[FIC] All The Things I Know Right Now for blaanidblaanid
Gift type: Fanfic
Title: All The Things I Know Right Now
Author: emerald_embers
Recipient: blaanidblaanid
Rating: PG13 for violence, bad language and slash.
Warnings: Some gore at the beginning of the fic, minor character death.
Spoilers: Up to and including 6x11.
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: Castiel, Dean, and the morning after the end of the world that wasn't.
Author notes: Thanks to morganoconner for speed-betaing this for me!
Dean was sore in places he wasn't even certain he had, though from the feel of it, at least all of said places seemed to be intact.
After giving his neck a good poke to check nothing was broken, it was comforting to roll onto his side and see light still peeking in from the crack under the door. Raphael's explosion into gore had apparently taken out Balthazar's bedroom light, not Dean's eyes, so the panic of angel-induced blindness was over.
"Sam?"
"Yeah," came Sam's voice, all the reply Dean really needed.
"Cas?" the silence dragged on longer than was comfortable and Dean swallowed, repeated a little louder, "Castiel?"
"What?"
"Nothing," Dean replied, letting out a breath before moving onto the last. "Balthazar?"
No reply, and Dean dug through his jeans' pocket, took out his mobile so he could get a rough look at the room using the back-light.
He quickly felt thankful he only had the back-light to go off - Castiel and Sam were all in one piece, but the other two previous occupants of the room were in several. "Oh, gross."
Castiel picked a molar out of his hair and stared at it, expression unreadable in the dim light. "He always said I was a bad influence."
Balthazar's molar, then. Dean couldn't say he'd particularly miss the smarmy bastard, even if he had pulled through for them and kicked serious ass in the end. He crawled over to Castiel, wrapped an arm around the angel's shoulders and squeezed, almost laughing with relief at the thought that yes, Raphael was dead, and yes, the apocalypse was over again. "How many times have we saved the world?"
"Enough," Castiel said, tilting his head towards Dean. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Dean replied, letting go of Castiel to wipe down his own arm, scraping off what felt an awful lot like bits of someone else's scalp. "What happens in Heaven now?"
Castiel disappeared, Balthazar's tooth dropping to the floor in his absence, and Dean wondered for a moment if he should take it as a souvenir before panicking as a wet splatter hit the back of his neck.
It would probably be a better idea to wait until after leaving the room with blood on the ceiling before getting contemplative.
Dean was overly familiar with death. Short of becoming a full time reaper, he couldn't be much more familiar with it; even so, it was strange to realise he not only knew the self-proclaimed Queen of Hell, but the guy who was in charge of Heaven.
The morning after the apocalypse had been averted a second time was an ordinary morning. The news was moderately terrible, traffic heavy but moving, and the temperature was both too mild for a jacket and too cold for a t-shirt.
For Dean Winchester, it was a wonderful morning. The end of the world had been suspended indefinitely, and after three years spent wrangling with Lucifer and then watching Castiel battle Raphael, it was refreshing to wake up and think "What's for breakfast?" instead of "Still not dead, awesome".
He and Sam, against all odds, had pulled through alive, intact, and still mostly human. They only had the FBI, a handful of pissed off Lucifer loyalists, and a mountain of their own issues to deal with - by Winchester standards, that was a cause for celebration.
When Dean found a note on his bedside table with an address and a time in Castiel's scrawled cursive, he suspected it wasn't an invitation to a "we survived the apocalypse" party, but he was willing to be surprised.
Somewhere between Sam jumping into the Pit and deciding to let Dean know he'd come back, Castiel had discovered coffee. Dean didn't know who had first introduced Castiel to it, but it wasn't hard to guess why he'd developed a weakness for the drink. Castiel appeared to like the side-effects of being wired, and after a few sips of coffee or cola he would be close to vibrating with nerves - whatever caused his oversized angelic tolerance for alcohol seemed to have overlooked caffeine.
