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kerryweaverlesbian · 1 year ago

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How do you go from Wanting to Having? I think this transition would be hard on my man Castiel.

I was going to do a cute little nice Cas Returns fic - so convinced, was I, that this would be teeny tiny that I only wrote it out here in a tumblr draft and not on my notes app! Anyway I have no idea how long this is and it is...uh...there's elements of cuteness I'd say, but it's more significantly emotional comfort of mostly Cas, ft selective mutism Dean. (Implied offscreen alcoholism.)

Cas is spat back out at 2am on a Tuesday, staggering hard onto the cold dungeon floor. It's pitch black in there, but with Cas’s angelhood restored (though still patchy) he can see well enough to find the stairs. When he tries the door, it's locked from the outside. As dungeons tend to be.

On pushing it open regardless, he finds that a cabinet had been pushed in front of it too. He's certain a human would have a hard time with it, but he shifts it aside with ease. He maneuvers it softly, aware of the time. Angels are always aware of the time. He felt the 40 years of battle through Hell for Dean's soul, he'd known the year-and-change of fight-and-flight through Purgatory, he'd counted every precious second of Jack's beloved company. The only place time didn't exist was the Empty. Or it didn't, until Cas broke it further.

He hopes, briefly, that those he woke up for aid had made it out as smoothly as him. Meg had, as ever, proved invaluable, and it had been a (tempered) joy to find Anna again. He sends silent thanks to Billie, for Their part in his return; They had been as angry as the role of Death allows that They'd been forced into Chuck's narrative once again, furious enough to value sabotaging his ending over Their objections to letting people back. Castiel had sworn that this would be the last time and Billie had said "Yes. It will." though he's sure they both know it's unlikely to be.

It's been 3 weeks and 5 days since he'd sacrificed himself to save Dean. It's strange; he'd thought since making the deal that if he was stolen away at his moment of happiness, he would fall into despair himself. To be ripped away at the time he found what he so deeply wanted, that would surely have broken him, and left him ready to be subsumed. Instead it had galvanised him. The Empty had made a fatal error; it had forgotten that stored within happiness there is always, always hope. Hope is intrinsic to happiness.

He follows that hope to the cracked open door of Jack's room: he's in there, sleeping, curled around his pillow affectionately. Castiel knows there's a knife under his pillow, but he still sleeps with his back to the door. Cas lets him be. He isn't quite ready to explain his absence in a way that would be kind to his son. He has someone else to talk to first.

Cas stops outside of Dean's bedroom. Light shines out from the cracks around the door, but he can tell through reaching out through the ether that Dean is sleeping. With a touch to the handle the door opens silently, and Cas closes it behind him, equally quiet. Every light in the room is on.

There are significantly more lights than there had been when Cas had last seen it. A cluster of floorlamps clutter the footspace, and every flat surface bares as many of the Men-of-Letters flat-roofed table lamps as it can fit. Even some of Dean's guns had been excised in favor of wiring to attach extra overheads that hang somewhat precariously above Dean's supine body.

Though Dean sleeps, a deep frown mars his brow. He's on his side too, facing the centre of the bed, though his arms cradle a bottle of scotch - opened and hours since spilled on the bedspread. To see him again in such bright light is a privilege. He finds, as he does every time that he has been reuinted with Dean, that he is indeed just as beautiful and vulnerable as he had remembered. Sometimes, near the beginning, he had made himself almost convinced that his feeling was exaggerated, his devotion practical and their connection shallow. Every time he found himself in the same room as Dean, he found himself proven wrong.

Privilege though it might be to see him like this, Castiel also wants to see his frown alliviated. Without regret, he turns his hand in the air, dimming every light to a soft glow. He spreads his hand on the mattress and wills away the wet spot that's crawled under Dean's face. Balancing one knee on the mattress Cas maneuvers the bottle out of Dean's hands, gentle and smooth, then stretches back to put it on the floor since the lights crowd the bedside.

Turning his gaze back to Dean, he finds his efforts were for naught. Without the bottle, Dean's hand has balled into a tight fist, squeezing so strongly that it shakes, and his frown has, if anything, deepened. He must be having a nightmare, though its the quietest Cas has ever seen him in one. Typically he thrashes, shouts, fights against fear even in his sleep. Now he's so still with it he seems almost dead, rigor mortised in his own bed.

Castiel remembers a time, less than a decade ago, when he would watch Dean's nightmares run their course. It wasn't impassivity that stayed his hand, but inertia. It had been an as yet uncured habit to stay out of the affairs of the Earthly, to restrict himself to speech-when-spoken-to. In short; he didn't know he could. Now, he has no such reluctance.

He curls his hand over Dean's left shoulder, a mimic of his print on his right, and slides a tender calmness into him, which finally relaxes Dean's posture. His brow smooths over, his jaw goes slack, and his breathing deepens. He's beautiful.

Then he snaps awake. A hand clamps hard over Cas’s wrist, holding him firmly and frightened eyes catch his in the dimness.

"Cas?" Dean's voice is hushed and croaked, as if he'd been sleeping for a long time.

A gentle irony strikes Cas, that Dean was resting while he was fighting his way home. It makes him smile, and that seems answer enough to Dean. He's grabbed fiercely and pulled into a thick hug, one that would render him breathless if he were a human. He holds Dean right back, deliberately softer. It feels important to be careful with him right now.

"I'm here, Dean. I'm sorry that I-"

Dean shoves Cas back and claps a hand over his mouth. Cas is caught in his serious, troubled gaze, and it takes a moment to interpret the slow shake of Dean's head.

