Who: Castiel + Sam Winchester What: Meeting in town When: Monday, Dec 30 Where: The Library Rating: Low. Status: Complete
Maine was nice, Castiel had decided almost immediately upon arriving. It was winter, and there was some snow, but as an angel he hardly noticed at all really. Cold was just another thing that was, but wasn't really for him to feel.
He'd been given a little thing with buttons and a room that was empty minus him and some money along with an explanation that he hadn't paid any mind to, and then Castiel had sat on the couch, found it comfortable, and went to work on figuring out the little button machine.
It wasn't that he wasn't concerned about where Sam, Dean and the Prophet were now that they'd all defeated the Leviathan. He was just… not allowing himself to think on it. Instead he focused on buttons and colors and the distant sound of the trees -- the forest was dense with wildlife despite the season and that made him pleased.
The pleasure only lasted so long as Cas found himself in conversations that he never thought he might again. They were heavy, and he couldn't, wouldn't allow himself to understand why things couldn't stay easy. Polite. Cats and squirrels were far more interesting than angels and fighting.
Scrabble. He wanted to play that. Thinking on it only found him at a little shop that sold the boards and he happily traded now waded up money for the game, didn't bother to count it out just push it at the clerk and waited to see if anything more was demanded of him. When he was handed change, Castiel decided he'd done well.
After that it was really only a matter of time and effort before he found someone he knew. Sam Winchester was in town after all (they'd spoken), and he was remarkably predictable in terms of location. The angel smiled once he'd found the youngest Winchester, a nearly serene sort of look, before settling himself down at a nearby table and setting his game on the table in front of him, a clear invitation.
---
For some reason Sam didn’t understand, the magical portals had suddenly decided they were fond of his family. First Adam, then John, then Anna of all people, and now Cas. The first two he was happy about, and the last one as well; as for Anna, he was tolerating her existence, and mostly ignoring it. Mostly, because his mind would never be able to entirely let him forget the presence of a person that had tried to kill him and more importantly, his parents. Just because none of them were prime targets at the moment didn’t mean he wasn’t going to worry.
And he was worrying over Katherine, too, who was dealing with a similar but much more dangerous situation. He didn’t entirely trust her-- she was too calculating, too willing to do anything to survive-- but he disliked Klaus even more, and the whole Mikaelson family, for that matter. Watching their whole reunion hadn’t made him feel better, nor had Dean’s attempted reassurance that they were ‘just as lost’ here as Sam was, whatever that meant. So the arrival of angelic back-up, even if Cas was in his watching bees and playing board games phase (which had been the state he’d been in before Sam had gotten here, and he’d only learned that it was a phase since arriving here and discovering the future), was not unwelcome. Cas came through for them when they needed him, and knowing he was here was hopeful.
But there was also nothing urgent he needed to worry the angel about in this particular moment, so he’d simply allowed Cas to talk to him about ridiculous things. Like squirrels. There wasn’t much harm in taking simple enjoyment in woodland creatures, particularly when they were in a peaceful town like Storybrooke, where pacifism was the norm and didn’t mean that they were playing a man down. Really, this was the perfect place for Cas to do his weird little peaceful thing. As long as he didn’t show up naked anywhere near Sam, and especially not covered in bees, he could handle that. And worry about convincing the angel to fight if or when that ever became something they needed, which it might not.
It certainly was peaceful at the moment, quiet in the library during the evenings. Sam was technically done working, but he often stayed here longer than necessary, taking the time to go through the books as a reader rather than a librarian. He was idly running his fingers along the philosophy section, wondering if he was in the mood for any of them, when the angel appeared.
That might have startled him more, once. But he simply looked at Cas for a moment, and then left the books alone to sit down at the table with him. “Everything alright?” he asked, curiously. He knew enough about this kind of behavior from Cas to know that he tended to do this sort of thing when he was avoiding something, but that also meant he wasn’t likely to talk to Sam about it. So he settled into his chair, picked his letters, and arranged them in front of him, eying them contemplatively. “You can go first.”
---
That wasn't really how the rules worked - players were not meant to just pick and choose at random who went first, but Castiel would not begrudge Sam his manners for such a simple matter such as starting, and instead made a little huff of a noise before tucking his head down to stare at the letters he'd selected for himself.
