Song Remains the Same

Chapter 95: Trading Spaces

"I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me.
But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself."
- Rosamund Lupton

Dean was in the foulest, most pissed off of moods. He clenched the steering wheel tight enough that it creaked under his hand. His teeth groaned from the way he pushed them together in his mouth. The car engine whined protest as he gunned it to top speeds out of aggravated fury. Of all the bullshit he'd ever been subjected to, this topped it all.

It wasn't that he'd been woken up out of some very much-needed sleep in the middle of the night—that was normal. It wasn't that he'd dropped everything and raced across the miles the entire time worrying about something bad happening to someone he cared about—that was also normal. It was that the entire thing had been a dirty trick schemed by of all people his sister who, he could only assume, wanted to get rid of him long enough to get off with Cas. And of all the ways to accomplish that goal, she had picked the one that was furthest below the belt.

When Dean had woken up to see the text on his screen from 'Jamie' that said 911 - DON'T CALL - just come asap - IN TROUBLE - HURRY he hadn't questioned it for even a second. All he'd known was she was in trouble and he had to help. He'd taken the address she included and double-timed it that way, worried as crap because Jamie never asked for help. But when he got to the suspiciously-close location and found nothing and no one, he scrolled through his contacts to call Jamie and then found two 'James' contacts listed there. When he saw that, he immediately realized he'd been duped. But just to be sure, he called the first one, which just so happened to be the real Jamie. He woke her up and she was confused by his demands to know if she was okay and if she was in the same state he was in. She wasn't. Pissed off that he'd worried over nothing at all, furious that Alex would pull some shit like that, Dean basically snapped that he was glad Jamie was 'alive and stuff' and then hung up on her then headed straight back to the motel room, angry enough to spit.

Of all the selfish, immature moves. Sam was dying and Alex sent him off on a wild goose chase that played with his feelings just so she could screw Cas in peace? The guy who had killed her and broken Sam and fucked up the entire world? Oh, there would be hell to pay. As he closed the distance back to the motel room, a thousand berating insults formed in his mind. He was ready to put those two in their place and start some shit. However, when Dean realized at a stop light that he really didn't feel like walking in on them in the middle of whatever freaky sexcapade they were definitely in the middle of, he fired off a quick, snide text to her and then changed her name from 'James' back to Alex and fumed again that he'd fallen for the trick.

Cas had some nerve, but damn if Alex didn't too. Dean wondered if they had conspired together and he didn't get why they couldn't have just zapped over to some other room if they really were that desperate to fuck each other—why'd they have to involve him and worry him over James? That was low. Also, Dean had thought Alex would have been more hesitant than that to so quickly take Cas back with open arms. Once an addict, always an addict he reasoned bitterly. And to think he'd been feeling sorry for his sister and even for Cas marginally during the drive earlier. He'd been thinking about how hard it had to be for Alex to have lost Cas and just when she was finally getting stronger and more adjusted to suddenly find him still alive and married to some bimbo... that was rough. Dean had also been contemplating how awful it had to be to suddenly get back a bunch of memories you'd forgotten and find yourself responsible for a ton of horrible, heartbreaking crap. He had kinda felt for Cas.

Well, any sympathy he'd had for either of them was gone. Dean pulled up to the motel and jerked to a stop then slammed the car into park, getting out with a hearty slam of the door. He stormed into the motel room, expecting to find a smirking Alex and a slyly triumphant angel. So, when he instead found his sister alone in the dim room, sitting on the bed fully dressed with slumped shoulders and eyes bloodshot red from crying, he abruptly lost all of his steam and froze in place when she looked at him reluctantly, like she was dreading what was next. He recognized the way she was looking at him: like she had been caught and was waiting for punishment. She used to look at Dad like that. She looked so upset and he could tell she had cried herself to exhaustion—her eyes weren't just red, on closer inspection as he drifted a little closer, he saw they were puffy and red-rimmed like the tears had been so copious that they aggravated her skin. Immediately, his rage faded.