AN: This is my first Supernatural fanfic. I'd love some feedback! This work was inspired by music from the band The Avett Brothers. This first chapter is motivated by the song I and Love and You. Enjoy!
The Brooklyn Club was situated on the back forty of an old hazelnut farm midway between Fossil and Spray Oregon. It technically belonged to the Kinzua Township, but the whole town went up in flames back in seventy-four, so the post and the taxes all went to Fossil. The locals, especially the older ones, who had been here when there was still a school to attend, and a general store to buy your groceries from, had a running joke. They called themselves Kinzua's Ghosts. Over time, the odd no man's land took the name, and people started to call the town-that-was Ghost.
The farm had mostly shut down since the owner, one Callum Taylor, had gotten too old to handle it and too broke to hire anyone to take the work off his hands. The real estate agent in town, Madge Carrigan, had tried to convince old man Taylor to let her sell it for him, but being of old farm blood, asking him to sell his property was like asking him to swing a machete towards his own balls.
Instead, Taylor rented the back forty to a woman named Pamela Barnes who built a larger than average log cabin and got it fitted for business.
The Brooklyn Club was one of those small outfits towns like Ghost relied on for food, entertainment, and the sense of existence— that they weren't the only ones who felt like they were disappearing into the foggy green hills all around them. There was a bar, stocked with enough alcohol to keep these back woods hicks sedated. A kitchen, to feed the lone wolf men whose wives had left them, or were only in town when there wasn't a shift to be driven. There was even a lovely little upstairs dinning room, with a beautiful view of the mountains in the east, that on Christmas eve, opened up to serve dinner to the locals, lit by candle light.
Every other night of the year it was dark, it was cheap, and it was smoky. A fire roiled in an enormous stone hearth on the far right wall, warming a few old couches and overstuffed lay-z-boys. The wooden tables, hewn from huge logs and plastered in stain and lacquer were close to the front door and the windows. There were only three. They were family style at The Brooklyn Club. And there were only so many families in Ghost.
Before the couches and after the tables, there was a little wooden platform that stood as a stage. When Pamela had bought the joint, she had put in the stage for her boyfriend at the time. He played pretty nicely, and she thought he could be the entertainment when the jukebox in the corner got dull. (It did. Easily.)
But he got tired of being alive in a dead nowheresville unattached community, and he left her three years ago. Now, on some nights a band made up of local high school kids played. They were actually pretty good, a sort of folksy rocky thing that often turned a little jazz-ward as the night wore on. The lead singer, a curvy blonde thing, who you could tell was getting out of here come hell or high water, had a thing for Ella Fitzgerald.
They didn't exactly have a set schedule, but they always played on Thursdays. If Dean had remembered this, he would have driven to town and bought himself a bottle of Johnnie Walker black instead of lending his patronage to Pamela. He was hoping to drown his paranoia in whiskey, at the end of the bar, and not talk to anyone until Pam dragged his ass to the cot in the back and told him to show himself out in the morning.
What he was not hoping to do was pay half attention to a bunch of kids playing music that he didn't particularly care to listen to, while holding himself together long enough to get sick of The Brooklyn Club and drive himself home to his little, but vastly empty house.
His foot was already in the door when he realized that his plans for the evening were not exactly going to play out. He thought about turning around, and rummaging up the femininity to drink that bottle of wine Sam sent him around July (it had been a special vintage—one made up for him and his ex, a bitch named Ruby. Sam was always trying to do sweet domestic things with her, like going to Napa valley and having a bottle of wine labeled specifically for them to drink on their tenth anniversary. But Ruby was not a sweet domestic girl. The way Sam told the story was that they broke up because of Ruby's erratic behavior. Sam wanted something consistent and Ruby was a party girl. The way Dean liked to tell it was that Sam turned Ruby gay. Somewhere around June she dyed her blonde hair brown, stopped wearing make up and hooked up with some chick named Lilith. ) But Pamela called out to him before he could make his getaway.
" Hey Winchester! What's a nice boy like you doin' in a joint like this?"
"Looking to be never called 'nice boy' ever again. " he leered, putting on a grin.
There was this flirtation between Dean and Pamela. She struck up conversations, and he pretended to be an actual human being around her. She called it his social rehabilitation.
He swaggered over to the bar and sat at the far end, close to the fireplace. That part of his night, at least, could still go according to plan. She sidled up over to him, drying a pint.
"What can I get you, baby?" her voice drawled like honey. And if Dean were any other man, he would be the fly in it.
"Whiskey. Neat. Thanks. "
" Gruff tonight! Bad day at the office, sugar?" She poured his drink.
"You could say that."
" Y'wanna talk about it? I'm a bartender, come borrow my wisdom. "
"Bartender wisdom is not something I exactly covet." He downed his drink. "Another, if you would."
