Angels & Mounties (due South/Supernatural) Conclusion
A faint hint of rain hung in the night air, whether it was a threat or a reminder remained to be seen. Dean had insisted on leaving the motel room door open. He said it was to air out the stale smell of cigarette smoke, but that smell was ingrained so deep into the walls and furniture that the aroma would probably linger years after the motel was demolished and the lot had grown wild with weeds. Fact was, he needed proof that he was out of the twisted television world they’d been trapped in for the last few days. He needed to hear the trucks roll by on the highway, smell the rain, hear the arguments and struggles emanate from the nearby rooms. He needed to hear normalcy and those were his sounds.
Sam was stretched out on his bed, puttering around on the computer. He’d gotten a little huffy when Dean had instinctively flipped the TV on when they’d walked into the room. Not an irrational reaction, considering. Without the dull roar of the TV, the only sound in the room was the clicking of his fingers on the keys and the occasional minute or two of video if a news story caught his eye.
“Do you think he’s right? That all along everything's been leading up to us being Michael and Lucifer’s bitches?” Dean asked.
Sam looked up from the screen. “I don’t buy it.” He moved the computer off his lap onto the bed, leaned back against the stack of pillows. “Still, seems like every move we make, no matter how hard we try to do the right thing, it just plays right into some predetermined plan.”
“Keep up the good thoughts, there, Sammy .” Dean looked across the motel parking lot towards the blue neon glow of the lobby sign.
“I don’t think we’re going to intentionally do something stupid. I just--we don’t have a very good track record, is all.”
Dean reached into his pocket and checked to make sure he had the room key. “I’m going for a drive. Don’t wait up.”
“You OK?”
“Just need some fresh air. No big deal.” Dean picked his jacket up off the table where he’d dropped it when they’d gotten into the room. “Really,” he said as he pulled the door shut behind him.
“Later.” Sam picked the laptop up from the bed and directed his attention back to the screen.
Dean headed down the state route a few miles, turned onto a side road, and drove until he found a secluded spot. The motel had felt normal, it had felt sane, but he couldn’t bring himself to relax. He was feverish and tense, his skin felt raw and stretched taut across his bones. The familiar sensation of anxiety and exhaustion that he felt after long, fruitless hunts and too many nights of no sleep and long hours of driving coursed hot through his veins.
He put the Impala in park, turned the key to auxiliary, rolled down the windows and turned the radio up as loud as the speakers could take. The last notes of Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak faded out and were replaced by the unmistakable cymbal crash of the opening of The Wind Cries Mary. He popped the trunk open and walked around to the back of the car. He’d stopped and bought a twelve pack at a gas station on the edge of town and filled the cooler with ice from the ice machine down the hall from the room. He was prepared. He set the cooler on the ground next to the car, grabbed a green bottle, twisted it open and threw the cap onto the ice.
He fell down across the trunk of the car and looked up at the sky. "I am so fucking tired of this shit." He was alone, he could afford the luxury of a few seconds of self-pity. He took a swig of his beer, let his hand fall over the trunk’s edge.
"We all are." Castiel sat down next to Dean.
"Hey, nice of you to stop by.” He tipped the beer up to his lips, took a couple of long swallows. “Care to join me in screaming obscenities in the general direction of your father and all the rest of your stupid, psychotic family?"
"I would if I had even a vague idea what direction that might be."
"Hmph," Dean said before finishing the beer with a couple of long drinks. He leaned over the wheel well to reach into the cooler and pull out another. “I’m way too sober for the days I’ve had. Gotta work towards meeting my quota.”
"Does it make you feel better?"
"What? Yelling at nothing or drinking?" He let the cap fall to the ground, he’d clean up before he left. “They’re both kind of futile."
"Drinking. You claim that you need to drink when you're happy, frightened, bored. There doesn't seem to be a situation you think alcohol wouldn't improve. Why?"
Dean didn't say anything for the next half a bottle. Cas, for his part, sat and waited patiently for a response. By the time he was ready to speak, Dean's shoulders had relaxed, and his scowl wasn’t nearly as pronounced as it had been a few minutes ago. "It's just something to do. It passes the time. I don't know. Look, if you're going to go all twelve steps on me or something, save your breath."
