supernatural, gen, pg; between us misfits

[static_abyss]

Title: Between Us Misfits
Rating: PG
Genre: general, feel good fic
Wordcount: 2,226
Spoilers: up to half of season 5
Summary: Dean is well on his way to being spectacularly drunk, right in between a throbbing pulse on the side of his head and the world tilting. Sam looks relaxed which means he's plastered and Castiel, Castiel just looks like he usually does—stoic and alternating between distracted and impatient.
Disclaimer: Supernatural, its plot and characters are the sole property of Eric Kripke, the CW/WB production companies and all their associates. No copyright infringement intended. No money is being made from this fic.
Note: Written for this prompt by anonymous at the spneveryficmeme@LJ My first go at a Supernatural fic. I felt like the prompt was the perfect thing for me to write since watching/reading/imagining Dean, Sam and Castiel being happy makes my heart ache for them, especially towards the end of season 5. So, basically, this fic is me torturing myself.

The motel is just as dirty as the other places they've stayed—ugly wallpaper, deep blue curtains on the windows and old clippings advertising cheap snacks and the generic brand beer that Dean can't stand. It's the same TV set, the beds, the dressers, the bathroom and Sam sitting at the table typing away at his computer preparing as he always does. Dean is sitting in front of the TV nursing a beer and paying little attention to what he's watching.

"I hate this fucking show," Dean says because the quiet in the room is suffocating him.

"Then don't watch it."

Dean snorts. Practical. Straight to the point. That's always been Sam, saying the right things and never listening, fucking things up and never finding the right way to fix them. He's all talk, apology after apology and Dean doesn't know how else to say it, how to make him understand that after all this shit they've been through—angels and demons, the impending end of the world, the slap-in-your-face reality that God is real and unwilling to help—after all that, all he wants is to lay on the bed and bitch about the show. He could do with another beer, maybe some whiskey, mindless conversation.

"She has nice legs," Dean comments watching the girl in a commercial about cars, beer, lemonade, who the fuck knows.

"I bet she does."

"You haven't even seen her yet. I'm telling you man, I'd kill for legs like those."

Sam coughs a laugh. "I bet you would."

"Fuck off and get me another beer."

"Get it yourself."

"You two are rather interesting to watch."

Dean turns and Castiel is standing by the door, head tilted to the side as he scrutinizes the room. There's something about the set of Castiel's shoulders, the sort of fed up look in his eyes that Dean used to see in his teacher's eyes when he pulled one prank too many. He knows there's nothing nice waiting at the end of Castiel's sentence and he can feel his shoulders tensing already, the tightening in his jaw that will give him muscle cramps one day if he's not careful. Sam's watching Castiel, wary but accepting like it's okay to just fuck up the moment Dean was about to have.

He thinks back to the day before, fuck, he doesn't even have to go that far. Three hours ago, he was chasing a demon who boasted that he was Lucifer's main bitch only to find out that it wasn't a demon, but a shifter trying to play smart. They were nowhere near finding a way to kill Lucifer. Castiel had gone from annoyingly optimistic to emo Goth chick. The angels were still after them and everywhere he and Sam turned, there was someone else trying to kill them. Dean needed just one win for the day, one good thing and he knew he wasn't going to get it from Castiel.

"Don't say it," Dean says, narrows his eyes, not quite glaring but close enough.

"Say what?" Castiel asks and even his trench coat looks depressed, hanging off his sagging shoulders like all it wants to do is roll off and lay on the ground. "You can't possibly know what I'm going to say before I say it. It's impossible."

"Sit down."

"I—"

"Sit."

Castiel blinks and Dean just raises an eyebrow, tilts his head, eyes daring him to argue. Castiel shrugs as if he doesn't give a fuck either way and sits on Sam's bed. Dean smirks at the stiff, uncomfortable way he does it, like he has a stick shoved up his—

"Isn't this fun?" Dean grins.

"What exactly is supposed to be fun," Sam asks. "The pending apocalypse? Or the depressed angel on my bed?"

"Shut up Sam." Dean says with feeling.

He goes back to show on TV, something about a woman, lots of tears and a bastard who left so and so pregnant and waiting at the altar. Dean rolls his eyes, captivated by the sheer stupidity of the people. He has a couple of tips for the woman who must be blind if she can't tell her husband is fucking the maid.

"I mean, come on," Dean turns to Castiel. "It's, right there, in her face. Look at that sleazy smile. That's perv code for the maid is good in the sack. She's hot and she's the maid."

"I fail to see what that has anything to do with committing adultery," Castiel answers.

Dean grins. "Cas, my friend, there are a lot of things about us sleaze bags that you don't know."

"You can say that again," Sam calls over his laptop.

"Sam," Dean says. "Sam, get the beer."

-

"So, you mean to tell me that there is some sort of code that only men are aware of that tells them which women they can sleep with?"

"Yes," Dean says.

"No," Sam answers.

Castiel frowns, but the kicked puppy look is gone from his face for a minute and Dean is relieved, eased for that one second. He's well on his way to being spectacularly drunk, right in between a throbbing pulse on the side of his head and the world tilting. Sam looks relaxed which means he's plastered and Castiel, Castiel just looks like he usually does—stoic and alternating between distracted and impatient.

Dean is sitting on Sam's bed next to Castiel and Sam is on the floor by their feet. The TV is playing an all-day marathon of whatever soap opera Dean was watching. They're on their third episode, he thinks, and the two men on screen are arguing about a broken code. Dean remembers Castiel's question at the same time that Castiel chooses to break the nice, relaxed buzz in Dean's head.

"I have to go," Castiel says. "We’re wasting time and frankly I'd rather do that alone."

