annundriel: ([spn] Batter My Heart)
[personal profile] annundriel
Better Late
Dean/Castiel
G
880
Spoilers for the season five finale.
It's a start.

Thank you to [livejournal.com profile] olivelavonne, [livejournal.com profile] mclachlan, [livejournal.com profile] sdrohc_ratiug, and [livejournal.com profile] ginnith for looking this over and helping in various ways.


On the road again. Dean’s always on the road. North, south, east, west; he’s searching for something, anything. Meaning, happiness, peace. Rest. He’s not even sure anymore, only that he thinks it might be out there. He’d stayed with Lisa and Ben for a few months, tried to make it work. Tried for normal, for a normal life and a family that wasn’t tied up in apocalyptic soap operas and found it…wasn’t what he wanted after all.

It was different, and that was good, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t him.

He stops in Washington, pulls off to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The stars spread across the sky remind him of glitter spilled across a table when they were younger, Sam cutting paper into shapes that didn’t really look like anything at all but meant everything when Sam handed them over with a gap-toothed grin and a Happy birthday!

Dean pulls out a beer and drinks it slowly while sitting on the hood of the Impala, the warmth from the engine seeping through the metal and into dean’s bones.

A reservoir spreads out beneath him, dark and still, filled with the mirror images of everything above and who knows what else below. The moon is high and bright, larger than it has any right to be orbiting so far away, when Castiel finds him.

Dean knows the sound of his wings. They’re loud in the silence.

They don’t speak. It’s the first time Dean’s seen him since the world didn’t end and they don’t say a word. Castiel simply joins him on the hood like it’s nothing, like they’ve done this every night. Like it’s habit and not a surprise that Castiel is suddenly here, next to him again after so long elsewhere.

Castiel struggles with his coat as he sits. It’s such a human thing that Dean almost forgets Castiel isn’t slip-sliding headlong toward humanity anymore.

Dean offers his beer—his second—and Castiel takes it after a moment’s hesitation, fingers warm against Dean’s. He’s so familiar, so much himself there beside Dean that Dean can barely look at him. Doesn’t know if that’s because he already knows what he’ll see—Castiel returned to his full, untouchable glory, solid and settled—or because he’s afraid he’ll look at Cas and find him miserable, as alone as Dean is.

It’ll make everything feel even more like a loss despite the fact that they won.

When Castiel takes the bottle and drinks from it, Dean’s eyes are drawn to him, always drawn to him, anyway.

It’s dark, but with the moon so full and the sky so clear, Dean has no trouble seeing Castiel. The mess of hair, the curve of shoulder, the rumpled coat. The calm profile Dean turned to more times than he can count, as familiar to him as Sam’s, as Bobby’s. His first real friend.

Dean wonders if Castiel ever knew that. If he knows what he actually meant to Dean, what he means.

He wonders why he never told Castiel.

Watching Castiel’s throat work as he swallows, Dean wonders why he never reached out and touched, never tasted the curve of Castiel’s Adam’s apple when he at least had part of a chance.

Once he starts looking, it’s hard for Dean to turn away.

Lowering the bottle, Castiel frowns at it. “I forgot how vile this tastes,” he says, voice reaching across the dark to curl against Dean’s exposed skin, the knob of his wrists, the nape of his neck.

Dean chuckles, but it’s humorless. “Yeah, well. You get used to it after a while.” He puts a hand out to take the bottle back, but Castiel pulls it away, takes another drink.

“Yes,” Castiel says. He studies the bottle in his hand, like it’s some strange earthly specimen that might answer all the questions Dean never could. “It is an…acquired taste. I realize this now.”

He holds the bottle out to Dean, gaze steady across the short distance between them, and Dean’s eyes are drawn to the way Castiel’s mouth shines wetly in the light reflecting off the water.

Castiel’s tongue sweeps across his bottom lip.

Dean leans over and kisses Castiel, follows that tongue with his own there by the side of the road, bordered by asphalt and water, broken gravel beneath the tires. Does the one thing he’s been telling himself he doesn’t want to do, the thing he told himself he’d missed the boat on. Does it because he has to. They could be anyone out here, any two guys just sharing a beer in the middle of nowhere. Anyone at all.

He has to.

There’s nothing else to lose anymore, not really.

Castiel kisses back. Tastes like Dean’s beer and something Dean knows is Cas, would know it anywhere even though he’s never known it before. Castiel smells like wide skies and the open road, feels solid and present and touchable, so touchable against Dean’s mouth and beneath Dean’s hands that Dean’s not sure why he ever thought Castiel wasn’t.

