#i need to have a real human conversation my brain is too full of dean winchester rn i'm on the verge of complete madness | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stratiotis-nth · 3 years

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The few times Cas spoke about his true form, Dean had always imagined some terrifying robed creature with a bazillion heads and rotating rings and fifty giant wings from different animals. He imagined mighty beings that embodied the idea of God’s warriors. Cas once said his true form was size of the Chrysler building, and Dean had had to hide just how impressive the angel was despite looking and acting like a total dork. Cas as Cas was intimidating enough, but Castiel—the Chrysler-sized warrior of divinity—sounded terrifying and majestic all at the same time.

But apparently, Cas had omitted a few details. He had neglected to tell Dean that little bits of his true form lingered with him while he was in human form, some additions that couldn’t be seen but existed with him in another plane of reality.

So imagine Dean’s shock when he’s on a case and accidentally uses the holy fire glasses in his insurance company disguise. He didn’t even realize the difference until Cas joined him and Sam to help.

They were dealing with a Shifter who had been killing old people in a wealthy neighborhood in upstate New York. Cas, a fully functioning angel again, had offered to help when Sam and Dean realized they were up against a Shifter duo instead of a loner.

Sam was out getting grub when Cas appeared in the motel room with a whoosh of wings. Dean knew how much Cas had missed flying, and even he had missed hearing him announce his presence with that characteristic whoosh.

“Hey Cas.” Dean greeted without looking up from the laptop.

“Hello, Dean.” Was the usual response. He flicked his gaze up to Cas briefly, peering over the rim of the glasses he hadn’t bothered taking off. Dean did a double take when he caught a flash of black within the glasses’ lens. Frowning, he pushed the frames up his nose until he could squint through them properly. A sharp intake of breath caught in his throat.

“Dean?”

Cas’ voice floated through his mind but he couldn’t process it. He stared at the Castiel revealed through the lens, abso-fucking-lutely floored.

A pair of black wings, ones Dean had only ever seen the shadow or scorched remains of before, were folded neatly against Cas’ back. As the afternoon sunlight hit the feathers, Dean could see them shimmering and reflecting all the colors of the rainbow subtly. The feathers looked spun of night sky and stardust, light as clouds but dense and powerful was cooling lava. Dean had a really, really strong urge to run his fingers through them. They looked like they’d make his fingers tingle with lightning.

Alongside the wings, the other newly revealed part of Cas was his halo. He had never mentioned one before, so Dean had just assumed halos were just another one of those things crazy Christians made up. But apparently, angels did had halos, because there was a thin ring of glowing light surrounding Cas’ head like a circlet, hovering above his ears and just a few inches away from his hair and forehead. It gleamed an ethereal pale gold, almost white, light. As he looked at it closer, he noticed a few gaps in the ring, like jagged cracks where pieces had fallen away. Were they supposed to be like that?

Dean was so shocked that he wondered how the hell he was even seeing these parts of Cas now. It took him a moment for his sluggish brain to piece together that he must had accidentally taken the holy fire glasses instead of another fake pair.

“Dean? Are you alright?”

He blinked, still taking in the halo and wings, and cleared his throat. Cas was frowning at him in concern, his head tilted adorably to the side. The halo drifted and followed a half second behind his movement.

“Uh—“ a strangled noise escapes Dean’s throat. His fingers itched to dig themselves into those feathers, to trace that halo and try to feel the warmth of light. He swallowed thickly, his throat clicking. The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Are there supposed to be cracks in that thing?”

Cas blinked at him, thoroughly confused. A split second later, his face both flushed and paled at the same time. Dean worried the sudden blood flow would make him pass out, but then he remembered Cas was an angel.

“Those glasses have been burned in holy fire, haven’t they?” He asked, his wings tucking more firmly against his back like he was trying to hide them.

“Uh, uh yeah.” He stammered, wondering if he should say something to ease Cas’ obvious insecurity. “Grabbed ‘em by accident.”

Cas shuffled his feet awkwardly, the light of his halo dimming shyly. He obviously wasn’t going to offer any information unless Dean pressed a little more.

“So?” He managed to sound somewhat casual, even though his heart was beating loudly in his ears. “What’s with the missing pieces?”

“Ah.” Cas rumbled in his low voice. He avoided Dean’s eyes, his chipped halo floating after every movement of his head. “Well, to angels, the halo represents purity and devotion to God. It is the manifestation of each angel’s divinity. When Lucifer rebelled against Heaven, his halo was shattered as a sign of disgrace and he was banished to Hell. Other angels like Gabriel and Anna had a chip broken off because they rejected Heaven and their loyalties were to their own well-being. Angels cannot exist fully if their halos are damaged, but because Gabriel was an archangel and Anna became human, they were exceptions.”

Dean frowned. But Cas had way more than one piece missing and he was still alive and still an angel.

“So how come you’re still around?” He asked, waving a hand at Cas’ cracked halo.

“Because I was created already broken.” The words, delivered in a flat, emotionless tone, still cut through Dean’s heart. That wasn’t true. Cas wasn’t broken. He was just Cas. Perfectly fine the way he was. “As you have heard from many angels and Chuck himself, I came off the line with a crack in my chassis. I was created to be flawed.”

“Cas…” Dean began, trying to find the words to tell him that it wasn’t true, that everything Naomi and Chuck had told him was a lie.

“It’s alright, Dean.” Cas said gently, glancing at him for the first time since the conversation started. “When Jack restored me to my full power I asked to keep the cracks I bear. Not as an punishment.” he added, somehow interpreting the frown flashing across Dean’s face. “but as proof that angels can exist with their flaws and still do good things. That they can still protect humanity, as was their reason for existence.”

Well, when he put it that way, Dean really couldn’t protest. It was very Cas-like of him to not give a single fuck about being perfect and defying everything anyone has ever known by doing it his way.

“But I am sorry.”

That made Dean snap his head up sharply, looking at Cas in surprise.

“For what?” He asked incredulously.

“For forcing you to see me like this.” Cas’ wings spread out momentarily before being tucked tightly against his back again, hiding their magnificence from Dean. He hated that. He hated that Cas thought Dean wouldn’t want to see him like this, one step closer to his true form, to the real Castiel. “I understand it was undoubtedly shocking and unsettling, but if I could hide these parts of myself from those glasses, I would for your sake.”

“No.” Dean snapped vehemently, jumping to his feet and jabbing a finger at Cas. He hated that Cas believed the things he was saying. How could he not be awestruck by him, by his beautiful wings and perfectly flawed halo? “Shut the fuck up, Cas.”

Cas’ face fell even further than before, the corners of his mouth ticking down and his eyes falling downcast. He looked so…rejected. It cut right through Dean’s heart again, and he scrambled to fix it before they fell victim to miscommunication again.

“Cas.” Dean said firmly, ducking down to catch his gaze. Like a moth to light, that piercing blue gaze fixed on green and followed them up. “I ain’t unsettled. Shocked, but in a really good way.”

Cas looked frowned, confused. Dean plowed on.

“Dude, don’t be ashamed of who you are. Your wings and halo…they look awesome, man. Seriously. You look badass.”

Cas’ lips parted in shock. Dean nervously fidgeted with a pen he had forgotten was in his hands, tapping it against his palm as he struggled to find the right words.

“You ain’t broken or flawed—you’re just Cas. My—“

Best friend didn’t cut it anymore. They had gone through too much together to be best friends. Brothers didn’t sit right either. Dean didn’t feel the same things for Cas as he did Sam (it made him shudder in disgust just thinking about his little brother like that). Dean knew what it was like to lose Cas and Sam—Sam, he had lost his family, his blood. Cas, Dean had lost a part of his soul.

“—you’re my—“

Dean wanted—needed—to say the words. But nothing fit, nothing felt right. No word could describe just what Cas was to him.

“—you’re my angel, Cas. And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

Cas just stared at him with another one of those soul searching gazes. Even when he was human, Dean felt he could still see straight through him, searching for deception or lies and every time never finding one.

There was a small, awed smile on Cas’ face, and before Dean could register what was happening, Cas gently cupped the back of his neck and pulled Dean down. Soft, chapped lips pressed briefly against his forehead, warm and sweet and grateful. They were gone a moment later, and so was Cas’ hand.

“Thank you, Dean.” He said softly after a while. “I appreciate it.”

Dean blinked and nodded stiffly. His entire body was shaking, aching to feel that warmth again. “Don’t…yeah, don’t mention it, Cas. I just…you gotta know the truth.”

Cas’ wings were fluffed up a bit, and they twitched against his back like they were itching to spread out. His halo was glowing much brighter than before, matching his smile.

“I have always been honored to be by your side, Dean, but it is nice to hear that you consider me yours.”

There was a lump in his throat that muted his voice. He nodded, shivering when he felt the cool, electrified tingling brush of a feather run down his arm and the warmth of light as Cas’ halo grew brighter.

“Always have. Cas.” He murmured, staring down at the pen clutched between his trembling fingers. He could feel Cas’ smile grow, and the primary feather of his wings brushed against his arm with a little more intent.

“As have I.” His response was so quiet that Dean almost didn’t hear it. But a shiver ran down his spine nonetheless. There was something different in the air, now that there were these confessions in the open. It wasn’t quite like a straightforward declaration that Dean was Cas’ and Cas was Dean’s, but it was pretty damn close. It was just a soft, gentle confirmation of how they had felt about each other since Cas pulled Dean from Hell all those years ago.

The quiet, peaceful moment between them was effectively shattered when they both heard the motel door open and Sam come barging through. They both jumped apart. They might have confessed…something between them…but that didn’t mean they were at all comfortable letting Sam see them in such an intimate moment.

“Uhhh…” Sam came to an abrupt halt as he took in Dean and Cas all but throwing themselves in opposite directions. “did I…?”

“No.” both Dean and Cas said quickly. They faltered and fell silent. Sam glanced between them hesitantly, like they were a bomb about to go off. Dean peeked over at Cas, noticing how his wings were fluffed up almost twice their size, his cheeks burning when he noticed Dean had noticed.

“Riiiight.” Sam said. “Well…there’s uh…been another body. I was gonna grab you and go…?”

“Yeah.” Dean said immediately, straightening up. “Let’s go.”

Cas looked like he wanted to protest—or force Sam to leave so they could deal with twelve years of tension—but Dean pointedly sent a prayer his way.

Tonight. Promise.

Cas’ wings fluffed up even more, his halo’s light shone so brightly it poked Dean’s eyes, and his face was redder than a tomato.

Dean grinned before grabbing his keys.

“See ya at the crime scene, angel.” He said before ducking out of the motel room.

“Is Cas okay?” Sam asked when they were in Baby.

“Oh yeah.” Dean grinned smugly, already looking forward to tonight. “He’s definitely okay.”

He’s got a chipped halo and beautiful wings that had once been burned to bone.

He’s Dean’s angel. He’s perfect.

#this was a lot longer than i thought it would be #but i’m a sucker for cas with a halo and wings #dean would be so floored to see cas like that #supernatural #cas #castiel #destiel #spn #casdean #dean is bi #dean winchester #deancas #love confessions #destiel confession #destiel fandom #destiel fanfic

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curlynerd · 3 years

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Just Say It

Happy gift posting day for the @starrynightdeancas gift exchange! I had two assignees, so I'm posting two fics today! My 2nd gift recipient is @deanwinchesteradjacent! She requested canon-adjacent Destiel with fluff, action, and a happy ending. I hope you like it! <3

Word Count: 7.5K Rating: T Summary: A string of violent deaths at an otherwise charming B&B was all the excuse Dean needed to drag Cas down to Florida for some fun in the sun. Things had been awkward since Cas came back from the Empty and they could finally be together, but Dean was sure that a romantic getaway was the perfect thing to help Cas get out of the training wheels stage of Angel's-First-Romance and start acting like a real couple. Just as soon as they took care of a vengeful spirit. What could possibly go wrong? Notes: Post canon, fix-it fic, oneshot, love confessions, Dean is bad at feelings, case fic, beach fic.

Also read it on AO3!

“Alright, I’m heading out.”

“Did you pack deodorant?”

“Dean…”

“Toothpaste? Mouthwash?”

“...”

“Those fancy hair products? Cuz there’s just. So. Many--”

“Dean! I’ve lived my whole life on the road. I know how to pack a damn dufflebag!”

Dean smirked, unperturbed by Sam’s whining. “Yeah but Eileen is a classy lady. She’s not gonna put up with your usual road stank.”

Sam sighed in annoyance as he readjusted the bag on his shoulder. “I’m not the one who wears his underwear three days in a row, jerk.”

“Better leave that attitude at home, bitch,” Dean said cheerfully. “It’s your anniversary, after all.”

Sam’s mouth twitched into a shy grin despite his best efforts. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be on my best behavior,” he said, letting Dean have one last bit of fun before he left. “You and Cas too. Don’t get into trouble.” He nodded in farewell before he climbed the stairs to the bunker door.

“Oh, and Sammy?”

Sam paused at the top of the stairs and turned around. Almost like he could sense what was coming, his eyebrow twitched in irritation. Dean hucked a box up to the landing, and Sam fumbled to catch it. Dean flashed a shit-eating grin as Sam read the Trojan label and fixed him with a scowl. “Make sure you wrap it before you tap it, Sammy.”

Sam rolled his eyes as he walked out the door.

Dean laughed to himself as he turned back to his laptop, scrolling through news articles looking for a hunt. He was still at it an hour later when Cas came shuffling into the room still in his pajamas, two cups of coffee in hand.

“Mornin’ Sunshine,” Dean crooned cheerfully. Cas’ hair was in wild disarray, and between that and his worn, brown sweatshirt and loose pajama bottoms, he looked more like a bear stumbling out of hibernation than a guy just waking up. “Sam already left.”

Cas set a mug down in front of Dean before slumping down into the chair beside him. “I hope he and Eileen have fun this week,” he mumbled as he hunched over his coffee.

Dean smiled at how adorable Cas looked, all grumpy and sleep-ruffled. He was still an angel...somewhat. He had Grace, if only a little. So close to mortality, Cas often needed mundane human things like sleep and food. He wasn’t particularly thrilled about it. In fact, he was so irritated about the whole thing that Dean hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to invite him to sleep in his room, instead of alone. Dean chewed on his lower lip. Maybe after this case, things would change.

“Are you looking up a case?” Cas asked, tilting toward Dean’s screen.

“Uh...yeah.” With forced casualness, Dean turned the laptop so Cas could read a headline from last year: “Gruesome Death at Bed and Breakfast Leaves Locals Worried.” “Over the past forty years, there’ve been six deaths at this B&B. All either heart attacks or a brain hemorrhage. All without a scratch on ‘em. Always a couple. Always on the same night: this Friday. That sure screams ‘ghost’ to me.”

“Key West?” Cas asked as he scanned the article. “Florida? That’s quite a drive.”

Dean shrugged. His fingers tapped against the tabletop. “It is, but hell, why not? Sam gets the week off with Eileen, why can’t we have a little vacation too?”

Cas narrowed his eyes. Suspicious. He was suspicious. Was a little time off really so bad? “You haven’t taken a vacation the entire time I’ve known you.”

“Yeah, well…” Dean struggled to come up with a good excuse. “That was, ya know. Before.”

“Before,” Cas repeated stiffly.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Before everything.” He gestured around his head. Before Cas told him he loved him and immediately died. Before Dean rescued him from The Empty. Before they wound up in this awkward, stilted Angel’s-First-Romance training wheels relationship Dean found them in.

That seemed to placate Cas. He nodded and took another sip of coffee. “The beach would be nice…”

Dean broke into a grin. “Better than nice! Toes in the sand, drinks with little umbrellas… That’s better than paradise.” He gave Cas’ shoulder a friendly pat. Then--because he could, couldn’t he?--Dean let his hand run along the broad expanse of Cas’ shoulder and gently cup the back of his neck.

This was okay, right? He’d held back on any sort of real PDA because of how uncomfortable Cas would act. And that was okay. He understood. Angels and intimacy...Well, angels just worked differently than humans. And it was all new to Cas! It took him over a decade to say he loved Dean. It would probably take awhile before he was ready to hold hands.

But this wasn’t very much, right? Just a light hand on the back of his neck. This was about as innocent as things got!

Except Cas went stiff under Dean, and Dean took the hint and pulled his hand away as he bit back a sigh. So much for that.

His eyes trailed back to his laptop. Hopefully this getaway would change things, help Cas loosen up and finally see that they could act even a little like a couple now. A romantic beach, warm sunshine, half-naked romps in the water, a cozy and only slightly haunted bed and breakfast…

What could go wrong?

----

Three days and one slightly terrifying highway over the ocean later, Dean and Cas pulled into a parking space for a charming bed and breakfast painted in a lovely pale--

“Lavender?” Dean balked at the decidedly dainty color of the siding. “I know they like their pastels here, but geez…”

“It’s just a paint color,” Cas said as he crossed around to the trunk and started unloading their bags. The duffle full of salt, shotguns, and various iron weapons clanked ominously. He shouldered it carefully so it wouldn’t make so much noise.

“This whole street is like friggin’ Candy Land.” Dean eyeballed the canary yellow house across the street suspiciously as they made their way to the front door.

The inside was clearly the result of a scandalous love affair between a Jimmy Buffet concert and a Hallmark store--All tacky tropical themed furniture and a dizzying array of porcelain figurines.

Dean grinned from ear to ear and elbowed Cas. At Cas’ inquisitive eyebrow, Dean nodded his head to a shelf full of long-haired, sad-eyed blonde angels. Cas rolled his eyes while Dean laughed to himself.

“Hello! Can I help you?” An older woman sat behind a small reception desk, smiling warmly at them in the glow of her ancient computer.

Dean put on his best people-pleasing smile. “Yes you can. Hi, I’m Dean, and this is my, uh…” Dean glanced over to Cas and his eyes crinkled in delight. “Cas. This is my boyfriend, Cas.” Just the word caused a giddy bubble of effervescence to float inside Dean’s chest. After all this time, they were really here. This was real.

Cas offered the receptionist a small, tight smile before turning his studious gaze to the figurines on the wall shelves. The woman furrowed her brow, so Dean charged forward with the conversation before Cas’ awkwardness put her off. If they were going to pry into the case here, they needed her to be friendly with them. “I booked a reservation for this weekend. It--Are you guys still open? It’s kinda quiet in here.” Dean glanced around the empty living space. There weren’t any other cars parked outside either.

The woman waved off his concerns. “Oh yes, it’s just the off season right now. Some weekends are like that.” She spoke a little too quickly as she clicked through her computer. Dean suspected all the news articles about bloody deaths had something to do with it. “Not hard to find your reservation. You’re our only guests tonight.” She grabbed two keys off a hook and held them out for Dean. “You’ll be in room 4, down at the end of the hallway upstairs. It’s the largest one. If you need extra towels or anything, let me know. I’m Susan.”

Sensing they were about to be dismissed, Dean swerved into a distraction. “You know, we’ve been on the road for ages. Do you have any coffee or anything like that? A little wakeup before we hit the beach?”

Susan pushed back from the desk. “Oh of course! I was about to get some for myself, actually. I’ll be right back.”

“Keep an eye out for anything suspicious, Cas,” Dean muttered as Susan disappeared down a hallway. “Anything out of place or really old. You know, haunted stuff.” Cas nodded, and Dean covertly pulled his EMF reader out of his jacket pocket and flicked it on. It was silent. They both made a pass of the room, pretending to look around.

“Here we are!” Susan said brightly, expertly holding three coffee mugs in her hands. Dean jumped a little and hastily put his device away before turning around. “I hope cream and sugar is okay.”

“Any caffeine is fine,” he assured her as he and Cas took their mugs. “So Susan, what is there to do around here? You know, other than what Yelp says. The insider’s scoop.” Dean winked as he took a sip of his coffee.

Susan smiled. “Well, if nightlife is your thing, there are some great spots within walking distance.”

Dean chuckled. “C’mon, Susan. Does this guy look like much of a dancer?” He grinned fondly at Cas as he draped his arm over his shoulders. It was ridiculous how much his stomach fluttered from the small action, but dammit, after all they’d been through to get here, Dean had earned a few butterflies. He squeezed Cas’ shoulder even though Cas didn’t really react. Dean was definitely going to have to clarify that the personal space rule didn’t apply anymore.

“Well, the restaurant down the street also does an excellent brunch,” Susan offered instead.

“Now that’s more our speed.” Maybe if the hunt went well they could actually stay the night, instead of getting the hell out of Dodge before the cops chased them down. Keep their salt and burn quiet and enjoy a nice night in. Dean tried not to get his hopes up for sharing a bed with Cas.

And he did mean sharing a bed. Things were moving so slowly between him and Cas he’d be thrilled just to spoon, nevermind anything else. Dean bit back a sigh as he swept over all of the knick-knacks and decorations, hoping for some sort of clue as to the identity of their ghost. “I’ve gotta say, I love the decor. Is all of this your collection?” Maybe a haunted object? Or a cursed one?

“Most of it.” A faint twinge of wistfulness colored Susan’s words as she looked over the porcelain figurines. “My Marcy liked to collect the angels, but that was years and years ago.”

On a high shelf was a large urn next to an oil painting of a young woman that immediately pinged Dean’s hunter’s instincts. “That’s a lovely painting over there,” he said, catching Cas’ eye meaningfully. Cas turned around to look too.

Susan’s face melted into a quiet, sad smile. “Yes, that’s my Marcy right there. A self-portrait. She was such a talented artist.”

Cas tilted his head. “She was your...wife?” he guessed.

Susan’s face crumpled. “No. No we were never…” She took a deep breath and continued in a steadier tone. “She was my business partner, but I loved her. Very much. And I knew she loved me too. So I suppose you could say we were almost together. Should have been together.” Her lower lip trembled.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what stopped you?” Dean felt bad for pressing her for information that was clearly upsetting, but people’s lives were at stake. Possibly Susan’s own.

Susan curled her hands around her mug, staring into the steaming coffee with a far off look in her eyes. “I was afraid. Of my own feelings. Of opening myself to getting hurt. So I...When Marcy needed me to be honest about how I felt I...I let her down. She got mad...We fought...She ran off. There was an accident, and...Well...” Susan took another deep breath. Her eyes were glassy with tears and heavy with regret. “Today is the anniversary of the day she died.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Dean said, injecting even more sincerity into his words even though he expected as much. Marcy was the best lead so far. Was she attacking people on the anniversary of her death? She was obviously cremated, but perhaps there was something keeping her tied here?

“Not your fault,” she said with the heaviness of one who had heard those words hundreds of times. She shook her head. “You’re not the reason she--” Susan cut herself off and swallowed down her tears. Despite her best efforts, a single tear trailed down her cheek.

“It sounds like you loved her very much,” Cas said, his voice infused with genuine sympathy.

“She was my world. I loved her more than she’ll ever know...” Again Susan fell silent, this time lost in thought.

Then, with a deep, resettling breath, she wiped at her eyes with the edge of her finger and forced a cheerful expression. “But enough of that. You’re my guests. You don’t need to hear all of that! Do you need anything while you get settled in? More towels? Recommendations for restaurants?”

Dean shook his head, “Appreciate it ma’am, but we’ll probably just grab whatever’s convenient around here.”

“Well, would you like to eat here? Usually I don’t serve dinner for guests, but since it’s only the two of you, I can cook up something if you’d like. I honestly wouldn’t mind the company.”

Sensing another opportunity to interview Susan, Dean smiled his very best ‘comforting the bereaved’ smile. “We’d like that very much, Susan. Thank you for offering.” Then, carefully timed almost like an afterthought, he added, “Oh, and what’s the wifi password?”

Upstairs their room was somewhat small but airy. The walls were a crisp, breezy blue, the linens bright white. There was even a gauzy white canopy draped around the four-poster bed. Dean grinned. One bed. Surely that was cause for some optimism about tonight.

“I dunno about you, but I’m gonna sleep like a log tonight,” he said with the most casual tone he could muster as he grabbed the weapons bag off Cas’ shoulder and deposited it on the duvet. “What about you? Think you’ll need a couple z’s?” ‘Please say yes.’

Cas eyed the bed. Something strange flickered across his face. Something heavy, even sad. Dean immediately felt like a jackass for reminding Cas about his weak Grace. “I mean, who knows how you’ll feel tonight,” Dean added hastily. He started digging through his bag for his laptop. “Get some sea air in your lungs, and you might wake right up.”

Cas pursed his lips. “I suppose so,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. He turned away from Dean and started roaming the room, looking over the artwork on the walls and the little beachy decorations on the furniture. He came to a stop.

“This looks like Susan and Marcy,” he said, letting his fingers trail along the frame of a painting over the dresser.

“Yeah?” Dean looked up from his booting laptop. It was an oil painting like the one downstairs, with a young couple in bright dresses making each other laugh in front of a backdrop of a stormy gray ocean. One was undeniably a much younger Susan. Marcy looked the same as she did in the painting downstairs.

Cas frowned a little and pulled his hand back from the frame. He glanced around the ceiling and only relaxed when he saw an air-conditioning vent gently humming nearby. Dean shrugged it off and turned back to his laptop. He set right to work searching through the local newspaper archives and breaking into the coroner’s office servers. Finding their ghost was only a matter of time.

“Got it. Marcy Daniels. Died forty-three years ago tonight.” Dean flipped his laptop around so Cas could read the news article. “Hit by a car. Right outside this house. Died before she even got to the hospital.”

Cas squinted at the screen. The photo attached to the article looked just like the woman in the paintings. “And you think she’s the ghost?”

Dean shrugged. “Seems as good a guess as any. Violent death. Susan said they were fighting right before. Probably something happened between them that left Marcy pissed off enough to stay in the veil.”

Cas nodded. “We should ask her about it.”

“Nah, she’s not gonna let us grill her about her dead partner like that. We’ll strike up a conversation at dinner. That should give us enough time to figure out what’s keeping Marcy here before she attacks tonight.”

Cas deferred to Dean’s hunting experience. “Well then what should we do until then?”

Dean grinned from ear to ear. “What do you think we should do? To the beach!”

---

Dean shut the trunk of the Impala and straightened his back, lifting his face to the breeze blowing in from the sea. He breathed in deeply. “God, smell that salt air…” he said with a wistful smile. When he turned to Cas, the angel was looking at him with fondness, warmth making his blue eyes brighter. Dean’s smile grew, and he lifted up his sunglasses to flash Cas a playful wink. Cas quickly ducked his head and started walking.

Dean bit back a groan as he followed behind him with their beach bag. What was he doing wrong? He was trying to be gentle, to give Cas enough space to adjust to the idea that they were together now on his own. After all of the crap they’d been through together, after so many things keeping them apart, he understood why Cas was struggling. Hell, he’d been squashing down his feelings for so long, Cas probably didn’t know how to let himself have this happiness.

At least, that was what Dean kept telling himself. Deep down, though, he was afraid that Cas’ feelings were changing.

“There’s a good spot,” Dean said, jogging up behind Cas and forcing down his depressing thoughts before they could meet up with his self-loathing and really cause problems. He grabbed Cas’ arm and tugged him toward an unoccupied part of the sand. The weather was a little too temperamental this time of year to attract huge crowds, but there were still plenty of people out enjoying the sunshine.

Cas let himself be led, his flip-flops flapping awkwardly over the sand. Dean laughed a little, even though his footing wasn’t much better. When they’d walked far enough away from the boardwalk, Dean unceremoniously dropped their bag and dug out a large blanket to lay out.

“Perfect,” he declared as he tipped up his sunglasses to survey his work. He plopped down on the blanket and shucked off his shirt. A quick glance up let him catch the way Cas’ eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his expression smoothed over. Dean wiggled his eyebrows at Cas, but he didn’t see because he turned around like a friggin’ Victorian lady in order to pull off his own shirt before he sat down in front of Dean, facing the ocean. Dean’s gaze swept down the broad, muscular expanse of Cas’ back, and he could barely contain the heat in his eyes and in his grin.

Only then did Cas glance over his shoulder and catch Dean’s eye. Dean bit his lip suggestively, his grin widening, but Cas’ cheeks turned lightly pink and turned his head away. He rubbed at the back of his neck. Nervous, huh? Well that was alright. Dean could lighten the mood.

He held up the bottle of sunscreen. “Alright, let’s spackle your back.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Dean,” Cas said, not turning around. His voice sounded even more gruff than usual, which was certainly saying something.

“Nonsense!” Dean was already squirting a healthy dollop of sunscreen in his palm. “You can get sunburned, same as the rest of us.”

Cas sighed heavily. His shoulders twitched, tense, but he didn’t protest when Dean slapped his hand at the middle of his back.

