Supernatural tonight will end without sound

A/N: So this is the furthering of my drabble AU I wrote earlier (the one where Dean and Cas are hitmen; "there's a blaze of light in every word"). Except they're not hitmen yet. Well. Dean's not. Cas is maybe.

I get really lost in the mechanics of things and world building and then stuff happens and it goes on forever. So, this is more like a prologue, because it kind of just serves to set things up. I'm hoping to make each chapter relatively long.

The basic gist is that Dean fought over in Iraq, but is now home due to the death of his father. Sam's in California and is a lawyer. And Cas is some dude that approaches Dean in a parking lot. Essentially, this chapter talks about like...six years of history? Starting with Sam going to Stanford at 18, Dean joining the army not that long after that (he's like 21-ish), and then two years with Dean serving in the states before getting sent overseas for three and a half years (he has the option to go home but doesn't). Year-wise, it's essentially 2009-2010 at the beginning, and then it eventually progresses into the present.

So Dean's 27/28 when this starts, and Sam is 24. UM. YES.

The other stories I'm working on WILL get done. This one just kind of attacked me though.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1 : don't you dare look out your window darling, everything's on fire<strong>

"How was the flight back?"

Sam's voice sounds strangely far away, but, then again, everything has been muted and quiet these past few days. Dean's fiddling with a loose strand of fabric on the chair in the lobby, waiting on Mr. Crowley to call him in. "Hell," he finally concedes. And that's the best way he can describe it. He'll never tell Sam, but, after that first year in Iraq, after Lisa, after the ring and the letter and_ fucking Andy_, he never planned on making the trip back. He figured he'd get killed in some horrid way - a civilian bomber maybe, because that's the awful way the world had turned to - or that he'd disappear into the wilderness and desert, dirt and blood hiding his face and everything he was and everything he was going to become. "I hate flying Sammy." He's got a sour look on his face, just remembering it. Henriksen gave him some medicine to get rid of the anxiety, but he's not sure it helped. Sure, he was knocked out, more or less, for the first half of the flight but his hands are still shaking from gripping the seat, white-knuckled for the final leg of the journey.

These shaky hands had killed countless men, some women - _that child_- but they belong to a coward.

"Are you going to be okay dealing with this until I can get to Kansas?"

Dean frowns. _No I will not be okay, Sammy. I will never be **okay **_but he just grunts instead. "Well, I can handle the basic will stuff. At least collect it all for you so you can do all the legal shit." He won't admit that Mr. Crowley gave him the creeps over the phone and that he'd honestly rather be back squatting in the mud with his men than sitting in the same room as a smarmy sounding British lawyer who would probably buy his soul if offered a good enough price. "But man, lawyers just piss me off." A pause. "No offense, Sammy."

Sam laughs. "Sure, sure." He's quiet for a moment, and Dean wonders if this'll be the end of the conversation. But then Sam makes a small noise, and he can almost see his brother's sad _I am worried about you Dean and you're obviously not okay right now _face so Dean halts that train of thought before he can get the whole long speech for the fiftieth time since landing back in the States.

"Oh hey, Sam, looks like they're ready for me. I'll call you when I'm back at the house," he says quickly, and hangs up before Sam can protest about it. He's not looking forward to staying in the house another night, but going through his father's things has taken longer than he thought. "Who knew Dad was such a freakin' pack rat," he mutters, and finally notices the secretary glaring at him from her desk. "Ruby," her name plate says, and she definitely looks like a Ruby. All blonde and dolled up, dressed like she's working behind a bar rather than behind a desk, and he gives her a sarcastic smile.

She continues to glare, and Dean hears a buzzing from her side. "Mr. Crowley is ready for you, Mr. Winchester," she says, and he doesn't know what he did to inspire the tone in her voice, but he just keeps giving her a shit-eating grin and he walks into Crowley's office.

It looks just like he expected it to, he guesses. It's unnecessarily large, with giant paintings of dead men and a _freakin' tapestry_ hanging on the wall behind a large, burgundy desk. Crowley's standing with his back faced towards Dean, black suit and black hair and Dean's throat goes dry because _fuck this whole thing stinks_. "Take a seat, Mr. Winchester," Crowley's saying, so Dean sits in a dark green arm chair, uncomfortable and fidgety, and Crowley turns around and bears into him with red-brown eyes and sinister smile.

Dean just remains pale and quiet and generally pathetic looking.

"Don't look so worried, Dean," Crowley smiles, eyes narrowing and eyebrow quirking, "I only need a signature - not your soul."

Dean really, really hates lawyers.

xxxx

Dean leaves an hour later, holding a will and a stack of papers that he knows Crowley explained to him at some point during all the smug lawyering and sleazy smiles, but it's all still hitting him that _this is actually happening oh God what am I going to do _and he forgets to put his stupid grin back on when he passes Ruby again. She watches him with an odd look, and he knows it's because he looks like he might collapse at any second.

He considers calling Sam, but he's still going through everything in his head, trying to remember all the specifics. There's a will, a bunch of letters to Sam that all say _Return to Sender _and one letter addressed to a _My Dear Son, Dean _that he's terrified to open.

