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August drabble dump, Dean/Castiel edition
A remarkable number of drabbles to dump this month so they are getting like 6 separate posts. Here's the first set...
Lost and Found
Sam gives Castiel a quizzical look when he comes whooshing in to the motel room. "Dude. Aren't you missing something?"
Castiel doesn't bother looking at himself, just squints at Sam. "I don't know what you mean."
Sam points at his chest. "Your tie, man. It's--"
At this, Castiel looks down, and Sam thinks he just might see a pinch of color rising to Cas' cheeks. "Oh. I. Uh. I lost it."
That guttural voice is absolutely unconvincing when it's lying. Sam arches an eyebrow. Behind him, Dean shifts his position on the motel bed and coughs.
Sam picks up a speck of eye contact, just enough, and he looks over his shoulder. He sees Cas' eyes widen just before he turns away.
"What are you looking at?" Dean says. His face is pink as well.
"I can see it," Sam informs him flatly, and points to the necktie tied to the bedpost behind him, the loose end looped into a makeshift handcuff.
Dean turns back and forces a smile. "Oh, hey, Cas, good news! Sam found your tie!"
Sam just bangs his head against the wall.
Lost and Found II
This is the most ridiculous thing he's ever had to endure. And that includes the creepy Christmas couple, and that includes the pink flower bandaids, and that includes running from the lapdog.
"'Scuse me," he says to the third bored-looking teen in as many minutes. "Have you seen a guy in a trenchcoat?"
A long suck on a Slurpee, then: "A what?"
"Oh, that's just great. Kids these days," Dean mutters, and keeps walking.
He'd thought that if Cas were going to get lost in a mall there'd be a trail of toppled mannequins and screaming salesladies a mile long, but nothing. The mall is unfailingly mall-like, and Dean has got no clue. He's this close to hitting the PA booth and declaring "All angels of the Lord, please report to the food court immediately." It's only that, well, he hit on the girl behind the counter there and she's still mad at him. And so's her husband. Who's one of the security guards.
He's about to give up and go crawling back when he hears a couple of kids talking. "Do you think he was, like, Amish or something?"
"I think he was just one of those right-wing crusaders."
"I don't know, he really didn't seem to know that a bikini wasn't underwear."
"What was he doing in that section anyway?"
"Hey, hey, stop, 'scuse me," Dean shouts them down. "The guy you were talking about just now. Where did you see him?"
They point out a trendy sportswear outlet and Dean hightails it in, but sees no sign of Castiel. He even dips into the fitting room and calls out "Cas?" No answer, except a couple of high-pitched shrieks.
A few more minutes and he gets another lead, this time in the form of a lady rolling her eyes and declaring, "He must have been one of those. He kept trying to sniff the perfume."
Dean heads to the display that reads "Scent of Heaven" but finds no Cas.
He checks out the bookstore's religion section, the video store with the display for the DVD of "Legion," and even the kiddie area. Play Paradise, it's called. You can't underestimate Cas' blockheadedness. But no dice.
Exhausted, he heads back to the food court for a refuel.
There he sits, happy as a clam, munching a quarter-pounder from Hamburger Heaven.
Of course.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
"I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of lying to people."
For the fourth time in the past thirty seconds, Dean snorted. "Dude. Don't tell me you'd rather get a job at McDonald's."
Castiel looked horrified at the thought. He still didn't trust himself around vast quantities of red meat. "I just feel like there ought to be some way you can be honest and still win the money."
"It's about getting the mark to take the bet," Dean lectured, the fraying ends of his patience bleeding through to his voice. "You find a way to tell the truth and do that, Cas, I will buy you a liquor store."
Something flashed through Castiel's eyes. He looked around the room and walked up to a biker with a tattoo saying "God's in My Sidecar." Dean cringed in advance and crept up beside the table to watch.
"Apologies if I'm not very good," Castiel said humbly as he set up the triangle. "I lost some of my focus along with my angelic powers."
"Your what?"
"It's a long story," Castiel demurred. "I don't suppose you'd be into a friendly wager?"
The biker squinted at him, then burst into loud laughter. "I thought angels couldn't gamble."
"Oh, they can't," Castiel said blithely, "but as you can see I'm no longer bound by heavenly constraints. Twenty dollars?"
Dean managed to scrape his jaw off the floor long enough to roll his eyes and circle his finger in a cuckoo expression when the biker looked to see if anyone else was hearing this.
"Hell," the biker said with a huge, gap-toothed grin. "Let's make it fifty."
The terrible precision of Castiel's cue stick then was a wonder to behold.
Dean gave a low whistle of appreciation as Castiel pocketed the money and the two of them headed for the door. "I take it back," he said. "For you, Cas? Honesty really is the best policy."
Pride
I'm so bleeding proud of them it makes me want to puff up my chest like a peacock.
Sodomy is a sin, of course. Why do you think I enjoy it so much? What it isn't is a mortal sin, the sort that can get you thrown into the pit. Not all sins are created equal. Hell's got misdemeanors and felonies like every other penal system in creation. But that doesn't quite erase the little tingle I get thinking of that self-righteous prick bastard of an angel getting his jollies at the butt end of Dean Winchester's gun, if you catch my meaning. Yes, sugar, that's right. Sometimes taking it up the arse can be therapeutic for the stick you've got lodged up there.
Dean has always been a luscious little fornicator. Quite honestly, I'd probably tap that like Fred Astaire. So he doesn't surprise me quite as much. But this Castiel? Mm. A few more decades of that and maybe I can take him for a spin. Wouldn't that be poetic justice. The harder they fall...
