[TWP] Dave Barry quote
[Sam = likely_evil, who this is written for after forever and a day. Set after THIS.]
“What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.”
Dean hated his birthday.
He was choosing to ignore it completely, avoid anyone who knew it was his birthday at all costs, and just do the freaking job. He was going to treat it like it was any other day, because the fact of the matter was that Dean Winchester was just not in the mood to be celebrating. It wasn’t like he had anyone to celebrate with, and he was content to just let the day pass without any kind of pomp and circumstance, and people were just going to have to deal with it. He might wave to it briefly as it passed by, but other than that, Dean was content to just leave it as it was. The wounds of Sam leaving him were still too raw, and when the only thing he ever wanted was his family together on his birthday, he certainly wasn’t going to celebrate it when Sam wasn’t there.
And he especially wasn’t going to use it for pity when seeking asylum from a woman who hated him. That was what the angels were for.
Back when the world first went to shit, before he died, Bobby went around to the various people who knew Sam and Dean, leaving them with fortified demon proof shelters in their basements. It was an underground network of sorts, places for the boys to hide to be hidden from demon company. Dean had held out with sending himself here, to this particular hiding place, because he knew that she, of all people, wasn’t going to believe he was on a mission from God to save the world, but there was no way he was going to make it out of New Orleans alive without her help, so it was with extreme reluctance-and two angels at his side-that he made his way down to the end of the bayou, pulling his car to a stop in front of Angeline Walker’s front porch. Fortunately for him, the woman was sitting on the porch, and it saved him the energy of having to actually walk up the stairs and knock on the door.
Angeline was a proud older woman of the South who hated hunters and demons alike. She found them to be cut too much from the same cloth for her liking, and she kept her distance from the hunt as far as she could, hiding herself in the Louisiana bayous. That didn’t change the fact that she was one of the best psychics anyone in the business had ever heard of, and it, on occasion, brought hunters straggling to her door, looking for answers she didn’t always have. If you knew how to persuade her, however, she was much more amendable to lend you her services. Fortunately for Dean, he learned how to do that along time ago.
Didn’t mean she liked him any better, but-Dean was tolerable.
“Ya know, when Bobby Singa’, bless his soul, said that you boys were on a mission from the Lord, and wanted to build a panic room in my basement, I thought he’d fallin’ and hit his poor little head, because the day that an angel would save your sorry excuse for a soul would be the day Hell arrived on Earth.” Angeline’s accent was soft and smooth-easy on the ears but the words always cut deeper, which is why you always had to listen to what exactly it she was saying. Dean knew that from experience, and he just looked up at her with a smirk, before leaning over and resting his arms on the hood of his car.
“I figured you’d say that,” he smirked. In fact, he almost laughed, because he’d gotten to know the woman that well.
“Then you also shoulda known that if you’re here seekin’ asylum, you’re gonna find yourself sorely disappointed,” she tilted the glass in her hand to the side slightly, before shaking her head. “I don’t want a war bein’ brought to my front door, Dean-whether it’s a holy war or not.”
“Angeline, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean said with a sigh. “That’s why I brought back-up.”
The woman arched a skeptical eyebrow in the younger man’s direction, and Dean turned back over his shoulder, letting Castiel come up behind him, ever dressed in his simple tax accountant attire. Angeline chuckled slightly, before taking another sip of her drink, getting up and starting to saunter her way towards the edge of her porch. “You’re tellin’ me that this lovely young man in a suit is one of ya mighty warrior angels?”
Castiel was giving Dean look, and Dean just smirked back at him, before nodding. “She’s a show not tell kinda girl, Cas.”
Castiel just looked at Dean with a heavy sigh, before the sky thundered, and the huge shadowy wings reflected on the backs of the trees in at the edge of the property. Dean figured whatever annoyance Castiel was aiming his his direction was worth it for the look of awe and amazement on Angeline’s face right then.
“Oh my Lord,” the woman sighed, a hand coming across her face. “I never woulda believed-”
“Yeah, I know you wouldn’t of,” Dean sighed. “Can I come in now?”
The awestruck look dropped as soon as he spoke, and she fixed him with her usual look of disdain and turned to head back into the house. “You stay in the basement-I don’t want to see your sorry mug until you’re tellin’ me goodbye.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dean sighed, before grabbing his gear and heading inside.
