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chaoticdean · 4 years

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Forever and a day.

For week 7 — prompt: thunderstorm

Bonus point for anyone who’s able to guess where the title came from! (hint: it’s a song, and it has a lot of meaning for Dean)

Host : @bend-me-shape-me, @helianthus21 & @pray4jensen ♡

(I know I’m pretty late on this! I’m gonna try and pick up the pace, maybe even write for every prompts I’ve missed before!)

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It’s still dark when Castiel awakes. The sun doesn’t seem to be up yet, and a quick glance at the clock on his nightstand clearly displaying 5:36am in wide red characters confirms that yes, it is early. The former angel rises from his comfortable position to sit on the bed, proceeds to rub his eyes and ruffles his hair — these are a lost cause, no matter what he does they still stick in a hundred different directions like some kind of wild party animal. He’s about to get up from his sitting posture, taking into account the way his stomach grumbles — he really should’ve eaten something last night, but he’s still getting the hang of being human again and quite frankly, this “humans got to eat at least 3 times a day crap” is a daily struggle — when an arm makes its way across his waist and roughly pulls him back against the mattress (and as it turns out, a very warm, living body).

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Dean says, voice still rough with sleep, brushing his lips against Cas’s throat and peppering kisses here and there, which gets the angel’s arousal to rise instantly.

“Well, I was about to go get coffee for your sorry ass, but I guess I’ll stay now that you’ve made me your prisoner” Cas responds dramatically with a wide grin, unable to repress a deep moan when Dean decides to bite the soft skin of his neck.

“It’s not even 6am and we’ve got nowhere else to be, so keep that tight ass of yours in bed. I don’t need coffee, I need you” the hunters says, in a way that makes Cas shiver a little.

Dean tightens his grip around Cas’s waist, his other arm quickly wrapping around his other side, hand landing on his stomach. Cas doesn’t move (although he’s not entirely sure he could, given the way Dean is literally wrapped around him), his back pressed against Dean’s chest, his head tucked below the hunter’s, letting him have the space he needs to essentially worship Cas’s skin between his neck and shoulder. He sighs in content, closing his eyes and raising his left arm to bring Dean’s face closer, entirely giving himself up to the sensation.

The sound of the rain quietly falling down on the bunker’s roof strengthen the cozy feeling of the room that was once Dean’s but has now been theirs for more than a year. There seems to be a storm coming, Castiel can already hear the low rumble of thunder still afar. He used to be unconcerned by weather, back when he was still an Angel of the Lord. It didn’t matter if it rained, if it was below 32°F or if the sun was shining too hard. Now is a different story, and he learned to catalog everything about the weather. He likes the sound of rain, but he also really like when the sun shines on his face while riding shotgun in the Impala after coming back from a hunt. He gets cold really fast, and he learned the hard way that his beloved trench coat wouldn’t be enough to keep him warm anymore (“who the fuck comes to freaking Minnesota with nothing else but a trench coat, you idiot” Dean had said, shaking his head in disbelief but getting his partner one of his winter jacket from the trunk that Cas had kept to this day), but he doesn’t really like when it gets too warm and he’s sweating “like a goddamn trucker after a ride through the desert” courtesy of one Dean Winchester. Sweat is a whole new feeling as well, and he despises it (except when it involves “mind-blowing sex”, as Dean calls it). He likes the rumbles of thunder, but what he loves the most is watching the lightnings fall, cozied up at the back of the Impala next to Dean.

He never thought he could have this. 12 years of buried feelings, heartbreaks, pain and misery let him think that he would never, ever experience any of this. Yet here he is, the fallen angel, inside the arms of the man he saved from Hell years ago.

Now his husband.

Yes, for someone who never wore a last name, Castiel Winchester does have a nice ring to it, he’ll admit.

The loud sound of thunder suddenly rips through the silence of the bunker for half a second, apparently approaching Lebanon quicker and quicker, and Castiel can feel Dean arms tighten lightly around him as the storm begins to crack around them.

