dirtytrenchcoat | ✆ castiel's voicemail

Just take heed to this city and its tendency to mix cocktails of its own.

[It's nice to see Dean happy, their first meeting had brought on some concern. Some questions. It felt heavier... than he remembered their last time being. Peace was hard to come by in this kind of social climate, so if the bar has managed to give Dean a refuge Castiel is glad for it.]

I'll meet you there momentarily.

Edited 2022-01-07 05:22 (UTC)

Tonights cocktails are the Dean Winchester special, with a side of consent. I still plan on eating food I cook until I decide otherwise. I hear when there's not some big shindig the alcohol's fine at the local watering holes.

( His face softens. )

I promise to be careful.

( Okay. )

Attaboy, Cas. See you soon. All drinks are on me.

You mentioned that.

[Most of the time Castiel could elect to taste foods, the flavors and their molecular properties. Some things were easier for him to experience, alcohol being one of them because it was man-made. He says as much in person, a few seats from the middle at the bar he'd been receiving video of.]

( Because it's true, Cas! All! Drinks! Not that he's looking to get Castiel loaded tonight. He's not even looking to get sloshed himself. He wants to make a good enough impression and he can binge drink on his own time. Like when it's quiet and he replays the final moments before his death, not to mention his big goodbye with Sam. Like then.

It's been a minute since Castiel has just been somewhere, as Dean turns around after pocketing his phone. )

Never get used to that. Hey. ( Every day he has to remind himself, to pinch himself that this is all real, that Cas wasn't sacrificed to the Empty. Or, he'd escaped... Or never made it there. ) Mentioned and meant, Cas.

No, you don't.

[Castiel's brows lift despite the casual dry humor to his tone. Some people would have but Dean and his brother were wired so tightly that their fight or flight response was always the first thing to kick in when he flew by without warning. It's a response he's learned and adapted to with them over time.

Castiel taps his fingers on the coaster of the bar, it's rough but solid enough that he can hear each nail fall. Something he never could get used to himself, the physical properties of needing to be present in a physical world.]

Surprise me.

[Castiel doesn't have a large knowledge of the cocktail world or a menu in front of him but he trusts that Dean knows what he liked. Much of his knowledge was rooted in him, after all.]

( Well, that Dean can do. While Cas, the Winchesters and their cohorts usually enjoy a bourbon on the rocks, a beer, or the occasional glass of wine, brown liquor in ice wouldn't be surprising. But, he hasn't remembered ever making Cas an old fashioned before. )

Your wish, Cas.

( Dean scoops ice into the stirring glass and pours an ounce and a half of mid-tier bourbon for his best friend. Demerara is poured next, just a tip over and tip back. Next, orange bitters and angostura. He uses the metal stirring tool mixing up the concoction. )

So I talked to Kate. She's got a good head on her shoulders. She's rational, like you. I can see what you like about her.

( She reminded him of Castiel, actually. )

[Once the glass is delivered Castiel takes a decent pull from the rim and leaves the liquor to sit on his tongue for a moment so that he can get diagnose each flavor. The robust bourbon pairs with the citrus well, and the combination of sweet and bitter that melts into the rest of the drink. It's good, a pleasant change from what he normally has back at the bunker and so he takes another drink after the fact, and the ice in the glass rattles when he sets it back down.]

It's a temporary contract so that I can find my bearings and put something else in place by the time that it's run its course. She's kind and deeply loyal.

[Castiel might not see himself in her but he did see some of Sam, some of Dean, little pinches of familiarity here and there. The friendship he had with her is something that he doesn't recall, so starting fresh now with her doing him this favor means something to him.]

( Right? After waiting for Castiel's reaction, Dean empties the stirring glass into the sink and sets it down by the well. He did good. )

Deeply loyal. ( Castiel got that in a few months. Dean's worked with deeply loyal hunters before. It's taken him years to warm up to someone, or at least a few hunts. Like Garth. But if Cas sees the good in someone, and sounds this resolute, then maybe Dean can take his word for it.

