Cas and Dean are driving back from a case that took them pretty far away from the bunker, they've been taking turns driving so Dean can sleep, it's one of those times when Cas is behind the wheel, alert and serious and basking in the trust and domesticity of Dean allowing himself to fall asleep not only in Cas's presence but in the car that is an extension of his hands. Eventually, Dean wakes up, it's mid afternoon, it usually takes a minute or ten for him to start getting antsy in the passenger seat, before he's suggesting they pull into the next gas station so they can swap, Cas doesn't mind, he likes watching Dean drive. There's grunting and yawning and stretching and then rustling in the glove box, Cas steadily keeps his eyes on the road, waiting for the command. They pass a gas station and Dean says nothing. They pass an intersection where baby could pull over and Dean says nothing. They pass the blurred scenery of the American Midwest for half an hour, forty minutes, an hour more, in sun soaked, comfortable silence, the occasional rustle of paper and the scratch of a pen. Cas settles into the anticipation with pleasant surprise; Dean gets bored in the passenger seat, too much to think about he once said, or too little, gets anxious with someone else driving too long, doesn't like the lack of control, the lack of response between baby and himself. Dean doesn't turn on his music to drown the silence, doesn't begin to tap his fingers to a rhythm Cas still hasn't told him is the exact frenetic pulse of his soul, doesn't clear his throat or clap Cas's shoulder. Dean reclines and moves his pen and Cas drives and drives and drives. Cas could count the milliseconds if he wanted, could immerse himself in the steady crawl of the passing of time, he chooses, rather, to indulge the hazy unknowing of a warm afternoon and the road before him, easy and syrupy and good. When Dean finally makes a noise, a quiet huff of something, not laughter but satisfaction almost, Cas slides back into time with a blink, minutely adjusting his hands on the wheel. Dean begins to fidget. Cas hides his smile in concentration. Dean pokes his arm with the pen. Cas remains fixed to the road, tilting his head only slightly in acknowledgement. Dean huffs again, the tiniest hint of exasperation smothered in fond amusement. Cas languishes in it, selfishly, sinks himself into the milliseconds shamelessly. Dean pokes his arm again and clears his throat.
"Hey, pull over at the next gas station, will you?" His voice is soft and scratchy from disuse.
"Yes, Dean." He does smile then, he likes watching Dean drive.
(Full thing under the cut or you can read the rest on ao3)
Cas eases baby to a halt in front of the run down pumps an indeterminate time later, he'd let the minutes go syrupy again, even as the tapping of Dean's pen against paper had gained a distinctly nervous air. Once she's parked safely and turned off, Cas turns to find Dean grimacing into the glare of the sun through the windshield, absently kneading at his neck with one hand, the other curled possessively over a notebook and pen.
He flicks a look at Cas through golden eyelashes, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, half self-deprecation, half quiet wonder, he says, "Can't believe I'm getting too old to fall asleep in the car."
Cas does not say that every new mark of time, of life, on Dean is a gift he catalogues with selfish satisfaction. Instead he reaches his hand to hover over Dean's shoulder and says, "Let me."
It does not matter how many times Cas has offered to heal Dean, he still softens, nods minutely, bashful, like he doesn't think he deserves it. Like he's surprised that comfort is so easily offered to him. Cas does not say that at the height of his power, he wanted to offer Dean every millisecond of the world that had ever dared to pass without his being in it, from the very first conception of time to the moment Dean came to existence, that all Cas can offer him is the tiny wisp of grace he has left of what we once was, diminished, embodied, real, alive. He doesn't say it, he just lays his hand on Dean's shoulder and slowly heals the ache out of him. Dean blossoms into it like he always does, and Cas takes another secret indulgence in drawing it out, although his grace strains to sink into a body as familiar as its own, he takes his time. He let's himself know greed.
