"Oceanic" - Part II: Normal

[tacotheshark]

Oceanic - Part II: Normal



Balthazar is still breathless, still in a bit of a trance, as he steps into the house with Castiel behind him and Castiel’s bags in his hands, as he’d offered. He still can’t believe he and Castiel will be living together, like a real couple, like two real fugitives who are finally safe from the law and together. Together, is all that matters.

Especially now, when everyone is gone and Balthazar has nothing, but Castiel.

It hurts, when he things about it, hits him hard in the chest and he suddenly wants to just cave in and collapse, but then he watches as Castiel looks around the house with wide, blue eyes filled with wonder and emotion, and a small grin cracks on Castiel’s face before he shakes his head and it disappears.

Balthazar decides then that maybe this could all be okay. It could even be good.

“Should I unpack, or… or something?” Castiel’s gruff voice doesn’t come as a shock through the silence that has settled, but quiet itself, it is soothing, nervous itself but calming.

Balthazar nods; when he opens his mouth, it takes a moment for words to come out. “Yeah. Yeah, do that.”

There is silence, again. Balthazar waits for Castiel to tell him where to put the bags, and Castiel’s eye flit about the inside of the house and linger on a specific door.

And Balthazar sees, then, that there may be a bit of a problem. He gulps, before he states the obvious. “There’s… there’s only one bedroom.” Only one bed.

“Well, I, um…” Castiel coughs, swaying on his feet and pushing his bangs back from his face. “I guess we’ll just have to share.” He smirks, and Balthazar’s heart is lightened, suddenly, no longer a hot, dead weight in his chest.

Everything’s going to be good. Great, even.

He chuckles and follows Castiel into the bedroom-into their bedroom-where he leans against the doorframe and watches as Castiel packs the few things he brought into the dresser drawers.

Their few things are in their places, clothes in the dresser, saxophone sitting on top of that same dresser, and Castiel stands awkwardly, not sure what to do next with himself. So, Balthazar suggests, “Should we try and meet the neighbors?”

Castiel nods, sighing. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I saw a diner nearby.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Let’s go.”

When Castiel passes back through the bedroom’s doorway, Balthazar claps him gently on the shoulder. “Act natural, he says, and it’s only half a joke.

Castiel chuckles, a low rumble thick from his chest, too full and all too genuine for Balthazar to find it anything but a bit unsettling in this particular case. “What’s natural?”

“I really don’t know.”

“I think I used to.”

The walk to the diner is short, not more than twenty yards, just down the road.

The diner itself is small, with only four tables inside, two booths against the wall and two regular tables, all with bright red seats that would have been old-fashioned if the diner was built and decorated a hundred or two years ago.

Yet, it’s a bit…. nice, Balthazar decides. It’s a bit… groovy, and he grins to himself when the word comes to mind as he and Castiel step through the glass double doors that are surprisingly not automatic. He holds the door for Castiel-he hasn’t done that in a while, not for anyone. When he thinks of it, he realizes that, to the best of his memory, the only time he’s held the door for someone in years was when he first invited Castiel into his house, to which he does a mental double take when he realizes that that was only a few days earlier.

Well, time flies, he decides, even when you’re not on a plane but on a train, even if you’re not soaring but sinking into an ocean that you can probably never swim out of. Which is unsettling, even when you may not want to get out at a given moment.

Behind the counter sits a girl, pretty, young, cheerful. She’s blonde, like Meg. Gorgeous lips, like Meg, when she smiles and waves at her newest customers. He hair is longer and a bit darker, and her lips fuller, but Balthazar refuses to dismiss the familiarity so easily. Familiarity is good, calming. He’s never had much of that, apart from the old café. The old café. It’s only been days. “Hey,” greets the girl, showing her teeth in a natural grin, leaning over the counter with thin fingers pressed against its metal top. “What brings you two to town?”

“Long story,” Balthazar tells her, grinning even though it isn’t amusing at all. “Hello. I’m Balthazar, this is Castiel. We’re new, just moved in down the road.”

Castiel, standing by Balthazar’s side, smiles.

“Fair enough,” the girl grins, sticking a hand out in front of her and shifting her weight onto the other. “I’m Jo.”

Balthazar shakes Jo’s hand, and then Castiel. She has a firm handshake-must be something she does often. Friendly, then, if it wasn’t clear already. She’s strong, Balthazar could like that.

“So, you two married?” Jo asks, still cheery, sitting back into her chair. “Or what?”

“No, erm.” Balthazar racks his mind, searching for a word. He realizes then that he doesn’t even know for what sort of word he is searching. What even are they? “Together,” he says, bracing himself for a reaction from Castiel, not sure what that reaction might be.

