Work Text:
Dean took a step on to the nearly empty train and sat in the first seat on his right. He had been convinced to leave his car home for this journey, something he was regretting now. If he drove his hands would be busy, his mind could latch its focus on to the map. Instead he has to sit there, on a train, the only company the stars, his focus free to solder itself on to anything it chooses. He sighs, ready for the onslaught of his one track mind.
The train begins to move as Dean shifts to get comfortable. The lights are dim, as if the train wants to blend into the night. After a childhood on the road he wouldn't class the imminent journey as long - but it is long enough. He rummages in his bag to find the headphones he had inconsiderately packed deep in his bag. One other soul is sat further down the carriage. Back to him on a 4 seat table. A book spread in front of him. He shook off the anxious cloud that sat on the edge of his mind.
The way Dean had lived - survived - his childhood had left claw marks on who he had become. His body knew panic and anxiety. It was well acquainted with worst case scenario. Fight or flight his only guardian.
It meant that in moments like this, new experiences, unknown endings, his body would sense danger. He puts the anxiety that had risen in him down to that. His over-acting mind unable to settle until it had found the source of the next attack.
Dean rolled his shoulders, attempting to force the calm he craved back into his bones.
It is just a man. On a train. A public space.
Determined to put his mind at rest, Dean decides to list the things he can see. Solid facts help his mind realise there is no threat. He wipes his hands across his face, reminds himself to take a breath.
A man with dark wild hair.
A tan coat hanging off the chair.
A book and notepad on the table.
A navy suitcase secured above him.
A man who sighed as he scribbled down a note.
Like Cas did.
Dean shook his head.
No.
A new habit his brain had picked up rearing its head. This one felt worse. Still a fresh wound that his mind insisted on picking.
If his mind had not found a source of danger it would begin a hunt for Cas.
Dean has to drag himself back to the search for his headphones but the man sighs again.
It does sound like Cas.
That's not his mind playing tricks on him, that's his memories of the sound pushing forward.
Dark ruffled hair.
Tan coat
Making notes as he reads.
It’s not a ghost of Cas his mind is looking for, it’s Cas it's recognising.
Dean puts his head in his hands.
It wasn't impossible they would be on the same train. Invited to the same event from the same city made the odds high. But the likelihood was supposed to be slimmer than this.
Does he go over?
Surely it would be worse if Cas saw him, he knows Dean, he would know he’d have scouted the train as he got on and spotted him. They knew each other like the back of their hands. Cas has watched Dean trace every room they have ever walked into. Watched him count the exits, scan the face of every person he has ever walked past. If Cas saw Dean on this train he would know without a doubt that Dean saw him first.
Dean sits upright and tilts his neck as far back as it will go. Ignoring the fact that every relaxation technique he had used in the last few minutes had come from Cas. He had already destroyed what they had, he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting Cas more.
He stands, grabbing his bag, and walks over.
“Mind if I take this seat?”
Castiel looks up with a look Dean had seen before, his polite decline smile. Dean watched it twist into shock and confusion, he watched Cas have a fruitless battle to keep his face neutral.
“Dean.”
Not confirmation he could sit there. Not a request for him to leave. Just acknowledgement that it was him. That Cas hadn’t wiped him from his memory.
Cas looks up at him for a few moments, Dean staying silent, wondering what he was looking for. Now the shock had surpassed the neutral gaze won over, it didn’t conquer his eyes though. They portrayed something much more difficult to acknowledge.
The seated man barely titled his head in a nod and turned back to his book. Choosing not to grace Dean with further communication or attention.
Dean felt the knot in his chest grow. Anxiety back, growing deeper. He puts his bag in the vacant spot above them and sits opposite, choosing to look out of the window instead of ahead.
Dean knew Cas could sit in silence, knew he never gave it enough thought to recognise if it was comfortable or awkward. Surely Cas knew Dean was the opposite. Surely sitting in this silence was a waiting game that they both knew wouldn’t last. Surely, by inviting Dean to sit, he was consenting to the conversation Dean would invariably start.
