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Late November. Knotty and naked branches tower themselves against the sky, dark outlines in the afternoon sun. The ground is covered in leaves and the grass is barely visible like winks of a long gone summer, spotted amidst the sea of warmer colors - yellow, orange, red and rich browns seem to make the universe that time of the year. It's a breathtaking and ordinary scenery, autumn always is. Everyday beauty is often taken for granted, but for Cas it will always be a new miracle. The sidewalk, on the other hand, is mostly clear, yet there are some areas of it where the leaves remain untouched, rotting away as they are being walked on, cracking under people's shoes as their heels click on the pavement.
Sometimes Cas thinks he is like those yellow checkered rooting away leaves.
...Once had he basked on the glory of a foolish leaf, proud stagnant, evergreen, timeless, aimless, clutching blindly to the tree, rain, wind, snow, only knowing of heaven above, but never about the dirt of the ground...to be still is to be alive?
Only after he fell, he understood, to fall is to become alive, it hurts, unthetered, weightful death sentence, to decide to root away.
And it took too much time to realize, but isn't all life beautiful because it's so ephemeral? so the past is treasured, today is a miracle, and tomorrow is a gift: to become a golden leaf and covered in spots, proof of every breath, copper, orange, red. The leaves fall and Cas falls, wrinkles and lines, aching muscles and tender joints, alone at times, but now trying something, with Dean, Jack, a family found along the way. Dancing along the wind, against tempest and arid times, getting muddy and dirtied, alive, along warm gusts and gentle times, and becoming crumpled leafs, laughing and crying at the mercy of time.
So times moves and flows away and now is a worthy day to note, It's a sunny day, as warm as the later autumn afternoon allows, and the, otherwise clear blue sky, is studded with some solitary clouds - dirty white that verges on grey, they look as if someone painted them on a canvas using the finest watercolours and the most exquisite brushwork.
It's a sunny day and the air smells of rotten apples, oozing resin, and frost. It's the smell of death and destruction, of glimmering hope. A welcoming smell, the smell of life, so lulling and comforting, that fills people's nostrils as they go on with their day. The smell of home, an active reminder that life is to be treasured.
"How does the story end?" asks Jack as he hands Cas a paper bag, the bookshop's logo printed on it with bright red letters.
"How do you want it to end?" Cas asks, smiling.
He knows the stories that Dean tells Jack, the ones he half reads and ends up making as he goes, stuffing in his own share for who knows what reasons. The thing is they both laugh and the red hooded girl surely doesn't have a shapeshifter, last time he checked. Overheard some of them while passing through the small living room in order to get outside and speak on the phone with Sam.
It's their thing and he tries not to cross lines and wriggle in - Dean tells stories and does all the voices, Jack laughs, Dean laughs: a complete picture that doesn't quite need him there, an intimate bubble of two as he has his own with Dean and another one with Jack too and its Dean's "job" to put Jack to sleep. So he doesn't ask, Dean doesn't speak about it. It's healthy for Jack to grow different relationships with them on their own.
Still, he does know about them and listens more often than he would care to admit, from behind the door, feeling like a stranger in his own house.
About the ordinary tales of overcoming evil and suddenly there are Vampires and Djins and it's always about not giving up no matter how scared and angry one may feel. It's about children being allowed to be children even in a world of danger and Dean's voice oozing vulnerability as well as hurt.
There were times he had considered taking his hand only to step away before he could be seen, Dean has allowed himself to be this vulnerable in front of Jack as his own kin. He couldn't mess up this trust and growth with selfishness.
Jack looks down distractedly and kicks some leaves, causing them to rustle, crack and scatter. Soon enough found a clump of leaves and decided it was good enough to swim on them. It's the contrast that makes Cas think and stop a bit, Jack so joyful on a blanket of cracked corpses, life playing with death, handfuls of leaves on Jack's hands, a handful of ashes, ashes to ashes, a pool of dead yet life stills blooms so beautifully and hopeful, death and creation, hand by hand, as time goes by.
