Title: Bhairavi
Author: winchesterpooja
Artist: blue-reveries
Rating: T (explicit on AO3)
Length: 38700
Pairings: Dean/Cas, Charlie/Jo, past Sam/Eileen, minor Sam/Jessica
Warnings: self-harm, PTSD, depression, light bondage, blindfolding, dom!cas/sub!dean, top!cas/bottom/Dean with implied switching, fake character death, medical jargon
Summary: Ragam (n; raa-gum): a melodic mode in Indian classical music. An array of melodic structures with musical motifs, considered in the Indian tradition to have the ability to "colour the mind" and affect the emotions of the audience. A popular example of a Ragam is Bhairavi, a versatile, emotional composition of notes known to take your breath away.
Bhairavi is the music of the night: when fireflies and stars gather to show you the light. When darkness seeps out of its dingy hiding place and yet, the moon shines bright as always, determined to defeat every inch of it. Bhairavi is the music of love and lust and kindness. Of gentle fingers running over sweaty skin, of soft kisses taking away tears and hurt and anger.
Bhairavi is Dean losing his brother to a freak accident and struggling to get up ever since. Bhairavi is Dean falling in love with Cas, of Cas's violin playing sharp and smooth and bright in the misty darkness. Bhairavi is Dean realising that Sam is not dead and that Cas knows more about the dangers and scandals that seek Dean's brother, than he lets on.
Bhairavi is Dean's story; of how he found love, family, and life.
A/N:
Happy Diwali, all, and welcome to my newest fanfic. This is the most wholesome thing I've written all my life so I hope I got it right. I'm linking a couple things here but we all know how it I should on this website so open them accordingly.
Thank you to my wonderful artist, blue-reveries who was the best ever and so, so patient even though we struggled and struggled through various problems in the course of this story. The amazing art masterpost can be found (tagged NSFW for risque artwork-just to be safe): blue-reveriesDOTtumblrDOTCOM/post/166573009827/art-post-for-winchesterpoojas-awesome-story
My beta, Allison/DarcyDelaney was amazing, and a ninja and she's totally saved my ass so I owe her everything right now.
The inspiration for this fic comes from AR Rahman's music, and a compilation of my favourites, that I used for the story, can be found here: [ wwwDOTsaavnDOTcom/s/playlist/36cc186db1feb71adf78cb223b9c72e9/Bhairavi/t6vL0V12dkHc1EngHtQQ2g_?referrer=svn_source=share&svn_medium=orgDOTtelegramDOTmessenger].
They're arranged according to the mood of the fic and songs actually referenced in the fic will be mentioned by the number in the A/N. For now, Chapter 1 features song #2: Jiya Jale.
A big hug to Ellen/lennelle, Sanjy/SPNxBookworm and Naila/remy-areyousrs for being the best cheerleaders and support through writing this. Last but not the least, thank you, Muse and Jojo for bearing with me and helping me through this. You've been amazing mods.
BHAIRAVI
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
-Rumi
_0_
Prologue
Hey Jude don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
The lullaby always calmed Sammy down. When Mom held him at nights and sang to him, and sometimes, when she wasn't around, he would listen to Dean too.
The lullaby always calmed Sammy down but Dean didn't know that he'd be singing it again at his brother's funeral.
0000000000000000000000
1. Shadjam
It's the middle of the night when it happens. There's a phone call and a long, dreadful pause after. Then he has to make another call himself, to his mother, to more silence. There is no screaming and no tears from her side. Just a shaky, "Let's go."
All he can remember after is the honking of cars, the blaring taillights, speeding as much as he is allowed without being pulled over, coaxing Baby to go as fast as she can. Then the hospital and its sterile walls and whiteness and the sick smell of antiseptic and shoes scuffing against vinyl floor, run, run, run, or he will be gone he is gone.
He refuses to believe it. Refuses to give that thought weight because it can't be true.
It just can't.
However, here he is. Here he is in the morgue, his mother's clammy hand in his, and the cold steel stretcher with the body on it, covered with a sheet so white and pure, it shouldn't be used to indicate death. He bets the cloth is rough and starched stiff, uncomfortable on so many levels even if the hospital staff chanted and chanted and sang and coaxed, we made him as comfortable as we could.
Dean can't understand it. How can death be comfortable in any way?
