The Age of Innocence

God I hate kids, I do! No because what they do when you don't see them of the street all pink and cute and wide eyed, which is poop and cry and kick and drain the life force out of you.
I hate them because they're small, and innocent and have no idea what's coming to them.
Now everything it's an accomplishment. Talking is an accomplishment, walking get them sweets, smiling makes their parents proud, but soon they'll grow up and disappoint their parents no matter what they'll do,
no matter how accomplished they'll be; their parents will never be completely satisfied with them and they'll push them harder and harder until they'll finally break.
And when that happens it's going to be just another disappointment for their parent.

In the light of all that's happened Part 1

Second week of sleepless nights for Dean. Since Faith blabbed her mouth about Castiel having feelings for him, Dean wasn’t able to close one eye or to even relax for that matter. The other day he went to a minimart for some pie, on his way back a cat darted out of a garbage can and he almost had a heart attack. He’s not afraid he just doesn’t know how to react and what to say to Castiel when he drops by.

Usually, these days, Dean finds an excuse to get out of the room the second Cas lands. Those long fictive trips to the bathroom should stop unless he wants Faith to take him to a hospital.

“Holly Marry, mother of Christ, I wish Sam was here” he thinks while brushing his teeth one morning. Of course as selfish as Sam is, he found a way to ditch the cause and went to Disney Land with Lana or Lora or Linda or whatever-the-hell-her-name-was. It’s true that there wasn’t much to hunt these days and they had 911-ANGEL on speed dial that could’ve zapped Sam from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and into the dusty motel room in middle-of-nowhere Kentucky where Dean was living for the moment.

Faith is a bitch. She sleeps with every greasy truck driver she can find. Dean thinks she’s a nymphomaniac but shortly ruled that out giving the fact that she never expressed the desire to sleep with him or maybe she just finds it creepy giving the fact that she had a small fling with their dad, not too long ago. But she flirts with Cas, I mean she flirts with Cas. She’s one step away from actually shoving her hand down his pants.

She’s a hot brunette, full dark red lips, big green eyes and she always dresses like in a rock video, black t-shirt, gray jeans, boots and leather jacket, her dark hair dangling below her shoulders in big, heavy curls. Faith laughs, a lot but you can see a spark in her eyes and you realize she’s not happy.

“What happened to you anyway?” Dean asked one day stretching as much as he could in the tiny hotel bed. After seeing Faith looking at him, puzzled he continued “Why did you become a hunter?”

Faith breathed her cigarette in and exhaled a smoky “Vampires”. She squashed the cigarette butt in the ashtray and continued “I was seventeen, making out with my boyfriend in my room, Goth music blasting from the stereo, my 5 year old little brother was in his own room playing. My mom was downstairs, cooking and from time to time yelling at me to turn down the music” she lights off another cigarette and breathes in hard, with thirst and pleasure, closing here eyes and letting the effect make her a little dizzy. “My dad was watching TV, there were three of them, two jumped my dad and one mom, because I was used to screams from downstairs I didn’t understand at first what was going on but my boyfriend thought there was too much ruckus, he jumped out of bed, turned down the music and opened the door. That’s when one of the vampires torn his throat out. I yelled and did the first thing I could think, regarding of the people that might’ve still been alive in that house, and jumped out the window cracking my sternum, breaking four ribs both my arms and dislocating my jaw. They tortured my little brother for sheer pleasure while I was lying there, unable to move, unable to scream unable to do anything but hear him sobbing and being torn apart by those animals. A neighbor who was out to get his paper, the next morning saw me lying on the grass and moaning. I don’t know why they let me live, maybe they thought I was dead or close enough or maybe they were to full from such a generous meal.” 

A deathly silence filled the small space of the hotel room and after a few seconds of pondering Dean asked: “Did you at least get them back?”

Faith nodded and spitted out tobacco “A year later.”

