Fic: Woolfgathering (Castiel/Jacob)
Title: Woolgathering
Author: thunder_nari
Recipient: a_carnal_mink
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Castiel/Jacob, Jimmy/Jacob, implied Jimmy/Castiel, Claire
Word count: ~3 600
Notes: Taken from the prompt: 2014 verse, Claire walks into camp Chitaqua with her uncle Jacob (from Stonehenge Apocalypse). I tried to get in some hints at Dean/Claire friendship and Jimmy the unsung hero. Thanks to tawg for the beta.
Warnings: canon and minor character death, incest, angst
Summary: Claire shows up on Jacob's doorstep with a shot gun slung over her shoulder. Left there by Castiel, she brings word of the end of the world to Jacob and leads him across country to Camp Chitaqua, where both of them hope to find a good enough replacement for Jimmy.
Woolgathering
**
Claire shows up on Jacob's doorstep with a shotgun slung over her shoulder in the middle of the afternoon. Jacob is half-asleep because that's what happens when he runs a 3am radio show. He's standing there at the front door in sleep pants and a torn t-shirt, knuckling at his eyes so Claire is blurry around the edges and at first he thinks the shotgun might be a broom.
"The world is going to end,” Claire says and any illusions that Claire came to clean his basement fade as his vision sharpens.
"Oh. Well... come inside.”
The world is still going to end whether he pauses to make coffee or not.
**
It doesn't occur to Jacob that maybe he should question Claire about this world ending business. Sure he shows a healthy amount of scepticism when an idea is ludicrous but in this case he's pretty sure that Claire is bang on. Since Jimmy disappeared, Jacob has been paying attention to a world he normally would have laughed at.
He throws charts onto the table and spreads them out. Weather charts, geographical maps, ley lines. “Look at all this,” he says, enthusiasm shaking through him now that he's downed half a pot of coffee and Claire just stands there watching him with a stoicism that would be unsettling if he wasn't excited enough for the both of them. “We've had weather going all over the place, all over the globe. I mean, earthquakes, tornadoes. Dead fish in the middle of a desert. And look, see all the points the ley lines cross?” He darts a glance at her but she doesn't react. “They're hot spots for activity. Whatever is going on it's huge.”
"End of the world,” Claire intones.
"Right.” Jacob pauses, taking a second to really look at her. “How do you know that?”
"Because an angel told me.”
Jacob sits down and stares up at her. “Right.”
What the hell is he supposed to say to that? He makes her hot chocolate even though there's not enough chocolate in the world right now but Jacob can't think of anything else to offer.
Claire is staring down into the mug, tracing her finger around the rim.
"Castiel got me. He took me here.”
"Castiel? Jimmy's angel?” Jacob replies skeptically. Castiel was the last thing he had ever spoken to Jimmy about.
Claire glares at him. “You don't have to say it like that. Castiel is real.” She looks down. “Was real. I don't know anymore.”
**
"I thought you'd understand,” Jimmy said to him, frustrated hurt in his voice. “Of all people, shouldn't you have an open mind?”
"Me of all people?” Jacob shot back. Fine, he was still bitter that Jimmy denounced all his theories, all his beliefs. That Jimmy looked at him like he was some adorable kitten, there to drag string in front of and Jacob would give chase. Only instead of string it was 'crackpot' theories. 'There goes Jacob, he's my crazy twin, isn't he cute?' “I don't even believe in God,” Jacob said. Which was another in a line of reasons why they don't talk to each other more than once a year at Christmas.
"Maybe if you had, you'd be in my position right now. I just...thought I could talk to you. You have no idea how amazing this feels.”
Jacob sighed. “You can always talk to me. I never asked you to walk away. But I thought I was supposed to be the crazy one in the family.”
"I'm not crazy,” Jimmy insisted.
How many times had Jacob said that exact same thing to Jimmy? Maybe Jacob should have trusted him.
"His name is Castiel.”
Worry had gripped Jacob and he'd packed his bags that night and booked a flight straight to Chicago. Rented a car to Pontiac. He'd been too late. Jimmy was gone by the time he got there.
**
Jacob listens to Claire now, sitting together on the couch and he rests his elbows on his knees to lean forward. “Tell me what happened.”
Claire shrugs, fingers strung together on her lap and she picks at the nails. They look rough and worn down from the bad habit. “Me and mom went into Chicago for the day. Some shopping, just... Nothing important. One minute everything is normal and the next, one of the sales girls is attacking me. She seemed kind of annoyed at me before but I thought she was just having a bad day.” Another shrug. “So I punched her in the face.”
