FIC: "To Be a Winchester" by shadow_artemis - PG - (10/14)
Title: To Be a Winchester: Fishing (10/14)
Author: shadow_artemis
Characters/Pairing: Dean, Castiel (shades of pre-Destiel as you please)
Rating: PG for language
Summary: It had all started out so simply: “If you’re gonna be apart of this family, you’re gonna have to start acting like a Winchester.” Now Dean wasn't so sure.
Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me. I'm just a college bum. I owe more than I own.
Notes: Takes place after the Apocalypse, after chapters six and eight.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The morning breeze, warm and slightly damp, cast small ripples over the lake’s surface. It ruffled Castiel’s hair and jacket, and he squinted into the sunlight that barely peeked over the tall grasses around them. Dean paused next to the angel, eyes off in the distance for a second before moving past his friend. Cas watched the rising sun for a second longer before moving on as well. He followed Dean down to the dock that jutted into the lake, dropping the lawn chairs under his arm so they rested against one of the poles attached to the dock. They clattered loudly down, nearly making Dean jump and drawing an annoyed glare from the hunter.
“Dude, don’t just drop things,” he snapped. “You’ll scare all the fish away.” The angel held his hands up in silent surrender and apology, two fishing poles still clutched tightly in his right hand. Only when the other man returned his gaze to the lake a moment later did Cas gently lean the poles against the chairs. His eyes drifted to the placid lake as well, taking in the world as it only appeared during these early morning hours.
He hadn’t pegged Dean as the early-riser type, not unless they were rushed out of their motel by a sudden attack or he had another night of insomnia (both of which happened with much less frequency now that the Apocalypse had come and gone). He knew that both Winchesters generally counted any sleep in excess of five hours as a decent night, but that was considering that hunts usually ran late into the night, and often through the morning. Sometimes, they got back just in time to save their stuff from being thrown out by a manager who needed the room for other guests.
Even when they didn’t hunt late into the night, their separate nightmares had often kept them from getting a full, healthy night. The frequency of these nightmares had dropped to nearly zero since they’d re-caged Lucifer (which Cas silently thanked his Father for every night); both hunters had quickly and thankfully resumed getting more than four sleepless hours a night since then.
Still, ever since Castiel had known his human charge, he’d always harbored the idea that, given a decent window of opportunity and without all the stresses of the Apocalyptic hunting life, Dean would be a late sleeper. He was more of night person, by the angel’s reckoning, and those types never dealt well with being up before dawn.
For the most part, he’d been correct in his assumption. Dean did like to sleep in when they got in late from a hunt, catching eight or nine hours of like-a-log sleep in the room or the Impala, depending on the motel’s checkout time. After nights when they didn’t hunt and he could go to bed at a reasonable time (before or around midnight), he was usually up on his own by seven or eight, still not so early that Cas would define it as being an early riser.
(Sam, of course, was definitely not a morning person. He claimed it was just a predisposition most people had. Dean alternated between blaming it on his college days and the amount of energy it must take to lug around his gargantuan body. Excluding movies and porn, one of Dean’s favorite forms of entertainment involved waking Sam up in a variety of inventive ways. Dean claimed it was hilarious; Sam just said it was ‘typical dumbass big brother shit.’)
So Cas had mostly been correct. Although Dean wasn’t exactly a late night person like many people assumed he was, he didn’t mind sleeping in late if it meant getting enough hours under his belt to properly do his job. Not that he was a true morning person, either-he was never up before seven unless they were just getting back from a hunt.
He supposed that days like today were the exceptions that proved the rule. For many years, he’d known that Dean had an affinity for fishing, from the first and only time John had taken him, and just him, out to a lake, to his peaceful dreams that Cas often slipped into. Well, the ones that didn’t involve strippers. Dean’s interest in fishing had always been a fact to Castiel, but he’d never quite comprehended the extent of this interest until recently.
Dean had told him about the nearby lake last night, about his plan to go out there and fish in the morning, but it had never quite landed for Castiel that this was another one of Dean’s lessons. That fact had only really hit home when Dean roused him from his sleep (a habit he’d picked up just before the end of the Apocalypse) and told him to be ready to go in ten minutes.