"We're not," Dean says. "We're relaxing."

"No," Sam says shoving himself upright and Dean can tell from the way Sam blinks that his brother isn't drunk, just buzzed. "Cas is right. We should be doing research or at the very least be out there trying to find a demon that knows where Lucifer is."

Dean frowns, stares down at his beer bottle and tries not to think too much. He doesn't want to have this conversation now.

"Yes, well," Castiel says. "I meant I would rather brood on my own."

Sam says something in response to that, but Dean doesn't pay attention. He picks at the label on his beer bottle, tearing off the corner and rolling the wet paper between his thumb and forefinger. His fingers around the bottle are cold, the bottle wet and half empty. He takes a drink, but it tastes like tap water, the kind that comes from rusty pipes in old houses. He thinks back to the last time he had water that disgusting, back in one of the motels he and Sam stayed in while their dad went off hunting.

Sam had been five maybe, too young to really care what lie Dean told him as long as it explained why he wasn't allowed to play with the other kids outside. He'd been young then too, Dean supposes, but he wasn't like Sam. He'd known from the minute his father asked him to take Sam out of their burning house that he had some kind of role to play in Sam's life. It became clear, years later—when they jumped from town to town, when their father taught Dean how to shoot a gun, when Sam asked why their father wasn't home for Thanksgiving, Christmas—that Dean was going to watch Sam forever. He'd always feel guilty for everything that happened to Sam, no matter how small, no matter how far away Sam was from him. He'd always get nervous when Sam walked away without telling him where he was going. He'd always feel betrayed when Sam ignored what he said, self-righteous and angry when Sam fucked up and proved Dean right.

Dean accepts that, accepts that Sam's mistakes will feel like his for as long as he lives. He accepts that no matter how much he tells Sam otherwise, he'll never be okay either. He's not okay with the idea that this, the entire fucking world and the ungrateful fuckers in it, is going to hell unless they do something—an angel with daddy issues, the guy who started the whole thing in the first place and him, a guy who has mental breakdowns in silence and knows he's not going to be able to save everyone. Because, Dean does know. He thinks about it every second of the day as he drives the Impala into another town in the middle of nowhere. He thinks about it when he catches Sam watching him with worried eyes, questions there that Dean will never be able to answer. He thinks about how someday, somewhere, sometime, he's not going to be able to save Sam.

And it pushes him to the edge of insanity every second of the day. He goes almost crazy with it, so that sometimes he has to go for a drive in the middle of the night to just let all the pent of frustration out. Or he has to open a bottle and down it because alcohol jumbles his thoughts and gives him silence for a few hours. Just his thoughts alone are enough and Dean doesn't really need Sam, Castiel, or any other angel reminding him of what he already knows. He can't just tell them either because he knows that Sam keeps it together when he thinks Dean is about to lose it, but not when he knows that Dean is losing it. Castiel does what he can, but Dean knows now that he's only as good as they are, stronger yes, but no more prepared for disappointment than they are.

"Sit down," Dean says looking up at them finally. "I'm not going anywhere until this marathon is over. You can't make me so sit down."

"We have to—"

Dean shushes Sam and points at the TV where the wife is confronting her husband about his affair. He knows Sam is about to say something so he turns back, looks Sam straight in the eyes and raises one eyebrow, jaw set, face serious. It's the face that Sam used to call his dad face and it never failed to make Sam do what Dean wanted him to do. Dean's surprised it works now, but he doesn't question it because ever since Lucifer started screwing with the world, Dean has learned to be grateful for the little things.

"Come on Cas," Dean says patting the space next to him. "This is the part where the husband dumps his hot maid and she goes bat shit crazy."

"I suppose this is a good a place as any to contemplate our impending doom," Castiel sighs.

Dean feels the corners of his mouth twitch, "that a boy Cas."

-

"Please explain why that man and woman are still married if they are both in love with other people."

"Because it's a soap," Sam answers.

"But, they are suffering."

"Yeah."

"That makes little sense. Why would two people stay together if they are unhappy?"

"It's a soap Cas," Sam answers, his eyes intent on the screen. "It's not supposed to make sense."

"And you find this entertaining?"

"Yes?"

"That seems psychologically damaging."

Dean smiles, watches the man and woman on the TV screen and takes a drink. He listens to the sound of Castiel prattling away, dissecting the reasons for why men and women suffer unnecessarily. Dean grins at Sam's increasingly annoyed answers and the way his brother leans forward towards the TV. It almost feels normal, almost like they're back at home in between jobs, drinking with Bobby and arguing about what movie they want to watch. If Dean closes his eyes and leans back on the bed, he can fall asleep and he knows he won't wake up, not as long as he can still hear Sam and Castiel talking in the background.

"But the maid loves him," Castiel says. "If she loves him why is she saying she doesn't?"

"Because," Sam tells him. "Because, women are, they—"

"Cas," Dean calls taking pity on Sam. "Leave Sammy alone. Can't you see he's dying to know what products the maid uses on her hair?"

"Shut up Dean."

"Come on Sammy, we're all friends here. You don't have to hide your inner twelve year old girl with us. Right Cas?"

"The maid is pregnant."

Sam's head snaps around so fast, Dean's sure he hears it from where he's sitting. He says nothing, won't admit that he's paying attention too because the damn soap is addicting in a way that makes Dean feel like his soul is being sucked out of him with each episode they watch. He hears Sam's unintentional gasp and Castiel's disbelieving scoff when the maid declares the gardener as the father of her baby. Castiel turns to Sam and the questions start again as Sam tries to cut him off. He throws a pleading look in Dean's direction, looks pointedly at Castiel and waits for Dean to do something. Dean just leans back into the bed and lets the grin stretch across his face.