[SPN] Fic: They Say the Highway is for Lovers
Title: They Say the Highway is for Lovers
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel pre-slashy, Meg, Chuck
Rating: PG for language
Words: ~4900
Summary: AU. Of all the hotels in Lookout Valley, Dean walked into his.
Notes: Thanks to the_reverand because of reasons. I had this harebrained idea where I'd write a bunch of AU snippets to a bunch of songs, but then track one ate me. Welcome to the slowest fanmix in history. This one's based on Hotel Song by Josh Ritter.
You must meet so many interesting people. That's something Castiel's heard so often that he can predict when it's coming, most often from old ladies on the other side of the reception desk, and from people met elsewhere when they find out what he does and can't find anything else to say. And he does; depending on who's saying it, he'll relate the story of the time Willie Nelson's tour bus broke down nearby, or the week that a popular TV drama took over to shoot a few scenes here, or, very rarely, the sleepless night he spent when a pair of US Marshals checked in with an endangered witness. He's met bikers and truckers and hookers and preachers and cheaters and little nuclear families, called police and ambulances and social workers, cleaned up things he prefers not to think about and heard things shouted that he'd prefer to forget, offered everything from tissues and towels and toothpaste to first aid and pieces of his own clothing, given advice on everything from a good place for dinner to whether or not to go home again. Depending who's asking, he's been tour guide, bartender, maid, psychologist, parent. He does meet a lot of interesting people, but other than the handful of regular passers-through that he knows by name, they all just pass through and don't come back. It's interesting, but it can be lonely, even when the neon of the no-vacancy sign is glowing out into the parking lot the way it is now, forty rooms and an empty office.
It's a quiet night tonight, a Sunday late in the season, so although they're full, nearly everyone just wants to have dinner and get to bed in time to make an early start tomorrow. In a few weeks all the fall color will be off the trees and most of the business will migrate up the mountain with the Lookout Pass skiers. Not that there's too much tourist business; not many people want to See Rock City anymore. He remembers summers here as a child when his aunt and uncle ran the place and there would always be other children, on summer vacation and flashing their plastic gift shop sheriff's badges or showing him pictures of Ruby Falls on their Viewmasters that he'd seen a thousand times. There aren't so many of them now. Castiel's been thinking he might even close up for the winter this year and leave the upkeep to Chuck, visit his brother Gabriel who's been inviting him for years of missed Christmases. He's calculated paying Chuck against the projected revenue he would lose, and it's not much of a loss, especially since his only other employee will also be leaving-- Meg's finally earned enough credits at the community college to transfer to UT in the spring.
The bells on the door jangle when Meg sticks her head through it. "Am I cool to go, boss?"
"The couple in 19 requested more towels when they left for dinner. If you'll see to that, you're done for the night." He's long since stopped trying to break Meg of the habit of calling him 'boss,' or even finding it very strange.
"The newlyweds? I'd be so pissed if this was my honeymoon." Meg turns from where she's pulling towels out of the cabinet and winks. "You'll take me to Cancun for ours, right?" She jokes about this sometimes, having a sham marriage to get presents. Castiel usually plays along because he knows it's harmless and meaningless, but tonight it strikes a chord at things he doesn't have and doesn't know where to find (other than probably-not-here) so his response is perfunctory.
With Meg gone, it's quiet enough that he can lock up and retreat into his apartment. There's a doorbell outside the office that sounds loud enough inside to wake him at any hour, but it almost never rings between dinnertime and when Chuck lets himself in for the night shift at ten, rarely at all even on nights Chuck doesn't work.
Castiel's done a few things since his aunt died and his uncle retired to Florida four years ago to make the place his own, put up more bookshelves and hung up some art, but a lot of it is still very much as it was in his childhood. His Ansel Adams prints (reproductions) and Whitman volumes (first editions) probably clash with the wooden chickens and ruffled plaid curtains and the piles of old Reader's Digest he keeps finding even now, but he likes it, in a way. This place once felt more like home than home did, and there's nothing wrong with keeping a little bit of how he remembers it, even if it's a little bit emptier.
Chuck's half-asleep at his laptop as usual when Castiel emerges at six in the morning to start setting out the free continental breakfast advertised on the old part of the sign. It's got two additions hanging below it now, one from the late 80s that promises HBO and jacuzzi tubs and another that says 'WI-FI' and still looks brand new. He's always meant to restore the chipping paint on the original sign to the bright clean way he remembers it, but some other more urgent repair keeps putting it off. "How did the night go?" he asks Chuck.
"Crappy. I got to the guys finally seeing their dad again but it's like three thousand words of Lifetime-movie-- oh. You meant hotel stuff, huh?"
"I'm always happy to hear about your work, but I did mean 'hotel stuff.'" Chuck is writing a novel. Novels, actually-- he's on his third but has yet to sell one. He keeps writing them anyway. He'd thought working the night shift at a hotel desk would help him get ideas for characters, but all it's really done is make his main protagonists stay in a long series of varyingly seedier versions of places like this.
"It was fine. Pretty dead. Four called to complain about five having loud sex and I had to go bang on the door, a guy around two hoping that maybe 'no vacancy' didn't apply to him, then nothing till the pastry delivery. I was so bored by then that I let crazy Becky read a few chapters."
"Did she like them?"
"If by 'like' you mean 'read in creepy incest vibes.' She also said they shouldn't drive a Mustang, they should drive a '67 Impala, 'cause you can fit a body in the trunk." Chuck shudders. "I really hope she saw that in a movie."
"I'm sure it was harmless trivia. Becky seems very nice, if... excitable."
