[Try as he might to take the sting out of the words, Castiel's teeth still hitch around the vowels. He can't speak for every iteration of himself in every capacity of emotion, but then when things were fresh for Dean and didn't exist for Castiel he'd still spent seven years in his company, learning from him, dying for him and for his brother. Making mistakes in the name of penance, failing, and being forgiven again and again.
Castiel's certain he loved him then, but not at the same level. The same depth. It had only grown with time, and with time he'd come to understand it all the more.]
The Empty knew when I made the deal, what true happiness meant to me. Telling you, it was as close as I could ever get.
[At the time, and it would have been even if he hadn't been pulled into the abyss alongside Billie. What had been broken between them was still on the mend, heaven still needed fixing. In some ways, they came closer to it here in Duplicity in this city filled to the brim with its licentious requirements.
Castiel keeps his hand wrapped around Dean's wrist, not out of necessity but simply to feel him. Tangible, there, this was real and the life he'd had in Duplicity that kept filtering in were real too. Grounding.]
( Not as fully. Dean couldn't see it then, could only express his love (his friendship) in mixtapes and glasses of bourbon. And somewhere along the way they lost Rowena and he lost Cas because he couldn't get past it. He blamed Cas for Mary, somewhere deep down. Trauma piles, things worsen, Jack is killed and the only person to lash out at makes a decision he thought was right. Even Rowena could see something was off between them. But, Dean could only voice his forgiveness. That bitterness and that anger, was so deep-seated. Even with Dean realizing Chuck had been playing been, been writing him, that anger remained.
But, he beat it, didn't he? He lost Cas, but Jack gained an entire universe. And others?
It stings, because he knows Cas made the deal with the Empty to save Jack the first time. So, not only did he go a year and a half with that deal, that secret between them (another secret) but also with feelings he kept to himself.
The feelings, Dean can understand. Because it took Cas until the end of his life to realize them. And Dean lost him.
He looks down at that hand holding his wrist. )
I know your love isn't conditional. Your love for Jack, for Sam. For me.
[This is the longest he's gone touching Dean without him pulling away, and putting distance between them for some time. He turned his back to him, placed the bridge of his shoulders in his direct path, and distanced himself. It's what he's gotten used to, four days asleep here was four years at home and though things are different here in some ways they felt the same.
Castiel follows his line of sight, down to his hand and his grip loosens and slips from his wrist down to his palm lingering for a few seconds before it falls back to his side.]
The love I have for Jack and Sam isn't the same as the love I have for you. [Castiel's eyes fall shut, he sighs, and then meets Dean's gaze again.] You know that.
Yeah, I know that now. I knew that after. And then I went six months without you. And then I bit it.
( And then, he'd ended up here. And the Cas that had been in jail, that had befriended Poe, was not the Cas he remembered being sucked away into Oblivion. He was a Cas fresh off an attack dog spell courtesy of Rowena, a witch he'd mourned months before. A witch whose death caused a rift with his Cas. It's poetic in its' twisted humor. But, this place is all about twisted humor.
And now - does it count. Is this his Cas.
They're all Cas.
He can't help but think of the Castiel's off the assembly line, of Chuck's various universes. Of the Cas that never raised him from Hell, never knew him. But, this Cas knows him. )
I don't know what kind of fair shake I can give you. People I love, they -- ( Even saying it. He remembers the conversation they had on his birthday, about Willow from Buffy, about discoveries. About this place. About not knowing - no. He knows what he likes. But, likes and loves aren't always the same.
But, it's complicated. Sexuality. ) Look, I never - not on the surface - never thought about my sexuality. It was a given. And, then eventually it was irrelevant. The world came first. Sam came first. You. Jack.
[He'd heard the same thing, from Naomi and her constant indoctrination - trying to fix what was broken in him. The same lines from his brothers, from the agents of heaven that loathed him and revered him for that flaw that set him apart.
Dean's reaching out, verbally, he's trying to mend fences that were already structurally sound, and Castiel doesn't interrupt him. He follows his logic, and watches the features of his face from beneath his eyelashes.] Dean, I followed you into rebellion. I fell because I believed in you, in your mission.
