Destiel Ficlet - Tumblr Posts

La Verdad

Written for Suptober21 day 4: Secrets.

Link to ao3! (1.4K)

All Castiel had to do was remain silent.

On the last case, he did not think about it. The second the witch readied her spell, Castiel shielded Dean from her wrath.

The blast of green light hit Castiel right in his chest, just a few seconds before Sam’s witch-killing bullet killed her. The spellwork tingled as it ran through his body and knocked him off his feet, but he sustained no injuries. The Winchesters were concerned, but Castiel assured them both he was angelic enough to withstand her spell.

That was the truth. Castiel knew it was true because he was incapable of speaking falsehoods.

It seemed that Castiel’s grace— his angelhood— was strong enough for him to survive the more deadly aspects of the spell, but it had faded enough that he still suffered the effect of the curse.

The curse that compelled him to speak the truth.

Castiel could be blunt, or so he had been told by Dean and even Sam a few times. However, this curse wanted to force every last secret out of Castiel’s heart and release it through his mouth.

And there was one secret he was not ready to tell.

Keep reading

After Cas confesses his love, but before he pushes Dean away, he pulls something out from his trench coat and slips it into Dean's pocket. Cas pushes him down and gets taken by the Empty, followed by Billie, leaving Dean alone on the bunker floor. As he cries, he feels something push into his chest, so he reaches his hand into his flannel pocket and pulls out the mixtape. The one he had given Cas as a gift and a secret sort of love confession of his own, thinking Cas wouldn't understand it. But as he stared down at the tape over top that read 'Dean's top 13 Zeppelin traxx', he knew that Cas understood. And he feels his heart break even more. Cas knew. Cas knew how he felt, yet he never said anything until it was too late. They were both too stupid to understand and just tell each other.

As Dean held the mixtape firmly in his hands, shoulders shaking with his sobs, he noticed that something felt off about it. The texture was different. He would know. He had flipped the cassette over and over and over in his hands before giving it to Cas, trying to decide on what to say to the angel.

Dean used his sleeve to wipe the blurriness from his eyes so he could see what was wrong with it. It still took a few seconds to adjust, and when he saw the large crack down the center of the tape, he gasped and brought it closer to his face. More tears spilled down his face. Cas' last move was to give this back to him, to show him that he understood their love and reassured Dean that, though he never said it, he knew how much he had meant to him. And Dean had broken it. The last thing Cas had ever given him besides the bloody handprint forever imprinted on his coat.

But as Dean's hands held on, finergrtips rubbing over the surface again and again, desperate to feel some kind of comfort in his hopeless situation, he noticed something attached to the back of it. He sniffled, wiped his eyes again, and flipped it over. On the backside, there was a piece of paper taped there with his name written on it. He quickly ripped it off, causing the cassette to re-split in half, obvious that the piece of tape being all that held it together, and opened the note.

Hello, Dean.

I just wanted to write you this before I give back your tape and apologize for breaking it. I'm really really sorry. I know I'm not super good at apologies, but writing makes it a lot easier, so I'm writing it for you. I hope you'll forgive me. I didn't mean to break it. I know you spent a lot of time picking the songs specifically for me because you knew I'd like them, though I had trouble understanding some of the parts. I'll never understand why humans love music so much. It's so much noise and there's so much going on, but I know it's important to you, so I will learn to like it. I'm very sorry for breaking it. I don't ever take it out of my trench coat, just in case I need to listen to it during an emergency, and I fell onto it. :( Please forgive me, Dean. I'm very sorry.

As Dean read, he watched tear drops stain the paper. He laughed a little as he continued to cry, noting how the letter was the most characteristic Cas letter he could think of. And he was happy. So happy that he didn't break it himself. It was already broken.

Cas knew how much the weight of handing over a mixtape was, especially a Zeppelin one for Dean, and he acknowledged it. Dean squeezed the letter to his chest as he leaned back against the wall and continued to cry silently.

Destiel Pride: Featherlight

There comes a time in the grieving process when you run out of things to destroy. There are only so many colourful curses that can be screamed and muffled into the fabric of a trench coat. There are only so many people to blame before it becomes obvious the culprit is the person staring at you in the mirror each morning — or night. Time loses all meaning but before and after. There are no true mornings when mourning. Without Cas, there is no sun rising, only setting. That was how Dean lived in the weeks after Cas was dragged into The Empty.