A small flutter of wings and Castel was standing at the foot of Dean’s bed. Dean jumps out of bed and mumbles something about him being a foot out the door and asking if anyone wants anything.  They might’ve wanted something if Dean would’ve said where he was going but before Faith could ask, Dean was already down the street. She closes the door and turns to Castiel who sat in the uncomfortable chair tugging at his tie trying to slip it loose.  Faith takes two giants steps and faces Castiel pulling his tie loose with long fingers and touching his neck in the process. Her hands are cold and smelling of cigarettes and Cas flinches. “Sorry” she mumbles and when she steps away Castiel sighs. Faith’s face changes and Castiel can read pity in her eyes. She sits at the end of Dean’s bed “He’ll come round Cass. He wouldn’t be panicking like this if there wasn’t something inside him, something more than friendship for you, just have patience.” Faith whispers, her voice al butter and honey but Cas sinks deeper in the wooden chair and breathes out an “I’m tired” closing his eyes and remembering his favorite spot in heaven. He had been cast out from Heaven, reneged by his own family and now by the one person he was truly caring for, real human feelings of love, the ones that hurt and make your stomach rumble and make you jump in front of a train. The angel snapped his eyes open “Anna Karenina was a fool.” He states with a serious look on his face.

“Well, that’s random” Faith snorts out a laugh but Cas was too exhausted to explain instead he covers his face with his palm and makes and annoyed sound. Faith jumps of the bed and grabs the angel by the lapels of his coat pulling him upright and then sliding his trench on to the ground while pushing him to the bed. She does the same with his jacket and belt and until Castiel was face up on the tangled pile of sheets he was half naked. She kicks away his shoes, pulls the cover off of Dean’s bed and tucks him in. “Get some sleep dude, you need it.”

Castiel was sleeping a lot these days. He was able to “zap” as Dean used to say, but that was all that his so called heavenly powers were letting him do. He was eating and felt like he was always hungry; at one point he asked Faith how people found any spare time to do something else between sitting at a table and sleeping. The angel was slowly slipping into humanity and it was freaking him the hell out and needed a friend to talk this out with. Faith helped as much as she could, he tried to reason with Bobby once but the guy was drunk and all that he could got out of him was “Scotch is the answer to all of your problems.” and a pat on the back. Sam was talking way too much when an existential problem would come up and he was bouncing from one subject to another and Castiel would leave even more confused than he was when coming in. Maybe he was too picky, maybe all that he needed was to talk to Dean, just to hear him talk in that cocky tone of voice of his, maybe ….Castiel felt the warmth of the blanket slowly invading his body and soon dozing off.

When he woke up, four hours into the night Faith was whispering annoyed at Dean and waiving her hands in the air, Dean turned away from the one way conversation an darted for the bathroom but Faith grabbed him by the back of his jacket and tried slapping him, but Dean dodged with a grin and the force of Faith hand spun her round. Dean giggled silently. “FINE!” She finally said, loud enough for Castiel to hear, and bolted thru the door slamming it behind her. Dean looked at Cas to make sure he’s still sleeping then sighed and leaned against the bathroom wall with a loud thump then his legs gave and he let himself slip on the floor sitting there until his but cheeks got numb.

“Damn it!” he hissed and went in the bathroom, almost stepping in the shower with his clothes still on. He smiled at the though and slapped his forehead with his palm. The water is hot and makes his muscle relax until he forgets whether he locked the door or not then remembers that it doesn’t matter, locked doors are not really Castiel’s kryptonite nor it’s Faith’s. She blasts her way thru any locked door with a kick. At first Dean fund it hot but now it’s just annoying especially because of her constant nagging “Talk to Cas, talk to Cas, talk to Cas” but she’s right, Dean knows she’s right he must summon up the nerve to talk to Castiel once and for all, to tell him he doesn’t feel the same, to squash the angel’s fantasies once and for all to tell him that is not natural for two men to be in love with each other. That’s it god damn it, that’s it, he’s gonna march in there shake Cas up and tell him to stop the nonsense he’s done flinching with every wind breeze and to be honest he misses his friend. He gets out of the shower soaking the little carpet in the bathroom thru, pulls on his t-shirt and jeans without even bothering to wipe himself out, shampoo still in his hair and forcefully pushes down on the door handle but something stops him, a deep sadness or such crawling thru his body and memories from hell invading his brain, he’s used to them by now and he braces himself, hand tight around the door handle but it’s not the same as always. He’s standing over a soul, holding a bloody blade. The woman beneath his hand it’s screaming and twitching but there’s no mercy left inside him. She was a murderer back in her human life, she killed her 4 months old son because he was crying too much after which she went on a killing spree emptying round after round in everyone who walked into her path. When the police finally cornered her she shoved the shotgun in her mouth and blew her brains out. Alistair was behind him, patting his shoulder and telling him what to do, where to cut. A soft dim, white light appeared out of nowhere and was growing closer and brighter, Alistair evaporated and demons everywhere were vanishing just by looking at it. A warm soft hand was cupping his cheek and another was holding the hand in which he had the blade.