He did as he was told, doing his entire morning ritual in less than ten minutes (despite being able to will himself clean and in a new outfit in mere seconds-he liked doing things the human way). Dean was waiting for him outside, sky still dark but just barely glinting with pre-dawn glow. They both climbed into the Impala wordlessly, leaving Sam to sleep in and heading here, to the lake where they now stood.
Cas didn’t bother asking where Dean had gotten the fishing supplies; he quit questioning the exact capacity of Dean’s prized vehicle a long time ago. He just helped unfold the chairs on the end of the dock, handing a pole to the other man as they went to sit down. Dean accepted it without a word and propped it between his legs; Cas got comfortable in his own chair, the early morning sounds intermingling with the sound of Dean rustling through their tackle box.
Absently, the angel fiddled with his fishing pole and listened to Dean rustle, eyes drifting leisurely to a flock of birds that emerged from the tall grass on the far side of the lake. They disappeared into the fading morning haze at the same moment that Dean nudged his shoulder. Cas glanced back over to his friend, who held up a small plastic orb, half red and half white. He tilted his head, brow furrowed as he tried to ascertain what this strange object was for.
Dean saw this expression and smiled, a private smile that he tried to hide, but Cas caught it anyway. Something about the angel’s confusion continued to amuse the hunter, and while Cas still didn’t quite understand what it was about his unfamiliarity with many human objects and ideas that gave Dean so much pleasure, he’d gotten used to it and even smiled back. It was just nice to see the elder Winchester so happy, after all the impending doom of the Apocalypse.
“It’s a bobber,” Dean explained, pushing the ball toward Cas again. This time, the angel took it and turned it over in his hand, inspecting it as the hunter went on. “You tie it to your line so you can tell when something’s pulling on your hook. Other stuff too, but mostly that.” Cas nodded as he took in this new information and watched Dean tie his own bobber onto his line. The angel mimicked the handle motion with precision, his own red and white orb dangling off the end of his line on a perfect knot.
Dean noticed this and gave Cas one of his patented grins, producing a hook between his fingers with the ease and sleight of hand of a lifetime con man.
“Do the same with the hook, man, a few inches down from your bobber.” Cas took the shiny silver hook, careful to avoid to sharp tip; it reminded him a little too much of the silver daggers he and his brethren carried. Still, he tied it to very end of his line. Dean, hook already attached to his pole, went back to rifling through the tackle box. Cas took this brief moment to watch the subtle movements of lake before them. He could just barely make out a few fish swimming under the surface, probably one of the reasons why Dean had been so excited to go fishing here. It was nearly teeming with the small life forms.
“Here, take one,” Dean said, drawing the angel’s attention back to him. He was holding a small plastic tub near Cas’ face, apparently full of dirt. Upon closer inspection, Cas realized the surface was moving; for a moment, he wondered if it was somehow possessed, but then a small, pinkish creature burst through the top, writhing momentarily in the open air before leaning to burrow a new hole next to it.
“Worms?” he asked hesitantly. Somehow, despite knowing pretty much every detail involved in fishing, at least when it came to technical terms, he’d forgotten just how revolting worms seemed up close.
“You can stare into the Gates of Hell and not even blink, and a tub of worms freaks you out?” the hunter asked amusedly, very much enjoying Cas’ current discomfort. The angel just glanced up at him, eyes narrowed in an attempt to hide his disgust.
“That was something I’ve been trained for,” he replied stonily. “This is not.” Dean rolled his eyes but never pulled the tub away.
“Just take a worm and break it in half, then push it over the hook,” the hunter ordered, pushing the tub closer to Cas’ face. Reluctantly, the angel pulled loose a squirming invertebrate and stared at it as Dean put the tub back. Cas, nose wrinkled, cut it into two slippery pieces and speared one onto his dangling hook. Eyes on the angel, Dean smiled as he plucked the other half from his friend’s hand and pushed it over his own hook.
“See, not that hard, dude,” the Winchester concluded happily. “Now, just cast your line like so-” He released something on the handle, then angled the pole back and sharply cast it at the water. The line whizzed through the air, plopping into the water after a long second. Dean turned to smile at Cas again. “-and now you just let it sit until you feel a pull on your line. Go ahead, cast yours.”
The angel did as he was told, mirroring the older Winchester’s movements; his line thunked into the dock in front of him. Dean did his best to stifle a laugh, but his best wasn’t all that great in this case. Cas frowned at him, reeling his line back in as he tried to look as stern as possible. Unfortunately, nearly two years on Earth had softened him, if only a little, and his expression was more of a pout than anything.