Exasperation
Dean has a Ph.D. in exasperating Sam. Not just the bachelor's degree every big brother's got, but the big fat mark of a true scholar of annoyance. He was king of the crude and cringeworthy, prince of the put-down, titan of thoughtlessness, and monarch of questioning your masculinity. You name it, Dean could annoy Sam with it. To the extent that Sam had very nearly gotten used to it. After twenty-six years of annoyance, what more can possibly surprise or shock? Sam was finally starting to feel like he could relax, because at least all the annoyances were well-trod territory by now.
Spoken far too soon.
It started with Dean insisting on cooking breakfast. Not running out to get, not microwaving-- cooking. Dean plus a frying pan was OK when it came to bacon, but eggs died in screaming anguish. Sam picked at it, and Dean didn't seem to care. He was off in happyland. "I just don't want you to feel like I'm taking you for granted, Sammy," he said, as cryptic as he was happy. Take him for granted? Why?
That question was answered when Dean conveniently forgot to call one night to say when he'd be back. Sam sat up till one before finally phoning. The phone rang out once, and when Sam redialed, Dean answered almost immediately, sounding out of breath. "Yeah?"
"Where are you?"
"Oh." Huff, huff, huff. "Yeah, Sammy, didn't I tell you? Staying the night--" Something akin to a squeal, and another set of huffs.
"Oh." A familiar annoyance. This Sam could handle. "Sorry, didn't realize you were with a--"
A growling, very-very-male voice saying Dean's name. A hurried "See ya" from Dean, and then the phone went dead.
"--girl?" Sam spoke aloud to an empty room. He stayed alone with the torture machine that was his imagination.
But even the freshly and imaginatively frustrating concept that was a bisexual Dean (of course he didn't have anything against it, but when it's your brother, man... arrgh!) wasn't nearly as annoying as the final revelation. And it was a full-frontal revelation.
"Cas!?" Sam gasped, clutching the doorframe.
"Apologies." Castiel turned around, which only gave Sam a full-behind view instead.
"Wait," Sam insisted. "Wait a second. I knew... that is, I thought, but... I mean... CAS?!"
Dean frowned at him from the bed. "Yeah, and I'd appreciate you stopping staring at him like he's a piece of meat, OK?"
Sam turned his gaze on Dean. "Are you telling me -- wait a minute. I'm so ... seriously? You're... with him?"
"You know why I like you, Sammy?" Dean said with that chipper, happy grin. "You're so quick to pick up on things."
Yup, Dean still had his Ph.D. in exasperation.
Flirtation
"I don't see the point of this."
"Of course you don't. That's why you're here. So I can show you the point."
"That sounds like an innuendo."
"See, you're getting the hang of it already."
-
They're not in the Caribbean, so the table is set up on the shores of a lake, but even that's kind of pretty. Dean's proud of his handiwork, white tablecloth and candles flickering lights that reflect back at them through a dozen ripples in the dark water. He's wearing boots, but he's got one of his fake FBI jackets on over the rock 'n' roll T-shirt, and the juxtaposition works for him, if he dares say so himself. He's even washed his hair. Castiel is wearing what Castiel always wears, despite Dean's exhortation to him to change for the occasion. He didn't see the point. He still doesn't. Oh well, nothing to do now but wait for Dean to show it to him.
-
"So, uh, shall we toast?"
"I only see wine."
"Why did I get the feeling you were going to say that?"
"You know me well."
"I'd like to get to know you better."
"I don't understand."
"I was flirting. Forget it. Whatever. Here's to us."
"What?"
"....Raise your damn glass, Cas."
-
Dean was able to wheedle Sam into being their waiter of sorts, and while he's been a barrel of eyerolls all week long preparing for this, he's appropriately discreet when he brings out the salad, doesn't even look over his shoulder to see Dean's oh-God-I-have-to-eat-salad face. Maybe because he already knows it's there.
While they chomp on sort of wilted lettuce, Dean slides off his shoe and draws his foot up Cas' ankle. Cas has no visible response. But when Dean is just about to give up, Cas' knees close, trapping his foot there -- saying stay in no uncertain terms.
-
"So you like the footsie, huh? Good to know."
"Is that the name of the salad?"
"...Sometimes I can't tell whether you're fucking with me."
"I would think it would be obvious."
"You're fucking with me now. I know you're not that obtuse."
"You're right. I'm fucking with you."
"I thought so."
"And I'd like to do some more."
"WHAT."
"That was my attempt at... flirting. Forget it."
-
Sam does glance under the table when he brings the main course, still kind of steaming from the Boston Market where he got it, and his lips quirk as he turns again. Dean glares at him as though the message to mind his own damn beeswax will sink in right through his brother's back and into his spine.
So rotisserie chicken isn't quite prime rib, but as they eat Dean glances across the table at Cas, sees the candle flickering near the end of its lifespan, and thinks the light it casts on Cas' stubble is kind of ridiculously nice. He wants to sink his lips into that spot and drink up the light.
-
"You're staring at me."
"I can't help myself."
"Is that more flirting?"
"No. Well, yeah. But it's the truth."
"Why can't you help yourself?"
"You're going to make me say it?"
"Not if you're uncomfortable."
"Argh. OK. Look, you just look good, OK? I want--"
"No. Don't tell me. I'll tell you what I want instead."
-
By the time Sam has come back from the ice cream store with dessert, he is staring openly. Both Dean and Castiel look like they're in serious need of cooling down. Good thing Sam's there with the frozen stuff.
They take about two bites each, then Castiel reaches over and grabs Dean's hand, and the two of them vanish, leaving Sam alone with dying candles and melting ice cream. They'll apologize tomorrow, but really? There's only so much flirting a man can take.
Breaking the Rules
Castiel burps. It shouldn't be a big thing, but it kind of is, because he has no idea that it's rude or that he should be covering his mouth. Dean's all about being rude when you're conscious of it, but Cas' sheer ignorance is starting to grate on him. At one point he finally turns around and says, "Cas, you know that's rude."
"Oh," says Castiel, "I didn't realize." And he never does it again. And that's even more annoying to Dean.
That's the way the guy is. His learning curve is a straight line. He never has a crooked tie again after the first time. And he never gets closer to Dean than a few feet after that reminder about personal space. The further away he is, the more Dean realizes he's being deliberate about it. He starts to wonder how close Castiel would get, if he hadn't been told in such certain terms that he shouldn't.
Dean sort of misses the sudden smell of him.
Which sounds weird, and kind of gay, but it's like someone uncorks a bottle of concentrated Castiel and Dean's immediately aware of the situation. When Castiel moves slowly toward him, it's like being the frog in the proverbial pot of boiling water. You don't realize how much shit you're in until it's too late. Only Cas could manage to be sneakier when he's not being sneaky.
It's a relief, then, when Castiel appears right next to him and starts beating the crap out of him.
Each punch is a relief. Dean's broken and he wants to give up, and Castiel's back to doing what he does best. Not being polite. Getting in his face. Threatening to send him back to hell. And Dean realizes, as his lip splits and he tastes the metal tang of blood in his mouth, he misses it. He wants it. Castiel, every annoying habit he has, all the disregard for human norms and insistence on being on the side of justice, Dean loves it all.
And then he has to go and break one more rule and leave without saying goodbye.
Kinky
Dean was totally not thinking about it. He was pissed and he was playing a stupid sitcom role on the Trickster's stupid TV land gag and he was not thinking about Castiel all bloody and bruised with duct tape on his mouth. And even if he were thinking about it, he was definitely not thinking good things about it. It was sick, cruel, sadistic. The kind of thing the Trickster was into, maybe. God knows (at least figuratively) what he'd been subjected to in order to cause those bruises and cuts. It couldn't be pleasant. Probably Wild Kingdom, or one of those Spike TV shows.
Nothing involving leather and chains. And not something Dean would ever think about reproducing. He wasn't into that. He didn't like the idea of Castiel held down, his cheek pressing into the floor, crying out at the welts being left on his skin. He wasn't even having that idea. It wasn't occurring to him, and he wasn't thinking about it.
"Of course you're not," whispered the Trickster in his ear, there for a moment and then gone again. "You kinky bastard."
Dean turned an unholy shade of crimson, but he didn't say a word.
Lost
There were some times Cas just looked so lost. His eyes turned toward the sky, his lip curled into the barest of pouts -- it'd be damn cute if it didn't wrench Dean's heart so much. He knew how Cas was feeling, knew the sense of solitude and hopelessness that came from knowing there wasn't anybody out there with the answers you were searching for. And maybe, just maybe there wasn't even anybody out there who understood how you were feeling. People could say they got it, sure, but they didn't really get it. They didn't know just what you needed.
What would Dean himself need in a time like this? Not words, for sure -- words were empty. Maybe a touch, a friendly hand on his shoulder. He could do that much.
His hand came down on Cas' shoulder. The soulful eyes didn't flicker, or look in his direction. It wasn't enough. Dean's heart contracted, whimpering, in his chest.
He pulled, and Castiel stepped forward compliantly into a loose embrace. His eyes still searched the sky for elusive answers. Sighing, Dean bowed his head. When he breathed out, he could feel the hot reflection of it against Cas' cheek.
From there it was just instinct, just magnetism. No rational thought led Dean to press his lips to Cas' face. It just felt like the right thing to do. Like maybe that was what Cas needed.
Maybe, or maybe not. Castiel didn't move. Dean stepped back, feeling like twenty kinds of a fool.
Until Castiel, his eyes still on the sky, said in a soft voice, "Thank you."
Heart and Soul
Castiel saved Dean's soul. That's a weird debt to owe, and Dean still feels, after everything, like he'll never be at peace with himself until he repays it. When he thinks back on it, what an arrogant bastard he was. Cas saved him an all Dean did was bitch about it. Which isn't to say he wishes he'd gone along with the Plan of a Zillion Douchebag Angels, but he could have at least said thank you.
So when he finally says thank you, it's on the back porch at Lisa's and Cas is nowhere to be seen.
"I owe you," he says into the night sky. There's one constellation, an arc of stars sitting like a crown atop the night, that reminds him of Cas for whatever reason. Maybe it's just the shape. C is for Casti, that's good enough for me... He snorts at his own absurdity and goes on.
"Wouldn't be here without you. Times twelve. But the thing that matters is, I wouldn't be me without you. You, ah... you had faith in me when no one else did, when I didn't have faith in myself. And then, when you did doubt me, it pissed me off enough that I wanted to prove you wrong. So I owe you. You saved my soul. I just wish I'd been able to pay you back for that, you know?"
"You did," says a soft voice.
Still nobody around him. But when Dean closes his eyes, he can feel breath on his neck, arms circling him. The quiet flutter of wings.
Wetness comes to his eyes. "Cas?"
"I went to hell to give you your soul back." Castiel whispers through the veil that separates the world and the World Beyond. "But you gave me a heart. I think that's a very fair trade."