When they part, Dean’s breathing heavy, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He feels like he’s waking up.

Castiel smiles, his mouth a sweet curve anchoring Dean in the dark, and says, "Definitely an acquired taste."
Page 1 of 3 << [1] [2] [3] >>

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 08:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] adja999.livejournal.com
I want to go outside and it be night right now. So I can sit down in the wet grass, look up at the stars and maybe cry a little.
Not a bad feeling.

I loved this.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 10:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] angelshandprint.livejournal.com
I wish I had the grass to go out to and the space so I could look up at the stars and cry too. But I don't have 'em.
I ♥ your icon

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 11:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] adja999.livejournal.com
Um. Maybe you can go up on the roof? If it's not too dangerous it's the kind of places I like.

I love yours as well. Did you make it? And if yes, can i snag?

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 12:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] angelshandprint.livejournal.com
Oh, feel free to snag it heehee. I made it from a screencap from this awesome vid called "Honey". You can find it on my LJ.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 01:46 pm (UTC)
ext_38905: (castiel thoughts)
From: [identity profile] qthelights.livejournal.com
Oh. this is so sweet and melancholy and gorgeous.

I adore this line: voice reaching across the dark to curl against Dean’s exposed skin, the knob of his wrists, the nape of his neck.

And the imagery in the whole thing was rather beautiful. I could feel it.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 05:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] love-jackianto.livejournal.com
'His first real friend.

Dean wonders if Castiel ever knew that. If he knows what he actually meant to Dean, what he means.'

I love that! Since season one I wanted Dean to have a canon friend and then Cas showed up.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 05:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lattimore.livejournal.com
I really like the feeling of this - it has a hushed, still quality that makes the kiss seem even more like a new beginning. It's lovely.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 08:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ember-firedrake.livejournal.com
This is really sweet...I love the affection between them. (This will also be my personal head!canon until TBTB say otherwise...) :)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-15 10:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wolfrider89.livejournal.com
Wow.
Pretty much the most beautiful thing I've read in a long time. I loved it. It was sad and yet peaceful and hopeful.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 04:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hrtslkths.livejournal.com
That was great. The friend part, so heartbreaking in retrospect, but so hopeful in the now.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 04:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dragonlit.livejournal.com
Gorgeous picture you've painted. Sweet, tender, sad. I think I might have a good sob now. *sniffles*

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 04:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kronette.livejournal.com
Achingly beautiful.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 04:42 am (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 04:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eretria.livejournal.com
Quiet and beautiful. So lovely.
Thank you.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 05:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rainbowxrae.livejournal.com
this, this was very nice. very nice :)
very well written might i say.
cas being dean`s first friend made me want to squeal with delight.

i have been longing to read some like this <3

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 05:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mesophile.livejournal.com
Very lovely and understated. This is what happens between Season 5 and the Season 6 opener - that's my canon!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 05:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dark-cygnet.livejournal.com
This is lovely. thank you for sharing it.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 06:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samjohnsson.livejournal.com
Love the imagery in here. And yay beer-flavored-Cas!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 06:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mulder200.livejournal.com
This fic feels like them. All quiet and not spoken but you can just feel the emotions they share.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 06:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toolazytowork.livejournal.com
Very nice. Something about 2 friends sharing a beer it just gets me. And this--it got me.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 08:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bloomxperish.livejournal.com
I loved this- it's so sweet and I love all of the imagery you used :)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 08:23 am (UTC)
ext_267113: (Default)
From: [identity profile] juanitatequila.livejournal.com
There's something just so calming about this...:')!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 09:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sycophantastic.livejournal.com
I knew you'd posted fic early on the 15th (I actually gasped excitedly when I saw, because srsly, I'm such a fangirl of yours!) but didn't read it until just now.

Your fic makes me go all misty-eyed. :)

This is tragic and beautiful and sad and happy all at once. I adore the way you write these two. The introspection is done so perfectly. I truly feel I'm being given insight into these characters.

I love this. So much.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 09:30 am (UTC)
mf_luder_xf: (SPN Cas)
From: [personal profile] mf_luder_xf
Lovely as always! But there was something particularly sweet and picturesque to this fic. I could taste the air, see Cas' gaze. Wonderful.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-06-16 11:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pyjamagurl.livejournal.com
Aww! I really really love this, it feels like a genuine quiet moment between them and I love how Dean finally faces up to the fact Cas was his first real friend and wonders why he's never told him that before.

Beautiful! <3
Page 1 of 3 << [1] [2] [3] >>

Profile

annundriel: (Default)
annundriel

February 2013

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
2425262728  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios