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webcricket · 7 years

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Nudge Theory

Characters: CastielXReader, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester

Word Count: 5323 (Act V)

A/N: The [extended] conclusion to a five-act miniseries. The reader and Castiel must work together to solve the curious case of the missing Winchesters. Fluff, smut, and a plot for kicks (I’ve been informed it got kinda angsty – so, uh, yay, something for everyone?!). All mysteries and roads converge in Clifton Springs, NY – whither will they lead from there? Here’s a hint about the roads – there is a 100% probability they all lead to a mountain of fluff.

Completed Series Masterlist:

webcricket.tumblr.com/post/162181272535/nudge-theory-masterlist

Nudge [verb] –

· “Coax or gently encourage someone to do something.”

Act V

“Y/N?”

The familiar rumbling whisper thundered through your pounding head with the boom of a freight train. You groaned in response.

“They’ve left for the moment,” the whispered onslaught continued, “there was a heated argument. Mrs. Kinlay did not want to miss bingo night at the senior center despite Mr. Kinlay’s wounds. Evidently, a Mrs. Reynolds recently returned from an extended cruise which was in reality a cover story for obtaining plastic surgery and the so-called botch job isn’t to be missed.”

You groaned again.

“Are you hurt?”

More discombobulated yet distinctly incensed syllables somersaulted from your tongue. You meant to say: “Bingo? Seriously? Well at least something about those impostors stinks of being geriatric.”

Cas took the irate tone of your incoherent groans as confirmation you were unharmed save for the diminishing effects of the cataleptic drug in your system, “They intend to perform some sort of ritual. We appear to be central components. Fortunately, it seems important to them that we remain largely unharmed.”

Functional alertness struck you all at once. You jerked against the restraints binding you to a chair, the commotion agitating and sloshing tepid water from the basin where your bare feet were submerged. The room was dim and windowless; the walls of concrete block with enormous red, blue, and yellow pipes towering around you. The ceaseless drone of a generator – no, a gargantuan water pump – deafeningly hummed. The raucous din roaring in your ears wasn’t a freight train, and the angel hadn’t been whispering at all – he was shouting.

“No point in struggling. I’ve already tried,” Cas said matter-of-factly, “the ties are bound by spell work.” His warm fingers squirmed to cover your hands to the extent his ropes allowed, offering what little consolation he could while being bound together back to back. You couldn’t see it, but his feet also soaked in a basin of water.

You let your head loll to rest in the cushion of his dark hair, your voice cracking dryly, “Cas, what the hell happened back there?”

“You mean, how was I overpowered by a 90-year-old woman?” he muttered wryly, angling his neck to bring his lips nearer your ears to avoid yelling so loud.

“I wasn’t going to phrase it quite as callously, but yeah,” you wondered how the fighting prowess of an angel of the Lord faired so miserably in hand-to-hand combat against a senior citizen.

“I wasn’t bested until she threatened me with ending your life,” he explained, “I heard your distressed prayer for help and had no choice but to cooperate.”

You pictured the stoic square set of his jaw and the sincerity glistening in his blue eyes as he recounted the story. He said he had no choice, but that wasn’t true. He could’ve kept on fighting, evaded capture, held out until the Winchesters arrived – instead, he chose to save you. Regardless of the situation, you’d never been on the receiving end of a more romantic gesture. Forget flowers, chocolate, and whispered sweet nothings, you’d take self-sacrifice over that kind of clichéd hokum any day. The realization that you needed him to know how you felt before it was too late again overwhelmed your thoughts. I love you, you tried the declaration first in your mind – no superfluities, no chance of confusing him with vague allusions. No more running from love – whether because you were presently forcibly chained in place to the owner of your heart, or not.

“Also, as I’m sure you can agree, the element of surprise was skillfully effected here,” Cas added, “I may need to reconsider my preconceived notions regarding the elderly.”

“Cas?”

He kept on rambling, tone distinctly apologetic, as if the entire debacle were somehow his fault, “And she possessed a strange command over my vessel…”

“Castiel?”

“…one which inhibited any of my abilities beyond the woefully inadequate human strength limited to me in this form.”

“Cas!”

“The upside being that they don’t seem to know I’m an-”

“Angel, I love you.”

He hushed with such swiftness and stillness you would have thought yourself abandoned if not for his fingers still pressed soothingly over your trembling ones.

You held your breath, certain your heart was thumping louder than the pump and about to burst forth from your ribcage.

He remained motionless and unbearably silent.

