Title: We Don't Need to Talk About It
Author: Mycki Mor
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Jimmy/Dean, semi-one-sided Castiel/Dean
Warnings: Mpreg, Slash, language, alcohol abuse
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. I am not that clever. This work is for fan enjoyment only. No infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Since becoming a fan of Jimmy/Dean, I look at Castiel a little bit differently... Bad thing? I think not. I still love the little bugger. ~ 3 ~. And, this chapter is a little... off-kilter, but necessary for.. later, we'll say.
Summary: Left behind by Castiel in the midst of a rather delicate situation, Jimmy finds himself facing several major decisions. When his trip back to Pontiac does not go as planned, the ex-vessel turns to the only person he can trust... Who is also the one person that he has wronged above all others. Torn by guilt and obligation in light of new events, Jimmy discovers that strength is found in many forms, and that forgiveness is not always necessary.
Chapter One
A Conscious Attack of Morality
Repeatedly dropping his forehead against the vending machine outside of the motel room, Jimmy cursed himself under his breath. The action did little to aid his growing headache, but it drove home the idea that he was one gigantic idiot. Of all the stupid things to do... Of all the stupid, fucked-up things to go and fucking do!
The night before was still a bit of a blur, for the most part. But, so were the last five or six years, if he was to be perfectly honest. Castiel hadn't left him much to go on when he pulled up stakes and took off for Heaven. Oh, and it was apparently permanent, this time, something else the rotten bastard hadn't bothered to share with him. After all, why let the vessel in on any of the good stuff? Best that Jimmy just have a goddamn fucking heart attack when he wakes up nailing another man to the mattress.
With a final, harsh smack of his head against the hard plastic, Jimmy groaned. He really wished that he could forget about that. Fucking angel and his bright fucking ideas. Why did he have to wait until that moment to give Jimmy his body back, huh? If it was just to have his last, sick kicks at traumatizing all those – and, Jimmy did mean all those involved – he was so going to kick some divine ass when he officially kicked the bucket.
Jimmy growled, his frustrations manifesting, and he hit the vending machine with the heel of his hand. He nearly laughed when a can popped out of the damned thing. He reached down and retrieved the item – a Diet Coke – and shook his head with a long sigh. What a day. The sun had barely cleared the horizon, and it already felt as though he had been sorting himself out for a week.
For the moment, he was thankful that Dean had passed out after their little... encounter... It left Jimmy the entire night to sit up and brood, to re-adjust to being back in his own skin, again, before completely freaking the hell out. He'd gone for a twilight walk, hoping to clear his head. Nothing. Stopped off at a local diner, devoured two orders of bacon, eggs, and french toast. Nada. Then, for whatever ungodly reason, Jimmy had returned to the motel room that Dean and Castiel had been sharing. (Though, really, where else was he planning to go in the middle of the night?). He'd found the key in Cast-no, his trench coat, while fishing out a couple of rumpled ten dollar bills, and he tried not to feel like a burglar now, as he finally put the thing to use.
The room was still cloaked in darkness, but Jimmy didn't dare turn on a light. The longer that he could go without waking Dean, the better. If the soft sounds of even breathing were anything to go by, he had nothing to worry about. Yet. He crept over to the table, quiet as a church mouse, setting the can of soda down onto its surface. Another step, and Jimmy was shedding the trench coat, draping it over the back of one of the nearby chairs. He hadn't bothered with his tie when he'd re-dressed, so goodness only knew where it was. Hell, he'd barely managed to remember his pants in the midst of debating with himself over whether to make a break for it and never look back. But, again, where would he go? His options weren't exact what one might call 'wide open'.
Manners still dictated that he leave his shoes by the door, and as he crossed to the bathroom, Jimmy idly wondered how often (if ever) Castiel washed his socks. Nothing smelled off-putting about what he was wearing, miracle of miracles, but the idea that he had been wearing the same get-up every day for, what, the last six years, now, was a little more than he was comfortable with. That, and the wonder of when his skin had last met hot water. The thought was a bit much, prompting him to shut and lock the bathroom door. It was somewhat silly, and Dean still slumbered on the other side of it, sure, but there was no need in leaving anything to chance.
