#listen i'm in my gay John Winchester truthing era enjoy the ride folks

[mattzerella-sticks]

john’s song (ao3 link)

A discovery of treasures from the Winchesters' past might disrupt Dean and Cas's celebrations... well, only if Dean lets it.

Destiel Anniversary (3.9k words) + a splash of The Winchesters goodness

           Dean set the yellowed letter aside and next to the growing pile of other papers, all facedown, hiding his father’s faded script. He straightened in his seat, dragging his hand up over his face. He started at the chin, then slowly rode the planes of his stubbled cheeks forward until Dean’s fingers slipped under his glasses and pushed them into his chestnut hair. The wire frames plinked back into place after Dean’s palm finished its journey. They slid off his forehead to land on the table, again. Dean sighed as he closed his eyes. He assessed the twinges of pain rippling across his body like fireworks; intense in certain areas such as his neck and shoulders, his lower back and knees, with smaller bursts of pain cascading outwards. Dean pushed his feet harder against the pale tilework below, its coolness bleeding faster into him through his soles. It wasn’t enough to dull it.

           “Maybe you should take a break,” Cas said from elsewhere. Dean craned his neck behind him, cracking an eye open. His husband stood by the stove, swaddled in his blue terrycloth robe and his flannel pants pooling around his ankles. The kettle sat beside him on the stove, steam still leaking out its nose while Cas held two mugs in his hands. He shuffled towards Dean, handing him one of the mugs. “You’ve been at this for hours.”

           Dean sipped at his tea. The ginger, lemon, and turmeric competed for his attention as the cannabis slipped by unnoticed. “It hasn’t been that long,” he groused.

           Cas took the seat next to him at their dining table, plucking a stray artifact off the table and examining it. He chose an old receipt from a probably long-gone diner in Kansas. The print on its front faded to the point of illegibility, however that didn’t matter. What Dean thought important were the runes etched on the back alongside doodled flowers. “Did your father draw this?”

           “No,” Dean said, “circle’s’re too skinny. Dad drew’em plumper than that. And he always managed to overdraw, his circles looked like they had combovers. These are too… perfect.” He snatched the receipt from Cas and laid it back where it was. “And flowers definitely weren’t part of his portfolio.”

           Cas huffed in agreement, a tiny sunbeam of a smile breaking through his clouded expression. “I’ll trust you on that.” He reached for Dean, his hand brushing past the hairs curling at Dean’s neck and kneading the skin hidden by his t-shirt. “If he didn’t, then who?”

           “That’s… what I’m trying to figure out.”

           Dean believed he knew of all John’s hunts. Even the ones his dad hid, at first. Dean learned them all later on in barrooms and motels, listening as John explained every horrid detail while his posture stooped further and further, his speech slurred into a conversational car crash of words and the bottles piled up around them.

           Except now a collection of his dad’s past was in front of him. Of his dad’s and mom’s, it seemed.

           “But dad didn’t know about any of this crap before the fire,” Dean told Sam a few days ago, “Hell, we watched his mind get wiped by the angels that one time he did come face to face with the truth.”

           Sam hissed a sharp breath through thin lips, his nostrils flaring as his heavy stare broke the screen barrier separating them. “Be that as it may,” he said, “All this stuff was crammed under the floorboards of some old Bunker hideout Eileen and I stumbled on… so it’s either real, or someone went to a lot of trouble playing a joke on us. And I doubt anyone cares enough about us to plant false evidence.” He paused, mulling his next thought around like sour wine on his tongue. “Anyone with powers left to do something like it, that is.”

           “Maybe it is Chuck,” Dean guessed, “Maybe he… scrounged up some mojo and decided to do a retcon?” Sam’s nonplussed look spoke volumes. “It could be!”

           “If it is,” he said, “then you’ll be able to tell. I’ve sent everything we’ve found here by express, should be arriving in your neck of the woods in the next day or so.”

           It waited for Dean at his PO Box a week before he strung together enough nerve to collect their dad’s stuff. It took another week of moving the box around their home, pacing, and staring at the duct taped cardboard while chewing the end of a lit joint for Dean to open it.

