Vermilion

Dean felt...old. Every movement, every smile or frown, everything came with the creaky, splintery feel of age, pulling Deans skin slowly off into sagging heaps of unhappiness that collected in pools around his feet. It followed him everywhere; in the squeaking of his hips as he walked up the stairs, in the haziness of the signs on the road, in the clumps of hair that gathering near the drainin the shower, all faded grey or shimmering white. His skin felt tight and loose all at once and sometimes, he couldn't even feel it at all. He was raw. Everything was a strain.

It was disgusting, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. Every morning, every night, while Sam was tossing and turning in his sleep or drunks were bumping shoulders as they came and went, he had to look. Had to know just how far the decay of life had spread. Just how much it had taken from him.

And every morning, every night, Dean was surprised. The mirror was empty; no squeaky hips, no cataract-infected eyes, no balding head, no Dean. Every morning, every night, Dean would spend hours with his fists clenched tight to a dirty bathroom sink, nose hovering inches away from a dirty, lipstick stained bathroom mirror, and eyes searching to the point of strain for an imperfection, a wrinkle, a bruise. But all he would see was the wall behind him.

Later he would wake up screaming in his bed, Sam holding his flailing arms down as he tried to calm Dean down. For a few terrible, horrifying seconds, Dean's chest would cave in and his lungs would fail and his heart would stop and Dean would forget his name.

"Dean? Are you okay?"

Then, Dean would take a deep breathe and feel every bone in his body pop and crack and settle and then, he could become Dean again.

Dean would smile. "Sure, Sammy. I'm fine."

He wouldn't truly know that until the next night, though.

Castiel seems to be more understanding of Deans addiction, his fear. Sometimes, he even joins in, sitting on the toilet seat next to Dean, staring not at the mirror, but at Dean. Its reassuring, somehow, to know that Castiel can see him too. That the mirror really is lying.

One morning, Dean wakes up and the door to the bathroom is shut and locked from the inside. Sam says nothing and Castiel says even less. Dean learns then to stay away from mirrors. Its a forced lesson.

After that, Dean takes up asking, instead.

"Sam, how old am I?"

Sam wilts a little, each time, but he always answers: "Twenty nine, Dean."

"I don't believe you." Dean will growl defiantly, despite being the one to ask in the first place.

At first Sam had looked confused when Dean said this, then understanding. Now, he just looks tired. He doesn't try to reason Dean into belief or ask about Hell again.

"I know." He'll mutter. "I know you don't, Dean." And then he'll go back to the task at hand. Dean tries to pretend this doesn't bother him. He fails.

Castiel, on the other hand, is more persistent, calling Deans soul "strong" and "beautiful" and Dean himself? Well, Castiel and Dean are little more than strangers. Castiel, despite all intents and purposes, knows his place and Dean knows when not to argue.

Castiel does, though, on the forty-third time he is asked, reply very seriously, "If you don't believe me, ask Bobby. He'll answer your questions."

Its a good idea. They hadn't talked in a while, since Dean and Sam and Castiel all hit the road and Uriel had died in a dirty basement and Dean had aged. And Dean would love to talk to Bobby, to finally hear someone older than him tell him the truth.

But Dean can't. Because he can't remember Bobby's number. Dean decides to blame dementia, fear crippling him against the stretched out, hazy reflection of their motel in the refrigerator door. When Sam comes back "home" from the "gas station" four hours later, sandwich bag in hand, he drops the bag on the counter and stands behind Dean with a hand clenched tight on his shoulder. Dean doesn't look back at Sam, can't bring himself to move a muscle to shake him off. Eventually Sams grip loosens and he slips away and out of Deans mind. He sees Sam walk with slumped shoulders over to Deans uninhabited bed and put his head in his hands, hears muffled crying, but can't connect the two. Not now.

Dean lives in fear of the day when he can't remember himself anymore. Now, he thinks, Sam does too.

The next morning, the bathroom door is open again. Dean, with some struggle, shuts it himself. Sam smiles, a little, but when Dean claws at it that night, dry sobs echoing through his empty skull, Sam only opens it with patience, then grabs the car keys and leaves.

Two weeks later, a man in a trench coat stands over him in an unfamiliar room. Its bright, harsh light seaping through the broken windows and the ripped curtains. He pulls Dean to a standing position and Dean is surprised to hear no cracking or popping, to feel no strain or pull or tug. His voice doesn't sound cracked or grizzly when it comes out, forming a question: "Who am I?"

The man shakes his head, looking lost and sad and...different. Wrong. "I don't know."

Dean looks down at his hands. They are small, leading up to even smaller wrists and a tiny shirt to cover nonexistent biceps. Dean smiles. These hands were uncalloused, unbroken, untainted. They were child hands-his child hands.

And they were soaked in blood.

Remember Dracula? Remember how he couldn't go out in the sun? How his face didn't appear in mirrors? How he never died but aged too? And remember how the blood he stole made him look and feel...younger?

Me neither.

Cath.