Dean sighs and loosens and is at once younger and also the perfect capturing of every year he has survived. He rolls his head to the side and Cas pays close mind to the delicate exposure of his neck. Close enough that the notebook abruptly shoved into his chest even startles him a little. He looks down at it, his free hand reflexively clutching it to himself even as his other continues to trickle grace into Dean.
"Made you something." This time his voice isn't rough from disuse but probably the same thing that Cas can feel in his heartbeat, a little fast, a little warm. Cas holds the notebook a tighter to himself.
"Thank you."
"No, it's not— look inside it, Cas. The something is on the inside."
Cas lays the notebook carefully on his thigh with one hand and carefully flips open to the first page. There's the beginnings of a grocery list (eggs, butter, Sam's healthnut shit, lasagne sheets, lucky charms) but that quickly trails off into delicately sketched lines, a hand gripping a steering wheel. His hand. Cas turns to the next page and marvels at the curve of his own ear, reproduced by an expert hand in half a dozen different angles across the page. The next shows the rumpled state of his collar and tie and in small, spiky, familiar script the words 'gotta teach him how to put it on properly' hastily crossed out. The next is a series of noses, or just one nose, tilted in different directions, shaded by different sources of light. There's his brow furrowed and relaxed and questioning, there's his hands again, splayed wide, fisted, hanging loose, gripping his angel blade drawn from memory, a delightful page consisting of a cartoon version of himself as a plump bird, sitting on power lines and cawing a predictable 'hello dean'. By the time Cas reaches an entire page dedicated to the shape of his mouth, Dean has begun to squirm under his hand, the silence between them loud but not awkward, charged with waiting. Cas carries on to the next page eagerly, and then he startles still at the image there.
A soft warmth had wormed its way through him as he viewed Dean's work, the components of himself broken down and repeated, jigsaw pieces scattered on a table yet to be made whole. The final image, Castiel in his entirety, intently focused on an unpenned road ahead, confident at the wheel of the car, at ease in his own body, every line rendered with loving familiarity, draws a sharp breath from his lungs. Cas is suddenly on fire.
"Woah, ahh, holy shit." Dean whispers. Cas does not hear him.
"Oh." Cas says, or rather it's pulled from him, from that heat that suffuses his body, curls heavy and purring at his core. Dean makes a noise halfway between a breathy giggle and a yelp, all but vibrating against the leather seat. Cas holds him still with firm fingers while he traces himself on the page. He could not look in a mirror and see what Dean has put to paper, because the Castiel in pen is wholly different to how he sees himself, recognisable in features yes but entirely unfamiliar in the set of him, the space he occupies, the love that paints him from another perspective. Dean's perspective.
Dean moans, cutting through the silence and Cas's rapture, his hand snakes around Cas's wrist, the one still channeling grace into his body, and grips it tight. Strong. Almost enough to hurt. Cas jerks his head up and Dean is panting, eyes wide and frantic and glowing. Cas snatches the hungry flow of his grace back into himself, Dean sags against the seat, boneless, entire body faintly shivering with the release of tension. His eyelashes flutter over closed eyes. Cas can hear the thrum of his grace still swirling in Dean's veins, an accompanying melody to the music of his heartbeat. Cas hastily retreats his hand from Dean's shoulder but Dean doesn't let go of his wrist, just follows until Cas stills, their arms suspended, reaching for each other. Lazily Dean's eyes open, vibrant green, lit from the afternoon sun and nothing else, Cas searches him sheepishly, still the occasional strand of silver in the gold of his hair, still the delicate web of laugh lines fanning around his eyes, but his face is flushed, his cheeks full, his lips perfectly hydrated, a shine to him that suggests perfect health, a weightlessness that contradicts a hard life paid for in joints gone stiff and aching muscles. A kind of healed that Cas has always wanted to give Dean but never known how to ask. Panic shatters around the hazy glow that had submerged him because of Dean's gift, he sits tall and controlled in his seat, considers prostration, contrition, flagellation. How does one apologise for healing more than an immediately pain? For taking liberties in a body not one's own? With a man that has fought so hard for free will? Cas doesn't know but he has to find the words. He opens his mouth and—
"You like it." Dean catches his eye and holds it in that way he's always been able to do, a slow, satisfied smile saunters across his face, his swipes his tongue across his lips— Cas is transfixed— and says, "You really really like it."