Cas nods, and Dean draws his hand back. "I understand. I won't apologise."

Contrary, Dean huffs and rolls his eyes, as if to say, when do you ever? He doesn't speak. It's more than a little worrying. Not one to go unheard, though, Dean takes one of Cas’s hands in his and laces their fingers together, giving Cas a defiant expression. Cas’s heart catches.

"You don't have to," he makes himself say, "It's alright, Dean. What I said doesn't have to change anything between us. I love you, and that's..."

He was going to say, that's all you need to know, but Dean had rolled his eyes again and pressed a kiss to the back of Cas’s hand. At Cas's trailing off, he smirks, which slides away quickly into indecision. Dean tilts their joined hands back and forth together for a while, clearly thinking something through, and Cas lets him, trying not to squeeze too hard from his mounting, perilous hope. His hope in the Empty had been merely to live. To exist in a world where Dean knew the truth; that he is both lovable and loved. Now he is hurtling towards - something else.

It's funny (in the human, unfunny sense): he'd spent so long tamping down his possible happiness in fear of the Empty that now that it can be accessed freely, the idea of great happiness is a little frightening. What does a world look like where he gets what he wants? It's unimaginable.

He tries to untangle their fingers, at that thought, but Dean holds him fast, both with his grip and with a raised, unimpressed, eyebrow. It seems his attempt at absconding has made Dean's mind up. He reaches past Cas and opens the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, and drops a notebook into Cas’s lap.

The notebook is spiral bound and cheap-looking, its cover merely denoting the word 'Notebook' and its A5 size. The plastic of the cover is rough under Cas’s thumb. It's a far cry from Dean's leather bound hunting journals.

Correctly interpreting Cas’s tactile investigation as cowardliness, Dean impatiently flips it open with one hand to a random page.

You can have it.

That's what it says, all the way across the double page spread. Written over and over again in ball point pen, uncaring for or deliberately defeat of the evenly spaced blue lines meant to corral the written word.

You can have it, and variations thereupon: You can have it, damn it; could have fucking taken me, asshole; what do you think is supposed to make me happy now, you arrogant, stupid son of a bitch?

The me of the last is underlined so harshly that the paper is ripped. This outpouring is repeated on every page but the first, which instead says only, Come back. Those two words have been traced over enough that the message is engraved over the next three pages.

"Dean, I..." Cas begins, then has to stop, overwhelmed.

The magnitude of Dean sharing this work of grief is not lost on him. Perpetually making themselves vulnerable; is that not the story of their relationship? He follows the lines of Come back with his finger until Dean taps his chin up. He's leaned in close, the ends of his hair tickling Castiel's forehead.

He opens his mouth, but this time only manages a click in his throat that Cas thinks is supposed to be the start of his name.

"I understand," Cas says again, because he does. He brings a faintly trembling hand to the back of Dean's neck to keep him from pulling away - and, more, to keep himself from doing the same. "Dean, I never anticipated this. This is frightening to me. My heart is-"

Cas presses Dean's hand, still linked with his, to his chest, showing him the dizzying speed of its beating. Then he laughs, faintly, at having dropped another sentence:

"I think I left all my words in the dungeon."

Dean answers with a swift smile, his gaze radiating pure affection. He brings their hands to his own chest, where his heart beats just as fast. Dean kisses him, then, on his left eyebrow, then the cheek when Cas looks back at him.

"Dean," Cas says, half-warning, half-encouragement when Dean ducks around to kiss the ridge of his ear, and then "Dean..." in a half-moan when his teeth catch his throat.

Undeterred, Dean kisses whatever point of Cas’s face that strikes his fancy, rendering Cas a trembling mess before their lips even connect (which they do only when Cas holds Dean still and kisses him himself. The noise Dean makes is almost a laugh, and Cas will remember it for the rest of his life).

It's only a few minutes, though, before Cas has to stop. He's progressed from trembling to shaking, and the pleasant tingling across his limbs had turned sharply into pins-and-needles.

"I'm sorry," Cas says on an inhale, pulling away from Dean, and clarifies quickly, "I don't think I'm ready for this. It makes me too happy. I'm afraid. I can't lose you again."

Dean is tender with him, brushing Cas’s cheek soothingly with his thumb. His mouth and jaw work, and this time he gets out a "Ss", and then a "Shh".

He keeps on shushing as he wraps Cas back up in a hug, tight enough that all the rattling parts of Cas feel like they're slowly compressed back into his body. Dean breathes deeply and deliberately, and Cas copies him, noticing for the first time the room's stale-sweat-stink, and the familiar scent of second-hand gasoline in Dean's hair. It takes time, but eventually Cas is able to clutch at Dean too, which earns him an extra squeeze around his ribs.

"I love you," Cas says, and it feels too loud for the room, so he whispers it instead, "I love you, Dean."

Dean buries his face into Cas’s shoulder, in what could be charitably imagined as a nod. Neither of them says another word for the whole night.

They're both terrified of what they want to give - terrified of happiness. But in that awful, devestating, harrowing joy is the glimmer of what is going to get them through it: always, always hope.

#destiel #deancas #I'm so fucking tired it's almost 3am i have class later #i needed these words written down though #nov 5th #5.18 #The Truth #is the ending line corny? eh whatever had to end somehow #cawis creates #selectively mute Dean Winchester #angst with a happy ending #fix it fic #spn fix it

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