Truth be told, it still feels surreal. It’s been an actual process, from literally yelling their mutual feelings at each other’s face after dealing with yet again another “I will kill myself so that you can live” situation, to trying to make this work between them. Dancing around each other and a decade of repressed thoughts and feelings was hard enough, try throwing “how about going human again after being an Angel of the Lord for several millennia” into the mix and see how it goes.

And despite all the troubles that comes with being human — do you know how infuriating it is to remember you’ve got to pee all the damn time?! Or how humans get cold so damn easily? —, despite Castiel being a pain in everyone’s ass trying to come to grip with humanity again, Dean was there alongside him everyday. He wiped every tear, took every bad dream away, woke up at the crack of dawn just so that he could make a different breakfast for Castiel to try every single day. “We need to figure out if you’re more of a regular pancakes and bacon guy, the weirdo type who only eats Lucky Charms with milk, or a plain black coffee and white bread dude. Hell, we can even go wild and have tacos and waffles for breakfast, see how it goes” Dean had said the first morning. Castiel made him come so hard that particular morning that Sam couldn’t face any of them for 2 days after that.

And then, there was the proposal. It came in as sort of a surprise, for Castiel first but almost for Dean as well. Getting married was the epitome of human custom by definition. Cas had never really thought about it, never really had a desire for it and certainly never expected for it to happen to him. Dean being human, the idea of marriage was almost carved into his mind and it obviously came to mind several times before, but it hadn’t for a while for quite obvious reasons — the end of the world, the self-loathing that clung to his entire soul and dripped through the creaks sometimes, the fact that he didn’t think he’d find anyone willing to spend the rest of their life with a broken up loser of a hunter, anyway he was in love with his best friend who was an angel and who certainly did not share his feelings — pick your poison.

But that specific night, after spending a certain amount of time mapping the edges of Dean’s body with a fierce determination in the backseat of Baby, when Dean snuggled closer dropping his face into the crook of Cas’s neck and asked if he would marry him with that husky voice of his that made the former angel go crazy, he didn’t hesitate. It took Cas exactly half a second to whisper “yes” into the hunter’s ear, and that settled it.

They had a quiet ceremony that Bobby officiated, Sam and Jack were their best men, and they were only joined by their closest friends which consisted of Eileen, Charlie, Jody, Donna and the girls (surprisingly enough, Claire was thrilled) , Garth and his family. Cas wore a navy blue suit that made his baby blue eyes look even more deep, and Dean looked like he was out of an episode of the Bachelor with his black tux, black bow-tie and white shirt. They looked perfect. It took them a grand total of 5 minutes before they shared their first kiss as a married couple. There were tears, both in the assistance and on both grooms face. It was perfect. And it looked surreal to Dean.

But good.

Right.

Everything he asked for.

They went to Hawaii for a week on a Honeymoon, but still took Sam and Jack with them (“because they deserve a goddamn break and little umbrella cocktails as much as we do, Cas, and we owe it to them. Besides, we’ll book that honeymoon suite on the other side of the resort and they won’t have to suffer through our nights” Dean had said with a cheeky grin)

Another loud thunder sound rips through the bunker, and Cas knows that Dean’s going to feel relieved that he got Baby into the garage last night instead of leaving her outside by the door like he usually do when they get home in-between hunts.

“You do know” Cas starts but Dean interrupts him right away by sucking on his earlobe and boy oh boy does that makes Cas’s body react, “that the walk from this room to the kitchen is roughly 20 seconds, give or take?”

“So? What’s your damn point?” Dean adds, his mouth mapping that soft spot behind Cas’s ear that tends to make the former angel whimper

“So I can be back in, say, 3 minutes with two cups of coffee and even a slice of that cold pizza you left in the fridge yesterday” Cas manages to say before Dean gets back on attacking his throat with his lips

“You know I love it when you try and talk dirty to me, Angel, but I really don’t care about any cups of coffee or even cold pizza right now. Besides, I’m almost sure Jack chomped that pizza up last night.”

