This work was inspired from "Travelin' Soldier" a song by the Dixie Chicks (all lyrics mentioned come from this song). It doesn't have a happy ending (MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH TAG) and honestly it is downright depressing so I am warning you right now don't read any further if you are looking for fluff and schmoop. This isn't my normal thing so if you've read one of my other works let this be a warning. Thanks all, much love.
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Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Cas was sitting on a bench, outside of the bus station, with a green standard issue duffel bag resting on the ground near his feet. He looked around, squinting slightly in the bright late morning sunlight, as he watched people mill around him. Some waiting for buses, others waiting for loved ones. No one paying attention to thedark haired kid whose eighteenth birthday had passed two days ago, and was now sitting alone, overwhelmed, and fighting back fear as he waited for a bus that would take him a world away.
He adjusted his shoulders, trying to look comfortable in the olive green uniform. He still had hours to wait for his bus. His stomach rumbled. There was a diner next to the bus station. He could smell fried onions and hamburger patties competing with the salt filled breeze blowing in from the beach a few blocks over. Maybe he would walk that way after he grabbed some lunch, Cas thought to himself. He had always loved the ocean, and this could be the last time he saw the familiar tan sands of the Eastern coastline. He might get a chance to check out the beaches off the Pacific while he was in California, but all of the pictures he had seen made them seem rockier and full of floating kelp beds. Something about this stretch of coastline, just south of the Jersey Shore filled him with a sense of homesickness and he hadn't even left yet.
Grabbing the strap of his duffel, he hoisted the bag and walked the short distance into the diner. The clatter of silverware and smell of food drenched his senses, for a moment, he tried to soak in the feeling. There was so much uncertainty now, every experience seemed like something he needed to savor.
He walked to a booth in a back corner, the crowd was thinner back there. After a moment, a boy about his age walked up, carrying a small order pad. He looked up at Cas with a flash of green eyes and a bright, white smile.
"How can I help you?"
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Dean smiled at the guy sitting by himself at one of the back booths and took his order. He seemed like a nice enough kid. A little shy, but what good was the old Winchester charm if you couldn't use it to pull a good looking stranger out of his shell a little bit. Not that Dean ever flaunted the fact that he found male strangers, or other men in particular, good looking. He knew he could get himself into a lot of trouble if he was ever found out. So, he kept things friendly with the people passing through town. Maybe things would be different when he got to college, if he got to college. The way things were going right now, he might find himself sitting at a diner like this guy someday. Dressed in army green and hauling his whole life around in a duffel bag.
The kid thanked him when he brought back his Coke, hamburger, and fries. His blue eyes lit up like he was getting a rare treat. Dean couldn't help but smile back at him again. Then later, after he noticed the guy had wolfed down his food, Dean brought his a warm piece of pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream just starting to melt into little rivers down the sides. Sliding the pie in front of the guy with a wink, Dean said, "On the house. So, what's your name?"
The man looked down at his fork, turned it once between long, slim fingers before meeting Dean's gaze, "My name is Castiel. But, most everyone shortens it to Cas."
Dean smiled and stepped back once, "Well, I'm Dean. Let me know if you need anything else."
He turned and was just about to walk away, when Cas asked, quietly, "Actually, would you mind sitting with me for awhile? I'm leaving in a few hours and I'm just trying to keep my mind busy."
Dean furrows his brow before answering, he hesitates. Reaching one hand up to rub the skin at the back of his neck, he looks up at the clock above the counter.
"Actually, I get off work in an hour. I know somewhere we can go… if that would work?"
Cas looks down at the pie before looking back up to Dean, with a soft smile.
"I would like that very much, Dean."
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Dean talked someone named Benny into stowing Cas's bag in the back of the diner while the two of them set off in the direction of the ocean. With every step they took, the air took on a brinier tang and the breeze became just a little more sharp. When he opened his mouth, Cas could almost taste the salt in the air. There was a boardwalk running along the length of the most tourist populated area of the beach, extending into a long pier that jutted out into the ocean. They walked onto the pier, the dull thuds of their footfalls echoing down the ocean silvered planks beneath their feet. The afternoon sun sending a million fractures of light across the waves while gulls soared overhead.
The two men talked like old friends. Some kind of bond clicking between the two of them almost instantly, eradicating any awkward silences and stammers new acquaintances would normally have. They found a bench near the end of the pier and sat, watching the water and the sun as it sank behind them, sending multicolored fractures across the surface of the ocean. Dean spoke of finishing up his last year of high school, working as many hours as he could at the diner, hoping to save money for college, and helping to raise his little brother Sam. He told Cas about the long hours his dad put in as a mechanic, how he had changed after Dean's mother had died of cancer, and how much it hurt to think that when Sam remembered his father, it was as if he was thinking of a completely different man than Dean's.
Cas, in turn, spoke of growing up in a home for boys. The antics the other boys had pulled, Michael, Luke, Gabe, Uriel and Balthazar, leaving Cas more determined to behave and try to atone by being quiet and studious. He told Dean about his hope to attend college when he returned from the war and study English and the loneliness he felt, being on his own in the world and heading to an army camp with no doubt that soon he would be in Vietnam.
They talked about everything and nothing. There was a quiet understanding between them that they were both different, and that each could sense that difference in the other. They sat together, side by side, until the sun dipped into the horizon and a dark purple dusk skimmed the surface of the work. Eventually, they had to head back. Carnival lights flickered as they crossed back over the boardwalk. Couples walked hand in hand, parents herded sticky-faced children, and two men walked shoulder to shoulder, bumping occasionally into each other a little more than the foot traffic called for.
Dean walked with Cas from the diner to the bus station and sat near him on a bench as they waited. Moments before the bus was scheduled to arrive, Cas looked over to Dean and asked, with an anxious moistening of dry lips,
"Would you mind if I wrote you a letter once in a while? I don't really have anyone else…"
Dean smiled, soft and quiet.
"I would like that very much, Cas."