The mortician pulls the cloth off (no, no, let me live in my dream) and there's nothing there, nothing there, just burnt skin and bone and flesh, six feet, four inches of it, but there's his ring, Sam's silver ring with "SW" etched into the metal, and the remains of the face… they are… they're Sam.
It all shatters like a million pieces, like fragile glass. Dean's running away, running to the bathroom to throw up the contents of his stomach and heart and soul so he can vanish, just go, disappear.
He wants to die.
Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. He's still there after all of it, heart beating in full force, stomach turning and body aching, every inch of him acting as a reminder that he's here and he's alive. Alive, when all he wants to do is not exist anymore.
He hides his face in his arm, the same arm that's draped across the toilet seat, and shudders as tears wet his skin. He doesn't get up until his mother comes looking for him, until she coaxes him back into the car and holds him.
"I'm sorry, Dean," she says, and her voice shivers for the first time that night. She is the bravest woman he knows. The strongest woman he's ever met. And the tremble in her voice makes him want to run away.
He cannot be selfish, though, because she needs him. So he looks up at her through a film of tears. "H-How…" he stammers, "how did it happen?"
"He hit a tree," she replies, thumbing at the corner of his eye. "Head injury."
"But…"
Dean knows what he saw. The charred remains. The barely recognisable face. That doesn't happen from a damn head injury.
"He died before the car caught fire," his mother says in reply to his unanswered question. She pauses for a moment, as if gathering every piece of herself. "He hit his head on the steering wheel and died immediately. He didn't suffer at all, sweetheart."
That's all Dean gets to live with. That his brother, whom he'd taken care of and doted on and relied on and trusted, his brother who'd been there for him through some of the worst parts of his life—his little brother, Sam, had died without suffering.
That's right. Sam died and caught fire and has no face left. But at least it didn't hurt, so it's all okay.
It's okay because all Dean has to do is live with a very large hole in his soul from today, until the end of his life.
It's the middle of the night when it all falls art for Dean, and when Sam wakes up in a small, sterile, unknown room with a hospital bracelet around his wrist. M-30208, it reads, and he doesn't know what that means.
Sam's cries for help remain unheard that night, and for a long, long time afterwards.
o0o
Six months later
"Oh, oh, oh, fuck… God…"
Dean grits his teeth against sharp, sweet pain beneath his ear, feeling lips pull at a fold of his skin, breath coming out in short gasps and pants as every cell in his body wakes up, nerves shot, and he wants it, he wants it with every inch of his being, to feel this way and forget it all, the pain and suffering and all that crap only to feel… to feel—
Strong arms hold Dean to turn him around, palms pushing his back against the wall. Lips come to press against his, wet and ridged, tongue licking vigorously and teeth nipping him while he cups prickly, stubbled cheeks. They separate for a moment, just a moment. There is a moan, nails against his shirt, little jolts of electric sparks everywhere. Dean sees a flash of blue eyes and long eyelashes, feels fingertips dragging on skin followed by the sound of his fly coming undone. A hand grips at him, a firm hand with coarse, calloused fingers and there is a mouth wrapping around him the next moment.
He hisses, growing hard, and it's all in a tangle of lips and spit and tongue, dragging him in and out, fingers digging into the flesh of Dean's ass as he clutches onto strands of hair, and just as he is on edge, just as it builds up, he's pushed against the bed. He gasps, tantalised, and looks back to his partner who gestures between panting breaths for Dean to get onto all fours. He obeys, enjoys the tingle spreading over him as he feels thick, muscular thighs press against his ass, listens to the condom get pulled out of its pack, then the lube, and the wet slap of a palm on skin.
The room smells of sweat and sex and Dean doesn't have to wait long for the touching and stroking and fingers, fingers, fingers.
He moans, gasps, and the fingers are out and now it's slow, slow inhales, hot breaths on his neck and the calloused hands again, one clutching his hair and another lower still…
It all comes together like a current travelling through his nerves. Fuck.
They rock in synchronisation. Dean fists the sheets, sweat dripping down his face and the sides of his body, wobbling with excitement as skin slides on skin and with each gasp and pant and moan he feels himself come alive, new and invigorated and God, God oh God oh fuck this is—
He comes with a loud cry, ruining his bedcovers and continuing to rock until there is a strangled gasp from his partner, and everything is spinning and twisting and turning, making him feel like he's in a dream, his nerve cells purring as he feels the pleasant pall of sleep beckon to him.