***
It was a few hours before there was someone banging on the door of the panic room. Dean was confused. Angeline had said she hadn’t wanted to see him, so he hadn’t been expecting any visitors. In fact, he had almost come to Angeline’s exactly for that reason-he wanted to be alone. He had no booze, so he wanted to be alone. He sighed slightly from his position on the cot before shouting back out towards the door.
“I thought you didn’t want to see my ugly mug.”
There was a beat, before a voice he wasn’t expecting came back at him. “Well, darlin’, I was gonna share this bottle of Johnny Walker Blue with you, but if you don’t want it-”
Dean bounded off the cot and made his way to the door, pulling it open and flashing the girl on the other side his patented Winchester grin. “Tina, sweetheart, you know me far too well.”
Tina Walker, Angeline’s daughter, was a tall curvy blond who’s voice held the same honeyed tones her mother did, but it lacked a lot of the bite when it came to Dean. They had flirted on and off for years, and from the way she was swaying her hips as she made her way into the room, Dean knew that things were definitely on again.
“Any particular reason you decided to pay me a visit?” he asked as he watched her set the glasses on the table in the corner of the room. She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow in his direction as she started to fill the glasses.
“Dean Winchester, did you really expect me to forget the day that the good Lord decided to grace us with that gorgeous face?”
The smile faltered slightly, and he shook his head before responding. “Well, I was hopin’.”
Tina paused for a moment, finishing pouring the drinks before moving back over to him and handing him one of the glasses. “Drink up, then, suga’, and maybe by the time you’re done, you won’t remember.”
Dean looked up at her, before raising the glass in his hand and clinking it against hers lightly. He could certainly live with that proposition. “Cheers.”
It was a few hours later, and Dean was finally starting to feel the happy warmth of the alcohol sitting in his stomach. He and Tina were sitting on the cot, leaning against each other for both support and comfort. Dean wasn’t even trying anything, just soaking in the contact because he got so little of it these days that when he had to the support, he did what he could to make it last.
“So tell me, Dean,” Tina sighed, her voice heavy with alcohol, making her accent thicker. Think when you’re done fightin’ this war, you’ll finally find a nice girl, have yourself a family?” She smirked. “Grow up a bit?”
Dean snorted, before shaking his head. “Sweetheart, that’s assumin’ I live through this war.”
“You are one lucky son of a bitch,” Tina sighed. “And you’ve got heaven on ya side. What makes you think they’ll let you die?”
Dean was quiet for a moment, before shaking his head again. “I’m just tryin’ to live one day at a time, Tina. I don’t hope for anythin’ anymore-I just want to make it through the day, and hope that I’ve done enough to get to rest when I’m dead.” By rest he meant not go back to Hell. His soul could disappear into nothingness for all he cared-just don’t let him go back there.
There was a hand on his shoulder, drawing his eyes to her. “The war’s gonna end someday, Dean.”
“And what if heaven doesn’t win?”
“Heaven will always win.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, darlin’,” she sighed, running a hand across the side of his face. “I do.”
There was so much confidence in her voice in heaven-in him-and his eyes silently questioned how she knew. What made her so sure? Because there were days when he was thinking that there was no light at the end of the tunnel. That it was all hellfire and damnation and there was nothing that was sacred anymore. He needed to know how she had so much faith, because ever since Sam left, Dean just couldn’t be bothered to find it. She shifted to face him more, pushing herself up on her knees as she spoke.
“There’s always gonna be good in this world, Dean. No matter how hard they try, they can’t stamp all of it out.” She paused, taking his face in her hands and looking him in the eye. “You can’t know if it’s dark out unless there’s some kind of light.”
Dean knew that. He knew there were so many people counting on him to be that light-to fight so that the horrors he’s seen and been subject to wouldn’t be subjected on them. Dean looked up at her with wide eyes because he was all alone in this. His brother had left him, and Dean wasn’t strong enough to do this all by himself.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said, searching her face for some kind of support as his hands moved to her hips, turning to face her more. “I’m all alone and-I’m not strong enough for this.”
“Yes, you are,” she sighed, moving closer to him. “You’re the strongest man I know-even if you don’t see it.”
