The work continues, and Dean and Cas continue to deal with their issues. Can Dean be content with the life he is building? And how is Cas managing to get quite so covered in dirt? Someone should clean him up...

Chapter 7

You are one man among billions, Dean. One man. And you have done enough. You have done enough.

"Enough," muttered Dean. "Yeah, right."

He jammed the tip of a screwdriver beneath the lid of yet another bucket of primer and prised it off. He had a couple more bedrooms to do, then when the primer was dry he'd paint and sand and paint and sand again until he got a good finish. Then he'd do the downstairs, priming all the walls that he'd worked so hard to make good - extra hard where he'd had to dig out old wiring and replace it so that the place didn't burn down as soon as they switched on a light.

Dean stirred up the primer with a bit of stick and tipped some into a tray so he could use a roller to apply it to the wall.

One man among billions.

But one man could make all the difference, couldn't he? Not that Dean had ever thought he was anything special, but he did seem to have the knack of being in the right place at the right time to (mostly) stop some pretty major shit going down - him and Sammy both. Or of course, you could equally say that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, from the point of view of living a peaceful life. But living a peaceful life wouldn't have stopped the apocalypse, would it? It wouldn't have stopped the leviathans or dealt with any of the other fucked-up scenarios they'd found themselves in over a long and a varied monster-hunting career.

Dean closed his eyes and took a long breath in through his nose, letting the scent of old wooden boards, primer and the background dry, sweet grass and heat blend together and bring him into the present - as well as the fading rumble of the ride-on mower as Cas drove over the scythed grass and brought it down to a couple of neat centimetres. The rumble jerked, coughed and then grew - he'd reached the pine tree belt and was turning back.

Dean opened his eyes. Back to work.

He dipped and rolled and dipped and rolled and the wall was gradually covered in a uniform, white base - a fresh start upon which any colour might go. He was creating a blank canvas, not just in here, but in the whole house - a space where he and Cas might write something of themselves into look and design, colour and contents, and make themselves new at the same time as they decorated - if they could. If it wasn't too late for them to find a new way of living.

Sometimes Dean thought they'd really got something here. The work was great - hard and physical and satisfying and really turning into something special. Sometimes it was enough.

But sometimes - when he woke up in the morning, or when he started to get tired, or just randomly out of nowhere - there'd be a sudden, hollow space inside his gut and it'd slowly fill up with doubt and guilt and the feeling that he should be out there doing things for other people instead of selfishly doing what he wanted to do.

Cas had held him - he'd held him close against his chest, down on the ground next to the dying bonfire. He'd put his arms around Dean and held him together against the guilt and the shame.

And he'd kissed him. Dean hadn't imagined that. He hadn't imagined the grip on his shoulders, firm and yet gentle. He hadn't imagined the press of Cas's warm hand to his damp cheek or the softly murmured words of comfort Supporting arms around his body were one thing - but tender touches to his face, soft lips on his forehead - they were another.

Dean's heart pounded suddenly and the roller skittered down the wall and fell onto the bare boards with a wet splat.

"Shit."

He picked it up. Oh well. He was going to lay carpet in here anyway.

He dipped and rolled again, struggling to maintain a smooth up and down sweep against the throbbing of his pulse, the fizzing at the edges of his hearing and sight, listening out for the sound of the mower's rumble - grounding himself.

I love you.

Dean closed his eyes, breathed, opened them again. His eyes prickled.

Black tendrils oozed and pulled and dragged and Dean could do nothing. Dean was helpless. Dean was useless. And Cas was gone.

He was gone and Dean was broken and love led to loss. It always had and always would. So why love then? Why love, when it always, always, got taken away?

Up and down… dip. Move along… up and down, rolling over and over, covering the surface with smooth, blank, nothingness. Smoothing everything away into clean and white and potential to be brought to life with colour.

Blackness and emptiness lurked in Dean's mind, obliterating colour and light and hope.

Jesus fucking Christ.

"Get a fucking grip, Winchester."

The mower turned again and Dean gritted his teeth and accepted that today was going to be a rocky one.

Cas had seemed okay, though, earlier. He didn't say a lot and was still on the skinny side and his eyes were often shadowed first thing in the morning. But he was out there, doing his thing - making progress.