He still hadn't used the word 'death', not even in the sanctity of his head. 'Death' was a slippery word when it came to the Winchesters, and Cas — whether the bastard liked it or not, was a Winchester by default. He was family. Goddamn family, with all the shitty hang-ups that came with the title.

The word 'death' didn't seem to encompass the grief. Cas was absent from any place that Dean could find him. Even in death, Dean would find him. The lack of him throbbed like bruised knuckles. It only hurt when he moved or thought about it, or stayed too still.

When two months had passed and all options Dean could think of had been explored to get Cas out of The Empty, he was left in the wreckage that'd once been his bedroom. The only things left intact fell into two categories, things that'd been too tough to break, and things that belonged to Cas.

In the silence that followed the carnage, Dean was left with what he'd been avoiding, a moment to think. He wasn't struck by a revelation. 'Revelation' wasn't the right word. He was struck instead by a sense of recognition. A long-hidden truth had stilled his hand and hollowed what was left of his body.

Cas loved him, he knew that. He'd known from the second the angel was gone. He knew what kind of love Cas meant. What he hadn't realised until he was hunched over himself, holding the splintered remains of his nightstand was that he loved Cas back. His loss had brought a torrent of rage because where the hell was all his love meant to go? When Cas left, he'd taken Dean's love with him.

And goddamn wasn't that the cosmic kick in the balls to bookend what he'd deemed a tragic existence? He'd been thinking about death and how useless death would be if Cas wasn't on the other end of it. He was thinking of life in much the same light.

Dean hadn't been raised to know what to do with a grief so all-encompassing it ran in the background of his existence like a mixtape on a road trip. If he followed his father's example, all that was left to do was to become an obsessed bastard, and destroy himself and everyone he touched in slow motion. The Winchester rule for dealing with grief? Become the gangrene in the wound. Make everything so much worse.

When Cas arrived at the door of the bunker a month later, Dean didn't know what to do. Everything in him pushed towards anger, towards utter annihilation of all that was good in himself. However, upon seeing the look of uncertainty on the angel's face decades of rage disappeared. What he was left with was the familiar ring of tinnitus and the thick pit of dread that'd settled in his stomach. What the hell were they meant to do now?

"Hello, Dean," Cas spoke, like nothing had happened. Giving Dean an out, he knew he'd never be able to take.

There was too much left unsaid between them to go tumbling back into cowboy hats and coffee quips like their last run-in with death.

Dean knew he was meant to talk but he'd never been much of a talker when it counted. His hands trembled as they moved unbidden to hover over Cas' shoulder. He needed to touch the guy, to make sure he was real but to do so felt too definitive. If Cas was an illusion, Dean didn't care. He wanted him to stay put for once.

Dean's hands hovered ghostlike in the space between them, haunted as the rest of his body by the loss of the angel. His fingers flittered around Cas' body, nervous birds on hot, highway concrete. They'd land for a moment, featherlight, before taking off again. They explored Castiel's arms, his chest, his cheeks. All the while, Dean remained silent as the saint he wasn't.

In all his imaginings of their reunion, everything had been intense, whether he was throwing curses or kisses at Cas. He'd never expected his lips to lock and his body to betray him by shaking like a goddamn leaf in the breeze. He felt like he was a kid again, lost, silent and looking for someone or something to hold onto with all his fucking might.

He wanted to find his tongue, to say something to wipe the look of absolute bewilderment and trepidation from Cas' face but what the hell was there to say? No words would be enough.

He placed his hands on either side of Cas' face, watching the angel's eyes swell. He wanted a grand gesture. Cas deserved it, but Dean was still tied in knots trying to work out if this was a line they could cross and walk back from. Dean didn't know what he'd do if he screwed things up, terrified Cas would be another home he could never return to.

His lips found the scrape of Cas' cheek. The familiar five o'clock shadow on the unfamiliar territory of his mouth. It was so unlike Dean to be any kind of tender. There was no way the action could be misconstrued for anything other than what it was. A promise? A confession?

His hands had landed on the small of Cas' back and the curve of his hip. He opened his mouth to speak but the words came out garbled, sounding embarrassingly close to a sob.

Still, his mouth wouldn't shape the words. He closed his eyes and prayed, hoping Cas would hear.