Dean didn't like the side-effects quite so much. Castiel with caffeine jitters seemed to occupy rather more space than he should; Castiel had more limbs than the average human, even if his extras weren't visible, and rather than bouncing off the walls he appeared to be bouncing off several dimensions whenever he forgot himself. All the more disturbing was how, for all the flickering in and out of existence like a faulty strip, conversation with him was more or less the same as usual.
"What's the occasion?" Dean asked, wary of Castiel's double espresso but knowing better than to comment on it if he wanted to keep his slice of pecan pie.
"How much did you hear when Balthazar died?" Castiel asked, picking up his coffee before setting it back down again, seeming uncertain of what to do with his hands until he settled on linking his fingers.
"'Dead man's trigger, you son of a bitch'," Dean replied, quoting. "That's about all I caught."
"You were late," Castiel said, nodding. "I was supposed to use the weapon, not him."
"No point feeling guilty about it, Cas," Dean said, shrugging. "It was his choice. I'm glad I've still got you."
"I know. It's why I believe he was right." Castiel looked up at the ceiling, took a long breath before fixing his usual soul-searching stare on Dean. "He said 'I hope he's worth it, because you are'."
Even if Halle Berry had turned up to smear the pecan pie over her naked body, Dean doubted he would have been able to find an appetite for it any more. "So. Uh. Balthazar had a - a thing for you," Dean said, not knowing what to say and half-stammering what little he could come up with.
"I have duties in Heaven," Castiel continued. "Rebuilding it won't be easy, but I'd like to think I have a place here still." He was quiet for a moment, licking his lips before nodding at Dean, looking almost confused. "With you."
Dean's track record with rash decisions was hardly comforting to look at. He'd sold his soul, helped start the apocalypse, ended up with a tattoo he would always be thankful to Castiel for removing when bringing him back from Hell - and yes, one of those things was not like the others, but it was still a bad decision.
On the other hand, it had kept Sam alive. And even if it had helped start the apocalypse, it was also a major factor in helping to stop it.
Dean stood up, leaned across the table - risk of spilt espresso be damned - and kissed him, deliberately ignoring everyone else in the coffee shop in favour of please, please God, let him have read Castiel right.
Castiel's lips were soft, not quite resistant but not quite responsive either. "Cas, I could do with something to go on here," Dean muttered, his careful ignorance of everyone else around them increasingly difficult without any attempts on Castiel's part to distract him.
"Sorry," Castiel replied, "Remiel was - never mind."
Castiel clicked his fingers, emptying the shop, and Dean decided it wasn't worth asking what exactly Remiel was up to or where the other occupants of the shop had been whisked away to. It was easier to justify the decision when Castiel swiped a hand across their table, clearing it in one swoop, before taking advantage of his angelic strength to yank Dean half across the table.
Dean tried not to think if it meant anything to be kneeling in front of Castiel on a first date, and after a kiss from Castiel that was decidedly more responsive than the first, it wasn't hard to give up thinking altogether.
"So," Dean said afterwards, fastening up jeans that would need a wash pretty damn soon to remove the coffee - and other - stains and straightening his shirt. "Am I worth it?"
Castiel's expression would have qualified as deadpan if his eyes weren't still blissed out post-orgasm. "How many times have I died for you?"
"One," Dean replied, biting his cheek and waiting for Castiel to correct him.
"Two, Dean."
"You were stopping the apocalypse, so it only counts as half," Dean said, yelping when Castiel grabbed him by the hair and pulled him close.
"Two," Castiel said, eyes intense, and Dean was kind of glad he'd had the first orgasm so recently because otherwise he would have been really tempted into a second. Castiel taking control really did make him kind of tingly.
"One and a half, then," Dean replied, before Castiel looked away, seeming distracted. "You got somewhere to -" Castiel disappeared before he could finish. "- be?"
Goodbyes. They definitely had to work on goodbyes.
Dean wiped a hand across his lips before licking them and grinning again.