While he was in Iraq, he received letters pretty regularly from both his dad and from Sam, and sometimes phone calls when he was lucky. Sam was always on his case about his inability to learn how to work a computer and a web cam, but Dean found he preferred letters anyway. He liked holding them in his hands, smoothing out the paper - seeing Sam's stupid chicken scratch writing, and his dad's smudged, hurried, blotting ink from cheap pens. Dad's letters always seemed like an after thought, something he probably did when he was drinking and no one would listen to him anymore, wherever he was. Always asked about Sammy first, Dean last - something that may have bothered other people, but the point was that _he asked about him_ and that was enough for Dean. Dean was always the good son, and, because of that, Sam always got the attention and the worry and the _make sure you take care of him, Dean, he's better than all of us_. Their dad had never been ideal, Dean figured, but he was a _father _and Dean would take whatever he could get.

Sam, however, was a lot less understanding. He resented their dad - to the end, Dean's pretty sure - and always said Dean was more of a father than John ever was. Which may have been true. Motherless at a young age, and fatherless in the sense that John was never the same after Mary died, Dean was the one who's name Sam said first, the one who read him bedtime stories, who told him about Santa and the Easter Bunny (but not the Tooth Fairy, because that one had always creeped him out). He made his lunches and made sure they had food on the table as soon as he was old enough to understand how to work the microwave. He'd been steadily employed in some fashion ever since he was nine, making excuses for their dad since even before their mom died. It wasn't that John was a dead beat - or at least, Dean _hoped_ he wasn't - it was that he was depressed. The doctor's had diagnosed him, put him on medication that he never took, and told Dean that he would eventually come out of it. _Just be there for him, son._

Dean's realizing, too late, that there was a lot about their father that they didn't know. He had always thought that when John was gone for days on end that he was on some kind of bender, drinking his way across the city, county, whatever. He always came back pale and beat to Hell and Dean just hugged him tight and told him he shouldn't go away for so long. When he got older, Dean would prepare a bath and cook food and make sure that he drank plenty of water, all the while smoothing out his hair and scrubbing bits of blood from his scalp while John muttered things like _But Sam's okay right? _and _You look so much like your mother Dean _and Dean would just nod _Yeah, Dad, I know_. Everything in the hopes that John would break out of his long depression and be "Dad" again.

When he was in fifth grade, Sam started telling his classmates that his father was dead, and always brought Dean to parent-teacher day, even though the teachers told him that it wasn't allowed.

Dean never asked how this made his father feel.

The Impala is sitting exactly as he left it in the parking lot, except there's a nice little ticket sticking out from behind the windshield wiper and Dean decides that he hates his life. "Poor baby," he says, smoothing his hand over the shining metal. "Did that cop touch you inappropriately?" He snatches the ticket up in his hand and frowns at it. Of course. _Your father gets murdered and all you get is a ticket and a letter you don't want to open_. He narrows his eyes at the thing, muttering, "If I had known freakin' Crowley would take so long to see me, I wouldn't have parked in a two hour parking spot."

It's at that moment that he realizes that there's someone standing very close behind him. He whirls around, hand patting frantically at his side, where his gun usually is, panicking because _where is it _before he realizes he's not over there anymore, and instead settles for raising a clenched, shaking, pale fist instead. "What do you want?" But the man doesn't flinch, and Dean makes direct eye contact with striking, deep blue. "Uh," he lets out before he can stop it and he wonders just how this man managed to walk up behind him so quietly.

The man has dark hair, three day stubble, and trench coat that looks like it belongs in the fifties and was made for someone several pounds heavier than him. Everything about him looks disheveled, but there's still something that makes Dean uneasy. He's staring at him, levelly, no decorum or apology in it, directly in Dean's personal space - hovering though he's several inches shorter. He's got a look like Dean's sure he had when he was in the thick of it - eyes that have _seen_, hands that have killed. The man grabs Dean's hand, gruff and unapologetic, and slips a piece of paper into it. "Condolences," he says, and his voice is gravel baking in the sunlight. "We are sorry for your loss." He's obviously had little interaction with people in general, let alone people who are supposed to be grieving, and his expression and voice are too intense for the sentiment, too hurried to really mean the words.

Dean looks at the paper, then back up at the man, but he's already turned with a scrape of feet on the concrete and is walking away, trench coat billowing out behind him in a way that would be humorous if Dean wasn't so strangely afraid of him and already so unwound and unnerved. Dean considers calling after him, because _what the hell was that about _but decides against it and climbs into the Impala instead.

He waits until he's situated behind the wheel before he looks at what's on the paper. _12:00 AM / Warehouse 42 / Thursday_. Dean frowns. Three days from now, creepy Blue Eyes is expecting him to come to some random warehouse in the dead-ass middle of the night. He snorts _yeah right - not that desperate._ He looks at the other side of the paper and just sees _Sandover Bridge & Iron _and an address and phone number for the company. Some business in New York, apparently.

He starts the car with a rumble, and throws the paper in the back seat, "Whatever you say, Blue Eyes," and turns his attention back to the stack of papers he had set in the passenger seat.

