heraldingangel | Inbox for deerington

[ Mouth opening to say something vaguely smartass, Dean bites it back at the last second and snaps his mouth shut again. His Fluid is tucked away into his pocket, location added to a message for Cas but not sent. Redundant as hell right now. ]

Yeah. I can see that.

[ Taking a good look around to check their surroundings even though he knows Cas would know way before him if they were about to be ambushed, his gaze finally settles back on the angel and Dean looks... uncomfortable. And tired. ]

You okay?

[ Yeah, he asked Cas if he was in one piece. But it feels douchey to not ask him if he's okay. Or as okay as anybody's going to be when the town is like this. ]

I'm in one piece.

[ He mimics the same message he sent to Dean not 5 minutes ago while he looks up, past him to the building he'd always passed by but never cared to stop by.]

How long have you been working for Fear?

Uh. Yeah.

[ Smalltalk off the table. He should know better by now. Glancing over his shoulder at the building in question, he raises his eyebrows and looks back. Smalltalk apparently not off the table. ]

Couple weeks.

[ Not all that long after the first movie they'd failed to watch and the conversation that tumbled into existence afterwards. ]

I get weapons and this armor suit thing which... I gotta be honest, man, I wish we'd had those for hunting.

[ But that's not why he'd asked Cas to show. ]

I uh--

[ He's not awkwardly uncomfortable about conversations all that often when it's not him who's the subject, but this one feels a little different. And he falls at the first hurdle, but not because he's stalling. He's got a question alongside the other piece of information. ]

Have you seen Sam?

[ Blue eyes shift down, building forgotten. His demeanor closes down from open curiosity to something more stiff and neutral. He meant to tell him but he wanted confirmation first which he still didn't have, and hearing Dean bring it up first, he knows he made a mistake. He should have told him when he first realized it. ]

He's been gone for a week.

Edited 2020-10-09 01:23 (UTC)

[ Brows drawing down into a frown, he wasn't expecting Cas to just come out and say it like that. Him and Sam had been trying to work out what exactly they had left in common, and maybe it doesn't pull as hard at his emotions as it might have five years ago. But it leaves him feeling cold and a little off-balance all the same. ]

...okay. [ He doesn't question how Cas knows. He just trusts that he does. ] Tried calling him. Swung by his house. [ He pauses, frowning. ] And I have no idea if it's good he's out of here or not.

I don't know either Dean. I wanted to be sure before I told you. That's why I waited. But at this point, he either died and is recovering somewhere that I'm not aware of or he's gone.

Returned back to his world.

[ It was better to lay it out all at once. Even if he did want to confirm it first, Dean deserved to know something was wrong. ]

I'm sorry.

[ Silent in the face of that explanation, he can feel the tension lace through an already tight back. He already knows what Sam was going home to. They talked about it briefly the last time they saw each other.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he eventually yanks himself out of the moment, nostrils flaring and jaw set tight. ]

This town in October or the cage. Those were his choices. Not that he had one.

[ Which is part of the problem here. They had no choice when they were brought here, and that gets to him more than he's let on. ]

Dean. [ That look has him stepping forward, and raising his hand to comfort him before catches himself and lets it drop. ] He's not going to stay in the cage.

[ He's staring at the ground now unsure how to word the next part. ]

I made sure of it.

Yeah. Okay.

[ Clearing his throat of unspent emotion he's refusing to let bleed into his tone, he watches the hand that's aborted before it makes contact and doesn't know if he's relieved by that or not. There's a lot he has to work through in his head, and the fact that Sam's gone to the cage and Cas pulls him back out again? Maybe that's the only goddamn good thing he's got to hold on to right now, even if it's complicated as hell. ]

Look, man. I didn't just ask you here to ask about Sam. There is somethin' I gotta tell you and I have no idea how you're gonna take this.

[ Moving the conversation on feels like it's the best thing he can do right now. At some point he'll find a way to ask Cas about how that went down. Right now? He can't talk about it. ]

[ Surprise flickers through him at the admission, snapping his head up. If it wasn't about Sam's disappearance then he truly has no idea what Dean could possibly need to tell him. Confused and feeling a little off-kilter he asks the obvious. ]

What is it?

[ There's nothing about this that he's enjoying at all. It's rough in ways that he knows he's not capable of dealing with the fallout. Something he understands on surface level but not deeper because it's complicated and he has no idea how it's going to land. Licking his lips, he frowns, eventually glancing up again. ]

I told you about the you from my world, right? About what I did to him. That he died.

[ Whether Dean means to revive an argument he thought they were past or not, Castiel feels the need to repeat his point. ]

Dean. You didn't kill him.

[ Whatever might have transpired in the end, he knows he wasn't blind to it. For eons, he'd been a tactician developing strategies and countermeasures for whatever befell their garrison. Following Dean to the end... it was a choice. ]

Yeah. Well.

[ That's not the worst of what he did to Cas, so he just frowns and shakes his head. He's never told Cas what he did to the one back in his world before he used him as a diversion - as bait - to do what he needed to do. Resentment. He'd felt so much of that. Resentment and failure. ]

He's uh... alive. Again. And he's here. He got pulled here too.

Alive? How do you know?

[ A thought strikes him then, the same one he turned over when Sam first disappeared. Did Dean go back to his world? Is this what he wanted to tell him? If he knew that much then he must have survived past his encounter with Lucifer. Was he brought back then? His thoughts spiral into different threads, weaving new possibilities. All it in the span of time between the first news and the last.

A full stop. All those threads come crashing into each other in a tangled web before another takes center stage. A commotion in the silence. A line cast out into the ocean for an angel he wished to hear from again. So, when he felt a shift in the open waters, he acted on instinct. After months of silence, hope reignited, burning brightly, and he called out to him letting his feelings push him into action. ]

Dean. [ He says gravely. ] You said angels closed the doors to Heaven in your world.