“Tina-” he began, and she cut off whatever self-doubt he could come up with in a warm kiss, sliding her arms around his neck as her body pressed in closer. It was a soft touch, something he hadn’t allowed himself in a long time, and he melted into her, feeling the fit of her curves against him and quickly starting to make easy work of their clothes.
His phone starting ringing when his pants hit the floor, but he was too far gone to care. Whoever was trying to reach him could wait, and he just wanted to lose himself for a little while. Not be Dean Winchester, attempted savoir of man kind, and just be Dean, a guy who was too lost to know which way was up, and Tina seemed more than willing to let him do just that for a while. They both gave and took from each other until they collapsed from exhaustion, both falling asleep right where they were, wrapped in each other and resting right where they were, safe and comfortable.
It wasn’t until a few hours later that he woke up, remembering that his phone had rung. He shifted slightly-enough to grab his pants off the floor, but not enough to wake the woman sleeping next to him, and placed the phone to his ear, checking the message if there was one. When he heard the voice on the other end of the line, he froze, listening to the message carefully not once, but twice, trying to figure out whatever clues he could.
Sam was hurt, he could tell that much. Still on his own with Ruby, still alone, unprotected. He didn’t trust that demon skank to protect him by any means, and he certainly wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t leave any kind of address or sign of where he was, so while every nerve in Dean’s body was screaming for him to go find his brother and help him, he couldn’t, and that seemed to be more debilitating than anything he ever could have gone through.
Dean Winchester could save the world, but he couldn’t even protect his own brother.
It was few minutes before he hung up the phone again, dropping it back into the pile of clothing, before curling in closer to the woman next to him, his hands sliding over her skin with no intent purpose, almost as though he just wanted to remind himself that she was still there. She was real and not a figment of his imagination, and for now, at least for the moment, he wasn’t alone. He felt the soft brush of her lips against his shoulder, and he looked up, letting her curl up closer to him as he did.
“Who was on the phone?” she asked softly, draping an arm across his chest, and he just shook his head as he closed his eyes, trying to will himself back into another quick sleep while he had the time.
“No one,” he whispered. “No one important.”
2355 words
“What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.”
Dean hated his birthday.
He was choosing to ignore it completely, avoid anyone who knew it was his birthday at all costs, and just do the freaking job. He was going to treat it like it was any other day, because the fact of the matter was that Dean Winchester was just not in the mood to be celebrating. It wasn’t like he had anyone to celebrate with, and he was content to just let the day pass without any kind of pomp and circumstance, and people were just going to have to deal with it. He might wave to it briefly as it passed by, but other than that, Dean was content to just leave it as it was. The wounds of Sam leaving him were still too raw, and when the only thing he ever wanted was his family together on his birthday, he certainly wasn’t going to celebrate it when Sam wasn’t there.
And he especially wasn’t going to use it for pity when seeking asylum from a woman who hated him. That was what the angels were for.
Back when the world first went to shit, before he died, Bobby went around to the various people who knew Sam and Dean, leaving them with fortified demon proof shelters in their basements. It was an underground network of sorts, places for the boys to hide to be hidden from demon company. Dean had held out with sending himself here, to this particular hiding place, because he knew that she, of all people, wasn’t going to believe he was on a mission from God to save the world, but there was no way he was going to make it out of New Orleans alive without her help, so it was with extreme reluctance-and two angels at his side-that he made his way down to the end of the bayou, pulling his car to a stop in front of Angeline Walker’s front porch. Fortunately for him, the woman was sitting on the porch, and it saved him the energy of having to actually walk up the stairs and knock on the door.
Angeline was a proud older woman of the South who hated hunters and demons alike. She found them to be cut too much from the same cloth for her liking, and she kept her distance from the hunt as far as she could, hiding herself in the Louisiana bayous. That didn’t change the fact that she was one of the best psychics anyone in the business had ever heard of, and it, on occasion, brought hunters straggling to her door, looking for answers she didn’t always have. If you knew how to persuade her, however, she was much more amendable to lend you her services. Fortunately for Dean, he learned how to do that along time ago.
Didn’t mean she liked him any better, but-Dean was tolerable.
