#not me finally finishing the sequel fic to something I wrote TWO GODDAMN YEARS AGO | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yeats-infection · 5 years ago

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@sqvalors tagged me in a lil writing meme... if you’d like to participate please do and tag me!

ao3 name: fluorescentgrey but i also post some things as drglass (dr. glass is the second song on the fluorescent grey EP by deerhunter, so if i make another pseud it will be likenew, then washoff, etc.)

fandoms: about two thirds of my fics are harry potter or star wars but there are a lot of random little goodies. currently i have shifted into the terror (2018) mode.

number of fics: 59 right now... i will throw a party when i get to 69...

fic i spent the most time on: this is funny because some of these technically took me like six months or more of working on them extremely intermittently... namely, bone machine. the series in the garden has taken me the most time generally... and in that, minuet did take me several months of working really hard while i had a schedule / commute that was not conducive to having a creative practice...

fic i spent the least amount of time on: hilariously, literally my most popular fic by ninety miles, the witcher PWP that i wrote out of spite in two or three hours.

longest fic: the source codes series... particularly heelstone which is 102k. i wrote these two stories in a single summer like a crazy person and i hate talking about them because i find them WAY too gooey. honestly, that’s why they are so long. it’s all the gooeyness!!!!!!

shortest fic: yes, the answer is the witcher porn again (this silly thing is going to be the answer for many other questions in this little meme but i’m just going to stop talking about it while i’m ahead). the west end is just about 50 words longer and is much better and is a much better and more interesting story.

most hits: we’re just going to pretend it’s sex and dying in high society, which has the second most hits. this is certainly due to the fact that @wolfstarwarehouse hypes this story a lot for which i am endlessly grateful!

most kudos: recovery position has the second most kudos so let’s go with that one! i have been very touched by the response to this story, though i do personally like the sequel beachcoma a little more... i understand why not everyone wants to read it because it is a little more bittersweet. but it also comes from my soul.

most comment threads: the two stories in the source codes series are leading here, because i only posted two chapters at a time so that i would get maximal validation, lol.

most bookmarks: in order to talk about a story i haven’t talked about yet, the rosary has the fourth-most. i think this fic is truly my r/s swan song... i said everything i wanted to say and did everything i wanted to do. it’s a really good mystery/noir story that i didn’t think i could pull off until i did! and i love the OCs in it who have sort of manifested these secret headcanons for me that i may expostulate upon someday. thank you to @piovascosimo for the inspiration to write it.

total word count: 1,000,478. lol!

favorite fic i wrote: cannot possibly choose but probably the top five in order of date posted are: desperado, a handful of dust, doom town, beachcoma, jump into the fire

fic i’d rewrite / expand on: i already said all of source codes because it’s way too gooey, i also could make hard time killing floor blues a lot tighter, and a memoir of the flesh deserves a way better ending because i was rushing to make the yuletide deadline...

share a bit of a WIP: i was trying for a while to write a band of brothers AU where they are vietnam vets who start growing cannabis... based on the steve earle song “copperhead road.” this could have been SO good but the plot was too huge and unwieldy so i gave up. my roommate is obsessed with this idea and keeps asking me how it’s going so i may yet finish. but there’s a bit below the cut.

The knock at the door in the night was a sharp shock, bright as lightning, that sent them both back to Khe Sanh and before. Nix ducked. Dick went behind the doorframe. They kept low into the kitchen, where Nix took his old officer’s pistol out from where he kept it hidden behind the fridge. Then they went to the door, keeping to the edges of the hallways.

On the porch was Liebgott. He could have made his own way in likely right onto the couch without either of them noticing, so it was something that he had knocked on the goddamn door. It was particularly something given that none of the boys from Easy should have known about the grow operation, or even about Dick’s farm, being as Dick’s address on file at the V.A. was a post office box in town and Nix’s was still in Jersey. These considerations were nil to somebody who had spent the better part of five years in the bush of Vietnam. He took a last draw from his cigarette and put it out against the rubber sole of his boot, then he put the butt in his pocket. As far as Nix knew, he hadn’t said a word since January 1970.

