"Oceanic" - Part III: Oceanic
Oceanic - Part III: Oceanic
There is the light pressure, as Balthazar wakes, of a fingertip trailing slow circles, lazy designs, across his chest and neck, and as he blinks his eyes open to see Casting staring up at him, he mutters a groggy, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Castiel says with a small, adoring grin. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Oh, I know.” As Balthazar stretches to kiss Castiel’s forehead, Castiel presses fingers softly into Balthazar’s neck.
“You know, you never really struck me as one to care about silly things like Valentine’s Day. It is, isn’t it? I don’t know, I like it.”
Balthazar shrugs slightly as he leans back into the pillow as he yawns, and says, “It is, tremendously. And no, I never really did care, but I figured you might.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm. We should go for breakfast.”
“We should.”
A shower together begins the day, and after, a Valentine’s Day special at the diner. Back home, as the door shuts behind them, Castiel mumbles almost eagerly, albeit hesitantly, “I got you something.”
Balthazar cracks a grin at that, pressing a kiss again to Castiel’s forehead as a low chuckle spreads from his throat. “I got you something as well.”
“Should I go first?”
“You definitely should.”
With that, Castiel rushes off to the bedroom closet, to which Balthazar follows him, finding a seat on the bed’s rumpled sheets. In just a moment Castiel emerges with a gigantic teddy bear almost too big for the arms in which he holds it, and as he lowers it from his face his grin is nervous, almost apologetic, and Balthazar can’t help but laugh. “It’s lovely.”
“It has wings,” Castiel says, as he turns it around to show two white, glittering angel wings. “It might be a bit… stupid, I don’t know.”
“No, it’s adorable, really.” As Castiel sits and Balthazar trails a fingertip across a glittery cloth wing, he can’t help but chuckle again, because it really is a bit absurd, which makes it so much more so. Adorable.
“…do you want to know why?”
“Pardon?”
“Why I got you a bear with wings? It’s weird, I know, but I didn’t just pick out something generic.”
“Very well then, now I’m curious.”
“Well, it’s still kind of stupid. Honestly.” Castiel laughs to himself, before he goes on, “I just feel kind of like you’re, well. A guardian angel or something. God, this sounded so much better in my head.
“Well, you saved my life. Just… showed up one day, told me I was going to-to be killed, and well, you were right. I’d be dead right now. If I weren’t for… for my guardian angel.” A small smile plays at the corners of Castiel’s lips as he shrugs, again, eyes almost nervous, fingers twitchy as he wrings them in his lap.
If Balthazar has ever in his life been touched, it’s now, as he can’t keep a grin from breaking out and spreading across his face until his mouth hurts, nor can he help muttering, “Oh Castiel, you really are something,” before taking the bear, sitting it on his other side, and taking Castiel’s hands and lips in his own-pulling back, he doesn’t believe the novelty of looking into Castiel’s eyes will ever fade.
“I’m afraid I haven’t gotten you something quite so special-” As he reaches under the bed Balthazar resents more than ever his lack of the money for a piece of lapis jewelry or something of the sort, as he’d planned in a dreamland once lain awake with Castiel in bed, yet Castiel seems thrilled nonetheless when he sits back up with a more than average sized box of chocolates in hand. “-well, you can never go wrong with sweets, can you?”
Castiel cracks a smile, with a happy sigh. “You’re wonderful.”
“Well my dear, I certainly would never hesitate to say the same of you.”
“No, really-” Castiel sighs, softly, and he goes on, quietly, “-I’m glad it was you, who, um-who got stick with me, here.”
“I always thought it you who got stuck with me, honestly,” Balthazar grins at Castiel who does the same, “and I’m glad as well. Granted, if you weren’t as lovely as you are, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Castiel is silent, for a moment, milling it over in his mind it seems, before suddenly he says, “Do you think it was… a good thing? All of this?”
At the question, Balthazar has no words, at first-no, quite not a good thing, not a bad thing either-the only thing, his only option, and he says after some thought, “I think that it’s definitely opened my eyes... Do you?”
Castiel blurts without a second thought to it, “Yes.”
All Balthazar can think, all he can say as his heart swells in his chest and the corners of his mouth twitch in an adoring smile, is, “I love you, Castiel.”
Balthazar had never thought that happiness would only come from running from the law.
He’s long found that he hasn’t a single objection, anymore.
He finds that he can’t seem to see a problem in a single thing. Not even when Gabriel calls him, asking if he wants to come over and “watch a game or something, I dunno, it’s been a while. I got a new TV ‘n everything.”
