Fic: Life on Earth - Part 8/? [SPN]
TITLE: "Life on Earth" - Part 8/?
AUTHOR: Nansense
RATING: This part R for swearing and adult themes
PAIRINGS: Dean/Castiel, Dean/Lisa
SPOILERS: All of Season 5, and Season 6... kinda?
SUMMARY: With Lucifer dead, Sam in the ground and the world effectively saved, Dean has forsaken hunting and everyone associated with it to settle into a life of domestic bliss with Lisa and her son, Ben. The only ghosts left for Dean to lay to rest are his own, but they are plenteous indeed, and some of them don't go down without a fight.
DISCLAIMER: Supernatural and all associated content is, sadly, owned by others much more fortunate and creative than I. Up yours, Kripke.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So, there's this Jeff Buckley song, "I Know We Could Be So Happy, Baby (If We Wanted to Be)" that has been my inspiration for a lot of this story--especially the line, "We were two cripples dancing". In a lot of SPN fic, Cas is frequently portrayed as the sage, wise one to Dean's emotional cripple (for the record, I actually cringe at that word, but I'm kind of quoting Jeff, here), but I actually hold tight to the idea that they would probably be evenly-matched in their pig-headedness and lack of experience dealing with emotional issues (especially Cas). That seems like far more of a good time to me, anyway. So if my interpretation of Cas seems to fly in the face of some of the other fic out there, that's why. In the meantime, I wouldn't discourage listening to that song while reading this.
Life on Earth (Pt. 8/?) by Nansense
As they lie there, continuing to kiss and touch each other gently, their earlier discussion comes floating back to Dean through the haze. “Hey Cas,” he says, “not to spoil the moment or anything, but before you said something about getting a... a ‘reward’. What did you mean by that?”
“Ah, yes,” Cas replies, as though the conversation had been waylaid by nothing more than a comment about the weather. “It’s not so complicated, really, but I guess there’s no harm in telling you, especially in light of the fact that I’m currently watching ejaculate dry on your face.”
Dean blinks, partly because he never could have imagined those words coming out of Cas’s mouth, and partly because he didn’t realize he looked such a mess. He gives a belated swat at Castiel’s ear while simultaneously trying to scrub flakes of jizz and spit from his chin. Charming. He feels that the accusation of douchebaggery is implied sufficiently by his glare, and Cas tries, not hard enough, to hide his smile.
“My Father saw fit for me to continue with my mission to guard you,” he explains, rolling onto his stomach in the circle of Dean’s arms and giving a catlike stretch. Castiel looks over when Dean slowly trails his fingers down the curve of his spine, and his blue eyes are bright with happiness. “I doubt that was his reward to you, but since I have come to think that God has a sense of humour quite lost on mortals, I could very well be wrong. So, I still serve Heaven, but I go freely in this body. Do you see?”
“That’s what passes as a reward in Heaven?” Dean asks, amazed. “Being chained to some asshole on the ground instead of being able to fuck off when you want?”
Cas snorts a laugh and shakes his head, grabbing one of Dean’s hands to kiss his knuckles. “Dean, God’s love is all the reward an angel needs-that’s why we’re never supposed to want anything else for ourselves. My Father intended for us to serve Him out of love, not law, and my superiors tried to take advantage of the confusion when it became unclear where our instructions were coming from. They distorted that message for the sake of order, because it was easier than admitting they weren’t sure where God was. Besides, I am not chained anywhere, and you aren’t an… an asshole all the time.”
Listening to Cas test out cursewords is so rich that Dean lets that one slide. “What does any of that matter? You’re the worst servant of God ever, when it comes to following orders,” he reminds him. “Like, probably the worst in the history of the universe.”
“I think Lucifer was the benchmark for disobedience, actually,” Cas mumbles, ducking his head.
“Whatever-” Dean dismisses with a wave of his hand. “My point is that you wanted a bunch of other shit besides God’s love, like proof that He even existed, and you went out and took it. Maybe it didn’t work out so well for a while there, but you still didn’t wait around for a white dove to appear or something.”
“That is a silly bible myth,” Cas informs him. “To my knowledge, God has never possessed a bird; it would be a truly disastrous result. If you thought seeing Lucifer inhabit Nick’s vessel was messy…”
“Pick a sign, then,” Dean says generously.