She held the bottle up and raised her eyebrows. "Not until you tell me why you come into my bar looking like the little grey raincloud."
Pamela knew enough about Dean to know she was treading dangerous ground here. Dean Winchester was unpredictable, socially. One minute, you could be his best friend, and then the next he'd be regarding you with disdain, as you lay at his feet with a newly broken nose. She knew enough about what brought him here, to Ghost, to not exactly be surprised at his answer.
"It's the Old Man's Birthday."
She whistled, and left the bottle, to go attend to her other patrons.
Dean swirled the Jack in his glass, watching as the blue light of the clock on the wall caught in the little amber waves he made. He studied it for a moment, threw it back and poured another.
August 3rd was one of Dean's Anniversaries.
Dean had a lot of them. Sam's first steps. When the house in Lawrence burned down. The day that dad crashed his car and taught Dean how to fix it. His Birthday. Sam's Birthday, Mom's birthday, Dad's birthday. They all had meaning. This great symbolism that Dean created over the years. On Sam's birthday, he was happy. He celebrated his brother's existence. He called him up and they talked for hours, and some years, if he could manage it, he visited Sam in California. If not, he poured some tequila for his brother and danced with a pretty girl at the bar.
On his mother's birthday, he stayed out of his house. He saw a movie, or got lost in the woods, or drove to Portland, and stayed the hell out of his head.
And on his dad's birthday, he banged the hell out of a car down at the shop in Fossil, and then drank whiskey until he couldn't anymore.
He kept these anniversaries like mementos. Or, sick traditions he couldn't reason himself away from. He was methodical in his practice of them. They took up his time, his energy and his concentration. During the week of an anniversary, the meaning, that symbolism, would be driving his every action, sitting in the back of his mind, turning up at unexpected moments.
Yesterday, a Johnny Cash song came on the radio at work, and it was all Dean could do from bashing in the window of the Honda he was fixing up.
John Winchester loved Johnny Cash.
The anniversaries multiplied over the years. They were like rabbits. If Dean thought about his past too much, there another one would appear. Another set of rituals, another week gone on his calendar. Now it wasn't just Sammy's birthday, it was also the day that he got accepted into Stanford. It wasn't just the day dad crashed his car, it was the day dad got roaring drunk and pulled them out of school for a road trip to Kansas to see Mom's grave. It wasn't just the day the house burned down; it was the day that Dad started blaming Monsters.
When mom died, there was a period of time when John was still a Dad. He still brought the boys to preschool and day care, and still cut the crusts of Dean's peanut butter and banana sandwiches and still sang Sammy to sleep. But after a while, something, either the sleeplessness or the weight of losing his one true love, broke the eldest Winchester.
He began to swindle his money on a psychic across town. And then when she wouldn't see him any more, on books about the occult, about dark things that took children and wives and drove men mad.
And of course, on the liquor. John lost many friends in the years following Mary's death but never Jim, Jack and Jose.
So, by the time that Dean was six he could change a diaper and cook a hot dog and get himself dressed for school. He could walk Sammy to the church pre-school and convince a neighbor woman to help him lug around a grocery cart, when he was still too short to see over the edge.
And while Sammy spoke his first words ("Dean! No!") and took his first steps, John descended further into madness. He began proselytizing demons and ghosts to the neighbors. He put up signs with runes and sigils on them in front of the house, and began staking out cop calls to see if anything supernatural was afoot.
By the time John lost his job at the mechanic's shop, the house was practically derelict, and he barely knew his sons.
This began the period of Dean's life that he liked to call homelessness. No town was too small or too backwoods for the Winchester men. No motel was too sleazy and no bar was too good to hustle. They drove across country, with Dean in the backseat holding Sam, and John driving like a man possessed in the front of his 1967 black Chevy impala.
It wasn't until Dean was thirteen that John was taken away. He'd assaulted a man in Jefferson City that he claimed was responsible for Mary's death. He screamed about the man's yellow eyes until they sedated him.
The doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and depression "with some delusional episodes." They kept him in the state hospital in Missouri for five years.
By that time, the only family that would take the boys was their Uncle Bobby. Bobby was John's brother-in-law. He was married to John's sister Karen until she passed away from breast cancer. He ran a scrap yard in Sioux Falls South Dakota, and would take the boys in as long as John Winchester was heavily medicated. And he was.
Sam finally had a home in Sioux Falls. Bobby was a history fanatic and had so many books that he'd run out of book shelves years before. He'd taken to stacking them up against the walls of his living room, and Sam ran through them like catacombs. Bobby and Sam took to each other like fish to water.
Dean, however, felt like an outsider. He loved Bobby, he did. Fiercely. And he was eternally grateful that he could finally start acting like a kid instead of a parent. But in moving in with Bobby, by being taken care of, Dean lost his role in life. And he only had a little time to make it up.