Jacob can't help it, he lets out an amused snort at the very idea of Claire punching someone. She glares at him, eyes an icy blue and it sobers him. This isn't the little girl he saw every Christmas that would listen with wide eyes to his embellished stories. “Sorry.”
"Her eyes were...rimmed with red, you know? And she was suddenly, like, rabid. Crazy and yelling for blood.” Claire talks like the words are normal to her. Like she knows something about things with red eyes, howling for blood. “Anyway, I grabbed mom's hand and we ran out of the store. I thought the girl must have been a demon or something. But there were more of them out on the street. These three guys just...leapt on this lady and-” Here Claire falters, gaze flicking away.
"What happened after that?” Jacob prompts and Claire visibly steels herself and goes on.
"We ran for the parking lot, for the car. We were alone there. I don't know how it all went so bad so fast but you think I'd be used to it. One of those...things jumped out from behind a car and killed mom. Castiel was there but he was too late. I actually thought it was dad for a second.” Her voice breaks with the last sentence and Jacob reaches out to fold her into his arms.
Castiel is real?
"He grabbed hold of me.” Claire's words are muffled against his chest. “He said he had a promise to keep to my dad and he'd come back for me. I just have to wait.”
**
They wait but Castiel doesn't come.
Claire sleeps finally and Jacob sits and stares at the news reports that start filtering in on the TV. He even tries hitting up his listeners on the radio station for information or stories.
"It's biological warfare!” One caller explodes. “And Chicago is just the first city, man.”
Whatever it is, it took out an entire city over night. Within five days, Chicago is blocked off and quarantined. Detroit goes down next. Then Los Angeles. London. Paris. Toronto.
And Jacob and Claire keep waiting but Castiel never comes.
**
"We can't stay here anymore,” Claire says.
"Where exactly are we supposed to go?” It's not that Jacob doesn't agree. They've been waiting for weeks, the world went into the toilet within the first one, and Jacob doesn't say it out loud but Castiel must be dead. Jimmy... Jimmy must be dead.
He sinks down heavily onto the couch. Jimmy must be dead. He'd never wanted to think that before.
**
"Haven't you heard anything? Aren't they looking?” Jacob demanded into the phone and Amelia's sharp irritated sigh crackled back at him.
"Of course! Everyone is doing everything they can.”
Jacob leans back against his counter, eyes closing. “I know. I know, I just... I'm worried. I know we didn't talk much anymore but I still love him.”
Amelia's laugh is soft and hollow. “You know, I was hoping he'd find his way up to your place.” There's a heavy pause. “I knew. About everything. About you two.” More silence and Jacob can picture how tired she must look. “I really thought he went to you.”
**
"Where did you get that thing anyway?” Jacob asks, eyeing the shot gun that once again hangs from Claire's shoulder.
"Castiel gave it to me.”
"Angels make a habit of giving little girls loaded weapons?”
Claire shoots a glare at him. “I'm not a little girl.”
"Yeah and when did that happen exactly?”
It's a bad question. Claire just stares at him until Jacob looks away and stumbles over an apology. Maybe it was when her mom was killed in front of her. Or when a fucking angel stole her dad.
"I'll show you how to use this. We're probably going to need more weapons.”
Jacob gives a tired sigh and nods.
**
They walk. An endless trek forward and Jacob doesn't really know where they're going but he thinks that following Claire is probably a good idea. This little slip of a girl with a shotgun over one shoulder, a knife strapped to her hip, heavy work boots on her feet. Jacob is a little afraid of her.
She presses a gun into his own hands and shows him how to use it.
"Castiel possessed me once,” she tells him in that matter of fact tone that Jacob is starting to hate. He's starting to hate Castiel a little more too, with every step they take where Claire reveals something new about the angel. Castiel destroyed her family, Castiel showed her how to use a gun, Castiel made her grow up and she's not even fifteen quite yet.
They stumble into a camp of survivors somewhere on the outskirts of some city. Jacob doesn't pay a lot of attention because one stretch of decimated land is starting to look just like the last. Here they learn things like 'don't trust the army'. They shoot first and ask questions later. Most of the camp is dead within the space of minutes.
Jacob and Claire stumble on with the scattered remains of the rest of the camp some six months after they find it. Jacob's not sure because it's hard to keep track of the days when each one is the same basic struggle to keep going. But the weather is turning cold. Fall is turning into winter and the smell of snow is crisp in the air. He and Claire keep moving along with the three others that made it out of the hail of bullets and somehow four of them make it through to spring.