The will had been straight forward, stating that all of John's financial assets would be divided equally between Sam and Dean. Their father didn't have much money left - the college fund he and Mary had set up ran out before Dean was a senior in high school, and Dean assumes that whatever money he was making while they were kids either went to the rare grocery stop and bills or to fuel his habits - but he had taken out a life insurance policy at some point within the last few years, and it offered a little more. Not _pay Dean back for sending Sam to Stanford_more, but Dean was never expecting that. The house, however, now belonged to Dean, as Sam was living comfortably in California and Dean was homeless since he and Lisa had broken up while he was overseas.

"Fuck," he mutters, and puts the car in drive, wondering what the hell he's going to do now.

xxxx

Dean sleeps fitfully, in his old room, his old bed.

He dreams of Hell, a boy with a grenade walking towards him, pin already pulled.

There's blood and smoke and fire in his lungs, and he sees his father.

_I'm proud of you son._

xxx

"Who could have wanted to kill Dad?" Dean's asking Bobby for what he feels like is the millionth time. He's elbows deep in the front of a car, covered in grease and oil and feeling better than he has in two weeks. Doing hard, honest work. "I mean, he was just a drunk mechanic." He pulls his hands out and scrubs them momentarily with a towel before running an arm across his forehead. He's amazed at how different it feels to sweat here in Lawrence, Kansas. It reminds him of golden wheat fields and the smell of freshly mowed lawns.

His ears and nose and eyes are clear of sand and blood and his senses almost shock him.

Bobby shrugs again, which Dean was expecting. He was hoping to get more out of the man, considering that Bobby was the only one who John was close to aside from his sons - well, as far as Dean knows. But, either Bobby knows and doesn't want to say, or John was just as secretive with his best friend. He pushes away the thought that the answer to his question might lie in the letter addressed to him that he continued to refuse to open last night. The massive stack of letters to Sam and the will and the _My Dear Son, Dean_are all laying unceremoniously on the dining room table, along with the papers and journals Dean's managed to find in the house so far, waiting to be read and cried over. Dean refuses to cry.

Dean considers telling Bobby about the weird guy who gave him the business card yesterday, but decides against it. "Sam's coming down on Saturday," Dean says instead. "He would have been up here sooner, but he had a big case to close that couldn't be put on hold."

"Yeah, he told me," Bobby mutters, and when he scratches his face, he gets grease in his beard. "Just in time for the funeral on Sunday."

The money from the will - at least Dean's portion - is all going towards making sure that John has a nice funeral, a decent head stone with a nice engraving, and a spot next to the woman he died for years before he was actually killed. Dean would like to think that his mom is the only woman his dad had ever loved, but he isn't that naive.

He frowns. "I have to wear a suit and make a speech, don't I," and it's almost pathetic, but Dean's always hated this kind of thing. The last time he wore a tie was to his Senior prom with Bela Talbot, and that - along with him, Bela, and the Impala - didn't make it to the dance.

"Well, you can wear your uniform, you know," Bobby points out, and he grunts as he tightens a bolt. "And you don't have to make a speech if you don't want to." The garage is empty except for the exceptional clunker they're currently working on, and Dean feels more at home right now than he has since he got back. Dean had been working at Singer Auto and Salvage since he was thirteen - as an errand boy, working his way up to be a full time mechanic before he graduated high school - and Bobby was probably more of a father than John had been, if he wanted to be honest about it. "I doubt Sam'll say anything," the man adds. At the thought, he grimaces. "On second thought, we should just try to keep Sam from speaking even if he wants to."

Dean sighs, leaning against the car slightly, sniffing deeply and inhaling the scent of everything. "If I don't speak, no one will," he says softly. "Except you, Bobby. But no one wants to listen to an old fart talk about the Great Depression."

Bobby fakes a swing at him, and Dean laughs. A real, honest, breaking laugh, and his heart hurts.

xxx

That night, Dean finally sits down and reads the last letter his dad sent to him.

He's already organized the letters to Sam in order of date sent, put together in three stacks with rubber bands. He still doesn't understand the legal jargon of the will, so he has it set off to the side with his father's tax information and bank statements that he found in the old filing cabinet in the basement - Sam can deal with all that when he gets here, Dean decides. There are letters to their mom that Dean knows he shouldn't read, but he pours over them and lets himself cry because he finally gets to see the Dad that his mom fell in love with, and he grips them tightly in his fingers as he memorizes every line and every feeling and tries hard to remember his dad _just like this. Just like mom would have wanted me to remember him_. He had found a box of old school projects and essays and drawings that Sam had done for him long ago - things that said "i love u dean" instead of "dad" but John kept them anyway - and the small shoe box filled with letters that Dean had written from Iraq, still smelling of gun powder and mud.

When he finally has no more excuses _not to read the letter_he breaks the seal and holds his breath tightly.

_Dear Dean,_

_Tell Sam I love him. I've given up trying to write him, and he won't answer my calls. Tell him I'm sorry. I got so lost that I forgot to take care of him, and now I've lost him. I'm proud of what he's done. Make sure he knows that. He always was the best of us._

_Be safe, Dean. There are things you don't know, that I should have told you, that I can't tell you in a letter. It's up to you now._

_There's a key, in the back of Mary's jewelry box. It goes to a P.O. Box in Kansas City. All the answers will be there._

_Your mother would have been proud of you, Dean. She always said **angels watch over you**. Don't forget that._

_Your father,_  
><em>John Winchester<em>

Dean stares at the letter for a long time, unsure of what he's feeling. Distantly, he tries to think of the number of times his dad had actually managed to get out the words "I love you" to him, but it hurts too much to try and remember, so he just stares at the paper even harder, willing his eyes to stop watering. "Dad knew that he was going to die," he mutters, thumbing over the words, memorizing the tilt and shake of his father's handwriting.

