I can finally post my zine fic for volume 1 of @profoundzine!
Once upon a time, there was a man named…
It was a dark and stormy night in Lawrence, Kansas…
This is a story all about how my life got flipped…
“Whatever story you’re writing, you can’t begin it by ripping off ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,’ Dean.”
Dean runs his fingers through his hair and groans, then selects the only ten words on his laptop screen and deletes them all. Back to zero, once again. “I know,” he mutters, glaring at the blank document. “I’m just… stuck.”
Castiel peers over his shoulder, reads the title of the document—‘some bullshit i guess’—then slides into the empty seat next to him. “What are you writing?”
It’s an innocent enough question, but… one that Dean doesn’t think he has the answer to just yet. He drops his head into his hands and stares down at the table, at the patterns of the grains in the wood. “I don’t really know,” he mumbles quietly. “Something, I guess. I just…”
He sighs, then lifts his head out of his hands and looks over at Cas. “We’ve lived such a fuckin’ crazy life, you know? And I figured that it’d be a shame if it never got written down. If it died with us. So I… I guess I figured I’d try putting it into words.”
He’s been through so damn much, with his dad and Sammy, and then with Cas as a new part of their broken little family after he’d pulled Dean out of hell. Now so much of it feels like it happened such a long time ago—hell, not that he’ll readily admit it to anyone but Cas, but Dean’s definitely starting to get some grey hairs. Some part of him feels compelled to write down at least part of their story, considering how much they’ve seen and experienced and lived through. It would be a crime not to.
Castiel’s gaze softens, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his mouth pulling up into a gentle smile. “That sounds like a wonderful idea,” he says, and then his smile turns cheeky. “I hope it stars a devastatingly handsome ex-angel and highlights just how in love with him you were from the first time you met.”
Dean can’t help but snort, turning his gaze back to the laptop and the empty document. He runs his fingertips idly over the keys on his keyboard. “Not gonna lie, babe, you were kind of a fucking dick for a while there.”
Lightbulbs shattering. Barn doors blowing open. A man who brings with him the shadow of two great wings and an electricity in the air that feels as though it sets Dean alight.
“I know,” Cas muses. “Dicks with wings, didn’t you call us?”
“I sure did.” He gives Cas a sidelong smile. “You weren’t the worst of them, but it took you a while to come around to us. You must’ve rebelled for a damn good reason, huh?”
“I’m hunted, I rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you.”
Castiel rolls his eyes at Dean’s shiteating grin and seems to ponder it for a moment. “You know, I can’t seem to recall.”
“You’re a jerk,” Dean huffs. He turns away from his laptop to glare at Cas. “Remind me why I put up with you?”
“I’m great in bed,” Cas quips, without even taking time to think.
Damn it, Dean’s taught him too well over the years. He can’t keep the grin of amusement off his face, and Cas matches it, clearly proud of himself for managing to cheer Dean up. It’s so fucking endearing that for a second, Dean forgets his frustrations.
Only for a second, though. “This fucking sucks,” he groans, leaning back in his chair. “No one told me writing would be this hard. Everything’s up there in my brain but I don’t know how the fuck to get it out of there.” An idea occurs to him, and he raises his eyebrows at Castiel. “If you had any grace, would you mojo it all onto the page for me? Please?”
From the unimpressed look Cas gives him, that’s not an option.
“Okay,” he mutters under his breath, “so that’s a no, even if you were still powered up. Coming through loud and clear.”
Dean turns his gaze back to the empty document and watches the cursor blink at him—on, off, on, off. Like it’s mocking him for his failure to even start this fucking miserable story.
When you’ve had a life like Dean’s, where the hell do you start?
“This was a dumb idea.” He groans and plants his feet on the floor, shoving his chair back a foot and away from the laptop, the blinking cursor, the whole stupid idea he’d had of writing all this shit down. “I can’t fuckin’ do this. I’m not the smart one, that’s Sam’s job. He’d probably be halfway through writing this fucking thing already, but I can’t even get started.”
He moves to stand, but then there’s a hand resting on his thigh, strong but not forceful. Dean could push past it if he wanted to, but instead, he sinks back down into his chair.
