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Lord it's a hard life God makes you live.
With the cessation of holiday hours at Target, Cas once again has the onerous task of filling free time. He avoided that problem for the last four months. The final weeks of September and the entirety of October he devoted to refitting a living space in Bobby's old house. Whatever happened to the house—a fire, he thinks, with neat illogic, because fire follows the Winchesters, the fires of childhood homes and the fires of Hell, until they burn, burn, burn—much of it remains uninhabitable. The wind of a strong storm would likely topple two of the exterior walls; most the interior is nothing but char. But there are some salvageable things—always, always something to save.
When the weather turned cold and the winter wind bites through the newspaper on the walls, that thought makes Cas grin, as hard and brittle as the wind. It's a joke Dean wouldn't appreciate, but would have understood nonetheless. Wherever Dean's soul is now.
He arrived in Sioux Falls in mid-September. As far as he can tell, Lucifer sent him exactly three years into the past—an alternative past. What the value of "alternative" is remains to be discovered. Due to various circumstances, none of them relevant now, it took him six weeks to travel from the Sanitarium that housed Lucifer's garden and Dean's final resting place in 2014 to Bobby's house in Sioux Falls in 2011. Six weeks or negative one hundred and fifty weeks.
The destruction of the house, and within two weeks, the discovery of the Impala, proved to Cas that Dean and Bobby are no more alive in this world than they were in his own. He doesn't know what happened to Sam. The world hasn't ended; he has no reason now to search for Sam Winchester.
Whatever demise the Winchesters met, and Bobby by extension, it didn't happen here. Through his careful exploration of the first floor of the house—his drive for self-destruction takes the form of ingesting as many chemicals as possible to provide relief or stimulation, not breaking his leg on navigating derelict stairs—he found a few books that survived the fire, as well as a few pieces of furniture he could appropriate for his own use: a kitchen chair, a table he could repair, a bed frame. But no bodies. No bones. He tried not to decide if that was a cause for relief (foolish hope) or despair (funeral rites are human practices, and he's not, he's not).
One of the books contained photographs. His employee discount at Target purchased a collection of picture frames. He tried not to crumble the charred edges when he tucked the photos safely behind glass.
They litter the surfaces of his room now: Sam and Dean as children or as young men; Bobby and other hunters Cas made the acquaintance of before they died. He likes the photographs, pieces of memory frozen eternally, even if they aren't his memories. He likes them almost as much as he likes the books. Very little of Bobby's library survived, but he saved what he could and then added his own in the last few months. Short-story fiction and philosophy are his favourites, but he buys whatever hooks his attention, or whatever seems popular with the shoppers at Target.
Humans craft stories to explain the world to themselves. He always wanted to understand them, resolved himself to live among them, even if now he lives miles and miles from another living person and contents himself with a room full of paper-thin images and distant knowledge. Living here isn't much different to being an angel. In a way, he's gone home.
For all that it may be lonely, he likes the home he's made for himself here. It may not involve waking up in sheets that smell like Dean and sex, or coming into a kitchen to be greeted with the smell of bacon frying and Dean smiling. But Cas has known those desires were only fantasy for years. Here, a generator runs two lamps, a space heater, and a hot plate when he needs it to eat up cans of soup. The bathroom down the hall miraculously still has running water, even with one of the walls missing. It's cold, and he worries as winter sets its teeth into South Dakota that the pipes will freeze, but it's better than no water. All in all, the commodities are no different than what they had at the camp, but with the addition of no one trying to kill them, no Croatoan virus, no torture, no traumatized refugees.
No Dean.
His shift ended tonight at eight, but they sent him home at seven due to lack of customers. Early on the floor manager decided it was better for him to focus on stocking and cleaning rather than interacting with people, but no customers means nothing to stock. He had spent the last hour leaning on the handle of his mop in the children's section, reading Harry Potter. Now, two hours later and dinner already prepared and consumed, he wishes he had bought Chamber of Secrets when they told him to go home. He has National Public Radio playing on the radio in the Impala outside, but listening to it means keeping the door open, and the evening February chill is no match for his space heater. He lies on the box spring he pulled out of what he thinks is the living room, curled under the pink and green floral comforter he bought as a set from Target's clearance aisle, despite having no pillows to put the pillow cases on, and tries to let the soft voices debating abortion lull him to sleep. Questions of mortality no longer interest him, but the news will be on in another hour, the nightly debrief for any signs or clues what happened in this world to keep it from becoming his own. Until then, he has a bottle of whiskey to keep him occupied, as well Bobby's stash of pain killers and sedatives in the table drawer.
Perhaps tomorrow he'll drive back to Target to buy Harry Potter. His day off can involve learning what becomes of Harry.