           Now an assortment from his family’s past was strewn across their table. Dean catalogued everything – all the scribbles, seventies memorabilia, and the hefty journal that must’ve doubled the total shipping cost into a coherent timeline. A story of how John and Mary met, and the hell that was their honeymoon phase.

           Though even with what Sam and Eileen found, Dean noticed there were more than a few blanks that needed to be filled. “How can this be possible?”

           “What?”

           “This…” Dean gestured at the mess between them, then slammed his hand atop the pile of letters. “My parents, hunting together? Dad was never supposed to know… he was my mom’s escape hatch out of the life. It doesn’t make any damned sense, Cas.”

           “So these are John’s things…” Dean watched Cas’s fingers skim a few more pieces, brushing against the fraying cord of a talisman and tapping the edge of a grainy photograph – of a younger Mary, laughing, her arms wrapped around the shoulders of a darker-skinned girl near her in age. “Our lives are anything but ordinary,” Cas surmised with a quirk of his lips, snapping his hand back to his tea and holding it near his mouth, “and so were your parents. Daughter of a hunter… son of Letterman… two lines with destinies tied to duty, to protection. It shouldn’t be so shocking that they were called earlier than they were supposed to.”

           “But I would’ve known if they were,” Dean growled, his body shaking. He placed the mug on the table and pressed down harshly on its wooden surface. “I’ve heard the story of how they first met more than probably any kid’s ever of their own parents. From dad, from mom… not a detail out of place – same as when I was four and when I was forty.” He leaned into Cas’s touch, the warmth at his neck, the steady grip on his wrist, and the nuzzle along his neck. “It’s…” his voice cracked, raw and splintered after going from not talking for hours to talking too much in the span of seconds. “Just… why?” He bowed his head into Cas’s hair, the soft tufts of it tickling Dean’s nose. “We got out. I don’t think I can make it if we have to get back in the game.”

           Cas’s thumb rubbed soothing circles into Dean’s wrist as they sat together, Dean quietly snuffling every few seconds. Despite his best efforts, however, a few tears escaped. They caressed his face until disappearing under Cas’s dark waves.

           “You know,” Cas said, fighting the repressive silence crushing him, “this doesn’t have to mean that.”

           Dean whimpered. “What?”

           “These pages and trinkets, they… they don’t have to mean anything bad,” Cas forged ahead slowly, moving, head rising so that their gazes met and Dean was almost blinded by the brilliance of his conviction shining within. “They don’t have to mean we’re piling into Baby and jetting off from one town to the next on some never-ending connect-the-dots hunting caper that’ll ultimately save the world somehow. They…,” Cas paused as he captured Dean’s lips in a kiss that stole his breath, Dean unconsciously chasing after that missing gasp once Cas broke them apart. “…Don’t have to be the omens you think they are.”

           Dean swallowed past a familiar lump in his throat, too scared to move it forward and the lump too big to be shoved away. “What do they mean, then?”

           “It’s…” Cas hummed, very obviously parsing his thoughts, searching for a golden needle hidden amongst the haystacks. Dean appreciated Cas’s care. “It’s an opportunity,” he finally said, “a chance to know your family better than you believed you did.” His touch moved from Dean’s wrist to his hand, entwining their fingers. “A chance to learn the truth… a truth long hidden for tens of years.”

           Dean snorted at his theatrics, rubbing a limp fist under his eyes. “We could use one of those ancestry websites and save us all the trouble.”

           “Some of those require DNA,” Cas reminded him, “we’d get a squad of cops outside our door before we learned anything important like what Eileen and Sam found.”

           He sighed, bumping his forehead against Cas’s. “What if, in doing all this – we end up undoing whatever catastrophe they averted?”

           “Why are you so insistent this is bad?”

           It’s not an accusation. He didn’t reel backwards like he’d been slap, like Dean might have done in a time not that long ago, before he and Cas became heandCas. Instead he responded to Cas’s genuine curiosity with honesty. He’d changed, dammit. “Shoe’s bound to drop any day now, isn’t it?” he chuckled. Dean had changed, but not completely. “Sometimes I can’t believe we get to wake up next to each other and just… have this. Have us. And most days I can go about not thinking of expiration dates and bad luck. Then I wake up one morning and it’s like I’m ten seconds from scratching at the walls because there has to be another apocalypse on the horizon, and if I’m not ready it’s gonna burn everything we’ve built to the ground.”

           Cas, like he always did, shouldered Dean’s worries alongside him and offered a gentle, uplifting smile. “At least this explains why you’ve been on edge the last few weeks…” Cas started with a joke, neither forcing a hollow laugh in the beats between their breaths. “I can’t promise that will never happen,” he told Dean, his voice slow and smooth, blazing down Dean’s ears like good whiskey. “Your concerns are valid… and definitely shared.” The hand on his neck travelled forward, Cas’s fingers lovingly carding through Dean’s mane. “You know, there are nights where I lay there in bed with my eyes closed, but I… I can’t fall asleep, because I’m afraid I might never wake up?”

           “Really?” Dean asked, “Like… in a human ‘pass-in-your-sleep’ kind of way or the… the place-we-don’t-talk-about way.”

           “The… latter,” Cas admit, “It’s completely irrational for me to think like that – someone who’s escaped there twice, but I… I still feel it. The scars are still there. And when the sun rises, and I realize the night’s passed me by, I’m in an even worse mood –“

           “I just thought you weren’t a morning person –“

           “The point is, Dean,” Cas brought their joined hands to his mouth, his lips running over Dean’s knuckles as he talked. “I don’t want you missing out on something that – something you never realized you were missing, all because you were afraid to try. We both know how miserable life was when we did give in to fear, and how… how amazing it felt once we overcame it.”

           “There was a lot more that we had to get through before it was amazing, Cas.”

           “We’re together now,” he said, “that’s what matters.”

           “What if this tears it all apart?” Dean asked, stubbornness forcing him to keep picking at the most horrid scab, “What if… whatever we find hurts more than it helps?”

           “Then it’s a good thing you won’t be alone during it.” Cas leaned away, giving Dean space, connected only by their hands. “Me, your brother and sister-in-law… the girls, Jody, Donna. Miracle. This might even give Jack a good enough excuse to visit.” Cas’s focus trailed off, shifting towards something on the table. He reached for a dusty cassette box, cover lazily written on in dark, slanted ink where all the letters blended into one block. Definitely not his dad’s handwriting. “Whatever your choice, however, I’ll stand by it.”

           “Really?” Dean raised a wry brow. “Then why go through all this trouble with the speeches?”

           “I’d rather you be confident you made the right decision, and not look back years from now wondering what might have been.” Cas squeezed his hand. “It’s your family.”

           It was. Dean scanned the collection in a new light. This stuff belonged to John, and it belonged to him, too. These were part of the Winchester history. Its legacy. For many years, the burden of living under it, of being a Winchester – the expectations and the responsibilities, the sacrifices and consequences – cooled any affection Dean held for his origins. The blood in his veins didn’t matter because of where it came from, but because of what he did while it still pumped. However, maybe there might be something worth looking back on in pride. It’s a slim chance, but they’ve been motivated by less.

           There was one matter he needed to deal with, though. “It’s your family, too,” Dean said, tugging Cas’s hand closer and kissing the silver band on his ring finger. “Mr. Winchester.”

           “Mr. Winchester?” Cas parroted, tapping his chin with the cassette box, “It’s been a while since you’ve called me that… and out of the bedroom, too.”

           “Castiel Winchester,” Dean purred, annunciating each syllable, every letter dripping with love. “You married into this family; only fair you have a vote.” He cleared his throat. “So? What do you say?”

           Cas didn’t hesitate. “I do,” he said, “And you?”

           “I do, too,” he sighed, “I just hope we don’t regret it.”

           “We probably will,” Cas said. Dean’s lighthearted mood plummeted like a falling star. He struck Cas with an exasperated glare. “Not everything, I mean…” Cas amended, “but there’s bound to be a few pieces you’ll wish you never learned. The truth isn’t all that pleasant… and there are things we might discover that could prove to be ‘too much information’.”

           Cas’s deadpan explanation and him struggling with one-handed finger quotes while still holding the tape box broke Dean free of the fleeting irritation that overtook him. He stole the relic from his husband and examined it himself. He hadn’t gotten to it yet during his work. “Why’re you so attached to this?”

           “I was trying to place the artist,” Cas told him, “Though I couldn’t recognize the name with any of the bands in your collection.”

           “That’s because I don’t own anything by a…” Dean re-read the box, “a Carlos Cervantez.” He shook it, hearing the tape hit all sides. “It looks homemade. You wanna get the stereo?”

           “We’re listening to it?” Cas rose, heading towards their bedroom. “Now?”

           “Why not?”

           Cas returned with their stereo, a portable, silver device they discovered in town during a garage sale. He removed the current cassette inside, Cas’s well-listened to ‘Traxx’ mixtape pocketed. Cas waited for Dean to hand him the box.

           Dean opened it, expecting only a standard mixtape. As he revealed the tape, a brittle, folded note of yellow paper fell out. Dean handed Cas what he needed, then bent down to retrieve the extra surprise. Cas asked what it was. “It looks like…” he opened it up, “it’s a list of titles.”

           “Titles?”

           “Song titles,” he continued, “I’m guessing for songs on the tape?” Dean read a few aloud, following the numbered order, “Moving On… Little Soldier Boy… Bullets for Flowers…” Dean kept going until he reached the last track. His heart stuttered, his body seizing slightly. “And, uh…” he coughed, folding the note over, “John’s Song.”

           Cas sucked at hiding his reaction, too, slamming the cassette closed a bit harsher than intended. “John’s Song?” His gaze darted from Dean to the stereo. “Is this… should we still listen?”

           His sudden skittishness went unappreciated. “The truth is the truth, Cas,” Dean shrugged, fiddling with the creases of Carlos’s note, “The seal’s been broken… not much we can do about it now except face it.”

           Cas didn’t object. He pressed play, the opening notes of an acoustic guitar filtering through the speakers. Cas reclaimed his seat, sliding it closer to Dean until they touched from shoulder to toe. Dean handed Cas his now-cold tea, like Dean’s. They drank as the guitarist – Carlos – finished playing his haunting intro and finally began singing.

           It was beautiful. A bit folksy, for Dean’s tastes, but it suited the narrative structure of Carlos’s lyrics. If he closed his eyes, Dean could imagine himself in a crowded, smoky bar. He and Carlos hunkered at a table, their heads brushing as Carlos whispered his story in time with the music that pumped into the room – the music he, in fact, created with his guitar.

           The first track, ‘Moving On’, slowly faded as the next song started. ‘Little Soldier Boy’ flipped the tempo, launching into a frenetic pace. Dean laughed halfway through the first chorus, watching Cas’s knee bounce to the rhythm of Carlos’s music. “I take it you’re liking this?”

           “It’s… nice,” he said, “I can, uh – dig this.”

           “Dig?”

           “It’s slang from that era,” Cas rattled off, his fingers tapping an imaginary drumskin on his lap, “a way for people to say they liked a certain thing, or they understood it. Like… if you were to ask someone what music they liked – if you were talking to them back then – they might respond, ‘well, I can dig El…’.” Dean’s amusement was very evident, and it didn’t surprise him when Cas noticed. Cas’s cheeks burned. He quickly hid them with a swipe of his head. “Hey,” Cas said, “do you feel like dancing? I could really dance right about now.”

           “Cas, we don’t have to –“ Dean choked on his response, Cas dragging him out of his chair midsentence. He fought him for another verse, but a mixture of Cas’s come-hither gaze and his nerdy, inoffensive hip wiggling enticed Dean to join the fun.

           They bounced around their kitchen, laughing, shaking their asses as ‘Little Soldier Boy’ transitioned to ‘Bullets for Flowers’, and kept going for the next three songs. Dean grabbed Cas’s robe lapels and tugged him nearer, their chests flushed together. His hands dragged downwards, following the slope of his husband’s terrycloth towards the hanging, untied sash and clung tight to them.

           The music changed, a much melancholier song starting. Dean and Cas slowed to match it. Their feet brushed every other chord as they shuffled, their eyes met, and both smiles fell once they realized which song played.

           It was a short tape. They reached ‘John’s Song’ sooner than expected.

           Dean paid close attention to Carlos’s voice, hanging on every lyric of what’s undoubtedly a ballad. ‘John’s Song’ was a ballad. Dean’s head spun at the revelation, though he had ample time to prepare since the suspicion began after reading the song’s title. The kitchen wobbled and faded at the edges; Dean very aware how close to the edge of a panic attack he dangled on. Cas never wavered. He remained steady, so Dean’s gaze stayed on him.