“Don’t do it, Dean” the light said softly and he had to turn his eyes way. “You’re done, it’s finished, you’re saved.” At the last word made his teeth greet and he tried to free his hand tugging and pulling, he felt like he was supposed to be terrified, to slice and cut and shoot in every direction until the light would go out, but he didn’t because peace and warmth was filling his lungs and the hand was so … forgiving against his cheek and it made him weep. Dean dropped the blade and fell to his knees pleading and sobbing and he saw or felt a smile coming from the light. “I’m here to take you back, your brother needs you, your world needs you. You’re loved Dean Winchester, you have no idea how much.” And the hand fell down from his cheek and onto his shoulder grabbed him tightly and… When the memory ended Dean gasped, he was breathing heavily like he just ran 100 miles and sometime during all that he fell to his knees, streams of water and tears and shampoo running down his face. “Cas” he breathed and let go of the door handle pressing his forehead to the door and staying there for what seemed like an eternity.

“Yo! Did you drown in the toilet bowl?” Faith was knocking franticly at the door and yelling. “C’mon Dean I have to pee.”

Dean got to his feet, unlocked the door and bolted past Faith who was looking like a cartoon character holding her stomach, legs crossed. He grabbed her pack of cigarettes of the table and darted out the hotel door leaving it opened and determined not to stop walking until he hit oncoming traffic. He sits on the dirty sidewalk; wet jeans leaving ass marks in the dust, flings open his Zippo and lights up the Lucky Strike. The smoke it’s heavy in his lungs and his throat dry, the taste it’s strong and dirty and makes his head spin. He remembers not seeing Cas in Faith’s bed when he walked out.

“I’d pull your fingernails out one by one for even touching my cigarettes but something’s messing with your head and it’s good enough for me” Faith said from behind him before dropping a heavy jacket on his shoulders, it was cold outside and the fact that he was still wet didn’t help his cause. “Spit it out droogie, what had you rattled like that?”

“Cas?!” he says, more like a question then like a statement.

“He’s been called out; Bobby needs his input on some enochian spells.” She runs her fingers thru his hair but Dean pulls away and she drops it on his back “What the hell is that? Soap?”

“Look man, I don’t know much but I know that face. What’s up? Is it hell?”

Dean winches under her hand, takes in a deep breath “I’m in love with him.” says soft and quietly like it would make it untrue if no one heard it.

Faith is taken by surprise, she backs away, her eyebrows raised, like she wants to take a better look at Dean, and he looks … resigned, dim traffic light hitting his face and underlining the dark circles around his eyes. She softens, relaxes her shoulders and sits next to Dean pulling his head on her chest and holding him like he was never been held and he tells her everything about the vision, that foggy memory from hell he shoved deeper and deeper inside and forgot about it, until now . She’s been pushing him to talk to Cas all this time, she’s been pushing him to explain to the angel that what he feels can never be put to practice due to the fact that he wasn’t gay but obviously this was much more than physical attraction. A cold chill went thru her spine and Dean was shaking too.

“C’mon you crazy gay bastard you need to rinse that hair and I need to get inside, I’m fucking cold.” Dean huffed out a laugh and climbed to his feet.