And so Balthazar begins with, “Cas, I’ve got something to ask of you.” And after, “Cassie, love, you can come too,” Castiel ends with,
“Fine-go, so long as I don’t have to.”
Balthazar presses kiss after kiss to Castiel’s pouting lips with fervent grateful apology, making sure to leave a smile on Castiel’s face.
The sofa is soft, the TV is huge, flat against the wall and bright as a garden in its picture; and pretty damn great, Balthazar thinks, as he sits next to Gabriel, a beer in his hand, his other slung across an armrest.
“So-what do you think?” Gabriel’s eyebrows are raised, compliment to his perpetual smirk, as he asks in reference to the giant screen.
“I think you have far too much money than you know what to do with.”
Gabriel scoffs and Balthazar lies back into the couch, setting his beer down onto the coffee table and crossing one leg lazily over the other. “Fair enough,” comes Gabriel’s reply, and Balthazar chuckles.
He can’t wait to get home, to tell Castiel, see, there was nothing to worry about, my dear, nothing at all so don’t panic, alright?
There isn’t anything to worry about, he’s sure, completely sure until there is a hand on his knee and before he has time to react there are lips on his own, and he stands fast enough to knock his glass bottle onto the floor where it shatters, spilling amber over a stark white carpet, about which Balthazar could not care less. “What the hell?”
Gabriel’s eyes shine with a hint of shock as he looks up, that Balthazar wants to simply knock right off of his face.
“You do know I’m with Castiel?”
“Well of course-you’re together every second of the day, it’s so sappy it’s disgusting.” Why in hell, Balthazar will tear up walls to know, is he so damn calm? “And no-doesn’t mean necessarily that you can’t be with me for a night.”
“The hell it does!”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. I get it.”
“But do you really? Because I’m sure you got it when it came to Sam Winchester as well, yeah?”
Gabriel sighs, rolls his eyes-if his irises are gears, Balthazar is a string caught between them, stretched to his limit and far too wound up. “Look, man-”
“No, you look, alright? Never once would I ever consider doing anything that might harm Castiel, and it’s almost insulting that you would ever think I would.” Balthazar’s begun to pace, glass crunching under his soles, being ground into the golden-stained carpet fibers. “Well maybe I shouldn’t quite blame you-after all, you probably haven’t a clue what a relationship that lasts more than twelve hours is like.”
“Hey, now that’s not fair-”
“Oh that’s not fair? How about kissing me when the man for which I have given everything is just across the street, waiting for me to come home to him? Waiting for me, in confidence that nothing would happen because I told him-and he told me-god, I should have listened-well, no, you should have some sense!”
“Look, man, fine, I’m sorry if I-”
“Yeah, fine, but honestly Gabriel, what in hell were you thinking? Did you think I’d be okay with all of this? Did you perhaps underestimate what Castiel and I have been through together? If you have, seriously-did you honestly believe that we came out here for a change in scenery or whatever the hell I told you?”
Gabriel’s eyebrows raise at that, but his too-smug expression lives on, irritating enough on its own, now, and Balthazar mumbles a final, “Damnit, goodbye,” before footing out the door and slamming it swiftly behind him.
Damnit.
With his heart lodged in his throat Balthazar treads across the street, legs restless as his shoes smack against the pavement, and as he flings the door to his house open he wants only to punch it. He almost does. “Castiel,” he breathes, when he finds him sitting on the couch and looking up in wonderment at the slam of the door.
“Hey-what’s going on?”
“Come to bed, I’ll tell you everything.”
And so Castiel does-without taking his eyes off Balthazar for a second he switches off the TV and follows Balthazar warily to the bedroom, sitting against the headboard while Balthazar cracks his neck, stretches his arms, and finds place next to his beloved. “God, Cas, you were right,” he mutters, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing them with the heels of his palms.
“I was right?” Castiel’s loveable puzzled look makes Balthazar’s heart twinge in his chest. “About what?”
“About Gabriel,” Balthazar sighs in resentment, “He kissed me.”
“What?” Castiel’s eyes are wide, jaw clenched but wavering-he looks to Balthazar like he’s about to cry, shaken up and unsettled.
“He kissed me, so I shouted at him, and I left.” Balthazar grimaces at the sight, and slings an arm over Castiel’s shoulders, comforting as can he be though Castiel is still tense.
“What did you tell him?”
