Rated: G | AO3 link | Words: 685 | No Beta | Tags: Established Relationship, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Post-Canon, mention of nightmares, Rainbows, Human Cas
Summary: A quiet moment of reflection as a storm blows over the farmhouse
EXCERPT
One of the best things about the house wasn’t the fancy bathtub they installed or the TV they invested in. It wasn’t the barn they spent two years fixing up into a study and a place for Dean to fix cars, and it wasn’t the garden out in the back.
Cas’s favorite piece of the house was a partial wrap-around porch with its small, pitched roof that protected them from the rainstorms or the harsh sun.
His favorite time to go out there was during summer storms that blew through the area in the course of ten minutes, allowing them for breathtaking views as the cell would approach. One of Jack’s favorite things to do, when he was there for a storm, was set up his phone for a timelapse.
Cas and Dean, if they saw the storm wasn’t going to be too bad or spawn off a tornado warning, would often sit outside on the repurposed outdoor couch and watch the storms pass through.
It was in those minutes that Cas felt the most alive.
Rated: T | AO3 link | Words: 888 | No Beta | Tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, mention of nightmares, Human Castiel (Supernatural)
Summary: Dean and Cas respond to a request for research help on a hunt. Annoyingly, it's just before September 1st in Boston and all the hotels are out of rooms.
EXCERPT
The call for back-up came in at one in the morning, three days before all of them were supposed to leave for Labor Day Weekend.
Sam took the call from the hunter up in Massachusetts who was dealing with the ghost of a witch. The witch had taken steps before her death to ensure she’d never be found. Dean didn’t want to take the trip all the way up there to play around in a library when he could have been barbecuing at the lake house — but Sam gently pointed out that it wasn’t his and Eileen’s turn this time.
“We can still get barbecue in Boston,” Cas mumbled as he fiddled with the GPS while on the road.
Dean frowned.
“It’s not the same. They do it wrong up there.”
“How is it done correctly?”
Dean shrugged.
“I don’t know! I just know when it’s wrong.”
Cas laughed as he tapped in the library’s address. Dean didn’t need the GPS but Cas liked watching the trip progress and would warn Dean when police officers were up ahead.
Rated: M | AO3 Link | 779 words | lightly edited | Tags: Consensual Somnophilia, Body Worship, Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Scars
--
There were eleven marks you would call a scar, four of them large enough to feel a textured bump when you ran your fingertips, or your mouth, over them.
When Cas started from top to bottom (the usual path), his fingers brushed over the scar along the left side of Dean’s face. That one used to cause Cas the most grief. For some time, it represented self-doubt and guilt. Cas wasn’t there when the wound happened and he didn’t have enough juice to heal it before he eighty-sixed his grace.
In the end, Jack offered to patch it up, but Dean refused. No more short cuts. They were all grounded as complete humans now and would have to learn to live with the dings and chips that came along with it.
Eventually, when Cas found his fingertips wandering over the mark, gratitude replaced guilt. It was a sign of a fight against odds that they won; a win that unequivocally finished everything so no more battles needed to be fought. The finishing blow; the knockout; the ticker-tape parade in Times Square.
Read on AO3
tag list below | Photo by Mark Erskine on Unsplash
We’ve read the back of the book, we know what’s going to happen.
The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left broken in the brown dirt.
And then it’s gone.
Makes you sad. All your friends are gone.
Goodbye
Goodbye.
-Richard Siken/ 'Snow and Dirty Rain'
Rated: T | AO3 Link | 834 Words | lightly edited | Tags:
Existential Angst, Pining, Minor Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
---
Why did it have to be him?
Why couldn’t it have been some old asshole of an angel who just popped into the motel room, gave him the low-down on shit, and poofed away?
It was a question that Dean asked himself from time to time ever since they met Cas: Why did it have to be him. But, usually, the question would be asked whenever Dean had to take time for himself after being around Cas or found himself with his heart in his throat when realizing Cas went away again without letting them know where. It was a question that occurred every time Dean lost himself in daydreams, or regular dreams, only to snap back to reality with a guilty blush on his face. Why did it have to be Cas?
