'The Future as B-Movie' - SPN - Dean, Sam, Cas - PG13

[whynot]

The Mean Girls trailer using Disney princess movies? Awesome. Merlin Artword?! JOIN THE SHITTING MOTHERCOCK UP.

Now Showing on my Dreamwidth

Christmas Past | Narnia. Susan, Edmund (Jadis). G. 323 words. Golden Age fic written for marycontraire's fandom_stocking.

Transfiguration | Supernatural. Sam, Lucifer, Dean. PG13. Spoilers for S5. 289 words. Written for sharp_teeth for the following prompt: "He has the Devil under his skin. He didn't know it would be like this. The Devil doesn't let him rest, doesn't let him sleep, doesn't let him close his eyes. And he can feel his body rotting."

double the speed limit | Supernatural. Sam/Dean. PG13. 447 words. Written for the comment_fic prompt "Sam&/Dean, give me the keys." This is less a ficlet more like a condensed summary of the Wincest I've been reading.


Commentfic will especially be the death of me because apparently I NEVER LEARN. But it's gonna be a pretty fun death! Maybe there can be a round-robin crackfic-athon at the wake. The thing below was written for : "There are still a few vampires out there, despite the rampant Apocalypse, and they're still doing their thing. And yeah, angel blood--or former angel blood? Turns out it's way tastier than regular ol' human blood, especially with so many humans jacked up by this weird new virus. (The End 'verse, maybe not all the way to 2014 yet, maybe Sam's still around.)"

And suddenly I have 2100 words of AU (of a canon AU) futurefic and vague ideas for a sequel. Ours is not to question why. But partly it's because oh man, I can write in croatverse foreverrrrr or at least until my heart breaks into a billion little pieces.


The Future As B-Movie
Supernatural. Dean, Sam, Cas. PG13. Spoilers for 5x04, sort of...
In the middle of the zombie apocalypse, the vampires multiply and zero in on Cas. \o/


Dean can't believe this shit.

Look, it's the end of the world, for real this time, not just the little localized disasters here and there that were weirdly easy to contain. The end times have truly arrived and no one can pretend anymore. The last news story Dean saw on TV before TV cut out completely was about the moon being cleft in twain.

In fucking twain.

The point is, Team Free Will is trying their hardest, they really are, but this is baby's first apocalypse, and you can't just salt and burn rivers of blood or deadly plague or boiling seas. They're kind of out of their depth here.

Also: croats. Croats everywhere. Plus, on top of it all: vampires.

"Dean, behind you!" Sam yells.

"I got it!" Dean yells back, and gets it. "Get Cas out of here!"

What the fuck are vampires even doing still around?

"Grargh!" one yells, and Dean kicks it in the face.

There are still werewolves. There are still ghosts. There are still wendigos and rakshasas and sidhe. Not a lot, but occasionally they'd come across one on a supply run, as desperate and scared as anyone else, and Dean almost feels bad when they kill it. The apocalypse is shitty for everyone, even for monsters.

Dean spares a glance over his shoulder and sees Sam practically dragging a blood-soaked Castiel away from the scene. It kind of looks like there's more blood outside his body than inside, and Dean tries not to wonder: is this it? Is this it for Cas?

Too bad vampires don't feed on croats, Dean muses as he stabs the last vampire with a knife they dipped in dead man's blood. Then you can just make them fight each other. Vampires versus zombies! Who would win?

Probably ninjas, Dean thinks. He turns around and runs after Sam and Cas.

+

The vampires are becoming a problem.

There's more and more of them each day, which was just weird, but then they captured one of the sons of bitches in the woods and tried to shake some intel out of him -- where's your nest, you fucker, etc. -- and a horrifying sort of light was shed. The vamp laughed in the insane, arrogant vampire way and babbled on about how he used to be human, used to be normal before the beginning of the end, with a job and a life and all that crap. He used to be like them. (Dean smirked and didn't correct him.) But then the apocalypse came and every skeleton in the world's closet started walking the earth. The guy thought maybe he should hedge his bets.

It took a second for Dean to realize what he was saying. "You became a vampire willingly?"

The vamp said, "Bingo."

"Why'd you do it?" Sam asked.

"First, you tell me what drugs your friend is injecting into his veins, because oof, I have not tasted blood so sweet in--"

"Why'd you become a vampire?" Dean barked.

"To survive," he shrugged. "Any life is better than no life. This is one more rung up the food chain and it's the best chance we got.” The vampire grinned, showing killing teeth. “Tell you what. Let me go and I'll turn you too.”

"Sorry,” Dean said flatly, “turning into a monster to save my own ass isn't really on my to-do list.”

“What, you guys aren't afraid of dying?"

