#emo castiel

[whoipretended2b]

The Middle Chapter 7

is now up!

With art from the amazing @kirakkkchs!!

At eighteen, Castiel Novak thinks he’s an adult. The X’s on his hands at the music venue say otherwise. So does the bartender who shuts him down with, “I don’t think so, kid,” when Castiel asks for his number.

He keeps coming back anyway. For the music. Not the bartender, of course. This chapter: Castiel goes back to The Bunker with a few changes. https://archiveofourown.org/works/81049946/chapters/218082966

[whoipretended2b]

Art by @kirakkkchs

Last chapter of The Middle tomorrow.

When I started this fic, I said in the opening author’s note that it came out of a conversation where I said the fandom needed more emo Cas fic.

Well... I added at least one.

Spoilers below if you haven't read!

The original seed was emo Cas, the music, and the nostalgia of it all. Then the spine became a story about the liminal space between being an adult and feeling like one.

Cas walks into The Bunker telling himself he’s grown while lying to his parents so he can leave the house. He’s performing adulthood in front of Dean, Gabriel, and everyone else, trying so hard to be seen as older, cooler, desirable, certain. Meanwhile, he is very much eighteen and figuring himself out in real time. Who he is. What he wants. What parts of himself are performance and what parts are real.

And then Dean’s POV complicated all of it, because that’s one of my favorite things to do with close third-person POV: reframe what came before. You only know what the POV character knows. You don’t know what you don’t know.

For the first half of the fic, Cas thinks Dean has it together, and because Cas thinks that, we believe it too. Then we get Dean’s POV and realize Dean is also a mess, just a different version. He’s older. He’s responsible. He owns the venue. He knows how to do the job. But he doesn’t see the good he’s doing. He doesn’t understand that Open Mic Night matters, or that giving local bands a stage matters, or that paying attention to what some eighteen-year-old kid said about music matters.

He thinks he’s just doing the work.

And then Cas chooses him.

Over and over, Cas chooses him.

Dean keeps waiting for Cas to want something bigger. Something that makes more sense than a bartender. But Cas knows what he wants. He figured that out a long time ago. It just took Dean longer to believe him.

So yes, this is about that middle place between adulthood and feeling like one. But it also became about the things we don’t see in ourselves. The good we dismiss as routine. The way some people are better at faking stability than others. The way sometimes being loved means having someone call you on your bullshit and stay anyway.

I’m apparently not ready to let go of these versions of Dean and Cas yet, so I do have a few timestamp ideas. Subscribe if you want to be notified when those go up.

Thank you for being here. This story ended up resonating with more people than I expected, and I’m really grateful for everyone who read, commented, reminisced, or let themselves get tricked by the nostalgia.

Until next time.

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New chapter of The Middle!

Chapter 8 is now up.

Castiel and his friends score a spot as the local opener at The Bunker.

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Chapter 12 of The Middle is now up!

Bartender Dean and Emo/Musician Cas

Excerpt:

There was movement out of the corner of his eye, so he assumed Ash had finally decided to show his face. He didn’t bother getting up, but asked, “Hey, Ash, could you go check—”

“Hey, mister, can I get a beer?”

Not Ash. Not even trying to be Ash.

Dean let his head hang for half a second, even though he was grinning. He shoved it down, put the bottle in his hand into the cooler, and straightened. When he turned, he planted his hands on his hips like he was irritated.

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Chapter 11 of The Middle

Is now live!

Older bartender Dean and younger emo (and now budding musician) Castiel finally talk and use their words.

He groaned. “So I guess this is where we actually talk about it. How I had a crush on you.”

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[whoipretended2b]

The Middle by WhoIPretended2Be

At eighteen, Castiel Novak thinks he’s an adult. The X’s on his hands at the music venue say otherwise. So does the bartender who shuts him down with, “I don’t think so, kid,” when Castiel asks for his number.

He keeps coming back anyway. For the music. Not the bartender, of course.

It’s my birthday, so I brought presents! This is an indulgent fic about the weird space between being “technically an adult” and actually feeling like one. (I still don’t feel like an adult half the time, even though by any reasonable measure, I very much am.)

This fic was born out of a conversation with one of my favorite people, @bethmints, plus our mutual love of early-2000s emo and the desire to see more emo Castiel fics.

Back in November, we were spitballing ideas for a bang, and I came up with Emo Cas. I liked the idea so much that literally the next day I messaged her, “So I’m working on my Emo Cas outline. This is all your fault.”

I was originally going to use this fic for a bang, then changed my mind. This is actually the second time I’ve done that with this same bang. 😂 The first idea was The Things We Learn to Live With. This was the second. The third (and final), you’ll see in June.

This fic is about figuring out who you are. The difference between growing up and growing older. How there's no magic line you cross where you suddenly become an adult. You just keep making choices, keep revising who you are, and then one day realize: 'oh. I guess this is adulthood.'

Posting plan: my goal is a chapter a week. I've got a lot of bangs and events coming up, so updates may pause on weeks when I’m posting for those, but you should still be well-fed fic-wise for quite awhile.

For returning readers... Yes, I’m still working on the Dark Blue sequel. It is outlined, words exist, and it is happening... I’m just clearing a few other projects first. 🫠

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Chapter 10 of The Middle: It Just Takes Some Time

Is now up! Castiel returns to The Bunker to see Jimmy Eat World preform and Dean finally gets his CD signed.

We're on the home stretch folks!

[whoipretended2b]

Bowling for Soup's song 1985 was released in 2004, and is a 2000's-sounding pop-punk song about the goodness of the 80's. if the same concept was done today, it would be about 2007.

thinking about "The Middle" Cas, age 37, making a 2020's-sounding indie-pop or folk rock song about being 18 and going to shows at The Bunker.

Wow. I don't know what it says about our culture that I feel like earlier decades had very distinct "vibes" to them. I can point to things that are very early 2000s, but what's unique to the 2010s? or 2020s? Besides all of the political stuff. I don't know that the music or clothes of 2010 and 2026 are that different from one another. But maybe that just means I'm old and don't see it? But yeah, I can see Cas doing that. (Also, in this scenario, I'm Cas except instead of a song, I'm the one who's 37 writing a fic about music of the early 2000s...)