fic: when air was less solid than the soul (1/6) [dean/castiel, supernatural]
Title: when air was less solid than the soul, prologue | 2014
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: G (eventually R)
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything, this is a work of fiction.
Warnings: character death (sort of), mentions of drug abuse; spoilers for Supernatural season 4, 5 and 6 (this chapter: 5x04)
Beta: Thanks and credit goes to flwrpwr_vampyre for beta'ing!
Summary: Alongside the well-known story of two brothers, there’s another tale to be told in the midst of Heaven and Hell, the apocalypse and the Mother walking the earth. Chuck - ever the little bitch - just decided to leave it out. (Or in other words: how a man and an angel fell in something a lot like love and hit rock-bottom.)
A/N: This is my first Dean/Castiel fic and I have to say, I’m really glad to finally crawl out off the lurking zone. The plot bunny was born after following several discussions in the comments on the SpoilerTV poll for most romantic couple, more precisely the ones going like: “If Castiel were a woman, would we even be having this discussion?”. You know which ones I mean. So in later chapters I’m playing around with vessels a little to make Dean-o see the light (but no worries, it’s not always-a-female-Cas or something).
when air was less solid than the soul
prologue | 2014
They’ve been driving for at least half an hour when he casually hands him the note. It’s folded twice and if Dean were to open it, he wouldn’t find anything. But then again, it’s only meant for the eyes of an angel.
‘Give this to your Castiel when you get, you know, back from the future.’ He smiles lazily, sober enough to feel proud at the reference. With this Dean around he easily falls into old habits.
‘Dude, it’s “back to the future”, but nice try.’ Dean says it with humor in his voice, though his face doesn’t change. With the older version - the one he knows best - it’s the other way around most of the time; all false expression without feeling.
‘What does it say?’
Castiel has to think at that. Yeah, what does it say - what does he hope to accomplish? Fix things, probably, see if there ever was another way for it all to turn out. Because in this case, maybe nothing will still be better than what he achieved to get with his choices. It’s a gamble however, for if Dean can stop the apocalypse, things might turn out differently already.
Nonetheless, he decides that a warning won’t hurt.
‘Our fearless leader gave you some advice,’ he answers eventually, ‘I thought I’d give my serious-trench-coated-past-self some too.’
Dean glances at him, his eyes laced with unease. ‘You made some big ass mistakes then?’
He giggles at that, ignoring the frown it earns him - giggling is just another effect of being stoned all the damn time. As he looks out through the windshield, scanning the darkness at the side of the road, he thinks of his big ass mistakes.
‘Yeah, you could say that,’ he speaks softly, sniggering to himself again. There’s nothing funny about it, but when you pass a certain point and mess up that badly, you’re allowed to laugh. He adds, like an afterthought: ‘And some of them, I believe, you were already there to witness.’ At those words, the conversation ends and they drive in silence -
through a soundless world, right towards the end of it, where hours later, his own Dean looks at him and asks (after a heartbeat of hesitation) if he’d like to stay behind to watch over his unconscious doppelganger. It takes him by surprise, an emotion he hasn’t felt in a while. Maybe it’s not all that broken after all then. But the fact remains that some things are and that in his gut he knows the Colt won’t kill the Devil. So it’s not like it matters anymore and he shakes his head, smiles in a way that for once means more than simply “Jesus fuck I’m wasted” and follows the others. He goes in last when they enter the building and watches more than participates in the fight. When his friends are one after the other dragged down by croats and demons, he shoots them through the head - mere instants before they get possessed or bitten or ripped to pieces. They’re bait. They don’t have to suffer for it. The Host taught him determination, fortitude. Humanity taught him mercy.
How he can make them blend together perfectly now.
When they’re both down, he puts the gun against his own head, with an unconsciously whispered prayer to a god that stopped listening a long time ago. Just then he’s jumped by a female croat - a woman once, who lived and loved, face wrinkled by the sway of sun and laughter. And when he looks through her now rabid eyes, the last scrap of angel inside him clings onto the indistinctly flashing by of dead-and-buried memories
of tea parties and little children reaching for the sky on brightly red painted swings, of kneeling in the dirt while tending to a vegetable garden, of an evening walk along a foreign beach, barefooted, the sun near to the edge of the world and blurring out into the ocean, of watching a little boy trying to catch a butterfly and an old, scruffy dog resting in the shade of an oak tree -
memories of a lifetime before the world changed and Castiel smiles. He never gets to know whether he succeeded in pulling the trigger in time or not.
---
That’s one way it ends, but there are many. I know, because all the twists and turns of their decisions and the change of future they bring along, give me headaches that are a bitch to endure. Hence, believe me when I say this: the existence of free will really sucks ass when you’re a prophet. That, and, you can only have so many alternative endings before it gets ridiculous. So let’s not bother with them for a moment. Instead, let’s focus on how it started and go back to the beginning of a certain storyline I decided to leave out of the Winchester gospels.
