Beat The Devils Tattoo

chapter 5 Matches To A Flame

Chapter 5: Matches to a Flame

Dean was avoiding the situation and knew it.

He didn't want to think about the unoccupied room in the house. He didn't want to go through and take his father's clothes away. He didn't want anything to disrupt the fragile peace the house contained.

And now, staring down at Michael as he wept, clutching Castiel's shaking hand, he felt a deep stab of pain. He quietly made his excuses to Castiel, who didn't even seem to hear him, and stepped back into the hall. He leaned heavily against the wall, eyes closing as he tried to get a grip on himself. It was hard to think about his father, harder still to think of Castiel with his dying one and his own deep in the ground, slowly decaying. He hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

The familiar clump of boots down a hallway made him look up, and he smiled wanly when he saw Sam. He looked out of place in the hospital, carefully dodging nurses and moving with almost exaggerated caution. Sam always moved like that, though. Instead of using his height and weight to intimidate, he always seemed small, curling in on himself to be less of a threat. If it wasn't so funny, it would be sad.

"Cas okay?" he asked when he finally reached Dean, looking a little harried.

"He's in there with Michael," Dean nodded. "I didn't think you were going to make it, man. Those nurses you had to dodge..." He clucked his tongue, a grin on his face.

"Fuck you," Sam said without any heat, and peered in through the window. "Looks like they're talking, at least."

Dean nodded, fingers twitching. He wanted to go out for a nice, long smoke, but knew that Castiel would panic if he wasn't there after he was done.

"You look like you're thinking deep thoughts," Sam said after another look in at the two. "Want to share with the class?"

Dean snorted, but after a bit of Sam's patient, 'I will wear you down with my puppy eyes' stare, said reluctantly, "I was just thinking about how we didn't get to say goodbye, you know? I mean, we know the guy who did it is going away, and if I want I could make his life hell, but I- The last think I said to him was that- that I was sick of his shit and wanted my freedom. And now he's dead, and even though I know it's not my fault, I just...I wanted to say goodbye, and I couldn't."

Sam looked like he was about to cry. "Dean..."

"Don't, Sammy," he said, tired. "I don't want you sympathy, I can't take it. Point is, I don't envy Cas, but I wish...I wish we'd had a little more time."

He would never forget the mangled, battered body that they had to identify. The thought that the sad, bloody mound on the coroners table had once been a living, breathing person who had attended Sam's soccer games and taught him how to make more sophisticated weapons than sharpened popsicle sticks, and how to fix things that seemed beyond fixing, had almost been more than he could bear. He missed his father, he realized with a harsh, deep cut of misery. He wanted his dad back, he wanted them arguing and laughing and passive aggressively grouching about whether pancakes or waffles were better. (It was waffles according to John.) He even missed John passed out on the couch, and how he'd just squeeze Dean's shoulder to show his approval.

He didn't realize he was crying until Sam had pulled him in, one huge hand cradling the back of his head as he clutched Sam's shirt, sobbing into his shoulder. It was finally all too much, too fast.

When he was all cried out, he slumped down, and Sam helped them both to the floor. They must have looked strange- two grown men in black jeans and heavy black leather jackets, Sam's left sleeve tattoo peeking out, and Dean's sunburst appearing out of his shirt. Dean curled into Sam's side, well aware that he looked like an absolute mess. He buried his face in Sam's shoulder, letting him rub over his back soothingly. It was strange, being the cared for person, but he couldn't bring himself to mind. He'd already taken out his rage on a poor, unsuspecting Chevelle in Bobby's junkyard, now, finally, he was grieving.