Dean and Sam exchanged glances. They had little sympathy for people afraid of death. Dean held out his hand, and his brother handed him the blood-dipped knife.

"To conquer death," Dean said, "you only have to die."

And that was the end of that vamp. They watched him writhe and scream as the poison spread through his body, letting him stew a little, get what was coming to him. At some point, Sam sighed and commenced decapitation.

"Dude," Sam said, hacking at the last ropes of muscle that connected the head. "Did you just quote Jesus Christ Superstar before killing a vampire?"

"What? No, that was like Walt Whitman or something."

"No, I'm pretty sure that was Jesus Christ Superstar."

Dean glowered at him. "Do I look like the kind of guy who goes around quoting musicals about Jesus?"

Sam shrugged and stood up, covered in blood. "Apparently guys who go around quoting musicals about Jesus look like you."

"How the hell do you know the words to Jesus Christ Superstar anyway?" Dean asked suspiciously.

Sam raised an eyebrow and looked smugger than vampires. "How do you?"

"It's Whitman, dude. Or, like, Thoreau."

"It's definitely not Thoreau."

"Then it's fucking Euclid, okay!"

"Euclid was a mathematician."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You know what, fuck you. And fuck Jesus Christ Superstar."

So they returned to Camp Chitaqua, where everyone gave the brothers' blood-covered state nothing more than a passing glance. They had all seen worse. Sam went off to get a bucket of water for washing up, but Dean first stopped by the infirmary, where earth's most recently minted human laid prone on a bed, recovering from multiple lacerations to the neck and shoulders.

"How're you holding up?" Dean asked.

"Better," Cas said, staring at the ceiling.

"We got him. Thought you'd like to know. We got the bastard that did this to you."

Cas didn't answer right away, all hopped up on painkillers. There was a glazed look in his eyes when he looked at Dean, that single-minded blue-eyed stare. There was a softness in them now. Mortality, perhaps. Or maybe just some good ol' fashioned suffering.

"I still can't hear them," Cas said quietly. "I can't feel them."

"It's okay, buddy," Dean said, because he didn't know what else to say.

Cas said, "I didn't think they'd actually leave."

Becky bustled over and, to Dean's relief, kicked Dean out. Cas needed his rest, Becky insisted. And no vampire blood near the infirmary, it's totally unsanitary. And Chuck had been trying to talk to Dean all day about the next supply run, had he found him?

"No," Dean admitted, and Becky glared at her least favorite Winchester.

Whatever, Dean thought, and went off to get washed up.

+

"Cas? Cas, stay with me, Cas," Sam says in the back of the jeep as Dean speeds through twisty, bumpy roads back to Chitaqua. They left half the salvage back there, but they can always come back for it. Cas comes first.

"Is he okay?" Dean asks, looking at the rearview mirror. The front of Cas's shirt is soaked scarlet and he's got the thousand-yard stare of the almost dead. Despite his brother's best efforts, Cas is fading fast, too fast.

"Just drive, Dean," Sam says tightly.

"If Cas--"

"Drive!" Sam shouts.

Dean drives.

+

"I think," Dean says hoarsely, as he and Sam hover outside the camp's makeshift ER passing a flask back and forth, "that Cas shouldn't leave the camp anymore if we can help it."

"The vampires zero in on him like that," Sam says, snapping his fingers. "There's something about angel blood, man, it drives the vamps nuts. Cas might as well be wrapped in neon signs that say 'here we are!'."

"I thought he wasn't an angel anymore."

"He's still angelic. He still has those spidey senses that can tell who's a demon and who's infected or whatever."

Above them, stars begin to peek through the twilight sky. The constant bustle of the camp takes on a different quality at night, a little saner almost. Everyone is just thinking about dinner and sleep, like the darkness blinds their paranoia because you can't fear what you can't see. If you can't see it, you can pretend it's not there.

"Dean," Sam says. "Every time the vampires come after Cas, there's more and more of them."

Dean says nothing.

"Every time, they don't wait as long before they attack."

He takes another swallow from the flask.

"It's only a matter of time," Sam says, "before the vampires attack the camp looking for him. He's not safe here." And neither is anyone else, Sam doesn't say. The longer Cas stays here, the longer he puts everyone else in danger.

Dean says quietly, "I know."

+

"Fifteen minutes," Becky warns. "Or I'll have to rescue him from you guys."

Dean and Sam shuffle to the bed they have come to think of Cas's, and Dean forces a smile onto his face. "Cas."

Cas smiles weakly. "Dean. Sam."

"Are you okay?" Sam asks.

"Of course he's okay," Dean scoffs. "Look at him. He's practically chomping at the bit to kick more vamp ass."

