[FIC] Saudades (Military AU)
Title: Saudades
Author: cugami
Rating: PG
Genre and/or Pairing: Military AU, Slash, Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none, unless you count angst
Word Count: 2,535
Summary: Dean is fine where he is, fighting a near endless war at the border. Then he meets one of the devils of the sky, which are ironically called Seraphs - suicidal paratroopers.
The thing with the military, if you’re too good, you get promoted and then reassigned. If you’re too bad, you die or you get reassigned. Nobody stays long enough because people either die or go.
But it doesn’t really take long between soldiers to build the sort of camaraderie you only get to see after decades of civilian friendship. Once you’re out there fighting for your life, and for the life next to you, all it takes is one battle. One battle and a list of names to represent those who lived and died.
So for those who actually lived to see five whole years of the same assignment especially in an active war, it’s considered a miracle.
It takes skill to be good enough to be respected, but bad enough to never be promoted or reassigned. Dean Winchester is fine where he is, and he’s on his sixth year in this same sad border.
“Here.”
Dean catches the wrapped object that Cas threw at him, more from instinct than anything else. He doesn’t even know what it is until he opens the wrapper and sees the first burger he’s seen since d-day. “Thanks, man. You stole this?”
Cas predictably frowns at him before taking a huge bite off his own burger.
Castiel Novak, the lone survivor from Silver Company that landed here to take back and secure the border from three years ago. Paratrooper.
Dean really didn’t think he’d meet one. Paratroopers sounded like the idiot daredevils when he first heard about them. What with jumping off a plane from fuck knows how high and a flimsy cloth to keep a guy off from becoming literal blood and fleshy splatter on the ground. Least to say, the airborne forces are legends. They’re cavalry except they drop from the sky armed to the teeth like living nukes instead of arriving in armored tanks -- aptly named as Seraphs.
Their arrival at the Frontier is seared into Dean’s mind like a permanent movie that plays once in a while, especially in idle moments like these.
The Seraphs came in the dark, the noise of carriers and gunfire masking their movement as they hit the ground. At the same time, sparks of fire and explosives were the only source of light that visibility was ridiculous to a point that it’s hard to tell enemy from brother. And to top it off, there was snow.
The Frontier grunts were slowly but surely being pushed back, and then suddenly these fresh soldiers from the sky dressed in the winter camouflage were moving forward, guns blazing. They just kept going, some walking, some running, some crawling.
More than that, they came from all sides. Enemies fell from ambushes all over the place. Even dead, the Seraphs were a nuisance as they bombed almost a mile wide radius of enemy territory. Friendly fire wasn’t avoidable either. It was a blood bath.
Dean didn’t recognize Cas as friendly at the time and held the man at gunpoint. But Cas, calm despite dripping in the blood of their enemies, just pushed away the gun and pulled Dean up from the ground. “I’m with you,” was the last thing Dean heard before he passed out from the fatigue of endless days in battle, accumulated injuries and blood loss.
The both of them practically inhale the piece of home in quiet contentment. This is why Dean fights. Somewhere behind the border is ordinary life, where a burger is less of a privilege and luxury but something taken for granted. Someday, he’ll be homebound, too. He just has to survive until his tenth year and then he can retire a hero and with pension big enough to start a business. His brother should be done with law school by then, and they’re going to be unstoppable. Well, war has to end first and in Dean’s favor.
Burger’s gone in maybe five minutes, Dean doesn’t count while he daydreamed of life in the city. In the silent aftermath of the most delicious meal Dean’s ever had, he watches Cas fold the wrapper in a perfect square and starts to do the same with Dean’s discarded trash.
“You have something to tell me, Cas?” Because burgers are too good to be given to grunts. It’s second to homemade pie and if Dean sees pie in this damned camp, he might cry.
“I’ve been reassigned. I leave tonight.”
These are the words Dean never wants to hear from Cas. “And they gave you a burger? Where are they sending you? At the Hellgate?”
“Yes.”
Oh, he’s definitely paying attention now. “Are you kidding? You’re not that good of a soldier.”
