This is a translation of the amazing french story "Music Matters" by Skadia.
Neither Skadia or me own any of the characters, but the songs are from Skadia.

Cover image by Petite-Madame on tumblr

Please read the warnings at the beginning of each chapter before reading.

Warnings: Swearing

Chapter 1 : The Woman in White

"I just wanna die now, and get it over with."

The boy was young, frightfully thin, his crooked elbows were sinking into the mattress and his face was writhing without ever a single glow of appeasement. The doctor had a son around his age. He was armored, immune against his patients pain, it was necessary in his profession. But the kid was awfully pale. Except where the hematomas had stained his skin with a grisly rainbow. He was feeling bad for him.

"Can't we get it over?" The boy asked again, imploring him with his blue eyes reddened by sleepless nights and the tears that he was refusing to let flow. He was named after an angel and the doctor knew that between two treatments, the nurses were saddened, seeing him dying little by little.

The last appraisals were bad. Awfully bad. The doctor leaned on the boy's bed.

"You want to stop feeling pain, Castiel, not to die."

"At that stage, there's no difference." The kid grumbled.

That very night, his name passed on the priority list for a bone marrow transplant. Through the locked door and the mist of his sleepless nights he heard his mother moan and cry. Priority list, as to say imminent deaths list. He closed his eyes and tried vainly to think about anything else but the pain crushing his bones and spilling acid through his veins.

##

On the paper it was a good idea. On the paper it was a good deed and it could save a life. But fuck it was hurting like hell! The anesthetic cream he had had on his hip was only anesthetizing his skin but not the bone where a sadistic executioner was about to thrust a mandrill so big that Dean had decided to describe it to Sam like a rhinoceros horn. He gritted his teeth, hanging on the thought that he was about to save a life.

A fat lot of good it was doing to him.

"You're okay?"

The voice came from far away and he nodded, thinking that no, of course he wasn't fucking ok!

He kept going on uttering a litany of insults in his mind until the general anesthesia dives him into a saving sleep.

##

"Beautiful day to be reborn, isn't it?"

Castiel didn't feel like pointing out to the doctor how his happy exclamation seemed ridiculous to him. But the pain had attenuated and he could be grateful for that. Nauseas and perpetual tiredness were still here, but the doctor was promising it would only be getting better.

"The transplant actually took, and if you're regular in your follow-up treatment it will get better in no time."

Castiel nodded slowly and watched the nurse who unhooked the plastic bag that dangled down on a IV pole on his right. A few bloody mark were remaining in the manifold she rolled up on itself before plugging the drip.

He decided that light red was his favorite color and then fell asleep without noticing.

##

The girl was softly stroking his hand while he was drowsing in his hospital bed, the rest of the anesthesia making him drift in a blissful hebetude.

"What do you wanna be later?"

Dean barely heard the question and answered the first thing that crossed his mind.

"A rockstar." He whispered, opening his eyes a little. His eyelids were so heavy that he closed them almost immediately.

"But I also really like cars."

He fell asleep before he could end his phrase.

It wasn't that hard, finally, to save a life.

##

Five years later.

They were in an unpretentious bar which had hired them for a five representations series. They were playing in the almost general indifference and sometimes sold a few CD that they burnt themselves. Mostly it was a life that suited them. Dean watched over Sam like he had always done, and Sam looked for trouble like he had always done. Frequently, they sat at the counter, the old leather notebook containing all their compositions between them, and, with each a pen in their hand, they wrote songs like one does exquisite corpses.

The first pages were reserved for the songs list and over time they had seen emerge common themes like a very long horror story put on rhymes on Dean's guitar chords and the rhythm of Sam's drums.

"You know, most people write love story in their songs." The younger brother joked, his large body wallowed on the counter, rotating his stool one side to another without his shoulder or torso moving. He always ended up resting his head on one of his arms, his pen pointed in the air as if inspiration was going to strike him like lightning. His too long and poorly cut hairs brushed the sticky counter.

"Looks like we're not most people." Dean replicated, clicking his pen on his beer bottle.

Later in the night, they would go back to the motel, the first one in the directory, the cheapest, and would sleep until the day after. It was a wandering life and it suited them.

Why had it been different that night?

