lt_indigo

lt_indigo

<<  First | <  Previous || Masterlist || Next  > | Last  >>

They headed back to Stull Cemetery to let Gabriel head out without being observed, without melting the eyes of the normal people around them. Both angels had pointed out that this was a bad thing, and Dean had agreed readily – just because he could kind of squint at an archangel for a few seconds without going all Pamela on them didn’t mean anyone else could.

That didn’t stop Dean from getting really, really uncomfortable the closer they got to the cemetery; the memories of watching Lucifer wearing Sam so easily flooded in, seeing Cas explode into nothing, Bobby’s neck breaking. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Gabriel’s hand touched his shoulder, but when she gave a little, sympathetic squeeze and didn’t move, Dean started to relax into it, appreciate the gesture for what it was. After all, it couldn’t be easy for her to come here either, knowing what was supposed to have happened, knowing that her brothers had fallen into the Cage here, trapped potentially for eternity. Cas seemed equally uncomfortable, and grabbed for Dean’s hand, squeezing almost painfully. Gabriel, leaning over from the back seat, had her other hand on Cas’ shoulder. If he was prone to being girlish (and he would leave that to the angels, thanks), Dean might have thought something sickeningly disgusting like they were a triangle of comfort or something. But that wasn’t his style.

That didn’t stop him from being stupidly grateful that the two angels were there for him, with him, supporting him and each other through this shared pain.

He was also really grateful that Gabriel apparently had enough of a sense of decorum to make herself scarce for a couple of minutes, to give Dean and Cas a chance to say their farewells. Dean wanted to hang on forever, because he knew that last time Cas had left him on this day, they hadn’t seen each other again for over a year. That so wasn’t happening this time, he was determined.

But, he realised as he found himself melting against Cas’ lips, it didn’t look like that was going to be an issue at all. Cas was points of warmth all around him; the long line against his chest, the arm around his waist and the hand cradling his cheek, the dampness of lips against lips a gentle push and slide that Dean would never tire of. Everything seemed right with the world at that very moment, when Cas was right there with him, kissing him. They were together as they always should have been.

His eyes were still closed when Cas pulled away from him. It was only a small movement as he brought their foreheads together instead, as if he was as reluctant to let go as Dean was, even though both of them knew that he had to go.

“I will return as quickly as I am able,” Cas vowed. “Once the situation in Heaven is stable.”

Dean clutched at that familiar coat, crushing it beneath his fingers. “Cas, promise me…”

There was a note of amusement as Cas replied: “I promise I will not make any deals with Crowley.”

Some knot of tension released itself within Dean as breathed a soft sigh of relief. As long as Cas stayed away from Crowley, then the whole Purgatory debacle could be avoided. He and Sam could go back to regular hunts, maybe with Cas helping occasionally. Life could return to normal instead of being one struggle after another. Maybe they could even spend some time at Bobby’s and Dean could enjoy having their family alive and whole again. Maybe that would ease some of the nightmares of that horrendous night, standing helplessly in the hospital, angry at Sam because he had to be angry at someone.

Cas pressed a last, gentle kiss to his lips and backed reluctantly away. Dean forced his eyes open to see the longing in Cas’ whole expression. There was so much still to be said between them, but for now, they were headed in the right direction, on the same page at long last. Gabriel stepped up to Cas’ side and took his hand wordlessly. She barely came up to his shoulder.

“We should get going,” she said. “Hold on tight to those eyeballs, Deano.”

The world went white, and Dean was forced to look away, shield his eyes as the impression of Gabriel got too much to bear. It was something that bugged him all the more now, because he would never be able to look directly at Cas for any real amount of time; never see him as he really was. All Dean would ever know of Cas was the vessel. Not that the vessel couldn’t prove to be fun, admittedly: Dean could think of a few things he could teach Cas about vessels.

When the angels had gone (and Dean was pretty sure that Gabriel had made more of a show of things than she strictly needed to), all that was left was Ellie. Dean had expected her to look tiny without the larger-than-life entity riding her, but she didn’t seem all that diminished, actually.

“So, local boy,” she said without preamble, and with a grin that spoke volumes of Trickster, “what’s the plan?”

.oOo.

Dean didn’t want to go anywhere, because this was probably where Sam would pop back up and he wanted to be close by when that happened. Ellie seemed okay with that, and sat quietly on the hood of the car, fiddling with her cell phone while Dean filled Bobby in on the plan: he would stay in Lawrence, Bobby would stay in Sioux Falls, and one would call the other the second Sam showed up.

He looked up in surprise when he heard an engine approaching. Slowly cresting over the rise at the gate was an old, baby blue Datsun Bluebird, the misfiring cylinder painful to Dean’s ears. Whole thing needed a good retune by the sounds of things. It pulled up beside his baby and out slid Missouri Mosely.

“Hope you didn’t think I wouldn’t notice something like this,” she drawled, eyeing Dean. He had forgotten just how much her gaze seemed to penetrate, like she could see everything, and was judging you as righteously as an angel could.

“Hey, not my fault,” Dean said quickly, wondering if he could get away with backing away from this terrifyingly maternal woman without losing any man-points with Ellie.

Missouri just looked. She was kind of like Cas in that way, the way in which a look could convey every bit of the complex myriad of feeling she had for you at that moment. Right now she was annoyed and amused and sympathetic and curious. And Ellie had stowed her phone and was watching this latest development with genuine amusement.

“And did you think you could come back here, stirring up trouble, without coming to see me?” Missouri demanded.

“Um…”

Because he hadn’t given that much thought one way or another, if he was honest. He had been so focussed on Sam and Lucifer and Michael, and then Cas and Gabriel that he hadn’t given Missouri much of a thought one way or another.