Don't you ever do that to me again.

“That’s my husband,” Dean says at the reception, watching Cas dance with Claire, grinning so big his cheeks hurt. He fiddles with the ring on his finger. Sam calls him a dork. He doesn’t mind.

“That’s my husband,” Dean tells the trembling girl under his arm, beaming with pride as he ushers her out of the vamp nest. He covers her eyes as the entire building flares with angelic grace. The vamps don’t stand a chance.

“That’s my husband,” Dean shouts, pumping his fists in the air as Cas struggles to break the mechanical bull riding record at the local bar. Cas falls just short of Dean’s time. It may have been on purpose, but Dean doesn’t care as long as he gets a victory kiss.

“That’s my husband,” Dean says, spitting out blood with a smile. Some rogue British Man of Letters hovers over him, glancing at the door, the grip on his blade faltering. Someone screams out in the hallway. These guys don’t stand a chance either.

“That’s my husband,” Dean tells the cashier, leaning against the check-out counter as Cas takes a few preliminary steps in a pair of bumblebee rain boots. Dean gets a pair, too.

“That’s my husband,” Dean murmurs into the side of Cas’s neck, arms looping around his waist from behind, swaying in front of the bathroom mirror. He breathes in his husband, breathes in his home.

— tag list (ask to be added or removed)

@castiel-for-lunch @ccstiel @dstiel @expectingtofly @feraladoration @galaxies-of-the-heart @galaxycastiel @goldensigh @good-things-do-happen-dean @himitsubana @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @mishha @ragingdeansexual @rainbowscas @theangelwiththewormstache @van-dynex @unsolvednatural @winchester-novak

Sam still isn’t quite used to it.

Don’t get him wrong - after ten years of trying to ignore the romantic tension in the room, it came as a huge relief when Dean and Cas finally got their shit together and… well, got together. But it’s weird sometimes, too. Like today, when it’s the fourth time he’s caught Dean staring at Cas from across the library, totally ignoring the manuscript he’s supposed to be reading, chin propped in his hands. He looks like an eighth grader staring dreamily at his crush from across the cafeteria, and Sam can’t help but chuckle.

“Dude, you are so besotted.”

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but Dean is already stirring, tearing his gaze away from Cas and shooting Sam a dirty look.

“What’d you just call me?”

Well, he’s been caught out now. Sam clears his throat.

“Besotted. It means… infatuated. Enamored, smitten.” He pauses, but the last word escapes before he can stop it, a missile built for destruction. “Lovestruck.”

He’s gone too far, Sam knows it immediately. He’s ruined everything. He waits for Dean to sputter out a denial or crack a joke, or worse yet, for his eyes to widen as he starts to panic. He waits for it all to start crashing down.

Instead, Dean surprises him, leaning his cheek against his fist and humming thoughtfully.

“Oh,” he says. And then… that’s it. He nods, already turning away to stare at Cas again, a small smile at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah.”

Dean’s looking through Cas’s contacts for the number of their favorite pizza place. (Really, why isn’t it on speed dial by now?) He slides through the first few letters of the alphabet, then back up to D. He pauses. “Hey, Cas?”

Cas is at the opposite end of the couch, watching the news on the TV screen with a frown. He doesn’t bother to look at Dean. “Yes?”

“Why am I saved as Dean Winchester on your phone?” He can’t help his derisive tone.

Cas, brow furrowed, slides his gaze to Dean. “I was under the impression that was your name.”

“It is,” Dean says. He scratches his chin. “It’s just - I mean, we’ve known each other for six years, dude.”

Cas is ignoring the TV now, which is a feat, but he’s also staring at Dean through narrowed eyes. “Yes,” he says slowly. “I’m glad you can count that high.”

“Shut up,” Dean says, making a face. “I’m just sayin’ - we’re best friends, aren’t we?”

Cas blinks, still confused. “Yes. What does that have to do with your name?”

Dean pulls out his own phone. “Look,” he says, then taps on the screen a few times before showing Cas his contact info.

Cas has to lean in to see. “’Cas’ is certainly my name,” he confirms, then lifts his gaze to Dean with concern. “Dean, are you feeling alright?”

Thing is, Dean’s phone doesn’t just say Cas. It says Cas with a little bee emoji. It certainly doesn’t say Castiel Novak. Jesus. He’s not sure how to explain the difference to Cas without feeling like an idiot, so he tries a different tack: “Including my last name is weird, man.”