“Partners,” Castiel says, correcting, sounding so sure in the notion, and Balthazar is surprised and more than a bit pleased.

Partners, then. Balthazar never pictured himself in a steady relationship, as he’d gotten bored of them fairly easily after high school. He isn’t quite sure how he feels about the fact that the first person in years he’s been with for more than one night has him running away from the law and seeking refuge in Canada.

Partners, all the same, and it’s exciting and a bit scary, but it makes so much sense.

“Why don’t you come back later, meet my parents?” Jo suggests, leaning forward, elbows on the countertop. “You’ll love ‘em. They’re great.”

“That would be lovely,” Balthazar says, finding with surprise that he means it. “Around what time, do you think?

As they have time and not much else to do, Castiel and Balthazar decide that it might be best to go shopping; “Might as well get some food or something,” Balthazar says, and Castiel agrees.

They take a taxi to the nearest city and ask around for the nearest grocery store, and then department store, and soon they have enough groceries and kitchenware to pass as normal people. Ah, normality. They buy cell phones as well, the cheapest ones they can find.

Back at the diner, Balthazar holds the door open once more for Castiel and finds that he rather likes it. Inside, they find Jo sitting across a booth table from two older people who must be her parents.

“Hey!” Jo waves them over, gesturing to the empty seat next to her.

Castiel slides into the booth next to Jo, and Balthazar follows. The seat isn’t very big; Balthazar can either be pressed stark against Castiel or fall off the seat.

“Tight fit,” Jo points out with a sympathetic grin. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Balthazar replies, with a grin as well, fumbling under the tabletop for Castiel’s hand which Castiel gives him easily with a small grin of his own.

“Well, Mom, Dad,” Jo chirps,” This is Balthazar, Castiel.”

“Hey boys,” says Jo’s mother, “I’m Ellen.”

“And I’m Bobby,” states her father, who wears a trucker cap and flannel as well as a beard.

A conversation is fallen into easily, and Balthazar finds with more surprise that he quite enjoys his new neighbors. Not that he hadn’t expected to-he hadn’t given it much thought.

He finds then that Bobby is not Jo’s biological father, he had died when Jo was young. “I didn’t really know him, so I don’t know much to miss,” she says with a small shrug. “Bobby’s great though. Best dad you could have, and I’ll swear by that.”

Bobby chuckles, “Well, I try,” and Balthazar laughs as well because he cant help but smile.

“Cas?” Balthazar sits on the living room couch, while Castiel fixes a glass of water in the kitchen behind him.

“Hmm?”

“Do you remember Meg?” Castiel, concerned and listening, makes his way to the couch to sit himself gingerly down next to Balthazar. “I may be starting to miss her a little.”

Castiel sips his drink slowly. “The girl from the café?”

Balthazar nods.

“She was nice,” Castiel remarks.

“Yeah, she was.”

Setting his glass on the coffee table with a quiet clink, Castiel shifts to better face Balthazar, staring up at him with big, concerned eyes. “You want to talk about it?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Balthazar sighs, drumming his fingers anxiously against his knees. “I just feel a bit like I never appreciated her. Never even told her I was leaving.”

“You were friends, then?”

Balthazar has almost forgotten how little he and Castiel truly know about each other’s lives-it isn’t at all a pleasant realization. “No. We weren’t really. We should have been, though. I did like her.”

“Oh,” is all Castiel says, and Balthazar wonders for a moment if he’s done something wrong. He wrings his fingers in silence, until Castiel speaks again. “Do you wish that… that you hadn’t left?” Castiel asks the question like a child would, soft and hurt, scared of what a parent might reply.

It almost shocks Balthazar, how easy is it to come up with his answer. “No. Of course not,” he says, and Castiel only stares, waiting for him to continue. “If I hadn’t come, I would’ve regretted it all my life.” He sighs, slinging an arm around Castiel’s shoulders, where Castiel relaxes beneath him.

“Do you miss anything else?” Castiel asks.

And Balthazar hates to admit it even to himself, but to Castiel he could never be able to lie. “I miss a lot, honestly. I miss my house, I miss my friends. Pretty much everything but my job. I never really liked it, anything, but I really can’t help but be a bit nostalgic.” Castiel leans into his shoulder. “How about you, Cas?”

Castiel takes a moment to think, shifting against Balthazar to make himself more comfortable. Balthazar hears each breath of Castiel’s and feels each rise and fall of Castiel’s chest, hugging the smaller man against him when he finally says, “No. I don’t. I didn’t have much to miss.”

Balthazar blinks, unsure of whether this is a good or a bad thing. He settles on saying, “I’m glad.” Castiel sighs.

