Country Road
Had this song playing in my head (even tho this isn’t set in West Virginia)
Beta’d by the lovely @flameskywolf
Eventually, they lucked into getting a farm not far from the bunker.
All three of them worked a case of an old man, Dean wagered he was at least 115 years old, whose farm was infested with Ghouls. Turned out the far corner of his farm had been built on top of a small, and unmarked, cemetery. Dean didn’t want to know where the bodies came from. He burned them all and then they killed the Ghouls.
“I always figured I’d die on this farm, but not like that,” The farmer muttered in his whisper of a voice, “Thank you boys for all your help.”
Cas smiled and shook the man’s hand. He found it funny that he referred to them as boys, when their ages were mid 40’s with the exception of Sam. He figured this man, everyone was a child to him.
Sam leaned forward and shook the man’s hand, looping him into a conversation that Cas tuned out of. Turning, he found Dean standing at the far end of the wrap around porch, looking over the bleak, flat farmland with storm clouds threatening overhead. A barn looked like it’d fall over with a sneeze with the paint almost non-existent. Cas saw broken fences that were meant to keep in some sort of lifestock and abandoned tractors.
He watched Dean as long as Dean watched the land. Dean staring out with his thoughts wasn’t new behavior, but with the wind blowing in his hair and ruffling his jacket, Dean looked different -- almost more alive.
It’s not like their lives were stressful at the moment. A few cases here and there, inviting some hunters they knew and trust into the Men of Letters as a hybrid. That was more Sam’s project with Cas and Dean helping along.
Cas had his own challenges, adjusting once again to humanity but permanently this time. Often during the days he had to calm himself down when the panic of permanence flooded his mind. His emotions were still raw and new, feeling everything too much. It was final, there was no going back. The guilt was tenfold in feeling now than when he was an angel, and he felt it particularly when he left Dean in a room alone to go and calm himself. Dean had no distractions and nothing to do.
But now, as Cas watched Dean take in the landscape before him, he realized what could and should happen.
All three of them left, the old man grateful for their help, telling them to stop by anytime they wanted. So Cas took him up on that offer.
Three days later, he went back to the farm.
The man greeted him with joy, so much joy to the point Cas wanted to cry thinking the man got no visitors in his life here and in his old age.
The man, known as Ed Gulch, gave him a mug of strong coffee with some whiskey in it and they both sat at the chipped linoleum kitchen table. The window there gave Cas a clear view of the remains of the barn and on the dusty, brittle farmland. He sipped his coffee slowly. Alcohol worked on him far easier than on Dean or Sam or basically anyone else. He didn’t want to get drunk in front of the man.
So they talked. The man, despite being unable to talk above a whisper, could talk for a while. And Cas happily listened.
First, Ed wasn’t 150 but more like 80. But the hard life he had in the Kansas corn fields didn’t do him any good. Neither did the drinking or the smoking.
The man actually had two children but they were so successful in life with their own grandkids, that they only ever had time to talk to Ed on the phone. Sometimes they came for the holidays, but since they were always working it was hard. His daughter, Marilyn, married rich, got herself a job as head nurse at a New York City hospital, and is currently working on a doctorate. She had three children and a big house on Long Island. The other kid, Conner, wound up working on, in Ed’s words, Big ‘ol space ships that fly to space or sum’it out in California. He too had a large family of five and a large house. Cas heart broke, hearing Ed talk about his children. He doubted they talked about him with as much love and respect.
Cas looked around and saw dirty dishes, grime on the floor, and some packed up boxes. Ed had a nasty cough that they didn’t hear a couple days ago. The heat of the moment must have given him no time to do anything but run and hide.
“Well if you ever need help around here Ed, we’ll be more than happy to assist.”
Ed looked at Cas thoughtful and quiet. Cas took a sip of his now cold coffee and resisted spitting it back out. He felt a little bad, trying to rope this fragile man into giving him what he wants but it also made his heart hurt seeing Dean staring out from the porch on unused land and skeletal remains of buildings that could hopefully be his kingdom.
“Hon’stly, if yuhs wanna help me pack up m’things that’d be swell son,” Ed muttered, setting his mug down. He poured more whiskey in it, “Connor got a guest house he offered up. I need warmth ‘n sun, and to see m’grandkids. His eldest, Ann, is due July,” Another sip, another long drawn out pause. Ed looked out the same window Cas took to looking out of at the barn. On the other side of it, down several feet, was where the mass grave was. Sam had told them later that he wondered if it had anything to do with the Men of Letters’ more unsavory members. Cas didn’t really care.
“After the other night, I don’t wanna stay here ennymore.” Ed coughed,“If I can get outta here on time, maybe I’ll be there for Christmas.”
Cas nodded along, in deep thought. He even drank the disgustingly cold coffee thinking about his next words. The filter had begun its construction in his head since becoming human but he still had to watch what he said and more importantly how he said it. A second language was hard when it was the only one you were allowed to speak.
“We can help you. Do you have a ride out there?”