"I don't know," says Jack as he picks up an acorn from the mess he just made and studies it attentively before stuffing it into the pocket of his Jacket. Lately, they've been the hiding place of all sorts of hidden treasures - acorns, buttons, funny looking rocks, and empty shells - later taken out and displayed on the shelves in his bedroom, right next to his Paddington books and carved animal statuettes.
He laughs, "Dean always puts a lot of death in them."
"Does he?" asks Cas.
"Sometimes they are all alone. I don't mind, they make me want to live!" he says, his chirpy laughter echoing through the air, soon followed by thunderous stomping: Wellington boots, yellow with a bee pattern printed on them, splashing water from a puddle on the grass.
Castiel sighs and carefully sits down on the battered bench in the small park. Its wood is ruined and the paint is peeling off and soft moss is thriving in those places where the material never quite manages to completely dry off. A wet bench, but still appreciates it with a crack of back bones.
"Well," he says, holding back a grimace of pain. "I think you and Dean may both be right when you say that it's about feeling alive."
Jack nods solemnly in agreement. "And what about the children? They climb trees and drink lemonade, but what happens after that."
"They do everything their own way and they are good at that."
"Dean can do it better." Jack puffs loudly.
"Then you should ask him as soon as he comes back." Cas smiles.
"I think I will. Can I give you something?" asks Jack.
"Yes, of course."
"I'll get it soon," he says and walks away, running around through the leaves, freely, squealing in delight.
A knot forms at the back of Cas's throat as he watches his son play in the autumn scenery. Life and death keeping each other company, effortlessly interconnected in an endless cycle. So loud the sound of his youth, Jack waranders off, bubbling with raw energy, entropic in a contagious way that Cas can't help but melt a bit on this warm brightness and he laughs too. Bittersweet, yeah, that's life for you. Something hopeful, the sound of a child's laughter and his fatherly love, brightening everything - precious and blossoming, always, amidst death and horror preventing the future from turning into ashes and mingling as equal with the past.
"This is for you," says Jack, out of breath, proud, stretching out his arm and handing Castiel a yellow leaf with green edges. "You can press it and frame it like they showed me in school."
"Thank you, Jack. This is... lovely. This is lovely, I like it." He smiles softly, fondness washing over him.
He looks at the gift, studying it as he turns it around, and wonders how much Jack knows about his own state. Does he know he chose to be a rooting away leaf too?
Cas fell, a long time ago, changing so completely, that his former self is nothing but a distant memory. Now Cas can look at the situation with more clarity of judgement, as he clearly lacked for more time than he could care to admit: in falling, he became alive and while it hurt and had at some point felt like a death sentence, life was, is, and will be beautiful with its alternating ups and downs.
But again, being alive is always too much, so stuffed with messy feelings, whirling fiery tempest, it becomes crowded, on edge, flammable as well as vulnerable, scalding in a slow simmering way, such that he would call worse than falling.
Meeting for the first time fear in a not immediate war or easily numbing adrenaline to survive, and thus being laid bare to see himself in the mirror and being bombarded with all the truths he didn't want to hear, scared of being alone, despite having Jack, Dean, and everyone else too; afraid of this too good looking second chance usually so monomaniacally forbidden and his guilt biting so hard he feels like choking on every breath, whispering his worst thoughts, over and over like broken record, all his faults, all his "greater good" soaking his hands in blood, what is to deserve when one has betrayed, what is a right when one has killed and done the unspeakable, what is to have freedom when each breath tastes of regret, what is peace when silence draws despair. On top of it now powerless, his own human body with the aching joints and cold bones… being at the mercy of time rather than being above it.
Because time now moves and flies away, slipping through his finger. Ticked away by clocks. Irrevocable hours leaden circles travelling through the air and ultimately dissolving.
Blinding shrieks of fear and self consciousness slowly started to become a hum and then days turn into weeks and weeks into months, one season following the other and the world changing, subtly at first, adjusting to the rising and dropping temperature and the inclement weather. Too hot and then too cold, and the months of adjustment in between for a couple of weeks with perfect temperatures and no sudden changes. Soon, it will be winter once more: the first frost has already started to beautify the windows, leaving white and translucent intricate patterns on glass, and the weather is changing - rain and strong winds as announced by the weather forecast daily after the six o’clock news.