“I’m sorry I took you away from all these… these things,” Castiel says, then, quiet again, and he almost sounds like a child in the face of punishment, even with his gruff voice and deep, troubled eyes.

“Trust me, Cassie, I’d much rather be here with you.”

Castiel flinches at the nickname, but the message is all the same.

At night there is no fluorescent glow of streetlights that, anywhere else, would line the road on either side, no incessant honking and rumbling of cars that always seem to have a place to go and never the time to stop or slow.

Balthazar has never spent the night in quiet like this, in darkness and calmness like this. Never without the soft hum of a TV or the constant reminders that there is a world outside, just across a wall or outside a door.

But now, there could be a world outside, there could be people on the earth other than Balthazar and Castiel, but neither would have any idea as they lie in bed together, both stiff as boards and both feeling tremendously awkward, neither saying a single word but both hyperaware of the other’s presence just across the mattress.

“Castiel,” Balthazar says, his voice sprouting like a plant from the quiet that is a nourishing soil, which feeds plants that are thoughts and others like the one that’s just grown. “You introduced us as partners. Earlier today. At the diner.”

He hadn’t been sure if Castiel was awake, but he sees now that Castiel, like him, had been lying with his eyes wide open and his thoughts on the run for an hour or so. “I did. I… I’m sorry. I just thought-“

“No.” Castiel stops talking abruptly when Balthazar interrupts him. “No, that’s. Good. We’re… we’re good.”

“Alright. Good.” For a moment, neither man says a thing.

And then, Balthazar feels the bed dip beneath him, where Castiel is leaning on his elbow, and then learning hesitantly over Balthazar’s face. When he leans down, Balthazar leans up, and their lips are locked for just a moment before Castiel lies back down and says only, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Cas.”

Balthazar wakes the next morning to find the bed dipping further on his side than it had during the night, and when he turns his head, he sees nothing but white sheets and pillows. He’s alone; no matter. He rises, stretching his arms above his head, and makes his way into the kitchen.

Castiel sits at the kitchen table, still in his t-shirt and sweatpants, with a half-eaten waffle on his plate that came from a much bigger plate of waffles that sits in the center of the table. He grins, waving with the hand that isn’t holding his fork. “Hey,” he says, mouth full and smiling. “Made breakfast.”

“You are fantastic,” Balthazar grins, pulling up a chair and fixing his own plate. “When did you wake up?”

Castiel shrugs. “Not long ago. Ten, fifteen minutes.”

“Well, thanks for not waking me up. Need sleep after all this.”

“I was going to, actually. When I decided to cook. But I couldn’t, you know? Glad I didn’t, then.”

Balthazar nods, mumbling a “mm-hmm” around a mouthful of waffle. He swallows. “If we’re gonna try to live here, you know, normally, you think one of us should get a job?”

“Yeah, I could. I saw a bookstore in town yesterday. Help wanted. So, I’m thinking of applying there.”

“Oh, alright. That’s great.”

“Yeah. I liked the old bookstore.”

It is just about noon when the doorbell rings, and Castiel hurries to answer it. He is greeted by a couple, twenty or so years older than himself-a man and a woman, and the woman holds a casserole in oven-mitted hands. Castiel says, “Hello,” and Balthazar, on the couch, tries to peek around him to see who’s at the door.

“Hi, I’m Mary,” says the woman, with long, blonde hair and a friendly smile. “And this is John, my husband. Made you a casserole,” she grins, and shrugs.

“Oh, um, hello Thank you,” Castiel stutters, a bit stunned; Balthazar wonders if Castiel socialized much at home, and makes a mental note to find out. He sighs-still so much to learn. “Would you like to come in?”

“That would be great,” says Mary, and so they do, with Castiel closing the door behind them and hovering uncomfortably as Mary goes o put the casserole on the kitchen table.

When everyone is introduced and four plates are made, John and Mary sit in kitchen chairs and Balthazar and Castiel on the living room couch, all around the coffee table, on which the casserole in its pan now sits.

“Bobby and Ellen told us about you guys,” John says, mouth half full and fork in half. “Thought we might as well come over.”

“Well, we’re glad you did,” Balthazar grins, “it’s always great to meet the neighbors.”

“We asked our sons to come with us,” Mary remarks with a sigh,” but they don’t seem to be coming. Nothing against you, of course-it’s just, they tend to keep to themselves and well, to each other, nowadays.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Balthazar says, “I’m sure we’ll all become acquainted in due time.”

And he is right, for the doorbell soon rings again. Standing in the doorway are two young men, one very tall and the other somewhat not, standing too close to each other to be anything but brothers, if it wasn’t already clear that they were John and Mary’s sons. “Hey, I’m Sam,” says the taller of the brothers-he looks just like his mother, Balthazar thinks.