These are his father's last words to him.

He has heard of people who have a last voice mail on their phones, one that they listen to over and over again - or don't listen to, maybe, never wanting to know what exactly those last words were. People always expect something profound, something heartfelt. But sometimes it's just another order. Another thing that needs to be done, because take care of Sammy, Dean. We need you. And Dean's tired of being needed.

Slowly, he folds the paper back and he sees one last thing his father had written, scrawled carelessly and in a hurry.

_ps beware yellow eyes_

xxx

Lisa is in his dreams and she holds his face and rubs fingers across his stubble.

_"Oh baby, you need to shave" _but he just stares at her, water flowing out of his eyes as he presses a hand to her stomach and feels the life there.

But then it's not Lisa, and it's his mother, and he's four years old and she's whispering to him _"You're going to have a baby brother, Dean"_ and his small hand is on her belly, wondering how there's a _Sam _in there but his heart already loves him so much it hurts.

And his mom is humming, _nah nah nah nah nah nah nah_.

Her hands are smoothing out his hair and her cheek is warm on his forehead.

_Hey Jude, don't be afraid._

This time, it's Sam's face he sees in the fire - crying, tiny arms reaching out - and his father shoves him into Dean's arms _oh God Dean get out, get out, save Sammy_.

He wakes up in a cold sweat and stares at the ceiling until the sun comes up.

xxx

Dean Winchester had always been the boy who would never leave Lawrence. Everyone in their area knew him, from birth until now - there had even been a small party for his going away for training and he'd grinned and bared it until he was able to sneak out the back and go to Ellen's for a stiff drink or five. People loved him because they loved Mary, and pitied him because no one really liked John anymore. Sure, they were kind to the man, but it was the kind that people are to a dog who is sick and no one has the heart to just put it out of its misery. Even though every one knew that John was a drunk, that he disappeared for days - even weeks - they just turned their heads and gave Dean free food and bottled water when he went grocery shopping. After he started getting mad when people did this, they'd always say _give this soda to Sam, Dean_ or _I made cookies for Sam, could you give them to him? _and that was the only way he'd accept any charity.

Dean had reacted to responsibility the way any nine, twelve, eighteen year old would. Angrily, begrudgingly. He never let any of it out on Sam - he loved his little brother to a fault, more than anything in the world - but he was considered a delinquent and a trouble maker in school. He never made the best grades or played sports other than the one time he tried out soccer (he kicked a boy in the head hard enough to knock him out and got suspended for a week), and the other kids avoided him because he was always covered in grease and smoked behind the gym instead of going to Algebra. He had a job before most kids even had to start doing chores - a paper route as soon as he learned to ride a bike when he was nine, and, eventually, after begging and pleading with Bobby, a job as a mechanic. He knew more about cars than he knew about people, and his longest relationship with a woman was with the Impala.

Except Lisa, but he doesn't count Lisa.

He'd met her a year before he left to go to Iraq - a yoga instructor who smiled a lot and apparently had a thing for guys who worked on cars and smoked too much - and he had crashed and burned for her so hard that even Sammy mocked him when he talked about her over the phone. Sam was happy for him, though - he had left a year before, eighteen and hot headed and ready to take on the world head first just because his dad said he couldn't do it - because Dean never had anyone other than himself and his brother and a dad he could never make happy enough to stay around. _She sounds like a keeper, Dean_, Sam had said and Dean just brushed him off, glad that Sam couldn't see him blushing all the way from California.

_And you sound like an over educated moose_, he muttered, not wanting to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, he might have found someone who actually made him happy.

She laughed at his poor attempts at jokes, sang songs badly and too loud with him, smiled at him in a way that no one ever had before. His hands had never touched anything as beautiful as her hair, as her cheek, and the first night he let himself get drunk enough that he cried because _I'm just like him, Lisa, God I'm just like him_ she just held him and smoothed out his hair and pressed her cheek to the top of his head and whispered _it's okay, baby, it's okay_.

He had never felt so safe before.

And after nine months and a night of the best sex he'd ever had - because there was love for once and not just greed and he knew, oh he knew, that he loved her more than anything, that she held every fragile, pathetic, sad part of him - he proposed and she said yes, yes, yes, and then held him because he started crying, _I'm not supposed to be this happy Lisa, this doesn't happen to me_.

She smiled and said, "_Yes it does, Dean. It does now."_

And then he got the call to be shipped out, _help out our boys overseas_, and Lisa promised she'd wait for him.

The letter she wrote him, _It__'s not yours, I'm so sorry Dean_, was crumbled somewhere in a small village outside of Baghdad, buried in dirt and sand and trampled on by muddy shoes.