[And humanity. He'd been pulled back to heaven, realigned, turned into the perfect soldier time and time again. Each time, he found a way to defy it and to stay beside Dean despite all of his inner-working being wired against it.
When Dean goes on to talk about sexuality, Castiel just smiles - there's humor in that, for him, but not for Dean. His eyes are still rimmed red, mournful, moving onto fix heaven hadn't been easy for him. Jack needed him, heaven needed to be restructured and that came at the expense of Castiel's selfish desire to be with Dean. To protect him from what took him in the end.]
Dean, you don't have to justify your sexuality to me. I'm- not this. [It's his body, yes, and one that he'd been comfortable enough in to consider it a second skin but hew as more than it. More than any gender or sexuality, bigger than it by tenfold. It was what he had to marionette just to be close to him.]
I already told you, that you don't owe me anything - you keep trying. I know you want to make it right. Make sense of my sacrifice. My sacrifice already made sense. For you, for Sam, and for Jack.
( Castiel didn't buy all the lies his father, his family, everyone drilled into him, the apocalypse that would be best, about Dean being Michael and Sam being Lucifer. It's hard to believe everything was a carefully puppeted story, written over and over again until God thought he got it right. But, he and Sam and Cas, and even Jack, finally broke out of it.
If anything, that's what keeps him here in this spot, the back of Cas' hand against his. )
Your sacrifice didn't make sense. It's not something I need to make sense of, Cas. How you did it, why. Yeah. It makes sense. But, the sacrifice at all. It doesn't. It - I lost you. Jack lost you. And - brought you back.
( He drops his own hand away. )
And stop with what I owe you. It's not about what I owe you - or - your equipment and your Chrysler building stature. ( The -- luminescence and angelic -- whatever. ) You are this. And more. And I'm not hung up on it. This is not that.
( But he also doesn't know what it is. He knows maybe he can figure it out now. )
That contract is still on the table. And, ( He sighs. ) What I've been trying to tell you is that Steve and I smelled the roses, too, and - he's my sub now. Three months.
( They were obsessed with one another.
His hand drifts closer again, lightly brushing Cas' before coming to his shoulder shoulder. )
Doesn't change this. Doesn't change us. I like Kate. But Kate's not me.
[It's a lot to take in, Dean's breaking it down piece by piece, and Castiel's following along quietly like he's used to. It's good to see him again, have him close. It may be just four days, and four years - but heaven moved differently and time passed there were years compared to earth and the way the days flowed there.
His heart feels full, for the first time in a long time. Heaven is fine. Dean and his brother reunited, and Jack lived the destiny he'd felt so profoundly while he was still in the womb. Things felt right, and now he was here - in a different place, with Dean living a very different life.
When Dean grabs his shoulder Castiel's body sways to face his and he cranes his neck back to get a look at him. His face, aged with the grief of what they'd all been through. It's difficult to not want to reach out and touch it, to trace the lines of sorrow he'd seen etched there himself. Each loss a wrinkle in time.]
You mentioned Steve. Wanting to have him under contract. I'm glad you did.
[Though he's not met him, he remembers their conversation. The discussion about Captain America, Avengers, and how much Dean thought they'd get along. They hadn't had the chance to meet or discuss it further. Not with the snow, and the flowers there to impede their inhibitions.] Kate? [The only Kate he knew was the young girl he'd wrapped his arms around in an effort to keep warm. He didn't know that Dean knew her too, or what he was referencing specifically. His brows furrow into a tight line.] What does Kate have to do with this?
Pidge. Katie Holt. She goes by -- your Dom, Cas. Not Kate?
( He knows another Kate, too, but this is the one he means. The one he feels beat him to a contract. And one of the people here Cas may have learned from. He still doesn't know. Between two names, Poe and Katie, he's not sure which would win out. He knows he doesn't need or want to think about it. )
[Some things were still coming back to him, albeit a little slower than he's used to. He brings his gaze from Dean's hand back up to his face, sighs, his free hand going to the mark over his neck two fingers resting just over the tattooed line.]