“And I’m Dean,” says the other. Balthazar invites them in, where they find seats at the kitchen table. “Sorry we’re late.”

“Glad you could come,” Mary smiles.

“Can I get you drinks or something?” Castiel asks, hovering about the kitchen.

Sam gets up, saying, “Yeah, let me help.” Before coming around the side of the table and into the rest of the kitchen, he leans down and presses a quick kiss to Dean’s cheek. Castiel says nothing, but Balthazar, somewhat stunned, has to ask-

“Wait-are you… together?” He hopes he doesn’t sound too intrusive.

Dean sighs, rubbing a hand over his face before letting it fall to the table with a thump. Balthazar cringes. “Look-if you have a problem with it, we’ll get out of your house, but beyond that, we really couldn’t give a shit.”

“No! No, it’s fine, I have no problem at all. It’s just… you don’t see that often.”

“More often than you used to,” Sam remarks, sliding back into his seat next to Dean with drinks for the two of them. “Anyway-why move out here? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Balthazar shrugs, figuring he might as well give some sort of an explanation, however false. “Money issues.”

“People issues,” Castiel cuts in.

“I hear ya,” says Dean, tipping his glass.

Seating on their living room couch, with his arm around Castiel’s shoulders and Castiel, exhausted, leaning against him, Balthazar asks as the night draws on and Castiel becomes heavier with sleep, “Cassie, can I see your scar?”

“You’ve seen it,” Castiel mutters, shifting so that Balthazar’s arm covers more of him, like it is a knight’s shield and he is a prince in need of protection.

“I haven’t taken time to properly look at it,” Balthazar mumbles, leaning down so that his lips move against Castiel’s cheekbone as he speaks.

Castiel sighs, shaking his head. “But why?”

“Because,” Balthazar tells him, “you’re lovely, and I bet it’s lovely. And I want to see it, and I want to see you.” He presses his lips to Castiel’s, then, gently, holding Castiel’s head in place with a hand tangled in his messy hair.

“But it’s not.” Balthazar takes Castiel’s hands in his own. “It’s hideous. You’ve seen it, it’s just a big ugly scar.”

“You’re wrong.” Balthazar kisses Castiel again, more passionately, prying Castiel’s lips apart with his own, and though he is caught by surprise Castiel scrambles to reciprocate. “You know I love you, don’t you?” Everything about you, even the scar. So, what do you say?”

Castiel sighs, again, but he mumbles, “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine. Okay.”

Balthazar pulls Castiel into a hug, pressing soft kisses against his neck. “Thank you Cassie,” he mutters, “come to bed, then?”

Castiel gets up and walks with his shoulders slumped, clearly nervous, and Balthazar wants simply to make Castiel feel better. “Relax,” he says, as Castiel sits on the beg and begins to toy with the top button of his shirt. “It’s just me.”

“Yeah,” Castiel gulps, popping the first button but only that. “Sorry.”

Balthazar sits and takes Castiel’s lips once again. “Lie back,” he says, and Castiel does, sighing when his head hits the pillow with more force than he’s expected as he falls back onto it. Balthazar takes Castiel’s buttons into his own hands, slipping each one open easily and feeling Castiel’s chest rise, fall, and stutter with each of his nervous breaths. After popping the last button, he runs his fingers over Castiel’s pale chest and stomach, lingering when his fingertips brush against the raised tissue of Castiel’s scar. “You okay?” Balthazar mumbles against Castiel’s lips, and Castiel nods

Slowly, Balthazar lowers his mouth to Castiel’s neck, kissing where it meets his shoulder before grazing his lips across Castiel’s collarbone. “Still okay?” Castiel nods again, breathing heavy and loud, but he flinches, then, when Balthazar splays a hand across his stomach, trapping the scar under his palm.

He trails kisses down Castiel’s chest, feeling the skin arch and quiver under his lips. When he reaches it, he presses his mouth to the edge of Castiel’s scar-it tasted like blood, but he doesn’t mind, all he minds is that Castiel gasps the instant it’s touched, arms twitching at his sides and clearly fighting the instinct to wrap them protectively over his stomach and back away. “Cas,” Balthazar sighs, keeping his lips on the scar as he speaks while looking up to meet Castiel’s eyes. “Don’t be scared. You don’t have to be, If you can trust anyone, it’s me-you know that, don’t you?”

Castiel exhales, trying to find control of his voice when he’s obviously shaken beyond belief. His fingers twist in the sheets and his chest tightens with his inhale. “Of-of course.”

“I know everything right now is pretty terrifying,” Balthazar goes on, “and I’m scared too, believe me. But if there’s ever a time you should feel safe, it’s got to be right now, here, with me.”