Dean looks around the empty carriage again, “You booked the night train for a reason.” so you could sit there in this hurt. His mind adds unhelpfully. That is why he had picked this train, even if he hasn’t yet admitted that to himself. He doesn’t want to have that conversation, like hell he was going to be the one to start it. Cas moves his eyes from his book to meet Dean’s, “bustling crowds or silent sleepers.” Before he has a chance to glance back to his book Dean quips “you're not sure which is worse.” A ghost of a smile attempts possession of Cas’s lips before he exhales and focuses back on his book.
The active not smile on Castiel’s lips sends a familiar warmth through Dean. Confirmation he still knows Cas.
Confirmation Cas still knows him comes a moment later. A sigh followed by a simple request, “I can’t do small talk with you Dean. If that is what you need I am sure you will find another vacant seat.” He doesn’t look up as he says it, his eyes trained on the words on the page.
Dean nods. The ways Cas’s eyes aren’t moving across the words confirms he saw Dean’s response. He turns his attention to the window.
In betweens cities is beautiful. The sky filled with stars that light pollution hid from view.
Dean had always loved watching the world change as he moved further into the sticks. Usually his view would be of the winding roads, pristine roads replaced by degrading tarmac, sidewalks disappearing into dirt, high rises and buildings succumbing to woods then forests. It was rare he could look to the sky while on the move, especially for long periods of time. Driving was his preferred method and he would rather keep the car on the road than count the stars. But God, were they beautiful to look at when the opportunity arose to catch them.
He lets his mind wander as his eyes track the stars. He was an idiot to think it would go anywhere other than to the man opposite him. The man who he would have once shared this internal monologue with. That in previous circumstances they would have made this journey purposely together, in a black car on winding roads.
Dean turns back to Cas, noting that he is still willfully ignoring him.
On the rare occasion they had been on a train before, they had sat next to each other. Cas sharing information from his book, Dean laying out the snacks he had gotten them. Previous journeys had been taken together out of intention, not unlucky coincidence.
Their silence fills the carriage. Dean is glad there is no one else in their vicinity, they'd have surely suffocated under this weight. More victims of the damage Dean had done.
The itch to talk is still there. Cas had said no small talk. Does that mean he wants something deeper?
That was a stretch even for Dean.
Of course that’s not what he wants. But the thought was there now, the itch growing in viciousness. The need to have Cas look at him, talk to him, acknowledge him was obsessive. It always had been, but after months of no contact he could feel it clawing out of his chest.
“I know you still completely blame me.”
The huff that comes from Cas seemed almost involuntary, the pointed look, however, is definitely intended. “Dean-”
“Because I dropped your hand while dancing. And I left you there standing crestfallen on the landing.”
Cas cocks his head, not rising to the bait. “Champagne problems.” he simply states before looking back down.
Dean frowns at the reference to the book they had read last summer. A poetry collection, they had agreed that the headline was a poem called champagne problems. It spoke of heartbreak and loss and hurt and the self dismissal of it all. The need to minimise a pain that was too intense to bear. Dean had started to mutter it when a panic attack would threaten to suffocate him, Cas would hold him, help him, then gently scold him for the use of the phrase. He had shared the poem to see if it helped Dean see what Cas saw when he crashed, not so that Dean would use it as another tool to deflect.
But now, for Cas to use it, the nonchalance of the comment richer in meaning than anything else that could have been said. Devastating to only the two of them.
“Your mum’s ring was in your pocket.”
Dean pushes again, attempting to get a rise out of Castiel. To make Cas angry was the only way he could think to get him to talk. A tactic of Dean’s that Cas knew well. They had been through this before, he knew Cas’s answer before it came, the response he has used every time they have pursued this conversation.
“My picture was in your wallet.”
Cas looks up as he says those words, the blue in his eyes as bright as ever. He blinks as he continues in a dry tone, “Your heart was glass. I dropped it.”
Acknowledgement that Dean blames Cas for the way he chose to leave. It almost felt like mocking, Cas is calling him dramatic in no uncertain terms. Dean had been the one to walk away. Dean had been the one to end it. Dean had been the one to break their life. Cas was the one who wanted more. Cas should have known better than to ask him that.