"Thank you," Cas says, "back in the woods. Thank you for not... Thank you for saving me."

"No need to thank us," Sam says.

"We're just glad you're still alive, you son of a bitch," Dean says, and ignores Sam's sidelong glance.

+

The next time Dean visits, he's on his own and he stays for longer. The painkillers have got Cas waxing theological again, but Dean doesn't mind so much, as long as Cas isn't dead. Besides, it doesn't really matter what Cas thinks about God and the angels anyway, because it's not like any of them are gonna show up and go on the defensive.

"God made angels from the first light, Dean," Cas is saying. "He made me from the first handful of light that He separated from the darkness, and I was made to love Him, I was made for faith. I am of these things, and for them."

Dean shrugs. "You're still the worst vampire slayer ever I've ever met."

"If the needle is worthy, be the thread," Cas continues as if Dean hadn't spoken.

"The hell are you talking about?"

"My Father is gone," he says, morphine-fuzzed and heartsick. "My brothers, my family. They've left me here. I was made to worship, but there's nothing here for me to love and nothing to have faith in."

"Cas--"

"Except you."

Dean looks at him, heart in his mouth and breaking a little, a helpless warmth inside him shaking a little, and Cas regards him with such undisguised devotion that Dean feels dwarfed in the face of it. He wishes he can deserve this. He wishes he can give back something half as true. Cas is too good for this world, and Dean was the one who pushed him to fall into it in the first place, years ago.

Dry-throated, Dean whispers, "You can't say things like that."

"Why not?"

"Because," as Dean brushes the bangs off of Cas's forehead, as Cas's cheeks flush with fever, "it makes you sound like a pansy."

+

Becky finds them later both asleep, Cas in the bed and Dean in his chair, but with his arm resting on the mattress and his fingers twined around Cas's.

It makes her nostalgic for LJ fandom a little bit, and then she realizes she hasn't thought about Livejournal in years. Wow. The Internet. Yeah, that happened once.

Becky starts composing an LJ post in her head as she gently drapes a blanket over Dean. Hey guys, I just got the CRAZIEST idea for a fic! What if the croatoan virus made everyone a zombie, and also there are vampires?! And then our heroes save the day! With gay love, natch. Who wants to beta? Mood: exhausted. Music: arguments about rationing the last bottle of antiseptic. Location: hell on earth.

She needs a goddamn vacation.

+

Sam asks, "What are we going to do about Cas?"

"I don't know," Dean mumbles, rubs his face. "I don't fucking know."

+

A few days later, only Risa comes back from the supply run, and even then just barely. The last thing she says before they drag her into surgery is vampires, fucking vampires and Sam looks at Dean, alarmed.

"Dean," he begins.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean mutters. "I know."

Fuck.

+

Cas frowns. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing," Dean lies.

The point, Dean thinks, is to conquer death before you have to die. So you don't have to die.

Cas is pale and anemic on the hospital bed, and Dean thinks, what the hell does Andrew Lloyd Webber know about killing vampires anyway.

+

"If maybe..." Sam hesitates. "If Cas, you know. What if he just... disappears? Maybe we should--maybe he--"

"Don't say it."

"Dean, I'm just saying, we have to consider all angles. If Cas is dead--"

"Shit, Sammy, we'll figure out, okay?" Dean snaps.

"When?" Sam demands.

"Soon."

He can tell Sam doesn't believe him.

"Soon," Dean promises, and he's not sure he believes himself either.




THE END

...or is it?! It is not. unoshot and I wrote a huge-ass continuation: Bring Out Your Dead, Dean and Cas, PG13, warnings for violence and gore, spoilers through 5x13. 16,886 words HOLY CRAP.

Comments

[unoshot.livejournal.com]

I kind of like time-traveler Dean because then he can be all 'Well this sucks, I stayed with Sam and we didn't go to Denver and this is supposed to be better now and HOW ARE VAMPIRES BETTER', plus the 'I am not turning into that asshole!' angst versus Cas's 'no, totally be an asshole, just let me die dude' -- I feel it is /rich for exploration/.

TO: SAM
CAMP CHITAQUA

WAS WRONG ABOUT THE ICE. FUCKING VAMPIRE HUSKIES. FUCK THIS. RELATED: ADOPTED A PUPPY. WELL, CAS DID. DAMNIT.

[unoshot.livejournal.com]

Detroit. Not Denver. CANON FAIL.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

you're writing this thing, right, you're not just taunting us all in comments.
Yeah sure uh-huh! I'll just put this here on my increasingly towering stack of things-to-write. XD

I MEAN, UNLESS ONE OF YOU GUYS WANT TO WRITE IT. WHICH WOULD BE AWESOME. Eh? Eh? :D?

