Comment-fic post of randomness
This is all stuff that's been posted on callcastiel over the past couple of months, but I was starting to lose track of it all, so I'm giving it a post here. Enjoy. :P
For naatz : John and Castiel meet for the second time.
When John looks up from settling Sammy into his high chair, Dean's by the men's room, chattering animatedly at a stranger in a tan trench-coat.
What the hell?
The guy doesn't look like much. No muscle under the cheap polyester, pale skin, dark circles under his eyes. The way he's standing is all wrong, though, stiff and awkward and inhuman in ways that would set John's teeth on edge even if he wasn't still waking up with the taste of smoke on his tongue. His head is cocked to one side, and he's looking at Dean way more intently than some random asshole has a right to be looking at his five-year-old son.
Sammy's still most of the way out, worn down to quiet by a night on the road. He mumbles sleepily, and John smooths a hand briefly over the curve of his head, soft fine hair catching on his calluses.
He's rising out of his seat slow and smooth, hand drifting to the gun under his jacket--he doesn't want to start a firefight in the middle of some roadside diner, even if it is mostly empty, but he'll do it if he has to--when the stranger looks up.
His eyes are blue, strange and calm as the sky a hundred miles out to sea, and John finds himself gripped, for a moment, by an unfamiliar vertigo.
He shakes his head sharply, blinks hard, and when he opens his eyes again, the room is deserted except for Dean, weaving his way carefully back to their table.
"Hey, bud," John says, voice as easy and calm as he can make it. "Who were you talking to over there?"
For a minute, he's afraid that Dean's gonna say nobody, Daddy, there wasn't anybody there, afraid that he's really going round the bend this time. Instead, Dean takes his thumb out of his mouth, clambers up onto the bench opposite John, and says, very solemnly, "Castiel. He's an angel."
"An angel, huh?" John says. His hand is still resting on the butt of his gun. The critter doesn't look like it's gonna be making a reappearance, but he keeps his eyes peeled through dinner all the same.
***
(The second time he meets the creature calling itself Castiel is in the basement of a hospital, beaten and bruised to within an inch of his life and his son, his son lying there on a hospital bed like Death's already got a good grip on him.
Castiel says, John Winchester, I am an angel of the Lord, and, This is not the right path, John, and, You're making a mistake, but John ignores him, concentrates on making the lines of his summoning spell as straight as he can draw them with the concussion wavering his vision.
Castiel disappears before he completes the spell, and John doesn't spare him another thought. He's got a bargain to make and a son to save. Two sons who need saving, maybe, and ain't no damn angel gonna help him.)
For affablyevil : Firefly. The Operator and River reach an understanding.
River finds comfort in the shape of things. Thoughts, the slow, smooth stream of them slipping through her fingers, and they're easier now, slower now. Happier, mostly.
Simon and Kaylee have each other now, and sometimes she listens to them in the dark, laughter and warmth and the salt-sweet taste of skin, hands learning the shape of each others bodies.
Sometimes, she slides her own hand down under the sheets to touch herself, but it's cold. Empty comfort.
Zoe is sharp, prickly with grief, her dreams like shattered glass. River avoids the quarters she used to share with Wash.
(Wash isn't there and sometimes River feels his absence as much as Zoe does, as much as Serenity does, locked in the grip of space without his hands to guide her)
Mal is there, always. Stubborn and bitter and unyielding as one of the stones they traded for on Persephone, the ones that looked pretty but were sharp when she touched them with her tongue.
(Simon slapped her hand away, River, don't touch that, but his thoughts were on Kaylee, golden Kaylee and the smell of strawberries).
Mal is always there, and that's why it makes sense that he's the one she goes to when she decides to leave. He does some fussing and arguing, and there's a threat or two to the effect of dumping her in the brig, but he comes around in the end, like she knew he would.
***
They set her off on a border world--or she sets herself off, drifting into the ebb and flow of the crowds around the marketplace while Simon is distracted. She doesn't bother looking for another ship once Serenity's breached atmo. He'll find her soon enough.
She doesn't hear him coming. He's silent on his feet, and between the spaces of his skull is only darkness. Like space, she thinks, and smiles as she rises to meet him.
They're both lost, she thinks, a long time past the point they could have found themselves again. There's a symmetry in it that she likes.
