Title: Artistic License
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Spoilers: 5x01
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: In which Chuck gets very drunk, gives destiny the finger, and everything seems like a good idea at the time.
AN: Written for
harem_ent , who left the idea lying around unattended, so I put my grubby fingers all over it.
It's been a week and Chuck's house is still a mess.
Which he's going to blame on the Winchesters, even though technically it was because two angels had a fight in it- because two angels had a fight in it, when did his life get so surreal? But still, all the Winchesters fault, because he knows, oh he knows better than most people, that everything of supernatural importance is probably the Winchester's fault somehow. He doesn’t even feel bad for thinking that, it's just a fact, it's some sort of scientific law that's irrefutable.
So clearly they had more important things to do than help him clean angel blood off of the walls and angel teeth out of the furniture because Jesus. Saving the world they're good at, monsters they're good at. Sticking around to clean up, not so much.
Chuck's glad Castiel is all better from his exploding- and he's still not sure whether to ask about that or just to accept it- but now his house looks like some sort of gruesome crime scene, he's been dragged all over the place by the real life equivalents of his main characters, watched an angel explode, learned that the devil was free and world was going to end.
Now he can't find the power lead to his laptop, and he needs a drink.
Also, Sam Winchester broke his plunger.
With his face.
Chuck's thinking about moving to Mexico.
Though it occurs to him that Sam and Dean would probably find him, no, they'd almost definitely find him if they needed to, and he might still have an Archangel on 'snooze' somewhere up there and that it's probably the end of the world.
Maybe Vegas then, if you have to see out the end of the world somewhere then there were worse places than Vegas. Anywhere but here. Away from Sam, Dean, Castiel and Lucifer, and he'll drown himself in booze and poker chips and exceptionally friendly ladies until the apocalypse is nigh...and he won't feel guilty about leaving them all to it.
Not a chance.
Sam and Dean will be...well no they probably won't be fine. They'll probably be dead, or possessed by the devil or languishing in some hell dimension. Chuck's amazed they managed to survive everything that's been thrown at them so far, he's not deluded enough to just accept that they're going to survive the apocalypse as well.
Though if anyone could-
And not because he wrote them that way. Because that's just who they are, before he even dreamed them up. How are the Winchesters even real? Seriously, he's had more than a few letters complaining about how far-fetched some of the storylines are. He vaguely remembers the words 'laughably unlikely' turning up somewhere. He was pretty annoyed about that at the time.
He kind of wants to call the Winchesters and complain about how laughably unlikely they are. But then they probably know that already.
Castiel, he's not so sure about.
The angel thing's still pretty new and he's kind of confused about it.
That's one of those things where he always felt he was just writing freeform and he kind of wishes he'd thought to explore the idea of them more before he knew they existed. Especially Castiel, since it sort of feels like he's a main character now. Even though he was certain that there'd never be any other main character.
Or permanent love interest, neither one of those.
Only now he has another main character.
And damn it, it's not his book series any more so he doesn't get any say in how things turn out, doesn't get any say in things at all- it's all the other way round. With him being heaven's bitch, typing out all their minutes.
Chuck needs beer....
The kitchen provides for his needs, and it's nice to have priorities during an apocalypse- impending apocalypse?
He carries his beer back to where he's made a clear space on the couch and falls into it.
So, yeah, Castiel, who manages to be equal parts terrifyingly unknowable and incredibly annoying- and sure that's fine as a character base when you're writing about him, when he's supposed to be the driving force behind one of your main characters- Chuck knows he will eventually have to stop thinking of Sam and Dean as 'his main characters' what with them being real and everything, but quite frankly the things he knows about them. It's kind of hard to separate the two. Ok, not that hard but it does make him feel like he's sinking into some sort alternate reality he's not supposed to live in, so he tries not to think about that too much. Or at least he tries not to think about it when he's sober. Granted it's equally disturbing when he's drunk, but somehow the fact that the world is secretly populated by demons and angels that can use human beings as finger puppets at will is less disturbing when you can indulge in numbness.
