth that settles slowly around him, and he opens his eyes just a slit. There’s so much smoke. He knows he should be having trouble breathing right now, with his mask askew. Instead, he’s pulling in shallow breaths and his lungs aren’t burning anymore, and when he looks down at his legs the flames are dancing away from him. He squints harder, and thinks he sees shadows circling his calves, clinging to his thighs and repelling the flames.
But then blackness starts to cloud his vision, and the last thing he feels before darkness consumes him is the comforting warmth again, followed by regret that he’ll never get to say bye to Sam.
**
Dean wakes up in the hospital. His skin is sensitive and every muscle in his body hurts, but there are no burns, and other than a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder he’s okay. No burnt lungs, no complications from smoke inhalation, nothing, when he knows he should be dead.
“You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Winchester,” the doctor tells him, and Dean nods distractedly.
“You idjit,” Bobby tells him when he visits later that day. Sam hasn’t stopped hovering beside Dean’s hospital bed since he woke up, but he makes room for the mechanic by Dean’s head. “Next time you go barging into a fire, remember your training.”
“Yes, sir,” he says. “Who pulled me out,” he asks Sam. “What happened?” Because the last thing Dean remembers is being trapped under burning dry wall with flames dancing up his sides.
Sam shakes his head. “No one pulled you out, Dean. You were lying just outside the door, on the porch.”
Dean frowns. “I was upstairs,” he says.
“You must have blacked out.” Sam leans forward and adjusts the pillow behind Dean’s back. Dean bats his hand away. “The floor gave way, so maybe you fell through.”
“Sure.” But he knows he would have been bloody pulp if he had survived a fall like that. He knows he definitely wouldn’t have survived the flames.
“At least you’re safe, boy,” Bobby says. “No matter how you got out.”
Dean shrugs, is about to argue the improbability of it all, but catches Sam blink back what looks suspiciously like tears. “Yeah,” he says instead, and rests back against the pillows Sam’s fluffed up.
**
The first time Dean notices anything strange, it’s two months after the accident and he’s been back at the firehouse for three days now. The guys have decided he’s been out on recovery for long enough and that it’s his turn to cook dinner.
But cooking has never been Dean’s strongest skill. He curses when he turns from the sink to see dark smoke coming out of the oven, and nearly trips over the table in the room trying to get to the appliance before the fire alarm goes off and he forces the firehouse to answer its own call for help.
When he opens the oven door, his eyes sting from the smoke. He coughs, blindly reaching for the pot holder on the counter, and thinks briefly that it would figure he’d survive last month’s accident only to die in a cooking related accident right in the firehouse.
Something touches his elbow, a soft touch that ghosts over his skin, and he barely feels it but for the warmth that spreads out from that slight contact. For a moment, he’s brought back to the burning house, to being wrapped in comforting warmth that seemed to keep the flames at bay.
He blinks, and his eyes no longer sting. There’s a black charred lump in the middle of the oven, and he grabs hold of the pan and chucks it and the ruined pizza into the sink, his curse audible over the clang. Expecting to find the kitchen full of smoke, he turns around and steps towards the windows to open them and let the smoke out, but the air is smoke-free. A glance to the window shows him they’re all closed.
“What the-”
There’s movement to his right, and he turns in time to see a flash of a tan coat disappear around the corner.
“Hey!”
By the time he reaches the doorway, whoever he saw is gone.
**
Dean doesn’t think anything more about the kitchen incident. Besides the slight teasing his co-workers give him about ruining a simple DiGiorno pizza, and the shit they give him for needing to order out, the incident is pushed to the back of Dean’s mind.
He’s at the grocery store two days later, working his way down the grocery list Sam gave him that morning, when the next odd thing happens. He’s pulled over to the side of the cereal aisle, contemplating if getting Reese’s Puffs instead of Raisin Bran is worth it enough to deal with another one of Sam’s you’re-getting-older-you-can’t-keep-eating-junk-Dean speeches when he feels the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He looks up, but he’s alone in the aisle.
He goes back to glaring at the boxes, trying to decide, but he can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching him. Another glance around the aisle reveals there’s still nobody there.
He coughs into his fist, throws the Reese’s Puffs into his carriage along with the Raisin Bran, and starts towards the meat section, hoping the feeling will simply go away.
