#wayward 👼

[valleydean]

I feel… often,

A knife in my chest opens me more than my mouth ever could,

I feel so very much,

Yet I say nothing,

They drown me, deeper, deeper,

And I sink,

I say so little I might as well be floating above the water, drowning instead from within.

Y’know even Christ was a sinner, even God had to forgive,

But I am not worthy of forgiveness,

Silence may be my greatest sin; feeling maybe more so,

And water does not cleanse.

My baptism repeats itself, again, again,

But water never cleanses,

Deeper, deeper, sinking,

Who could have thought,

The blood of the sacrament, your body, my divine meal.

Yes they were right when they said love was holy,

But they were also right when they said love could kill,

And I would die for you again,

And again,

If it meant you would live,

I would only hope that a final eucharist prayer be offered,

My last communion sipped from your lips,

And it tastes of iron as the heavens commanded.

My father’s god; he is not where my salvation comes from,

The stained glass of the churches devoted to you shine in the colour of your eyes,

Their hymns find a home in the breath that fills your lungs,

Perhaps through you, water will cleanse me and I will be forgiven,

Perhaps through you, my death might ascend me,

And perhaps through you, my broken body may once again know life,

Because love is holy, love is holy, and it will save you.

- wayward 👼

I think this is the only poem that can be read in either Dean or Cas’ perspective without sacrificing any of what’s written. When I started writing it it was Dean I was thinking of but then the end of the story happened and well Cas snuck in and decided he wanted a piece of it too. Anyways religious overtones and undertones and heavy handed symbolism and all that. Hope you’re still excited for what the rest of today will bring ❤️❤️❤️

oh my god!!!!!!!!!! once again you have proven that you are the leading scholar of a ghost story and i am at your mere mercy. like i deadass can't believe anything i wrote inspired a poem this raw and amazing. like first of all..... as a person who grew up catholic, this entire thing is my jam. like, this entire thing completely took me out. but ESPCIALLY these lines:

The stained glass of the churches devoted to you shine in the colour of your eyes,

Their hymns find a home in the breath that fills your lungs

yes hello i need an ambulance

[bippityboppitybibuck]

This ficlet is written for and inspired by @valleydeans A Ghost Story. It contains spoilers to the entire story, so please don’t read this if you haven’t finished reading it yet. Wc:1400, no extra warnings (warnings for original fic stand) Italicizes mark establishing narrative the rest is in Cas’ POV.

It first plays on the old radio that sits attached to the bottom of one of the kitchen cupboards in the townhouse. Both Sam and Dean forgot it existed, left behind by the previous tenants, since they never had cause to use it but it was simple enough that Cas managed to get it turned on.

Granted it was only because the button was labeled Power; Cas knows even a moron could have figured that one out.

Cas didn't know how to change what music played at first, so he pressed buttons until something happened and took note of the outcomes. Seek seemed to be his friend, AM did not, and one afternoon while Dean and Sam were out at class or work or the library - there were so many places for Dean to be now, back before his resurrection Cas could have just walked around the grounds of the manor until he came upon him but now Dean is as hard for Cas to find as his place in this new time is - he finds a station that played a lovely song with a piano (Sam later told him it was an ‘indie station’, he doesn’t know how to tell him that he has no idea what that means) soft lyrics fell upon his ears and he lost his afternoon to meaneal tasks while the music floated from the small machine.

He takes notice of a song that starts to play only because it is in such contrast to the music the machine has been playing for the better part of the afternoon. There's a heaviness to the melody, an intensity that the other songs lacked, he spends much of the song listening only to the instruments.

The only line that actually sinks in after that first listen is “there is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin” and he can’t understand why his chest seems to expand against his ribs while his lungs squeeze themselves together because he’s never heard the type of lyric that was made to hit you square in the chest because, well, there’s not been a lot of music listening aside from piano and string quartets in his life.