"She gave me a bearclaw and I ate it, so I guess we'll see. Should I email you this crap or wait till it's not crap?"
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think." Chuck is often heavy-handed and falls too easily into cliches and archetypes, but he has an obvious talent for storytelling.
"I hope you're stocked up on red pens."
Chuck stays until there's a fresh pot of coffee brewed so he can take a cup with him and the first sleepy-eyed guests trudge in. Coffee and danish and pleasantries, a child complaining about there not being Cap'n Crunch, the man from four contrite and avoiding eye contact as he signs his credit card slip, Bobby the trucker pouring a whole coffee pot into his giant travel mug with a 'see ya next week,' the lady from 28 singing 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo' to her granddaughter, the newlyweds bright and earnest and painfully happy to hold each other's hands. Checkout's not until noon but everyone who's leaving is out by 8:30, which pleases Meg greatly when she comes to clean the rooms before her afternoon class.
Castiel does meet a lot of interesting people. They interest him in general, people-- how beautiful they can be, and how ugly, in ways that have nothing to do with their appearance. Some interest him more than others, or in different ways. He'll admit to himself, but not to anyone else, that sometimes he wonders if one man or another he's found a little more interesting, talked to a little more than usual across this desk, could have been the unknown quantity that feels like a missing piece of him, if only they hadn't driven off into never-again the next day. And that he hopes, secretly, maybe more so lately, that whoever he is (because there must be someone, mustn't there?) will walk in one day and smile and Castiel will just know. And sometimes he reminds Meg that a degree in creative writing isn't worth much, in the unlikely event she has a change of heart from criminal justice. Most of those times, she laughs at him and says something like 'get bent,' but something makes her a little softer about it today. Maybe it's the way he says it.
The big event of the day is a woman calling to make sure her online reservation went through, which it hasn't, as far as Castiel can tell, until he finally figures out that she chose the hotel based on the pictures of the Angel Pines Inn in upstate New York and isn't actually interested in staying here when she sees the correct ones and learns there is not, in fact, a gym or a restaurant. There's a very confused circular conversation in which Castiel tries to explain that he can't cancel her reservation because she hasn't made one, she gets a bit pushy, and Castiel ends up calling New York to explain the situation. It isn't the first time someone's gotten confused. He speaks to Gabriel and avoids making decisions about Christmas and eats a sandwich and does some bookkeeping between check-ins. He wouldn't have thought it would fill up today, because almost no one arrives on a Monday, but by five there are only two rooms left. It makes a little more sense when he learns that Kings Lodge in East Ridge has had a catastrophic water main break. He's glancingly acquainted with the owner, who's been sending people here.
It takes him a minute to process that information, though, because the man who gives it to him has green eyes and freckles and the most disarming smile Castiel thinks he's ever seen, even when Castiel is staring dumbly and he says, "Hey, man, you got a room or not?"
"I--" Castiel has to shake himself almost physically to snap back into professionalism. "Yes. Yes, there are two rooms left."
"Just give me whatever's cheaper."
"Well, room 39 is $27 per night, but the discount is due to the fact that the vacancy sign shines directly into the window. There are curtains, of course, but if you're bothered by extraneous light, I can't recommend it. Room 12 has--"
"27 bucks sounds awesome. I can sleep pretty much anywhere, especially if the ceiling isn't goddamn raining." The man is clearly annoyed, but he also seems amused, the way he's shaking his head and rolling his (green) eyes. "I got a credit card if you need it, but I'm gonna pay cash."
Dean Winchester, according to his driver's license, is 32 years old, 6'1" tall, and is from Lawrence, Kansas. Not according to his driver's license, he is a photographer-- Castiel's met enough of them, whether they were guests exploring the area or passers-by stopping for pictures of the sign (and telling him he shouldn't restore it) to know what a camera bag looks like. Also not according to his driver's license, he is beautiful. According to his registration form, after he's handed over payment in advance and taken his key and said, "Thanks, man, you're saving my ass," he drives a black 1967 Cheverolet Impala. Castiel watches out the window as it purrs and crackles over the gravel of the lot, and laughs quietly.
Room 12 becomes occupied fifteen minutes later by a harried pair of women, one of whom seems to think they should get a room for free for their trouble, and the other of whom keeps apologizing. He assumes they're sisters, and it takes all of his patience to explain to the upset one that this hotel isn't affiliated with Kings Lodge and that any compensation would have to come from Ellen Harvelle. He does speak to Ellen long enough to thank her for the business and tell her not to send anyone else, but she's mostly swearing at people in the background while Castiel flips the switch to put a crackling neon 'NO' in front of 'VACANCY.'
Castiel could refer to the clipboard where Meg's checked off which rooms have had what done, but he remembers that 39 was a late checkout this morning and latches onto the uncertainty about its towel supply. "It's open!" shouts Dean Winchester's voice when Castiel raps on the door. He's sitting on the edge of the bed shirtless with all his concentration focused on the open back of a camera, which only breaks long enough to look up in brief acknowledgement.
"I couldn't remember if you had towels," Castiel says.
"Oh, uh, I dunno. I haven't been in the bathroom yet. Just put 'em wherev-- son of a bitch!" He throws a roll of film across the room.
Castiel sets the towels down on the dresser and tries not to stare too much, even with Dean's attention away from him again. His bottom lip caught between his teeth and his shoulders look like they're tensing against throwing the camera across the room too. "Can I help with anything?" Castiel hears his voice ask it, but it's almost out-of-body, like he's not really saying it under his own control. "Else?" he adds hastily.