It doesn’t. It stays with him while he’s picking out hamburger meat, as he moves into the frozen foods aisle and chucks a bag of frozen green beans and carrots into his carriage. The feeling still hasn’t left him when he stops in front of the milk. It’s late, 9pm on a Friday night, and there’s barely anyone in the store. The only person he sees is a man in a trench coat standing stiffly in front of the cheeses a few feet away.
Dean watches him. The man seems absorbed in his task. His eyes scan the cheeses, and every once in a while his hand moves slightly as if he’s going to reach out and grab a packet or square of cheese from the wall. Only he doesn’t. His hand curls into a light fist and falls back to his side.
Dean turns away. You’re going crazy, he thinks, and grabs a carton of two-percent milk. He starts pushing his carriage towards the ice cream, Sam’s health speech be damned, and nearly bumps into the man in the trench coat.
“Oh, hey. Sorry,” Dean mutters. The man merely goes from staring at Dean’s carriage to staring at Dean, and Dean’s caught for a moment. The guy’s good looking, dark hair and blue eyes that shoot heat straight to Dean’s groin.
The man is silent for a few heartbeats, and Dean’s starting to go from appreciative to embarrassed to nervous when the man finally nods shortly.
“It was my fault,” he says. “My apologies.”
Dean forces a smile, waves a hand. “Whatever, man.” He pauses, and when the man keeps staring he opens his mouth to ask if something’s wrong. But the man looks down, then, into Dean’s carriage, and takes a step back.
“Have a nice evening,” he says, and Dean shivers at the gravel in his voice.
“You, too.” But the man’s already stepping around Dean. As he passes behind him, the man brushes Dean’s shoulder, and Dean is momentarily surprised by heat and a feeling of goodness that spreads out from the contact. And it’s familiar, too familiar by now.
“Hey,” Dean starts, and turns around, but the man is already gone. It takes Dean a few moments to step away and push his cart to the ice cream freezer, and longer than usual to choose a flavor. But the feeling of being watched is lessened somewhat, even though he still finds himself glancing over his shoulder.
On his way to the checkout, he glances up and sees surveillance cameras scattered over the aisles. That’s got to be it, it decides.
It’s only when he’s helping the cashier bag his groceries that he realizes he never saw the man in the trench coat choose a cheese from the display.
**
Every year, there are a handful of firefighters that are chosen to attend the Local Heroes event in the park. Cops from the local station are present, along with a handful of firefighters and EMTs and doctors. This year, Dean finds himself on the list to go.
Dean grumbles about noisy kids and sticky grabby hands for days before the event. Sam simply smiles and teases him about being a hero. Dean rolls his eyes and grumbles some more.
But when the day arrives, Dean spends it teaching the kids about fire safety and he can’t help but genuinely feel a little bit of regret as the parents start pulling up in minivans to pick the kids up. Not that he’d ever tell Sam.
Nearly everyone is gone when 5 pm rolls around. Sam borrowed his car that morning, so Dean sits on a park bench and waits to be picked up. There are a few kids left over from the event, and they’re running around the playground equipment. A group of three boys are playing cops and robbers, and Dean can’t help but chuckle when one of them uses a hold a policeman showed them today when he catches the kid playing the robber.
Dean barely notices the shadow that falls across him. The first thing he notices is that it’s cooler out, that he doesn’t have to squint in the sunlight so hard to see. When he sees the shadow over him shift, he nearly jumps, instinct making him spin in self-defense.
There’s a man behind him, staring out over the playground. Dean’s defenses stay up, but the man doesn’t make any move towards him. He almost doesn’t make any movement at all. The trench coat the man is wearing is familiar, and Dean remembers the dark hair and the blue eyes.
Dean turns all the way around to face the man. The man’s eyes slide away from the playground, catch on Dean, and Dean knows they’ve done this before.
“Hey,” Dean says.
The man, much to his surprise, simply nods at him.
“You’re the grocery dude.”
The man tilts his head. “Pardon?”
“Uh…” Dean has a moment of doubt. But then his eye catches on the slight movement from the man’s hand, fingers twitching to form a loose fist. “We kind of ran into each other at the grocery store.”
