The First Five Times: 2, 8, and 11
What’s my favorite part of the fic?
Cas took another step toward Dean until they were mere inches apart, and searched his face, before answering quietly, "It means, Dean, that I'm not worth the apocalypse. I'm not worth you drinking yourself to death. I'm not worth this cabin you built..." He pulled the Om out from under his shirt and lifted it toward Dean. "...or this necklace I never take off...I'm not worth any of that, Dean, because I'm not anything at all. I don't exist. I'm not real." A shuddered breath escaped him as tears streamed down his face. "I failed you, I failed my Father, I failed my brethren, I failed myself. And now I'm facing those consequences, but I can't properly wallow in my own hell when you wake me up every morning by kissing my neck and telling me how much you love me."
Dean couldn't help it anymore. He couldn't hold back his own tears and he couldn't hold back his hands, which reached forward to pull Cas into his chest. "You can't ask me not to feel this way, Cas," he murmured into Cas's neck. "You can't ask me to give up the one thing holding me together just so you can have your existential pity-party." After a long moment, he pulled Cas away and held him by the shoulders, then stared him in the eyes, concluding, "You're destroying me so that you can destroy yourself."
Cas swallowed and took a step back, out of Dean's grasp. Without breaking his gaze, his face hardened into its usual mask of indifference. The tears stopped, and Cas took a deep breath, then replied, "Yes, Dean, that's exactly what I'm doing."
Was there anything I only learned about the fic after I had finished it? (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc)
Oh god. So much. I wrote this coming off my own amphetamine addiction so there was all this connective tissue I put in it. Now that it’s been a year, I see that intentionally putting symbolism in something doesn’t really do much for the narrative, but at the time it really helped me navigate exposition, foreshadowing, and detail.
There’s this whole triad of the creator, the maintainer, and the destroyer that I thought ended up being pretty interesting. The whole thing is about the cyclical nature of time in contrast to linear reality, and the idea that reality doesn’t exist, so we all live in this false spacetime trapped by our own perception. In other words: reality is irrelevant, but we are not.
If I were to rewrite this fic, what would I change?
I would clean it up and fix the pacing. I think it’s a good story that could be told much more concisely than I wrote it. But I’m glad I wrote it the way I did because it taught me a lot and helped me work through some things I was going through. I should also probably change the archive MCD tag to “temporary death” but the whole idea of death in this fic is kind of confusing.
The interesting thing about this fic is that hardly anybody read it, but those who did really liked it and connected to it, and for that I’m grateful.
[ask me fic specific questions] [the first five times]