The Precision of The Fall - 2
Jun. 27th, 2012 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snarklyboojumThere was a lot-wide party that night, with tents and chairs piled up between the trailers to make a ramshackle happy little village. Everyone was abuzz with the success of opening night, though Dean himself hadn’t seen any of the show. He had heard the crowd cheering from where he was checking the Indian’s tire pressure next to the Wall, though, and they certainly seemed revved up during his second round of stunts, catching the leftover townies as they left the big top.
He hung around the after party long enough to snatch a few plates of food, smack a few asses in congratulations, and see Sam fully ensconced in a discussion with Rufus, limbs happily tangled around Ruby’s and a crowd of admiring stalkers hanging on his every word. Without thinking too much about it Dean stole a bottle of Bobby’s best whiskey and headed back to the relative quiet of the Airstream.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat on the bench, listening to the music of the party ebb and flow from one side of the backyard to the next, but he was well into the bottle by the time someone knocked on the door. Fucking Sam being polite.
Dean leaned over to shout out the open window. “You know the rules, Sam! Is there a sock on the door? Is the trailer a rockin’? Just come in for fuck’s sake.”
“Dean?” The head that peeked inside the door hatch was as unkempt as his brother’s but a distinct shade darker and a good four inches shorter. “Gabriel invited several tent bunnies to spend the evening in our trailer. I was hoping to spend some time here until they fell asleep. May I still come in, even if I’m not Sam?”
Dean laughed at Castiel’s hopeful doe eyes. All that was missing was the wobbly chin and he’d be just like one of those Disney forest critters Sam liked when he was little. Fuck, a man couldn’t turn that away from his door, could he?
“Whatever, make yourself at home. Just don’t expect a tour or anything; the polite Winchester’s still out partying.”
Cas stepped fully into the trailer, even wiping his feet on the damn mat. “Thank you. I think I can find my way around.”
Good. Dean sprawled back onto the bench seat, leaving Cas to prowl around the trailer like a cat investigating its new quarters. He took a sip from the bottle, thought about how the trailer must look to Castiel. It was a mess, truth be told, bottles and metal everywhere, car parts and god knew what else. And he and Sam weren’t necessarily big fans of laundry.
“Hey, you want a drink? We’ve got glasses around here somewhere. Top cabinet, I think.”
“No thank you. Whiskey bothers my throat. I had some wine earlier at the party.” Cas didn’t look up from his examination of the books shelved above Sam’s bed, running long fingers slowly over the spines. “I was surprised to see your light on, actually. I would have expected you to be with the others.”
Dean snorted and sloshed what was left inside the bottle. “Fuck them. I got everything I need right here.” He slouched further into the dining bench, trying to find a spot that wouldn’t make his ass go numb. The couch would have been more comfortable, or even his bunk, but he couldn’t actually feel his legs anymore.
“Is this your family?”
He turned a little to see what caught Cas’ attention, though he had to blink a couple times to see it properly; he’d been staring at Sam’s empty bunk long enough for his eyes to go dry. Cas was standing before the poster hanging above Dean’s bed, the bright colors and glossy print loud against the wood interior of the Airstream.
Dean sighed, rubbing his lips. “Yep. The Family Winchester. Best western act in the country.” He shrugged. “That sort of thing was popular back then.”
Cas leaned in closer, squinting at the poster, taking in the details. Dean might have taken offense at the invasion of something so personal, but the idea of a farsighted flyer was too ironically hilarious to interrupt. Ironic. See, Sam? He knew some smart words, too.
“Is this you?” One of those elegant fingers was pointing to – Dean squinted himself – a small blonde boy, smiling wide as his daddy threw knives at him.
“Oh yeah, I was a regular hellion back then. Still am.”
“You were how old?”
“That would be four. Not good for much more than a little trick riding and holding targets at that point, but everybody made a big deal about it. Youngest person on the payroll, that’s for sure.”
“The Campbell Brothers Circus. I have heard of them.”
“Yeah. Mom’s a Campbell, originally. We toured with them until the accident.”
Cas finally looked up from the poster. “Accident?”
Dean fiddled with one of the knife hilts peeking out of his vest. “Mom got trampled by horses in ’53.”
Cas’s shoulders sank, eyebrows forming a perfect arch of sorrow. “I am sorry for your loss, Dean.” He reached out, brushing a finger over Mary’s painted yellow hair. “She was beautiful.”
“Yeah, she was.” He’d had the poster up by his bed since he was a kid, had put it up first thing when they took over the trailer from Bobby – the manager had been holding on to a trunk of his stuff while he was in ‘Nam. He’d lie there sometimes and stare at the too large smiles and colorful costumes, and he’d wonder how things would be different if that night had never happened. If his mother hadn’t fallen. She was such a large part of their lives after the accident, her death what drove their father to constantly improve (and constantly move) but they’d never talked about her.
Dean used to lay awake for hours as a kid, trying to remember as much about his mother as he could – her laugh, the feel of her arms holding him up, the way her neck would smell like apples if she’d been baking. The happy memories were always much harder to hold onto than the others, but then again, watching your mom die in the ring wasn’t something a four year old forgot easily. Hell, Dean was willing to bet that wasn’t something anyone forgot easily.
“You have her eyes.”
“Nobody has her eyes, Cas, they’re little specs of green ink. Nobody knows what she really looked like anymore.” And wasn’t that a bitch? Dean could recall with perfect clarity how the sawdust matted with the blood in her hair when she fell, how her eyes glazed over as the life left them, but he can’t remember what color they were when his dad closed them that night.
Son of a bitch. Dean rubbed his eyes and took a deep gulp of whiskey. It didn’t even burn going down any more.
When he put the bottle down he noticed Cas had relocated to the opposite bench, reclining stiffly but gracefully against the closed window. The bulb glowing outside the trailer cast his eyes in shadow but made his cheekbones glow. Almost like a halo.
Dean slumped. Stupid Angel, being all pretty and confusing in the light. With the bottle mostly empty Dean had to think of something else to keep his mouth busy. Like talking, talking was good. Just think of something that wasn’t Cas.
