Chapter Text
Dean runs across the ad by accident. He’s surfing local newspapers, scanning for something that might resemble a hunt, and he skims through the classifieds for the hell of it. Sometimes there’s fun stuff in there, chickens for sale, or even a haunted dresser.
That’s when he sees it: Southern Arizona ghost town seeking full-time caretaker. Contact for details.
There’s a website listed. Dean hesitates, then punches in the URL.
People can mean a lot of things by “ghost town.” Sometimes there’s actual ghosts; just as often, there aren’t. A ghost town can be a tourist attraction, with actors dressed up in old-timey clothes and machines that turn pennies into little imprinted medallions, sometimes those places where you can try out the get-up yourself and get sepia-tinged photographs.
Dean hasn’t been to one of those in a while. He was thinking he should get Cas to go with him to the one in Dodge City, a while back, but now — well, now it feels weird. Cas is back from the dead, again, only now there’s this elephant in the room — I love you — and Dean’s not sure what to do with that.
He’s just pretty sure the answer isn’t bullying Cas into a Wyatt Earp costume.
Anyway. Ghost towns; they mean that kind of place, sometimes, but more often they mean something a lot more dressed-down. A few old foundations, maybe, and some grave stones vanishing into the prairie. A single adobe building still standing at the end of a thirty-mile road. That kind of thing. They’re mining towns, mostly, at least in Arizona — sometimes military outposts. They filled up with people digging for gold, or copper, or silver, and when the ore ran out, the people vanished away again.
This one looks closer to the latter category. It’s a decent size, though — a few dozen buildings, all peppered through the desert oaks at the base of a mountain. An old post office, an old cemetery. Gravel road to get there, but it’s only ten miles from blacktop, not thirty. There’s camping and fishing nearby, on a national wildlife refuge; people in RVs coming by for tours. There are pages on the website talking about restoration work, about getting some of the old buildings back as close to original condition as possible, about letting others stand as testament to the changes the place went through over the years. There’s a page that lists all the hummingbirds that have ever come to the on-site pollinator garden.
There’s a job ad, too. It shows the caretaker’s living quarters — one of the old houses, among the last to be abandoned, still outfitted with a 50s-era kitchen. Well for water, generator for power. It lists the job duties — everything from leading tours to shingling roofs.
Gardening experience a plus, it adds. Dean thinks, I bet Cas would be good at gardening.
He bites down on his tongue. Cas isn’t moving to Arizona with him. He’s not moving to Arizona. How the hell would he explain that to Sam, anyway?
---
The thing is — the thing is, it wouldn’t actually be all that hard, to explain it to Sam.
Sam’s been making noises for a while now about retiring. Phased retirement, he keeps calling it; moving to more of a Bobby role behind the switchboard. Helping young hunters come up, and making the bunker and its resources available to them. Eileen has loads of ideas to help him.
Dean’s actually pretty sure the only reason Sam hasn’t invited a bevy of hunters to come stay is that he remember show much it weirded Dean out, the first time he came home to find the bunker full of strangers. He’s letting Dean raise the idea first, which is nice of him, though he keeps dropping hints; about how much Claire and Kaia loved Dean’s cooking, the last time they came to visit. About how many spare bedrooms they have; Hell, we could even use Cas’s, it’s not like he needs to sleep, he said once, which made Dean get up abruptly and walk out of the room so he wouldn’t start crying or something equally stupid.
Sam’s right, probably. Cas wouldn’t mind. He’d also probably just drift away, like he does; he’d take it as a sign it’s time for him to move on. He’s done it before, and they’ve kicked him out of the bunker before, and Dean’s sure as hell not gonna do that this time.
He also doesn’t know how to explain to Sam that the idea of permanent house guests sounds kind of exhausting. Sam’s figured out that Dean likes taking care of people, and he’s not wrong; he’s even been making clumsy attempts at pointing out how much Dean did for him over the years. Sometimes it seems like he’s pushing earnestly at something deeper, and Dean doesn’t know how to tell him to stop. He doesn’t know how to say, If there are a dozen people in here, I’m gonna feel like it’s my job to keep them happy full-time. And it’s gonna wear me down, Sam; it’ll stress me out. I’ll hate it. I’ll start hating them, a little bit, because they’ll remind me of how damn inadequate I am — of how I can’t even take care of —
He swallows.
If he said all that, Sam would probably give him a puppy-dog look. He’d probably say something like, Dean, you don’t have to take care of me. Not anymore. And Dean wouldn’t know how to tell him, Yeah, I know that, Sammy. I’m not worried about taking care of you; I’m worried about Cas.
That’s the reason he can’t say any of it.
If he says that, Sam will ask him what he means. If Sam asks him what he means, Dean will have to answer, and he can’t answer — not without explaining everything that happened. Cas saying, I love you; Cas dying. The hours Dean spent ignoring his phone, crumpled in a corner of the dungeon, Cas’s words reeling through his head. The way he felt when he heard Cas’s voice again, but it wasn’t Cas, it was Lucifer; the way he felt when it was Cas’s voice for real.
And then — he’s pretty sure that if he says all that, Sam’s gonna ask him how he feels. If he loves Cas back.
What the fuck is Dean supposed to say to that? Can he say, I don’t know, in all-caps, bold red letters? Can he say, Don’t ask me that, don’t ask, I don’t know, if you ask I’m gonna get in my car and drive and keep driving and not stop ‘til I’m in Mexico?
The ghost town is nearly in Mexico.
