Warnings: mention of past suicidal thoughts, mention of character death

Chapter 2: Crossroads ("This one is for Kate")

Two hours later, Castiel kept his promise and offered a new beer to Brooklyn while secretly sending a message to Dean. The bar he had chosen, a bit retired form the hall, was almost empty and the owner obviously didn't care about who his customers were. Brooklyn and Kate were chatting about the concert with big stars in their eyes when Dean slipped on the seat next to Castiel while making his whiskey slip on the table. He was still wearing his clothes show. Worn boots which one of them tripped over the young man's foot, a jean ripped at the knee, an adjusted white t-shirt and a shining leather jacket. That night, nobody had convinced him to outline his eyes of black and he wore only a single silver bracelet that Castiel wouldn't have guessed under the jacket sleeve if he hadn't helped him to attach it earlier in the evening.

"Good evening" He said with the smile he reserved for the fans and the journalists. He held out his hands toward the two girls in front of him. They stopped chatting immediately and shyly shook his fingertips. Castiel didn't understand how the singer's green eyes could still shine of excitement and joy after the show as himself was tired and hungry. This was undoubtedly the reason why Dean was the band leader, for his strange capacity to inspire admiration whatever he did, and his gift to do that with the kind of smiles that enlightened the day of the people he met. Whatever his state of tiredness, Dean didn't need to force himself to be kind and charming, to grant his whole attention toward the people whom he was speaking to like they were the most important persons of the world. That was what made him a leader and a star.

Castiel listened to him converse with the two girls, asking them if they would attend to other shows. He watched him raise his hand toward Kate's head and brush the bandana with his fingertips.

"Can I ?" He asked softly. She nodded obviously unable to say a single word and he slid the cloth of her nearly bald head, revealing a dirty blond fine down. She instinctively pulled her head in her shoulders.

Castiel had a lump in his throat and Brooklyn was looking at the bottom of her beer without saying anything. Dean was still staring at Kate and his was smiling softly. He stood up and leaned over to hug her over the table. Surprised, she awkwardly clung to his leather jacket that crunched under her fingernails.

Castiel did not hear what he whispered in her ear, but one way or another he knew it was exactly the words that Kate needed to hear. Dean had this amazing ability to know exactly what to say at the right moment to produce the desired effect in the people he talked to. Castiel was fascinated to see him blush every time a fan tried an approach, just to flirt with her the next second, a nod, a smile, a touch of fingertips on the cheek... Because this was exactly what was expected of him.

Once, Sam had asked him if he didn't bother to see his boyfriend (what a strange way to name him !) flirting with everyone. Castiel had smiled and shrugged. "The night, it's to me that he returns. So it does not bother me" he had responded.

Dean let Kate and took the bandana which he considered half a second before looking up to Castiel.

"You got a pen ?"

Castiel handed him a marker that he always carried with him for some time now and Dean scribbled something on the bandana he waved to dry the ink before reattaching it around the head of Kate.

"Do you need a ride home ?" he asked the girls.

They shook their heads. "Our motel is just nearby"

"Take care of you then"

Dean alawys looked after his comings in and out. He ostensibly took Castiel's hand and pulled the younger toward him to lead him out. The two girls hadn't stopped smiling.

The young man followed him stumbling, puzzled. "Are you aware of the fact that you just threw our relationship to the face of two fans ?" he grumbled before rushing into the cab with him.

Dean handed a paper on which he had written the address of their hotel to the driver, and leaned against the back of the seat.

"I don't think they'll tell anyone"

Castiel didn't think they would either, to be honest. A tinted window was separating them from the driver, so he took the opportunity to rest his head on Dean's shoulder. The leather jacket was cold under his cheek.

It was late when they presented themselves at the reception desk of the hotel.

"That was not exactly the kind of evening I had planned" the young man apologised while following the singer onto his room. Dean shrugged and closed the door behind him.

"There will be other evenings" he said.