"That's what you see, when you look at me?" Cas barely recognizes his voice, as divorced from himself as Dean's drawing of him had been.
"Yeah, it is."
"I like it." Cas says. He really really likes it.
Cas has been a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent, a being vaster than skyscrapers as incomprehensible to humanity as the conception of the universe itself, Cas has been infinite and he has also been nothing, he has died and come back and he has been human and he is currently something caught between, not mortal but not angel either, a body rather than a vessel, grace rather than a soul. But he has never been more grounded and alive than right this second with a lap full of Dean Winchester.
Against his lips, Dean smiles, and says, "I like you too." He pulls back and he's beautiful and Cas can taste him still and they both sing with grace, a choir trapped between muscle and bone.
"Alright, scoot over, I'm driving."
Cas smiles and obeys. He likes watching Dean drive but he likes it even more with Dean's hand in his own.
The part in death becomes her 1992 where Helen sits down on the loveseat and the end of Madeline’s shovel goes through the giant hole in her body is also lesbian sex btw. If you believe. Hold my hand and walk with me btw.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I have Feelings TM about the ending of TBB s3e4 (as I'm sure we all do) and also my brain is being annoying, so instead of working on any of my WIPs or answering the WIP Wednesday asks, I... wrote this?
Title: We're Still What's Left
Summary: It’s on the way back towards the cockpit that Crosshair sees the goggles. They’re by the navi-computer, broken but carefully cleaned, and suddenly Crosshair can’t move.
Tags: Episode: s03e04 A Different Approach (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - Canon Compliant (pre s03e05 of course) - The Bad Batch Reunion - Crosshair Rejoins Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch - CT-9904 | Crosshair & Clone Trooper Tech are Twins - CT-9904 | Crosshair Needs a Hug - Crosshair Gets a Hug (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - Soft Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch - Off-Screen Major Character (maybe) Death - Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Length: 1.760 words
EDIT: there’s a part 2 now, see the reblogs (or just click through this link and hop on to part 2 of the series)
rules: post the last three lines you wrote in your wip, if it’s been more then a week since you’ve added to it, write more and then post what you write.
from my lake fic
"Where are you thinking?" Steve asks him.
Eddie's a little caught up in the drawings of trees and rocks and water, and honestly, everywhere looks promising when it's drawn in color pencil, but-
"Where did you go most often when you were a kid?" he asks Steve.
Steve answers immediately,
"Oh, that's not on the map" he says confidently, and if Eddie wasn't curious before, he's made up his mind now.
"There," he says, "I wanna go there."
Steve beams at him, nods a little,
"Ok, I'll show you" he says, "We're still taking the map though, I don't wanna get lost," he comments
"Safety first" Eddie quips, teasing but, he agrees.
as part of @apex-legends-champion‘s writing collaboration, for @kamizaki-53,
bangalore/crypto, prompt word ‘singer’, sfw
more under the break
words: 2,713
note: this was meant to be out a lot earlier (think like, three or four months ago) but with everything going to absolute shit where i am, as well as personal happenings, this fell to the wayside. very to the wayside. sorry about that :/
the song used is ‘you and i’ by barns courtney, but i wouldn’t suggest listening to it as you read, the pacing i had in mind for the fic is not the same as the actual song. just keep that in mind. however, it’s a good song so i DO suggest listening to it beforehand.
this might eventually end up on ao3, if i get the chance. if so, i’ll link it. i also scrapped about another 2k words from this because they just didnt fit the way i wanted them to. if i find the energy, i plan to make that into a fic as well.
ft. gratuitous headcanons and dubious hacking
--------------------
“We’re sitting ducks up here, any rookie with a scope could pick us off.” she says, but judging by the way she leans back against the air conditioning unit, she’s not bothered by the idea.