Dean set to work rubbing the cream into Cas’ warm skin. “See? This is nice. It’s like a mini-massage.” He made sure to move slowly, almost caressing him. His stomach fluttered with the faintest whisper of excitement. This was the closest thing he’d gotten to action in months, after all. And Cas’ back was nice. Broad and firm and far more muscular than Dean would have guessed. His heart did a little tapdance at knowing that he was allowed to freely ogle now.

“I like seeing you out of the trenchcoat,” Dean said, now using both hands to stroke up and down Cas’ skin. Cas tensed again. “I mean, you look good under all those layers,” Dean said hastily, afraid that the reminder of his waning Grace was too painful. “When did you get so beefy?” Dean slid his hands up to Cas’ shoulders and then down his thick arms. He squeezed them playfully as he shifted closer, letting his knees bump against him.

He leaned in close so he could almost whisper, “Wish I could see it somewhere other than the beach.”

Cas’ back became hard as marble. He lowered his head. “That’s enough, Dean,” he said softly. His voice trembled with some barely contained emotion Dean didn’t understand.

Disappointment rose up Dean’s throat like bile. “Seriously? I’m almost done!”

Cas twisted around, his face pulled into a scowl. His cheeks were flushed. “Dean! I’m an angel! I don’t need this!”

Dean pulled back. “What? I can’t even put sunscreen on you now?” he demanded.

Cas didn’t have an answer to that. He only glared, his eyes flickering with something Dean couldn’t quite figure out. Pain? Longing? Regret?

Knowing Dean’s penchant for screwing things up all the time, it was almost certainly the latter.

Cas breathed out a long, frustrated breath and rose to his feet. “I’m...going for a walk,” he said. He folded his arms over his bare chest.

“Cas,” Dean pleaded. What had he done wrong? Why was Cas so mad?

Cas shook his head. “Please, Dean.” With one last glance filled with that strange, heartache-inducing emotion, Cas turned and started walking down the beach alone.

Dean stared after him as he left. “What the hell?” he said under his breath. The sting of rejection quietly throbbed in his chest as he turned his gaze to the ocean. What had he done to piss Cas off? Had he really crossed a boundary, or was something else wrong? Cas had been so weird since he’d been back. Shouldn’t he be happy? Hell, telling Dean he loved him was the happiest Cas had ever been, right? That was part of his deal with The Empty!

Did he regret it? Did he change his mind? Maybe Cas really didn’t want to have Dean. Not for real. Maybe that was why Cas never told him how he felt before. He had to have known Dean loved him long before his deal with The Empty came along. Maybe there was a reason Cas hadn’t said anything about it before.

Maybe Cas knew that Dean would screw things up if they got together. Maybe he was trying to pull away from Dean, make it easier to break things off when it all came crashing down.

Dean stewed in his thoughts, his expression dark as he watched the waves. He lost track of time until a pair of children came racing past him, screaming in delight and startling him out of his thoughts. He pulled at his phone to glance at the time. Cas had been gone over half an hour. Way too long. Dean looked down the beach, almost expecting to see Cas trudging back up the beach back to him, but he didn’t see any sign of him. But Cas couldn’t have left left. Dean had the car keys! Quietly cursing, Dean pulled out his phone and dialed Cas’ number.

...And heard a familiar ringtone coming out of their bag.

“Dammit, Cas!” Dean growled as he hung up. He stood up, but he still couldn’t see Cas. Had something happened? What if he’d gone in the water? What if he’d gotten pulled out to sea by a riptide? Despite knowing Cas didn’t even know how to swim, worry dripped ice cold down Dean’s spine, and before he knew it he was walking down the beach along the path Cas had taken.

“Cas!” he called out, but he didn’t see him. Dean started walking faster. He scanned the beach for a familiar dark head of hair and the bright orange swim trunks Dean had picked out for him. “CAS!” He was beginning to fear the worst.

“You lookin’ for someone?” a concerned voice called out. Dean whipped his head around to a small family sitting underneath an umbrella.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, my buddy Cas.” Dean jogged over to them. “You see him walk by? Kinda beefy, kinda dorky. Dark hair, orange trunks, about yea high.” He held his palm flat about eye level.

The woman who spoke nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I saw him walking back toward town, though.” She pointed over her shoulder.

Dean furrowed his brow. Did Cas walk back on his own? Irritation flared in his chest as he forced a cordial smile and thanked the woman before jogging back the way he came. He didn’t see any sign of Cas back at their blanket either.

Dean scowled. Maybe he had walked back. Running off without a word was infuriatingly in-character for him. Dean cursed under his breath as he hastily packed up their things and started stomping up the beach toward the car.

What was even such a big deal? If Cas supposedly loved him so much, was rubbing his back that bad? Dean was trying to give him space, he really was, but the way Cas was acting, it was like he didn’t even like Dean, nevermind love him!

The thought clenched tight around Dean’s heart as he drove back to the bed and breakfast. Maybe he didn’t anymore. Maybe Cas was getting sick of him. Twelve years in each other’s lives, it was bound to happen eventually.

Maybe what angels considered love and what humans considered love was just different.

Dark thoughts still swirled in Dean’s head as he returned to the bed and breakfast and marched up the stairs.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Dean charged into their room, anger burning hot as his glare zeroed in on the angel sitting in a chair. “You can’t just go running off like that! You left your phone behind!”

Cas carefully closed the book he was reading. He was fully clothed again. “It’s not a long walk back here. I assumed you’d know where I’d gone.”

“I was worried sick about you! What if you went in the ocean and something happened?”

Cas narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. You know I can’t swim.”

“You can’t just go stomping off whenever you get mad!”

Cas closed his eyes. “I’m not mad,” he said, though the growl in his voice suggested otherwise.

“Like hell you’re not!” Dean shot back. “So what is it? I can’t touch you now? It’s freakin’ sunscreen, Cas. Is it really that big of a deal?”

Cas’ eyes flew open. “Yes!” he said, deeply pained. “Dean, does it really matter so little to you that you’re okay with just ignoring it?”

Dean was brought up short. “Does what matter?”

“Me!” Cas plastered his hand over his chest. He almost looked like he could cry. “I told you how I felt and you insist on acting like nothing happened!”

Dean blinked. “What? That’s...that’s not true, Cas!”

“Dean! You didn’t say anything! Not once since you brought me back, have you said anything about the fact that I love you! And you may think that by ignoring it and trying to force things back the way they were before that you can lock up that Pandora’s Box again, but you can’t! I can’t. I can’t…”

Dean took a step forward, his expression darkening with confusion. “Cas, what’re you talking about?” He didn’t understand. Why did Cas look so hurt? So heartbroken? Cas loved him. Dean loved Cas. So why wasn’t he happy? What had Dean done wrong? “Cas, I--”

Cold mist curled up from Dean’s mouth.

They both went tense and still as they noticed just how cold the room had gotten. The lamp on the bedside table flickered.

“Shit,” Dean muttered under his breath. His eyes darted to the open dufflebag on their bed with all of their weapons.

He made a move for it, but a figure flickered into being in front of him. She was wearing a torn, bloody sundress. Her long, straw-colored hair was plastered to the half of her gaunt face where it was smashed in, blood staining it crimson. The ghost took a step toward Dean. Thick, dark blood dripped from her head but never reached the floor.

“Marcy,” Dean breathed. Guess she didn’t need to wait for nightfall after all.

“Coward,” the ghost menaced as she took another step closer. Dean carefully backed up. “Can’t even say it. Even when you’re hurting him. Coward!”

Dean’s eyes flickered to Cas, who was edging toward their weapons bag. He tried to make the movement quick, but the ghost noticed. With a vicious growl she flung out her hand and Cas went flying into the far wall.

“Don’t worry,” the ghost said to Cas, and the venom in her voice dropped into twisted sympathy. “I’ll take your pain away soon.”

Cas struggled to his feet as the ghost rounded on Dean again. Her outstretched hand aimed directly at Dean’s head, fingers curled into a wicked claw. But before she could touch him, Cas made another attempt at the duffle. She shrieked in fury and sent it spinning through the air toward the window. A single iron poker tumbled out of the open zipper as it flipped over and smashed against the glass, shattering it. The bag tumbled to the ground below.

Cas lurched for the poker. “Dean!” he called as he tossed it through the air, directly through the ghost. She howled and dissipated into smoke while Dean barely managed to close his fingers around the weapon. Cas and Dean stood back to back as they circled the room, Dean holding the iron poker at the ready.

“Salt,” Dean barked. “We need salt!” Except all of theirs was now two stories below. Dean silently cursed. “The kitchen! Go! I’m right behind you!”

Cas nodded and made for the door. The lights were flickering again. He and Dean narrowly made it into the hallway when their bedroom door slammed shut behind them. They raced for the stairs and nearly collided with Susan.

“Cas, Dean, what’s going on?” Her eyes were panicked, taking in the cut on Cas’ temple and the iron poker in Dean’s grip. Mist followed her words out of her mouth.

“Look out!” Dean reached for Susan, but he was flung backward by an invisible force. Marcy flickered into existence over him again. “Salt, Susan! We need salt!” he cried out before the ghost clamped its cold hand around his throat. Dean scrambled from his poker, but it had fallen just out of reach. His other hand grappled with Marcy’s, trying to pull it away.

He couldn’t see with the ghost pinning him down, but he was pretty sure he heard Susan’s footsteps racing away. Good. Even if she didn’t come back, at least she was somewhere safer. Black dots started to swim in Dean’s vision.

“Hey! Marcy!” A ceramic angel went flying through the air and smashed into a framed photo on the wall next to them, shattering the glass. Marcy snarled and whipped her head around. Her grip on Dean’s neck loosened a little, and Dean sucked in as many painful gasps as he could get.

“This is what you’re about, huh?” Cas goaded. He stood next to an accent table full of figurines, another ceramic angel in his hand, fat load of good that would do against a ghost. “Exacting revenge against shitty lovers?” Dean stretched his arm until his muscles strained. He could barely feel the length of the iron rod brush against his fingertips. If Cas could keep stalling for just a little longer... “I think anger has clouded your judgement.” Cas’ lips twisted into a bitter smirk. “You have no reason to attack Dean. Can’t you tell? He doesn’t love me.”

The statement caught Dean completely off-guard. His hand stilled as he gaped at Cas. “What?” he rasped around the ghostly hand on his throat. Didn’t love him!?

The ghost growled at Cas. She raised her arm as if to psychically toss him toward the stairway, but right at that moment, Susan barreled up the stairs, a blue canister of salt in her hand.

“I have the salt!” she said, and with panic and desperation in her eyes she blindly flung the open canister at Dean and the ghost. Salt flung in a wide arc and rained down on Marcy, who screamed and disappeared instantly.

Dean rolled onto his side, coughing weakly as he grabbed onto the iron poker and clutched it against his chest. Cas ran to him, only stopping to grab the canister of salt. He hastily drew a circle around them, draining the last of the salt on their protection ring. “Susan, get in the circle!” he commanded as he knelt beside Dean.

“You don’t think I love you?” Dean choked out between gasps for air. His head was spinning. Cas’ hand on his shoulder helped a lot, but when Dean asked his question Cas quickly yanked it away. “How could you think that?” he said, genuinely confused.

“What’s going on? Why did that...that thing look like my Marcy?!” Susan nearly flung herself into the circle with them. She clutched at her chest, casting her terrified gaze around the room.

“Her ghost,” Cas said, though he didn’t take his eyes off Dean. His brow furrowed. “Dean, you haven’t--”

“Ghost?!” Susan screeched. “Then what the hell are we doing standing here?!”

“Salt repels ghosts,” Cas replied with way more patience than Dean would have had. “She can’t come into the circle.”

“What’s going on?” Susan’s eyes went huge, her face going pale. “She...She killed those people last year, didn’t she? How do we stop her?”

“Usually burn her remains, if anything is left,” Cas said, “but she was cremated, wasn’t she? So something else is tethering her here. Perhaps a locket? Something she cherishes.”

Susan frowned, panicked eyes darting around in front of her as she mulled it over. “Her painting,” she said with a gasp. “The one in your room. She finished it right before our argument! Right before she ran out into the street and was hit by the car. It was precious to her. She put her everything into it, tried to use it to confess her love for me, and I...I was too much of a coward to say it back. That’s why we fought.”

Cas and Dean’s eyes met, and they both nodded. Dean grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, poker still clutched to his chest. “Susan, stay here. Whatever happens, don’t leave the circle. Cas, I’ll keep her busy. You burn the painting.”

As one unit Cas and Dean left the salt circle.

Immediately the hallway burst into chaos. Doors slammed shut everywhere. The knick-knacks and travel guides on the accent table went flying through the air. The lights flickered until their bulbs burst, leaving only the light of the window at the far end to help them see.

They ran.

“You don’t think I love you?” Dean demanded, because a deadly ghost hunt seemed as good a time as any to have this conversation. Some things were too damn important to wait for downtime.

“Because you don’t!” Cas snapped. He threw himself at the shut door of their room, but it was supernaturally sealed. He grunted and tried again. Marcy appeared at his side, a ghostly hand reaching for his chest, a snarl on her lips.

“Cas, of course I love you, you idiot!” Dean swung at Marcy, forcing her to disappear again. Cas slammed himself against the unmoving door. “How could you think I don’t?”

“Dean, I died--” Cas slammed into the door again. His eyes glowed faintly with his weakened Grace. “Telling you how I felt. And you said--” Another crash; the door cracked ominously. “Nothing about it since I’ve been back!”

Marcy flickered into being next to them again. Dean knocked her away with the poker.

“I thought you knew! I thought you didn’t love me and that’s why you never said anything!”

“I told you!” With one final crash, Cas burst through the door and into the room, Dean hot on his heels. They ran for the dresser. “I told you the one thing I wanted, I couldn’t have! That thing was you, Dean!” Cas yanked the painting off the wall and threw it on the ground, shattering its glass and exposing the paper.

Marcy screamed in fury and appeared in front of him. She flung him at the dresser just as Dean dispersed her with a forceful swing. He flipped the poker in his hand, readying himself to strike again while Cas scrambled to his feet, lighter freed from his pocket and held at the ready.

“Because of the Empty!” Dean insisted. Marcy’s form materialized again, and Dean raised his weapon as she approached. “You couldn’t have me because of the deal with the Empty!”

Cas fumbled with the lighter. “I can’t have you because. You. Don’t. Love me!” It finally lit. Cas threw it onto the painting, sending it up in flames.

Marcy howled in agony as her body sparked and burned. She raised her head skyward as if to escape from the rising flames, but in a flash of heat and bright orange light, she was gone, and Cas and Dean were left standing alone in the room.

They stared at each other in the sudden, violent silence. Cas’ face was a mask of frustration and pain.

“Dean, I’ve been back for months. Months. And you have said nothing about how you feel. Do not lie to me now because you feel sorry for me.” With one last heartbroken glare, Cas stomped out of the room, leaving Dean behind to stamp out the flaming remains of the painting.

Once Dean didn’t need to worry about burning the house down, he went looking for Cas. He found him outside, loading up their scattered weapons into the trunk of the Impala.

He looked shattered. His face was crumpled with pain, his eyes dull, deep furrows in his brow. It brought Dean up short. Guilt welled up so intense that Dean almost couldn’t say anything at all. Except, well, that had gotten him into this situation in the first place.

“I thought you knew,” Dean called across the distance between them. Cas stopped and turned to look at him. The bitterness in his eyes made Dean’s stomach churn. “I thought you knew,” he said again. He took a step toward Cas. “For years I thought you knew. But, you know, you’re an angel. I thought you didn’t...I thought you couldn’t…” He trailed off. Cas’ forehead was furrowed in confusion, but he was at least listening, so Dean swallowed down his discomfort and barreled forward. “I thought angels couldn’t fall in love. Except...then you died telling me you did. Telling me that the reason you couldn’t even tell me how you felt was because being happy would trigger your deal and…” He shrugged.

“You thought I was deliberately keeping us apart?”

“Because if you told me you felt the same, then we’d be together and you’d be happy and you’d die.”

The bitterness had faded from Cas’ eyes, replaced with something that Dean was loath to acknowledge looked a little bit like pity mixed with profound frustration. “So when I came back, you thought there wasn’t anything left to talk about?”

Dean scratched the back of his neck and took another step forward. “Yeah well…What else was there to say? You said you, you know, loved me. And I thought you knew that I, you know…” He trailed off.

“Dean.” Dean had never heard Cas sound so pained just saying his name. “You.” Cas scrubbed at his face. His mouth twitched as he struggled to find words for all the ways Dean had screwed up. Was continuing to screw up.

“The hoops that you jump through to avoid talking about your feelings astound me,” Cas finally said. He dropped his hand with a sigh of defeat, and Dean’s heart sank. This was it. The death rattles of a relationship that hadn’t even really started. Dean never had what he truly wanted, and he never would.

Dean ducked his head, unable to look Cas in the eye. “Right. Yeah. That’s me, alright.” He swallowed around the hard lump in his throat. The long drive back to Kansas was going to be awful.

“Say it,” Cas said softly. His words were a command, but when Dean looked up in surprise, his eyes were pleading. “Please,” he breathed, almost like he didn’t deserve to even ask, and something inside Dean cracked.

“I love you, Cas.” One step, two steps, he crossed the distance between them and threw his arms around Cas’ shoulders, clinging to him the way he wished he could have before the Empty took Cas away. “It’s you, Cas. It can only be you. It’s only been you for years. I promise.”

Cas’ next breath stuttered in his lungs. His arms wound tightly around Dean, desperate. “Dean,” he sighed, this time like a prayer.

“I’m right here, buddy.” Dean held him tightly, the way he should have when he first got Cas back from the Empty. The way Dean wanted to all these months when he thought...Well, when he was an idiot. “You can have me, you know. You already have me.”

Cas pulled back enough to look Dean in the eye. His eyes were glassy. Dean’s didn’t exactly feel dry either. ‘I wonder if I can kiss him,’ Dean thought, milliseconds before Cas did just that.

Cas’ lips were warm against his own, and Dean gasped softly as his hand wound through Cas’ thick hair to cradle the back of his head. His kiss was eager, if not clumsy, and Dean smiled a little as he let Cas take the lead anyway. When they finally pulled apart, Cas’ normally pale lips were flushed pink, and Dean’s soft smile morphed into a huge, affectionate grin.

“Hey,” Dean said, his voice surprisingly husky after a largely innocent kiss.

Cas smiled back. “Hello, Dean,” he said, and Dean couldn’t help it. He laughed. God, how he loved this angel.

“So whadya say, Cas?” Dean said when his laughter quieted. “Ready to get the hell outta Dodge?”

Cas’ hands slid down Dean’s back until they were resting on his hips. “Actually…” His gaze turned wistfully in the direction of the distant beach. “I had a different idea.”

---

“You sure this is okay, Cas?”

“Dean…”

“Cuz I mean, I want to respect your boundaries.”

“Dean!”

“And I totally understand if I’m crossing a line here.”

Cas twisted around and gave Dean and his closed bottle of sunscreen a baleful look. Dean couldn’t help but laugh. “If I get sunburned, you can get your own room tonight.”

“You’re probably not even going to sleep anyway,” Dean shot back.

“I’ll sleep just to spite you.” Cas scowled, but Dean could see the corners of his lips twitching playfully. With a rush of affection, Dean shifted so that Cas’ bare back was pressed against his chest and Dean could rest his chin on Cas’ shoulder. Cas went stiff against his body, but it only lasted a second before he practically melted into Dean’s hold. Dean wrapped his arms around him as he watched the waves.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dean said with a sigh.

“Yes,” Cas breathed, but he wasn’t looking at the sea.

Heat rushed to Dean’s cheeks. He cleared his throat and kept his gaze solidly on the ocean. “You’re such a sap,” he grumbled weakly.

“You’ll get used to it.” Dean could see Cas’ smirk in the corner of his eye. Dean tightened his embrace.

“I dunno if I ever will,” he said quietly, a soft smile on his lips as he finally got to hold his angel.

#starrynightdeancas gift exchange #userstarry #deanwinchesteradjacent #destiel #deancas #destiel fanfic #deancas fanfic #destiel fanfiction #deancas fanfiction #supernatural #spn #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #castiel #katie writes things #long post

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ialwayscomewhenyoucall · 3 years

Text

Every Drop of Grace

Endverse destiel

Rating: on the border between M and E (I’m over cautious, probably most people would say M)

About 3k

“Do you ever wish we could have something...normal?” Dean’s voice falls into the quiet night, a stone falling into a once-still pond.

Cas can’t hold back his snort. “Dean. You grew up hunting monsters. I’m a fallen angel. There was never going to be anything ‘normal’ about either of us.” Dean huffs in response, burying his face deeper into the hollow of Cas’s neck. “It also doesn’t help that our relationship–if that’s what you want to call it–began after the end of the world.”

“The world didn’t end,” Dean protests weakly. “It’s still here. It’s just…”

“Right,” Cas says, giving in to the urge to roll his eyes–it helps that Dean is behind him and can’t actually see his eyes. “The world is still here. We even have this tiny bit that’s almost safe.”

Dean doesn’t argue, though Cas can feel how much he wants to. Cas idly wonders if Dean ever argued a monster to death, but he doesn’t voice the thought. He doesn’t want Dean to leave. He smirks into the darkness, though. He can absolutely imagine a cocky, 13 year old version of Dean facing down a werewolf. “You’re doing it wrong!” shouts the smaller, higher-voiced Dean. “You need to lull me into complacency, then strike. No wonder you’ve been caught by a kid.

Cas chuckles softly at the made up–but completely plausible–memory. At Dean’s questioning hum, Cas skips his imaginings and brings the conversation back to where they started. “Considering the chaos all around us, I’d say what we have is amazing, Dean.” Having you at all is amazing, he does not say.

Dean smiles against Cas’s skin.

There is much Cas misses about being an angel–healing, flying, super-strength, not being so damned fragile–but on the opposite side, there are so many things that make the Fall worthwhile. He’d touched Dean when he was still an angel, and it had been nice enough. Better than nice even; there’d been something special about touching Dean from the first time he’d held the hunter’s broken soul in hell. But in this his human senses are far superior. The touch of Dean’s lips on the soft skin between Cas’s shoulder blades makes his heart race, his breathing quicken. Dean laughs, not more than a soft breath, and Cas’s stomach flips at the heat across his skin. He’s getting hard, just from a few small sensations.

Yes, the Fall was worthwhile. Even if they’re doomed, he wouldn’t trade this for all the Grace ever created.

Dean goes on, most likely unaware of Cas’s growing arousal. Cas focuses on Dean’s voice and on keeping his own breathing as even as possible, and soon he’s nearly as lost in Dean’s memories as Dean himself.

“I always tried to find fun stuff for Sammy, growing up.” Dean’s voice catches a little on his brother’s name, but he pushes through. “Most of the things I did pissed Dad off, but I didn’t let him stop me. The kid had to have something good in his horror of a childhood. Little things: a bag of marshmallows to roast over a campfire, a Monopoly game we could play in motel rooms, a baseball cap I knew he wanted. I found a pair of roller skates in his size once; I think he was about eleven. Man, that was a mess. Dumb kid took off like he knew just what he was doing and two yards later fell flat on his face. Dad put four stitches over his left eye and lectured him the whole time about what if that rock hit your eye instead of your forehead, blah blah blah. Sammy took it like a champ, didn’t flinch once, and as soon as Dad was gone Sammy put the skates right back on and took off again. And that time he didn’t fall. Well, he did, but not right away, and not so he needed stitches.”

Cas can tell Dean is working up to something, even if it all just seems like rambling. Dean is a roadmap, and sometimes Cas can follow. “A few months before I turned 16 I stole Dad’s car for a couple hours and took Sammy to a drive-in. You ever…?” Dean answers his own question before Cas has the chance to even shake his head. “Nah, you weren’t much of a movie-goer back in your halo days. At a drive-in you sit in your car to watch a movie–outside, at night. You park by a little speaker that pipes the sound right to you, and the screen is gigantic, big as...well, I don’t even know, it’s been too long, but trust me, it’s big. You look out the front of the car and all you see is the movie. You’ve got the sound filling up the car and the movie filling up your eyes and it’s like you and whoever you’re sitting with are in your own little world, whatever make-believe world the actors and all the rest made for you to live in. For a few hours, anyway.”

Dean’s voice is rough, almost raw. “That’s what we have, Cas. A few hours in a bubble full of make-believe, until the bubble pops and it’s the end of the world again.”

Cas wants to scream, to deny every word, to tell Dean it isn’t make-believe, it isn’t, and he wants to spend every minute from now until they fall to dust proving it, but instead he hears his traitorous mouth whisper, “I know.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says, and Cas isn’t sure which of them Dean is trying to comfort. “It’s okay. The pretending, the bubble–it’s enough.”

It isn’t. Cas wants it all, wants every bit of Dean. His smiles and his glares, his laughs and his curses, his happy chatter and his incoherent tears. He wants to be fucked into the mattress and then hold Dean in his arms until the sun comes up, to have Dean stay all night instead of slinking away in the darkness.

It isn’t enough. The coffee’s been gone for awhile, but he wants to make Dean tea in the mornings, good strong tea to bring a little of the sparkle back to his green eyes. He wants to go with him on foraging runs, venturing out of their little corner of the world to find supplies to last them just a little bit longer. He wants to have Dean’s back, to protect him, to keep him safe. He doesn’t have his mojo anymore, but he still has his blade, and he’s had millenia of practice to hone his skills.

Cas doesn’t want only darkness, grasping and clutching at each other when the rest of the world sleeps. He wants to give Dean every kind of pleasure, and maybe a little bit of peace. As a fallen angel, Cas doesn’t think he gets to go to heaven, but he doesn’t mind. He has here, he has now.

So this little bubble of half-truths and fairy tales…

It’s not enough.

Cas’s eyes begin to sting. “Fuck.” The word is mostly air, barely a sound at all, but of course Dean hears. Because Dean can see through Cas’s pretences too. That’s how these things work.

“Cas?”

“It’s nothing,” Cas says, but Dean sees through that too, maneuvering them both so they’re face to face on the narrow bed. Cas closes his eyes, willing the tears to stop before they can properly begin. He hates to cry, hates to have his feelings fly so far out of his control that they stream down his face in the form of wet, salty tears.

“It’s nothing,” he says again, when he trusts that his voice won’t give him away. Then, grasping at the first thought that passes through his head, he says, “I just don’t like when the bubble pops.”

The lines around Dean’s eyes soften. He presses a kiss to Cas’s forehead and says, “We’ve still got a few hours. I’m not going anywhere.” His yet is unspoken but Cas hears it anyway.

Dean’s got one hand holding the side of Cas’s face, fingers threaded into his hair, the other resting lightly on his hip. Their legs are tangled together, and when Dean moves in to kiss Cas again their hips move together and Cas can’t take it anymore. There is so much skin, it feels like skin for miles, but also like he can feel every individual cell, every molecule of Dean’s breath, every miniscule drop of sweat…

“Dean,” Cas groans, because it’s too much, his brain is going to overload. It doesn’t matter that they had sex not long ago–Cas needs more, needs to be closer. “Dean.” It’s almost a prayer. “Please.”

And Dean is there, even before he calls, pushing him onto his back. Dean kisses Cas, hungry, and Cas is happy–eager–to be devoured. He’s got his arms wrapped around Dean, clawing at his back, trying to pull them closer together. There’s a part of his brain screaming that Dean thinks this is all pretend, so maybe if Cas can get them close enough together, if he can somehow press the truth into Dean’s skin, then maybe Dean will understand.

But then Dean thrusts his cock (hard, so hard, and all for him) against Cas’s, and he stops thinking and just feels.

Cas throws his head back and Dean nips at his throat; Cas hisses and claws at Dean’s back again. There’s a growl coming from deep in Dean’s chest, but Cas can feel the smile against his skin. They both like the small shocks of pain–reminders of life.

Holding himself up on one forearm, Dean reaches between them, wrapping his strong, calloused fingers around both their cocks. A moan escapes Cas’s lips, and Dean chuckles softly. “Do you remember the first time we did this?” He’s looking deep into Cas’s eyes, and not for the first time Cas suspects he sees a bit of faerie in the emerald depths; enchanting, beautiful, tricksome, and dangerous. He knows there’s nothing to the thought; he knit Dean back together molecule by molecule, saw every strand of his DNA.

Dean twists his hand in a particularly skillful way and Cas is pulled back to the present. Their first time. Yes, Cas remembers. How could he forget?

“Summer sun,” Cas manages, in between gasping breaths. “Your freckles…”

“My freckles?” Dean laughs. “That’s what you remember?”