He started picking at the countertop with the sharp end of the throwing knife, sloppily carving his initials. Sam would fuss when he saw it in the morning. If he saw it in the morning, the little jerk. “Sam was just a baby when Mom died. That’s why he’s not on the poster; too young to be in the act. I don’t think he remembers her anymore, but he’s never said. He never really wanted this life, you know. Used to complain constantly about being on the road with Dad. Then one day he up and quit, bags packed and on a train to Stanford in no time flat. It was hard, being without him. He came back for Dad’s funeral but I never really got the chance to talk to him until after the war and by then he’d already signed up with the Circadia.”
“And you never asked him why he gave up school and returned to the circus?”
Dean sighed, rubbed his eyes some more. “I know why. He thought I was dead. Was out on a mission and got separated from my escort when Charlie boxed us in. Wound up in an Australian hospital of all places. Took awhile for things to settle down after I woke up and by then the letter’d gone out. Guess he must’ve flipped, gone back to what he was familiar with or something. S’what I woulda done.” Cas had gone still next to him, a being made of light and shadow and silence. “It’s funny. I don’t usually talk about this stuff with people.”
“Not even Sam?”
“Especially not Sam.”
Things were quiet for awhile, the sounds of the party finally fading into the distance. They’d regret staying out so late when they had to do the matinee show tomorrow morning and then drive to Springfield. Hell, Dean would probably regret drinking so much, but he didn’t care.
He was leaning on one elbow and contemplating how painful sleeping on the bench would be when Cas broke the silence. “Michael mentioned you the other day.”
“Michael?” It took Dean a minute to figure out who Cas was talking about. “Oh, the brother I haven’t met yet. What’s he have to say for himself?”
“He wondered if you’d ever tried a flying act and what you would do now that your brother had abandoned you and left the Wall.”
“Abandoned me? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? He hasn’t gone anywhere; he’s just trying something new, that’s all.”
“My apologies - those were his words, not mine. But do you feel abandoned? Is that why you’re drinking tonight?”
Dean leant the cool bottle against his forehead, closing his eyes. “I don’t know. He says it’s the other way around. That I’m wasting my natural talent, whatever the hell that is.” He squinted across the table. “What d’you think, Cas?”
“Me?” For a moment Cas looked surprised anyone would ask his opinion, let alone Dean. What kind of brothers did this guy have, anyway? “I…I think you should do whatever you are passionate about. If you don’t want to give up the Wall then don’t. Just work around Sam’s absence. You did well today, everyone said so.”
“Nobody cares what I do on the Wall, man. Could ride round naked ‘n draw more people. S’just…” Dean’s cheek on the table probably made him hard to understand but his head was simply too heavy to hold up anymore. “No act without Sam. Not meant to be solo.” He ran a finger through a bit of moisture on the table, spreading it over the tiny w. “Family Winchester, Cas. An’ he’s the only family I got left.”
There was movement in front and around him and a sudden weight on his shoulders. It was warm and soft. “Cas. I ever mention you look familiar? Like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
An even heavier weight on his shoulder, just to the left of the scar. He distantly realized Cas was tucking him in. “Go to sleep, Dean. I’ll wait to ask you why you’d hang a sock on the door until tomorrow.”
Dean smiled and decided to follow his advice.
Time passed quickly, as it often did when they were on the road. Dean tried his best to forget his late night conversation with Castiel, who did in fact ask about the sock thing. Sam and Dean fell into the rhythm of travel – drive, sleep, perform, repeat – until muscle memory kicked in and Dean hardly remembered which town they were in let alone how long it took them to get there or what they did when they arrived. It was almost peaceful, not having to think about anything for a little while.
Things were… well, not fantastic, but not completely horrible, either. More often than not the show went on to a half-empty house, the performers pushing themselves over and over again to bring attention to their acts, hoping word of mouth would spread to the next town before their arrival. There were several late night phone calls from the home office, though Bobby never told anyone what Carver had to say. He’d taken to arguing with Rufus over the smallest things (Dean started calling them ‘the old marrieds’ behind their backs) and putting everyone through their paces triple time.
Almost every night there was a gathering between the trailers. Sometimes it was a party with alcohol and food but most of the time it was just groups of friends trying to relax. Bobby encouraged it, so long as everyone got enough sleep; an anxious performer was more likely to make mistakes and become a dead performer.
Sam spent more and more time with Ruby and the cats. Dean spent more time drinking alone. Which was so pathetic he didn’t even bother thinking about it.
One night tensions were running particularly high – rain had kept the crowd away in what would have otherwise been a large draw city – and the road crew decided to crack open a couple bottle of freshly brewed hooch. Dean had not been invited; he only found out about the party when he ventured out for a snack from the pie car and someone wolf whistled at him. This wouldn’t have been an unwelcome or uncommon occurrence except for the fact that that someone had been Ruby.
“Hey, baby, where you going?” She was leaning against the side of a trailer, bottle hanging limply between her fingers. There was just enough light to see the glimmer of mischief in her eye and the flicker of a lighter being passed behind her. The air reeked and Dean suspected Ash had brought out the good stuff.
He shook his head and kept walking, on the lookout for treacherous footing in the uneven field they’d camped in for the weekend. “Lady, not for a million dollars. God knows what I’d catch.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Hershey. I thought we girls had to stick together?”
Dean stopped, the muscles in his back and legs locking up tight. He couldn’t have heard her correctly.
Ruby rubbed her back against the wall behind her, sinuous and dangerous like one of the cats she trained. “Oh, that’s right. You were only half a girl. My mistake.” Victor sputtered laughter and nudged Garth’s shoulder, damn near sending them both to the ground.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His jaw was clenched so hard he was surprised she could understand him through it.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, he-she. Your brother and I were talking about it just the other day. Me and you should spent some more time together, Dean, become real gal pals. We could braid each other’s hair and share makeup secrets. I have half a tube of lipstick that would look perfect on those cocksucking lips of yours.”
“Dean!” Surrounded by large, sweaty men as she was, Dean didn’t notice Sam with Ruby until he tumbled away from the group and grabbed him by the shoulder, halting his lunge forward and his hand’s creep toward the knife pocket of his vest. “Dean, man, calm down.”
“Oh, I am calm. I’m gonna calmly stab this bitch.”
She laughed at him – laughed – and pouted her dark lips. “Ooh, sticks and stones. Someone’s wearing her big girl panties today.”
