Nothing Left To Fear

2

The Impala is impractical, he's bunkered it down at Bobby's salvage yard under a tarp and protected against the elements, taken out once in a while for a drive by one of the two of them, although Dean is mostly based at Chitaqua now. He drives an old Ford Flatbed and answers to the name Campbell. He wonders if anyone who knew him before would even recognize him now.

It's more than the physical, though that has changed, the scars are clear enough indication of that. He grew his hair out to help cover the three scars that cross his face. He doesn't look at himself in the mirror any more and he dresses perfunctorily.

He spends longer making sure Cas has remembered the simple things, buttons and shoes and running his hand through his hair in lieu of a comb.

Cas is Campbell too. It's Dean's mother's name. It's Dean's mother's family and her legacy. Winchester is spoken of darkly, John would have sacrificed any number of Hunters to kill his monster, and they knew it, but Campbell is spoken of in revered whispers, they were on the Mayflower, apparently, killing vampires. So few of them remain to claim the name. There are three now, Samuel, old and worn but still tough as old boot leather with a scar across his belly from a disembowelment he survived being by ornery rather than because of medical skill, Christian, and Dean. Cas is named in the manner of a family pet.

The Hunters come to them as things fall apart knowing that Dean will kick down the very doors of Hell for them, and Christian will be at his back, but it's old Samuel who has trained them well enough to win.

The Veil between the Hunter's world and that of the mundanes strains a little more every year, and the Hunter's gather, knowing it's only a matter of time before it collapses completely and the Campbells are all that stands firm.

Samuel is too old, and Christian too malleable- he's soft eyed and generous, but Dean is their figurehead, scarred, pragmatic and relentless. He sits in the Ford, Cas on the flatbed behind him no matter what the weather, as they go to town. Dean flirts emptily with the girls on the counters, and the waitresses at the diner, he laughs about that funny religious commune out in the woods, and makes the same jokes- it's not religious, if it was it would only be for the tax break.

He hears the rumors about what they're doing, but people come and go as they will. They don't necessarily keep to themselves as much as most religious communes, their kids go to school with the mundane kids, so maybe they are crack pot Revelationists, the word amuses Dean darkly, but no one complains.

If the mundanes notice the lack of things that bump in the night in their area, they certainly don't add two and two together, or if they do they count their blessings and don't push.

Even though it's raining, and it is sheeting it down, Castiel is sat on the bed of the truck, head back, letting the water slick down his face like he were in a shower, he has lost his shoes somewhere- he shucks them off like a small child given the chance- his shirt soaked to his skin. Dean rolls his eyes as he sees it in the rear view, secretly fond of Castiel's inhuman ways. He likes that Cas isn't human, because then it won't matter when he is, inevitably, lost.

Apart from the eye roll Dean doesn't react to the angel. He's been by his side for years now, and the quirks are invisible to him now.