“Do you want me to answer your question, or not?” Cas sighs, like he’s just now realizing that Dean has been placed on this Earth to exasperate him. “You’re making it incredibly difficult.”
“Just trying to engage in a bit of theological debate,” Dean sniffs.
“I think you made more sense when I was gagging you with-”
“Okay, okay!” he interrupts, because if Castiel starts talking about his cock gagging anyone in any capacity, Dean is going to initiate Round #2 immediately; and he actually wants to hear what Cas has to say.
“If you must get literal about it,” says the most literal being in existence, feigning limited patience, “I suppose that God’s reward was bringing me back and not banishing me to Hell-both times. According to my superiors, He should have punished me for wanting more than angels are supposed to, but that is not the Word. Instead, God showed mercy. He permitted that which I wished for most.”
“I’m guessing that wasn’t a pony, then,” concludes the ever-mature Dean. And then, “Please don’t turn that into a gutter joke about riding anything-I’m still not used to you making those yet,” since that’s what he would do.
Cas’s mouth clicks shut, gratifyingly, and all he does is ruffle his hair into an even bigger mess than before. Eventually he says, “This is a conversation with no end. You’re about as terrible at hearing what I’m trying to say, as I am at saying it.”
“Welcome to the predicament of the emotionally stunted male,” Dean agrees, rolling onto his stomach next to Cas, though he does have to wonder what’s up with the sudden timidity. He’s used to Cas just blurting things out, even the delicate things that could sometimes unintentionally shock or wound, and it makes Dean nervous that there’s anything he might have a hard time expressing. He knows he isn’t helping by making light of the conversation, but that’s kind of his M.O. when it comes to talking about heavy shit.
For some reason he wants Cas to know that, though, and he props himself up on his elbows and nudges the angel’s shoulder with his own. “I used to have Sammy around to translate Deanspeak into something the rest of the world could appreciate, and you know yourself that kid could put a Nora Ephron monologue to shame. But he’s not, so now we’re just stuck with each other and our crappy communication skills.”
“I do not know who Nora Ephron is, but I believe my communication skills are sufficient,” Cas argues.
“Right, for talking to your fellow Cylon angels, maybe,” snorts Dean. “Last I checked, you’re still figuring out the wonderful world of human emotion and how to deal with it without losing your mind. They tell me getting shitrocked or punching people when you’re upset don’t help, but I get it, Cas, I do. You can’t talk about what you don’t totally understand, and hence, you’re probably even more emotionally fucked-up than I am.” Dean grins, and leans over to give Cas a big, sloppy kiss he could stand to continue until they are both dizzy with arousal again. But. It would be a little too ironic to hijack a conversation about How to Talk About Things with sex, even for Dean. “I can’t tell you how proud that makes me.”
“How wonderful,” deadpans Castiel, but in spite of the tease in his voice, Dean can tell that he’s getting touchy on the subject, and not really responding to the solidarity thing Dean was going for.
He attempts to make up for it with another, more lingering kiss, touching the tip of his tongue to Castiel’s and gently sucking at his full lower lip. Satisfied when Cas gives a soft moan and shimmies onto his side to get closer, mouth opening wider against his, Dean notices that his hands are still scorchingly warm when they wrap around the back of Dean’s neck. He can’t stop touching Castiel’s face. The scrape of stubble and slightly wind-burnt skin against his knuckles is mesmerizingly good, and so present. Its meditative quality is not unlike that of endlessly brushing an animal’s fur, fingers consumed by greed for texture and sensation.
However unusual it is for Dean to get this cuddly and intimate after sex, he blames it on exhaustion and worry that maybe he’ll wake to find that this has all been conjured up by his mind-without Cas’s involvement. It wouldn’t feel appropriate to respond to his fear of emotional minefields by instigating distance between them, again: Dean’s starting to see the vicious cycle there. Plus, it’s Cas. Part of the reason they’re in this position at all it because Dean has finally realized how much he dislikes not having him around, and apparently that extends to the post-coital period before sleep.