He asks Sam how to learn the words in a song and Sam shows him how to get to a ‘Google tab’ so he can look up the song (Sam reckons a genius lyrics page might be a little too much for Cas). He types the words he remembers into the ‘Google’, and is decidedly confused by what can only be the name of the song. Take Me to Church, while a lovely name, stands out like a sore thumb in his head alongside the titles of the pieces he aimed to perfect in his old life.

He spends as much time as possible over the next three days listening to the song on ‘Youtube’ while he reads the lyrics, he just barely manages to stop himself from writing the lyrics out on paper so he can look at them when he’s away from a computer (like when Dean heads to school with his laptop and he can’t listen unless the machine - a ‘radio’ apparently - decides to play it)

Each line draws him in and pushes him away in equal measure, humor for Cas doesn’t mean laughing at a funeral it means Dean teasing him, tickling him, smiling as he waits for the joke to land on Cas’ ears. But still they all seem to resonate beyond what he thought was possible, Dean was always met with disapproval, he always wanted to worship him in any way he could, even now he curses the moments they could have had together if only one of them had been braver before the night spent in their clearing.

“We were born sick / you heard them say it” and “I was born sick, but I love it” stop his breath cold on every listen. He doesn’t allow himself to look too deeply into that, he’s long since accepted himself and delving into beliefs of a time long since past does no one any good.

What strikes him as odd is that there's a violence to the love and devotion that he can’t really understand, worshipping like a dog and revealing your sins to the sound of steel being honed isn't how he loves Dean, isn't how he sees Dean as his salvation, he writes hymns inspired by Dean. He doesn’t, could never, equate his devotion to something so lacking in softness, not when he can still feel the tufts of Dean’s hair under his nose or the petals of the roses Dean winded up the trellis on the side of his balcony.

The focus on a violent love turns him off from the song but there’s a pull in his mind with each iteration of “offer me my deathless death” he knows enough to know it might be a reference to sexual pleasure but he can't shake that something about the line draws him in, what with his death being undone when Dean brought him back.

The bridge, as the website calls it (Sam does eventually end up showing Cas the genius page), he reads the most, over and over and over and he thinks how it was just him and Dean in those stolen moments, how the doctrine he was told to follow labelled him a sinner but with Dean that didn't matter, it didn't even filter into the moment. The ritual the man sings of, the scene that plays out with it, becoming clean, human, he can’t even put words to why that settles so deeply into his chest, why it makes sense to him even though he never truly felt dirty about the things he and Dean did, the love they shared. But the truth of the matter is that Dean made him human again that night in the manor, and in doing so made him clean, clean of the never ending hell of the manor, just like he had promised to do all that time ago.

“Let me give you my life” sits heavy in his skull, it scratches at something deep within his brain for weeks. Ever since he first took the words into his head something about them made him think of them. It didn’t make sense though, Cas’ death hadn’t given Dean his life. Hell Cas’ death almost surely led to Dean’s own. So why would this lyric stick with him?

It's about a month after the successful ritual that he hears the song again, a fluke video on ‘autoplay’ on the youtube tab Dean keeps open for him. Let me give you my life. Let me give you my life. Cold fingers dance along the hairs at the nape of his neck, blood covers his hands, a redo, a trade off. Let me give you my life. And then a trade again, Dean to him this time. Let me give you my life. Good god, let me give you my life. The weeks spent ruminating over the line make sense now, as though some deep part of him always knew of the choice he made that night, the choice to save his love, the choice to give his life for the only thing that ever made him feel alive.

In the wake of his completed reincarnation, the sloughing off of death’s hold on him, the song takes on intense new meaning, which is no surprise really. His heaven is and has always been the moments he and Dean spend alone together, afternoons in the music room or midnights spent wrapped around each other. His lover is the sunlight, to keep the goddess on their side Cas and then Dean offered their sacrifices. Deathless deaths in multiples, love is worth more than what Sunday’s used to hold.