Is the orange juice in Vermont a reference to anything?

Time-traveling Dean, yes, also 'cos it would be easier if he knows what we the reader know also. The sense of deja vu he has when he leaves the camp with Cas, he wonders if this is how Sam felt when he walked away from Dean after River Pass. It makes a weird kind of sense, getting his brother's deja vus. Like things are going back to how they should be, back to the days when he couldn't tell where he ended and Sammy began.

Also, sleepdeprivation!Dean&Cas would be TREMENDOUS fun, omg. Combat training funtimes! "This is a knife," Dean says and wishes Cas can appreciate a Crocodile Dundee reference.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD CROCODILE DUNDEE!

*tries very hard not to use capslock*

Cas would totally not get it.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

STOP IT I AM GOING TO RUPTURE A VITAL ORGAN FROM LAUGHING.

I am going to hell

[unoshot.livejournal.com]

I feel now as though the orange juice should be something more obscure and amazing, but anniehow got it -- just a reference to drinking OJ after giving blood. Also:

LOOK WOMAN, I HAVE NO TIME TO WRITE FIC, EVEN IF IT IS BASED ON A TOTALLY AWESOME IDEA.

****

As it happens, the whole thing is taken out of Dean's hands. When the latest raiding party comes back in shreds and he knows the infirmary is running out of space, he goes to get Cas and the bed is filled with some other guy ('Brian,' his mind supplies) screaming and bleeding everywhere.

"Crap," says Dean. "Beck --"

"Sam," she answers, curtly, shouldering Dean out of the way. "Help or go."

Becky's lost some of that chipper attitude, Dean thinks, since the world ended.

Cas isn't in his cabin, and half of Cas's wardrobe is spread crumpled and haphazard across the bed, and Dean feels sick.

He finds them in the supply cabin, the lock undone and the door hanging slightly open. "We can't spare much," Sam is saying, "but you should take some of these cans, and hell, a roll of --"

"It doesn't matter, Sam," interrupts Castiel, tiredly.

Sam might be a tough guy these days, but there's still a pause before he answers, "You don't know that."

"Fuck you both," says Dean, from the doorway, and they turn their heads -- Sam, crouched by a low shelf with his hand in Cas's bag, and Cas leaning against the wall, dazed and winter pale. Castiel's eyes are too dark, pupils blown and flesh bruised; Sam is the one who flinches.

Dean glares at them both, equal opportunity. "No."

Neither of them respond. After a moment, Sam reaches for a can of beans and adds it to the sad little bag.

"Fuck," says Dean, and then he shakes his head. "Fuck. Fine. Sam, you're gonna have to be in charge for a while."

"Dean." Cas is weary and hopeless; despite that, there is something in the gravel of his voice. It is low and dark and forbidding. It reminds Dean, on a small, shivering level, that under all that fragile humanity Castiel is still a badass.

"No." Sam looks up at him from the floor, low and gangly, brown eyes gone wide. (And Sam is a badass also, but Sam is always and forever Dean's little brother, and fuck that, too.)

"We'll come back," says Dean, evenly, "after we've figured this out."

"Dean," says Cas again, and Dean replies, "Shut the fuck up," and Sam grates, "Then I'm coming."

The statement hangs there in silence, and Sam and Dean stare at each other and Dean shakes his head but he almost relents -- yes, just the three of them, yes, leave all this shit behind -- but then Chuck's hammering at the door, all, "Guys, they're gonna riot in the mess hall, I really really need one of you in there," and Sam is the first to look away.

"Your cue, Sammy. Meet us at the gate in an hour. And Cas, just fucking sit down."

Dean knows who he's supposed to be, in this time and place, when Cas is stoned and lightly swaying; he swallows it back, because this future is supposed to be different. Better.

He's not sure how the vampires are better. But he's gotta have something.

Sam wants them to take one of the trucks, but trucks are valuable and if Dean's gonna go out there, he's gonna do it right. So he reaches into his pocket for the keys that are always -- even now -- there, and he flashes his best grin. He thinks it's only a little ill at the edges.

Sam wants to make a speech or something, too, which is why Dean says, "We'll send you a postcard." Then he claps his brother on the shoulder, and -- all right, there's maybe a hug. A manly hug. "Take care," mutters Dean, and Sam says, "You too."

That's how Dean ends up driving out of Camp Chitaqua in the Impala, on a cool and cloudy day, with an ex-angel drowsing against his shoulder and his brother, ginormous shoulders hunched, getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. Just before Dean rounds the dusty curve, Sam waves, and Dean lifts a hand out the window in return.