“Ya know, when Bobby Singa’, bless his soul, said that you boys were on a mission from the Lord, and wanted to build a panic room in my basement, I thought he’d fallin’ and hit his poor little head, because the day that an angel would save your sorry excuse for a soul would be the day Hell arrived on Earth.” Angeline’s accent was soft and smooth-easy on the ears but the words always cut deeper, which is why you always had to listen to what exactly it she was saying. Dean knew that from experience, and he just looked up at her with a smirk, before leaning over and resting his arms on the hood of his car.
“I figured you’d say that,” he smirked. In fact, he almost laughed, because he’d gotten to know the woman that well.
“Then you also shoulda known that if you’re here seekin’ asylum, you’re gonna find yourself sorely disappointed,” she tilted the glass in her hand to the side slightly, before shaking her head. “I don’t want a war bein’ brought to my front door, Dean-whether it’s a holy war or not.”
“Angeline, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean said with a sigh. “That’s why I brought back-up.”
The woman arched a skeptical eyebrow in the younger man’s direction, and Dean turned back over his shoulder, letting Castiel come up behind him, ever dressed in his simple tax accountant attire. Angeline chuckled slightly, before taking another sip of her drink, getting up and starting to saunter her way towards the edge of her porch. “You’re tellin’ me that this lovely young man in a suit is one of ya mighty warrior angels?”
Castiel was giving Dean look, and Dean just smirked back at him, before nodding. “She’s a show not tell kinda girl, Cas.”
Castiel just looked at Dean with a heavy sigh, before the sky thundered, and the huge shadowy wings reflected on the backs of the trees in at the edge of the property. Dean figured whatever annoyance Castiel was aiming his his direction was worth it for the look of awe and amazement on Angeline’s face right then.
“Oh my Lord,” the woman sighed, a hand coming across her face. “I never woulda believed-”
“Yeah, I know you wouldn’t of,” Dean sighed. “Can I come in now?”
The awestruck look dropped as soon as he spoke, and she fixed him with her usual look of disdain and turned to head back into the house. “You stay in the basement-I don’t want to see your sorry mug until you’re tellin’ me goodbye.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dean sighed, before grabbing his gear and heading inside.
***
It was a few hours before there was someone banging on the door of the panic room. Dean was confused. Angeline had said she hadn’t wanted to see him, so he hadn’t been expecting any visitors. In fact, he had almost come to Angeline’s exactly for that reason-he wanted to be alone. He had no booze, so he wanted to be alone. He sighed slightly from his position on the cot before shouting back out towards the door.
“I thought you didn’t want to see my ugly mug.”
There was a beat, before a voice he wasn’t expecting came back at him. “Well, darlin’, I was gonna share this bottle of Johnny Walker Blue with you, but if you don’t want it-”
Dean bounded off the cot and made his way to the door, pulling it open and flashing the girl on the other side his patented Winchester grin. “Tina, sweetheart, you know me far too well.”
Tina Walker, Angeline’s daughter, was a tall curvy blond who’s voice held the same honeyed tones her mother did, but it lacked a lot of the bite when it came to Dean. They had flirted on and off for years, and from the way she was swaying her hips as she made her way into the room, Dean knew that things were definitely on again.
“Any particular reason you decided to pay me a visit?” he asked as he watched her set the glasses on the table in the corner of the room. She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow in his direction as she started to fill the glasses.
“Dean Winchester, did you really expect me to forget the day that the good Lord decided to grace us with that gorgeous face?”
The smile faltered slightly, and he shook his head before responding. “Well, I was hopin’.”
Tina paused for a moment, finishing pouring the drinks before moving back over to him and handing him one of the glasses. “Drink up, then, suga’, and maybe by the time you’re done, you won’t remember.”
Dean looked up at her, before raising the glass in his hand and clinking it against hers lightly. He could certainly live with that proposition. “Cheers.”
It was a few hours later, and Dean was finally starting to feel the happy warmth of the alcohol sitting in his stomach. He and Tina were sitting on the cot, leaning against each other for both support and comfort. Dean wasn’t even trying anything, just soaking in the contact because he got so little of it these days that when he had to the support, he did what he could to make it last.