It takes a moment for the man to reply. “Yes. I remember.”
Dean smiles. “Didn’t think I’d run into you again.”
There’s a half-twitch of the man’s lips, and Dean starts to wonder if the man ever smiles. He doesn’t think he mind so much sticking around to see if the man did.
A cool breeze blows over the playground, and Dean shivers.
“Not to be rude or anything, but… you’re kind of standing in my sun.”
Confusion crosses the man’s face for a moment before he looks behind him, looks up to the sky and straight at the sun. Dean raises an eyebrow.
“My apologies,” he says, and moves off to the side.
“So…” Dean ventures, thinking that if he plays his cards right he might get the man to sit down. “Crazy meeting you here. Some coincidence.” He smiles when the man looks over at him.
“Not really.”
Dean’s smile slips. “Excuse me?”
But before the man can respond, Sam’s voice echoes across the playground. “Dean!”
Dean turns around, sees Sam waving at him from the parking lot. He holds up his arm, signaling for Sam to wait a moment.
“Seriously, dude,” he starts as he turns around. “What-” Nothing is behind him but grass and trees.
“How’d it go?” Sam asks him when Dean gets to the car.
Dean catches the keys Sam tosses him and slides behind the steering wheel. “Fine, I guess,” he says. He puts the key into the ignition, turns it, and feels the engine jump to life, beating a soothing rhythm into his body. “There was this guy, after. He was kinda weird.”
“Guy?”
“Yeah.” Dean turns towards Sam as he folds himself into the passenger seat. “The guy in the trench coat.”
Sam scoffs. “A trench coat? Isn’t that a little overkill for the beginning of summer?”
“Did he look weird to you? Off, somehow?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t see him.”
“The guy behind me on the park bench.”
“I didn’t see anyone behind you on the park bench, Dean.”
Dean freezes. “He was right there, when you finally got your ass over here.”
Sam forces out a sigh. “I didn’t see anyone, Dean. You were by yourself, looking at something on the other end of the playground.”
“But-”
“Can we go, Dean? I have an essay I need to read through again before tomorrow night.”
Dean shakes his head, pressing hard on the gas pedal. He gains a small sense of victory when he catches Sam clutch at the passenger door.
“Bitch.”
“Jerk,” Sam responds, and it’s practically a yell as Dean pulls hard into traffic.
**
There are a handful of other experiences. Dean’s on his way to the firehouse to help repaint the kitchen when he stops at a red light and catches sight of a figure watching him in the window of the hardware store. But when he turns to look, no one’s there. He’s standing outside a small colonial, explaining to the woman who lives there to make sure she turns the burners off when she’s done cooking, when he catches a figure hovering to his left. When he glances up, the only things he sees are a mailbox and a rundown Ford Sundance.
“Dean?”
Dean snaps his gaze to Victor. Victor’s frowning at him.
“Did you see someone?”
“What?”
Dean jerks his head to the left. “Over there. A guy just… hovering?”
Victor quirks an eyebrow at him. “No. There’s no one there. Never has been.”
Dean stares for a moment, just long enough to see Victor’s frown go from annoyed to concerned, before clearing his throat and turning back towards the woman.
“Just pay more attention,” he says, and walks off towards the fire engine.
**
Dean can’t ignore the fact that something weird is going on when the strange things stop happening at random places-his work place, the grocery store, the park-and instead start happening inside his home.
It’s Dean’s first full day off since returning to work. He and Sam spend the morning watching a marathon of The Three Stooges, and Sam drags him out of the apartment to a restaurant near Bobby’s garage for lunch. When five o’clock rolls around, Sam says goodbye and heads off to class.
So Dean is left alone in their apartment. He flips through the channels, smiles when he sees a Dr. Sexy Marathon on the WE network. Sam had teased him about being hooked on the show, but in the hospital he’d had nothing else to watch. It was either Dr. Sexy or Sponge Bob, and with a pounding headache it was a little too painful to watch the cartoon.
Nine o’clock rolls around, and Dean stretches, thinks about getting up and reheating the Chinese he has stored in the fridge when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns, sees nothing but an empty living room.
Dean passes it off as a fluke, just another trick of his eyes. Just as he’s turning back to the TV, there’s a soft rustling from the kitchen.
