DT, Alastor, hear me out...
Your babies in one of these bad boys
"O-oh."
Alastor is completely gone. He's laughing his ass off over something so small---yet admittedly clever and funny. To be fair, he hasn't slept in...two days. However, DT seems to genuinely enjoy this.
"It's...a lovely thought, thank you for sharing."
They were struggling not to laugh, but they were damn close to failing.
"..."
"..."
"What-"
"-the-"
"-fuck-"
"-language."
"Sorry."
"...though your swearing is somewhat understandable. Are they both unwell?"
"Hell if I know. But I do know that dad hasn't slept in two days."
"Isn't he normally able to go on for weeks without sleeping?"
"He can, but there is something off about him. Like he's internally freaking out."
"Perhaps it's the weight of being a father settling in?"
"Maybe."
"...guess we got an audience now."
"What are you-oh."
Immediately, Mordecai's pupils dilated much more upon noticing that Bella was watching him. It was a sweet sentiment, and Sam just smiled down when Castiel looked up at her.
"Mhm. These lil guys...buncha cuties."
"Hm...Alastor and Double Trouble should get some rest, though. Specifically Alastor. I haven't seen Double Trouble fatigued as of late, which is good I suppose. Alastor..."
"He really should get rest: but first I wanna know what's going on with him."
"Be my guest: you are his eldest daughter after all."
"...yeah..."
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mold is the god of the kitchen wall
destiel fic - 1198 words - rating: G - divorce arc - read on ao3
It’s then that Cas realizes Dean didn’t pass him a beer like he usually does. It’s more than a courtesy between the two of them, and they both know it; beer is all atoms and alcohol in such meager qualities for Cas that it’s laughable. But it’s a ritual. It’s a sign of something shared, and something mutual. Dean takes a deep sip from his bottle and Cas feels the cold desert of his hands laid flat against the table.
A Cas POV deep dive into his and Dean’s kitchen conversation from 15x08.
thanks to @faithdeans for the lovely beta!!
Adam and Michael are fighting with themselves in the other room. Cas can hear them through the wall, back and forth, in the same monotone voice. He can’t work out what they’re saying to each other, though. He’s not sure he cares enough to anyway.
Dean walks in to the kitchen, and Cas’ back stiffens: automatically, like it’s innate, like the languid animal Dean usually draws out of him has turned to protective instincts with hackles raised. Dean saunters forward towards the fridge and twists open a beer with a sharp jerk of his thumb. He’s wearing the face he makes when he doesn’t want anyone to think he has feelings about what’s happening. For all Dean calls Cas oblivious, for all Cas fails to see in other places, that’s one thing that Dean gets wrong. Cas can read Dean like a book.
Dean speaks. “Maybe you went too far,” he says, as he settles against the counter.
He sounds, Cas thinks, rather ironically, like a school teacher chastising a child. The ‘maybe’ is simply there to be polite. Those are the only kind of words they exchange these days: Cas lives life between a rock and a hard place, between silence and bites of criticism.
He rolls his shoulders, burying the desire to kick back against Dean. It’s easier, all in all, to agree.
He repeats Dean’s empty word. “Maybe.”
It’s then that Cas realizes Dean didn’t pass him a beer like he usually does. It’s more than a courtesy between the two of them, and they both know it; beer is all atoms and alcohol in such meager qualities for Cas that it’s laughable. But it’s a ritual. It’s a sign of something shared, and something mutual. Dean takes a deep sip from his bottle and Cas feels the cold desert of his hands laid flat against the table.
“I mean, he’s been in lockdown for quite a while now, you know. Maybe you just went too fast.” Dean pauses, taking a deep breath.
Cas wonders if that’s the end of this conversation. There’s something in the air, in the way that Dean’s fingernail digs restlessly under the label of the bottle, which tells him there’s something else he wants to say. What’s a confession between two friends?