Crypto hums in response, and tucks his legs underneath him. She’s not wrong, the wide expanse of desert does nothing to obscure their spot on the rooftop. As worrying as that would be anywhere else, his drone hovers above them, constantly scanning. If there’s anyone around, the drone will tell them.
Pulling the bag between them into his lap, which they filled with drinks and snacks before escaping to the quiet of the roof, he digs through it, hands closing around two glass bottles. He passes one off to Bangalore, and rests the other beside him as he rifles around for the bottle opener.
They rest out here sometimes. When the noise of social nights or tenseness of a newcomer makes the compound unwelcoming. The flat concrete and the surrounding sand offers peace and quiet, something the building below them often lacks. The quiet is a welcome relief.
Emerging triumphantly with the opener, he goes to pass that, too, to her, only to realize she already has the edge of her utility knife wedged underneath the cap. A bit of leverage, and it flies off with a pop, bouncing further across the rooftop and landing with the din of metal on concrete. They watch it in silence. The weight of the bottle opener-now obsolete-resting solidly in his palm.
Bangalore holds out her hand to him. He blinks, sets the bottle opener down, and softly places his atop her opened one, feeling the way hers have calloused from her work. The impressions left behind by years of artillery work and battle not having faded yet.
She turns to face him with raised eyebrows, “The bottle, TJ.”
Oh. He huffs a breath at her, stomach twisting at the abbreviated use of his real name, nervous butterflies and anxiety alike. It’s not something he hears often. Hasn’t, since Mila happened. He’s not sure how wise using it is, but he can’t say he doesn’t like it.
Before he can pull his hand back, she laces her fingers with his and drags it down to rest between them. His nerves turn to warmth as he gives her the bottle with his other hand, and relishes in the feeling of her palm on his.
What they have is quiet, on the down-low, moments stolen in the corner of the dropship when no one’s watching, or gentle nights like this, sitting away from the rest of the legends.
The clatter of the bottle cap draws his attention back to her, and taking the bottle from it’s spot wedged between her knees, Anita sneaks a swig before handing it to him. With the utility knife safely covered and slipped back into her boot, she leans into his side.
They sip at their drinks underneath the tranquil sky. Double moons, and stars bright enough to light up the area, the night was clear and the breeze was crisp.
Through their silence, the bass of the music in the common room reaches them, though barely. Three stories up, not a lot makes it up here, save for stray sand and the occasional legend looking for a quiet space. But tonight had been movie night, and those rarely stay quiet.
Movie night is a time where a few of them make a snack run at noon to the city, and the others pick a host of movies to watch. When the snack runners get back, usually a few hours later, they all have ‘dinner’, if junk food and sugar can count as dinner, and from ‘dinner’ to midnight, they feast, watch, and argue about the others’ lack of taste in movies. A weekly routine he’s gotten used to. Looks forward to, almost.
Even though neither of them are particularly shy about public affection, they never hesitate to take advantage of movie night, the dark of the room during which allows for the two to lean against each other, hold hands, and sneak quiet kisses without the others noticing.
Tonight, they had sat for the movie, as they usually did, and slipped into the hall before the last movie ended. Things could get loud afterwards. After a quick raid of the kitchen, and grabbing a few things from their room, including blankets, they made for the roof. Which had led to them sitting up here, with only the company of the moons, themselves, and TJ’s drone, perched up high, keeping a watchful eye from the sky.
Lowly, music drifts up from the commons room. it’s muffled by laughter and concrete, but not so much that they cannot hear the vague baritone of the singer.
“They must’ve opened the balcony,” Crypto murmurs in displeasure, resting his head on her shoulder, “The quiet was better,”
“Yeah, I’m with you,” Anita falls silent, leaning her head on top of his and drinking in the melody. She pulls back for a moment, her brows scrunch and her gaze drifts away as she focuses in on the music. He lifts his head, and as he’s about to ask what’s wrong, she speaks, softly.