By the time boys started up school in the fall, with their patchwork Frankenstein transcripts, Sam and Dean were getting some way to normal. At nine, Sam was precocious and finally happy. The kid was tough. He made friends quickly at school, a tight little bunch of nerds and musicians, and suddenly wanted to take up the cello.
Dean had a more difficult time. Making friends in your freshman year of high school in a small town where every body knows each other all ready, when you have no hobbies or interests expect for keeping your baby brother alive, is complicated. Dean joined the soccer team, and the auto shop club, and quickly gained a reputation as one of the Strong but Silent types. This worked well with him and the ladies, up until spring semester junior year when Dean fell hard for his English teacher Mr. Jordan Pinsky.
Senior year was again a revolution that had Dean redefining his entire existence. He liked Kurt Vonnegut, and was good at playing center forward. He could rebuild a classic car from the ground up, and listened to classic rock. He could punch the crap out of a 200-pound line backer making fun of his little brother and he was very much a homosexual. The only redeeming thing about that for Dean was that apparently, he liked men with beards, and that was at least a little manly.
There of course had been a big gay freak-out. Being the eldest son of a broken home in South Dakota was not exactly a welcoming archetype for Gay. Sam found Dean kicking soccer balls at an old Chevrolet in the back yard in the middle of the night on more than one occasion. And on more than one occasion a girl helped prove to Dean what he already knew. He kept it hidden. He was mostly okay with it, he understood who he was, but again. South Dakota.
Six months after Sammy's 13th birthday, they got the call that John Winchester had been released into his own care, and that while his parole agreement stated that he needed to stay in Missouri to continue treatment and avoid jail-time, he was most definitely out of the hospital.
This infuriated Dean. His father was well enough to be out, and by all respects, well enough to be their father but they wouldn't actually let him do his fucking job? What he'd been meant to do since they were born?
He got it in his head that he would go to Missouri. He would see John and the world would set right, and finally, finally, the Winchester men could be a family. He packed his car—The Impala had been left in Bobby's custody as well— and set out to leave that night.
Of Course Bobby caught him. He dragged his ass back inside and gave him the fiercest scolding Dean had had in years. Did he think that just because the state didn't want to support his ass anymore that John was suddenly parental material? Did he think that he could just leave this house, and the family they had built because John Winchester had some sort of sadistic cloying grip on him? He locked the keys to the Impala in the safe, and drove the boys to school himself the next day.
Dean spent the majority of that day in the school library, reading about paranoid schizophrenia.
schizophrenia |ˌskitsəˈfrēnēə; -ˈfrenēə|noun: a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.
• (in general use) a mentality or approach characterized by inconsistent or contradictory elements.
paranoia |ˌparəˈnoiə|noun: a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.
• suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification
He read about auditory hallucinations, and the visual ones that signified a tremendous psychotic break. He read about a tendency to obsess over the occult and religious, and how an onset can be deferred for years after the original break. He read that there was an increase in schizophrenic patients that had gone to Vietnam, that had originally been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He read that it could be triggered by death of a loved one or by loss of an icon. He read theories that it was actually bacterial, transferred by house cats. Or that it was brought on by a severe allergic reaction and prolonged exposure to the allergen.
He read that it could be genetic.
He read that there was more and more evidence that it was genetic, and that paranoid schizophrenics were primarily male.
When Dean was a child, even through all of his father's fuck ups, he was proud of their similarities. With every similar taste, he was more of a Winchester. Every time they protected Sam they were more of a team. Now as he looked at himself, and found obsessive behavior and a darkness, he was scared as all hell.
That night after dinner, when Sam was upstairs studying for a history exam, and Dean and Bobby were cleaning up, Dean hugged Bobby. This was a rare occurrence, to be sure, as very few people had ever felt the hug of Dean Winchester. Bobby sat him down and told him to talk.
After a good long awkward pause, "I'm scared Bobby. I'm scared of becoming Him. "
Bobby looked long and hard at Dean that night. He let a snuffly sigh out from under his beard.
"Kid, the day you turn into John Winchester is the day I eat my shoe. C'mere."
He stood and lifted Dean to his feet, hugging him tighter than Dean had been held since he was a boy.
"Git upstairs and do your homework. I'll take care of this."
Bobby had made it clear to the boys that his was no home for wayward delinquents. Schoolwork was to be done, and college was most certainly an option.
One Christmas, when Bobby had gotten a little into the eggnog, he'd told Dean that he'd hoped to have hundreds of kids, and each one was gonna be a genius. But, when Aunt Karen had died those dreams had been dashed along the rocks until the boys came along. So, if the boys wanted to go to college for twenty years, he'd allow it. Drunk Bobby was certainly congenial.