Despite a track record neither will be mentioning, he assumes. ) Well, you bought yourself three months. ( He glances to the other patrons making sure their glasses are all full and nobody is trying to get a hold of him. ) It was smart. Beating this city at its' own game. Making it your decision. ( He looks back. ) I guess I got three months to find someone I find deeply loyal. ( Will he have to settle for someone he has to tolerate? ) Met this girl who has three subs.

As far as I can tell.

[Castiel can be guarded and is guarded, but Kate has given him no reason to worry - up to and including going over the contract process with him. It's difficult not to feel compromised when being a submissive is exactly that, nothing but it, and Cassie's eyes lift from the pool of brown liquid in front of him to Dean's face. There's more than what he's telling him on his mind, but he won't force his hand, not while he's at work and clearly happy with his position.]

I wouldn't call it that. [Beating the city at its own game. He sat alone, four hours and days in the jail and while it was trading one cage for another, essentially, it didn't feel good to be physically incapable of escape either. This city and its limitations for him continued to make him feel subjugated. That was the point, after all.] I doubt that'll be a problem for you.

[The cup finds his mouth again, more to occupy his hands and keep himself busy among the other patrons who were doing the same thing. His shoulders are slack, his coat hanging off the back of the stool he's sitting on. Dean looks good in this environment, in command of it, and were he dealt another hand in life he could see him having done this instead of taking the helm of his family's business.] You've never had trouble finding partners before. You've got a unique gravitational pull, and people are naturally drawn to you.

( Dean forgets, again, momentarily, that while Cas chose who contracted with him, it wasn't his choice to have to contract. Dean and Cas missed each other because he was in prison, and that guilt tugs at him again. )

Finding partners, yeah. Finding a warm bed or a warm body, or a warm body in a warm bed. ( And there's mentioning just who is drawn to him, and what's happened to them. ) It's been a minute since that's even been a priority, forget something meaningful. I have you, I have Sam, Jack. Cas, the last meaningful relationship I had, I asked you to erase her memory of me. Let's not talk about my Amazonian daughter roaming the Earth. Almost bagging Carmelita aka Suzy aka getting ganked by the Roman goddess Vesta and there's Amara. Was Amara. And we think I can choose right from just three months.

( That gravitational pull sucks people in, alright. Into an oblivion. )

Edited 2022-01-10 05:05 (UTC)

The only person I've ever known intimately turned out to be a reaper that almost killed me. If it weren't for you.

[And his brother, despite how poorly that went for a while. They both had their problems with trust, with letting people in. How many times had Castiel thought he was doing the right thing just to have it end with Metatron taking his grace, or losing favor with the host? Lately, it felt like he was getting nowhere with righting his wrongs and more than ever, rooted to the spot in a place like this one - he felt absolutely useless.]

I chose to treat the contract as a well, a contract. [Disregarding that he treated the quota in a very similar fashion too. The only time he's explored further was when he'd been drugged from the carnival, something he hasn't revisited with any length since that happened.] Maybe you should too.

[Wiping Ben and Lisa's memory had been difficult for him, but he knew why Dean had deemed it necessary. It wasn't difficult because he had any sort of familiarity with either of them, but because of what it did to Dean. A burden he had to shoulder alone, and something he could never comfort him about having been complicit in the action.]

Yeah. And - Meg.

( He has to name check her, despite the memory he'll pull. She ended up being an ally in the end, and though he and Sam didn't get her connection to Cas, she still meant something to all of them.

To Dean, his choices are let it mean nothing, let is mean something, or do good. Help someone down on their luck and take them under his wing.)

People here, they either want it all or they want nothing. People say they'll stay out of your hair, they don't want anything special, anything different. Maybe, if I can help, I should. I'd have helped you in a heartbeat, had I known.

[Meg.

Far be it for him to find redeemable qualities in a demon, but through some of his worst moments she had been by his side and remained there and for that, he owed her more than he'd ever be able to repay.