For gabby_silang : Deanna and Samuel, young love, late nights, grave digging duty and the corpse that won't die.
"That," Samuel says, leaning heavily on his shovel, "has to do it. Did you--"
"I have it right here," Deanna says calmly, thumbing through the little leather-bound notebook. It has her initials embossed in the front in pretty silver script, a gift from her mama and daddy when she hit eighteen, and Samuel would be all tied up in admiring the slender grace of her hands if it weren't for the fact that the loose earth under his shovel is shaking again.
"Dee--"
"I'm hurrying," she says, before he can even get the words out. There's a curl of sandy hair escaping from the kerchief she has bound around her head, and he has a crazy urge to go smooth it out.
Soon as they figure out how to get this damn thing to stay dead. Crawled out of its hole three times already, for crissake. "Well, hurry faster, would you?"
"Men," she sighs, and before he can open his mouth to retort, "oh, here it is!"
A hand, greenish and pale with flesh beginning to slide off the bone, works its way out of the upturned earth at Samuel's feet. It gropes toward his boot, and he stomps on it. "Deanna!"
This time, when she opens her mouth, it isn't to tell him off again. The Latin flows perfect and smooth off of her tongue, rolling like the thunder of God down on whatever the hell it is squirming around in the depths of this old grave. The earth stops shaking. The dead hand, when he lifts his boot to look at it, is still, but he doesn't move away. Just stands there listening to her read the last words of the spell.
Stands there for a good couple of minutes after she finishes, too, just staring. She tucks the stray curl behind her ear, and even though he can't really see the color of her skin in the silvery half-light of the moon, he'd bet good money that she's blushing. "Was that alright?" she asks, and it sounds for all the world like she's looking for an opinion on her strawberry preserves. "I've been practicing."
"I can tell," Samuel says, and she smiles.
He checks the dirt at his feet again, but it looks like the damn thing's finally done for.
When he looks up, Dee is wiping her dirty hands on the front of her gingham shirt. There's more dirt smeared across her forehead and ground into the knees of her trousers. She's got callouses on her hands and a spitfire temper that makes the teachers at school shake their heads and say that Deanna girl won't ever catch herself a man if she doesn't settle down soon.
Samuel Campbell thinks, personally, that that's horseshit.
For moragmacpherson : Dean's spending Christmas Eve in the drunk tank, Robo!Sam comes to bust him out.
"Not going anywhere with you," Dean mutters. That's what he meant to say, anyway, but it comes out in a mush of soft consonants that sounds more like 'ngannerewichoo.'
"You're going back to the hotel with me," Sam says. Not Sam. The anti-Sam. Thing.
"No. 'M stayin here."
"It's Christmas."
"Like you care."
"No," Sam says in a calm, reasonable voice that makes Dean want to hit him. "But you do."
"Don't give a rat's ass--" he stumbles hard into Sam's shoulder, and Sam steadies him. It's nice, just for a minute. Drunk enough now that it's easy to get caught up in the nice of it. The familiarity. Sammy.
Not Sammy.
"--a rat's ass," he repeats, for emphasis.
Sam slides an arm around his shoulder. He still smells like Sammy, like sweat and smoke. It's not fair, Dean thinks. Fucking tricky, sneaking--sneaks.
"Is there any particular reason you want to spend Christmas Eve in jail?"
Dean blinks, squints up at him. "How'd you get in here, anyway?"
"Is this really what you want to talk about now?"
"Maybe."
"Is this, like, a soul thing? The whole drinking yourself stupid and punching a meter maid? Because if so--"
More like a Dean thing, he thinks. Merry fucking Christmas, Sammy, now leave me alone.
"Yeah," he says. "It's a soul thing."
Sam stares at him for a long time without blinking. Ten seconds. Sam stares at him for ten seconds without blinking. It's fucking creepy. "Come on," he says eventually, pulling Dean toward the door. It's open. Dean decides he probably doesn't want to know how that happened. "Lets get you home."
Home, Dean thinks, and allows his brother to lead him away.
For callowyn : Ruby/Zachariah. Manipulating Winchesters is a competitive sport.
It's a nightclub over a casino this time. Ruby has no taste, but he supposes you have to make allowances for demons. That doesn't stop him from blasting the bartender to a gibbering heap the third time his martini comes back without olives, though.
