Map of the World: August 10
Time to pretend
—Day 7—
Dean marks his one week anniversary in Camp What Fresh Hell Is This with three hours of throwing each useless book at the walls of this Dean’s cabin that seem to be steadily closing more closely around him. They aren’t telling him anything he can use and what little seems applicable also seems to be quoting Castiel on exactly how a person goes about traveling time. The overwhelming opinion seems to be they don’t, which is a surprise to Dean considering how much time he seems to spend either dead or alive not in his own time.
Picking them back up, he dumps them in a rickety chair before dropping into the other one with a sigh, staring up at the exposed beams of the ceiling, aware of a sense of growing panic. The truth is, there’s nothing in the books that he didn’t already know. One thing holds true for any version of Castiel, angel, proto-god, or junkie; they might lie for a lot of reasons, but at least in their own minds, it was never to cause him actual, physical harm. Whatever Castiel is here, this much he’s pretty sure of; he doesn’t want him to die, and if there was a way to get him back, he would have found a way to do it. If for no other reason than the fact he seems to resent his existence, which Dean will admit, in retrospect, he’s given him pretty good reason to do.
Leaning back in his chair, he props his feet up on the table and tries to
think of something—anything—but his world is contained inside the wards of this camp, and since Castiel’s managed to avoid him entirely since their friendly chat earlier this week, it sure as hell it’s not for his company.
Half-listening to the drone of the radio, his only link to the outside world, Dean considers the fact that this is the most positive and optimistic Apocalypse he’s ever experienced. Even granted the lack of knowledge about Lucifer—who is noticeable in his army-of-demons-leading absence—these people are way too calm about the FUBAR of the world.
Leaning over to turn it up, the perky voice of the happiest radio host in history talks about traffic and rationing before moving smoothly onto the fallout from the destruction of Houston. Apparently, all the Croats were wiped out, good news, but he’s not hearing a lot about survivors.
You don’t go to bombing unless you’re pretty damn desperate, but turning major metropolises into rubble isn’t something anyone sane announces between car commercials and ads for Axe deodorant. Which makes him think of the reasons you don’t even try to hide it; maybe, and he might be reaching here but hey, he’s been in two major cities now so he can think this, maybe because you’re distracted by hiding that it’s happened before, and possibly in plural.
He surfaces from his thoughts to realize the room is a darker shade of grey and edging into full night. Getting to his feet, he pretends it’s his agreement with Castiel and not his own uneasiness that drives him from Dean Winchester’s abandoned cabin come dusk and has nothing to do with the fact that this cabin never feels like anything other than a prison or an open grave for a man no one else knows is dead.
Checking the sigils on his arm—and God, he wishes he could find out what the hell they are, he could have used something like this on a hunt—he slips out of the cabin, crossing the wide expanse of tangled brush as the sun dips below the horizon and ignoring the feeling of exposure. It’s getting chillier, what should be late summer melting into what feels like an uneven fall, and he has yet to identify anything like a working heater, or for that matter, where the hell the generators are that are powering the cabins.
Taking the steps two at a time, he brushes by the beads in annoyance, reaching for the lightswitch and flipping it up as he crosses toward the kitchen and whatever Castiel left him in the way of food. He’s three steps late in realizing that the lights aren’t coming on and stops short, frowning into the darkness.
So that generator question is kind of urgent now. Blinking, he tries to think of what to do next when he’s startled still by the sound of Castiel’s voice.
“Someone tried to fix the generators again. It seems they failed.”
Turning in the direction of the sound, he waits impatiently for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, eventually making out the shape of the couch and Castiel stretched out on it.
“More like broke them.” Dean scans the room a little frantically; he’s not ready to deal with Castiel’s social life right now. “What happened?”
“My understanding of the results of the industrial revolution are more theoretical than you seem to believe,” Castiel answers with a faint snort. “I have no idea.”
So that helps. “When’d it start?”
“I don’t know,” Castiel replies without interest. “Dean’s cabin wasn’t affected?”
“No idea,” he answers, squinting a little into the darkness, trying to get a better read on Castiel. “Mysterious lights going on and off in the missing leader’s cabin? I’m not sure how I feel about anyone attempting to exorcise me.”
“I didn’t consider that.” There’s a faint sense of movement from the couch. “Have you found anything of use to you in your research?”
In no world does any Castiel do small talk. That’s not a human or angel thing; that’s a Castiel thing. “Not yet.” Unable to stop himself, he adds, “Haven’t summoned Lucifer to deal, either.”
“There is a spell for that,” Castiel answers in amusement. “Would you like me to show you where to find it?”
“You don’t have to work this hard,” Dean assures him uneasily; every instinct is telling him there is something profoundly wrong here. “I really don’t like you already.”
“And my work here is done.” Castiel lifts one shoulder in the impression of a shrug, like he can’t bother himself to even make the effort to do it right. Dean didn’t realize he started toward him until he’s close enough to see Castiel’s face, a blur-edged oval with skin bleached of all color in brutal contrast to smudges like bruises beneath shadowed eyes. Feeling like he’s walking on glass, he crosses to the couch and eases into a crouch, frowning when Castiel looks away before he can get a good look at him.