           As he watched Cas, and listened to Carlos’s song, his heart swooned in an accustomed manner. Moving past the fact that this song was about his father, Dean connected to the words Carlos sang. He related to the raw emotion kept alive by this recording. What Carlos felt then was what beat inside Dean as Cas’s face eclipsed all else. “You’ve been running a long, long time/and though we didn’t know it then/you were running home to me.” Dean hummed along, gravitating towards Cas. His lips grazed Cas’s cheek, his arm reaching around and hugging his husband. Cas hugged him with the same intensity. They existed in each other’s arms through the remainder of the song and minutes after it ended and the stereo went silent, drifting to a melody nobody heard but them.

           That music ended soon, too. The world and their surroundings came into better focus, and somewhere in that shift Dean caught the oven clock mid-change. He cursed under breath. “Dean?” Cas asked, “What is it?”

           “It’s two o’seven,” he said, “It’s tomorrow.” Dean murmured another string of expletives, then continued, “It’s our anniversary.”

           “Is that so bad?”

           “It is when I’ve kept you up half the night dealing with my bullshit.”

           “Our bullshit,” Cas laughed, “remember? That’s what the ceremony was for.” His good humor didn’t rub off on Dean, and he clearly realized it. “Dean?”

           “I’m sorry,” he told Cas, “Sorry our first anniversary’s starting off crappy.”

           Cas laid a hand on Dean’s face, guiding him into a heated embrace. They ended their kiss with a gasp, Dean waiting for whatever it was Cas wanted his attention for.

           He smiled, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

           Dean believed him, and he loved him for it. He loved Cas. How he loved him. “I love you.”

           “And I love you,” Cas kissed him again. “Happy anniversary… and Valentine’s Day.”

           He and Cas stood in their kitchen for another hour, swaying, peppering each other with kisses every now and then. It’s a sappier Valentine’s Day than Dean thought he’d enjoy but it’s also his anniversary, so Dean decided to indulge in this pleasure. The pleasure Dean never imagined he might have… and for many people, never believed they’d get.

           Dean no longer needed to run. He had found his home.

Valentine’s Day – Lawrence, KS 1973

           Carlos’s fingers hovered over his guitar strings after he finished, not wanting to break the moment yet. He was too enamored of the atmosphere he created, and too scared to see if those feelings were reciprocated. Instead, he let the final chord echo in the silence of his van.

           John took the initiative, his laughter breaking the tension. “That was amazing,” he said, blunt dangling between his fingers, “you wrote all that yourself?”

           Carlos nodded. “It helps when you’ve got inspiration.”

           “What inspired this?”

           He bit his lip, tracing the languid frame of John stretched out in his van – the way his hair swooped, the sliver of skin shown by a hitched shirt him, and the way his toes peeked from behind his raggedy bellbottoms. Carlos shook his head, forcing himself to think of a quick response. His eyes landed on John’s hand. “Grass, man,” he joked, “the best kind of inspiration! Now quit hogging my song-writing mojo…”

           John, stoned enough to disregard his clumsy diversion, giddily handed Carlos the joint. He leaned farther than he needed to and collapsed on Carlos’s knee. Giggling, John turned over and stared at the ceiling above them. Carlos ground the end of the blunt flat with his teeth.

           “That song,” John continued, finding his voice again, “does it have a name?”

           Carlos answered, shrugging, “Not yet,” he said, “I’ve been… struggling with the name.”

           “Bummer, man.” John lazily extended his hand again, this time whacking Carlos’s guitar in an off-key strum. “A song that good needs a name, pronto.”

           “Don’t worry,” Carlos told him, “It’ll have a name. The perfect name, actually.”

           They fell into another bout of silence, passing the blunt between them until it was a nub and with Carlos allowing himself the pleasure of running his finger’s through John’s hair. He figured, in this life, with the war they’re facing and the world they live in, it’s all Carlos could have.

           That and his songs. John’s song. John’s… “Huh,” he murmured, brushing a hair off John’s forehead. The other man didn’t twitch, fast asleep. “What a great name…”