Dean ducks his head, the way he does when he feels like a conversation is over. Then he rears it again, and speaks like it’s a different topic. “What’s he doing now?”
But it’s the same topic. Dean is still talking about Michael. Yet all the foot-scuffing eyes-flickering fidgeting falls back as if it was never there, like Dean is trying to unspeak entirely innocent sentences.
The thing about reading Dean like a book is that sometimes, the pages are blank and he drops words randomly in a context which only makes sense to him in ink almost too pale to read. Maybe, then, Dean is more like the demon tablet. And Cas is the one drifting slowly closer to insanity, deciphering each coded phrase as they fall into his hands.
So he has the vague idea that perhaps, Dean was speaking in metaphor. That he wasn’t really talking about Michael.
Maybe you just went too fast.
Cas replies to the question Dean asked to end the pause stretching out between them like no man’s land. “No idea. He was very distraught.”
“Yeah, but what exactly did he say?” Dean doesn’t ask it nicely, but he doesn’t ask much nicely these days. He’s simply here on business. Here to fix the problem that needs fixing.
And Cas is here because… Well, because Dean needs him.
If Cas went slower, would Dean want him again then?
“‘Leave. Get out. I want you dead’,” Cas recites. There’s an apathy in him, he realizes, as the words leave his mouth entirely hollow but not at all brittle. When you haven’t got the heart to care, there’s nothing to break. He’s heard those words many times before anyway, from brothers. From friends.
“We didn’t bond,” Cas finishes, and he wants Dean to laugh at his words so badly. He aches for it. Apathy for all else but this; he abandoned his nest to put all his eggs in Dean’s basket.
He keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead on the wall. It’s brown, peeling, there’s mold making its way lazily and inevitably along it. He waits for the huff of laughter from Dean, for proof of his victory. It doesn’t come. Not even reluctantly, when one time, it would have come, and gladly. What is all this space between them? Cas keeps staring, and thinks, mold is the god of the kitchen wall.
Then he wonders, what does that make him.
Dean tilts his head back and swallows, not even beer, just probably more words. His hair glints hazel in the stainless steel green light of the kitchen. Cas gets the sudden and staggering desire to put his chin on his palm, rest himself against the table as he gazes lawlessly up at Dean, and say, I miss you.
You’re standing next to me in the same room but I’m stranded. And I miss you.
What a display of letting go of all self control that would be! What ecstasy to live in truth! What a moment when Dean would turn towards him and say thank god, you don’t know how much I missed you too, I’m sorry, I want you, please stay!
It’s four words away but it’s impossible; instead, Cas furls his arms further around himself like his body is his desire and if he just gets a hold on himself, tighter, he can keep it all at bay. But still the animal heart of him wobbles over, showing its stomach in the desperate need to feel the warmth of something, anything, underground.
Maybe Cas didn’t put his eggs in Dean’s basket. Maybe he buried them.
“Where’s Sam?” he asks, changing the topic with a bow of his head, just like Dean did. Look, Dean, he wants to say, if he can’t say anything else. I can speak in codes too. How much do you understand me?
Dean doesn’t miss a beat with the answer, like in all the minutes this sparse conversion has spanned, he’s never thought of anything other than the case at hand. “Eileen hit a snag with a case, so. He won’t be gone long.”
But Cas knows: Dean lies. Every thought he had and didn’t say was a thought he took out back and shot. Cas wishes he could see how many thoughts laying in the cemetery of Dean’s throat tasted like him. What was it Dean had once said - about when humans want something, and badly?
Maybe you just went too fast.
When the rumbling earthquake of Michael’s fury starts, it’s mainly a relief, as it means unity. No more of two old strangers standing, stranded, in a molding kitchen. Michael is something shared, something mutual. When they’ve lost all else, at least they haven't lost this ritual: the eye contact, the thumping of feet on concrete, his hand on the door and Dean pressing in close, behind him.
Even underground, his body is warm.
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