Author dreampop
Disclaimer I don't own.
Rating G
Summary When the nights come too softly, too easily, Dean wonders whether he's finally gone.
Restless Bones
There were nights that came much too softly, too easily.
They came in the patter of Ben's footsteps scampering to bed, Lisa's soft breath on his shoulder, the mindless hum of the television, the drone of the fan, the aches of his physical body subdued, and the shotgun lying like a malevolent guard dog beneath the bed—a clue to the real monsters lurking. Dean felt a somber wave of recognition. He was the nightmarish creature that belonged down there with his gun and jar of holy water. His insides were warped, scarred, bruised, and welded together with demonic artistry, but an angelic signature twisting about his spine holding him upright. Physically, he looked like a unusually pretty man with maybe some tired eyes, but made of strong lines. Internally, Dean felt his mind hallucinate, crumble, and spread across the plains of time like butter.
Parts of himself he had left behind at the cemetery when the cage's jaws gaped open, and every day since he's nicked himself on the family photos, and the clothes hamper, and the basketball hoop outside. The normal things. He's lost bits to his friendly conversation with the neighbors, the morning kisses from Lisa, every nail hammered into drywall at his construction job.
When the nights come too softly, too easily, Dean wonders whether he's finally gone, frayed to the end, a ghost.
He talks to them sometimes—his old friends. Dean knows they are not real, but the silence of being the Righteous man standing is overwhelming in its loneliness. The friends from higher places…they understand. Mary lets him rest his weary head on her lap; John clamps a cool hand to the space where Dean's neck and shoulder meet, squeezing tightly enough to relieve some of the knots there. Castiel stands stock still next to the sofa and asks questions about sitcoms. Bobby reads the newspaper and hands him the comics like when he was just a kid staying over for a while. Ash drinks Dean's beer, but leaves his whiskey. Ellen folds her hand over his, gives a quick squeeze, and then turns away quickly as if she's afraid she'll want to be his mother. Jo sings Journey while making coffee, and doesn't shut up till he joins her, the both of them off key and doing fine.
He waits for Tessa, the Reaper, but she never comes.