Why in the middle of the indifferent crowd was there a young man who wasn't taking his eyes off Dean? It happened sometimes and it always made him feel rather uncomfortable. It was weird for someone who had decreed willing to be a rockstar at his eighteen to not appreciate the others' eyes on him. Although it amused Sam a lot. Dean knew he could bear a crowd's watch without batting an eye, he had already did it in circumstances more or less enjoyable. But the stranger was barely blinking, wasn't moving from his position down the bar and was shooting at him an oddly fixed look. Dean missed a chord and lost the thread of his song without anyone but Sam notices. He forced himself to look away from the stranger down the bar and concentrated on what he was singing. There was no other incident in the evening.

At the end of the representation that Dean called "Guitar Tour" he let Sam repack his drums while he went to order them two beers. The barmaid smiled to him.

"The drinks are on the house." She said. He winked at her and waited for his brother, emptying his first drink of the night. Sam came back quickly, his drumsticks rising from his jeans back pocket. He handed the old notebook to Dean.

"Inspired?"

"Not at all." The older answered, handing him his drink. Sam perched himself on the stool that he made rotate from left to right, his only fixed point seeming to be his hands wrapped around his beer.

"What happened earlier? You didn't miss a chord in months."

"There was a guy watching me."

Sam raised an eyebrow adorned with a silver ring (Dean had stopped long ago to try to count the amount of piercing of his brother, it seemed to him that he had a new one per month and that others disappeared at the same rhythm).

"The trench coat guy over there?" He asked, indicating the stranger with his bottleneck.

"He's still looking at you. Want me to leave you two alone?" He had that grin that displeased Dean.

"Don't you have a poor fangirl to drag in the back room instead of jerking me around?" He grouched.

"Why poor? No one complained until now!" Sam said, grinning.

"You know that someday being part of a shabby rock band won't be enough to pick up girls? That you'll have to develop a real personality for that?" Dean teased.

Sam got up and pushed the notebook toward his brother. "Or else we seriously work on becoming famous so we can really earn our living with our music? Now back to work jerk!"

Dean watched him go away with a blond girl who was a head shorter than him and they went out of the bar, leaving the singer alone with his beer and his notebook. He turned the pages absentmindedly without changing anything.

"Can I tell you something is a good song." A deep voice said next to him. The trench coat stranger had drawn closer to the bar and was hauling himself on a stool while gesturing the barmaid to bring him a beer.

"Do we know each other?" Dean asked on a crabby tone. He wasn't supposed to address like that to one of the rare persons who really paid attention to his music, he knew that, but the stranger was making him uncomfortable. Closely, his eyes which almost didn't blink were a pretty blue turning a bit on green because of the dusty lightning in the bar. He looked young and tired.

"You saved my life."

"I don't remember doing anything like that." The musician answered, amused.

"Five years ago, the 18th of September, you made a bone marrow donation."

"How do you know that?" Dean asked, resting abruptly his beer on the counter.

"Because I was the receiver."

"I thought that stuff was anonymous!"

"It is. Took me two years to find you."

He was looking at Dean with eyes within the singer was seeing nothing more but a sort of relief. He was still on his guard but that guy, no, that kid, knew something about him that only Sam knew. Even their father ignored that Dean had donated his bone marrow. He still had a little scar on his hip that he brushed with the top of his thumb when he was feeling a bit useless, a bit wretched for choosing a wandering life rather than doing something useful to the society.

"I'm Castiel." The stranger said, extending a pale hand that Dean shook by automatism.

"Why trying to find me? Got some complaining?"

Castiel shook his head and lowered his eyes on his own and still untouched beer.

"I just wanted to thank you. It was important for me."

Dean didn't answer. The other stood up, taking his drink with him after waving him goodbye. The singer's voice, barely louder than the bar's hubbub, held him back.

"What do you do for a living?"

Castiel turned back, puzzled, and Dean adressed him a small smile, shrugging. "I wouldn't want the life I unintentionally saved being stupidly wasted. So what do you do of your second chance?"

"I'm studying mathematics." Castiel said. "And accountancy."

Dean chocked on his beer. "You're kidding right?"

The other shook his head with a light smile. Dean gestured him with his chin to invite him to sit next to him.

"I like the numbers immutability. Whatever you do, one plus one always make two."