“You just released it too soon, man,” Dean said as his chuckles died down. He reached over and grabbed the angel’s arms, maneuvering them above his head. “Alright, now just swing and release about...” He moved Cas’ arms to a lower position. “...here.” The angel nodded, processing this manhandling, and moved his arms back into place. Again, he swung; this time, the line landed in the water with a perfect plunk.
“Nice job, Cas,” the hunter encouraged. He held his own pole in one hand and turned back to the lake, eyes fluttering shut.
With all of Dean’s instructions seemingly done, Castiel relaxed into his chair, pole held loosely between his hands. The rising sun slowly warmed the world around him, allowing him to drift into a peaceful sort of meditation. His eyes drifted around the lake, landing on Dean, who was in a similar state next to him.
Everything seemed to slow to a crawl around them. Animals still moved, still made their morning sounds, but it was muffled, like he was hearing it through a thin fog. If you asked him honestly, Cas didn’t really mind it. All the pressing stresses and niggling thoughts from the previous days dropped away from his consciousness entirely, replaced by the pleasant buzz of nothingness.
Even the post-Apocalyptic hunting life wasn’t ideal, and while it wasn’t nearly as bad now as it had been for a long time (according to Dean), Castiel still knew it took a toll on even the most iron-willed people. He’d heard for decades that humans needed an outlet of sorts so they could release their pent-up tension, but he’d never quite understood the use for it until now. Anxiety he didn’t even realize he’d accumulated floated away as the minutes dragged on, replaced with a quiet sense of calm.
After the centuries of watching humans fish for food, just to sustain themselves, Cas had originally been unsure why Dean would be so enthusiastic about the activity. It wasn’t like he and Sam couldn’t scrounge together the money to feed themselves when meal times rolled around. Generally, they had more than enough snacks laying around.
But now, experiencing fishing for himself, Cas could see why one would want to do it without needing the fish for sustenance. He was more at peace now than he could remember feeling in a long time, since before the fourteenth century (when everything had really started turning for the worse). Letting out a long sigh of contentment, he settled further into his chair, drawing one open eye from the other man, who smiled sleepily.
“Now you’ve got it, man.”
Author: shadow_artemis
Characters/Pairing: Dean, Castiel (shades of pre-Destiel as you please)
Rating: PG for language
Summary: It had all started out so simply: “If you’re gonna be apart of this family, you’re gonna have to start acting like a Winchester.” Now Dean wasn't so sure.
Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me. I'm just a college bum. I owe more than I own.
Notes: Takes place after the Apocalypse, after chapters six and eight.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The morning breeze, warm and slightly damp, cast small ripples over the lake’s surface. It ruffled Castiel’s hair and jacket, and he squinted into the sunlight that barely peeked over the tall grasses around them. Dean paused next to the angel, eyes off in the distance for a second before moving past his friend. Cas watched the rising sun for a second longer before moving on as well. He followed Dean down to the dock that jutted into the lake, dropping the lawn chairs under his arm so they rested against one of the poles attached to the dock. They clattered loudly down, nearly making Dean jump and drawing an annoyed glare from the hunter.
“Dude, don’t just drop things,” he snapped. “You’ll scare all the fish away.” The angel held his hands up in silent surrender and apology, two fishing poles still clutched tightly in his right hand. Only when the other man returned his gaze to the lake a moment later did Cas gently lean the poles against the chairs. His eyes drifted to the placid lake as well, taking in the world as it only appeared during these early morning hours.
He hadn’t pegged Dean as the early-riser type, not unless they were rushed out of their motel by a sudden attack or he had another night of insomnia (both of which happened with much less frequency now that the Apocalypse had come and gone). He knew that both Winchesters generally counted any sleep in excess of five hours as a decent night, but that was considering that hunts usually ran late into the night, and often through the morning. Sometimes, they got back just in time to save their stuff from being thrown out by a manager who needed the room for other guests.
Even when they didn’t hunt late into the night, their separate nightmares had often kept them from getting a full, healthy night. The frequency of these nightmares had dropped to nearly zero since they’d re-caged Lucifer (which Cas silently thanked his Father for every night); both hunters had quickly and thankfully resumed getting more than four sleepless hours a night since then.