“I think I know this song.”
Crypto shuts his mouth and strains to listen. He hears the beat, the tune, although the actual words elude him. The notes lead each other in a waltz, music twirling out off the balcony into the desert air, a lullaby, or maybe a love ballad. He doesn’t know where it’s from, and it’s different from his usual taste, but Anita must enjoy it, from the way she sways and nods along to it
She smiles at him and relaxes, taking a drink from her bottle and resting back on the metal, closing her eyes. Her mouth moves with the words of the song, reciting a long-engrained memory.
When the chorus peters out, she is left humming to the bridge. The double moons cast double lights onto her upturned face, silhouetting the slope of her nose, brows, and soft cheeks. The moonlight paints silver on her skin, every ridge and bone reflecting the glimmer of the night sky.
“Sounds like something we used to play at home. Could be wrong, though,” she says, setting the bottle at her side. Crypto sets his aside as well, turning his full attention to her.
”Back on Gridiron, we had this crate of discs,” Bangalore mimes a box with her hands, “Along with this vintage radio. An old hunk of a thing, big as the box itself, and just about as functional. They were our grandma’s, from her grandma, and hers before that. They’ve been in the family forever.”
Looking out over the desert, she continues, “You’d put in one of the discs, and it’d play music. Old stuff. Back from when they still made ‘em. Don’t see them around much anymore. I used to pick them up anytime I saw one, maybe in salvage or a second-hand store, and add it to the box. Then when Thanksgiving came around, or some other family dinner, we’d dig out the box and try out all the new ones. We all had a blast dancing around drunk on moonshine and full of cake.”
She tears her eyes away from the skyline, and turns to him, “I miss it, y’know. Them, mostly, but the little things too. Being able to annoy the hell out of my brothers. Grandma’s red velvet. The tacky oldies music, especially.”
Crypto nods, solemn, and reaches out to cup her cheek, fingertips brushing over her cheekbones. Losing family-it’s a pain he understands well, just not one he can fix. Or would even know how. Anita rests her hand atop his and tips her face against his palm. She knows this, knows their shared pain, knows how he wants to do something about it. Right now, what happened to their families is a wrong that can’t be righted. Though he wishes there was something he could do to ease the weight of it. For both of them.
Ideas strike him like lightning. He jerks up, nearly knocking his drink over, and pulls his hand away, already putting it to use digging through their backpack before Anita can so much as blink.
”Hold on,” Crypto says, and when she reaches out to him, he looks up at her, “Trust me.”
She watches with fond confusion as he pulls out what he was searching for. His laptop, which he flips open and boots up. It takes a minute, fingers tapping on its side in the meantime. As soon as the screen comes to life, he sets about finding the artist. He can, at the least, do this much.
Pulling up code, he types a bit, scrolls through the numbers some, and slips into the compound’s encrypted network like it’s butter and his weapon of choice is a hot knife. From there, it’s a matter of getting past the password-locked music app, and pulling up the corresponding artist’s page, which he slides over to her when he’s done.
“There, not hard to do,” he leans back into Anita as she adjusts the laptop to rest in her lap, “You said you recognized the music. Is that them?”
The real-time display totes the current song in the bottom corner, while a dark page lists the artist at the top, along with their songs below. Words scroll past as Anita takes control of the touchpad and flicks down the list. Eyebrows drawn together in focus, she scans page.
With a hum, and without taking her eyes off the screen, she says to Crypto, “The problem’s not that I don’t remember the songs, it’s that I don’t remember the titles. There’s a few that use the choruses as titles, I think. I’ll look for those.”
When she doesn’t seem to remember any right away, he presses a kiss to her cheek, and settles down onto her shoulder, content to stay snuggled into her side for the time being.
They stay like that for a while, nothing but the click of the keyboard and quiet music as one song ends and another begins. It’s peaceful, and if they weren’t out in the open like this, he’d have fallen asleep where he was.
Eventually, the arm underneath him jostles upward, and her warm voice calls him.
