Uisge Beatha
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Dean stands by the breakers, idly assessing the whisky bottle in his hand. He lets it drop to his side and sniffs. He raises the elbow again to whip his forearm across his nose, the back of his hand catching at the moist eyes to wipe them clear.
He considers the whisky bottle again. He lifts it and before he can stop himself, habit has kicked in and emptied the vessel.
He stares at it, something about the emptiness drawing his attention in a way he should resist, he should break, he should get away from. But he can't.
"Dean," says a gravelly voice, and he closes his eyes.
"Cas," he warns. "Don't take this the wrong way… but go find God. Right now."
The angel steals across the breakers' yard but stops out of reach. "Sam is quiet. He may be ok by morning."
"Super," Dean grunts. "Why should I care?"
Castiel frowns, his head tilting. "Pardon me?"
"I said," Dean snaps, turning to look at him. "Why should I care? He'll be ok by morning. And then something else will happen. Something else will take him down, or me, or us. There's always something out there, isn't there?" he accuses. "So tell me why I should give a crap about anyone or anything."
"Dean--"
Dean lifts the bottle to eye height, tilts it, and lets it drop. His boot comes up and whoomfs it across the car in front of them. It arcs high and smashes into the ground, making Dean grin. He giggles recklessly to himself, picking up what appears to be a deserted wing mirror. He throw this high into the air, waits for it to fall, and then turns into the swing with his entire leg, punting it far across the yard.
"Dean!" Castiel snaps.
"Bobby ain't going to mind. Relax, Columbo, nothing we do here matters any more. It's all destiny, right? Everything's already written? Michael said it, and he was right; it don't matter what I do, what you do - what anyone does. The apocalypse is coming, just as everyone planned and there ain't one friggin' thing anyone can do about it." He feels at his shirt, patting himself down. "Damn. No injuries this time. And I was lookin' forward to avoiding you all by being put in a hospital again."
Castiel marches forward and grabs Dean's arm. He yanks him round and simply punches him across the face.
The human is twisted one hundred and eighty degrees before his crossed boots cause him to topple straight into the gravel face-first. The angel stares down at him, breathing hard in anger.
Dean coughs into the rough surface, blowing blood off his lip. His puts his hands under him, pushing himself up to his hands and knees.
"Do that again," Dean wheezes, "and I'll rip your goddamn wings off."
"Try me," Castiel growls.
Dean grins, chuckling to himself before he climbs to his feet. "Seriously?" he warns, brushing stones from his front.
"Every day I listen to you tell me that my father doesn't exist. Every day you bitch about your lot in life. Every day you fight the good fight because you have no other reason to live. You are roaming around here looking for something to kill because today you killed nothing and Sam saved us all. You feel small, useless, ineffective. So I should be able to grind you under in two minutes." Castiel advances on him. "You pathetic, broken, useless excuse for a human!"
Dean's eyebrows frown for him. He takes a step back. "Woah there," he says, staring at the angel.
"Maybe I will kill you, put you out of your misery, and help Sam stop Lucifer," he snarls, closing on him. "Maybe I have no more patience for a worn out, burnt up mass of self-loathing any more!"
Dean's hands come up to shove at the heavenly creature, but he stops short. He takes another step back. "You're doing this on purpose," he realises.
"Who figured it out and explained it to you in small words?" Castiel accuses.
Dean's head turns away but his eyes stay on the angel. "Why you doin' this? Why do you care?"
Castiel stops abruptly. He stares at Dean with frustration. "What did your father tell you about demons, Dean? What is the first thing you know about them?"
"They lie?" Dean shrugs.
"They lie," Castiel nods. "And what was Famine, if not a master of demons?"
"A Horseman?"
"A Horseman. Who commands demons. Do you think perhaps he shares certain traits with them?"
Dean backs up and his gaze flicks to the gravel between them. He smiles ruefully, wiping his nose before he tilts his head at an angle to catch the angel's sombre expression.
"He wasn't lyin'. At least, not about me," he says confidently. "I am gonna lose this, on behalf of all mankind. I will do some stellar work, my friend, bravely saying no to Michael and causing the entire world to slide into the crapper. It's all gonna end in a giant mess and it's gonna be my fault, cos it's what I always do, and it's what I do best."
They look at each other for a long moment in the moonlight. Castiel sees weariness, a broken soul and a plea for help. Dean sees an interfering angel with personal space issues.
"So you're saying… Everything you do goes wrong, and ends up backfiring on you?" Castiel hazards.
