daydreamxrs:
There’s something achingly soft about Lazarus, here and now. The way their voice sounds, the way their eyes flutter closed at the gentle touch of Cas’s hand. The touch seems to sooth them, in some small way, strengthen their resolve and comfort them, set them more at ease with the terrifying reality of sharing these difficult to handle parts of themself. Cas aches for them, and feels a strange sense of pride in them in turn. Lazarus’s life –– Jovi’s life –– must have been a complicated, difficult thing. Laz had seemed sure of that, even before they had remembered much. They saw something in Cas’s own pain that they could appreciate, that they could find a kinship in. Cas had been hurt, a thousand times before, and it seemed clear as day to both of them that Lazarus had been hurt too.
He watches as Lazarus pulls in a breath, readies themself to share whatever this story is. And his heart is already aching all the more when Lazarus brings up the tower. Cas has been plagued, a little bit, by that night, and the knowledge of how hard it had all been for Lazarus. He’s plagued by his own nightmares, his own fears, and the memory of Lazarus covered in blood. But Lazarus had been the one to go through it all, to be hurt –– and apparently to find peices of themself lost among the fray. Cas listens carefully, nods his head along to the mention of Mordred. That was a name that Cas knew, in the vaguest sense. An old hero, an old villian, a trajectory in life that Cas can distantly identify with. But Mordred had looked Lazarus in the eye and seen something worth stopping for, something recognisable. Mordred looked at Lazarus and mouthed a name, and it was something familiar to Lazarus. The idea of it all makes Cas shiver a little, a minute thing, a phantom feeling. He allows Lazarus to take his hand, to play with his fingers, to take whatever comfort they can find in him.
Cas can tell that the part with Mordred isn’t the one that’s been weighing on Lazarus so heavily. There’s something else, something worse, about to come to the surface. He holds his breath, plays at being patient. And he can feel the tension in the air, the mild anxiety growing in Lazarus when he recounts what happened next, the second time that something clicked for them inside the tower. He shifts his hand to twine their fingers together, to hold Lazarus’s own hand in his grasp, gentle enough that they can pull away if they like. He hates the idea of what Lazarus had to do, giving his life force to someone like Flame Thrower, who had always been an asshole, who had never been worth anything he had. A breath punches out of him, at the revelation. Lazarus and Flame Thrower, in the time before, where Lazarus was still Jovi first and foremost. Lazarus and Flame Thrower, dating. The idea makes him feel sick –– not with a distant jealousy, the kind of thing that might have sprung up if it had been someone else, but with an odd kind of worry.
Lazarus thinks it must have been royally fucked up, and Cas can’t argue against that thought. He didn’t know Flame Thrower very well, but he’d run into the man more than often enough to get the vibe. He’d looked in Jase’s eyes, even if he didn’t have the story. He’d seen the way that Flame Thrower looked at people sometimes, during the odd times when Cas had been in a room with him. The fire in that man was all consuming, and he’d always made Cas feel a little sick. It was one thing for Lazarus and Flame Thrower to have hooked up, it was another for Flame Thrower to have known them before, to have been with them before. To have been with them and never said anything, never told Lazarus anything about their life before they died. There are only a few reasons Cas can think of, why Flame Thrower would keep Lazarus in the dark about that. He shivers again, and squeezes their hand.
“Oh,” He says, useless, a soft word that punches out of him before he can find just the right thing to say. Only he doesn’t think there is a right thing to say to this, to this weighty revelation. He rememebrs Lazarus’s admission, way back in his own home town, once again. The idea that they had been hurt just as badly as Cas had, once upon a time. And he wants to cry at the thought of that. He can feel the panic growing in them, the fear. Cas shifts a little then, sits up so that he can gather Lazarus against him, so that he can cradle their head and run fingers through their hair. So they don’t have to look in his eyes and see the distant anger he feels, the strange desire to find Clint Courtney and kill him. “I’m sorry, Laz. That’s –– You’re right. That’s royally fucked up.”
