Chapter Text
Hello! This is the first fic I've written so I'm a bit nervous. It's a Destiel set in our universe when they're still teenagers. Dean is 17 and Castiel 16. It's a fic I've set as "mature" since it will tackle difficult themes such as murder, child abuse, bullying... I promise I'll try not to make them suffer too much.
Please keep in mind that English is not my first language (I'm French), but I'll do my best, so don't hesitate to point out any mistakes. I'm not entirely satisfied with this first chapter, but it gets better afterwards (I hope)...
Obviously, the characters don't belong to me and I'm not making any profit from this fic.
Dean Winchester glanced at the young man asleep in the passenger seat. Outside, the road, a long snake of concrete, swallowed the landscape greedily. Day was falling and Castiel was still sleeping. His bangs fell strangely over his forehead and his jacket was stained with blood. It was a vision at odds with the conscientious, clean-cut Castiel of the Academy. He tried not to look in the rear-view mirror at the trunk of the car, where everything he'd ruined in his life lay. A mixture of anger and terror twisted his stomach. And Castiel, who was asleep while he was driving, trying to get them out of trouble. His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly until his knuckles turned white. "You're so pathetic, such a useless little pussy," he said, as much to himself as to Castiel. Against his shirt, the butt of his revolver traced unusual creases. The weapon rested, burning against his skin, reassuring. His head, filled with his father's voice, throbbed. Inside, dozens of thoughts collided like meteors. He'd never been good at making plans, but this kind of situation demanded that he not rush headlong into them as usual. He forced himself to untangle them and discard what was useless to him, drawing up a list of priorities: get rid of John's corpse and the car, find new clothes, new identity papers and disappear as far away as possible. Castiel stammered in his sleep, eyebrows furrowed.
The Impala slowed to a stop on the hard shoulder. He opened the door. He caught Castiel Novak's gaze. His first reaction was to scrutinize his expression; apart from the blood staining his jacket and his greenish complexion, there was no hint of the events he had witnessed.
His face was turned towards the ground, and Dean noticed that he was avoiding his gaze. Castiel had always admired Dean, especially since the latter had taken him under his wing at the Academy. The fact that he could look away in his presence irritated and worried him.
"The body... you've got it..." began Castiel, before pausing hesitantly.
Dean grimaced, before replying scathingly, that no, he hadn't disposed of the body and that Castiel would have known if he hadn't spent his time sleeping.
Castiel didn't reply, turning to the window to observe the landscape. Generally speaking, Castiel had always been very accommodating towards him, putting up with his execrable temper and scathing remarks. More than one in his place would have cracked. But not him.
Yet he felt a familiar core of hatred stirring in his belly like a snake. Today, this apparent passivity repulsed him, and he suddenly felt like grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him to make him react, or slapping him hard. The thought washed over him like a wave.
He abruptly opened the car door, mumbling that he needed some fresh air. Castiel nodded absent-mindedly, his gaze resolutely on the window. The teenager took a few steps into the forest that bordered the highway. The trees spread their branches far above his head, pointing their slender fingers at the darkened sky. After hours spent in the silence of the cabin, the sounds of the forest were a balm to his ears. He inhaled deeply, loosening his stitches, relaxing every muscle in his face. He felt the wave of violence gradually recede.
Behind his back, a branch cracked, his senses alert, and he turned to find Castiel. The latter came up to his full height, a pained expression on his face.
"I'm sorry I fell asleep and left you to face it alone.
- No, don't apologize, you needed it." he replied, his lips pursed. Castiel had always had this uncanny ability to understand his feelings, where others saw only a hard look and a bravado smile. It fascinated Dean as much as it annoyed him.
- I can take over now, if you want to rest," said Castiel, pointing to the car.
- No, we should get rid of him first before Baby starts stinking up the place." He had no desire for Castiel to drive the Impala, even if he was Castiel. The thought was absurd, since they'd have to get rid of Baby anyway.
His sidekick finally met his gaze before nodding, his piercing eyes had regained their usual determination. This relieved Dean a little. Over the last few hours, his life had taken a particularly sinister turn. But there was one invariable fact in his world, and that was the presence of Castiel. Dean was surprised to feel comforted by this thought. He clung to this sensation with all his might.
