Chapter 1

Leaving feels good and pure only when you leave something important, something that mattered to you.

(John Green)

Monday. Sam is gone. He had left. Not forever, just for a while. Some never-heard-of friend of a never-heard-of College, who had asked for Sam's support or help or maybe friendship. She had called, he came. There sure had been a fight between the brothers, at least there should have been much more fight, but Dean was tired. Tired of life. A life on the run and on the hunt. With demons, vampires, ghosts, the Apocalypse and angels, who - even when they are good in everyone's head - count to the bad guys for Dean. There would be things more important than said never-heard-of friend, but nobody argues with tiredness-induced indifference. Dean and Sam belonged together like pest and cholera, none of them could exist without the other, none of them could live with nor without the other, but Dean was still able to be miserable by himself.

Languish in his own dust alone and translate hopelessness into humor and mechanically sallow acted-out fun and to make the best of the worst, while ending up with moderate. Enjoy life. With spare time that demanded being created. Watch TV maybe, without a derisive brotherly snort as the commentary to the escapist program of today's time. Drink maybe, without a dunning brotherly look by the fifths glass. Go out maybe, without a raised finger, or maybe even seduce a girl, who never thinks twice about her decisions and who sees things casually and happy-go-lucky, to give him something of that, just to see it shattered by brotherly blame the next day. Or just do nothing. Dean hadn't done nothing for a while.

One thing though crossed the plan of lonely entertainment with the unimportant things. It sat stiff and awkwardly on a wooden chair in a cheap-cause-ugly motel room with mud green papered walls and a brown carpet. A window on the westside seemed to fail in lighting up the room and even if the furniture wouldn't have been easier to look at with more light, it almost got blocked by a thick layer of desert dust that lay upon the glass like it never would have been anywhere else, and two big scarfs of grey curtain. Several tiny light rays threw themselves into the room in diagonals, over the brown scratchy carpet, and also the heavy dark wooden furniture.

There were two beige beds, one used to sleep, the other piled with parts of several different newspapers, busily stared at in the moment and clung to with ultimate attention by Dean. Investigating he pushed his eyes across the grey wastepaper and scanned every single article for a possibility and chance to flee from this no longer lonely loneliness. Because during his Sam-free spare time he preferred putting his focus onto a - any - case over following mentioned unimportant things with an angel, who disturbed his loneliness.

Castiel was sat on said wooden chair still and stiff, clothed in his in Dean's eyes usually found ridiculous trench coat, his hands resting in his lap, his face frozen. One could think he wouldn't breathe, didn't he wear a human vessel in his suit, that needed oxygen every once in a while. That he was ignored by Dean completely didn't seem to bother him too much, in fact he used it as a chance to study him.

Dean didn't know what Castiel was here for, he just knew he didn't want him here. Heavy as a rock his presence weighed in the air, hardly bearable the sensible poorness of space. Castiel was burden. Like a following dog nobody wanted and running after him anyway. Dean didn't know a way to make him understand he wasn't wanted, because whatever he had tried, it seemed to motivate the angel even more to overstay his welcome. As well it was as if Castiel mastered the human language only, when he heard what he wanted to hear. Did you tell him to go away, he would cock his head like the dog that didn't understand the words you are trying to teach him.

Tiredness wove the white flag, the fight has ended. And did you act as if someone wasn't there, it was almost just as good as the actual absence. Hardly noticed and still disturbed. A case - any case - had to grant him getaway by a good reason. ‚Doctor promises eternal youth'. ‚Car crash on the interstate.' ‚Senator peculates money'. Tell me something new, tell me something I fancy.

Meanwhile Castiel arrived at the decision that Dean was reading the newspaper. A medium of importance, which still seemed outdated in a time where soulless machines with shrill displays dominated the world population. He didn't have any rational reason to be here, no concern, no argumentation. But where else would he be. To sit in any variable park and watch humankind had lost in value, especially since he had realized, that watching a special human was much more interesting. And was it just the invisible connection to said human, the feeling of responsibility after rescuing him from the fire and torture of hell, which was long ago, but still marking in both their souls like a pencil on paper.

Return to heaven was no option. A way obstructed and closed up by pride and vanity and wrong heroism. He knew he had chosen the wrong way for the right reasons, but he hadn't managed to leave behind melancholy and homesickness. And to leave behind something important for the right reasons seemed more reasonable than it felt. Dean was the only thing he had. No back and no forth. But here, at least.

And even when they only sat there in parallel and silence, this quietness had something pure and comforting to it.