Map of the World: August 13

Map of the Closet

—Day 10—

“…tell Chuck to make me papers. I know how to cross, you know that.”

Dean flattens himself against the wall by the door of Cas’s cabin. Cas is late in his vanishing act come dusk, and he’s got company, which he so isn’t interested in seeing. In the pause that follows, he risks a glance inside to see Cas and a woman, and surprisingly, both are fully dressed.

Tall and angular in a faded grey long-sleeve t-shirt and jeans, she looks like she’s about to go on patrol, locked hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head, with sharp brown eyes and a full mouth currently a tight line of dissatisfaction, and the dark skin has the unmistakable grey edge of someone running on almost empty. Rifle slung with professional ease over one shoulder, she stares at Cas like she’s trying to decide if applying the butt of her rifle to his head will get her anywhere. From experience, Dean knows it won’t.

“Chuck doesn’t have the latest credentials to pass the border,” Cas is saying stiffly, not quite meeting her eyes as he fishes a flannel shirt from under the couch and tugs it on. Very much not the guru wear Dean’s learned to loathe on sight, though even by his standards, it’s seen better decades. Also sober, which Dean’s learned is a privilege, not a right. “It’s too dangerous at this time.”

“They should know what’s happened.” Dean jerks back against the cabin wall when she turns, wondering if Cas kept angelic hearing like he kept the strength and deciding if he did, he probably learned to control it by sheer self-defense in a camp this size. “Look, I don’t need papers, I know the weak points even at the eastern checkpoint. Just let me—”

“No one is allowed past the patrol perimeter at this time,” Cas answers flatly, and even without being able to see him, Dean can guess the look on his face. “That’s an order, Vera.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence before she says acidly, “Understood. Permission to leave, sir?”

Dean winces. Cas is just lucky he doesn’t have a middle and last name to drag out and throw at him; that tone just begs for it.

“Vera…yes, you may go,” he says finally, and Dean eases farther from the door for her to pass him. She may not be able to see him, but Cas is probably going to realize he’ll be showing up soon and just a guess, he’s pretty sure this is something Cas really wouldn’t want him to see. As she comes outside and goes down the stairs, anger obvious in every jarring stride, he doesn’t have long to wait, Cas coming out and then stopping short on the stairs with an expression that Dean can’t read.

He tries to remember if she was among the groupie contingent he’s seen coming and going from a distance; there’s no way to tell, though if she is, he’s guessing Cas isn’t going to be enjoying her company for a while. Holding his breath, he watches Cas linger on the porch before he abruptly returns inside for a few minutes. Sinking down in the shadows, he waits for Cas to leave, not moving until he’s well out of sight at the cabin.

Just inside the door, he pauses, looking around with a critical eye. He hasn’t once found a single sign of random bouts of orgies (something he’s checked for very carefully since that couch is kind of his home away from home right now), and the drug paraphernalia isn’t what he’d call hidden but definitely shoved out of the way. While the number of empty bottles hasn’t noticeably decreased, they seem to be migrating consistently toward the kitchen and within view of the trash.

If Cas were less a dick, Dean would kind of think this is some kind of half-assed try at being thoughtful.

Despite the slightly improved living conditions, Dean notes that the pile of newly-washed clothing behind the couch that seems to be Cas’s idea of clothing storage grows and wanes but never finds its way into something like a closet or a dresser. Washing dishes seems to be on an at-need basis, and tentative exploration has confirmed nothing in that kitchen works. The dishes thing he gets, but there’s an actual bedroom here, tiny but functional, the bed stripped to a clean if dingy mattress and cheap box springs, but everything’s under a layer of dust. The closet, which currently holds a haphazard pile of watermarked boxes and a truly impressive arsenal, at least shows Cas has some of his priorities straight.