“Ruby, shut up!” Beneath the wave of Sam’s bangs Dean could just barely make out the high spots of color on his cheeks. “Sorry man, we’ve been drinking a little. She doesn’t know what she’s sayin’.”
Dean shook off his brother’s hold, leaning in to whisper fiercely. “She knows a hell of a lot more than she should. What the fuck, man? You told her about that?” He glanced over Sam’s massive shoulder to the snickering roadies forming ranks around Ruby. “What - does everybody know? Fuck, Sam, it’ll be all over the lot by breakfast!”
“Man, you know as well as I do there’s no secrets in a circus. It’s not like it’s something to be ashamed of. It was just an act-“
“Shut up, Sam. God, I can’t believe you! Putting some bitch in front of your brother-”
“Dean, it’s not like that. Why do you have to blame Ruby for everything? This isn’t about her.”
“No, it’s about you, you asshole! Keep your mouth shut and your pussy as far away from me as possible.” He stomped off as fast as his stiff legs would carry him. He thought for a moment that would be the end of it. By all rights, it should have been the end of it. But Sam wasn’t done yet.
“I’m the asshole, huh? When you’ve got your head shoved so far up your ass you can’t even see straight anymore? What Ruby and I are doing is going to save this show, not some piece of crap bike going around in circles.”
“She is not a piece of crap!” Dean yelled over his shoulder.
Sam yelled right back. “Ruby deserves your respect, motherfucker, and so do I!”
Motherfucker? Oh, this was personal now. Dean turned in his tracks, oozing as much mockery into his stance as he could. “What, the two of you are going to revolutionize the entire industry? Please. You’re just some hack carnie who’s in over his head. Gunther Gebel-Williams, you ain’t, okay, so don’t even try.”
Sam was seething, the muscles in his jaw twitching. His voice was eerily controlled; a tone Dean had never heard before. “You’re right. I’m gonna do something even Gunther wouldn’t do.”
“What, are you gonna make out with them? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure he does that, too, Sam.”
“I’m taking the cage down.”
Dean shook his head; maybe something just flew in his ear. “I’m sorry. Did I just hear you say you’re going to take the cage down? The one thing that separates those cats from the yokels?”
“You heard me. We start it tomorrow’s show.”
For a moment, speech was literally impossible and Dean stood there working his jaw like an idiot. Then it was like a dam had ruptured in his brain and all the words came out at once in a yell loud enough to wake the dead.
“Are you out of your mind? What the fuck is wrong with you, Sam? I can’t believe this, you’re going to get somebody killed!”
“I can control them, Dean-“
“No, you can’t, Sam, because they’re wild animals! You can’t predict how an animal act will go from one night to the next.”
“Yes, you can. And if you’d actually watch me perform you’d know what I’m talking about!”
Dean prowled up to his brother, getting as far into his personal space as he could. When he spoke it was a snarl. “I will never watch you in the ring with those things, Sam. An animal act killed our mom. Or did you forget that?”
Sam took a deep breath. “The horses didn’t kill Mom, Dean. A shitty manager worked Mom until she got sloppy and exhaustion killed her.”
A chill shivered Dean’s spine and settled in his chest. He stepped back. “Are you saying it was Mom’s fault? That she deserved it?”
Sam tilted his chin up. “Maybe a little, yeah. Everybody makes mistakes.”
How could he think — what was he thinking? “Not Mom. You weren’t there, Sam. You don’t know.”
“And you do? You were four years old when we lost her, Dean.”
He flinched - couldn’t help it – and swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I don’t want to talk about Mom, Sam.”
“You never do, Dean. Neither did Dad. He just drove himself crazy trying to figure out where things went wrong.” Sam reclaimed the foot of space between them, snarling in Dean’s face. “You’re just like him. You’ve lost all perspective on your life. You’re so busy living in the past you can’t accept that I’m living in the future. That I can save us.”
Sam stared at him while Dean clenched his teeth so hard he felt a molar shift. His eyes flashed with something Dean didn’t recognize and he lowered his chin. Dean had never noticed how vicious Sam’s smile could be. “Bobby was right; you have lost your nerve. The old Dean would have hit me by now. You’re too weak to do anything but crawl into a bottle and give up. Just like Dad.”
Sam may have anticipated the swing when it came but the punch still knocked him back a step or two. He countered with a left that Dean blocked with his forearm but surprised him with a full-body tackle. They rolled in the dirt, kicking and punching until Dean felt Sam’s weight lifted off him by Roy and Walt (fuck they’d been watching the whole time) and his own body yanked up to standing. Sam stalked away with Ruby, who was - remarkably - silent.
Dean spit blood after him and went in the other direction. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes on the way out, but a familiar figure separated from the crowd as he passed. Cas came toward him, hand raising halfway to Dean’s shoulder but dropping at the look Dean threw his way.
He wound up sleeping in the cookhouse that night, curled on one of the uncomfortable picnic tables with a half empty bottle of Jack for a pillow. By the time he returned to the Airstream for load-out the next morning Sam had already removed every book, sweatshirt, and dirty sock that he owned. Dean said fuck it and drank the other half of the bottle.
By the time they parked in some pissant town near the Ohio River Dean was a little more than tipsy and about halfway to smashed. The life of a circus freak was a hard one; there wasn’t time to stop long enough to wet a man’s whistle, so they tended to do their drinking on the run. Dean was very good at multitasking.
He took a final swig from the (sadly empty) bottle and went out to supervise the crew setting up the Wall, though he must‘ve been sitting in the truck for longer than he’d planned because Garth was already lowering the Indian into the pit when he arrived. There was even a group of lookieloo civilians loitering around the edges of the lot; Dean hated the early arrivals. All eyes, no lettuce. Fuckers came out hoping for a free show or a glimpse of something sweet while the circus folk sweated and unloaded their gear. Well, fuck ‘em.
He chucked the bottle their way and slid a leg over the side of the Wall, feeling around with his foot for the ladder rungs. Somebody – Garth? When did he get quiet enough to sneak up on Dean? – put a hand on his shoulder, trying to keep him from slipping.
“You don’t look so good, man. Maybe you should sit this one out and I’ll run the Wall until -“
Dean flicked the hand off, throwing a finger its way to add insult to injury. “You ain’t touchin’ my baby, Garth, so stop asking. Now go do your damn job and get those fuckin’ townies in here.”