Then at least he can pass out on the couch when it gets too bad, and if he wakes up to find the pages have been erased by whatever the hell he's been drinking then that's completely fine with him.
It's probably better than waking up to find something has eaten his limbs off- and oh god did that happen in one of his books, he can't even remember any more. He vaguely remembers stealing a bunch of ideas from urban legends and there was something about people waking up without their limbs-
Jesus.
He drinks until the mental image goes away.
He liked his life better when nothing was real. Because, to be brutally honest, the world's pretty messed up now that everything's real. Now it's actually out there for real and not just world-building and creative mythology out of his own brain. Now he knows he's not the one pulling the strings, he's not even the one writing the lines.
It sort of makes him feel like he's living one of Shakespeare's plays and he knows how most of those end.
Chuck's decided it's almost certainly all Dean's fault. Because hell everyone else blames Dean, even Dean blames Dean, so it's only fair.
Not so much Sam's though Sam is...Sam is Sam!
How do you tell someone 'yeah, I totally planned for you to go evil, you were going to flip out, kill a bunch of people and give in to your demonic urges that have been slowly festering since the first few books.' How do you tell someone that!? How the hell is he supposed to say that to the real live Sam Winchester, when he's all huge and awkward and earnest, and not even close to evil incarnate, and standing in his living room looking bewildered. Because though Sam clearly resents and is offended by the whole 'Winchester gospel' thing in equal measure Chuck gets the impression that Sam feels bad for him.
So yeah, he's going to feel guilty about the crap he put him through. It doesn’t matter where it came from, or whether it was even his fault. Because he's the one that wrote it. He's the one that sat at his desk and thought to himself 'wow, this is fantastic character development' while some poor bastard was out there living it.
Then there's Castiel, who's, yeah, less of a terrifying angel!robot than he was before but he still manages to accomplish the whole 'looking through him' that leaves Chuck feeling weighed and measured and already considered a disappointment. Sure these people make saving the world their day job so maybe they can get away with stuff other people would never get away with.
Maybe they're allowed?
But Dean's kind of scary, and Chuck doesn't even have the excuse of 'because you wrote him that way' any more, because yeah, Dean's been real for longer than Chuck's been banging out Supernatural novels.
But hell, it's not like they're his characters or anything.
He stares miserably at his bottle, then drains the remaining third in one go.
They were never his characters.
Like hell they aren't.
He spent hours writing them, planning out their motivations, their histories, working his way through their dialogue, their private jokes, the way they moved, the way they hunted, the damn clothes they wore.
No one can tell him that none of that was ever his, that none of it matters.
He can write whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants to.
He's not just some disturbing writing conduit for the will of God. He's not God's finger puppet, spooling out prophetic rubbish from one deadline to the next.
Chuck snags another bottle and wanders over to the table, where his laptop sits among a collection of fast food wrappers, sheets of paper and pieces of the ceiling.
He slumps down in the chair, sets his bottle down.
He can have an idea without prophetic dreams and ache-inducing headaches.
He pushes the bottle back and forth across the table and scowls at the keys.
So, yeah, something appropriately disturbing for the eldest Winchester. Something that wouldn't happen, just to prove to himself that he has talent, that he can write something of his own, without interference from angel network television! Chuck is perfectly willing to give destiny the finger, thank you very much.
Maybe Dean should have his world turned upside down and inside out for a while. The mental equivalent of angel teeth in the furniture. Some out of nowhere scene that would never happen in real life, never, as proof, drunken irrefutable proof that Chuck can write without interference from heaven.
The sensible part of Chuck's brain knows that maybe the apocalypse isn't the best time to get drunk and make stuff up as some sort of immature revenge against his not-so-imaginary protagonist. Because yeah, Dean's had a shitty enough life as it is and it's not like he's done it all on purpose.
The now half full beer bottle on the table tells him this is a brilliant idea.
The other two by the couch cheer from the stands.
So yeah, screw it.