"Nice," Ruby observes, watching the man cower and sob and claw at his eyes. There's an ambulance coming, Zachariah supposes. Screaming. Shouts. Sirens. It's all very pedestrian.
"I wish I could say the same for you," he says, reaching over the bar to scoop up an olive. "If you can't hit your target figures--"
"Oh my god," she says, not unironically. "Sam will come around, okay? It's a minor setback."
"The essence of good project management is learning to anticipate minor setbacks," Zachariah tells her. Hey, there's a reason he's at the top of the food chain. He can afford to share some pointers.
Ruby kicks his knee, hard enough that he can actually feel it. She's perched on the bar in her new body, licking french-fry salt from her fingers. "I didn't really come here to talk business, you know."
"Oh?" Zachariah watches her raise her eyebrows. It isn't subtle, but that's part of her charm, he supposes. He drains his glass. "Shall we get out of here then?"
Ruby slides off the bar, landing neatly in the mess of shattered glass at her feet. "Lets."
S4 AU, demon!Dean
The first body he gets topside belongs to a tattooed gangbanger in Rikers.
The man's mind is half-rotted with drugs, easy to shove back into a little corner of itself when he slides in. It's not like the world is losing much, Dean thinks, but this, oh Christ, he forgot how it is up here.
Eighty years down South was just eight months topside, according to the calendar the man (Jesús, his name is Jesús, and that's the kind of irony that Dean's almost forgotten how to appreciate, but Fate seems to be one funny bitch) keeps hanging in his cell. It's only been eight months, and it's all so clean up here. Even in maximum security, where the walls are made out of poured concrete and the only sky he sees is a strip of blue above the exercise yard, everything is so shiny-nice that Dean finds himself trailing wondering fingers along the bumps and tiny imperfections of the walls, following the tracks of the sun across the sky, fucking giddy with it.
It doesn't take long for him (for Jesús) to start attracting attention, but that's what he was waiting for, after all.
He knocks out three of the rival gang members who corner him in the laundry. The fourth one gets his throat cut to the bone over an empty sink. Beggars can't be choosers, and if he doesn't report back Alistair's gonna send his hounds up to drag him back down before he gets within sniffing distance of Sammy. That just ain't happening.
It's a quick death. He holds the man's chin and watches the life fade out of his eyes with a kind of relief. Despite Alistair's best efforts, Dean's never really got the taste for playing with his food. He likes things quick and efficient, and up here he can do it his way. It's a nice change.
The blood in the sink is still hot when he stirs it with his index finger, murmuring the words that Alistair carved deep into his mind.
Alistair is distracted by a new pet. It isn't a long conversation, and Dean isn't upset about that. He isn't, damn it. The less attention he gets, the faster he can get to Sammy. The more he can help. This is for the best. It's not like he gives a flying fuck about Alistair.
Sammy, he thinks. Sammy is out there on his own, waiting for him. Maybe even still trying to save him from the Pit, fuck. It's a nice thought. No way for him to know Dean made it out on his own after all.
He leaves Jesús's unconscious body in a heap on the concrete floor and flits out into the open air, just a smudge of smoke on the cool evening breeze over the barbed-wire fence.
Dust in the wind, he thinks, and if he had a mouth, he'd be smiling.
S1 gen, Sam and Dean, Vegas weddings.
They're twenty miles outside of Bellevue, driving hell-bent for leather away from a couple of overly-inquisitive local cops, when Sam finally decides to get inquisitive. "So, are you ever planning on telling me what you've been up to for the past couple of years?"
"I joined the Peace Corps," Dean says, braking to head off the next exit. With any luck, they can lose the LEO's on the back roads, and it isn't too far to the county line. Not like they're going to put up roadblocks. Probably. "Don't you think we have some slightly more pressing concerns right now?"
"Seriously, Dean," Sam says huffily. He's got three days of stubble, his clothes are shredded, he reeks of stale sweat and monster guts, and the pout he's wearing makes him look more like a middle-schooler than like somebody who's going to be turning twenty-three in a couple of weeks.
The urge to reach out and ruffle his hair is overwhelming, but Dean resists. Whatever goop Sam's covered in smells like a sewer and is probably toxic. "Man, I forgot how much I missed your whiny bullshit."