_You always deserved better than me, Dean. This just proves it._

After that, he stopped caring. When he got shore leave, he decided not to go home. He'd give it to someone else, or take the time off to ride a train to France or Germany or wherever and he'd lose himself in women and men alike because he'd given something and lost it (torn and broken and rusting and useless) and it didn't matter who wanted him just that _someone_ wanted him. He was pretty and gruff and American, and he used it to get a bed for the night - get a meal bought for him. He sent Sam postcards of the Eiffel Tower and kitschy dogs in lederhosen and ignored every letter that said _Dean, you need to come home. You need to talk about Lisa. You can stay with me in California._

For three and a half years, he stank in Hell. He and Victor Henriksen, a sergeant who had no home to go to anymore and nothing in life to do except rise up in the ranks and sit in the mud with a private who's heart and drive had caught his attention. They drank beer together, laughed about things that they knew they shouldn't laugh at, and tried their hardest to pretend that they were fighting for something they both believed in.

_"The American dream__,"_ Henriksen used to say, mocking and dark. _"Most people forget we're even over here."_

When John was murdered, it was Henriksen who told Dean, and Dean kept shaking his head _Victor, don't fuck with me_ but the sadness in his friend's eyes told him that it was the truth. Dean took the letter in his hands and gripped it tight, glaring into it, trying to read the words. _This doesn't make any sense - why would someone kill him? _

Victor managed to get him a plane ride home, permanently, and hugged him tight before he left.

"_Don't do anything stupid, Winchester, it's a whole different world back there._"

xxx

The house he grew up in is pretty much the same as it's always been. Even after the bomb went off in the second floor nursery, John had painstakingly recreated every detail. The nursery was still Sam's room, but instead of blue skies and clouds, it's covered in emo rock band posters and that calendar with Einstein quotes still showing December 2003 and a bulletin board with post-it notes and schedules and books lists pinned to it. Dean walks by it and can imagine Sam sitting on the bed, two separate text books open, looking up at him with a big grin _Hey Dean, did you know..._

Dean's up earlier than than he'd ever been when he still lived at home. Left over from Hell, he guesses, and he's brewing coffee in the kitchen, looking around at the ghost mementos of his mother. The doctors had told Dean, when he was fourteen and old enough to force John to go to appointments, that he needed to start getting rid of Mary's things if his father wouldn't. _It's slowing down the healing process_, they said, but Dean never listened to their advice. He _wanted_ to, but he couldn't do it. His mother had picked out the decorations for all the rooms - every item of furniture was something she saw and loved. All the spices and all the foods were in places where she would remember where they were, places that showed how often she used each one - and he would always make sure to put them _exactly right_because he couldn't let go of Mom anymore than John could.

Dean sighs, running a hand across his forehead, head aching. The house is so quiet, he finds it difficult to concentrate.

He decides to call Sam, maybe tell him about the letter, beg him to get home as fast as he can. Tell him that he's thinking about selling the house. There's nothing here for him now. His old room is still decorated the way it was when he was twenty one, right before he moved out - there are movie posters, old classics that he'd never admit he loved, AC/DC poster placed right where people just glancing in would see it. The shelf of books - Vonnegut, Bradbury, Palahniuk, and others, bindings worn and bent - are already packed in a suitcase that he keeps within reach at all times. His room is a ghost of him, with journals and papers he'd written on before he knew what it was really like to hurt. There are a few Playboys stashed away and he finds he can't even look at them fondly anymore, let alone feel anything close to arousal.

It's not a place for a man who's almost thirty and is definitely suffering from some sort of PTSD and is screwed to hell in so many other ways. Every person who waves at him on the street looks like they're going to kill him - because they can oh they can_ -_and he just wants to go to sleep and forget about the fact that it used to make sense to shoot a woman just because she had something that looked like a gun in her hand.

Before he can dial Sam's number, the phone rings. He doesn't recognize who it's from, and he hesitates to answer it. But he does, flipping his aged cell phone open and croaking out a "Hello?" that sounds loud in the quiet of his house.

It's seven in the morning on a Thursday, and he can't imagine who would be calling.

"Dean Winchester," a gravelly voice says on the other line.

It takes him a moment, but he recognizes the voice from the parking lot outside of Crowley's office on Tuesday. The disheveled man with weird blue eyes and the creepy trench coat. "This is him. Who are you?" he manages to ask, and he feels like his voice sounds so childish compared to the power house that is this blue eyed stranger.

"A friend," the voice says, and Dean wants to laugh. "You remember the note I gave you?"

Dean distantly thinks about the business card wedged somewhere in his back seat, forgotten. "Yeah, sure."

"Don't be late, Mr. Winchester."

"And why do I have to go, huh? You didn't tell me anything other than what you wrote. Why should I trust you?"

The voice sighs, impatient, maybe angry. "Because yellow eyes are watching you. And your brother. The only way you'll protect him is to meet with us." There's a pause. "Don't be stupid, Dean. Your father knew what was at stake. You'd do well to take after him."

The line goes dead.

Dean stares at the phone, dumbstruck, eyes wide. Immediately he calls Sam.