His baby's steering wheel is smooth and comforting beneath his palms, and the metal-tainted breeze is almost -- almost -- fresh. So he has that, at least.

Dean sets his gaze on the road, and drives.

****

I might be willing to help.

1/2, because I exceeded the character limit. SIGH.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

jfkdsflsd <333 WOMAN. OMG. omg. TOTALLY COME HELP, YESSSS. where do i go from here omg. 'cos being in the Impala, Dean almost forgets why he's in the Impala, and he's rummaging around for his old tapes blabbing to Cas about Guns 'n Roses when Cas blanches and says, "The vampires."

The what?

Oh, right.

Yup, there they are, breaking through the tree-line, blood-crazed and feral, but no way can they break inside the car, because no way will Dean let them even touch his girl: he floors the gas. Come on, baby, I know it's been a while, he thinks, but the Impala revs like dream, roars like a lioness around them, and the vampires shrink in the rear-view mirror.

"Baby, you never let me down," Dean grins. All the times Sam gave him shit for continuing to tinker with the Impala in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Eat crow, little brother. It kept him sane, and now it will keep him alive. It will keep him and Cas alive.

Dean takes care of his baby, and his baby takes care of him. That's just how it goes.

"They'll follow us," Cas says. "They'll follow me."

"We'll find a skunk and get it to spray you, see those vamps try and find you then." It's a joke, but Cas doesn't laugh. Dean forgives him; Cas sucks at laughing at jokes anyway.

"A skunk won't do much good," Cas replies.

"A-ha!"

"What?"

Dean reaches between the seat and pulls something out with a triumphant flourish. "Appetite for Destruction!"

Cas frowns.

Dean pops it in, and by some miracle, Axl Rose is singing loud and clear about a paradise city like mullets are back in style.

"I fucking love this song," Dean says, and Cas rides the rest of the way to the highway with a gun on his lap.

+

2/2, because being overexcited about croatverse is my baseline

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Siphoning gas, breaking into motels, collapsing in exhaustion and staying up all night when you think you can hear the monsters closing in. Yeah. It's not like Cas is some pedestrian who doesn't know what's what, but he is more scared than usual and is not very good at hiding it.

Cas doesn't know how much his mortal body can take, doesn't know how far it can go, how much pain is normal, how much blood he can lose before needs to take care of it. Cas doesn't know how much loneliness is normal, maybe, because he wouldn't shut up about his family when he was doped up on morphine, and Dean thought of dead scholars who say things like hell is the absence of god and hell is other people and wonders which one Cas would relate to. Hell is zombies and vampires wanting to eat you alive. Maybe it's that.

Dean knows a mortal body can do a hell of a lot, and the first order of business is to teach Cas how. "Look," Dean says, and points with his knife at the croat they just killed. "If you stab someone here, here, here, or here, they're dead. You cut them here, or here, it makes it easier for you to make them dead. Got it?"

Castiel nods.

Dean makes him stab the corpse a few times, for practice.

This is a gun. This is the safety, this is the trigger. Here is how you put in a clip. This is how you take a gun apart, this is how you put it back together. Dean and Cas sit in the peace of abandoned buildings and go through different exorcism rituals, because now that Cas can't exorcise demons with just a touch, he's gonna have to rely on good old-fashioned Latin.

Cas furrows his brow in concentration as he cleans his Glock, and it dawns on Dean: it's like being thirteen all over again, teaching Sam about guns and salt and holy water. It's like being eleven and telling Sammy about monsters, but don't worry, we can kill them, we always do. When Dean was fifteen, Sam almost got mauled to death by a ghoul, and Dean ripped his own shirt apart to make a bandage and held him and talked nonsense at him until Dad showed up: it's like that.

Cas cleans his gun with the same meticulous care Sam does, and it makes Dean's heart ache.

He wonders sometimes, about these second chances that keep falling into his lap. Dean dies, and his father pulls him back out. He dies again, and it's Castiel this time. He sees his parents again, but in a past he cannot change. He sees the future, and he changes it. Now here he is, with another second chance that came back wrong.

"Dean?"

"Huh?"

Cas cants his head to the left.

"I'm fine," Dean says.

Cas looks skeptical, but also concerned, and Dean knows that expression. It's the expression that means the next thing coming out of Cas's mouth is going to make Dean feel incapable and volatile, despite the good intentions. So he falls back on the time-tested Winchester method of dealing.

Dean asks, "You wanna shoot some things?"

I am doing serious work right now, really

[unoshot.livejournal.com]

Several days outside the camp, they finally find a safehouse that's actually still safe -- or relatively so. A last remnant of Bobby's network: the bunker is undisturbed, the big metal door still on its hinges, the escape route intact, the electrified alarm system still hooked up to the generator. Dean drops his pack on a ragged cot and pronounces himself satisfied.