Some of it, he'll never get back. Those sorry months and years he'd relive by reentering the moment and changing it radically from within by doing everything right are long out of question and he wouldn't risk fate and destiny to make a miracle again to break from Chuck's narrative. This time, he'd do everything right by being less prideful and avoid arguments to grow bigger and bigger until the smallest of things, enlarged in disproportion, left nothing but annoyance and anger in their wake - arguments breaking like thunder, rumbling, filling the air and making it unbearable to stand there and wonder, even for just a moment, whether love may not remain buried one day, out of reach.
The first year had been the most difficult: they had discovered at their own expense that love declarations and dreams of a speckless wonderful future were hardly enough and never actually helped in making things easier. Nothing would ever be enough. One simple truth then, which they had learned the hard way: happy endings did not exist, only endings, and even those were neutral and subject to change. No happy ever afters that tied up all ends at the last page, no sweetly dull every day epilogue. Life simply kept going, as ugly as it was before, as beautiful as it was before. They kept being the same people they were before, with all their faults and virtues, all their nightmares and dreams. Defeating the "biggest bad of the book" did not erase all of their inner troubles, maybe one or two, yes, but how many more were inside of each of them?
Dean's fear of abandonment and Cas' own desperate need to be useful had proven to be the most explosive and dangerous mix. And thing is, they couldn't forgive each other, not a particular one big reason, just too many piled up and carried over the years and while they could forget and move on, deep in their heart they couldt forgive, not really, and the topics they so desperately tried to ignore stood in their way, holding them back.
So twelve months of Castiel repeatedly leaving, he needed to hunt, to be useful, got himself head first into the line of fire so to see that his hands, while bloody, still saved lifes; sound of gunshot to shush his mind out of the accusing mirror, a warrior will always be a warrior and he had been a commander of garrisons, and so he went out and jumped from hunt to hunt with all kinds of hunter strangers until exhaustion could give him a good night sleep, weeks upon weeks and Dean's accusations following him out of the door, you'll always abandon me.
So twelve months of Dean drinking, as Cas's remarks no doubt rung in his ears, you're slowly becoming like your father. Dean didn't know what to do with his life, depression weighing him down so hard there were only some days he could get himself out of bed, tearing at the seams without a fight to pull himself together and so he drank, Cas's words ringing into his head like poison along the bitter aftertaste of a finished bottle.
Neither of them should have said those things although he couldn't find the strength to do anything but hold his refusal to stand on Jack's side against Dean. Dean should have asked him to stay, he should have made it clear that there was no need to be useful in order to stick around. A vicious cycle, separating them more and more, and not quite a trial - had it been one, there wouldn't have been one person who wasn’t guilty.
The second year had no room for openings, just anger as they moved like in a quagmire, the snappiness of the first year replaced with inertia. Dean threw himself into work, dirt on his jeans. Cas went to the bunker with Jack and a duffle bag stuffed with their belongings. The bunker had become some sort of hunter's sanctuary and he enjoyed the work. They did talk, but simply not enough, and refused to show themselves vulnerable - no mutual consolation, no touching, and the frail assumption that they were still on each other’s side crumbling in front of them and leaving them dismayed.
After two and a half years, on a ghastly hot summer evening, Dean leapt for the first time, really, showing nothing but fearfulness and saying, as he looked at Castiel stripping in front of him, were you going to tell me that you almost died or… It had been an accusation, the tone used made it clear, the half healing wound still patched on Cas's side inbeetwen them and their heavy silence, but there had been something else too - genuine worry and affection. They had shared a bullet of a look. Then they had kissed, desperately, hungrily, and had sex - consuming their relationship: They understood it and enjoyed it, but were still out of their depths when it came to the rest: awkwardness settling as soon as they were back in their clothes. He and Jack had left the following morning and the rest of the year had been spent abroad working on helping the international community of hunters to create a network bound to help supernatural creatures rather than killing them.