Garth (or whoever) had disappeared from the top platform by the time Dean made it down the ladder (and so what if he skipped the last rung in a less than graceful plunge, nobody cared). Christ, he had to do everything himself these days. He cupped his hands over his mouth and took a deep breath. “HEY, HEY RUBES! YOU FUCKERS WANNA COME SEE A SHOW?”
A head popped over the side of the Wall, fuzzy and wobbly but probably civilian. “THAT’S RIGHT, COME ON DOWN, LOSERS. YOU LIKE TO WATCH DON’T YA, sonsofbitches.” The last part was mumbled – Dean was pretty sure there were pigtails on that tiny head. Oops. Ah well, she probably heard worse at home.
He straddled the bike and gripped her as tight as he could with his thighs, turning the ignition and letting that speak for him instead. The roar of the Indian’s engine was sweet, sweet music, as always. She almost got away from him when his foot slipped on the gas pedal for a second. He’d have to watch that before he attempted the curve.
The sound of heavy boots tromping his way was almost lost as he gunned the bike, but Bobby’s voice had no trouble projecting into the pit. “Dean, stop! Garth, close her down!” Then he was sliding down the ladder, face redder than Sam’s sunburn that time in Nevada when they were kids. The thought of the little twerp moaning in the desert and covered in green, slimy aloe was enough to make Dean laugh.
“Get off the bike. I said get off the damn bike! ”
Dean held up his hands and dismounted, though his foot got stuck halfway over and he fell on his ass in the middle of the Wall, which made him laugh even harder. Got a case of the giggles, Sammy.
“Jesus, will you look at yourself? Get up.”
Who invited the fun police? Dean had heard Bobby used to be a clown before he was promoted to bossman but you’d never know it by the expression on his face now. That was actually a good point – who had called Bobby? He looked up to find Garth on the platform, where he was ushering out the townies as fast as he could. “You an’ me are done professionally, man! Fucking narc.”
“That fucking narc just saved your ass, idjit. You think this is funny? Some kind of game? Do you have any idea how monumentally stupid this was? You could have killed yourself, Dean, and god knows what other damage you could have done to that crowd of gawkers laughing at the drunken idiot trying to drive.”
“Fuck’s sake, Bobby, what’s the big deal? I’m a little buzzed; it’s not like I don’t ride like this all the time. Hell, I drove all the way here, didn’t I?” Wherever here was.
“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.” Bobby took off his cap and wiped at his forehead with the rag from his back pocket. “Jesus Christ, Dean. If you were anyone else I’d fire your ass so fast your head would spin!”
Dean was starting to get a headache. “Come on, Bobby. I’m fine. It was just a little wobble in the front wheel, tha’s all. It would have evened out by the time I got going.”
“You’d be dead by then, you idjit! I can’t believe this. You really have lost it, haven’t you?”
Somewhere in the back of Dean’s mind, echoing past the booze and the pain, he heard his brother’s voice: Bobby was right.
Son of a bitch. No fucking way.
He growled, kicking the side of the Wall for lack of a better target. “Fucking hypocrite, you know that, old man? You drink all the damn time, you think we don’t know? No wonder this circus is dying, got a fucking drunk ass manager screwing it all to hell!”
Bobby took a deep breath through his nose, his scruffy beard whistling around it. He looked like Sam when he ‘centered his chi’, whatever the hell that meant. “I may be an old drunk but I’m still your boss. You’re grounded until I see you sober and meaning it.”
“Fuck you. You can’t keep me from riding my own bike.”
“That so?” Bobby turned to climb up the ladder (showed you, old man) but stopped at the top without climbing over. He rummaged under the platform for a minute before awkwardly climbing back down the ladder with one of the metal bars used for securing the Wall during transport in his grip. He smiled at Dean when he reached the bottom again.
“Bobby, what the hell are you - Jesus Christ!” The first blow to the Indian landed right on the frame, knocking the whole thing onto its side. The next took the delicate seat clean off and shooting towards Dean. He ducked as it bounced off the wall behind him and Bobby raised his arms for another go; Dean pulled his vest over his head and hid until the clang of metal on metal faded and the only sound in the pit was Bobby’s panting breath.
When he peeked out from under his arm it was to find the bike little more than a crumbled mass of metal that had once been a masterpiece of machinery. The tires were still there but everything leading up to them along one side was dented, scored, or busted. Dean barely recognized her. It felt like his heart was lying there bruised on the boards.
“There. ” The clang of the casing bar hitting the floor barely registered. Bobby sighed, wiped his hands together, and headed back up the ladder. “Now you’ll have something to do with your time off - idle hands and all that. I’ll have Garth scrape this mess off the boards before roll-out tomorrow.”
Dean’s jaw was somewhere on the floor with the broken pieces of his baby. His beautiful, beautiful baby. He looked up at Bobby. “You’re completely insane.”
Bobby pointed a stiff finger at him from the top of the ladder; Dean was fairly certain that had he still been holding the bar, Dean would be the one needing to be repaired. “Don’t push it.”
When Dean woke up the next morning it was to one of the worst hangovers in his drinking career. After carefully dragging his ass out from under the trailer hitch - he couldn’t make it the three feet inside before passing out? - Dean stumbled across the backyard to the pie tent, where he could hopefully find some aspirin and a little hair of the dog.
(Dean knew for a fact that he drank every last drop in the trailer before the debacle at the Wall; fortunately, he was almost out anyway or else he probably would have gone straight to the emergency room… again.)
There weren’t many people walking around the trailers and by the time he got within eyeshot of the backdoor he could see why – there was a show going on, all the performers and rousties scurrying around like ants around the ring doors. Must have been the Sunday matinee, then, judging by the angle of the sun. (Dean knew he hadn’t slept that long, but he could have sworn it was Saturday. Had he lost a day somewhere? He must’ve just been confused.)
Someone shushed loudly next to him, making Dean wish for that aspirin and a punch to the guy’s face. Stillness fell over the chaos, though, and Dean meandered his way over to see what was happening. The crowd parted and there was Sam and Ruby, looking none the worse for wear despite their partying the night before, unloading the cats into position to enter through the ring doors.