“Connie’s commin’ out in a few days. Would be a good surprise for him to see I’m all ready set t’go.”
Cas didn’t bring up the question. Not yet. The little voice that was growing day by day in his head told him to hold off until the man said his goodbyes to the place and was ready to truly move on.
Cas enlisted the help of Dean since he was the only one without a project in the bunker. Sam had a small group of hunters in as a sort of class or something. Dean didn’t seem particularly excited about helping Ed, but Cas pulled him along with the promise that the fresh air would be good for him.
Dean met Ed properly, and not in the heat of supernatural battle and instantly took to him, making Cas smile, easing his mind.
Almost immediately, Ed got them to work. They tore down the ratty, thin curtains that made Cas wonder how Ed got through winters with almost nothing blocking a draft. They scrubbed the windows, tossed out broken furniture, rolled up carpets, and packed his boxes.
All in all, it took them three days to get the place in pecking order for Ed to say goodbye. But as Cas and Dean packed up the rest of Ed’s clothes from his mothball ridden chest, Cas realized Ed seemed to be well on his way out already. The man sat on the bare bed, gazing out the back window into the yard where some crows pecked at a bird feeder. A serene smile graced the old man’s face, making him look 20 years younger.
As Dean finished packing up the man’s pants, Cas went over and sat on the bed with Ed. The bed bounced slightly, the coils groaning over the additional weight compared to the thin man. Without a word, Ed took Cas’s hands and enclosed it in his own. Cas expected to look up and see tears streaming through the lines on Ed’s face but it was as dry and arid as the land around them.
“I want you boys to have this place.” Ed mumbled in his whisper voice.
Cas’s eyes widened, wondering momentarily if the old man could read minds. Ed continued to look out the window, so Cas turned his gaze to Dean, who stood staring out the same window.
Dean’s look was of love, Ed’s was of nostalgia. In a blink, Cas could see Dean sitting in the same spot as Ed in 30 years, staring out the same window but to a field of some kind of crop, or of a plethora of animals grazing on the grass below. Maybe a few pigs, horses, and cows. But the look on his face wouldn’t be like Ed’s now. It wouldn’t be of longing for something in the past. The past was something Dean didn’t really remember fondly as it was. His look would be one of accomplishment, and content that his life had lead him to this farm house with the barn and the broken fences.
“Are you sure?” Cas managed to ask, knowing full well the answer. Ed had lost his wife 20 years ago, his children moved on, the farm was dried up and nothing but a big yard for his run down house. He tapped all the life he could out of the house, but the house had more to give. Cas needed Dean to hear that.
“Yeah sonny, I’m sure,” Ed pat Cas’s hands and looked up at Dean who met his gaze, “You saved me, you saved this place… now I get to go see my family. Yuh’put things in perspective for me. I’m at the end of my life, I got all I could out of this. I’m sick of the cold, I want some sunshine and my grandchildren.”
Ed sniffed then, and now Cas did see a tear, “My kids are well off, they don’t want this place. But there’s still a part of me that can’t just let it go to waste,” Ed nodded to Dean, “I saw the way you looked at this house, I saw you staring at the barn. I know you’d do something great here, kiddo.”
Dean didn’t say anything, instead walking over to Ed, kneeling in front of him and pulled him into a hug.
Ed make a small sound of surprise, not used to being touched in a way. Cas watched unmoving. It was rare that Dean showed this level of emotion with a complete stranger to the point where he initiated contact like that.
The two stood together for a moment before pulling away. Dean placed both hands on Ed’s bony shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.
“We’ll make this place how you remember it. So you come back and visit us okay?”
“Sounds like a plan, man,” Ed grinned before patting Dean on the cheek.
They all stood back up, Ed wiping some tears from his eyes. The house moaned and groaned as they walked across the ancient floorboards. The house was truly bare now, down to the bones. As Cas walked through the corridor upstairs, he thought about the extra rooms for Jack and Sam and Mary and whoever else wanted to stay for however long they wanted. He thought about what color he and Dean would settle on for the exterior paint job and if they should keep the floors bare with minimal carpets or not.
Cas was forced out of his thoughts as Dean held him back while Ed walked down stairs first. Without question, Cas let Dean hold him back and draw him close. Dean didn’t like overt displays of affection and even though they were in private, they were still in someone else’s home. So Cas took this moment and reveled in it as Dean breathed slowly, the calmest Cas has felt in a while. Ed would be wondering where they went off to and a moment of panic flared in Cas but if Dean wasn’t concerned about it, neither was he.
They stood there, still and quiet in the house that was now prepared for a revival.
Ed never wound up visiting. Shortly after Christmas, he passed away from undiagnosed lung cancer.
By the start of Summer, the barn was structurally sound again, and they had rescued three horses, two pigs, and a shit load of chickens. Sam visited a few times a week, grateful for a room where he could wake up to a sunrise instead of artificial light. Mary visited every few weekends along with Jack.
They still had more work to do with painting, more building, and wanting to grow some things, but it was okay not to rush. They had time. This was their journey now.