Champagne problems, Dean’s heart heaved.
It had taken a lot for Dean to be comfortable with being bisexual. It was something that wasn't an option for him until it was. And then it was unhealthy and twisted and used against him until he met Castiel. Castiel who taught him comfort in himself and what it meant to be happy. Years of internal and external homophobia were confronted and challenged. Dean found strength in Cas’s patience. He was by no means cured but he had worked to grow through the nettles that tried to keep him pinned down.
They had been together for years, Dean had come out and had been accepted by those that mattered. The darkness was kept at bay. They had a home, a family around them and a life. He lived past the age he thought he would, he thrived through as he became a person he wanted to be. Cas had done that for him, never taking credit, always taking his hand. The man had protected Dean from himself and watched him change his life. But the sight of the ring in Cas’s bedside table took it all away.
“You told our family, for what reason? You couldn’t keep it in. Your sister splashed out on a bottle -” Dean’s unfinished thoughts coming out as Cas closes his book and interjects, “Now no one is celebrating!”
Cas sighs at himself, defeated. His attempt to ignore Dean on this journey, unsuccessful. He doesn’t want to hash out the moment his life was ripped from him. But he knows how Dean works. Dean wants to beat himself up until he is blue and bloody and he wants to use Castiel’s words as his weapon.
“Is that what you want to hear Dean? I told our family I wanted to marry the man I had been with for nearly a decade. I told them that, at age 35, I was still infatuated with the person I had met in my 20s and wanted to celebrate that. Do you want an apology for that? Is that what you're asking for? Again?”
His piercing blue eyes reach all the way into Dean’s soul. They spread the anger and sadness Cas was feeling all the way to Dean’s core, strangling him. Dean sat in silence. The last time they had had this conversation Cas was grief stricken, now he seemed angry. Dean continues to hold his gaze, I deserve his hatred, his heart screams.
“Would you like me to apologise for the Dom Perignon I bought too? Was it wrong of me to assume the man I thought loved me would want to marry me? That we would spend that evening celebrating, not screaming?”
Dean opens and closes his mouth, “I do,did - I.” He swallowed, “No applause from a crowd of friends can mute how the rest of the world thinks of us.”
Cas fights the urge to get up, instead swinging his head to the side for a second before looking back at Dean, “It is always about what others think. I thought you had worked through this Dean. But no, you're right, your hometown skeptics called it. Two men in love, Dean being in love, all of it. Pathetic and wrong.”
The spite in Cas’s words hit Dean with each syllable.
Champagne problems.
“You had a speech,” Dean started.
“You were speechless”, came a retort, “love slipped beyond your reaches.”
Dean puts his head down, “I couldn’t give a reason -”
“Champagne problems.”
Another cold stare hit Dean. Castiel’s final words hanging between them. Dismissal of anything Dean could have said or will try and say next. Instead of turning back to his book Cas continued to look at him. The anger had not diminished its source, the pain was still there. He watches as Dean tries to exert power over his breathing. In and out, slowly. A calming technique he had showed him in the earlier days of their friendship.
Cas rarely interrupts Dean, to have done it twice in ten seconds was unheard of. But he couldn’t hear it. He can’t look at that face, that beautiful face, and hear the reasons that their love wouldn’t work. He used to do anything to prevent Dean shutting down, now he felt himself needing the silence.
“Your Midas touch Cas, you were angry, to want marriage was greed, you slammed the chevy door, your face red- .” Cas rolled his eyes in a way that made Dean pause the run up to his speech, “November Flush Dean, we were outside, it was cold, could you not feel the chill under your flannel cure? To want our love on legal documents isn’t greed, and I will not be painted as such.”
This ends the conversation, Castiel making it clear he has no interest in entertaining it further. He picks his book and pen back up and makes eye contact for a further second before looking back down at his work.
They spend the next hour in silence. Dean never did find his earphones so he was riding out the journey with only the faint whispers of songs coming from his memory. He wonders if Cas had noticed he wasn't listening to music, if he was questioning it eternally. Dean always had his head in a song, if there was a way to incorporate music into something he had found it. Someone had once asked him if the constant music was a way of silencing his thoughts, Dean hadn’t been able to say no. He tried to think of something else.
