Dean's Angel - Chapter 6
Chapter 6
November 1st, 2005
By the time Dean turned 26, he had gotten a pretty good grip on his ability. Sure, there were a few exceptions. Like, for example, his first girlfriend, Emma.
Dean dated Emma for two weeks before he found out she was dead.
He had been 13 at the time and had just moved to a new town. Dean was walking through the park when he first saw her and damn, she was hot! There had been nothing that pointed to her being dead... Maybe if Dean hadn't been so fascinated by her, he would have noticed the looks people were giving him. To them, it looked like he was talking to himself and the fact that she had gone to a different school than he had gone to, did not help. Nobody knew her. Therefore, nobody knew she had died a few years earlier. She eventually told him the truth when he started pressuring her into meeting his dad and little brother.
The two of them had been driving him crazy by making fun of him and his imaginary girlfriend. Thankfully, they stopped soon after Dean told them Emma and he had broken up.
"There wasn't any future for us," was always Dean’s answer when he was asked why they broke up. Two weeks later John found a new hunt on the other side of the state so the three of them packed up and left. Emma was never spoken about again.
From then on, Dean did everything he could to learn how to tell ghosts from people who were alive and kicking.
The easiest way was to look in their eyes. Dead people had, well, dead eyes; eyes that had lost all glossiness and become colorless. All ghosts that Dean ever met had them. Well, all but one. Even years later Dean could still remember those crystal clear, blue eyes. Eyes that felt like they were looking right into your soul.
The second easiest way was to use the other people around him, dead or alive. If nobody even looked at a person, it was a pretty good sign that something wasn't right. It also helps that ghosts usually get kind of shocked when someone, a.k.a. Dean Winchester, looks right at them. If there was still any doubt, Dean just communicated somehow with the ghost. Whether it was a handshake or plain talking, it always got him an answer. Either the ghost confirmed it or people around him looked at him like he's crazy.
Okay, to be honest, those people might be on to something... but who wasn't a little crazy nowadays? It wasn’t like Dean cared what people thought anyway. The only people that mattered were his family.
Dean made damn sure that John and Sammy never saw him when he was doing ‘his thing’. He lost count years ago of how many times he faked a phone call just to be able to talk to ghost near John or Sammy. Usually, Dean would tell them that some girl he had been hitting on was calling him. That always got an eye roll from Sammy. If they were between hunts, John would send him an all-knowing look but if someone looked really closely, they would see a hint of pride on John's face. However, when John was hunting, he had zero tolerance for any kind of distractions. Which meant that on hunts, Dean had to be really sneaky if he didn’t want a lecture on safety from his dad.
One time after THE fight--the one where Sam walked out to go to Stanford--John saw an article about a house fire, a house fire that sounded a lot like the one Mary died in. Since they were in a middle of a hunt, John asked Dean to stay behind and finish it alone so he could go and investigate.
At first, Dean was a little nervous. Sure, he had been going on hunts for years and he knew he was a good hunter, no question about that. But this was the first time he was going in without backup. He felt like he was jumping from an airplane without a parachute. Not that Dean would ever do that. Or go on a plane, period. He was just fine with both feet on the ground, thank you very much.
Turned out, Dean hadn’t needed to worry. For the first time in a long time, he could just be himself. There was no need to sneak around, no need to explain how he found out where the body was when the only thing he had to go on was the victim's words. He used his skills to solve the case, and it had felt damn good.
A week later, John found an article about a haunted house where the body was never found. Dean offered to go take care of it by himself.
A month later, John sent Dean to take care of a werewolf. Later that month, Dean took down a poltergeist by himself. Three months later, Dean worked one job with John before splitting up again.
Five months later, they met up to take care of a rawhead.
Soon it became a routine.
Work a few jobs, meet up with his dad, check on Sammy. Rinse, wash and repeat. A few weeks, sometimes months, of being on his own before he met up with John for a month or so of hunts together. Then he’d drive to Stanford to silently check on Sammy, before starting to look for hunts again.
If Dean had been normal, he probably would have gone insane. He had grown up having Sammy around him constantly, then suddenly, Sammy was gone. Soon after, John left and Dean found himself completely alone. Well, not completely... For some reason, after he started to be on his own, there seemed to be ghost everywhere he went; at the library, the cafe house, the police station, in his hotel room. Most of them were polite and easy to hang out with, then there were ghosts like that pervert he encountered in one of his hotel rooms. Dean was just about to take a shower when this guy just showed up in his bathroom, with wide eyes and snarky comments. Needless to say, Dean didn’t take a shower until after he salted and burned the body.