“I might be only human now, Dean Winchester, but I remember–” He gasps as Dean’s palm brushes against a particularly sensitive spot– “I remember every second of that afternoon with perfect–” Another shuddering gasp– “Perfect clarity.”

Dean’s hand stutters to a stop, and when Cas sees the look in Dean’s eyes something in his stomach twists. Don’t be too real don’t be too real shouts a voice inside his head, clearly battling with the part of him that wants Dean to know everything.

I’m a mess, he thinks.

To Dean he says in a low, broken voice, “I was leaning against the trunk of a tree, looking up at the sun shining through the leaves. It occurred to me that I’d never spent any time looking at trees, or leaves, or much of anything at all while I was an angel. I did what I was told. Didn’t even take time to look around and enjoy the view.”

Dean’s hand starts to move again. For a moment Cas’s eyelids flutter closed, his eyes rolling upwards in pure pleasure, but then he continues, concentrating on speaking slowly and carefully and without breaking. He almost succeeds.

“I hadn’t been human long. A month? Five weeks? Not long enough to get used to human senses. So when you walked up and the sun shone down on your face, your freckles standing out against your pale skin… And then you put your hand–” The memory of Dean’s hand reaching out is too much and he has to stop to breathe, to gain control, because he doesn’t want to come yet. The story isn’t over. “You put your hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Hey Cas.’”

That had been it. Just a touch, some freckles, and his name on Dean’s lips.

“There was something in your eyes,” Dean says, taking over the narrative. “I hadn’t meant to kiss you. But you looked...kissable. Blue eyes wide and…” He gives his head a quick shake. “I don’t know what it was. But as soon as our lips touched I knew it was the right thing to do. Knew I shouldn’t have waited so long to do it.” At this Cas raises his head up just enough to slot their lips together. It’s an electric current, sharp and warm, just like it always is.

It’s home.

“And then you pushed me up against my cabin wall.”

They’re both breathing heavy now, each of them close to their release but trying to hold on.

“It was the closest wall I could find,” Dean says, a little defensive, a little embarrassed. “And it was a little more hidden than the tree we started out against.”

If Cas had the breath to spare he’d laugh. He lets out a puff of air instead, and Dean’s eyes light up in response. “Yeah,” Cas says, teasing. “Sun shining down on us, completely visible from three sides, only blocked by the cabin. Couldn’t be bothered to–”

Dean stops him with a kiss. Cas doesn’t mind. Cas’s mind is full of lips and skin and hands and sparks and pleasure that is building and building and threatening to heave him overboard–

Cas is on the edge, barely hanging on, when Dean stops.

The stillness is both total and false. Neither of them moves, almost as if they are frozen in time, and there is no breath of wind coming through the open window, no branches scratching at the roof. But there are two hearts pounding, two men gasping for breath, and the whispers of a thousand words not being said.

Cas refuses to be the first one to speak. He knows if he opens his mouth, he’ll never stop.

It feels like an eternity has passed–though it’s probably only been ten or fifteen seconds, Cas’s sense of time has been skewed since his Fall–when Dean breaks the silence.

“What do you want, Cas?”

“Everything.”

Cas tells the truth, the real truth, before he can think, and for a moment he wishes he could somehow call the word back, erase it from history, go back to their bubble of make-believe. Dean would probably let him brush it off. He could call it sex induced lunacy. It’s probably even true.

But no. No. He’s fucking tired of pretend, of half-truths, of bedtime stories. This isn’t enough. He means it, he wants everything.

Dean is looking into his eyes, searching for something. Cas can’t read his expression, he’s guarding his thoughts too closely.

It hurts, having Dean hide from him. They’re naked and in each other’s arms, and Dean’s…

Well, really they’re both hiding. They’ve been hiding from the beginning.

Shit.

There’s a burning behind Cas’s eyes again, but this time he can’t blink the tears away. When the first tear rolls down Cas’s face Dean pulls back, a fraction of an inch, in surprise. His thumb wipes away the tear.

“Cas?”

“It’s not enough,” Cas says. “I can’t do this anymore, Dean. I meant what I said, I want everything. All of it. I want to spend the night with you and wake up with you in the morning. I want to kiss you in the daytime, with the sun on your freckles. Are you ashamed of me? The camp screwup, the broken angel? Because people talk, Dean. Everyone knows you come here, and they know what we do, and they don’t care. The world is falling apart. There are bigger things to worry about. There are bigger things for us, too, but right now all that matters is I can’t hide anymore. I love you, Dean. I think...no. I know I always have. And I don’t want to waste another second hiding in the dark.”

And Dean just looks at him. Once upon a time Cas put Dean together, molecule by molecule. Saw every bit of him. That’s how Cas feels now. Examined. Seen.

Known.

It should be horrifying, but it’s Dean, so Cas just looks back, waiting. He doesn’t even wipe away the tears that keep falling despite his best efforts to blink the damned things back.

The silence goes on so long Cas is sure Dean is going to get up and walk away. It’s okay, he tells himself. I want more, I want everything, but to love...that will never end. It will hurt, but I’ll still love him. No matter–

And then Dean is kissing him. It’s not heated, or frantic; it’s a soft, gentle kiss and makes Cas feel wrapped in love. They both smile, their foreheads pressed together. “Wish you’d said something sooner, Cas.”

“Didn’t want to push you away.”

Dean pulls back a little. “That’s...well, yeah, that’s…”

Smile widening, Cas says, “We’ll work it out.”

In what Cas supposes is an answer, Dean kisses him. A bit more playful this time, he even bites at Cas’s lower lip. Cas can’t hold back his moan. The feel of teeth rasping against his skin…it’s almost too much.

And then Dean’s hand starts moving again, tugging and twisting at their dicks. Cas is almost startled, he’d been so caught up in his confession of– but now isn’t the time, he’s groaning into Dean’s mouth and he thinks there might be words but his brain isn’t quite connected to the rest of his body at the moment. All he knows is good and Dean and so much love and skin and when Dean murmurs Cas’s name it’s too much for him and he spills his seed between them. Dean chases after, a punched out sound falling from his lips.

They lie together, still, their come sticky and drying between them. Somewhere far off in the camp a door clatters shut.

“I wish–” Dean starts.

“I know,” Cas interrupts. But it’s not the time to dwell on what might have been.

Dean shifts them into a more comfortable position. “Okay.”

“We should–”

“No.” This time it’s Dean interrupting. “Not yet. We can clean up in a few minutes. Right now I just want to hold you.”

Tucking his face against Dean’s chest, Cas murmurs, “I can’t say no to that.”

Dean somehow pulls Cas closer, and Cas’s skin sings. Worth every feather, he thinks. Every drop of Grace.

For @bend-me-shape-me ‘s Dean/Cas summer prompts!

Week 2 (drive-in cinema) and week 3 (I can still recall our last summer)

I hit week 3 kinda sideways…but it works!

#lirael writes #deancassummerprompts21 #endverse destiel #love confessions #angst with a happy ending #this makes me happy

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lazywonderlvnd · 4 years

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this is a tiny soft birthday piece for @l0vegl0wsinthedark -- you deserve way more than u think u do my angel and i hope this lifts ur spirits just enough to enjoy ur day like u should (and while i’m finishing a whole ass fic for you) happy birthday ilysm ❤️❤️❤️

includes: lots of weed smoking, kissing boys, and a room full of gryffindors and slytherins getting along

The chair is definitely made for one person, but that hasn’t stopped Draco from making himself comfortable on Harry’s lap in an entitled manner reminiscent of Crookshanks. In fact Crookshanks, in Harry’s opinion, looks a bit annoyed at the stolen bit of real estate. He’s contented himself with Ron’s lap but he’s watching Draco with an almost human expression of contempt.

There’s a layer of smoke sitting stagnant at about head height, like a potent cloud, that Harry had noticed five minutes ago and can’t unsee now. Had they really smoked that much?

He looks around the room: at Seamus, who is speaking rapidly and with extravagant hand gestures to Blaise in an Irish accent so thick Harry can make out only one in five words; at Hermione, with one of the two circulating joints in hand, laughing with tears in her eyes at something Ginny’s just said; at Luna, holding the other and staring peacefully off into space, completely unaware of Pansy sneaking glances at her. Yes, perhaps they had smoked that much. Goyle looks utterly blazed too, his eyes bloodshot and slitted, fingers positively caked with cheese dust from a bag of crisps.

Bringing his focus back round to Draco on his lap — who is, from his position, engaged in conversation with Dean — Harry gives a great yawn and shifts a bit, trying to relieve the slight tingling in his right leg. Draco readjusts himself without missing a beat, moving some of his weight around to Harry’s other thigh and continuing uninterrupted in his spiel about … well, Harry’s not sure, really. He thinks it’s something about some artist or another, Draco’s current obsession.

“Harry!”

He turns, blinking, to see Hermione holding the joint towards him and shaking it. The ash falls off and lands on the carpet.

“Oh — oops,” she giggles. “Sorry. I said your name a million times. Here, take it, it’s yours.”

He leans over the arm of the chair to reach out as far as he can while being weighed down with Draco, stretching towards her on the sofa, and just manages to snag it with his fingertips. She pulls out her wand and cleans the ash, then turns back to Ginny.

Harry drops his head back and takes a hit, pulling the smoke into his lungs, holding it there, and then blowing it out towards the ceiling. He watches with fascination as it joins seamlessly with the larger cloud. He’s become completely neutralised to the smell of the weed but he keeps getting whiffs of Draco’s shampoo, a brand new one he keeps raving about that’s supposed to work all kinds of wonders on his scalp and hair follicles. All Harry really gives a shit about, though, is that Draco’s smelled like coconut lately, which he very much likes.

He lifts his head and takes another hit, but this time he brings his mouth close to Draco’s ear and blows the smoke into it, causing him to cringe away, startled, while Dean starts laughing.

“You’re so fucking annoying when you’re high,” says Draco, trying for scolding except that his eyes are bright and he can’t quite keep a smile off his face. “Give me that.” He snatches the joint from Harry and brings it to his lips, letting the smoke drift out through his nose and looking like the world’s loveliest and smallest dragon. He must see the way Harry’s looking at him because after he takes his second hit he leans down with a coy grin and Harry meets him halfway in a kiss so Draco can breathe the smoke into his mouth. His tongue follows shortly after and Harry loves the way he can taste the weed on it, earthy and bittersweet.

He loses himself in it quickly, his hazy, sluggish brain happily forgetting the presence of eight or nine of their friends around them as he drinks his fill. All that’s real or matters is the warm, solid weight of Draco in his lap, the smell of weed and coconut, his soft lips and wet tongue and the gentle fingers on his jaw, stroking lightly. His own hand, the one not draped behind Draco’s back, finds his hip and snakes beneath his shirt, just enough to graze warm skin. Draco smiles against his mouth and hums into the kiss before pulling away and trailing his lips towards Harry’s ear.

“I’d settle down if I were you,” he says softly, his breath tickling Harry’s neck. It’s only then that Harry realises he’s got a semi that’s beginning to dig into Draco’s arse and he lets out a quiet laugh. Just to be cheeky, he brings his lips to Draco’s jaw and kisses down his neck, grinning when he feels Draco shiver.

“But I’m enjoying myself so much,” he whispers, hand sliding from Draco’s hip to his lap, where he squeezes over his half-hard cock, causing him to squirm and gasp in surprise. He grabs Harry’s hand and pulls it away with pink cheeks while Harry laughs against his neck.

“Oi, d’you two fucking mind!” comes Dean’s voice, and Harry looks up to see him watching them with raised eyebrows.

“You don’t have to watch,” Harry tells him, ripping his hand out of Draco’s grip to squeeze his thigh this time, delighted by the squawk of indignation.

“Draco’s still holding the joint, you pillock,” says Dean. “And he’s about to singe your arm with it.”

“I’m not about to singe anybody, you troglodyte,” Draco says, whipping round to glare at him. “Not all of us are bumbling Gryffindor barbarians born without a trace of elegance in our blood —”

“Ow!” Harry yells, snatching his arm from around Draco’s back when something scalding hot touches his skin. Dean descends into howls of laughter while Draco takes Harry’s arm and starts apologising profusely. He goes as far as chucking the joint at Dean, whose laughter subsides as it lands in his lap and he jumps out of his chair before it can burn him. Harry can see it beginning to burn a hole in the carpet.

This is not by any means the first time this carpet has seen a lit joint. Hermione has fixed most of the damage but here and there are obvious reminders, which Harry actually quite likes. There is, he thinks, such a thing as too much cleanliness and perfection. If a burn mark on his carpet is a memory of a good time, he can’t see what’s so bad about it.

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” Draco coos, lifting his arm and pressing a soft kiss to the tiny burn mark.

“You did that on purpose,” says Harry, affecting a deep, childish frown that makes Draco laugh. He cups Harry’s cheeks and kisses his lips once, twice, three times, then his cheek, before pulling away.

“Better?”

“Oh, I’ll need more than that if you wanna make up for burning me,” Harry tells him, cheeky grin back in place. Draco rolls his eyes and Harry hears both Dean and Ron making retching noises while Seamus wolf-whistles.

“Who has the other joint?” Dean asks as he drops the roach into an ashtray on the coffee table. “Someone needs to roll a new one.”

“Harry, you do it,” says Pansy. “Blaise did the last two and they were terrible.”

“What the fuck?” Blaise says, glaring at her. “They were fucking decent, what’re you on about?”

“Harry?” Pansy presses, ignoring him. “Will you? Yours are the best.”

“That’s because he’s good with his hands,” Draco says, bringing his lips to Harry’s cheek again where Harry can feel him grinning.

“You have to get off my lap then,” says Harry, prompting a heavy pout from Draco that makes him look twelve.

“Just do it on my lap, it’s not that hard.”

Harry huffs out a breath but agrees; he likes Draco’s warm weight and doesn’t really care if it’s a little more difficult to do, but mostly it’s because in spite of the burn he’s still half-hard and doesn’t necessarily need everyone seeing it. Dean brings over the flat tray with a mirrored base that Harry likes to use for this purpose and sets it down on Draco’s lap.

Draco makes a game of kissing his neck while he’s trying to roll the joints, causing him to fumble several times to the general chagrin of the room at large.

When he’s finished, Dean removes the tray and all the scattered, ground-up weed on its surface and takes the joints, lighting them both and handing one off to Seamus so the rounds can begin again. Harry wonders vaguely how long it would take for the whole room to fill with smoke and eventually suffocate them.

Draco’s nuzzling his cheek now and Harry slips his arm back around him.

“We should kick everyone out after they finish these ones,” he hums into Harry’s ear. “I’m very anxious to make up for burning your poor arm.”

Harry laughs and squeezes his hip playfully, but he also feels his cock twitch with interest. Their friends will come again, plenty of times; more important is the very baked, very randy Draco in his lap whose mouth looks more inviting by the minute.

“Yeah, all right,” he agrees.

“Good,” Draco says and kisses his cheek once again. His touchy-feeliness is one of Harry’s very favourite things about Draco when he smokes. It’s like he can’t help it. “I’m gonna get some lemonade actually, do you want anything, love?”

“I’m okay,” says Harry. “Don’t be long.”

With another kiss — on his mouth this time — Draco stands up and Harry takes the opportunity to swat his arse before he walks away. Draco yelps and blushes and smacks his arm but he’s smiling, and it makes Harry’s heart even lighter than the weed does.

#weed cw #ily have some fluffy domestic boys smoking weed and being soft when u wake up #happy birthday ❤️❤️❤️#anna writes #drabble

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you-cant-spell-subtext-without · 3 years

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Sigh. It’s quiet today, so I guess it’s about time to talk about 12x06: Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox.

This is an episode without Cas, so clearly it revolves entirely around Cas (I'm kidding, but only a little bit). It’s also a bottle episode and a meta writer’s wet dream, so excuse me while I nerd out - this is a long one to unpack, and I have spent too much time doing it for you. That’s ok because, as Sam says:

DIVE IN AFTER THE CUT BUDDIES!

The Asa montage is where we start.

Asa is a Dean mirror. The parallels are pretty clear - he’s a scruffy rough around the edges hunter, Mary is the reason he got into hunting, he wears a ton of flannel, etc. If you remain unsure, the writers throw this in at the very beginning in the montage of Asa’s life as a hunter So That You Know:

Bucky: Hey, you know they make new cars, right? Asa: I don’t want a new car. This is my lucky car.

***Canadian!Dean confirmed.

Shaine Jones may also be the Canadian Jensen Ackles.

I don’t make the rules ok?

Back in the US, the boys surprise Jody with a visit.

In case you forgot the episode prior to this one:

Side note: domestic Jody gives me life.

We’re clearly supposed to see how Jody is a mom figure for the boys, and it feels nice for them to have that, especially since Mary is Taking Some Space. Their entire dynamic warms even my cold black soul.

[romantic scene of a couple silhouetted against a sunset while sweeping music plays on Jody’s TV. The couple kisses.]

DEAN

[his mouth full of pizza] Jody, you watching some kind of chick flick here?

JODY

Well, Dean. I’m a chick.

Kim Rhodes YOU ARE A DELIGHT. A side note - I know this exchange is supposed to be funny, but I feel sad for Dean (who clearly is a rom com chick). This is a perfect example of Dean struggling to present some fabricated image of heteronormative masculinity that’s not the heart of who he actually is. His surprise that a “badass sheriff chick” can also enjoy rom coms makes me fucking upset.

ALSO:

Anyway, Asa has passed on and the boys tag along with Jody to the wake in support.

SAM

Yeah, no, Jody. We… we know you’ll be fine, but… you know, we never go to hunter gatherings, outside of bars. Dad always said they were trouble, so…

DEAN

Yes, you’d be doing us a favor if you let us tag along.

***more receipts that John Winchester was an isolating abuser. They could have at least had a normal HUNTER life and friends who hunted.

SAM

That is a big house. [Music continues playing, coming from inside the house now]

***We now establish one “theme” of the episode.

JODY

Family home. Asa was just a guy.

AKA pretty brutal implication that Asa didn’t have a family of his own.

Speaking of implications:

[Jody removes her coat and the three of them begin mingling. Dean finds his way to the kitchen and a cooler full of beer] DEAN

No label. Well, that’s a red flag.

****LOL WHAT THE FUCK IS THE REASON****

....

GIRL SEND HELP

Enter Bucky, who is actually (SPOILER!) the villain of the episode.

Do all hunters just walk around with this manly flannel/weird symbolic necklace combo? Looking at you Bucky and Dean.

Dean is surprised to find that people know who he is:

But doesn’t seem to have an issue with it until -

***Someone who just bragged the entire five hour car ride about killing Hitler shouldn’t be this concerned about what people are saying about him right?

Or is he thinking it may involve something he isn’t comfortable sharing - since apparently there are things Dean doesn’t feel comfortable sharing as established by the prior couch conversation with Jody? Hmmmmmm...

***Compare the expressions. The “you’ve died four times” response is the same as the smug/proud “I killed Hitler” face. The reaction to the “stories” is the “hey this is my personal business” reaction Dean had to Sam’s Japanese erotica art form comment. He is thinking specifically about something personal.

I wonder what it could be.

I don’t think any one had to teach Max Banes the art of seduction, but also thank you.

Also, manifesting Dean being raised by Max and Alicia’s Cool Witch Mom instead of John Trash Winchester. Because that’s what we’re supposed to think here, correct? Two sibling hunters usually present a brother mirror.

Worth noting Sam’s surprise that witches can also be hunters. The John Winchester Bigotry Brain Rot runs deep. (GOD the Sam-witch thing would have driven him crazy I LIVE FOR THAT).

Dean escapes to Asa’s office/room and proceeds to go through his things.

[Dean is in Asa’s office and finds an angel blade mounted on blue velvet inside an ornate glass-lidded box. He opens it, reaches in and pulls out the angel blade, comfortably spinning it in his hand when Sam walks in.]

SAM

Hey.

DEAN

Oh, hi. This is a real Angel Blade. I mean, this guy was legit.

***that’s weird, why does Canadian!Dean have an angel blade? We haven’t heard anything about angels yet, and it wasn’t in the opening montage. Hmmmmmm, I say. Hmmmmmmm...

***Sam is also concerned about The Stories They Tell

This one particularly:

Honestly I don’t know why he’s THAT surprised that people know he was possessed by Lucifer? Didn’t he start like multiple apocalypses? That’s something people tend to be in the know about. Anyhoo.

DEAN

Yeah. Apparently we’re a little bit legendary.

SAM

Yeah, but, I mean, so was Asa. Then a hunt went bad, and he ended up hanging from a tree, alone in the woods.

DEAN

He died on the job. No better way to go.

SAM

You really believe that?

DEAN

Yeah. What, you don’t? I mean, come on, Sam, it's not like we're in the “live till you're 90, die in your sleep” business. This? [Dean points at Asa’s hunting wall] This only ends one way.

***Insert deep internal screaming about 15x20 here***

It’s Jody’s turn to be uncomfortable as we find out she and Asa were more than just friends and everyone knew it and Said Things About It and Told Stories About It.

HMMMMMMM...

Dean is surprised that Jody not only enjoys rom coms, but ruggedly hot men. Another thing they have in common.

As Dean comes to terms with the idea that Jody can be a mother figure and also a human person with a life and her own feelings and needs and thoughts, enter the person whom said lesson is actually about:

This is a Kim Rhodes Facial Expression stan account now.

So cute how Jody knows immediately that Dean is not okay. Time to reach:

JODY

Huh. Is that why you spent the entire ride up here telling me in extreme, excruciating detail how you killed Hitler, but, uh, you neglected to mention the fact that your mom is back from the dead?

***look, it’s another Dean doesn’t like others knowing personal information parallel!***

DEAN

Yeah, no big deal.

JODY

That’s a lie.

DEAN

JODY …

JODY

Look, maybe this isn't my place, and this is epic stuff, but

JODY

Yeah. Because what if I’ve changed. What if they changed? What if it just didn’t work out the way I wanted? If you wanna talk about anything

***Killing Hitler used yet again to show Dean doesn’t care about oversharing hunting stories, but he doesn’t like for people to know personal ones. Also, Jody mentions her son and her husband. Her family and her romantic partner.

Dean wasn’t just reunited with Mary this season. He was also reunited with Cas, after saying goodbye to him at the end of Season 11 when he headed to what he thought was going to be his death as the Amara-bomb.

So, this conversation isn't just about Mary (the “anything”). It’s also about Cas (the”...absolutely anything”).

Mary chats with Mama Fox and more Points Are Made about hunters not getting to have a “normal life” or family:

MARY

I saved his life.

LORRAINE

[scoffing] What am I supposed to say to that? After you, Asa got so… Hunting was his whole life. He never married. Never had a family, kids. And now… enjoy the wake.

***sending Mary on a guilt spiral about Asa (mirroring her other guilt spiral about hunting as a life for her own sons)

Speaking of mirrors:

BUCKY

And Asa loved that Jeep. Fuses were shorted, fuel line was busted. Ah, he didn’t care. He’d just roll up his sleeves, he’d get right to work.

Time to learn about today’s Big Bad.

BUCKY

Jael. He’s a crossroads demon. And he hangs people. It’s his thing. Snaps their neck, slits their throat. He’s a real piece of work.

***Wait a second. Jael is a demon? Don’t...angel’s names usually end in “el” in SPNverse?

Samandriel.

Uriel.

Gabriel.

Raphael.

Gadreel.

Castiel.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Anyways the demon [questionable] killed Asa and now everyone is trapped and also In Grave Danger.

BUCKY

Exactly. Right, so five years later, Jael– he came back, and he came for Asa.

JODY

How so?

BUCKY

Asa was seeing this woman, right? She had a kid.

LORRAINE

Marlene.

BUCKY

Yeah, Marlene. Jael got into her. It didn’t matter that he was killing people, he wanted Asa to know it was personal. He gets off on it.

***that’s so weird, didn’t someone else in the show start seeing a woman with a kid -

what a sexy little coincidence.

oh and didnt a supernatural being come back right around that time too -

HMMMMMMMM. No killing though. That’s the difference between angels and demons, I guess.

(meanwhile Dean has been drinking alone outside - as he does, and is realizing he can’t get back in)

HI QUEEN

Also, this immediately took me to

this show isn’t fair.

****sob break****

Jael Posession 1:

So curious how there are two siblings and then one gets possessed by something Satanic and the other one is good at seducing men.

SO FUCKING CURIOUS.

Jael Possession 2:

Elvis. Random. Though he was the guy who brought up the Stories Sam Was Surprised Were Circulating -

He was also oddly interested in it. Methinks Elvis thoroughly enjoyed the Jael possession.

Bilie gets Dean back in the house. The words “one-time deal” are said a lot of times.

BONUS: Jensen why are you so pretty:

The hunters get to work, and I live for Max Bane’s pentagram aesthetic.

MAX

I like a Fifth Pentacle of Mars. It’s got more character.

***TBH, same.

Jael possession 3:

****Kim Rhodes is even better when she is playing evil.

JODY/JAEL:

I had so hoped you’d kill your mom. Wouldn’t that be a riot?

[Mary draws the angel blade and charges at Jody. She cuts Jody’s arm before Sam wrestles her away.]

SAM

No! Mom!

MARY

What are you doing?! She’s a demon. We kill demons.

******WOOF MARY - I REPEAT TO YOU THAT THE JOHN TRASH WINCHESTER BRAIN ROT RUNS DEEP.

Also did you immediately flash back to this with me?

Gets me thinking that Dean’s feelings for Cas are made twice as complicated by the fact that he is also a supernatural creature. Another Reason Why John Winchester Would Disapprove.

****Just as he would Disapprove of Sam Being Possessed By the Devil and all that (never forget he told Dean to kill him because of the whole made unclean by demon blood thing).

Right on cue:

JODY/JAEL

Oh, I have heard so many stories about you Winchesters. And I desperately want the Lucifer thing to be true.

***Stories again. Jael proceeds to go into Stories That Are Dark Personal Shameful Secrets:

JAEL

As for the rest of you, I have been inside your heads. I know all about you. For example, the twins. Too frightened to tell anyone that they actually came to say goodbye to their daddy. Or the grieving mother who hated the fact that her son was a hunter so much she’d hide his gear, she’d sabotage his Jeep, anything to keep him from hunting. Not that it worked. Could’ve tried harder, huh?

[She gestures at her own face] And this meatsuit you all seem to care so much about. She actually fantasized about a life with Asa. Can you believe that? Like that worthless man–

***HMMMMMMMMM

[Bucky gets off the floor and sneaks up behind Jody/Jael]

BUCKY

Shut your filthy mouth.

[Jody/Jael grabs Bucky by the neck and forces him to his knees]

JODY/JAEL

And you. Bucky. Brave, brave Bucky. I was there that night. Tell these nice, stupid people what you did. Tell them what you took from me. Asa was mine.

***Excuse me? THIS IS GETTING VERY...subtextual. A dark timeline supernatural being/hunter relationship [ending badly because demons only know how to take, consume and possess]? ...Asael? CURIOUS.

They chant the exorcism, a different hunter doing each iteration (beautifully done)

and send Jael back to hell, but not before Bucky shares his Shameful Story - he’s the one who killed Asa.

Elaboration:

BUCKY

Asa, he was just all– he was just always so stubborn. Look, we were in the woods. [We see the scene play out as Bucky describes it] Jael, he… he was taunting him. Asa wanted to chase him, but he didn’t have the angel blade. I said, “Let’s go back.” He called me a coward, and he shoved me, so I shoved him back, and he fell. He hit his head. Asa? I didn’t mean to do it. But it was a mistake. Asa. Asa? An accident. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. Asa hated that damn demon so much that I just…

DEAN

Oh, you thought people would buy that Jael killed him? So you hung your best friend to cover your own ass.

BUCKY

What are you gonna do to me?

ALICIA:

Tell everyone, every hunter we meet. They’re gonna know your name, Bucky. Know what you did.

MAX

You like stories. This is the story everyone’s gonna tell about you. Forever.

***Shameful Stories that Define You, what a theme. Also, definitely a supernatural being potentially having some subtextual feelings for Canadian!Dean. Hmmm.

***Funeral pyre and side discussion about how Asa did have a family, and children, and a potential supernatural sidepiece.

In conclusion, Supernatural is a love story. Thank you for watching this dark timeline/Canadian dub. You’re dismissed for the day. Go eat bacon.