Dean was not a selfish boy. Nor was he one for leaving family. He happily applied to University of North Dakota (he looked into USD, but they didn't have an engineering program), and University of Montana at Bozeman. He was not going much farther than that. He planned on studying engineering of some kind and maybe minoring in psychology or English. He told himself it wasn't so that in the future he could impress the next Mr. Pinsky that came along. His grades were good enough that he wasn't worried and he was certainly interesting enough to contribute diversity to a college campus. He sent off his applications around the second week of November and let it happen.
That week in November was the first time Dean can remember being stress free and happy, actually enjoying high school and his little brother. They played football out back among the cars, and laughed as a new neighbor brought Bobby peach cobbler and an invitation to watch a movie at her place. Dean was instrumental in winning a play off game at school, and a boy who hung around the theatre department had been making eyes at Dean all week. Life was good until thanksgiving.
Sam had decided that he wanted to cook thanksgiving dinner that year ("I know I can do it, I've been getting straight A's in home ec!") and the whole house was in uproarious laughter at him. Bobby's sister Ellen and her daughter Jo were coming and bringing what was lauded as world famous pumpkin pie. Football had been on since 10, and Dean felt like the fuckin' All American Boy.
At around two, the doorbell rang. Dean went to get it, all smiles and excitement. For Chrissakes he was wearing khakis and a sweater. "Bobby! They're here! Sammy, you better not be burning my turkey!"
He whipped open the door and there, instead of lovely bed and breakfast owning Ellen and her sweet little Joanna Beth, was John Winchester.
It felt like a freight train had run Dean over, stomach first. He could see it now; a man in black with a brief case coming to collect the normal and happy Dean had been building up since Halloween. "Excuse me Mr. Winchester, I'm sorry, you were delivered the wrong existence, that happiness was meant to go to Mrs. Johnson down the street. Here, this is yours, ah yes, a pile of shit."
John stood looking like Dean remembered, slouched slightly at the hips, wearing a black leather jacket and something between beard and five o'clock shadow.
"Hey Dean."
"Dad."
"You don't look so happy to see me boy. What'sa matter, no hug for your old man?"
"What're you doing here?"
"Visiting my boys. Isn't that allowed? Isn't a man allowed to see his kids?"
"Not if that man is on parole in Missouri."
"Bobby told you about that? He had no right! What, did he make me out to be some sort of Convict? "
"Dad, Bobby didn't have to tell me anything. I answered the call from your parole officer. You're not supposed to be here. If they find out you left the state you could go to jail, and then you'll never get to see us again."
John stared at Dean. Dean stared back. John laughed. "You always were a stubborn one. C'mere." Dean resisted, but his father pulled him into a hug.
All the anger he felt at his father boiled up inside of him. The rage at having to take care of a baby, when he was still a little kid himself. The years of living out of the back of a car. The fear of being taken away from his family, by a caseworker or some teacher bent on saving the world. Dean may have loved his father, but that in no way meant that he wasn't furious with him.
"Dad, what if they find you?"
"They won't! I'm only gonna be here for tonight, and then in the morning, like a good crazy person, I will turn around and go right back to Missouri. Just, let me have a family holiday with my boys first. "
Dean stood back.
"You look good Boy! All grown up." John surveyed his son. "You look fit! You doin' sports?"
At that, Bobby rounded the corner.
"You are not Ellen Harvelle."
"Ellen's coming? I haven't heard about that woman in years! This is going to be a great thanksgiving."
"John Winchester, you better give me one good reason not to shoot you before I go get my shotgun. "
"Bobby." Dean winced. "It's okay. He's only staying for dinner, and then he's going. It's good. "
"Did you invite him, boy?"
"I had no idea about this. "
"I came of my own free will gentlemen. I just wanted to see my family. I even brought an apple pie! " He picked up a boxed pie from the railing on the porch. "See? I come in good faith. "
Out from the kitchen came a floury, gangly, puppy faced Sam, wearing an apron, and stirring what appeared to be a pot of gravy. "What's going on? " He blew the hair out from his eyes.
"Sammy?"
A look of dawning comprehension spread across Sam's face.
"Dad?"
"Hey Kid. What, these slave drivers got you cooking dinner? Is that even safe? I came to throw a football and eat a turkey, not the other way around. "
Bobby, Dean and Sam looked at him uncomfortably. This was going to be painful.
By the time Ellen and Jo arrived, Bobby and John were sitting on the couch nursing a couple of beers and watching football. They were muttering lowly under their breath about the boys. Sam was setting the table and cleaning the kitchen, and Dean was going out of his mind. He paced the upstairs hallway back and forth, trying to calm himself down.
"Dean! Dinner's Ready!"