It had been the year of endless night and unsparing insomnia, wondering how to rebuild a relationship when you were also mourning one? Different versions of themselves are forever lost in time, the angel and the soldier boy, the runaway and the righteous man, the falling and the protagonist. He had spent so much time looking for something, a warning sign that they had somehow ended that loop of misery, to face the present and stop grieving the past, sorrow and unhappiness that he hadn’t actively recognized the beginning of it all, only widening the gap further. Polished surfaces and volcanoes inside - a mess of feelings, a mess of thoughts, and no way to escape them and make sense of it all. They had been prisoners of their own fears and their history had stood between them. They had spent the end of the year, retreating: each question met either by silence or elusive answers that ultimately meant nothing. It had been fake and lacked depth, the peace they tried to build when both lacked courage: they had built up a facade and spent their time together pretending that they could start from scratch. They couldn’t. He was still angry at Dean, Dean waa still angry for a multitude of reasons Cas didn't even want to know, and still for what happened with Jack, Cas didn’t dare breathe a word. And every word that wasn't about the truth, it was another shovel to bury the thing that was between them.
At the end of the third year, they had come back and they had stayed at the bunker for two whole weeks rather than a couple of days.
He had spent some ten months trying to find the right words to tell Dean that he was considering hunting less and less - wounds healed too slowly and he wasn't getting any younger. He had tentatively enquired about Dean only to find out that Dean was doing better - therapy and AA meetings and the Impala had been sold to some teenage girls. They had met, Castiel had asked about Dean’s new lodgings, Dean told him. Dinner. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. On and on like starting from scratch. Things settled, slowly, by falling into place and one night Dean asked him to sleep in his room rather than on the sofa and they talked, opened their hearts, raw and exposed, the darkness making it less awkward and easier: like talking to the idea of a person, depersonalization at its best, a space that had welcomed them and liked them as much as they liked it. Hours passed and in the morning things were different - calmer, easier. They had no more tears left to cry and no more apologies to make.
It seems almost impossible now, four years on, to remember life as it was in all its tiniest details - the bigger picture there, but lacking the intrigue and the excitement there might have been on different occasions. It’s no longer bloody and vengeful, an endless and vicious cycle where violence only led to more violence, spiralling out of control and slipping away, out of fingers, no way out. The feeling of it is familiar yet new, something that he had a long time ago, perhaps briefly, a fading memory that never existed, to begin with, secluded to the realm of dreams and conditionals. Something missing, always and unconsciously so, the feeling of longing always blooming in his chest: for something. Pointing his finger and putting a name to it is easier now as things slowly begin to come into shape.
Castiel closes his eyes, tilting his head back, chin held up high. The sun is warm on his skin, shining in through the naked branches, but his cheeks are reddened by the cold. Wrapped in his winter coat already, all buttoned up and one hand stuffed in his pockets. The sunbeams look golden and create dancing shadows on the ground, and he just stays there, still and motionless, and at peace, as he listens to Jack play in front of him.
Somewhere, through open windows, a song plays faintly though he may just be imagining it, lyrics echoing in his mind for days on end. Come and take my whole life, you are everything I want. You are everything… Mulling over them and wondering, impossible to stop, rolling and rapid. It’s peacefulness as if he spent an entire afternoon crying while sitting on a chair, though he can’t really claim to be an expert on the subject. It’s contentment and residual happiness that sometimes mixes with annoyance and anger, arguments breaking out like thunder, rumbling. Yet, still, love and happiness at simply existing, being alive, being human. The fullest and most satisfying existence, feeling things, and waking up in the morning with the sun shining in through the window, filtering through the curtains and painting the room gold as dust dances in the air in a mesmerizing pattern. Next to Dean too, a couple of moments in amicable silence before the day begins - lying there, mouth filled with the metallic taste of sleep, lazily and whispering, good morning. Time for healing.
When he opens his eyes again, the air is luminous, like St. James’ Street on a summer morning right after a decent drizzle. The light reflects on every surface and makes the air appear bright and filled with light, the edges of reality seem softened and the appearance is almost dreamlike. From down the street, Dean walking towards them holding the bags with the shopping.
“Look at who’s coming,” he says, catching Jack’s attention.