This is perfect and he wants it again and he is about to say it—he swears he is, but he's dozing off before he can so much as form another thought. He doesn't feel the other man clean him up, doesn't hear him leave.
Dean wakes up later that morning, naked and alone, with a phone number written on his forearm in Sharpie, to his shrill alarm going off. He turns around and looks at his little digital clock, simultaneously shutting off the alarm and throwing the room into silence.
7:30 AM
Monday, May 2nd
After blinking at the clock a couple of times he decides to brush his teeth and doze back off, hoping that he can ignore the entirety of today. Once he's showered and changed the bedsheets, he gets back under his blankets, rubs absently at his forearm, and stares at the writing on it for a long time, thinking about the sex last night.
Text me.
— Cas
~o~
SURPRIIIIIISE!
The lights switch on to reveal a very glad and mildly shocked Sam. Eileen walks up to him and stands on tiptoes, getting him to bend forward so she can put the party hat on his head and he takes the moment to kiss her briefly on the lips.
"Gross!" Dean shouts from his corner, only to earn a bitchface from his brother, but then he's walking up and hugging Sam the next minute. "How did you like my surprise party?" he asks Sam, waggling his eyebrows.
"This was your idea?"
"No, it was Eileen's, but it was fun pretending for a minute," says Dean. Sam glares at him, then pulls Eileen forward again for another kiss. She obliges, hand trailing to cup his face and Dean turns away to let them have their moment.
"Mom, where are—?"
The doorbell rings loudly, causing Dean to jump a little and hit the spacebar on his laptop to pause the video. He remembers filming it at Sam's thirty-second birthday party last year and it had been a happy occasion with no bitterness or sadness or pain at all. The happiest occasion. Getting to see Sam after a good three months, talking to him about Mom and Eileen and Dean's job and Sam's job and everything under the sun, with just the Impala, chilled beer, and the stars for company.
The party and the family dinner after. Singing stupid songs loudly with Mom while they talked about Dad. Hugging Sam, pulling him close and holding on, but not close enough and not tightly enough. Because Sam couldn't visit after. Not even during summer break. Exams, he said. My job. Things. Busy. I'm busy, Dean. Sorry.
(Is everything all right, Sammy? Because Sam never missed coming home during summer break. The only time he got a true vacation from his students.
Yeah, Dean, he'd said. I'm just…
For the first time ever, Dean had wondered if there was really something Sam wasn't telling him).
He's pulled out of his reverie when the doorbell rings again and someone knocks. "Dean?"
He recognises the voice at once and wonders if he wants to open it.
Another knock, another call of his name. "Dean!"
He looks at his wristwatch, then sighs, because he knows he should open the door. It's not fair if he doesn't because he's not the only one who had mourned Sam and continues to mourn him, and he can't be so selfish. But… screw it. He's tired, he's—
The doorbell rings again. "Dean, open the door, or I'll break it!"
God, she's a force of nature, Dean thinks as he puts his laptop aside at long last. "I'm coming!" he calls out, making fists for a moment because he's annoyed, but pushing himself to get off his ass. He opens the door to see Eileen outside, looking just like he'd expected her to with her hands on her hips, her eyes spelling murder. She's kinda intimidating, despite the fact that she's several inches shorter than he is.
"What the hell took you so long?" she asks him, signing vigorously to accentuate her annoyance.
Dean scratches the back of his head. "I, uh—"
"Get ready," she says as she steps inside and shuts the door behind her. "We're going out."
"I… Eileen—" I'm not in the mood.
"Come on, Dean," she tells him, "I know, okay? But we have to stop being this way. You have to stop being this way. It's—"
He takes her hands before she can speak or sign further, and looks into her eyes. "Don't tell me that it's what Sam would have wanted. We never got to know what he wanted, okay? It was unfair and you know that."
"I never said anything about that," she replies, softly this time. "But this? Not moving on? It's unhealthy. We can't live like this forever."
"Yeah? Is that why it took you less than six months to get a new boyfriend?"
Dean knows he's wrong the moment he says it, from the sour taste in his mouth and the sink of his stomach with regret. She is glaring at him, mouth slightly open, and then she signs something that Dean blinks at for a whole moment. He does understand ASL pretty well but he can't sign, and sometimes it's too fast for him to pick up on.