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There wasn't any reason to. They're between cases; Sam's busy digging up dirt on Dick Roman—Dick; Dean can't even think of the guy without clenching his fists tighter around the steering wheel, without gritting his teeth and working his jaw—and Dean . . . well. Dean tried to help, but sitting in a motel room brooding over a collection of newspaper clippings and print-outs, spending his days staring at the face of the man he wants dead, wants to see hurt and broken and bleeding and dying because he took away the one thing in Dean's life that was whole still . . . it didn't really work out. Earlier tonight, after Dean had once again snapped at Sam for admittedly no reason whatsoever, Sam told him to get out, go get another room, catch some sleep, shoot holes into the fireplace, whatever would make him chill out. So Dean grabbed the car keys and left. Shooting holes into the fireplace isn't his style; he prefers going for a drive. This red '72 Mustang isn't the right car, though.
He didn't really intend to head to Sioux Falls, but nonetheless found himself going west on I-90 within less than an hour of leaving Clear Lake, the small town where Sam and he crashed for their Dick Roman research marathon. He resigned to his subconscious choice of destination when he passed Worthington, and now thinks that maybe this isn't even such a terrible idea. Even if seeing Bobby's old place won't help--which, if he's honest with himself, he's fairly certain it won't--he can check on the Impala, make sure she's fine, maybe take her out for a spin to make sure the battery won't go flat. Go for a short drive in the right car. That actually might help.
He takes the exit off 29, and after a few turns the Mustang is bouncing up the dirt road to the scrapyard's entrance. Dean's eyebrows are pinched together in a frown; the suspension on this car is terrible. But then, the suspension of all cars they've been driving the past few months was terrible. He pulls up in a free space between half a Camaro and the remains of a totaled Toronado, then kills the engine. Sits there and listens to the dead quiet of a South Dakota winter night. No birds, no crickets. No sounds from the house that used to stand at the end of the driveway, and which is now no more than a couple of charred walls and a lot of black, crumbled wood. No sounds at all.
Except that's not quite right. His frown deepens as he cracks the Mustang's door open, listens intently. He can hear the chatter of a radio from nearby. The monotone voices are hard to mistake for anything else. He gets out of the car, his right hand going to rest on the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans as he uses his left to quietly push the car door closed. Quiet as he can, he walks further up the driveway, and isn't surprised when he spots a light glinting out between the ruins of the least damaged part of the house. Someone's squatting in there, in the hallway leading up to the backdoor, which the fire miraculously didn't touch.
Awesome. He works his jaw, narrows his eyes. The anger's irrational. He's squatted enough himself to know that most of the time, squatters are more careful with the property than the owners themselves. In this case, there isn't even an owner anymore. Hasn't been for a few weeks. He doesn't want to think about that. Instead, he pulls his gun out, starts moving around the house, careful to walk on the grass to avoid his boots crunching on the gravel. Turns the corner of the house.
The anger he feels at the sight that presents itself now is less irrational. It's Bobby's backyard, an open gravel field leading up to the backdoor. The yard itself is filled with old car bodies, stacked three to four cars high with a broad gravel alley down the middle. The car that's parked closer to the house—or what used to be the house and is now a burned-out wreck save for the small cabin someone assembled out of the remains of the hallway—is not an old, empty shell, though. Black, sleek lines with chrome detailing, headlights on and aimed at the half-open door, Dean would recognize this car anywhere. Because she's his. And that's not where he left her.
He doesn't quicken his pace; if anything, his movements become even quieter, even more careful. He slides along the side of the car towards the door, grits his teeth even harder when a brief glance at the dashboard reveals a clump of exposed wires. Whoever's squatting here, he has half a mind to just put a bullet in them and be done with it. The Impala is his. You don't get to touch her, to take her and hotwire her and use her and then move into Bobby's house as if it didn't use to be someone's home. As if it never meant anything to anyone. Actions like that invoke consequences.
He steps into the light of the headlights at the last possible moment, pushes the door open all the way and points his gun at the ramshackle excuse for a bed that's sitting against a wall in the hallway cabin. "Don't move."
He's standing right in front of the headlights in the hope of disorienting the squatter enough to not be able to take proper aim, in case they're armed. He also doesn't really care, though. One false move, and all he has to do is pull the trigger. He's a very good shot.
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Even dozing to the sound of their voices, wasting time until the news comes on, Cas isn't asleep, and he isn't distracted. He's concentrated very hard to focus on nothing in particular. The soft squeak of a boot sole in the snow snaps his attention to the specific.
Under the blanket, his eyes open. There's someone outside.