Funny how many vowels he could end up when consonants were far more likely in a sense of statistics.
"Perfectly fine," he said, and meant it. He'd already allowed himself to forgive and forget his prior conversations and was more than happy to focus on the current, on the seven letters in front of him and the placement of the bonuses on the board. It was nice that Sam either cared or was curious enough to ask (and Sam was generally nice - it was just part of who he was), but there was no point in dredging up what currently wasn't an issue.
"You seem more relaxed," he said instead as he laid out a word - five letters "gnarl" - with careful fingers and steady hand. He still wore the hospital scrubs underneath his trench coat, and his wrist was wrapped with a little medical bracelet, but his white cloth shoes made not even a scuff against the floor of the library as he shifted in his seat, pulled one leg up underneath himself.
---
Alright then. Cas was perfectly fine, and it was perfectly normal to sit in the middle of a library in a magical town in Maine and play Scrabble with an angel. It was actually incredibly weird, but pleasant enough, so Sam wasn’t complaining. He nodded slightly, to show that he’d accepted Cas’s answer. He watched his play, too, and then looked consideringly at his own letters.
“I am,” he said. “I’ve been here for months. Just… relaxing. Being normal, or close to it. Working here in the library.”
He paused to lay out his own first word-- “lawn”, not particularly impressive but the best he could do with his current letters, using Cas’s L-- and picked three more, setting them on the stand before looking up at Cas. “There’s not much to worry about here. Nobody’s dared to break the peace treaty that the original residents are enforcing, so… there’s nothing to hunt or fight. And I’ve had people here the whole time. Dean, Jess, Adam, dad…”
He trailed off and shrugged. He didn’t think there was much point in mentioning that Cas had been here before. The angel was ‘perfectly fine’, and there was no point in mentioning something that might upset him, like having to explain the future that was waiting for him at home.
----
While he never would have thought it before, now that it was mentioned a magical portal vacation in Maine seemed like the most perfect of things. It was a bit tethering, Cas had realized nearly immediately. This place was it: as much as Castiel might have preferred the option to visit the sloths in the rain forests or the honey bees in a climate that was warmer Maine was where he'd been put and so he would have to stay here. It might have been further off-putting, but he could think of worse places to be.
"Nearly your entire family," he said, sounding pleased for Sam. In a way, he was. Sam without Dean was nothing good, and Adam had never deserved his fate. John wasn't a man whom Castiel would make judgements on without hearing from the brothers first. And Jess -- a name he knew, and a feeling that emanated from Sam. He got it, in his own way. The angel did not mention that they had a mother missing still, because that had always been the case, hadn't it?
"Meg?" he asked, curious and slightly hopeful even as he rested his chin on the top of his knee, laid down a new word that played off of Sam's W. Wane. Low score, but what could one really do with some many U's anyway?
He did hope Meg was around though. As much as he knew the Winchester's didn't prefer her company, she'd been kind to him recently, in her own way. Looked out for him when no one else would, and had more patience than one would ever assume a demon might have.
----
“Nearly,” Sam agreed. There were a few missing-- his mother and Bobby were the ones he most wanted to come through the portals, since it obviously had the power to bring the dead from before they died-- but he felt selfish thinking that. He’d watched so many other people lose their families, while his kept showing up. A part of him wondered if there was some kind of trade-off going on, in which case he was pretty sure it was supposed to be his job to be the one making the sacrifices and losing everyone so others could have their loved ones. But he had no control over the portals, which was probably just as well-- except for the fact that it meant he could just as easily lose everyone around him in one fell swoop, the same way others had. Almost the same way he’d lost them right before arriving here.
And having people here was a double-edged sword. Sam almost wished the portals would stop picking from his world, if it was going to start picking people who’d killed him. Although… Meg he could possibly tolerate, the same way he was tolerating Anna. He wasn’t sure he could say the same for Jo or his dad, though. She’d killed Jo, and killed his father’s friends.
Of course, Cas would protect her, and the peace treaty would protect her, and even Sam and Dean would probably get involved-- for the sake of not watching their father or girlfriend (in Dean’s case) or angel friend get hurt in the fighting. For the sake of keeping the peace.