Dean had a smirk. "Sometimes one and one end up making three after 9 months."

Castiel seemed puzzled a few seconds before understanding and he shook his head again.

"This is exactly why accountancy pleases me. This sort of item isn't taken into account."

"You're a weird kid." Dean commented, amused despite himself.

"Anything you want to complain about?" Castiel joked.

Dean shrugged and they ended their beers silently.

Castiel was still here the night after and he slipped away right after the brothers' singing tour. Dean saw him again only weeks after.

Here and there they shared a beer and only once Dean saw him swallow some pills with his first mouthful. The idea of the young man wormed itself in his head like a cat meowing in front of the door until you open it.

Castiel settled himself gradually in his life like the unknown cat that curls on the crouch without someone has asked it anything. Purring so loud that you don't have the courage to dismiss it. Castiel didn't purr, but Dean couldn't find in himself the slightest will to keep him away from him. This lasted some weeks, some months.

How from that did they move a night to their hands running on each other's body, Castiel's back pressed against the outside wall of the bar where Free Will had just given a performance? None of the two could have answered. It seemed natural and they wanted it. Castiel liked things certain and immutable, Dean liked the heat of the moment. They were functioning curiously well, as if their blood compatibility was assuring their souls compatibility.

"Why did you wait so long before showing yourself?" Dean asked between two kisses. Castiel was kissing like nothing in the world was more important than the musician's lips against his own.

"I wanted to wait five years."

"Why five years?"

Castiel raised his left wrist on which, in the twilight, Dean couldn't have discerned a tattoo if he hadn't already seen it in day light. A dandelion from which were falling five egrets.

"Five years of total remission. It means I'm cured. I wanted to be sure I hadn't done all that work for finally relapsing after thanking you."

Dean lifted his hand up to Castiel's wrist where he dropped a light kiss. "One more egret per year?" He asked, brushing the flower in slight superimposition with his thumb. Castiel nodded.

"Your arm is gonna be fully covered someday."

"I hope so. And this will be totally thanks to you."

##

Three years later.

Eight egrets. Castiel was massaging his arm with a healing cream, running his thumb again and again on the sensitized skin just like if it had been burnt. He was lying on Dean's bunk in the tour bus. Dean wasn't really getting used to have a bus to travel from one state to another, he wasn't really getting used to fame either. But it was quiet nice not navigating anymore from motel to motel at the rhythm of bars hiring them for one night or two. It was nice to know that now, Sam wouldn't lack anything and that they wouldn't have to squeeze his drums in the trunk of an old car ready to give up the ghost anymore. They weren't famous or rich enough to believe that they would be free from want forever, but their situation had become way more comfortable than two years ago now that they had signed in an independent label that assured them a publicity important enough to increase their public.

In the little built-in screen above the tour bus table, Rose Dawson was talking about the love of her life. "He saved me... in every way that a person can be saved."

Dean sighed and contracted all of his muscles to stretch himself without moving from his position in his bunk, his arms wrapped around Castiel who wasn't taking his eyes off the movie.

"I can't believe you're making me watch Titanic for the fifth time!" He growled.

"I didn't force you." Replied the other.

It was true, but Dean didn't intent to take that as a good reason enough to not bitch. They were heading toward a town which Dean had already forgotten the name. Later in the evening, Castiel would tape a paper with the town's name on the bottom of his mic so he wouldn't commit a blunder. He'd be somewhere in the crowd, probably their most ancient fan and the most loyal one. Sam and Kevin would probably mingle with the crowd after the show while Charlie would help the roadies to store the equipment. It was a ritual that was only disrupted by Castiel's presence or absence. It lasted for three months already and Dean would see the end of the tour coming with relief and gratitude. He let himself being cradled by the truck's purring and the regular jolt of the road, removed his already numb arm from under his lover's body and fell asleep while Rose and Jack were partying in the third classes' steerage, cradled by the monotonous sound of the bass Charlie was playing softly on the bunk above them... Castiel was still absentmindedly massaging his freshly tattooed wrist.

When he awoke, the sun was filtering through the clouds, enlightening the whole countryside that they were crossing with a golden light that seemed brighter because of the grey steel sky that he was seeing through the tour bus window. Castiel had moved toward the little table on which he had put his feet, a book propped between his knees. He was nibbling one of his thumb nail and was turning the pages at a regular rhythm.