It might be—the police, or a looter. The latter presents no threat, but the former—the former does. Despite not knowing what identification he's expected to have, he knows he needs something. He lost Jimmy Novak's wallet years ago, before he lost Jimmy's soul. That means he has nothing. Sioux Falls Police Department likely won't take the symbols etched into the insides of his forearms as proof of anything—except perhaps mental instability. No matter what substances he forces into his human body or the bleak moments where he doubts his sense of self, his ability to access an emergency is still solid, honed. A gun against a police officer may not be the best defense but it's the most readily available. Needs must, after all.
He propped the semi-automatic in the corner behind the door when he finished re-building the room and hasn't touched it since then. The handgun he keeps on along the wooden crossbar by the bed. The fire stripped the wall down to its studs in places, creating nooks within the wall; as it separates his room from what used to be the living room, he hasn't bothered to paper over the holes yet. They make for impromptu shelves—for books, for candles, for pictures, but also for the gun.
Silently releasing the safety, he retracts his hand back under the comforter and rests the barrel of the gun on its side along the box spring, aimed towards the doorway. The comforter hides it, for now, in case it is a cop. But at this distance, an inch of plush cotton will do nothing to block a bullet from reaching its intended target. He curls tighter on the bed, poised to move, and waits.
It doesn't take long. Thirty seconds to a minute later—he doesn't count—a figure moves into the doorway. The beam from the headlights picks up glimpses of detail until the figure positions themselves as a silhouette in the doorway: broad shoulders, military style jacket, close-cropped sandy hair. Tall. The right height. The right build and weight.
The right voice.
For one second, everything around him and in him goes quiet for a second, calm and still, as though he's become one of the dust mites suspended in the air. Then Cas closes his eyes, swallows, and releases a long exhale. His grip on the gun relaxes along with the rest of his muscles, body sinking into the box spring.
If it's a dream, he doesn't want to wake up. And if it's a nightmare—Dean returned from the dead to exact . . . what? revenge?—he still doesn't want to wake up. Dean's posture reads gun, and Dean's voice says obey. With everything in him, with a passion Cas didn't know he still possessed, he wants nothing more than to obey right now. To let Dean lay down orders or threats on top of him as though they were extra blankets for warmth.
"Okay."
Through his labored breathing, his voice comes out scratchy, gruff. He lost count of how many days it's been since he last spoke—five? Six? He had enjoyed the habit, the presumed vow of silence. He lets the silence reign now, only his rasping breaths filling the air. In his chest, his heart pounds as though he took amphetamines instead of a third of a bottle of whiskey. But he keeps it pressed towards the bed, curled half on his side, not moving. Just breathing. Waiting. Absorbing. A floating frozen dust mite in the air.
Unreal. He doesn't open his eyes.
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"Who are you?" It comes out harsh, rough in the back of his throat, his pulse making his chest clench rhythmically. He must have misheard. Six months ago, it happened all the time—hearing Cas' voice just to find that it was just an NBC news anchor, hearing the sound of Cas' wings just to realize that all he was hearing were the motel curtains flapping in the wind of an open window. This must be the same. He's been under a lot of stress.
Still, he can't stop himself, moves towards the bed step by careful step, eyes fixed on the shadow over the squatter's face. One step to the side and the beam of the headlights shifts, dispersing the shadows and outlining familiar features. Dark hair, dark eyebrows, full lips and high cheekbones. Enough stubble so it's almost a beard. That part's not so familiar. Dean stops in his tracks, lowers his gun, stares.
"Open your eyes." Rough words squeezed past a tightness in his chest. He clenches his jaw. This can't be what it looks like. Except it could be. Cas has come back from the dead before. He wants to see the squatter's eyes. He can't know for sure until he does.
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He listens to the footsteps fall nearer, shoulders tensing from the paranoia of the blanket suddenly being stripped from him. At the same time, the muscles along his spine, the ones that bunch and pinch between his shoulder blades in distraught hysterics, want to relax, comforted on a level that exists beyond the knowledge of a physical body.
Rolling his head to the side and tucking his chin towards the door, he obeys the instruction. Opens his eyes. Looks at you. The shadows are many with the headlights behind you, and the lamps too low to show your face. But he can see your chest and neck, the scruffed line of your jaw. Dean. His smile flexes deeper, fond.
Sleepily, he blinks at you. "Would you, uh—like to stay the night?" It's polite to ask. He'd like you to. Please stay, Dean.
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Would he like to stay the night. He has no answer to that, so he says nothing, just stares at you a few more moments. Nothing about this is right. Cas shouldn't be squatting in the ruins of Bobby's house, shouldn't be huddled under a comforter to hide from the sharp February cold. Shouldn't be alive. He wets his lips.
