Title: Searching for the Whereabouts of Happiness
Rating: pg 13 (mostly for a ton of profanity and violence)
Warnings: If I could describe this piece in one word, it would be: Grimy. You might need a flashlight to get through this dark piece but on the upside, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Because I still have faith for hope in seemingly hopeless situations.
A/N: For cloudyjenn 's Twitfic exchange. Gift to mithrel . Prompt: Dean/Cas. ""Salvation isn't something you can find, and it's not something someone can find for you either. It's something you have to give yourself." This was, without a doubt, a labor of love. It just HAD to be for me to finish the damn thing because I struggled SO much with writing this piece over the several days that it came to me. It's dark and broody and angry and grimy and everything I don't normally write, so I stress that it was difficult to punch out. I really really hope you all like this and not think it too much or too little lol.
Special Thanks: cloudyjenn for staying up late, reading the raw versions of this and inadvertently helping me craft this piece in my head.
When Dean told Lisa about his ideal future, he'd lied.
And not one of those pretty little white lies you tell your girlfriend about her dress, or the kind you slip a friend to keep them from knowing about a surprise party. No, this was a big fucking ugly black lie that oozed out like oil and stained the air with something foul because it was toxic. The kind of toxic that was slow to activate and even slower to kill- but once you noticed you had a problem, you were already half way dead.
He told her he dreamed of being with her and Ben because it's what he wanted to be true. It was the kind of thing he had dreamed up as a kid and wanted so badly to be the truth that he was willing to contaminate himself to have it. They were, essentially, the ultimate rebound family to replace the one he had just lost.
Sam was gone, Cas was gone and Dean couldn't even look at Bobby. He needed a fresh start, something else to busy himself with and people who needed him. People who depended on him to take care of them and act like anchors in the chaotic sea storm of his life.
It all went surprisingly well until the poison set in.
And it wasn't like he didn't love them and didn't care (because he did, he really did), it was just that they were never meant for this. Or, at least, Dean was never meant for this. Even if he couldn't stay he didn't want to go because this was his apple pie life, the embodiment of his promise to Sam. And Dean didn't, wouldn't, break promises to Sam.
But the months dragged on and apple pie started to rot.
Eventually the Happily Ever After corroded away until there was nothing left but the tin shell of appearances.
Dean never broke his promise to Sam. Lisa did.
With all the love she could muster laying out visibly in her warming amber eyes, Lisa told Dean enough was enough and that it was time for him to go. She threw out the tin pan, opened the windows and allowed the septic air to escape the house. Dean was gone by morning.
However, instead of taking the most logical next step, Dean refused to go to Bobby's. Some part of him rationalized that if he couldn't do right by Sam or Lisa or Ben, then he sure as hell couldn't do right by Bobby either. So he didn't call, didn't write and went about his business to the tune of a lone star out on the range. Life was easier that way anyway.
The hunts were harder and the time spent on them was longer and they, all around, lacked the luster they used to have. But this was his life, more of the same beating to the steady drum of monotony.
As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Dean began to feel himself slipping. His fingers idled over cell phone buttons he wouldn't push which related to phones no one was ever going to answer. It seemed like every day his fingers would seek retaliation and find themselves lingering on speed dial "Sam" or "Bobby" or "Cas". Lately though the hunter found the habit to sojourn on "Cas" becoming far more frequent then what he would normally deem as appropriate. Of course, he knew the reason for this better than he wanted to admit to anyone, including himself. Cas wasn't Sam but he seem to understand Dean in a way that only Sam ever did, and Cas wasn't Bobby so he didn't pass judgment in the way that only Bobby could.
Cas was ambiguously a member of his fucked up little family regardless of the fact that the exact nature of his relation was as clear as dishwater.
Yet, in spite of a want for something familiar (no mater how murky the standing may be), he wouldn't press the buttons; instead, Dean checked his phone on the hour, every hour, before habitually closing it up and pocketing it away. It was like denying yourself relief. Or sanity. Or air.
Or all three at once.
(Sam, Bobby, Cas...)
Dean Winchester saved the world and he still continued to suffer because there was never any salvation for the righteous man.
Which is why he found himself cornered, out numbered and unarmed, in a dead end alley for hustling a bad game of poker. Honestly, by the time the first fist careened off his cheek bone, Dean realized that he wasn't just having a shitty day... he was having a shitty life.
"Ya fuckin' cheated my buddy here outta four hundred bucks, buddy." There was a very short list of people who used the word "buddy" when talking; the hulk of that was comprised of grandpas, politicians, or Grade-A Douche Bags. The shortest man of the group in front of him was, by no means, a politician or a grandpa.
"An' someone's gotta pay for that..." The d-bag was grumbling around some chewing tobacco that had been stuffed liberally in to one cheek in a way that reminded Dean vaguely of a squirrel. A very angry squirrel. When the hunter favored the mental comparison instead of actually responding, said squirrel spat at his feet and the putrid yellowing mucus splattered across the tip of one shoe. This caused Dean to simultaneously rage and feel a little queasy all at once which, consequently, came out sounding like a back throat growl with a slight hiccup at the end. Because, really? Gross.
"Look, Champ..." Because Dean wasn't in deep enough shit, "I don't know what these Carebears told you but I didn't cheat anyone out of anything. It's not my fault Jabba the Hutt over there can't play poker." Clearly, Winchesters were gluttons for pain.
The pummeling that followed eventually melded into one blurred series of exploding blows that seamlessly flowed into one another. Over sensitized nerves dulled the sharp sensations and all he could see was red and all he could hear was the rushing of blood past his ears and the steady beat of his own heart. Human shapes turned into shadows and fuzzed around the edges to blend in with the red and spots of black. A loud ringing noise began to over come the thrum of his heartbeat until it was all one big convoluted mess of misery. This was stupid. He had fought Lucifer and survived the Apocalypse only to be caught off guard and beaten into oblivion by the very people he had died so many times to save. He'd never say it out loud but he kind of commiserated with a certain martyr, and that was a huge (blasphemous) deal all in itself.
'Please' the silent prayer drifted from his mind before he could stop it and stamp it out like a fire going wild, 'let this end here.'
The "end" was equivocal because he wasn't entirely certain if he meant the beating, the misery, or his life on a whole. All Dean knew was that he needed an end, a stop to catch his breath and finally rest. So the please was stressed once more and then... nothing.
No blow, no sound, no breath, no air. The world stood perfectly still just long enough for Dean to open his one good eye and see the representation of all his unnamed emotions outlined under a street lamp. The angelic hallucination was obviously the byproduct of a battered and rattled mind but it was just what he needed. Real or not, Dean needed something familiar near by when he finally reached the end of this rope; something gentle to remember before the world inevitably faded to black.
"Cas..." his named was pain, punctuated by gurgles pushed out past the rivulets of blood streaming from Dean's mouth, but it sounded like deliverance.
"Who da fuck is Cas?" The portly leader threw his weight to the other foot as he rubbed split knuckles and wrinkled his nose at the sound of his own voice. "That the bitch you doing at home?" The collective group chuckle lit a fire to spurn on a heated rage which slowly boiled to the surface in the last surviving Winchester.
"Oooh Caaaas!" They mocked and the light from the heat of his anger starved off the spotting darkness long enough to make a solid connection with something he hadn't realized before.
"Dean."
The Castiel shaped delusion wasn't exactly a delusion and the world tilted on its axis because Cas wasn't supposed to be there. Cas was supposed to be in Heaven, far enough away that he was untouchable by human hand and unreachable by human phones. Like the memory of a really bad dream he was slowly forgetting in favor of the reality setting in.
Simultaneously, the group of men turned and found themselves colored surprise that Cas was evidently a man and incontestably THERE.
A sudden eruption of laughter proved to be even crueler than the physical blows. "CAS is a man? Hey guys," the leader's mirth was plain on his round little face and Dean knew exactly how a volcano felt right before its eruption, "looks like we found ourselves a couple of Fa-" but he never fished the word because the countdown reach zero and Dean abruptly exploded.