"I like this sort of weather." Dean said in an undertone just to test his ability to speak. Castiel nodded slowly and raised his chin toward the bunk above, indicating to him not to wake Charlie.

"Me either. It's my favorite." He whispered, drawing the curtain to reveal more of the window. Dean stood up cautiously (there was no day left without him bumping somewhere in that fucking bus and it was even worse for Sam) and he sat next to Castiel to kiss him on his cheek.

"I know, that's why I like it."

The other frowned. "I thought I had fallen in love with Axl Rose, why do I find myself with a poor romantic copy of John Lennon?" He joked.

"Cause it's the music that matters, not the musician." Dean answered, grasping his chin so he could kiss him in the neck.

Castiel had no valid counter-argument.

##

Castiel arranged the collar of Dean's black jacket and stood up on tip-toe to kiss him softly.

"I'll be waiting for you after the show. Maybe naked on your bed." He promised with a beguiling smile.

"You really want to turn me on before I enter the scene?" The singer asked.

"You're always turned on before entering the scene."

Dean laughed. Across the backstage door, they were hearing the murmur of the crowd who was getting impatient and the familiar sound of Free Will's stage crew who was finishing to set everything up.

Castiel slipped away and joined the pit of the concert hall. It wasn't the biggest where Free Will had performed, but the crowd was already huge and he stepped aside carefully from the mass of young people who was agglutinating against the barriers lining the stage where roadies and some of hall employee were adjusting the cymbals of Sam's drums and were taping set lists on the floor.

He took vacations according to the group's tours, an accountant had this sort of benefit, and found a way to follow them as much as possible. It wasn't as much as he would have wanted. He could slip in Dean's bunk or hotel room, but he preferred the safety of his own apartment. Free Will was certainly not destined to be the most famous band of all time, but their always increasing fanbase was starting to make him uncomfortable. More than once in the last months, he had been recognized in the street while he was nobody, only because fans had seen him hanging out with the Winchesters. He didn't like that and tried to be as discreet as possible.

The crowd continued to gather around him, making him zigzag toward a safe area where he was not likely to be knocked over. Two girls, sitting on the floor, were chatting at a rather low volume, their glasses of beer laying between them. One was wearing a red bandana which picked Castiel's attention. No strand of hair was to see, she was pale and thin but was smiling to her friend as if it was the best day of her life ever.

"You're Castiel?" A voice asked behind him. He turned around, surprised, and nodded. "Can I have an autograph?"

The two girls sitting on the floor stopped their chatting and Castiel lowered his eyes on the paper he was given with a big black marker.

"No hem... I... Why an autograph I am... Well I'm not with the band, I'm here as a spectator!" He stammered, horribly embarrassed and regretting not having anything to fiddle with to keep his hands busy and reject the pen that he was given with a lot of insistence.

"Not with the band? You sleep in the tour bus!" The girl who was talking to him and whom he was only looking at the hands replied. It would be too real, too intrusive to give a face to this person. Castiel was terrified by what it was implying. It meant that at least one person had noticed his comings and goings, had watched him enough to know his name and where he slept. It meant she certainly had her ideas on his life, his relationship with the band. It meant that or her, he existed because he knew Free Will. It was like being suddenly a famous people while being deprived of the right to exist as a person. He shook his head, a lump in his throat.

"I am sorry... I don't think this is a good idea." He managed to say, certainly not loud enough to drown out the crowd's hubbub. The girl snorted and exceeded him, mumbling something unpleasant. Castiel saw her make her way through the compact crowd and disappear.

"Fucking jerk!" Grumbled one of the girl who was sitting on the floor. She raised her barely begun glass of beer toward Castiel. "D'you want some? I almost didn't drink and you look like you need it."

The bandana girl nodded. Castiel blinked once or twice and ended up kneeling beside the two girls, grasping the glass with gratitude. The flat blond beer was scarcely fresh but enough to untie his throat. The girls were looking at him with interest.

"Nice tattoo that you have." Said the one with the red bandana.

"Thank you. And thank you for the beer. I'm Castiel."

"We suspected that." Joked the brown haired, the one who had hairs. "I'm Brooklyn, she's Kate." She said, helding out her hand. Castiel shook it and handed back her half-empty glass of beer.