Actually, Dean wasn't sure what Cas was doing half the time but the ex-angel ended each day filthy and sweaty and more tanned than ever, so he was certainly keeping occupied. He'd asked for Dean's help when he'd started cutting back the apple trees, swinging himself up through the branches like a loose-limbed ape, sawing vigorously and then leaving Dean to dodge out of the way of falling branches and haul them away, either into a new bonfire pile of dead wood, or to stack in the woodshed to season for a year or so before they could be used in the kitchen range.

And today there was the constant, heavy, thrumming rumble - louder and louder and then fading away as Cas drove the ride-on mower up and down and up and down. Maybe once he was done he'd ask for Dean's help to dig out beds for growing stuff. Maybe there'd be more of those tough paper sacks delivered, heavy and filled with fertiliser or whatever, and he'd ask Dean to help him stack them in the barn with the others. They had a good division of labour - Dean in the house, Cas in the wilderness-that-was-becoming-a-smallholding - but it was good to work together too. Dean had less hollowness to be filled up with bitter thoughts when he was with Cas.

The rumbling rose in pitch and then was joined by a different growl. Both cut off abruptly. Dean poked his head out of the window to see a delivery truck pull up. He frowned. Were they expecting anything?

The door of the truck creaked. A guy jumped down and looked around, flapping his paperwork impatiently against one leg. Where had Cas got to? The ride-on mower was abandoned on the far side of the orchard, but the ex-angel was nowhere to be seen.

Heavy footsteps stamped across the verandah and there was a pounding on the front door, jarring in the silence of the midday heat.

They'd had a lot of deliveries over the past couple of weeks and it was all stuff they needed, but it always felt like an invasion. This was their space, their haven - and people coming in from outside just felt wrong, like the real world was trying to batter them down and make them into something they didn't want to be.

The pounding came again. Dean ran down the stairs and opened the door.

The man jerked one thumb over his shoulder. "Got your bath," he said.

"Bath?"

The guy thrust a dirty, crumpled piece of paper into Dean's hands. Emily's Emporium - Architectural Salvage, he read. But he couldn't read the handwritten scrawl underneath.

"Uh, okay." Cas had clearly been shopping.

"It's heavy," said the guy. "And I'm on my own."

"Okay, yeah," said Dean. "Lead the way."

Heavy? The damn thing weighed a tonne. It was a gigantic, old-fashioned, claw-footed bathtub with a decoratively scrolled roll-over top and ornate gilded faucets with wings.

Dean's muscles bunched and protested as he and the delivery guy got it out of the back of the truck. They set it down on the ground, where it wobbled and then settled, lop-sided.

"That'll be a total bitch to get upstairs," said the guy.

"Uh, yeah, could you-?"

"Delivery to the site, not to the room."

"Right," said Dean.

"Sign here."

Dean signed. The guy got back in the truck and drove away.

Dean looked at the bath, which didn't seem to think much of its surroundings. Its gilded scrollwork was tinted with pink over a cream base.

"What the fuck, Cas?" muttered Dean.

"I liked the feet."

Dean jumped at the rough voice right next to his shoulder.

"The feet?"

"And the wings on the faucets."

"Okay… Remind you of a friend?"

Cas shrugged, his face hidden beneath his straw hat, tanned knees on view beneath an extra cut-off pair of jeans.

"Well, I'm not sure if I should install it… or hunt it," said Dean. Claw-footed… who the hell wanted claws in a bathroom?

"Oh," said Cas. The straw hat bobbed. "I could have them pick it up and take it away again."

"No!" Something tugged in Dean's chest. "You chose it. You like it. You should have it."

The ragged brim tipped up slightly and Cas's lips were chapped from the heat and dust but curled into a tiny smile.

Dean slapped him on the shoulder. "C'mon, buddy. Let's get this monster upstairs."

Dean stood back and admired his handiwork. It really was a beast. It must've come from some creepy billionaire's palace - maybe like in that Orson Welles movie, all black-and-white dramatic angles and Rosebud, and this monster of a bath lurking in the background, ready to tear you to bits with its claws. That would have made an interesting end to the story.