Rubbing Castiel’s shoulder and forearm gently, Balthazar replies, “Oh, lots. I could try to paraphrase, if you’d like-would you like that?”
Castiel lets his head fall to Balthazar’s shoulder, nods-and so, with a warm body at his side and a steady heartbeat to calm his own, Balthazar stares up and into the wall and he speaks, steadily, “What the hell, you do know I’m with Castiel…” And Castiel grins at that, nestling into the crook of Balthazar’s neck.
“…never once would I ever consider doing anything that might harm Castiel…”
“…that’s not fair? How about kissing me when the man for whom I’ve given everything is just across the street, waiting for me to come home to him? Waiting for me, in confidence that nothing would… that nothing would happen, I… I should have listened…”
He hugs Castiel closer, tighter, feels Castiel blink with watering eyes against his neck.
And when he’s finished, he feels lips move against his skin, hears a soft whimper punctuated by the waver of a crying voice, and he’s sure he’s misheard, he’s sure he’s misunderstood because if he didn’t know any better he would swear that Castiel has just mumbled, unsure but perhaps throwing caution to the wind, just loud enough for Balthazar not to have mistaken a whistle of the wind for it, “marry me.”
A cool chill wisps through the air, blows across faces and whips up tablecloths, but not a mind is paid to it as plates of freshly barbecued dinner, courtesy of John and Bobby, line the edges of these tablecloths, as each plate is accompanied be a flute of champagne.
Jo is the first to stand, glass in hand, fingers almost restless against its stem. With a warm grin she addresses the couple who sits just across from her, and she begins, “From the moment I saw you two walk into my diner, I figured you were already married, and maybe you were, the equivalent of…”
And Ellen, with her long hair flowing freely across her shoulders, “I’ve known ever since we all met that you two were somethin’ special…”
Sam talks in his toast about how close he’s become to Castiel, and Dean doesn’t make one.
John speaks, and then Mary-and Gabriel, with a soft glint in golden eyes and a small, apologetic grin seated across thin lips, whose toast ends comfortably with, “I know there’s a lot between you two, there’s a long story, and I’m not even gonna try to guess what that might be-and, I’m sorry if I ever doubted that for even a second. So, here’s to the lovebirds who came and shook up our town from the inside and made it, well, pretty damn new.”
There’s clapping, there’s congratulations, and Balthazar, with a suit on he’d never imagined he’d wear for anything but business, and with Castiel by his side in the same, feels as if finally, he’s taken the last step over the threshold between fantasy and reality, because there isn’t any way this can all be real, happening in his life. Yet, even as surreal as it all seems, it’s far too real as well, with vivid grass and a bright blue sky, with everything he’s ever wanted sitting just next to him with deep blue eyes.
“This is a lot of attention, huh,” Castiel mutters, a small grin on his lips and an even smaller shrug.
“I suppose it’s unavoidable,” Balthazar replies as Castiel looks up at him shyly. “But you’re happy, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” Castiel says it quickly, so surely, and it’s amusing, almost, if not absolutely adorable.
Balthazar grins at that, looking up just in time to see Jo sneak a swift kiss to Chuck’s cheek, after which Chuck looks away, then back at Jo, before his eyes widen in alarm as he realizes that quite a few pairs of eyes are on him. Jo only laughs, and Chuck shrugs.
“Lovely,” Balthazar comments, and Castiel chuckles.
The weeks leading up to the wedding are a purely blissful expanse of time, one in which panic is but a word, worry is but an idea-there is no one in the world outside of their small town, no one from which to run, no reason in the world to hide. Only smooth sailing, as Castiel and Balthazar see no wind, only just in the shallow end as their lives suddenly stretch out, even still a mystery, in front of their eyes, and they haven’t a clue what will come apart from each other, couldn’t care less what will come next apart from each other.
Married. Balthazar had never imagined such a word would name him. Castiel tells him that he once imagined he would be, but abandoned the notion the day he woke up in a hospital and couldn’t imagine himself letting another person get anywhere close.
The day comes, breezes by, easy to catch and easier to savor.
The April air is warm, soft, fluttering about each guest, each piece of elegant clothing, cooling each face while casting a warm glow upon it. Jo’s hair, cascading down her back and against skin and the fabric of her dress, flows in waves as it is blown about by the wind, styled and luscious and mesmerizing in its soft movement. She looks and she is the nature of the waves of the ocean, beautiful, always either energetic or serene or a combination of the two, always bringing light and happiness and always the staple of a peaceful, happy day at the beach.