He holds Lazarus for a moment, pushing that flare of anger aside, quashing it down. Because now isn’t the time to focus on dreams of death, of making Flame Thrower pay for every might have been. “He’s never said anything about it.” He says, and it isn’t a question. He knows it must be true. He pulls back, after a moment, presses a feirceky gentle kiss to their forehead before he sits back, so he can look in their eyes again, now that he feels more under control. “I’m sorry.” He says, again, because he is. Sorry on their behalf, angry on their behalf. “That must be hard, to remember that. To not even know all the details, I ––” He shakes his head a little bit, lays his hand on theirs again. “I wish I could fix it all for you.”
...
They wish desperately that things could just be normal with them, that they didn’t have this grand, fucked up, mysterious past that kept rearing its ugly head, ready to keep them from being able to have a quiet, gentle night with anxiety flaring up, keeping them from being able to calm their thoughts enough to just ignore it all in a healthy way for a bit. But they know that that’s not how things can work for them yet. They need to understand their past before they can move on from it, need to know what happened to land them dead in that river, what had led them to their situation with Flame Thrower and how it’s all connected, because they’re pretty fucking certain it is, just from the warnings that Jase has given them, and the feeling in their gut at that memory that had popped up when they’d healed Clint. And the thing is that no matter how hard this is, they know it would be a thousand times harder if they weren’t here with Cas, if they couldn’t tell him this while holding his hand, if they hadn’t started committing to this open honesty, no matter how hard it is, sharing so much with each other, and doing their best to offer support back.
It would be simpler, of course, if the Mordred moment was the only thing the had to bring up that had been weighing on their mind. Hell, if that was it, they probably would have already sought out the answer to those questions already, would have researched who Mordred was behind the name of a traitor, who they were before they were a Guardian even, and how this Maeve person connected it all, why that had made them stop and look at them with recognition, despite being a mindless zombie, and why they had a feeling it was connected to that woman in their memory. They don’t think that part of things would be anywhere near as bad as they’re certain everything they’re doing to find out about their before with Flame Thrower probably is.
So when Cas intertwines their fingers, they hold on a little tighter, as they explain things, fighting through the urge to shut down, and back away, instead of being honest about this reality, and these fears. Because if anyone is going to understand, it’s him. There’s a reason that they’re both here, after all, a reason that they promised all of those things to him, and they work every day to make sure they’re keeping those promises. They care so deeply for him they’re not even sure they had the right words for it, and so of course, he would be here with them through this horrible revelation. He’s already promised as much, too, after all. And so it’s not really a surprise that Cas does exactly what they need without them even realizing it before he does. He shifts and sits up, pulling them close, holding them there and running fingers through their hair.
And it feels a little hard to breathe for a second, with that out in the open, saying it somehow making it hit them even harder just how real it is, that Flame Thrower has known who they are this whole time, knew that they were together, and has kept it from them. That even before that he was cruel, they don’t need to remember specifics yet to know that’s true. The panic is rising, but they focus on the feeling of Cas’s fingers in their hair, his warmth pressed against them as he agrees with them, tells them he’s sorry that’s what this all is. They close their eyes and hold onto that feeling, push back against the panic and the urge to shut down and run away.
“No, he never said anything about it, so who knows how bad things were before,” Lazarus mutters, before pulling back, too. The kiss is full of tenderness in a way that sends a chill through them, reminds them it’s something they deserve, not whatever it was Clint gave them before. “It is...and I know it’ll be worse when I figure it out, but I can’t not. I need to know, before I figure out what to do about him.” They can’t help the frown that comes with it all, but they need him to know that he is helping, just by being able to talk to him about it all. “Just being here with you...it helps. I don’t think I could deal with it if I didn’t have you to hold onto.”
They fall silent for a second, intertwine their fingers again, and bring Cas’s hand up to their lips, brushing a gentle kiss against his knuckles. “I just wish things could be normal for a minute. In the memory, I was standing there, dark hair, normal clothes, no cracks, no powers, and he fuckin’ took that away,” they say, not really thinking about the words. But something there hits, makes their chest ache in a way they don’t know how to put into words. All they can think is to hold onto Cas’s hand tighter.