**
Jacob spends a lot of time wondering what Jimmy would say about he and his daughter trekking across the country by foot. Part of him wants to think that Jimmy might be proud. Here's Jacob, out in the middle of the end of the world, learning about responsibility and growing up. But what did Jimmy know about responsibility in the end? Jacob wants to ask Jimmy if it was worth it.
They're ambushed by a group of Croatoans. Croats. Jacob is learning a whole new vocabulary. Croats and demons and Hellhounds. Claire teaches him some Latin. When Jacob asks her how she knows about any of this, she just shrugs her shoulders and says, as always, “Castiel”.
Jacob's thought process for awhile centres around kicking the shit out of Castiel and that anger gets him across an entire State. It gets him through the Croats but after that ambush it's just him and Claire again. Jacob thinks that that's one camp entirely wiped out now. How many more are out there? Which one is Castiel in? And there's the always thudding hope that it will be Jimmy now.
**
Jacob found Jimmy drunk for the first time when they were seventeen. He was ashamed to look on his brother, to see Jimmy on his knees in front of a toilet, and know that Jacob hadn't even been the one responsible. Jimmy had been dead weight as Jacob hoisted him to his feet, Jimmy swaying viciously to one side before Jacob dragged them both out of there.
The party was still going strong in the next room and more than a few people laughed to see the twins in such a state. He and Jimmy were well known, they had a tendency to stand out in a crowd when they stood together. Jacob didn't think they were all that extraordinary or interesting. After all, they hook up that night the same way any drunken and sex-curious teenagers would.
**
They've been following rumours of a camp for awhile. Word of mouth passed on by a huddled down group on the brink of starvation but refusing to go there themselves. Rumour has it that the camp has running water and Jacob bases a lot of his fantasies around a hot shower.
"If Dean Winchester really is running this camp, it's exactly where we want to be,” Claire says while Jacob focuses on running water. Claire sounds pissed though and Jacob wants to tell her not to waste her breath trying to convince these people to come along. They don't know who Dean Winchester is anymore than Jacob and if running water and possible hot meals aren't enough to uproot them from their home then nothing is.
They leave them behind and move on, Claire with newly determined steps, Jacob just wanting to lie down on an actual bed for the first time in over a year. Sometimes Jacob stupidly thinks that God must be watching out for them because they make it. There's an old broken down sign announcing the camp and just past that, there's three guns aimed their way to greet them.
**
As soon as they prove they're not Croats by speaking a few coherent words and submitting to a - slightly invasive in Jacob's opinion - search for injuries, they're admitted into the camp. For the first week, Jacob doesn't even realize that Castiel might be here as well.
He meets Dean Winchester, though. Dean comes to see them, to welcome them into the group the way a leader should, but he takes one look at Claire and recognition flashes in both their eyes. And the first thing Claire does is punch Dean in the face.
Jacob is too shocked to even try and hold her back but it turns out he doesn't need to. She stands back a pace, brushes back her hair and stares at Dean who doesn't look at all angry. He looks like he understands. Then he holds out his hand. “Claire. I'm glad you made it.”
Claire makes introductions - Dean won't quite look Jacob in the eye - while Jacob mostly marvels over Claire having grown tall enough to punch a man in the jaw.
Jacob hasn't seen much of Claire since. He glimpses her a few times and he tracks her down once because this is his niece and he wants to make sure that she's okay. It's something he owes to Jimmy.
"I'm fine,” she insists. Jacob had found her eating with Dean but at Jacob's approach, Dean retreats. Claire catches his confused frown as he watches Dean walk away. “You remind him of Castiel.”
"You gonna punch him if you see him too?”
Claire shrugs. “Probably.”
"You scare me a little bit.” He's joking but not really and Claire just smiles at him.
Jacob catches her walking with Dean again later that day and wonders how it is they get along.
A few days in and he gets his fantasy of a shower with running water but the water is only lukewarm and turns cold after five minutes.
**
A shower was a great cover. No one was going to open the door. The noise of the water hid any other sounds. All the evidence was washed away. Jimmy and Jacob could make great use of a large shower.
**
Jacob misses him.
**
Everyone in the camp has to do their fair share and Jacob doesn't complain. He plays guard duty with a gun strapped to his hip or he cooks dinner or ladles out soup for lunch. People start to know his face pretty fast and that's when he first realizes that Castiel is somewhere in this camp. Because the others here trip up when they see Jacob and realize it's not Castiel. Jacob used to see those confused expressions a lot when people confused him and Jimmy, and sometimes they would just go with it. It was funny. It's not so much now.