Jimmy unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the closed toilet lid, then shucked off his pants and kicked them to one side. He turned the bath faucet on, tiny droplets of cold water spitting out against his forearm. Stepping back to give the water time to get good and hot, the now-ex-vessel took a moment to survey himself in the mirror. The first thing that he did was to gasp in some mild form of horror; his reflection gave him a clear view of his ribs, skin stretched tight over bone. Poking at himself with disbelief, Jimmy nearly flipped-out, all over again. Had Castiel even thought about feeding him?! It was all fine and dandy if celestial beings didn't need to consume nutrients, but, would a damned banana have hurt him, every now and again?
With a dejected sigh, Jimmy checked the temperature of the bath water, once again. Finding it to be satisfactory (satisfactory, hell, he was downright craving this), he turned on the shower head and stepped under the spray. Jimmy found himself swallowing back a near-guttural groan as the hot water fell against his shoulders. Every muscle in his body felt so tight, so knotted. The heat slowly began to work that away. It was, in a bad choice of words, heavenly.
Twenty-five minutes later saw the water running cold, and Jimmy forced himself to pull out from beneath it. He turned off the water, grabbed a towel and dried himself off. Securing the towel around his waist, Jimmy surveyed his discarded clothing. There was no point in putting his usual garb back on, prompting him to sneak over to Dean's duffel bag and pilfer a shirt (too wide in the shoulders, but still comfortable), jeans (he'd needed his belt to keep them up), and a pair of socks. He kept glancing back at Dean as he got dressed, silently willing the younger man to stay asleep.
And, it was as he turned to stare at Dean, wrapped up in blankets, honest-to-goodness cuddling a freaking pillow, Jimmy Novak came to the most obvious, hateful realization.
He could have stopped.
Standing at the foot of the bed, the memories were slowly leaking back to him. When Castiel had taken Dean to bed, Jimmy had been vaguely aware of it (a blur, like most other things). Didn't really care, one way or another, but he had known what was going on. If they were finally feeling frisky, who was he to stop them? As if he had a choice in the matter, anyway. He'd long-since learned that him 'voicing' his opinions went over like flatulence in the House of the Lord (damn it, why did his brain still sound like Castiel?!). Didn't amount to anything. And, quite frankly, all of the tension between the hunter and his fine feathered counterpart had been about to give Jimmy a serious headache. So, like so many other things before, the remnant of the vessel had simply tuned it all out. That was, until he couldn't, anymore.
Having cut himself off from Jimmy during the act (as he often did in what he called 'stressful situations'), Castiel gave zero warning that things were about to shift. Before Jimmy had any semblance of 'back in body: check', the man found himself staring down at a flushed and panting Dean Winchester. He was fairly certain that he had checked-out, mentally, for a short moment, before he... Oh, call it adrenaline, call it arousal, call it 'it's been too damned long', for all Jimmy cared, because the fact of the matter was that he had kept going. He hadn't recoiled in horror, much as he felt like he wanted to. He hadn't stopped with kissing Dean long enough to say, "Hey, by the way, Castiel isn't in, anymore". Nope, he'd bit his lip to stifle a groan, hooked one arm under the younger man's knee, and proceeded to make him cry out for a supreme being that neither of them had any faith left in.
Groaning, Jimmy face-palmed with both hands. Oh, fuck, did he feel like a complete schmuck. And, poor Dean... Dean didn't know that Castiel was even gone. That was going to be something fun to try and explain, whenever the other decided to regain consciousness. Thankfully, Jimmy could probably cover, say that he woke up... somewhere, with no memory of it, of the hows and whys and whens. Hell, it had worked once before. The odds had to have been in his favour for a successful repeat performance.
Carefully cracking open the nearly-forgotten can of soda, Jimmy took a swig, swallowed, and breathed out a heavy sigh. He was fairly certain that he would soon get to test that theory.
Dean was in no mood to be fucking around once the morning light shifted high enough to hit him square in the face. There was a reason why he always took the far bed, damn it. Cracking open one bleary eye, Dean surveyed his surroundings. Standard motel room, standard, ugly-ass curtains. Bad stains on the carpet, and two empty bottles of Jose Cuervo by the bedside. He'd been sharing those with Sam and Castiel, the night before. He grinned at the memory of Cas, knocking back shot after shot, keeping pace with the brothers. Damn, Cas.
He groaned, more of the previous night slowly floating back to him. It was a fuzzy memory, at best, but it was still there. Dean couldn't recall the specifics of what had started it, but somewhere between the 'I'll miss you's and the parting hug, it had become obvious that they'd needed something else, something more. A deeper goodbye was necessary, and they had agreed to it in a silent stare. Hands had been everywhere, kisses shared with a generous urgency, while clothes piled up beside the bed. There had been heat, and friction, and power, the results of all three of which Dean could still feel coursing through his lower body. It was worth it, though, to be so close to someone that he held so dear, even if only for just one brief encounter.