The camera bounces when Dean drops it onto the dark green comforter instead of throwing it, and his sigh is loud. "Not unless you got precision screwdrivers and maybe some needle-nose pliers. I snapped the film and now there's this little bastard bit stuck in here and my dumb ass only brought car tools."
Dean, according to the fresh t-shirt he pulls on, likes AC/DC. According to Castiel's own perception, his smile is even better when he's relieved and grateful at digging through the disorganized toolbox in the office at finding what he needs. According to Dean himself, he's 'just out shooting stuff, I guess,' and he has a different camera that doesn't tend itself to eating film, but this one belonged to his father. He watches Dean expertly unscrew some gear-shaped part of a mechanism, pull out a little jagged grey scrap with a triumphant grin, and put everything back together again. "Saving my ass again," he says. His eyes seem to sparkle. "Bitch of it is, it's too dark now. Might as well say screw it and just do it tomorrow. Anyplace to get a drink around here?"
"This is a dry county with strange liquor laws. Across the state line, there's any number of bars, but the only place immediately near that I know of is Hooters, half a mile down the road we're on."
"Are you kidding me?" Dean laughs and keeps laughing. "Oh, man, you're not kidding me, are you? Okay, I guess I'm goin' to Hooters. Hell, dude, if you even knew. What'd you say your name was?"
"I didn't say. My name is Castiel."
"That's a mouthful. I'm pretty sure there's a Hooters joke in there somewhere, handful or whatever."
"Perhaps."
Castiel doesn't know what gives him the courage to mention that he's got half a bottle of Jack Daniel's hidden in the back of his kitchen cabinet, from when he took it away from Chuck and nearly fired him, but something does, and Dean says he hates drinking alone, and then they're side by side on the stiff naugahyde couch in the office with the bottle sitting between tourist brochures and months-old magazines. There are plenty of paper cups sitting by the empty coffee maker but Castiel got glasses out of his cupboard. Castiel talks about how he came to own this place, and he's never been good at drinking so he waxes a bit unfortunately sentimental, but Dean just says the Fairyland Caverns are 'creepy as shit but kinda awesome' and says his father left him a camera and a car and he didn't know what else to do with them except what his father did, 'hunting down things to shoot.' Dean shrugs like it's nothing but Castiel knows it's more than nothing. Still, Dean seems uncomfortable talking about it, and Castiel is definitely not very good at drinking because what he says to try to wash the tension away is, "Someone told me today that you can fit a body in the trunk of a 1967 Impala."
It's stupid, but it works too well for it to feel that way as Dean dissolves into laughter, nearly choking on his drink. "Never tried it, but I'll keep that in mind if I decide to do the serial murderer thing."
They're interrupted by the arrival of one of the local homeless drunks, who Castiel sometimes takes pity on and will pay five or ten or twenty dollars for something to be swept or washed, but tonight there's nothing without inventing a task, and his charity doesn't extend that far. He has to be firmer about the refusal than he would like to, threaten to call the police, because Frank is extremely drunk.
"I bet you get some real special characters in here, huh?" Dean says when Frank is finally gone, relaxing back into his seat in a way that makes Castiel realize that he was poised for a confrontation.
It's you must meet so many interesting people, but it isn't, because when Castiel says, "Sometimes," Dean raises his eyebrows, and then it's nearly an hour of Willie Nelson and brief television fame, even US Marshals. Even hookers and cheaters and the things Castiel wishes he didn't know how to clean up.
"Man, Cas, you should write all that down," Dean says when the stories have run out, not that he's been silent throughout-- he's been laughing and offering commentary and sometimes fitting in a story of his own. "That'd sell the hell out of some books."
He's close enough to kiss, but Castiel doesn't dare. There's a fine line of what's appropriate with guests, even when they're sobbing or injured and you want to tell them to run away as far as they can, even when they're Dean Winchester and the line was probably already crossed three shots ago. Instead he says he's taken up enough of Dean's time and that he has to be up at five. It doesn't matter that Dean could be that suddenly-walking-in-the-door fantasy-- he'll be gone tomorrow.
"Yeah, I guess I should too," Dean says, shifting his weight and making the old couch creak under him. "Best light's gonna be pretty early. You do wake-up calls?"
"Yes, of course. What time?"
"I dunno, five-something? Thirty? Christ."
"I believe there's some phrase about suffering for one's art."
"Depending what you call art, I guess. Well, uh, see you. Thanks for this, by the way. You beat the hell outta Hooters."
"You're welcome. Sleep well."
Castiel doesn't. The dark seems darker, the room too cold, the bed too large. He stares at the rough shadow shapes in the texture of the ceiling and reminds himself that there have been other Deans, who've come and gone and who he doesn't think about anymore. But he's never lost sleep over any of them, never stood on the threshold and squinted at the light of the television through their window or their silhouette against it. He's never felt them tug so hard at that missing thing. But it doesn't matter-- that's a story he made up in his head. He dreams of Dean saving him from a dragon and doesn't remember it when he wakes up, too alert and half ill. He makes Chuck do the wake-up call.
Still, Dean's there at six, spreading butter over a croissant and turning in his key, nodding in assent to a 'did you sleep all right?' that's more loaded than Castiel means it to be. "Hey, uh," Dean says, fiddling with the pen before he signs off. "Before I go, would you mind if?" The rest of the question is the camera Dean gutted last night, hung over his shoulder in a leather case and waved back and forth.
"Of course, take whatever you like."
"No, I mean you."
"Oh."
Dean doesn't want him to smile behind the desk or pose by the sign. He says, "Just do whatever you'd do anyway," and shoulders his way behind the desk while Castiel changes towels from washer to dryer in the back, watches through a lens when it's time to brew more coffee. He almost forgets Dean's there while he checks guests out until he hears the quiet snap-whirr in the background.