One night he plays the song for Dean, when the spring shoots are digging their way to the surface and the snowdrops are withering. He says nothing when Dean’s hold on him tightens as the song plays, he doesn't mention the hitches in his husband’s breath or the redness in his eyes when Dean hits replay on the song. He doesn’t bring up the way this song seems to recount their story with startling accuracy, he knows Dean understands. Take Me to Church... they needn’t worry, they’ve already reached salvation.

Sam sneaks the song into the playlist for the reception, their guests assume it’s just another popular song with a decent beat but for them it’s undoubtedly more.

[valleydean]

Home feels like his arms around you,

A fresh poultice on the dresser,

Perfect etchings on wood.

Home feels like the last hug your mother gave you,

The steel of a gun in your hand,

The way you can’t remember your father’s smile.

Home feels like a lost religion; it’s bishops and popes dead on marble as you watch the life bleed from your god through a thousand cuts,

The sun warm on your shoulders,

His eyes hot on your back.

Home feels like the absence of four walls and a roof,

The absence of a family,

Of a love you know you should have surrounding you.

Home feels like fire,

And screams,

And pain.

Home feels like past and present and a life you can only hope for,

A future you imagine in far off times when none of the horrors of your past can touch you,

A song played into a quiet room and the knowledge that it was made for you.

Home feels like anger and venom and lies,

The pain you see reflected back at you,

The hope that things will still be okay.

Home is an empty grave and a swinging body,

A century you did not live but still you spent waiting,

A see through person in the east wing and a kiss that makes them solid again.

Home feels like a haunting,

Like the grit of minerals against your palms,

Or the sting of a needle as it drives ink beneath your skin.

Home feels like his smile,

His voice and his laughter,

The way his hands hold you as you dance together.

Home feels like finding your way back to each other,

Like working through the sins you never sought absolution from,

Like apologizes and forgiveness and trying to, no, doing better.

Home feels like love,

Love feels like him,

He is your home.

- wayward (👼) ((trying a new signature bc someone said I should be ‘owning’ what I send you, idk if imma keep it))

I should have 1000% restructured this for flow and narrative continuity but I am in a lot of pain right now and I just wanted to send this to you // I might do one for Cas if I’m feeling better later but for now I hope you enjoyed // this is not my strongest work (also I am aware of how insane it is that I’m writing you poetry (ish) when I outright told you that poetry and me don’t mesh well back when I wrote you a half cocked Keats analysis but alas this is what your writing has done to me, so now I am making it your problem to deal with too) but I still wanted to send it in bc you seem to like when I kinda force you to read my shit // I’m gonna go continue to be emotionally destroyed by your fic, I am so unwell all the time god bless

I FUCKING LOVE WHEN YOU FORCE ME TO READ YOUR SHIT!! like i almost didn’t wanna answer this and just post it on its own and write my response in the tags because like.... oh my god, it’s so gorgeous. you’re actually amazing at poetry, idk what you’re talking about! i really love this omg. thank you so so much for sharing this with me! i second the notion of you absolutely OWNING your achievements because, deadass, reading your comments on ao3 and the stuff you leave in my askbox.... it’s made me very happy. like, very happy. i love you a little bit even though i don’t know you. thank you so much. i’m gonna read this 50 more times now.

[valleydean]

Dean’s bedroom was yellow as a child

The sun took to the walls like a fire to dry brush, it looked like a fire sometimes, it felt like a fire

In the nice way a fire feels, warmth tickles at your shins, the flickering light plays a shadow symphony on your face, the way the flames act as protection from what you can’t understand

Sometimes the walls looked like fresh honey on its spool, sometimes they felt like the kiss of the sun on his shoulders, the kiss of his mother on his forehead, the sound of an infant Sam gurgling out a laugh, or how his father used to carry him to bed if he drifted off too early

He does not remember the yellow walls, nor the soft green of the great room or the pale blue of the study where his mother sat at a piano forte and played him such lovely songs

He does not remember much of the memories attached to the spaces his young self once occupied

He does remember the night of the fire but from an outsiders point of view. As though it was not he who watched his house burn but rather he watched as someone else witnessed the destruction