Still, ever since Castiel had known his human charge, he’d always harbored the idea that, given a decent window of opportunity and without all the stresses of the Apocalyptic hunting life, Dean would be a late sleeper. He was more of night person, by the angel’s reckoning, and those types never dealt well with being up before dawn.
For the most part, he’d been correct in his assumption. Dean did like to sleep in when they got in late from a hunt, catching eight or nine hours of like-a-log sleep in the room or the Impala, depending on the motel’s checkout time. After nights when they didn’t hunt and he could go to bed at a reasonable time (before or around midnight), he was usually up on his own by seven or eight, still not so early that Cas would define it as being an early riser.
(Sam, of course, was definitely not a morning person. He claimed it was just a predisposition most people had. Dean alternated between blaming it on his college days and the amount of energy it must take to lug around his gargantuan body. Excluding movies and porn, one of Dean’s favorite forms of entertainment involved waking Sam up in a variety of inventive ways. Dean claimed it was hilarious; Sam just said it was ‘typical dumbass big brother shit.’)
So Cas had mostly been correct. Although Dean wasn’t exactly a late night person like many people assumed he was, he didn’t mind sleeping in late if it meant getting enough hours under his belt to properly do his job. Not that he was a true morning person, either-he was never up before seven unless they were just getting back from a hunt.
He supposed that days like today were the exceptions that proved the rule. For many years, he’d known that Dean had an affinity for fishing, from the first and only time John had taken him, and just him, out to a lake, to his peaceful dreams that Cas often slipped into. Well, the ones that didn’t involve strippers. Dean’s interest in fishing had always been a fact to Castiel, but he’d never quite comprehended the extent of this interest until recently.
Dean had told him about the nearby lake last night, about his plan to go out there and fish in the morning, but it had never quite landed for Castiel that this was another one of Dean’s lessons. That fact had only really hit home when Dean roused him from his sleep (a habit he’d picked up just before the end of the Apocalypse) and told him to be ready to go in ten minutes.
He did as he was told, doing his entire morning ritual in less than ten minutes (despite being able to will himself clean and in a new outfit in mere seconds-he liked doing things the human way). Dean was waiting for him outside, sky still dark but just barely glinting with pre-dawn glow. They both climbed into the Impala wordlessly, leaving Sam to sleep in and heading here, to the lake where they now stood.
Cas didn’t bother asking where Dean had gotten the fishing supplies; he quit questioning the exact capacity of Dean’s prized vehicle a long time ago. He just helped unfold the chairs on the end of the dock, handing a pole to the other man as they went to sit down. Dean accepted it without a word and propped it between his legs; Cas got comfortable in his own chair, the early morning sounds intermingling with the sound of Dean rustling through their tackle box.
Absently, the angel fiddled with his fishing pole and listened to Dean rustle, eyes drifting leisurely to a flock of birds that emerged from the tall grass on the far side of the lake. They disappeared into the fading morning haze at the same moment that Dean nudged his shoulder. Cas glanced back over to his friend, who held up a small plastic orb, half red and half white. He tilted his head, brow furrowed as he tried to ascertain what this strange object was for.
Dean saw this expression and smiled, a private smile that he tried to hide, but Cas caught it anyway. Something about the angel’s confusion continued to amuse the hunter, and while Cas still didn’t quite understand what it was about his unfamiliarity with many human objects and ideas that gave Dean so much pleasure, he’d gotten used to it and even smiled back. It was just nice to see the elder Winchester so happy, after all the impending doom of the Apocalypse.
“It’s a bobber,” Dean explained, pushing the ball toward Cas again. This time, the angel took it and turned it over in his hand, inspecting it as the hunter went on. “You tie it to your line so you can tell when something’s pulling on your hook. Other stuff too, but mostly that.” Cas nodded as he took in this new information and watched Dean tie his own bobber onto his line. The angel mimicked the handle motion with precision, his own red and white orb dangling off the end of his line on a perfect knot.
Dean noticed this and gave Cas one of his patented grins, producing a hook between his fingers with the ease and sleight of hand of a lifetime con man.
“Do the same with the hook, man, a few inches down from your bobber.” Cas took the shiny silver hook, careful to avoid to sharp tip; it reminded him a little too much of the silver daggers he and his brethren carried. Still, he tied it to very end of his line. Dean, hook already attached to his pole, went back to rifling through the tackle box. Cas took this brief moment to watch the subtle movements of lake before them. He could just barely make out a few fish swimming under the surface, probably one of the reasons why Dean had been so excited to go fishing here. It was nearly teeming with the small life forms.