Dean wanted to say something, some snarky comment mean enough to stop Sam in his tracks, anything to let his brother know he was there. But as he opened his mouth Sam crossed himself and closed his eyes, lips moving in prayer. It was one of a thousand superstitions circus folk had to ward off bad luck, like stepping into the ring right foot first or never wearing a red costume. But this one was familiar to Dean. His father had done the same move every day for years, embedding the pattern into his boys and refusing to go onstage without it.
He’d thought Sam had stopped all that after leaving for his fancy school. Dean himself found little use for it after his return from the war.
A trill of music came from inside the big top and Sam held up a hand, running through the ring doors and into the tent. The cats – unrestrained without leashes or harnesses – followed, Ruby and the colossal Lucifer taking up the rear.
Dean ducked into the gap they left behind, tucking himself behind a fold in the canvas where he could get a view of the ring. Sam swept along the entranceway and leapt right across the small rail into the ring proper, stopping in the center. The three smaller cats ran in behind him, leaping onto drums and roaring for all they were worth. Lucifer came in at a much more subdued pace, jumping to place his massive paws on Sam’s shoulders.
The audience went wild. Dean damn near shit himself.
Lucifer eventually went to his own (larger) drum and the act continued, Sam and Ruby putting the cats through their paces all without using a whip or training stick. And there was no cage up, of course. Nothing between the audience and the cats’ jaws except his baby brother.
Then Dean noticed something - the ring crew hadn’t actually left the ring. Normally they’d wait in the wings ready to run out with props or change out the setup for the individual acts as quickly as possible but instead they’d arranged themselves around the outer circle, just next to where the blue seats started. They were spread out enough that they weren’t blocking anyone’s view of the ring, but close enough to be a presence. As Dean watched a small boy tried to get up from his seat and a crew member quietly shushed him back down, offering him a free balloon to keep still.
I’ll be damned, Dean thought. The ring crew was the cage, a living breathing barrier between the cats and the crowd… and no one was the wiser.
“I ain’t dumb, you know.” If anyone asked, Dean would swear that the jump in his heart was due to a swell in the music and had nothing to do with Bobby sneaking up next to him. He hadn’t been out of the jungle that long to lose all of his instincts.
Bobby nodded toward the big top. “Your brother may have gone over my head when he petitioned Carver to allow this but what happens in the ring is still my call. Every one of those men is equipped with an electric prod, just in case.”
“Don’t you trust Sam to keep ‘em in line?”
“I trust Sam just fine. It’s the universe that tends to fuck with me on a regular basis.”
Dean snorted and turned his attention back to the act. Sammy was…he was really rather something out there, a storm in sequins and fake fur. He commanded the cats with little more than his presence, sending them through their paces with a simple gesture or a word. Even finicky Lilith jumped through hoops for him, something Dean wouldn’t have believed the lion capable of if he hadn’t seen it for himself. Dean felt a little strange calling his brother breathtaking, but that’s what he was.
Bobby cleared his throat and tugged on the brim of his cap, but didn’t look at Dean when he spoke. “I’m just gonna say this, Dean, so don’t take it personal. You’re one of the best trick knifers in the business, but you ain’t done nothing special since you got back. Hell, even before then. I ain’t sayin’ what you did in the war is excuse or not; I know how it changes a man better than anyone.” Dean remembered hearing that Bobby had served in the second world war, though this was the first time he’d brought it up. Dean had always assumed it was a sore subject for him. “I gave you time when you came out of the hospital to get your shit together, ease your way back into things. But it’s been a year and your shit’s still scattered to the wind.”
Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the ring. “Did you come all the way out here to trade war stories or was there a reason for this intervention, old man?”
Bobby sighed, moving until he could see the blue seats over Dean’s shoulder. “Look out at that crowd, Dean. See all those people? When was the last time you looked at their faces during your act? They’re why we do what we do.”
He gritted his teeth. “You broke my baby.”
“Yeah, and I ain’t sorry for that. I’m telling you now, son – you’re on a very fine line with this. You know I love what you do on the Wall and it’s practically inhuman how well you shoot a gun but people don’t want to see that no more. They want to laugh at some dumbass in grease paint and get a crick in their necks watching people fly. This is the first full house we’ve had since we started this season and it’s all ‘cause of acts like your brothers. Now you ponder that a minute and come up with something worth my time.”
Bobby stomped off, presumably to do whatever it was he did during a show. Dean stayed to watch the finale of his brother’s act (Lucifer raising his bulk to his hind legs, roaring, and letting Ruby place her head inside his mouth) and ducked behind the canvas when they exited past his hiding spot to thunderous applause. Sam was laughing as he ran through the ring doors, twirling Ruby around and planting a sloppy kiss on her lips before scruffing Lucifer along his back like a pet. Dean ever heard him say “good boy”.
He stayed hidden behind his fold of canvas after Sam and Ruby wandered off to put the cats away and to – no doubt – have nasty congratulatory sex. None of the other performers bothered him, though they had to know he was there. They didn’t even look him in the eye while they waited by the doors for their entrance cues; the cold shoulder at its worst. Dean remembered what Bobby had said and couldn’t blame them: if you were anyone else I’d fire your ass so fast your head would spin. He didn’t deserve special treatment any more than they did. He was going to have to earn his way back into their good graces.
Dean hadn’t actually taken the time to watch the show before now, preferring to loiter in the pit until the crowd came back out. He’d forgotten the art of it, the high of fooling the audience into thinking the easy tricks were death-defying and the hard stuff look effortless. Isaac and Tamara did their adagio after Sam’s cat act, and Dean had never seen him throw her higher. Victor and his gang worked the horses natural herding instincts into a goddamn ballet. Even Jo – god, when had Jo gotten her own rola bola act? Last he remembered she was a pup nipping at their heels and helping her mom in the cookhouse.
Christ, even the clowns made him laugh.
He finally got to see what all the fuss was about when the Flying Angels climbed into the rafters for the finale set, and he craned his neck with the rubes to see them better. Gabe was all over the apparatus, flinging himself gleefully up like it was nothing. Raphael was a dark blur of fierce motion, twisting and turning midair. Michael – at least Dean assumed it was Michael, his features unclear in the distance -
Michael was the best of them, powering himself into doubles and triples as easily as Dean breathed.
And catching them all, timing his swings to perfectly parallel his brothers, was Cas. The spotlight didn’t follow him but Dean couldn’t take his eyes off the graceful curve of his body. The muscles in his shoulders and arms flowing with strength he wouldn’t have expected just from looking at him.