With the grace of a rheumatized septuagenarian, they removed the body from the trunk and dragged it to the edge of the forest.
The corpse was frozen beneath his hands, the blood had dried around his lips, and along his cheekbones the skin was pale, almost glowing in the darkness. Dean stared in fascination at the taut face, at the patterns the blood had traced in his beard. It was a man's body he carried.
It was a dead body.
He remembered all the times he'd bled for him, gone above and beyond to satisfy him, hoping to make him proud. It was just a dead body. The blood had flowed the same as for another, the flesh was nothing but flesh. His father wasn't a god, he wasn't immortal and Dean had beaten him. It was as if his whole existence was based on a lie, and he was only now realizing it. That didn't take anything away from the feeling that his heart was being torn apart.
His fascinated gaze then focused on his comrade, who was toiling under the weight of the corpse. The moonlight painted splashes on his face. Castiel was sweating profusely and his clothes were covered in blood.
They walked for an hour through the forest, far enough away from the road and the world of men. In the distance, an elk bellowed, almost palpable in the darkness. Without even looking at each other, the two teenagers began to dig into the damp forest floor with stones and fingernails. Dean tried to forget the pain that pulsed like a drumhead against his bloody fingernails. As he always did, he gave himself over to the work. Handful after handful, they had to earn their right to the earth, minute after minute digging to forget the dead body they were burying. After two hours of hard labor, a deep pit lay beneath their feet. The body rolled into it with ease, before falling to the bottom with a thud. They also threw in their jackets, stained with the man's blood. Then they quickly filled in the hole and compacted the earth, hoping that the pit would be deep enough to prevent the boars from digging up the body. Another handful of earth made John Winchester's face disappear from view.
Castiel dropped down beside him, and they stared feverishly at his father's grave. Nature would do its work, the fungus-ridden earth completing the decomposition of the body. No one would ever find him. The trees didn't care about human tragedy; the forest soil would keep their secret.
Night had now fallen, yet Dean remained motionless, his knees planted in the earth, as if paralyzed. He could have found his way through the darkness using his sense of direction, but he couldn't move. Yet he felt no pain, no sorrow. In fact, he couldn't even describe what was inside him. Something dirty, poisonous, planting its roots around his heart, squeezing out all its juice.
An icy breeze picked up. He'd rather die than admit it, but he had the sinister impression that his father was about to rise from the grave, dripping with worms and mud, and swallow him whole. Dean was a very rational young man, though; he knew that his father was indeed dead, and that the dead never rise again. But he still preferred to stay a while and keep an eye on the grave, just in case...
Castiel came to press himself against him in search of warmth or perhaps to comfort him, the very thought of which was strange. Dean remained stiff at first, not knowing what to make of this body against his own. Then he put an arm around his waist, pulling him close to his chest. He clung to it with the strength of a desperate man. The sensation of human warmth radiating off him felt strange. It might have been the first time he'd hugged someone like that, but it was also the first time he'd buried his father. Exceptional circumstances call for exceptional measures.
They watched over the body all night, fearing neither beasts nor cold. They simply stood there, eyes open, staring into the darkness that had conquered the world.
When daylight came, they tore themselves away from each other, finding their own bodies, their stiff muscles and their bloody hands. After a few hesitant steps, they turned back towards the the car without a glance at what they were leaving behind.
They had been driving for barely an hour when Dean spotted a gas station at the side of the road. They parked the car and headed for the station's small supermarket. He winced at the sight of the surveillance camera, its glass eye trained on the store's entrance. Dean had no illusions that soon their picture would be on every news channel in the country. He just hoped that when that time came, he and Castiel would be long gone, preferably under false identities. Feeling his heartbeat quicken, Dean forced himself to loosen his stitches and put on his most natural air. No one must have noticed John Winchester's disappearance yet. Chance, for once, had been in his favor: he'd died on Christmas Eve, and most of the Academy's students and staff had gone home for the holidays. They quickly passed the cashier, who addressed them with a brief "Merry Christmas", more focused on his game of online solitaire than on his work. He followed the cashier, who took small, hurried steps towards the gas station's toilets.