( next part: one | the first steps (through deserts unwritten) )
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: G (eventually R)
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything, this is a work of fiction.
Warnings: character death (sort of), mentions of drug abuse; spoilers for Supernatural season 4, 5 and 6 (this chapter: 5x04)
Beta: Thanks and credit goes to flwrpwr_vampyre for beta'ing!
Summary: Alongside the well-known story of two brothers, there’s another tale to be told in the midst of Heaven and Hell, the apocalypse and the Mother walking the earth. Chuck - ever the little bitch - just decided to leave it out. (Or in other words: how a man and an angel fell in something a lot like love and hit rock-bottom.)
A/N: This is my first Dean/Castiel fic and I have to say, I’m really glad to finally crawl out off the lurking zone. The plot bunny was born after following several discussions in the comments on the SpoilerTV poll for most romantic couple, more precisely the ones going like: “If Castiel were a woman, would we even be having this discussion?”. You know which ones I mean. So in later chapters I’m playing around with vessels a little to make Dean-o see the light (but no worries, it’s not always-a-female-Cas or something).
when air was less solid than the soul
prologue | 2014
They’ve been driving for at least half an hour when he casually hands him the note. It’s folded twice and if Dean were to open it, he wouldn’t find anything. But then again, it’s only meant for the eyes of an angel.
‘Give this to your Castiel when you get, you know, back from the future.’ He smiles lazily, sober enough to feel proud at the reference. With this Dean around he easily falls into old habits.
‘Dude, it’s “back to the future”, but nice try.’ Dean says it with humor in his voice, though his face doesn’t change. With the older version - the one he knows best - it’s the other way around most of the time; all false expression without feeling.
‘What does it say?’
Castiel has to think at that. Yeah, what does it say - what does he hope to accomplish? Fix things, probably, see if there ever was another way for it all to turn out. Because in this case, maybe nothing will still be better than what he achieved to get with his choices. It’s a gamble however, for if Dean can stop the apocalypse, things might turn out differently already.
Nonetheless, he decides that a warning won’t hurt.
‘Our fearless leader gave you some advice,’ he answers eventually, ‘I thought I’d give my serious-trench-coated-past-self some too.’
Dean glances at him, his eyes laced with unease. ‘You made some big ass mistakes then?’
He giggles at that, ignoring the frown it earns him - giggling is just another effect of being stoned all the damn time. As he looks out through the windshield, scanning the darkness at the side of the road, he thinks of his big ass mistakes.
‘Yeah, you could say that,’ he speaks softly, sniggering to himself again. There’s nothing funny about it, but when you pass a certain point and mess up that badly, you’re allowed to laugh. He adds, like an afterthought: ‘And some of them, I believe, you were already there to witness.’ At those words, the conversation ends and they drive in silence -
through a soundless world, right towards the end of it, where hours later, his own Dean looks at him and asks (after a heartbeat of hesitation) if he’d like to stay behind to watch over his unconscious doppelganger. It takes him by surprise, an emotion he hasn’t felt in a while. Maybe it’s not all that broken after all then. But the fact remains that some things are and that in his gut he knows the Colt won’t kill the Devil. So it’s not like it matters anymore and he shakes his head, smiles in a way that for once means more than simply “Jesus fuck I’m wasted” and follows the others. He goes in last when they enter the building and watches more than participates in the fight. When his friends are one after the other dragged down by croats and demons, he shoots them through the head - mere instants before they get possessed or bitten or ripped to pieces. They’re bait. They don’t have to suffer for it. The Host taught him determination, fortitude. Humanity taught him mercy.
How he can make them blend together perfectly now.
When they’re both down, he puts the gun against his own head, with an unconsciously whispered prayer to a god that stopped listening a long time ago. Just then he’s jumped by a female croat - a woman once, who lived and loved, face wrinkled by the sway of sun and laughter. And when he looks through her now rabid eyes, the last scrap of angel inside him clings onto the indistinctly flashing by of dead-and-buried memories
of tea parties and little children reaching for the sky on brightly red painted swings, of kneeling in the dirt while tending to a vegetable garden, of an evening walk along a foreign beach, barefooted, the sun near to the edge of the world and blurring out into the ocean, of watching a little boy trying to catch a butterfly and an old, scruffy dog resting in the shade of an oak tree -
memories of a lifetime before the world changed and Castiel smiles. He never gets to know whether he succeeded in pulling the trigger in time or not.
---
That’s one way it ends, but there are many. I know, because all the twists and turns of their decisions and the change of future they bring along, give me headaches that are a bitch to endure. Hence, believe me when I say this: the existence of free will really sucks ass when you’re a prophet. That, and, you can only have so many alternative endings before it gets ridiculous. So let’s not bother with them for a moment. Instead, let’s focus on how it started and go back to the beginning of a certain storyline I decided to leave out of the Winchester gospels.
( next part: one | the first steps (through deserts unwritten) )