A slow burn AU that starts when Cas & Dean run into each other 8 years after they met in high school.
Dean's changed, and so has the name he goes by.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
They went to the same school when Dean was young.
Just for a short time.
Just until they left town, like they always did.
Dean went by a different name then.
That was pretty par for the course at the time too.
Castiel was a couple years younger. They didn't really talk.
They didn't have any classes together or anything.
They were in the same level of math, ... Dean thinks... but it was a small school. Freaking brain was just too smart for his own good and Dean well, Dean never really got to focus on school so...
Dean and Sam had been new and I mean yeah, okay, they'd noticed each other. Friends of friends. or whatever.
Not that Dean had any, ... friends.
Kids tended to rag on him back then, all those oversized hoodies, the cargo pants,... it wasn't what Dean was 'supposed' to wear. ... whatever the hell that meant.
But, ... friend of ... friend of something -uh - someone ... I guess.
Cas was in tech, those nerds that hung out above the auditorium smoking joints and fiddling with the light switches when they weren't with the theater kids. They partied with the theater kids, except they didn't. And, okay, maybe Dean hung around while Sam was in that stupid musical.
It was dorky af, but it did seem to make Sam a lot of friends, girly ones, who giggled when he talked.
Lanky bastard.
Look. It was a place to be, the tech booth, and do his homework - if he felt like it that day. If he accidentally learned all the words to those stupid songs from hanging out sprawled across those empty auditorium seats, that's not Dean's fault.
Sometimes Cas would use the speaker system to play some music while Dean waited for Sam, and that was pretty cool of him. And yeah, sometimes Cas would share the Chinese food he always seemed to order so much of. and that was pretty cool too.
But it wasn't - they wouldn't - call each other friends. Friendly more like. Sure. They... they knew each other's names. Which was more than Dean was used to at a new school.
Then their family moved on, like they always did. Dean got his GED and Sam got enrolled in yet another high school. He didn't do theater at the next one though. Or the one after that, come to think of it.
Dean didn't think much of it. Forgot all about that time until about, well, it had been a few years later.
Dean was blowing through town on some job when he saw a familiar face.
Or the face saw him.
He yelled some fake last name Dean vaguely remembered and suddenly a sorta familiar face was crossing the street,
One topped with some black messy hair not quite long enough to hide a beaming smile accompanied by a blotch of strawberry jam on his face.
"Hey, ... Novak
Uh, it's - uh - Winchester now actually, uh, Dean Winchester."
Dean rubbed his neck and couldn't quite meet Cas's eye as he said it.
His voice was always higher when he was correcting someone about himself. and he hated that about himself too.
"Dean Winchester huh?"
Cas considered, beaming in a way Dean never quite got used to,
"Well, it suits you."
Dean hoped his sigh of relief wasn't audible. "How are you?"
"Eh," said Cas, "finally got that math degree from the local tri-C, uh, the community college, but I'm still slinging the same burgers. They made me manager when I graduated and I couldn't quite make myself apply to anything else. You?"
"Uh, I'm, well see me and Sammy are just here for a job. It's been awhile, plenty of new buildings in town and - "
"Oh! are you staying awhile?" Cas interrupted.
Just like he always used to. Just like he did when he was 14.
God Dean hated being interrupted.
"Heh, no," Dean huffed, "uh, we probably aren't staying very long actually but-"
"Well come by for a burger at least.
Don't worry.
I don't make them.
Not since the fire
- oh it was a small fire don't worry - look it can't have been a very big one if they made me the manager,
... eventually."
Yeah, that's Novak.
Surprised he never killed anyone in that stupid play.
"I gotta go find my idiot brother before he crashes my car. ... but hey, we gotta eat? Right?"
"Good. ... Dean Winchester."
Cas was beaming again.
Dean doesn't know what to do with that.
"Who would have thunk it. Proud of you."
Dean doesn't know what to do with that either.
"Give my regards to Sam,
or better yet
bring the crooner by with you.
I could use more swooning teenage Sandy wannabees at the ole malt shop."
Dean was rolling his eyes now. Hard.
Hell. It's like that was Cas's goal. He had the audacity to chuckle anyway.
"Alright. I could use a burger. And I'm sure you have some garnish rabbit food for sasquatch to eat. He'll deal."
"What are you smiling about?" Sam asked, eyeing his brother with suspicion.
"Nothing" Dean shot back a little too quickly. "Found us some grub. We done here yet, Danny Zuko?"
"Dean why are you bringing up ...."
.....................................