The room was small and cozy. Someone (probably Sam) had brought Dean's suitcase, Castiel's backpack was already stored in the small wall cupboard set into the wall separating the bedroom from the bathroom. He sat on the bed and watched Dean toss the suitcase before opening it to fish a more comfortable outfit. He was remembering the time when the two brothers transported all their possessions in the trunk of an old car, sold since. When they had begun to have success and need to tour more and longer, he had offered the suitcase to Dean. It was in big black canvas originally but the singer had sewn patch big points each state in which he passed. There were still missing some of wich Hawaï and Alaska but he hoped to remedy this one day. Over the months to fold and unfold the machine, Dean had eventually acquired an impressive dexterity in suitcase storage term. He calculated exactly what he would need : a pair of jeans every five days, and as many t-shirts or shirts, socks and underwear that day between two hotels equipped with a washing machine. He had compartmented the suitcase in two, a clean part, and a dirty part plus a waterproof bag for toiletries.

Castiel would not have been surprised to discover did checklists to be sure not to forget anything (Kevin did and Dean had copied much of his travel routine on him).

Another bag, which remained in the tourbus, contained his stage clothes. Always the same. More or less threadbare jeans, white tops, various black leather jackets that Dean was quick to remove as soon that there was no more fan to see him.

Castiel looked at him undress, as always amazed by the way the man he had in front of him was changing as he got rid of his clothes as so many layers to his rockstar character. It was always the same ritual. First the jacket he slid from his shoulders before drawing the end of the sleeves to slide it down his tattooed arms. His shoulders sagged slightly as if they no longer see the point of staying tonic without the weight of the leather. Then the t-shirt he passed over his head, ruining his hair carefully studied, he then passed a hand through his short hair and scratched his head until they were sufficiently disordered to his liking. Castiel looked the tattoos disappear under an old Led Zeppelin shirt and the delicate way Dean smoothed the hem before unbuttoning his jeans and extricate one leg after the other after having removed the boots of a sharp movement foot.

It was always the same ritual at the end of which there wasn't generally much left of the star apart tattoos, piercings, and sometimes his eyes outlined in black. But not tonight. Tonight there was just a tired man who climbed on the bed next to Castiel and wrapped his arms around the waist of his lover, sighing contentedly, the head resting on his belly.

Castiel automatically put his hand on the skull of Dean, rolling the brown strands between his fingers to remove the last traces of gel.

"You think they'll come back ?" Dean asked softly, eyes closed.

"Brooklyn and Kate ?"

"That's their names ?"

"Yes. And yes, I believe they will come back."

Dean smiled. "They look like great girls. Brave ones."

Castiel nodded. For a while they were silent, Dean began to fall asleep. Castiel turned the TV on, looking in vain for something interesting to watch.

"Were you as thin and pale ? Than Kate ? I mean before."

Dean sat up on his elbows, his face close enough to Castiel's to completely hide him television at the footboard. The black haired nodded.

"I was worse. My mother must still have some photos of the period. I had lost all my hair and for two months I lived in a sterile bubble."

Dean sat on the bed completely, thoughtful, ran a hand through hair Castiel, twisting a lock of black hair between his fingers, trying to imagine his lover being bald.

"How did you hang on ?" He asked. "I think I would die if I was locked for months, if I was sick for so long, if I could see myself wither away slowly ..."

Castiel shrugged.

"Survival instinct. Humans are very difficult to kill, you know. As soon as you're told that you are doomed unless a miracle happens, you begin to pray for a miracle."

Dean smiled and crawled on the bed to get closer to him.

"I was your miracle then ?"

Castiel nodded. "You still are." He kissed him gently. Dean didn't kiss the same way when it was just him, or when he had slipped into the character of the leader of Free Will. Castiel often made fun of him by calling him "Fearless Leader" when the singer put on his black jacket, as if there were two different people in his body. Dean kissed him passionately and tenderly. His hands gently posed on the shoulders of Castiel went back on his neck where they settled for the time of the kiss before coming twitched in his hair or down along his arms, his back, hot and rough against his skin.

"Do you know why Titanic is my favorite movie ?" Castiel asked gently, playing with the cuffs of the shirt Dean, revealing the great black lily he had tattooed on his shoulder, surrounded by flames that ran it along his shoulder blade. The singer shook his head, his forehead pressed against his lover's.

"Because you're romantic like a girl?" He teased.

"Because Jack saved Rose, in every possible way, just like you saved me."

"I've done nothing Cas." Dean sighed, moving away from him to settle on his side of the bed, propping his shoulders against the wall, a pillow slid behind his back. "I gave my bone marrow when I was twenty-one, I didn't even know what I was doing. I remind you that it was just an excuse to skip class !"