[ Meaning any angel residing on Earth would have been cut off from the Host. The moment the doors closed what once was a choir would have ceased letting silence reign in its stead. The pieces start falling into place and he steps back aware of his own folly. In his haste, he'd pressed on that connection without a second thought. It never occurred to him his greeting might be unwanted, more akin to an intrusion. Now, the barbed rejection made sense. A realization he could have drawn sooner if he'd faced it in the first place instead of letting his rattled emotions take reign. ]

I think I made a mistake.

[ Hanging back from the conversation as he listens and watches Cas work through the scrap of information, his eyebrows raise at the conclusion. If he's honest? Meeting a version of himself from five years back was weird, but it had been brief. So brief that there hadn't been all that much time for who he was before to really understand how much he'd changed when shaped by a dying world.

Thinking about the fact that he arrived here knowing he'd sent Cas to his death, walking straight into the past angel version of that person had been met with anger because allowing himself to process it any other way would have meant delving into all his failures. And somehow, despite all the crap he's thrown at the Cas standing in front of him, they aren't at odds anymore. They're not best friends either but Dean realizes it's way more than he figured would be possible or something he wanted after those first few meetings.

He shakes his head, leveling Cas with a messy kind of expression that looks uncomfortable, lost and a little empathetic. Who knew he still had empathy to draw on either? ]

He told me what happened. And I told him you're here. I'm not the guy to give advice on--

[ He gestures, like he's searching for the right word and considering how bad their conversations have gone in the past, he feels like he usually doesn't pick the right ones. ]

Look, man. All I'm sayin' is I thought you should know. He knows too. And in some ways you couldn't be more goddamn different. But in other ways you're the same. I have no idea what he's gonna say to you, but just uh--

[ He pauses, frowning, words a broken path of him clumsily trying to get to what it is he's trying to say here. It's been a long time since he offered some kind of support beyond just being a leader to troops. How exactly this Cas is going to view the broken Cas that just showed up? He has no idea. He can't even say this to that broken version from his world because they're just not at a place where conversations are anything but traded barbs and a murky history. ]

He never left. You never left. Even though you should have.

[ Frowning, his thoughts circle those words. They spoke of his intrusion but with the way Dean trails off at the end, it leaves him with a sinking feeling. It settles in his chest, heavy and oppressive. Was that why Dean was here instead of the Castiel from his timeline? Did he overstep by pressing on that line of communication? ]

Advice on what?

[ His tone is heavy but passive, not pushing but emphasizing his need to know. A contradiction of wanting to know but trying to keep the boundaries he never quite seemed to see.

This Dean, at least, drew that line in the sand the first time they met greeting him with a stonewall. No need to guess their standing. Even he understood banishment. That ceaseless feeling ailing inside reaching for a severed connection no longer there to touch on.

Subtle sabotage.

Still, he was grateful for the reprieve of another blundered introduction. For the knowledge of knowing exactly where he stood.

He misses that.

Dean keeps going, explaining himself in a way he never did before. The fact that this side of him only came about after he lost his memories unsettles him. Leaves him guessing who Dean sees when he looks at him. He or Constantine. The personality that took over when he had no memories to cast a shadow on their interactions.

At his side, his fingers flex into a ball no longer passive the longer Dean keeps meandering around the point. All he needs to know is what's wrong, so he can fix it. ]

Dean. [ He finally cuts in. ] What are you trying to tell me?

[ He wants that back. The line in the sand so he knows what is real and what isn't. So he doesn't have to guess at meanings he has no hope of understanding. A laughable thought, to think a celestial being with all the knowledge at his possession could be so easily overwhelmed by a listless soul. ]

Edited 2020-10-12 18:21 (UTC)

Nothing.

[ Some conversations he's just not got the shape of yet, hasn't got into the groove to smooth things over in a way that other people seem to be able to in one breath. Maybe once he would have known how to charm his way through to a conclusion that isn't ten parts awkward to one part I'd like to go now.

Shaking his head he's saved by the emergence of some of his.... well, he guesses they're colleagues now and that's weird enough to think about all on its own. ]

Just thought you should know there's another you runnin' around and knowing him? You'll probably hear from him soon.

[ Lame explanation. He shifts his weight and starts to make moves to leave. ]

I gotta go. But Cas? Be careful, man.

[ The sound of the other FEAR members draws his inquiry but it's not enough to pull his gaze away from Dean. He's always ignored the people around him for the brothers, now isn't any different. And with his thoughts circling Dean's words, there's even less of a chance of noticing them. ]

Why are you... telling me instead of him?

[ Apprehension seeps into the cracks of his unease. Did he mess up that badly? Why else would he avoid himself? If it were him, he'd be the first person to seek out after checking up on Dean, of course. So, why the silence?

Swallowing his agitation, he nods stiffly, fingers flexing at his sides. He knows that line. How many times has he heard it before? ]

Of course. I'll just... [ he looks around, eyes finally darting to the unfamiliar faces. ] Be careful.

Edited 2020-10-14 05:59 (UTC)

Because he's hurt. From what I did to him, back in our world. Did what I could to patch him up but I told him to stay at the house until he's good.

[ There's other reasons too. Like maybe Dean thought it was better coming from him, to soften the blow, or something, rather than the two of them meeting face to face without any kind of precursor.

He doesn't say any of that, just starts stepping backwards to join the FEAR operatives getting themselves set up. ]

See ya around, Cas.

[ And with that he turns away, leaves the angel with those last words before getting down the business with the rest of the team. ]

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