"If you're a Leviathan, I should warn you. I'll make a tough meal." That theory isn't completely nonsensical. After all, Leviathan take on the appearance of people they eat. In your case, it was more the other way around, but the principle remains the same. He grips the gun a bit harder. "What are you doing here?"
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His curiosity, while present, remains null. Now that he's said it aloud, he wants a reply to his question first. He wants you to stay the night. To take you in like you once took him in. To give you—a home. A purpose and a place to belong. You could live here with him. With an eagerness that almost leaves him giddy, he uses the hand resting on the gun to flip back the comforter, abandoning his cocoon of warmth to invite in the sharp February cold. You should get under the blanket, Dean, and shut the door.
He wears the same shirt and jeans that he once meant to die in, but over them he layered a flannel shirt and sweatshirt he bought from Target, plain cotton, with no hood or zip, in a bright cerulean blue. He cut off the fingers on a pain of basic cotton gloves, faded black now from wear, for his hands. His feet, though, are bare. Without the warmth of the blanket, he pulls them underneath him, sticking his toes in the creases behind his knees to keep them warm.
Setting the safety, he drops the gun back into its cubby-hole in the plaster. The blanket forms a rough semi-circle on the box spring, an open space for a second person to sit. He looks at it and then looks at you. Sit, Dean. Come closer. You're still mostly in shadow and it's cold.
"I live here." That's what he's doing here. That seems to be the most accurate answer.
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"You died, Cas. Six months ago." He frowns, pauses. "You didn't manage to get rid of the Leviathan, and they took over. Do you remember that?"
You don't seem like you do. You don't seem like—you. Not the you he used to know, anyway. He shifts, looks around the hide-out you've built for yourself. There's a heating unit and a hotplate. And framed photographs. Of him, Sam, and Bobby. His eyes linger on Bobby's face, half-obscured by the shadows, baseball cap drawn into his eyes and his arms crossed. It's like he can hear Bobby's voice, gruff and affectionate, like it sounded in the hospital. Idjits. He lowers his eyes, then glances over to meet yours again. "You're human."
He needs to know who you are. What you remember. He needs to know if you remember what you did. He's not going to sit down next to you.
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You look wrong.
He doesn't remember what you seem to expect him to remember. Six months ago they planned for him to die. You died. But he didn't. Lucifer sent him here. Lucifer—did Lucifer send you here too? That doesn't make sense. You're not—the same. Your soul isn't the same. Not the Dean he knows, and—not the Dean he knew. Someone else.
It feels as though his heart has stopped beating, though he can feel his pulse still pounding frantically away just below his Adam's apple. He can't tell if he's breathing. His throat hurts.
He watches you look away to study the photographs, his eyes still riveted on yours when you look back at him. You're—wrong.
He sighs, lost, "No." No, he's not human. And no, he doesn't want you to be—someone else. He wants you to be you. You were you just a moment ago. Give it back. "You're—different." He doesn't know you. He doesn't know you. Why did he have to dream about you and not his friend? He wants—"Dean."
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"It's 2012, Cas. Early 2012. Last time I saw you—" His voice catches in his throat, and he trails off. The last time he saw you, you told him to run. To get out, because the Leviathan were too strong and you couldn't hold them. And then you died. They killed you. And they killed Bobby. He looks down, jaw clenched, to take a moment to collect himself before he meets your eyes again. "You were an angel. You had all your powers. You had freed the Leviathan from purgatory, and they killed you. That's what I remember." He pauses, holds your eyes. "How about you?"
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It's obvious that you're Dean Winchester. You were in Hell. You love and grieve for your family. You have great reserves of strength. All of that he can see in your soul, most of it half-remembered and only obvious to him because he remembers where and how to look. But you're not—hard in the same way you were hard. You don't have the same scars. It's as though—your posture is different. As though you're using muscles long ago forgotten and atrophied. Who are you?
He knows the year. But he knows nothing about the Leviathan or Purgatory. He should have died in the attack on the Croats but he didn't. Lucifer sent him here.
"You—died." It takes serious effort to push the words through his dry and croaky throat. He wants something to drink, to soothe it. A swallow only helps so much. "Not you. A different . . . version. Of you." He thinks. He doesn't know a better word for it. "I saw you. Your body. In the garden. Lucifer stopped my approach. He sent me here. I thought—he revived you and sent you after me."
Though saying it now, that makes no sense. None at all. He looks down, suddenly, mortifyingly ashamed of himself. Lucifer is many things but kind isn't one of them.
That's stupid, Cas.