“You’ll both be needing a place to stay,” she continued, including Ellie effortlessly without even seeming to glance in her direction. “And you can make yourselves useful while you wait for Sam.”

“Of course,” Ellie said graciously while Dean was still busy tripping over his own feet, just like he vividly remembered feeling last time he had met Missouri. “Thank you very much.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, honey,” Missouri said, now turning away from Dean to look at Ellie. “And you can tell me all about what you are while we’re making up my guest rooms.”

Oh good, Missouri could mother Ellie to death instead of him. That worked.

.oOo.

Missouri already had fresh linens on the line when they got back to her place, and a lasagne ready to be put in the oven. Dean and Ellie were immediately put to work bringing in the dried sheets and hauling them upstairs to where Missouri was pottering about between two bedrooms. The décor might have been a bit old and tired, but Dean had definitely seen worse in motels, and there were a few knickknacks scattered about that gave that touch of Missouri’s personality so that the rooms felt homey and loved, unlike a lot of the motels Dean was used to staying in.

As they worked at making the beds up, Ellie quite happily provided some of her family history to Missouri, filling in some of the gaps that Gabriel had left. Apparently, Gabriel had got himself adopted by the Van Helsings way back when, and had both a brother and a sister. It was the sister’s best friend Gabriel had been stupid enough to get pregnant, but apparently he did actually love her and didn’t just marry her because of the kid. To be fair, if Dean had thought it through, which he now was doing, he couldn’t see Gabriel being manipulated into marrying anyone he didn’t want to, since he had enough power in one fingernail to make people forget about things like that. Ellie was even named after Gabriel’s wife; ‘Elizabeth’ being the English equivalent of the German ‘Liesl’.

Missouri barely blinked at this casual confirmation that not only did angels exist, but that some of them were walking the Earth.

“But it couldn’t last,” Ellie was saying. “Angels don’t age, and people were starting to notice. Especially when war broke out. Gabriel was Dutch as far as anyone was concerned, but he lived in Berlin, and was claiming to be fifty-two at the time. But Juriaan, my great-grandfather, was half-German, and turned eighteen in nineteen sixteen. So Gabriel faked his death just before, so that Juri would end up being the sole provider and carer for his mother. Meant he couldn’t be conscripted into the German army.”

German? But Ellie definitely wasn’t German: that accent was English, he would stake his life on it. It wasn’t quite the same as Crowley’s, or Bela Talbot’s, but it was still English. How did that work? How did a family go from being German to being English?

Missouri didn’t say anything, just continued to smooth the sheets in tandem with Ellie’s sure, deft movements. It was really weird, watching them work so seamlessly together, but he figured that Missouri was psychic, and he didn’t even know if Ellie was hiding any superpowers under that pale, delicate-looking skin. Missouri had definitely implied she was something other than human back in the cemetery.

“Opa Juri, his husband, and their best friend – my great-grandmother – got out of Germany in nineteen thirty-five, when things were looking bad. My granddad was born in England, and so were my mum and me. Juri was the last one of us with any powers, until me: he was a little bit precog – that’s why he got out of Germany so early, and he got his cousin out of Poland a few weeks before the German invasion too. As I understand it, Mikaeł and his wife came here to the States instead, made a new life for themselves in Illinois.”

She looked up at Dean at this point, with a little smile. “You’ve met their grandson, I think: James Novak?”

It took Dean a moment to connect the name fully, a moment in which Missouri handed him a pillow, clearly expecting him to put a case around it.

“Seriously? Jimmy Novak is your cousin?”

“Fourth cousin, twice removed,” she corrected as she and Missouri shook the duvet between them. “Apparently he’s got the Van Helsing eyes.”

.oOo.

Missouri was an awesome cook. Dean only had vague, idealised memories of his mother’s cooking, and he imagined this was what her lasagne would have tasted like. Diner food just didn’t compare to something home-cooked by someone who cared enough to feed him for free. He didn’t quite know how this relationship with Missouri had come about, or why, but it was one of very few things in his life he didn’t bother to question. Missouri knew him, his background, and all his faults, and didn’t judge him. She would occasionally threaten to hit him with her spoon when he did something that she considered ill-mannered, but that was maternal rather than anything else. And not an idle threat, he discovered when he sidled over in an attempt to steal brownie batter. He got some batter all right, but only because he licked it off his knuckles after she smacked him good and proper. Ellie, because she was patient and didn’t resort to attempting petty theft, got rewarded with the spoon itself, once it had done its job. Having laughed at him for his misfortune before, she swiped her finger over one side of it and held the spoon out to Dean while she sucked the delicious chocolaty goodness from her hand. He smiled gratefully and helped himself to the rest of the batter while Missouri raised her eyebrows and said nothing.

Once he was done, Ellie dragged him up off the sofa (surprisingly easily for someone so tiny, and he wondered if she still had some angelic mojo left) and cajoled him into drying the dishes while she washed by means of pointedly handing him a tea towel.

There were few places in the country Dean had never felt like he was a guest. Bobby’s was one, but mostly because Bobby growled at him and Sam, and expected them to lend their hands to whatever needed doing around the yard. Missouri’s house slotted in easily alongside Bobby’s, in that ‘home’ spot in his mind: she growled less than Bobby, but her silences and even her easy chatter coupled with expectant glares equated to the same thing. And he knew that he would help her out just the same, do the jobs around the house that needed doing. He would fix the damn car for starters, and take a little time to enjoy the comforts that being home could give.

<<  First | <  Previous || Masterlist || Next  > | Last  >>