Dean ate a burger to the ambiance of Sam's most purposeful bitch face.
Cas had brought him a bed of lettuce with some neon pickles, onion, and tomato, but there wasn't much else in here that didn't bleed when you cut it. Look, Sam can deal. How often do they get to catch up with old f-, uh - well ... an old ... something?
Cas was still with his hs boyfriend, Damian, believe it or not.
Guy was finishing a science degree at tri-C but was applying to grad schools. Good for him.
"I can't believe you didn't keep up with theater, Sam. The department was lost without you. They had to sub in Ian and you know that bumbling idiot couldn't remember the dance moves let alone all those ramma lamma lammas."
"Yeah well it wasn't my choice to leave. The way it goes you know?
Didn't want to leave the next school in the lerch too."
Sam looked off into the distance.
"Common Sammy, serenade us one more time. What was that one you were always practicing?"
"Can it Dean," Sam fired back, "We all know I only got the lead because you never tried out."
Cas about spit out his drink.
Tried to cover,
composed himself
smiled.
"You can sing, Mr. Winchester?"
"shut up"
"I mean I knew you could rock out to the radio pretty hard, but showtunes?"
"Can it both of you." Dean blushed.
"You both know they were never going to give the male heartthrob part to someone like me.
They wanted Sammy here for their leading man. That was how to bring in all the ticket sales.
They wanted a mob of swooning girls, ... not torches & pitchforks."
"Dean-" Sam looked concerned again.
"No it's fine Sam, look it was a long time ago and you were the star.
I was always happy to let you shine.
But now it's time we hit the road. Cas what dahwee owe ya?"
"On the house," said Cas,
that look of pity on his face Dean had been hoping to avoid.
"No, come on. I mooch'd off of you in my time well enough."
"Well then consider this one last time.
I've been paid in good stories and it's all coming out of the bossman's pocket.
Repay me in kind next time you're in town."
"You're on casanova. Once every ten years it is."
"Here's my new number." Cas was already drabbing for Dean's phone. "I'm not letting you fall out of touch again.
I'm up all night and if you're half the insomniac I remember I will have one more person to text with."
Just like Cas, that pushy son of a bitch.
"Sure. Uh - heh - I'm a lifer. ... Well, it's good to see - I - uh - thanks again. Cas."
.............................................
"Who was that?" Sam's eyebrow asked it for him on the way to the car. When they reached the impala his mouth got a turn,
"Cassie know about him?"
"Just an old friend." Dean replied. "... Mind yo' business," he swallowed down the lump in his throat while finally reclaiming the driver's seat that was so rightfully his.
"Whatever, just stop somewhere on the highway? I'm starving-"
And just like that, Dean had an old friend. Who knew?
Speaking of breakdown hours, I am forever indebted to Robbie for bringing a loup garou into the Supernatural lore. Settle in for my very annoying screeching about this.
Supernatural used a monster called a rugaru, which always seemed to be a bafflingly misspelled version of rougarou. However, the lore was painfully far from the actual mythology. It has always bugged me because this is a story I grew up on. Sitting by the campfire being told to be good or the rougarou might get ya.
Loup garou is the French version of werewolf. It was passed down by the Acadians who settled in Louisiana after Le Grand Derangement, the forcible relocation of French settlers from Canada.
As with much of Cajun French and culture, the myth took on unique traits as it developed here. One was the transition from the formal French word loup garou to the Cajun word rougarou. Many people use the word interchangeably today, but I would argue rougarou is more common here because it is rooted in this place.
The rougarou is said to be a man with a wolf or dog head (rather than a true wolf transition). There are a few different myths. In some, the rougarou is a scary story for children. Be good or the rougarou will get ya! In others, the rougarou either goes after those who break lent or is a curse on those who do so.
There is also a delightful part if the legend that you can defeat a rougarou by putting 13 objects down. It will try to count them and when it can't, it will turn away.
I have always thought there was a rich opportunity to use the aspects of guilt or religious trauma in Supernatural for this particular beast and I have been sad that the myth was essentially turned into a genetic cannibal beast curse entirely unrelated with the underlying lore.
Having a traditional werewolf-like loup garou feels like a gift to me personally. I hope this doesn't awaken any fics in me. 😆
help i was supposed to go to sleep so i ended up writing 800 words on Dean flashingback to bobby helping teenage Dean take off the duct tape he'd hurt himself binding with
i hope to god that the way i find out when the queen dies is through a sponsored post breaking the news to me like an emergency broadcast system alert for my dash