Despite that, Dean found himself spending more and more time with ghosts and less with the living. He would spend hours talking to someone and getting to know them, only to go out and not be able to continue talking to them in public, even though that person was still right next to him. If people saw him talking to himself... it would draw unwanted attention to him.
Soon, that began to take its toll on Dean. It also wasn’t easy having to go burn someone he had become friends with or to leave his friends behind, hoping that someday they could move on.
Dean hated it most of all when he in the middle of a conversation one minute and the next, they were gone for good. He knew that with time, most ghosts could make themselves visible to the living. For him, they were always visible. So why did they keep disappearing? Sure, some could jump from one place to the next, but if any of them popped up near Dean, he always saw them right away. Dean usually double checked later to see if any of the ghosts showed up again, but they never did. The fact that the ghosts just kept disappearing when they talked to Dean could not be a coincidence. Besides, John taught Dean never to believe in coincidences. But no matter how hard Dean looked into it, he couldn’t figure out why it kept happening.
Since Dean's ghost friends never seemed to stick around for long, Dean tried not to get too close to them. Instead, he became more dependent on his dad since Sam didn’t want to talk to him.
Even if he couldn’t meet up with his dad all the time, he made sure to call him every once in awhile. But even those calls started to become farther and farther apart in time. They also became shorter and shorter.
Lately, most of the time when John called, it was to tell him about a hunt John needed Dean to take care off.
“Dean, I got a lead on the demon. I’m going to Minnesota. I need you to get here and take over the case I’m on now. We will meet up with when I’m done. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” was always Dean’s answer even though Dean was exhausted and would need to drive for hours to get to where he was supposed to go.
Before Dean could say anything else, his dad always hung up. Then a few days later, Dean would receive a voicemail from his dad saying he couldn’t meet up with Dean but he had a new job for him.
Before Dean knew it, he hadn’t heard from his dad in about three weeks. Then one day he got a cryptic voicemail from his dad saying they were all in danger.
It was how Dean found himself in Palo Alto in the middle of the night, on top of his younger brother, grinning down at him in the darkness.
“Whoa! Easy, Tiger.”
~Supernatural~
“Castiel, I just received reports of you not completing your assignments like you should. You are to observe Dean Winchester. You are required to remove those spirits before they mess up the timeline too badly,” came Zachariah’s voice from behind Castiel. Castiel had just returned from watching Dean talk to his younger brother outside of Sam’s apartment. He had hoped that none of his brothers or sisters had noticed what he was doing lately. As soon as he felt one of them coming towards him, he had removed the spirits from Dean’s side. It appeared, however, that he hadn't been fast enough. He knew his orders were to remove them before Dean saw them, but he couldn’t stand seeing Dean so lonely...
“I’m sorry brother. I thought maybe I could find out the reason why Dean sees them. If he has them around without his father or brother, he might point us in the right direction,” explained Castiel.
Castiel knew that wasn’t the main reason why he kept sending spirits to Dean. It wasn't even the reason why he kept delaying removing them from Dean’s life, either. He also knew if any of his sisters or brothers ever found out the truth, he would be punished. Worst of all, he would be banned from Dean.
Castiel had become very fond of Dean ever since he was sent to find out that happened all those years ago. After hearing Dean say his name for the first time, something had changed for Castiel. From that moment on, Castiel had wanted to protect Dean and make him happy.
Because of that, he hated the look that came over Dean’s face every time he was alone. Castiel had no idea what to make of those feelings-- Angels weren’t supposed to have feelings like his towards humans, not even humans as important as the Winchesters-- but he hated the look nonetheless. Dean was different, he didn’t even feel this strongly about his brothers or sisters. Sure, there were some he felt more for than others, like Balthazar or Anna. But nobody came close to Dean Winchester.
“Are you any closer to finding out what’s happening with him?” Zachariah asked, peering down at Castiel. He didn’t need to wait for Castiel to answer him. The look on Castiel’s face when he looked away from him said everything he needed to know. “I thought so. You can’t keep interfering with the reapers just so Dean can have some company. If I find out that you are doing this again, you will be punished, Castiel. If you as much as point a spirit in Dean’s direction again, or if you interfere and hold them back, you will surely regret the day you were given this assignment. . Do not disobey me!” Zachariah’s voice was firm and he glared at Castiel once more before taking off.
Even though Castiel knew nobody would hear him, he found himself saying the words he had begun to hate. At least he hated it when Dean said them...
“Yes, Sir. It won’t happen again.”
~Supernatural~
AN: Thanks you lotrspnfangirl for making this story so much better!