Dean bites his lip. For an instant the night and the touch-that-isn't-a-touch are so unbearably warm he thinks he might catch fire. "Cas," he repeats, and then, a quick tumble of muttered words: "I miss you."
"Dean." Urgency in the ghostly voice. "I had to mend your soul when it was broken. But I don't know how to mend this."
"You don't have to mend anything," Dean says quickly. "You were right. I got what I wanted. Things are fine. My life is... fine." There's contempt in the way he says the word.
"I know." For an instant Dean thinks Castiel will leave it at that, and disappointment flares in him. But then the voice is speaking again. "That's not what I mean."
"Then what do you mean?"
"My heart." Voice so soft it's barely a voice at all. "It's breaking."
He can feel a body that isn't there squeeze him tight, can feel the heat of a presence. The lightbulb above him on the porch blows out.
Dean gets to his feet, wipes his eyes and clenches a fist. "Then I have a chance to pay you back after all," he says. "Leave it to me, Cas. I'll come to heaven, and I'll drag you out."
-
He knows that Jimmy's body has to be somewhere on the planet. Given Castiel, Dean figured he's probably delivered it to Amelia and Claire. But a quick check of the cemeteries proves it's not to be found. Good. Dean doesn't want to disturb that family. It's going to be hard enough to disturb his own.
But Lisa knows, and she doesn't stop him. How he was able to find such a friend in her he'll never know. God knows he doesn't deserve it. He heads out onto the road and doesn't stop until he reaches the barn where Castiel first stepped, like a hurricane, into his life. He'll retrace every step of the way through the past two years if he has to. But he doesn't have to. There's the body, lying pristine and unspoiled as though it were a wax figure. Angels can preserve their vessels like this, he figures. Talk about your Holy Oil of Olay.
Dean kneels by the body. Touches the face. Cold. It makes his heart ache. Castiel was never cold to the touch. He radiated heat, light, righteousness. Soul. Castiel had so much soul that he broke off a piece of it to restore Dean's, and now he's a part of Dean's soul forever. It's an unusually poetic thought for Dean, but then again, he's always loved fucking with expectations.
But there's implications to that. It means that while Cas is gone, Dean's soul is broken. And maybe, just maybe, it means Cas' heart is broken because Dean's not there.
He doesn't know a spell, he hasn't researched how to do this. He's taking it on faith that somehow it'll work out. Because somehow it's got to. He presses his forehead to the cold one below him and closes his eyes.
The cold is overwhelming, seeping through his body, and he cries out and crumples. He's falling into that space where Jimmy's body is, a place between death and life, cold, waiting, his soul being torn away. He remembers looking down and seeing his body, folded over Jimmy's, over Cas', locked together like dead lovers in a single grave. And then he looks up and sees another world.
He is running through a forest. It's dark, and wet, and the underbrush presses sticky fingerprints to his legs as he goes. There's a piece of him missing somewhere over the horizon, and if he doesn't reconnect with it he's going to fall to pieces. It hurts, like needles poking through his skin, with each step, but he doesn't stop running. He doesn't need any road map to get him to his destination. It's close, getting closer, even as the pain shoots through him and tries to bend his will. He's breaking through all the barriers of Heaven and Earth now, each one tearing as his heart and lungs, but the missing piece of him is closer every moment. And then the pain is like searing, like dying, but it's in his hands, the last piece sliding into place and filling him with a sense of rightness so profound he can only close his eyes and allow it to carry him down toward the body that waits cold for him below...
He's awake. He's awake and warming up and he can feel his hands. He thinks he can move them. He tenses his fingers, and they wrap around an arm that isn't his. A warm arm that isn't his.
He sits up. His pulse and his ragged breaths are harsh in his ears, out-of-sync percussion. His throat feels like it's been dragged along a street for five blocks.
And then he's being stared at by intense, rapidly blinking blue eyes, and he doesn't need voice or breath because his heart and soul are whole.
"Cas?" He reaches out, touches skin that was frigid a minute ago. "Is that you in there?"
Those are tears he's seeing interspersed with the bats of thick eyelashes. Tears.
"Hey." Frowning. "Hey. It's OK. We made it. ...I think. Did we make it?"
"Dean." A whisper no louder than the one that had made him close his eyes on that not-so-long-ago night. And then Cas' body is around his, hands in his hair and on his back, tears rolling onto his lips from Castiel's cheek pressed to his, and Dean bites the tears away to keep himself from crying too.
Somehow his lips find Castiel's. And then everything about him is brilliantly alive. Mind and body and soul and heart, all beating in tune with Castiel's. They're here, they're together, they're whole.
Dean laughs as he pulls away. "Now we're even," he points out. "One soul for one heart. I don't owe you any more favors."
Castiel tilts his head in that curious, alien way of his, but a smile warms his features. "You never did."
Lost and Found
Sam gives Castiel a quizzical look when he comes whooshing in to the motel room. "Dude. Aren't you missing something?"
Castiel doesn't bother looking at himself, just squints at Sam. "I don't know what you mean."
Sam points at his chest. "Your tie, man. It's--"
At this, Castiel looks down, and Sam thinks he just might see a pinch of color rising to Cas' cheeks. "Oh. I. Uh. I lost it."
That guttural voice is absolutely unconvincing when it's lying. Sam arches an eyebrow. Behind him, Dean shifts his position on the motel bed and coughs.
Sam picks up a speck of eye contact, just enough, and he looks over his shoulder. He sees Cas' eyes widen just before he turns away.
"What are you looking at?" Dean says. His face is pink as well.