Surprisingly, Sam could cook. In the coming years, Bobby and Dean would take advantage of that. Dinner was delicious, and only mostly entirely uncomfortable.
After a dessert of legendary pumpkin pie Dean was stuffed to bursting. And slightly terrified. Ellen began cleaning up and sent Jo and Sam outside to play together, and called Dean in to help her clear the remnants from dinner. They worked mostly in silence. The radio was on in the corner, and played some crooning woman that Ellen was humming along to. Bobby called to him from the living room.
"Talk to your father, Boy. He hasn't seen you in almost four years. " He left them alone on the couch. They breathed in silence for a minute or two.
"Bobby tells me you applied to college. "
"Yup."
"And that you're on the Soccer team."
" I am."
"And that Sam's a super genius, and that he did a play this year?"
"Yeah, Sam's a great kid. He's doing real well." The considering went unspoken.
"I'm so proud of you Dean."
"Thanks Dad. I'm trying."
"And…And, I'm sorry. "
"You got sick Dad, you don't need to apologize for that. "
"Boy if you would just talk to me! If you would just let me tell you that I'm sorry for… for fucking up your life, I would really appreciate it."
"Dad…"
"No, Dean, Listen. I know what I've done, the way I acted all those years was wrong. They were worse than a kid like you ever should have imagined going through. Back when Mary was alive, God, Dean, you were so bright. You were so strong, and you were only a little thing. And now you're all grown up and looking like a man, and without any help from me, and I just wanted to say it. I'm sorry. "
John cleared his throat and stood up, finishing his beer. " Now, I've gotta go meet your brother. I don't know anything about that boy since he was sixth months old. "
Dean's chest clenched. This was the man Dean took care of, the one who taught him about cars, and why it was important to take care of his brother. He grabbed his Dad's shoulder, and hugged him close.
"Thank you."
They nodded, and Dean went back to the Kitchen, as John went outside to throw the football to Sam.
Though John held it together that night, and life went on, things didn't feel the same as they did before thanksgiving. The football went inside, due to the cold, and suddenly the theatre-boy appeared to lose interest in Dean. Or Dean lost interest in him.
Dean remembered that day as the last and only pleasant conversation he ever had with his father.
He looked up and down the bar, nursing the third whiskey in his hand. Besides for a few kids by the fireplace (probably here for the band), and couple of old men drinking beer by the door, there weren't a lot of interesting folk here tonight. Dean asked for a glass of water, and sipped it before pouring himself a fourth glass.
He began to settle back into his dark mood. Flashes of fights with John raced in his mind. Nights when Sammy cried of hunger, or entire weeks where they wore the same clothes. The night when John found out that Sam was going to Stanford and not to UMB with Dean.
The door opened and Dean was broken from his reverie.
Standing underneath the tacky (yet real) elk head mounted above the doorframe was a man in a long tan trench coat. The people in the bar all turned to look at him. Dean half expected the band to stop playing and crickets to start chirping.
Beneath his coat, the man wore a close fitting black suit and a navy blue tie. His dark hair looked like someone had been running their hands through it all day, and judging by the tired look on the man's face, Dean probably wasn't that far off.
He walked to the bar, sitting two seats away from Dean. Pamela edged over to him her hands in pockets.
"Hello Stranger, what can I do for you?"
"Do you serve food here?" His voice was low and rough.
"We most certainly do. Let me just get you a menu."
"Actually, I'm assuming you serve burgers. Can I just get a burger, rare, and fries?"
"Sure thing sweetheart. Can I get you anything to drink?"
"Would it be too much to ask for some red wine?"
"A man after my own heart! Merlot or pinot?"
"Merlot, thanks."
"I'll put in the order for your burger, and I'll be right back with the wine!"
Dean surveyed his new companion. He was slouched over the bar, his hands folded as he rested his forehead on his fists. He was probably about two inches shorter than Dean, and looked as if he'd stopped shaving three days ago. Dean looked at the whiskey and then put it back onto the bar. It looked like very little of his plan was coming to pass tonight. He cursed his curiosity. He turned to the stranger.
"Y'know, according to the last U.S. Census, there are less than fourteen hundred people in all of Wheeler County. Less than five hundred in Fossil and Ghost put together. "
The stranger tensed, but slowly, as if he was deciding whether or not Dean was worth the trouble. He answered, keeping his head on his hands.
"Really?"
"Indeed. And I don't want to sound like Mister Popular here, 'cause I'm not, but I have met the majority of 'em. Hard not to, in a town like this."
"Mmm."
"So, I'm just going to assume that you're either just passing through— and in that case you had to do some serious getting lost to find Brooklyn—or you're new in town. "
"The latter."
"Well then, my name's Dean Winchester. Welcome to Ghost."
At this, the man looked up and focused his gaze at Dean. His very, very blue gaze at Dean. He studied him for a moment, and relaxed a bit.