It was a discussion they had already had several times and Castiel had never gone beyond that in their three-year relationship. But tonight, he saw the little red bandana and skinny arms Kate compared muscular arms tattooed Dean. He imagined them melted by disease, the faded ink, soiled by the treatments. He slipped his hand into Dean's who gently pressed it.

"Me, when I was twenty-one, I wanted to kill myself."

Dean had a violent jolt that shook the bed. "You never told me that."

Castiel shrugged.

"I thought I had a relapse. I woke up one morning burning with fever, vomiting everything I swallowed, I had not felt as bad for years. I went to the hospital and they kept me, made me pass a series of tests and examinations. I thought leukemia was returning."

"Three years after transplantation ?"

Castiel nodded. "It happens, it's rare but it happens. And I refused to live that again. The unbearable pain all the time, being sick all the time, doctors's pitying gazes, my mother who refrains from crying... I would rather have died than going through that again. I forbade everyone to give me the test results and I planned how I wanted to leave."

Dean had tight throat, he knew that the story ended well, it necessarily finished well as Castiel was there to tell, but it did not please him yet. The young man had closed his eyes, his head wedged against the wall as if seeing nothing made his memories more bearable. Or maybe he just wanted to avoid eye contact with Dean during his confession.

"And then ?"

"After I listened to "Dad is on a hunting trip". I knew it was you who sang, the person who had saved me the first time. This CD is one hour and thirty six minutes. I listened to it loop all night. I already knew every song by heart, but I imagine it must be in a certain mood for great revelations. I cried every time "My soul for his" began and also at every chorus of "Hellhounds". The next day, I asked the test results, took the treatment they gave me and I decided not to die, at least not untill I would have thanked you for my second life."

"Why did you never told me ?" Dean asked softly. Castiel shrugged.

"I don't know. It was never the right time, but ... tonight, seeing Kate, I hoped very much that you could save her as you saved me. That your music might give her the strength to wake up one more morning to continue to listen to it."

This time, Castiel had turned his eyes to him. He had that fixed and profound gaze that had made Dean uncomfortablethe first time, as if the blue eyes were probing too deeply his soul in search of something too great and heroic which the singer knew he was lacking. He wasn't a hero whatever his lover thought.

"I don't have this power Cas. My music is not good enough to save people."

"Yet it saved me."

"It saved you because you think you owe me your second life. It's different."

Castiel ran his hand on the bit raspy cheek of Dean as to convince or silence him.

"I only do songs. You're wrong if you think I'm some kind of hero to these people" He said again.

Castiel took his face in both hands to force him to look at him.

"Songs that saved me! And if they can save just one other person, just one Kate... Don't you think this is a good reason enough to be proud ?"

Dean couldnn't move his head, failling that, he lowered his eyelids. Castiel's thumb brushed the piercing above his cheekbone. "Listening to your songs taught me what free will, self-determination is. I still think that this is something for which you have to fight. And I still think that this is something you should be proud of. Something that is worth fighting."

Dean nodded slowly, sliding his rough chin in the palm of Castiel's hand to drop a kiss.

"Remind me that when I'll doubt again." He said softly.

"Count on me" Castiel said. He slipped under the sheets without bothering to take off more than his sneakers. Dean slid against his chest, his arms around the waist of the young man and put his head on Castiel's chest, just below the small scar near his collarbone. Years earlier, before being declared "in remission", the young man had tattooed a sentence whose real meaning had so far escaped the singer. "Safe and Sound". This meant more than simply "I am healed" wich was his response every time he was asked about it's meaning. It meant "I am healed and it is the music that saved me" Dean understood it only tonight. He closed his eyes, squeezing his lover against him, his head just above his heart so he could hear the steady beat between two inspirations of the younger. It was his favorite sleeping position for years, to the point that he sometimes had trouble getting to sleep when they were separated. The singer found a film he had already seen eight times on TV, put a hand on Castiel's shoulder and fell asleep shortly after him. He dreamed of a huge crowd jumping in the air to the beat of the music. It was his favorite dream.