"Asshole," Sam mutters, but his lips are twitching. "I'm just wondering. I mean--" he shrugs. "You don't really talk about stuff."
"Nothing to talk about."
"Come on, three years and you don't have anything to talk about?"
Yeah, actually, Sammy, funny thing. November before last, Dad drank a fifth of whiskey by himself, totaled his truck, and punched a police officer in the face and I had to break him out of jail. Him and Bobby aren't talking anymore, either. I broke a grand total of eight bones and dislocated my shoulder twice. You know. The usual.
"We did an exorcism for an Elvis impersonator in Vegas," he offers instead, turning onto a narrow, twisting dirt road that looks like something out of a classic horror movie. There's even fog gathering low on the ground. "His trailer was possessed by the ghost of his dead cat. Cats. Man, this dude had like twenty of them, not counting the dead ones."
Sam puts his head back and laughs. "Tell me you didn't get married. Again."
"No, man," Dean says seriously. "One drunken Vegas wedding was enough."
"Or one too many."
"Just because you want a fairytale wedding, Princess..."
"Hey, at least I didn't get hitched to a pole-dancer in a leopard-print bikini," Sam says, and from there the conversation turns to other things.
John/Dean, underage, dub-con.
(I would like it to be on the record that this is entirely naatz 's fault.)
Hands, his hands are rough and his beard is rough and his breath smells like whiskey and the seam of his jeans is scratching against Dean's thigh.
He's whispering, "Mary" and "I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry," and Dean pets his hair, small fingers catching in the knots, and doesn't say anything.
***
It's not something he thinks about.
Okay, that covers a lot of territory. Dean's got a lot of things he doesn't think about, because whatever douchebag shrink decided it's healthy to face your demons clearly never got a look at the inside of a hunter's head. And seriously, any time Sam could get that memo would be awesome.
"I said I don't want to talk about it."
"I heard you the first time," Sam says. His voice is calm. His face is calm, too, and it makes Dean want to break his fist on it.
"So fucking drop it already."
"I'm not going to drop it."
"Sam--"
"Dean. Tell me what happened."
"Nothing happened."
***
He's drunk again, leaning heavy against the doorframe like it's the only thing holding him up. Sammy's fast asleep on his side of the bed, curled up and sucking his thumb even though he pretends he's too grown-up for that now. Dean knows better.
"Dad," he says, and sometimes that's all it takes. Sometimes Dad shakes his head like he's clearing out cobwebs; rubs a hand over his face and swears under his breath and stumbles back to the other room.
He isn't shaking his head this time. His eyes are wet and vacant in a way that hurts to see, and Dean slides out from under the blankets, slow and careful so he doesn't wake Sammy.
Dad's hand is heavy on his shoulder. He lets himself be guided him back to bed, and when his hands catch at Dean to pull him in, Dean goes.
Sometimes, he just pulls Dean close and sleeps. Sometimes, that's all he needs.
***
"You're lying."
"Yeah?" Dean pops his beer open against the counter top, takes a sip, doesn't look away. Eye contact is crucial to selling the con. That's something Dad taught him. "Prove it."
Sam's mouth is a thin, hard line, and Dean doesn't even remember how they got on this topic or why Sam suddenly decided that now was a good time to start digging up buried bones of the more metaphorical variety. "You really think I'm an idiot, don't you?"
"Well, now that you mention it..."
"Stop it."
"Stop what?"
"Stop acting like this is funny, Dean."
"Everything we've been through and this is what gets your panties in a twist? That's a little funny, dude."
"No," Sam says flatly. "It's not."
***
It's dark. It's always dark in the gasping hours between midnight and dawn, when Dean's so groggy that it feels like a dream. He can pretend it's a dream. He's good at pretending.
It doesn't happen that often anymore. Dad's not drinking as much, and Dean's been getting tall, starting to get peach fuzz and an interest in the pretty redhead in his algebra class. He's thirteen, and he feels weird and off-balance in his own body.
Dad is still bigger than him, so much bigger that Dean can't imagine ever catching up. Their clothes are mostly on, and it's so dark that he can barely see the tracks of tears gleaming in the creases of Dad's eyes.
He pulls Dean closer with rough hands and whispers 'I'm sorry' into the curve of his shoulder.