"I can see it," Sam informs him flatly, and points to the necktie tied to the bedpost behind him, the loose end looped into a makeshift handcuff.
Dean turns back and forces a smile. "Oh, hey, Cas, good news! Sam found your tie!"
Sam just bangs his head against the wall.
Lost and Found II
This is the most ridiculous thing he's ever had to endure. And that includes the creepy Christmas couple, and that includes the pink flower bandaids, and that includes running from the lapdog.
"'Scuse me," he says to the third bored-looking teen in as many minutes. "Have you seen a guy in a trenchcoat?"
A long suck on a Slurpee, then: "A what?"
"Oh, that's just great. Kids these days," Dean mutters, and keeps walking.
He'd thought that if Cas were going to get lost in a mall there'd be a trail of toppled mannequins and screaming salesladies a mile long, but nothing. The mall is unfailingly mall-like, and Dean has got no clue. He's this close to hitting the PA booth and declaring "All angels of the Lord, please report to the food court immediately." It's only that, well, he hit on the girl behind the counter there and she's still mad at him. And so's her husband. Who's one of the security guards.
He's about to give up and go crawling back when he hears a couple of kids talking. "Do you think he was, like, Amish or something?"
"I think he was just one of those right-wing crusaders."
"I don't know, he really didn't seem to know that a bikini wasn't underwear."
"What was he doing in that section anyway?"
"Hey, hey, stop, 'scuse me," Dean shouts them down. "The guy you were talking about just now. Where did you see him?"
They point out a trendy sportswear outlet and Dean hightails it in, but sees no sign of Castiel. He even dips into the fitting room and calls out "Cas?" No answer, except a couple of high-pitched shrieks.
A few more minutes and he gets another lead, this time in the form of a lady rolling her eyes and declaring, "He must have been one of those. He kept trying to sniff the perfume."
Dean heads to the display that reads "Scent of Heaven" but finds no Cas.
He checks out the bookstore's religion section, the video store with the display for the DVD of "Legion," and even the kiddie area. Play Paradise, it's called. You can't underestimate Cas' blockheadedness. But no dice.
Exhausted, he heads back to the food court for a refuel.
There he sits, happy as a clam, munching a quarter-pounder from Hamburger Heaven.
Of course.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
"I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of lying to people."
For the fourth time in the past thirty seconds, Dean snorted. "Dude. Don't tell me you'd rather get a job at McDonald's."
Castiel looked horrified at the thought. He still didn't trust himself around vast quantities of red meat. "I just feel like there ought to be some way you can be honest and still win the money."
"It's about getting the mark to take the bet," Dean lectured, the fraying ends of his patience bleeding through to his voice. "You find a way to tell the truth and do that, Cas, I will buy you a liquor store."
Something flashed through Castiel's eyes. He looked around the room and walked up to a biker with a tattoo saying "God's in My Sidecar." Dean cringed in advance and crept up beside the table to watch.
"Apologies if I'm not very good," Castiel said humbly as he set up the triangle. "I lost some of my focus along with my angelic powers."
"Your what?"
"It's a long story," Castiel demurred. "I don't suppose you'd be into a friendly wager?"
The biker squinted at him, then burst into loud laughter. "I thought angels couldn't gamble."
"Oh, they can't," Castiel said blithely, "but as you can see I'm no longer bound by heavenly constraints. Twenty dollars?"
Dean managed to scrape his jaw off the floor long enough to roll his eyes and circle his finger in a cuckoo expression when the biker looked to see if anyone else was hearing this.
"Hell," the biker said with a huge, gap-toothed grin. "Let's make it fifty."
The terrible precision of Castiel's cue stick then was a wonder to behold.
Dean gave a low whistle of appreciation as Castiel pocketed the money and the two of them headed for the door. "I take it back," he said. "For you, Cas? Honesty really is the best policy."
Pride
I'm so bleeding proud of them it makes me want to puff up my chest like a peacock.
Sodomy is a sin, of course. Why do you think I enjoy it so much? What it isn't is a mortal sin, the sort that can get you thrown into the pit. Not all sins are created equal. Hell's got misdemeanors and felonies like every other penal system in creation. But that doesn't quite erase the little tingle I get thinking of that self-righteous prick bastard of an angel getting his jollies at the butt end of Dean Winchester's gun, if you catch my meaning. Yes, sugar, that's right. Sometimes taking it up the arse can be therapeutic for the stick you've got lodged up there.
Dean has always been a luscious little fornicator. Quite honestly, I'd probably tap that like Fred Astaire. So he doesn't surprise me quite as much. But this Castiel? Mm. A few more decades of that and maybe I can take him for a spin. Wouldn't that be poetic justice. The harder they fall...
Exasperation
Dean has a Ph.D. in exasperating Sam. Not just the bachelor's degree every big brother's got, but the big fat mark of a true scholar of annoyance. He was king of the crude and cringeworthy, prince of the put-down, titan of thoughtlessness, and monarch of questioning your masculinity. You name it, Dean could annoy Sam with it. To the extent that Sam had very nearly gotten used to it. After twenty-six years of annoyance, what more can possibly surprise or shock? Sam was finally starting to feel like he could relax, because at least all the annoyances were well-trod territory by now.
Spoken far too soon.
It started with Dean insisting on cooking breakfast. Not running out to get, not microwaving-- cooking. Dean plus a frying pan was OK when it came to bacon, but eggs died in screaming anguish. Sam picked at it, and Dean didn't seem to care. He was off in happyland. "I just don't want you to feel like I'm taking you for granted, Sammy," he said, as cryptic as he was happy. Take him for granted? Why?
That question was answered when Dean conveniently forgot to call one night to say when he'd be back. Sam sat up till one before finally phoning. The phone rang out once, and when Sam redialed, Dean answered almost immediately, sounding out of breath. "Yeah?"
"Where are you?"
"Oh." Huff, huff, huff. "Yeah, Sammy, didn't I tell you? Staying the night--" Something akin to a squeal, and another set of huffs.
"Oh." A familiar annoyance. This Sam could handle. "Sorry, didn't realize you were with a--"
A growling, very-very-male voice saying Dean's name. A hurried "See ya" from Dean, and then the phone went dead.
"--girl?" Sam spoke aloud to an empty room. He stayed alone with the torture machine that was his imagination.
But even the freshly and imaginatively frustrating concept that was a bisexual Dean (of course he didn't have anything against it, but when it's your brother, man... arrgh!) wasn't nearly as annoying as the final revelation. And it was a full-frontal revelation.
"Cas!?" Sam gasped, clutching the doorframe.
"Apologies." Castiel turned around, which only gave Sam a full-behind view instead.
"Wait," Sam insisted. "Wait a second. I knew... that is, I thought, but... I mean... CAS?!"
Dean frowned at him from the bed. "Yeah, and I'd appreciate you stopping staring at him like he's a piece of meat, OK?"
Sam turned his gaze on Dean. "Are you telling me -- wait a minute. I'm so ... seriously? You're... with him?"
"You know why I like you, Sammy?" Dean said with that chipper, happy grin. "You're so quick to pick up on things."
Yup, Dean still had his Ph.D. in exasperation.
Flirtation
"I don't see the point of this."
"Of course you don't. That's why you're here. So I can show you the point."
"That sounds like an innuendo."
"See, you're getting the hang of it already."
-
They're not in the Caribbean, so the table is set up on the shores of a lake, but even that's kind of pretty. Dean's proud of his handiwork, white tablecloth and candles flickering lights that reflect back at them through a dozen ripples in the dark water. He's wearing boots, but he's got one of his fake FBI jackets on over the rock 'n' roll T-shirt, and the juxtaposition works for him, if he dares say so himself. He's even washed his hair. Castiel is wearing what Castiel always wears, despite Dean's exhortation to him to change for the occasion. He didn't see the point. He still doesn't. Oh well, nothing to do now but wait for Dean to show it to him.
-
"So, uh, shall we toast?"
"I only see wine."
"Why did I get the feeling you were going to say that?"
"You know me well."
"I'd like to get to know you better."
"I don't understand."
"I was flirting. Forget it. Whatever. Here's to us."
"What?"
"....Raise your damn glass, Cas."
-
Dean was able to wheedle Sam into being their waiter of sorts, and while he's been a barrel of eyerolls all week long preparing for this, he's appropriately discreet when he brings out the salad, doesn't even look over his shoulder to see Dean's oh-God-I-have-to-eat-salad face. Maybe because he already knows it's there.
While they chomp on sort of wilted lettuce, Dean slides off his shoe and draws his foot up Cas' ankle. Cas has no visible response. But when Dean is just about to give up, Cas' knees close, trapping his foot there -- saying stay in no uncertain terms.
-
"So you like the footsie, huh? Good to know."
"Is that the name of the salad?"
"...Sometimes I can't tell whether you're fucking with me."
"I would think it would be obvious."
"You're fucking with me now. I know you're not that obtuse."
"You're right. I'm fucking with you."
"I thought so."
"And I'd like to do some more."
"WHAT."
"That was my attempt at... flirting. Forget it."
-
Sam does glance under the table when he brings the main course, still kind of steaming from the Boston Market where he got it, and his lips quirk as he turns again. Dean glares at him as though the message to mind his own damn beeswax will sink in right through his brother's back and into his spine.
So rotisserie chicken isn't quite prime rib, but as they eat Dean glances across the table at Cas, sees the candle flickering near the end of its lifespan, and thinks the light it casts on Cas' stubble is kind of ridiculously nice. He wants to sink his lips into that spot and drink up the light.
-
"You're staring at me."
"I can't help myself."
"Is that more flirting?"
"No. Well, yeah. But it's the truth."
"Why can't you help yourself?"
"You're going to make me say it?"
"Not if you're uncomfortable."
"Argh. OK. Look, you just look good, OK? I want--"
"No. Don't tell me. I'll tell you what I want instead."
-
By the time Sam has come back from the ice cream store with dessert, he is staring openly. Both Dean and Castiel look like they're in serious need of cooling down. Good thing Sam's there with the frozen stuff.
They take about two bites each, then Castiel reaches over and grabs Dean's hand, and the two of them vanish, leaving Sam alone with dying candles and melting ice cream. They'll apologize tomorrow, but really? There's only so much flirting a man can take.
Breaking the Rules
Castiel burps. It shouldn't be a big thing, but it kind of is, because he has no idea that it's rude or that he should be covering his mouth. Dean's all about being rude when you're conscious of it, but Cas' sheer ignorance is starting to grate on him. At one point he finally turns around and says, "Cas, you know that's rude."
"Oh," says Castiel, "I didn't realize." And he never does it again. And that's even more annoying to Dean.
That's the way the guy is. His learning curve is a straight line. He never has a crooked tie again after the first time. And he never gets closer to Dean than a few feet after that reminder about personal space. The further away he is, the more Dean realizes he's being deliberate about it. He starts to wonder how close Castiel would get, if he hadn't been told in such certain terms that he shouldn't.
Dean sort of misses the sudden smell of him.