When Cas doesn’t answer, Dean begins to wonder if mayhe he should’ve just kept his mouth shut. Because Cas really is a good soldier. Too damn good, in fact, that Dean’s tried his hardest to influence the other man into bouts of delinquency.
To keep him grounded right here. Dean knows what happens to good soldiers. They’re sent off and then they die.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Dean.”
“Dude!” Dean grabs the arm, hoping contact will get his point across. “Hellgate is suicide. It’s at the heart of enemy territory. Did you piss someone off to get this assignment? Let me guess. You volunteered.”
Because that’s just like Cas, ever since the promotion. Dean takes a fistful of the uniform and shakes the body in it, knowing what to expect but hoping for something different, “Who’s commanding this fucked up assault?”
Dean should’ve seen it coming, but still, he’s surprised when Cas shoves him hard enough to actually send him to the ground.
“Me.”
Of course. There’s no way in that fortress of a domain but from above, and who else will offer that strategy on the table?
It happens on a Tuesday evening when five carriers take off from the Frontier border, and a new legend is born.
On the first year anniversary of the end of the war, Dean drives all the way to the ruins of the Frontier border and cooks a burger there. He eats it alone.
-0-
Wars Fought on Different Fronts
It’s been a couple and a half years since the end of war and some people have already forgotten. It’s nice that people can move on, and that the capital and several important cities weren’t affected at all. The war at the borders and the ruins of nearby towns are all just good stories of adventure and heroism for the cityfolk.
No one came back from that final assault. It really was a suicide mission, from what he heard. There was no extraction plan at all and it's the kind of shit mission that was blacked out in reports, with information on a need-to-know basis.
A hundred soldiers, all of them volunteers. All of them crazy enough and loyal enough to Cas or to the alliance.
What’s strange is how Dean never got wind of it. He was a grunt, but he wasn’t that low in the pecking order. That kind of strategy and logistics did not happen overnight. So Cas only told him at the last minute, when turning back was no longer an option… or even volunteering himself.
Dean is still nursing that grudge against Cas. They were friends. Closer than that, even. Unless he figured Cas wrong, and they were just warm bodies to each other.
It’s not fair. Cas knew everything about Dean, and it’s only now that Dean realizes he doesn’t really know Cas that much and he’s gone. There isn’t anyone he can deliver the news to. No one to tell that hey, your son or brother is gone, but he’s a hero.
But Dean’s a survivor and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to live this gift and enjoy it the best he can. It just can’t be helped that there are times when it hurts too much, thinking of someone who might as well have been his second life as yet another name carved on the wall with a date. There wasn’t even a body to bury, and no dog tag to keep either.
Cas was like a rip in time, in his life, that no one else knew about. No picture or physical proof of his existence other than those the military kept under lock and key. Any friend he had died at the Frontier to save the border. The rest died with him to finish the war.
Dean honestly worries that someday he’ll forget, too. He doesn’t even know the guy’s birthday, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t think of himself as an asshole until all these little things he didn’t know came up, especially while watching Sam with his newly built family.
And it’s goddamned lonely.
He finishes folding the wrapper of his second burger into a perfect square and leaves it on top of some rubble, using some gravel as paperweight. His planned yearly visit escalated to a monthly thing after Sam got married. Every end of the month, he comes here to grump at still being alive. He’s not fatalistic, but life sure is boring. To think he’s bitched about not having the normal boring life the entire time he was at war. Now that he has it, it isn’t as spectacularly heartwarming as the dream.
“I was not…”
Dean’s fist flies and hits flesh, unbelievably enough. His heart almost leaps out of his chest at the voice, and is not about to be calmed too soon.
There he is. In the flesh. Dressed casually in jeans and a shirt, and a trenchcoat that Dean can have endless jokes about on a normal day. He looks healthy, at least, if a bit rumpled. But he always looks rumpled even in dress uniform.
Cas wipes the blood from his lips with the back of his hand as he straightens up. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“You suppose?” Dean can barely hold himself in check. He wants to rip Cas a new hole for all the grief of two and a half long years.
“You always spoke of your plans for when the war is over,” Cas says in that slow and grave manner. “My death should have no effect on any of it.”
Which is true, now that Dean remembers. Cas was never part of those dreams.
“But you’re not dead now, are you?” Because there is still a possibility that Dean has gone crazy. Small, but still possible. When Cas ducks his head, Dean swallows. That small possibility just grew a bit. “Cas?”
“Yes, I am. Castiel Novak is gone.” Cas walks over and let’s a thankfully warm palm rest on Dean’s cheek, but the touch doesn’t linger and Cas lets go. “But I am still a soldier, along with the few who recovered with me in the first year.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The war isn’t over, Dean. It’s just no longer fought at our doorstep.”
When will it be their turn to live? Dean wants to ask, but his mouth says something else, “They let us go. They said we’re done.”
“No, Dean.” And Cas actually smiles, unreadable as always. “Everyone at the Frontier earned enough merits to be discharged honorably.”
Dean grips Cas’ shirt then, not able to control the threatening tone that crawls in his voice, “And you didn’t?”
“There is no place for someone like me in times of peace.”
The way Cas says it reinforces in Dean’s mind that their three and almost four years together as brothers in arms, as friends, even as lovers, have done absolutely nothing to bring down that menacing angel of death who landed at the Frontier to take back what belongs to the alliance. There is no remorse or regret, just simple truth.
As much as Dean wishes it’s something he doesn’t think about himself, wishes really don’t come true. There are things he can say, at least. But it feels like pulling teeth and he can’t.
Instead, he goes for something simpler. “Why are you here?”
“There have been reports of trespassing. Your visits have become too frequent that it’s triggered at least a recon.” Cas nods his head as if he’s done giving a report, “This boundary is still a hot spot. Please go home, Dean. And don’t come back. A wall is already being built from the south, and it’s only a matter of time to barricade this section as well.”
“When will all this end, Cas?”
When will you stop, what he means to ask.
“When you go home,” Cas answers and not unkindly, before turning to walk back to a car parked in the distance just in front of Dean’s own Impala.
He calls out, “Where will you go?”
Cas waves a hand, his answer being carried by the emptiness of open space, “Where I’m needed.”
Epilogue
It takes another two years of Dean resisting to visit the borderline since that encounter before he gets in his car and drives to the end again. True enough to what was said, a thick wall now towers over what was once rubble. Nothing remains of the war that was fought on this ground. This is where the literal end of the road exists.
It stretches from end to end as far as the eyes can see, crossing countries like a long rope. with a gate fortress every hundred miles. Its completion was cause for one of the biggest parties that celebrated the victory of the allied countries.
Nothing will ever cross the border again. Not without alerting the strongest military force known to date.
But some say this line divides the world. Not everyone is happy, of course. But for the most part, those within the wall feel they are safest. This is peace. This is paradise. They have no need to know what’s out there. What else is out there?
Who is out there? Still fighting. Still at war.
Dean leaves after hanging his magnum opus on the outer side of the wall. That was some task, and he had to call in all the favors and strut his veteran status and Frontier hero. They gave him three days before the canvas is to be ripped and burned, and be forgotten.
Three long months pass by before someone rings the doorbell. Dean knows it isn’t Sam, because Sam has a key and his family will always just barge in using that key.
And no one else visits.
He opens the door, heart on his sleeves.
“I’m home,” Cas greets him.
“We usually start with ‘Honey’ where I’m from,” Dean says after he’s done staring, and his eyes hurt from doing so.
Today is the first of many where Cas steps forward knowing well enough that he is welcome. And this time, Dean swears to get to know the man. More than the name, more than the reputation, more than the flesh and blood and bone.
It might take him another couple of years to say what’s been building since the war, and peace and the longing in between. But this time, they both know this is home, which is more than what they’ve started with a long time ago.
