daydreamxrs:
A spark of worry ignites in Cas’s stomach, even before any real information has come out of Kaz’s mouth. It’s something about the look in their eyes, he thinks. Something about the way they hold themself, the way that they’re looking at him, the way they’re trying not to look at him. Kaz is being careful, for some reason, weighing the words and seeing how they settle on his tongue. They’ve always been sharp, and good at talking to people. They’ve always had a way with Cas particularly. Kaz could probably convince him to jump off a bridge, if they tried, and they wouldn’t need any superpowers to achieve it. Kaz doesn’t need the power of suggestion to make Cas listen to them and bend to their will –– they just need to love him.
When Kaz finally talks, when they finally settle on an explanation of their problem, it hits Cas hard. It’s a devastating idea, a devastating blow. Because that was probably his worst nightmare. Kaz, in a fight, and his powers flickering out because Cas wasn’t good enough, because he wasn’t strong enough and he couldn’t make this fucking warp stick. He tries to keep his face placid, and easy, as he bites the inside of his cheek. Kaz’s powers failed after they split up, after Parasite. When Cas was alone, with a messed up Sebastian and a bleeding Mind Master, and Fearmonger breathing down his neck again, showing him things so horrible that he still dreams about them, still wakes. up at night and has to fight the urge to find Kaz or Lazarus and check them over for injuries. Kaz’s powers probably failed when Mind Master was in his head, during the brief moment of flickering uncertainty when he looked up at the storm and didn’t feel strong enough to fix any of his problems.
Guilt claws up his throat, and he has to try and push it away. It takes every ounce of strength not to give in, not to look weak, not to be a crybaby. The idea of anyone getting hurt because he couldn’t keep things running just made him so scared, made him feel like shit, and he was so tired lately that he was worried it would happen again, when Kaz needed it most.
“You flickered,” He says, finally. “I mean… I feel like I flickered for a second.” He presses his lips together. He’s been busy, lately. And he hasn’t sat down to really talk about all of the specifics with Kaz yet. They went over the basics, of what happened after they split up. They made sure that everyone was okay, that they had both come out of the mess alive. “There was this moment, when Mind Master was in my head, when I felt like I was… I don’t know. But then I broke all of the mental blocks and got my powers back properly. Maybe it was then, that yours failed? Things shifting around in the universe, rebooting for a second while everything got put back where it was supposed to be?”
He has to swallow around his own guilt, because it all feels like a half truth, and even more so as they go on. “Maybe we’re more linked than I anticipaed.” He says, and he’s amazed that it doesn’t sound like a lie. Because of course they’re linked. He’s felt Kaz like a rope pulling at his guts for weeks now. He’s been working every day to keep this going.
Cas answers immediately, and he says flickered in a way that makes it sound less like a description and more like a.... like a known phenomenon, like there’s a name for the thing Kaz experienced, and that it’s something Cas has experienced too, before. And somehow that alone is enough to set him already partly at ease. The knowledge that it wasn’t something wrong with. him that made it happen, that this wasn’t some unheard of phenomenon. Cas had felt it too, had felt himself flicker, and probably at the same time that Kaz had felt it. Which means there’s an explanation, at the very least.
And of course Shadow had been right. Of course talking to Cas about it instead of avoiding him, avoiding it, trying to do all of this on his own, had been the right call, the best possible decision, the thing that would set him at ease and move him towards understanding this, towards fixing it. He listens to what Cas has to say, his description of what had happened in the moments Mind Master was back inside of his head, and when he says maybe we’re more linked than I anticipated, Kaz can’t even feel anything but relief about it. If their powers really are connected, then Shadow’s right: they can practice, they can work on this, they can work together and train and figure out what happened, can find ways to draw on one another and boost one another and... he feels a spark of excitement, at the idea, of working with Cas, of the two of them helping one another.
“Oh,” he replies, a little dumb-stricken by the revelation for a moment. “Well that... that makes sense. That explains it. That’s— that’s good, right? If something about the universe shifting when you got your powers back caused it, that means it was probably just a one time fluke, yeah?”
He gets up from his chair and shifts over to sit on the couch Cas is on, beside him, legs crossed under him. Nudges him, with his knee, and gives him a hopeful little smile as soon as Cas is looking back at him.
“That’s a relief, Cas. I was worried I’d done something and fucked it all up. But... hey, if our powers are sort of linked, we can work with that, right?”