"Dean, it's seven in the morning, why are you awake?" Sam says, instead of _hello_. He's obviously been awake for awhile, though, and Dean can imagine him reading the paper or drinking a coffee - except he's not sure if Sam actually drinks coffee. He hasn't actually seen him for three years, aside from the picture he sent him a year ago - Dean, this is Jess. I think she's the one. I really want you to meet her and of course she's gorgeous and everything Sam deserves - and letters didn't tell Dean if Sam still made a fuss over waiters putting ice in his drink when he asked for _no ice _or if he still ate mustard with his fries.

"Um," Dean starts. And suddenly he's not sure if he should say anything about _yellow eyes _or the letter or anything so he just asks, "How are you and Jess?"

He can _hear _Sam roll his eyes. "Dean, I know you didn't just call to ask me that - "

Dean laughs, nervously. "Okay, you're right, it's just..." and he trails off, hesitating. "I just had a bad dream last night, you know me. So uh...just be careful, alright? Hurry and get here, I really need you." His voice breaks a little bit, and he didn't realize just how badly he needed Sam right now until he finally admitted it.

Sam lets out a quiet breath. "I'm sorry I can't be there right now, Dean, I know how hard this is for you."

They talk about small things after that, about Jess and how _great she is oh my God Dean, she cooks and she's pretty and __you would get along with her so well _and Sam sounds like such a nerd that Dean can't help but laugh. And then they move on to discussing Sam's blossoming career as the greatest thing new thing in California law - young and handsome, and apparently ruthless as soon as he gets on the stand, Sam is gaining relevance faster than any of his professors could have hoped or dreamed.

When Dean tells Sam he's thinking about selling the house, Sam doesn't protest. _It's a logical decision, Dean_ and Dean supposes it is. He wasn't hoping for Sam to tell him to reconsider or fight against selling it - but he was hoping for something more than just calm acceptance. But, then again, Sam was never as fond of _anything_ here as Dean was, so he guesses he can _maybe _understand it. Maybe.

"Call me if you need to talk, okay Dean?" Sam's saying now.

"Yeah, sure, Sammy," Dean says quietly and hangs up the phone. Part of him wishes he had said something about the meeting and Dad's letter, but everything was so cryptic - from what John wrote to how Blue Eyes talked - that he doesn't feel like it would be safe to discuss on a phone or in length at all.

He thinks about the letter - _Mary's jewelry box_- and he goes into his parents' old room and grabs it without looking around too much. No part of him ever wants to have to go in here. It's not sacred, just painful, and there are empty bottles every where and scraps of paper with scribbled out writing - and the whole thing just looks like his dad and the faint memories of his mom that he aches just walking in.

He misses his father. Just as much as he misses Sam. And maybe that's stupid, but there was never a day that Dean didn't love him.

The key is hidden behind a false bottom of the jewelry box, he discovers. He cleaned out the box carefully, setting aside the earrings and the necklaces and the rings softly on table, as if they might break if he set them down too hard. His mom had never worn much jewelry - but she always wore pearls if she could manage. She said there was something beautiful about a pearl necklace, something strong and stately and precious, and she would let Dean run the pearls through his fingers before he helped her fasten them around her neck.

Whatever life their mother had before, she had given it up when she married John Winchester, a poor policeman who would never drive a nice car or have nice things. It was the subject of their many arguments, there towards the end. John didn't think he deserved her, would put hurtful words in her mouth just because he felt inadequate and she would try _so hard _to just hold him but he'd throw her hands away and slam the front door.

And then Dean would run, from where he was posted, hidden by the kitchen door, to his mother's side and touch the bottom of her dress timidly. _He doesn't mean those things mom - he's just scared because he loves you._And then Mary would smile and fix him a bowl of ice cream and touch his cheek softly The angels knew what they were doing when they made you for me, Dean.

Now that he has the key, Dean wonders if he should wait on Sam before he goes to Kansas City and finds the P.O. box. Wait until after the funeral, maybe, because this key may open a whole new can of worms and Dean isn't sure he's ready to handle it on top of everything else.

So he puts the key on his key ring and heads to Bobby's to take out some frustration on a car or two.

xxx

John Winchester and Bobby Singer had been best friends since middle school. John was handsome and charming, all star in sports and grades, and Bobby was always quiet and gruff, struggling in his classes but working his hardest to do well - somehow, they made a perfect pair. Bobby had been the one to introduce Mary Campbell to John, sophomore year. She was gorgeous and from a rich family, and John would never feel like he deserved her.

When John and Mary fought, Mary would call Bobby and he would always say the right things. He understood John better than anyone, knew the depths of his heart and his feelings for her and he would just smile and tell her that sometimes John is thickheaded _just give him another chance_. When they got married, quiet and in a hurry, no money to their names, Bobby was the one who walked her down the aisle and then stood next to both of them at the altar. Neither Mary nor John had any family - John, an only child, had lost his parents to a car wreck and Mary's parents had disowned her - but they created a new one there, in a small chapel, hands shaking while Pastor Jim read their vows.

Bobby was "Uncle Bobby" as long as Dean had been able to speak. When John and Mary would go out on their rare dates, Bobby played babysitter, showing Dean all the things a three year old probably shouldn't be shown - horrible B horror movies, AC/DC and Metallica, Coca Cola - and read _Slaughterhouse 5 _to lull him to sleep. Mary had been upset when she found out, but John just laughed - _he can't really understand any of it anyway, Mary_ - and she finally just sighed, shook her head, and smiled _Well, what can you do_.