##

There was always an adrenaline rush before going on stage, a kind of communicative energy that made them all want to hop on their way to the murmur of the crowd muffled by distance. Sam was playing with his drumsticks on every flat surface, sometimes on Kevin's shoulders until the young man, annoyed, pushes him back. Dean was cracking his knuckles until the other three were begging him to stop. Charlie was turning her plectrum in her fingers, pacing in the poorly lit backstage. Once she had tripped over a cable and had nearly start a fire. Kevin was reading. Generally the same book for a long time because he could never remember the pages that he had read through before going on stage. Their blood seemed hotter them every minute, and the excitement always won on them. They could perform on a large or a small stage, they could be only the four of them or being accompanied by an orchestra (it had happened only once and it was "awesome" in Dean's words), excitement was the same. As a sun which bloomed in the pit of their stomachs.

They always came on stage in the same order. First Sam who settled behind his drums and greeted Kevin with a continuous drum roll, a hit on a cymbal when the young man reached his keyboard. Fans loved Kevin, his big smile and the big square glasses he wore leaving the scene to relieve his tired eyes by the light spots. Both began to play a minute to find the rhythm on which Charlie came on stage. She was small compared to them and sometimes her coming was slightly unnoticed until a spot illuminates her red hair and green bass. Every fan knew exactly the name she had given to her custom-made instrument, but no one knew why. Often, when Sam and her were bored, they browsed on fan forums (their favorite pseudo was "Moose205") to read the most extravagant theories on Charlie's bass. As soon as the light went on, she began to play and at this time the public knew that everyone was ready for Dean's coming.

And it was usually not even the best moment of the evening. There were nights like that where everything went perfectly. They did not need to force themselves to connect with the public, there were nights when they felt driven by the grace and the music and everything was perfect.

They smiled at each other out of scene, returning all four together for the callback. On very rare occasions for a second callback.

They smiled and laughed in the backstage illuminated by the side of the room lights which came back on after the concert. Kevin left first to go on a walkabout while Sam supervised the removal and storage of his drums leaving only Dean and Charlie. The young woman played with her sore shoulders, massaging her neck.

"I take them and you eclipses ?" She kindly suggested.

Dean nodded and kissed her temple. "It doesn't bother you ?"

"We won't be at the hotel before an hour anyway, and you covered us enough Dorothy and me. We owe you that much."

It was a habit they had taken becoming famous. When Free Will consisted only of Dean and Sam, it was less difficult to retain their privacy for them. Now they had to cover each other alternately to keep for themselves what they considered as belonging to the intimate and that celebrity tended to remove from them.

They both eluded personal questions, and often, they made arrangements to occupy the fans for one of them can slip away quietly.

Dean waited for Charlie to be surrounded by a handful of fans to slip away discreetly and slip into a taxi.

The hotel room was oddly silent when he entered it. In the darkness, he discerned only the shape of Castiel sitting on the bed, dimly lit by the street light that passed through the half-open window.

"Is something wrong ?" He asked, approaching him. He knelt before his lover and put his hands on his thighs, trying to look in the same direction as him. Castiel had his phone between his knees and was sniffing uncontrollably.

"She's dead"

"Who ?"

"Kate... The bandana girl... She's dead !"

Castiel looked up at him and Dean saw that he had cried, was still crying in fact. He clenched his hands on his lover's thighs. He'd been unaware that Castiel had kept in touch with the young girl met a few weeks earlier. He could only imagine the exchange of SMS, and then, finally, after a long silence, the phone beeping or ringing. And probably an unknown voice on the phone or Brooklyn's announcing the death of Kate. It was tragic in itself, and Dean felt bad to take the news with as much detachment. But he didn't know the girl, not really. However, seeing Castiel cry that was what he endured least. It thankfully almost never happened. He straightened as he could to hold him in his arms despite their position, then he climbed on the bed and sat with him. Castiel clung to his jacket as a lifeline and was frankly sobbing now. As if he had waited for Dean to indulge in his sorrow. "She was only seventeen" he said between sniffles.

Dean had nothing to answer. No way to calm the distress of his lover. He was understanding it. Castiel couldn't watch the medical tv shows, cut the movies when a character found himself in hospital... and he was oddly attached to this kid he was talking about almost every day. Probably because he understood what she was crossing, probably because he recognized himself in her.

"It's okay..." Dean whispered, cradling him gently. "It's going to be ok..." He didn't know what else to say.

