Another chapter for you! And I've just pretty much finished chapter 4, so I'll post that tomorrow and then maybe there'll be a gap until next weekend, or maybe I'll carry on churning them out daily... I hope you like this chapter, where Dean finally gets Cas out of the bunker!
Chapter 3
It would be good. The old house and the orchard and all the quiet and space would help Cas to get out of his own head - to make him new and bring him back to where he should be.
But first Dean had to get the guy out from under the bed, which took a whole lot of coaxing. And once that had been achieved there was plenty more to do before Cas was ready to get in the car and be driven to the old house.
Dean flung his overshirt on top of the bedside lamp to make the light as dim as possible. But Cas still clamped his hands over his face and perched on the very edge of the bare mattress, shivering with cold or anxiety or both. He was clad only in a pair of boxers that had seen better days and a ragged, stained old shirt, torn in multiple places, probably from the sharp bits on the underside of the old bed frame. His elbows stuck out in angular points, resting on his bare knees, and the line of his jaw was sharper than it should have been. There was dust in his hair and dirt under his fingernails.
Dean wanted to punch something - probably himself, for letting his friend get in such a state. He'd tried to get through to Cas, but that was no excuse. He clearly hadn't tried anywhere near hard enough.
"I'm gonna get this lot in the wash," he said. "Then I'll be right back. Okay?"
Cas didn't respond.
"You gonna be okay on your own for a coupla minutes? Or d'you want me to get Sam?"
Cas shook his head.
"You're not gonna go back under there - are you?"
A sharp shake of the head again.
"Okay, I'll be right back."
He hustled to get the laundry on to wash.
"Dean?" Sam stuck his head around the door. "How's it going?"
"Slowly." He chucked in a whole load of detergent and set the machine going. "He was hiding under his bed."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yeah. I need to get back. Get him in the shower. Get him outta here."
Sam checked his watch. "It's late."
"I don't care. We're blowing this joint as soon as I can get our shit together. We can sleep in the car."
"But-"
"It has to be now, Sam. A fresh start - right the hell now, no fucking arguments, no fucking excuses."
Sam threw up his hands, pacifying. "Okay, fine - not going to argue!"
"Good."
Dean didn't check the time when they finally left the bunker, but it was pitch dark with no hint of lightening in the east.
He drove up out of the bunker, followed the weaving pattern of minor roads that led to the highway, and soon had Baby cruising steadily, one hand on the wheel, the other resting in his lap. His relaxed attitude, however, was entirely false, and his free hand shifted restlessly, plucking at a tear in his jeans, until he put the damn thing back on the wheel next to the other, just to give it something to do.
He glanced across at Cas, expecting to find him asleep after all the action of the past couple of hours. But his eyes glimmered in the darkness and shifted to meet Dean's.
"You okay there, Cas?"
He gave a barely perceptible nod. But his eyes stayed fixed on Dean.
He looked weird in a mix of Dean and Sam's clothes - good weird, but still weird. All Cas's stuff - not that he had much - was still damp from the wash, shoved into a couple of trash sacks and piled on the back seat, along with everything else that wouldn't fit in Baby's trunk: Dean's clothes, some food and cooking stuff, tools for getting started on the house - all kinds of crap that Dean had run around grabbing manically. In fact, he'd probably missed a whole load of stuff they'd need and brought along shit that'd just lie about getting in the way.
Anyway, they were on their way - that was what mattered.
Dean drove. And Cas watched the road and watched Dean and said nothing. But he hadn't run off and hidden again. He'd got in the car as meek as a spring lamb. So Dean must've done the right thing, mustn't he? Yes, because what else was he going to do? Leave Cas to make friends with the dust bunnies under his bed?
It was still dark when Baby's headlamps swung onto the beginning of the rutted dirt track that led to the house - to their house. Baby followed the path of her lights and Dean slowed her down even more than he had during the day, because he wasn't fucking up Baby's suspension just to get there a couple of minutes early.
Cas remained silent.
The beams swung and bounced, flicked up over the thorny hedges either side and then down into a dip that'd most likely turn into a small lake as soon as the fall rains arrived. Then, at last, the black barriers either side receded and the headlamps shone out into the darkness, and, at the far edge of their range, the horizontal stripes of paint-peeling clapboard emerged. As Dean drove up the slope, the light flickered and bounced off the windows and cast narrow strips of black from the uprights of the verandah.
He stopped and switched off the engine.
"We'll wait till it's light to-"
The passenger door creaked and Cas was out and gone.
"Dammit, Cas." He'd probably trip up on a rut or fall through the rotting planks or get tangled up in thorns or something. "Fuck."
Dean slid out and shut Baby's door and stood in the darkness, leaning against the reassuring, solid metal. The engine ticked as it cooled.
"Cas!" He blinked and waited. He could switch the headlamps back on to track down the straying ex-angel.
No. No, now that his eyes had adjusted he could see the heavy silhouette of the old house and the tangled fingers of the orchard. And he could see the more diffuse darkness of the clear skies, speckled and spattered with clusters of more stars than you could count in a hundred lifetimes.
But he couldn't see Cas.
"Cas! Come on! Get your ass back here!" Dean listened, straining to pick up a sign of his friend.
Something rustled in the undergrowth to his left and a harsh cry came from the pine forest. But there was no sense of threat - no fuglies lurking to bring Dean crashing back to the world of hunting and killing.