Dean strokes his hair and doesn't say anything.
For naatz : John and Castiel meet for the second time.
When John looks up from settling Sammy into his high chair, Dean's by the men's room, chattering animatedly at a stranger in a tan trench-coat.
What the hell?
The guy doesn't look like much. No muscle under the cheap polyester, pale skin, dark circles under his eyes. The way he's standing is all wrong, though, stiff and awkward and inhuman in ways that would set John's teeth on edge even if he wasn't still waking up with the taste of smoke on his tongue. His head is cocked to one side, and he's looking at Dean way more intently than some random asshole has a right to be looking at his five-year-old son.
Sammy's still most of the way out, worn down to quiet by a night on the road. He mumbles sleepily, and John smooths a hand briefly over the curve of his head, soft fine hair catching on his calluses.
He's rising out of his seat slow and smooth, hand drifting to the gun under his jacket--he doesn't want to start a firefight in the middle of some roadside diner, even if it is mostly empty, but he'll do it if he has to--when the stranger looks up.
His eyes are blue, strange and calm as the sky a hundred miles out to sea, and John finds himself gripped, for a moment, by an unfamiliar vertigo.
He shakes his head sharply, blinks hard, and when he opens his eyes again, the room is deserted except for Dean, weaving his way carefully back to their table.
"Hey, bud," John says, voice as easy and calm as he can make it. "Who were you talking to over there?"
For a minute, he's afraid that Dean's gonna say nobody, Daddy, there wasn't anybody there, afraid that he's really going round the bend this time. Instead, Dean takes his thumb out of his mouth, clambers up onto the bench opposite John, and says, very solemnly, "Castiel. He's an angel."
"An angel, huh?" John says. His hand is still resting on the butt of his gun. The critter doesn't look like it's gonna be making a reappearance, but he keeps his eyes peeled through dinner all the same.
***
(The second time he meets the creature calling itself Castiel is in the basement of a hospital, beaten and bruised to within an inch of his life and his son, his son lying there on a hospital bed like Death's already got a good grip on him.
Castiel says, John Winchester, I am an angel of the Lord, and, This is not the right path, John, and, You're making a mistake, but John ignores him, concentrates on making the lines of his summoning spell as straight as he can draw them with the concussion wavering his vision.
Castiel disappears before he completes the spell, and John doesn't spare him another thought. He's got a bargain to make and a son to save. Two sons who need saving, maybe, and ain't no damn angel gonna help him.)
For affablyevil : Firefly. The Operator and River reach an understanding.
River finds comfort in the shape of things. Thoughts, the slow, smooth stream of them slipping through her fingers, and they're easier now, slower now. Happier, mostly.
Simon and Kaylee have each other now, and sometimes she listens to them in the dark, laughter and warmth and the salt-sweet taste of skin, hands learning the shape of each others bodies.
Sometimes, she slides her own hand down under the sheets to touch herself, but it's cold. Empty comfort.
Zoe is sharp, prickly with grief, her dreams like shattered glass. River avoids the quarters she used to share with Wash.
(Wash isn't there and sometimes River feels his absence as much as Zoe does, as much as Serenity does, locked in the grip of space without his hands to guide her)
Mal is there, always. Stubborn and bitter and unyielding as one of the stones they traded for on Persephone, the ones that looked pretty but were sharp when she touched them with her tongue.
(Simon slapped her hand away, River, don't touch that, but his thoughts were on Kaylee, golden Kaylee and the smell of strawberries).
Mal is always there, and that's why it makes sense that he's the one she goes to when she decides to leave. He does some fussing and arguing, and there's a threat or two to the effect of dumping her in the brig, but he comes around in the end, like she knew he would.
***
They set her off on a border world--or she sets herself off, drifting into the ebb and flow of the crowds around the marketplace while Simon is distracted. She doesn't bother looking for another ship once Serenity's breached atmo. He'll find her soon enough.
She doesn't hear him coming. He's silent on his feet, and between the spaces of his skull is only darkness. Like space, she thinks, and smiles as she rises to meet him.
They're both lost, she thinks, a long time past the point they could have found themselves again. There's a symmetry in it that she likes.
For gabby_silang : Deanna and Samuel, young love, late nights, grave digging duty and the corpse that won't die.