Dean’s mouth lands on his cheek as Cas turns over to face him, finally locking eyes with the hunter — his hunter, he thinks.

“What happened to the ‘I can’t function properly until I’ve got my third cup of coffee’ motto that I’ve seen you go through for the past 12 years, Winchester?” Cas teases, his left hand cupping Dean’s face. “Was it all a lie?”

The hunter closes his eyes, pushing onto the touch, the cold feeling of the silver wedding band Castiel is wearing on his ring finger attacking his senses.

Meanwhile, Cas gazes at his husband, realizing he hasn’t shaved in at least two weeks, and his jawline gets even more glorious with that dirty blond scruff all over it.

Dammit, get it together, Winchester.

“Besides”, Cas adds, his lips brushing lightly against the corner of Dean’s mouth “I’m no angel anymore.”

“You’ll always be my Angel, Cas” Dean responds softly, his green eyes looking even more bright as he says the words.

“Aww, you’re such a sap.”

“Okay” Dean grumbles, looking slightly offended but sporting a wide grin on his face, “When did you become a sassy son of a bitch, and what have you done with my husband?”

“Learned from the best” Cas chuckles, nuzzling his way along Dean’s jaw toward his ear “and Chuck was technically my father, so you’re like, halfway right on that assumption” he whispered.

“Will you shut your damn mouth and give me a kiss, for heaven’s sakes.”

Cas smiles at the use of these particular words and immediately leans closer, his lips brushing Dean’s lightly before the hunter captures his mouth with a thoroughness bordering on savagery.

For a former angel who’s known thousands of languages, has been to many different worlds and lead Armies through (literal) hellfire, Castiel can’t find any words or feeling that could do justice to what it feels like to kiss Dean. Words won’t do justice to the rollercoaster of emotions it embodies. It feels both like the universe is exploding inside his chest, but the waves are quieter with Dean’s lips on his.

Cas finally pulls back just enough to whisper against Dean’s lips.

“Coffee.”

“Okay, Angel. Go get that coffee. Get me that slice of cold pizza you promised” Dean answers as Cas gets up.

He’s only wearing black boxer briefs that Dean is almost sure belongs to him. His hands behind his head, he quietly watches as his husband picks up Dean’s shirt to wear — a Led Zeppelin ’73 tour black shirt that he owns since God knows when — and exit the room to the bunker’s kitchen.

“I’m so damn happy” Dean thinks to himself, and despite 4 decades of thinking he’s not allowed to feel like this, he really wants to believe that everything will be fine, they’ll be okay, they have each other and the future doesn’t look so dark anymore.

And when Castiel comes back, 3 minutes after he’s left like he advertised before, with two cups of coffee and a plate of waffles and bacon (“Babe, Jack did eat that pizza you left in the fridge yesterday, but apparently Sam made breakfast before he left for his morning run” “it’s 6am, how the hell did that animal make breakfast and left already? How are we even related?”), Dean’s convinced he won the fucking lottery.

(If you enjoy reading this, please consider reblogging/liking, and leaving kudos on AO3!)

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sneakers-and-shakes · 4 years

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Local Night Owl Tries To Be Morning Person

As you have probably figured out from the title, I’m not a morning person. I have seen more sunrises from staying up all night than waking up early in the morning and I love it. So naturally, I decided to challenge myself and wake up at 7 am everyday, for a week. Twice.

Let me explain. Mornings for me have always been very functional, I get up at the time I need to in order to be on time. So around forty minutes to do my stretches, get ready, eat something real quick, and get out the door for work which runs me mostly on time.

It’s a habit I’ve carried on from high school when I would get maybe four hours of sleep, so in order to maximize my shut eye I would get up at the last possible minute that still ensured I got to school on time.