Castiel relaxes-not much, but enough, and he no longer cringes or holds his breath at Balthazar’s touch. Still, his breaths are loud and they shake his entire skinny body, which Balthazar feels tremble under his lips and he loves it-to feel the blood rush under Castiel’s skin and color his face, to know that none of it would be possible if Castiel hadn’t run away with him. Because Castiel lives because of Balthazar, breathes because of Balthazar, and Balthazar is starting to feel a bit fortunate.

His lips move to Castiel’s hipbones and his hands to Castiel’s waist, before he slips the button of Castiel’s trousers and soon Castiel’s small gasps around because of pain or nervousness anymore.

Sometime during the night, as a mess of words and nothings spills from Balthazar’s lips as Castiel moves under him, he gasps, “Baby, you are beautiful,” and he kisses away the tears that sprout from Castiel’s eyes and the humble grin that spreads across Castiel’s lips.

Castiel jumps when someone suddenly slides into the diner booth next to him, turning immediately and furrowing his brow. “Hello?”

“Hey! I’m Gabriel. You must be Castiel. And you,” says the stranger, smirking when his eyes land on Balthazar, who sits across the table, “are Balthazar, yes?”

“Yes, hello,” Balthazar says, amused, interested. “Guess we’re the talk of the town now, huh? It’s a shame-we’re really not very interesting.” From across the table, Castiel smirks, shaking his head with a small sigh.

“Well once I get to know you I’m sure I’ll beg to differ. “So, Castiel-” Castiel looks up at the mention of his name. “-can I call you Cas?”

“No.”

Gabriel laughs. “Cassie?”

“Castiel.”

“Well someone’s pushy. Anyway, I live across the street from you two. You know what-” Gabriel’s fingers are locked, elbows on the table as he leans forward and suggests, “-how ‘bout I take you two out to a restaurant in town, so we can really get to know each other. My treat.”

“Well, that sounds lovely,” Balthazar grins, easily, “Castiel?”

“Alright. Great.”

It’s huge, absolutely, even by Balthazar’s standards of someone who’s been around so much more than a small town like the one that he now calls his own, and if Castiel’s perpetually astonished eyes are anything to go by, Balthazar thinks, he’s very well agreed with.

After the most filling meal Balthazar has ever had, a great deal of conversation, and Castiel being jokingly called a “spoilsport” on more than one occasion by the man across the table, the bill is brought by a very tall man in a very trim tuxedo, and only for a second is Balthazar able to sneak a peek at the number with genuine curiosity before Gabriel takes it and slips his credit card from his wallet-“Your treat, you said, and I know, but… are you sure? That really isn’t fair.”

With a small chuckle, Gabriel glances at Balthazar then back to where he scribbles a sloppy signature on the receipt. “I can take care of it.”

“Are… are you sure?”

“Relax,” Gabriel says as he shuts the small, black bill holder. “I have money.”

“…Oh. Well, then. If you don’t mind me asking, and feel free not to answer if you do, what are you doing here, of all places?”

Gabriel shrugs, gives a small, crooked grin. “Grew up here. I’m sentimental, I guess.” He pauses, picks up his fork again, slips another bite between his lips and doesn’t bother to swallow before going on, “You know, fun fact: you two moved into the house my parents used to live in. Before they died.”

Castiel speaks up then, hesitant as he tends to be, “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry. Both of them?”

“Yeah, car crash.” Gabriel shrugs again and sets his fork down, raising his eyebrows as he takes another sip of wine. “But I mean-whatever, it’s been a while, I got over it.”

“My sympathies, nonetheless,” says Balthazar, softly, stunned.

At home, in bed, Castiel says, a shock into the quiet of the night, “Gabriel seems a bit… infatuated with you.”

Balthazar turns to his side, lays an arm across Castiel’s stomach. “Come on Cassie, we live in the guy’s dead parents’ house, he’s probably a bit infatuated with the both of us.”

Castiel shrugs as he stares up at the ceiling-“Maybe.”

“Hey-you want some books?” Chuck looks up from his laptop screen for the first time in the conversation, waiting expectantly for an answer with wide eyes and a wavering smile.

“Oh, sure,” Castiel tells him, and he reaches eagerly into his messenger bag, pulling out a stack of said books.

“They might not be very good, I mean, not many publishers seem to think they, um-but, I try, yeah? Just tell me what you think, okay?”

Balthazar, at the counter, looks back at Castiel in a booth, who smiles and says, “I will, thanks. Well, it was nice meeting you, I’ll just… leave you to your work then.”

“Great,” Chuck breathes, pushing his too-big glasses sloppily up the bridge of his nose and getting absorbed once again into his computer screen.