Jacob pushes past the beads hanging in the doorway and for a moment he makes the same mistake. He looks at the man lying in the bed and his heart stops. Right in front of him is Jimmy and Jacob's throat closes up so fast it makes him dizzy. But just as quickly, he knows it's not. That's not Jimmy, his brother would never hold himself like that. He'd never look at Jacob like that or...maybe he would.
Castiel's eyes are wide in the same momentary shock Jacob had felt and it eases off into a look of so much yearning that Jacob feels himself flush and he shifts uneasily on his feet. Jimmy used to look at him like that but this isn't Jimmy.
"Jacob,” Castiel finally says, his voice cracking through the silence and Jacob gives himself a mental shake before stepping forward. In his hands is a bowl of some sort of cobbled together stew and he hands it out.
"They asked me to bring this to you.”
Castiel takes it with a single nod of thanks, cradling the bowl in his bony hands as if to warm them but the stew is lukewarm now at best. The awkward silence spreads around them, Jacob not leaving and Castiel not eating until Castiel sighs. “You may as well sit down.”
Jacob does and Castiel shifts over, resettling his broken foot on the pile of pillows at the end of the bed. Jacob glances down to it. “I didn't think angels could get hurt.”
Castiel laughs, shaking his head as if Jacob is an idiot and he finally starts in on his stew but it's with little enthusiasm. “I'm not an angel anymore.”
"And Jimmy?” Jacob thinks of the longing in Castiel's eyes at their first glance and isn't surprised when Castiel just shakes his head.
**
"You know the thought of seeing you was what kept me walking all this way?” Jacob says when he comes to see Castiel again a few days later. He doesn't bring anything this time. The urge to talk to the angel had been there for days and Jacob had tried and failed to ignore it.
"Not what you pictured, huh?” Castiel is at least a little drunk, judging from the half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey on the bed side table.
"I was going to beat the crap out of you.” Castiel doesn't look at all like he would care, just staring at Jacob with expectant eyes. “But I think you're doing a good enough job of that yourself.”
Castiel snorts. He takes another drink and then offers the bottle out to Jacob.
**
"I'm not Jimmy,” Castiel tells him the next time Jacob shows up. Jacob pauses half-way across the room, wondering what exactly Castiel is saying. It doesn't sound like he's telling Jacob to get out. There's a hesitation in his rough voice, a pause before he goes on in invitation. “But I can pretend to be.”
Jacob doesn't answer, he crosses and lies at Castiel's side, knowing he should be uncomfortable but it's Jimmy's body so he just can't. Not entirely. It's awhile before either of them says anything else, both on their backs and staring up at the ceiling. There's a pill bottle next to the almost empty whiskey bottle this time but that doesn't really surprise Jacob either.
"I only spoke to him once a year,” Jacob says.
Castiel comes back with, “We spoke every second.”
Which makes Jacob frown and he pushes himself up on an elbow to look down on Castiel. Castiel meets his gaze and even his glazed eyes are intense. Jacob says, “I'm not Jimmy either.”
But he could pretend to be as well and he ducks down to seal their mouths together.
**
For five years after Jimmy got married, they didn't see each other. Jimmy would call, leaving messages talking about meeting up, about missing Jacob and still loving him. They all went ignored and unanswered until the one where Jimmy said his wife was pregnant. Jacob had to come and meet his niece. Jacob had to come and reassure Jimmy that it was going to be okay.
Jacob had answered that call with a thudding heart and flown out to Jimmy a week later just to tell him in person that he was going to be an amazing dad. An amazing brother and lover and husband. How had Jacob gone so long without seeing him? Jacob had kissed him a farewell kiss and when he came back for Christmas for the first time, he was an Uncle. Jimmy was just as Jacob had said he'd be.
**
"You and Dean get along okay,” Jacob says as he walks across the camp with Claire. It's a rare hour of free time that they have together.
"Almost as good as you and Castiel.”
Jacob cringes. “God, I hope not.”
"He's not Jimmy,” Claire says and Jacob tries not to let his face heat. She has no idea what he and Jimmy or he and Castiel get up to. She's sixteen, she's still a little girl. “And Dean's not dad either.” Jacob looks at her in surprise. “They're not ever going to come close. But they'll do.”
"Seriously, when did you grow up?”