"Damn, Cas." Rubbing his hands over his eyes, Dean tried to fight the fuzziness in his brain. He knew that Castiel was gone, but that still didn't stop him from reaching across to the other side of the queen-sized bed, hoping. It was pointless that he ever did such a silly thing as hope, since it just lead to heartache that he wouldn't admit to. When his hand met with nothing but cold sheets, Dean sighed, disappointed. He immediately tried to tell himself, he had better things to do than worry about what was no longer there. Those were the things that he tucked away for a rainy day, and, as Mother Nature had so kindly seen to inform him, today was all sunshine and hangovers.
Either way, it was time to get up, and Dean knew it. Sam was probably already out of bed, showered and dressed, with a case in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Not that Dean honestly expected his little brother to be up-to-task, try as he might (and would), especially since said little brother had been hitting one of those bottles of Jose, solo, the night before. Sammy had been on a bit of a bender since the whole Gates of Hell incident, and no one – Dean included - was quite stupid enough to ask why. The guy had done the impossible, got all the demons back where they belonged, and somehow managed to make it out with his ass in one piece. So, if that meant that Sam wanted to spend a couple of weeks in the bottle, and wake up with his eyes resembling two perpetual piss holes in a snow bank, well, then, so be it. So far as Dean was concerned, he had earned it, no questions asked.
Unfortunately, Sam wasn't the only one who would be regretting his liquid indulgence. The elder Winchester sat himself up a little too fast, his stomach knotting in a way that clearly screamed, 'Toilet. Now.' Dean groaned and gagged all the way to the bathroom, dropping to his knees and leaving an offering to the porcelain god the second that it was within reach. Son of a bitch, he needed to quit drinking. Not that it was going to happen, but, he knew he really needed to give it a try, nonetheless. If for no other reason, than for the sake of his liver. Poor bastard. Dean had to salute the organ for hanging on as long as it had.
Dean cleaned up, washed his face, and attempted to brush his teeth. Two strokes in, he was gagging into the sink so hard that he ended up forgoing it, all together, settling instead for swishing some mouthwash. He wasn't going to push it, not today. With the way that his head was pounding, and his eyes were still watering, Dean was fairly certain that he was paying for something. What, he wasn't sure, yet. Defiling an angel, possibly. Probably. Like it mattered, either way. Cas was long gone, if the empty bed and even emptier hotel room was to be of any indication. Bastard hadn't even left a note. Dean scoffed. Typical. Yet, it was somehow amusing. How many times had he been the love-'em-and-leave-'em type? Now, it seemed as though the tables had been turned. At least he'd had some manner of warning, however.
"You're leaving?" Dean asked over the third round of shots. "Like, for good? Really?"
Castiel took in a slow breath, and Dean found himself holding his own. The angel's answer was both anticipated and feared. He could live and die by one word. To his own horror, that one word was a firm, almost-excited "Yes."
They stared at one another for a moment, before Dean, in classic form, shrugged. He hid his pain, knocking it back with his next shot and swallowing it down with a harsh burn. His final response on the matter was a simple, gasped-out, "All right."
Spacing out in front of the bathroom mirror, Dean sighed at himself. Really, though, what could he have said to that? There was no changing Castiel's mind, and if he wanted to return to Heaven, then Dean was hardly able to put together a reason enough to stop him. After all, what did Dean have to offer to a Warrior of God? A tiny room in their little makeshift Batcave, and slower-than-flight rides around the country in a beat-up old Chevy? A busted-up body, half a heart, and no hope? Sure, that sounded like a grand prize if Dean had ever heard of one. It was such a shocker that Castiel hadn't just signed right up for that. Dean knew that his best friend was better off in Heaven, anyhow. ("There's no place like home," he quoted, somewhere during round five). And, even though it was going to leave Dean even more of a mess than he cared to admit, the younger had done what he had to do. He loved Castiel. He let him go.
Damn it, Dean had told himself that he wasn't going to worry about this, anymore. Out of sight, out of sorry fucking mind. Loved the guy, or no, there was no reason to dwell on the things that he couldn't ever hope to change. There was still other shit to do, and, like it or not, life was going to go on. Dean was just going to have to suck it up and do the same.