The fire never was yellow, the fire was red, angry and destructive, it wasn’t the soft voice of yellow but an angry scream of black char

He does not remember the walls but sometimes when the early morning light hits the window just so, or the swathes of golden sun lay claim to the wooded floors of the music room, he feels a comfort he can not name

Sometimes when his eyes land on ones so unbelievably blue he registers the deepness of the colour, but in some part of his mind he feels a calmness that seems to say

Yellow

- wayward 👼

I was gonna make this angsty as all hell and make reference to the cold fingers Cas keeps feeling but I wanted it to be sweet and I decided to include shit about the fire which already makes it a bit less fluffy but I thought the addition of the fire was necessary considering how the thing started anyways new poem just dropped hope it satisfies!

omg i love this!!!!! you have such a beautiful, poetic way with words!! dshbredsgchbdshbn i’m gonna be thinking about this poem all night now

[31miw-inkpsycho]

2019’s hottest boy band.... Wayward Angels 👼 (minus the tall one of the group)

TWINSIES (x)

[valleydean]

My blood stains a tree in a back garden I can no longer call my own

It matches the stains on carpeted floor in a house removed from reality, from time

I’ve lived in more places than you can count but I’ve never had a home

My mark of this earth is carried away in trickling streams and found on bloodstained battlefields and

My ghost haunts them all

Your ghost haunts my very veins; I carry you always

A weight upon my shoulders I relish in it, though for decades I hadn’t known it to exist

Hands are stained red and you do not try to clean them but the clock resets

Can you recall my blood every claiming you as mine

For years I knew of no other way to own something

Pain and sacrifice were requirements for me

Fear a necessity

I spilled it all to for a chance to see you again, warmth made the air around me tepid and iron scented

Because blood made a home in a necklace on your pale skin

But still the pools of it around me did not touch you

If my blood never laid my ownership upon your heart I do not regret it

Metal sits upon your finger instead, our memories float between our heads

I know more of you than any other

My blood knows you

It does not need to find a home on your skin

It’s found it’s home already

As have I

We are safe, my blood no longer needs to spill, you own it now, you will not let it run from me

Gardens and carpets are nothing compared to you and such violence is not needed with us

The tree may never lose its copper mark but my love,

We will still last longer

-wayward 👼

Ayo I’m back with another poem thing, this one kinda jumps around and has its core in a bit of an odd topic but chapter 24 was heavily based around blood and it called to me in a weird way. Blood is made at the very core of your bones, it is the thing in the centre most part of you, and Dean shed enough to kill him to save Cas, I tried to turn the violent act of bloodshed into something less horrible. I hope you enjoyed (also tag this with blood and suicide cw/tw bc well yea)

oh my GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! babes, wake up! a new ghost story poem dropped!!!!

girl, you’ve done it again. obviously all of this was gorgeous but “Your ghost haunts my very veins; I carry you always.” “My blood knows you.” “The tree may never lose its copper mark but my love, We will still last longer.” i needed to catch my breath after those lines in particular

[valleydean]

Hehehe

- @wayward-angels-club 👼

[valleydean]

You remembered my poached eggs before you remembered your own last name

As though you weren’t important in that moment

As though I was the only thought in your head

I wonder often what that says about you,

About me

About how our minds seem to circle one another, infiltrate and diffuse between our skulls

How easy it was those first few hours

How easy it is again now

Because there is nothing I know that you do not

And the same in reverse

Our minds circle each other in the way koi do, endless cycles, but no longer distant, reaching,

You are within my very bones, and our minds ask no further questions

The middle parts weren’t so easy, but still you remembered, I remembered.

I think a marker was stuck to me at birth, rebirth, re-rebirth

It doesn’t exist, not really anyways, it’s more a stamp on my heart, or even my soul

It says your name

It says the way the colour of your eyes makes me feel

It says to love you until I know of nothing else

It withered and died time and time again

But returned each time I did, each time I returned to you, for you

I like to think you have it now

That it brands your soul same as it did mine.