"Well, I should." If there's a sigh in Dean's voice, it doesn't matter. Their ships have passed in the night and the tide's going out. "Here." Dean's fingers are warm against the back of his hand for a too-brief second and there's a card in his palm. "In case it goes to spam or something when I send you these. You can. Y'know."
"Thank you." Castiel's throat hurts. He pulls one of his own business cards off the holder on the desk and writes his personal email address on the back. They're alone in the office and caught in a silent stare when the child from yesterday clatters in still wanting Cap'n Crunch and it all breaks.
"Rot your teeth, kid," Dean says to the child, backing away. "See you, Cas."
"Kansas, huh?" Meg says in the parking lot, where Castiel didn't realize she was standing next to him watching a pair of taillights disappear down the road until there's nothing but a double yellow line disappearing into the horizon. "Must be nicer than I thought. Weirdly appropriate, though." She whistles 'Somehwere Over the Rainbow' and Castiel pretends to fire her.
The card migrates in and out of different pockets for days, then weeks, worn wrinkled and soft into something less like paper than it started out. Castiel types the address into a blank to: field so often he has it memorized, but there's never anything to go in the subject line or the body. One night he gets as far as 'Hello, Dean,' late and maudlin with what remains in the bottle of whiskey they'd shared, but even then he thinks better of it. Gabriel calls at an inopportune time, not even ten seconds after two long paragraphs have been highlighted and deleted, and Castiel says too much.
"Go for it, you moron," Gabriel says.
He doesn't, because he doesn't know what to say that doesn't sound too invested for one night and a few shared drinks, and he can barely sleep for three days. He wouldn't sleep then, except suddenly one morning his inbox contains a 'Dean Winchester' in bold where the sender's name goes and a 'sorry this took so long' in the subject, and attached is his face like he's never seen it before.
His return message is nothing like he wants to say-- just a thank you and praise of the photographs, a 'hope you're doing well.' He adds a question at the end asking if there are prints available, because there's one he can't stop looking at. Not at the actual subject, which is himself half turned away and smiling at something he can't remember now, but at Dean's reflection in the window glass, face half-hidden by his camera but a smile of his own visible.
Dean's reply comes within minutes, accompanied by a picture of an old church. Sure ill make you some when I get back to ks. Somewhere in nebraska with no net right now sorry about shitty phone typing. Any good weirdos lately? Think ill be kinda bored tonight.
By the time Castiel finishes relating the disaster of the guest who put bubble bath in room 12's jacuzzi and his latest encounter with Frank, who tried to sell him muffin mix and a friendship bracelet for five dollars, it's a full-blown narrative and it's checkout time. It's also the closest to real writing Castiel has done in years.
Sometimes Dean only sends a photo of where he is and a line or two. Sometimes he sends stories of his own, of talking his way out of a trespassing arrest in an old factory, of places he's been and of places he's going, a memory of sitting in the Impala playing 20 Questions with his brother while their father investigated a burnt-out mansion that isn't there anymore. Sometimes there's a long string of photo attachments to go along with the experiences. Castiel sends back whatever's happened lately, or sometimes what things happening lately have made him remember.
The day that a stiff Priority envelope arrives with the prints, Castiel spends a long time studying Dean's reflection, the backs of his hands and the cut of his jaw and the line of his shoulders under soft-worn cotton and stays up long into Chuck's night shift writing the story of that day. He can't bring himself to give it an ending and doesn't send it, wouldn't even if he could think of one.
It starts to get colder and the last leaves brown and fall away and only 'vacancy' bathes the inside of room 39. Dean goes to California for Thanksgiving with his brother and sometimes writes just to say goodnight. Gabriel wants a definite answer about Christmas and instead of giving one, Castiel writes to Dean about the last Christmas they spent together, which was here with Uncle Michael when Aunt Rachel was still alive and the whole place was covered in lights and garlands and they invited all the guests with nowhere else to go to share their turkey and Gabriel, then already thirty, sang the joke versions of all the carols. Dean responds with a scan of faded and creased old polaroid of himself and Sam tearing wrapping paper underneath an artificial tree in some temporary home. I stole a Sapphire Barbie from Wal-Mart and wrapped it up as a joke cause I always said Sammy was a damn girl. My dad had this Land Camera for a while before it got smashed when he fell through a stairwell and that's what this was taken with.
Meg's just finished her last exam and they're celebrating with Castiel's semiannual concession to his no-drinking-on-the-job rule with $9.99 champagne in paper coffee cups and it's just started to snow, big wet flakes that won't stick to anything but grass when the phone at the desk rings and Castiel answers it with a laugh still caught in his throat.
"Uh, hey, is Cas...tiel there?"
"This is he."
"Cas, hey. Hi. It's Dean."
In his surprise, he can only manage, "Hello, Dean," and then, with his head spinning from more than just a glass of cheap champagne, "is everything all right?"
"Yeah, totally. Sorry, I didn't mean to, uh-- look, this may be weird and I know it's about to be Christmas and everything, but there's this show going up tomorrow kinda short notice and I'm gonna be in Nashville."
That's an hour and a half of driving, maybe two if the snow keeps up. It's not Kansas or Nebraska or California, though if Dean had asked him to any of those places, he thinks he might have gone.
"Just remember, there's always a mercenary sham marriage waiting for you, boss." Meg says, and the going-away/congratulations-on-college gift basket crunches painfully between them as she hugs him.
"Let me know how it ends," says Chuck as he takes possession of the folder containing the drop-safe combination and all the administrative contacts.