He presses his lips together. "You know I… s-sometimes I can't—"
"You should have learned it by now," she snaps. "And screw you!"
She's heading to the door, about to leave, when he moves ahead and grabs her wrist. She turns around, and Dean meets eyes with her, only to turn his gaze downward. "I'm sorry," he whispers, "I didn't mean… can we—" He takes a deep breath and swallows. "Can we still go?"
It takes Eileen a moment, but then she's smiling. "Sure." She gets back in and makes to sit on the couch when she glances at the laptop and sees what Dean had been watching. Her eyes go soft, and Dean thinks they're filled up when she comes over to him and hugs him tightly for a long time.
"Did you call Mary?" she whispers against him and Dean holds on tight, still not ready to let go. He shakes his head. Mom must have scheduled all her appointments for today. That's what she does. He knows her too well.
"No," he says, at long last.
Eileen pulls away and wipes at her face. "She must be missing him, too, you know."
"I know."
"You should call her."
Dean swallows. "I'll… I'll go visit—"
"Dean."
"—tomorrow," Dean promises. "Okay? Please."
She folds her arms around herself and nods. "I won't tell you what to do, Dean."
"Except that I need to get ready right the fuck now and go to… wherever you're taking me?" Dean feels a grin creeping up his face.
Eileen chuckles. "Except that you need to get ready right the fuck now and go with me," she signs, still chuckling.
"Cool," Dean signs back, and winks at her before retreating to his bedroom to change into something decent.
~o~
Eileen takes Dean to what seems like a rehearsal studio and he is confused from the moment they arrive. He had spent the entire journey in deep thought, trying to keep the memories out and fighting to get his mind to stop making him think and suffer. He wasn't very successful but he hopes he'll feel less shitty once he spends some time with Eileen. She's badass and she brings a lot of happiness with her. He really loved that his brother was with her.
When the engine switches off, Eileen signs for Dean to follow her. He wonders if he should tell her exactly why he didn't continue to study ASL (Sam, it reminds him of Sam. Sam hunched over books and watching YouTube videos and making those damn flash cards and the two of them figuring it out, how to talk to Eileen, and SamSamSam…).
That's not an excuse. Dean knows Sam would agree that it is most definitely not an excuse for not becoming fluent in ASL. Because it was not about Dean, or hell, even Sam. And Dean should have learned it; he should have. He would be able to help Sam more efficiently and maybe… maybe Sam wouldn't be coming home that night instead of a few weeks earlier and maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.
"So when are you going to pop the question?" Dean asks Sam, taking a swig of his beer. It was Halloween and they'd been chatting on Skype. Two days before Sam died.
Sam smiles, clear as day. "When I learn how to say it in ASL."
They'd found a ring among Sam's belongings. He had learned his ASL proposal. That was why he was headed home. He was going to ask Eileen to marry him. He was going to start a new phase of his life.
Dean stops there, vision blurring, just as Eileen turns to look at him. He feels her hands on him the next instant but he's pushing her away and running, running down an alley, his eyes burning, ears ringing, legs weak—
He retches into a dumpster. Pukes until there's nothing left. Until his stomach hurts and throat stings, until his eyes feel swollen and sore and useless. Until he's left with nothing. Nothing.
Not even the brother he grew up with.
~o~
"From the top, come on."
Dean's sitting in the dark corner of a rehearsal room and seeing but barely looking at the guy who's playing the jaw harp. He's not sure what Eileen pulled him into but this is not the kind of music he's really used to listening to. He doesn't mind it, it's soothing, but more than anything it's just background noise for him. White noise. The fact that the song is in a language he can't understand doesn't make things any easier. He's happy he has an excuse for not paying attention.
He wonders why Eileen is here. This is not her type of music either, not at all, and it's odd that she dragged him to this. Eileen is someone who likes percussion and lyrics. Beats that she can touch, words that she can read. Her tunes are her own, and God knows, Sam had a million recordings of them. Dean had them sent to Eileen afterwards. He doesn't know if she kept them. Maybe she did. But she never needed Sam as much as Dean did.
No one needed Sam as much as Dean did.
"Dean?"