At home, Balthazar comments, “Chuck seems… interesting.”

Castiel is curled up on the couch with one of Chuck’s books, with a cup of tea cooling on the coffee table which he’d made and forgotten about entirely. He looks up at Balthazar, twisting on the couch to better see him. “This is amazing,” is all he says, and Balthazar leaves it at that.

When Castiel strolls into the living room, an age-old saxophone, rusting and dark, cradled in careful hands, Balthazar at first is a bit confused, though it does warm his heart to see the instrument again after so long with nary a thought of it. “Hey,” Castiel says, a small shrug as he weighs the brass in his fingers.

“Hey.” Balthazar stretches his neck around, leans over the back of the couch to better see Castiel. “Why have you got that?”

“Will you play something for me?”

“Oh, I haven’t played that old thing in years,” Balthazar groans, and Castiel only keeping on looking at him-no, he can’t resist those eyes for a second. “Oh, alright, give it here.” As Castiel does, passing it on to Balthazar with the utmost care, too gentle and hesitant in the presence of it to be anywhere near experienced and it makes Balthazar grin, he steps around the couch to sit, and to watch, staring expectantly with wide eyes at Balthazar. It isn’t the first time he’s made Balthazar feel like a deity, revered, idolized. “I doubt I know anything you’ve heard.”

“I don’t care.”

Balthazar chuckles a soft, “Right,” before lifting the mouthpiece to his lips and blowing air into it tentatively. His fingers find the keys easily, the weight of the cool metal soothing in his hands. He sighs softly, happily, and he plays, an old tune he learnt in high school, of which he doesn’t remember the name or more than about a minute’s worth of notes, and even then Castiel watches, absorbed, like a fish caught by the most delicious piece of bait, drawn to air, drawn out to Balthazar.

Nostalgia is sweet, yes, but Balthazar thinks Castiel is sweeter.

“Is Ellen here?” Balthazar asks, offered beer in clutched in his hand, Castiel at his side and Bobby sitting across the coffee table from the both of them.

“No-why?”

Balthazar shrugs limply, “I don’t know, when you invited us over I just sort of figured-very well, then.”

“Well,” Bobby says, adjusting the trucker cap without which Balthazar hasn’t yet seen him once, “I wanted to talk to you boys alone.”

“Oh? Why’s that? Is something wrong?”

“Well,” Bobby drawls before taking a swig of beer, “You tell me. Now, who’re you two runnin’ from?”

There’s a small clink as Balthazar sets his beer down onto the table’s glass surface, paralleled by the click in his mind that says, no. No. “Excuse me?”

“How did you…” Castiel mutters, staring, stunned, just as is Balthazar.

“Please,” Bobby scoffs, “you show up one day in the middle of nowhere, with almost nothin’, no back story, no nothin’-something’s going on here.”

“Well I can assure you,” Balthazar says, as reassuringly as he can which he can’t imagine is very, “that there is absolutely nothing you need to worry about-”

“You think I’m an idjit? Look, boys, I’m just tryin’ to help, I ain’t gonna blow your cover.”

Balthazar sighs as he weighs his options, sharing a conflicted glance with Castiel-and, he figured, if he’s going to trust anyone, perhaps it should be Bobby. “Alright, don’t… don’t tell anyone.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“No, of course I-well, right… it’s probably a long story.”

Bobby says, “I got time,” and Balthazar leans back into Bobby’s couch, contemplating the best way he can explain it all and coming up with nothing.

“…Cas…?”

“The United States government was going to kill me. For my eyeballs.”

Bobby simply looks at Castiel for a moment, before blurting, “Oh don’t lie to me-”

“I’m not.”

Balthazar sighs, rubbing his temples. “He really isn’t. They’re trying to grow a sort of superhuman. Crazy, I know, but they… they were going to kill Castiel. I knew because I worked for them.”

Bobby is squinting, examining-“Are you serious?”

Castiel says, “Yes.”

“Damn.”

Even as scrutinized as he feels, as exploited, Balthazar can’t help but find warmth in telling, in sharing, and perhaps though he’s lost years of the experience to know, this is what family could be. And as he remarks it to Castiel later in the night, the light of the moon that grows by the second is paralleled in the brightness of the deep blues of Castiel’s eyes when he says, “I know how you feel. It’s… it’s family, it is.”

“Did you have a family to leave behind?”

“I left them behind long before you came along,” Castiel mutters, a forced chuckle, a weak smile that Balthazar kisses away.

Balthazar fumbles, sloppily, to fit his house key into the front door’s lock, cursing himself and all alcohol each time the metal key scrapes across the area around the keyhole.

When he finally gets the door open and steps, swaying, into the house, he finds himself caught under Castiel’s intense gaze, while Castiel sits on the living room couch, staring. “Where the hell were you?”