Castiel really can't save face when Meg gets mentioned, and he averts his eyes - not out of shame, or any sense of it, but out of guilt. Something he'd never been able to truly reckon with.]

I'll be honest I haven't spoken to very many people here. I don't know whether what you're saying is true or not. [The all or nothing mentality of it. What Castiel did know is that the natives definitely did and that Duplicity would play its hand if it had to.] It's not your fault. It would seem that what I carved into your ribs holds true, even here. I wouldn't want you to waste your time pandering to me when you could have a more active affair with someone else. That wouldn't be right.

( Dean, too, lives with the means-to-an-end guilt when it comes to what Meg both put them through and did for them. He shares in that with Cas.

He listens, picturing Castiel keeping to himself, speaking to only those he thought necessary, or who he'd encountered in person. A smile creeps up at what Castiel carved into his ribs, and the bloody handprint still on a jacket he'd left back at his new apartment.

Then Cas brings up what Dean can't be to him, and everything floods back. How happiness is simply in the telling, in saying it. And everything else Cas says digs into him, carves into his ribs and his chest and his heart starts to hurt, chest tightening as he lets out a shaky breath. But, it's all in his head. Cas is physically there. So, he guesses they'll have to talk about it. )

I wouldn't call what we have pandering.

( He leans forward, hands on the bar, tilting his head, voice low like the gravel road his emotions have been dragged along. It's not like he hasn't thought about it before, had trace thoughts about guys or flirtations or the way a compliment from a man makes him skittish. But, it's been so long since he's thought about anything, man or woman. He just didn't know when he cornered them both that Cas would come out with a declaration of love.

Or everything else he said. )

How long have you been thinking about me like that. Thinking that you can't have me.

[Castiel's made it almost all the way through his drink during this conversation that started light but ended up heavy, with the weight of so many things he knew and some he didn't. He's drinking mostly water now, flavored with the bitters and sugar, the citrus, and the cool slide of it in his mouth gives him a brief distraction from his doubt.

Fleeting.

Until Dean leans in and he's forced to meet his gaze after the last sentence for which he had no real response. What Dean says next feels a lot like the mosquito meeting the electric lantern. Every individual cell in his body and his vessel hums to life like a voltaic system had been switched on at some molecular level.]

Dean, I- [Castiel wasn't sure, where to begin with that thought or when it had crossed his mind or been a kernel of truth somewhere under the surface of what he told himself, and what others had said to him.

"The one off the line with the crack in his chassis."

He's been dealing with the aftermath of what Dean had taught him, how he'd learned to feel, had gotten too close since he'd touched down and it had been an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. The true nature of their friendship, their affection toward each other went beyond that of a typical friendship.] I don't know what you're saying.

[It's both true, and not. He understands enough what Dean is implying but he's not sure what to make of it, where to go with the information, or if he's just toying with him. Making a joke at the expense of their present situation.]

( While they should not be having this conversation here, Dean kept it to himself for a few days. What feels like an eternity passes while Dean searches for recognition in his friend's eyes. He would never make light of what Castiel confessed, and truth be told, without these circumstances being what they are, he's not sure when he would've ever addressed it. Their patterns are clear. Reunite, lick their wounds, tip-toe around each other, engage in business as usual which was the inevitable step. Unless it was Dean who was angry with Cas, where reunite would follow a long, prolonged, untrusted silence. While Dean harbors a resentment toward what Castiel had done, to not giving him the chance, Dean knows why.

He thinks he does, that is, as someone grabs his attention to make them a Cosmo. )

I -

( He's not sure what he'd expected, if complete ignorance would be the ideal response. In this, it lets anything uncomfortable on his end off the hook. Deep down it doesn't make him feel uncomfortable, and it makes him hate the circumstances even more, that Castiel feels like he couldn't say anything, like it would change their friendship for the worse.

Breaking that eye contact, he separates two shakers and assembles the requested cocktail.

As he assembles, the words come easier. )

I'm saying that - living with everything you said - and not being able to say anything back -- and I know you keep things to yourself, usually it blows up in our faces, but I know why ( He cups the shakers together, sealing them. Wait. He lifts the two shakers. ) - this isn't about the Empty or the deal you made. It's about us.