"Do you allow me to offer you one after the show? I don't like being indebted."

Brooklyn shook her head. "Isn't that what rapist do at concerts? They offer drinks to girls, they drug them and then you never see them again?"

"Brook!" Kate protested. "Excuse her, I've been suspecting her of having a Tourette Syndrome for years, or an Asperger, she can't just not say what she's thinking!"

Castiel smiled and sat cross-legged beside the girls. "It doesn't bother me." He said. "And I had no intention of drugging anyone! I would certainly not recognize drug if I had it in front of me."

Brooklyn raised her eyebrows. "The girl who left said you sleep in the tour bus... was she wrong?"

Castiel and Kate were staring at her, puzzled. "What?" She defended herself. "Don't tell me artists aren't given drug freely! Or that tour buses ain't full of it!"

Castiel smiled. The lights went out and the crowd began to scream, saving him from having to answer the embarrassing question of Brooklyn. They got up and he stood behind the girls, he was seeing over their shoulders, and anyway the show didn't really interest him. He had seen Dean sing dozens of times, sometimes for his only benefit. He had seen and heard Sam play drums countless hours. He knew exactly how Kevin stood behind his keyboard and when he would disappear behind the scenes to get his cello for the acoustic part of the concert. He had previously played Charlie's bass and knew how much it was heavy and that the shoulder strap notched her neck every night. She wore turtlenecks for over a year, or large nail clamps to avoid this.

He knew the group. Each of their songs even the unreleased. He loved them all. But he knew these people as human beings. They were his friends, not stars in his eyes (or yes, maybe a little, but not only). He liked to slip every night in the howling mob and soak up their enthusiasm. He loved to hear Dean talk to them about their dreams and hear them react as if some in the public had the revelation of their lives.

He liked to remember the very first time he had heard this group. He was seventeen years old and after a year of research he had found the identity of the man who had donated his bone marrow to save him. He had clicked on a web page and the music had gone off, startling him. He had nearly closed the tab, by reflex, but the sound was not unpleasant.

It was the very first time he had heard the voice of Dean Winchester. It was nothing special, it was low and soft and evoked much more a forest walk than the rage of hard rock for the young man that Castiel was at the time. He had closed his eyes for a second to hear the voice of someone who had unknowingly saved his life and had listened to the lyrics.

"The Woman in White didn't mean any harm,

But she crushed my heart and broke my arms,

Took me to the river and tried to drown me.

The Woman in White didn't mean any harm,

But I had to get rid of her before she kills me."

Later, he had learned that it was Sam who had writen the song after the accidental death of his girlfriend Jessica. The words continued to touch him a lot. Half of the fans chose to see it as the story of a White Lady as in urban legend. The other half saw a sad love story and both interpretations were equally true.

Castiel had nicknamed the song "Leukemia" which made Dean cringe and Sam smile.

"As long as you like it, dude..." The younger had said when hearing the nickname the first time. "As long as it means something to you, everything suits me."

Unlike Dean, Sam was not possessive of his creations, he seemed genuinely happy if only people showed a little interest in his writings and compositions, the interpretation that people had mattered little to him.

They began nearly all their concerts with this song. Maybe it was a nod addressed to Castiel. Or maybe a way to remember that for the Winchester brothers, all had begun that day specifically. With the death of Jessica. Castiel closed his eyes and listened to the crowd scream or be silent depending on the nights, let himself be carried away by the heavy sound of the bass, the hypnotics keyboard notes, and Dean's voice singing softly.

"I miss her like hell.

She didn't mean to break me.

But she did."

When he opened his eyes, clapping along with the audience from habit, the girl with the red bandana was wiping her nose with her sleeve. He handed her a tissue that she took, a little surprised, in the wavering time between songs.

"I also cried the first time I heard it." He said. He had to shout to be heard above the noise of the crowd. He didn't dare to look at the bandana or allude to it.

"For you neither it's not a love story?"

Castiel shook his head. "Not even from afar."

She smiled before turning her attention to the scene where Sam was assuring background music while Dean and Charlie were adjusting their instruments to the next song.

It was for this type of exchange, for the strange communion between people linked only by music that Castiel attended the Free Will concerts. It was like to be alive, but together.