The gilded claws gripped balls the size of grapefruit, the metal cast in wrinkles so it looked like the fruit in question was getting crushed. Or hey, maybe they were skulls? Nasty idea… Four creepy, sinewy legs undulated in a series of knobbly joints to support the weight of the cast-iron tub and the considerable amount of water it'd hold.

Speaking of which…

Dean twisted a couple of valves in a boxed-in section of plumbing and the two lengths of hose he'd dangled into the bath choked, coughed and spurted to life. He picked one of them up and ran it over his fingers for a minute and then smiled. It was coming through hot.

Cas wouldn't be expecting this.

The plumbing for the main bathroom wasn't finished and wouldn't be for a good while, because it was a big project. Dean had taken over one of the bedrooms so that he could make something like a spa room. He already had the wooden framework built for a sauna and had marked out an area for a steam room. He'd been thinking about building a sunken bath, but then Cas had done his thing and this, actually, was pretty amazing.

The downpipe was ready so the thing could be drained, but a few adjustments would be needed before he could get the faucets attached properly, so for now a couple of hoses would do. And Cas didn't even know that they had hot water yet, so it'd be a great surprise.

"Cas!"

Dean's voice echoed hollowly in the mostly bare room.

"Hey, Cas, come here!"

The hot water coughed and choked. Steam rose. Dean reached over the edge of the bath and wafted the hot and cold together, checking the temperature. He clamped one of the valves with a wrench, twisting it to ease off on the hot a bit. The thermostat needed turning down or they'd get scalded.

But the bath was filling, slowly and Dean couldn't wait to get Cas in here. They'd both had enough cold water washes under the outside faucet to last a lifetime, but Dean really wanted this for Cas more than for himself.

At the end of each day, the ex-angel was always encrusted with dirt - rusty brown earth ingrained into his knees from where he'd spent ages crouching on the ground doing whatever it was he was up to all day. His fingernails were constantly brown and chipped because he just couldn't keep a pair of gloves on - I need to feel the earth, Dean! - and this morning Dean had noticed how stiff Cas was, climbing out of his sleeping bag on the floor and easing out creaking joints, grimacing and twitching with aches and pains. Dean was sore too, of course, both from the work and the floor-sleeping. But he was used to the human condition. Cas wasn't. And Cas deserved a good soak.

"Cas!" Dean squirted a massive arc of pine shower gel into the bath and watched it froth up. "Cas! Where the hell's he got to?"

The bath was nearly full, or as full as he wanted it without risking an overflow. Dean turned off the streams of water and stomped out onto the landing, his heavy boots thudding on the bare boards.

The scent of cooking rose up through the stairwell. Earlier, he'd thrown a whole chicken in the newly-renovated range, putting it in the slow cooking section so he could leave it all afternoon and just take it out when it was falling to bits. They'd have it with a couple of loaves of bread and maybe some of Cas's salady bits.

Ah, that's where he'd be - getting the greens.

They'd let their evening routine slide a bit, since the nights had started drawing in and it wasn't so much fun to go down to the riverbank when the light had already mostly gone. And the greenery was dying away now anyway, just leaving the tough old leathery, late summer bits behind, which even Cas didn't recommend eating. But he'd said there was a water plant that had edible roots, hadn't he? He'd said you could shred it up and make it like coleslaw - and as long as one hell of a lot of mayo was involved, Dean supposed he'd give it a go.

The kitchen was full of warm, chickeny smell, and brightly lit with unshaded bulbs dangling loosely from the ceiling. The light reflected back from the uncurtained windows. Dusk had well and truly gotten underway - and down in the little river valley it'd be fully dark. Had Cas taken a flashlight?

Dean, sighing, went and grabbed the little camping lantern from its position between their two sleeping bags. He clumped out of the house and down the steps, turning up the flame, which hissed and spat and settled. Then he set off toward the line of pine trees, the going easier since Cas had carved a dirt path through the rough stalks of cutdown grass and edged it in bits of rock and old half-bricks.

"Cas!"

A harsh caw came from the top of one of the pines and an answering one from further into the woodland.

"Probably sitting with his toes in the water," said Dean. "Toes in the water, head in the clouds," he muttered, boots briskly crunching forward over the dirt path.. "Bathtime, then dinnertime then bedtime, Cas. Mom didn't say you could play out this late."

