Sam drags him to the concert. It’s a twenty-one and up show, and Sam is twenty, just barely cresting that age of legal. If he's accompanied by a ‘legal guardian’ he can get it, so after much bothering and some minor bribery (Dean doesn't know where Sam got that pie, but if there's more of it in the future, Dean will do just about anything) Dean agrees to go.
“I’m telling you,” Sam says from the passenger seat of the car. “You’ll love this. It’s great. I’ve been trying to get you to listen to them for years and just- just trust me, okay?”
Dean rolls his eyes. The city begins to close in around them as they drive closer and closer to the concert hall. They live in the suburbs, in a little house because that was cheaper. Sam can commute to school and Dean can drive to work at the garage down the way. It’s a pretty good arrangement, one that they can afford and doesn't completely fuck everything up.
Dean wanted Sam in Stanford as much as Sam wanted Sam in Stanford. He really did.
Car crashes though, they had other plans.
“This is the concept album people, right?” Dean asks.
“Yeah,” Sam answers. “The story is all about going to Hell and back to get this guy. The lead singer, Jimmy, he has this crazy ass story about how an angel found him and told him everything and that’s where the lyrics came from. I mean, that’s what it is in the meta-story- it’s actually like, way crazier, I mean, get this, so the guy-”
“Sam,” Dean barks. “Breathe. Jesus. I’ll hear it myself. Don’t spoil everything.”
Sam smiles and shakes his head. “I really appreciate this,” he says. “They don’t come through Kansas all that often and they’re...they’re crazy talented. Castiel Novak, just...wow. Don’t judge the way he looks, okay? Just listen to his voice.”
“What, me? Judgemental?” Dean replies, turning down a block. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m a fucking delight.”
Dean was skeptical before he got to the venue, and he’s even more skeptical as the show starts. The band comes out on stage, a million different instruments, a million different people and players, a million different voices and sounds. It’s crazed, it’s disorganized, it’s intense. It doesn't make any sense, it just throbbed and pulsed and screeched along. Everyone around him was seems to be having a good time, including Sam who’s dancing more furiously and embarrassingly than Dean’s ever seen.
He just smiles and watches the band.
So Sam owed Dean some pretty big favors, because when the band came out on stage, all bright neon lights and smoke machines and crazed electronic sound.
The show begins to change, though. Every few songs or so, a musician bows and moves off the stage with their instrument. The scenery changes, set pieces disappearing. The lasers go with the synthesizers and the fog machines follow them with the keyboards.
It’s beginning to get really, really good when the harps drops out and Dean can see, in the space that had been there, a guy dressed in a way that just fucking screams ‘rock star.’
And then the crowd sees him too, and a scream rose from the audience, huge and thrilled.
Dressed ridiculously, long white robes and black wings made of feathers and rhinestones and fabric, he has the good grace to look a little embarrassed about the reception.
"Hello," he sings, in the middle of the song. "It seems that I have found you."
And the screaming continues, huge and swelling around him.
And the singer smiles like it was Christmas morning.
Then the show gets really weird.
The instruments keep dropping out until only the guitar, the bass, and the drums remain. The singer keeps going, but he also starts removing clothes, the robes coming off to reveal a trench coat and business suit. And then the business suit comes down and the bass falls out.
And then his shirt comes off and the wings go with it, and it’s only him on the stage with his guitar.
Dean looks at the musician’s bare chest. It’s a litany of writing and symbol, some of it looking like it’s been carved into him, other parts of it looking like makeup. Some strange circle surrounded by geometry, some shape in the center. Some it scar, some of it augmentation.
The singer has dark hair and bright eyes, even under the bright lights. He has tanned skin that beads with sweat under the lamps and lights. He has a way of closing his eyes and furrowing his face like he means something, like it matters. He has a scratched up voice, low and broken and strange. He has a way of holding his body around his guitar like all of his strings have been cut and the only thing worth a damn up there is this instrument, this thing that lets him bring...bring something into the world with him.
Dean looks at Sam, who looks like he’s experiencing the rapture of sex for the first time, swear to god.
And Dean looks back up at this singer and he things he almost sees what Sam sees.
"And when I first laid hand on you in Hell," he moans into the microphone, hair heavy with sweat sticking to his scalp.
I had fallen, the audience calls back.
The musician smiles through his closed eyes and keeps playing, playing until the lights shut out and the only sound in the crowded concert hall is the cheering of the fans.
And, oddly enough, Dean found himself cheering with them.