She's not, but I did what I had to. I could've sat in the cell longer, but they were threatening further punishment.
If I could do it again, I'd endure it. [Make things right, his desire to be Dean's submissive wasn't in question. He didn't like the position he was put in, and this just further solidifies it. It feels real again, a threat and a constant pressure.]
I'm not -- Cas, I'm not saying I'd change it. I wouldn't want you, any you, in jail. You don't -- what we endure here, we endure together. Any contract you sign, you're not my submissive, you're --
( What? Can he define it? Can he say it? And what would be it. )
[It's not what he's expecting, the admission - even though it's small. Dean's said as much before, in his own way, and Castiel knows that whatever they are it's more than something that can be put in simple terms.
His smile betrays the emotion in his eyes. He still remembers the last words he said to him, after his declaration, after being sucked in by The Empty, and pieced back together again by Jack.]
I know, Dean, and as for the contract of course I still want it to be permanent. [His, for as long as he stays in Duplicity - for as long as the two of them were here.] What was it that you said, "You'd rather have me, cursed or not." Our situation isn't so different here, and bottom of the ninth I'd rather have you too.
( Still, Cas surprises him, a smile finally cracking through the coarse, heavy air between them. He smirks, pulling Cas close in a c'mere gesture, bringing him into his arms. Him, the real, uninfluenced, 43 year old question mark, Dean Winchester. )
[It's what he needed, and hadn't voiced. Skin to skin contact, the dense feeling of Dean there with him real, solid, and whole. Castiel crumbles into him, his arms find their usual home at the wings of his back, the slope of his spine. Dean still smells the way he remembers, cedar with a hint of whiskey, and gun oil.
He's there, and whatever dimensional fabric brought them both together again was solid enough to give him the closure he'd been needing since he'd given himself to the nothingness. The limp in his throat is replaced with elation, and aware of Dean and how he feels about lingering embraces like this one- always aware of Dean he pulls away from the hug, his palms still somewhere close his blue eyes thoughtful.]
I missed you. [Alongside love, came loneliness, and after everything and its totality he had Jack, but not the person that mattered most. Everything always felt unfinished because of that, a constant mournful sense of incompletion.]
( Somewhere deep down. He remembers running as fast as he could up the bunker's steps when he saw Cas' name on his phone. But, that was one big Chuck ruse courtesy of Lucifer and Michael. )
[The title didn't feel right anymore when free will couldn't be a real possibility for him and for life in the city. Castiel's fingers linger as they trail across Dean's lower arms on the way down to his sides. It feels right, being near him again, and that sense of belonging brings a relief that warms him to the core.] Something new.
( It feels right, but different in way that also feels right, hands still lingering behind Cas. From the outside, they're holding each other, from the reality, Dean has Castiel back - and Castiel's back. And he, his. It isn't elegant or easy, but they've. never been.
Whatever that something new is it's on the tip of his tongue and it will come in time.
He doesn't know what will come next. Gossip Girl blasts or anything. But they can handle it, right? )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[Try as he might to take the sting out of the words, Castiel's teeth still hitch around the vowels. He can't speak for every iteration of himself in every capacity of emotion, but then when things were fresh for Dean and didn't exist for Castiel he'd still spent seven years in his company, learning from him, dying for him and for his brother. Making mistakes in the name of penance, failing, and being forgiven again and again.
Castiel's certain he loved him then, but not at the same level. The same depth. It had only grown with time, and with time he'd come to understand it all the more.]
The Empty knew when I made the deal, what true happiness meant to me. Telling you, it was as close as I could ever get.
[At the time, and it would have been even if he hadn't been pulled into the abyss alongside Billie. What had been broken between them was still on the mend, heaven still needed fixing. In some ways, they came closer to it here in Duplicity in this city filled to the brim with its licentious requirements.
Castiel keeps his hand wrapped around Dean's wrist, not out of necessity but simply to feel him. Tangible, there, this was real and the life he'd had in Duplicity that kept filtering in were real too. Grounding.]
no subject
But, he beat it, didn't he? He lost Cas, but Jack gained an entire universe. And others?