Castiel watches miles of yellow lines disappear into the distance toward something, for once, instead of the other way around.
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel pre-slashy, Meg, Chuck
Rating: PG for language
Words: ~4900
Summary: AU. Of all the hotels in Lookout Valley, Dean walked into his.
Notes: Thanks to the_reverand because of reasons. I had this harebrained idea where I'd write a bunch of AU snippets to a bunch of songs, but then track one ate me. Welcome to the slowest fanmix in history. This one's based on Hotel Song by Josh Ritter.
You must meet so many interesting people. That's something Castiel's heard so often that he can predict when it's coming, most often from old ladies on the other side of the reception desk, and from people met elsewhere when they find out what he does and can't find anything else to say. And he does; depending on who's saying it, he'll relate the story of the time Willie Nelson's tour bus broke down nearby, or the week that a popular TV drama took over to shoot a few scenes here, or, very rarely, the sleepless night he spent when a pair of US Marshals checked in with an endangered witness. He's met bikers and truckers and hookers and preachers and cheaters and little nuclear families, called police and ambulances and social workers, cleaned up things he prefers not to think about and heard things shouted that he'd prefer to forget, offered everything from tissues and towels and toothpaste to first aid and pieces of his own clothing, given advice on everything from a good place for dinner to whether or not to go home again. Depending who's asking, he's been tour guide, bartender, maid, psychologist, parent. He does meet a lot of interesting people, but other than the handful of regular passers-through that he knows by name, they all just pass through and don't come back. It's interesting, but it can be lonely, even when the neon of the no-vacancy sign is glowing out into the parking lot the way it is now, forty rooms and an empty office.
It's a quiet night tonight, a Sunday late in the season, so although they're full, nearly everyone just wants to have dinner and get to bed in time to make an early start tomorrow. In a few weeks all the fall color will be off the trees and most of the business will migrate up the mountain with the Lookout Pass skiers. Not that there's too much tourist business; not many people want to See Rock City anymore. He remembers summers here as a child when his aunt and uncle ran the place and there would always be other children, on summer vacation and flashing their plastic gift shop sheriff's badges or showing him pictures of Ruby Falls on their Viewmasters that he'd seen a thousand times. There aren't so many of them now. Castiel's been thinking he might even close up for the winter this year and leave the upkeep to Chuck, visit his brother Gabriel who's been inviting him for years of missed Christmases. He's calculated paying Chuck against the projected revenue he would lose, and it's not much of a loss, especially since his only other employee will also be leaving-- Meg's finally earned enough credits at the community college to transfer to UT in the spring.
The bells on the door jangle when Meg sticks her head through it. "Am I cool to go, boss?"
"The couple in 19 requested more towels when they left for dinner. If you'll see to that, you're done for the night." He's long since stopped trying to break Meg of the habit of calling him 'boss,' or even finding it very strange.
"The newlyweds? I'd be so pissed if this was my honeymoon." Meg turns from where she's pulling towels out of the cabinet and winks. "You'll take me to Cancun for ours, right?" She jokes about this sometimes, having a sham marriage to get presents. Castiel usually plays along because he knows it's harmless and meaningless, but tonight it strikes a chord at things he doesn't have and doesn't know where to find (other than probably-not-here) so his response is perfunctory.
With Meg gone, it's quiet enough that he can lock up and retreat into his apartment. There's a doorbell outside the office that sounds loud enough inside to wake him at any hour, but it almost never rings between dinnertime and when Chuck lets himself in for the night shift at ten, rarely at all even on nights Chuck doesn't work.
Castiel's done a few things since his aunt died and his uncle retired to Florida four years ago to make the place his own, put up more bookshelves and hung up some art, but a lot of it is still very much as it was in his childhood. His Ansel Adams prints (reproductions) and Whitman volumes (first editions) probably clash with the wooden chickens and ruffled plaid curtains and the piles of old Reader's Digest he keeps finding even now, but he likes it, in a way. This place once felt more like home than home did, and there's nothing wrong with keeping a little bit of how he remembers it, even if it's a little bit emptier.
Chuck's half-asleep at his laptop as usual when Castiel emerges at six in the morning to start setting out the free continental breakfast advertised on the old part of the sign. It's got two additions hanging below it now, one from the late 80s that promises HBO and jacuzzi tubs and another that says 'WI-FI' and still looks brand new. He's always meant to restore the chipping paint on the original sign to the bright clean way he remembers it, but some other more urgent repair keeps putting it off. "How did the night go?" he asks Chuck.
"Crappy. I got to the guys finally seeing their dad again but it's like three thousand words of Lifetime-movie-- oh. You meant hotel stuff, huh?"
"I'm always happy to hear about your work, but I did mean 'hotel stuff.'" Chuck is writing a novel. Novels, actually-- he's on his third but has yet to sell one. He keeps writing them anyway. He'd thought working the night shift at a hotel desk would help him get ideas for characters, but all it's really done is make his main protagonists stay in a long series of varyingly seedier versions of places like this.
"It was fine. Pretty dead. Four called to complain about five having loud sex and I had to go bang on the door, a guy around two hoping that maybe 'no vacancy' didn't apply to him, then nothing till the pastry delivery. I was so bored by then that I let crazy Becky read a few chapters."
"Did she like them?"
"If by 'like' you mean 'read in creepy incest vibes.' She also said they shouldn't drive a Mustang, they should drive a '67 Impala, 'cause you can fit a body in the trunk." Chuck shudders. "I really hope she saw that in a movie."
"I'm sure it was harmless trivia. Becky seems very nice, if... excitable."
"She gave me a bearclaw and I ate it, so I guess we'll see. Should I email you this crap or wait till it's not crap?"