"I wasn't actually sure what welcome I was going to get in this town. You are certainly not what I expected. "
"No?"
"No. My name is Castiel Novak." He held out his hand for Dean to shake. As he did, he noticed Castiel's long thin fingers, and cleanly manicured nails.
"Castiel?" He asked.
"It means 'My cover is God.' Or the Angel of Thursday. I had a particularly religious mother, and a father with a very cruel sense of humor. "
"I like it. Very…unique. So, Castiel," He said his name with particular emphasis, the kind one exhibits while trying on a pair of shoes. "What brings you to Ghost?"
"I'm a writer. I've been working on a new book for a long time now, and for some reason I can't seem to move it forward. I thought a drastic change of scenery might do me good."
"How drastic?"
" I live in L.A."
"Very drastic then. Where are you staying?"
"Up over on Carter Hill Lane."
Pamela chose this moment to return with Castiel's wine. "So you're the one staying in Old Man Collins' place! I should've figured."
"Yes, that's me. Thank you. " He gratefully took the wine, and sipped gently.
Thomas Collins owned a plot of land, approximately fifty or so acres, a little north of Fossil. He'd been the town's only lawyer, and had been called on to settle any and all small legal disputes in the area. Dean had only met him once, when he came in the shop with his older Pontiac, and insisted that it was making a grumbling noise that no one else could hear. He threw a loud and less than logical fit and drove away. He'd died less than a month ago, and already Madge Carrigan had his place up for sale? Somehow, Dean doubted that was entirely legal, noting Collins' personality, and Madge's vicious sales strategies.
"Lucky, I guess, that you could get that place."
"I suppose. Oregon wasn't exactly my first choice for a writer's getaway. But, it was listed online, and already furnished, so I jumped. Though, I don't think I realized what I was getting into when I signed the lease. Fossil is very much out of the way. Of everything."
Dean laughed. " Yeah, you could definitely say that. So you're a writer huh? Anything I would've heard of?"
"Depends on what you read."
"Mostly? What I find interesting. I like Vonnegut, if that helps."
"Vonnegut and I are not very similar. I write historical fictions. The one I'm working on now is set during World War One. It's autobiographical, told from the perspective of an Austrian soldier."
"Sounds interesting. Very dramatic."
"One could say that. Though, I get flak in my community. My novels are far less ripped lace bodices and more practical application of past politics."
"Ah. " Dean grabbed his glass and downed his shot. Pamela came to the bar, holding a large, and what Dean knew to be delicious, burger out to Castiel.
"Here ya'are Baby! Enjoy. " She winked and walked away with a swivel of her hips. Dean studied Castiel for a reaction. Nothing.
"Hm."
"What?" he mouthed over a very large bite of burger.
"Nothing, sorry, just thinking." Just thinking that you're either an amoeba or gayer than the fourth of July. Hopefully the latter, he mused.
Dean turned back to the wall. By now the band had reached the point of the evening when the guitar player took the time to do a solo set, and the rest of them mooched food off of Pamela. The kid was good, but set the mood down very low.
The obsessive part of Dean, the kind that formulated anniversaries and wallowed in a bottle of jack on dark days, was brought suddenly to a head, and Dean was filled with a bitter, concentrated self-loathing. What in the hell was he doing, sitting in the Brooklyn Club, chatting up some out of town writer that obviously wanted nothing to do with him? For god's sakes could he get more pitiable? He slammed his glass down on the table, and his face burned. He poured another.
Castiel finished his burger rather quickly for a lithe writer of historical fictions. He sat back in his chair, and loosened his tie. He grabbed the glass of wine and sipped, taking the time to enjoy the dry bite of the drink. He seemed completely unaware that Dean had left this plane of emotional existence, and was now trudging through a place he liked to call "My Dad Fucked Me Over and Now I Can Barely Function as a Human Being" Land. He turned to see Dean staring into the mirror behind the bar.
"So, what do you do?" It took a moment to rouse Dean out of the aforementioned plane.
"Sorry, what?"
"What do you do? For a living?'
"Oh. I'm a mechanic down in Fossil. Cars, mostly, but then again, farm equipment comes through. "
"Ah."
"Yeah." Dean wanted to kick himself. Something about this Castiel guy made him wanna be more—or at least say he was more than—a mechanic. "I was in bigger stuff. I used to work over in South Dakota, for Tearing Industries. Y'know, they're the guys who helped build parts of the Hubble, and then the space station. 'Bout four years back I took a road trip through here and had some car trouble. I had to stop into the shop, and they let me fix my baby up. They thought I did such a nice job that they asked me to help out, and now, I pretty much run the joint. "
"That's interesting." Castiel looked as unfazed at Dean's impressive background as he did the un-impressing one.