"Sorry." He speaks to his lap. "I thought everyone was—dead." So he stayed here, at Bobby's house, and tried to make a home for himself. Did make a home for himself. It's not his cabin, or any of his things, but it still has—a comfort to it. An atmosphere of community, if faded and worn thin, like the camp did. He doesn't want to leave. But it seems likely that now he has to. Lucifer returning you to him so they could—try again makes little sense. Lucifer, however, sending him to a place where he's—obsolete, out of place and incapable of belonging, that makes far more sense.
He lets out a shaky sigh and then raises his head to look over your shoulder. "Would you like some coffee?" He has instant coffee; they could boil water on the hot plate. He has no vehicle and no bag and no place to stay. If you want to take him to a motel, it has to wait until morning when the stores open again and he can buy a duffle bag for his things.
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Until you speak. You mention the garden, and Lucifer. Who killed him. A different version of him. Things slot into place, and he remembers why you seem familiar. He's met you before, a long time ago, just for a few days. He thought you were dead.
He sits back on his heels, then shifts to cross his legs, watches you as you apologize. He doesn't really know what to do with this. He remembers returning from your world to Cas, who had waited all night by the side of the road for him. He remembers telling Cas to never change. He realizes now how stupid that request was.
When you offer him coffee, he nods. "Sure." He glances around in your cabin/hallway/home. You've made it pretty homely. You've even got a small library going on in a corner of the room. He glances up at you, watches you as you cross the room to the hotplate. "We've met before. In 2014. 2009 for me. I saw your world. Met your Dean." He pauses. "Things went a little differently here. Obviously."
He's not sure how you survived. But he knows your Dean didn't survive. He tries to ignore the pang of irrational jealousy he feels at that thought. You're clearly grieving for your friend. The last thing you need is him telling you that the other Dean is better off.
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The space between the bed, the table, and the door isn't great. Awkwardly, he has to pick his way around you to be able to vacate the bed. The comforter he gathers around his shoulders, looping part of it over his head like a hood for warmth. It erases the space he made for you next to him and protects him from the wind as he steps outside to turn off the Impala, killing the radio and the headlights. He shuts the door behind him with a firm tug, the frame warped and preventing an easy seal.
Water stands in a plastic carafe on the table. He pours it into the sauce pot on the hotplate and flips the switch to start heating it up. Because you're blocking access to the bed, he takes the chair instead, stretching his legs out until he can press his feet against the grill of the space heater. If he leaves it too longer, it will burn him. But for right now, the heat feels good against his numbed feet.
He doesn't look at you as you speak, instead watching the water for the first hint of a boil, but he listens. He can't stop the grin that breaks out when you pause, a silent laugh accompanying it. "You know better than to think that you were ever mine." That he ever had you. Don't say yours. Just don't. That's ludicrous.
The rest of it, he remembers. If you're Past Dean. If you were, once, Past Dean. Twice over. He lived through 2009 with you, and then, six months ago, the long drive from the camp to the Sanitarium. He sees no point in reminiscing.
Obviously things went differently here. He tilts his head at you, gaze snagging yours for a split second before he looks away again. Six months ago, you were—too bright to look at, almost painful, like exposing a burn to the sun. It's similar now, in an opposite way. If your soul was a sigil, it would be one for grief, anger. Loss. "You changed it." The world. The Apocalypse. He mocks your tone. "Obviously." There's nothing obvious about that.
Once upon a time, as recent as this morning, he would have wanted the answers to what changed, how things were changed. No omens and silence from demons seems to bode ill rather than good, leaving him paranoid. But he can't find it in himself to care now. You changed things. Whatever the consequences are, you're dealing with them. Leviathans, apparently. Leviathans that he freed and that killed him. That seems as though it should bother him; a distant awareness tells him that some reaction, any reaction, would be more appropriate than no reaction. That you expect him to react. But—there's nothing. Apathy soothes over his nerves like a thin, protective plastic coating. He's almost relieved to feel it.
When the water approaches a boil, he fishes out two mugs he pillaged from the ruins of the kitchen, chipped in places and streaked with burn marks, but still serviceable. Snagging the bottle of whiskey from the table, he pours a generous amount into one cup and then waggles the bottle at you, contents making a pleasant sloshing sound, and lifts his eyebrows in silent question. Do you want your coffee "Irish", Dean?
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When you pick your way past him to head outside and turn off the Impala, he shifts out of the way, then gets to his feet and goes to sit on the bed after a moment's hesitance. It creaks as he sits down, and he shifts forward to perch on the edge of the mattress.
It's a lot warmer in here with the door closed. He notices the difference almost immediately when you pull the door shut and cut off the cold February air sneaking in. The wall has still holes, it's still not warm. But the heater is doing its job.