Dean stayed until the final bow and wandered back to the empty Airstream before the bulk of the audience had left and the performers were finishing up the farewell. He dreamed that night of flying, and falling, and horses, and he could almost hear the clickety clack in the darkness around his bed.
The week after that was...not pleasant. Jesus, it was so far beyond pleasant it made Danang look like Candyland. His body was wracked with shivers, burning hot and cold with the worst kind of nausea. In a burst of anger he tore the trailer apart, ripping off cabinet doors and smashing the little TV. After the whirlwind wore down he sat, grinding his teeth, rocking like some kind of fucking junkie and staring at Sam's bunk, overturned and empty. The only thing left on the walls was his family’s poster.
And no matter what he did his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, just like when he woke up from the coma.
He wanted to drink, god knows he did, and to hell with what Bobby or anybody said. But someone saw fit to set a watch outside and every time he tried to chase down a bottle he’d find an Angel perched in his doorway. One Angel in particular; the only time Cas wasn’t skulking nearby was when he was expected in the ring and he had Ellen spot him then. When it was time for the Circadia to take off to new stomping grounds and Dean had no desire to sit behind the wheel for three hours Cas found the keys for the truck among the wreckage and drove them there himself. Dean even caught him sleeping on the patio chair outside the Airstream – strategically placed so Dean would trip over him if he attempted to leave.
He had no idea what he’d done to deserve such devoted attention but Castiel seemed bound and determined to force Dean through this. The fucker.
Curled up in his Airstream foxhole, he had no choice but to sweat the worst of it out. It was hard to believe he was feeling so low from just a few drinks a day. Or a bottle a day. He supposed he did have a problem, maybe even a dependence, but fuck wasn’t the alternative worse?
After a few days he was able to get out of his own headspace enough to notice the people walking past the curtainless windows, voices calling to each other on the other side of the curved walls. He rediscovered sun, the drinker's enemy. Oh lord, the sun. So bright it hurt to look at, at first. But he came to one morning to discover himself lodged between the toilet and the tiny shower, hand just barely resting in a sunbeam. There were even dust motes floating by, honest to god the most serenely surreal moment of his life.
That was the day Dean stumbled outside to offer Cas breakfast. Even if all he could stomach was toast and a gallon of weak coffee, the effort tuckered him out enough for a full six hours of sleep. The dreams were even almost bearable.
If he was going to get paid anytime soon, Dean had to find something to do on the lot. He thought about just driving away into the sunset but technically he was still under contract and once word got out to the other shows he reneged on a deal he’d be particularly unemployable. Plus… well, Sam was still there. And Bobby, despite their arguments. And Cas. And Ellen, Jo, Ash, Victor, everybody who’d been working at Carver Circadia in the year he’d been there.
Bobby was more than happy to give him some work and “suggested” Dean keep an eye on the midway. The gun range, to be specific. On paper it was a brilliant idea to have a sharpshooter the range – maybe do a little trick shooting to get the rubes lining up - but Dean... Dean’s hands were shaking again.
It was fine at first; he set up the range with the road crew, put out the paper targets, made sure the guns were loaded properly – it was practically muscle memory. The guns themselves weren’t really the problem, it was the sounds they made going off. Once the crowd started pouring in and the guns started blasting he couldn’t help but think about the war, and all the missions they sent him on, and what he did in that hot place. After awhile he just sort of… went away, and tried not to think of anything at all.
“Hey. Hey. I’m talking to you, carnie!”
Dean flinched, almost falling off his stool. A man in an ugly polyester suit was leaning over the mounts on the range, practically yelling in Dean’s face. Ugh. Townies. Dean would have gladly told him to shove it but there was a small boy standing a little ways behind him looking perilously close to tears. Dean couldn’t blame him; if his dad was a dick he’d be crying, too. “I am not a carnie, sir, those are people who work at a crappy carnival. This is a circus, show a little respect.”
The man’s expression clearly said he didn’t give a shit. “I paid good money so my kid could shoot at your circus and these guns don’t even work. I want my money back, you scam artist.”
Dean sighed. Fucking townies. “We run a clean show here, sir, perhaps your son just needs to practice shooting some more before he can make the target.”
“Are you getting smart with me? Fuck you, I’m a paying customer! I tried shooting them myself and the bullet didn’t go anywhere near the target.”
“BB.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re called BBs, since you’re using a BB gun and not an actual weapon. Bullets only come from things that can kill you.” Dean stood from the wobbly stool and crossed to the shooter’s mounts, taking the shortest route possible by walking on top of the mounts themselves. The guy backed up, maybe only now realizing Dean had a solid fifty pounds on him.
“Let me take a look.”
He grabbed the gun from the guy’s slack grip and held it up to examine the sights. There wasn’t anything blocking the chamber, and the muzzle was straight as possible with such a low-grade gun. Dean had worked at a few… less than reputable establishments in his time, but he knew Bobby tried to keep the Circadia as family friendly as possible, if for no other reason than to compete with Barnum and Bailey’s squeaky clean image. “Sir, there’s nothing wrong with this gun.”
The man recovered from his shock fast enough to shout. “Bullshit, you fucking hack! You don’t know a gun from a hole in the ground. These are obviously rigged so they don’t shoot straight. I want my money back, plus extra!”
“I don’t know guns from a hole in the ground. I don’t know guns?” The other townies milling about the gun range were watching now, staring at Dean. He didn’t mind being looked at – he knew he was pretty and what his body could do – but there was a difference between being admired and being watched. Under the tent he had control over what people saw but here, now, their stares were different, like Dean was at fault because this guy was a jerk. It made his skin crawl and his shoulders curl inward.
He’d been in a freak show once. He never wanted to feel that way again.
Dean snarled, whipping the gun up to shoulder height, picturing the range of targets in his mind. He squeezed off three shots in quick succession without looking, flicking the lever one-handed; by the way the guy paled, Dean knew he’d hit bull’s-eye every time. He cocked the gun again and grit his teeth, leaning right into his personal space. “My last name is Winchester, you dick. Still think I don’t know anything about guns?”