“Joe,” said Dick diplomatically. He put his hand out and Liebgott took it. Then he took Nix’s. He had handsome dark eyes, but they were full of a wall. You could tell he saw you, but it was like nothing followed the necessary channels to the brain to spur emotional response. It had been like this even while he was still talking, and after a while you got used to it.

“You comin' in,” said Nix, knowing he probably would even if he wasn’t invited.

Inside, they all three sat at the kitchen table in silence nobody was about to break. Finally Dick got up and went to the drawer where they kept the rollies and their share of the product. He passed a sheaf of papers and a film canister full of bud to Liebgott across the table. Nix understood as well as Dick apparently did that there would be no getting anything over on this kid, who had eyes in the back and sides of his head. He��d probably had a nice tour of the property before coming inside. “You hungry, son,” Dick said.

Liebgott shook his head. He extracted one of the buds from the canister and inspected it. They did look mighty good if Nix said so himself. They looked artful in Liebgott’s hand. There were black scabs across his knuckles and a dark rime of filth under those fingernails which still existed. He seemed satisfied enough with what he saw to take a paper out of the sheaf and start shredding the flower into it.

“Captain Nixon calls it Easy Diesel,” said Dick, like he was trying to pretend it wasn’t the funniest thing in the world.

Liebgott looked up and a smile flashed across his face like the savage golden light of a flare falling over the far hills. His smile was sort of brutal, like the edge of a knife in a barfight, or like a seething animal. Luckily it went away as quickly as it had come. He rolled the joint with a quick grace and lit the business end with his old silver Zippo Nixon hadn’t seen since the war. There was a skull engraved on one side and on the other it read IF YOU ARE RECOVERING MY BODY, FUCK YOU.

“I don’t know how you found us, Joe,” Dick said thoughtfully. “You don’t have to… tell us. But we ain’t exactly keen to have just anybody here.” He paused and looked quickly to Nix, who tried to make it abundantly clear by means of eyebrows that he wasn’t sure they ought to go down this road, wherever it was leading. Dick ignored him. Liebgott was watching them, fully understanding their attempted clandestine exchange. “We ain’t exactly keen to have the DEA here,” Dick said at last.

The cherry at the end of the joint atomized with a crackling hiss. Liebgott looked between Dick and Nix with extreme seriousness sullied only by his exhaling a dignified white cloud out his nose. Then he nodded, once, curtly, demonstrating he understood his orders as they had been relayed.

Nix flashed Dick what he thought was a what have you done type look. But Dick looked totally unbothered. He should have gone into this business years ago for how violently unflappable he was. He said to Liebgott, “I’ll get some blankets and you can make up the couch.”

Liebgott shook his head to say no need. He got up, careful not to scrape the chair against the floor, shook each of their hands again, and in less than a minute’s time he was back out the door with nothing more than what he’d come in with except the joint.

Nix and Dick, on the porch, listening to the crickets, watched him disappear into the darkness.

��Are we hallucinating,” said Nix eventually.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Dick replied. “We’ve got to ship all that product or we’ll starve.”

In the morning Nix was in the field, inspecting the plants. Liebgott was standing there at his quarter for god knew how long before he cleared his throat and Nix jumped about six feet in the air. There was a smirk shifting across Liebgott’s face that he would have been better about hiding when Nix had been his commanding officer. He looked like he hadn't slept. Back over there he had looked like that a lot, but it had been different, because of all the uppers they were taking. He cocked his head back over toward the long driveway and then he was off across the dew-wet grass which had already soaked through the hems of his canvas pants and his destroyed shoes.