Someday, the I love you will not hurt.
finis (for real).
note:(prompt - Saudades, dean/cas; feeling of missing and longing for something, usually something that will never return, so much that it’s almost physically painful) Military AU - this is less drabble and more fic. I got carried away lol
Author: cugami
Rating: PG
Genre and/or Pairing: Military AU, Slash, Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none, unless you count angst
Word Count: 2,535
Summary: Dean is fine where he is, fighting a near endless war at the border. Then he meets one of the devils of the sky, which are ironically called Seraphs - suicidal paratroopers.
The thing with the military, if you’re too good, you get promoted and then reassigned. If you’re too bad, you die or you get reassigned. Nobody stays long enough because people either die or go.
But it doesn’t really take long between soldiers to build the sort of camaraderie you only get to see after decades of civilian friendship. Once you’re out there fighting for your life, and for the life next to you, all it takes is one battle. One battle and a list of names to represent those who lived and died.
So for those who actually lived to see five whole years of the same assignment especially in an active war, it’s considered a miracle.
It takes skill to be good enough to be respected, but bad enough to never be promoted or reassigned. Dean Winchester is fine where he is, and he’s on his sixth year in this same sad border.
“Here.”
Dean catches the wrapped object that Cas threw at him, more from instinct than anything else. He doesn’t even know what it is until he opens the wrapper and sees the first burger he’s seen since d-day. “Thanks, man. You stole this?”
Cas predictably frowns at him before taking a huge bite off his own burger.
Castiel Novak, the lone survivor from Silver Company that landed here to take back and secure the border from three years ago. Paratrooper.
Dean really didn’t think he’d meet one. Paratroopers sounded like the idiot daredevils when he first heard about them. What with jumping off a plane from fuck knows how high and a flimsy cloth to keep a guy off from becoming literal blood and fleshy splatter on the ground. Least to say, the airborne forces are legends. They’re cavalry except they drop from the sky armed to the teeth like living nukes instead of arriving in armored tanks -- aptly named as Seraphs.
Their arrival at the Frontier is seared into Dean’s mind like a permanent movie that plays once in a while, especially in idle moments like these.
The Seraphs came in the dark, the noise of carriers and gunfire masking their movement as they hit the ground. At the same time, sparks of fire and explosives were the only source of light that visibility was ridiculous to a point that it’s hard to tell enemy from brother. And to top it off, there was snow.
The Frontier grunts were slowly but surely being pushed back, and then suddenly these fresh soldiers from the sky dressed in the winter camouflage were moving forward, guns blazing. They just kept going, some walking, some running, some crawling.
More than that, they came from all sides. Enemies fell from ambushes all over the place. Even dead, the Seraphs were a nuisance as they bombed almost a mile wide radius of enemy territory. Friendly fire wasn’t avoidable either. It was a blood bath.
Dean didn’t recognize Cas as friendly at the time and held the man at gunpoint. But Cas, calm despite dripping in the blood of their enemies, just pushed away the gun and pulled Dean up from the ground. “I’m with you,” was the last thing Dean heard before he passed out from the fatigue of endless days in battle, accumulated injuries and blood loss.
The both of them practically inhale the piece of home in quiet contentment. This is why Dean fights. Somewhere behind the border is ordinary life, where a burger is less of a privilege and luxury but something taken for granted. Someday, he’ll be homebound, too. He just has to survive until his tenth year and then he can retire a hero and with pension big enough to start a business. His brother should be done with law school by then, and they’re going to be unstoppable. Well, war has to end first and in Dean’s favor.
Burger’s gone in maybe five minutes, Dean doesn’t count while he daydreamed of life in the city. In the silent aftermath of the most delicious meal Dean’s ever had, he watches Cas fold the wrapper in a perfect square and starts to do the same with Dean’s discarded trash.
“You have something to tell me, Cas?” Because burgers are too good to be given to grunts. It’s second to homemade pie and if Dean sees pie in this damned camp, he might cry.
“I’ve been reassigned. I leave tonight.”
These are the words Dean never wants to hear from Cas. “And they gave you a burger? Where are they sending you? At the Hellgate?”
“Yes.”
Oh, he’s definitely paying attention now. “Are you kidding? You’re not that good of a soldier.”