#destiel #spn #spn meta #spn analysis #spn fandom #spn family #hellers #hellerism #supernatural season 12 #spn 12x06 #celebrating the life of asa fox

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mattzerella-sticks · 3 years

Text

Not Here for Me

If he had the choice, Dean never would have stepped foot inside this place. But Sam was curious - and curious is a hell of a lot better than the depression that clung to him day after day since Jess left him. So Dean swallows his pride, joins Sam as his babysitter. So he won't get find himself in any trouble. Trouble, however, is more likely to find Dean. In the bowels of his personal hell, can Dean resist temptations that have plagued him his entire life? Or will someone descend and lend a hand, showing Dean that the darkness he imagined only lived inside his own mind. And all that he feared was not as he seemed if he let himself step out of the shadows of his past.

(Dean/Cas, Human AU, 2000s-set, 8,113 words, tw: Dean’s childhood & upbringing by one John Winchester)

ao3

His ears hurt. Dean stares at a small puddle of maybe-water-maybe-vodka that collected on the bar top, focusing on it instead of the pounding bass drum and blender whirring that’s somehow considered music. At least that’s what Sam told him seconds after entering, meeting Dean’s disgruntlement with patented exasperation. Floppy bangs pushed back for its full effect. “You’re such an old man,” he said, “Can you pretend you’re happy being here?”

“That depends,” he fired back, brow raised. Pulled taut like a bowstring, retort knocked and waiting. He lets it fly, “How quick do you think I can get drunk?”

The answer – very quickly. Dean balked when Sam ordered them these bubbling potions the color of lava lamps mixed with Barbie vomit. Served in dainty glasses Dean could easily break if he applied even a fraction of pressure between his thumb and forefinger. Rim lined with salt and a wedge of lime. Sam suggested they cheers. He chugged his before Sam raised the glass. He flagged the bartender, ignoring Sam’s glare. “What the hell did I drink?” he asked.

The bartender pursed his lips, eyes dragging over Dean’s frame as if he were stripping him bare in the room; peeling away the layers of his jacket and plaid button-down and faded band tee like they were tissue, freckled-and-pale skin freed for the bartender’s enjoyment. He sowed seeds of unwanted fantasies. Dean cleared his throat, repeating the question, digging out those dropped seedlings before the bartender’s imagined wanderings might flower.

If Dean wanted to encourage attention, he’d have dressed like him. Mesh shirt with uneven holes, some stretched wider than most. Its woven fabric failed at hiding the sweat that dampened his obviously spray-tanned skin, strips of orange paint peeling like a rind. The bartender wiped his brow, a streak of bright white skin revealed. “A strawberry margarita.”

“Of course,” Dean nodded at the selection behind him, “got anything that doesn’t taste too… sugary?” A frown dragged every wrinkle and crease forward on the bartender’s face. He clarified, “A beer. What beer do you have?”

They didn’t have any. Dean asked for a vodka neat, Sam criticizing his choice as the bartender retreated. “You’re so boring.” That was three vodka neats ago.

Sam left his station beside Dean soon after his first drink, swept away in the tide of bodies pulsing in the center of the club. Each individual moving to a different beat. Their dancing unsyncopated and wild. Yet, despite how hopeless it looked, bodies acting independently from one another, the writhing mass shared one mind. Although, even assimilated by the crowd, Dean can keep track of his little brother. Head poking free of the mass like some odd periscope. Scanning every few seconds until their gazes met and then submerging once more.

Dean isn’t searching for him now. He studies his small puddle of definitely-vodka. He swiped his finger through it earlier and sucked it dry; cheeks hollow, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. Dean heard someone’s glass shatter over the wretched din of noise, timed perfectly with his finger popping out of his mouth like a burst bubble. The sharp smell of alcohol fries his nose hairs. It dulls the throbbing ache caused by his surroundings, Dean’s frayed nerves sparking underneath, jumping like live wires since Sam detailed their plans for this evening.

“You wanna go to a gay bar?”

Sam rolled his eyes with so much force they rattled inside his skull like a novelty magic eight-ball, his hazel gaze landing on him, answer written neatly, ‘It is decidedly so’. Dean shook it again, scoffing. The answer changed. Not in Dean’s favor. ‘Yes – definitely’.

“Why?” Dean leaned across their small table, “Are you…?” He asks with a wry twist of his lips and a limp wrist.

“I don’t know,” Sam told him.

“You don’t know? Isn’t that a requirement for a – a gay bar?”

“Not necessarily,” he explained, sitting across from Dean finally. Sam’s windbreaker swooshed with every dramatic sweep of his arm. “I mean… sure, most of the people there are gay. But it’s not like they make you flash some official gay card at the door…” Expression pinched, he powered head, avoiding the conversational detour and sticking to the main highway of his argument. “Besides, there’s more than just gay.”

Dean nodded, “Like what?”

“Bisexual, Pansexual… Asexual, Demisexual –“

“I think I might be that,” Dean laughed, tongue swiping over his bottom lip. “It means you’re attracted to Demi Moore, right? Because if Kutcher weren’t in the picture, I’d definitely be all up in her business!”

“Don’t be an ass, Dean,” Sam said, “Demisexuality is a real thing, okay? It’s only being attracted to people who you have a deep, intimate bond with.”

“Oh, is that so?” He stretched his legs out from beneath the table, knocking into Sam’s. “That what you’re learning in college? I thought you wanted to be a lawyer. Or were you a bit presumptuous when you made that e-mail, lawboy?”

“I still do,” Sam muttered, cheeks tinted a dark shade. “I… it was one of these classes I have to take, for my degree. Made me think about things I never knew about and – and stuff I said that, looking back, was… kind of offensive. That we joked about, what dad would say, sometimes…” Dean tuned Sam out partly, a refreshing static separating him from Sam’s words. Standard whenever Sam mentioned their dad, or if he saw something that reminded him of dad, or if dad cared enough to leave a voicemail for Sam on their shared answering machine. The little antenna on his brain’s radio drooped slightly, making Dean fiddle for the signal. He managed to catch the remainder of Sam’s monologue, barely. “…it’s a whole new world!”

“No, it isn’t,” Dean sighed, tiredly scrubbing his chin. “Sam, you’ve only ever liked girls.”

“To my knowledge!” Sam insisted, “I might’ve liked a boy, possibly. Maybe. I mean… do you remember Trevor?”

“Trevor?”

“Y’know, Trevor,” he fumbled through his memories, silence painstakingly ticking past. The clicking of their kitchen clock suddenly, obnoxiously loud. “That kid from that town we stayed at for about two months my sophomore year of high school, up in Montana.”

Dean remembered that town. GED burning a hole in his pocket, he bummed through town hunting for a job since dad hightailed it for a phantom thread of a lead on their mother’s murderer. Not many folks were hiring, but a stern man in a rough-hewn Stetson and bushy mustache needed an extra ranch hand. Introduced Dean to his son, Dean’s new co-worker. Steve was a nice boy, older than him by a few years, with a warm temperament, skin tanned like leather from a life of fieldwork, and legs bent further than Dean’s by riding horses since birth.

One day while tending the horses, Steve noticed how Dean’s focus drifted every few seconds, drawn to the saddles. “We can go for a ride,” he mentioned, “one night, around the property.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to get on a horse, let alone ride it.”

Steve chuckled, shoulders barely shaking from the act. His honeyed eyes were earnest and gooey in the filtered sunlight, distracting Dean more than saddles ever did. “I can show you,” he said, “it ain’t too hard.” He proved that by using their lunch break to teach Dean how to mount a horse. He demonstrated it, legs wrapping around its thick flanks, showboating and urging the steed forward by tapping his heels while Dean laughed, head dizzy from spinning, following Steve and the horse, as well as other things. “Think you can try it?” Dean didn’t. He shook his head, lip trapped between his teeth. Speaking felt blasphemous in that moment. “What if I helped?” Steve offered a hand, easily hefting Dean up atop the horse. They shared the saddle, Dean bracketed by Steve’s sturdy arms and supported by his firm chest. Dean felt every tug of the reigns as Steve guided the horse around the stable, and every whispered breath along his neck. Steve dismounted first, holding Dean’s hips and helping him down later. “Now imagine how nice that’d be, out on the plains, with nothing but the moon watching us?” He painted a pretty picture, even if Dean’s copied brushstrokes were shaky and inelegant. They made plans the following Friday.

John returned Tuesday, and they left Wednesday. He’d never been near a horse since.

But they weren’t talking about Steve. Why did he think of Steve? “Trevor?” Dean repeated, still unsure what Sam’s flailing meant.

“My lab partner,” he said, “We bonded over our mutual appreciation of Vince Vincente and the Goonies… there were some days he’d give me the extra sandwich his mom packed, for some reason?”

“You mean to tell me you had a crush on this Trevor kid?”

“I might have!” Sam rose, shouting, “He was… he treated me well, and I liked hanging around him.”

“He was your friend, Sam. Friend,” Dean sunk deeper into his seat, kicking Sam’s abandoned chair. “You have had friends in your life, right? I know I joke about you being a loser, but I never really meant it…”

“Of course I had friends,” he scowled, “I have friends.”

“And you’ve had girlfriends,” Dean reminded him, “Hell, you and Jess only broke up about a month ago! Did Trevor give you feelings like Jess did?”

Sam visibly faltered, stooping slightly. Footing lost as the ground trembled beneath his feet. “Well… no, I mean – not, not that I can recall…” Spluttering, his hands balled tighter into fists. “But maybe it’s different, feelings for a boy and – and feelings for a girl.”

“Sam, feelings are feelings regardless of who’s on the other end of ‘em. You just… you just know –“

Like he regressed two decades, Sam stomped his foot in a very childish way. Whining, “God, Dean, can’t you be a little supportive!” Immediately his face stretched in regret, rubber band snapping as he leaped forward in years to his appropriate age. It didn’t matter; the barb struck exactly where it intended, puncturing soft underbelly, unguarded by Dean’s calloused defenses.

Dean stiffened; gaze drawn to a whorl in the table’s finish. His thumb pressed hard at its center. He snorted, but it sounded more like an engine backfiring. “Supportive huh?” he asked, smile wide and wry, “You want me to be more supportive?” Thousands of examples flickered like a clip reel in his mind. Small things. Dean skipping breakfast so Sam can eat the last of their cereal. Wearing the same clothes, weeks on end, because Sam needed a new wardrobe, reedy body bigger than what they had. Risking arrest with every five-finger discount or hustled game or back alley trick; supporting the way their dad couldn’t.

Bigger things. Lying, letting Sam play over at other kids’ houses; Dean frozen, watching the door in fear their dad came home early. Hiding letters from admissions for Sam, secreted from beneath their dad’s nose. He was an ever-present figure during those last few years. A shadowy patrol that continually followed since they were old enough. Dad had more use for men then children. Dean went as far as distracting him one starless night while Sam escaped, then accepted the consequences of his actions. He joined Sam weeks later with Baby’s keys and a split lip caused by, who he described to Sam as, some jackass biker. It healed in time for an interview, for a job he still has. Six days a week spent under the hoods of cars, working long hours and earning money to support them both, like before. Giving Sam the very freedoms he’d been denied – time, luxury, and safety.

He held these words firm in his mouth, smoke bitter as it roiled. But, in his next breath, Dean released the past with a low hiss. Darkness rising, dissipating. “It’s okay,” he assured Sam, cutting off his rambling apologies. “Really.” He glanced at Sam’s outfit, fully taking in his choices. A color-blocked jacket of bright colors, reds, yellows, and oranges, that glowed over his tight, dark button-down. A hint of some printed graphic peeking behind the half-zippered flaps. Combined with a pair of Sam’s most distressed denim and flip-flops because It’s California, Dean, and you know how awful my feet sweat. As a whole Sam presented like a grade-A douchebag. Entirely unprepared for any bar, let alone a gay one. Dean’s instincts kicked into overdrive.

“Fine,” he decided, standing, too, “you want supportive? Then I’m coming with you.”

“What?” Sam trailed Dean’s wake as he left for his bedroom, cornering him while he slipped into some ratty white sneakers left by his dresser. “You’re coming?”

“Sure.”

“But… why?” Sam slammed his hand on Dean’s doorframe, blocking his exit. “You’re not gay.”

Dean frowned at him, “I thought you didn’t have to be gay to go to a gay bar?”

“Yeah, but –“ He knocked Sam’s arm loose, passing his brother on the way towards the door. Sam followed, buzzing behind like a mosquito. “You don’t seriously wanna go, do you?”

“Obviously not,” Dean said, sliding into an oversized leather jacket. Another relic of their dad’s. Dean couldn’t leave without it. He couldn’t explain why. “But since you’re insisting on doing this, I might as well make sure you don’t get taken advantage of.”

“That won’t happen.”

“You kidding? A guy like you, wobbling around like a fawn – a sort of gay Bambi… you’d get eaten alive instantly. Or drugged.” He squeezed Sam’s shoulder, the finger of his other hand pressed into his brother’s chest like it was an intercom button, pushing so forcefully Dean thought it might burst through the other side. “I don’t need the stress of finding out you died at this gay bar because some idiot overestimated the amount of roofies they’d need to take down your elephant-sized ass.”

Sam cringed at his worst-case scenario but hadn’t shrugged his hand off. Instead he returned the gesture with his own comforting touch around Dean’s wrist. “Okay,” Sam said, “you can come. Don’t embarrass me though, by being an ass.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Hey,” Sam said later, Baby idling in front of a red light. Zeppelin blaring through her speakers, making conversation difficult. Dean lowered it for his brother. “What’d you think dad’d say, if he knew where we were going?”

Dad’s opinion, of his two sons wasting their night in a gay bar, would ruffle the feathers of Sam’s newfound sensitivity. He hears their dad’s voice clearly, delivering a tirade about their terrible choices. Dean spent his time at the bar drowning that voice since arriving. He drains his fourth-or-fifth glass of its contents. It all splashes like the others, into his empty, churning stomach. Dad’s voice, the awful music, his nerves and senses slip out of mind. He sees dregs of vodka left in his glass. He uses the same finger that swiped through the tiny bar puddle and swirls it there, coating in in more vodka. Again, Dean sucks on his finger.

Someone approaches while his lips graze knuckle.

“If you get tired of that finger…” a stranger says on his right, reeking of cherry-and-liquored stink. Dean’s face scrunches at the smell. “I’ve got this big thing you can suck on…” His gaze wanders to where the stranger is.

He’s a man with severely gelled hair, plastered back. A few strands were missed in the initial sweep and clung to his forehead, shiny and wet, making it seem like oil slowly bled down. He chokes on a gold chain that resembles a collar, broad neck seizing as he breathes. Steroids, Dean wagers, given how bulging veins snake past the sleeves of his stretched-thin shirt. Which makes him doubt the man’s ‘big’ claim. He arches a stupidly perfect, sculpted brow, leaning far past the bubble of Dean’s personal space. “You’d definitely have a lot more fun than playing with your finger,” he adds, taking Dean’s silence as an apparent invitation.

He can’t remember when his finger slid free, but it did and, while spit-slick, jabs at Roidy’s brick-wall chest. “Not interested pal,” he says, “Why don’t you try a different fella?”

“What if I don’t want a different fella?”

“Then you are s’stupid as you look.” Dean waves, flagging the bartender for his next vodka. “Why don’t you take your big package crap elsewhere?”

Undeterred, Roidy leans closer. Fingertips ghosting where Dean holds his glass as the bartender refills it. He tenses, squirming, imagining the very oil that drips from the man’s head coats his fingers, too, and through his touch smears it around Dean’s wrist. “Listen, you might not know this… but I made a promise tonight. That I would fuck the hottest, sexiest piece of trade in the club tonight. And congratulations… that’s you.”

Dean squints, mockingly cooing at the other’s assessment. “I feel honored,” he says, sarcasm heavy like the hand pouring his drinks this evening. “Special, even,” Dean continues, “don’t know how anyone could turn y’away after that.”

“No one does.”

“Then I guess I’ll be the first?” Dean asks. The bartender huffs softly under breath, he and Dean reveling silently. They connect over this interloper’s antics. With a subtle shift in the bartender’s gaze, a snide flash of teeth, Dean understands. He’s not the first, only the latest. Certainly not the last.

What he wants to be, though, is left alone. That doesn’t seem likely. Not with how Roidy gloms onto Dean’s side, an arm curling around his shoulders. Not if his biting smile meant anything, tearing through Dean’s dismissals. Not as Roidy whispers, barely audible because of the music, “If you’re going for discreet, I can do that… play along, that is. It wouldn’t be worth it if it were easy…”

Dean’s mood sinks under such nauseating charms. He looks for assistance in the bartender, but he swam to safer shores at some point, serving drinks elsewhere. Unfortunate. He was starting to like him.

Roidy snuffles Dean’s neck, alarms clanging within his head. Or possibly it’s coming from the many speakers placed throughout the bar. Either way that plus everything he drank, make thinking complicated and tortuously slow, like Roidy nosing along his collarbone. His thoughts fall apart before they make it to his mouth, Dean opening and shutting and opening his mouth hoping a few words can crawl themselves into existence. He manages a few garbled syllables that are greatly ignored.

As swiftly as Roidy began his assault, he’s being tugged off him. Dean gasps for breath, spinning, facing the dancefloor now. Glaring at Roidy who glares elsewhere, at the owner of the hand that cleaved this growth from Dean’s side.

It’s beautiful, for a hand. Tan, palm curled around Dean’s shoulder protectively. No cuts or scabs across the knuckles, nor any scars. If he were to touch it, he imagines the skin there is soft and smooth. Dean’s gaze travels, curious who might own such a gentle hand.

Chasing the sinewy lines of his savior’s arms to broad shoulders, Dean feels his chest tighten in a desperate need for fresh air. However, it’s not terrifying like before with Roidy. This is unique and comforting. He inhales, then exhales. He has no trouble breathing. He still feels that tightness. Crushing once he finds his savior’s face.

Marble. Statues are carved from stone – marble, specifically – he remembers from an old teacher’s droned lecture that returned with vengeance. Spoken during a field trip to some museum where Dean barely stayed awake as they flew room to room, always seconds from collapsing, waking momentarily for the next exhibit. Except when they entered a room of statues, and Dean managed fifteen minutes of attentiveness. Aided by chiseled features of a statue hidden between two columns near the farthest corner of the room. A man, naked, endowed, frozen in repose and staring into the distance. It might have been at a bathroom door, Dean’s memory supplied, but the statue saw beyond such borders. Dean wished he knew what existed where only statues can see. All he understood was the expression. Marble evoked steel. The statue displayed determination, tempered and ready for whatever barrels forward, with a hint of sorrow he must greet what is to come. The same expression shone on his savior’s face triggering his sudden recollection. Only his was brighter because of those eyes. An incomparable blue.

On first glance, Dean wonders if that statue perhaps came alive. Journeyed from wherever it stood, in that town whose name he can’t summon up, to save him. Except that’s impossible. That statue is most likely there, forever guarding the bathroom. Blue Eyes is a man with his own history, parallel to Dean’s until he jumped in playing hero. But why?

He can’t think of a reasonable explanation, because Blue Eyes finally speaks. “Hey babe,” he growls, Dean jolting from the pitch, like he stepped, shoeless, on glass shards littering the floor. An abundance of them must slip loose from Blue Eyes’ mouth whenever it opens after they shredded his vocal cords. “Sorry I’m late, traffic was crazy.”

What?

“What?”

“Didn’t you get my text?” he asks Dean. Then, subtly checking on Roidy who watches, fuming from the sidelines, he makes an odd clicking sound. “Or were your hands full, and you couldn’t check?”

“His hands were full all right,” Roidy interrupts, not waiting for Dean’s response. He tries shoving Blue Eyes back, but he refuses to budge. His strength real and not decorative like Roidy’s. He falters slightly; adjusts course and snags a fistful of Blue Eyes’ white button-down in case Blue Eyes wastes energy trying what Roidy did. “Why don’t you leave and let your babe hang with someone who’s there when he needs him?”

Blue Eyes squints, lips slowly stretching, like a match dragged across a striker, until the flame of a smirk dances into view. “I can assure you, that’s exactly who I am. Wouldn’t you agree?”

He does. He should. Blue Eyes listens for Dean’s answer, chin dipped patiently. Roidy’s is, as well. Both wait on him, Dean the difference between favor and disgrace. It’s a non-decision. He eases into his savior’s warmth, improvising by slipping his thumb through a belt loop on the other side. “Exactly,” Dean says, “you’re all I need, sweetie.”

Dean knows there’s no reason to turn from Blue Eyes. Temptation wins, and he chances a peek at the loser. Roidy fumes, his sneer somehow making him appear uglier. He wipes at his brow, disrupting those few, sticky strands, and reveals covered pockmarks. They appear horn-like, in the bar’s dim lighting. That cherry-and-liquor scent sours, suddenly pungent like rotten eggs. “Whatever,” he mutters, letting Blue Eyes go, “your boyfriend’s a fucking tease.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Dean drawls, laughing, squeezing Blue Eyes tighter. Encouraged by his presence. “At least you’ll know it’s consen-u-tal!”

Roidy departs dreadfully, saluting them with his middle finger. Dean responds with a raised glass that quickly empties itself down his throat. Slumping onto the bar, releasing Blue Eyes, Dean motions for the bartender’s return. “Hey,” he slurs, “another vodk-eh and, uh…” He scowls, studying the rack, an array of alcohol lined up. “Shit, man,” he asks his savior, “what’s your poison?”

“Tequila,” Blue Eyes tells the bartender, frowning at Dean, “You sure you’re good for this?”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“That you look like you’ve had enough.” Blue Eyes accepts the glass of tequila, tapping its rim against his chin, lime wedge hitting the corner of his quirked lips. “How many of those vodkas have you had?”

“’Bout this many,” he answers, hand open. Dean hums, considering the number. “Maybe one or two more. Or less? I must’ve lost count…” He shrugs, sipping at his latest drink. “S’okay, though, I once drank this meathead trucker under the table. A whole bottle of ol’ Jack at this… roadhouse off a highway somewhere east a’here.” Vodka sloshes with each gesture while he retells the story. “So I’ve got tolernance.”

“Clearly.” Blue Eyes chuckles, and Dean – not sure for what reason – joins him. He can’t hear much of it, but the bits of his laughter that break over the bar’s chaotic din make Dean giddy. “Thank you,” he nods at his tequila, “for the drink.”

“Hey, I’m the one thankin’ here buddy,” Dean says, “I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t stepp-epped in when you did. Probably somethin’ punchy.”

“He would have deserved it,” he finally tips his glass back. Dean’s Adam’s apple bobs in rhythm with Blue Eyes’, even if his drink rests miles away on the bar top. “Hey,” Blue Eyes continues, smiling, fiddling with the lime wedge, “what’s your name?”

“Why you wanna know?”

“Well, usually I know the names of the men who buy me drinks. Especially those who buy them for me after I’ve scared off pervy creeps.”

“You make a habit of this, then?”

“No,” Blue Eyes says, “you’re the first.”

Unlike with Roidy, Dean believes him. “Dean.”

“Castiel,” he reveals, simultaneously sticking the lime in his mouth. Teeth locked around it, he drains the wedge of its juice. Dean blushes, and the rush of blood to his head brings dizziness. Resting one hand on the bar doesn’t help. Neither does two. Castiel finishes his drink, placing the glass and shriveled lime near Dean’s hands, and yet his sudden lightheadedness persists.

Castiel must notice this queasiness, because he grazes Dean’s elbow. Uses words Dean cannot presently grasp. A wave of concern sweeps across Castiel’s features, transforming them. Drawing Dean closer, lost in his orbit.

A diversion is necessary. “So, Cas,” he starts, their faces inches from each other. To talk easier. “You gay?”

“Uh…” Belatedly, Dean realizes his stupidity. His jaw drops, as if he can vacuum the question back. Pretend he never said it. Castiel, looking saintly under the bar’s neon glow, recovers faster. Replies before Dean might withdraw. “Yeah, yes I’m… I’m gay. Be pretty weird if I wasn’t.”

“I must be pretty weird, huh,” Dean thinks aloud. He smacks his lips. They taste oddly like a morning where, after playing some hilarious prank on Sam, he came to with old socks stuffed into his duct taped mouth.

Castiel skews his head to the side. “Why are you weird?”

“Because…” It’s a bad idea. He recognizes how bad an idea this is. However, recognition and action are completely separate. And while he succeeds in the former, he fails spectacularly with the latter. “I’m not gay.” Then, slurring, he whisper-shouts, “I’m straaaaight.”

“Really…” Castiel skims through tens of emotions Dean cannot discern with his vodka-addled brain. He settles on detachment, the tightness within his chest loosening as Cas inches backwards. Dean, instinctively, floats closer. That strain returns tenfold, like a python coiled itself around Dean. Squeezes him until Castiel bumps into a patron, bringing their chests flush together. Dean likes it even if he cannot breathe. Castiel smiles, but it’s noticeably different than those previously gifted. “If you’re straight, why are you at a gay bar?”

“You don’t have to be gay to be in a gay bar,” Dean supplies.

“It’d be a real plus though.” He barely caught Castiel’s mumbling. He can’t question what was meant, because Castiel clears his throat and repeats his question. “Why did you choose a gay bar for the evening?”

Dean glances at the dance floor. Sam hadn’t left, enmeshed between writhing bodies. “I’m not here for me. My brother – he thinks he’s gay… or somethin’ like it,” he tells Castiel, snorting when someone other than Sam rakes a paw through his hair. Awkwardness flashes like lightning, disappearing behind forced puppy-dog features and Sam’s too-wide grin. “He’s here expermimenting while I’m the… uh – the moral support.”

Castiel’s face publicizes his thoughts. The lines of his face twitch in simple patterns that are already familiar to Dean. And the pools of his eyes reflect the subdued variety of his feelings, providing needed transparency. With this change of his features, Dean guesses Castiel’s tensed mouthline and wishbone-bent eyebrows meant awe and respect. “That’s… very nice of you.”

“Least I can do,” Dean shrugs, tasting sock once more, “it’s not like I’ll need’ta do more. Kid’s straight as a… straight thing.”

Those pearled emotions seal themselves tightly in a clamshell, Castiel sending them back into murky depths. “How would you know?”

“Because I’ve known the kid all m’life, Cas. He’s a shit liar… at least to me he is.” Dean settles against the bar, past resurfacing. A clear memory from their younger years. Sam never finishing his dinners, but somehow dropping a clean plate into the trashcan every time. Followed by a question, like clockwork, about taking a walk. “Around the motel,” he said, “nothing further.” His father’s rules. Never plainly set, but strictly enforced. Dean learned of them the hard way. Sam agreed, not even fighting like he usually did. Maybe that’s why, one night, he left their motel a beat after Sam. Dean kept close tabs on his brother. Not stopping him as he disobeyed orders and crossed the street, nor when a crowd of adults poured out of some ritzy venue, stares scathing as he passed. He maintained distance, only toeing nearer as Sam slowed for a better view of the alleyway he paused at, of a three-legged dog hobbling out of a cardboard box, tongue lolling, tail wagging. Sam greeted him in similar fashion, kneeling at the edge where light and shadows gathered. He pet and pet and pet this stray, stopping only to reveal the portion of dinner he hadn’t eaten wrapped in several paper towels. Dean scurried off in the direction of the motel, asking Sam how his walk was once he returned. He relates all this to Castiel. “Sam loved dogs. Always wanted one assa pet…” If this was his chance, Dean figured he might help. Became more lenient. Gave Sam food from his plate, not that he ever noticed. Lied to John during those rare moments he was home. “Most of the things he got away with were only because I let him. I’m sure if he ever wanted a boyfriend he could’ve done it, and there I’d be covering his tracks like I did for his dog an’ his playdates an’ his girlfriends.”

“Wow, you…” Castiel trails off. Or perhaps he completed his thought, and Dean missed it because their arms are pressed together on the bar. Dean turns, watching the other’s soft contemplation instead of Sam. Castiel meets his gaze, those pearls reappearing. Shinier, too. “What happened to the dog?”

“Sam dropped off food the next two weeks, but by then our dad was dying to move on,” he explains, “I happened to overhear him bitchin’ on the phone and knew it’d be soon. So I took a personal day and brought his mutt t’the nearest shelter.” Hopefully Patchy found a good home, not that he cared.

“You’re a good brother.”

“I try my best.”

“Your best is better than a lot of people’s…” Castiel knocks his shoulder into Dean’s, Dean chasing after it. “My brothers’ idea of kindness is the occasional birthday e-mail, when the mood strikes them that is.”

“That sucks.” There’s more he wants to say, except Dean cannot make his mouth open again. When he finally unsticks his lips, he forgot all those words that seemed important moments ago. Replaced by off-tempo notes and cyclical phrases. Dean sighs, head lolling to the side while his lids slide closed over his eyes.