Nix followed, like a duckling behind a hen. Liebgott still walked as though there were eyes in all sides of his head quickly processing information as he moved. Nix doubted you ever lost that kind of skill, even if in the real world it made you look like a mental patient. He caught up so they could walk side by side through the dew-wet grass. “What did you think,” he asked Liebgott.

Liebgott passed Nix the universal sign of furrowed brow that meant please clarify.

Nix gestured with pinched fingers to his own mouth as though Liebgott were also deaf. “The grass.”

He shaped his hand into an a-ok sign.

“You get any sleep?”

He nodded an infinitesimal nod, like the answer was a secret just for Nix to know.

“Well if you think it could be better just tell me how.”

Nix had had a high school friend whose sister was deaf from scarlet fever and whom he had watched on occasion communicate with her by means of sign language. Early on, back over there, he had sent off to command for a book, but by the time it came he understood it wasn’t that Liebgott couldn’t speak, he just didn’t want to. It was something like how people’s hair supposedly turned white if they witnessed some evil thing, or how people became ascetics in the name of god. If you were really fucked up on drugs or fear or otherwise, or if the natural magical thinking from childhood hadn’t been fully beaten out of you, you might have seen it as the sacrifice he had given to the forest for letting him out without a scratch so many goddamn times. It had been a bit of a trial to explain this to Spiers, who was practical almost to a fault, sometimes.

Liebgott showed another a-ok sign. Then he did a thumbs up which Nix knew meant it was good.

All in all it was smart. If he was still talking, Nix might have asked him, what have you been up to? You been sleeping on the street? You been to the V.A.? What did they tell you? And the answer would’ve been nothing good. Instead they just walked in the cool grass together in the sunshine and the morning was beautiful, and the air was sweet. It was all lovely until Liebgott had to physically stop him, laughing, somehow silently but also hysterically, from stepping right onto the razor-thin tripwire stretched invisibly across the dark gravel.

In the kitchen, Dick was doing the numbers. He took his glasses off when Nix came in and put the coffee on. “He learned a thing or two from Charlie,” Nix said, leaning against the counters.

“Who, Joe?”

“Our driveway is thoroughly ratfucked.”

“Hmm,” said Dick. He put the glasses back on and turned back to the accounting book. He was going to do this whole thing as above board as was humanly possible. The vivid daylight came through the window and struck the lens of his unstylish Ray-Bans and threw a kind of prism of color upon the white paper and the chicken-scratch sums. Nix felt like maybe this was something you would paint if you had the necessary implements and artistic ability. “Maybe we should see if we can get any more help.”

He was mildly ashamed to say it, but the doc had always kind of creeped Nix out. He imagined a hypothetical conversation with Dick, who he knew loved the kid, almost like a son: Listen, don’t get me wrong, he’s a good kid, I owe him my life, yadda yadda. But either he’s dropped the brown acid one too many times or the voodoo exorcism went FUBAR.

The doc had arrived on the farm on the heels of Sunshine and Rainbows, aka Mr. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed, aka one Edward “Babe” Heffron. Nix had written Babe in South Philly, being as he was a connoisseur of bud and once upon a time had been famed among their company for smoking anything anyone put in his hand, often to his own detriment. The operation was getting big enough that Nix needed another pair of hands, other than Liebgott, of course, who was still fortifying the long driveway whilst giving away his cover by playing Led Zeppelin IV as loudly as was possible. It was a tough calculation, because Babe was a genius of pot, but he couldn’t keep a damn secret, and lo and behold he had dragged along with him a dark shadow in the human form of Eugene Roe. They came up the driveway in a big old Ford pickup that rattled its rust off in the potholes. Liebgott had dismantled the traps specially for their arrival when they had called from Williamsport to say they were an hour out.

“I figured we could use a medical professional to lend some credibility to the operation,” said Babe thoughtfully, sparking a joint on the porch over sweating jam jars of iced tea.