Tears verging on the corners of your eyes, you defaulted to plucky defensive sass, “That element of surprise is a real bitch, eh?”

He found his tongue, stammering, “Y/N, I-I don’t-”

“Cas just forget it, okay?” you choked, cutting him off, not wanting to know how his sentence finished. The options were endless, and you couldn’t currently fathom any in your favor.

Waylaid by your confession of love, he sat there, jaw agape, cursing himself for his ineptitude once again at navigating the dicey sea of human emotion. He knew he profoundly failed you in his delayed and fumbling response – the truth was he didn’t know what to say because he didn’t exactly understand what he was feeling, and this truth was better left unuttered.

You began an internal tirade: You idiot! It was just sex and you went and fell in love. He doesn’t love you. How could he? He’s a freaking angel. You barely even know each other. A few days working a case together and you lose your damn mind. What the hell were you thinking? With a shaky sigh, you wrangled your spiraling emotions, concentrating your focus on basic survival – one crisis at a time, and your imminent peril merited top priority. You steeled your nerves to speak, “What are these things parading around as old fogies anyway?”

“Benefactors, my dear,” a meek female voice answered.

Cas’ thoroughly distracted angelic ears had failed to detect the soft scuffle of slippers announcing the return of your captors.

“Look at this mess you’ve made,” Marge bent to fret over the spilled water around your basin.

“Messes are my specialty,” you snapped, referring not to the water, but life in general right now.

The old woman straightened her back creakingly, “Al, be a dear and fetch more water.”

Unhearing, Mr. Kinlay fidgeted with the white linen bandaging his hand.

“Hurry up, you impotent old fool!” Marge commanded.

Al twitched in his wrinkled skin suit, gimping figure scurrying out of sight.

Marge smiled, sweetly innocent. “Now where were we? Ah, of course! These hunters,” her eyes twinkled knowingly, “yes I know exactly what you are, my dears.” She went on, “These hunters think they deserve an explanation.”

“These hunters are going to end you!” you spat.

“Feisty young thing, isn’t she? Yes, you’ll do nicely,” her smile stretched haughtily.

You nagged, pilfering time to come up with a plan of escape, “What’s with the bondage-themed spa experience anyway? Here I would have thought cold tea and stale cookies were more bogus grannie speed. You know, just between us girls, it’s kind of turning me on. I really hope there’s a sadistic hot stone massage lined up for later.”

“And this one is heavenly, isn’t he?” unruffled, she ignored your unashamed heckling as her crinkled fingers admiringly stroked Cas’ prickly cheek, dipping to fuss with and straighten the knot of his tie.

“You have no idea,” Cas retorted calmly, breaking his silence. He gave your hands an emphatic squeeze as he spoke.

You suddenly understood the meaning of the bizarre wink at the motel, and what he had attempted to relay to you before you abruptly dropped the L-bomb: The upside being that they don’t seem to know I’m an…angel. They have no idea he’s an angel! You weren’t clear how this helped matters, but you were damn sure it didn’t hurt to have a surprise of your own in store for these geezers.

Al reappeared with a silver pitcher to re-fill your basin.

“So confident too, my Al could do with a bit of that confidence,” she shook her head wearily, “isn’t that right, Al dear? Al!”

The old man nodded agreeably even though he hadn’t heard any of her comments over the noisy water pump.

“It’s nearly time!” Marge mimed pointing to a watch, “Get the chest.”

Al wandered arthritically off into the maze of pipes.

Marge continued her speech, “As I was saying. A hunter came here years ago…”

“Thirteen years ago, right?” you rudely interjected, mimicking her cloyingly sweet smile. “Yeah, good friend of mine,” you lied, never having actually met John Winchester.

The old woman snarled, spiteful foam forming at the crinkled corners of her mouth, “That hunter killed my sister. After everything we’ve done for this town and we ask so little in return – merely to be loved. Calliphaea did not deserve the violent death dealt to her at a hunter’s hands.”

“Uh huh, can you fast forward to the part where you tell us what exactly you are?” you griped – at this rate Al would return and derail her rant. You briefly wondered why John didn’t mention any of these crucial details in his journal considering he’d apparently killed one of whatever these creatures were.

Marge sneered, “Humans call us many names – I am Iasis, daughter in the sisterhood of the Ionides. We are water nymphs, naiads, the undine. For time immemorial we have healed the people drawn to our springs. Once the sanatorium here was renowned in the far corners of the world. People flocked great distances to bathe in the healing waters.”