He exists in darkness. A warm, welcoming blackness, like being swaddled in a blanket. Hiding under it while winds howled and raged, sheets of rain slamming atop roofs and pelleting windows. Safe, protected.

That blanket is torn from him, Dean stumbling slightly. Castiel catches him and helps him stand upright, smirking. “Hey,” Dean whines, numb fingers twining loosely around Castiel’s wrist, “where you goin’?”

Castiel nods at the writhing mass, somehow larger since Dean last looked. “I feel like dancing.”

“No…” Dean tugs Castiel back towards him. He stays where he was. “Stay here,” Dean insists.

“Or…” Castiel says, prying Dean’s hand from his wrist. His needy fingers seep through the spaces between Castiel’s and he clings tight. “Or,” he repeats, breathier than before, “you can join me on the dancefloor?”

“I don’t dance, Cas…” His legs betray him, following Castiel into the fray. Vodka making his protests toothless. Vodka and Castiel.

He meant what he said, though. He does not dance. Men don’t dance. Real men. Normal men. Dad never danced, not even at his wedding. Even though mom begged, dad would tell them that he remained firm in his decision. “Never trust a man who dances,” he advised, Sam asleep feet from where they sat, beers in their hands. Dean was fourteen. “No man wants to dance. If he’s dancing, it means he’s weak enough to have lost that fight. And if he likes dancing, then that’s not the kind of man you want to be associating with.” Dean nodded, because at fourteen why not? Dad rarely gave guidance that wasn’t pointed, aimed directly at him. Cutting, slicing bits and pieces off and leaving them behind in whatever motel they briefly occupied.

With how Castiel moves, effortless and graceful, Dean bets he likes dancing. And if Castiel likes dancing, Dean wonders, truly, how bad it can be.

You want these people thinking you’re some kind of fairy? They already have, before he walked onto the dance floor. No son of mine is gonna dance with a man! Luckily, he won’t be dancing with one. He’ll dance, surrounded by men. Do you want to look gay, Dean? He won’t. Not if he says he doesn’t. Not if he says he isn’t.

A kid from his junior high days taught him that. How, by telling yourself what you do isn’t gay, suddenly you create your own version of truth. “Not for everything,” he warned. He paused, panting, as he – like Dean – recovered on the leather couch. Spent, video paused on his basement television, shorts – like Dean’s – around his ankles, “it doesn’t work all the time.”

“But for this?” Dean asked.

“Definitely this.”

Dean listened; those sacred words used sparingly over time. Mostly during clouded nights when the money ran out, as did their supplies, and Dean’s skills at the pool table or poker game couldn’t compare to those of his body.

He uses the words again. This isn’t gay. Castiel spins him, his chest plastered onto Dean’s back. He tries phrasing it differently. Dancing isn’t gay. Dean takes his free hand, the one not latched onto Castiel, and mirrors an earlier action he saw. Combs his fingers through Castiel’s dark brown locks. He amends and adds to it, too. Dancing is the least gay thing he can be doing in this bar. That appeases the monster clawing at his mind, its voice, eerily similar to his dad’s, fading away. Dean smiles, then lets go.

The music isn’t so bad. Dancing isn’t as bad, either. Castiel is…

Dean focuses only on the music and dancing. It’s easy, losing himself in the rhythm. Forgetting who he is, where he is, and why he is where he is. He becomes nameless, another body in motion. Faceless as the strobe lights flicker and hide his features. Thoughtless, no room for anything besides what he hears. Dean doesn’t exist save for moments that jab at his awareness. Castiel squeezing his hand. The feel of hair then stubble then hair as his touch roams. Gasps at the base of his neck that elicit headier gasps from Dean. Firm press of chest-to-back, joined hands resting over his heart while Castiel’s free hand lays atop Dean’s stomach as they rock together.

Dancing is the least gay thing he can be doing at this bar.

While it fascinates Dean, Castiel must tire of their arrangement, because he disturbs Dean’s oblivion by turning from back-to-chest to chest-to-chest. The wrong move, Dean thinks, as his vision blurs in such a violent way. The room spins and tilts long after he did, everything appearing off-balance. Save for Castiel, standing in front of him, not dancing anymore.

That’s why he throws his arms around Castiel’s shoulders, Dean’s mind comforts him with seconds later. For safety. For stability. Since he, too, wasn’t dancing anymore. His legs were useless, bent further than normal. Making him smaller. Forcing him to angle his head upwards to meet his savior’s searching gaze. Lips parted silently, asking a question with the ghost of his breath. Dean thinks he hears an invitation.

He accepts. Dives headfirst into it, vodka mixing with tequila and a spritz of lime. Castiel tastes better than any drink he’s had. He puts pressure on Castiel’s shoulder, climbing for easier access. Castiel helps; an arm braced around Dean’s waist steadies him. Guides their bodies into a holding pattern, a simple sway that won’t interfere with the others cavorting around them. Serenity made within the chaos of a raging sea; these waves don’t crash. Rather, they tenderly caress the shoreline before retreating in similar fashion. A line of sea foam, like the line of spit generously coating Dean’s mouth, the only proof it even hit.

Dean breaks from their kiss, panting. His forehead rests against Castiel’s. “That was…” he pauses, testing each word he thinks of and ultimately rejecting them all since they fail to describe what happened. He settles for, “Wow.”

“It was,” Castiel agrees, “Why’d you stop, then?”

“I stopped?” Dean sifts through his memories, those last few minutes entirely unforgettable but completely hard to recount. “I did?” he whispers, “Maybe it’s because I’m straight?”

“Are you sure?”

“I…” He can be, if he says so. Unfortunately, Dean forgets those little magic words. Trapped in limbo, the space between truths. “I’m not… I don’t know.”

Cas steps back, enough that Dean sees his entire face instead of those enchanting blue eyes. It eases the worry plaguing Dean’s mind. “Did you enjoy what just happened? What we did?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you certainly aren’t straight.”

Dean nods. He swallows a lump in his throat, feels it tear itself down into his stomach. He imagines blood spouting out of these gashes, building, climbing up in an escape attempt. He chokes on it. It might not be blood. Maybe-blood-maybe-drool leaks from the corners of his mouth as he asks, in a daze, “Does that mean I’m gay?”

“Or something like it.” Castiel reaches forward, combing through Dean’s sweaty hair in time with the music. “Hey,” he says, “it’s okay if you are. That you like… that you kissed me. It’s okay.”

It isn’t. Dean knows it isn’t. Not for him. Not with all that’s expected of him. The blueprint of who he’s supposed to be. Who Dean Winchester is. Torn to shreds and raining overhead like the actual confetti that floats down from high above. That were released without notice. Dropped there while he stands, in the middle of the dance floor, petrified by another man’s kiss. Dad’s efforts wasted.

“It’s okay,” Castiel repeats, “it’s okay…” He drifts further away; but before Dean can whine about his absence, he realizes his feet move, too. Castiel leads him from the belly of this ecstatic, partying mob.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Nowhere far, just off the dance floor.” They reach the perimeter, crowd thinned and weak; Cas releases his hold on Dean. Shrugs his shoulders, blessedly smiling at him. “Where you go and... what you do next, well – that’s up to you.”

He’s unprepared for such freedoms. The simplicity of making a choice. A foreign concept when all your life, every decision was already made for you. For other people. Keys don’t choose which doors they open. Hammers don’t make plans on which nails they’ll hit and which they’ll avoid.

Dean giggles, overcome by an intoxicating rush of getting to choose without any real consequence. No judgement, no threats, no guilt. If Dean told Castiel that kiss meant nothing and then bolted out of the bar, he would never have to deal with these conflicting thoughts, actions, and feelings. Never need to see Castiel again.

That isn’t what he wants.

Dean embraces the confusion because he, Dean, wants to. He kisses Castiel, driving them forward until they hit a wall, because he wants to. Tells him, “I want you,” because he does. Because it’s the truth.

And Castiel’s truth, “You can have me,” slots perfectly next to his.

Dean is intimately familiar with the art of kissing. Spent years practicing with ever-changing partners; girls from all over who were probably as bored as Dean felt. Girls who his dad saw and made him beam with pride. Enough girls, so that he called Dean names – different than the ones he thought Dean didn’t know about – like lady killer and chip off the ol’ block. Girls that were good kissers, bad kissers, and mostly unremarkable whatsoever. Dean lost his appetite for kissing, the act not being very fun for him. Not something he might look forward to, even if he said the right things and acted his part perfectly.

Kissing Castiel wasn’t good. Wasn’t bad. Not unremarkable in the slightest. It elevated the idea of kissing onto another level. A holy act. Placing Castiel on the same level as all his previous entanglements would be similar to heresy.

This isn’t just a kiss. It’s Dean sticking his face into a fuse box with all the switches flicked on. It’s Dean stepping out into a storm without an umbrella. It’s riding down an empty highway, no cops in sight, and abusing the gas pedal until the speedometer needle vanishes.

This kiss is apocalyptic, destroying the notion that anyone besides they two existed.

A hand joins the two roving his body, shaking his arm. Dean laughs, “How’d you do that, Cas?”

“Dean,” Not-Cas says, “hey, uh… Dean?” He turns, Castiel’s lips adorning his jaw with favor, and finds Sam on his other side. Watching. Aware of what he interrupted, given his pained smile and squinted gaze trapped elsewhere. “Sorry, but I’m…” he clears his throat, “I’m kinda ready to leave, if you… you are?”

His fingers curl where Castiel’s shirt is rucked up, dangerously teasing the line of his jeans. Castiel rolls his hips, rutting their cocks against each other again. “Yeah,” he tells Sam, “Yeah I can… we can go.”

Dean extracts himself from Castiel, slowly, taking care to disentangle themselves. Dean flattens Castiel’s mussed hair. He fiddles with the buttons of Dean’s shirts, inexplicably unfastened. Neither speak of how these things happened. “Hey,” he starts, still hovering inside the other man’s personal space, “Um… thank you, for everything. Tonight. From the bar to – uh… to he –!”

Castiel drags him into a kiss, one Dean returns heartily. His hands grabbing fabric while Castiel’s dance around his hips. Consumed by this, Dean ignores his cell phone being stolen. Only becomes aware of it when Castiel ends their goodbye with a smile, Dean’s phone in hand actively calling someone. “My number,” he explains, flipping his phone shut, “to use whenever. Hopefully soon.”

“…Thanks.”

“Good night, Dean.”

“Night, Cas.”

He lingers. He opens his phone, closes it, then slips it back into his pocket. Sam mutters an unintelligible phrase at them, shoving Dean from where he stood. Dean blindly navigates his way towards the exit, seeing nothing but Castiel’s shrinking face that disappears once they step outside.

He expected heat. It’s cold. Not actually, but cooler than the room they left, where bodies and light and energy broke the thermometer. Fresh air brushes his skin, startling Dean from his stupor. Dean jolts awake. His heart plummets down past his ass, chest hollowing. He glances at Sam, about to ask if they ever entered the bar. Or if he hallucinated everything on the walk to it. Dean’s lips purse, then flatten. Sam already walked ahead. He jogs after him.

No one speaks for half their journey.

They pass a twenty-four-hour convenience store Dean remembers, and he knows Baby waits a block around the next corner. Sam chooses then to restart their conversation. “Looks like this trip was good for both of us,” he says, hands shoved inside his pockets. He won’t meet Dean’s eyes. “Learned a lot.”

“Really?” He’s parched. Unbalanced. His feet won’t walk in a straight line, stumbling every few steps. He persists, “What?”

Sam shrugs, “I might have… over-examined that memory of Trevor.” Sighing, Sam kicks an empty, abandoned can into the street. “I guess I was searching for a reason why Jess and my relationship ended like it did. We were going so strong I… I figured it might have been me. That I wasn’t able to love her the way she needed because I couldn’t.”

“Sometimes people just don’t work,” Dean tells him, “and no amount of forcing it is gonna fix it.”

“Yeah…” He spots Baby easily, street deserted save his car and some poor, busted Beetle. Dean searches for his keys, struggling. Sam talks all the while. “And then there are some people who… who click immediately.” Dean tenses, breath stuttering. “How long have you been –?”

He’s back in the bar. He must be. How else could he hear this overwhelming, earsplitting ringing. The kind that makes him stagger, slump against the closest surface and collapse there into a tiny ball, protected from the voice that somehow talks louder than that goddamn ringing. The monster’s voice. The one that sounds strangely similar to his dad’s. Angrily shouting, calling him names. “I’m not,” he said, as always, “I’m not.”

Another sound overpowers the monster and that throbbing din. “Dean! Dean, hey… hey-hey-hey-hey Dean… it’s okay… it’s me, Sam. Sammy.” Someone touches his shoulder. Dean flinches from it. “Come on Dean… I won’t hurt you.” Their voice hitches, sounding waterlogged. “Please, Dean… wherever you think you are, you’re not. I promise. I need you, man. Sammy needs you.”

Look out for Sammy.

Dean forces himself into the present, a herculean feat as shadowed claws dig at him. Fight his attempts. He pries an eye open, then the other. There’s only Sam. Sam, kneeling in front of him on the sidewalk. Sam who, though he denies it, carries so much of their dad with him it makes staying calm near impossible. Dean sees a reflection of who Sam could be, that dad hoped Dean might be, that Sam wished he never would be. It was the reason why fatherly adoration came effortlessly when it was for Sam, even during days they hardly spoke. Dean acted as their go between. Hearing praise and relaying it; forever the messenger, carrying wounds and scars.

“Dean, are you… you’re with me, right?” Dean nods, tension melting away. He slides further, knees bumping into Sam’s. A wordless comfort. “Fuck I am so… so sorry. I didn’t, I never meant –“

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Dean. Fuck!” His shout echoes towards the moon, filling the space left by clear California night. “What if I asked you while you were driving, we could have…”

They might have died.

“Shit…” Dean hisses, rubbing his throbbing head, willing its silence so he can think. He gets one minutes. He uses it wisely, handing Baby’s keys to Sam. “Take ‘em.”

“What?”

“I drank too much anyway.” Wobbling when he rises, Dean proves that true. “You were gonna have to take it, regardless.”

Sam’s expression softens. In turn, Dean’s skin crawls. “Thank you.”

“Just go start the damn car.” Dean won’t follow. Rather sharpening his defenses for the inevitable. Bad music. Lawful driving. Plaintive whines and rhetorical questions, all in an attempt at making Dean talk. About tonight. About their childhood. About signs he didn’t see, how it felt being this while in dad’s presence. Sam will push and push and push until he’s flatter than cardboard. Contents neatly organized and fit for storage.

He hears the soft rumble of Baby’s engine, then that of his phone. A text.

Unknown Number 1 (650) 378-0914: In case you’re wondering, my name is spelled C A S T I E L ;)

Despite what a whirlwind these past few minutes felt like, Dean laughs. Giggles become snorting which become happier tears rolling across his cheeks, tracing over still-damp lines and erasing them from sight. He clutches his phone atop his heart, figure bent as he now wheezes.

Dean reigns in his giddiness. Stares at the message, wondering what he will do. Once Dean decides, he realizes his thumb was already halfway done.

He saves his number under Cas <3. Dean responds, snapping his phone closed quickly before he can reread and second guess.

Sam honks, watching with interest. A thousand questions waiting, hidden by the curious bend of his brows. Because of Castiel, Dean must face them. Will answer them. Is ready for them.

#spn #supernatural #spn fanfic #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #deancas #destiel fanfic #deancas fanfic #sam winchester #sam winchester is an ally #john winchester #john winchester's a+ parenting #fuck john winchester #tw: internalized homophobia #tw: abusive parent #tw: garden-variety homophobia

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shirtlesssammy · 4 years

Text

15x12: Galaxy Brain

Welcome back to the new recaps! We’ll be doing recaps on Thursdays now that the show airs on Mondays.

Then:

Remember when death was welcome and we had no hope?

Now:

Four Weeks Ago:

Earth 2

At an unassuming Radio Shed, a woman casually strolls around getting creeped on by the store clerk. He’s just an eager salesman, but dude…(Also, I’m a bad fan and had to Shazam the song playing. I thought it was quite on the nose with the whole “I had a dream that I ate your heart” considering Jack’s recent activities. It turns out to be Louden Swain, and all you real fans must have been dying laughing at how perfectly placed the song was.)

The dude is despondent when the woman leaves, but then a new customer arrives, eyeing up the wall of televisions. It’s Chuck. The guy gives his best spiel, but Chuck isn’t interested. “It’s monologue time,” he states.

Chuck explains his twisted life story.

And shows us the world:

Anybody else wish we would have had a glimpse of Squirrel World in these television sets? Well, Chuck waxes poetic about all the worlds he’s created and how none of them bring him as much happiness as the world with the real Sam and Dean. “They challenge me. They disappoint me. They surprise me. They’re the ones.” Chuck then decides that it’s time to clear the board and get rid of everything but the world with the real Sam and Dean (WEEPS OVER THE “FAILED SPIN-OFFS” LINE. BOBO WE’RE SO SORRY.)

Sioux Falls.

Our World.

Now.

We find Jody Mills having too much fun investigating the death of a cow. She gets a call from Alex and we learn that life keeps humming along for our Wayward women.

Once off the phone, Jody sees a flash of motion from a barn and heads to check it out. Someone attacks her from behind. JODY!

At the bunker, Sam, Dean, and Cas discuss what to do about Jack and his deal with Death. Sam’s concerned because Jack doesn’t have his soul still. We cut to Jack looking at the carvings of DW, SW, AND MW. He lightly grazes the MW. We know exactly where his soulless mind is.

He heads to his bedroom and he’s surprised when a reaper appears.

Sam continues to question the plan of Billie’s that Jack will kill God. Cas fully trusts his little nephilim son. Dean’s spent some time with Death and thinks she has it figured out.

The reaper tries to reassure Jack that Billie’s plan will work as long as he follows the rules --lay low, wait for instructions, don’t use his powers. They need to keep Chuck out of the loop.

Sam interrupts the conversation and Jack lies about who he was talking to. Sam tries reassuring Jack that they’re very happy to have him home and that they will help him.

Meanwhile, recently reunited husbands share a celebratory drink now that they’re family is back together. Cas can’t help but gloat over how right he was and celebrate his faith in Jack. Dean wants to celebrate getting revenge. I want to celebrate these two yahoos talking again!

Dean gets a call from Jody. She’s in trouble.

Sam and Dean head out and find Jody tied up in the barn. Dark Kaia attacks! She’s seriously badass, but no competition for the Winchesters + one Mills. She wants her spear back --and more to the point, she wants to go home. Sam wants to know why she even wants to go back to that place. She tells them the world is dying. She knows this because she still has a connection to our Kaia. YEP. Kaia is STILL ALIVE PEOPLE. Dark Kaia left her the tools to stay alive, and she has, but Dark Kaia wants to go back. And now the others want to save Kaia.

At the bunker, Cas and Jack bond over a fun game of Connect Four.

Sam, Dean, and Jody arrive back at the bunker --with Dark Kaia in tow.

*JODY AND CAS FINALLY MEET ALERT*

They all agree that Jack can’t use his powers to help Dark Kaia get home, but they have to save their Kaia another way.

While they figure that out, they chain Dark Kaia to the kitchen table and give her a magazine to read.

Jack thinks he’s found a great spell but John Winchester had to ruin everything and kill off one of the necessary ingredients. How that man is able to ruin things this far in the grave will never cease to amaze me. Dean sends Jack to check in on Jody and Cas.

Jody and Cas discuss their almost daughter, Claire, and her quest for revenge. Jody tells Cas that Claire loved Kaia, and Jody doesn’t want to tell Claire about this recent development. It would be too much for her to bear if things don’t work out.

 Jack morosely peeks in on the stalled progress of Jody and Cas, then stops to talk to Alt!Kaia. She’s angry, accusing him of encouraging Kaia to make the jump to the other world. It’s his fault that Kaia is in pain and about to die.

Alt!Kaia wanted to visit Earth Prime because it looked comfortable, but she finds it cold instead and hard to live in. She begs Jack for help in a way that makes you think she’s never begged for a thing in her entire life before. Jack dreamwalks with her and confirms that Kaia is trapped in the Bad Place and an all-swallowing storm is coming for her.

Jack heads into the library, advertising his intent to the Winchesters that he’ll save Kaia from the Bad Place. Merle, the reaper from earlier, appears. She is…ENTIRELY unimpressed by this plan. Saving Kaia is “Winchester dumb,” Merle insists.

If Jack tries to save Kaia, Merle is totally running off and tattling on him to Death. Jack reads the room and calls her bluff. “Go,” he tells her. He’ll open a rift with his magic and Merle can just DEAL with Billie’s wrath when she comes running. Merle’s not so hot on that prospect, instead reluctantly coughing up a plan B. The cosmic warding Amara removed from the bunkers is the key!

But FIRST our patron saint of long suffering salt, Merle, insults the Winchesters’ rune repair work. The Winchesters re-warded their walls against demons and monsters, but didn’t come close to the “cosmic grade stuff.”

She can rattle up the warding temporarily to block Chuck’s perception, but she’ll need to add a little battery power to the attempt. She demands the use of “your angel” to properly run the spell.

Sam, our very best witch, recites the spell. Runes glow along the bunker walls and edges as the shielding spell takes hold.

Heading out, the Winchesters agree that the plan is reckless, stupid…and it FEELS REALLY GOOD. They’re back to their roots, baby! Give me my dumb, poorly planned, big hearted missions any day.

Cas corners Jody, asking her to stay behind as well. He never bonded with Claire - and couldn’t given their history - but Jody did. He doesn’t want to picture a world where Claire loses both Kaia and Jody. The truth settles over Jody like a thick wool blanket and she agrees to stay behind.

For Soft Cas Science:

Cas and Merle supercharge the wardings.

Once the wardings are active, Jack slings out a rift to the Bad Place. Alt!Kaia smiles at last and ducks inside, quickly followed by the Winchesters. The Bad Place is rainy and windy and full of red-eyed monsters LOOK OUT!

Alt-Kaia realizes that the monsters are just scared of a roiling gray storm and they head off to find Kaia. Dean greets her with a “Hey, kid,” and a hug! KAIA IS SAVED!

Alt-Kaia, however, decides to stay behind. The Bad Place is her home, its ending be damned. The Winchesters race off with Kaia and Alt!Kaia greet the oncoming nothingness with open arms.

They make it back through the rift and Jody gives Kaia a great big MOM HUG. Kaia’s eyes slip closed. She’s safe at last.

A little while later, Kaia has availed herself of the bunker’s excellent water pressure or possibly even that amazing bathtub. She’s now wearing Jack’s spare sweatpants. Bless.

She tells Jack that she survived by anchoring herself around a children’s rhyme her mother sang to her: Miss Mary Mack. Jack attempts to grasp another tiny sliver of humanity. Good luck, Jack. Many of us work on that to this very day!

Jody invites Kaia to live with her. “Will Claire be there?” Kaia asks and it’s…REAL CUTE GUYS. Wayward Sisters lives on, even if it’s off screen. ALL THE HEARTS

Merle dumps a big soaked blanket over the celebration. “If I cared for a second about saving that girl, I guess I’d say that was a victory,” she says with a weary sigh. I love this GRIM reaper. Sadly, she’s not long for this world. Billie’s scythe jabs through Merle’s throat and tears her into little cosmic pieces.

Billie CANNOT BELIEVE these Winchesters. “Bending the rules already, Jack.”

“I tried to call you,” Jack all but squeaks out.

No excuse, bud. She’s not mad, she’s disappointed. Billie explains that she sees the big picture, even if nobody else does. All the worlds except this one are dying.

“It’s Chuck,” Cas surmises, and Billie rewards him with a no-shit-sherlock look for the ages.

Sam demands answers. “When I became Death,” Billie says, “I inherited Death’s knowledge and Death’s library. And in Death’s library, everyone has a book. Even God.” The books write themselves, in a wonderful bit of LIFE HAPPENS. Billie explains. “After God made the world…he wanted more. But he needed to create a perfect harmony. A swiss watch so this world could keep tick tick ticking in his absence.” Chuck built himself into the framework of reality. The Winchesters and Jack are in Chuck’s book. “This is your destiny. You are the messengers of God’s destruction.”

Back at Radio Shed, Chuck watches his worlds get torn to shreds by horrible weather events and war. The hapless Radio Shed employee Chuck chained to his service looks exhausted, worn to shreds from serving the capricious god. (Definitely no symbolism HERE, nope.) He’s confident that Chuck will spare his planet. Right? RIGHT?

“Everything’s just fine,” Chuck reassures him before leaving the Radio Shed. As he strolls from the shop, he tosses his empty cup aside as meteors streak in to destroy the planet.

That’s Win-Quotester Dumb:

It’s monologue time

Sir, this is a Radio Shed

You’ve got four of the same color connected so…given the name of the game I assume that means you won

One little measly life on the line and you’re willing to risk it all? That’s not just dumb. That’s Winchester dumb

Disobeying cosmic entities…doing the dumb, right thing…feels like we’re back

How’s it feel to be back? [silence] Good talk

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn 15x12 #galaxy brain #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #castiel #cas #jack kline #billie #chuck shurley #kaia nieves #jody mills #supernatural season 15

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marril96 · 4 years

Text

The Distance Between Us

Chapter 36: Love Me Like You

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: You have some big plans for prom.

A/N: Huge thanks to my lovely editor for helping me out with prom info!

Editor: @miss-moon-guardian

*****

You had never taken yourself as someone who would go to prom, but here you were, practically jumping with excitement for it.

It wasn't the event itself that attracted you.

It was the experience. The music that made it hard to hear your own thoughts. The drinks — hopefully not G rated; you needed your liquid courage — and the atmosphere that made your heart race. Rowena's arms around you, her small body gently swaying against you.

And, most important of all, the plan you had for after.

You'd been thinking about it since Branson.

The rational part of you knew you were making it a bigger deal than it was. For most kids your age it was nothing. Just something they did for fun, already having gotten used to it.

You weren't them, you reminded yourself.

You were a virgin.

It had taken you three months to get comfortable with the idea of sharing that part of you with Rowena, of letting her get that close, but — finally — you were ready.

You were ecstatic, in fact.

You'd pondered on it for a few days, thought the idea through. Considered every possible outcome. What if she rejected you? What if she didn't love you enough to go that far with you? What if you didn't like it?

The conclusion was the same — what happened would happen.

You wanted to have sex with Rowena.

You were ready for it.

When better to do it than at prom?

Just to be sure your plans weren't something straight out of a horny madwoman's head, two days before prom you'd taken Meg aside and, nervous, cheeks on fire, heart thrumming as if you'd run a marathon, asked her about it.

You'd expected her to laugh in your face, which you would have done to yourself if you were in her shoes. You were kind of — and that was putting it mildly — pathetic.

To your surprise, Meg had smirked and told you to go for it.

"They like it when you surprise them," she'd said, and you could tell she was speaking from experience.

Feeling more confident than ever, that was exactly what you'd intended to do.

If there was anyone who would appreciate sex as a surprise, it was Rowena.

You made sure to dress up as nicely as you could. You didn't care much for the prom itself, but you wanted to impress Rowena. Though, you knew, she would be impressed even if you showed up clad in a potato sack; she was, after all, already in love with you. Too in love to leave you over your horrid fashion sense. But still, you wanted to look good for her this one night.

This one night when you planned to give her your virginity.

It was silly to think about it like that. It was just sex. A biological urge, a craving almost every single human being in the world possessed.

You weren't special.

But it was special to you.

And, you hoped, it would be to Rowena as well.

Even though you showed up early, the venue was crowded. The music blared through the speakers, loud and deafening. Your skin vibrated with it, a sensation you found strangely appealing. Kids were dancing. Laughing. Living in the moment for there was nothing but them and the music, the rest of the world forgotten.

You found your friends by the punch bar and hurried to join them. Crowley and Dean were engaged in a conversation (if shouting into each other's ear over the music could be considered a conversation) that had them both laughing. Meg and Castiel were making out, too hung up on each other to notice anything around them. Sam stood by with a plastic cup in his hand, mouth curled into a smile — directed at Eileen Leahy beside him, who smiled equally brightly, equally joyful.

Now that was an interesting turn of events.

You knew Sam had a crush on her, but you didn't know he was going to act on it. Least of all ask her to prom.

Eileen signed something. Sam laughed, lowered his cup on the table, and responded with a sign of his own.

Warmth swelled up in your chest, insides melting.

They were adorable.

You greeted everyone, then turned to Crowley and shouted, "Where's your sister?"

