Race Against Myself
-1-
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Note: Picks up from Point of No Return. Rampant references to Nirvana abound, and I own absolutely nothing that relates to such in the slightest. Supernatural also is not mine in the least. And I so can't help the angst-age. I'm on a Kurt obsession kick again. Every couple of years the manic depressive beast raises its ugly head and make me obsess wildly over Kurt. The song Even in His Youth does not belong to me and can be found on Nirvana's 1992 release Hormoaning.
This was going to be a one shot but it just seemed to keep growing so tentatively I'm going to say this is a three chapter fic.
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Even in his youth
He was nothing
Kept his body clean
Going nowhere
Daddy was ashamed
He was something
Disgrace the family name
The family name, he was something
-Even in His Youth; Nirvana
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It's been too long since they've seen Castiel.
Sam tries to talk to Dean about it, but he won't have it.
"He's fine." Dean practically growls at him the last time that Sam breaches the question, suggesting that maybe they should look for him. "Fine."
Right then. It doesn't make him stop worrying, but he doesn't ask anymore. Dean's just started looking at him, talking to him like a normal human being-like they're brothers again.
He's not going to throw the first punch.
Still though, a wrenching in his stomach tells him something's not right, and he worries about Cas.
And even though he's not saying anything, he knows, Dean's worried too.
--
Sam's had a secret that he's kept from Dean since he was thirteen.
For six months, right through his fourteenth birthday, they lived in New York City. It was the best six months of both of their lives. Dad was gone all the time. During the six months, he remembered seeing John often enough to count out on one hand. Dean found strip bars and he-he started the art of lying to teachers.
It started out as an accident.
School let out early for upperclassmen because someone started a fire in their building. He told Dean not to worry, home was only two city blocks away-he'd be fine.
He could tell Dean was relieved. He had plans to check out some strip joint, the Dan-De-Fine, in Long Island, and couldn't rightfully get bombed and have fun if he needed to be waiting around for his kid brother.
It seemed like it was pleading with him.
The brash white building towered over him as he walked home, making him look up from his cassette player and Lithium. He's been listening to Nirvana on repeat all year long-and he's pretty sure that Kurt Cobain is a genius.
Our Lady of Perpetual Hope.
He reads the sign and a bitter piece of him wants to laugh. Hope seems like a joke. There's no hope for him-just determination. A bitter determination to get the hell out.
Anyways, he goes in. he needs to blow some time anyways before Dean comes home, and maybe he can find something to write about for his history paper.
--
"Dean!" Sam's scream is more like a desperate plead as the bloody figure cracks against the hardwood with a blindingly bright flash and a sickening wet sort of clunk.
For the moment, he's not sure what he's seen because everything is blurry and surrounded by a fuzzy whiteness.
Dean's apparently deciphered the scream and figured out this was a trouble scream, not 'I found your itching powder in your bag' scream. Besides, it's been a long time since he's pranked his brother. The blinding flash of light that ricocheted into the bathroom wasn't exactly comforting either.
It was the nightmare of hell breaking loose in his shit ass motel room.
Whatever. Death can have him, if they're going down, at least it'll be together. He's done playing the never-fucking-ending revolving door with their souls. Fuck them.
"Dean! Help!"
Sam's eyes focus, and the blood drenched writhing lump on the floor clears to a figure he slowly recognizes.
--
He could scream his lungs out, and he didn't think anyone would notice.
Except, maybe, the old lady in the front lighting a candle. But then again, two to one she was too immersed in prayer or too deaf for it.
It was tempting, knowing he had the power to shatter the perfect-almost glowing-peace that seemed to settle around. He dropped into the first pew in the back and sat silently for a few minutes.
He didn't feel any different.
It seems like the old lady with her white hair and Italian features is miles away, but if he watches carefully he can see her lips moving. He wonders what she prays for.
I just want to be saved.
Doesn't really matter. He probably doesn't believe anyways.