“Here, take one,” Dean said, drawing the angel’s attention back to him. He was holding a small plastic tub near Cas’ face, apparently full of dirt. Upon closer inspection, Cas realized the surface was moving; for a moment, he wondered if it was somehow possessed, but then a small, pinkish creature burst through the top, writhing momentarily in the open air before leaning to burrow a new hole next to it.
“Worms?” he asked hesitantly. Somehow, despite knowing pretty much every detail involved in fishing, at least when it came to technical terms, he’d forgotten just how revolting worms seemed up close.
“You can stare into the Gates of Hell and not even blink, and a tub of worms freaks you out?” the hunter asked amusedly, very much enjoying Cas’ current discomfort. The angel just glanced up at him, eyes narrowed in an attempt to hide his disgust.
“That was something I’ve been trained for,” he replied stonily. “This is not.” Dean rolled his eyes but never pulled the tub away.
“Just take a worm and break it in half, then push it over the hook,” the hunter ordered, pushing the tub closer to Cas’ face. Reluctantly, the angel pulled loose a squirming invertebrate and stared at it as Dean put the tub back. Cas, nose wrinkled, cut it into two slippery pieces and speared one onto his dangling hook. Eyes on the angel, Dean smiled as he plucked the other half from his friend’s hand and pushed it over his own hook.
“See, not that hard, dude,” the Winchester concluded happily. “Now, just cast your line like so-” He released something on the handle, then angled the pole back and sharply cast it at the water. The line whizzed through the air, plopping into the water after a long second. Dean turned to smile at Cas again. “-and now you just let it sit until you feel a pull on your line. Go ahead, cast yours.”
The angel did as he was told, mirroring the older Winchester’s movements; his line thunked into the dock in front of him. Dean did his best to stifle a laugh, but his best wasn’t all that great in this case. Cas frowned at him, reeling his line back in as he tried to look as stern as possible. Unfortunately, nearly two years on Earth had softened him, if only a little, and his expression was more of a pout than anything.
“You just released it too soon, man,” Dean said as his chuckles died down. He reached over and grabbed the angel’s arms, maneuvering them above his head. “Alright, now just swing and release about...” He moved Cas’ arms to a lower position. “...here.” The angel nodded, processing this manhandling, and moved his arms back into place. Again, he swung; this time, the line landed in the water with a perfect plunk.
“Nice job, Cas,” the hunter encouraged. He held his own pole in one hand and turned back to the lake, eyes fluttering shut.
With all of Dean’s instructions seemingly done, Castiel relaxed into his chair, pole held loosely between his hands. The rising sun slowly warmed the world around him, allowing him to drift into a peaceful sort of meditation. His eyes drifted around the lake, landing on Dean, who was in a similar state next to him.
Everything seemed to slow to a crawl around them. Animals still moved, still made their morning sounds, but it was muffled, like he was hearing it through a thin fog. If you asked him honestly, Cas didn’t really mind it. All the pressing stresses and niggling thoughts from the previous days dropped away from his consciousness entirely, replaced by the pleasant buzz of nothingness.
Even the post-Apocalyptic hunting life wasn’t ideal, and while it wasn’t nearly as bad now as it had been for a long time (according to Dean), Castiel still knew it took a toll on even the most iron-willed people. He’d heard for decades that humans needed an outlet of sorts so they could release their pent-up tension, but he’d never quite understood the use for it until now. Anxiety he didn’t even realize he’d accumulated floated away as the minutes dragged on, replaced with a quiet sense of calm.
After the centuries of watching humans fish for food, just to sustain themselves, Cas had originally been unsure why Dean would be so enthusiastic about the activity. It wasn’t like he and Sam couldn’t scrounge together the money to feed themselves when meal times rolled around. Generally, they had more than enough snacks laying around.
But now, experiencing fishing for himself, Cas could see why one would want to do it without needing the fish for sustenance. He was more at peace now than he could remember feeling in a long time, since before the fourteenth century (when everything had really started turning for the worse). Letting out a long sigh of contentment, he settled further into his chair, drawing one open eye from the other man, who smiled sleepily.
“Now you’ve got it, man.”