He's sitting outside on the porch stairs, tracing a finger along his forearm and drawing a pattern. The skin is puckered and a little sensitive, a crisscross of thin scars and cuts, but when he hears footsteps behind him he immediately shakes his sleeve over it all. His reality doesn't have to be someone else's.
"Dean."
He hears the screen door swinging shut and someone comes down to sit beside him. Soft. Innocent. Good.
"Sammy?"
"You forgot your pills."
A palm almost as big as his own. His little brother, only in high school, shouldering Dean's burden, holding two small pills out. Sam's never asked 'why.' Never told him to 'get over it.' He just cleaned the blood away, patched Dean up, and sat there. Sat there until Dean wanted to talk. And Dean never spoke, but Sam heard it all.
Dean takes his pills from his brother and leans against a pillar after he's swallowed them dry. In the silence between him and Sam they talk a whole deal for hours and hours and hours.
Dean finds himself blinking away a stinging sensation in his eyes along with the memory. He turns back to the song, which, before proceeding to the first paragraph was stopped, and there is a woman barking out instructions about violins and harmonies and the chorus. It's Indian music, Dean knows enough to guess that one, and the room is full of brown men and women, all very professional and enthusiastic-looking and among them, a smattering of others who are not ethnically Indian, who are equally excited about it all.
"There is a big show coming up for them," Eileen tells Dean, and he turns to look at her. She seems to be at peace just where she is, watching them, and Dean, like every other time, is in awe of how she can be so calm. "My friend is performing," she says. "Thought you'd like the music."
"I… I do," Dean finds himself saying. "Who is this? Whose music?"
"His name is… AR Rahman," she says, pointing at a banner on a wall. Dean squints at it, takes a look at the man's face on the picture beside the name. Yup, seen him before, not heard his music a lot.
"That's the Slumdog Millionaire guy. Is this for some Indian holiday?" he asks Eileen.
"No, there's a music fest coming up and they have big celebrities attending," she says. "And I think, just like the music, you'll enjoy meeting my friend, too," she adds, winking slightly. "He's playing the violin."
Aw, hell no. Not today. Today is not for dating. Just casual sex and hookups. Not for someone's friend or someone he has to call back. He already couldn't erase all the Sharpie marks from his arm after last night. With that guy.
Cas.
God, that had been amazing.
Dean pulls himself out of his ever-revolving thought process. "Eileen…" he says, "listen, this is really nice of you and all…"
"You don't have to do anything, Dean," she says. "You don't even have to meet him. You can go back home whenever you want to. But if you feel like it, it's an option."
He smiles. Of course. Of course she wouldn't do something like push one of her friends at him just like that. He can trust her. He knew he could trust her the day Sam revealed to him that he loved her.
Eileen returns Dean's smile. "So are we cool now?"
He nods. "Cool." He waits a moment, watching everyone prepare to play again. He hopes for their sakes that they get past the first paragraph this time. The jaw harp begins and he settles in at the chorus, a mix of voices in a strange language. It's got a hint of jazz, a mix of different cultural music but still prominently Indian. Dean shuts his eyes, trying to take it all in.
A woman sings the first paragraph, her voice flowing just like the music itself, in trills and vibrations but smooth and pleasing.
Jiya jale jaan jale
Nainon tale
Dhua jale dhua jale
Dean takes in a deep breath. He doesn't understand any of it, but somehow he does. The woman continues to sing, her voice lulling, trilling away to give way to the flute as the interlude begins. It starts off as slow and soulful, becoming fast and jazzy with a medley of guitars, a piano, drums and violins, with the jaw harp still eminent and it builds, getting faster until—
Dean's mind shifts from its thoughts when the violin solo starts. The violin solo that will start everything.
It is smooth and sexy and emotional, full of love and longing. It's bright, warm with little, delicate trills, flowing seamlessly, no gaps or hitches, and Dean has goosebumps when Eileen tugs on his sleeve, telling him that this is her friend, this is who she wanted to set him up with. However it does not completely sink in until Dean's searching eyes meet those of the violinist and his heart stops.
This is Cas. The same Cas who Dean was thinking of just moments ago. The sexy stranger, the one night stand Dean hadn't planned on revisiting, even if it had been one of his best.
The toussled hair and the blue eyes and the wet, ridged lips and the rough hand with the calloused fingers.
This is Cas. Cas, from last night.