"She was still getting ready when I left," he responded. "Barely convinced her to let me use the bloody bathroom!"

You chuckled.

Classic Rowena.

So long as she was coming, you could wait a few minutes. Or an hour. Or two. One could never tell when it came to her. The girl was a perfectionist.

"Glad to see you here," you told Eileen. Prom was a Seniors and Juniors event only; the others could only attend as dates.

She grinned. "Sam invited me."

Sam's cheeks flushed red as Eileen's lipstick. You sent him a wink, which only made him more nervous.

For such a huge boy, he was incredibly precious.

Crowley tapped you on the shoulder, and, as you turned, passed you a cup of punch that wasn't just punch. You offered him a smile in gratitude and took a sip. The alcohol burned at your throat; whiskey, you realized, remembering the New Year celebration.

The memories flooded your brain, warm, comforting.

You and Rowena, all alone in her room.

Whiskey.

Nosferatu.

Cuddles.

The kiss — your very first, the one you were scared you'd taken by force, only to find out she'd wanted it just as much.

Sleeping in her arms.

You hoped to do it again.

To do much more this time.

To give yourself over to her, to be hers in body as much as in heart.

You loved her.

God, you loved her. So much your heart sometimes ached as if it were being ripped to pieces.

You wanted to spend the rest of your life with her.

What if she had different plans?

What if hers didn't include you?

No, you told yourself. Now wasn't the time to think about things like that.

Tonight was about joy.

Doubts and bad outcomes were problems for future you.

Present you was going to have fun.

A part of you was starting to doubt Rowena was going to show up when, half an hour later, she walked in in all her glory, and it took everything in you not to gasp like a fish out of water.

Her dress was as if someone had strewn it from rubies, rich and red and beautiful. It formed a V down her neck, showing off an impressive bit of cleavage. The straps were tight around her shoulders, her arms, pale, muscular, on full display, an unwrapped tease of the milky perfection underneath the fabric. There was a belt around her upper waist; black, leather, shaped like a snake whose crystal eyes glittered crimson.

Her hair was a braid slung over her right shoulder. A few smaller braids hung around it, thin and tight as whips. Her bangs were pulled up, exposing her high forehead. Lipstick the same shade as her dress adorned her lips, while her eyes were framed in black and glitter.

She was stunning, and even that seemed like a great understatement.

Mesmerizing.

Magical.

Royal.

Gulping, you downed the rest of your drink and threw the cup to the floor. Jesus fuck, you thought. Jesus fucking fuck. She's-god. Jesus. Fuck.

How did—

Fuck!

How could she possibly look like that?

How was she human?

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

"Hello, darling," Rowena greeted with a smile that lit a fire in your insides.

"H-hi," you replied, then, swallowing, added, "Who gave you the right to be this hot?"

She gave a smug smirk. "I take it you like it."

Like it didn't even begin to cover it.

Your face must have said as much because she laughed. "You are so precious!"

You huffed. "I should sue you for emotional distress."

"Go right ahead." She pecked you on the mouth. "You look lovely."

You blushed. "Thanks."

Mission accomplished, at least.

Rowena looked at the punch bowls and made a face. "Is there a real drink somewhere around here?"

Dean pointed to a bowl at the far end and winked conspiringly.

She sighed. "Thank you."

You joined her in the drinking, grabbing another cup and filling it to the brim before downing the contents in one go.

Getting turned on by her this early in the night wasn't part of the plan.

You needed all the courage you could get.

"We're gonna go dance!" Meg announced, pulling at Castiel's arm. As she passed by you, she leaned into your ear and said, "Good luck."

You uttered a thanks that got drowned by the music.

Not long after Sam and Eileen went away, as well, followed by Dean and Crowley, who each went in search of dates for the evening.

Your eyes never moved from Rowena. You found yourself unable to look away; she was too beautiful, too mesmerizing, so fucking delicious you found yourself getting wet just thinking about pulling that dress off her.

She did that on purpose.

She dressed up, styled her hair, and put on that makeup just to rile you up.

Maybe — and the thought sent your heart into overdrive — she had similar plans as you.

Maybe, sick of waiting, she wanted you to want her tonight. Wanted you to crave her, to yearn for her until you were unable to resist her and gave into temptation.

If baiting was her plan, it was working.

Good god, it was working.

"Are you going to stare at me all night, or are we going to dance?" Rowena said, her voice, sharp and teasing, breaking through the music.

Oh, the plans you had didn't involve staring in the slightest. Though it did make for good foreplay. You cleared your throat. "I can't dance, and you're gorgeous." Shrugging, you added, "It's a good compromise."

Her expression told you it wasn't.

Oh, well.

It was worth a try.

Without uttering a word, Rowena held up her hand.

You raised an eyebrow.

"One dance," she said, sighing in defeat.

"Is that an order?"

"Aye."

"And if I refuse?"

The naughty part of you thought, Are you going to punish me?

If so, you were prepared to be a very, very bad girl.

"I can dance around you," she said without missing a beat.

"Oh? Like I'm a pole?"

"If that is how you want to think of it, aye."

A naughty smirk bloomed on your mouth. "You a stripper, then?"

She leaned in close, eyes sparkling devilishly, mischievously, and, in a tone that was more purr than shout, said, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

She had no idea.

A rain of shivers slid down your spine, hot and cold all at once, as your heart all but dropped to your stomach, exhausted from all the pounding.

"Maybe," Rowena said, snapping you from your reverie, "if you're a good girl tonight, we can work something out."

The mere thought made you lightheaded.

Through trembling lips, you uttered, "Promise?"

She winked, and it was the sexiest, most enticing thing in the world.

The girl was intent on either killing you or fucking you.

Or both.

You had no complaints to either.

Gulping down another drink for courage, you let Rowena pull you into the crowd. She wrapped her arms around you, body all but glued to yours, warm and small and perfect, a puzzle piece made specifically for you.

Holding on to her, you swayed to the music. Followed the rhythm she set, gentle, peaceful despite the raging sea of students around you.

The music changed, fast, wild songs melting into slower ones. Your eyes fell closed, and the crowd dissipated. There was no noise, no annoying chatter and laughter and clicking of hundreds of shoes on the marble floor.

The only ones that existed were you and Rowena.

Safe in each other's arms.

Warm.

Crazy in love.

"Rowena?" you said softly, swallowing a breath for courage.

"Hm?"

"Is it okay if, um, if I sleep over tonight?"

If the question fazed her, she didn't show it. "Aye."

Fire shot to your cheeks. "Great. That's great."

"Is sleeping over the only thing you've got in mind?"

You stiffened. "I… um…"

I want to fuck you.

It was easier to say in your head than out loud.

You swallowed a lump that had formed in your throat. Here goes. It was now or never. "I'm ready."

You couldn't see her face, but you could picture a wide, happy grin breaking out. "Is that so?"

"Uh huh. I… I wanna do it tonight. If that's okay with you. It's totally okay if it's not okay, but, like, if it is okay, then I'm okay."

You weren't okay.

You were far from okay.

Closer to death than life, in fact.

Might as well have dug your own grave.

Rowena laughed heartily. "You are precious."

Your cheeks were on fire. "Don't."

"My precious wee girl."

"You're horrible."

She ignored you. "All mine tonight, aye?"

Forever, if you'll have me. "Just tonight?"

"Hundreds of more nights."

You liked the sound of that. "Thousands."

"Millions."

"Forever?" you dared yourself to ask.

"Forever." The promise in her voice sent your fears scattering. A relief flooded through you, filled up your fiery veins. "You are stuck with me for life."

"I'm okay with that."

More than okay.

You were ecstatic.

Exhilarated.

High on the mere premise of spending the rest of your life with her for there was no one in this world you would rather be with.

There was only one Rowena MacLeod.

And you were the lucky girl who got to have her, who got her to love her and who loved her back just as fiercely, like no one ever had.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @shadowgirl-vsb @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress @collectorofsecretsandsouls @angel-e-v-a @a-queen-and-her-throne @carryon-doctor-lock

#rowena #rowena macleod #spn #supernatural #spn family #rowena x reader #sam winchester #dean winchester #eileen leahy #crowley #fergus macleod #meg masters #my fics #fanfiction #high school au

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swlbarnes · 5 years

Text

Othello Act III Scene III - Jack Kline x Reader

Summary: Jack sees the reader with a new friend in a bar, and he learns about a whole new emotion he’s never felt before.

Pairing: Jack Kline x Reader

Word count: ~4.4k

Warnings: jealousy, alcohol consumption (not excessive), Sam and Dean teaching Jack about healthy relationships, passive mentions of cheating

A/N: okay so I’m sorry, I know this isn’t any of the requests that have been sent in! I promise I have all of them, and I’m writing them ASAP. This is just something I had started in my drafts and thought I could finish it up late last night. This isn’t my favorite thing I’ve written, but it’s something, and we always need more Jack fics in this fandom.

BUY JACK’S SCENT HERE!

Jack still wasn’t quite used to human emotions. His angelic side often felt like an awkward juxtaposition next to the pure humanity of something as intense as emotion. As a result, he often isn’t sure what he’s actually feeling at all. He knows some of the names, like he knows that when he eats a really good burger he feels happiness, and when he sees a stray cat on the streets he feels sadness. This new emotion, however, was entirely new. He knew only one thing about it.

It was positively the worst one yet.

The stool beneath him was a bit too cold, and the beer just slightly too warm. The bitter bite of carbonation provided him no comfort as he watched you from across the bar. An uncharacteristic scowl curled on his lips at the sight. You sat at one of the various tables scattered about the room, elbows resting on the table and your chin perched atop your steepled hands. A half empty drink sat forgotten, the glass perched precariously over the edge of the tabletop. A man that Jack could only describe as repulsive sat in the seat beside you. His predatory gaze swept over your form, and his tongue darted out to drag across his lips just slowly enough to curl Jack’s lips into a scowl.

The sound of your laughter rang clear over the pounding of the old rock playlist streaming through the bar’s speakers. In any other situation, such a thing would bring the nephilim nothing but joy, but at that very moment as he watched your hand brush against the other man’s upper arm, he felt his grace flaring with undiluted rage. His fingers flexed with the static energy coursing across his skin. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to storm over to that table and smite that man where he sat…

This thought startled him out of his engrossment. No, that’s bad. That’s a bad thing, he thought to himself. We don’t do bad things. (Y/N) said they believe in you not to do bad things. Jack took a deep breath in, held it for a count of five, and then slowly let it out, just as you taught him to do in stressful situations. His nerves settled slightly, but the constant reminders of you in his head, he couldn’t help but continue to feel this new… feeling. He had to find out what it was called. Or maybe it isn’t called anything at all. What if this is a sign that he is becoming just like the angel that created him? What if this is all Lucifer’s influence?

Jack swallowed down the rising lump in his throat and curled his fingers carefully around the glass of whiskey Dean had ordered for him upon arrival. It had taken a few minutes for the group to convince the bartender that he was of legal age, the act of lying making Jack’s stomach turn with uncertainty, but soon enough Dean was pushing a glass of dark amber liquid into his hands and ordering him to “loosen up.” The nephilim tried to down the drink quickly, realizing how little of the drink there was and wondering why he would be given such a small portion. His questions all went out the window once the alcohol hit his tongue and burned its way down the back of his throat. He spiraled into a coughing fit, which Dean patted his back through with a full body laugh. It felt safe to say that Jack wasn’t quite ready for whiskey, but in hopes of keeping Dean happy, he continued to take careful, calculated sips throughout the night whenever the older hunter happened to be looking.

This time as Jack raised the glass to his lips, it was of his own accord. His expression morphed into a wince at the way the liquid burned down his throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about the off putting feeling or taste anymore. He needed something, anything to get his mind off of you and the way you continued to lean closer and closer to the wretched man by your side.

One more glance over to your table showed him that the gap between your bodies had long since vanished. The man held his phone between the pair of you as you both peered at the screen with keen eyes. Jack knew how to work a cell phone too. He could be doing that too. He tipped his head back and downed the rest of the whiskey.

His glass met the counter with a loud thud! He swore he heard the telltale sound of cracking glass, but in all honesty, he truly couldn’t care less about some worthless whiskey glass falling victim to his low mood. Grumbled words of annoyance fell from his lips and echoed off the dark wooden bar his face tilted down towards.

Dean’s telltale chuckle sounded from the nephilim’s right side, and soon enough a familiar hand donning a silver ring appeared in his sights. “What’s got you all glum, kid?” The elder Winchester wondered aloud. Jack offered him no more than a huff and a shake of his head.

Dean had no time to question any further before Sam popped in on Jack’s left. A concerned hand settled on the boy’s shoulder, and it took everything in him not to shake it away in his angered state. “Jack? What’s going on?” The taller man questioned.

Jack trailed his fingernails along the swirls of the wooden table top in an attempt to keep part of his brain occupied. “Nothing,” he muttered. A lie. But Sam and Dean said it’s okay to lie sometimes, right? Still, it didn’t sit right in his stomach. He found himself motioning with his empty glass to the bartender for another round, hoping for anything to rid his mouth of the taste of his falsehood.

Dean let out an amused scoff as the bartender refilled Jack’s glass and turned away again. He watched the nephilim take in half of the drink with a scowl before he spoke up. “Well, it’s clearly not nothing, because an hour ago you were hardly able to take a sip of that, and now you’re downing it like a pro. Coming from experience, that’s usually a bad sign for someone’s mental state. So, be real with me here, kid: what’s going on with you?”

Jack swirled the remaining liquid around in his glass to give his eyes something to focus on. Sam and Dean held their presence on either side of his body, and that nagging reminder was just enough to cause him to mutter out a reply. “He shouldn’t be that close,” he murmured. His voice was hardly audible over the thumping of the bar’s speakers.

Dean shuffled a bit, turning around to scan the surroundings. Sam seemed to pick up on everything just a split second before his brother was able to do so, the taller of the Winchesters letting out a deep chuckle. “Jack, are you jealous?” He teased playfully.

Jack’s brows tugged together in confusion. He turned slightly in his seat to face the hazel eyed man. “Jealous?” He repeated the word, grimacing slightly at the off putting taste it seemed to leave on his tongue. Dean hummed his confirmation with a face splitting grin.

“Yeah, jealous. Y’know, like, you want what someone else has got, and it makes you angry, because they don’t deserve it and you do?” The elder brother clarified. Had it not been for the teasing edge to his tone, Jack would have agreed immediately. Instead, the young nephilim found himself pausing for a moment.

A quick shuffle in his bar stool. A shift of his glass from one hand to another. A slow shake of his head. “No… No, no I’m not… jealous. I’m fine. I have nothing to be jealous about.” Another lie. Tonight was not his night.

Sam settled down in the seat by his side, letting out a soft sigh. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Jack. Dean kids around a lot, but honestly? It’s okay. Human emotions are all new to you. It’s important that you get everything sorted out and you understand what’s going on. Isn’t that right, Dean?” He fixed his brother with a look that could only say agree with me or else this kid might never listen to us again. Dean rolled his eyes, but conceded.

“Yeah,” he huffed out in his usual gruff tone of voice. “Yeah, Jack, it’s fine.” Clearly this was much less fun than he originally had in mind. Jade irises swept over the fellow patrons of the bar as if searching for some escape from what seemed to have taken a turn into one of Sam’s more emotional conversations. Jack paid him little mind; how could he care about Dean’s current predicament when that man had just placed his own hand over top of your own? The fire in the pit of Jack’s stomach went alight once more as you tossed your head back in a laugh.

Sam’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the distinct sound of cracking glass. The hunter was quick to grab the damaged drink glass from Jack’s death grip before any more harm could come to it, but the fractured veins already running up and down its surface were both unmistakable and irreversible. He cleared his throat as he set the glass down on the bar. “Okay, so,” he began with his best attempt to push away the shock of what just happened. “Jack, it’s important to understand that being jealous is entirely normal, but it’s also pretty important to handle it correctly. Right now, they have no obligation to you to not flirt with anyone else.”

“So how do I get them to stop talking to him?”

Sam chuckled and shook his head. “That’s not quite how it works. They’re always going to be allowed to talk to whoever they want. They’re a free person, and it’s not right to try to control them, do you understand?”

Jack furrowed his brows and focused his eyes on a pocket of air a few inches out from his face as he thought about what he was told. “I… yes, I understand. I would never want to do anything that could hurt (Y/N), and trying to tell them what they can and can’t do, that would hurt them… yes?”

Dean decided that this was his time to worm his way back into the conversation. “Exactly, Jack. But!” The hunter flourished his glass of whiskey as he plopped himself down on the stool on the opposite side of his brother. Sam’s glare could be felt without being seen, but after 36 years of that same glare, Dean built an immunity long ago. It slid off of him like water on a duck. “If you go over there, and sweep ‘em off their feet, they’ll forget about that guy in seconds. Guarantee it.” He cast the young man a smirk and tipped his glass back to take a swig.

Jack tilted his head in a display that likened him even more so than usual to his chosen father. “I know I don’t know too much about social interactions, but for some reason picking them up off the ground doesn’t seem very polite.”

The alcohol caught in Dean’s throat and he hacked out a rough cough. Jack reached out in an attempt to help, but the older man waved him away with the arm that wasn’t busy trying to wipe the burning amber liquid away as it poured from his nose. Sam, on the other hand, dragged a hand over his mouth in a desperate attempt to hide his sudden fit of laughter. “No, Jack. That’s- that’s not what Dean meant. Please, please don’t go actually pick them up off the ground. What my idiot brother is trying to say is, you should go talk to them, see if they wanna hang out with you instead. Be subtle about it, but show that you’re interested. Do you get it?”

“Of course.”

Jack did not get it at all. He would never admit that to the brothers, though. Their expertise with romance was clear from Dean’s endless stories of past exploits, and Jack was no stranger to the partners Sam spent time with previously either. He seemed particularly fond of a young woman named Jess, whom the boy had only heard about after an all nighter and a good amount of alcohol passing through the Winchester’s system. Still, it was clear that the Winchesters had a way with words that made them successful in the romance department, and if he was to be a Winchester as well, he would surely have to prove himself worthy. That was the thought process that swirled around his head as he hopped down to the floor, being sent on his way with two hearty pats to his back.

One step, two steps, regret regret regret. This was not a good idea. He should turn back now. There was no way that this was going to end well. He should’ve swallowed his pride and admitted that he had no idea how to seduce someone. He should go back, he should talk to the brothers and-

“Hey Jack!”

Too late.

He plastered what he hoped to be a confident smile on his face and finished his journey to your table in a couple long strides. His hands remained stuffed in his jacket pockets as he shifted nervously from foot to foot. “Hello,” he greeted simply. A pause. A questioning look from the man by your side. A skip in the beats of Jack’s heart. It all happened at the same moment, but somehow that moment seemed to stretch for what felt like years. The nephilim’s mind blanked on any and all words he knew, whether they be English, Latin, Enochian, or anywhere in between. His tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth, awkwardly taking up far too much space as it pressed against the backs of his teeth. Did his tongue really never fit in his mouth properly? Was that a problem? Maybe he should ask Sam and Dean. This was a mistake anyways, you probably thought he was out of his mind. You probably wanted to be left alone. He shouldn’t have come over.

What he wasn’t able to comprehend in his panicked state, however, was the adoring smile dancing across your lips. Your fingers interlaced and tucked just below your chin as you leaned toward Jack from where he stood across the table. His eyes flickered around the room in a clear flurry of uncertainty. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a heavy swallow. When you noticed the non-stop fidgeting of his hands inside his pockets, you decided that this was your turn to speak up for him. “How’s your night going?” You asked the man, tilting your head to show him that you were engaged in what he has to say.

Wild eyes met your own, wide with what looked like shock. “Oh! It’s, uh, it’s going… well. It’s good. Pretty good.” He dropped his gaze to the floor, where he kicked at a discarded napkin littering the hard woods. “How is your night?” His voice sounded muffled through the fluffy collar of his jacket that pressed against his lips. A small smile adorned your face in response to his suddenly shy body language. This usually bubbly and outgoing young man had been reduced to a puddle of stuttering goo right in front of you, and that simple thought was enough to send you into a red faced flurry of glee.

“I’m pretty good. Jack, I actually have someone I want you to meet!” You chirped and turned to the stranger by your side. “Jack, this is Tom! Tom, this is my friend Jack I was telling you about.”

Tom turned to the nephilim with a friendly smile. He held out his hand for the boy to take. Jack eyed the appendage suspiciously for a brief moment. “Jack! Of course! It’s great to meet you. (Y/N) here has told me so much about you.” He greeted in a cheery tone. Jack slowly took the man’s hand and shook it just like Sam and Dean taught him to. The uncertain look never left his eyes.

“You have?”

Luckily, Tom seemed to take the boy’s confusion as a bit of a joke. He held his hands up in mock surrender with a chuckle. “All good things, I swear! Maybe some a little too good. Was starting to think you might not be real.”

“Tom!” You cried, shoving his shoulder playfully. The man grabbed the table to avoid falling from his seat, tossing his head back in a laugh. “Shut up!”

“What?” He jabbed his elbow at your ribs, which you tried to dodge to your best ability. “Scared I’m gonna spill all your secrets?” Tom flashed Jack a quick wink. He clearly expected the boy to understand its meaning. Jack did not understand whatsoever. “Don’t worry, I won’t let Jacky boy in on your little secret. But! I do expect you to let him know soon. If I see you around here again and you haven’t told him yet, you’re in for it. Alright?” He fixed you with a faux glare, which you waved off with a roll of your eyes.

“Whatever you say, man.” Your eyes flickered over Tom’s shoulder before focusing on the man again. “Looks like your piece of trash ex is gone! I’m thinking we really sold this whole thing, yeah?”

“Sold what whole thing?” Jack piped in, taking a step closer to your side. If he had thought that flirting would be this confusing, he would have definitely asked for more help before diving in headfirst.

You turned back to Jack with a grin. “This guy over here,” you nodded your head back to Tom, “needed some help selling the fact that he’s moved on from his garbage, cheating ex girlfriend. She’s been stalking around this place all night, and it was… pretty creepy, to be honest. He came up and asked if I could help him out, so I agreed. With the way she stormed out, I think we did it.”

“Hell yeah!” Tom cheered, pumping a fist in the air in triumph. “Seriously, thank you so much for all your help. Now, I’ll be off and leave you both to your… night. Wish me luck out there,” he bid you adieu, raising his glass in thanks and waltzing back over to the bar. Thus you and Jack were left alone in the middle of the old run down joint.

You grabbed the chair Tom vacated moments prior and pulled it out a bit more, tapping the seat in a welcoming manner. “Come take a seat, Jack! Haven’t gotten to talk to you all night.”

The nephilim nodded robotically, his feet carrying his body over to the seat with little thought for any of the actions. His hands finally reappeared from his jacket pockets and settled on top of the table. A moment’s silence passed over you before he felt comfortable in speaking up. “He seemed nice,” he commented in what he hoped sounded like a passive tone. Out of the corner of his eye he registered your nod of agreement.

“Yeah, he’s pretty nice. Tom’s a sweet guy, shame his ex cheated on him like that. I’m glad I was able to help out a little bit, you know?” You turned to look at Jack with a shrug, and he met your eyes only after a moment. His hesitance was clear as day in the way that he shuffled from side to side in his seat. Well trimmed fingernails scratched lightly at the unusually sticky table top in an effort to give his mind something to do other than going into a complete panic.

“So, he’s…” Jack paused for a moment and furrowed his brows in thought. “Do you…” Once again the words felt lost on his tongue. He let out a huff of annoyance at his own antics. This whole thing wasn’t working, he couldn’t be subtle. He didn’t like being subtle. He didn’t see the point in being subtle. “Do you want to kiss him?” He finally forced out, locking eyes with you. Gunmetal blue irises flickered across your face in search of an answer before you could even open your mouth.

Your lips pursed together in an attempt to hold back the amused laughter that threatened to escape you. This was much more like the man you knew and adored. Your face split in a grin and you reassured him with a shake of your head. “No, Jack. No, I don’t want to kiss him.” You paused momentarily to shuffle your chair bit closer to the nephilim. “Why do you ask?”

Jack’s gaze dropped to his hands once again.

You squinted your eyes at the boy in wonder. You realized the set of his jaw and the twitch of his eye. You recognized the way his lips tightened and his arms drew back closer to his body in a closed off manner. “Jack, are you jealous?”

There it was again, that same word from earlier, with a similar teasing tone of voice. Jack fought back a wince at the sound of it falling from your lips. He decided that an outright answer to your query was unnecessary, given that you were the third person in the past few minutes to pose the same idea to him. Instead he opted to jump right to the defensive. “Sam and Dean said it’s normal.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Jack was feeling self conscious. This is why, upon realizing how much he was drawing away from the conversation, you immediately pulled back on any and all teasing for the time being. This wasn’t the time to poke fun. As you spoke up once more, your tone had shifted greatly; instead of your previous prodding banter, your voice held a softer, more calming flow. “It’s completely normal, they’re right. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. I mean…” you paused to curl your bottom lip between your teeth. Nervous energy wracked your stomach, but you weren’t going to turn back now. You had held back for too long, and you refused to let this opportunity to tell him how you feel fall by the wayside. “I’m gonna be entirely honest here, Jack. I get pretty jealous about you a lot.”

At this, the boy’s eyes turned to saucers. His body language opened back up in a split second as he turned his body back towards you. “Really?” He squeaked out, voice cracking slightly in his shock. “But what do you have to be jealous about?”

You quirked an eyebrow at the man. “Are you serious, Jack? Have you seen yourself?” He looked down at his arms and legs for a moment, tugging at the collar of his jacket for good measure. That quick action alone relit the adoring gaze on your face. Everything he did was just so… Jack. As he looked back up to you, you met his eyes, and his expression slowly morphed into his own little smile that sent your heart pounding. “Everywhere we go, there are people staring at you and flirting with you at every turn. I guess I’m just… I don’t know, I know this sounds crazy but… I’m scared to lose you. But the funniest part is, I don’t even have you.”

His head dropped into a tilt of confusion. “Of course you have me. I’m right here. I would never leave you.”

You let out a soft chuckle and shook your head. “No, I know. I know you’re a part of the team and everything, but just… the idea of someone else coming along and sweeping you off your feet, and me losing any chance I might have had of being with you, that’s terrifying,” you admitted through the rising lump in your throat. Something seemed to click in Jack’s mind at this, and he shifted his chair closer to you.

Much to your surprise, the nephilim reached out and grabbed your hands from their place in your lap. His eyes flickered over your frame as if analyzing every little aspect of your soul. “Am I the one that you want to kiss?” He queried, his words lilting upwards in a hopeful tone.

Your face went aflame at the off-the-bat question. The laughter that left your lips was entirely involuntary and you weren’t entirely sure if it was a result of your fear or of actual amusement. You gave a tentative nod of your head. “Yeah,” you muttered just loud enough for Jack to hear over the steady hum of other patrons. “Yes, you’re the one I want to kiss, Jack.”

That seemed to be all the boy needed to hear, as only a split second later he tugged you towards him and pressed his lips to your own. His lips held the residual lingering taste of whiskey, along with the underlying peppermint flavor of his favorite toothpaste. It was clear that Jack had absolutely no idea what he was doing, but in all honesty, that didn’t mean that he was bad. In fact, it was probably the best kiss you had ever had. You leaned into him as your lips moved together until your lungs screamed for air and you were forced to pull away from him. Even still, you simply pressed your forehead against his so you didn’t have to move any further.

Your breath swirled with his own as you both took a moment to get your breathing under control. Jack was the first one to speak. “Wow,” he muttered simply. Laughter bubbled up in your chest, and the sound seemed to be contagious as Jack began to laugh along with you.

“I gotta say, I agree with you, there,” you quipped with a grin. A moment passed between the pair of you in complete silence, each of you just basking in the happiness of knowing that your feelings were mutual. Sure, the hunting life isn’t the happiest life one can live, but maybe you could make it that little bit more livable. Together.

Sam and Dean watched on with proud smiles on their faces. Dean held up his glass to toast with his younger brother, who chuckled and clicked his own drink against the rim of the older man’s. One more parenting lesson, done and done. Thank every greater force in the universe that Castiel hadn’t been the one to go through this talk with the boy.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.

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queen-of-deans-booty · 4 years

Text

I Believe the Children Are Our Future: Part Two

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,180

Warnings: typical supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

“You’re going to get sick if you eat all this ham,” you noted as Dean worked on his third sandwich of the early evening. Sam walked into the motel room and rolled his eyes when he saw his brother eating.

“Dude, seriously—still with the ham?”