"Twelve steps sounds insufficient to deal with your particular issues."
"You always know just what to say." He stared at a patch of trees, watched the wind move the leaves, and tried not to think. The DJ welcomed the listeners back from a commercial break and announced that it was deep into the night, so it was time for deep cuts over the opening notes of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing Gloria/She's the One for an excited crowd. He concentrated on trying to place the era of the track rather than on continuing the line of thought Castiel had triggered. Thinking would make him want to drink faster and he had to stay sober enough to drive himself back to the hotel.
Cas slid off the trunk and walked over to the cooler. He handed a beer to Dean and took one for himself. "I suspect I didn't ingest a sufficient quantity to have the desired effect."
"When? I mean, there was the night you successfully managed to turn a prostitute off sex forever, but you had half a beer. Even now, I think your angel mojo is strong enough that you need a little bit more than that to get a buzz."
If he didn't know Cas as well as he did, he'd call the sound he heard in the darkness a chuckle. But Cas wasn't really the chuckling type, so he assumed it was more of a disdainful scoff that accidentally sounded lighthearted. "I was in Chicago.."
Dean turned and looked at Cas. "What?”
“While Gabriel had you and Sam--I was in Chicago.”
“You told us that you'd ‘escaped.’ Are you telling me you had trouble getting out of Chicago?” He took a drink. “Look, I realize you've never had to use it before, but public transportation is not that difficult. It's not the best way to go, but it works in a pinch."
"Yes, so I understand. The Mountie initially assumed I was waiting for a bus."
Dean stopped, the bottle halfway to his mouth. "Unless Illinois's been annexed to Canada and I missed it, Chicago isn't RCMP territory."
"He was out of his element. He first went to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father..."
Dean’s eyes widened. “Let me guess, he stayed and teamed up to solve crimes with a cop named Ray."
"Yes, he did." Cas looked at Dean with that piercing glare that he saved for special occasions when the usual unblinking gaze was insufficient. "How’d you know that?"
"It's a TV show. A cop, a Mountie, a deaf wolf, a helluva lot of homoeroticism.”
Castiel tilted his head, “Homoeroticism...”
“Oh yeah, definitely. It was blatant. The first couple of seasons, it wasn't that noticeable, but that second Ray--the blond guy--they had to be playing that slash shit up. There's no way they weren’t writing the show with Becky circa Generation X in mind.”
"You are very well versed in the details. I take it you enjoyed it."
Dean laughed. "I wasn't watching it to see if they'd make out or something. Though, that did kinda happen once. It was a fun buddy cop show. You know-the straight arrow and the bad boy-can they work together? It didn’t take itself too seriously. It was better than a lot of the shit I’d end up watching. Besides, both Rays drove very cool cars." He nodded towards the beer in Cas's hand, "You gonna drink that, or what?"
"I haven't decided yet." He twisted the top off and slid the cap into his pocket. "At any rate, that's where I was."
"Weird," Dean walked around and opened the door of the car. He dug around a little and pulled out a half empty bag of potato chips. "So," he said as he came back around the car, "as strange as that is, what's that got to do with anything?" He stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth. He looked at the sweaty beer bottle that Castiel was gripping so tight it was a wonder he hadn’t accidentally shattered the glass. "Cas, seriously, that beer's going to get warm and disgusting if you don't loosen your grip a little. Look, here, try this," Dean put his hand around Cas's and pushed the angel's hand up the glass until his index finger and thumb were looped around the neck of the bottle. "Beer stays colder, and you don't look like this is your first rodeo."
“I don’t follow.”
"It just means you don't look like you don't know what you're doing.” He scooped some more chips out of the bag. “Anyway, whatever, what happened while you were in due South land? Did wacky hi-jinx ensue?"
"Not exactly. Much of it was mundane. We went to a diner. The pie was good. That was before the first time we made contact. After that, when I found myself back in Chicago, Fraser and I talked while I drank a great deal of scotch. Alcohol does help pass the time, I’ll give you that.”
