InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Holy fishsticks, Batman!"

Cas, former angel of go-fuck-yourself (bangafewgongs) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-07-22 03:38:00

Entry tags:

castiel (end!verse), dean winchester (end!verse)

WHO: Cas and Dean of the End!Verse.
WHAT: Talking about how they're not in Hell.
WHEN: After this.
WHERE: A street south of the library.
RATING: TBD.
STATUS: In progress.

They weren't in Hell. Hell wouldn't feel so solid and his arm wouldn't sting and bleed where he'd sliced it with his knife, just to check. And Hell definitely wouldn't have let him keep the fuzzy warmth of the drugs and the absinthe. So they weren't in Hell. But that's all he knew. Beyond that, he didn't know what to think. None of this made any sense and he finally decided to stop thinking about it and find Dean. His Dean, not the one who was painful to look at with all his hope and potential. Most of that had been burned out of his leader years ago. Not that he would take the one over the other. No, that Dean wasn't his Dean, the one he'd fought for and died for over the course of his human life. The one he'd lived for even on the days when humanity was achingly painful and he'd just wanted it to end. And now they were both here in this place and he really needed to see him because if he wasn't really him then this was worse than Hell.

He spotted him and it was like a tight coil of tension suddenly unwound inside of him. He walked over, pulling something from his jacket. He paused a few feet from where the other man stood and took a drink from the flask of holy water, then tossed it to Dean. Never could be too careful, and it was something they'd done more than once, too many times to count, back at the camp. Practicality was often the only thing keeping them alive. Well...practicality and pure dumb luck. So, two things. "Hey, Boss," he said after a moment.

(Post a new comment)

toolateforme
2010-07-23 04:22 am UTC (link)

Dean caught the flask on reflex, a well-practiced motion, even if he had to grunt as the motion jarred his arm. He had a pretty decent gash along the top of his bicep, a test of pain to match Cas'. They really were some pair. Taking his drink from the flask, he waited for a second to proved it wasn't going to do anything, before screwing the top on and passing it back.

"Where's the other one?" Cas rarely went around with just a flask of holy water- and the 'something else' was more than called for. Between their deaths, subsequent arrival in the Twilight Zone, and bombardment by a slew of people Dean had already buried and mourned, he didn't see exactly how much worse getting drunk could make things.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

bangafewgongs
2010-07-24 05:22 am UTC (link)

Dean wasn't a demon, which was a relief in ways Castiel couldn't quite express. He was barely coping with this place as it was, and the tenuous hold he had on his composure would have surely snapped if that had been the case, or if it had been some other sort of trick. It was bad enough to be in a strange place, to know that years of fighting had been in vain and hope was lost back home, that they were dead outside of this place. Dealing with all of that without Dean would have been overwhelming. Castiel was not ashamed to admit, at least to himself, just how much he had needed Dean to keep him going these past years. He need the other man to keep him going.

He caught the flask when Dean passed it back, slipping it back into his jacket before pulling out a second and tossing it over. Alcohol always made things more bearable in his experience. Not as much as other substances, but enough. Besides, he needed a somewhat clear head to process what was going on here, and drugs wouldn't help with that. He wasn't sure what to say, so he was quiet for a moment. "What do you make of this place?" he asked finally.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

toolateforme
2010-07-24 05:31 am UTC (link)

Another easy catch had Dean relaxing further, even before he took a drink of the harder stuff. Even more than the holy water, that was a sign that Cas really was Cas. No clarification, no hesitation- they just understood one another. Not to mention, he had the good whiskey, which Dean wasn't shy about taking a nice, long drink from. No, it didn't take a lot of the edge off, but it was comforting in a familiar sense, just like Cas himself. Where Cas might have lost composure if Dean hadn't been around, Dean would have just given up; he himself wasn't a lot to live for, even if this was a second chance. He didn't deserve one, unless Cas got one, too.