“Sam?”
There’s no answer, and Sam never gets back from class until close to eleven.
“Hello?”
The apartment is silent. Dean turns back to the TV, but he can’t help glancing at the reflection in the clock over the TV to keep an eye on the doorway to the kitchen. He makes it through another commercial break before movement catches his eye. It’s almost nothing, but something dark seems to peak around the doorway. Dean’s on his feet in an instant, knees bent and ready to spring into action.
The room is empty.
“Fuck this,” Dean mutters, and he stomps towards the kitchen only to find it empty as well.
“Sam?” He backtracks to glance into the living room. “If this is you playing a joke, it isn’t funny. Get your ass out here.”
A crash from the hallway makes Dean jump, and he lets out a string of curses as he runs towards the sound. A stack of magazines he’d placed near the kitchen is strewn across the hallway, knocked into a pile of paper Sam’s been meaning to recycle for a week now. But what rips Dean’s eye away from the mess is the blur of movement into his bedroom.
Dean grabs the closest thing in reach, a baseball bat it turns out, and runs to the room. As he turns the corner, he prepares for someone to fly out at him, hit him, anything. Instead, there’s a gust of wind, and he hears a rustling again, like leaves blowing across pavement.
Dean flicks on the bedroom light. He takes in a breath when the shadows are gone and leave nothing but an empty room before him, tries to calm down his frantic pulse. He remains still, listening. Minutes go by, but there is no more sound, no other movement.
“Great,” he says, and takes a step forward to close the window. He looks up, and sees the window is already closed. After a few more minutes of silence, he heads back to the living room, turns the TV off, sits on the couch and waits for Sam to get home.
**
“Getting ready for little league?”
Dean glances up at Sam’s voice an hour and a half later to see his brother standing halfway in the front door. His fist closes around the bat in his hand.
“No,” he snaps.
“Then what’s with the bat?”
“There was a fly,” he says. “Bastard kept buzzing around my head. Don’t worry, though. I got him.”
Sam shuts the door behind him, tosses his backpack against the wall. A moment of silence passes, one where Dean tries to ignore the worried stare Sam is giving him. Then, “Hey… Dean?”
“What?”
“Are you feeling okay?”
Dean looks up. “Yeah. Why?”
Sam shrugs, but the worry is still there.
“I’m fine, Sam.” He leans the bat against the wall and grabs for the TV remote, turning the TV back on.
When Sam doesn’t move, Dean sighs. “You got something to say?”
“Dean, something’s going on. You’ve been acting… weird the past few days.”
Dean frowns. He hadn’t realized he’d been acting any different. But then again, he reasons, general feelings of being followed and slight paranoia might be hard to hide.
“It’s nothing, Sam.”
“This isn’t nothing, Dean. You’re acting… paranoid, or something. You’ve been looking over your shoulder whenever we hang out. Even Jo mentioned something when I passed the firehouse the other day.”
Dean sighs, pushes off the couch and heads for the kitchen.
Sam follows him. “Dean.”
“Fine.” Dean reaches into the refrigerator for a beer. “I think someone’s stalking me.”
Sam stops next to the fridge. “What?”
“Okay, that came out weird.” He rubs a hand over his face. “But seriously, dude. For the past week or so I’ve felt… I don’t know. Like someone’s been following me.”
“Following you?”
Dean nods. He’s about to continue when he glances at Sam and catches the renewed concern on his face. “It’s nothing,” he says instead.
“This isn’t some side affect from your accident, is it?”
“Jesus, Sam. Just… Forget it. I’m going to bed.” He slams his beer onto the counter and starts to walk away.
“It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“Then I’m going to go watch some porn.”
Sam huffs. “Dean…”
Dean ignores him and closes his bedroom door behind him.
**
“Dean.”
Dean knows he’s in a dream. The lake is too blue, and the leaves on the trees are starting to turn orange and red, despite the fact that summer’s only just begun. He knows this lake. He came here every summer with his Dad and Sam when he was little. He hasn’t been back here in years.
“Dean.” His name sounds again, and Dean doesn’t ignore it this time. He follows the voice, and looks to his right.
There’s a man standing there. He’s wearing a tan trench coat, his hair is dark brown, and his blue eyes are trained on Dean.