“We don't have a fridge,” Dean said with his mouth full. Sam placed a map in front of you and Dean before explaining what he found.

“Well, I found something,” Sam pointed to each of the red X’s he marked on the map. “Um, tooth fairy attack was here, Pop Rocks and Coke was here, then you've got itching powder, face freeze, and joy buzzer—all located within a two-mile radius.”

“So, we got a blast zone of weird, and inside, fantasy becomes reality?” you wondered.

“Looks like.”

“And what's the A-bomb at its center?”

“Four acres of farmland and a house.”

“Then I know where we need to go next,” you declared as you snatched the keys from the table.

“Why don’t you just knock?” you asked as Sam tried to pick the lock.

“There might not be anyone home,” he said just as the door opened.

Sam quickly put away the lock pick kit as you three stared at the kid who answered the door. There was a soft black glow around the kid’s body, and your eyes widened when you realized what that meant.

“Can I help you?”

“Hi. Uh, what's your name?”

“Who wants to know?”

“The, uh, FBI,” Dean said as he and Sam took out their credentials to show him, but you couldn’t seem to move.

Dean looked at you to see what was wrong when he noticed your pale face. There was something you were seeing that they weren’t and he became worried.

“Let me see that,” the young boy said as he grabbed Dean’s badge. When he was convinced that they were real, he handed it back. “So, what, you guys don't knock?”

“Are your parents home?” you whispered.

“They work.”

“Could we please take a look inside? Maybe ask you a few questions?” you asked, trying to show the boy you can do more than just stare at him in fear.

“Fine,” he sighed as he let you inside.

He walked to the kitchen where a pot of soup was cooking. He turned off the stove and began pouring it into a bowl.

“What's that?” Sam asked, trying to make conversation.

“It's called soup. You heat it up and you eat it.”

“Right. I, I know. It's just, um... I used to make my own dinner, too, when I was a kid.”

“Well, I'm not a kid,” he said defensively.

“No, you’re not,” you muttered.

Dean noticed artwork on the fridge, and he took it down before showing it to young boy.

“I’m Robert, by the way,” Sam said as he shook his hand.

“Jesse.”

“Did you draw this?” Dean asked as he motioned to the drawing of the tooth fairy in which Sam described exactly at the hospital.

“It's the tooth fairy,” Jesse nodded.

“That's what you think the tooth fairy looks like, huh?”

“Yeah. My dad told me about him. What, didn't your dad tell you about the tooth fairy?”

“My dad?” Dean chucked. “My dad told me different stories.”

“Well, the tooth fairy isn't a story.”

“What do you know about itching powder, Jesse?” you asked.

“That stuff will make you scratch your brains out.”

“Pop Rocks and Coke?”

“You mix them, and you'll end up in the hospital. Everyone knows that,” he shrugged. Pulling out the joy buzzer, you showed it to Jesse whose eyes widened. “You shouldn't have that.”

“Why not?”

“It can electrocute you.”

“Actually, it can't. It's just a wind-up toy. It's totally harmless. Doesn't even have batteries.”

“So, it can't shock you?”

“Nope. Not at all. I swear.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I mean, all it does is just shake in your hand. It's kind of lame. See?” you demonstrated by placing the end of the buzzer on Dean’s chest.

It shocked him in the way it was supposed to be shocked, but he didn’t know that. His form stiffened up, and he gave you a murderous look for doing so. Jesse grinned and giggled when he saw Dean’s reaction, but you could only give a half-assed smile.

“What the hell was that?” Dean growled when you three left his house.

“I had a hunch. I went with it.”

“You risked my ass on a hunch?”

“You're fine. Sam’s fine. I’m fine, but that boy is not fine,” you whispered fearfully.

“What did you see earlier?” Sam asked when he remembered the look in your eyes upon seeing the boy for the first time.

“He’s a demon.”

“What?”

“Or half-demon. I don’t know, but there is a black glow around that boy. It’s faint, but it’s there. He’s not a witch and he doesn’t have cursed objects. Whatever he believes in comes true because he’s a damn demon that has the power to do so.”

“I guess we need to figure out who his parents are.”

“Tell me you found something,” you sighed when Sam walked into the motel. Dean was on the bed reading something, but you were too nervous to do anything like that.

“It's not much. Uh, a B student who won last year's Pinewood Derby. Get this, Jesse was adopted. His birth records are sealed.”

“Tell me you unsealed them.”

“There's no father listed, but Jesse's biological mom is named Julia Wright. She lives in Elk Creek, on the other side of the state.”

“Great, let’s go. I need to know how this kid is a demon and didn’t try to kill us at first glance.”

Julia lived in such a secluded part of town. It didn’t make sense for her to be out here unless she was hiding from something or someone. There was a gate that separated the house from the street, and on the front was a “no trespassing” sign, but you ignored it as you pushed your way through. Approaching the front door, you rang the doorbell and waited.

“Whatever you're selling, I'm not interested.”

“We’re not salesmen. Agents Ronan, Page, and Plant. FBI,” you announced. Taking out your credentials, you held it up to the peephole along with Sam and Dean.

Put your badge in the slot. Your partners’, too,” she said. Sighing, you did as was told, and a few second slater, Julia opened the door and handed back the badges.

“What do you want?”

“We just had a few questions about your son.”

“I don’t have a son.”

“He was born March twenty-ninth, nineteen ninety-eight, in Omaha. You put him up for adoption?”

“What about him?”

“We were just wondering, um, was it a normal pregnancy? Was there anything strange?” you asked. All of a sudden, Julia slammed the door in a panic with fear in her eyes.

“Stay away from me!”

“Mrs. Wright wait!” you exclaimed as you pushed your way through the doors. When she slammed on, you opened it and continued on.

“We just want to talk!” you exclaimed. She finally entered the kitchen, and when you entered, she threw salt t the three of you.

“You're not demons?”

“I knew it!” you gasped as you lightly slapped Dean’s chest to prove your point.

“How do you know about demons?” Dean gasped.

“Mrs. Wright, we are not here to hurt you. My name is Y/N Y/L/N, and these are Sam and Dean Winchester. We’re hunters, and demons are one of the monsters we hunt. Now, please tell us about your son because we really need to know more about him,” you said in a calm manner. Julia sighed and nodded before taking you three to the dining room.

“I was possessed. A demon took control of my body, and I hurt people. I killed people.”

“That wasn’t you,” Sam sighed.

“But I was there. I heard a woman beg for mercy. I felt a young girl's blood drip down my hands.”

“That's how you knew about the salt,” Dean observed.

“Yeah, I picked up tricks. It was in my head for months. Many, many months.”

“How many?”

“Nine.”

“So, your son…”

“Yeah, the whole time. The pregnancy, birth—all of it. I was possessed. The night the baby was born, I was alone. And the pain was—the pain was overwhelming. I screamed, and it came out a laugh because the demon was happy. It used my body to give birth to a child. When it was over, something changed. Maybe the demon was tired or if the pain helped me fight it, but somehow, I took control.

“And the demon wailed inside me. It pounded against my skull. I thought my head was gonna explode. But I knew. I knew what I had to do. When I was alone with the baby, a part of me wanted to kill it. But, God help me, I couldn't do that. So, I put it up for adoption, and I ran.”

“Who was the father?” you asked.

“I was a virgin,” she shook her head. “Have you seen my son? Is he human?”

“His name's Jesse. He lives in, uh, Alliance. He's a good kid,” you said, leaving out the part that made him a demon. It took some time, but you three left her house with frowns on your faces.

“So, now what?” Sam asked.

“We need help.”

“You think he’s here?” Dean asked as you walked into the motel room.

“I said half-demon baby child. So, yeah, I think he’s here,” you stated as you turned on the lights. There, in the middle of the room, stood Castiel.

“It's lucky you found the boy,” the angel spoke.

“Oh, yeah, real lucky. What do we do with him?”

“Kill him.”

“Castiel,” you sighed after a few moments of staring at him in shock.

“This child is half demon and half human, but it's far more powerful than either. Other cultures call this hybrid Cambion or Katako. You know him as the antichrist,” he said as he took a seat at the table.

In an instant, fart noises was all that could be heard, and you three stared at Castiel as it continued to happen. Dean tried to hide the smile from his face until it was done. Castiel reached underneath him and pulled out the whoopee cushion Dean bought before placing it on the table.

“That wasn’t me.”

“Anyway, I don't get it. Jesse is the devil's son?” Sam asked.

“No, of course not. Your Bible gets more wrong than it does right. The antichrist is not Lucifer's child. It's just a demon spawn, but it is one of the devil's greatest weapons in the war against heaven.”

“Well, if Jesse's a demonic howitzer, then what the hell's he doing in Nebraska?”

“The demons lost him. They can't find him, but they're looking.”

“Why did they lose him?” you asked.

“Because of the child's power. It hides him from both angels and demons. For now.”

“So, he's got, like, a force field around him. Well, that's great. Problem solved.”

“It’s why the shit’s been happening in a two-mile radius. It’s his ‘force field’ as you put it,” you observed.

“With Lucifer risen, this child grows strong. Soon, he will do more than just make a few toys come to life—something that will draw the demons to him. The demons will find this child. Lucifer will twist this boy to his purpose. Then, with a word, this child will destroy the Host of Heaven.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. You're saying that—that Jesse's gonna nuke the angels?” Dean gasped.

“We cannot allow that to happen.”

“Wait,” Sam stood. “We're the good guys. We—we don't just kill children.”

“A year ago, you would have done whatever it took to win this war,” Castiel glared as he stood.

“Things change,” Sam narrowed his eyes.

Dean stepped forward and placed a hand on his brother’s chest to calm him down before speaking.

“Okay. Hey, look, we are not going to kill him. Alright? But we can't leave Jesse here either. We know that. So, we take him to Bobby's. He'll know what to do.”

“You'll kidnap him? What is going on in this town, it's what happens when this thing is happy. You cannot imagine what it will do if it's angry. Besides, how will you hold him? With a thought, he could be halfway around the world.”

“So, we tell him the truth. You say Jesse's destined to go dark side—fine, but he hasn't yet. So, if we lay it all out for him—what he is, the apocalypse, everything—he might make the right choice,” Sam tried to reason with the angel. Castiel glared and leaned forward, his eyes deep with disappointment and anger.

“You didn’t. I can’t take that chance,” he disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Damn it,” Sam groaned.

“Come on, he’s headed for Jesse,” you exclaimed as you grabbed the keys to the car.

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deans-baby-momma · 4 years

Text

Rebel Without A Cause-Ch 20

A/N: Here is it guys! The last chapter of Rebel Without A Cause. There is a 2 part epilogue that I am going to post over the weekend. So this story will officially be completed on Sunday (3/15). Also, the song in this chapter is not an actual song. It is one my beta, @lostinaseaoffictionalbliss and I wrote for this.

As Maggie nears the door at the end of the hall, she can't help but recall the dream she had had; Dean cheating with a blonde named Suzie. She keeps reminding herself it had been a moment of self-doubt and uncertainty.

After Mr. Singer had tried to task her with another month of plays and shows to attend, she had realized that Bob Singer was being manipulated by his step-daughter, Jo, to keep Maggie away from Dean. So, she had turned in her week's resignation and packed up her cubicle, leaving Ft. Garrison News behind. Maggie had uncovered the association between her boss and co-worker when she had heard Jo call the woman known as Mrs. Singer, Mom. It didn't take much to put the rest of the puzzle together to figure out that Jo was using her connections to thwart Maggie from seeing Dean.

Rayne had promised to keep Maggie's employment status a secret from Dean and had assured her that they would figure out something to do. Maggie had confided in Rayne about her family and their treatment of her and how she refused to go back there with her tail between her legs. Rayne had also influenced Maggie to come out 'on the road' with her and the band as they traveled to different cities and towns for gigs.

So, here she is, standing outside Dean's door ready to knock and surprise him. She hadn't told him she was coming and had gotten a shock of her own to find out he had begun insisting on his own room and no longer shared a suite with the rest of the band. Apparently, he wanted nothing to do with the frequent routine of orgies and fraternizing that the band had with groupies and fans. More proof that his words were true, he did love her and didn't want to do anything to ruin that.

Raising her hand, she rapped her knuckles against the door. "Just a second!" She heard Dean say. Hearing the words in person through a piece of pressed wood made her smile. Phone calls and Skype conversations just weren't enough. She wanted to feel the deep timbre of his voice wash over her, to be face to face with him when she told him. They had a lot to discuss, after all.

She hears the click of the lock and watches with trepidation as the knob turns and the door begins to open. What if he wasn't happy to see her? What if her arrival wasn't a surprise for him but a disappointment? Would he be happy to see her or would he be upset she was here? Maggie took a deep breath as the door came fully open to reveal her boyfriend. "Surprise!" She said smiling nervously, pausing for his reaction.

"Mags?" Dean questions, the look of shock evident on his face. "Wha-what are you doing here?"

His inquiry leaves her feeling concerned and anxious. She begins second-guessing herself but before she can get too far in her own insecurities, Dean tugs her to him, pulling her into the room and closing the door. He wraps his strong arms around her, hugging her tightly. "Baby. Goddamn, I've missed you!" Maggie can hear the delight in his voice. "Are you really here?! I'm not, like dreaming or something am I?"

Giggling, Maggie pulls back and takes him in. Deep forest green eyes with specks of hazel that reminds her of leaves after a rain, his square cheekbones that lead to a sharp jawline, plump pink lips that captivate her when they stretch into a smile over perfectly straight white teeth. When the tip of his tongue peeks through those ivories in amusement and contentment she is completely enchanted. This beautiful specimen of man should be a sin but she'd happily go to Hell to call him hers.

"Baby," Dean queries, pulling Maggie from her thoughts. "What are you doing here? I thought you were swamped with shows and plays for work?"

"Yea, about that…."

"And so I told him everything," Maggie finishes telling Rayne, explaining Dean's reaction to her resigning her position at the newspaper.

After she and Dean had gotten reacquainted after two long weeks of being away from one another, Maggie calls Rayne to go get a bite to eat while the band rehearses and finishes setting up. The two best friends sat in a booth at a local bar and grill and caught up.

"So," Rayne says grabbing a fry and dipping it in ketchup. "The bitch got jealous and used her contacts to sabotage you. What did she think she would accomplish? That she'd have a chance with Dean? Psh, whatever. That man is madly in love with you," Rayne accidentally spills, not catching the admission right away. Not until the lack of response from Maggie does she look up to see her friend staring at her, eyes wide. "Oh come on! Maggie, you gotta know that man is head over heels in love with you." Rayne knows it's too late to try to retract anything but the truth is out now so she goes with it. "Maggie, Dean has practically become a recluse. He stays to himself before and after the shows. He just goes out there, does what is needed and comes back to sit to the side and stare at his phone, at the pictures of you on his phone. Girl, the man is smitten."

"He told me he loved me," Maggie says nonchalantly, taking a bite of salad.

"WHAT?!" Rayne yells, bringing everyone's attention to them. "WHEN? OH MY GOD! MAGGIE WHY HAVEN'T YOU TOLD ME?"

"Shhh!" Maggie's shushed Rayne and leans forward over her plate. "It was a lethargic statement. I doubt he even realizes he said it. Just don't say anything. Don't even tell Sam." Maggie sits back but can still see the glee on her friend’s face. "Rayne, promise me you will keep your mouth shut. Please? He didn't mean it. It was right after we had Skype sex, he was just in the moment."

Rayne feels disappointment and defeat at Maggie's blatant disregard of Dean's profession. She spends the rest of the meal trying to figure out how to prove to Maggie that she is wrong in her assumption.

Dean sits in his private suite, wishing Maggie was there. It's been almost three weeks since she has been able to be at any of his gigs and he misses her immensely. He misses the way her presence calms and soothes him. It didn't matter how many performances the Winchester Sex Bombs gave, Dean's nerves are always raging and on edge. He would usually drink them away but since Maggie Fitzgerald came into his life 8 months ago, he only needs to be in her embrace to get the feeling of peace and tranquility. His performances seem to have improved with her in his life, too.

She is so much different than her step-sister. Dean thinks back to his younger days when he dated Lisa Braeden. He was so young and immature that he just shrugged off all the warning signs. Clues of her true nature should've had him running for the hills but in his juvenile brain, he overlooked all the flags in favor of getting his dick wet. Dean regretted ever giving that gift, his virginity, to such a vile human being.

Where Lisa is horrible and nasty, Maggie is the exact opposite. Maggie is good and kind, a gentle soul. Someone Dean can see spending the rest of his life with. Dean rummages through his bag until his hand runs across the velvet box stored inside. He's had the ring for a week now, waiting for his love to return to him. He planned to propose to her in the same setting that brought her back into his life, one of his concerts but work has kept them apart.

A knock on the door makes him jump and he takes one last look at the piece of jewelry before hiding it back in his bag. "Just a second."

Expecting to see Sam or one of his other bandmates, Dean unlocks the door and opens it. He knows the band has rehearsal but that wasn't until later. But knowing Sam, he wants to go over the revisions to their set one more time. He can't believe his eyes when he realizes who his visitor is. His heart skips a beat and he feels overjoyed. "Mags? What-what are you doing here?" He asks but all he wants to do is pull her to him and lavish her with all the love he has for her. And so he does. Pulling her body to his, he quickly closes the door and hugs her to him, his arms embrace her. He can smell her body wash, some minty aroma that drives his senses wild. He can't help but bury his nose in her hair and inhale. Dean can't believe she’s finally back in his arms. She is finally back where she belongs.

"Baby. Goddamn, I've missed you!" He doesn't even attempt to hide his glee. "Are you really here?! I'm not, like dreaming or something am I?"

Her giggle is the sweetest sound on earth, followed closely by the moans she wails when he is deep inside her. His dick twitches at the thought. She pulls back and he takes the time to study the woman who has stolen his heart. Her dark brown eyes remind him of saccharine chocolate, her hair the light golden brown of chestnuts. Her face is the epitome of beauty. High cheekbones, full kissable lips, and a tiny button nose. He pecks her lips with a smile. She is here, in his arms; his heart feels like it is going to explode in bliss.

"Baby," he asks. "What are you doing here? I thought you were swamped with shows and plays for work?"

"Yea, about that…." Maggie sighs and pulls from his grasp. "I resigned." Dean quirks an eyebrow and she continues, beginning to pace in front of him. "Apparently Jo is Mr. Singer's step-daughter and she used him to keep us apart."

"What? Why? How?" Dean blasts, confused and perturbed. Someone was trying to sabotage her, them, their relationship? It pissed him off more than he could explain. He would fight tooth and nail for the woman before him.

"Jealousy," Maggie shrugs as she stops her stride. "She was jealous that you picked me. That you and I are sleeping together. Real childish bullshit. So as soon as I figured it out, I put in my resignation and left. So now I'm unemployed and have to look for a new job. It will probably mean more time apart for us but…. Dean, I just couldn't stay at Ft. Garrison. Not after that. I'm sorry."

Dean pulls her back to him and envelopes her in a hug. "Don't you dare apologize, Mags. I don't blame you a bit. Jo is a major bitch for doing that. We'll figure something out, I promise okay?"

Dean looks down to see a small smile on her face as he feels her relax in his arms. He vows to do whatever it takes to keep her exactly where she is.

Dean swears he will never get used to the feeling of Maggie's body taking him in. As he settles inside her hot, wet cavern he revels in the sense of intimacy, the closeness to another person. This isn't just a hookup to him, isn't just another way to get off. To Dean, this is an intimate bond between him and the woman he loves. Between the push and pull of the dalliance, he bares his soul to Maggie. He lets her in more than he has ever done before.

He can feel her walls fluttering around his shaft and it enraptures him. His momentum increases and he reaches between their bodies to caress her swollen nub. He loves the fact that he can make her feel so good, can make her hit her peak so thoroughly. He watches with his forehead lain against hers, as her eyes roll back and her mouth hangs agape, a silent cry of pleasure.

Watching her climax is the highlight of his day. She is so beautiful in the throes of passion and his eyes well up when he thinks she is all his. It brings on his own end as he lets go and fills her with his release.

He knows that no matter what obstacles come their way, together they can conquer anything!

Dean decides during rehearsal to let the rest of the band in on his plans. He had teamed up with Sam and Meg and wrote a song for Maggie and with her being back, and the circumstances of her return, he decided tonight was the night to debut it.

"So, there's gonna be a little adjustment to the set tonight." Four sets of eyes look his way in confusion.

"What're you talkin' 'bout there Chief?" Benny spoke up for the rest of them.

"Sam, Meg, and I have been working on a song and I want to sing it tonight," Dean explains. "It holds special meaning to me and it's time."

"Are you sure?" Sam asks, skeptical of why his brother wants to perform that particular number. "I mean, will she even hear it?"

"Mags is here," Dean tells his brother. "Showed up a couple of hours ago. She's out with Rayne right now. So yea it's time," Dean says knowing his younger brother understands the meaning behind his words.

Dean turns to the other three. "So I was thinking in between 'Set Me Off' and ''Ex You Out'...."

The crowd is pumped. People are on the dance floor, dancing to the music while others sit at the tables or at the bar, nodding their heads or tapping their feet. Dean feels alive; he feels as if everything is right in the world. His band is drawing bigger and bigger crowds every night; his girl, his lover and best friend is in the shadows observing; and tonight his life will hopefully change. With just one word.

As the ending to 'Set Me Off' crescendos, he looks to Meg and she nods as she begins playing the soft notes on her keyboard.

🎶Someone call the police

This girl has stolen my heart

A crime of passion has been unleashed

My heart is shackled to hers like a work of art

With only a glance I’m her prisoner for life.

With one look of her dazzling eyes

And one sway of her hips I was mesmerized

She’s got me all up in a twist

And I’m loving every bit of it

Feeling things I ain’t never felt before

Down deep in my core

Can’t shake this feeling although I tried

She’s got me hypnotized

Like a muppet on a string

I give her the reins

To mould me and shape me

Into who she needs me to be.

With only a glance I’m her prisoner for life.

With one look of her dazzling eyes

And one sway of her hips I was mesmerized

She’s got me all up in a twist

And I’m loving every bit of it

Feeling things I ain’t never felt before

Down deep in my core

Can’t shake this feeling although I tried

She’s got me hypnotized

She's got me hypnotized

She's got me stupefied

She's got me, heart and soul

I give her my all.🎶

"Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming out tonight. The Winchester Sex Bombs deeply appreciate your support. Now if you don't mind, I want to take a minute to do something that's been years- I mean YEARS- in the making. Maggie, will you come out here?" Dean says as he looks toward the curtain he knows Maggie and Rayne are behind. He watches with laughter as Rayne pushes his girlfriend onto the stage. He can tell Maggie is nervous as hell on top of confused about why he called her out to join him.

As she nears center stage where he is, he removes his guitar and hands it off to Sam. The lights go out except for the spotlight that is shining right on them. Dean removes the microphone from its stand and grasps her hand in his free one.

"Margaret Eugenia Fitzgerald. I have known you since you were 14 years old and I have always felt this bond, this connection with you. Even when we went our separate ways, you would often cross my mind. Then one night, much like tonight. I saw you. I thought my eyes were deceiving me. I thought there was no way you were in the crowd at one of my concerts. But it was you. My life has become so much better since then and I know it will only get better." He lets go of her hand and pulls the ring from his pocket, then gets down on one knee.

Looking up at her, his angel, he asks the one question no one but Sam was anticipating. "Will you marry me?"

@pink1031 @spnbaby-67 @winecatsandpizza @joseyrw @kricketc29 @tftumblin @markofdean79 @sandlee44 @michellethetvaddict @lyarr24 @travelingriversideblues-x

#dean winchester #SUPERNATURAL AU #dean winchester au #rockstar!dean #reporter!reader #rockstar!dean x reporter!reader #Dean x OFC #lil bit of angst #lil bit of fluff #whole lotta smut #smutapalooza #e'erybody be fucking #my second foray into AUs #deans-baby-momma #rebel without a cause #maggie fitzgerald #dean x maggie

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goodfemalecharacters · 5 years

Text

15x03 Coda: Consolation Prize

Three sad vignettes for three sad dudes. Destiel, Samwitch of a sort, 1.5k

It’s over.

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over.

Dean repeats the words in his head, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose it. Lose what? He’s not sure. His remaining thread of sanity, maybe. Or his ability to stop himself from hurling every item in the Bunker’s kitchen on the floor.

If it were really over, if they’d really beaten Chuck’s last challenge, if they’d really escaped the rat race they’ve been stuck in since day one, then he’d feel something, wouldn’t he? Relief. Peace. Instead, he’s every bit as empty as Famine—as Chuck?—had said he was all those years ago.

Winning would feel like cooking Mom a full meal, no nostalgic Winchester Surprise anywhere in sight, and teaching her to make a pie. Like playing catch with Dad like they did before the fire, talking about nothing important. Like watching a smile spread across Sammy’s face, not one of those pinched, drawn things that have been twisting his features for a decade. Like teaching Jack how to drive, properly this time.

Like telling Cas—well. It doesn’t matter now, does it?

Because Mom and Dad are dead, and Sam just killed the first person in years that he’s actually made a genuine connection with, and a demon wearing Jack’s corpse waltzed it into Hell and never came back, and Cas is gone.

This isn’t what winning is supposed to be like. So what does victory even mean, really?

He’s no philosopher. He’s a guy with a car, a couple guns, a kid brother, and a plucky attitude. Nevermind all the things he doesn’t have. He’s gonna take this victory and he’s gonna enjoy it, damnit. Somehow.

One quick trip to the store and a Google search set him up for the evening. As he’s making his way back to the kitchen, he stops by Sam’s room to listen. It’s quiet, and there’s no light streaming from the crack under the door. Maybe he’s asleep, but Dean knows better than to hope that that’s the case.

Once he’s back in the kitchen, Dean sets about making cookie dough with far more intensity than any reasonable person should. Take that, Chuck. Name one manly man in the whole fucking canon that celebrates his free will with making cookies. If there’s any proof that he’s no longer being yanked around like a dog on a chain, like a puppet on a string, like any number of stupid metaphors that don’t even begin to cover how he feels right now, it’s there.

Right?

By the time he takes the last batch out of the oven, it’s nearly three o’clock in the morning. The stillness of the bunker, which usually comforts him, feels heavy and oppressive. He burns his fingers on the edge of the last pan as he withdraws it from the oven.

Typical.

On his way back to his room, he sets a tray of the warm cookies outside of Sam’s. Like it’s some sort of consolation prize for making their only friend leave.

///

“Samwise, I know you’re the king of deluding yourself, but the math here isn’t hard.”

Sam can feel the breath on the back of his neck, but it’s not warm, not like breath should be, and his own warm breath catches in his throat. He closes his eyes, tenses his shoulders. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

“You’re dead,” he tells the voice, because if he tells himself that it’s just a voice, there won’t actually be someone there when he turns around. “You’re in the Empty.”

“Yeah, sure,” the voice—he’s not naming it, he’s not—says, “keep telling yourself that. You know I’ll be wherever Chuck wants me to be in this little drama of yours, right? You know this, Sam, or you’d turn around and face me.”

Sam knows better than to turn around. After years and years and years of this, he knows not to fall for the goading. But he does, and Lucifer smiles. Sam takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t stop the way his heart is throwing itself at his ribcage like it’s trying to escape.

“I’ll make sure to say hi to Little Red for you. She’s in my territory now, you know.”

This is his poor, screwed-up, exhausted brain spitting old footage, cobbling it together like a trailer for a horror movie.

“She sacrificed herself,” Sam finds himself saying. “She sacrificed herself for the world. If that doesn’t deserve Heaven—”

Lucifer smiles, then, and the words die on Sam’s lips. “It’s cute that you still think any of this is about deserving.”

And then Sam jerks awake, his heart still pounding. He’s managed to twist the sheets around his legs like a mummy, so he takes a second to untangle himself. It’s a long enough process that his breathing has slowed to a normal rate by the time he’s done.

He has to swallow back bile, but he manages to stop himself from vomiting on to his floor. Sam lets his head drop forward to hang between his knees, which causes the angry wound in his shoulder to yell out. His head spins, but he can’t tell if it’s pain or leftover vertigo from the dream.

He hasn’t had one like that since Dean killed—truly, permanently killed—Lucifer.

He’d called Rowena that night, hands still shaking as he searched for her name on his phone. She’d asked for Lucifer’s heart (“Never know when something like that will come in handy, Samuel), and he’d had to decline, seeing as Nick had been using it. Funny, that. It probably would have been better for everyone that way.