Roe snorted or something but it wasn’t really a normal person’s self-effacing laugh. Winters clapped his back. Nixon knew Roe had dropped out of medical school after two years but there was no need to say anything. Everyone knew that. Now he was working construction and Babe claimed to be working as a mechanic in a garage, but this seemed suspect given the state of the car they had driven up in.

“Well we sure as hell are glad you boys are here,” said Dick magnanimously.

Babe exhaled an opaque cloud that rivaled Nix’s own father’s ability with a stogie. “Can we see the bush?”

They went out all together to the field and ducked between the rows of corn. Babe knelt in the soil. It was damp with dew and quiet in here. It would have been almost like over there except it smelled good. “What’s the cross,” Babe said, inspecting the plants.

“It’s an indica blend…”

“Well, I can tell that,” he said.

“So you’re an expert on the plant now too?”

“I’ve just smoked an awful lot of joints in my life, Captain Nixon.”

Roe snorted again. When they all looked to him he said, “You said in the letter there was some kind of altruistic reason for all this.”

“It’s medicine, Gene,” Babe said gently, but also like they had had this conversation thirty thousand times. Nix filed away for later the intimation that Roe had read the letter he’d sent Babe at home in South Philadelphia.

“I guess you don’t remember the psychic break you had at the Do Lung Bridge.”

Babe waved this remark off, even though Nix remembered it too. It threw a chill down his back, like a water balloon had hit him at the base of his neck. “That was laced,” Babe said.

“With what!”

“I don’t know! Something bad!” Babe turned to Dick and Nix. “Gene’s teetotal,” he said, like this was a big old point of contention.

So that counted out the bad acid. Maybe he was just like this. Maybe he had had those big sad bug eyes as a child or an infant or a fetus in the womb. “Good on you, Doc,” Nix said.

“I ain’t trying it,” Roe said, folding his arms over his narrow chest, “no matter what it does.”

The doc was a tough cookie. Babe had claimed, over there, about as high as the Byrds song, that the doc came from a long line of the kind of folks described in Dr. John’s “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” and that, as such, he could heal wounds with his mind. When it didn’t work, as on the night when Jackson died, or the night when Hoobler died, or in the forest when Muck and Penkala died, or the night when Liebgott stopped speaking, he went to sit for a while on the edge of camp until Dick went over and made him eat something. Nix watched them in a state of confused envy, and then he went to write the letters to the families, so that Dick wouldn’t have to.

At dusk, after they ate a light dinner of corn on the cob and rice and beans, he took the boys up into the hayloft with an armful of blankets. “Sorry this is the best we got,” he said. He had said that about a hundred god damn times since they got here.

Roe looked like he wanted to say, you’ve got to stop apologizing for everything. Instead he said, “Where does Lieb sleep.”

Babe perked up. “Joe’s here?”

“You didn’t see him in the driveway?”

Nix sighed. “He’s gonna want to know what he did wrong that you saw him,” he said.

“Does he still — ”

Nix shook his head. “Not a peep.”

In a couple days time, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was hot and tired and stoned, up to his elbows in earth in the field, showing Babe how to replant the hatchlings he’d grown from seed. “You guys room together or what?”

“Me and Gene?” Babe’s eyes were red in the corners from smoking and from the sun. “What about you and Dick?”

Dick, who had the radio on inside turned up as loud as it would go, so that they would hear it in the field, playing Crosby Stills and Nash doing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” “What about me and Dick?” said Nix.

Babe was a smart kid. He realized this was going nowhere. With muddy hands he popped one of the seedlings out of its little pot and cradled it into the ground. “Well, I think he thinks he’s looking after me, but in actuality, I am looking after him.”

#my fic #asks

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malmuses · 7 years ago

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Castiel Novak Has Some Regrets

Authors Note:

Hello humans, here is a quick one-shot, fix-it style fic that I wrote as a sequel scene to the end of ‘Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets’ from Season 12. It can pretty much be read as a continuation from where the episode ended, Coda-like.