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think." Chuck is often heavy-handed and falls too easily into cliches and archetypes, but he has an obvious talent for storytelling.
"I hope you're stocked up on red pens."
Chuck stays until there's a fresh pot of coffee brewed so he can take a cup with him and the first sleepy-eyed guests trudge in. Coffee and danish and pleasantries, a child complaining about there not being Cap'n Crunch, the man from four contrite and avoiding eye contact as he signs his credit card slip, Bobby the trucker pouring a whole coffee pot into his giant travel mug with a 'see ya next week,' the lady from 28 singing 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo' to her granddaughter, the newlyweds bright and earnest and painfully happy to hold each other's hands. Checkout's not until noon but everyone who's leaving is out by 8:30, which pleases Meg greatly when she comes to clean the rooms before her afternoon class.
Castiel does meet a lot of interesting people. They interest him in general, people-- how beautiful they can be, and how ugly, in ways that have nothing to do with their appearance. Some interest him more than others, or in different ways. He'll admit to himself, but not to anyone else, that sometimes he wonders if one man or another he's found a little more interesting, talked to a little more than usual across this desk, could have been the unknown quantity that feels like a missing piece of him, if only they hadn't driven off into never-again the next day. And that he hopes, secretly, maybe more so lately, that whoever he is (because there must be someone, mustn't there?) will walk in one day and smile and Castiel will just know. And sometimes he reminds Meg that a degree in creative writing isn't worth much, in the unlikely event she has a change of heart from criminal justice. Most of those times, she laughs at him and says something like 'get bent,' but something makes her a little softer about it today. Maybe it's the way he says it.
The big event of the day is a woman calling to make sure her online reservation went through, which it hasn't, as far as Castiel can tell, until he finally figures out that she chose the hotel based on the pictures of the Angel Pines Inn in upstate New York and isn't actually interested in staying here when she sees the correct ones and learns there is not, in fact, a gym or a restaurant. There's a very confused circular conversation in which Castiel tries to explain that he can't cancel her reservation because she hasn't made one, she gets a bit pushy, and Castiel ends up calling New York to explain the situation. It isn't the first time someone's gotten confused. He speaks to Gabriel and avoids making decisions about Christmas and eats a sandwich and does some bookkeeping between check-ins. He wouldn't have thought it would fill up today, because almost no one arrives on a Monday, but by five there are only two rooms left. It makes a little more sense when he learns that Kings Lodge in East Ridge has had a catastrophic water main break. He's glancingly acquainted with the owner, who's been sending people here.
It takes him a minute to process that information, though, because the man who gives it to him has green eyes and freckles and the most disarming smile Castiel thinks he's ever seen, even when Castiel is staring dumbly and he says, "Hey, man, you got a room or not?"
"I--" Castiel has to shake himself almost physically to snap back into professionalism. "Yes. Yes, there are two rooms left."
"Just give me whatever's cheaper."
"Well, room 39 is $27 per night, but the discount is due to the fact that the vacancy sign shines directly into the window. There are curtains, of course, but if you're bothered by extraneous light, I can't recommend it. Room 12 has--"
"27 bucks sounds awesome. I can sleep pretty much anywhere, especially if the ceiling isn't goddamn raining." The man is clearly annoyed, but he also seems amused, the way he's shaking his head and rolling his (green) eyes. "I got a credit card if you need it, but I'm gonna pay cash."
Dean Winchester, according to his driver's license, is 32 years old, 6'1" tall, and is from Lawrence, Kansas. Not according to his driver's license, he is a photographer-- Castiel's met enough of them, whether they were guests exploring the area or passers-by stopping for pictures of the sign (and telling him he shouldn't restore it) to know what a camera bag looks like. Also not according to his driver's license, he is beautiful. According to his registration form, after he's handed over payment in advance and taken his key and said, "Thanks, man, you're saving my ass," he drives a black 1967 Cheverolet Impala. Castiel watches out the window as it purrs and crackles over the gravel of the lot, and laughs quietly.
Room 12 becomes occupied fifteen minutes later by a harried pair of women, one of whom seems to think they should get a room for free for their trouble, and the other of whom keeps apologizing. He assumes they're sisters, and it takes all of his patience to explain to the upset one that this hotel isn't affiliated with Kings Lodge and that any compensation would have to come from Ellen Harvelle. He does speak to Ellen long enough to thank her for the business and tell her not to send anyone else, but she's mostly swearing at people in the background while Castiel flips the switch to put a crackling neon 'NO' in front of 'VACANCY.'
Castiel could refer to the clipboard where Meg's checked off which rooms have had what done, but he remembers that 39 was a late checkout this morning and latches onto the uncertainty about its towel supply. "It's open!" shouts Dean Winchester's voice when Castiel raps on the door. He's sitting on the edge of the bed shirtless with all his concentration focused on the open back of a camera, which only breaks long enough to look up in brief acknowledgement.
"I couldn't remember if you had towels," Castiel says.
"Oh, uh, I dunno. I haven't been in the bathroom yet. Just put 'em wherev-- son of a bitch!" He throws a roll of film across the room.
Castiel sets the towels down on the dresser and tries not to stare too much, even with Dean's attention away from him again. His bottom lip caught between his teeth and his shoulders look like they're tensing against throwing the camera across the room too. "Can I help with anything?" Castiel hears his voice ask it, but it's almost out-of-body, like he's not really saying it under his own control. "Else?" he adds hastily.
The camera bounces when Dean drops it onto the dark green comforter instead of throwing it, and his sigh is loud. "Not unless you got precision screwdrivers and maybe some needle-nose pliers. I snapped the film and now there's this little bastard bit stuck in here and my dumb ass only brought car tools."