Once sufficiently showered, shaved, and freshly-dressed, Dean tugged on his jacket, and made his way out the door. He walked over to the next room, knocking on the door and waiting for Sammy to answer. The air was chilly, a light wind nipping against the man's face with an unforgiving bite. Apparently, the earlier sunshine had been deceptive, the sky having tinged-over with gray while he was in the shower. Speaking of, it smelled like rain was on the way. Ah, the wonders of Nature, the rotten whore.
The lock clicked, pulling Dean's attention back to the door, as it slid open to reveal a Sam that the older hunter was growing accustomed to seeing. His little brother needed a shave, and a few more hours of sleep. A few aspirin, maybe. As expected, there was a cheap-looking cup of coffee in Sam's hand, the aroma drifting through to Dean's senses a little dose of Heaven on Earth. He hoped that Sam had made his purchase for two.
"Hey," the taller man greeted, stepping back to allow his brother in to the motel room. "I thought I was gonna' have to go drag you outta' bed."
Dean grinned. "What can I say? I like my four hours, every now and then." Neither made mention of the fact that Dean had been locked away for, oh, about twice as long as that. This was partly due to the fact that it was no longer of importance. The rest was that, as he stepped into the room and had a look around, Dean suddenly found it hard to speak.
Across the room, seated at the small table in the corner, was... Was...
"Cas?"
Blue eyes looked up, and Dean felt his stomach drop. Those eyes, while familiar, were missing something, something vitally important.
"Good morning, Dean," Jimmy nodded, quickly returning his attentions to the morning paper. The look on Dean's face clearly said that he had it all figured out. He was a smart boy, after all. "I brought you back a coffee, too." He gestured toward the paper cup carrier nearer to the edge of the table, a coffee cup already in his own hand. "Cream and sugar are in the holder."
Coffee was suddenly the last thing on Dean's mind. "We thought you were..." He bit his lip, a little.
"Dead?" Jimmy supplied, eyes returning to the brothers before him. He set aside the newspaper, and took a sip of his coffee. He fought a grimace, noting that the liquid was cooling a little too quickly for his liking. "Believe me, I don't blame you."
"It seems that, when Cas left, Jimmy was returned to his own body." Leave it to Sam to play Captain Obvious. Dean nearly rolled his eyes. "Which you would know about, already, if you hadn't-"
"Slept, all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sammy, I get the picture." He cut his brother a sharp glare, before looking back to Jimmy. "How long you been... Y'know... You?"
Jimmy sighed, cheeks puffing up with escaping air. "I'm not really sure... But, I came to about..." He checked the alarm clock at Sam's bedside. "Five? Maybe? I don't really remember. I wandered for a bit, before I got here."
Dean, finally having been reaching for that coffee, stopped. "This hasn't been here since then, has it?"
With a little smile, Jimmy shook his head. "No, I went out for that about twenty minutes ago." He chuckled. "If you hurry, it might still burn your throat, a little bit."
Retrieving the cup, Dean eased the cover off before taking a few gulps. He tried not to think about what Jimmy had told him, but it was hard. Five o'clock, he mused. That wasn't long after he and Castiel had finished... Well... It wasn't as if that mattered, anymore. Still stung like a bitch, though, knowing that Castiel hadn't stuck around. "Thanks, Jimmy. For the coffee."
Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, no problem."
A less-than-comfortable silence befell the three men, then. Dean was shifting somewhat nervously from foot to foot, looking anywhere but at Jimmy. Jimmy simply stuck his nose back in that newspaper, ignoring all else, save for his coffee. Sam just wanted to go back to sleep.
"We got a case?" Dean asked, at long-last. Behind him, Sam groaned, tipping back his cup and swallowing down the last of his own drink. Apparently, hunting wasn't very high-up on his list of things to do, this decade. Not that Dean truly blamed him for that, of course.
"All's quiet, locally," Jimmy piped up, turning a single black-and-white page. "Looks like you guys have been getting the job done, right." Dean tried not to be offended by the surprise in the other man's voice as he said so.
Sam grumbled out a miserable, "Our pleasure," tossing his trash in the garbage can by the door. He turned around, and allowed himself to fall face-down on the bed. Dean watched his brother in amusement. He was so getting what he deserved.
"Hey, I've got an idea," he nearly shouted, with a broad grin. Jimmy looked up, curious. "How about we all go get ourselves a nice, greasy breakfast? My treat."
Sam was in the bathroom, door closed, and retching into the toilet in less than five seconds.