White lantern light scattered as Dean made his way into the broadleaved woodland and down the steep path. There'd been a bit of rain - just enough to dampen the surface and set early fall scents rising - dropped leaves melding into a soft carpet, mineral scents of dark earth… and maybe there'd be mushrooms soon? Cas would know.

"Cas!"

Dean could just about hear the river, scurrying and burbling along - a bit louder than usual because of the run-off from the rain. The lantern light bounced and jumped as he thudded down the trail, casting harsh black shadows that flickered away between the trees. It wasn't nearly as nice down here as it had been on those warm summer twilight evenings. The friendly atmosphere had gone with the shortening days and John Winchester's voice echoed in Dean's head: You should be afraid of the dark, boy.

But he wouldn't think about nights in dark forests. He wouldn't think about hunting.

Dean skidded down a steep bit, brought himself up short against a rock, hopped down the last of the slope and landed heavily on the tumbled pebbles at the water's edge. Then he stood, knees bent, panting a bit, in his pool of lantern light - bright glare against sharp, dark shadows and the black edge of the ribbon of water, rippling and slithering by.

"Cas?"

Dean had found him here before, at the water's edge. Cas had been nowhere and Dean had panicked - but then he'd found him down here and it'd all been okay. And mostly now if Cas wasn't right there under his nose, Dean didn't panic. Or at least the panic was reduced to a small, sour, tentacled thing, hammering and tearing at the lid of a nasty little box, buried in his mind. So that was okay.

But Cas wasn't here, or at least Dean couldn't see him in the pool of lamplight. Maybe he'd fallen asleep in the barn on top of his sacks of fertiliser? He'd done that before.

"Shoulda checked there first."

Dean wobbled on the round pebbles, picking his way, holding up the lantern to cover a bigger area. He shivered in his thin shirt. Should've pulled on a flannel.

"Cas?"

He wasn't here. Dean felt stupid, standing alone in the dark. He needed the light again, right now. He needed Cas. Time to go back.

Oof!

Something hurtled out of the darkness and slammed into Dean's chest with the force of a tackle from a monster linebacker. He fell, full-length, rocks pummelling into his back and shoulders like a barrage of fists, cracking his head and seeing stars and then flying light, and then nothing.

"Fuck!" Dean struggled, kicking and flailing and couldn't tell if he was moving or the ground was moving or he'd bashed his head so hard nothing was moving apart from the lightning in his brain.

And he was surrounded - a crushing weight on his chest, pinning him down onto the bruising rocks, harsh bands tightening around his shoulders and tough, unyielding restraints wrapping around his legs. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It was strangling him, smothering him and then there was cold and wet on his face and neck and harsh scrapes against his jaw, his neck, his mouth.

"No!"

He was not going to be devoured by some forest-dwelling fugly fuck!

Dean gathered all his strength, tore his right fist free and swung it, hard. It hit something with a deep, resounding thud. The monster - creature, whatever it was - froze and Dean wrenched his body out from underneath it, scrambling and tripping backward again, landing on his ass in the water - and if he didn't get himself together it'd be on him again. Where the fuck was the lantern? Why the fuck hadn't he come armed?

He stayed still, letting the water soak through his clothes, panting, gasping, eyes darting right and left with no spark of light to give a clue to what the hell was going on.

Rock rattled against rock and Dean's head twitched toward the sound.

He took a cautious step to the side, moving away from it, back toward the path and maybe toward where he'd dropped the lantern? Not that it would do him much good. He wished he had his sawed-off.

A low groan came from somewhere further away. Was it moving? Or were there two of them? What if they'd got Cas? What if they'd hurt him?

Dean lowered himself to hands and knees and crawled, one hand, one foot at a time, slow and stealthy.

There was another groan, or growl, closer this time.

He paused and then resumed his progress, backing away. He'd regain the path, beat a retreat and come back armed.

His hand touched cold, thin metal. The lantern handle. What if he turned it on? There were plenty of rocks to hand - the lantern in one hand, a nice fat rock in the other - he could turn the light right up and then bash the thing in the head a good few times while it was still blinking in the glare.

Stupid plan, Dean, said his brother.

He grabbed a rock.

A cliffhanger, of a sort... Which I don't usually do! And I'm not sure if I'll have time to write it today, so it might be one of next weekend's chapters. Oops.