Chapter 9
I don't want to end my life. It just feels like I'm forever on my way somewhere and I just want to come home.
(Unknown author)
Friday. The decorating creases of his glass glistened in the diffuse light of the bar. People were huddling around him and talking, laughing. Dean was sat on the counter, his arms resting on the dark, varnished wood, with one hand turning his glass between his fingers.
Then a barely sensible change of air, when Cas sank down on the chair beside him. Dean tilted his head to the side and gave a devious move of the corners of his mouth. Shuddering memories flowed back into his conscious, as he fixed his eyes on the air in front of him.
The pain of his burns had barely been bearable and exhaustedly he had let himself fall back into the dark grass. His skin was about to peel off, at least it had felt like that. And then he had felt akin hand on his chest and a bright light had entered him.
The wounds gone, the body healed. Coughing he had sat up and noticed Castiel's still burned arm. He had asked, why the angel didn't heal himself. But Castiel wasn't able to. There was not enough power left. Bigger and bigger became the part that was human, smaller and smaller became himself.
Pondering he turned back to Cas, unsure and tiredly he sat beside him, silent and wordless. His look flew to his arm. The white dressing material flashed out under his jacket. And Dean remembered again. Back in the motel he had put out everything he had been able to find in a rush, practiced and well-tried in taking care of wounds. He had neatly cleaned his burns along his arm and wrapped them expertly. And Castiel had put up with it all soundlessly and let it uncommented.
Dean lifted two fingers towards the barkeeper and a little later two glasses of Bourbon were standing in front of them. He pushed one of them over to the angel, who lifted his brows in confusion.
"Drink"
A smile sneaked over Cas' lips, when he placed his hand on Dean's shoulder, touching the big scar of his rescue from hell. With burned hand on just as burning scar, created by just this hand, like a puzzle that matched in more than one way. And Dean felt burn, and he felt connection.
And for a moment he thought he could do anything. He thought he could accomplish everything and would always win. Break through it all and start anew. Make this life the best life. And for this moment he thought everything could be easy. And he thought everything would handle itself. And he felt like, just this one time, all the burden would be taken off his shoulders, like he wouldn't have to carry it alone anymore.
The cold air of the night drowned their faces, as they left the bar to go back to their motel down the street. Both their hands in the bags of their jackets, like it was enough of contact today. Their eyes strongly bound to the darkly wet tar. Soundless and not saying a thing, they walked beside each other down the slight slope in the deserted place. Both prisoned in their heads, barely noticed the many gigantic needle trees around them and the night active birds inside them. And however a short eye contact, very quiet and toneless, but still weird and unconversant. Something was lying in the air, just like the majestic grace of the upcoming haze.