It also puts a different spin on that moment two eps later when Cas comes out with his ‘I love you’ directed towards Dean, who can’t even look and then ‘I love you all’. It can shine a slightly different light on a lot of things after that point, which is why I wanted to write it!

Anyways. Enjoy, please feel free to message me or comment or say hi in any way!

Castiel Novak Has Some Regrets

Sam Winchester knotted his fingers together, reaching up above his head in a stretch. He sat in the War Room of the Bunker, feet up on a chair in front of him. Nearby at the same table, his little family chatted and drank, as they had been for a few hours. His brother was mid-sentence, animatedly waving his beer bottle as he spoke.

“Honestly Cas, I wish you’d been there. Freaking superglue.” Dean nodded over to where Sam was stretching.

“Now hang on a minute…” Sam sat forward, grinning as he joined the story. “You have no idea how annoying he was being Cas. He deserved it!”

The dark-haired angel relaxing with them reached to open another beer, adding his empty bottle to the large collection on the table in front of him. “Oh, I think I have an idea, Sam.” He chuckled easily, giving Dean a glance out of the corner of his eye. “He annoys me constantly.”

“Hey! I’m a goddamn delight, don’t you forget it!” Dean retorted, flicking his bottle cap at Castiel.

Sam rolled his shoulders as he stood out of his chair. “I can’t believe Dean never told you that story, Cas.” He grinned, lightly shoving his brother in the shoulder as he stepped past him.

It had turned out to be a great evening, just chilling out in the bunker, sharing a few beers. Or a lot, in Cas’s case – not that he was any more than the tiniest bit buzzed, Sam guessed.

The day’s events had been rough. Ishim’s words about the angel had lingered heavily between them all when they initially returned home. There seemed to have been an unspoken agreement after their initial discussion to let the important topics go for the night and just take the evening to breathe.

Looking around as Dean leaned forward in his seat, angling himself towards the angel as he began to tell another tale from the epic prank wars the two Winchesters had engaged in a few years prior, a smile tugged at the corner of Sam’s mouth. These in between moments, the held breaths between days, gave him pause to remember that he really did enjoy his life. Despite his initial reluctance to take up the hunter mantle all those years ago… this had become what he loved. His work, his calling… his brother, his friend. Looking between Dean and Cas as they talked, the smile came again. He was glad they had this – whatever this was… their close friendship that Sam had occasionally suspected was something more, though he had no proof.

“I’m going to hit my bunk, guys. Some of us plan on being up and running in the morning.” He eyed the seven or so beer bottles in front of Dean. “Some of us,” he reiterated with a chuckle, grabbing a couple of them to take to the kitchen with him.

Following Sam’s look, Dean faced him with a shit-eating grin. “Don’t worry Sammy… even if I was sober, I still wouldn’t be up running.”

Laughing, Sam rolled his eyes at the truth of it. “Night Cas.” He nodded to the angel, stepping away.

“Goodnight, Sam.” Cas nodded in return. Downing the rest of the beer he held, the angel tapped on the neck of the bottle. “Another, Dean? Or are you going to bed too?”

Dean reached up, rubbing his hand over his face. “Sam’s right, I probably had enough….” He seemed reluctant.

Cas held his gaze for a moment, his hand paused on top of the unopened beer he held. “Your choice.”

Deans smile was slow, thoughtful. “I guess one more won’t make much difference at this point.”

Grinning, Cas flicked the cap off the bottle and handed it over. “That sounds more like the Dean I know.”

“Why go to sleep when the company is so good, huh buddy?” Dean kicked his feet up on the table, grinning back at the angel, before his eyes slipped off thoughtfully into the distance, resting on air.

The silence that fell around them was comfortable, after years of practice. Cas’s brilliant blue eyes, lit with comfort and happiness and not a little beer, rested on Dean’s hands as he picked idly at the label on his beer bottle. He let what he felt was an appropriate number of minutes carefully pass before he spoke.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, Dean?” Bringing his gaze up to the oldest Winchester’s face, he observed Dean’s slight surprise – passing quickly into a chuckle.