It was more of a vague question, one that Dean never intended to answer. The ‘why’ didn’t matter as much as the desired outcome Dean dreamed of. He was more exasperated than anything, along with a little bit of fear and anxiety surrounding the concept.
But now —
Now
The question came flying back at Dean like someone hurled a cinder block at his face. Why did it have to be Cas?
Answer: Because if it weren’t, nothing would have happened the way it was written to happen.
There wouldn’t have been another Angel who decided to follow a human instead of the pack. Several other candidates were willing to upend the establishment, but there was only one that would capture Dean’s attention to help lead that Angel astray. No one would have broken him out of Heaven so he could go find Sam. There would have been no one to help subvert Heaven and Hell’s plans for them.
It was when Dean thought about it even harder, piecing together all of the moments he had with Cas and their stories together, he felt his throat close up.
It was really all those times that Cas came back that gave Dean vertigo.
Archangel kills Cas, he comes back; Archangel kills Cas again, he comes back again; Absorbs souls, walk into the river, and explodes into monsters? Dean still finds him alive —
Stabbed, killed, wings burned into the ground, the tell-tale sign of an Angel gone forever: Cas still returns.
Once thought of as hopeful, maybe even poignant, Dean wanted to throw a fist into the wall just thinking about those times.
God was dangling Cas in front of Dean’s face, knowing Dean could never capture the prize, moving him into action, building sympathy and other near-crippling emotions every damn time —
The whole thing was entertainment. It was all a fucking soap opera for God, and everything that Dean felt develop over the years was nothing but falsity. ‘The human gets caught up in the whirlwind of love and love and fear and hope’ — that’s good television. That’s a good book: Dean chasing down the prize that will never be his, should he ever get over his own trepidations.
It was a cruel act for both of them.
Cas was put in front of Dean like a sparkling new toy, only to keep taking it from him and running it through the wringer just to watch Dean squirm and cry.
It wasn’t a tragedy.
It was trauma porn.
In the time it took Dean to drive from place to place in that little Kansas town, he figured it out, God’s words echoing in his head. It only took a minute to figure out what the two options were going forward:
If God were still around, still meddling, he’d have Cas taken away from Dean once more, just for the laughter. It was a well-practiced trick that fooled Dean every time.
If God wasn’t around, and that veil lifted, then Cas would leave on his own, realizing that he was only ever around these two because there was a hand pushing him. There wouldn’t be a reason to stay anymore.
Two nights after his revelation, Dean got his answer as Cas ascended to the door.
Move on.
That’s what they have to do now. No more theatrics -- no more anything other than moving on.
So, Dean parrots that back to Sam: We’re free to move on.
Only, there’s no passion behind those words, and Sam doesn’t take it to heart anyway. They both knew the truth: They were stuck in a pit with no way out. No past, and no future. Nothing to build off of that was really, indeed, ever theirs that could launch them into a future.
When Sam mentions Jess, Dean tenses, hands white-knuckled against the steering wheel. She was another toy — just one that didn’t last as long. She was just another player in God’s torture chamber as he got off on watching them suffer.
Dread filled Dean from bottom to top, turning his blood into ice.
It’s been fifteen years since Jess and Sam still carried the weight around with him.
How long was it going to take Dean?
-----
This was shorter than usual so I put the whole thing on here.
“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Coda for Supernatural 15x02 [Coda series on AO3]
Rated: G | AO3 Link | 802 Words | Tags: Sad Boi, Existential Crisis
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When you’re dizzy after a prolonged spin, they tell you to stay still and concentrate on keeping your eyes focused on one spot and your dizziness will fade faster. A girl Dean dated in high school who was a pretty bad figure skater once told him that.
It was one of those stupid pieces of advice you never really plan on thinking about again, a small blip in your history that your brain throws out to make room for other things.
But now, as Dean placed his hands against the wall in front of him, trying to steady himself, the skater’s sugary sweet voice echoed in his head: Don’t look down, focus on one spot, and the dizziness will stop!
He didn’t look down at the floor, instead, at the wall in front of him, unblinking. His vision kept wandering as the dizziness tried its last stand, but Dean made an effort to keep bringing back to the pulldown map in front of him, focusing in on the name of the town they were in. A deep breath, a sharp exhale, and it started to fade. The victory would be short-lived, the spinning would come back soon enough. But he just had to keep focusing --
The problem wasn’t just physical disorientation, but a tornado blowing around in his head, tearing up everything he had laid down over the years.
Focus -- focus on something.
A memory -- something. Anything. Anything at all that may have been happenstance and not worked in by the hands of God. It was hard diving into those random memories, long forgotten, but just as the figure skating girl came back to him, small little memories did as well:
Dan in Columbus who was the motel owner who allowed Dean and Sam to stay an extra night for free waiting for their dad to get back.
Rachel in Aurora who matched him ten-for-ten in Star Trek trivia on the first date.
Alex and the Detention Incident.
Leo, Kim, Rebecca, Luke, --
Random people. People of no consequence that Dean felt better thinking about -- they were passersby who now formed into anchors for Dean to grab onto. Inconsequential meetings of people God couldn’t, wouldn’t, and shouldn’t care about -- Dan, Rachel, Alex, Leo, Kim, Rebecca, Luke --
Dean wanted to become unstuck in time.
He wanted to go back to those other times, live with those people for longer than he did, relish in their relationships for just a little longer than he previously did. Hopping to and from those moments in his life he didn’t think God had a hand in, too small to care about -- Dean focused on that.
There was always that knowledge that their life was toyed around with to some degree, at least for a specific purpose which, man, they were so relieved that didn’t actually play out.
And turns out it was never supposed to.
That false sense of security, of knowing that it was okay if something bad happened because they’ll always seem to find a way out. They were that good -- they’d always figure it out. No problem was insurmountable, and if the going got tough, then they got going.
But everything was a lie.
Dan, Rachel, Alex, Leo, Kim, Rebecca, Luke --
Dean didn’t know how long he could hold onto the bar anymore as the twister ripped through his mind, taking everything from him. Forty years on this planet and it was all a puppet show. Weren’t they just the damned fools always and forever.
How far did it go? Their privacy had been invaded since day one. Did God influence their thoughts as well? Was everything he felt about each and every person in his life what God wanted him to feel.
Was what Dean had been going through the past couple days also what God wanted him to think? How did he know his thoughts were his own now?
The steadiness Dean found just a few moments before started to fade alarmingly fast, replaced by the heavy rock of fear and guilt.
And where was God now? Dean didn’t believe he fucked off to nowheresville -- he was very much still somewhere.
Watching them.
Dean felt himself slipping, and grabbed a marker instead, finishing the milewide circle he drew on the map in front of him. A mindless task. A deep breath in and a sharp exhale out.
Don’t get lost in it
Easier said than done.
He finished and put the marker down, allowing his eyes to glaze over while staring at the map. They were all very tired, and Dean just wanted --
“Dean?” his name rode on a soft voice from behind him in the doorway, and Dean once again felt another boulder of panic fall down the pit of his stomach, crashing down alongside the other ones.
If you lose focus, even for a moment, you’re dead.
Some of the tangible monsters chasing you will be dumb; they’ll fall over each other and never think of the next step ahead but those monsters weren’t the issue -- those things you could just ignore or take out in one swing.
The monsters that would take you out in one swing need your direct attention.
Don’t think about anything, just do.
Don’t think about anything. Move your legs, move your arms, say what needs to be said, nothing more. You can’t allow that small seed of doubt, guilt, or fear begin to grow in your mind. When you do, that’s when you slip up and forget to turn a certain way or you hesitate for just a half-second too long. In that minuscule moment of time, when you’re not completely in line with your focus, whatever it is you’re fighting is paying attention and will make the decision to strike -- something you failed to do.
Keep moving and keep that wall protecting you high and thick with cement and barbed wire. Nothing gets in until you let it in.. You have no contingency plan if anything outside managed to worm its way inside, so the best course of action is to assure yourself nothing ever will.
All of that sounds good on paper, sounds good to yourself and even others when they ask why you’re quiet or calm, I’m just focused on getting this done --
But none of it works when you’re driving to your next scheduled distraction, and when you look up in the rearview mirror you see the eyes of what you’re trying to keep out. They aren’t looking at you at first but in that fraction of time in which you stay a little too long, when you forget you’re supposed to be defending your keep, the eyes come back and look at you.
Everything happens too fast and the emotions and words that have been slowly gathering into an army instead merge into a large battering ram. You look away, back to the road, as fast as you can but you still feel every radiating wave as they try to break what you so carefully crafted for yourself.
The wave spreads from the middle of your chest to the tips of your fingers, a numbing sensation that eventually turns into an unpleasant tingling by the time it reaches your toes, almost like your foot fell asleep. It’s a harbinger of a forgotten storm on the horizon that you refuse to take shelter for because you’re convinced it won’t advance on your if you don’t look at it.
So, you look at little as possible in the rearview mirror as people talk around you. The eyes that stare back at you are hiding their own defense mechanism you think, but you don’t know what it is, and you’re too scared to find out.
Something feels bad again, and that numbing sensation comes again, this time without warning. It’s the wrong kind of distraction, and all you want is to regain your focus so you don’t die the minute you step out of the car. The person you want to go to during all this is the person arming themselves up against you, and you against them. Ain’t that just a bitch of a situation.
After tuning the ambient the voices in the car out, and you go over a step by step process you had in place since you were a young child, you’re calmer and re-focused by the time you park.
Something is still off, but you can’t think about it because if you lose focus, even for a moment, you’re dead.
“to yearn intensely and persistently especially for something unattainable“
Rated: T | AO3 Link | 750 words | unbeta’d | Tags: Dreams vs. Reality, Pining, Literal Sleeping Together, Dean's a sad boi, Vague Spoilers, Canon Compliant
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Before, all three of them had gotten into a routine before everything blew up and a normal night consisted of: someone reading a book, someone watching a movie or TV show, dinner, some drinks, some snacks. Bedtime was anywhere between midnight and two in the morning, depending on how much energy they spent that day and how much they drank. A goodnight, another goodnight, and a third goodnight -- bed.
Those nights were the good nights. Those nights were when Dean could maybe get five hours of sleep if he was lucky. The best part of those nights was when he could hear the laptop speakers on the other side of the wall.
This was inspired by this post by @forineffablereasons and the addition by @thegoodomensdumpster
Rated: M | AO3 Link | 978 words | lightly edited | AO3 tags: Teasing, One (1) Snek
No one touched the tattoo.
It was a talking piece, something the old ladies glared at, and it gave him ‘cool points’ with the lads at the bars.
Crowley had some remarks on it over the centuries. Sometimes his hair hid it, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes he was considered a deviant and was avoided, and other times, he was welcomed into the best of the sailor slosh parties on a ship (though they insisted he needed more).
The snake was him, and he was the snake.
Due to Crowley’s fear of ever going back to that form and getting stuck, he concentrated that part of him to a designated area on his body. He still wasn’t able to shake all the snake-like qualities from his human form, but the majority went into the tattoo. It was the part of himself that he didn’t particularly care for, but didn’t want to kill off entirely.
In the few millennia that they knew each other, Aziraphale never commented on the snake, asking it what it meant or why it was there. Crowley figured since the snake on his neck looked like him pre-body, that Aziraphale just worked out maybe it was an homage to his “former self”. In a way, he wasn’t wrong.
The only person who knew what would happen when the snake was touched was Crowley.