Chuck opens the folder, finds the mess of half finished pieces he hasn't gone back to since he found out he was a prophet for the continuing adventures of 'the Winchesters versus every supernatural creature ever.'
So yeah.
He'd already killed off- or rather the real world had killed off- a lot of his more interesting minor characters. And yeah, he feels kind of shitty now thinking of them as 'minor characters' when they'd been real people.
So, Dean and-
and-
Castiel?
His mind briefly slams into the idea and refuses to go any further but the alcohol in his brain nudges it on a little.
Dean kind of deserves it.
He really does.
Seriously what could be better than that? Dean's already had his whole angel experience, though granted Anna had been human at the time. He has proven history of a wing!kink- and he really wishes he'd never thought that- but God, he wouldn't even have to go out of character for it!
Besides it's the apocalypse, all bets are off!
Chuck decides it will be a post-battle adrenaline fuelled confession, followed by awkward sex where Dean is emotionally stunted and Castiel is clueless. Because, hell, let's not stray too far out of character, and he can see Dean's pissy face in his head at that but Dean-in-his-head is easier to ignore than Dean-in-real-life.
Chuck's written sex scenes before, he knows how sex works, he's not afraid of sex scenes.
Granted they've always involved one person of each sex.
"So who's on top?" he asks the bottle.
The bottle doesn't reply, but it seems to be slightly more amused than before.
"You're right, of course, stupid question."
Setting the scene is easy, even the dialogue is easy. Chuck could write Dean's dialogue in his sleep, and the realisation that there might actually be a Dean living somewhere in his head, within easy reach, never used to be so disturbing.
But yeah, four pages in and they're connecting emotionally. In a completely PG sort of way, because Chuck keeps slamming up against the fact that there isn't going to be a hot naked girl in the scene and he's not quite sure where to focus. But then if there was a hot naked girl in the scene it would be the same as every other damn sex scene he's ever written for Dean Winchester, which could happen on any day of any week and that's not the point.
Not the point, this is a rebellion. This is about Chuck winning. This is about Chuck having control, about Chuck proving he's not just some thing that can be used.
Sam's sex scenes he pretty much just concentrated on Ruby. Ruby was hot. Evil, but hot. Though he's not gonna lie, now that he knows exactly what Sam looks like he's kind of afraid to go back and read any of them. Because he wasn't thinking about him at the time and now he's afraid he wouldn't be able to stop.
Chuck wonders if maybe he should Google some of this, but becoming lost in the internet's vast reserves of gay porn is really not something that appeals to him.
He's fairly confident that he can wing it. He doesn't want to be explicit after all.
He adds beer to the equation in the hope that porn will result before he manages to fall off the chair in a drunken stupor.
Four paragraphs later Dean finally gets with the program. There's one, not particularly dirty, kiss and something that can be described, by a generous person, as inappropriate touching.
Chuck drains the beer on the table in one and retrieves another from the couch. Then he doesn't stop writing until he gets to the bottom of the page. Then decides to carry on rather than let beer break his flow.
It's warm by the time he takes a mouthful.
Chuck stares at the screen, or rather at what he's just typed.
He wonders how much trouble you can get into for putting an angel on his knees in an inappropriate and not at all worshipful sort of way-
Setting this in a brightly lit motel room is slightly more problematic than a steamy night time sex scene in the back of the Impala. Dean's going to be pissed about the full-frontal descriptions- though, ok, yes, he's kidding himself if he thinks Dean isn't going to have better reasons to be pissed. Not that Dean's going to read this, hypothetical Dean would be pissed.
Chuck's not drunk enough for this.
He does his best to remedy that until the next few paragraphs don't feel quite as astonishingly blasphemous as they should.
And wow, that's a lot of alcohol. Theoretically.
Who'd have thought Castiel was so bendy?
Well him obviously because he's just decided that he would be. But he figures Dean would be appreciative- Not that he's writing this for Dean. But if he's going to write sex there's no way he's going to write bad sex. At least he's going to try his best not to write bad sex.