“Far out!” Dean stepped back, blinking. The boy had snuck around his father, staring at the target. His eyes were huge, mouth hanging open in delight. He pressed the button to bring the paper closer, holding it close to his face to marvel at the tight pattern over the center dot. From the looks of things, he probably needed glasses.
The boy looked up at Dean, grinning at him like he was some kind of hero and Dean thought he might be sick.
“All right, show’s over. Everybody go back to whatever the hell you were doing.” He grabbed a wad of cash from his money belt and shoved it at the guy. “I said get out!”
He chased the townies away (it wasn’t hard; they’d all seen what he’d done and were as easily herded as shocked sheep) and when the range was finally clear he gathered the used target papers and ducked behind the flap that would take him to the back of the range.
He wasn’t hiding or anything, he just needed a minute to steady his hands, that was all. Take a couple deep breaths to relax, that sort of thing. The lack of booze didn’t help, either. A slug of the hard stuff always helped get him through moments like this.
It wasn’t even a real gun, Dean. Calm the fuck down.
“Dean?”
Dean whirled to find Cas coming through the flap. He stopped in the entrance, letting the canvas close behind them. Creating privacy but giving Dean space. Had he seen…
Cas shifted into the light from the single overhead bulb, the expression on his face carefully blank. Yeah, he’d seen. Dean braced himself for questions about how he learned to shoot so well and why he wasn’t doing it in the act - why he was freaking out from firing a goddamn BB gun – but Cas surprised him yet again, offering an easy out if Dean didn’t want to talk about it. "Ash said you wanted to see me?"
Dean cleared his throat and shuffled the targets into a pile in his hands. "Yeah, I wanted to thank you. These last few days can't have been easy, so… thank you."
Cas curled his lip, as close to a smile as Dean had ever seen him get. "You weren't exactly polite most of the time but at least it got me out of the trailer. Gabriel is not the most considerate of roommates. In pleasant weather I'll take your chair over my bed any day."
“That’s,” Dean searched for a word, found himself laughing a little in spite of himself, and settling on the only description he could think of: “horrible. What’s he doing now?”
“Lots of little things. The worst so far has been super-gluing my underwear to the ceiling for no reason. He said he was bored.”
Dean chuckled. He shifted the papers in his hands, finger poking through one of the BB holes. Dead center shot; some lucky kid would have gotten a doll for that one if Dean were paying attention to his job.
Suddenly, he didn’t want to keep quiet about this anymore. He was sure Cas would understand. "I drink to fall asleep, sometimes, you know? Helps keep the nightmares away. I didn't think it was that big a deal."
Cas paused a moment, then asked, "Do you dream about the war?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s other stuff.” Like bloody sawdust, though Dean tried not to think about that too often. “It’s my own fault, though. What else is the army gonna do with a sharpshooter but make use of him? I should have thought about that when I enlisted.”
“I volunteered, too.”
Dean laughed, surprised. “Well, I guess that makes us the two dumbest kinkers this side of hell. Everybody else ran away to the circus to avoid the draft and here we go do the opposite.”
Cas’s lip quirked; two almost-smiles in one night, a personal record. Dean had a hard time picturing Cas in the jungle, sweating through his crisp uniform. Then again, Vietnam was Vietnam, and what happened there was different than what happened here.
“Does it hurt you so badly? What you did in the war?”
He sighed and dropped the target sheets into the trash, grabbing a few dozen more out of the box. “You guys keep saying I could have killed myself on the Indian. I know people are saying I have a death wish or something. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, okay, so get that out of your head.” Dean could hear Cas take a breath to argue but talked over him before he could dig himself in deeper. “I don’t want to die but I can’t help thinking it would have been better if I never came back from over there, if I’d never woke up in that hospital. You know how they say war is hell? What they don't tell you is what happens to the devils after hell spits ‘em out again."
"You are not a devil, Dean, regardless of what you've done under orders."
"And you'd be an expert in that, right Angel? How do you know what I did?"
Dean finally felt the weight of those ice-blue eyes shift from the back of his head. "I was not blameless in this war, Dean. There is no such thing as an innocent soldier."
When Dean dared look behind him it was to find Cas shifted into the darkness again, a deeply guttural voice coming from the void. "My unit specialized in protection and extraction, escorting soldiers from one sortie to another. I saved whom I could but I abandoned others.”
“Now that’s something I find hard to believe. I can’t see you abandoning anyone, Cas.”
“That’s because you were one of the ones I saved.”
A chill ran its way up Dean’s spine. Someone just walked over my grave. “What?”
“I assume you don’t remember because of your head injury. I was unaware that you wouldn’t recognize me until I arrived here, not that we were close enough that you’d care to see me again.” The doctors had told Dean that memory loss was to be expected with the type of head injury he’d received, and it wasn’t uncommon for a period of time to be missing prior to the event. His superiors hadn’t been happy that he couldn’t remember what happened, though.
“I was part of the group assigned to your last mission. We weren’t given any details – we never were – but it was easy to figure out what your intentions were. I know why you were in that compound and who they sent you to kill. I watched your face on the hike there, wondered about what type of person could kill another because their country told them to. We talked a little, on the journey, and you weren’t what I was expecting. You weren’t like the others.” Cas stepped forward, slowly erasing the distance between them. “I saw your eyes after the deed was done. When the building started to collapse I didn’t think, I just… went in after you. Then I gripped you tight and ran. I didn’t want you to die then, I still don’t. I don’t regret saving you, Dean. It was the best thing I’ve ever done.”
“Don’t say that, Cas. You don’t mean it.” How could he? Cas was a good person, Dean knew that. How could Dean be anything but worthless compared to him?
Cas was right in front of Dean now, eyes burning and stubbornly refusing to look away. “I do mean it, Dean. You deserved to be saved.”
Dean shuddered again, blinking for what felt like the first time in hours. He tried to gather his thoughts, rubbing at his damp eyes. That was enough touchy feely crap for one night. He threw the target sheets back into the box with one arm and locked the other around Cas’ shoulders. The smile was hard to conjure, but it came all the same. “Come on, man, let’s close this bitch down for the night and find ourselves a party. This is a circus, for fuck's sake. There's bound to be booze around here somewhere.”
Cas’s shoulders stiffened under Dean’s arm. He had a much more angular Bitchface than Sam ever produced; Dean decided to call this one I Will Break You If You Try It. “No alcohol.”