"That," Samuel says, leaning heavily on his shovel, "has to do it. Did you--"
"I have it right here," Deanna says calmly, thumbing through the little leather-bound notebook. It has her initials embossed in the front in pretty silver script, a gift from her mama and daddy when she hit eighteen, and Samuel would be all tied up in admiring the slender grace of her hands if it weren't for the fact that the loose earth under his shovel is shaking again.
"Dee--"
"I'm hurrying," she says, before he can even get the words out. There's a curl of sandy hair escaping from the kerchief she has bound around her head, and he has a crazy urge to go smooth it out.
Soon as they figure out how to get this damn thing to stay dead. Crawled out of its hole three times already, for crissake. "Well, hurry faster, would you?"
"Men," she sighs, and before he can open his mouth to retort, "oh, here it is!"
A hand, greenish and pale with flesh beginning to slide off the bone, works its way out of the upturned earth at Samuel's feet. It gropes toward his boot, and he stomps on it. "Deanna!"
This time, when she opens her mouth, it isn't to tell him off again. The Latin flows perfect and smooth off of her tongue, rolling like the thunder of God down on whatever the hell it is squirming around in the depths of this old grave. The earth stops shaking. The dead hand, when he lifts his boot to look at it, is still, but he doesn't move away. Just stands there listening to her read the last words of the spell.
Stands there for a good couple of minutes after she finishes, too, just staring. She tucks the stray curl behind her ear, and even though he can't really see the color of her skin in the silvery half-light of the moon, he'd bet good money that she's blushing. "Was that alright?" she asks, and it sounds for all the world like she's looking for an opinion on her strawberry preserves. "I've been practicing."
"I can tell," Samuel says, and she smiles.
He checks the dirt at his feet again, but it looks like the damn thing's finally done for.
When he looks up, Dee is wiping her dirty hands on the front of her gingham shirt. There's more dirt smeared across her forehead and ground into the knees of her trousers. She's got callouses on her hands and a spitfire temper that makes the teachers at school shake their heads and say that Deanna girl won't ever catch herself a man if she doesn't settle down soon.
Samuel Campbell thinks, personally, that that's horseshit.
For moragmacpherson : Dean's spending Christmas Eve in the drunk tank, Robo!Sam comes to bust him out.
"Not going anywhere with you," Dean mutters. That's what he meant to say, anyway, but it comes out in a mush of soft consonants that sounds more like 'ngannerewichoo.'
"You're going back to the hotel with me," Sam says. Not Sam. The anti-Sam. Thing.
"No. 'M stayin here."
"It's Christmas."
"Like you care."
"No," Sam says in a calm, reasonable voice that makes Dean want to hit him. "But you do."
"Don't give a rat's ass--" he stumbles hard into Sam's shoulder, and Sam steadies him. It's nice, just for a minute. Drunk enough now that it's easy to get caught up in the nice of it. The familiarity. Sammy.
Not Sammy.
"--a rat's ass," he repeats, for emphasis.
Sam slides an arm around his shoulder. He still smells like Sammy, like sweat and smoke. It's not fair, Dean thinks. Fucking tricky, sneaking--sneaks.
"Is there any particular reason you want to spend Christmas Eve in jail?"
Dean blinks, squints up at him. "How'd you get in here, anyway?"
"Is this really what you want to talk about now?"
"Maybe."
"Is this, like, a soul thing? The whole drinking yourself stupid and punching a meter maid? Because if so--"
More like a Dean thing, he thinks. Merry fucking Christmas, Sammy, now leave me alone.
"Yeah," he says. "It's a soul thing."
Sam stares at him for a long time without blinking. Ten seconds. Sam stares at him for ten seconds without blinking. It's fucking creepy. "Come on," he says eventually, pulling Dean toward the door. It's open. Dean decides he probably doesn't want to know how that happened. "Lets get you home."
Home, Dean thinks, and allows his brother to lead him away.
For callowyn : Ruby/Zachariah. Manipulating Winchesters is a competitive sport.
It's a nightclub over a casino this time. Ruby has no taste, but he supposes you have to make allowances for demons. That doesn't stop him from blasting the bartender to a gibbering heap the third time his martini comes back without olives, though.