After the bomb was placed in the nursery - _Must've been someone who had a grudge against you, John _but the only people John ever put in jail or fined were for charges that were drug related and they were minor at that - it was Bobby who took care of them while John stayed a week in the hospital, waiting for Mary to stabilize, to_ wake up, please Mary, wake up_. And when she didn't, when she finally drifted off into a long sleep, Bobby took care of John too. And when the police force let him go, _for your own good John_, Bobby gave him a job at the shop.

He loved Dean and Sam as if they were his own, caring for them when John would disappear. He was never intruding or overbearing about it, but he'd drop by for a visit and then forget he had something else to do and stay throughout the night - cooking, cleaning, attempting to help Sam do his homework. When he and John finally had a falling out, it was because of the boys, and Bobby stopped coming around as often. He'd ask Dean how he and Sam were doing, give him a little bit of food to take home or a book or something he thought Sam might like, and then make sure that Dean got home from work safely. It was Bobby who helped Dean rebuild the Impala when it was reduced to a mangled frame, after Dad had crashed it one night in what Dean assumed was a drunken haze, and Bobby who saw Dean walk across the stage at graduation.

To the end, though, Bobby never had anything bad to say about John to Dean or Sam or anyone. When Dean would complain and put his father down, Bobby would grab his shoulders tight and say, "_Look here, son, your dad is dealing with this in the best way he knows how. We don't know what he does when he goes out, but it's not drinking, not all the time_." And even though Dean asked what he meant by that, Bobby never explained it.

Even now, Dean's sure that, if he asked, Bobby would just pretend that he didn't know what he was talking about.

xxx

When Dean gets off at eight PM that night, bidding Bobby goodbye and refusing to take a paycheck for the day, he decides to go to Ellen's.

Ellen Harvelle owns _The Roadhouse_, the best little diner-slash-bar-slash-motel in Lawrence. It's sleazy and dark and Dean loves it almost as much as he loves the Impala. The people there are rotten, smell bad, and drink too much, but they're friendly and lonely just like him. Now that he's gone to Hell and back, he feels a kindred spirit between him and the place, and, when he bursts through the doors, he breathes in the beer and the sweat and the greasy smell of fries with a smile on his face.

Joanna Beth Harvelle spots him right away, giving him a friendly sneer over a tray of drinks as she saunters past him in the front room. "Well, Dean Winchester, I can't believe my eyes," she says, exaggerating her already strong Southern accent. "We had heard you were back in town. What brings your ugly mug around here?"

"Certainly not you, Speedwagon," he mocks and she just laughs. He's glad she's gotten over the fact that he turned her down pretty harshly five years ago. She was beautiful, sixteen and full of fire, but he had his morals and he wasn't about to bring on the wrath of her mother. Plus, R.E.O. Speedwagon didn't exactly do it for him, even if it was a nice try.

"Who says I'd be offering?" and she sticks her tongue out at him as she walks to her table, swaying her hips as she does so. If Dean were a lesser man, he'd take the invitation. But Jo was an untouchable thing - too good for him then, and too good for him now - and he'd rather protect her than hold her because she was the kind of girl who deserved to be loved and praised and cradled softly at night.

He makes his way up to the bar, chuckling slightly, and watches Ellen's back as she prepares a drink, waiting for the expression on her face when she turns around. He and Ellen have a strange relationship, if you were to ask Bobby. Dean could match her pretty much drink for drink - no easy feat - and that, essentially, was the basis of their friendship. Of course, there was also the years of talking over the bar too, but the fact was that he wasn't a light weight and Ellen respected that in a man. Dean thinks that he might be tempted to marry her if he didn't think of her as some kind of crazy aunt in his weird adopted family. The Harvelle women are determined to be the death of him, he's sure.

When she turns around, she almost drops the drink she was making. "Oh my - Dean - you're - _Dean Winchester_- " and her eyes widen and she slams the glass on the counter and...

Ellen is the only woman who has ever slapped Dean because she loves him.

He cups his cheek in his hand and glares at her. "Not that I didn't deserve that for _something _but what the Hell, Ellen?"

"Your father never teach you how to use a phone, boy?" And there's a bit of water in her eyes as she shoves the drink to the patron sitting next to Dean. "You could have been dead and no one around here would have known!"

Dean rubs the back of his neck nervously, making petty excuses but Ellen won't have any of it. "Sorry, El."

She shakes her head, sighing, and then looks at him squarely, letting a small smile drift onto her face. "Your dad would come in here sometimes and read all the letters you had sent to him. He was so proud of you, Dean." And she touches his face lightly this time, so much love and pity in her eyes that Dean almost wishes she had just slapped him again.

He shakes her hand away and puts a five dollar bill on the table. "I didn't do anything that he should have been proud of, Ellen." He slides the money towards her. "Just give me my usual."

She sighs again, but turns around to pour a beer, ignoring the bill. "Real pity what happened to your dad, Dean."