( He shakes, forming the thought carefully. He also glares at the offending patron because he has a point he's making, but he retrieves a martini glass, straining the cocktail.

He nods to the guy, sets his fruity drink in front of him and adds it to his tab.

Taking a breath, he turns again. Something catches this time. What he says would resonate. While Castiel is not emotional on his best day, he still reacts. That -- palpable happiness Dean's not sure he ever felt (or will ever felt) is nowhere near what he remembers. He doesn't know how long Cas would spend in the Empty before coming here - and then it hits. People haven't said it to him to his face, but he did his research. Not Sam level - but enough.

His throat suddenly goes dry, sighing. )

Cas, what's the last thing you remember before waking up here.

[It's uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough, that even though he doesn't have to he shrinks against the bar while Dean's making the man his drink. Trying to keep up with Dean's saying while he does it, without this guy - who he can't bring himself to look at, to check whether or not there's a mark down his neck, waits.

He commits it to memory. Everything he said. He knew why. The Empty. The deal. Us. It all gets pulled in and analyzed and by the time Dean is back to talking to him he's staring off into space with a knit brow, the humming in every pore so loud he can hear it in his ears. Until-]

What did I say? [It's not difficult to understand contextually, that he must have admitted that he loved him but the rest - the words, they haven't found him yet and there's a lot that he doesn't know. The scattered patrons in Crimson feel a lot louder now, and that makes it harder to sort through his thoughts.] You don't owe me that or anything, you know that I would- [Do whatever it was, whatever it is, again. In a second. It comes out at the same time as Dean's question does and that successfully keeps him quiet. They weren't from the same time. He'd heard about it too.]

After Rowena's spell. [He'd mentioned it to Dean before, but now - somehow it left him feeling even more powerless. Like that had been part of what brought him here, and had challenged his own time now with Dean's. Castiel finishes off the glass, and balls his knuckles into a fist.] How far ahead of me are you?

Edited 2022-01-10 06:37 (UTC)

( Dean's world shouldn't shatter. He doesn't have Cas back where he's from (he's dead), and he didn't get the chance to. He doesn't even know what that would look like. There's no road map. He had no moment, no response because an entity sucked away his best friend, all because he trapped them. With Billie.

Rowena's spell doesn't narrow it down. She was their enemy for what felt like a long time (two years or so) before becoming their frenemy and eventually their friend. But, her mention already dates him past almost a year after what happened.

After the rupture. )

2020.

( It helps to say the year. Because, he doesn't know how far. )

Rowena hasn't been a player since last year. You're gonna have to narrow down whatever spell.

( But, since they're constantly experiencing their shared doublespeak, Castiel did ask what he said. And he owes him that. He's not going to break away. He's going to steer into the skid.

He moved the one thing between he and Castiel, the empty glass, before continuing. )

You said that I should think more of myself. You said that I am loving and caring and that I show that love to the whole world. ( He -- can't voice not being his father's blunt instrument, but the rest he can say. ) And that I changed you. And that you love me.

[Castiel's world doesn't shatter, it's the opposite. Whether they were from the same timeline or a different timeline entirely there was a version of himself out there that felt confident enough, secure enough, to tell Dean something so profound. It's an emotional conflict for him, torn between pride and shock. The other feelings would come later, the doubt that always plagued him, the curiosity, and then perhaps the guilt and the blame. Something he knew all too well, never feeling good enough and never feeling like he'd repented enough for the mistakes of his past.

His belief in being undeserving was woven into every piece of him metaphysical or otherwise. His eyes find Dean, a little shiny in the low lamplight of the bar. Ambiance, they called it.]

Close to the end of 2015, if I'm not mistaken. The Attack Dog spell.

[Whatever happened to Rowena, perhaps it was for the best. They'd all unwittingly been sucked into Crowley's family drama. His claim on hell had done nothing to soothe his appetite for ascension but reaching the top hadn't quelled it either.