He was happy to keep working on beginnings for a while yet instead.
The End
Title: All The Things I Know Right Now
Author: emerald_embers
Recipient: blaanidblaanid
Rating: PG13 for violence, bad language and slash.
Warnings: Some gore at the beginning of the fic, minor character death.
Spoilers: Up to and including 6x11.
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: Castiel, Dean, and the morning after the end of the world that wasn't.
Author notes: Thanks to morganoconner for speed-betaing this for me!
Dean was sore in places he wasn't even certain he had, though from the feel of it, at least all of said places seemed to be intact.
After giving his neck a good poke to check nothing was broken, it was comforting to roll onto his side and see light still peeking in from the crack under the door. Raphael's explosion into gore had apparently taken out Balthazar's bedroom light, not Dean's eyes, so the panic of angel-induced blindness was over.
"Sam?"
"Yeah," came Sam's voice, all the reply Dean really needed.
"Cas?" the silence dragged on longer than was comfortable and Dean swallowed, repeated a little louder, "Castiel?"
"What?"
"Nothing," Dean replied, letting out a breath before moving onto the last. "Balthazar?"
No reply, and Dean dug through his jeans' pocket, took out his mobile so he could get a rough look at the room using the back-light.
He quickly felt thankful he only had the back-light to go off - Castiel and Sam were all in one piece, but the other two previous occupants of the room were in several. "Oh, gross."
Castiel picked a molar out of his hair and stared at it, expression unreadable in the dim light. "He always said I was a bad influence."
Balthazar's molar, then. Dean couldn't say he'd particularly miss the smarmy bastard, even if he had pulled through for them and kicked serious ass in the end. He crawled over to Castiel, wrapped an arm around the angel's shoulders and squeezed, almost laughing with relief at the thought that yes, Raphael was dead, and yes, the apocalypse was over again. "How many times have we saved the world?"
"Enough," Castiel said, tilting his head towards Dean. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Dean replied, letting go of Castiel to wipe down his own arm, scraping off what felt an awful lot like bits of someone else's scalp. "What happens in Heaven now?"
Castiel disappeared, Balthazar's tooth dropping to the floor in his absence, and Dean wondered for a moment if he should take it as a souvenir before panicking as a wet splatter hit the back of his neck.
It would probably be a better idea to wait until after leaving the room with blood on the ceiling before getting contemplative.
Dean was overly familiar with death. Short of becoming a full time reaper, he couldn't be much more familiar with it; even so, it was strange to realise he not only knew the self-proclaimed Queen of Hell, but the guy who was in charge of Heaven.
The morning after the apocalypse had been averted a second time was an ordinary morning. The news was moderately terrible, traffic heavy but moving, and the temperature was both too mild for a jacket and too cold for a t-shirt.
For Dean Winchester, it was a wonderful morning. The end of the world had been suspended indefinitely, and after three years spent wrangling with Lucifer and then watching Castiel battle Raphael, it was refreshing to wake up and think "What's for breakfast?" instead of "Still not dead, awesome".
He and Sam, against all odds, had pulled through alive, intact, and still mostly human. They only had the FBI, a handful of pissed off Lucifer loyalists, and a mountain of their own issues to deal with - by Winchester standards, that was a cause for celebration.
When Dean found a note on his bedside table with an address and a time in Castiel's scrawled cursive, he suspected it wasn't an invitation to a "we survived the apocalypse" party, but he was willing to be surprised.
Somewhere between Sam jumping into the Pit and deciding to let Dean know he'd come back, Castiel had discovered coffee. Dean didn't know who had first introduced Castiel to it, but it wasn't hard to guess why he'd developed a weakness for the drink. Castiel appeared to like the side-effects of being wired, and after a few sips of coffee or cola he would be close to vibrating with nerves - whatever caused his oversized angelic tolerance for alcohol seemed to have overlooked caffeine.