See? It’s a life lesson, he thinks. There’s no way he can picture kicking Cas out of bed, just for the sake of maintaining his reputation for detachment and manly, emotional retardation. He can just picture Sam’s “I told you so” and the accompanying Bitchface, but it turns out that Dean isn’t so much into mugging himself, thanks. Besides which, there is no point playing it cool with someone who can read your mind, especially when they’re a black belt in ball-busting. Cas is like Lisa that way, times about a billion.
Dean thinks he could get into the less talk, more making out thing they’ve got going, when Cas says, “I wanted to stay with you,” mumbling breathily against his lips.
Cas is obviously happy to move on and continue licking his way into Dean’s mouth, but for some reason Dean says, “Hmm?” and Cas pulls back, a flare of annoyance bright in his eyes.
The look is immediately recognizable; Dean’s plastered it across his own features enough times, pretty much whenever Sam or some other insistent woman forced him to act like a big boy and talk about his feelings in grown-up sentences. Mentally, Dean apologizes to Cas for making him repeat himself. Even if Castiel is still too divorced from human gender hangups to equate sharing feelings with being emasculated, Dean wholeheartedly believes in his diagnosis from a moment ago, that Cas presents certain neanderthal tendencies as much as the next male. He’s a soldier, a warrior, not a camp counsellor; as Dean has witnessed firsthand on a few occasions, now, words are harder for Cas to use than his fists, vulnerability much more tricky for him to stomach than rage. While Dean might fall for Castiel a bit more each time he sees a chink in his armour, the need to appear impervious is nothing if not something that Dean can identify with. But if he’s playing dumb or being difficult, he can’t help it-he wears his issues like the ward tattooed on his chest, and they’re about as easy to erase. Doctor, heal thy own, fucked-up self.
Of course he heard what Cas said: it was as clear to Dean as the direction this conversation was taking. Why is it, he wonders, that hearing the thing he wants from someone-someone whose answer he actually has a lot riding on-is so much scarier than hearing the opposite? If one implies change, the other means that Dean can carry on and deal with the disappointment like he always does.
The more of these conversations Dean is forced to endure, the more it becomes clear that the only reaction Dean knows, when shit gets real, is to freak out and start fingerpainting over what is turning out to be a pretty nice picture.
Sometimes Dean thinks he needs to be locked away and never allowed to speak, because he just fucks up and piles mistake on top of mistake when he does.
In that spirit, he tries as hard as he absolutely can to remain quiet and just let Cas... just let him. Still, he swallows reflexively, feeling like a total puss, before he can man up and meet Castiel’s eyes. Surprisingly, it isn’t nearly as hard to do as he thought. Thanks owing mostly to Lisa, he knows what real intimacy feels like; while that itself is still, in some ways, scary, Castiel is not. When Dean is prepared to accept it, like now, staring into those blue, blue eyes is grounding, stabilizing, more like coming home than staring into an abyss. For the same reason he spends so much time in the Impala, tracing his and Sammy’s names scratched into the interior, fondling that damn plastic soldier in the door, looking at Cas reminds Dean of who he is, where he comes from.
Whether Castiel is reading his mind or simply extrapolating these thoughts from Dean’s expression, his face crumples, not in sadness, but not quite in joy, either. Dean, whose hands are still cradling Castiel’s face, rubs his thumbs along Cas’s cheekbones in what he hopes is a soothing way, trying to say, without speaking, that he understands. If Dean were to guess, he’d wager that the enormity of this exchange, of four years of wrong turns and decisions culminating in something so right, is doing Castiel’s head in; like it’s easier for him to comprehend the true nature of God than that they could be here, together, in this moment. Dean can neither reconcile himself to how corny that sounds, or how perfect.
Very clearly, Castiel tells him, “Dean, I am here for you.”
“Thanks, Cas,” murmurs Dean, and leans in to kiss him again.
“Dean,” he persists, with more urgency. “Listen.” His hands tighten around the back of Dean’s neck, not quite painfully, but enough to get Dean’s attention and snap him out of reverie. “I’m not being metaphorical, here,” Cas says, and somehow it’s much easier for Dean to concentrate on his voice when he sounds like his peevish old self, when there’s just a hint of nails digging into his nape. “You asked, I am telling you: I am here for you. Do you get it?”
Dean studies his face carefully and thinks he understands, but the idea seems a little on the ludicrous side. So instead he says, “Not really,” meaning, I’m terrified of what’s going to come out of your mouth next.