Claire just rolls her eyes at him.
Author: thunder_nari
Recipient: a_carnal_mink
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Castiel/Jacob, Jimmy/Jacob, implied Jimmy/Castiel, Claire
Word count: ~3 600
Notes: Taken from the prompt: 2014 verse, Claire walks into camp Chitaqua with her uncle Jacob (from Stonehenge Apocalypse). I tried to get in some hints at Dean/Claire friendship and Jimmy the unsung hero. Thanks to tawg for the beta.
Warnings: canon and minor character death, incest, angst
Summary: Claire shows up on Jacob's doorstep with a shot gun slung over her shoulder. Left there by Castiel, she brings word of the end of the world to Jacob and leads him across country to Camp Chitaqua, where both of them hope to find a good enough replacement for Jimmy.
Woolgathering
**
Claire shows up on Jacob's doorstep with a shotgun slung over her shoulder in the middle of the afternoon. Jacob is half-asleep because that's what happens when he runs a 3am radio show. He's standing there at the front door in sleep pants and a torn t-shirt, knuckling at his eyes so Claire is blurry around the edges and at first he thinks the shotgun might be a broom.
"The world is going to end,” Claire says and any illusions that Claire came to clean his basement fade as his vision sharpens.
"Oh. Well... come inside.”
The world is still going to end whether he pauses to make coffee or not.
**
It doesn't occur to Jacob that maybe he should question Claire about this world ending business. Sure he shows a healthy amount of scepticism when an idea is ludicrous but in this case he's pretty sure that Claire is bang on. Since Jimmy disappeared, Jacob has been paying attention to a world he normally would have laughed at.
He throws charts onto the table and spreads them out. Weather charts, geographical maps, ley lines. “Look at all this,” he says, enthusiasm shaking through him now that he's downed half a pot of coffee and Claire just stands there watching him with a stoicism that would be unsettling if he wasn't excited enough for the both of them. “We've had weather going all over the place, all over the globe. I mean, earthquakes, tornadoes. Dead fish in the middle of a desert. And look, see all the points the ley lines cross?” He darts a glance at her but she doesn't react. “They're hot spots for activity. Whatever is going on it's huge.”
"End of the world,” Claire intones.
"Right.” Jacob pauses, taking a second to really look at her. “How do you know that?”
"Because an angel told me.”
Jacob sits down and stares up at her. “Right.”
What the hell is he supposed to say to that? He makes her hot chocolate even though there's not enough chocolate in the world right now but Jacob can't think of anything else to offer.
Claire is staring down into the mug, tracing her finger around the rim.
"Castiel got me. He took me here.”
"Castiel? Jimmy's angel?” Jacob replies skeptically. Castiel was the last thing he had ever spoken to Jimmy about.
Claire glares at him. “You don't have to say it like that. Castiel is real.” She looks down. “Was real. I don't know anymore.”
**
"I thought you'd understand,” Jimmy said to him, frustrated hurt in his voice. “Of all people, shouldn't you have an open mind?”
"Me of all people?” Jacob shot back. Fine, he was still bitter that Jimmy denounced all his theories, all his beliefs. That Jimmy looked at him like he was some adorable kitten, there to drag string in front of and Jacob would give chase. Only instead of string it was 'crackpot' theories. 'There goes Jacob, he's my crazy twin, isn't he cute?' “I don't even believe in God,” Jacob said. Which was another in a line of reasons why they don't talk to each other more than once a year at Christmas.
"Maybe if you had, you'd be in my position right now. I just...thought I could talk to you. You have no idea how amazing this feels.”
Jacob sighed. “You can always talk to me. I never asked you to walk away. But I thought I was supposed to be the crazy one in the family.”
"I'm not crazy,” Jimmy insisted.
How many times had Jacob said that exact same thing to Jimmy? Maybe Jacob should have trusted him.
"His name is Castiel.”
Worry had gripped Jacob and he'd packed his bags that night and booked a flight straight to Chicago. Rented a car to Pontiac. He'd been too late. Jimmy was gone by the time he got there.
**
Jacob listens to Claire now, sitting together on the couch and he rests his elbows on his knees to lean forward. “Tell me what happened.”
Claire shrugs, fingers strung together on her lap and she picks at the nails. They look rough and worn down from the bad habit. “Me and mom went into Chicago for the day. Some shopping, just... Nothing important. One minute everything is normal and the next, one of the sales girls is attacking me. She seemed kind of annoyed at me before but I thought she was just having a bad day.” Another shrug. “So I punched her in the face.”