Dean didn't like the side-effects quite so much. Castiel with caffeine jitters seemed to occupy rather more space than he should; Castiel had more limbs than the average human, even if his extras weren't visible, and rather than bouncing off the walls he appeared to be bouncing off several dimensions whenever he forgot himself. All the more disturbing was how, for all the flickering in and out of existence like a faulty strip, conversation with him was more or less the same as usual.
"What's the occasion?" Dean asked, wary of Castiel's double espresso but knowing better than to comment on it if he wanted to keep his slice of pecan pie.
"How much did you hear when Balthazar died?" Castiel asked, picking up his coffee before setting it back down again, seeming uncertain of what to do with his hands until he settled on linking his fingers.
"'Dead man's trigger, you son of a bitch'," Dean replied, quoting. "That's about all I caught."
"You were late," Castiel said, nodding. "I was supposed to use the weapon, not him."
"No point feeling guilty about it, Cas," Dean said, shrugging. "It was his choice. I'm glad I've still got you."
"I know. It's why I believe he was right." Castiel looked up at the ceiling, took a long breath before fixing his usual soul-searching stare on Dean. "He said 'I hope he's worth it, because you are'."
Even if Halle Berry had turned up to smear the pecan pie over her naked body, Dean doubted he would have been able to find an appetite for it any more. "So. Uh. Balthazar had a - a thing for you," Dean said, not knowing what to say and half-stammering what little he could come up with.
"I have duties in Heaven," Castiel continued. "Rebuilding it won't be easy, but I'd like to think I have a place here still." He was quiet for a moment, licking his lips before nodding at Dean, looking almost confused. "With you."
Dean's track record with rash decisions was hardly comforting to look at. He'd sold his soul, helped start the apocalypse, ended up with a tattoo he would always be thankful to Castiel for removing when bringing him back from Hell - and yes, one of those things was not like the others, but it was still a bad decision.
On the other hand, it had kept Sam alive. And even if it had helped start the apocalypse, it was also a major factor in helping to stop it.
Dean stood up, leaned across the table - risk of spilt espresso be damned - and kissed him, deliberately ignoring everyone else in the coffee shop in favour of please, please God, let him have read Castiel right.
Castiel's lips were soft, not quite resistant but not quite responsive either. "Cas, I could do with something to go on here," Dean muttered, his careful ignorance of everyone else around them increasingly difficult without any attempts on Castiel's part to distract him.
"Sorry," Castiel replied, "Remiel was - never mind."
Castiel clicked his fingers, emptying the shop, and Dean decided it wasn't worth asking what exactly Remiel was up to or where the other occupants of the shop had been whisked away to. It was easier to justify the decision when Castiel swiped a hand across their table, clearing it in one swoop, before taking advantage of his angelic strength to yank Dean half across the table.
Dean tried not to think if it meant anything to be kneeling in front of Castiel on a first date, and after a kiss from Castiel that was decidedly more responsive than the first, it wasn't hard to give up thinking altogether.
"So," Dean said afterwards, fastening up jeans that would need a wash pretty damn soon to remove the coffee - and other - stains and straightening his shirt. "Am I worth it?"
Castiel's expression would have qualified as deadpan if his eyes weren't still blissed out post-orgasm. "How many times have I died for you?"
"One," Dean replied, biting his cheek and waiting for Castiel to correct him.
"Two, Dean."
"You were stopping the apocalypse, so it only counts as half," Dean said, yelping when Castiel grabbed him by the hair and pulled him close.
"Two," Castiel said, eyes intense, and Dean was kind of glad he'd had the first orgasm so recently because otherwise he would have been really tempted into a second. Castiel taking control really did make him kind of tingly.
"One and a half, then," Dean replied, before Castiel looked away, seeming distracted. "You got somewhere to -" Castiel disappeared before he could finish. "- be?"
Goodbyes. They definitely had to work on goodbyes.
Dean wiped a hand across his lips before licking them and grinning again.
He was happy to keep working on beginnings for a while yet instead.
The End