He’d been able to hear her relief over the phone, buried as it was in the familiar lilt of her voice. She’d promised a night of toasting his death until they were both well and truly drunk. (“So, two drinks?” he’d teased, and she’d grumbled something about draining wine casks before his great-grandparents had met).

Right. They’d never get that now.

He stretches out on his bed again, on top of the sheets this time, wincing as the motion pulls on the bullethole. He doesn’t get back to sleep before his alarm goes off three hours later.

///

This particular twenty-four hour diner apparently isn’t open twenty-four hours a day—they close at three and reopen at six. The waitress, when Cas points this out to her, shoots him a glare and then proceeds to take over thirty minutes to get him the coffee he’d ordered.

He can’t taste it, of course, but it would be rude to sit here and order nothing. Besides, the slight tingle on his tongue from the caffeine is something, at least. A tiny distraction from the gaping hole in his chest.

During the brief time he’d been human, working at the Gas ’n Sip, he’d passed the long nights when there’d be hours between the customers with daydreams. Fantasies where Dean would pull up outside, walk in with his hands deep in the pockets of his coat. He’d say that they’d managed to lock both Heaven and Hell, returning angels and demons to their places for good. He’d say that it was over, that Cas could come home.

He’d say he needed to finish his shift, and Dean would roll his eyes, but he’d gather the seriousness from Cas’s voice and stay by the register for the rest of the evening. He’d buy dozens of packs of gum as he chewed his way through them, and he’d flip through so much of a magazine that Cas would insist that he buy it, too. He’d keep up a quiet stream of chatter until, at last, Cas clocked out.

Dean would kiss him in the parking lot.

Stupid. Because now, at the end of it all, there’s no going home. There’s no quiet conversation at the dinner table or long nights marathoning movies or painting his room in the bunker a pretty robin egg blue.

Certainly no kissing in the parking lot.

Now, it’s the end of it all and he doesn’t have everything. No purpose in Heaven. No life on Earth. No place to call home.

He’ll head to Jody’s tomorrow morning, once he’s pulled himself together. He can show Claire cat memes in person, watch her roll her eyes. Help Patience with her math homework, listen to Alex’s nursing stories, lend a hand in the kitchen when Jody’s busy at work. He doesn’t think she has the heart to turn him away, even though he’s not the usual sort of wayward soul that finds itself at her doorstep.

It’s not much of a plan, but it’s something. It’s enough to keep him preoccupied while he waits for the sun to rise, anyway. The waitress returns three times to fill his coffee cup while the sun slowly creeps back to the horizon, and when he leaves her a forty dollar tip, her eyebrows vanish into her hairline.

By the time he hits the road, there’s a weak sort of sunlight spilling over the highway. And even though he feels like someone hollowed out his stomach, he has to smile.

He’s part of the reason the sun is still shining, after all. No matter what else he’s lost, nobody can take that from him.

(ao3)

#destielfanficnet #destiel #spn fic #spn spoilers #spn s15 #my fic

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buckisthatyou · 5 years

Text

Glow

Pairing: Bucky x Male Reader (soulmate au and highschool au)

Word Count: 2100

Warning: -

Summary: There is a pressed flower in each books you have borrowed from your favourite library and it glows every time you touch it. (soulmate au)

Masterlist

Author notes: This is for @cravingmarvel ‘s Writing Challenge [my prompt is Garden] and also today is her birthday (26th June) so this is also a birthday gift for her! I love you and im so proud of you!!!!!! Keep being amazing (human, writer, friend, musician etc)!!! also this is my first time writing soulmate au soooo please be nice! :’)

You do love sport but not as much as you love books. You don’t think it is a big problem. Both activities are fun and bring a lot of benefits. But some people just don’t see it. They believe that boys are supposed to go and do sport because it is more masculine than spending time reading books in the library. You hate those who have that mentality. Reading helps to build the muscles in the brain just like doing sport helps to build the muscles in the body.

“Hey y/n, are you coming to the game today?”

Clint asks you as the school bell starts to ring. You are putting your thick history book in your black backpack, looking at him with an apologizing face.

“No man. I have to return some books.”

Clint rolls his eyes, letting out a sigh.

“Really man? Can’t you return them tomorrow? I think Linda is gonna be cool with that. Not like she doesn’t know who you are.”

Clint does have a point. You and Linda know each other due to the countless number of time you have been to the library. Linda is a great librarian, super cool too. It is easy to strike a conversation with her and she has been very helpful in recommending the best book to read.

“Sorry, Clint. Can’t do that to Linda. Plus, I do need to borrow some books too. I see you tomorrow!”

You excuse yourself before Clint uses all his power to seduce you and make you change your mind. Clint is pretty good at convincing people and you don’t want to be one of his victim today.

“Alright, goody shoe! See you tomorrow!” he shouts as you have already sprint out from the classroom.

You let out a little laugh hearing that from him. Shaking your head, you take out your earphone and put on your favourite playlist. The hallway is full with teenage kids who are as eager as you to get home. You ignore the loud noise coming from them by blasting off the good music in your ear. Humming along with the song, you walk down the street, going to the library.

It only takes you 20 minutes to arrive at the library. It is a favourite place of yours since the private library is not overly huge and the decoration and vibes are calming. Plus, it also has a beautiful garden outside where you can chill under the big shady trees and just enjoying your time reading some books. It has always been your place since you were a kid. The owner was a close friend to your parent. It is safe to say that this library can be the definition of your childhood playground.

Once you step your feet inside the building, Linda who sits at the counter, gives you a smile and a small wave.

“Hi, Linda. How are you?”

“Hello, sweetheart. I’m good. How about you?”

“Never better. I’m returning these though.” You take out the books from your bag, placing them on the counter. She nods and takes them to be placed near her.

“You finished these fast.” She smiles and you can see the proudness and shock in the smile.

“Just got a lot of free time, you know.” You grin before disappearing to look for more books to read.

Later that night, you sit on your study desk. Open the books you have borrowed from the library, you are searching for something. Curious if there is a hidden gem in there. You have noticed a pattern from the previous books you borrowed.

Page 62.

You manage to find the hidden gift. A pressed flower.

You take it out from the book and it glows in your hand. You stare and analyze the glowing flower before placing it in a crystal clear box along with the rest of the pressed flowers. You wonder why there is always a pressed flower on page 62 every time the previous borrower of the book was JBB. You wonder who is that person? You wonder why is the pressed flower glows when you touched it? Is this a clue for something important? Is the person trying to give a sign of rescue? Should you just ask Linda who is this JBB? You shrug it off and start to read the book before you go to bed. You will find the answer later but now you just need to enjoy this alone moment of yours.

You just stare at the guy, he walks into the cafeteria with this aura where you can’t help but to stare. You almost choke on your sandwich as Clint shouts his name.

“Bucky!”

Clint gives you a smirk when he hears you coughing.

Asshole.

Bucky walks to your table. Him and his other friends, Steve and Sam. You have always have a thing for him but he is way too out of league. He is the James Dean of the town. Effortlessly charming. Although you can get along with his group of friends, you still feel small and shy around him. For example, right at this moment. But you still try to keep your cool.

“Sup!” Sam greets us first followed by Bucky and Steve. They are talking about yesterday’s game but once in a while you join in the conversation but most of the time you fail as you can sense that Bucky is looking at you. The guy does not trying to make it seem low key, he makes it obvious. The confidence that you will never have when confronting him. You at last, stare at your sandwich feeling your cheeks burn with embarrassment from Bucky’s staring.

As you are about to take a bite, you hear a sound of a chair being pulled next to you. Looking up, you see Bucky smiles softly at you.

“If you don’t mind, I wanna sit here.”

“You already did, idiot!” Sam smacks his head which brings a loud laughter from the other boys. You just smile.

“No, no no. It is fine. I don’t mind at all.”

“Thank you. By the way, that’s a good book. I love the plot.” He points at the book on the table.

You smile widely. “Do you really? I have been wanting to read this one for quite some time and thank god I found it in the library!” You tell him excitedly.

“The library down the road? Oh interesting! But yea, it is a good one. You wouldn’t wanna stop reading it, trust me!” He chuckles at his own words.

The lunch time is well spent as you talk about the book with the cute boy, Bucky. It is the highlight of the day. It is all that you can think about until you totally forgot to drop by the library to ask Linda about a person named JBB. It is during the night when you see your box with a few pressed flowers that you remember about the mystery of the JBB person. This is the fifth book where you found a pressed flower in the book which the previous borrower is named JBB. You have been looking for other clue but nothing. It just the same. Page 62, JBB and a pressed flower.

“What did you say?” Clint asks you again in disbelief after you told him about the mystery of pressed flowers.

“Yeah. It is confusing. Do you think it is some sort of SOS or something?” you ask him back.

You two are on the way to the library. You will see whether if Linda is there to get some answer and then chill at the garden of the library. Clint? He is just there to get some coffee at the café in front of the library.

“Maybe that. Or maybe someone just so into making magical pressed flowers.” He keeps a serious tone.

You just roll your eyes at him. “You are an asshole. Do you know that?”

“Cmon man. I have no magic power. The only way is just to find the JBB person and figure that out. Or maybe we can google that shit up. Why does a dried pressed flower glow?” he just shrugs at you when you stare at him but Clint does have a point.

Google that shit up.

And so you did.

You choke on your iced latte reading the article.

“You ok, bro?” Clint asks you, a little concerned.

“I-im ok. It just – look” you hand him your phone.

Clint takes the phone and scans the article.

“Soulmates?” his eyes go wide at the word. “The mysterious person is your soulmate?”

You nod at his answer. JBB is your possible soulmate.

You can’t stop thinking about it. You really thought you could have something wonderful with Bucky. You swear you feel special, magical with him. Like he is your real soulmate, not this stranger whom you never knew about.

You walk slowly to the library. You see Linda at the counter and you start to feel sick in your stomach. You feel nervous. What if the person who is talking to her right now is your soulmate? He looks older than you. That scared the hell out of you. What if the guy with the headphone? You shake your head. You keep looking for the possible JBB in the library until you see someone familiar outside of the library through the big glassdoor. You make your way to the garden so that you can talk to him. His appearance makes you feel calmer now.

Bucky is walking around the garden, enjoying the beautiful flowers around him. There is a book in his hand. It makes you smile. He plays sports for fun but he is a science nerd. He looks like a jock with his build up body but he is a sweetheart. Bucky is perfect for you. Everything he does brings a smile to your face and you refuse to believe that he is not your soulmate.

You see him stops next to a bunch of pink roses. He sniffs the roses and smiles before he picks up a pink rose and places it in the book he is holding.

“Bucky?” you call him.

He turns around to you. Red face because he gets caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing.

“What were you doing?” you ask him, getting closer to him.

“I-I was” his voice trembles.

“Are you JBB?” you make yourself ask him the question. You really hope he knows what you are talking about.

He looks at your face in disbelief. Now it is your turn to feel embarrassed. He probably thinks you are crazy. You look at your shoes, whispering “I’m sorry Bucky. Forget it.” He grabs your arm right before you leave him.

“Are you – are you my soulmate y/n?”

You keep quiet.

“Are you?” he asks again softly.

“I – I think so” you reply.

He immediately pulls you into his arms and hugs you. “I knew it is gonna be you.” He whispers to himself. You smile at his words. Being in his embrace makes you feel at peace. He is your other half and you are more than happy to find it out.

“I was afraid it wasn’t you.” You say to him.

“Me too but I’m always hoping that it is you even we haven’t know each other properly.” He chuckles. It is true that you haven’t get to know each other properly because you are too nervous to be talking to him or even looking at his eyes because there is this strong feeling in your gut that makes you feel nervous.

“It is ok, Bucky. We have our whole life to get to know one another.” You look at him and smile. He returns your smile and leans in to kiss your nose.

“You thought I was gonna kiss your lips? You didn’t even know my full name, y/n!” he smirks making you shy. “Jerk!” you push him off your body and he laughs at you.

“It is James Buchanan Barnes” he says to tease you.

“Shut up, Bucky!” you walk off to get inside the library instead of stuck at the garden with your soulmate.

He runs to catch up to you.

“Here.” He hands you another pink rose.

You look at him and to the rose in his hand. You take it and it glows.

“It does really glow huh when you touch a flower given by your soulmate?” It excites him to see the glowing rose in your hand. You smile and nod. “Yes, James Buchanan Barnes. It does.”

Permanent: @mizz-kraziii @queenoftrash97 @fran-writes@amindfulloffanfictions @grosskyjaja @v-2bucky @jaysaku@ria132love@plumsforbuckxx

#fluff #soulmate au #highschool au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x male reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes #sebastian stan #cravingmarvel500

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thecleverdame · 5 years

Text

The Morning After

Alpha!Werewolf!Sam x Omega!Werewolf!Reader

Story three of the Moonlight series - ABO Masterlist

Warnings: Mentions of smut

Beta: @moonlitskinwalker

Sunlight was pouring in through the naked bedroom window as you lifted yourself from the mattress. If you didn’t have to pee so bad you’d turn over and sleep for another hour, but nature calls. You pluck last night’s panties off the floor and trot to the bathroom.

Catching a glimpse of your reflection you slowly back up. The full-length mirror offers a breathtaking roadmap of last night’s festivities. Your hair is wild and lips still swollen from a combination of hard kisses and the hours you spent with his cock in your mouth, sucking and swallowing. The rest of your skin is covered in bruises with a few bite mark thrown in for good measure.

If you squint you can make out a handprint around your throat, a reminder of the way Sam’s giant hand squeezed just tight enough to make you see stars when you came, bucking desperately with his cock inside you. Now that the bite on your neck has all but healed you enjoy having the ache of new bruising. There’s an impression of Sam’s teeth high on the inside of your thigh and, later tonight when you’re at work, you’ll squeeze your legs together and think about what it feels like to have his fingers digging into flesh when his tongue is in your pussy.

Picking up a sock off the floor you dangle it between your fingers, sniffing. It doesn’t matter how many time he launders his clothes, you can still smell them. The scent of other women is everywhere. You suspect being freshly claimed has amped up your sense of smell and he must have screwed half the town because there are traces lingering every corner. Two days ago you threw away a shirt that smelled like another Omega, and last night you flushed a discarded hair tie down the toilet that stunk of a long forgotten Beta. But this lone sock was holding onto the faint aroma of a human woman and it makes your stomach turn. Curling your lip you drop it into the trash and wipe your nose.

Stepping into thin panties you forgo other garments and pad down the dated, shag carpet of his short hallway. This apartment is a real shit hole, a bachelor pad if there ever was one.

Sam looks up as you wander into the living room. A slow grin tugging at his mouth at the sight of you practically naked, in a daze. You look feral and gorgeous and like you’ve been fucked by an entire football team.

“Good morning.” He shuts his laptop.

“Hi,” you flash a sleep-drunk smile. “We need to get curtains. It’s too bright in the bedroom..”

“I’ll get you whatever you want.” He prowls in your direction, coming up behind you as you reach the kitchen counter. He presses his body into your back and his nose to your neck, enjoying that he can smell himself on you. His hands curl around your hips, covering the black and blue marks his fingers left last night. “Did I hurt you?”

“A little,” you turn your head towards him, nuzzling your nose into his. Sam’s newly mated, still untamed and not quite able to control the surge of power you ignite inside him. He fucks too hard and bites to deep, but you don’t mind. He’ll get it under control once he learns to temper this newfound lust, but right now he’s governed by Alpha instincts. It’s only been four days. The first few months are all about frantic need and physical gratification. You can only imagine what he’ll be like when he’s in a rut.

“Sorry,” he murmurs half-heartedly, his lips meeting yours in an uncharacteristically soft kiss. To balance out the moment his hand slides upward, open-palmed as he cups a breast.

“I like it,” you push your ass back into him as he smiles against your lips.

“You have to work today?” He bites at the ball of your shoulder, pinching skin just enough to make you squirm.

“Ahuh,” you reach back grabbing a fist full of his hair.

“You should quit.” His free hand is finding its way inside your panties, fingers curling into soft, wet flesh. You moan and he smiles like the wolf he is, all teeth and bad intentions. “I’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t wanna quit.” You paw his hand away, turning in his arms as he cages you between two thick biceps. “I like working. I’ve got plenty of other needs for you to take care of...Alpha.”

“How long before you have to leave?” Sam grabs two handfuls of your ass, pulling your stomach against this half hard cock. He’ll want to have you again before you leave. All he can think about is how much he wants to be inside you, it makes his brain dizzy with need. Every fiber of his being wants to fuck and mate and breed his Omega. He can’t get enough of the new and thrilling idea that you’re his.

“We’ve got time.” You confirm, taking his face between your hands as you kiss him.

Bang Bang Bang

The knock on the door surprises you and Sam sighs, grumbling into your mouth. “Shit, it’s my brother. I forgot he was coming.”

“S’ok” you peck his lips and slither out his grasp. “Get your dick under control and I’ll let him in.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as Sam palms his cock through his sweatpants. You grab a wrinkled shirt from the laundry basket, pulling it over your head. Swinging the front door open you expect to find Dean but instead, are greeted by two uniformed police officers.

“Ma’am” The older of the two tips his head as his eyes drop momentarily over your bare legs before recovering. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but we received a noise complaint last night.”

“Oh,” you smirk, biting your lip. “Sorry.”

“Three complaints actually,” the younger man steps forward and swallows hard. “Several callers expressed concern that someone at this address was watching…” He pauses and shifts, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation.

“Pornography, ma’am.” The other officer finishes for him. “We got a couple calls that someone was watching pornography at a high volume, it was disturbing the other residents. We’re going to have to write you up for a noise complaint.”

A giggle erupts from your belly, uncontrolled and bubbly. Red-faced you bring a hand to your mouth, the fact is you should be much more embarrassed than you actually are.

“That wasn’t the TV,” you mutter under your breath.

“Excuse me?”

“You know what,” you shake a finger, “I think I know who you should be talking to about this. Sam!”

#Alpha!Sam x Omega!Reader #alpha!sam winchester #supernatural a/b/o #sam winchester x reader

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doraspn · 5 years

Text

15x03 not-quite-coda

or how dean is forced to listen to love songs until he gets his head out of his ass

dean wakes up to the song earth angel on full blast. dean reaches for his phone to make the noise stop but it’s not coming from his phone. it’s also 4 fucking am. he’s mad. he rushes to the kitchen and sam’s right where he expected him to be, leaning against the counter drinking coffee and staring at the floor, feeling fucking awful and unable to sleep. he looks up at dean who storms in like a madman. dean shouts over the song, asking what the fuck. sam is confused and apparently has no idea what’s going on and why dean’s shouting at full volume. dean looks like he’s most likely losing it.

cas leaves the bunker and goes to a bar because he’s heartbroken and doesn’t know what else to do and dean always goes to bars. even though he said he needs to move on it’s not that simple okay. a drag queen approaches him and cas realises it’s a gay bar but it makes no difference to him anyway so he sits down and orders a whiskey because the smell of it is somehow both comforting and heart wrenching. he lets the drag queen ask him about his break up. he doesn’t even bother to clarify (clarify what though?) and without anyone else to lean on he figures he doesn’t have anything more to lose so he just tells her e v e r y t h i n g and halfway through him recounting the last “conversation” he had with dean, the drag queen is like bitch what did he say to you? and she is having none of it so she buys both of them shots and they proceed to trash talk dean.

back in the bunker sam and dean are now aware that the song is coming from inside dean’s head and they are confused. sam is researching what it could be: curse, hex, trickster, this that something else? while dean is just sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands. but they can’t seem to make it stop. the only change is that after the umpteenth time earth angel played in succession, mr sandman by chordettes started playing on repeat instead. sam is concerned, of course he is, according to what dean told him the songs are really really loud but he also finds it kind of amusing, he can’t help it. he asks dean what he did last night before going to bed, if he remembers anything strange. they have no shortage of enemies but it’s best to start with the basics, the answer could be closer than it seems. dean is convinced this is some sort of sick joke from chuck. sam isn’t so sure, though he isn’t sure why.

cas feels a little better and less stressed, and with the encouragement of monique bedazzle, quite drunk too. he should be concerned about the state of his angel powers but he’s too busy laughing at monique calling dean all kinds of swear word related names. he thinks it’s nice to have someone to be mad for you, even when you can’t quite bring yourself to be. in the haze cas isn’t even aware he’s been talking about hunting and monsters and being an angel but monique probably thinks it’s just the alcohol talking.

dean can’t remember a single thing he did differently last night. what is sam even on about. did he use too much toothpaste and somehow inadvertently ended up cursing himself into listening to do you love me over and over and over again? sam tries to summarize what they know so far: only dean can hear the music, it’s very loud (extremely fucking loud, dean corrects), the songs do change, albeit at an inconsistent rate, and they all seem to be 50s and 60s love songs.

monique puts a hand on cas’ shoulder, tells him to forget about dean’s bitchass and pushes away the whiskey glass in front of him with a cocktail, complete with a little dick on a stick instead of an umbrella. cas smiles sadly at the drink and thanks her. his angel powers must still be there because the buzz of the alcohol he consumed is now replaced with the gentle buzz of what remains of his angelic essence. monique gives cas a little nudge and tells him “sam spade, angel, darling, it’s time to move on!” but one look into cas’ eyes and she knows he will never move on.

dean is slamming his head against the table and taking the time it takes his head to reach the surface to inform sam that he can’t fucking take it anymore when devil in disguise starts playing for the 68th time. there is a millisecond of radio silence upon impact, as if his brain loses the signal for a moment. sam is growing more and more concerned now. while it was amusing for the first 5 hours, now in hour 15 it’s going on gruesome. he is typing frivolously, calling people left and right, desperately trying to find a solution. what the fuck is actually going on.

cas finds some strange comfort in the lazy way the bar staff shuffles around him as they prepare the bar for closing. it’s how he felt around dean. an unmoving fixture, always stuck in one place, as dean’s life happened all around him; always watching him, never quite participating. monique went to change out of her drag. it’s quiet but for the occasional sounds of chairs scraping across the wooden floor. he doesn’t know where to go or what to do next. a glance at the clock tells cas it’s 3:43 am, not that it means anything to him.

it’s not until late that night that dean finally gets a break. there is a short moment of absolute silence which makes dean’s head snap up. sam notices and he immediately tenses, asking dean what’s happening. then a new song comes on, but this time the volume is not obnoxiously loud. as elvis speaks the lyrics and now the stage is bare and i’m standing there with emptiness all around, and if you won’t come back to me then they can bring the curtain down the volume drops lower and lower. the song ends, and so does dean’s inner playlist.

the bar is completely empty when michael returns to cas’ side. cas is sitting still as a rock, staring at the untouched cocktail in front of him. michael’s smiling as he pulls cas to his feet, telling him he’s crashing at the bedazzle pad tonight.

dean is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. he’s finally convinced sam he’s fine and that he’ll find him if the music starts blaring in his brain again. the headache isn’t too bad, surprisingly. he finds the quiet strange after a whole day of loud, inescapable noise. it feels clearer, like the violent sounds swept his head clear of dusty thoughts that have been there since forever. he doesn’t know how long this moment clarity will last but there is something powerful about the way cas’ name echoes inside it, and he lets himself dwell on that.

michael opens his front door and cas shuffles in politely. he doesn’t even think of potential danger. the fact that he basically told this stranger everything about himself doesn’t quite reach him at the moment. he’s too dazed. michael takes off his shoes and cas follows suit. soon enough he finds himself sitting on a comfortable sofa in a warm living room with a cup of hot coco to warm his hands on, his socked feet resting on the fuzzy cow print carpet under his feet. the socks were a present from dean, buy one get one free, ridiculous porn noodle mishmash design. michael asks cas for his phone. in the background, heartbreak hotel plays.

the next morning dean and sam are having breakfast. dean is a bit consumed with some of his new thoughts so he accidentally spills a full carton of milk all over the kitchen floor. sam understands, the guy had a pretty rough day yesterday. he prompts dean to see if he thought of anything. dean is confused for a bit before realizing that sam is talking about what caused the musical hell he had going on the day before. sam is surprised to learn that dean doesn’t really care that much about what caused it. he watches dean as he fills his bowl with a variety of cereal. dean’s back alright, he thinks.

by the time cas’ phone reaches full charge, michael and he have already devoured most of the waffles which only somewhat taste like molecules. michael’s phone vibrates and with a glint in his eye, he types a response.

return to sender

address unknown

no such person, no such zone

dean is staring at his phone, frowning. sam looks up from his laptop and asks what’s wrong. dean’s worried now.

cas is surprised as he stands in michael’s pantry. heart of a goat is not something humans keep in a jar inside their homes, he is pretty certain of that. he was only really looking for the bathroom because michael sent him on a quest for a “blue plastic container, pink flowers on the side, rattles a bit when shaken”.

sam looks at dean’s phone, then at dean, then back at the screen. i don’t think cas... no, cas no, dean finishes his thought. the words definitely not cas echo in his mind. but who?

michael thanks cas as he takes the potato salad from his hands. even cas can tell the dinner’s well made. michael jokes that he didn’t prepare any animal hearts this time, but there’s always the next. cas isn’t quite sure why he trusts the witch. perhaps it’s the bad jokes.

the day passes without any real incidents. neither brother is any closer to figuring out what’s happening. every text sent to cas’ phone comes back a lyric. dean stares at the latest one.

tomorrow will be too late

it’s now or never

my love won’t wait

cas finds himself in the gay bar again. michael is getting ready for the performance so he’s sitting alone at the bar.

dean snatches the phone from sam’s hands and presses call. instead of castiel he finds a woman’s voice on the other side of the line.

thank you for calling HeadShot, please choose one of the following options:

if you’d like to inquire about our membership program, press 1

if you’re interested in becoming part of our stage or floor staff, press 2

if you’d like to get your head out of your ass and see castiel again, press 3

dean frowns at the phone but chooses number three anyway.

sam asks him what he’s doing. dean pulls up a chair, sits down and starts by telling sam about the first time he’s ever felt scared of himself. sam does what he does best, he listens.

monique gets up on stage to check that everything is ready for the first act of the night. she checks her watch. from where she’s standing she has a very clear view of the front door. it’s almost 10. showtime.

dean finds himself staring at the neon sign proudly shining above the door. the penis surrounded by shot glasses filled with white liquid does seem a tad overkill but who is he to judge. he takes a deep breath to steady himself and straightens his jacket.

“whiskey, double” comes the order and the bartender nods in response. cas turns, his eyes meeting a pair of handsome green ones. and with that, cas is forced to acknowledge he has a type.

dean’s relieved. the inside is not what he imagined, but he doesn’t feel as uncomfortable as he expected. it’s all somehow new, even the old flannel shirt he’s wearing feels like a new skin on his body. it doesn’t take long to spot cas. or to notice the man leaning uncomfortable close to him with a sly smile on his face. or is it uncomfortable only for him? sam was right, he’s jealous. dean guesses it has always been jealousy. he can’t believe it took a day of being forced to listen to awfully loud mid century hits for him to realize that. or to realize any of that other crap he’s been keeping from himself. he’s disappointed in himself. really, really disappointed. but it’s okay. he’s got this, right?

cas looks up and immediately notices dean. just standing there, almost within arms reach. cas thinks that perhaps he’s overdone it with the alcohol but remembering josh’s words from mere seconds ago he is reminded that he hasn’t actually drank anything all night. as he stares at dean, the dull ache flares up and his whole being starts pulsing underneath the surface of his skin. will he actually explode? he never thought he’d be seeing him again, but there he is.

dean looks to the right as the first notes reach his ears. a drag queen in a bright purple sequenced dress is standing on the stage, singing the words whatever will be, will be. he smiles, more to himself than anyone else. chuck can go fuck himself honestly, because there is something fantastic about life and it’s got nothing to do with the pompous prick.

cas can only stare into dean’s eyes, as if he’s spelunking in them, looking for something. something that will make it all more than just okay. next to him, he can feel josh uncomfortably shift as dean approaches their table. but dean doesn’t look away so neither does he.

dean smiles, soft, slightly unsure and offers his hand.

cas promised himself he wouldn’t budge until he gets a full written apology. then for days he wouldn’t so much as look at dean. he would not make it easy for the fantasy dean who would come to him, begging him to come back. but cas’ allows himself something he hasn’t allowed himself lately, he reads what’s written in dean’s eyes and he accepts dean’s hand.

dean’s smile grows. there’s sadness beneath it. and fear. cas knows now. the man who didn’t believe he deserved to be saved all those years ago never started believing. cas thought he was telling him, screaming it but he himself also fell victim to the same mindset.

who knows, perhaps together they can convince each other that they’re both worth saving. maybe it will all be more than okay.

que sera sera, what will be, will be

#i dunno #don't ask me anything

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