The sound of the glass scooting along the surface of the bar brings his attention there, but his eyes flit back up to Dean immediately. Careful, tentative, and affixed on Dean. It feels ... intimate, in a way that he's never experienced before. Whether it was him from the future or not isn't important. He's loved Dean for quite some time but hasn't ever found the words to convey that, or waded through the depths of what humanity he'd experienced to discover it.]

That sounds like a goodbye. [Castiel isn't an idiot, nor his ignorant. He knows the steps they take around each other, the wide-berth when mistakes are made and Castiel can't see a world where he could admit that and not know it was in some act of finality. Some martyrdom that he'd risked time and time again for Dean, and for his brother.

Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters.

There wasn't a world that he could see himself admitting such a thing casually, just as human emotion and the compromising feelings of them weren't easy neither would admitting them be. Quantifying them and finding a way to give those feelings away, it's a lot to digest and a lot to work through in his head.]

But it's also true.

[Dean was all those things to him, and through watching Dean and seeing his love and passion Castiel was able to find those same things within himself. Since the first time, they'd met in person, in the barn - when Dean had shoved the blade through his heart something had changed in him. Further back, when he'd rescued him from the depths of hell he'd felt something different, something he couldn't put words to. It's why he thought Dean would be able to handle his true voice, although he'd been wrong.]

( The attack dog spell takes him back. Five years back. With Cas himself and in another dimension, Dean assumes it's after Rowena reversed the spell. He would hope. He hopes Cas didn't appear here in the midst. But, he remembers the aftermath, too. )

Rowena's attack dog spell.

( Other facts slot into place, Amara, the Mark of Cain. Almost killing Cas. And then Cas being one step away from a rampage. Like Dean had been. He refused Castiel to heal his wounds because he gave as good as he got, nearly ending Cas himself. )

Amara grows up. Quickly. The Darkness.

( Just -- to clarify what happens with the Darkness and his part in their connection. But, he remembers Castiel was more separate from her in the midst of that spell. Still, it all intertwines for him. Rowena... stays their adversary until she needs them again, or they need her. But, Rowena isn't here - literally - it's him and it's Cas. Sam's not even here, and he doesn't even know what he'd say to his brother about this.

And then Cas admits it. )

That long. Five years, Cas?

( It's a long time to hold a torch. Dean replays their absences, Castiel's deaths, his searching, his storming off, and everything in between. Dean's stubborness and Cas' snark. Thinking back, he doesn't see it, not from Cas' point of few. But there were always jokes and remarks from demons and angels alike.

"As soon as Castiel laid a hand on you he was lost!"

And everything Chuck, Cas the angel with a crack in his chassis.

Last woman he was with was Max down at the Shadow Ball and before that a waitress whose name he... wouldn't remember - but actually couldn't thanks to the Druid's memory spell. With his mother, with Jack, with Chuck, it's been a much longer time. Dean wasn't even sure Cas could feel human emotions like that, when not human or graceless. But, before his very eyes Castiel had unloaded everything onto him, the sounding board.

The musician begins his next set and Dean spies that the bar has emptied, the crowd having moved toward the stage. It's just him and Cas.

He raises his voice, just a little louder because the musician's starting. )

Way you put it, it felt gradual. Like, you figured out how you felt - made this deal and then realized that's the one thing that would -- honor it. Left me alone in the Men of Letters bunker. Took down Death herself with you.

[Castiel had been in recovery, but the lingering pain from the spell had yet to disperse when he arrived. He was still recuperating at the bunker, in a guest room with Dean's recommendations on Netflix being his only source of entertainment. Duplicity had restored him to health but at the expense of doing what they expected of him. It's part of why he'd kept up with the obligations the city had placed upon him all while looking into some form of escape.

Gradual though it was, Castiel was still a warrior in his own right. During their first apocalyptic tryst dying for the cause was normal. Afterward, his sacrifices took on a much more personal tone. He learned slowly, but they'd been friends and companions for eight years and time moved differently for Castiel, who didn't take mere moments for granted. The stain of time hadn't been kind to him, but under Dean's guidance and the experiences he shared with him and his family what he'd never been able to rationalize before became clearer.