Sam and Dean sit together, inseparable, glued to each other’s sides as they always have been and they always will be. But neither weighs on the other-they only help each other soar, swim, love. They are young, and so intensely passionate about each other, about everything else. They are life, itself, embodied in two young men who have embraced every aspect of it. They are the life that swims throughout the ocean, making it interesting, making it worth exploring.
And there are John and Mary, together as always, sitting next to their sons whom they love just about as much as they love each other. High school sweethearts, together for years, together forever. And if that is not love, then what is? If they are not the union of the tide that meets the sand-that shares itself while the sand does the same so that they are one together, water soaked sand like two people who are saturated to the brim with feelings about each other-then who is?
Of course, every ocean has its mystery as well. Its deepest, darkest corners that beg to be explored but seldom can. There is so much that resides in their corners, these ocean floors and crevices in coral and rock. And none of it that does not choose to show itself can be found. Nothing but that that decides to peek out and show itself to the world. Sitting with everyone else but so clearly alone in his head, is Chuck, next to Jo with his fingers laced in hers, staring into space and thinking about a fantasy world, fuel for a book, or perhaps other ideas that everyone dares not guess.
But what is a day at the ocean without the risk? Without the possibility of being drawn into the water by a tide of even whisked away, of being tossed into the air by a wave and caught by another? What is life without risk? Without the playfulness and challenge that come with it? Risk is, of course, sometimes a bother, but when it is faced and overcome, it is a challenge that has been won, and the memory of it is a trophy. Gabriel, of course, had been somewhat of a bother, but now, as he sits in the small sword of the town’s few occupants, looking absolutely smashing and somehow innocent in a suit, he is a living symbol of the risks that Balthazar has overcome. A symbol of Balthazar’s love for Castiel which can never be overcome.
In the ocean, at the beach, lives comfort also, lives family. And sitting next to their daughter and her boyfriend, are the epitome of a loving, caring family. Sitting next to Jo and Chuck, are Bobby and Ellen, exciting beyond belief for the wedding of two men they seem to have taken in as their own sons. Even as Bobby stands to move behind the podium as the ceremony begins, the bond between he and his wife is still clear in aura, as is the bond between the two parents and Jo and the bond between the entire family and the rest of the community. Ellen holds Jo’s hand, and Jo holds Chuck’s.
As Balthazar and Castiel stand in front of the podium, facing each other and clasping each other’s hands, gentle yet wanting, the breeze turns to currents and the chirps of birds to the splashes of fish. The plants are seaweed and the grass is sand, the podium is a coral reef and Balthazar can see it all in Castiel’s eyes.
When Balthazar looks into Castiel’s eyes, he sees waves in the ribbons of color and emotion that live in them. He sees life, the life of Castiel’s that he helped to save, the life that makes him love Castiel more each day than he could ever have imagined the day before. And he sees Castiel’s love for him so clearly in the glint of those perfect eyes. And mystery, of course. Castiel is a mystery, himself, so much learned already but still so much to learn. And risk, Balthazar sees, because their entire relationship is a bigger risk than either of them have ever taken, than anyone they’ve ever known has ever taken.
In Castiel, also, is the comfort that Balthazar has never gotten from a single other soul. Because Castiel cares, more than just about anyone Balthazar’s ever known.
Bobby begins to speak, and the two synchronized hearts in front of him begin to flutter incessantly.
“Do you, Balthazar Powers, take this man, Castiel Novak, as your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” Balthazar breaths. More than anything in the world, he does.
“And do you, Castiel Novak, take this man, Balthazar Powers, as your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.” More than anything in the world, Castiel does as well.
“You may now kiss.”
As their lips touch, sparks are lit in Balthazar’s lips and ignited throughout his whole body, before they are put out by the ocean which stands in front of him, vast and powerful, pouring water into him through his hands and mouth. And in that moment, with his lips locked with Castiel’s and feeling like they are the only two people in the world, Balthazar swears that he is happy enough to simply die without a grievance in the world.
Grand Star Times
April 29th, 2047
One could say that a small Ontario wedding went out with a bang, when the two grooms were simultaneously shot upon sharing their first kiss as a married couple. Castiel Novak (35) and Balthazar Powers (44) were suspected to be American fugitives, who had been on the run and in hideout for just under a year before they were caught up to by the U.S. government. We are not able to disclose much information on these two at the moment; however, we will be able to report more as more is released to the public.