They use the little stove. They heat up a can of beans, and the heat itself tastes like heaven.

(At least, Dean thinks it might, although he isn't the one with first-hand experience and he doesn't actually ask.)

Cas produces half a bottle of whiskey, from somewhere in his bag, and that's an even better kind of warmth. Dean sets his back to the concrete wall, and drinks, and watches with a critical eye as Cas organizes the weapons bag.

He doesn't need to say much, though. Cas is a quick learner, long fingers clever and capable, knives flicking and sharpened and re-sheathed.

"We're running low on holy water," says Cas, and Dean grunts.

"Try for a church tomorrow," he replies. "See if we can find anything."

Most of the churches are burned, but Cas knows that Dean knows and Cas has also learned that sometimes it's better not to point things out.

Except: "You don't have to do this, Dea --"

"Shut up."

So Cas puts the weapons away, and goes to sit by the camp lantern that is lighting the darkness of their little bunker. He pulls a tattered book out from his bag, opens it, and peers at it in the dimness.

"Please tell me that isn't the Bible," mutters Dean, but Cas only shakes his head. He flips pages, and then adjusts to sit cross-legged; a moment later, and he's reading out loud.

Cas says, quietly, "It begins, as most things begin, with a song. In the beginning, after all, were the words, and they came with a tune."

"The hell is that?"

Cas ignores Dean. "That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world." His voice is low and rough -- not the bass it used to be, when it had heaven behind it, but there's something of Castiel left in Jimmy Novak's larynx.

Dean tries not to think about that too often.

Cas keeps reading. One of Sam's books, probably, Dean realizes, and he lets his head drop back; no, he will not think about Sam, either. He sips the whiskey, and closes his eyes, and listens.

Much later, he wakes to pitch blackness lit only by the tiny, reassuring red light of the security system.

A confused beat after that, he realizes that it is far too quiet, and he is -- yes, of course, fucking of course -- alone.

Dean hopes the vampires don't kill Cas. He wants that pleasure all for himself.

these take place before (or long after?) what you just wrote

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Dean dreams of Alastair, whose teeth are rows of knives that bite into him, that tear into the soft flesh beneath his ribs and he screams and screams, cursing everything he knows, even Sam, cursing Sam for not being here, for never being here. Dean dreams of Alastair smiling, "Be mine, Dean. Be one of mine and you can wield the knife instead of being cut by it. Be mine and I will set you free." The yes burbles at the back of Dean's throat, but before it can escape his lips, he wakes up gasping.

The world is dark and smells of mildew. The jackhammering in his ears, he realizes it's his heartbeat. His breaths are too loud, uneven, and he has to remind himself who's really dead and who's alive.

"Dean," a murmuring voice cuts through his panic, and Dean feels a light touch at his temple. He turns towards it, because it's Cas, who else can it be. He remembers this too, waking up from memories to a sound like leaves rustling, and the whisper of black wings smoothing out his mind, better than any lullaby, softer than a sigh.

Cas, Dean realizes, is half asleep. That's when Dean remembers yeah, the dude's not an angel anymore. He can't mojo the nightmares out of Dean, but Cas seems to have forgotten this, seems to be doing this out of reflex. "You should sleep," Cas whispers, like he used to, and curls his fingers against Dean's cheek, stroking lightly as his hand falls away again.

Dean is not afraid of his nightmares. He is not afraid of sleep, but he stays awake for some time, wondering if saying yes to Michael would have been anything like saying yes to Alastair. Self-loathing first, sure, and relief, but then acclimatization, and a certain pride in craft. What does it matter, if the world is going to shit around you anyway?

Sometimes he's glad Cas can't see his thoughts anymore.

+

eventually I'll get to the croats and vampires, I swear

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Cas, as it turns out, has a soft spot for tequila. Carthage flashes through Dean's mind, Cas and the Harvelles playing drinking games in the next room the night before one of the worst days of Dean's life. There was a lot of giggling from Jo, and Ellen sounding snide, and the first time Dean popped his head in, the bottle was halfway gone.

By some stroke of luck, they find tequila in the next town over when they're looting around. Some canned food (soup, peaches, and tuna), a couple of liter bottles of orange soda, and a bottle of Cuervo. "Awesome," Dean says, and Cas agrees.

They hole themselves up in a bed & breakfast on the main street, taking a room on the second floor with the most number of convenient escapes, salting the doors and windows, spraying devil's traps, taking the necessary precautions. Then, surrounded by the yellowing paper and the cobwebs and dust, they have a party, of sorts.