They could beat him, they could laugh and mock him, but they could not, under any circumstances, insult his family and get away with it. The righteous man ripped his arms from the slack hands that held him and used the grime-encrusted wall to launch himself at their leader. His fury was hell bent and he aimed to take them all down, fists indiscriminately flying towards faces and stomachs with a determination set to destroy. Sweat and blood streaked down his face and coated his hands as his knuckles split open on another man's jaw. His hands throbbed, his body ached, but he kept fighting and slamming the racketeers around until all that was left was Cas and himself breathing heavily amongst the wreckage. Well, Dean was breathing heavily. Cas was looking like he always did, rumpled and unruffled at the same time.
He took a moment to observe his partner and noted the taint of red across Cas' clothes that only served to prove that heaven did play favorites after all. Dean spat metallic traces of blood out at the leader's pale blue polo and viciously grinned when it stained almost instantly. The pig was too busy groaning on the ground (holding his purple molted face) to notice, but it served him right. At least he'd think twice before picking an unfair fight with an unarmed man any time soon. Douche.
"You came." Shaky legs attempted a steady walk towards the mouth of the alley before a foreign secure arm lifted one of his own and draped it over a set of square supportive shoulders.
"You prayed." As if that hadn't been obvious. Cas weaved his free hand around Dean's waist and effectively dragged him back to his baby. God did she ever look like home right now.
"You gonna..." Dean motioned towards his face when he leaned gingerly against his car, "fix me up?"
When Cas stepped back, he frowned a little at the mess which was Dean Winchester. "I shouldn't." But he was going to anyway because Castiel refused so very little to Dean. And the less he thought about that, the better.
The pads of two fingers graced over his brow and the broken ribs cracked back into place as the litter of bruises faded away and the open wounds sutured themselves closed in an instant. You'd think this would hurt but it felt like a pulsing heat pushing past his skin and into his soul, filling the places where the cracks were evident. Only when the light faded did it reminded Dean of sitting on pins and needles. Yet even that sensation was gone the second he recognized it, leaving him feeling more sound than he had before.
Daring to crack open the set of mossy green eyes, the man focused his attention on the newest member of the dysfunction group he liked to call his family. Cas looked good... and entirely unimpressed.
"Thanks for saving me back there."
"I didn't save you."
The temporary fishing for keys stooped as Dean looked up from his distraction of pocket trudging, "What?"
"Salvation can't just be handed to you, you have to find it for yourself."
Naturally, Dean's initial response was to stare at the angel as if he had sprouted a second head that squealed the true name of Satan at him. The secondary response was to feel like he was in the third grade all over again; stumped by a teacher's question because he understood the words but not the context. As a result, an unintelligible "Huh?" was all Dean could manage and THAT didn't exactly help with the stupid feeling.
"Why are you here, Dean?" Cas was such a bastard when it came to redirection.
And in some kind of retaliation, Dean consulted to his inner 10-year-old for a response. "Why are YOU here, Cas?"
"Because you called to me."
"Yeah. Right. I'm not even sure which puddle my cell fell into before I got jumped in the alley. Besides, you can't possibly be getting good reception up there on cloud 9."
Now Cas was frowning in a way that Dean would have called a pout if it had been on a twelve year old girl and not a full-grown man. Angel. Whatever.
"I did not say you called me, I said you called TO me."
"What?" Dean really, REALLY, wished he could stop feeling so young. "How the hell..? Oh. Tell me I'm just that awesome."
"You prayed. Awesomely."
Dean concluded that Cas needed to stop trying human expressions all together, because it never seemed entirely normal what with that unwavering monotone of his.
"And what... that makes you the Mind Whisperer now? Since when did any of you start actually listening to prayers?"
The slightly guilty and deflated look said it all. Prayers had never been a priority in heaven because, if they had been, Dean and Sam and all the generations before them would have never been in this mess in the first place. Mom would have never been incinerated, Dad would have never left them all alone, and Sam would have never drank blood. But since that wasn't the case, Mom burned to death in a screaming inferno, Dad turned tail and ran from his responsibilities as a father, and Dean's baby brother, who he damn well raised to the best of his ability, was stuck in a fucking hole for the rest of eternity. No prayers were ever answered in the Winchester's world.
