When I saw this beautiful piece of art, IÂ couldnât not be inspired by it. Happy birthday, my foxy lady <3
Ever since it began, Castiel has been terrified of falling.
For all of creationâor as much of it as he has existed for, at leastâhe has been an angel. An angel with wings, and grace. A warrior of heaven.
And then he met Dean, and he gave it all up, everything, for his Righteous Man.
Not that he regrets any of his decisions, not at all. Heâd do anything for Dean. But the idea of falling, of suddenly being stripped of his grace⊠it scares him.
He turns to different outlets; writing, crafts, creation. Castiel tries metalwork and knitting, pottery and poetry, but none of it works. None of it helps.
Itâs only when he visits a glass studio, after weeks of searching for something that will work, that he finds what heâs been looking for. He spends hours sitting there, mesmerized by the artist and his slow, careful creation of a glassblown bowl. Half an hour before the studio is set to close, the man pauses in his work, raises his eyebrows at Castiel where heâs been quietly sitting and watching, and asks if heâd like to have a try.
Glassblowing, it turns out, is the perfect outlet for Castielâs desperate need for a creative distraction. And, when he produces a tiny, glowing paperweight (much to the confusion of the glass artist), he finds that it also serves a completely different purpose entirely.
If he instils a tiny piece of his grace into each piece of art that he makes, then he can fall slowly. Heâs still fallingâheâs made his peace with that, mostlyâbut he gets to control it. Heâs choosing his fall, and how he lets go of his grace, instead of losing it to fate.
And so he sets up, with Deanâs help, his very own studio in an old building outside the bunker. His request gets him an odd look at first, but Dean has long since learned not to question Castielâs odd habits, so he goes along with it. Dean handles the ordering of all the supplies and equipment, and they work hard once everything has arrived to get it set up, until Cas has his very own glassblowing studio.
Heâs known exactly what he wants to make for a while now, but itâs complicated in a few different ways, and itâs going to take some practice to reach that level of competence. Instead, he sets about first making smaller items, some practical and some purely artistic; blue-speckled twists or spheres of blown glass.
Slowly, he gets better and better at his craft, and with each piece that he creates, his grace is depleted further.
As he practices, he keeps thinking about that special idea. He doesnât go as far as putting pencil to paper and designing it, but he thinks about it a lot, watches it take shape in his mind. When his next order of sand and oxides arrives, he experiments with the colours, the balance, until he gets it just right for what heâs been seeing in his head.
And then, one afternoon, when heâs finished all his other projects and is looking for something new to doâŠ
He figures he may as well get started.
It takes a few triesâwhat Castiel has envisioned is complex, and he is technically still a novice glassblowerâbut after a few days, and his grace more expended than heâs used to, he manages to get it right. Itâs with aching arms and skin damp with sweat that he steps back to admire his finished piece.
The glass takes hours to cool, and by the time Castiel is able to handle it with his bare hands, night has long since fallen outside. He wraps it carefully in a cloth and cradles it against his chest as he leaves his studio and makes his way back inside the bunker. Today has taken more out of him than heâd expected, and he feels⊠almost depleted. Thereâs not much of his grace left inside him, but thatâs okay.
He makes his way through the bunker quietly, trying to figure out where Dean and Sam are. Sam is likely still in the library, buried in research for their newest case, but Dean⊠Dean could be anywhere.
Eventually, Castiel finds him in his room, lying on his bed and reading a dog-eared copy of Slaughterhouse Five. He clears his throat in the doorway, and Dean glances up, then sits up once he sees who it is. âCas. Hey,â he says, closing the book and setting it aside on his nightstand. âYou alright?â
âYes, Dean.â A smile curls Castielâs lips, and he shifts his grip on his armful of cloth and glass. âIâm alright. I⊠I have a gift for you.â
Dean raises his eyebrows, gaze dropping to the bundle in Castielâs arms and then returning to his face. âSomething you made? For me?â Slowly, a small smile curls his lips, as though he canât quite believe that Cas would make something for him. âCan I see?â
The bundle of cloth feels heavy in Castielâs arms as he carries it over to Deanâs nightstand. Heâs put so much of himself into thisâso much of his emotion, his thoughts, his grace. Carefully, he sets the bundle down, then unwraps the cloth from it to reveal his gift.
Itâs a lamp, made of glass as dark as the night sky. Itâs tall and twisting and elegant, dotted with tiny pockets of glass that glow silver-blue. Beside him, Castiel hears Dean inhale sharply, and when he looks over, Deanâs eyes are wide.
âYou⊠you made this for me?â he asks, and thereâs an awed tone to his voice. âCas, itâs beautiful, Iââ
Castiel reaches out to touch the base of the lamp, pressing his fingers to the only shallow indent in the glass creation. Slowly, the room dims, and a gentle blue light grows in the centre of the lamp, until thereâs a glowing tendril within the glass that twists up from the base of the lamp to the very tip.
And on the walls, on the ceiling, projected onto every surface of the room, is the night sky.
Galaxies, collapsing stars, every marvel and wonder of space, here on the bedroom walls of Dean Winchester. For a good minute, they both look; Dean open-mouthed at the quiet beauty of Castielâs piece, and Castiel with a soft gaze at the only person he would ever go to such lengths for in all of creation.
âCas,â Dean breathes, and when his gaze returns to Castiel, his eyes are wide, and full of wonder. Heâs smiling, wide and soft and full of the same emotion that thrums beneath Castielâs sternum. âI⊠thank you. Itâs beautiful.â
Itâs everything that has been said between them, but also everything that is still yet to be said. They have a lifetime for those things, but now, Dean knows.
They sit side by side on Deanâs bed and watch the stars, and when Castiel quietly takes Deanâs hand and interlaces their fingers, neither of them are truly surprised.
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