The first shot is for Sam. Dean lets Cas call the second shot, and Cas says this next shot is for you, and Dean accuses him of being unimaginative. This next shot is for Jo, this next one is for Ellen, and then it becomes a recitation of the dead: this next shot is for Dad, this one's for Mom, this one's for Pamela, this one's for Andy, and Adam, this one's for his grandparents, and yes, even Anna gets a shot, because in the end she was just trying to save the world like the rest of them.

"Okay stop," Dean slurs. "If we drink to everyone who's dead, we're gonna get alcohol poisoning," and my heart's gonna break and I'll wanna crawl into a hole and never come out again.

"We'll drink to the living," Cas decides, sprawled out on the bed.

"No, that's just as depressing."

"What will we drink to?"

"Where did you go, Cas," Dean asks, "when you were looking for your dad?"

There's no answer for a while. Could be that Cas is drunk, but could be that Cas doesn't want to talk about it. After all, Dean doesn't like to talk about his dad much either, so he's about to change the subject when Cas says:

"Everywhere," in a small crackly voice, and Dean isn't sure that he's exaggerating.

"Tell me."

Cas pauses for too long again and Dean sighs and is about to talk about guns again or whatever, some safe topic, when Cas says, "Once, in Montpellier, I thought I found Him."

"Yeah? Montpelier, Vermont?"

"Montpellier, France."

"Oh. I was gonna say, we ganked a werewolf there once."

"Your amulet burned and I thought finally..." Cas murmurs, and continues talking, loosened by alcohol. How he cut across the square, practically shoving tourists out of the way, excited and hopeful, how the amulet burned into his skin leaving a scar where his grace would be, "and I thought about all the things I'd say, all the things I wanted to apologize for and everything I wanted to know," but when he got there, when he reached the cafe and touched the shoulder of the man seated under the awning and said "Father?" it was not his Father at all.

"Who was it?" Dean asks.

"It was Vishnu. He invited me to sit with him and He bought me madeleines. He did not know where my Father was."

"What was Vishnu doing in France?"

"Eating a crepe."

"...Oh," Dean says. Of course. Why not.

Dean is sitting up on his bed, but he feels himself becoming more horizontal with every swallow of tequila, lulled by Cas's voice wafting over from the next bed, the gentle rise and fall of it, speaking to him about the sticky heat of Islamabad and the crisp cold of Boston, the dense jungles of Sulawesi and the vastness of the Mongolian plains: all these places created by the will of his Father, a hundred glittering watches in the desert, and nary a watchmaker in sight.

Random scenes FTW

[unoshot.livejournal.com]

The church is burned and broken, but it was made of stone and seems sound enough to poke around in. Dean goes in the back, gun in hand, and he rifles through shattered cupboards, taking a scorched silver cross and a miraculously -- yeah, he thought it -- undisturbed bag of communion wafers.

It looks like a mouse was chewing through one edge of the bag, but fuck it, he'll take what he can get.

"Cas," he says, heading back into the main church, "can you tell if these are, uh, holy? Or whatever?" Dean has learned that these things make a difference -- that sometimes stale bread is just stale bread and then he is well and truly fucked.

The roof is half gone, and there's a rare hint of sunlight in the sky today. It filters down through the ash and filth, touches Castiel's shoulders where he stands by the altar.

The once-an-angel has been rearranging things. He's found an almost-white cloth somewhere, and spread it across the altar's cracked surface; when Dean enters, Cas is positioning a half-melted cross at the centre, just where the sun hits it. The twisted gold flickers, gleams in and out beneath his shadow as he moves.

"Keep your damn gun out," says Dean, and then he's brought up short because Cas turns at that and Cas's eyes are fierce and hard.

"Don't swear here."

They are silent, then, both of them, and there is more than an edge of familiarity to the way they stare at each other -- Dean's irritated confusion, Cas's sharply obfuscated desperation.

An edge of broken glass, stained red, falls glittering from one of the broken windows and shatters against a scorched stone sill. Dean jerks his attention over, finger tightening on gun trigger, and then the moment has passed and Cas says, dully, "Yes. They're consecrated."

That's lucky, anyway.

Cas rubs a hand across the bridge of his nose, and fades back to what he is: unshaven, weary, stinking in wrinkled clothes four days old. "Let's go," he adds. "There's nothing here."

"Yeah." Dean looks at the ruined altar, at the sadly tilting cross on its thin cotton perch. He offers, "You can drive."

****

Perhaps I should PM you my email address.

Also

[unoshot.livejournal.com]

Dean has a gun, and a knife, and matches and a crossbow with bolts soaked in a dead man's blood (the soaking from a week before, and dead blood hardly in short supply). He also has a shitload of attitude.