"You sure picked a fine time to start, Cas."
It wasn't Cas' fault, he knew that, but he had to deflect anyway. For the same reasons he committed to the everlasting whiplash effect derived from the emotional tug-o-war he put Cas through every time they were together. It was always about denial and being unable to just DEAL with the fact that someone outside of Sam and Bobby fucking cared about him. Like, really cared about him. Having emotions, according to his inner preteen, was scary but... letting someone care about you? Love you? Die for you when they really don't have to? That was just downright terrifying.
So he deflected. He pushed whenever he realized he pulled and when that failed, he straight up ran-the-fuck-away. Dean Winchester simply could not face the facts about Castiel and what exactly that misguided angel meant to him. Because facing the facts meant admitting to something and admitting to something meant having to deal with it, and NO man in the family of Winchesters actually KNEW how to deal with anything. Not properly anyway.
Speaking of emotional maturity, Dean fumbled with his keys in a desperate scramble to get away form his angel and in to his baby, who was absolutely NOT an angel. Not unless a car could receive a wicked cool promotion and if THAT were the case then-
"Dean."
The impala suddenly jerked with a false start (poor baby) and Dean remembered why attempting to run away from conversations with agents of fate was pointless. Especially when it came to Cas because, really: 1) He's an angel of the lord, 2) He doesn't understand social cues, and 3) He's an ANGEL of the (freaking) lord. Running away was seriously not even a possibility unless you had another angel working with you and, in Dean's experience, one was MORE than a enough.
"Why did you not call me sooner?"
So much for running away. Dean's grip tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white under the pressure as he pulled out onto the main road which lead to the highway. There were thousands of different responses to wade through. The Accusatory: You Left and didn't say good-bye. The Naive: How the hell was I supposed to know you'd come back? The Redirection: You're really busy in heaven now, aren't you? The Lie: I never thought about it. But The Truth…
"You didn't think anyone would come."
Dean offered a long side glance at his friend, assessing whether or not Cas could read his mind, or just read him.
"I didn't say that."
"But it's the truth."
Silence leaked its way into the car. It methodically filled up the space between the man and his angel, weighting them down like gravity until they tumbled backwards into awkward.
Dean scrutinized the road, that black ribbon of pavement easing him towards destinations unknown. Occasionally he allowed his eyes to flicker towards the street lamps and passing cars but they never strayed towards Cas. In fact, Dean became so adept at looking anywhere BUT Cas that when a hand connected with his shoulder, it startled the hell out of him. Metalicar jerked violently towards the divider and Dean hastily corrected her veering path before the night got any worse.
"Good bye implies an extended absence, does it not?"
Dean chanced a fleeting glance at his companion and through the dark and fading lights, those incandescent blues pierced right through him. Never was Dean so sure that when Cas looked at you, he really looked at You. Past the physical and the bullshit, down to the core of everything you were. It was fucking unnerving.
"Uh... Yeah." With any luck, he wouldn't sound as alarmed as he was.
"Well then, 'good bye' would have been the wrong thing to say. I had never intended to leave for a very long time."
"It's been seven months, Cas." Barbwire words ground their way out of his mouth in frustration, "Seven fucking months and you expect me to believe you would have come back on your own?"
"Time moves differently in Heaven then it does on earth, Dean." Cas was not amused. Dean was even less so.
"Oh that's a load of crap, you know that?"
And they were back to the sea-saw game once again.
Cas left him; left him like Sam did with no hope or promise of a return. Just the same bullshit excuse of having to play cowboys and Indians in heaven then... nothing. No 'good bye' or 'see you around' or 'call me some time', just nothing. And it made him angry.
Hell, it pissed him right the fuck off that a supposedly close family member could ditch him again and again.