Dean lets out a breath that sounds almost like a growl. "Look, Ellen. I'm glad you're here for me, and I'm glad you want to talk, and I _know _I need to talk. But not tonight. Just let me drink everything away and talk about the good old days like all the other geezers in here. Because I just got back from one Hell and stepped into another and maybe if I get drunk enough the world will stop being so fuckin' crazy."

Ellen sets the beer on the counter, and then pulls out two shot glasses and fills them to the brim. "Amen to that," she says, and they put them back, wincing and tightening their lips, and Ellen pours them each two more.

xxx

And that's how Dean finds himself halfway between smashed and _I think I'm gonna pass out _when a hand firmly lands on his shoulder and whirls him around on the barstool.

It's Blue Eyes, and he looks pissed - which, admittedly, is more emotion than Dean saw on him the last time they met. He's not in the trench this time, just a suit and a tie and a grim, intense expression. "Dean." And his voice is deep and growling and as smooth as sandpaper, but damn if Dean isn't both scared and _intrigued_ because the drink is screwing with his mind and making him realize just _how damn alone _he is right now.

"Hey, Blue Eyes," he says with a grin, shaking his drink in front of the man's face, offering it to him. The man just glares at it for a second, before meeting Dean's eyes again, almost more angry than before. "What's got you all in a twist?"

"You," he says, honestly, though Dean hadn't been expecting an answer. Blue Eyes grabs his arm and yanks him off of the stool. "Come with me. I told you_ not to be late_."

Dean lets himself be led because he's too drunk to do anything about it, and waves a hand back to Ellen, putting on a fake _l__ook who's getting laid _smile that Ellen just rolls her eyes at. "Just make sure you use protection," she mutters loudly, returning to wiping down the bar.

They get outside and it's damp and musky so it must have rained at some point while Dean was downing shots and beer. They don't walk to the Impala, but to an unremarkable car that Dean can't pinpoint the name of because _fuck the world is kind of spinning right now _so Dean just protests loudly instead. "Why can't we take my car?"

"Because it's too recognizable," Blue Eyes says simply, and he shoves Dean into the passenger seat of his car, expression just as angry and intense as before. "And I know how to drive this car."

Blue Eyes is in the front seat, starting the car before Dean can _really_think about what's happening, so he just asks, "What's your name anyway, Blue Eyes?"

The man just glares at him in response. "I reminded you about tonight, Dean. Zachariah will not be happy that you're drunk even if we do get there on time."

"Zachariah? What the Hell kind of name is that?" A pause. _Wait_. "You actually told me something?" And Dean is laughing, and it's absurd, and Blue Eyes is just glaring even harder at him, like the entire world just exists to spite him. "So I'm going to see this Zachariah guy. I don't know why, but at least I know his name. So when I get killed, I can write it down in my own blood and hope the police can read my shitty handwriting."

Blue Eyes is driving now, staring at the road, but Dean can _feel _the look that's meant for him. "My superior would insure that you weren't alive enough to manage even the first letter, Mr. Winchester." Dean wants to laugh, but he knows it's not a joke, so he shuts his mouth for at least five minutes.

Well, not exactly five minutes. "How'd you find me anyway, Blue Eyes?"

The man sighs heavily. "I've been watching you." _Yeah, like that's not creepy._

"Why?"

"Someone's following you."

"Yeah, _you_," and Dean looks at him, but doesn't get anything more than a side glance. The guy is a safe driver, at least.

"You're more important than you know, and more important to _us _alive, Dean," as if that's any kind of answer.

They exit town and head down a dirt road surrounded by a corn field that looms like a forest on either side of them. Dean leans his head against the window to look at the stars. "You know, even though there's all kinds of pollution and shit over here - there's nothing like the starry sky over the midwest," he says quietly, but doesn't get any response from the driver. "I used to look up at the sky when I couldn't sleep. I'd sneak out of the barracks and lay on the grass, just to see something familiar. It started to hurt too much after awhile, though. So I stopped."

"'Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels'," Blue Eyes mutters.

Dean scoffs. "So you're a philosopher now?"

"Longfellow." As if that answers everything.

"Angels don't exist, Old Blue," and he burrows the back of his head into the old leather seat. "Seen enough pain to know that much at least. I have a feeling you could say the same."

Blue Eyes purses his lips. "I'd rather be called Castiel."

"That your name?"

The man, _Castiel_, just stares ahead.

"Weird ass name," Dean mutters, and he closes his eyes.

xxx

Dean's laying on morning grass under a starry sky. He can feel the cold damp on the back of his neck, seeping through his shirt.

Somewhere in the distance, there's a fire, and it burns his nostrils.

"You shouldn't be sleeping out here," a gruff voice says, and Dean wants to scream at it.

_Go away, can't you see I'm dreaming?_

"You need to wake up."

The fire catches the grass around him and Dean just keeps staring at the sky.

"Why does the sun come up? Or are stars just pin holes in the curtain of night?"

Dean scoffs. _Okay Highlander._

And there are calloused hands touching his face.

"Wake up, Dean."

The hands feel like sandpaper and are hot as flame but Dean wants to melt into them.

_You're an angel, aren't you?_

And he catches fire.

* * *

><p><strong>disclaimer: <strong>supernatural © eric kripke


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Supernatural, Romance