“TJ,” he lifts his head to see Anita gazing gently at him, “I found one.” He rubs his eyes and shifts upward off his place against her shoulder as she hits play.
The current song cuts off abruptly, causing a chorus of objections and confused cries to erupt from below. After a moment, the meandering music fades in and drifts above the stray noise, leaving them with only each other. Anita hums along, and Tae Joon feels his heart thrum.
“Used to dance to this one with my mom. It’s her favorite,” she pulls herself to her feet and holds out her hand to him, “C’mon. Can’t not dance to it.”
Crypto hesitates, arm half-risen at his side. He doesn’t dance. He doesn’t know how to, at least not the way she wants to. The closest he’s ever gotten to dancing is with Mila, bouncing around their shared room at a young age, or trying to learn choreographies with her, and badly, as Mystik watched from the doorway. But that was a long time ago, and they were young. This is different.
He’s about to say no, that he’d only make a fool out of himself, when she kneels down and takes his hands in hers.
She doesn’t pull him up, instead she brings them to her lips, humming still. Ever so lightly, she brushes the back of his hand with a kiss, and his stomach flips. Distantly, he realizes there’s someone singing, in the song, though it’s too quiet to make out the words. More presently, he realizes Anita is singing along, lowly, quietly, against his skin.
“Suitcase in your hand,” it comes out warmly, and his words catch in his throat as he feels her lips move, “Wave goodbye to mom and dad.”
That’s ironic, he’s pretty sure.
She turns it over, and presses a tender kiss to his palm, “Never thought I would see the back of you.”
Her voice is his favorite sound in the world, he decides. In a more poetic moment, he’d describe it as sugar and amber, like the sweet syrup she puts too much of on her pancakes, or the rising sun drifting through their window in the morning. For now, it takes his breath away and leaves his heart hammering.
She rises, and pulls him up. This time, he goes with her. He doesn’t need any more convincing.
“Mixtape’s wearing down,” she pulls him close and he takes a moment to reflect on how perfectly their hands fit together, “Crystal ships are sailing out.”
They’re close enough that he can feel her breath on his face when she sings, “Now the doors are opening for you.”
When she takes a step back away from their seat, and towards the flat expanse of the rest of the roof, he follows without question.
Hand in hand, she leads him out as she sings, “I wanna swim, swim out into the dark night,” each footstep in sync with the song.
“I wanna melt you down into the stars,” they take slow, deliberate steps. It’s in time with the steady flow of the music, low notes like a heartbeat.
“I wanna crumble, tumble, like a landslide.” as they reach the wide, open portion of the roof, she stops. One hand slips free of his, and finds its way to rest on his neck, fingers brushing over the shaved stubble of his undercut
She rests their foreheads together, and sings, “I wanna live, die, wherever you are.”
Crypto thrills at the touch, as he always does, and untangles his other hand to rest it tentatively at her waist. Yet again, he wonders how he got so lucky.
She dips down and brushes the corner of his mouth with a ghost of a kiss, “Just you and I.”
As the singer echoes the ending of the phrase, she presses her lips to his in a firm kiss that he doesn’t hesitate to return. With each ‘you and i’ that the song brings, she kisses him again. Peppers him with affection as they sway to the tune. A kiss to the cheek, the corner of his mouth, his nose, his lips again.
“Just you and I,” she hums against him before she pulls back, “Just you and I.”
Her thumb sweeps over his cheek as she cups his chin, her enamored gaze never leaving his. They sway in place to the music, and as the singing fades out, she hums to the tune.
In a way, he still can’t believe that he’s with her. He doesn’t know how a man like him ends up with someone like her.
She starts to sing again, voice sweet as honey, “Lovesick melody, carry my words across the sea.”
She looks at him like he’s the stars, eyes full of admiration and awe.
“Tell her I miss her,” her thumb drifts over his lips, “Tell her I’m torn in two.”
In the pit of his stomach, he has a feeling this is where he’s supposed to be.