Jacob can't help it, he lets out an amused snort at the very idea of Claire punching someone. She glares at him, eyes an icy blue and it sobers him. This isn't the little girl he saw every Christmas that would listen with wide eyes to his embellished stories. “Sorry.”
"Her eyes were...rimmed with red, you know? And she was suddenly, like, rabid. Crazy and yelling for blood.” Claire talks like the words are normal to her. Like she knows something about things with red eyes, howling for blood. “Anyway, I grabbed mom's hand and we ran out of the store. I thought the girl must have been a demon or something. But there were more of them out on the street. These three guys just...leapt on this lady and-” Here Claire falters, gaze flicking away.
"What happened after that?” Jacob prompts and Claire visibly steels herself and goes on.
"We ran for the parking lot, for the car. We were alone there. I don't know how it all went so bad so fast but you think I'd be used to it. One of those...things jumped out from behind a car and killed mom. Castiel was there but he was too late. I actually thought it was dad for a second.” Her voice breaks with the last sentence and Jacob reaches out to fold her into his arms.
Castiel is real?
"He grabbed hold of me.” Claire's words are muffled against his chest. “He said he had a promise to keep to my dad and he'd come back for me. I just have to wait.”
**
They wait but Castiel doesn't come.
Claire sleeps finally and Jacob sits and stares at the news reports that start filtering in on the TV. He even tries hitting up his listeners on the radio station for information or stories.
"It's biological warfare!” One caller explodes. “And Chicago is just the first city, man.”
Whatever it is, it took out an entire city over night. Within five days, Chicago is blocked off and quarantined. Detroit goes down next. Then Los Angeles. London. Paris. Toronto.
And Jacob and Claire keep waiting but Castiel never comes.
**
"We can't stay here anymore,” Claire says.
"Where exactly are we supposed to go?” It's not that Jacob doesn't agree. They've been waiting for weeks, the world went into the toilet within the first one, and Jacob doesn't say it out loud but Castiel must be dead. Jimmy... Jimmy must be dead.
He sinks down heavily onto the couch. Jimmy must be dead. He'd never wanted to think that before.
**
"Haven't you heard anything? Aren't they looking?” Jacob demanded into the phone and Amelia's sharp irritated sigh crackled back at him.
"Of course! Everyone is doing everything they can.”
Jacob leans back against his counter, eyes closing. “I know. I know, I just... I'm worried. I know we didn't talk much anymore but I still love him.”
Amelia's laugh is soft and hollow. “You know, I was hoping he'd find his way up to your place.” There's a heavy pause. “I knew. About everything. About you two.” More silence and Jacob can picture how tired she must look. “I really thought he went to you.”
**
"Where did you get that thing anyway?” Jacob asks, eyeing the shot gun that once again hangs from Claire's shoulder.
"Castiel gave it to me.”
"Angels make a habit of giving little girls loaded weapons?”
Claire shoots a glare at him. “I'm not a little girl.”
"Yeah and when did that happen exactly?”
It's a bad question. Claire just stares at him until Jacob looks away and stumbles over an apology. Maybe it was when her mom was killed in front of her. Or when a fucking angel stole her dad.
"I'll show you how to use this. We're probably going to need more weapons.”
Jacob gives a tired sigh and nods.
**
They walk. An endless trek forward and Jacob doesn't really know where they're going but he thinks that following Claire is probably a good idea. This little slip of a girl with a shotgun over one shoulder, a knife strapped to her hip, heavy work boots on her feet. Jacob is a little afraid of her.
She presses a gun into his own hands and shows him how to use it.
"Castiel possessed me once,” she tells him in that matter of fact tone that Jacob is starting to hate. He's starting to hate Castiel a little more too, with every step they take where Claire reveals something new about the angel. Castiel destroyed her family, Castiel showed her how to use a gun, Castiel made her grow up and she's not even fifteen quite yet.
They stumble into a camp of survivors somewhere on the outskirts of some city. Jacob doesn't pay a lot of attention because one stretch of decimated land is starting to look just like the last. Here they learn things like 'don't trust the army'. They shoot first and ask questions later. Most of the camp is dead within the space of minutes.
Jacob and Claire stumble on with the scattered remains of the rest of the camp some six months after they find it. Jacob's not sure because it's hard to keep track of the days when each one is the same basic struggle to keep going. But the weather is turning cold. Fall is turning into winter and the smell of snow is crisp in the air. He and Claire keep moving along with the three others that made it out of the hail of bullets and somehow four of them make it through to spring.
**
Jacob spends a lot of time wondering what Jimmy would say about he and his daughter trekking across the country by foot. Part of him wants to think that Jimmy might be proud. Here's Jacob, out in the middle of the end of the world, learning about responsibility and growing up. But what did Jimmy know about responsibility in the end? Jacob wants to ask Jimmy if it was worth it.
They're ambushed by a group of Croatoans. Croats. Jacob is learning a whole new vocabulary. Croats and demons and Hellhounds. Claire teaches him some Latin. When Jacob asks her how she knows about any of this, she just shrugs her shoulders and says, as always, “Castiel”.
Jacob's thought process for awhile centres around kicking the shit out of Castiel and that anger gets him across an entire State. It gets him through the Croats but after that ambush it's just him and Claire again. Jacob thinks that that's one camp entirely wiped out now. How many more are out there? Which one is Castiel in? And there's the always thudding hope that it will be Jimmy now.
**
Jacob found Jimmy drunk for the first time when they were seventeen. He was ashamed to look on his brother, to see Jimmy on his knees in front of a toilet, and know that Jacob hadn't even been the one responsible. Jimmy had been dead weight as Jacob hoisted him to his feet, Jimmy swaying viciously to one side before Jacob dragged them both out of there.
The party was still going strong in the next room and more than a few people laughed to see the twins in such a state. He and Jimmy were well known, they had a tendency to stand out in a crowd when they stood together. Jacob didn't think they were all that extraordinary or interesting. After all, they hook up that night the same way any drunken and sex-curious teenagers would.
**
They've been following rumours of a camp for awhile. Word of mouth passed on by a huddled down group on the brink of starvation but refusing to go there themselves. Rumour has it that the camp has running water and Jacob bases a lot of his fantasies around a hot shower.
"If Dean Winchester really is running this camp, it's exactly where we want to be,” Claire says while Jacob focuses on running water. Claire sounds pissed though and Jacob wants to tell her not to waste her breath trying to convince these people to come along. They don't know who Dean Winchester is anymore than Jacob and if running water and possible hot meals aren't enough to uproot them from their home then nothing is.
They leave them behind and move on, Claire with newly determined steps, Jacob just wanting to lie down on an actual bed for the first time in over a year. Sometimes Jacob stupidly thinks that God must be watching out for them because they make it. There's an old broken down sign announcing the camp and just past that, there's three guns aimed their way to greet them.
**
As soon as they prove they're not Croats by speaking a few coherent words and submitting to a - slightly invasive in Jacob's opinion - search for injuries, they're admitted into the camp. For the first week, Jacob doesn't even realize that Castiel might be here as well.
He meets Dean Winchester, though. Dean comes to see them, to welcome them into the group the way a leader should, but he takes one look at Claire and recognition flashes in both their eyes. And the first thing Claire does is punch Dean in the face.
Jacob is too shocked to even try and hold her back but it turns out he doesn't need to. She stands back a pace, brushes back her hair and stares at Dean who doesn't look at all angry. He looks like he understands. Then he holds out his hand. “Claire. I'm glad you made it.”
Claire makes introductions - Dean won't quite look Jacob in the eye - while Jacob mostly marvels over Claire having grown tall enough to punch a man in the jaw.
Jacob hasn't seen much of Claire since. He glimpses her a few times and he tracks her down once because this is his niece and he wants to make sure that she's okay. It's something he owes to Jimmy.
"I'm fine,” she insists. Jacob had found her eating with Dean but at Jacob's approach, Dean retreats. Claire catches his confused frown as he watches Dean walk away. “You remind him of Castiel.”
"You gonna punch him if you see him too?”
Claire shrugs. “Probably.”
"You scare me a little bit.” He's joking but not really and Claire just smiles at him.
Jacob catches her walking with Dean again later that day and wonders how it is they get along.
A few days in and he gets his fantasy of a shower with running water but the water is only lukewarm and turns cold after five minutes.
**
A shower was a great cover. No one was going to open the door. The noise of the water hid any other sounds. All the evidence was washed away. Jimmy and Jacob could make great use of a large shower.
**
Jacob misses him.
**
Everyone in the camp has to do their fair share and Jacob doesn't complain. He plays guard duty with a gun strapped to his hip or he cooks dinner or ladles out soup for lunch. People start to know his face pretty fast and that's when he first realizes that Castiel is somewhere in this camp. Because the others here trip up when they see Jacob and realize it's not Castiel. Jacob used to see those confused expressions a lot when people confused him and Jimmy, and sometimes they would just go with it. It was funny. It's not so much now.