When Cas doesn’t answer, Dean begins to wonder if mayhe he should’ve just kept his mouth shut. Because Cas really is a good soldier. Too damn good, in fact, that Dean’s tried his hardest to influence the other man into bouts of delinquency.
To keep him grounded right here. Dean knows what happens to good soldiers. They’re sent off and then they die.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Dean.”
“Dude!” Dean grabs the arm, hoping contact will get his point across. “Hellgate is suicide. It’s at the heart of enemy territory. Did you piss someone off to get this assignment? Let me guess. You volunteered.”
Because that’s just like Cas, ever since the promotion. Dean takes a fistful of the uniform and shakes the body in it, knowing what to expect but hoping for something different, “Who’s commanding this fucked up assault?”
Dean should’ve seen it coming, but still, he’s surprised when Cas shoves him hard enough to actually send him to the ground.
“Me.”
Of course. There’s no way in that fortress of a domain but from above, and who else will offer that strategy on the table?
It happens on a Tuesday evening when five carriers take off from the Frontier border, and a new legend is born.
On the first year anniversary of the end of the war, Dean drives all the way to the ruins of the Frontier border and cooks a burger there. He eats it alone.
-0-
Wars Fought on Different Fronts
It’s been a couple and a half years since the end of war and some people have already forgotten. It’s nice that people can move on, and that the capital and several important cities weren’t affected at all. The war at the borders and the ruins of nearby towns are all just good stories of adventure and heroism for the cityfolk.
No one came back from that final assault. It really was a suicide mission, from what he heard. There was no extraction plan at all and it's the kind of shit mission that was blacked out in reports, with information on a need-to-know basis.
A hundred soldiers, all of them volunteers. All of them crazy enough and loyal enough to Cas or to the alliance.
What’s strange is how Dean never got wind of it. He was a grunt, but he wasn’t that low in the pecking order. That kind of strategy and logistics did not happen overnight. So Cas only told him at the last minute, when turning back was no longer an option… or even volunteering himself.
Dean is still nursing that grudge against Cas. They were friends. Closer than that, even. Unless he figured Cas wrong, and they were just warm bodies to each other.
It’s not fair. Cas knew everything about Dean, and it’s only now that Dean realizes he doesn’t really know Cas that much and he’s gone. There isn’t anyone he can deliver the news to. No one to tell that hey, your son or brother is gone, but he’s a hero.
But Dean’s a survivor and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to live this gift and enjoy it the best he can. It just can’t be helped that there are times when it hurts too much, thinking of someone who might as well have been his second life as yet another name carved on the wall with a date. There wasn’t even a body to bury, and no dog tag to keep either.
Cas was like a rip in time, in his life, that no one else knew about. No picture or physical proof of his existence other than those the military kept under lock and key. Any friend he had died at the Frontier to save the border. The rest died with him to finish the war.
Dean honestly worries that someday he’ll forget, too. He doesn’t even know the guy’s birthday, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t think of himself as an asshole until all these little things he didn’t know came up, especially while watching Sam with his newly built family.
And it’s goddamned lonely.
He finishes folding the wrapper of his second burger into a perfect square and leaves it on top of some rubble, using some gravel as paperweight. His planned yearly visit escalated to a monthly thing after Sam got married. Every end of the month, he comes here to grump at still being alive. He’s not fatalistic, but life sure is boring. To think he’s bitched about not having the normal boring life the entire time he was at war. Now that he has it, it isn’t as spectacularly heartwarming as the dream.
“I was not…”
Dean’s fist flies and hits flesh, unbelievably enough. His heart almost leaps out of his chest at the voice, and is not about to be calmed too soon.
There he is. In the flesh. Dressed casually in jeans and a shirt, and a trenchcoat that Dean can have endless jokes about on a normal day. He looks healthy, at least, if a bit rumpled. But he always looks rumpled even in dress uniform.
Cas wipes the blood from his lips with the back of his hand as he straightens up. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“You suppose?” Dean can barely hold himself in check. He wants to rip Cas a new hole for all the grief of two and a half long years.