“No fooling you is there,” Dean responded, his lip quirking in a slightly disapproving smile as he shook his head.

“No Dean, there isn’t.” Cas’s intonation was perfectly serious.

At Dean’s raised eyebrow, the angel sighed.

“Really, Dean. You’re drinking at two and one third times the rate your brother is. Your heart rate keeps periodically peaking and you keep gazing off into space between conversation. I don’t need to read your mind to know you’re caught up in your thoughts. Something Ishim said today bothered you, I think. So, what is it?”

A small sigh. Dean’s tongue popped out, catching Cas’s eye as it worried almost imperceptibly at his bottom lip.

The quiet stretched on, but Cas just waited. I’ve watched glaciers recede and yet somehow this seems slower, he considered somewhat saltily. If I have the good manners not to read his mind he could at least hurry up. The angel gave just a little mental shake at his own agitation, being careful not to show Dean he was growing impatient.

Eventually, Dean’s weight shifted forward and he rested his forearms on his knees, half-empty beer bottle held between both hands.

“Cas, do you remember…when Naomi had control over you? When you finally broke through it, before you took off with the angel tablet?”

“Of course.” The Seraphim blinked, seemingly surprised by Dean’s abrupt recollection of the event years past.

“Do you remember what I said?”

I remember almost every word spoken in my presence since my Father gathered my light into form, Castiel thought grumpily. Of course I remember what you said.

He mentally caught himself, chastising himself even though he hadn’t said a thing. That’s not fair. Dean can’t comprehend such things….and why am I so prickly today anyway? He sighed, reaching up to pinch briefly at the bridge of his nose with a forefinger and thumb. I guess Ishim really did get to me too.

His thoughts passing in the blink of an eye, all Cas said to Dean was “Of course.”

There was a pause where Dean did not respond at all. Cas could see his apprehension; more than that he knew his friend well and his avoidance of emotional responses was deeply ingrained. He could sense this was one of those times.

“You said that you needed me.” Cas prompted quietly after another minute, trying to gently help his Winchester along.

“I wanted to say something else. Something more.” Dean mumbled, his attention still down on the floor between his knees. When he raised his expression to Cas, it was almost accusatory. “You knew.”

Cas nodded almost imperceptibly, feeling a prickle of heat at his vessels cheeks. “Yes.”

Leaning back in his chair, Dean took another swig of beer, nodding to himself. “Right. So you knew and you never said anything about it.”

Cas opened his mouth, a wrinkle at his brow making him look almost angry for a moment. He closed it, sealing his lips tight again without saying anything. When his gaze did drop from Dean, it was tinged with shame.

Dean leaned forward again, wrists on knees. His constant shifting was mildly irritating, even to him, but it seemed to be helping him get his words out – and Chuck knows, Dean Winchester needed all the help he could get with that.

“I always assumed you didn’t say anything because….” Dean swept his hand vaguely in front of himself, gesturing between the two of them, but mostly to himself it seemed. “Because you didn’t feel the same.”

Dean licked his lips nervously after his spoke, the quiet words as close as he’d come to an actual confession of his feelings for the angel that went through life by his side. Pursing his lips, he looked up bravely from his beer bottle to Cas, holding his green gaze steady on his face.

He looks….. sad. Dean registered.

Cas shifted uncomfortably in his seat, now his gaze in turn was glued to the floor. The small shake of his head side to side was hard to catch, but it was enough to move the conversation along, at least.

“There were other times too.” Dean stated.

The angels nod to show he knew what Dean meant was bigger this time, and Dean noticed him biting down slightly on his bottom lip, even if his eyes stayed on the floor.

“Today though… no. Actually, Ishim wasn’t the first to make me wonder. There were other times. But the things that Ishim said….” Shaking his head, Dean’s attention heads up to the ceiling now, exhaling slowly as he pressed his bottom lip down onto his teeth with the tip of his tongue for just a moment. “It made me wonder if that wasn’t actually the reason you never said anything.”

Cas looked up then, Dean looked down. Their eyes met green to blue and locked magnetically in the middle as Dean finished his little speech. “It made me wonder if maybe all this time, I wasn’t imagining it all, if it wasn’t just me. Maybe all this time you were just scared.”

Cas exhaled slowly, a practice Dean knew was more from habit than necessity, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. Very slowly his eyes lowered from Deans. It almost looked like he was curling in on himself, a barely detectible flush at his cheeks.

“You’re right Dean. I was scared.” The angel’s voice grew firmer as he brought his hands together, lacing his fingers together in the space between his knees. “I am scared.”

Dean blinked, his mouth falling open slightly. Oh. He thought. He was honestly better equipped to deal with Cas dismissing the topic or saying he was wrong, than for this.

“Heaven has rules, Dean….. not just rules, laws. You know what happened to me after I met you, Dean.” Cas continues doggedly now, his voice raising with something that could be called frustration. “Why I first fell. Emotions, Dean. I expressed emotions and feelings, because of you-“

Cas’s blue eyes blazed as he caught Dean’s gaze again, but he barreled on, picking up steam.

“For you. I didn’t just fall because of you, I fell for you. But Heaven’s law’s, Dean… they aren’t just about control. I have a lot of regrets about my fear, Dean… but there are reasons, good reasons, why we shouldn’t…” He cleared his throat very briefly, catching himself. His fist balled, and he brought it down to the arm of his chair with a thump. “Why humans and angels should remain…. Separate.”

Dean tilted his head at the seraphim’s sigh. To his credit he said nothing, folding his arms across his chest as he held Cas’s gaze unflinchingly and let him speak.

“It’s not all about Nephilim, Dean.”

“Well, yeah. Clearly that wouldn’t have been a problem for us.” Deans smirk seemed out of place in the conversation, but Cas ignored it and continued.

“Angels aren’t equipped for those kinds of human emotions, Dean. Some of them refer to humans as nothing more than insects, as ants, but they are the ones that follow blindly in line – that must have order, must be lead.”

If Dean noticed that Cas said ‘them’ rather than ‘us’, he wisely made no mention, just nodding almost imperceptibly as the angel went on.

“When angels experience Earth, Dean… they have a tendency to be overwhelmed, to say the least. I’m sure you’ve noticed the habits in almost any angel that spends time down here. We have obsessive personalities, I suppose. We’re told to stay away from humans, not only because we can hurt them or because an abomination could be created, Dean. We’re also told to stay away because humans are no good for us. They can change us, as you did me, expose us to emotions and doubt… and in turn our very selves can be a danger, to us and to others. Lily Sunder told you Dean, she told you what Ishim did.”

Deans throat suddenly felt very dry and he struggled to clear it, reaching for the dregs from one of the beers on the table to moisten his tongue.

“If I had….” The sadness is creeping forward in Cas’s voice now, beginning to overtake the frustration. “If I had told you that I did, in fact, need you too. That I’d rather have you, too. Then you would have been endangered, from that moment. My biggest regret was never telling you, Dean, but I couldn’t. You’d have been hunted by every angel who could read my confession on your soul, by every demon so repulsed at what we were, even by other hunters, Dean.”

“And how is that different than any other day of the week?” It was almost a yell as Dean barked at the angel. “In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t exactly had the safest life! All those things you said would hunt me? They already do Cas! They already hunt you too!”

“But I could have hurt you too, Dean!” Cas bites back, his blue eyes smoldering dangerously. “Don’t you understand that? You saw Ishim. He’s not the only one. Feelings are too much for some angels. It’s a risk I can’t even begin to….” He signed then, finally seeming to run out of steam, rubbing a hand across his eyes as his head dropped down, finally breaking their confrontational stare. “If I’d have hurt you out of some twisted form of emotion Dean, I’d never have been able to forgive myself.”