Also, he might have accidentally failed at the whole 'not explicit' thing. He thinks maybe he got distracted trying to write to the best of his abilities. It's his reputation at stake after all- or, at least, it would be if he ever planned to show it to anyone, which he doesn't. Because it's gay porn.
But now at least he can look himself in the mirror and know that he wrote the best damn gay pornography for his characters that he could.
Chuck makes some sort of strangled and messy noise of amusement into the neck of his bottle.
Or maybe he won't do that.
The bottle's empty, it's tragically lacking in beer, which is a terrible shame but then at least that's something he can do something about. He doesn't have any more so he leaves Dean and Castiel in a compromising position and stumbles his way back into the kitchen.
The fridge is cool and it's really nice standing there for a minute, basking in the coolness while his brain continues to try and plot out the mechanics of Castiel's epic deflowerment. And is that even a word? Until he remembers that he's supposed to be writing Castiel on top and then his brain breaks a little bit and he can't remember what he came into the kitchen for....
Beer. Thank God for beer.
He makes his way, not entirely steadily, back to his laptop.
The screen's a lot brighter than is entirely comfortable on his eyeballs.
He corrects five spelling mistakes in the previous paragraph and debates whether he really wants Dean to be doing that with his tongue...eventually decides that he'll soldier on in the name of completion since it's there now.
It's not like Dean has never proven he's adventurous before.
Besides Castiel seems appreciative...and enthusiastic.
Chuck squints at the screen, reaches for his beer. The back of his hand smacks into the bottle and then there's briefly alcohol and foam everywhere and Chuck has to stop and mop it up with old bits of paper. Old bits of paper that he's fairly sure used to be some of his best ideas.
Back when he'd thought they were his ideas.
He dumps them soggy, and possibly now flammable, into the trash. Gone, gone, gone. Angels be damned if they want them back they can fish them out themselves.
He runs spell-check on his masterpiece just for the hell of it and it promptly tells him he's a moron of epic proportions.
"I'm drunk what's your excuse," he tells it.
Because it's not like this is ever going to be published. He's just doing it because-
Why the hell is it doing it again? He can't even remember. He's pretty sure he had a good reason to start with.
Five minutes later he realises he's getting too attached to the word 'cock' there are altogether too many repetitions of that word in four pages worth of sex-
Really? Four pages? How the hell did he get to four pages?
He deletes seven instances of word over-use, and then promptly can't find another word that doesn't make him want to laugh or slam his head into the desk. Both of which he currently contains too much alcohol to survive.
Dean won't stop talking, and it turns out he's kind of a pushy bottom-
A page later Chuck adds the angel wings, just for the hell of it. Because if he's doing it he's going all the way. Dean doesn't exactly complain. Though he shouldn't be surprised, Dean has a long history of recklessly throwing himself into new experiences. The whole inter-species thing doesn't seem to phase him at all.
Though maybe Chuck's kind of a pervert too because he apparently doesn't have much trouble writing it. He should probably be ashamed.
He's never going to be able to look at a bird the same way again.
Chuck finds his bottle too close to the edge of the table, drowns any last reservations before setting it back down on something that crumples wetly.
He's pretty close to the screen now because the words keep wobbling in and out.
He thinks he maybe left the 'not particularly explicit' promise about fifty miles back because he's on a roll and he's very drunk and it's pretty easy to bring everything to a messy, loud and epic conclusion.
Drum roll please.
Tada!
At least he didn't make Dean cry at the end.
Because he totally could have done.
He reads it through again. Then decides he's way too drunk for this because it's kind of...it's-
Fuck it, it's kind of hot.
...
Chuck spends a very long, worried handful of minutes staring at the amount of alcohol left in his bottle- probably not enough- and wondering if that's a good thing or not?
Screw it, he's a professional, he can judge on technical merit. His epic gay angel/human sex scene has technical merit.
Also, it's kind of hot.
Maybe this wasn't the best idea he's ever had.
...
But then it's not like he has magic powers. He can't make it true just by writing it.
What was the worst that could happen?
The surface of the table is really, really cool on his face.