#endvverse

[xofemeraldstars]

SUPERNATURAL ✘ 7.17  ❝ the born-again identity ❞    

[demonlandline]

He's eldritch he's the sun and the stars and all the colours in an oil slick he's gay he's infinite he's just a little guy

Day 2 of my celebration - nightmares, magic, surrealism

[angelfishofthelord]

halloween cas icons ~ feel free to use with credit

for @horrornaturalevent week one: graveyard

[freewilldean]

Once in a lifetime  never the right time take it fast, and kill me slow try to forget you, gotta pretend to until I hit an all-time low

[thigholstercas]

for @lengthofropes "desolation" + @justcastiel "alone"

congrats again to both of you 💕

[regardinghollanov]

Now I need to know your top 10 pics of Misha for science

You want me to suffer, don’t you? I can never say no to science! I need you to understand that this was very hard to do. And it took me embarrassingly long to decide which 10 to choose.

[rauko-creates]

Honey, There Is No "Right" Way

Part 1: You Knew Who I Was

Castiel looked up from his coffee as Balthazar walked through the door and collapsed onto the sofa. “That bad?” he asked.

Balthazar lifted his head to look over the back of the sofa to where Castiel sat at the table. “You’re one to talk,” he said, eyeing Castiel’s cup. “Coffee at ten in the evening? Or do you have something more exciting in that cup?”

“Just coffee, but you know that I drink coffee at any time I please as a habit; I’ll let the deflection slide, however, if that’s what you want.”

Balthazar was silent for a moment;, then, “We broke up.”

“Oh,” was all Castiel said as he got up and walked towards the kitchen.

“Yeah…”

Castiel took some tea from the cabinet—Chamomile? No, Tuscan Sun—and put water on the stove.

“Are you making tea?”

“I am.” Cas bit his lip against a smirk, knowing what was coming.

“Did I just hear you pull a pot from below the counter?”

“Why, yes, you did.” Aaaannnnd…

“Castiel…” Balthazar’s tortured voice came from the couch. “There is a perfectly good kettle right there. It’s—it’s on the stove…”

Castiel smiled at him innocently but made sure to school his expression before walking over to the sofa, lifting Balthazar’s legs to sit down, and placing them back on his lap. “Are you okay?”

Balthazar glowered at him. Then, he sighed and stared up at the ceiling. 

Castiel rested his arms across his friend’s shins. “Would you like to talk about it?” he asked, picking absently at the hem of Balthazar’s pants.

Balthazar ran a hand over his face. “I’m not exactly sure what to say. I broke up with her. I just…” He trailed off.

Castiel studied him. “What happened? I thought you liked Hannah…”

“I liked her well enough. I still do. But...not like she likes me, or more pertinently…not like she wants me to like her.” Balthazar swallowed. “We were at her flat. Everything was fine, but she kept going on about how much she loved me, how she couldn’t possibly see herself with anyone else and how she gets all these...butterflies, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, and I—I just…”

“That’s not how you feel about her.”

“Castiel, that’s not how I’ve ever felt about anyone. This whole…” He waved a hand in the air and propped up against the arm of the couch, “in love business...it’s complete bollocks. If you ask me, people’ve just seen too many blasted movies, got so hopped up on the rush of getting to know someone that they think that's it, that’s love, but it isn’t. Love is…” He glanced down at Castiel. “Love is choosing the person you get on with best, someone you’re able to be mates with and that you find attractive. All this ‘romance’ rubbish is just propaganda.”

Castiel looked at his friend. He thought about the warm feeling that grew inside him when they were together, the way his heart beat just a little faster every time Balthazar was close. “Yes...perhaps you’re right.” 

“Of course I am. Furthermore,” continued Balthazar, “I certainly wouldn’t be able to know that about someone I’ve only just met. How am I supposed to look at someone who’s been in my life barely two months and not be able to see myself without them? It makes no sense!”

Castiel hummed. “Yes, that I definitely understand.” 

He patted Balthazar’s legs to let him up, went back to the kitchen and poured Balthazar some tea, chuckling at Balthazar’s renewed grumblings about the pot and grabbing his own coffee and a book on his way back to the couch. Balthazar accepted the tea and lifted his legs to let Castiel settle back into his place on the couch beneath them.