Dean, according to the fresh t-shirt he pulls on, likes AC/DC. According to Castiel's own perception, his smile is even better when he's relieved and grateful at digging through the disorganized toolbox in the office at finding what he needs. According to Dean himself, he's 'just out shooting stuff, I guess,' and he has a different camera that doesn't tend itself to eating film, but this one belonged to his father. He watches Dean expertly unscrew some gear-shaped part of a mechanism, pull out a little jagged grey scrap with a triumphant grin, and put everything back together again. "Saving my ass again," he says. His eyes seem to sparkle. "Bitch of it is, it's too dark now. Might as well say screw it and just do it tomorrow. Anyplace to get a drink around here?"
"This is a dry county with strange liquor laws. Across the state line, there's any number of bars, but the only place immediately near that I know of is Hooters, half a mile down the road we're on."
"Are you kidding me?" Dean laughs and keeps laughing. "Oh, man, you're not kidding me, are you? Okay, I guess I'm goin' to Hooters. Hell, dude, if you even knew. What'd you say your name was?"
"I didn't say. My name is Castiel."
"That's a mouthful. I'm pretty sure there's a Hooters joke in there somewhere, handful or whatever."
"Perhaps."
Castiel doesn't know what gives him the courage to mention that he's got half a bottle of Jack Daniel's hidden in the back of his kitchen cabinet, from when he took it away from Chuck and nearly fired him, but something does, and Dean says he hates drinking alone, and then they're side by side on the stiff naugahyde couch in the office with the bottle sitting between tourist brochures and months-old magazines. There are plenty of paper cups sitting by the empty coffee maker but Castiel got glasses out of his cupboard. Castiel talks about how he came to own this place, and he's never been good at drinking so he waxes a bit unfortunately sentimental, but Dean just says the Fairyland Caverns are 'creepy as shit but kinda awesome' and says his father left him a camera and a car and he didn't know what else to do with them except what his father did, 'hunting down things to shoot.' Dean shrugs like it's nothing but Castiel knows it's more than nothing. Still, Dean seems uncomfortable talking about it, and Castiel is definitely not very good at drinking because what he says to try to wash the tension away is, "Someone told me today that you can fit a body in the trunk of a 1967 Impala."
It's stupid, but it works too well for it to feel that way as Dean dissolves into laughter, nearly choking on his drink. "Never tried it, but I'll keep that in mind if I decide to do the serial murderer thing."
They're interrupted by the arrival of one of the local homeless drunks, who Castiel sometimes takes pity on and will pay five or ten or twenty dollars for something to be swept or washed, but tonight there's nothing without inventing a task, and his charity doesn't extend that far. He has to be firmer about the refusal than he would like to, threaten to call the police, because Frank is extremely drunk.
"I bet you get some real special characters in here, huh?" Dean says when Frank is finally gone, relaxing back into his seat in a way that makes Castiel realize that he was poised for a confrontation.
It's you must meet so many interesting people, but it isn't, because when Castiel says, "Sometimes," Dean raises his eyebrows, and then it's nearly an hour of Willie Nelson and brief television fame, even US Marshals. Even hookers and cheaters and the things Castiel wishes he didn't know how to clean up.
"Man, Cas, you should write all that down," Dean says when the stories have run out, not that he's been silent throughout-- he's been laughing and offering commentary and sometimes fitting in a story of his own. "That'd sell the hell out of some books."
He's close enough to kiss, but Castiel doesn't dare. There's a fine line of what's appropriate with guests, even when they're sobbing or injured and you want to tell them to run away as far as they can, even when they're Dean Winchester and the line was probably already crossed three shots ago. Instead he says he's taken up enough of Dean's time and that he has to be up at five. It doesn't matter that Dean could be that suddenly-walking-in-the-door fantasy-- he'll be gone tomorrow.
"Yeah, I guess I should too," Dean says, shifting his weight and making the old couch creak under him. "Best light's gonna be pretty early. You do wake-up calls?"
"Yes, of course. What time?"
"I dunno, five-something? Thirty? Christ."
"I believe there's some phrase about suffering for one's art."
"Depending what you call art, I guess. Well, uh, see you. Thanks for this, by the way. You beat the hell outta Hooters."
"You're welcome. Sleep well."
Castiel doesn't. The dark seems darker, the room too cold, the bed too large. He stares at the rough shadow shapes in the texture of the ceiling and reminds himself that there have been other Deans, who've come and gone and who he doesn't think about anymore. But he's never lost sleep over any of them, never stood on the threshold and squinted at the light of the television through their window or their silhouette against it. He's never felt them tug so hard at that missing thing. But it doesn't matter-- that's a story he made up in his head. He dreams of Dean saving him from a dragon and doesn't remember it when he wakes up, too alert and half ill. He makes Chuck do the wake-up call.
Still, Dean's there at six, spreading butter over a croissant and turning in his key, nodding in assent to a 'did you sleep all right?' that's more loaded than Castiel means it to be. "Hey, uh," Dean says, fiddling with the pen before he signs off. "Before I go, would you mind if?" The rest of the question is the camera Dean gutted last night, hung over his shoulder in a leather case and waved back and forth.
"Of course, take whatever you like."
"No, I mean you."
"Oh."
Dean doesn't want him to smile behind the desk or pose by the sign. He says, "Just do whatever you'd do anyway," and shoulders his way behind the desk while Castiel changes towels from washer to dryer in the back, watches through a lens when it's time to brew more coffee. He almost forgets Dean's there while he checks guests out until he hears the quiet snap-whirr in the background.