Sam keeps pushing Dean to think about the life he wants. Dean doesn’t think Sam would stop him, even if it is a bit of a weird choice. Even if it’s nearly in Mexico.
This is a stupid train of thought. Dean digs a fist into his thigh, and closes out of the window, and slams his laptop closed.
---
It’s a few weeks later that he’s back on the site — again, sue him, the ad’s still up, and he just likes looking at it — and Cas happens to pass behind him and stop. “What is that? A hunt?”
His voice sends shivers down Dean’s spine; not the bad kind. He stops himself from shutting his laptop again and half-twists in his chair. “It’s, uh. It’s nothing, really. I just like looking at their website.”
“May I see?”
Cas leans over Dean to look over his shoulder, breath close enough to stir Dean’s hair. He makes a slight humming noise as he reads, then says, “It does look nice. They have some interesting plants in their garden.”
Dean swallows. “Apparently it’s, uh — a big birdwatching destination. People come from all over to, um. See the birds.”
“Yes, there’s some considerable diversity in that area.” Cas sounds abstracted, like he’s not really paying attention to his own words. “You don’t think there’s a case?”
Dean shrugs. “I mean — old ghost town, you never know. But nah, I just —”
“Were you thinking of applying for the position of caretaker?”
Dean stops talking with a sputter. “I — how did you — what?”
“They’re advertising for one.” Cas points. “I thought you might enjoy it. The history of the town seems interesting; it says that Wyatt Earp stayed there.”
Cas isn’t wrong. It does say that Wyatt Earp stayed there.
Several possible answers present themselves in Dean’s mind for immediate dismissal. Most of them are more on the flight side of the fight or flight spectrum — Cas left the page open on the list of birds, and Dean almost just points behind him and says, Look! Over there! An elegant trogon!
He doesn’t.
Instead, he says, “It’s probably not open anymore. The job’s been posted for a while.”
Cas scrunches his face slightly. “Have you called?”
Which is how Dean winds up dialing the cell phone number listed for Willow Creek Ghost Town, and saying to the harried-sounding woman who picks up, “Hi, uh — I’m calling about the caretaker position?”
---
As it turns out, the caretaker position’s still open.
As it also turns out, the town is haunted.
“Look,” the woman — her name is Greta — says. “My mom and dad, they had to move out of there a few years ago — getting too old for it, you know. Since then, we can’t keep anyone. I don’t know if it’s the isolation out there or what, but people keep saying the place has actual ghosts —”
“Do you want me,” Dean blurts, “do you want me to come check it out?”
He means the ghosts, obviously. Though that can’t be obvious to Greta. He can feel Cas’s eyes boring into the side of his skull.
“You mean like, a provisional thing?” Greta sighs. “I mean, yeah, I guess. Not like we’re getting much other interest. I’ll warn you, the pay’s shit. Send me an application, and — yeah, sure. We’ll get you out there as soon as you’re ready.”
“Provisional,” Dean repeats. “Like a — what, a couple weeks or something?”
“Jesus.” There’s the sound of the phone receiver being muffled; then she’s back again. “Can you give me — a month? One month. At least commit to that.”
“One month,” Dean repeats. He can do that; why the hell not? It’s a month. He’s gone to hell for longer.
It won’t be half bad, actually. Hunt a few ghosts, burn a few bones, give himself a nice vacation. Apologize to Greta, tell her it’s just not for him.
Cas won’t vanish in the space of a month. Sam won’t turn the bunker totally upside down. It’s just — a trial. Some space to himself; Dean could use that. Maybe it’s what he’s been needing all along.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
---
Talking to Sam isn’t bad. Dean plans it carefully — he doesn’t want Sam to hear ghosts and say okay, I’ll pack a bag — but it works out all right. I’m gonna hang around there for a few weeks, Dean tells him. Help out with some repairs, take a little vacation. Give you lovebirds a bit of space. Eileen returns his wink.
Dean’s a little surprised, though, on the day he leaves, to find Cas in the garage waiting for him.
He shifts his duffel warily on his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Cas has been acting — well, not weird, exactly — he’s been acting something since Dean announced his plans. He keeps wandering into rooms and announcing random facts about what makes bird feathers look different colors, or the seasonality of lupine blooms. He even suggested they rewatch Tombstone. Dean’s not ever gonna pass that offer up, but — well. Cas is playing at something, and Dean doesn’t know what it is.
Cas spreads his hands. “I’m going with you. If you’ll have me.”
Dean blinks.
Once again, he can’t find any words to say.
“You didn’t pack,” he finally blurts.
“Dean, I’m an angel. I don’t need to pack anything.”
It’s too early for this. “I’m an angel,” Dean mutters under his breath, tossing his duffel in the trunk and slamming it again; Cas has his hands in his pockets, watching him. His face is serene. Like this is a perfectly normal day, a perfectly normal thing to offer.
“Why?”
Cas frowns politely. “Why what?”
Dean makes a helpless gesture. “Why — this? Why come with me, why all the, you know, why would you want —”
“Oh,” says Cas. “Because I love you.”
Dean gapes.
“The place I most want to be in the world is where you are. If you’d prefer I didn’t come, please tell me. But if you don’t object — I’ll go with you.”
Dean can feel the blush start at the roots of his hair — travel all the way down his body to his toes.
It’s not a bad feeling. It’s a pretty fucking amazing feeling, if he’s being honest. He just doesn’t — he doesn’t know what to do with it.
Except that Cas just told him what to do with it.
“Okay, well. Hop in, I guess. Driver picks the music, though.”
Cas only smiles as he slides into Baby’s shotgun seat. “Of course.”