“Told you,” Balthazar sighs, closing the door behind him and stepping into the room. “Went out with Gabriel. What’s wrong?”

“It’s late,” Castiel says, almost in a whisper as he looks down at the floor and then around the room, gulping. “I… I was worried.”

“About what, dear?” Balthazar asks, standing in front of Castiel, looking down with the most reassuring smile he can manage.”

“About you. About… I don’t know,” Castiel sighs, shaking his hand.

“Well, stop worryin’, love, I’m fine. So go to bed, c’mon?” Balthazar lays a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, rubbing it softly, feeling each of Castiel’s heavy breaths in the shakes of his shoulders.

Castiel stands, still for a moment, before launching himself forward and wrapping his arms around Balthazar’s waist, at which Balthazar jumps in surprise. “Just… answer your phone next time, or… or something,” Castiel mumbles, voice low and muffled by his face being pressed into Balthazar’s shoulder.

“C’mon,” Balthazar chuckles, and Castiel frowns, exhaling softly hugging more tightly. “I can take care of myself. So, bed, then?”

“I think,” Castiel says over dinner, as it begins to darken outside and a dim shadow coasts in through the window, “that Gabriel likes you.”

“Now why,” Balthazar sighs, “would you think that?”

Castiel fidgets in his seat, setting his fork down and laying his hands on his thighs. “I guess you haven’t noticed how he flirts with you, then?”

“Come on, Cas, we’re friends, that’s it.”

“He keeps you out all night… away from me…” Castiel chews on his bottom lip, shifting again, looking up at Balthazar almost as if he’s scared.

“Cas, really-you have to relax. Besides, who would want me?”

“Well. I do.” Castiel murmurs with a small shrug. “I love you, so, why shouldn’t he?”

Sighing, Balthazar holds out a hand, in which Castiel hesitantly lays his own. “Cassie, it doesn’t matter, alright? So what if he does? I’ll never be unfaithful to you, you know that. So trust me, love?”

Castiel nods, gulping, shaking his head but muttering, “Alright.”

Coming to life in the dim moonlight are hundreds of tiny drops of color, coming alight one by one in every conceivably hue, bringing to life as well the pine tree around which they reside, the tree stood in the middle of the field behind Jo’s diner.

After Jo plugs in the lights, she stands-there are a few claps, a few cheers and a few laughs; and there is warmth in the cold, in Balthazar’s fingers intertwined with Castiel’s, in Balthazar’s shoulder pressed against Castiel’s as they could not stand closer.

And then everyone is filing into the diner, inside which tablecloths are lain across the wall’s booths, with dishes strewn about in the style of a buffet. “Everything’s on the house! Jo shouts, met again by cheers and smiles.

There is laughter, so much laughter-when Gabriel calls Chuck a hipster, “come on, kid, everyone loves Christmas, don’t pretend that doesn’t apply to you,” when Castiel trips over a chair and of course is embarrassed at first but comes to not quite mind it, when John and Mary reminisce about their high school days together and when Sam joins in sharing stories of his and Dean’s childhoods, or rather, childhood.

And when everyone is in their respective house, presumably asleep, Balthazar catches Castiel under the mistletoe Castiel had hung earlier over their bedroom’s doorframe.

As it nears midnight and Balthazar steps warily through the front door, Castiel is not waiting, worried, curled up on the couch, he is not waiting to confront Balthazar with the time or with the worry that never fails to make Balthazar crave the atonement that Castiel so easily gives-instead, Balthazar finds him sprawled across their bed, lips parted and eyes shut yet twitching, sheets rustled and tangled around his legs from what strikes Balthazar’s heart as seems like what’s been hours of tossing and turning.

When Balthazar wakes he finds Castiel lain half on top of him, arms wrapped around him, Castiel’s head on his chest and small streaks of tears having dripped onto his shirt-like Castiel is an oyster and Balthazar is his pearl, like Balthazar is the gem to be treasured and Castiel is his protector, like Balthazar doesn’t feel like it’s the other way around. He sighs, wrapping an arm around Castiel’s waist, heaving blankets over them both and settling back into the pillow to shut his eyes once more.

When Castiel speaks his voice is like the ding of a shrill bell in a crowded restaurant, a small mutter of, “I talked to Chuck today,” hesitant and hushed, still somehow cutting through any other small noise to Balthazar’s ears.

“Yeah?” In the near empty finer, Balthazar twirls a fork in a plate of pasta. “What about?”

“About Gabriel.”

“Oh, Castiel-”

“No, listen.” Castiel’s eyes are bright, lively like the blue electricity that visibly courses through his veins as he speaks, staring down Balthazar like observing an experiment, and not once does he touch his plate. “He had a fling with Jo a few years ago-”

“That’s understandable.”