"So, you just hung out, at some pie and got drunk with a fictional character? That doesn't sound that bad. More fun than me and Sam had, anyway."
Cas took a drink. "There’s more to it than that. However, Ray explained that in situations that are this... intimate, I suppose you could call them... there are rules of conduct one should follow.”
"Intimate? What, you fuck one of them or something?" Dean gave Cas a playful shove.
"That would depend on your definition of fucking."
Dean steadied himself and took a deep breath. “Were you watching the Clinton impeachment hearings while you were hanging out in the late 90s?" he asked through clenched teeth.
“Politics were not discussed.”
“Son of a bitch!” Dean launched the beer bottle in his hand at a nearby tree. The glass shattered, green pieces rained down onto the dead grass at the base of the tree trunk.
Cas didn’t flinch, or react at all for that matter, to the shattering glass. "Dean." He didn't reach out, or try to reassure him. He just looked at Dean with that stupid confused look on his face that he got when he knew he wasn't equipped with all of the cultural understanding he needed to deal with a situation. "It could have been the result of overindulgence. Perhaps I am more susceptible to intoxication than I suspect."
"Who?" Dean kept his focus on the tree and the glittering shards of green glass scattered on the ground. After a few seconds, when he hadn't received an answer, he turned and grabbed Cas by the collar. "I asked you a question. Who was it?"
"What difference does it make? It was an illusion."
"You didn't know that,” he growled. “You had no idea it was anything but real. So, you tell me--was it the Mountie or the cop? Which one of them popped your cherry?"
Cas held Dean’s gaze. Whether that was because he refused to look away or because he just didn’t know that would be the thing to do in this situation, Dean didn’t know.
"Fraser,” he answered.
Dean couldn't keep himself from laughing a joyless, bitter laugh. "Must've been the most restrained orgasms in history." He released his hold and brushed the collar down on Cas's shirt. "I guess I really am rubbing off on you. I woulda thought you had a little more class than that."
“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
“So, what, you were celebrating?”
"Far from it,” Cas said in a low voice. “I was compensating.”
"Oh come on. What is that supposed to mean?”
"You were right about the...homoeroticism. Fraser was in love with Ray. Based on my observations, the feeling was mutual."
"Great. Another TV mystery solved.” He got another beer out of the cooler and drank half of it without coming up for air. “What does that have to do with anything?"
"I was available.”
"You're a real accessible guy, everyone says that about you."
"Do you have any idea what it felt like, not being able to help you?" Dean felt like Cas was staring straight through his soul. Which he probably was. It wasn't an unusual feeling, but it that didn't mean he was used to it. “I had no way of knowing if you were safe or if even alive.”
"Still don’t see how that translates into you fucking a Mountie."
"Stop it," Castiel growled. "I am well aware that my behavior was anathema."
"Sorry," Dean said, attempting to sound sincere, even if he didn't feel it. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
"I'm not happy about what you've done to me." Cas held up a hand. "What I've let you do to me. I take my share of blame for my corruption." He finished his beer, placed the bottle in the dirt by the car. “Anyway, it wasn’t attraction. It was empathy.”
Dean bit his lip, biding his time to make sure he was certain where this conversation was going.
"Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Cas asked.
Dean exhaled and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “You want to give up on stopping the Apocalypse and run off to look for the Hand of Franklin?” Cas wrinkled his forehead, confused. “I guess you didn’t get that far into the story.” Dean steadied his nerves and put his hands on Cas's shoulders, "Cas, are you trying to come on to me?"
Castiel blinked, "Am I not being direct enough? Would you prefer I took action, rather than attempt explanation?"
"Is that what you want to do?" Dean sat back down on the trunk of the Impala. The impulse that had made him throw that beer bottle against the tree had dissipated. Now he just felt lost. He’d handled similar situations with women who got a little too attached, took his need for sex as a desire for companionship but... This was Cas he was dealing with, here. He had to be careful. This wasn’t some chick he’d met in a bar. This was family. Not blood relations, obviously, because angels don’t have blood relations, but like Bobby had said, “Family don’t end with blood.”