But for now, it was a moot point. “Sorry,” he said, and moved to place his letters on the board: ‘moon’, directly under ‘gnarl’, so that the combination also formed ‘go’, ‘no’, and ‘an’. And then he looked up at Cas. “Are we keeping score?”
He hadn’t been counting his points, because the game seemed more like a conversational piece than anything else-- something to do while they were talking, that took up any weird silences. He figured that was the point for Cas, to have something to do with his friend that didn’t involve fighting or even having to talk about fighting. The competitive and perfectionist part of his nature was trying to get good combinations anyway, but he didn’t really care about the points.
----
No Meg then. Cas only half closed his eyes in momentary recognition of that information. He couldn't help but feel a little sad about it; for all the wrong she'd done in the past she was currently someone he considered a friend and it was only a shame to him that they couldn't all be safe here. Meg probably would have liked it here -- although she'd be horrible at Scrabble.
And the game was really what decided it, wasn't it?
He sniffed a little, setting his wandering thoughts aside before they all got too distracting and focused instead of his letters, on the shapes and textures of the tiles -- cheap wood lacking any real grain. "Do you want to keep score?" He asked, instead of really answering. He had the numbers in his head currently - Sam was winning by a small margin - but there was no telling if they would stay there or not, or if he might just twist them into something else instead.
Settling a new word down from Sam's M, mourn, the angel glanced up at Sam and just stared for a long moment. Despite the months that Sam had been here, he had a distinctly familiar feel about him as far as time went. No later than him, really. Idly, he wondered of the others, but didn't care to inquire further than that cursory thought.
"There's a ball," he said, vaguely, like he wasn't quite sure what it meant, but he knew it existed. "I'm going, as I have been deemed attractive enough to be seen in public with."
---
Sam shrugged. He could calculate it himself-- and did, just out of curiosity-- but that wasn’t the point. He supposed that he could keep score inside his head, and Cas could do the same in his own if he was so inclined, but the question was whether it was something they were going to talk about.
Or something. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he said, and it didn’t. And then he looked at Cas’s words again: gnarl, wane, mourn. He glanced up at Cas, wondering if they had any subconscious meaning, or if they were simply what his letters had spelled. Then again, he was an angel-- could he just pick the letters he wanted without even appearing to cheat?
And then he found himself on the receiving end on a hard stare. He relaxed his elbows onto the table, watching the angel in return, wondering what he was seeing. And then gave a slight huff of laughter, and looked back down at his letters.
“You should be flattered,” he said, smiling. “I’m going too. With Jess.” He picked up a few tiles, and laid them down: ‘newly’, using the N from wane. And now his second W was finally gone. “I think it’ll be fun. And if it’s not, you’ll have backup.”
----
Castiel could technically cheat without much of a thought or an effort - it was hardly a drop out of the bucket for him to warp the reality around them enough to get the exact letters he needed every single time. If he currently was doing so however, it was without any real forethought considering he had no real desire to win the game so much as just play it.
The angel shook his head at the question of further scoring. If Sam didn't care, neither did he. Or maybe because Sam didn't care, he didn't either. Castiel was certainly more than alright with letting someone else, anyone else, make the decisions for him. Even the smallest of ones. The less he tried doing it on his own, the less trouble there would be in the future.
Quirking a nearly amused eyebrow at Sam, Cas seemed pleased with the laugh. "Will I need 'back up'?" He asked, using air quotes unapologetically, like he just didn't know any better. And to be fair, he didn't. While he was generally aware that he was not unattractive (he'd been told as much, multiple times. By the strangest of people), Castiel, of course, had no real idea what having a date or going to a ball entailed, or even really what it meant. And how could he?
---
“I don’t know, maybe,” Sam said, shrugging. “Not in terms of back up in a fight, but I mean-- to get you out of an awkward situation. Dating… can be awkward.”
Especially when one was a slightly crazy angel whose people skills were shaky to begin with. And even as he formed that thought, he pictured Cas doing his ridiculous air quotes around the words “people skills” and hid a smile. He didn’t think any less of Cas for having trouble fitting in with humans; he was an angel, of course there was going to be some culture shock and translation difficulties.
But that was the thing. He and Dean were used to Cas being… Cas. Even being this particular brand of Cas, who liked bees and squirrels and board games. Whoever Cas’s date was, he didn’t imagine she’d quite gotten the hang of it yet.