A life lived in motels of the budget variety means that Dean isn’t exactly an expert on long-term habitation, but he stayed enough with Bobby (and Lisa) to get the basics beat into him and Sam reinforced it with prejudice. Thinking about it, he’s uncomfortably aware this isn’t entirely unfamiliar; say, if Cas had spent his life-skills learning time in a variety of crappy motels and didn’t grasp translating that to less-temporary living conditions.

Dean thinks, appalled: so this is what happens when everything you need to know about life is based on the gospel of John Winchester, as interpreted by a Sam-less Dean.

In unholy emphasis of who exactly took care of Cas’s human-training, Cas keeps his books and his weapons immaculate, the books kept in a tiny room off the kitchen that was probably a glorified utility closet in a former life with obviously recently augmented shelving. Feeling masochistic, Dean pulls open the bedroom closet door to confirm the reason that he should never be placed in charge of a small child, a pet, a houseplant, or a Fallen angel unless the conditions are wartime and Sam is willing to be his fulltime co-parent.

In contrast to the bedroom—and for that matter, the rest of the cabin—the former closet is immaculate, dust free and redolent with fresh gun oil and enough herbs to make Dean want to sneeze on principle. At some point it had been thoroughly gutted and stripped down for its new and improved personal arsenal use, the top third of the back wall pegged to hold a survivalist’s wet dream of guns ranging from handguns to the kind of rifles that usually require active duty in the military to even look at, much less use, all meticulously cleaned and ruthlessly organized by type. Below them hang several sets of knives from the basic pocket and utility up to a machete kept at razor sharpness line the wall beneath them. The bottom third of the closet is taken up by neatly installed shelves with the top holding an assortment of worn leather and battered metal cases where specialization is key. There are blades made of pure lead and blessed silver to bronze so ancient they can’t even hold a decent edge and covered in faded runes. Some of it he recognizes from what Bobby had had, some from other hunters he’s met, some from pictures he’s seen in books, but the rest is a mystery.

Crouching, Dean does a quick inventory: a neatly folded dropcloth beside cleaning and repair kits in well-worn cases showing frequent use take up the second shelf, while the third holds boxes of ammunition sorted by type and function in carefully separate stacks of regular, silver, and salt. A triple line of bottles of holy water make up half the bottom shelf, along with a half-empty box of cases for more salt loads and a smaller one of scrap silver. There are bags of herbs as well, each neatly labeled. On the floor are industrial size bags of rock salt slumping against stacks of water-marked boxes taped enthusiastically enough to discourage surreptitious exploration but a quick feel confirms they’re mostly books.

Stepping back, he doesn’t need to be told who was responsible for designing the collector’s edition of the hunter’s ultimate arsenal; one of his most recent explorations of Dean’s cabin showed him the even more impressive prototype, and on a guess, one of these is probably in every cabin here. Even if he didn’t see Dean’s, though, he would have known who made this for Cas.

Shutting the closet doors, Dean wanders back to the couch, dropping on it with a squeal of ancient springs and a cloud of dust as he thinks over what should have occurred to him before. This is Dean fucking Winchester of the dystopian future, and in Apocalyptic times sentimental attachment to old friends need not apply. Cas may do junkie as a lifestyle choice, but the Dean Winchester here wouldn’t have let him get away with that when it came to what mattered, and all that ever mattered was killing Lucifer. He was way too pissed at Dean sacrificing his team, sacrificing Cas, to wonder why he had chosen to bring Cas along at all.

John Winchester’s training is the kind of thing that’s bone-deep, inescapable no matter how far you go and God knows, Sam did his damndest and still couldn’t lose it. Staring around this suddenly familiar cabin, he thinks that some things must pass in the blood or something, because if he peels away the cheap gloss of the hedonistic druggie, his own fingerprints one universe over are all over Cas.

Tipping his head back, he thinks about Vera here earlier, asking permission for something and Cas saying no. Cas gave her an order and didn’t bother to tell her why, and how fucking familiar that is when he imagines the voice giving it is Dean’s.

More than that, though: she listened.

It belatedly occurs to him that for a camp whose fearless leader is noticeable in his absence, it’s running just fine.