He handed the whiskey over this time- he was always more careful with the alcohol- taking a look around as he thought about Cas' question. "Dunno. Not Hell," He held up his arm to show the red seeping through the sleeve, proving he'd already done the test. "Haven't seen anybody around to ask," Which was probably a very lucky break for those poor people. "Still not sure I want to believe the shit on the phones," Past-him being around. Most of his family there, in one way or another. Ben, and Sam, and Jo and Ellen and it was all just too much. "You?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bangafewgongs
2010-07-24 06:02 am UTC (link)

It would have been odd how well they knew each other, except that it wasn't. For them, this had been a natural progression (if anything about the last five years cold be called natural) and it just made sense that they understood each other. There hadn't really been anyone else, not anyone who knew the whole story in any case, for so long that becoming closer was almost unavoidable. Without Dean, Cas had no doubt humanity would have broken him and he never would have been strong enough to survive it. And now, in this world that was frighteningly normal, it was almost worse. So he was grateful for the other man's presence and relieved to know that he wasn't alone in this.

He took a long pull of the whiskey, then put it away for the moment. "Not Hell," Cas agreed, "but not anything that makes sense." He brought a hand up to touch the bloody part of Dean's sleeve, thinking back to days when he could have healed such a small thing with little more than a thought. There was a him here who still could, if this place was to be believed. Of course, that wasn't all he was thinking about. Blood and sex were inexorably tied together for him, what with how many times Dean had come back to his cabin from a phenomenal failure on a raid or after working over a demon, so it wasn't his fault his brain jumped from one to the other like a fucking game of hopscotch. But now wasn't the time to be thinking about shit like that. Probably not anyway. What were they talking about? "Don't know what to think about all that," he agreed. "But there's a clean place to stay and hot water...and nobody's trying to kill us. I say keep an eye open and take advantage while it lasts."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

toolateforme
2010-07-24 06:33 am UTC (link)

Dean watched Cas reach for the blood on his arm, not reacting past a slight flinch, reflex from the pressure on the cut. Another sign he was surely alive- he lost that impulse, in death. At least he had the last time, and if that didn't make him sound like a lunatic. He shook the thought off, trying to pay attention to Cas' thoughts and drag his own back from the baser place they'd traveled to.

Cas had a point- a clean bed, consistent running water. Whatever this place was, it was already leaps and bounds ahead of the (literal) hell-hole they had been calling home. And what was the worst that could happen? They'd die again? For the sake of actually having something nice for once- with Cas, no less, although Dean shoved away the thoughts that came with that idea- well. He would risk it. "You're right. You got that map, too?" He waved the PDA that was still in his hand vaguely, suggestive of the map he'd been trying to follow towards the destination marked 'housing'.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bangafewgongs
2010-07-29 07:15 am UTC (link)

The way people reacted to pain still had a way of fascinating Cas. Even his own reactions did. As an angel, pain had been a distant thing, largely absent, and certainly not something that could be qualified in human terms. He hadn't been unfeeling, but it had been different. Human pain was all brightness and intensity and a part of him, a part he wasn't sure if he liked, preferred it to the other sort. It was real and sharp and reminded him that he was alive.

"Yeah," he said absently, his fingers tracing along the bloody fabric for another moment before pulling back. "I have it." There was a brief pause. "You bleed too much." It wasn't a commentary on how the wound behaved, but their lifestyle as a whole. Even though he would never try to change him, both because that was just too much hypocrisy for his tastes and because if Dean was ever okay he might not need him, he would always be concerned and he would always want Dean safe. "We should find this place, I guess. Check it out and get settled."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

toolateforme
2010-07-31 03:49 am UTC (link)

[[ooc: I forgot this was on me, fail.]]

"Look who's talking." Dean wasn't sure what else he could say to Cas' statement; it wasn't as off-the-wall to him as it may have been an outside observer. For better or worse, after a certain point, Dean had learned to decipher Cas' thoughts into something closer to 'normal' terms (or whatever could be called 'normal' that Dean aped for himself). He knew it was an expression of concern, if a hypocritical one. But it was just a product of what their lives had been. Not to mention the life-affirming aspect, like it had been here... or the ties to sex that had come around in camp. But he was getting away from himself again. "I think we're up this way," Dean pointed vaguely up one of the streets and started on his way, more or less expecting Cas to follow.

And so the awkward silence began. Dean had no idea what to say, if there was anything he could say, that would make up for what he'd done. He knew Cas had figured out just what their last mission was about, what was going to happen. How did he even begin to... should he even apologize, or explain? Cas got it. A fact that only made Dean feel more like shit. He was really starting to regret giving Cas the flask of whiskey back.

(Reply to this) (Parent)