Which sounds weird, and kind of gay, but it's like someone uncorks a bottle of concentrated Castiel and Dean's immediately aware of the situation. When Castiel moves slowly toward him, it's like being the frog in the proverbial pot of boiling water. You don't realize how much shit you're in until it's too late. Only Cas could manage to be sneakier when he's not being sneaky.
It's a relief, then, when Castiel appears right next to him and starts beating the crap out of him.
Each punch is a relief. Dean's broken and he wants to give up, and Castiel's back to doing what he does best. Not being polite. Getting in his face. Threatening to send him back to hell. And Dean realizes, as his lip splits and he tastes the metal tang of blood in his mouth, he misses it. He wants it. Castiel, every annoying habit he has, all the disregard for human norms and insistence on being on the side of justice, Dean loves it all.
And then he has to go and break one more rule and leave without saying goodbye.
Kinky
Dean was totally not thinking about it. He was pissed and he was playing a stupid sitcom role on the Trickster's stupid TV land gag and he was not thinking about Castiel all bloody and bruised with duct tape on his mouth. And even if he were thinking about it, he was definitely not thinking good things about it. It was sick, cruel, sadistic. The kind of thing the Trickster was into, maybe. God knows (at least figuratively) what he'd been subjected to in order to cause those bruises and cuts. It couldn't be pleasant. Probably Wild Kingdom, or one of those Spike TV shows.
Nothing involving leather and chains. And not something Dean would ever think about reproducing. He wasn't into that. He didn't like the idea of Castiel held down, his cheek pressing into the floor, crying out at the welts being left on his skin. He wasn't even having that idea. It wasn't occurring to him, and he wasn't thinking about it.
"Of course you're not," whispered the Trickster in his ear, there for a moment and then gone again. "You kinky bastard."
Dean turned an unholy shade of crimson, but he didn't say a word.
Lost
There were some times Cas just looked so lost. His eyes turned toward the sky, his lip curled into the barest of pouts -- it'd be damn cute if it didn't wrench Dean's heart so much. He knew how Cas was feeling, knew the sense of solitude and hopelessness that came from knowing there wasn't anybody out there with the answers you were searching for. And maybe, just maybe there wasn't even anybody out there who understood how you were feeling. People could say they got it, sure, but they didn't really get it. They didn't know just what you needed.
What would Dean himself need in a time like this? Not words, for sure -- words were empty. Maybe a touch, a friendly hand on his shoulder. He could do that much.
His hand came down on Cas' shoulder. The soulful eyes didn't flicker, or look in his direction. It wasn't enough. Dean's heart contracted, whimpering, in his chest.
He pulled, and Castiel stepped forward compliantly into a loose embrace. His eyes still searched the sky for elusive answers. Sighing, Dean bowed his head. When he breathed out, he could feel the hot reflection of it against Cas' cheek.
From there it was just instinct, just magnetism. No rational thought led Dean to press his lips to Cas' face. It just felt like the right thing to do. Like maybe that was what Cas needed.
Maybe, or maybe not. Castiel didn't move. Dean stepped back, feeling like twenty kinds of a fool.
Until Castiel, his eyes still on the sky, said in a soft voice, "Thank you."
Heart and Soul
Castiel saved Dean's soul. That's a weird debt to owe, and Dean still feels, after everything, like he'll never be at peace with himself until he repays it. When he thinks back on it, what an arrogant bastard he was. Cas saved him an all Dean did was bitch about it. Which isn't to say he wishes he'd gone along with the Plan of a Zillion Douchebag Angels, but he could have at least said thank you.
So when he finally says thank you, it's on the back porch at Lisa's and Cas is nowhere to be seen.
"I owe you," he says into the night sky. There's one constellation, an arc of stars sitting like a crown atop the night, that reminds him of Cas for whatever reason. Maybe it's just the shape. C is for Casti, that's good enough for me... He snorts at his own absurdity and goes on.
"Wouldn't be here without you. Times twelve. But the thing that matters is, I wouldn't be me without you. You, ah... you had faith in me when no one else did, when I didn't have faith in myself. And then, when you did doubt me, it pissed me off enough that I wanted to prove you wrong. So I owe you. You saved my soul. I just wish I'd been able to pay you back for that, you know?"
"You did," says a soft voice.
Still nobody around him. But when Dean closes his eyes, he can feel breath on his neck, arms circling him. The quiet flutter of wings.
Wetness comes to his eyes. "Cas?"
"I went to hell to give you your soul back." Castiel whispers through the veil that separates the world and the World Beyond. "But you gave me a heart. I think that's a very fair trade."
Dean bites his lip. For an instant the night and the touch-that-isn't-a-touch are so unbearably warm he thinks he might catch fire. "Cas," he repeats, and then, a quick tumble of muttered words: "I miss you."
"Dean." Urgency in the ghostly voice. "I had to mend your soul when it was broken. But I don't know how to mend this."
"You don't have to mend anything," Dean says quickly. "You were right. I got what I wanted. Things are fine. My life is... fine." There's contempt in the way he says the word.
"I know." For an instant Dean thinks Castiel will leave it at that, and disappointment flares in him. But then the voice is speaking again. "That's not what I mean."
"Then what do you mean?"
"My heart." Voice so soft it's barely a voice at all. "It's breaking."
He can feel a body that isn't there squeeze him tight, can feel the heat of a presence. The lightbulb above him on the porch blows out.
Dean gets to his feet, wipes his eyes and clenches a fist. "Then I have a chance to pay you back after all," he says. "Leave it to me, Cas. I'll come to heaven, and I'll drag you out."