“Because?”

“It just is! I mean, I’m not goin’ around with my mom saved as Mary Winchester, am I?”

“No, since she’s saved under ‘mom’ because that’s what you call her. You’re saved as Dean Winchester because I call you Dean Winchester.”

“You only call me that when you’re pissed,” Dean says, stammering. “And it reminds me of my mom. Trust me - it’s weird.”

Cas is doing the thing again. Staring at Dean with narrowed eyes, picking apart information in that creepy way of his, making silent deductions like he’s Sherlock Holmes, except infinitely hotter. “That’s not why it bothers you” is all he says.

Dean’s face is on fire. “We’re best friends, man,” he says weakly, not knowing what else to say that could capture this very specific frustration. Then he shakes his head. He can’t believe he’s put off ordering his pizza for this. “Whatever,” he eventually says. He directs his attention back to pizza. “Pepperoni OK? We can get mushrooms on one side or something, you fungus freak.”

Cas doesn’t answer. All he does is frown, then pluck his phone out from Dean’s grip and start tapping away. It’s only a few seconds later that Cas is handing it back.

Dean takes a look. Cas has changed Dean’s contact info, and now it says Dean ♥. Dean’s heart jumps in his throat. Face burning, he looks at Cas.

Cas has already turned back to the news. But… Is Dean imagining it, or are Cas’s ears turning red? “Didn’t know what else to put,” Cas mumbles. “There’s no Chevy Impala emoji. And pepperoni’s fine.”

Dean’s grinning all of a sudden. He can’t stifle it. He doesn’t know what to do with this giddiness, so he just scrolls through Cas’s contacts and dials the pizza place.

He’s on the phone ordering the half pepperoni-half mushroom pizza when Cas finally turns and meets his gaze. He sees Dean’s smile and shakes his head in exasperation, but he’s biting down on a smile himself.

Dean’s still smiling when the pizza gets there.

Okay but concept: it's a week or so after the 15x19 and Sam and Dean are finally sick of this mini vacation they've been taking ever since they defeated God. Sam finds a case, and they pile into the impala for some good old-fashioned monster hunting.

But then Dean sees Cas walking down the sidewalk. He looks like a hot mess. He's covered head-to-toe in dirt and grime, to the point where his trench coat is barely tan anymore. His beard now puts his Purgatory beard to shame. Even the hair on his head seems to be getting longer — and definitely much messier.

Dean slams on the breaks. It's like 2012 all over again. He'd see Cas, he'd stop, and Cas would be gone. Though he does still seem to be there this time...

But then Sam points him out, and Dean realizes he's not crazy and that Cas really is here. They both hop out of the car — Dean doesn't even take the time to turn it off — and run back to see Cas.

Dean freezes. He has no idea what the fuck he's supposed to do in this situation. It's Cas! He's alive! He's a hot mess, but he's alive! And it's so good to see him again. It really is. But with Cas right in front of him, all he can think about is how they left things. He's gone out of his way not to think about what Cas said to him before he made that sacrifice. In his grief, he found it was just easier to forget. But now he has to face it and he has to try to make sense of it, and he doesn't even know where to begin.

Sam gives Cas a bear hug, bombarding him with questions one after another and not even giving Cas the chance to respond. Dean would tell him off if he thought he could.

And then Cas just ??? collapses??? in Sam's arms, and now neither of the Winchesters really know what to do (though they can both agree this takes priority over the case they were about to head off on).

Cas comes to that night, hours after Sam and Dean dragged him into the bunker. They'd laid him down in a spare bed, and though they'd taken turns watching him for the first hour or two, they'd basically decided staring at him wasn't going to wake him up any faster and decided to go about their lives.

They're in the war room when Castiel walks out, holding onto the wall for balance with every step. They jump to their feet to give him a hand — Sam pulls out a chair and Dean helps him over to it — and they get to talking.

Cas has no idea how he came back, but he did; he was dropped right in the middle of Rossville, Kansas, with nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn't have a phone; he didn't have any money; he had nothing.

And, worst of all, he was human. This entire time he was struggling to find his way home, he was dealing with his newfound humanity as well — mainly, the hunger and the thirst that he couldn't afford to satiate. Finding public drinking fountains became almost as important as finding the bunker over the last few days.