He’s in the bathroom of a shitty motel when Cas appears out of nowhere, standing behind Dean’s shoulder and meeting his gaze in the water-stained mirror like a ghost—except for the fact that Dean knows just how solid and real the angel is. When he turns, he can feel heat and electricity radiating from Castiel. This close, all it would take was for one of them to lean in just a few inches, and Dean’s gaze flicks down to Castiel’s lips.
“Cas. We’ve talked about this. Personal space.”
“You’re not stupid, Dean.” Castiel’s voice is low but insistent. His hand radiates warmth through the fabric of Dean’s jeans. “We’ve talked about this. Just because you’re not ‘book smart’ like Sam—which isn’t even true, by the way—doesn’t mean you’re not smart in other ways. How many gadgets have you designed for the hunter community?”
Sometimes Dean regrets introducing Cas to pop culture, and it looks like showing him all of the James Bond movies is coming back to bite him now. “A few,” he mutters, shrugging one shoulder. The grip on his thigh tightens just slightly, and when Dean looks up, Cas has his brow arched in a look that Dean has quickly come to obey. “A lot,” he amends.
Cas smiles, and rubs his hand over Dean’s thigh in a reassuring gesture. “Yes, a lot. You are incredibly smart, in your own way—which doesn’t make your smarts any less important than those of anyone else,” he adds, before Dean can protest.
(Which he totally was about to. Fuck, Cas knows him too well.)
He grumbles irritably, then says, “I guess. But that doesn’t mean I’m any good at writing books and shit.”
“It doesn’t have to be any good on the first try, Dean.” Cas’s expression is soft. Encouraging. “It just has to be there.”
He’s fucking right, of course. Dean sighs and makes a conscious effort to let go of all his tension and frustration—something that he hadn’t learned easily but that he’s slowly getting better at, now that he’s retired from hunting and has Cas by his side. He rubs at his eyes, then drops his hands into his laps and gives Cas a slow, small smile. “I guess you’re right,” he says quietly.
Water laps gently at the edge of the dock. Cas is standing by Dean’s chair, the two of them looking out over the lake. There’s no need to share words between them—the silence is more than enough.
Dean is peaceful, and he is content.
The corner of Cas’s mouth ticks up, and Dean knows that that’s as close as Cas will come to saying ‘I told you so’—at least, for now. Whether he gets shit for it further down the line remains to be seen. “So you’ll keep trying to write whatever it is you’re writing?” Castiel asks, reaching for one of Dean’s hands where it lies in his lap and intertwining their fingers.
Now that Dean’s getting older, the impulse to write down the important parts of his life has been sticking with him and not letting go. He knows that if he doesn’t do this, if he gives up right here at the first fucking hurdle, he’s going to regret it.
“Yeah,” he says, squeezing Cas’s hand. “I will.”
Cas grins, all joy and radiance, and leans over to press a kiss to Dean’s cheek. “Good,” he says decisively, then kisses Dean’s knuckles as well before letting go of his hand. “Whatever you’re trying to say with this story, let it come from your heart.”
Dean watches as Cas stands up from his chair and goes to leave. When Cas pauses in the doorway and looks back at Dean, eyes crinkled in amusement, Dean raises his eyebrows.
“Besides,” his husband says, “if it really is terrible, I’ll make sure I let you know so you can rewrite it.”
Dean flips him off, but can’t help but grin when it makes Cas laugh. He listens to it as Castiel walks away through their house, then turns back to his laptop, thinking not for the first, or the second, or even the hundredth time in his life, about how fucking grateful he is to have Cas.
“I was there, where were you?”
“Dean and I do share a more profound bond.”
“We need you. I need you.”
“It’s a gift. You keep those.”
When he thinks of the last twenty years, he knows there was much more to the story than just him and Cas, but…
It’s hard not to focus on the slow path to love they’ve taken over all these years when he has his husband sitting beside him.
After all, their story definitely had to be one of the greatest love stories ever told—if he does say so himself. And even if the words that he writes never see the light of day, he wants to have them here, so that he can still relive them when he’s old and grey and has his husband by his side. When he really thinks about it… there’s so much to say that he can’t let a stupid little thing like a beginning stop him.
He puts his hands to his keyboard and writes.
Hi there. My name is Dean Winchester, and this is the story of how I fell in love with an angel.