The tone you use to tell him that he was never yours delays his next words. He'd forgotten how pained and bitter that version of you sounded. How much you'd so obviously lost. Now you've lost even more; your world, and your friend. If the other Dean was your friend. He's glad that you don't meet his eyes for long, watches your profile instead as you turn back to making coffee.
"We shoved Lucifer back in the cage. Stopped the Croatoan virus from spreading. No apocalypse." He laughs a little without any humor, shakes his head. "Not that one, anyway. Apocalypse, you'd think there'd be only one, but no dice."
He glances up when he hears liquid sloshing in a bottle to see you holding up the whiskey. He nods. "Yes, please." Since when is that even a question, Cas? He takes the mug from you after you've poured the coffee, wraps his fingers around it for warmth. Looks around your room again, and smiles a little. "I like what you've done with the place. Didn't think there was anything salvageable in the rubble." He ducks his head, takes a small sip of coffee. It's hot, but comforting. Kind of like the pictures arranged on various surfaces, the books sitting in the nooks beside your bed. "How long have you lived here?"
This you, the one that didn't die. The one who never had to face Raphael in a civil war, who never decided to be God and kill his brothers and sisters. Sure, you lived through an Apocalypse. But it's over for you now. You've got a home, and seem to have some means to sustain yourself. Maybe you steal, or hustle pool; maybe you've even got a job. You've made a life for yourself. That's more than he's managed to do since you died. Maybe you'll let him stay here for a couple of hours. Take a break, catch a breath. That'd be nice.
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The truth is that he hasn't acquired a taste for coffee. It's bitter, and often comes with a sour after-taste. But it's warm and it clears his head in the mornings, which are two important values. The third is that it goes well with whiskey. He finishes half the mug in one large sip for that reason. Settling into the chair again, placing his feet back near the heater, he stares straight ahead at the wall. There's a photo perched on the crossbeam of you and Sam. You must be in your early-to-mid teens, Sam still a few inches shorter than you as he cradles his own shotgun in his arms, posture uncomfortable. In direct contrast, if looks could kill, yours would. Guns seems to have always come naturally to you.
He can't tell if you're mocking him when you compliment the room. You never "liked" what he did with his cabin. But a part of him always hoped you'd like a house with books and pictures. That you could like it. If things just—stopped for a while. If they had time. His best memories are the months they lived on Bobby's house, before they relocated to the camp. Then, every other refugee and survival group pierced their small bubble of dependency. But it was good before that. They could have been happy.
Not that you were there.
"I arrive in Sioux Falls . . . on or around September 14." Or a date near there. He tried to mark the passage of days, but it was—difficult to achieve with any reliability before he found the Impala and began listening to the radio. "I assume there was a fire. I thought everyone was dead." He said that before, but he needs to make it clear. Why he stopped here. Why he stopped looking. He didn't think there was anything to look for. "The load-bearing ability of the stairs seems dubious. I haven't checked the upstairs or the basement. But I was able to construct this—," he nods at the wall he resurrected behind you "—before the weather turned too cold."
You can mock it all you want, but he put effort into this. He built this. That deserves at least some acknowledgment and respect. He finishes the last of the coffee in his mug, and replaces it with more whiskey. A glance over at you shows that you're not done yet. You drink too slowly, Dean.
"I found tools in the garage." If you're curious how he did it. Even if you aren't, he has a point to make. "Along with the Impala." The pause comes accidentally, a desire to hesitate before admitting a shameful thing. "I stopped looking for you then."
You wouldn't leave the Impala unless you were dead. Or as good as.
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He takes a long drink of coffee, the burn of the whiskey scraping his throat as you explain that you thought everyone was dead, so you built yourself a home in the ruins of Bobby's house. It seems appropriate. His eyes linger on a picture of himself and Sam as kids, then another of Rufus scowling at the camera. Of Bobby. They're all dead now. Sam isn't. Not yet.
You seem to expect something after finishing the explanation about your house, so he nods. "It's good." It feels lived-in, unlike all the shacks and barns and abandoned houses he and Sam have been staying in. He purses his lips. "It's warm."
He takes another long drink before looking up when you mention the Impala. Holds his mug out to you. There's still some coffee in it, but enough space to top it up with whiskey. "I had to leave her. She-- " He tilts his head with a small, wry smile, shrugs one shoulder a little. "She attracts too much attention."
He shifts to sit on the bed a little bit more comfortably, the whiskey warming his numb fingers as well as loosening the clenched muscles in his chest. At least a little. "The Leviathan have infiltrated everything. They're tracking our cards, our IDs. We're laying low. Even lower than usual." He pauses to take another drink, then shakes his head a little and glances up at you. "We don't know how to kill them. Way it looks like now, we saved the world to let it get wiped out by unkillable black goo monsters who want to turn everyone into a McDonald's value meal."