But now he's home. Cas came home. That's all Dean can think about — literally. It doesn't even occur to him to get him something to eat and drink until Sam gets up to do it. He's just so busy thinking about the fact that Cas came home.

And now that they're alone, Dean expects Cas to address the elephant in the room: their last conversation. "I love you," he'd said. What the fuck does that mean?

Except he just... doesn't?

They make small talk instead, and every second of it kills him. Sure, Cas has good reason to ask about what happened with Chuck and whether Billie truly was taken care of and where Jack is, but it doesn't make it any easier for Dean, who really only has one thing on his mind now.

He thinks maybe after Cas eats, he'll be more apt to talk about it.

He's wrong.

But that's okay. Sam's here; it would be awkward anyway. He'll carve out some alone time with Cas that evening, see if it comes up then.

It doesn't.

He's probably tired. Sure, he took an hour-long nap before he even got back to the bunker, but he's also newly-human and newly-alive, and walking for days on end probably didn't help.

Maybe in the morning? Sam is out for a jog when Dean wakes up, and Cas is nowhere to be seen. Dean makes a delicious bacon breakfast for when Cas gets back (and he slips Miracle a piece while no one's around to tell him off for it). Cas has great timing; he comes out right as Dean is finishing up the last few pieces. Maybe a bacon breakfast will put him in the mood to talk.

... Or not.

And this goes on for days. Dean does whatever he can to get Cas alone, trying to get him to initiate that conversation — sometimes half-initiating it himself — and Cas never takes the bait. And, finally, Dean can't take it anymore. He can't keep pretending everything's normal with this eating him up inside. So, out of the blue one afternoon while Cas is reading and Dean is playing tug-of-war with Miracle, he asks.

"What did you mean, you love me?"

And Cas looks up from his book, eyes squinted and head tilted just a little bit to the side in that cute little way he does it, and he says, "I meant just that."

Which, obviously, does not clear anything up. "So you love me."

"Yes."

"Love me how?"

And Cas just stares at him because what the fuck does that mean? And now they're both hopelessly confused and after a minute of terse silence, Cas finally says, "I just do?" and it's more of a question than an answer and it sure as hell doesn't help with Dean's days-long crisis.

And Dean's like, "But what do you mean?" which is quite literally the exact same question he asked the first time and definitely doesn't clean anything up, and the look on the former angel's face says that perfectly well. "You mean you love me as...?" A friend? A brother? A lover? God, why does the English language have so many different definitions of love?

Cas just tilts his head a little more. "I don't think I understand the question."

And Dean can't tell if he's feeling exasperated or if he's feeling desperate what but finally he's just like, "Cas, was that just a heartfelt goodbye or was that a love confession?" and it's crystal clear on Cas's face that he finally understand.

But he still doesn't answer it. "It doesn't matter. I thought I was never going to see you again. I was wrong. Can we focus on that instead?"

And the fact that he didn't answer it almost makes it sound like it was a love confession, but the answer he did give almost makes it sound like it was just a heartfelt goodbye, and now Dean feels like his head is going to explode and what the fuck, Cas, just answer him!

And he might sound a little more upset than he'd anticipated when he says, "No, Cas, we can't!" so he quickly adds a softer, "I just... I need to know," because he does and how does Cas not realize that?

So, after a long pause, Cas says, "It was more than a goodbye, but you don't owe me anything. I truly meant it when I told you that happiness isn't in the having."

This has been plaguing Dean's mind for days but he'd never really thought about what he'd do if it really was a romantic confession, and now he's just??? Not sure??? Where to go from here???

And then Cas has the audacity to just go back to reading his book like nothing happened. Dean is having a whole-ass crisis and Cas is just reading a fucking book. It's unbelievable. How can Cas just drop this on him and then go back to his life like nothing happened?

For some reason, that really sends Dean over the edge, because he walks over and takes the book out of his hands so Cas has to look at him. But what the fuck is he supposed to say? What message is he even trying to get across? What is he —

And before he knows it, he's leaning over and giving Cas a kiss. Cas seems taken aback by it at first — like, really taken aback — but then he kisses back, and it's great; it's something Dean had never fantasized about before and god, he's glad he hadn't because he never could have done it justice in his mind.

It's Cas.

What more does he need?