“A few months before we moved in, he tried to make a move on Sam. Next anyone saw him, he had a black eye and Dean had a broken wrist.”

Even a bit shocked, Balthazar can sigh, “That doesn’t mean anything.”

Castiel leaves it alone with a soft mumble of, “Maybe you’re right.”

Balthazar can tell that Castiel is nervous. He has been, ever since he’d gotten home from work, and even now, as he sits next to Balthazar on the couch, eyes darting between Balthazar and the small TV they’d bought-the only one they’d been able to afford. More than once Balthazar has asked, are you alright? And more than one he had been met with a jittery, yeah, of course, I’m fine. So he had decided not to press.

“Can we talk about something?” Castiel asks, finally turning away from the TV to look only at Balthazar.

“Of course, anything,” Balthazar tells him, switching off the TV absent-mindedly with the remote, intently focused on Castiel as he had been all day but didn’t want to let on.

“This might be a bit uncalled for.”

“It’s alright.”

Castiel takes a deep breath, drumming his fingertips against his knees. “I’m kind of… nervous, about you hanging out with Gabriel so often.”

Balthazar hates to sound so incredulous, especially when Castiel is clearly so unsettled, but he can’t help it, not when he had been expecting something so much worse or more serious. “That’s what this is about?”

“What what is about?”

“You’ve been panicky all day and it’s just about me being friends with Gabriel? Cas, I told you, nothing’s going to happen.”

Castiel shifts in his seat. “I’m just worried, is all.”

“You have no reason to be!”

“But I do!”

Balthazar shakes his head, rubbing his forehead, just a bit miffed. “So… what you want is for me to stop hanging out with him.”

Castiel opens his mouth and shuts it again before saying, “That would be nice, yes.”

“Castiel, you’re… you’re not my mother.” Balthazar hates it to come out like that, an annoyed scoff, and he hates especially to be so sarcastic to Castiel, but he feels every word he says and he can’t help but spit out some more. “I know what I’m doing and I don’t need someone to order me around.” He stands, thinking it a good idea to go somewhere, though he hasn’t a clue where; but Castiel stands too, and before he knows it, Balthazar’s gotten himself into a regular shouting match with the once person with which he’d never expected to be angry,

“I’m not ‘ordering you around,’ I’m just worried!”

“God, Cas, have some faith in that I can control myself!”

“It’s not you, it’s him!”

“I’ve told you so many times, Cas, I’m not going to let anything happen!”

“Balthazar just listen to me.”-Castiel is fuming, now, so loud and so strong, nothing Balthazar would ever have expected from his shy, quiet Cassie. He presses his lips into a straight line, fighting back any sound he might make when Castiel continues-“I love you, dammit, and I am terrified to death of losing you to some slutty homewrecker-of, of losing you to anyone! Because you’re all I have and you’re all I’ve ever had and I can’t fucking-“

Castiel is silent, suddenly, and Balthazar dares not say a word.

Contrast, such contrast: if reminds Balthazar so poignantly of his old job, of how the booming announcements would cut suddenly in or out and make the less experienced men jump in surprise, of how different these announcements would be against the quiet snips of scissors and scrapes of scalpels. And that is now. Now, this is how he feels, standing in silence in front of Castiel in their living room and he can almost hear the scissors and scalpels scraping away at his bones while he waits and waits for Castiel to speak, with every second tugging on his heart like Castiel is a fisherman and he is the fish.

“I think I sometimes… forget…” Castiel says, and his voice is beginning to waver and his eyes to water as he tucks one arm around his stomach and brings the shaking hand of the other up to his quivering lips. He gulps, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment like the sun is just five feet from where he stands. Like Balthazar, standing just about five feet from him, is his sun. “…that you risked your life to save mine, and I should never ask anything more of you.” He gulps again and his entire body shakes, frail, helpless, crying with just the first tears slipping from the sides of his again closed eyes, sliding down his face and dripping off his jaw line.

“I think you sometimes forget, dear…” Balthazar’s voice is soothing, suddenly, and he is calm. Castiel flinches when Balthazar steps forward and takes his hands from their places fixed against his own torso. It’s a bit difficult, getting Castiel’s hands free, because Castiel is so stubborn and so protective of himself; but when Balthazar does, he cradles Castiel’s soft hands in his own like delicate flowers he’s just picked for a loved one. Flowers, beautiful and smooth, that Balthazar holds because someone he loves needs him to. He runs his thumbs gently over Castiel’s palms as he goes on, “…that I willingly risked my life to save yours and I am willing to give you just about anything you want.”