“Cas, what’s going on?”
“It’s not working.” Tilting his head back, he gives the ceiling a betrayed look. “It’s supposed to make it easier, and it’s not working. It always did before. At least for a little while.”
Dean does the math. “What did you take?”
“I’m not sure,” he says after a while. “Not enough, it seems.” He stares up at the ceiling. “Why are you still here?”
Because that’s what I promised and I’m keeping my word, you dick, Dean almost says; he doesn’t. “Why do you want me to come back here every night?”
“Habitation rules are ridiculous.” Castiel’s eyes flicker to the door, so quickly that Dean would have missed it if he wasn’t watching for just that. Glancing back at the beaded curtain—Jesus, what the hell—he pushes to his feet and goes to the doorway, seeing dark smudges too regular to be shadows. Running his fingers over the wood, he finds exactly what he was expecting all along and wasn’t able to locate no matter how closely he looked: the unmistakable curve of a sigil, the carving so shallow it would be invisible to the naked eye, following the grain of the wood almost flawlessly. There’s only the faintest tackiness, almost gone; the blood was refreshed an hour ago, tops.
He patiently traces the line of sigils to the floor where it meets the salt line before checking the other side, then the length of the top, trying to get the shape of them with his fingers so he can draw them later. Enochian, he thinks vaguely, and at least a couple of them match the ones on his arm. He cocks his head, wondering if it’s worth it to ask; Jesus, after a week, Castiel should be able to suck it up and—
It’s been a week since he got here, suddenly scrambling for footing behind a broken dumpster and staring at eight demons surrounding an armed man that even after three years Dean would recognize anywhere. The skinny, slumping mortal body in a too-big jacket with an indifferent hold on a rifle stared at him with the infinite blue eyes of an angel who might have traded his sword for a gun and immortality for the dirt of humanity, but had never stopped being a soldier. And very abruptly, to the surprise of those demons, he seemed to remember just that.
It’s been a week since Castiel took him out of the city, a week since Lucifer had won the war. It’s been a week, seven days, since Castiel looked for the last time at the body of Dean Winchester and watched him burn.
Yeah, he thinks blankly, nothing works when it’s something like that, not for long.
“I wasn’t supposed to survive him,” Castiel says, voice stripped of expression. “That was never part of the deal.”
Three years ago, Dean watched in disbelief as his very own ghost of Christmas future sent his team to die, sent Castiel to die, before going off to die himself. They knew what Dean sent them to do; even then, he guessed that much. He understands being willing to die for a person, a cause, an idea down to his bones; he also understands the difference between choosing to step in front of a bullet for someone and someone stepping behind you because they know you’ll take it for them. It’s not that he thinks that the Dean Winchester who watched Castiel walk away to die for no better reason than a distraction didn’t know the difference; it’s that he didn’t care.
Turning around, he watches Castiel staring into the shadowed ceiling, strains of faded moonlight spilling through the window catching on shimmering silver trailing down the pale skin like a punch to the gut. Abruptly, he realizes his hands are clenched into fists, fingernails digging ragged half-moons into palms already growing tacky with blood; a little distantly, he wonders if that should hurt, because he can’t feel a goddamn thing.
It’s been a week since Dean Winchester died, and in this whole camp, the two of them are the only ones that know. And in this entire goddamn camp going about its daily routine, the one person with the most right to do it can’t even grieve.
“I can’t get drunk enough to forget,” Castiel whispers, eyes fixed on some distant point; from his expression, wherever it is, it’s not any better than here. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t spend the night trying.”
With an effort, Dean unclenches his fists, numb fingers sluggishly tingling back to life as he wipes them clean on his jeans.
“Where’s the generator?” Castiel’s head snaps around, and he hadn’t thought it could be worse, but Jesus, he was wrong; he hadn’t seen what was in Castiel’s eyes. “I saw a toolkit at Dean’s. You think you can wait that long? I’ll make it fast.”
Taking a step toward him, he makes himself meet the wide blue eyes, the stunned look of animal in the middle of a highway as death bears down on it at sixty miles an hour, nowhere to run, or maybe a man staring down at the lifeless corpse of his brother stretched out on a cot in front of him. There’s more than one way for a world to end, and Dean knows them all, every goddamn one.
“Cas—” Dean licks his lips and tries again. “Me being here, is it gonna make it harder?”
After a moment, he sees his head move, an abbreviated shake. “Nothing can make it harder.”
“Okay.” He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He wouldn’t have left, even if it was exile on the goddamn porch all night, but he didn’t realize either how badly he wanted to stay. It’s a lie, about time healing anything; those kind of wounds never stop bleeding. “Okay. Where’s the generator?”
Cas swallows. “Dean—”
“I can’t get drunk enough to forget, not anymore,” Dean says roughly. “Sometimes I can pretend, though. I’ll show you how it works. Now where’s the goddamn generator?”
Cas blinks at him, another gut-punch of shocked blue eyes and searing grief, but maybe relief, too, there and gone in a moment. “I’ll show you.”
Dean doesn’t get drunk enough to forget that night, and he doesn’t think Cas does either. But they both pretend that they do.