"I like it a lot more that working on the big machines. Cars, and workers, they're more personal machines, y'know? Easier to get to know. Not trying to show off. And plus, what with there being almost nothing for fifty miles, living in Ghost allows me to put my English minor to good use."
At this, Castiel's head popped up. " You minored in English? That's unique for an engineer. "
"Well, somewhere along the way I realized the rest of the world didn't speak in engines and I thought I'd get a little sophisticated. " Castiel laughed at this.
"I apologize for speaking so gruffly. In all my experience with engineers, they generally couldn't tell the difference between a Mary Anne Evans and a George Eliot."
"Maybe that's because there isn't one." Dean quirked his eyebrow at the man sitting next him. Castiel blushed slightly. "Were you testing me?"
"Maybe a little." He smiled.
"Why?"
"Do you know how many times I've been hit on with the old 'I minored in English' once people find out that I'm a writer? Hundreds. I've learned to weed out those who are only using a line."
"I can see that." He was not at all offended at the Hitting On presumption.
"Do you know how painful it is to sit through a date with a person who can't even discuss Shakespeare with you? Especially when they claim their senior thesis was written on the homoerotic subject of the tragedies. It's honestly dreadful."
Dean puffed with false pretension. "I can guess. Especially when the presence of homoerotic subtext was far more as obvious in the histories." Castiel laughed again. It was short and low, a burst of air followed by a few reverberations. Dean liked hearing his laugh. They caught each other's eyes. For a few moments they held their gaze, and then Dean dropped it with a chuckle.
"I haven't talked to someone about anything other than car parts and cheap politics in months. You're very refreshing. "
"Glad to be of service. " They chuckled and turned forward. Castiel reached out at dipped his finger in the salt left on his plate from the fries. He sucked it off gently. Dean blushed and cleared his throat.
"So how long do you think you're going to be in town for?"
"I suppose until I finish my book," he answered vaguely.
They talked like this until the band finished. A lilting how-do-you-do, where do you come from, what have you seen so far, nothing conversation, held together by witticisms (from Castiel) and jokes (Dean). Somewhere through out the night, Dean stopped drinking. Pamela set a diet coke down in front of him at some point, and he was still nursing the ice cubes when Castiel asked if he minded moving to the over stuffed chairs in front of the fire. (" The wood of this chair is not as comfortable as I would like it.")
When they moved to the chairs, their conversations turned to books they had read, and the music they listened to (Castiel was a fan of folk-rock and jazz piano, while Dean paled at anything less than epic wailing guitars). Dean told Castiel that he had a little brother named Sam (though calling him little was such a lie) and Castiel revealed that he was the only child of a single mother. His father left when he was young.
"I lived with my uncle from the time I was 13. My Dad, he uh, he wasn't well."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Bobby's great, a way better dad than my Dad could have been at the time. "
"Ah."
"Shit, man! Why am I telling you all this? I mean, we just met! I never tell any one this stuff."
"It's alright. I find that I too am being more honest with you than I normally would feel comfortable doing."
"You know, Cas, you talk like a book. "
"Cas?"
"Sorry. Is that allowed? "
"It's fine. Just, no one's ever called me that before."
Dean sputtered. "How is that even possible? Dude, no offense, but your
name is a mouth full. "
"My Mother is the type of woman who named her child what she wanted to call him. And my social circle is the kind in which unusual names are expected. "
"Oh. I hope you don't mind, but I think I like Cas. Not that your name is anything not to like." Smooth, Winchester. Smooth.
"I don't believe I mind. I might actually enjoy having a nickname. " They smiled at each other. Dean studied Castiel closely in that moment. He memorized his scruffy jaw line, and the way he leaned slightly to the left when he sat. He took in the black rumpled mess atop his head, and the slight slant to his eyes.
Though it seemed like no time at all, they continued to talk for hours. About all manner of things, the area, the state of politics, where they'd traveled (Cas backpacked through South East Asia the summer after his sophomore year of college, and Dean studied abroad in Liverpool one fall (Fewest plane trips. Nonetheless, he still had to take a friend's Valium to survive the first flight) and had been all around the country. Not that he spoke in great detail about that.
They were talking about the latest blockbuster movie that they had both seen (Dean because the special effects must have been awesome to work with, and Cas because a date thought he would like to go and laugh at it) when Pamela interrupted them.
" I was expecting it to be absolutely horrible, and to laugh the whole way through, and then imagine my horror when I actually enjoyed it. I never went on a date with him again. "
She stood behind them holding two empty beer bottles and a platter of cold fries. " Boys, I'm glad y'all are getting along, but it's just about 2 in the morning, and I'm going to have to close up soon."