It stings, because he knows Cas made the deal with the Empty to save Jack the first time. So, not only did he go a year and a half with that deal, that secret between them (another secret) but also with feelings he kept to himself.
The feelings, Dean can understand. Because it took Cas until the end of his life to realize them. And Dean lost him.
He looks down at that hand holding his wrist. )
I know your love isn't conditional. Your love for Jack, for Sam. For me.
no subject
Castiel follows his line of sight, down to his hand and his grip loosens and slips from his wrist down to his palm lingering for a few seconds before it falls back to his side.]
The love I have for Jack and Sam isn't the same as the love I have for you. [Castiel's eyes fall shut, he sighs, and then meets Dean's gaze again.] You know that.
no subject
( And then, he'd ended up here. And the Cas that had been in jail, that had befriended Poe, was not the Cas he remembered being sucked away into Oblivion. He was a Cas fresh off an attack dog spell courtesy of Rowena, a witch he'd mourned months before. A witch whose death caused a rift with his Cas. It's poetic in its' twisted humor. But, this place is all about twisted humor.
And now - does it count. Is this his Cas.
They're all Cas.
He can't help but think of the Castiel's off the assembly line, of Chuck's various universes. Of the Cas that never raised him from Hell, never knew him. But, this Cas knows him. )
I don't know what kind of fair shake I can give you. People I love, they -- ( Even saying it. He remembers the conversation they had on his birthday, about Willow from Buffy, about discoveries. About this place. About not knowing - no. He knows what he likes. But, likes and loves aren't always the same.
But, it's complicated. Sexuality. ) Look, I never - not on the surface - never thought about my sexuality. It was a given. And, then eventually it was irrelevant. The world came first. Sam came first. You. Jack.
no subject
Dean's reaching out, verbally, he's trying to mend fences that were already structurally sound, and Castiel doesn't interrupt him. He follows his logic, and watches the features of his face from beneath his eyelashes.] Dean, I followed you into rebellion. I fell because I believed in you, in your mission.
[And humanity. He'd been pulled back to heaven, realigned, turned into the perfect soldier time and time again. Each time, he found a way to defy it and to stay beside Dean despite all of his inner-working being wired against it.
When Dean goes on to talk about sexuality, Castiel just smiles - there's humor in that, for him, but not for Dean. His eyes are still rimmed red, mournful, moving onto fix heaven hadn't been easy for him. Jack needed him, heaven needed to be restructured and that came at the expense of Castiel's selfish desire to be with Dean. To protect him from what took him in the end.]
Dean, you don't have to justify your sexuality to me. I'm- not this. [It's his body, yes, and one that he'd been comfortable enough in to consider it a second skin but hew as more than it. More than any gender or sexuality, bigger than it by tenfold. It was what he had to marionette just to be close to him.]
I already told you, that you don't owe me anything - you keep trying. I know you want to make it right. Make sense of my sacrifice. My sacrifice already made sense. For you, for Sam, and for Jack.
no subject
( Castiel didn't buy all the lies his father, his family, everyone drilled into him, the apocalypse that would be best, about Dean being Michael and Sam being Lucifer. It's hard to believe everything was a carefully puppeted story, written over and over again until God thought he got it right. But, he and Sam and Cas, and even Jack, finally broke out of it.
If anything, that's what keeps him here in this spot, the back of Cas' hand against his. )
Your sacrifice didn't make sense. It's not something I need to make sense of, Cas. How you did it, why. Yeah. It makes sense. But, the sacrifice at all. It doesn't. It - I lost you. Jack lost you. And - brought you back.
( He drops his own hand away. )
And stop with what I owe you. It's not about what I owe you - or - your equipment and your Chrysler building stature. ( The -- luminescence and angelic -- whatever. ) You are this. And more. And I'm not hung up on it. This is not that.
( But he also doesn't know what it is. He knows maybe he can figure it out now. )
That contract is still on the table. And, ( He sighs. ) What I've been trying to tell you is that Steve and I smelled the roses, too, and - he's my sub now. Three months.