“All right, all right. You fuckin’ teetotaler.” He wiggled his grip enough to loosen Cas’s posture the tiniest bit. “How anyone can come back from Vietnam and not drink is beyond me. You’re some kind of superhero, aren’t you? Abstinence Man, to the rescue! Getting cats out of trees and drunks out of trouble at the speed of sound!”
Cas relaxed completely, leaning against his side, and for the first time the curve of his lip turned into a full-blown honest-to-god smile. His teeth gleamed in the neon light of the midway. Dean kept talking, rambling about anything that came to mind, all to see that smile for a little while longer.
The next day was – fortunately – a Monday and the crew’s day off. Normally, Dean preferred to sleep in on Mondays but his dreams the night before were bloody and full of fire, so he found himself greeting the dawn. Despite the lack of proper sleep, he felt a little lighter, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders or like he’d finally put down a box of bricks he’d been carrying for a long time.
He met Cas for breakfast in the cookhouse, who, in a shocking display of social perception, followed Dean’s lead and pretended their talk the night before never happened. Instead he approached the issue of Dean’s continued employment head on, like it was a puzzle they could solve together.
He began by buttering his toast absently, eyebrows dipping down in thought. “Obviously the gun range isn’t working for you; we’ll just have to tell Bobby to find you something else. Surely there’s some other way for you to earn your keep.”
Dean pushed his hash browns around his plate, scooping up a little bit of ham steak onto his fork. “I dunno, man. I’ll probably just take the pay cut until I get the Indian fixed up and Bobby lets me back on the Wall again. Maybe work odd jobs around the machine shop, help out security, that sort of thing.”
Cas frowned, putting down the toast slice. “You’re a performer, Dean. Can you really see yourself being content to hide in the machine shop again?” Again? That implied Dean had been hiding before. “What other skills do you have?”
He decided to let the hiding thing slide, in honor of his remarkable good mood and Ellen’s awesome ham. “I’ve been in the business my whole life, Cas, I’ve done a little of everything. Not all of it’s a marketable skill, you know?”
“What about flying stunts, trapeze and the like?” Cas looked down, pushing his forgotten toast around the plate and brushing crumbs off the table. Dean frowned and tilted his head enough to get back into Cas’s eye line, raising a questioning eyebrow. Cas sighed and gave up on the toast with a humph. “Michael mentioned you again. Several times, in fact. He feels you would be suited for aerial work and would have you in the air.”
Michael. The guy certainly liked to talk about Dean for someone who’d never so much as introduced himself. Dean had yet to even see him aside from when he peeked in on Cas in the ring. “Tell your brother to shove his gold medal up his ass, ‘cause I ain’t going in the air. And if he ever gets the balls to see me himself I’ll tell him to his face.”
He thought he might have overstepped his bounds again, done what Sam was always ragging him about and offended Cas, but instead of getting pissed off he quirked his lips in a half-smile and nodded. Cas, apparently, was not much of a fan of his older brother. The dynamics of that family were all screwed to hell; every other family troupe Dean’d worked with before were as tight as a nun’s ass. Although he supposed everyone had their problems. Look at him and Sam.
Cas finally took a bite, chewing precisely. “You mentioned horseback riding before.”
“I’m gonna pass on that. Besides, the only horses in this outfit belong to Victor and he ain’t letting me anywhere near them.”
“Well, that exhausts my repertoire. How long until the bike is repaired?”
“Maybe a week or so if I get access to the parts I need. Bobby used to be a mechanic in the old life so he knows how to hurt a vehicle.” Dean ate his last mouthful and leaned back, stretching over the back of the bench.
Cas’ eyes narrowed as they tracked the motion up and down Dean’s chest. “Dean, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why do you wear your vest all the time? Surely the leather’s too heavy for this heat? And I can’t imagine the knives are comfortable.”
He ran a hand over his ribs, feeling the smaller knives kept in the horizontal slits along his ribs. “I dunno. It’s kind of a family heirloom, I guess. Part of my dad’s costume. All the knives are his, actually; I found them in his trunk after he died.” Along with some other things, like his mother’s wedding ring and a birth certificate that didn’t have his or Sam’s names on it, dated seven years after their mother died.
Dean had no idea who Adam was; it was just another of the dozen or so things he tried not to think about. He’d stashed the knives and ring, burned everything else, and hadn’t mentioned it to Sam.
“And that?” Cas nodded toward the small silver flask half hidden in the inner pocket, just over his heart, visible with the vest unbuttoned and Dean slouching as he was.
Dean grinned. “Welcome home present from Ash. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Cas hummed and reached across the table, slipping his hand into Dean’s open vest. Dean jerked, Cas’s warm wrist barely brushing against his t-shirt and the nipple underneath. Holy shit-
Then Cas leaned back, tucking the flask into his own shirt pocket, ignoring Dean’s blinking shock. “Close your mouth, you’ll get it back when I can trust you not to use it.”
Dean huffed a laugh, shaking his head at the audacity. Leave it to Cas to distract him with body heat to get what he wanted. He leaned back on his hands, legs curling around Cas’s under the bench. Cas’s posture was impeccable, as always.
“Why not use the knives then? In your act?”
He shook his head. “Knife throwing’s a thing of the past, man. Practically a parlor trick. Nobody does that anymore. Besides, if Bobby doesn’t trust me with a motorcycle why the hell would he trust me to throw sharp bits of metal at stuff?”
Cas finished his toast and delicately licked a bit of butter off his fingers. “If no one does it anymore then the audience hasn’t seen it recently. Everything old is new again when brought into a different light.”
Dean swallowed. Cas had a very long tongue. “Very poetic. I may have grown ovaries just listening to it, but poetic all the same. You enjoy that stuff, don’t you, poetry and books and all that bullshit?”
Cas shrugged a shoulder. “There’s often little else to do when your family is always moving from one place to the next. We didn’t go to a proper school so much of what we learned was from books.”
“Point.” Sam had been just like that, nose shoved in a book all hours of the day. Dean just learned to grift and throw knives. Ah, childhood. Still. “I dunno, man. I suppose we can set up a target and see how it goes. But don’t expect anything impressive.”
“I’ve never seen knife work performed at all, so I’m sure anything you do will be impressive. I’m quite looking forward to it.” He smiled that half-smile again and Dean felt his cheeks burn.
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