“We followed a historical trail of death, not miracles, to find you,” Cas astutely pointed out.

“Necessary sacrifices,” she asserted. “Did you ever stop to think about why a town as tiny as Clifton Springs needs senior housing? It’s because of us. The trappings of old age, not disease, is the nemesis of these people. A tragedy once a generation is simply fodder for these crones to reminisce about in the dull hours of their long lives. Once my sisters and I were worshipped, revered, adored. When the love of humans trickled and dried,” she gestured feebly around the stark mechanics of the room, “when this abomination was built to harness our spring, our life-sustaining essence, we improvised.”

“You murdered!” you accused.

“We adapted!” she countered.

Al materialized with an oblong bundle wrapped in silk.

Iasis gazed wistfully upon him, “When I met my Al, I again knew what it was to be loved.” She moved closer to you, shriveled grisly lips brushing over your ear in a low croaking whisper, “I see the way this man Castiel looks at you with true devotion in his eyes – wouldn’t you do anything to bask in his love forever?” She backed off, false teeth clicking, “I’m giving you forever dear, doesn’t that sound nice?”

You were too preoccupied straining to recall the scanty lore on nymphs retained in your memory to pay her much heed. Elemental creatures, you remembered being bored witless reading about them in an obscure musty text once, at Bobby Singer’s house of all places. God, that was ages ago! You met Dean for the first time that same trip. He was a barely contained mess of edgy nerves, vibrant green eyes, and self-assured posturing futilely searching for his missing father then. You fatefully exchanged numbers out front beside a wrecked Mustang, just in case you ran into a hunter of John’s description or came across any leads in your travels. Dean barreled in and out of that salvage yard, en route to Stanford to meet up with Sam, so fast he spared only a fleeting wisp of breath to comment on your great ass as he departed. You nearly tossed his contact info, thinking he was just like every other propositioning chauvinistic pig of a hunter you crossed paths with, but Bobby swore up and down Dean was a good kid, and an even better hunter – that stress had a funny way of subjugating his manners. The fond image of the curmudgeonly hunter brought the recollection of the text flooding forward: Supposed extinct since the early 19th century, reclusive healers, elementals grounded in fresh water sources especially potent, propensity for cruelty if provoked, quartz crystal consecrated by the four elements impaled through the heart will snuff them. You didn’t suppose you’d be lucky enough for Cas to have one of those handy in those deep trench pockets of his.

“I asked you a question!” Iasis slapped you smartly across the cheek.

“Leave her alo-”

She strangled Cas’ objection with a tic of her hand, “Young man, in my domain I dictate the orders. Are you aware the human body is composed almost entirely of the fluid element of water?” She freed her invisible hold on his throat.

Cas narrowed his eyes contemptuously, “Yes, I am aware of that fact.”

“Then you’d do well to remember it,” she cautioned, “for you flimsy little humans, water is life.” She snapped her fingers, “And death.”

The air in your lungs turned boggy. A hiccup-like spasm seized your diaphragm and you began to cough, convulsing and sputtering endless rivulets of cool clear water out of your lips and nose.

Helpless to do anything save beg for your life, Cas twined his fingers with yours, “I’ll remember. Please…I’ll do whatever you want. Please…please don’t hurt her.”

Satisfied with the effect of her demonstration, Iasis smirked and jerked her knobby fingers.

Spasmodically gasping, your lungs cleared. They painfully seared as you sucked to inflate them again with air.

The nymph turned her back on you, gently unwrapping the folded layers of silk surrounding the oaken box held aloft in Al’s upturned arms. Her voice tinged with distain, “Unfortunately, in binding my immortal essence to Al’s soul, I became one of you. Human. And these decrepit vessels can only be sustained for so long before they require replacement.” She withdrew two large glassy tapered quartz crystals from the box, “Our love must endure.”

“Then you intend to take us as new vessels?” Cas’ brow furrowed askance.

You stared achingly at the crystals – you’d bet your life they were conveniently consecrated by the four elements to perform this particular ritual. Cas, if you can hear me, you prayed, we need to stab her in the heart with one of those crystals.

Cas heard you, squeezing your hand tight in confirmation.

“It’s beautifully poetic, don’t you think?” Iasis hobbled over to immerse a crystal in the basin of water at Cas’ feet, “We’ve always chosen young lovers for our new hosts. No one bats an eye when an old married couple knocks off together, especially one as inseparable and devoted to each other as we are. Think of it this way, in Al and I, your love will bloom evergreen.”