“You always spoke of your plans for when the war is over,” Cas says in that slow and grave manner. “My death should have no effect on any of it.”
Which is true, now that Dean remembers. Cas was never part of those dreams.
“But you’re not dead now, are you?” Because there is still a possibility that Dean has gone crazy. Small, but still possible. When Cas ducks his head, Dean swallows. That small possibility just grew a bit. “Cas?”
“Yes, I am. Castiel Novak is gone.” Cas walks over and let’s a thankfully warm palm rest on Dean’s cheek, but the touch doesn’t linger and Cas lets go. “But I am still a soldier, along with the few who recovered with me in the first year.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The war isn’t over, Dean. It’s just no longer fought at our doorstep.”
When will it be their turn to live? Dean wants to ask, but his mouth says something else, “They let us go. They said we’re done.”
“No, Dean.” And Cas actually smiles, unreadable as always. “Everyone at the Frontier earned enough merits to be discharged honorably.”
Dean grips Cas’ shirt then, not able to control the threatening tone that crawls in his voice, “And you didn’t?”
“There is no place for someone like me in times of peace.”
The way Cas says it reinforces in Dean’s mind that their three and almost four years together as brothers in arms, as friends, even as lovers, have done absolutely nothing to bring down that menacing angel of death who landed at the Frontier to take back what belongs to the alliance. There is no remorse or regret, just simple truth.
As much as Dean wishes it’s something he doesn’t think about himself, wishes really don’t come true. There are things he can say, at least. But it feels like pulling teeth and he can’t.
Instead, he goes for something simpler. “Why are you here?”
“There have been reports of trespassing. Your visits have become too frequent that it’s triggered at least a recon.” Cas nods his head as if he’s done giving a report, “This boundary is still a hot spot. Please go home, Dean. And don’t come back. A wall is already being built from the south, and it’s only a matter of time to barricade this section as well.”
“When will all this end, Cas?”
When will you stop, what he means to ask.
“When you go home,” Cas answers and not unkindly, before turning to walk back to a car parked in the distance just in front of Dean’s own Impala.
He calls out, “Where will you go?”
Cas waves a hand, his answer being carried by the emptiness of open space, “Where I’m needed.”
Epilogue
It takes another two years of Dean resisting to visit the borderline since that encounter before he gets in his car and drives to the end again. True enough to what was said, a thick wall now towers over what was once rubble. Nothing remains of the war that was fought on this ground. This is where the literal end of the road exists.
It stretches from end to end as far as the eyes can see, crossing countries like a long rope. with a gate fortress every hundred miles. Its completion was cause for one of the biggest parties that celebrated the victory of the allied countries.
Nothing will ever cross the border again. Not without alerting the strongest military force known to date.
But some say this line divides the world. Not everyone is happy, of course. But for the most part, those within the wall feel they are safest. This is peace. This is paradise. They have no need to know what’s out there. What else is out there?
Who is out there? Still fighting. Still at war.
Dean leaves after hanging his magnum opus on the outer side of the wall. That was some task, and he had to call in all the favors and strut his veteran status and Frontier hero. They gave him three days before the canvas is to be ripped and burned, and be forgotten.
Three long months pass by before someone rings the doorbell. Dean knows it isn’t Sam, because Sam has a key and his family will always just barge in using that key.
And no one else visits.
He opens the door, heart on his sleeves.
“I’m home,” Cas greets him.
“We usually start with ‘Honey’ where I’m from,” Dean says after he’s done staring, and his eyes hurt from doing so.
Today is the first of many where Cas steps forward knowing well enough that he is welcome. And this time, Dean swears to get to know the man. More than the name, more than the reputation, more than the flesh and blood and bone.
It might take him another couple of years to say what’s been building since the war, and peace and the longing in between. But this time, they both know this is home, which is more than what they’ve started with a long time ago.
Someday, the I love you will not hurt.
finis (for real).
note:(prompt - Saudades, dean/cas; feeling of missing and longing for something, usually something that will never return, so much that it’s almost physically painful) Military AU - this is less drabble and more fic. I got carried away lol