They fell into a comfortable silence, Castiel sipping his coffee and reading his well-loved copy of The Song of Achilles while Balthazar drank his tea and watched him.

“Hey, Castiel?”

Castiel looked up from his book. “What is it?”

“I know this was a long time ago, and maybe I shouldn’t reopen old wounds, but...why did you and Dean end things? The two of you...seemed good together. The way he looked at you...and you seemed to really like him.”

Castiel sighed. “We were. I did.”

“Then, why?”

Castiel swallowed. “He thought I didn’t.”

Balthazar’s brows furrowed. “Didn’t what? Like him?”

“Yes.”

“But you did.”

“I did.”

“Was he that insecure?”

“He...thought that I wasn’t happy with him, because...well, because I didn’t want him the same way he wanted me.”

Balthazar blinked, and then understanding grew on his face. “What, you mean sex?”

“Yes.”

“But...I thought that the two of you…”

“We did.”

“Well, what, then? He wanted it more often?”

“No, it wasn’t that.”

“Then…?”

Castiel sighed and set his book aside. “I don’t...dislike sex. It’s fine. And I did enjoy the way it made him feel. I enjoyed taking care of him and watching him fall apart in my arms. But…while I do appreciate the closeness and intimacy of it, I don’t personally feel a need for those things to come in the form of sex, specifically. I usually do enjoy it, but I almost never want it. I don’t crave it. And...that bothered him. He thought that—because of that and that I wasn’t affected by him in the same way he was me—that I wasn’t attracted to him, that I wasn’t in love with him. He thought I was forcing myself to be with him.”

“But, you weren’t...forcing yourself, I mean.” 

“No,” Castiel agreed, but had to work to shake the old anxiety that maybe he should have been forcing himself more, that maybe he should have tried harder for the man he loved. He swallowed. “I wasn’t, not in general and not when it came to sex. It took time, but I learned to be honest about when I didn’t want to, and he always respected it. And when we did make love, I liked bringing pleasure to him, seeing that side of him. I just didn’t get the same things out of it that he did, and I didn’t usually care for him to do things to me.” 

“And he had a problem with that?”

“Well, in the beginning, it was a blow to his pride; he thought he just wasn’t good enough at doing what I liked. When I’d sufficiently assured him it wasn’t that, he thought it meant I didn’t feel the same way about him and that I was only appeasing him or that I didn’t want to hurt him by leaving. He thought it meant we were broken.” Castiel sighed. “It turned out...it was just me.”

 Balthazar was suddenly crawling to Castiel’s end of the sofa, taking his face in his hands. “You are not broken, Castiel, and you did nothing wrong.”

Castiel rolled his eyes and tried to pull away.

“No.” Balthazar turned Castiel’s face back to him. “Listen to me. It’s perfectly all right you’re not obsessed with sex. It’s not for everyone. Some people don’t like chocolate. Sure, most people do—and maybe I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t—but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the people who don’t. It’s okay to not like a thing. It doesn’t make you broken, and it doesn’t mean you should try to like it anyway. You loved Dean. He may have thought it wasn’t in the right way, but there isn’t a right way to love someone.”

Castiel closed his eyes and swallowed, doing his best to ignore the tightness in his chest. When he felt he was no longer in danger of crying, he met Balthazar’s gaze. “Thank you,” he said, pouring as much sincerity into the two words as he could. 

Balthazar nodded and moved back to his side of the couch. 

Castiel took in his friend. “You’re not broken either, you know.”

Balthazar gaped at him for a moment before scowling. “Go back to your book.”

Castiel did, hands absently running patterns along Balthazar’s shins as he read about Achilles and Patroclus. 

---

(this is part 1 of 5. The others are written but still being edited and will post over the next few days)

@all-or-nothing-baby @petrichoravellichor @i-miss-balthazar @casblackfeathers @ficwip

EDIT:

It's complete and can be read on AO3 here.

[universalcas]

🌻url change: endvverse → universalcas 🌻

I like how it sounds and I wanted a change. If you have me in your taglist please update the @ and/or the # @universalcas / #universalcas.

I'll be checking the old url too for a while. Love y'all.