A sigh, and Cas does his bored teacher voice again, even less patient in human form than he was before, if that’s possible. Not that Dean doesn’t enjoy these little moods of his, but figuring them out is a bit like being on a magical mystery tour. “When I pulled you out of Hell, you were Heaven’s sword, not-Not mine,” Cas explains. “But you are no longer, and now I may…” He trails off, seeming lost for words, and just like that the imperiousness is gone, replaced by what looks and sounds a lot like embarrassment. Dean nudges him, only partially goading, and Cas finishes by saying, “I may keep you.”
He knew it. “This sounds uncomfortably like cat-lady talk,” Dean points out.
“We could get you a bell.” A joke, in poor taste, and Cas ruins it by twitching his eyebrow. Dean hardly knows what to say. “Or you could keep me,” Cas tries, again. Against his better judgement, Dean finds watching Cas struggle with the words pretty hilarious, endearing even. Dean wonders if this is how he looks to people when he’s muddling through his own emotions at a snail’s pace, as Cas adds, more tentatively, “You couldn’t before, as I was, but now… I can carry out my orders by your side. If you want me.”
Hell yeah, Dean thinks, and it’s such a knee-jerk response that he’s almost unprepared for the wave of nausea that follows, coming in the shape of Lisa and Ben. There is something so off about this proposition, and he can’t figure out whether it’s because Cas is doing a terrible job at explaining it, or because it really is that fucked up. Even beyond the choice Dean knows he’s being asked to make, something screams ten kinds of wrong.
“I’m going to suggest we move this conversation away from any talk of ownership,” he suggests, first, “because it’s creepy. But are you seriously telling me that God just dumped you back on Earth with the expectation that we’re gonna ride off into the sunset together? How the fuck long have you been waiting, exactly?”
“I wasn’t dumped,” snaps Castiel. “I asked to come back here. I wanted it.”
“So totally not the point,” Dean grates out. “How long?”
For a moment, Cas just studies him. The silence is so unnerving that Dean again has the feeling that he knows the answer already, and won’t like it one bit. If he didn’t know better, he’d begin to suspect that, in this dreamscape of his, he can also read Cas’s mind.
“A while,” Cas says at last. And then, quietly, as though he anticipates how Dean will react, “Since I was resurrected.”
“The fuck?”
Dean releases Castiel’s face and rolls upright in one fluid motion, though with enough care not to mash the angel’s face into the bedspread as he does it. One look down at Cas, lying tense and guilty on the duvet, makes Dean’s stomach bottom out, a combination of disbelief at his words and a stab of desire for the body prone beside him. It’s so completely, grossly inappropriate for Dean to confuse the two, almost as much as it is for Castiel to act like the blameworthy party. As in the past, Dean sure can’t absolve him of withholding some pretty fucking important information-like, say, the fact that he’s been sitting around for two years, waiting for Dean to ask him to the prom-but Jesus. There is no need to guess just why he stayed gone for so long; Dean hasn’t exactly been unattached this whole time.
Cas’s delicate hands come up to rake through his dark hair, tugging it in all directions. Whatever anxiety comes out in the gesture doesn’t reach his eyes, which are blue and steady as ever on Dean’s face. On the one hand, they command Dean to stay calm, but at the same time seem to demand to know what Dean thinks he’s going to do about any of this, what’s already been done. Since Dean doesn’t know, he curls his hand against Castiel’s chest, skin as hot to the touch as sun-warmed glass.
“Goddamn, Cas,” he whispers. “Two years.”
“Two years is a blip,” says Castiel, but Dean can feel the pace at which his heart is hammering away, beneath Dean’s fingers.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he answers, a little shocked to hear the note of pleading in his own voice.
All he can think is that he was so horribly friggin’ wrong about everything-not even a little bit wrong, either, because the whole time he thought that Cas had walked out on him, he’d been wandering into colossal fuck-up territory without even knowing it. Too lost in himself to see what was in front of him, like usual. The directionlessness of his rage, the extent of it, is now sickening to him.
“Two years is like four lifetimes where you come from. Why didn’t you-” He sighs, angry at how clumsily the words come to him. “You were with Bobby that whole time, watchin’; you knew where I was. You could have said… I don’t know. Something.”