-
He knows that Jimmy's body has to be somewhere on the planet. Given Castiel, Dean figured he's probably delivered it to Amelia and Claire. But a quick check of the cemeteries proves it's not to be found. Good. Dean doesn't want to disturb that family. It's going to be hard enough to disturb his own.
But Lisa knows, and she doesn't stop him. How he was able to find such a friend in her he'll never know. God knows he doesn't deserve it. He heads out onto the road and doesn't stop until he reaches the barn where Castiel first stepped, like a hurricane, into his life. He'll retrace every step of the way through the past two years if he has to. But he doesn't have to. There's the body, lying pristine and unspoiled as though it were a wax figure. Angels can preserve their vessels like this, he figures. Talk about your Holy Oil of Olay.
Dean kneels by the body. Touches the face. Cold. It makes his heart ache. Castiel was never cold to the touch. He radiated heat, light, righteousness. Soul. Castiel had so much soul that he broke off a piece of it to restore Dean's, and now he's a part of Dean's soul forever. It's an unusually poetic thought for Dean, but then again, he's always loved fucking with expectations.
But there's implications to that. It means that while Cas is gone, Dean's soul is broken. And maybe, just maybe, it means Cas' heart is broken because Dean's not there.
He doesn't know a spell, he hasn't researched how to do this. He's taking it on faith that somehow it'll work out. Because somehow it's got to. He presses his forehead to the cold one below him and closes his eyes.
The cold is overwhelming, seeping through his body, and he cries out and crumples. He's falling into that space where Jimmy's body is, a place between death and life, cold, waiting, his soul being torn away. He remembers looking down and seeing his body, folded over Jimmy's, over Cas', locked together like dead lovers in a single grave. And then he looks up and sees another world.
He is running through a forest. It's dark, and wet, and the underbrush presses sticky fingerprints to his legs as he goes. There's a piece of him missing somewhere over the horizon, and if he doesn't reconnect with it he's going to fall to pieces. It hurts, like needles poking through his skin, with each step, but he doesn't stop running. He doesn't need any road map to get him to his destination. It's close, getting closer, even as the pain shoots through him and tries to bend his will. He's breaking through all the barriers of Heaven and Earth now, each one tearing as his heart and lungs, but the missing piece of him is closer every moment. And then the pain is like searing, like dying, but it's in his hands, the last piece sliding into place and filling him with a sense of rightness so profound he can only close his eyes and allow it to carry him down toward the body that waits cold for him below...
He's awake. He's awake and warming up and he can feel his hands. He thinks he can move them. He tenses his fingers, and they wrap around an arm that isn't his. A warm arm that isn't his.
He sits up. His pulse and his ragged breaths are harsh in his ears, out-of-sync percussion. His throat feels like it's been dragged along a street for five blocks.
And then he's being stared at by intense, rapidly blinking blue eyes, and he doesn't need voice or breath because his heart and soul are whole.
"Cas?" He reaches out, touches skin that was frigid a minute ago. "Is that you in there?"
Those are tears he's seeing interspersed with the bats of thick eyelashes. Tears.
"Hey." Frowning. "Hey. It's OK. We made it. ...I think. Did we make it?"
"Dean." A whisper no louder than the one that had made him close his eyes on that not-so-long-ago night. And then Cas' body is around his, hands in his hair and on his back, tears rolling onto his lips from Castiel's cheek pressed to his, and Dean bites the tears away to keep himself from crying too.
Somehow his lips find Castiel's. And then everything about him is brilliantly alive. Mind and body and soul and heart, all beating in tune with Castiel's. They're here, they're together, they're whole.
Dean laughs as he pulls away. "Now we're even," he points out. "One soul for one heart. I don't owe you any more favors."
Castiel tilts his head in that curious, alien way of his, but a smile warms his features. "You never did."
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The way the drabbles go..it's like..the evolution of their relationship, even though they aren't connected.
It's silly in the beginning, but it develops into something deeper, a stronger connection, sadder, more intense, until it gets to the point where they know each other without so many words.
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"You know why I like you, Sammy?" Dean said with that chipper, happy grin. "You're so quick to pick up on things."
SNERK. I can completely see this.
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So glad you liked! And as someone many years removed from my mallrat days (not that I really had any), I'm particularly glad the mall one rang true. :D
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But really, they were all marvelous, ranging from outrageously funny (Cas hustling pool!), to kinky (Dean likes his angels tied up!), to sweet ("Lost and Found II" and "Flirtation"), to so, so bittersweet ("Heart and Soul.")
Some of my (many) favorite lines from this series:
" . . . the two of them vanish, leaving Sam alone with dying candles and melting ice cream." Such a beautifully descriptive, poetic line.
"Dean sort of misses the sudden smell of him." Such a visceral line -- I think I felt it more than I read it. What DO angels smell like? *sigh*
"Oh, hey, Cas, good news! Sam found your tie!" Taken out of context, it's totally innocent. But we know better . . . LMAO!
"Dean plus a frying pan was OK when it came to bacon, but eggs died in screaming anguish." I can oh, so totally see this. And the visual image of those poor eggs dying in "screaming anguish" while Dean holds the spatula above their ongoing demise saying "Wha' happen?" . . . is delightful!
It looks like I've found a new author to add to my "favorites" shortlist. I have no idea why I didn't immediately seek out the rest of your stuff after reading "The Baking Angel," but I'm going to rectify that.
I am SO glad I "met" you!! *smishes you*
ETA: Holy crap, I wrote a book! Sorry for all the tl;dr. XD
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