The question stills him for a moment, his eyes narrow. It would feel too long for someone like Dean, a creature of habit and no stranger to those feelings.]

It was, but that doesn't make it any less true. You realize that I'm not human, my capacity for understanding that, putting words to it, and acting on it isn't to be taken lightly.

[Try as he might he can't quite hide the incredulity in his tone. What's one more death? This time, though, he knew there was some finality to it or he never would have said anything. He can't intervene with fate, and never would have complicated Dean's life with that admission if he had a choice.]

To save you, I assume.

[That went without saying, he'd always put Dean first - more often than not, at least when he was of sound mind. Sometimes when he wasn't. It's not difficult to see the affinity he had for him from the start.

Naomi spoke of the crack in his chassis first, said that he came off the assembly line with it. The first time he'd been brought back to heaven to be indoctrinated it was because he couldn't bear the weight of what Dean's role in the oncoming apocalypse was doing to Dean.

"I was getting to close to the humans in my charge. You."

Castiel had admitted it as much as he understood it the first year that they spent together. When things began to change for him, and it only got more complicated from there.

Even in the midst of his struggle against the mark of Cain, it was there. Underlying but just as poignant as it had always been and he told Dean then too. After everything he'd done, and what he'd been responsible for.

“Maybe you could fight the mark for years. Maybe centuries, like Cain did. But you can't fight it forever. And when you turn, and you will turn, Sam, and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I'm the only one who will have to watch you murder the world. So if there's even a small chance that we can save you, I won't let you out of this room.”

Castiel's jaw is tight, everything feeling a little too close to the surface and too personal to be ignored. Ignoring it was the easy part, suffering in silence, acting as a martyr for those he cared about. That was what he was, a means to an end. He knew that then and he knows it now, but being in public vulnerable and raw isn't something he knows how to deal with.]

If that's all, maybe I should leave you to the rest of your shift. Dean.

Yeah, Cas. I realize that. It was a big moment. One I didn't see coming and didn't understand, until I did.

( "Until the Empty sucked you into oblivion," he doesn't say.

To save him. Always to save him, or save Jack or try and save someone else. Never to save himself. But, that's what Cas and the Winchesters have in common. Self-sacrificing.

Cas shuts down. Gets it from him. No, he gets it from himself. Castiel is his own angel, his own person and he grows into it. Through their disfunction and their friendship, they are there for one another.

It's everything that's come before that stops Dean from stopping Castiel. If Castiel believes he should leave, then he should. Dean could make him stay, could ask him to keep talking about this but Dean doesn't even know what he wants to get out of it. He loves Cas - but he doesn't love him like that. He can't be there for Castiel like Cas needs him to be. He knows that.

He wants to apologize for bursting this bubble, for telling Cas something that hasn't happened yet, but he's Dean Winchester and this is Castiel. He's not going to stop him tonight.

He'll check in the next day, but not bring up what happened. That's how they work.

He can't bring Castiel into the future, can't make him experience everything he's missed. And, in some ways, Cas is missing a lot more heartache. Three more deaths to be sure. Dean isn't the guy who begs some guy to admit how he feels. First, guy, and second, someone doesn't want to share, then they don't have to. Wasn't how he was raised. If you didn't talk about it, you don't talk about it.

His eyes, at least, convey the apology he owes. )

[As far as Castiel was concerned there wasn't anything else to be said. They could talk about it, but hadn't they already done that? What more was there to say. He's not spurned by Dean's lack of reciprocation, he didn't have enough humanity in him to feel or fear rejection.

The only thing that's overwhelming him is the truth, his truth, put out there like a beacon to destroy him. That has nothing to do with Dean and he knows it. So, he swallows and cuts his jaw to the left toward the door, and with the sound of flapping, he's gone. Leaving nothing but negative space where he used to be.]

✆ castiel's voicemail

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