Where had Cas gone?
Dean blinked again and yes - he could see the branches of the apple trees just a tiny bit more clearly, the sky behind them the darkest of dark purples rather than black. And a shadow moved among them.
He took a step away from the Impala's shelter and then another and crossed his arms, drawing his jacket closer around his body against the pre-dawn chill.
"Cas?"
The uncut orchard grass swished and flicked against his boots and the dampness of heavy dew soaked the hems of his jeans. Now the little trees were black twisting silhouettes against dark orange velvet - smooth and cloudless and with even the brightest pinprick stars disappearing one by one as the light rose.
One of the silhouettes moved and Dean huffed and grunted and swore as he made a beeline for it, planting his boots heavily on the rough ground but stumbling over ruts and hidden obstacles all the same. Something tugged at his ankle and he fell, flailing, one hand slamming onto a hard, flat surface, saving him from a headfirst dive into the grass.
"Shit." Dean pulled himself up, patting the decaying beehive. Then he looked up, and there was Cas.
He stood just beyond the last cluster of apple trees, where the ground began to fall toward a post-and-wire fence marking the boundary of the plot. And behind the ex-angel the sky was golden, streaked with thin ribbons of violet cloud, which, from where Dean was standing, appeared to stretch out either side of Cas's shoulders like wings.
His head was thrown back, his face tipped up toward the heavens and slowly his arms rose in parallel to the cloud-wings, as if he were about to take flight.
"Cas?"
His arms fell to his sides. His head turned and his profile was outlined in gold.
And he might not have his grace any more, but he still looked a hell of a lot like an Angel of the Lord to Dean.
Dean didn't know whether to chew him out for running off into the night or to hug the stuffing out of him. "Are you okay?"
A tiny twitch of Cas's lips might have been a smile. Dean would count it as a smile anyway.
Cas turned back toward the sunrise and Dean, still stumbling over the tussocky grass, came up alongside him and stood at the top of the slope. The fence at the bottom needed mending, curls of loose wire glinting in the light.
"So, what do you think? Did you see the house? I know it needs work. The whole place needs a shit-tonne of work. So I'd totally get it if you-"
"Shhh."
Cas's eyes flicked to Dean and then back to the sunrise.
"Okay. I'll shut up, then."
They watched the sky change colour together and slowly, a sliver of shining gold rose above the flat horizon.
Dean kept his arms curled around his chest because, though it'd be hot later, the sun hadn't yet had half a chance to burn off the night chill.
Cas didn't seem to be feeling the cold, though. He had on an old pair of Dean's sweats and a sagging pink t-shirt that had probably been dark red once. And over the top he had one of Sam's hoodies - the one which had gotten some kind of witchy goop splashed on the front which Dean had never been able to get out even after trying a hundred different stain remedies that he'd found online.
Cas glanced at him again, frowning. Dean cleared his throat and refocused on the gold and pink sky. He wasn't good at standing still, even for such a pretty sight. And if his body couldn't move, his mind set itself off, going down all sorts of roads like when he just got in Baby and drove, taking turnings at random.
He'd have to set up a kind of camp inside the house - choose one of the least dilapidated rooms and put out sleeping bags and the little camping stove he'd found in a cupboard in the bunker. They'd be warm enough at night for now, and by the time it got cold, Dean would have the house sealed up from draughts and the chimneys swept ready for open fires. And maybe he'd even be able to put a central heating system in. Air conditioning would have to wait.
A bump to his elbow brought him back to the present again. Cas was standing closer, so that they were nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, and whether this was to be companionable or just to nudge Dean's attention back onto the sunrise, Dean wasn't sure. But it was nice, like they were back to being Dean and Cas again - two friends who might be more than friends, standing together, just enjoying a rare moment of peace.
And somehow it was easier with Cas so close to him - maybe because he was that bit warmer, maybe because Cas's soft, steady breath in the stillness of early morning kept his attention in the moment. But Dean's tumbling thoughts calmed, like a bubbling stream running into a big, still lake. And he watched the sun climb up into the sky and spill its light across the land in front of them - fields and distant farm buildings and the fleeting silver flashes of traffic on a distant highway.
Then behind them there was a little chirp from the depths of the apple trees - which, to Dean's mind, must've been the drummer banging his sticks together to give the beat, because then it all kicked off and a rock-band dawn chorus started up. Tweets and chirps and warbles made a classic ballad out of the new day, and further away in the pine trees, shrill cries and caws were like tortured artists yelling along to the amplified scream of their guitars.
Dean almost ran back to Baby to add The Rain Song to the mix, letting Robert Plant sing along with the birds. But he stayed with his friend instead.
"It's a good place, isn't it, Cas?"
He looked at the ex-angel, who would always be an angel to Dean, grace or no grace, wings or no wings. Cas's whole face was lit up in gold, and though Dean could see clearly the dark shadows beneath his eyes, the rough stubble on his jaw and the hollows of his too-thin cheeks, he was still Cas, still Dean's best friend, still… The word didn't come easy, even without saying it out loud. Cas was still beautiful.
"Yes, Dean," he said. "It's a good place."
I love golden-lit Cas. And I'm glad they're now at the house. I'm going to have fun spending time with them and watching them fix the place, and each other, up. I hope you will enjoy it too!