“Such as?” Cas doesn’t sound upset, but Dean wishes he did.
He thinks that Cas must recognize the stubborn set to his jaw, because he follows Dean up into a sitting position and catches his chin with the fingers of one hand. Devastatingly, Castiel kisses him, biting and pressing in hard enough to leave Dean’s lips feeling bruised and raw, and the taste of blood sharp on his tongue. For the first time that Dean can remember, he actually feels weak in the knees, even though he’s not standing. As the tension begins to leave his body, along with most of the blood from his brain, Castiel pulls away. Mouth stained and cheeks flushed with warmth, Cas looks breathtaking and, well, beautiful. As it is, Dean has far too shitty a track record with beautiful things for this to end well.
“You deserved a chance at the life you wanted,” he tells Dean, roughly, and Dean is dumb to the vehemence in his voice. “I’m not blind, Dean. You’ve been happy. Lisa and Ben make you happy in a way that I’ve never done.”
“I thought you were here to guide me, you dumb bastard,” Dean growls back. His fingers grasp at the fine hair at the back of Cas's, not at all unlike how he feels like he's grasping at straws. “You know I’ve never have any clue what I want. Even when I think I do, I’m wrong. You an’ Sam were the only ones ever right about me, and I just refused to listen to either of you.”
“My place isn’t to tell you what you want,” says Castiel. “If I’d stayed with you after Sam died, you would have fought me every step of the way until one of us went insane, or left. You know that--it's what you do. Whoever coined the phrase, ‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face,’ surely had you in mind.” Cas smiles at him with real affection, even though it makes him look sad. “I trust you, Dean. I knew eventually you would make whichever decision made you happiest, whether or not it included me.”
Dean shakes his head uncomprehendingly, not knowing which is more alien to him: the idea of waiting two years for someone he might really care for, or not totally giving up before then. “How’d you even know how I’d react?”
A warm hand covers Dean’s own, over Castiel’s chest. Laughter crinkles Cas’s eyes at the corners, quite possibly the most amazing thing Dean has ever seen under the circumstance. “I didn’t. But I seem to have a talent for putting my faith in somewhat irrational causes.”
“But to wait two years,” Dean argues, still baffled. He looks around them at the fake interior of his bedroom, finding it suddenly constricting. “We should be talking about this face to face, Cas. I feel like this is the most important conversation I’ve had since Sammy died. And we’re stuck in my fuckin’ head.” As if by rote, his fingers twitch, itching. “I should be touching you for real.”
To Dean’s alarm, this makes Castiel withdraw. Dean doesn’t like the look of this, but he’s got nothing to say in response except to wrinkle his brow and open his mouth, useless. He watches Cas fully retreat from the bed, and swallows around his suddenly dry tongue. An ache has taken up someplace in Dean’s chest; no, he doesn’t like the look on Cas’s face at all.
Eventually, he finds his voice again, and springs off the mattress to follow the angel across to the other side of the room. He catches Castiel’s bicep in one hand, and pulls him around so that they are facing one another, no clothes, no fear, no secrets. “Cas, what did I say?”
“Nothing,” Cas replies, but his tone makes Dean’s bullshit meter spike.
“Nothing,” Dean parrots back at him. “You just froze up colder than Satan’s tit.” Which, for all Dean knows, is apt.
When Castiel levels a stare at Dean, it’s with frustration, not curiosity. Dean notices that the tiniest bit of exhaustion has crept into his eyes, the likes of which he hasn’t seen since they all thought God was dead. He feels pinned between the desire to fix whatever’s wrong, and the knowledge that it’s probably his fault. Dean puts his hand out, pushing his fingers into the lush softness of Castiel’s hair. At this, Cas gives an impatient shake of his head so that both of Dean’s hands fall away.
“I waited for you, Dean,” he says harshly, “and I would give anything to have you in the real world. But in the real world, you aren’t a free man.”
Appearing to have lost his steam, Castiel sighs deeply, and reaches out with two fingers so that Dean knows this conversation is over. A part of him has been waiting for it, and he leans his forehead into Castiel’s touch; but damn, he tried so hard. Cas just tightens his mouth, unhappy, but resigned.
He says, “I am not a thief.”
Part Nine