Cas left him everything -- the weapons, the food, the car -- everything but one old knife, and that tells Dean all he needs to know about exactly how far Cas expected to get, and why, but Dean keeps his swearing inside his head and the headlights of the Impala turned off as he eases down the ruin of the road. He has the window rolled down, to hear. His hands are tight on the steering wheel, and his pulse is beating staccato in his throat.

He spots a figure staggering at the side of the road, and his heart leaps and his stomach drops and he thinks it might be -- but no, it isn't. It's a Croat zombie, a lone straggler that turns and lurches toward the car with its yellowed teeth pale in the night.

Dean puts a bullet in its head and drives on in the dark. He doesn't look at that sodden, shadowed heap, retreating in the mirror. He's got other things to watch for.

Cas can't have gotten much farther, he thinks, just around the time he hears the laughter.

Dean stops the car. He debates, briefly, leaving the keys in the ignition, then he pulls them silently from the ignition and folds them carefully into his pocket. Only then does he open the door, setting booted feet on cracked pavement.

"Don't kill him! Don't kill him, don't you fucking -- oh he is delicious, oh I want this again and again."

"I'm hungry now."

"I'm telling you --" There is a sudden, violent motion in the shadows beyond the trees. Dean hears gurgling, a wet and meaty sound, and then that first voice giggles. "Oh, that'll teach him. Now," and the voice darkens, "try that on me..."

Dean hears a thud, and then a hoarse whisper he would recognize even in pitch black. "Pater noster," breathes Cas, "qui es in coelis," and then something garbled, something in not-quite-random syllables that Dean has heard before.

I lurve you guys!!

[anniehow.livejournal.com]

If I had a tail it would be wagging right now XD

You're uniting your powers and rounding this up and finishing it, yes? And then posting it for everybody else too, RIGHT?

You could even make a comm for fics in this verse, you know ;-)

YOU GUYS

[vikki.livejournal.com]

as;dkfja;d

YOU GUYS
WHY
ARE YOU SO AWESOME
DDDDD=

This is amazing, hi.

Re: Also

[(Anonymous)]

KEEP GOING! \o/

(anon has no LJ but lurks and likes what she sees here :) )

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Okay, yeah, I see it. It's 2009!Dean who went back in time to change things and LIFE STILL SUCKS AND HOW IS THAT FAIR?

Aww, Angsty!Cas would break my heart. "I HAVE TO DIE FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY. OR MAYBE JUST DEAN BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONLY IMPORTANT THING LEFT IN MY LIFE."

(Dammit, you people are making me caps-locky again.)


TO: SAM
CAMP CHITAQUA

TRIED GOING TO MONTREAL, BECAUSE B.C. SUCKS. THE PUPPY PIDDLED ON THE UPHOLSTERY, AND NOW ALL THE VAMPIRES SPEAK FUCKING FRENCH. FUCK THIS NOISE.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

TO: DEAN
MONTREAL, I GUESS?

I THINK THE DEVIL IS STALKING ME IN MY DREAMS. HOW YOU DO THOSE EPIC STARE-A-THONS WITH CAS, I WILL NEVER FATHOM. IT'S THE FUCKING CREEPS. ALSO IF YOU FIND SOME EXTRA TOILET PAPER, SEND SOME OVER, CHUCK SAYS.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

TO: SAM
CAMP CHITAQUA

HIS EYES ARE FASCINATING IT JUST TAKES PRACTICE. WAIT. DON'T FUCKING TRY TO STARE DOWN THE DEVIL, JACKASS!

THERE'S NO TOILET PAPER HERE, EITHER. I'LL LET YOU KNOW.

GODDAMN PUPPY. CAS IS STARTING TO TEACH IT HOW TO LOOK PITIFUL, AND I KNOW I HAVEN'T KICKED IT.

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

TO: SAM
CAMP CHITAQUA

I CAN'T TAKE CAS AND A PUPPY HEADTILTING AT ME AT THE SAME TIME, I HAVE ALREADY CONCEDED MORE WHITECASTLE BURGERS AND EXTRA KIBBLE THAN I WILL ADMIT. IT'S WORSE THAN VAMPIRES.

OKAY IT'S TOTALLY NOT WORSE THAN VAMPIRES. STILL, MY DIGNITY IS SLOWLY FADING AND I THINK I SAID "WHO'S A SNOOKUMS" THE OTHER DAY OH GOD.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I am laughing too hard to write a response to this.

\o/\o/\o/\o/

"Who's a snookums!"

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Sam's favorite part is how Dean didn't say whether he said it to the puppy or Cas.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

All that orange juice finally got to them. ;)

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Wait, so the orange juice is a reference to something? Am I missing something here?