---
"Dating," Castiel repeated the word like it had no real meaning to him. It was just a word, made up of letters, just like any of the ones he was currently placing down on the game board. He made something a plural, and a downward "sum" before picking out new letters and looking at them hopefully like they might hold every single answer to the mysteries of the universe. They didn't.
"She seems nice," he said, after a beat. He wasn't sure what else to say on the topic, had no idea how to process the how and why's of dating, even for a single evening. It was more than probable that he actually would need back up. Luckily for everyone involved, Castiel was amazingly good at affecting a look of complete desperation.
---
An amused expression flickered across Sam’s face for a moment, but he composed himself quickly. Probably the oddest thing about this whole situation, truthfully, wasn’t the board game or the hanging out in a library-- it was the fact that they were so relaxed. Sam could easily imagine other situations in which he and Cas might end up in a library, or in which the angel might try to persuade him to play a board game, but in most of those scenarios, Sam would have been working on some kind of job, on a tight schedule, and therefore would have had very little patience for the game or the innocuous small talk.
But this was Storybrooke, and there was very little to do other than random things like sit in a library and play Scrabble. There were no hunts and no apocalypses and nothing else looming ominously over Sam’s head, except for the fact that any of his loved ones could disappear on him at any time and he still didn’t know how to do anything about that, not really. But since he didn’t know how to do anything about it, he tried to put it out of his mind.
“That’s good,” he said. He took his turn, and then, “Maybe if you like her, you can bring her as your date to my wedding in February. If we’re all still here, of course.”
---
Sam wasn't wrong in his considerations. Less than a complete day had Castiel been here and he already felt nearly like he fit in. It was nice, in that no one was asking anything stressful of him (nothing more stressful than attending a social activity, anyway). There was no fighting. The wildlife was wide and varied despite the winter setting. Everything seemed easier here -- he could just let himself drift and wander and see everything without worrying that he was doing wrong. Again.
"You're getting married," he repeated, and offered a small and serene sort of smile. It was the sort of look that softened his features completely, and he was glad to find reason to do it. "That's wonderful, Sam. To Jess?" Sometimes it was nice just to be positive.
He liked the idea of it though. Marriage was such a strange human thing. Beautiful in its' own way and when done right the devotion of couples was nearly palpable. Castiel very much liked watching humans that were truly happy. It seemed rare, though. Maybe that was why watching bees and otters was easier.
---
“Yeah,” Sam said, and his own smile in return was of a similar variety. He wasn’t entirely at peace inside himself, but it was easier to pretend that he was when everything around him was peaceful.
Sometimes, anyway; at first the quiet of Storybrooke had made the disquiet inside him seem even worse by contrast. It hadn’t been fun to be stuck inside his own head, grappling with the loss of his brother and the friend that was currently across the table from him, and everyone else he’d known. The feeling of being totally alone and aimless had been countered by the fact that he’d suddenly had people back again, but there had been a sense of whiplash along with that, too. Normally there was something to distract him from that, at home: a job, a cause, a fight. Even if he hadn’t been alone here, he’d still been aimless. Slowly he’d come around to forming goals for himself, smaller ones than he was used to, but still. It was nice to have goals.
And many of them involved Jess. He said it out loud, just because he could: “I’m getting married. To Jess.”
Not many of the details had been decided yet, but he knew that he wanted Cas to be there. The angel was family and had been for a while.
---
Everything was peaceful here. There was some disquiet, of course - there always was - and Castiel could sense it just enough to know he might need to escape into the forest, or somewhere else quiet once in a while, but it wasn't nearly as loud as it was in other places.
If he were, perhaps, another version of himself, Cas probably would not like the peace. He definitely wouldn't like the fact that there was no escape or option to be anywhere else. He was, after all, an angel of the lord and was not used to boundaries. Castiel's real form was the size of the Chrysler building - a small town in Maine was hardly large enough for him to function. Currently though, he enjoyed the simplicity of it. Despite the strange magics, everything was nearly uncomplicated and that was strangely reassuring.
Just like Sam's happiness was reassuring. "I'm glad," he said, because he was. "You deserve happiness."
The angel gestured then, to the board, signaling that it was Sam's turn.