“It’s you,” Dean says. He feels no panic, only a brief sense of wonder that out of everybody he’s ever met he’s decided to insert the man he met once in the dairy aisle at the grocery store, and then briefly at the park, into his dream. He’s tells the man as much, and smiles briefly at the confused frown the man gives him before he turns back to the task at hand; fishing.
“This is not a dream,” the man says. And his voice is deeper, rougher than Dean remembers.
“Sure,” he says. “And you aren’t some random dude I met in the grocery store.”
“I’m not.”
Dean chuckles, shakes his head, and starts reeling in his line when he feels a gentle pull.
“So what are you, then? Some stalker or something than can creep into my dreams?”
There’s a pause. “Not exactly.”
Dean finishes winding up the line, and frowns at the empty hook floating just above the water.
“I always catch fish,” he mumbles.
“This is not a dream.”
Dean rolls his eyes, grabs for the hook and reaches next to him for new bait. He’s careless, grabbing for a worm and jabbing it onto the hook. So careless that he moves just a little too quickly, a little too forcibly, and his pointer finger catches on the hook. It’s never mattered before, because in this dream he always comes away without blood, without a tear in his skin. It’s supposed to be his dream and he shouldn’t have to relive that pain and frustration that he remembers from the trips here as a kid.
Only this time he curses at the pain that shoots up his hand, drops the hook when he sees red swell to the surface.
“As I was saying…” the man says.
“What the fuck is this?” Dean growls.
“I did not want to approach you in real life,” the man says. “I did not want to startle you.”
“Whatever.” Dean glances up, glares at the man. “Who are you?”
The man tilts his head at him. “My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Dean laughs. “Sure.” He wipes his finger against his jeans, cleaning it of the blood, and winces at the sting from contact.
“Dean-”
“I’ll pretend for a minute that this isn’t some wacked out dream. I’ll even pretend that you’re… something. But an angel? Sorry, dude. I don’t believe in angels.”
The man nods. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Like Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy?”
“They are… exaggerations,” the man says. “Their namesakes, however, are alive and well.”
Dean pauses. “That’s one way to win me over to the believer’s side.”
“Myth is derived from reality, Dean. How is it hard to believe-”
“Whatever.” Dean waves his good hand in a circular motion. “Cut to the chase. If this isn’t a dream, and you’re really an angel, why are you talking to me? What do you want?”
The man glances away, and Dean has a moment to observe him freely. He’s just as good looking as Dean remembers him, but there’s a strange, still quality about him, a sense of power just underneath the surface. Regret settles in his chest that he let the guy from real life get away so easily.
“I wished to make contact with you,” the man says suddenly, and then he’s staring at Dean again. “I have been observing you, and I have something to ask of you.”
Dean smirks. “Don’t tell me you’re the stalker I’ve been seeing everywhere.”
The man shifts uncomfortably on the dock, but there’s no sound of creaking wood. “I would not call it stalking.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He stands, watches his hand drip blood onto the dock beneath him. “Okay, I’m done with this dream.”
“Dean-”
“Seriously.” He glances down at his hand again. “If you’re an angel, do you mind fixing me up before we zap out of here?”
The man-Castiel-frowns, but reaches forward after a minute. His fingers brush over Dean’s fingertips, across the wound, and a familiar warmth spreads from the contact into Dean. It’s the same feeling from the house fire, the sensation from in the kitchen the day he burnt the pizza, and again the feeling from the grocery store.
The man takes a slow step away from him. “I’ll be seeing you again, Dean.”
Dean shakes himself out of the moment, forces a smirk. “Sure.”
When he wakes up, it’s morning, and he stays buried beneath his blankets for a few moments trying to shake off the dream. He flops over onto his back, glances at his alarm clock. It’s just after nine. The apartment is quiet around him, which means Sam’s probably off doing research at the library already, and he decides that going to the diner for breakfast would be easier than making something for himself. He stretches before he gets out of bed, and tries to ignore the memories of the dream that keep coming back to him as he brushes his teeth. As he’s filling his cupped hands with water, he catches sight of something on his pointer finger.
It’s a small white scar. Dean can’t remember having a scar there before, and he rubs it absently, listening to the water fill the sink.
On to Part 2...