"Nice," Ruby observes, watching the man cower and sob and claw at his eyes. There's an ambulance coming, Zachariah supposes. Screaming. Shouts. Sirens. It's all very pedestrian.
"I wish I could say the same for you," he says, reaching over the bar to scoop up an olive. "If you can't hit your target figures--"
"Oh my god," she says, not unironically. "Sam will come around, okay? It's a minor setback."
"The essence of good project management is learning to anticipate minor setbacks," Zachariah tells her. Hey, there's a reason he's at the top of the food chain. He can afford to share some pointers.
Ruby kicks his knee, hard enough that he can actually feel it. She's perched on the bar in her new body, licking french-fry salt from her fingers. "I didn't really come here to talk business, you know."
"Oh?" Zachariah watches her raise her eyebrows. It isn't subtle, but that's part of her charm, he supposes. He drains his glass. "Shall we get out of here then?"
Ruby slides off the bar, landing neatly in the mess of shattered glass at her feet. "Lets."
S4 AU, demon!Dean
The first body he gets topside belongs to a tattooed gangbanger in Rikers.
The man's mind is half-rotted with drugs, easy to shove back into a little corner of itself when he slides in. It's not like the world is losing much, Dean thinks, but this, oh Christ, he forgot how it is up here.
Eighty years down South was just eight months topside, according to the calendar the man (Jesús, his name is Jesús, and that's the kind of irony that Dean's almost forgotten how to appreciate, but Fate seems to be one funny bitch) keeps hanging in his cell. It's only been eight months, and it's all so clean up here. Even in maximum security, where the walls are made out of poured concrete and the only sky he sees is a strip of blue above the exercise yard, everything is so shiny-nice that Dean finds himself trailing wondering fingers along the bumps and tiny imperfections of the walls, following the tracks of the sun across the sky, fucking giddy with it.
It doesn't take long for him (for Jesús) to start attracting attention, but that's what he was waiting for, after all.
He knocks out three of the rival gang members who corner him in the laundry. The fourth one gets his throat cut to the bone over an empty sink. Beggars can't be choosers, and if he doesn't report back Alistair's gonna send his hounds up to drag him back down before he gets within sniffing distance of Sammy. That just ain't happening.
It's a quick death. He holds the man's chin and watches the life fade out of his eyes with a kind of relief. Despite Alistair's best efforts, Dean's never really got the taste for playing with his food. He likes things quick and efficient, and up here he can do it his way. It's a nice change.
The blood in the sink is still hot when he stirs it with his index finger, murmuring the words that Alistair carved deep into his mind.
Alistair is distracted by a new pet. It isn't a long conversation, and Dean isn't upset about that. He isn't, damn it. The less attention he gets, the faster he can get to Sammy. The more he can help. This is for the best. It's not like he gives a flying fuck about Alistair.
Sammy, he thinks. Sammy is out there on his own, waiting for him. Maybe even still trying to save him from the Pit, fuck. It's a nice thought. No way for him to know Dean made it out on his own after all.
He leaves Jesús's unconscious body in a heap on the concrete floor and flits out into the open air, just a smudge of smoke on the cool evening breeze over the barbed-wire fence.
Dust in the wind, he thinks, and if he had a mouth, he'd be smiling.
S1 gen, Sam and Dean, Vegas weddings.
They're twenty miles outside of Bellevue, driving hell-bent for leather away from a couple of overly-inquisitive local cops, when Sam finally decides to get inquisitive. "So, are you ever planning on telling me what you've been up to for the past couple of years?"
"I joined the Peace Corps," Dean says, braking to head off the next exit. With any luck, they can lose the LEO's on the back roads, and it isn't too far to the county line. Not like they're going to put up roadblocks. Probably. "Don't you think we have some slightly more pressing concerns right now?"
"Seriously, Dean," Sam says huffily. He's got three days of stubble, his clothes are shredded, he reeks of stale sweat and monster guts, and the pout he's wearing makes him look more like a middle-schooler than like somebody who's going to be turning twenty-three in a couple of weeks.
The urge to reach out and ruffle his hair is overwhelming, but Dean resists. Whatever goop Sam's covered in smells like a sewer and is probably toxic. "Man, I forgot how much I missed your whiny bullshit."