Call him crazy, but he can't shake the feeling that the straight-up biblical apocalypse, as nasty as it sounded, would have been a better way to go.
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As eager as he was to greet you originally, now he wants nothing more than for you to leave. You being here—pulls open some old familiar ache he is doing his best to ignore. It highlights the outline of the numbed area inside of him, like an infection inflames the scars around an amputated limb. All of this belongs to you. The longer you're here, the more obvious that is. The Impala, the photos, the house—this is your world, and your things, and your memories. They aren't his. The best he could manage was to pretend, to fool himself for a while.
When you hold your cup out, he adds another finger of whiskey, but no more than that. If you're going to kick him out, he'd rather you do that now, or give him a deadline, or otherwise state your purpose. They've never sat around and reminisced. They can't. He doesn't have the patience to pretend.
"That—sucks." That the Leviathans have risen and are trying to take over the world. He killed something a month ago that had been following him that bled black goo. It sounds as though that was a Leviathan. He doesn't know what else to say. The world is still ending, but in a different way than it was meant to end. Second verse, same as the first. You said things were different here, but it doesn't seem like it now. It won't be for long. He finishes off the rest of his whiskey and leans forward to set the mug on the table with a heavy thud.
Fortified by alcohol, he meets your eyes. "Why are you here?" If you have Leviathans to fail to fight. If you're meant to be hiding. He doesn't know who we means. Maybe Sam. Maybe Bobby. Maybe people he doesn't know. Why aren't you with them?
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"Came to check on my car." He indicates the door, raises his eyebrows at you. "You might wanna find a different ride. She's on Dick's radar if any car is." A pause. You don't know who that is. "Dick Roman. Monster extraordinaire 'n top of my current hitlist."
That's all. He came to check on his car and found you. He didn't plan on finding you. He's not sure what to do with it. He raises a hand, scratches the hair at the back of his neck.
"So—what do you do? Do you hunt?"
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That doesn't seem right to him. Like a thing you would do. But he can't say why.
"I work at Target." He tilts his head towards the door behind him. The red uniform shirt and khaki slacks hang on the back of it. "And I don't fear the Leviathans." They can come for him if they want. He needs a car to get to work. The worse that will happen is they kill him. He's never feared death, either.
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"You should." He shifts forward to the edge of the bed, rests the heels of his hands against it. Finds your eyes. "Here's the deal, Cas. My life's not awesome right now. You just got out of an apocalypse, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to get right back into one. You've got—" He gestures at your room. "—this. You've got a job. If you wanna stay . . ." He trails off, watches you. This is your life, Cas. He doesn't want to tell you to come with him if what he can offer you isn't necessarily better. Shrugs a little.
"But I could use you. We could. We just—" —lost someone. Lost a friend, an invaluable asset, a core member of their team. He swallows. "We're spread pretty thin. We could use your help."
His heart is beating in his throat, making it hard to swallow. Your life isn't awesome, but your life doesn't involve monsters. Doesn't involve the pressure of constant imminent global destruction unless you sacrifice everything to save the world. He doesn't want to put that pressure on you. But he'd be lying if he said he didn't need you. A friend, another pair of hands on deck. Most of the houses they squat in actually come with running water. So maybe that's an upside?
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It's backwards and awful and perfect that you think he cares about any of this when he could never demonstrate that he cares about—you. It's funny. He has to laugh. If he doesn't laugh, he fears the pressure burning in his chest might kill him—or force him to do something hysterical like kill himself. Curling forward in the chair, he cups his hands over his face, shoulders shaking as he laughs open-mouthed into his palms. A sharp shard of breath lodges in his throat, twisting until it makes his breath hitch around what could be misinterpreted as a sob. It jerks him out of his spiral, his lungs clenching hard to prevent any air from escaping, lest it become a cry instead of a laugh. Slowly, carefully, he sucks in a long inhale through his nose, sitting back in the chair. He pulls a hand down his face, wiping away any traces of whatever it was that just dislodged inside of him.
Just like rebuilding this room, warped beams and cracked plaster placed just so to achieve the careful balance of stability, so too has he constructed himself. One piece out of place means he'll use the entire structure to collapse. He can't. Building from rubble takes far more time and effort than patching up something half-dilapidated.
He tilts his head towards you to meet your eyes, an ironic, almost admiring half-smile twisting up one side of his mouth. That was a good hit, Dean. You take potshots more like they're full frontal assault, but more than not, they're effective.
"You could use me." Are you sure about that? "Against—creatures who you don't know how to kill, who can track you and drove you from—your home and beloved resources. Who . . . " His eyes narrow as he tries to remember everything you've said about the Leviathan. "—can kill angels." You said they killed him. The version of him that belonged here. While he still had a full battery charge. There are no creatures he knows of with that kind of power, except other angels. "And like usual you have no plan."