The bible says your soul is for god, that he will love you if you’ve opened it to him, he will offer you salvation if you allow him in

But he holds nothing to the way you cradle my soul, he holds nothing to the feeling of my hand on your skin, burning ice cold, forming a bond heaven can only dream of

I am glad you have me and he does not

He left me behind long before we met beloved, a life spent living against the nature and will of god does not lead to benediction from above

So it’s no wonder the patterns of your freckles became my scripture

The sweat on your skin my communion

And heaven the feeling of being loved by and loving you.

The most devout among us have memorized the word of god

But you remembered my eggs before almost anything else

And I can’t help but feel like that is worth a hell of a lot more than what they have

-wayward 👼

Okay so I tried to make it obvious enough but I might have failed but throughout the story Cas made it very clear that Dean was his religion/through Dean he understood why people believed, I like to think the same was true for Dean and so the last three lines of this poem exist. Anyways excited but also dreading tomorrow bc last chapter and I am so not read for that

this honestly stole my breath!!!! i like.... had to clutch my heart a few times. it..... like, bro i know i wrote the fic, but holy shit dude. they just like. they love each other so much, dude. i don’t think it fully hit me that i’m posting the last chapter tomorrow until right now!! until i read this poem. oh man i’m super emo. i’m gonna miss this fic and this poem knocked me back on my heels realizing it

[valleydean]

Loneliness seeps from bone to bone

Loneliness isn’t so much something that you go through as it is something that goes through you

Marrow withers and spreads the disease, a tree breaks, its weakened strength no different from your own, no match for a storm, you watch it fall

Like a tree, if you scream when no one is there to listen, do you make a sound? Did you hear the sound of the tree as you watched fall

Are you anything more than a whisper, a ghost

A ghost

Are you a ghost?

Do you feel empty where you once held weight

Does his laugh echo through a space you can’t be sure exists anymore can you be sure you know what wholeness felt like

Loneliness seeps from bone to bone

It picks it’s victims wisely

And you my dear are the perfect host

Alone, adrift, you are lost and it takes notice

Those with little left to lose yet still with hope inside them

They provide the sweetest meat for loneliness to sink it’s teeth in

You’re veins run dry, the halls run empty, your heart doesn’t run at all

You may as well have been a ghost before you became one, perhaps you’ve always been one

Loneliness saw you as a child, losing a mother to illness, a sister to adulthood, a father to whatever he pleases

It saw you and said ‘yes him, I chose him. All of him’

You never stood a chance, sweet boy, you never knew it was coming for you

Because loneliness sought you out and took to your bones before you ever knew it’s name

It took its hold and drained you of what little you contained again and again

He was good for you, he made you less empty and it was happy for the mouthful but he promised to take you away and that threatened the emptiness within you, so he was done away with

All of you was already promised to something else, and loneliness always takes what it believes it’s owed

-wayward 👼

You already know I didn’t read this weeks chapters and this poem kinda shows why (but you already knew that too), so if something in the last two chapters registers any part of this as moot whoops 😅 hope that’s not the case though. Anyways thinking about Cas 1860s edition this week and how feeling alone is something that adds onto itself, until you crumble beneath its weight or something saves you from it. Clearly we know which end Cas faced.

Also yes I personified feeling alone,, I didn’t plan to but that’s just what happened,, also I feel like this ends kinda abruptly but again it’s just what happened aight hope you enjoyed, bye!!❤️❤️❤️ (<- my standard three hearts bc you didn’t get a comment this week from me)

actually, if anything, this was strengthened by this week’s chapters but holyyyyyy shit. like yo. yo. perfect for this fic but i also felt this in my CHEST. i felt it in my THROAT. ah, man.... you really came at me with this whew. i think this one’s my favorite so far. (and i hope you’re feeling a little better today!)