"Well, I should." If there's a sigh in Dean's voice, it doesn't matter. Their ships have passed in the night and the tide's going out. "Here." Dean's fingers are warm against the back of his hand for a too-brief second and there's a card in his palm. "In case it goes to spam or something when I send you these. You can. Y'know."
"Thank you." Castiel's throat hurts. He pulls one of his own business cards off the holder on the desk and writes his personal email address on the back. They're alone in the office and caught in a silent stare when the child from yesterday clatters in still wanting Cap'n Crunch and it all breaks.
"Rot your teeth, kid," Dean says to the child, backing away. "See you, Cas."
"Kansas, huh?" Meg says in the parking lot, where Castiel didn't realize she was standing next to him watching a pair of taillights disappear down the road until there's nothing but a double yellow line disappearing into the horizon. "Must be nicer than I thought. Weirdly appropriate, though." She whistles 'Somehwere Over the Rainbow' and Castiel pretends to fire her.
The card migrates in and out of different pockets for days, then weeks, worn wrinkled and soft into something less like paper than it started out. Castiel types the address into a blank to: field so often he has it memorized, but there's never anything to go in the subject line or the body. One night he gets as far as 'Hello, Dean,' late and maudlin with what remains in the bottle of whiskey they'd shared, but even then he thinks better of it. Gabriel calls at an inopportune time, not even ten seconds after two long paragraphs have been highlighted and deleted, and Castiel says too much.
"Go for it, you moron," Gabriel says.
He doesn't, because he doesn't know what to say that doesn't sound too invested for one night and a few shared drinks, and he can barely sleep for three days. He wouldn't sleep then, except suddenly one morning his inbox contains a 'Dean Winchester' in bold where the sender's name goes and a 'sorry this took so long' in the subject, and attached is his face like he's never seen it before.
His return message is nothing like he wants to say-- just a thank you and praise of the photographs, a 'hope you're doing well.' He adds a question at the end asking if there are prints available, because there's one he can't stop looking at. Not at the actual subject, which is himself half turned away and smiling at something he can't remember now, but at Dean's reflection in the window glass, face half-hidden by his camera but a smile of his own visible.
Dean's reply comes within minutes, accompanied by a picture of an old church. Sure ill make you some when I get back to ks. Somewhere in nebraska with no net right now sorry about shitty phone typing. Any good weirdos lately? Think ill be kinda bored tonight.
By the time Castiel finishes relating the disaster of the guest who put bubble bath in room 12's jacuzzi and his latest encounter with Frank, who tried to sell him muffin mix and a friendship bracelet for five dollars, it's a full-blown narrative and it's checkout time. It's also the closest to real writing Castiel has done in years.
Sometimes Dean only sends a photo of where he is and a line or two. Sometimes he sends stories of his own, of talking his way out of a trespassing arrest in an old factory, of places he's been and of places he's going, a memory of sitting in the Impala playing 20 Questions with his brother while their father investigated a burnt-out mansion that isn't there anymore. Sometimes there's a long string of photo attachments to go along with the experiences. Castiel sends back whatever's happened lately, or sometimes what things happening lately have made him remember.
The day that a stiff Priority envelope arrives with the prints, Castiel spends a long time studying Dean's reflection, the backs of his hands and the cut of his jaw and the line of his shoulders under soft-worn cotton and stays up long into Chuck's night shift writing the story of that day. He can't bring himself to give it an ending and doesn't send it, wouldn't even if he could think of one.
It starts to get colder and the last leaves brown and fall away and only 'vacancy' bathes the inside of room 39. Dean goes to California for Thanksgiving with his brother and sometimes writes just to say goodnight. Gabriel wants a definite answer about Christmas and instead of giving one, Castiel writes to Dean about the last Christmas they spent together, which was here with Uncle Michael when Aunt Rachel was still alive and the whole place was covered in lights and garlands and they invited all the guests with nowhere else to go to share their turkey and Gabriel, then already thirty, sang the joke versions of all the carols. Dean responds with a scan of faded and creased old polaroid of himself and Sam tearing wrapping paper underneath an artificial tree in some temporary home. I stole a Sapphire Barbie from Wal-Mart and wrapped it up as a joke cause I always said Sammy was a damn girl. My dad had this Land Camera for a while before it got smashed when he fell through a stairwell and that's what this was taken with.
Meg's just finished her last exam and they're celebrating with Castiel's semiannual concession to his no-drinking-on-the-job rule with $9.99 champagne in paper coffee cups and it's just started to snow, big wet flakes that won't stick to anything but grass when the phone at the desk rings and Castiel answers it with a laugh still caught in his throat.
"Uh, hey, is Cas...tiel there?"
"This is he."
"Cas, hey. Hi. It's Dean."
In his surprise, he can only manage, "Hello, Dean," and then, with his head spinning from more than just a glass of cheap champagne, "is everything all right?"
"Yeah, totally. Sorry, I didn't mean to, uh-- look, this may be weird and I know it's about to be Christmas and everything, but there's this show going up tomorrow kinda short notice and I'm gonna be in Nashville."
That's an hour and a half of driving, maybe two if the snow keeps up. It's not Kansas or Nebraska or California, though if Dean had asked him to any of those places, he thinks he might have gone.
"Just remember, there's always a mercenary sham marriage waiting for you, boss." Meg says, and the going-away/congratulations-on-college gift basket crunches painfully between them as she hugs him.
"Let me know how it ends," says Chuck as he takes possession of the folder containing the drop-safe combination and all the administrative contacts.
Castiel watches miles of yellow lines disappear into the distance toward something, for once, instead of the other way around.