His reflection in the mirror made him wince. His hair fell in a shapeless, greasy mass across his forehead. His eyes had the sharpness of a frozen lake, his dark circles the tint of an oil spill on his feverish skin. An oily blue bloomed on her cheekbone. Using paper towels and liquid soap, he meticulously cleaned the dirt from his face and hair before examining his hands. Several of his fingernails were split along their entire length, and blood oozed from exploded blisters and multiple cuts. Now that he was aware of the state of his hands, the pain awoke and stretched like a big, lazy cat. He looked at them for a moment, fascinated by their wretched state, before shaking his head.
He took advantage of the absence of other customers to take off his shirt and clean himself up quickly at the sink, while Castiel fixed his hair with his fingers. Feeling a little more presentable, they headed for the gas station's small supermarket. They filled their baskets with a few provisions, two travel bags, soap, a lighter, road maps, a knife and a few other odds and ends that might come in handy.
"We should also arrange to change our appearance," Castiel whispered to him.
Dean nodded, adding two hats and two pairs of reading glasses to their purchases. They also chose two parkas to withstand the season's low temperatures and clothes far removed from their usual style. This is how Dean ended up buying a Christmas sweater and baggy jeans. The sight made Castiel chuckle, and he immediately hid his hilarity behind his hand, embarrassed.
"You won't be laughing so hard when I've found the ugliest clothes in the store to dress you in," Dean grumbled, trying to maintain a dignified air.
-Try as you might, I don't think you could do much worse than that."
He was surprised by the way Castiel's laughter modulated his voice, more nervous than actually amused. His face oddly contorted into a smile. Going on the run after committing murder seemed to erase some of the barriers between people.
He unearthed for himself an oversized sweater that came down to mid-thigh and a "God bless America" cap. The result would be ridiculous to anyone who knew Castiel, but would go relatively unnoticed in a world accustomed to the trucker look.
After paying for their purchases, they made their way to the gas station's fast-food restaurant. Dean wrinkled his nose at the smell of fried food and cheap meat, but the place had the advantage of being quiet this early in the morning. With the exception of a truck driver having his coffee, there was no one around. He went to order for them, Castiel's unusually serious air tending to make the others tense up.
Once he'd finished his meal, he caught himself detailing his acolyte sitting opposite him. His silhouette was drowned in his filthy shirt. Two pale forearms protruded from his rolled-up sleeves. At the end of his wrists were battered hands, and at the end of those hands were five fingers holding a hamburger. This hamburger disappeared into a mouth lined with white teeth, a mouth with dry, cold-scraped lips. He had a slightly round face with a strange charm, it was an adult face disguised as a child. His gaze moved upwards, skirting the straight slope of his nose, detailing his ears, sliding along his drooping eyelids before stopping on his eyes. Two icy-blue irises, for Dean there was no more beautiful color in the world.
Castiel had just finished his hamburger and seemed nervous, glancing from right to left. Indeed, the restaurant was beginning to fill up with travelers and bawling kids. They agreed that it was time to leave.
The Impala sped down the road like a comet. Leaving a blur of light in its wake. It had started raining around noon and the landscape had darkened. Dean grumbled that he hated driving in the rain before turning on the headlights. Road map spread out on his lap, Castiel was looking for a discreet place to make John Winchester's car disappear.
"Did you find anything suitable?
- There's "Delaware Lake" it's a road-accessible lake about a hundred miles from the border, as soon as we get into Ohio. We should be there in three hours.
Dean gave a thoughtful "hmm". Trying to ignore the knife in his heart at the thought of getting rid of Baby.
He nodded distractedly, gazing down at the map, planning the route ahead.
They rode along for most of the afternoon, their progress slowed by the rain. Castiel let himself sink into his seat. What a strange feeling to have nothing to do, no task to perform. To have all this time on your hands and yet no prospects for the future. There was just the road ahead, the road and the darkness pressing in on the car's windows. Far from anything he'd ever known, Castiel felt anguish grip him. Before all this, he knew exactly where he was going and what was expected of him. He had a job to do, schedules to keep, knew his timetable and the cafeteria menu inside out. The Academy was his home, the foundation on which he had built himself. But he no longer had a home. If this was freedom, it left a bitter taste in his mouth.