Now, this isn’t my life anymore, I don’t need to be maximizing sleep. So I thought maybe I can actually try and make the most of my morning. Maybe. I started by creating some goals, what I thought/want to get out of waking up early:

I realize this is a hefty list for someone who is the epitome of a night owl, but this is genuinely what I want to accomplish, and these are goals which means they are meant to be worked towards.

And then I decided to wake up at 7am for a week. Back in May.

Since you’re reading this in June, clearly it didn’t go well. The main reason was because I had to unexpectedly move last month and that threw everything for a loop so I ended up dropping the already failing challenge to focus on the move.

But I still want to share that experience with you because it was my honest first try at this so here’s my journaling from the 3 days I tried the challenge:

Journal Entry Day 1: Sunday:

I failed. I could not get up at 7am even though I was conscious enough to turn off my alarm. This is a probably a mixture of the fact that I stayed up till 3am the night before and I always sleep in on the weekends and can’t motivate myself to get up if I don’t have any plans. I actually got out of bed at 12:30 pm today and am so disappointed in myself. This is not a great start to this week and I’m debating starting over next week instead. I wanted to do so many things and not being able to do them they way I wanted is very discouraging.

As you can see the first day didn’t go well at all. In fact, I failed so spectacularly that I almost scraped the whole idea for this week and considered doing it the following week instead. Then I thought that I shouldn’t let this stop me and if this is going to be an honest post of my true experience, I need to share my failure. And so even though I wasn’t happy with myself, I decided to keep pushing on.

Journal Entry Day 2: Monday:

Well something is better than nothing, got out of bed at 7:40am. I stayed up till 3:30am the previous night reading (this is really quite a trend I’ve adopted) so getting up today was harder knowing that I could actually be getting more substantial sleep.

But at least I woke up earlier than usual and did have time to do both my morning stretches and a ten-minute core workout. I also managed to journal for a little bit, including this entry, but I definitely feel the pressure of time and can’t really take things as slow as I had hoped. Nonetheless, despite feeling rushed, this is progress from before.

I used to get up at 7am when I had to actually drive to work, but in the month or so I’ve been in quarantine, working from home has pushed that time by at least an hour (and usually more). I was able to get some things done on Day 2 despite the late wake up. I know this was heavily influenced by my 3:30am bedtime, but there were times (as my alarm periodically woke me up) where I could have gotten up had I pushed myself but I couldn’t do it, feeling the need for more sleep winning over.

I knew this was a mental hurdle but it felt all the more prominent as I had trouble convincing myself that it’s worth it to get up instead of keep sleeping.

Journal Entry Day 3: Tuesday:

Well I got up at 7:30 today, almost by mistake. It’s become second nature for me to ignore my alarms but somehow I happened to check right at 7:30. The tug of sleep is real. I had a hard time opening my eyes and getting myself to actually get up and move. I wasn’t even that tired, I just really wanted to sleep…

Somehow I’ve gotten myself up, it wasn’t bad five minutes into it when I was doing my stretches though. And from there I managed another ten minute workout and have been able to journal too. It’s definitely nicer to have more time today than I did yesterday. I don’t really feel the need to pick out my outfit (since I’m quarantining) so the next 15-20 minutes or so have opened up.

Adding an extra half hour to my normal forty minute morning routine was something I had been tossing around in my head as I started this. That was what I was actually going to implement into my life after this week long challenge was over. Mistakenly, I was able to test it out on Day 3 to see if I would have enough time with the extra half hour to accomplish the things I wanted.

It turned out alright, but I was aware of the fact that I am still mostly running on time with the added workout and journaling and still didn’t have the leisure time to take things slow the way I had hoped. However, my focus and goal for this challenge was to actually wake up at 7 which as of Day 3 I had not done. But still it was progress compared to the previous two days.

As you can see it was not successful. But it taught me a lot about myself and the habits I’ve created that are the hardest to fight.