"Fuck, it was like dealing with Sammy all over again." Because, in so many ways, it was. Sam always ran away, always left them (read: him) behind to look for something better. A new life. A new family. A new everything.
But this? This was worse. Worse because at least with Sam he had a bond of blood and biological family relation to hold hostage, along with all that history tying them into knots around each other, but Cas? Nothing would hold Cas here save the insatiable demands of a single temperamental human. And if he had to tell the truth, that scared the shit out of him.
Dean hated the fact that he needed people, that he was truly dependent on others for company, but what he hated more was being abandoned by the same people he needed. Too often in his life did he get left behind or pushed aside and all but forgotten to the point that it was starting to break him. And he couldn't afford to break so he couldn't afford to have anyone else in his life. For a long time, Sammy and Bobby were enough and should still be enough. Sammy is his blood and Bobby has always been there (the family ties were strong). Cas just messes up that entire equation.
Because Cas meant something. He meant something big and that petrified Dean so fucking bad that he had to lie to himself in order to not believe it. He had to push and run and hide because Cas meant something and he had nothing to hold Cas hostage with, save some salad dressing ala flambe if he really got THAT desperate. Which he totally wouldn't. Ever.
God, when did he get this messed up and why hadn't anyone told him?
"You can't expect me to always be at your beck and call whenever it suits you, Dean."
Oh that was fucking it.
The man slammed on his breaks and yanked the car to the side of the empty highway with enough furry to make the wheels skid and screech on the asphalt.
"Then leave." He snarled, regretting the words the moment they left his mouth but unable to stop himself from destroying the things that scared him the most, "Leave and don't come back. I don't need another empty promise that will constantly leave me hanging. You're either here or you're not, Cas, but whatever you do, make up your mind now."
His heart pounded wildly and his pulse soared higher then what could possibly constitute healthy just before the pinnacle of the moment came crashing down upon them. Except.. it didn't crash. It fluttered away to the tune of beating wings. He was there and then in the next heart beat, Cas was gone. The beating stopped for just a second and deafening silence stunned Dean in ways that physical blows never did.
Just like that. The angel was gone... just. like. that.
"FUCK!"
Dean's fists collided with the steering wheel repeatedly before they could open up and yank the impala back onto the road. His foot smashed the accelerator down and the car flew through the night like the epitome of his overflowing enmity. She tore at the dark and ate the miles as if she were a beast that lived on this, fueled forward by nothing more than the chaotic vehemence emanating from her operator. She, this beast of grinding metal coated in various layers of sweat and blood, was alive in the way that any extension of a human being could be. And that's why Dean loved her.
Distantly he wondered why angels couldn't be more like cars and less like dicks.
The scenery stretched itself out into a blur of color and sound, ignored by the one passing through it until it slowed and collected into a series of images that finally made some sense. He wasn't sure why he was here, parked in front of the crumbling remains of a house that had been touched, sold, loved and rebuilt before it all burned down again. It was autopilot that got him here and sheer indignation that pulled him from his baby and onto the blackened lot with the shell of a house he once called home. That someone else had once called home as well before fate apparently decided to trip on the record and repeat itself. It wasn't a poltergeist or a demon that did it this time though, just a simple kitchen fire that spread too quickly and claimed the lives of Jenny and Sarry. And what a discouragement it was to save these people from ghosts only to have them killed a few years later by life.
When the surviving members of the family moved away, no one would buy the house. And who could blame them? After two fires, two mothers and a child's death later, everyone became a little superstitious of the house that destroyed lives.
So the old thing haphazardly stood on shaky foundation and he had to wonder why the city didn't have it demolished. Clearly it was condemned and a hazard to everyone's health but there it stood, the same as it must have looked when the fighters put out the fire and pealed the bodies off the upstairs floor.
Dean was hate. And sorrow. And pain. And a million other emotions rushing out from the corners of his soul and pouring out of his mouth in a strangled noise that sounded much like a scream. A scream that ripped itself from his throat like the ones he had given so freely in hell, agony seeping from the cords and coating the noise with a vibrant misery. It was senseless and raw and overriding all of his senses to the point he didn't realize he was moving until one of the remaining windows shattered under the fifth rock that he threw.