"I have no intention of forcing anything on you. Unless force in some way appeals to you, in which case I will be happy to oblige."
"I don’t know what fucked up shit Gabriel put in your head, but I’m not going to take advantage of it. I won’t do that to you."
“He didn’t put anything in my head.” Cas stood up and faced Dean so that they were close enough that their knees were touching. “He simply gave me an opportunity to act on the ideas I already harbored. Which,” and he wrapped his fingers tight around Dean’s arm, “is what I’m trying to do right now.”
Dean slapped Cas’s hand down. “What the hell? Is this some kind of Stockholm syndrome thing?"
“After all we’ve been through, are you truly surprised?”
“Damn right I’m surprised. You’re not supposed to have feelings at all, much less those kinds of feelings. It’s wrong.”
“Is it wrong because it disgusts you? Or are you afraid that if you respond in kind you’ll be committing a mortal sin?”
“Like I give a fuck about sin.” He pushed Cas out of his way, walked over to the cooler, and lifted two bottles from the ice. He opened one of them and handed it to Cas who took it and emptied it with one long drink.
“If the idea isn’t offensive--what’s stopping you?” Cas asked after dropping the bottle beside the rear wheel of the car.
Dean took a time-killing sip. “I like you. You’re one of the few constants in my life. You, Sammy, you’re about all I’ve got... If something happened between us-- things’d get messy, I’d make some asshole move that pissed you off so bad you’d be out of my life forever. I won’t risk it.”
“We don’t have that much time left.”
“It doesn’t take me long. Sometimes, I don’t even make it to the next morning. That’s not such a bad thing most of the time, but with you...”
Cas sat down close enough that his arm brushed against Dean’s. “You’re always so hard on yourself.”
“No harder than I deserve.” They sat in silence, just their breathing and the sound of Tom Petty singing about how his baby likes to keep him guessing and has him on the fence, filling the space while they searched for the right words.. Dean broke the silence. “You don’t have experience with these things. It always seems like a good idea at the time, but screwing around with a friend is never the right move.”
“There are no absolutes.”
“And you think we’d be the one in a million that didn’t end up hating each other?”
“I know you, Dean. I know your soul. I know where you’ve been and I know where you fear you’re going. I have a distinct advantage.”
Dean peeled the corner of the band from the neck of the bottle, thinking about his options. They might all be dead tomorrow. Wouldn’t matter much what he did tonight if that was the case. Then again, they might succeed. Cas might find God. They might throw Lucifer back into his cage. Everything might be coming up roses in a few months. Then what? He couldn’t see any future where fooling around with Cas would lead to anything but a mess. Besides, did he really want to contribute to the debauchery of an angel?
Cas put his arms around Dean, eliminating what little space that was separating them. He shook his head. "You can't corrupt what is already impure, Dean. A rag can only accumulate so much dirt before further filth ceases to matter."
That was one of the weirdest attempts at seduction Dean had ever experienced, and he'd been around enough to experience some weird ass come ons. It was so clumsy that it was kind of awesome. What the hell. They weren’t going to live through this. He had nothing to gain from resisting Castiel’s advances. If he gave in, at least he would gain a few moments of pleasure. "Just for future reference, talking dirty generally doesn't involve talking about literal dirt." He leaned forward, their heartbeats and breathing intermingled. There was still time to turn back, to pull away, apologize and drive back to the hotel while he was still sober enough to remember the route he’d taken to get out here. In those few seconds while he was considering the possibility that maybe that was exactly what he should do, Cas pressed his lips against his and all resolve disappeared. He gave in to the kiss, let himself fall into the familiar sensation of his hand slipping down his partner’s back, fingers pulling at the edges of a shirt, untucking the fabric, fingers digging into freshly exposed flesh. Teeth nipping at willingly offered skin, hot breath against his throat, incoherent whispers and desperate grappling to break the laws of physics and force two bodies to inhabit the same space at one time. “This is going to ruin a perfectly good friendship,” he whispered.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. It’s one of the few things I can’t stand about you.” Cas took Dean’s face in his hands, looked into his eyes and smiled. “Have I ever steered you wrong before?”
--end--