Does that sum up your situation accurately? He doesn't know what you think he'll be able to do, how he'll be able to help you. But . . .
He cracks his neck, rolling his shoulders to stretch out the muscle. The muscles between his shoulder blades have pulled tense again, trying to support appendages that never existed on the physical plane. His eyes rove around the room, taking in what it took him four and a half months to achieve. It's not much.
"Have you tried, uh, shouting at them?" You're an effective shouter; it's a half-hearted suggestion. "Maybe, uh—glaring at them and mentioning—vague emotional philosophical terms to convince them to turn back from their wayward path?" He glances at you, still smiling, far more fond this time. This, he knows how to do. He knows how to take your plans, or lack of plans, and find all the holes in them. How to drive you into the determination that somehow pulls missions off despite all odds.
He doesn't know if you understand that. And he doesn't know if his answer is clear. It should be. "Okay." He'll go with you. Of course he will.
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Your expression isn't derisive when you look up, though. It's sarcastic, dry, but there's more fondness in it than contempt or hate. His own probably just looks confused. He meets your eyes, eyebrows raised. What was that all about?
"Sam's working on the plan." Sam's in Clear Lake, digging up everything about Leviathan that's there to dig up. He frowns when you start to make suggestions, then narrows his eyes when he realizes you're making fun of him. It's not funny. Nothing about this is funny. And right now, you're being a jerk. You do agree, though. He holds your eyes for a few moments before he nods.
"Good." He glances around the room, then shifts to get up from the bed. "Sam's at a motel about a three hour drive away. You've probably got a better chance at a good night's sleep there than here." Then he remembers something and lets himself fall back down on the bed for a moment. Looks up to meet your eyes, if he can. "You gonna be okay working with Sam?"
He never told Sam about your world, but he remembers it very well. He doesn't know how much you hate Sam for what he did in that future.
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"Why wouldn't I be." It's a flat question, a non-question. He hasn't thought about Sam Winchester much at all in years, besides wondering how much of Sam remained aware behind Lucifer's Grace. If Sam ever regretted saying yes. He must have, if he retained any moments of consciousness.
Your question makes something clear, however: Sam will always have your loyalty before he does. For you to allow him to stay, he needs to get along with Sam. He's never very good at getting along with people when it doesn't involve sex. But he'll try.
For now, though, since it won't be just them together again—he'd still like you to stay the night. "I don't have—a bag." To put his things in. He has two other shirts, besides what he's wearing, but he'd like to bring to the comforter and his books. "Tomorrow morning when Target opens, we could buy one."
We. It forces them to spend the night here. He'd like to spend the night here with you. In a house full of photos and books.
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He makes as if to get up again, but then you point out that you don't have a bag. He looks around. Do you want to bring your stuff? The pictures and books? He supposes it would make sense if you wanted to bring them. He thinks he has a bag in the back of the Mustang, but something in your expression stops him from pointing that out. You want to sleep here. And tomorrow morning you want to go to Target—the Target you work at, he assumes—to buy one. That's not an unreasonable request. He is asking you to give up everything you've worked for in the past few months. So he nods.
"All right. You can pick up your outstanding paycheck." He gives you a slight smile. It's the middle of the week. They probably owe you a few bucks, which would probably cover the bag. No reason to waste that money. He glances around the room. There's no second bed, and the only available surface to sleep on seems to be the floor. He's slept in worse places. Looks back up at you. "You got a second comforter?"
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But good. You're willing to spend the night with him here. He looks around the room as you do, until it occurs to him a second before you ask what you're question will likely be. He meets your eyes, if you let him, and answers very carefully.
"No."
He has one bed and one blanket. The bed is big enough for two, though, and weather cold enough to insist on coveting all the warmth possible. He'd like you to sleep with him, Dean.
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They're going to have to share.
He sits up, his back stiffening a little. He remembers you in your world. He remembers walking in on you about to have an orgy, he remembers talking to other people at the camp—mostly Chuck—and what they said about you. He remembers observing the way you looked at the Dean in your world, and what he thought when he saw the expression on your face. He'd forgotten about that. Probably on purpose.
"I don't—" Do that. Swing that way. Want that. But the night is very cold, and all he'd be doing is sharing. He doubts the Dean in your world ever requited your feelings, if you had any feelings to be requited. It would have always been a one-sided thing. He hasn't slept next to anyone else in a very long time. And they're alone here. Nobody would know. "—sleep very well. The past few weeks. Haven't been sleeping very well." He swallows. "I might keep you up."
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