Cas missed his wings. In that moment, he’d have given anything to be able to disappear. He eyed the distance between himself and the metal staircase leading to the bunker door, before internally dismissing the thought. You’re a coward, Castiel. His thoughts of escape, of freeing Dean from this conversation, were abruptly halted by the man’s hand coming to rest on his knee.

When Dean spoke, his tone was remarkably calm and Cas couldn’t make out his expression.

“So magically all those feelings went away? Because you didn’t tell me?”

Cas blinked. “No, of course not.”

“So what’s the difference in hiding it? If you were scared I’d be at risk - from you – then surely I would have been regardless?”

Cas exhales again, his breath shaking now. It almost felt like he was losing control of his vessel, his reactions to the emotions just far too visceral and human. “I – I don’t know, Dean. I just couldn’t gamble on everything working out when the alternative is you dead or wounded or emotionally destroyed.”

“I understand about the other angels, Cas. I understand that they would have disapproved, and there’s danger in that, I get it. But you….” The hand at Castiel’s knee squeezed. “You underestimate yourself. You’re strong, Cas, and you’ve had a few years now here on Earth, learning how to safely experience emotions. Hell, you were human yourself once. I know the feelings….”

Dean stopped for a second, pausing to gather his thoughts so he could express everything he’d watched his friend struggle with.

“You have a lot of regrets, I know… and I know feelings still overwhelm you sometimes, Cas. That you don’t understand them because they aren’t logical. That emotions are scarier to you than a whole battlefield full of angels….and I get it, Cas. I do. I know you think I can’t possibly understand, but you’re my best friend – and one thing I can definitely tell you is that you’d never let yourself be like Ishim. Damnit Cas, you feel guilty enough about shit that happens to me that isn’t even your fault. You’d never let anything happen that actually was. And you haven’t, in all this time, even though your feelings didn’t change.”

A tiny smile came to Cas’s lips and for a moment he looked almost shy at Dean’s words.

“You flatter me Dean. Maybe you’re right. I hope so.” The angel placed his own hand over Dean’s on his knee, squeezing at it in thanks for his words.

“I know so, Cas. I have faith in you.” Dean sought Cas’s gaze, and held it.

“But there’s still a lot of inherent danger in this truth, Dean.” Cas’s voice was quiet, soft. Heartbroken, Dean thought.

He understood. He imagined his angel being hunted for his feelings, for daring to care for Dean, and it made him feel cold at the core. He wouldn’t put Cas at risk.

“Perhaps, for now…” Dean shuffled forward until he sat on the very edge of his chair, his knees bumping the angels as they faced each other. “Perhaps at least just knowing that we understand each other… maybe that can be enough.”

Gathering his bravery, Dean reached out to dance his fingers up the angel’s cheekbone, cupping his cheek even as Cas tilted his head into his touch, looking up at the hunter with an expression that spoke volumes about how much the small gesture meant to him.

Cas covered Dean’s hand with his own, turning to press his lips to his Winchester’s palm in a chaste, almost worshipful gesture. “It’s more than I deserve.”

“I won’t even tell Sam, Cas.” Dean expresses after a moment. “We’ll carry on our lives as we always have.” His voice carried a resigned, sad weight to it. “I’ll do that, maybe not to protect myself but to protect you.”

Cas’s cheeks flushed and he nodded. “Okay Dean. For now…. We just go on as we have. You with your hunting and car and women and burgers and me with my missions and search for purpose. As if we didn’t know… so that I can in turn protect you.”

“But we know.”

Their eyes held, electric, and their foreheads touched. Dean was aware of tears on his cheeks as his angel responded.

“Yes, Dean… we know.”

***

Thanks for reading!

#destiel #deancas #castiel #deanwinchster #coda #supernatural #spn

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