-I stay up late most nights, the true night owl shining through, and that prevents me from waking up early

-I still hold on to the mentality that if I can sleep more and still get things done then I should sleep more (hence me running on time even though I was able to get things done)

-Actually getting out of bed is the hardest part, once I’m up and active I’m okay, but that first act is the hardest

-I expect myself to snooze, always have which is why I set alarms before I’m supposed to get up so I can snooze them, but it’s created the habit of me not getting up immediately which is probably why getting out of bed is so hard.

Keeping these things in mind I decided to try again, a week ago, to see if maybe I could do it better the second time around. But this time I decided to focus on only the work week, keeping the challenge to 5 days. I also decided to couple this with a morning routine of sorts to make me feel a little better, things I’d let slip since quarantine.

Now a lot of those probably sound obvious, but small things, intentionally done, create big differences. And I just needed to create a routine to hold myself accountable too. Plus. I work really well with lists so I thought this would be beneficial.

And now, for round 2:

Day 1: Monday:

I was conscious enough at 7am to know I should get up but ended up sleeping an extra 25 minutes. I went to sleep at 2 in the morning so that might have been a factor. But even then I know it has more to do with knowing I didn’t HAVE to get up that early. But I was able to get all the things on my morning list done.

Day 2: Tuesday:

Went to sleep at 3am so really couldn’t get myself up at 7am. I wasn’t even truly awake until 7:45 and didn’t make it out of bed till 8. I was still able to get my morning list done though.

Day 3: Wednesday:

Got up at 7:25 this morning, remember being somewhat conscious of my 7am alarm but once again couldn’t get my self out of bed earlier than I needed to knowing I could still accomplish my list without getting up at 7am.

Day 4: Thursday:

Got out of bed at 7:35 this morning even though I woke up at 6:30 wide awake because of some noise outside. But once I realized I had half an hour left, I went back to sleep and this happened. Once again was able to complete my morning routine.

Day 5: Friday:

I don’t know what I did yesterday that made me so tired that I just could not get myself out of bed. I became conscious at 7:45 and didn’t get out of bed till 8:10. I was so tired, even more so than what I usually feel when I wake up. I didn’t got to sleep that late, around 1:30 or so but I really struggled this morning. Today is the first true flop of the week. I got my morning stuff done, after I started working and if I hadn’t been working from home I would not have been able to do more than just my stretches. It’s actually really disappointing.

(Note: I ended up staying up till 6am, had there been a day 6 I would have failed even more)

As you can see, I fell back into the same patterns. True that I’m (for the most part) able to consistently get up early, but only early enough to accomplish my routine. What I haven't accomplished is the "taking it slow" thing that morning people do.

While there are some parts of my morning routine that do force me to slow down, it's not quite what I had envisioned. And I know this is because my morning is still very functional. I've listed out my morning routine and while it's definitely more positive, I'm still only getting up early enough to do those things.

Then again, I’m not a morning person and I don’t think a week can change that. I still view the night as my area of enjoyment where I can relax, read, write, do whatever at my own pace in comfort.

And that’s okay. I don’t think this needs to completely change me as a person. I know that I don’t want to give up the night the way I would need to to wake up early and while my heart and mind lay in the night I will never be able to truly become a morning person.

Your mindset and intention has everything to do in developing new habits or changing old ones and I know that where I’m at and what I’ve accomplished is what I could given those two things.

So yes, I did fail this challenge, but I’ve still walked away with a better, more positive, lifestyle experience. And moving forward, I will find a compromise between sleeping in and waking up early, perhaps some days I allow myself to stay up late and sleep in the next morning and other days go to bed on time to wake up early.

And there you have it, a night owl tries desperately to be a morning person and…somewhat succeeds? It’s not a white or black answer but a shade of grey as most things in life, and it’s been my honest, real experience.

I hope you guys enjoyed! This was a long one I know, but regardless I hope you got something out of it! If you’re a night owl and want to try this challenge out then please share with me your experience! And if you’re a morning person, please share your tips!

As always, thanks for reading!

See ya in the next one!

#lifstyle #blog #mornings #night owl #wake up #challenge #self improvement #self care #positive changes

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