“Dean!” squeals Jack, delighted, as he runs towards him.
“Cas. No need to get up, just make us some space, will you?” Dean replies as he puts the shopping bags down, leaning them against the bench's legs. Then, before taking Jack into his arms, holding him close, he kisses Castiel’s cheek and adds, “Jack, buddy, I’ve missed you too. I’ve got something for the two of you.”
“What’s that?”
“Wait,” He stretches his arm out. “Here you go. First tangerine of the year, not too expensive. Hell, thought we deserve some after everything we went through.”
“I want a segment!” Yells Jack. Jack grabs for the piece of fruit in Dean’s hand, looking at it with fascination and entertainment at the uneven sphere of the citrus, before handing it over to Cas.
“Thank you.”
As soon as Cas starts peeling the citrus fruit, the smell fills the air. He always liked the smell of it - upbeat and cheerful, penetrating and warm. Reminiscing of cedarwood and lavender, clove too. Christmas-y. One of the happiest and most irrelevant things, easily going unnoticed, every gesture is done dismissively, instinctively and without paying too much attention. Fingertips digging into the exocarp, passing through the albedo, and removing the peel altogether - one piece at a time. Dean’s eyes are on him, he feels it, sees it with a sideways glance, studying his every move, as Jack wriggles and gurgles, impatiently waiting for his segment.
“What?” asks Cas without turning around.
“Nothing,” Dean replies as he accepts a segment just as Jack stuffs his into his mouth. “Jack, you’re making a mess of yourself. - a pause, again to Cas - I mean, this… all of it. - Dean looks at the autumn scenery, gestures widely, to the leaves and the threes, Jack, the clear sky, Cas, dazed but in a good way - I don’t know. I like it. Hell, I love it.”
“Selcouth.”
“What?”
“The word you’re looking for, I think. Rare and extraordinary.”
He’d add ‘unexpected’ to the list too, but that one to himself. It’s one thing to say that one wouldn’t be happy anywhere else with anyone else, another thing to make it work. Admittedly it took some time, irrelevant weeks after twelve years of tentatively tip-toeing around the other - this far and no further, deferring and agreeing, evading and never thinking about it, not really, not after the first couple of years. They seem to have the grasp on the ongoing juggling of the time at their disposal and days are uneventful, repetitive: he works, Dean goes to therapy and cares about the house, they play with Jack.
Twice a week Dean attends AA meetings and evenings are spent trying to make Jack sleep without having to read ten different bedtime stories and doing all the voices. And time passes, seasons change. A whole year, he sometimes reminds himself. Unbelievable. Selcouth.
And Cas examines amused these little white threads of tangerine he tears from his own segment, frail as the heart, wonder and fear, with care, like life, weaving silly braids for the sake of it, fingers clumsy, vines lacing fingers, each feels like a promise, for you, for me, feeble yet together so strong, sometimes they break, frustrated, yet not giving up, sometimes we manage a fine work, proud of a miracle yet so natural, a string of hope, a string to life, life is a tangerine and we are leaves along the wind.
Maybe he should marry Dean - Cas distractedly thinks, to which he can't help but feel the corner of his lips pulling.
“What?”
“You’re in a good mood,” says Dean.
“Could say the same thing about you.”
“Oh, look at you,” says Dean looking away, retrieving a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his Jacket and wiping Jack’s face clean.
“I need you to be honest with me, Cas.”
“I am honest with you, Dean.”
“I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want you to die out there.”
“I’m not going to die out there, not violently.” Castiel nods and smiles fondly, affection and tenderness washing over him in waves. It's a warm silence, a promise, the sun is out and about today. Dean looks at him like the only thing in this world and leans in for a kiss, making him feel as if he swallowed a box of fireworks instead, and this time the kiss has a citric aftertaste. Shooting stars on a summer night, dropping like a thousand suns, speckled fireworks, sunny galaxy to cup in his hands, warm and ticklish, rumble laughter and stubble, soft and rough, sweet and bitter, bliss and life, so alive, for a moment Cas is again grateful of falling: so beautiful, so much like Dean.
“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”