November 1st, 2005
By the time Dean turned 26, he had gotten a pretty good grip on his ability. Sure, there were a few exceptions. Like, for example, his first girlfriend, Emma.
Dean dated Emma for two weeks before he found out she was dead.
He had been 13 at the time and had just moved to a new town. Dean was walking through the park when he first saw her and damn, she was hot! There had been nothing that pointed to her being dead... Maybe if Dean hadn't been so fascinated by her, he would have noticed the looks people were giving him. To them, it looked like he was talking to himself and the fact that she had gone to a different school than he had gone to, did not help. Nobody knew her. Therefore, nobody knew she had died a few years earlier. She eventually told him the truth when he started pressuring her into meeting his dad and little brother.
The two of them had been driving him crazy by making fun of him and his imaginary girlfriend. Thankfully, they stopped soon after Dean told them Emma and he had broken up.
"There wasn't any future for us," was always Dean’s answer when he was asked why they broke up. Two weeks later John found a new hunt on the other side of the state so the three of them packed up and left. Emma was never spoken about again.
From then on, Dean did everything he could to learn how to tell ghosts from people who were alive and kicking.
The easiest way was to look in their eyes. Dead people had, well, dead eyes; eyes that had lost all glossiness and become colorless. All ghosts that Dean ever met had them. Well, all but one. Even years later Dean could still remember those crystal clear, blue eyes. Eyes that felt like they were looking right into your soul.
The second easiest way was to use the other people around him, dead or alive. If nobody even looked at a person, it was a pretty good sign that something wasn't right. It also helps that ghosts usually get kind of shocked when someone, a.k.a. Dean Winchester, looks right at them. If there was still any doubt, Dean just communicated somehow with the ghost. Whether it was a handshake or plain talking, it always got him an answer. Either the ghost confirmed it or people around him looked at him like he's crazy.
Okay, to be honest, those people might be on to something... but who wasn't a little crazy nowadays? It wasn’t like Dean cared what people thought anyway. The only people that mattered were his family.
Dean made damn sure that John and Sammy never saw him when he was doing ‘his thing’. He lost count years ago of how many times he faked a phone call just to be able to talk to ghost near John or Sammy. Usually, Dean would tell them that some girl he had been hitting on was calling him. That always got an eye roll from Sammy. If they were between hunts, John would send him an all-knowing look but if someone looked really closely, they would see a hint of pride on John's face. However, when John was hunting, he had zero tolerance for any kind of distractions. Which meant that on hunts, Dean had to be really sneaky if he didn’t want a lecture on safety from his dad.
One time after THE fight--the one where Sam walked out to go to Stanford--John saw an article about a house fire, a house fire that sounded a lot like the one Mary died in. Since they were in a middle of a hunt, John asked Dean to stay behind and finish it alone so he could go and investigate.
At first, Dean was a little nervous. Sure, he had been going on hunts for years and he knew he was a good hunter, no question about that. But this was the first time he was going in without backup. He felt like he was jumping from an airplane without a parachute. Not that Dean would ever do that. Or go on a plane, period. He was just fine with both feet on the ground, thank you very much.
Turned out, Dean hadn’t needed to worry. For the first time in a long time, he could just be himself. There was no need to sneak around, no need to explain how he found out where the body was when the only thing he had to go on was the victim's words. He used his skills to solve the case, and it had felt damn good.
A week later, John found an article about a haunted house where the body was never found. Dean offered to go take care of it by himself.
A month later, John sent Dean to take care of a werewolf. Later that month, Dean took down a poltergeist by himself. Three months later, Dean worked one job with John before splitting up again.
Five months later, they met up to take care of a rawhead.
Soon it became a routine.
Work a few jobs, meet up with his dad, check on Sammy. Rinse, wash and repeat. A few weeks, sometimes months, of being on his own before he met up with John for a month or so of hunts together. Then he’d drive to Stanford to silently check on Sammy, before starting to look for hunts again.
If Dean had been normal, he probably would have gone insane. He had grown up having Sammy around him constantly, then suddenly, Sammy was gone. Soon after, John left and Dean found himself completely alone. Well, not completely... For some reason, after he started to be on his own, there seemed to be ghost everywhere he went; at the library, the cafe house, the police station, in his hotel room. Most of them were polite and easy to hang out with, then there were ghosts like that pervert he encountered in one of his hotel rooms. Dean was just about to take a shower when this guy just showed up in his bathroom, with wide eyes and snarky comments. Needless to say, Dean didn’t take a shower until after he salted and burned the body.