Jacob pushes past the beads hanging in the doorway and for a moment he makes the same mistake. He looks at the man lying in the bed and his heart stops. Right in front of him is Jimmy and Jacob's throat closes up so fast it makes him dizzy. But just as quickly, he knows it's not. That's not Jimmy, his brother would never hold himself like that. He'd never look at Jacob like that or...maybe he would.
Castiel's eyes are wide in the same momentary shock Jacob had felt and it eases off into a look of so much yearning that Jacob feels himself flush and he shifts uneasily on his feet. Jimmy used to look at him like that but this isn't Jimmy.
"Jacob,” Castiel finally says, his voice cracking through the silence and Jacob gives himself a mental shake before stepping forward. In his hands is a bowl of some sort of cobbled together stew and he hands it out.
"They asked me to bring this to you.”
Castiel takes it with a single nod of thanks, cradling the bowl in his bony hands as if to warm them but the stew is lukewarm now at best. The awkward silence spreads around them, Jacob not leaving and Castiel not eating until Castiel sighs. “You may as well sit down.”
Jacob does and Castiel shifts over, resettling his broken foot on the pile of pillows at the end of the bed. Jacob glances down to it. “I didn't think angels could get hurt.”
Castiel laughs, shaking his head as if Jacob is an idiot and he finally starts in on his stew but it's with little enthusiasm. “I'm not an angel anymore.”
"And Jimmy?” Jacob thinks of the longing in Castiel's eyes at their first glance and isn't surprised when Castiel just shakes his head.
**
"You know the thought of seeing you was what kept me walking all this way?” Jacob says when he comes to see Castiel again a few days later. He doesn't bring anything this time. The urge to talk to the angel had been there for days and Jacob had tried and failed to ignore it.
"Not what you pictured, huh?” Castiel is at least a little drunk, judging from the half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey on the bed side table.
"I was going to beat the crap out of you.” Castiel doesn't look at all like he would care, just staring at Jacob with expectant eyes. “But I think you're doing a good enough job of that yourself.”
Castiel snorts. He takes another drink and then offers the bottle out to Jacob.
**
"I'm not Jimmy,” Castiel tells him the next time Jacob shows up. Jacob pauses half-way across the room, wondering what exactly Castiel is saying. It doesn't sound like he's telling Jacob to get out. There's a hesitation in his rough voice, a pause before he goes on in invitation. “But I can pretend to be.”
Jacob doesn't answer, he crosses and lies at Castiel's side, knowing he should be uncomfortable but it's Jimmy's body so he just can't. Not entirely. It's awhile before either of them says anything else, both on their backs and staring up at the ceiling. There's a pill bottle next to the almost empty whiskey bottle this time but that doesn't really surprise Jacob either.
"I only spoke to him once a year,” Jacob says.
Castiel comes back with, “We spoke every second.”
Which makes Jacob frown and he pushes himself up on an elbow to look down on Castiel. Castiel meets his gaze and even his glazed eyes are intense. Jacob says, “I'm not Jimmy either.”
But he could pretend to be as well and he ducks down to seal their mouths together.
**
For five years after Jimmy got married, they didn't see each other. Jimmy would call, leaving messages talking about meeting up, about missing Jacob and still loving him. They all went ignored and unanswered until the one where Jimmy said his wife was pregnant. Jacob had to come and meet his niece. Jacob had to come and reassure Jimmy that it was going to be okay.
Jacob had answered that call with a thudding heart and flown out to Jimmy a week later just to tell him in person that he was going to be an amazing dad. An amazing brother and lover and husband. How had Jacob gone so long without seeing him? Jacob had kissed him a farewell kiss and when he came back for Christmas for the first time, he was an Uncle. Jimmy was just as Jacob had said he'd be.
**
"You and Dean get along okay,” Jacob says as he walks across the camp with Claire. It's a rare hour of free time that they have together.
"Almost as good as you and Castiel.”
Jacob cringes. “God, I hope not.”
"He's not Jimmy,” Claire says and Jacob tries not to let his face heat. She has no idea what he and Jimmy or he and Castiel get up to. She's sixteen, she's still a little girl. “And Dean's not dad either.” Jacob looks at her in surprise. “They're not ever going to come close. But they'll do.”
"Seriously, when did you grow up?”
Claire just rolls her eyes at him.