[valleydean]

If you saw an email notification and or inbox notification from me, no you didn’t

Also i may or may not be taking my comment I to a Google doc bc it’s easier to right honest to god essays in a text box larger than two inches long

- @wayward-angels-club 👼

lol i actually didn't get one! my ao3 emails actually go to an email address that i forgot the password to... and my backup email for that email is my college address which no longer exists. so ??? here we are. i just do everything on ao3 itself!

[valleydean]

Something’s in the works

T-minus 7 days

- @wayward-angels-club 👼

Ps I just learned you can @ when sending an ask, turns out my little signature could have just been my blog this whole time

oooh i didn't know you could @ either. but !!!!!! more importantly !!!!! 7 days [lasers shoot out of my eyes]

[valleydean]

AYO birthday ficlet just dropped!! Hope you enjoy❤️❤️

-wayward 👼

wait i literally had to pause halfway through because i got misty eyed. like...... you somehow took everything i imagined for their future and wrote it down. like ????? omg they're alive and in california and everybody's is fine. everything's good and fine and everyone is alive and life goes on and everyone is growing up and growing old. i did tear up. thank you so much for writing that. as always, i'm SO flattered that anything i wrote could inspire you THIS much. it really floors me. you are theeeee ghost story expert and i am nothing in comparison to you

also !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! happiest of birthdays, buddy <3 hope you had an awesome day!

[valleydean]

Psst I may or may not be writing you a thing that you will get before today (the 16th) is over and I can’t seem to remember how old everyone is in ags, I need to know for the thing may or may not be writing. I know the day and month are the same for Sam and Dean but I need years (bc of the time crunch I don’t think I have time to search through the two fics to figure out ages - also yes if you are wondering I am ashamed that I don’t automatically know their ages bc as the the leading expert on all things ags I really should)

In case it wasn’t clear I need ages for 2020 timeline, okay really I just need deans year of birth in the 2020 timeline

-wayward 👼

Ps yes it’s almost four am shhhhhh

the way my eyes widened in excitement rn omg i can't wait!!!! hmmm bold of you to assume i remember this when you don't. i think.... ??? ok i know dean was 26 in the 1800s and cas was 21 at the beginning of the fic. and in the future i.... think dean was 21? isn't that how old you are when you graduate college? is it 21 or 22? no, it must have been 22 because sam was 18, right? and then at the very end of the fic he would have been 23. and cas was that same age he was when he died in the past (technically) so he would have been.... 23? yeah, 23 i'm sure about that one! so this timeline's dean would have been born in 1998?

[valleydean]

I’ve spent a couple weeks thinking about Cas and his introduction to the music of today and ever since chapter eight I have been obsessed with Cas hearing one specific song but I saw you had a playlist for the fic (which my apologies I haven’t listened to bc I’m afraid it will make me very sad (or possibly just totally unhinged)) and I figured it wouldn’t do to bring up the song bc it would be on the playlist BUT ITS NOT and now I am about to burst bc I wanna like info dump weeks worth of rumination surrounding cas and this song

[I wrote this little intro of sorts back in March (I still haven’t listened to the playlist bc I’m still afraid of it), I’ve finished my info dumping, and I made it into a ficlet. Here is the ficlet, enjoy!]

-wayward👼

holy.......... shit...............................

i’m actually sitting here kinda mad at myself that i didn’t think of this song when making the playlist!!!! like??? HELLO!? where you prove, once again, you know more about my own fic than i do. on every level but physical, i am crashing my car to this song.

but seriously like. thank you. my heart is beating so fast reading this fic. no one has ever written a ficlet based on one of my fics before and i’m just over the moon. your insights and thoughts about this are just...... so amazing to me. just so awesome. i’m honestly flattered and i love this ficlet so very much! you did an amazing job!!!!

[valleydean]

I’ve handed in essays for grades shorter than what I just wrote you

- @wayward-angels-club 👼

as you should. i'm way more exciting than school.

[valleydean]

Keep an eye out, new ask with the link to the ficlet is dropping soon (its long (almost 1.7k) so I figured it would be better as it’s own post so I could use the read more thing) ❤️❤️

-wayward 👼

WOOHHH!