~o~
If Dean's grandchildren ever ask him how he first met the love of his life, he will have to fabricate the entire story. He doesn't, of course, know that yet. That he will have to even think of fabricating his story, because today Cas is, well, his Grindr hookup from last night. He'd seen the details, pictures, liked them, and sent a message with his home address. Cas had sent just one reply, "OK." When the doorbell rang an hour later and Dean answered, there were no hellos, no pleasantries. Just kissing, stripping, and sex and sex and sex.
Right now Cas's nimble fingers pluck on the strings of the violin in the same way that they undid Dean's buttons, the bow going across smoothly, sharp and perfect and like the angles of his hip bones.
Dean's stomach churns, every cell in his body sways with the melody. He drowns himself in the music, drinking it all in and he doesn't know how time flies by, doesn't even realise the minutes passing until everything drops into silence. Silence that lasts just a moment but stretches into an eternity when Dean meets Cas's eyes again. And that is the very moment that he gets up to leave, walks out of the studio for a cigarette while the artists pack up their instruments.
He fumbles with his Zippo until it lights, holding it to his cigarette until he sees the satisfying orange glow of its end. He takes a long drag, holding it in and savouring it before leaning against a tree, blowing out plumes of smoke from between his lips. It does nothing to ease him and he's only taken two drags when he hears Eileen call out to him.
"Dean?"
His stomach churns a little. He knows Eileen doesn't really feel comfortable around cigarette smoke so he throws it down, crushes it underneath his shoe, and turns around to face her, only to realise that she's here with Cas. Cas, whose eyes narrow ever so slightly, head tilting as he assesses Dean.
Eileen jerks her thumb at the guy. "This is Cas."
Dean half smiles, walking up to him. Oh well, both he and Cas were stone cold sober and consenting, know what happened last night, and remember it all too well, so there is no point pretending. Besides, Eileen doesn't care about his sex life. He shrugs, holding out his hand. "Dean Winchester. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself yesterday."
Ignoring Eileen's confusion, Cas obliges by taking Dean's hand, rolls back Dean's sleeve with the other. It's all a little confusing until Dean feels the familiarity of calloused fingers tracing his skin, going over the Sharpie marks remaining from last night's encounter. When Cas sees the remains from Dean's vigorous scrubbing, he's smirking, too. He lets Dean go, gives him a mock salute, and leaves without a single word.
"Well, he's a dick," Dean calls out but Cas seems unperturbed, vanishing into the dark evening without another glance. Dean turns his back, wishing he'd kept the cigarette, and takes out his car keys. "C'mon, Eileen."
She's confused as they walk back. "What just happened?"
"I fucked him last night," Dean tells her and she just looks at him for a minute, maybe even more, before giving him a smile.
"Damn! I was hoping I knew one guy you hadn't already been with."
"Hey," Dean nudges her, "I'm not that bad, okay?"
"Okay," she laughs, "so you want to grab dinner? I'm starving."
Dean's barely hungry but he obliges. "Sure. I know a decent place around this part of town."
Eileen raises an eyebrow. "Dean Winchester calling a restaurant 'decent'? Must be good."
"There're places other than mine that serve food other than burgers, you know. But if you wanted to eat at a burger joint…"
She puts a hand on his elbow. "It's your day off," she says, "come on. We'll eat somewhere that you don't have to cook."
He scoffs. "I took the day off, Eileen, it's not a…" he bites his lip, "you know. Holiday."
"I know." She doesn't say anything else, just leads him to her car. Once again, Dean has to battle with his brain to think of something other than Sam and Cas to cover up for the rest of the silence between him and Eileen.
~o~
Dean has been the family cook for several years now. Growing up with a working mom and stay-at-home dad had taught Dean to reject gender roles very early in life and he's always liked his meats and his burgers and generally, food. So cooking was never a big deal for him once he was deemed old enough to handle fire.
Dad had let go of his mechanic job to take care of Sam and Dean when it became clear that they needed more attention than two parents with full time jobs could give them. It had been the natural choice, because Mom was a doctor with a blooming career, working towards her fellowship in oncology, and they knew her income would be good enough for them to live a decent life.
When Dean was eighteen his dad passed away from a stroke. It was him and Sammy and Mom then and Dean, who hadn't been looking to get a college degree anyway, realised that he made a great cook when he started feeding his family, and decided that a career involving making burgers was not a bad one at all. He had help from Mom and Sam in setting up his own burger joint and today it's doing pretty well, being featured on food blogs and must-eat listicles and all the crap that seems to matter to get customers.
