Ask me to stay (when the lights go out)
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Lyrics taken from There's A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths
A/N: Takes place sometime after Cas is cast away from Heaven. Beta-read by Leah Child. All remaining mistakes are my own.
Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people and I want to see light
Driving in your car
Oh please don't drop me home
Because It's not my home, It's their home
And I'm welcome no more
Dean's not sure what he's doing. This has never happened before, after all.
And hell, he's not good with this kind of stuff.
Driving slowly, he forces his hands to relax on the steering wheel, while his eyes dart around though there isn't really much to see. The road is quiet, the night cold and starless.
"So... where do you wanna go? Not that there's much of anything around, really, but -"
He pauses, glances to his right. Cas is staring out the window with a strange, closed-off expression on his face.
His voice is quiet when he answers.
"I don't care."
Dean huffs and returns his focus to the road, which is as empty as before. Exept now, he wishes it wasnt. He really feels like running something over.
"I really feel like running something over, you know that? And I'm not the one who should be angry."
A pause. Still nothing.
"Dude, you gonna start talking to me sometime?"
The angel sighs. "You agreed to just driving."
He doesn't really sound exasperated though, just strangely tired.
"Yeah, in the hope that you'd spill whatever's eating at you! You just dropped in and asked me to do this. Can't blame me for getting suspicious, man."
Glancing to his right again, Dean takes in the way Castiel's hands are curled in loose fists on his knees, his trenchcoat rumpled. He looks small and his gaze seems to follow the coming and going of the lights beside the road.
"I don't really... I don't know the reason myself, Dean."
Take me out tonight
Oh take me anywhere I don't care I don't care I don't care
And in the darkened underpass I thought oh God, my chance has come at last
Finally, Dean turns the car around.
He still doesn't drive faster and the silence still weighs between them.
They have to stop for the traffic lights and the shadow of the iron bridge they passed falls over the Impala, casting them into deeper darkness.
Dean stares straight ahead but his hands are gripping the steering wheel too tightly again.
Castiel studies him from the shadows. His hands feel so empty, they ache.
It looks like it'd take nothing, to reach out and cross this distance, this darkness between them.
There's nothing he wants more.
What would it take?
He lifts a hand and Dean turns around, catches his eyes.
"What? Sorry, did you just ask me something?"
But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask
He says nothing.
Dean stares at him searchingly and doesn't move. His gaze falls on the angel's hand, now resting on his knee again.
Castiel lets his eyes drop from Dean's face and curls his hands into fists.
"There was a shadow on your face. It's gone now."
He feels Dean stare at him, his eyes burning with demands for an explanation, for him to voice his thoughts. But then Dean turns around to stare at the road again, and they're driving and the lights flicker, on and off outside, and he turns back to the window once more to watch their familiar shapes disappear and flash alive again.
Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere I don't care I don't care I don't care
Just driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one, Oh Lord
No I haven't got one.
There is a light that never goes out...