“Salt burns in my eyes, none of these streets feel right tonight.”
Because being with her? It’s a tether in a storm, a lull in the chaos. It’s home.
“I’ll be your wild man, you’ll be my baby blue,” and when she kisses him again, he can feel her smile.
He loves it when she smiles, so he pulls her back in, and kisses her. Again, and again, and again, and he doesn’t stop. Not even as the song slips into the chorus again. The laugh she makes as he digs his fingers into her coat to keep her close, it’s enchanting, and he thinks, briefly, that hearing it again is worth any price.
He thinks that he’d do just about anything for her, anything to keep that smile on her face, anything to hear her sing again. Anything to remain by her side.
And then he stops thinking, because he’s back to kissing her, and that is far more important.
This is a chapter a day story for DannyMay 2019, each chapter will be based on a daily prompt to create a 31 chapter story. Full chapters are posted on FFN and Ao3, teasers will be posted on Tumblr. Special thanks to @faeroseghost for giving me some feedback on the first chapter!
Permanence
Description: Something's up with Danny. Blackouts, strange behaviour, and a growing emptiness that he can't explain. At least not to Tucker or Sam, but there may be one other person who can understand, as much as Danny hates it. But with the Observants on his tail, Freakshow on the run, and a mentor whose powers seem to be failing, Danny has much bigger things to worry about.
Chapter 1: Crossing
Danny feels empty. Not his normal kind of empty, from those nights when he looks up at the stars and that spark of excitement is missing, and in its place is something that isn't quite disinterest and is hardly hatred but is more like the stars don't matter because, well, what does?
He isn't sure if this is a bad empty or a good one. Is there even a good empty? Either way, this is a different kind. It’s the kind of empty you might feel walking through a school after hours, once everyone has gone home and all the lights are off. Except instead of walking through a hallway you're lying on the ground, and it's very cold, and it's raining, and you're pretty sure there's mud in your hair and is that blood under your fingernails or just more mud? You hope it's mud.
That's how Danny feels.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, wrinkling his nose. Underneath the smell of the rain—he thinks Sam called it petrichor once—there's something sharp. It stings his nose and throat when he breathes in and makes his headache flare.
Danny tries to sit up, but the whole world rebels against him as it tilts and spins, and he ends up face down in the mud. Slowly, he pushes himself up to his hands and knees and tries to get a good look at his surroundings. Everything is blurry and dark and his head is pounding, making it hard for him to focus. Looking around just makes him dizzier so he looks down instead, at his hands. He's not wearing gloves, his skin is human. Pale, but lacking the bluish tint of his ghost form.
His knuckles are bruised, the skin split. It's a minor injury he's intimately familiar with. He pats his chest, arms, legs. No other injuries. His clothes are rumpled, not torn, but his jacket is gone.
Damn. He really liked that jacket.
Focusing his gaze on one spot on the ground, Danny tries to lurch to his feet. Tries. He's about halfway up when his stomach twists and then he's on his knees again, vomiting. Nothing but bile and stomach acid comes out. After what feels like a solid ten minutes of dry heaving Danny gives up and collapses onto his side.
If he squints and focuses really hard, pushing through his headache and all the blurriness, he can see something tall, or at least taller than him when he's lying on the ground, and yellow. There's a lot of it, like a wall, but it's bending under the rain and wind. A field of... something. He struggles for a minute to remember what is tall, and yellow, and comes in a field, doing his best to ignore the throbbing headache.
Wheat. It's a wheat field. There aren't any wheat fields near Amity Park.
Danny groans. The cold must have been numbing the pain while he was unconscious, but now that his awareness is returning, he can feel every bruise across his aching body. He won't be surprised if, when he strips down to get changed later, his skin is painted blue and purple and that ugly yellow-brown from fresh bruises.
Curling up against the cold, Danny furrows his brow as he tries to remember what the hell just happened, but it keeps slipping through his fingers.
He blows on his hands, trying to warm them up, rubbing them together and tucking them under his arms. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to remember something vital.