His mind only wanted to think of Cas though.
The man sat opposite him who, to the untrained eye, looked deep in his book. Dean knew better, the furrowed brow, the heaviness on the pen as he scribbled, the barely there pout, Cas is on edge, he is barely keeping himself together.
Dean keeps trying to push it away, forcing his brain on to other things but it shifts only slightly from thinking about Cas to wondering about what Cas is thinking about him. His one track mind. They haven't seen each other in a month or so, and haven't been in touching distance for longer.
Dean had tried to view the days passing without communication as the distance growing between them. Instead it felt like pain was seeping into every pore, the antidote further and further away. They had known each other since college. These months had been the first since their introduction that they hadn’t spoken.
“Our dorm was once a madhouse” The first sound either of them had made. He doesn’t look to Cas for a reply. “I used to joke that it was made for me.” That was easier to do than acknowledging how it felt to have a home and friends who seemed to want me. He doesn’t need to say that part out loud, Cas already knows. Cas is a decorated expert of the self loathing of one Dean Winchester, the ring being his final medal.
“How evergreen our group of friends.” Came a soft reply,
“Don’t think we’ll say that word again.” Dean mutters looking down at his hands, fiddling with the edge of the table.
It was true. How could Dean leaving Cas not tear him out of the group they had? He was only invited to this event because revoking his invite would seem cruel.
Cas looks up and cocked his head, the natural urge to protect dean, comfort him rising in him, “they’re still your-”
“Soon they’ll have the nerve to deck the halls that we once walked though.” He cuts Cas off, unable to take false comfort. How could Cas mean any kind word he gave him? After everything he did.
Dean chose to lead Cas on, chose to pretend they could have a life like that. The ring Cas kept in his pocket was placed in false confidence instilled by Dean. Dean masked lies as promises, he should have known better than to believe he could have Cas, could make a life with him. He may blame Cas for the ring but it is simply because he can’t take the weight of any more guilt. Yes he led Cas on, but Castiel should have known better. Should have known Dean was something to pass the time with. The broken boy Cas met in their college dorm who convinced himself he had changed and grown and was safe, shattered at the sight of a ring. How could he have convinced himself he had changed when the idea of having a husband, being one, stripped all of it away?
Cas is still looking at Dean. He knows him and he knows that what Dean needs now is for him to say nothing. He will get to what he wants to say but if he’s pushed he will shut down. Castiel once again gives Dean the patience he needs, regardless of if he deserves it. Isn’t it strange how easy it is to fall back into old ways.
One for the money
Two for the show
Three -
“I never was ready so I watched you go.” Dean doesn’t look at Cas as he says it.
“Sometimes you just don’t know the answer ‘til someone’s on their knees and asks you.” Cas shrugs as he says this but Dean doesn't have to look at Cas to know the hurt he is feeling. He can hear it dripping off the words he said.
He had made Cas think it was because of him, the weight of the guilt becoming immeasurable.
“It wasn’t you Cas.”
Cas chose to continue his silence.
“The reason. I didn’t leave because of you. I left because of me. Because what people were saying -”
“What were they saying that could have possibly mattered?” Cas keeps his voice low, he doesn’t want to get angry again and he is in danger of it. This is how Cas seems to spend his days now. A careful balance between broken sadness and anger.
“He would make such a lovely bride” Dean starts, “What a shame Dean’s fucked in the head they said”. He looks at Cas, expecting sadness but the calm that Cas had tried to regain was gone.
“Dean tell me how, after all these years, after everything I have done for you, do you still value me less than the words of strangers? Why is appeasing those who live to hate more important to you than what we had? We were happy, I thought that was enough.”
Silence.
Cas doesn’t pick up his book, Dean doesn’t return to looking out of the window. They just look at each other.
So much unspoken, unbearably heard.
“You’ll find the real thing instead.”
“Dean.”
“He’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred”
Dean could see it now. Cas dancing with another, never been left standing crestfallen on the landing. No Champagne problems. Cas would have his mum’s ring in his pocket, his partner would have a photo of him in their wallet.