She could have told Dean that she was an alien queen set on taking over the planet and was starting by eating them alive, and he still wouldn't have looked up. He was still stuck on Cas saying 'Him'. Castiel was gay, and Dean was very happy for it. It struck him suddenly that he most definitely had a type.
"It's two o'clock in the morning? Oh my god, I've been up for thirty six hours." Pamela sauntered away and Castiel fumbled through his pockets, before pulling out his phone. He flipped it open with both hands, carefully and slowly, before checking the time and to see if he had any text messages.
Dean swirled his glass around, looking for invisible liquid to drink, avoiding Castiel's eyes. This was the first time he had had a conversation lasting more than five minutes in years. Even when he spoke to Sam, it was much more one sided. When he went to Portland, looking for company, or to remember that humanity actually existed beyond the trees, he barely spoke. He mostly let his body do the talking for him, if you knew what he meant. And the fact of the matter was, he really enjoyed speaking to Castiel. The guy was smart, and clever, if a little blunt. And not to mention he was rather easy on the eyes.
If they had been in Portland, Dean would have suggested they went back to Cas' place hours ago. By now, they would have been basking in post coital bliss, and Dean would be looking for an exit, any exit, and pulling out an excuse about a long drive. Cas would have been mutely nodding his consent, and falling asleep, and Dean would have his shoes in hand.
But this wasn't Portland. This was Ghost. This was the first home that Dean had ever made for himself, fucked up or not. He had friends here, a place here. The Brooklyn Club was his bar, and Pamela was his bartender. This was the backwoods of Oregon. The only other gays in the county were a pair of lesbian cheese makers twenty miles away. And, Cas wasn't looking for anything. He didn't come to The Brooklyn Club to get laid, like the boys in the clubs in the city. He came to get food after being up for thirty hours, and moving into his new home, and not having the energy to cook himself something. They hadn't even spoken about relationships. For all Dean knew, Castiel had a gorgeous tall Swedish partner that blew glass and made an incredible green onion frittata (those were the types of gays that lived in L.A., weren't they?). And, furthermore, Cas wasn't here to play. This wasn't a vacation for him, this was a work trip. He was here to finish a book, not carry on a sad and desperate fling with an auto mechanic who could barely strike up a conversation, let alone engage in social pleasantries, and could definitely not whip up a green onion frittata out of the blue. Dean resolved to shake Castiel's hand and steal the bottle of jack still waiting for him on the bar on the way out.
"So, could I get your number?" Dean jerked his head up out of his grey cloud of paranoia. Cas was holding out his old little blue flip phone to Dean, his head cocked to the right, and a concerted look on his face.
"What?"
"I had a really great time tonight. And, I don't know anyone else in Oregon. I'd love to meet up again soon. Maybe we could do dinner?"
Dean was blushing, confused. He fumbled, taking the little phone out of Castiel's hands. He quickly entered his number into the phone, and surreptitiously called it so that he could have Cas' number.
"Yeah, dinner. I'd like that." He returned the phone to him, and they left together, slowly walking out of The Brooklyn Club together, staying softly on the same plane, walking the slow, tired walk of 2:00 in the morning. They waved at each other at the door, saying good night to Pamela, and walked across the crunching gravel of the parking lot. Castiel got into a silver two-door rental, and Dean his Impala, shining in the gas-lamp light of The Brooklyn Club's front porch. He watched Castiel drive left, and turned right to his little brown house fifteen minutes away.
He'd bought the little house a week after he broke down in Fossil. He had been staying in a room at the Fossil Motel, but the old green carpet and décor that had last been updated in the seventies reminded him too much of the Homelessness period, and something broke in him. He came back to the room with a bag of groceries, and then bolted. He literally ran to Madge Carrigan's office and asked to see the listings.
It was a pretty little shingle house with blue trim that had belonged to the town librarian. When she turned 80, her son came up from Sacramento and put her in a home. Her book collection was still in the house when Madge gave him the tour. He bought it that day. On warm nights, he sat on the front porch in an old rocking chair and smelled the woods. When it was cold, he retired to the old lumpy couch and afghan in front of the fireplace. He was never so thankful as when he realized he barely needed to furnish anything. Over time the house changed to him. He tore out the linoleum and put in hardwood flooring, and he redid the cabinets in the kitchen and bought a new stove. He painted the home library yellow, and his own bedroom a deep hunter green, and bought a new queen sized bed that he could fall asleep on in minutes (a luxury that he never had as a kid). But, the living room was as old lady as it came. Something about that was comforting to Dean. It was here that he pondered what happened that night over a glass of water.
Castiel Novak. Man of blue eyes, historical fictions and closet blockbuster lover. The first person in a long time that could make Dean forget his misery and paranoia and ignore that today (well, yesterday) was the day that ushered in a Dynasty of Up-Fuckery.
He ran their conversation over and over again in his head. It was like this until he fell asleep.