[Fic] JayneL: Epilogue
Dean/Cas
Title: Epilogue
Writer: Jayne L
Status of work: Complete
Characters and/or pairings: Cas/Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, Lucifer
Rating: NC-17
Warnings, kinks & contents:[Click to read]major character death, End!verse, drug and alcohol abuse, non-explicit torture, threesome--if that's a warning
Length: 27,724 words
Summary: Bobby is here, swearing somewhere above and behind him; and Dean is here, talking about 2014 like it's a foreign country; and Sam is here, and is not Lucifer. Which means--
Cas is no longer when he was. Lucifer sent him back.
Coda to 'The End'.
Reccer's notes: This is a totally gorgeous piece of writing. Cas's inner monologue is brutally, fatally self-aware, and also quite blind about some very important things. Castiel's response to his older self is perfect. All the characterizations are great. There's sex, and it's scorching hot, but that's not the really important part; what matters is how Dean has shaped Cas without even realizing it. And the end, while bittersweet, is the only possible end.
[Short excerpt]
Dean's presence has much the same effect. Cas wakes to it; he basks in it. This is Dean as he was, Dean from before, in his own here-and-now, and so much better for it. At Chitaqua, this Dean's pre-war soul had been so out of context that Cas could barely look at him, despite wanting to very much. He stares now, greedily.
Dean blinks, taken aback by either the level of detail in his answer or his naked gaze, Cas isn't sure which. Both possibilities make him grin, even as Dean schools his expression and squares himself up. "You know when you are?"
"I suspect it's 2009." His gaze flickers down Dean's throat, and finds a conspicuous lack of amulet. "Late summer, at the earliest."
"You know how you got here?"
That punctures him. After everything Dean did to get his shot on the devil, Cas must now admit to having benefitted--presumably--from Dean's failure. His skin prickles with shame, which is ridiculous. This isn't even that Dean. Yet. "Yes."