( They were obsessed with one another.
His hand drifts closer again, lightly brushing Cas' before coming to his shoulder shoulder. )
Doesn't change this. Doesn't change us. I like Kate. But Kate's not me.
no subject
His heart feels full, for the first time in a long time. Heaven is fine. Dean and his brother reunited, and Jack lived the destiny he'd felt so profoundly while he was still in the womb. Things felt right, and now he was here - in a different place, with Dean living a very different life.
When Dean grabs his shoulder Castiel's body sways to face his and he cranes his neck back to get a look at him. His face, aged with the grief of what they'd all been through. It's difficult to not want to reach out and touch it, to trace the lines of sorrow he'd seen etched there himself. Each loss a wrinkle in time.]
You mentioned Steve. Wanting to have him under contract. I'm glad you did.
[Though he's not met him, he remembers their conversation. The discussion about Captain America, Avengers, and how much Dean thought they'd get along. They hadn't had the chance to meet or discuss it further. Not with the snow, and the flowers there to impede their inhibitions.] Kate? [The only Kate he knew was the young girl he'd wrapped his arms around in an effort to keep warm. He didn't know that Dean knew her too, or what he was referencing specifically. His brows furrow into a tight line.] What does Kate have to do with this?
no subject
( He knows another Kate, too, but this is the one he means. The one he feels beat him to a contract. And one of the people here Cas may have learned from. He still doesn't know. Between two names, Poe and Katie, he's not sure which would win out. He knows he doesn't need or want to think about it. )
She ain't me.
no subject
[Some things were still coming back to him, albeit a little slower than he's used to. He brings his gaze from Dean's hand back up to his face, sighs, his free hand going to the mark over his neck two fingers resting just over the tattooed line.]
She's not, but I did what I had to. I could've sat in the cell longer, but they were threatening further punishment.
If I could do it again, I'd endure it. [Make things right, his desire to be Dean's submissive wasn't in question. He didn't like the position he was put in, and this just further solidifies it. It feels real again, a threat and a constant pressure.]
no subject
( What? Can he define it? Can he say it? And what would be it. )
You're more. Always, always have been.
no subject
His smile betrays the emotion in his eyes. He still remembers the last words he said to him, after his declaration, after being sucked in by The Empty, and pieced back together again by Jack.]
I know, Dean, and as for the contract of course I still want it to be permanent. [His, for as long as he stays in Duplicity - for as long as the two of them were here.] What was it that you said, "You'd rather have me, cursed or not." Our situation isn't so different here, and bottom of the ninth I'd rather have you too.
no subject
( Still, Cas surprises him, a smile finally cracking through the coarse, heavy air between them. He smirks, pulling Cas close in a c'mere gesture, bringing him into his arms. Him, the real, uninfluenced, 43 year old question mark, Dean Winchester. )
no subject
He's there, and whatever dimensional fabric brought them both together again was solid enough to give him the closure he'd been needing since he'd given himself to the nothingness. The limp in his throat is replaced with elation, and aware of Dean and how he feels about lingering embraces like this one- always aware of Dean he pulls away from the hug, his palms still somewhere close his blue eyes thoughtful.]
I missed you. [Alongside love, came loneliness, and after everything and its totality he had Jack, but not the person that mattered most. Everything always felt unfinished because of that, a constant mournful sense of incompletion.]
no subject
( Somewhere deep down. He remembers running as fast as he could up the bunker's steps when he saw Cas' name on his phone. But, that was one big Chuck ruse courtesy of Lucifer and Michael. )
Team Free Will 3.0
no subject
[The title didn't feel right anymore when free will couldn't be a real possibility for him and for life in the city. Castiel's fingers linger as they trail across Dean's lower arms on the way down to his sides. It feels right, being near him again, and that sense of belonging brings a relief that warms him to the core.] Something new.
no subject
Whatever that something new is it's on the tip of his tongue and it will come in time.
He doesn't know what will come next. Gossip Girl blasts or anything. But they can handle it, right? )