He felt sick but it is what needs to happen. Cas should be happy, with someone who deserves him. Dean deserves to be alone. He had lied to himself, let himself get too close, too happy. He knew he didn’t deserve it but he took it anyway. The ring was a cruel reminder of who he is and how far he had come from where he is meant to be. Cas will see it too one day.
“You won’t remember all my champagne problems.” He drops his gaze.
Cas is shaking his head.
“You are the real thing. You are the only thing. You left me. You don’t get to call it champagne problems. I deserve to know why I wasn’t enough.”
Dean thought he might actually be sick. Cas was more than enough, more than he could ever deserve in a thousand lifetimes of trying.
“You are-”
“Dean, if you tell me I am enough after leaving me in order to soothe your internal homophobia, I will have to leave the train because I will not be able to hold myself responsible.”
“You deserve more. More than someone like me could give you. If a commitment to the man I have been devoted to for a decade takes me back to the boy who-” was beaten and bruised and damaged for how he loves, he wipes his hand across his face, “then how could I be the person that you deserve?”
Cas cocks his head, “You still don’t think you deserved to be saved.” It was a statement, Cas knew him well enough that he didn’t need to hear the answer. “The moment I laid eyes on you Dean, I was lost. I didn't choose you then, but I have continuously chosen you for the past ten years. I thought you were choosing me too.”
“I wanted to.”
The admission is the first of its kind.
“I just don’t know how.”
“You did it for years, Dean, we were together for years.”
Years of Dean’s champagne problems. How could he commit Cas to more.
The train pulls into the station, pulling them both back to the present, back from that night.
They were in town for Gabe’s birthday. This wasn’t about them and neither wanted to make it so. Ten years of communication meant that with a look they ended the conversation, tabling it for an unknown date. Cas nodded, standing to put on his trench coat and grab his bag.
“Dean-”
“I’ll be right there.”
Champagne problems.
------
By the time Dean gets off the platform Cas is gone. He takes a breath, feeling oxygen fill his lungs for the first time in hours. Sam had insisted on picking him up but Dean can’t face him right now.
He finds the train station fire exit and slipped out the side. Under the darkness of the night there was no way anyone would recognise him. He is just another faceless pedestrian.
Taking the night train means that he has arrived at 3am, there will be no respectable establishment open at this time. That doesn’t matter, Dean knows which Dives will still have their lights on. He takes the longer way round to his destination, avoiding the Roadhouse owned by his aunt and the street his brother resides on. He isn’t in the right mind to be around people who know him, who would tell him off. He needs the bottom of a bottle.
He arrives at his destination, as predicted, lights were still on, flickering, but still shining. He walks into the bustling bar with its sticky floors and heads to the bar. He nods at the man behind the bar and points to a bottle at the back. His whiskey tumbler is never empty long enough for him to think, until the bottle is gone and through his shaky vision he can just about make out the bartender declining his request to open a new one. He puts his head on the bar, too drunk to register the wet mistake.
Once the room had downgraded from shaking to stirring slightly he moves towards the door, bracing himself for the fresh air. It was always worse than he remembers.
His legs are moving, his mind travelling faster than Dean can keep up with. He lets his body move, hoping it knows where it is going, where he needs to be. His heart is still too busy with Cas.
Cas is all he wants. But how could he do that to him? How could he trap Cas in a life with a pathetic excuse of a person? He feels like the 23 year old he had been before Cas had walked into their common room. Nine years later and he feels he hasn't made a single ounce of progress. This shell couldn’t be what Cas wants. Wanted.
Dean finds himself at the top of a hill. This was their college town, this is where Dean used to come to think. Used to bring Cas to tell him the things to real for any other setting. He drops his bag on the ancient bench and keeps walking the path to the edge. He stands there looking out at the town. The town his family was from, the town he pushed himself to go to college, the town he fell in love.
The last time he was here he was in love.
He is still in love.
The last time he was here he was loved.
His brain is so soaked in the amber liquid he consumed that time feels like nothing. He has no idea how long he has been here. At some point his legs bore of standing so he sits. Legs over the edge, a fall on the cusp, if he so chose.
