Author's Chapter Notes:
Famine touching Dean and telling him what was inside him (or not as the case would be) somehow made me think of a little speech of Meg/Sam to him. This is the result of that.
Discovered In A Junkyard
The hunter was still outside and almost at the bottom of his second bottle by the time the angel went to look for him. He was standing there, head up, watching the sky. Cas stood behind him and tried to see what he was looking at.
Dean knew Cas was behind him before he even turned. "What do you want? Shouldn't you be off looking for God?" He tipped the bottle to his lips and tried desperately to savour the hit from it, pausing before he looked skyward again and shouted. "Cause he isn't answering his damn phone!" Dean slung an arm round Castiel's neck and pulled him in. "God wouldn't happen to be my father would he?"
Cas missed the dig. "He is everybody's father." The angel stood beside him and looked to the heavens as well. "I thought that was what you were doing out here. Looking for God, I could feel it. Hear you."
"Hear me?" Dean rolled his eyes and staggered as he did, Cas steadying him before he could fall. "Shit, does that means that other prick would have heard me too?"
The angel tilted his head. "Pri….oh, you mean Zachariah? Yes, he would have felt the prayer, although I doubt he'd be close enough to hear the actual words."
The hunter waved the bottle skyward. "Well that's just great, I'm not even allowed to have a little chat with your boss in peace, next you guys will be wanting to damn well shower with me."
Dean tipped the bottle back again and the angel frowned at him, a confused look on his face. "I thought that was part of the personal space issues that we talked about?"
Dean snorted. "It was, but you guys don't really seem to have any boundaries, I mean Anna just walked right on into one of my dreams."
"Was that the one with the strippers dressed as……." Cas started to question.
Dean cut him off. "Yeah, and how the hell do you know about that? More worrying….how far did you get into that?" Cas went to answer but the hand in front of his face stopped him. "You know what, I don't want to know how you know about that. Just leave me alone." He waved the angel off and turned his back on him.
"He was wrong."
Dean rested against the car and tried for another hit from the whisky.
"Who was wrong?"
"Famine. What he said about you. He was wrong."
"Was he? We can't win you know, without some help, we're screwed. I know it and you know it. So no I don't think he was wrong."
Dean went to take another hit but the angel reached over and took the bottle. "That is not what I am referring to. You may be broken but you are not dead inside Dean. You were feeding the horseman. He could see inside you but he lied about what he saw. He used your own doubts and fears and turned them on you. You still care Dean, that alone shows that there is still hope." Cas stepped back and tipped the contents of the bottle on the ground. "This though," he waved the bottle in Dean's face, "is not helping."
Dean stood and walked over to where the angel had moved too. "I know."
"You know? So why do you still do it?"
"Human nature, and that isn't what I was referring to either." Dean caught hold of Cas' shoulder, as much to steady himself as anything else. "I know that I'm broken, that there's pieces missing….vital pieces but still, famine was full of crap. I'm not dead inside. Want to know how I know?"
"Enlightened me."
Dean laughed softly at the words that if they had been said by anyone else would have verged on sarcasm. He pulled Cas to him. "You see, if I was dead inside, then all this," Dean opened his arms in a wide, all encompassing sweep and the angel caught him as he weaved violently backwards and then swayed forward, Dean's forehead coming to rest against Cas' own. "It wouldn't fucking hurt so much."
Cas felt Dean's pain in that moment as tangibly as he felt the touch of his head resting against him. "If I was dead inside then I wouldn't be out in the middle of a junkyard at the ass end of midnight, asking for help from a God that I have no choice now but to believe in."
"So you have faith" Cas smiled at him.
Dean put his hand on the angel's chest and pushed himself off. "No, I have a lack of options. I think you're confusing desperation with belief. I'm going to check on Sam." He went to walk away and then stopped, turning to the angel with a look in his eyes that Cas was unable to read. "It is there right? Inside me? You got it out, didn't just raise my body?"
Cas sighed and nodded. "It's there Dean. You have a soul. I know because I was the one that pulled it from Hell. I was the one that set it free."
"You set it free, funny that, doesn't feel very free to me." Walking over to the car Dean leant on it, letting his head rest on the cool metal of the roof. "You know a demon once told me that when people want to describe the worst thing possible they say it's like Hell. She said Hell is a prison made of bone and flesh and blood and fear." Dean pushed back from the car and turned towards the house. "I might be out of the pit Cas, but inside here," he poked at his chest, "I'm still in Hell."
With that he walked away leaving the angel looking skyward for some divine help of his own.