“So tell me, Dean,” Tina sighed, her voice heavy with alcohol, making her accent thicker. Think when you’re done fightin’ this war, you’ll finally find a nice girl, have yourself a family?” She smirked. “Grow up a bit?”
Dean snorted, before shaking his head. “Sweetheart, that’s assumin’ I live through this war.”
“You are one lucky son of a bitch,” Tina sighed. “And you’ve got heaven on ya side. What makes you think they’ll let you die?”
Dean was quiet for a moment, before shaking his head again. “I’m just tryin’ to live one day at a time, Tina. I don’t hope for anythin’ anymore-I just want to make it through the day, and hope that I’ve done enough to get to rest when I’m dead.” By rest he meant not go back to Hell. His soul could disappear into nothingness for all he cared-just don’t let him go back there.
There was a hand on his shoulder, drawing his eyes to her. “The war’s gonna end someday, Dean.”
“And what if heaven doesn’t win?”
“Heaven will always win.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, darlin’,” she sighed, running a hand across the side of his face. “I do.”
There was so much confidence in her voice in heaven-in him-and his eyes silently questioned how she knew. What made her so sure? Because there were days when he was thinking that there was no light at the end of the tunnel. That it was all hellfire and damnation and there was nothing that was sacred anymore. He needed to know how she had so much faith, because ever since Sam left, Dean just couldn’t be bothered to find it. She shifted to face him more, pushing herself up on her knees as she spoke.
“There’s always gonna be good in this world, Dean. No matter how hard they try, they can’t stamp all of it out.” She paused, taking his face in her hands and looking him in the eye. “You can’t know if it’s dark out unless there’s some kind of light.”
Dean knew that. He knew there were so many people counting on him to be that light-to fight so that the horrors he’s seen and been subject to wouldn’t be subjected on them. Dean looked up at her with wide eyes because he was all alone in this. His brother had left him, and Dean wasn’t strong enough to do this all by himself.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said, searching her face for some kind of support as his hands moved to her hips, turning to face her more. “I’m all alone and-I’m not strong enough for this.”
“Yes, you are,” she sighed, moving closer to him. “You’re the strongest man I know-even if you don’t see it.”
“Tina-” he began, and she cut off whatever self-doubt he could come up with in a warm kiss, sliding her arms around his neck as her body pressed in closer. It was a soft touch, something he hadn’t allowed himself in a long time, and he melted into her, feeling the fit of her curves against him and quickly starting to make easy work of their clothes.
His phone starting ringing when his pants hit the floor, but he was too far gone to care. Whoever was trying to reach him could wait, and he just wanted to lose himself for a little while. Not be Dean Winchester, attempted savoir of man kind, and just be Dean, a guy who was too lost to know which way was up, and Tina seemed more than willing to let him do just that for a while. They both gave and took from each other until they collapsed from exhaustion, both falling asleep right where they were, wrapped in each other and resting right where they were, safe and comfortable.
It wasn’t until a few hours later that he woke up, remembering that his phone had rung. He shifted slightly-enough to grab his pants off the floor, but not enough to wake the woman sleeping next to him, and placed the phone to his ear, checking the message if there was one. When he heard the voice on the other end of the line, he froze, listening to the message carefully not once, but twice, trying to figure out whatever clues he could.
Sam was hurt, he could tell that much. Still on his own with Ruby, still alone, unprotected. He didn’t trust that demon skank to protect him by any means, and he certainly wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t leave any kind of address or sign of where he was, so while every nerve in Dean’s body was screaming for him to go find his brother and help him, he couldn’t, and that seemed to be more debilitating than anything he ever could have gone through.
Dean Winchester could save the world, but he couldn’t even protect his own brother.
It was few minutes before he hung up the phone again, dropping it back into the pile of clothing, before curling in closer to the woman next to him, his hands sliding over her skin with no intent purpose, almost as though he just wanted to remind himself that she was still there. She was real and not a figment of his imagination, and for now, at least for the moment, he wasn’t alone. He felt the soft brush of her lips against his shoulder, and he looked up, letting her curl up closer to him as he did.
“Who was on the phone?” she asked softly, draping an arm across his chest, and he just shook his head as he closed his eyes, trying to will himself back into another quick sleep while he had the time.
“No one,” he whispered. “No one important.”
2355 words