The air does wonders for his drunken state. He feels himself slowly returning to his body, seeping back into the areas previously claimed by the alcohol. He replaces them with his sober sorrow.
He doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him, announced by the crisp leaves. He doesnt react to the throat clearing behind him. The movement next to him finally pulls his attention. His glazed eyes watch as Cas sits down gently next to him, to his right, as he always has.
“Sam called.” Cas offers the explanation to the wilderness. “He apologised, but he had exhausted his other options.” He left a beat between sentences, “I knew you’d be here.”
This isn’t the first time Dean has run to a bottle and then the edge of their world. It was the first time that he hadn’t expected Cas to find him. The two sat in the cool air, the morning swelling around them.
Castiel doesn’t offer comfort, he has none to give. He had proposed to his partner and his partner had fled, blaming him. How do you comfort someone for that?
They sit in their memories of this place. The good and the bad days that has covered the earth they sit on now.
“I’ve been having a hard time adjusting.” Cas nods at Dean’s words. The admission gives Cas understanding of Dean’s grief and company for his own.
“I didn’t know if you’d care if I came back.” Dean gulps, “I have a lot of regrets about that.”
He feels more sober with each word. As if releasing the pent up emotion was bleeding the alcohol from him.
“The last time I saw you is still burned in the back of my mind.” Cas replies, still looking ahead.
“You gave me roses and I left them to die.”
Cas smiles softly. Dean was sometimes so unable to speak about his feelings he would slip into metaphors. He had always enjoyed the way Dean uses language, he has missed it.
Dean is still looking ahead as he continues. “That night. I - I pulled the car off the road at the look out. I could’ve followed my fears all the way down.” He doesn’t elaborate, Cas doesn’t need him to. Dean is most seen when he is with Castiel, time apart hasn’t changed that.
Tears burn Cas’s eyes, he refuses to let them fall.
“Maybe I don’t quite know what to say. I just wanted you to know that this is me trying. Cas this is what living without you is. This is me trying.”
Dean turns to Cas with those last words. Their eyes meet, both swimming in the pain, the grief they share. Castiel has no words to offer. The ‘freedom’ Dean had forced on him was nothing but missing him. Cas closes his eyes for a moment, choosing the right words to say from his drowning mind.
“These days I haven’t been sleeping. I have been staying up playing back you leaving. When your birthday passed and I didn’t call-” He had felt heavy that entire day, lost. He had been crushed into his bed, unable to move. Meg has tried to save him but the pain won out that day. It wins more than he can bear to admit.
“My words shoot to kill when I’m mad. I have a lot of regrets about that.”
Cas knows that already. Dean knew that. Cas knows every intricate detail of him. Those he had shared and those Castiel had worked to discover.
“I miss your sweet smile. You were so good to me. So right. And how you held me in your arms -” Dean deepens the way he is looking at Castiel. Feeling so completely sober now, so clear for the first time in months. The look on his face, a desperate plea for Cas to recognise he is sober now. Cas nods, as if hearing his thoughts.
“This is me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you saying I'm sorry for that night.”
The oxygen that had been knocked from Castiel’s lungs that night flooded back into his system.
“If - if, I Swear I’d love you right. I’d go back in time and change it. Wish i’d realised what I had when you were mine.” A tear fell down Dean’s cheek, Cas watched it fall, his mind spinning. “I love you Cas, I love you. I am sorry. I have so many regrets, but what I did to you-” His voice cracked under the weight of his words.
“I know. Thank you for telling me.” Cas moved closer. “I know how you see yourself Dean.” Dean tries to look away but something in Castiel’s eyes holds him, “ You’re destructive, and you’re angry, and you’re broken. You think that's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you sees it. I have spent our life knowing that all you have ever done you have done for love. You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know. I just need you to see that. You tore us apart because you can’t. We chose each other for ten years. And I forgive you for the time you didn’t.”
They both look out to the view. So many champagne problems have slipped off this ledge.
“I don’t think I deserve another chance Cas.”
“You have it regardless Dean.”