He waited until the sobs of the other are a little calmed down, just enough for him to hear his voice over the sound of his sniffles, and he began to sing. It was probably not the most appropriate song, but it was Castiel's favorite.

"Crossroads told me the story

Of a man who sacrified himself for his son

I wish someone would love me

I wish someone would save me from my run"

He felt the young man begin to relax, he imagined his eyelashes stooping on his cheek as he listened to the words he knew by heart. Castiel knew by heart every song of his. He found meanings that Dean had never had in mind when writing. Yet they were all true.

"There is someone I love more than anything

I would trade my soul for his

I would go to hell swinging

Just to see one more smile of his"

Castiel was still sniffling, but less loudly now and he didn't hung so much to Dean's jacket. He was listening to the sound of his clothes which slipped on his chest with each breath and to the sound of his low voice in his chest. It was like falling asleep and hearing the sounds of the outside world distorted and incomprehensible. He didn't understand the words, but he knew them by heart so much that it seemed they were from him. It was just a song that would not bring back the dead, but it was all what Dean had to offer at the moment.

"But I'm just a guy

With only my shattered soul to sell

And I'm crying in my bloody hands at night

I'm not the one who'll make you smile again"

Castiel began to hum the last verse together with Dean, he had a slightly broken voice through because of his tears, but neither cared. Gradually the comfort and warmth of the singer's arm calmed the young man, cradling him away from his grief as if he had the power to fight all the pain of the world. Castiel tended to believe that it was true, that as long as Dean would be there to comfort him, he could endure anything.

"Crossroads now tells a story

'bout a man who traded his soul for his soulmate

And they wander together happily

Crossroad demon gave them one year to share"

Dean stopped singing, just listening to Castiel's scratchy voice who whispered the last words.

"I wish someone would love me that much. I wish someone would save me"

It was not much. Nothing but a song written years earlier and on which Castiel had put his own interpretation, his own feelings.

But it was all what Dean had to offer and curiously, it was enough. A few minutes later Castiel was asleep, tight against his lover as a confident kitten.

##

The next evening, Free Will performed in a smaller room than the day before, an almost intimate committee where they felt more comfortable. Dean searched Castiel with his eyes but didn't find him, yet he knew he was in the room. He smiled at a few girls in the front row. One of them had the symbol of the band tattooed on the wrist, a pentacle in a sun. What drove people to do that ? His tattoos all meant something important for him. The lily on his shoulder, it was his mother dead so long ago that today he needed a photo and a brief effort to see her face. The rose that wrapped around his left wrist ? Sammy. The crossed revolvers in the small of his back ? He avoided to think of it. But that girl, why get a tattoo of a rock band symbol ? A symbol invented caught in two different books in a library in California years earlier.

Maybe Castiel was right. Maybe what he was doing was important, at least for one or two person. Maybe it was more than distraction. After all, if Sam and he told their pathes in their songs, why refuse the idea that they find echoes in other people? They were not so special.

All these thoughts jostled in his head at the same second, making the smile. Behind him, Sam called him to order with a clearly annoyed drumroll. He perched himself on a high stool that had been brought to him, stalled his guitar on his lap and leaned toward the microphone.

"This one is for Kate"

He cleared his throat while behind him Sam began a haunting rhythm.

"What doesn't kill me should try harder,

What wants to burry me should think better,

'cos I'm a warrior,

I save people, I save lifes, I'm a hero"

He had his eyes closed, impregnated with music. He imagined Castiel in the room, his eyes closed as he always did when he heard him sing, and he smiled. Others person closed their eyes, slowly swaying to the rhythm of the song carried by Charlie's bass which predominated. They would ask who was Kate. The next day, Sam and Charlie would find on forums tens of assumptions. The most common would probably be that Kate would be an acquaintance of the group. Or even his girlfriend. Brooklyn would probably understand. He didn't know if she was in the audience or if she would hear of this dedication someday, but it was not really for her that he was singing it, beside he didn't know if he was addressing to Castiel or to himself.

"Been through hell and back,

So pull the trigger,

Try and hit me harder,

But one day I'll be back,

I save people, I save lifes, I'm a hero"

He smiled, thinking between two words, that for once, he wasn't playing the Fearless Leader that he represented on stage. He was Dean Winchester and sang his own feelings, not those of a stage character.

"I'm a freaking hero"

He was really thinking that way. And it was thanks to Castiel.