Despite that, Dean found himself spending more and more time with ghosts and less with the living. He would spend hours talking to someone and getting to know them, only to go out and not be able to continue talking to them in public, even though that person was still right next to him. If people saw him talking to himself... it would draw unwanted attention to him.
Soon, that began to take its toll on Dean. It also wasn’t easy having to go burn someone he had become friends with or to leave his friends behind, hoping that someday they could move on.
Dean hated it most of all when he in the middle of a conversation one minute and the next, they were gone for good. He knew that with time, most ghosts could make themselves visible to the living. For him, they were always visible. So why did they keep disappearing? Sure, some could jump from one place to the next, but if any of them popped up near Dean, he always saw them right away. Dean usually double checked later to see if any of the ghosts showed up again, but they never did. The fact that the ghosts just kept disappearing when they talked to Dean could not be a coincidence. Besides, John taught Dean never to believe in coincidences. But no matter how hard Dean looked into it, he couldn’t figure out why it kept happening.
Since Dean's ghost friends never seemed to stick around for long, Dean tried not to get too close to them. Instead, he became more dependent on his dad since Sam didn’t want to talk to him.
Even if he couldn’t meet up with his dad all the time, he made sure to call him every once in awhile. But even those calls started to become farther and farther apart in time. They also became shorter and shorter.
Lately, most of the time when John called, it was to tell him about a hunt John needed Dean to take care off.
“Dean, I got a lead on the demon. I’m going to Minnesota. I need you to get here and take over the case I’m on now. We will meet up with when I’m done. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” was always Dean’s answer even though Dean was exhausted and would need to drive for hours to get to where he was supposed to go.
Before Dean could say anything else, his dad always hung up. Then a few days later, Dean would receive a voicemail from his dad saying he couldn’t meet up with Dean but he had a new job for him.
Before Dean knew it, he hadn’t heard from his dad in about three weeks. Then one day he got a cryptic voicemail from his dad saying they were all in danger.
It was how Dean found himself in Palo Alto in the middle of the night, on top of his younger brother, grinning down at him in the darkness.
“Whoa! Easy, Tiger.”
~Supernatural~
“Castiel, I just received reports of you not completing your assignments like you should. You are to observe Dean Winchester. You are required to remove those spirits before they mess up the timeline too badly,” came Zachariah’s voice from behind Castiel. Castiel had just returned from watching Dean talk to his younger brother outside of Sam’s apartment. He had hoped that none of his brothers or sisters had noticed what he was doing lately. As soon as he felt one of them coming towards him, he had removed the spirits from Dean’s side. It appeared, however, that he hadn't been fast enough. He knew his orders were to remove them before Dean saw them, but he couldn’t stand seeing Dean so lonely...
“I’m sorry brother. I thought maybe I could find out the reason why Dean sees them. If he has them around without his father or brother, he might point us in the right direction,” explained Castiel.
Castiel knew that wasn’t the main reason why he kept sending spirits to Dean. It wasn't even the reason why he kept delaying removing them from Dean’s life, either. He also knew if any of his sisters or brothers ever found out the truth, he would be punished. Worst of all, he would be banned from Dean.
Castiel had become very fond of Dean ever since he was sent to find out that happened all those years ago. After hearing Dean say his name for the first time, something had changed for Castiel. From that moment on, Castiel had wanted to protect Dean and make him happy.
Because of that, he hated the look that came over Dean’s face every time he was alone. Castiel had no idea what to make of those feelings-- Angels weren’t supposed to have feelings like his towards humans, not even humans as important as the Winchesters-- but he hated the look nonetheless. Dean was different, he didn’t even feel this strongly about his brothers or sisters. Sure, there were some he felt more for than others, like Balthazar or Anna. But nobody came close to Dean Winchester.
“Are you any closer to finding out what’s happening with him?” Zachariah asked, peering down at Castiel. He didn’t need to wait for Castiel to answer him. The look on Castiel’s face when he looked away from him said everything he needed to know. “I thought so. You can’t keep interfering with the reapers just so Dean can have some company. If I find out that you are doing this again, you will be punished, Castiel. If you as much as point a spirit in Dean’s direction again, or if you interfere and hold them back, you will surely regret the day you were given this assignment. . Do not disobey me!” Zachariah’s voice was firm and he glared at Castiel once more before taking off.
Even though Castiel knew nobody would hear him, he found himself saying the words he had begun to hate. At least he hated it when Dean said them...
“Yes, Sir. It won’t happen again.”
~Supernatural~
AN: Thanks you lotrspnfangirl for making this story so much better!