Cryokinesis. Duh.
Danny's breath hitches, his headache flaring as he activates his ice powers. His vision sharpens and gets colder. That's really the only way he can describe it, as if he's staring through a thin veil of ice that almost looks like it isn't there, but it is, and everything is just a little bit bluer. If things could look cold, this would be it.
With his cryokinesis on the cold rain doesn't bother him as much, but it's a bit of a double-edged sword. It protects him, for now, but if he uses it too long then he'll really start freezing. But it gives him a couple hours, just long enough to rest his eyes. Maybe his headache will go away by then. Yeah, sleep sounds good. He can figure everything out afterward.
As a student of political science, i'm now left wondering who the Trump supporters are. But i'm pleased that Jonathan Toews isn't one of them. I do, however, find it sad that hockey players can't speak up out of fear of making waves in the press. I get the idea of not wanting to draw attention away from the team, but right now in the political world there's so much more at stake for so many lives than just a team's public appearance, I guess. This was a great piece by Laz, and I encourage you all to read it.
Dean is overtired, underpaid and zoning out while Cas and Sam discuss the latest case, and he's staring at Cas (because he's always staring at Cas) and he can't tear his eyes away from the furrow of his brow as the others thoroughly beat the horse to death and still come up short, he's sore in places he never used to feel, he's hungry but in that way he always is no matter how much he eats, and he's caught in the little v of concentration nestled between Cas's serious brows.
It's pure Cas, those lines, he knows that, he met Jimmy (albeit briefly) and Jimmy wasn't a squinting in concentration kind of guy, his brows were all sloped downwards like a sad dog, Cas can pull out some serious puppy eyes but there's something in him that Dean never saw in Jimmy. Something wholly focused. Cas has been Cas for so long, body rather than vessel, Dean wonders if the little crease of concentration is permanently etched into his skin. Angels aren't supposed to change, age (die) but Cas has always come up short where heaven's concerned, always been so much more than they could wrap their heads around. And Cas is so alive where he sits, shield of god perched on the very end of a rickety motel chair, sword of heaven with his holy tax accountant elbows on the table, his stupid loafers planted firmly onto a carpet whose original colour has long since been lost to time and wear. His chin rests on his hands as he watches Sam gesture enthusiastically, forehead scrunched just so and twitching up or down in response to whatever is being said. Often he talks, low and matter of fact and so familiar it's easy for Dean to let the words wash over him and simply exist in the sound, sometimes he merely frowns deeper, disagreement carved clearly across his face, in his wrinkles. He does look older, worn, not worn-out, just lived in, like a house that's seen all four seasons. It hits Dean again that angels aren't supposed to do that, that Cas is something different to what and who he was all those years ago in the barn. He's... realer. Softer. Easier to hurt. Easier to touch. He wipes his shoes on the welcome mat before he enters a home. He rolls his shirtsleeves up when he helps out with the dishes. He licks his lips before he goes to speak. He furrows his brow. How much of that is conscious, a borrowed act of camouflage? How much of it is Cas?
Dean doesn't realise what he's done until the hum of conversation abruptly cuts off with a startled "What are you—“. Doesn't even know he's moved until a wide pair of blue eyes blink at him and the skin beneath his finger startles smooth as the eyebrows on either side slide up in surprise. Dean's first thought is "huh. warm." and his next is "why the hell am I poking Cas in the face?" quickly followed by "I should probably stop poking Cas in the face."
It's only Sam's "Yeah, you probably should." that makes him pull his hand back. The furrow remains, fainter, with Cas all reared back and wide open, lips parted on a sharp inhale, but it's there. It's permanent, real.
Dean can't help the way he sounds when he says, "When'd you start getting older?"
"When did you stop listening?" And it's quick, and exasperated, and fond and so Cas that it hurts somewhere deep in him only family can reach. His lips twitch into an involuntary smile, goading and goaded in turn. He can't help himself around Cas, he never could.