Dean wouldn't boast about being featured on magazines and stuff, but if you ask him, yes, it's happened, and he isn't a celebrity chef or anything, but he's damn good at what he does. His unchanging menu and service and burgers are helping him sustain a life with whatever he needs and no, maybe he's not rich, but he is well off.
Sammy lived his own dream by getting a full ride at Stanford and going on to finishing law school there before settling in as a professor in Palo Alto. If Dean didn't know better, he'd say that Sam's love for that university was a little too much to be normal. But he'd miss his brother, even if Sam drove to Lawrence to visit Dean and Mary often and Skyped them religiously over the weekends. To add to that it was during one such trip home that Sam had met Eileen at the local animal shelter, when he'd decided to visit there to meet the animals. Not only did Sam befriend a perfectly beautiful golden retriever named Bones, he also found the love of his life.
It was magical and vomit-inducing and beautiful and every other thing that you could say, and Dean now wishes he hadn't thought they were too happy, wishes he hadn't shook his head at his fairytale family. For he could give up his soul for what could have been. He could take their lives back just as they were, stupidly apple pie and all too normal and too good to imagine, because when it went to hell, it collapsed badly enough that he doesn't think he'll ever climb out of the pit that he is in.
It's been six months, but losing Sammy still hasn't gotten any easier.
Dean sighs, shaking the memories away as he holds a cigarette between his fingers to grab his glass of whiskey. He can barely taste it as it goes down, alcohol, smoke, and grief, and whatever else he tastes of. It's like he's been numb for a very long time. When he sets the glass down and takes another drag of his cigarette, his eyes are stinging.
He fans away the smoke. Stupid thing makes his eyes burn. And no, it's not the pain deep down, not the pain in his chest and throat that's making him tear up. It's the cigarette and the smoke and stupid, stupid, God, Sammy would yell if he knew…
It causes cancer, Dean. Mom is an oncologist. You should know better!
The room around Dean spins a little and blurs. He puts his hand on the coffee table, cigarette still held between his first two fingers as he leans ahead on his couch with his head down. Through watery eyes he can see plumes of smoke rise, the burning black-and-orange end giving birth to them, white and almost pure, like they've been purging his soul.
Sammy wouldn't think so. He would scold Dean and throw it all away.
A tear falls on the wooden tabletop, and then two more. Dean sniffs and drags his sleeve across his face before tossing the butt into the ashtray. It lies there, still smoking out white swirls, and Dean folds his arms around himself as he leans back on his couch and stares at the ceiling. He hurts. He hurts all over, something pinching at him and prickling him from a place he cannot reach. A part of him he cannot rest. He hurts from memories and thoughts and the million signals his brain seems to be firing, none of them for anything physical.
Clenching his fists once, Dean reaches over to drain the last of his whiskey and then pushes himself off the couch so he can wash it. He's at the sink, running the glass through the water and watching the tiny droplets trail away when he notices it on the counter.
The knife. Small and slim and silver. He'd kept it there after cutting… something, and if he could just… one more time…
Just to take the edge off the pain.
His hand is grasping at cool metal and he shakes back his sleeves to the familiar crisscross of scars, both old and new. Cas had seen these last night, he realises, and he seems to have been one of the few of Dean's dates who didn't look repulsed or, alternatively, ask why it was there. Cas's company had been just right last night. His silent gestures, grooved, gentle lips, hot breaths and muscular thighs. His rough hands and the warmth and presence of him.
It had helped push the pain to the back; something that wasn't very common for Dean, and as he shakes his sleeves further back to see the Sharpie marks that remain on his arm, he longs for Cas.
Dean's breath shudders when he drops the knife and grabs his phone with shaking fingers to text Eileen.
He leans against the kitchen counter, wiping his eyes again, and when Eileen responds with Cas's number and a winkie face, he could swear that his heart is thudding against his chest, like thunder before a storm, drums in a procession. He saves Cas's number and starts texting, not expecting him to reply, not expecting him to even look. However, a minute later, Dean's phone pings and the drums in his chest beat quicker as he looks.
Cas N. : I'll be over to your place as soon as I can.
And this, Dean would like to say, is how their story starts.