"I'm saying I'm gonna jam all this up and later you and me will spend eternity in Hell-on-Earth, debating this conversation," Dean smiled maliciously. "And I really don't care. Let it come, let it end. God, I just want it all to end."
He turns away, putting his hands in his deep jeans pockets. Castiel watches him walk away.
"Why did you ask my father for help?" he calls suddenly.
"Screw you," Dean offers cheerfully over his shoulder, disappearing into the night.
Castiel looks up at the night sky, searching out things only he can see. He looks back down again, shaking his head.
"I do not know what else to do," he sighs. "Even if his own father appeared right now and told him to get this job done, he would fight even him." He considers for a long time. "This is irony. He says he has no fight left, but he still fights any attempt at help." He looks up to the skies again. "There must be something I can do, something I can say, something I can--"
"Son of a bitch!"
Castiel looks up quickly, trying to detect if it is an ambush or an injury that is causing Dean to cry out so angrily over the night air.
"Dean?" he dares, turning and making for the sound.
He rounds a car missing its doors to see Dean hastily turning away from him, his hands struggling with something lower than his belt. The angel approaches quickly, smelling ammonia and guessing that only time and the Grace of God has prevented him from witnessing the art of peeing your name into an oil puddle.
"Typical Winchester luck!" Dean accuses grumpily, getting the last of the buttons on his jeans done up and pulling his shirt tails over the top defensively.
"What is?" Castiel inquires, beginning to detect more amazement and less anger in the human.
Dean points down at his former target. "A new bottle of whisky. A friggin' bottle of whisky right in that puddle! I was just thinkin' another one wouldn't hurt and then I piss all over it."
Castiel reaches down to pick it up, but Dean grabs his shoulder and hauls him back.
"What are you, nuts?" he accuses. He lets him go and picks up an abandoned rear light cluster, crouching to push the bottle up and over the side of the puddle, rolling it across the gravel. He straightens again, looking down at it and tossing the scrapped lights from him. "Now all we need is something to rinse it off with."
Castiel feels something patter on his shoulder and looks at it. Then he and Dean look up as the heavens open.
Rain pours down as if thrown from a monstrous bucket, and the two of them stare up at the perfect cloudless sky, dumbfounded.
"How in the Hell--?" Dean begins, his alcohol-addled brain reliably informing him that it is not possible.
"Not in Hell," Castiel says clearly, looking down at the bottle being hammered by the rain.
Dean casts him a look before he bends down and picks the bottle up gingerly. He holds it out, watching the rain beat down and jump over the glassy surface and his own arm.
Castiel's head tilts as Dean cracks open the screw top lid, throwing it over his shoulder and using his shirt tail to wipe the bottle neck. He sniffs it. "Seems sanitary enough," he declares. He lifts it and lets the gloriously harsh liquid pour down his neck for a few moments.
When he lets it down again, the rain has stopped. He swallows the liquid fire and coughs to clear his vision before he feels the bottle taken from his hand. He closes his stumbling mouth to see the angel similarly taking advantage of the free drink.
Castiel sniffs and hands the bottle back to him. "Do you know where the name 'whisky' comes from?" he asks quietly.
Dean takes the bottle and tips it up again, his chin, face and ears dripping with rain. He chugs it back and clears his throat. "Go on, tell me. It means 'souvenir for the losers'."
"Not at all," the angel says, reaching for the bottle again. Dean hands it over, wiping his nose. "It comes from 'uisge beatha' - water of life."
Dean takes the bottle back, unimpressed. "Pity whisky ain't holy water. I'd love to piss on a few demons."
"Would it make you feel better?"
Dean opens his mouth, considers, and then swigs at the bottle. "Right now I'm sick of feelin'. Anything. How about: if I drink enough of this, it won't matter how I feel. That do you?"
Castiel looks up and draws in a deep breath.
"You thanking your dad for dropping this bottle out of his back pocket?" Dean smirks. "Tell him he was lucky it didn't break. But thanks."
Castiel lets a small smile pass over his lips before he looks sideways at the Winchester. "Do you still believe no-one listens to you?" he asks clearly.
"Not exactly the help I was looking for," Dean sighs.
"Perhaps He is trying to help on your terms, not His. What does that say about Him?"
"Says he - if he even exists - knows sweet F.A. about me."
"I beg to differ."
"And it don't change the fact that I'm losing this thing here, Big Time."
"But?" Castiel guesses.
"But at least when I go down pretending to be behind that swing, I'll finally be so numb I won't care."
The angel looks Heavenward again. "He has missed the point," he sighs.
"You should drink more," Dean asserts, handing him the bottle.
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FIN