Blinded by the anguish and put into motion by his all-encompassing animosity, Dean hurled stick after stone until there was nothing left to heave at the ruins of his childhood. Of course, that didn't stop him. He rushed at the house and purposelessly kicked down the door before smashing his fist through some drywall. Ignoring the ash and grime that stuck to his split knuckles where the blood began to drip, he kicked and tore at anything he could get his hands on. The soot bloomed up and the burnt down lives stung at his eyes as he breathed in debris and didn't hesitate to fling the charcoal remains of a chair at the stairs. Dean poured out every ounce of bitter despair until there was nothing left. Nothing but the brittle remains of a dull ache from yesterdays spent in hell.
He heaved and he choked on sobs he wouldn't released because daddy always said that a real man shouldn't cry and god knows Dean was fucked up from everything "Daddy" used to say.
When storm settled and the hurricane of emotions finally cleared, Dean simply felt hollow. This was exactly what hell felt like.
"I often find myself regretting the carvings I placed upon your ribs as they make you nearly impossible to locate."
Dean whirled around so fast that the world kept spinning even after his body came to a stop. Lips parted and jaw dropped but nothing came out. He was a parched man wandering the desert for a thousand years with no sign of relief.. until now. Cas was..
"You're here."
Later he would shoot himself for sounded like such a fucking idiot in the face of something so grand but for now, it was all he could muster.
"So it would seem." There was a hint of a smile that traced its way through the words from lips that bent slightly at the corners. Smart ass.
"But.. "
"I can't just take an extended stay from heaven without informing the newly formed counsel of my decisions. I said it was my duty to sort out the helter-skelter, not further it with an unannounced leave of absence."
"Did you just say 'helter-skelter'?"
The upturned corners of Cas' lips sank down into a disapproving frown. And Dean loved it. Not because the angel was frowning or making any particular expression at all, but simply because that expression was attached to a face that was attached to a body and that body was there -actually physically there. With him.
The relief was so profound that Dean's knees felt a little weak and if there were pinpricks of water at the corners of his eyes, fuck all if he didn't pay them any attention. Cas was the oasis to this desert of his life and he was, apparently, here to stay.
"I thought you said salvation can't be given."
The angel cocked his head to the side in such a familiar was that it merely cemented the fact he was real. "It can't." Cas righted himself before stepping closer to Dean, caution to the wind regardless of the haggard and crazed look he had been sporting earlier. "But that doesn't mean it can't be helped along."
Cas was close. Close enough that the heat from his vessel turned body crashed in waves against Dean's and unconsciously the man leaned into it. The slightest hint of fingers brushed against one another and the motion felt like hearts colliding.
"You're staying?" Dean stomped on the vulnerability haunting his words and simply ignored the rest like this was normal.
Right. As if anything in his life were normal.
"For a while." The angel conceded.
"How long is a while?"
"How long are you going to need me?"
The Winchester's lips cracked under the weight of an unsteady grin, "For a while."
"Good." Cas was returning his grin before the tug on his heartstrings turned into a tug on their fingers and the angel led his human from the wreckage of his past.
Castiel was always pulling him out of hell and Dean could only hope that he'd stay long enough to inevitably do it some more. With teetering steps and wobbling motions, the two misfits climbed out of the ruined house just as the sun began to peak over the horizon. It hit them like a sign from somewhere else, golden rays of iridescent light filtering through the twilight blue. The warm wrapped around them and somewhere in the distance Dean swore he could smell apple pie the moment Cas' hand fully closed around his own.
When Dean told Lisa about his ideal future, he'd lied.
What he didn't realize is that she already knew it and what's more, she had loved him just enough to let him go. Cas, on the other hand, had loved him just enough to evidently take care of the rest and Dean was just sort of okay with that.
Because maybe, just maybe, being loved by someone who had the ability to leave at any moment but chose to stay anyway was a more powerful thing than realized. And maybe, just maybe, he could learn to let that happen and eventually return it as well.
La Fin.