"Asshole," Sam mutters, but his lips are twitching. "I'm just wondering. I mean--" he shrugs. "You don't really talk about stuff."
"Nothing to talk about."
"Come on, three years and you don't have anything to talk about?"
Yeah, actually, Sammy, funny thing. November before last, Dad drank a fifth of whiskey by himself, totaled his truck, and punched a police officer in the face and I had to break him out of jail. Him and Bobby aren't talking anymore, either. I broke a grand total of eight bones and dislocated my shoulder twice. You know. The usual.
"We did an exorcism for an Elvis impersonator in Vegas," he offers instead, turning onto a narrow, twisting dirt road that looks like something out of a classic horror movie. There's even fog gathering low on the ground. "His trailer was possessed by the ghost of his dead cat. Cats. Man, this dude had like twenty of them, not counting the dead ones."
Sam puts his head back and laughs. "Tell me you didn't get married. Again."
"No, man," Dean says seriously. "One drunken Vegas wedding was enough."
"Or one too many."
"Just because you want a fairytale wedding, Princess..."
"Hey, at least I didn't get hitched to a pole-dancer in a leopard-print bikini," Sam says, and from there the conversation turns to other things.
John/Dean, underage, dub-con.
(I would like it to be on the record that this is entirely naatz 's fault.)
Hands, his hands are rough and his beard is rough and his breath smells like whiskey and the seam of his jeans is scratching against Dean's thigh.
He's whispering, "Mary" and "I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry," and Dean pets his hair, small fingers catching in the knots, and doesn't say anything.
***
It's not something he thinks about.
Okay, that covers a lot of territory. Dean's got a lot of things he doesn't think about, because whatever douchebag shrink decided it's healthy to face your demons clearly never got a look at the inside of a hunter's head. And seriously, any time Sam could get that memo would be awesome.
"I said I don't want to talk about it."
"I heard you the first time," Sam says. His voice is calm. His face is calm, too, and it makes Dean want to break his fist on it.
"So fucking drop it already."
"I'm not going to drop it."
"Sam--"
"Dean. Tell me what happened."
"Nothing happened."
***
He's drunk again, leaning heavy against the doorframe like it's the only thing holding him up. Sammy's fast asleep on his side of the bed, curled up and sucking his thumb even though he pretends he's too grown-up for that now. Dean knows better.
"Dad," he says, and sometimes that's all it takes. Sometimes Dad shakes his head like he's clearing out cobwebs; rubs a hand over his face and swears under his breath and stumbles back to the other room.
He isn't shaking his head this time. His eyes are wet and vacant in a way that hurts to see, and Dean slides out from under the blankets, slow and careful so he doesn't wake Sammy.
Dad's hand is heavy on his shoulder. He lets himself be guided him back to bed, and when his hands catch at Dean to pull him in, Dean goes.
Sometimes, he just pulls Dean close and sleeps. Sometimes, that's all he needs.
***
"You're lying."
"Yeah?" Dean pops his beer open against the counter top, takes a sip, doesn't look away. Eye contact is crucial to selling the con. That's something Dad taught him. "Prove it."
Sam's mouth is a thin, hard line, and Dean doesn't even remember how they got on this topic or why Sam suddenly decided that now was a good time to start digging up buried bones of the more metaphorical variety. "You really think I'm an idiot, don't you?"
"Well, now that you mention it..."
"Stop it."
"Stop what?"
"Stop acting like this is funny, Dean."
"Everything we've been through and this is what gets your panties in a twist? That's a little funny, dude."
"No," Sam says flatly. "It's not."
***
It's dark. It's always dark in the gasping hours between midnight and dawn, when Dean's so groggy that it feels like a dream. He can pretend it's a dream. He's good at pretending.
It doesn't happen that often anymore. Dad's not drinking as much, and Dean's been getting tall, starting to get peach fuzz and an interest in the pretty redhead in his algebra class. He's thirteen, and he feels weird and off-balance in his own body.
Dad is still bigger than him, so much bigger that Dean can't imagine ever catching up. Their clothes are mostly on, and it's so dark that he can barely see the tracks of tears gleaming in the creases of Dad's eyes.
He pulls Dean closer with rough hands and whispers 'I'm sorry' into the curve of his shoulder.
Dean strokes his hair and doesn't say anything.