Casually, he turns the music down until Nirvana is only a dull buzzing in his ears. He looks around, and it's the windows that catch his eyes.
He's seen his fair share of catechism-Pastor Jim doesn't have much more faith in what John's teaching them then he does, so he knows who Jesus is, and he knows that you shouldn't sin or you go to hell, and that some people actually believe that angels are watching over them. People like Pastor Jim's wife with pictures and creepy ceramic dolls of angels littering their house.
He thinks he might, maybe, like to believe.
In all the windows, Jesus is crying. He doesn't really know why, but looking at the windows makes him sad.
He wonders, and thinks of Pastor Jim. If Jesus was real and if angels are…why didn't they save him?
If anyone deserved to be saved, it was probably Jesus.
--
Cas.
And he's bleeding to death in the Motel 6, home to pervert truck drivers and eight dollar hookers.
"Clean towels!" Dean barks the order to Sam, and both of them are reminded of John. "Get hot water."
Sam runs for them, wondering fleetingly if it's too late, and knowing that whatever happened-they're the catalyst for it. If Cas dies, another name on the list…
Because of Sam and Dean. Cause of death? Knowing the Winchester boys.
He's getting the water as hot as he can and he hears Dean swearing and rifling. But that's it. He doesn't hear anything else.
--
He comes back again and again.
Some days he forges notes from John, other days he feigns ill to the nurse, but he never goes home. He likes to go during school, because it's almost always nearly empty. He tried going at night but it was too full and he felt like an impostor. So he leaves after first period sometimes, and doesn't come back until the final bell will ring, always showing up next to the Impala right on time.
Dean, Dean who thinks he never misses anything, never seems to notice. It's exciting to him, knowing that he's doing something right under Dean's nose and his brother has no idea.
He's been there half a dozen times watching the comings and goings of the occasional older woman, swearing that more than often it's that same woman from the very first afternoon. He doesn't move from the back row, it seems like his spot now.
It the windows that hold his attention still, the windows and the pictures on the wall. The more he studies them, the less he understands.
It's not the facts. He gets the facts-Jesus dies and other people, all the sinners can be forgiven. But why didn't anyone come forward to help him-except his mother. Why did they just watch it and do nothing. They could have, they could have done something
He gets up unwillingly. Getting back early is a must. He has a test that he can't excuse his way out of without getting caught.
An old woman surprises him when he turns around. He hadn't seen anyone standing there.
"Don't worry dear." the old lady doesn't look him in the eye, taking his hand and pressing something the size and shape of an index card into his palm.
His fingers curl around it almost automatically and he knows whatever it is he's crumpled it beyond repair. He thinks it's the same woman from that first afternoon, but he can't tell-he's only ever seen the back of her hair.
"Angels are watching over you."
She turns around and walks away from him, and he notes that she's different. This lady's hair is a greyish shade of blonde. She's scrawnier too.
The card is heavy in his hand; he straightens it out and sees a cheap looking coin pasted to the paper. It's the size of a quarter and engraved with a decidedly feminine looking angel-he'd thought angels were men…mostly. He slips it into his pocket, if anyone finds it; he can write it off as a fluke. Some person gave it to him. It's more the truth than not. As if anyone would, the only one who bothers to take the initiative to do laundry is him.
He faces the front of the church, his glance drawn in by the pulpit again, by the statue of Jesus pinned to the cross. It seems to macabre-but then again, death always was. No one died beautifully. Death was ugly.
The crumpled piece of paper gets shoved into his pocket too. It's getting late, and he doesn't want to be caught.
He's not ready to say good bye to this place yet. He's not ready to share it either.
It's his secret.
--
Note: The 'Dan-De-Fine' is a creation of the movie Highway, I was just too lazy to make up my own strip bar and if you see the movie Highway...the Dan-De-fine is totally the place a teenage boy with a fake id would flock to. Hopefully the backa nd forth between past and present wasn't too confusing, and I promise that if it seemed a little bit...off...its all going to come together.