“Well, when you put it like that it sounds so…yeah, it still sounds completely insane,” you rolled your eyes, “And vaguely like the lyrics of a creepy alt-Ed Sheeran song.”

“Al, dear, it’s time,” Iasis announced.

Al dragged himself over to stand in front of Cas.

“Y/N, do you trust me?” Cas loosened his grasp of your hands.

You frantically tried to peer over your shoulder, “Cas, what’s happening?”

“Do you trust me?” he repeated.

“Yes, yes I trust you,” you replied, “but what’s going on?”

“It’s okay,” Cas’ gruff voice reassured you, “I think it’s best if we don’t protest.” The angel strongly suspected he would be able to interfere with the transfer process of the ritual, celestial energy unencumbered when Al’s soul penetrated the physical boundaries of his vessel. And surely he couldn’t fail you twice in one evening. He slipped his fingers from yours, evasive when you went hunting for them again.

“There’s a good boy,” Iasis flashed a pleased-as-punch smile at Cas, passing the other crystal to Al, “you remember the incantation, dear?”

Al bobbed his chin, raising a wilted hand to pull the cap from the balding spate of his head and hold it to the wool vest hugging his shallowly puffing chest. He began to chant in a language utterly foreign to you.

Cas observed the surging white glow of the crystal in Al’s clutches. In a blinding luster of luminance, the energy arched to strike the crystal submerged in the basin at his feet. The angel slumped limply forward against the enchanted bindings.

Al’s former body crumpled to the floor with a sickening wet plop.

“Cas!” you shrieked.

“Quickly now, Al dear,” Iasis undid the bindings securing Cas to the chair, “it’s my turn.”

He stumbled from the chair, clumsily bowing to retrieve the crystals, obediently circling to drop one of them in your basin.

“Cas?” you entreated.

He refused to so much as look at you.

Iasis tottered into position in front of you, a cruel smile plastered across her features, “I’m ready. Hand me the quartz, my love.”

No quartz was tendered over.

“Al?” she jolted electrically, features contorting, limbs contracting then going lax.

The water pump chugged ominously shriller, metal pings and pops sharply echoing off the concrete walls as the pressure swelled.

Cas’ arm roughly anchored around her shoulders as the pointed end of the crystal emerged glossy and bloodied through the center of her chest. He leaned nearer to whisper in her ear, supporting her weight as she collapsed, “I’m not your love, that sentiment belongs to another.”

Incapable of hearing him over the ruthless churning of the pump, you tried and failed to read his lips.

Iasis’ mouth parted as if to scream – a veritable river of water poured out.

The angel eased her lifeless vessel to the floor.

A colossal screeching of metal commenced, pipes bursting asunder one by one to inundate the room with explosive blasts of water. The floor rapidly began to swamp.

Cas unbound you from the chair and helped you to stand. He bellowed something in your ear, the deepness of his voice unable to cleave through the escalating racket.

Piercing pain shocked your ankle and shot up your calf as the water gushed around your feet, slamming a chunk of metal into your leg. You vexed yourself for crying in front of the angel, thankful the spray of water masked the salty tears streaking your cheeks. The physical pain was simply an excuse to let the tears flow. You wanted to vomit. You didn’t. The room swirled around you in a chaotic blur.

Cas swept you up in his arms and fled to the exit.

Rocking safely within his strong embrace, you clung to the sopping wet lapels of his trench coat, burying your face into his chest, and closing your eyes. When you deigned to open them again, Sam’s was the first face you saw.

“Hey Y/N,” the younger Winchester wore the characteristic small cheerful smile he reserved specifically for boosting spirits.

“Sam?” you attempted to sit up.

“Woah, take it easy there sweetheart!” Dean pressed a palm firmly to your shoulder, “You don’t want to pass out again. Trust me.” He smirked, green eyes glinting mischievously, “I had to stop Sammy here from drawing obscene objects on your forehead with a permanent marker.”

“Come on Dean,” Sam whined, “that was your idea.”

“So immature,” Dean shook his head disdainfully.

“What happened?” you swatted Dean’s coddling hand aside, “That last thing I remember…”

“Orthostatic hypotensive syncope,” Cas enumerated from the end of the bed.

“Gesundheit,” Dean coughed into the back of his sleeve.

Cas scowled at Dean.

“What?” you looked to Sam, the sensible brother, for a translation.

“It means you fainted because you stood up too fast,” Sam rubbed his chin, “probably a side effect from whatever drug you were injected with.”

“That’s good,” you murmured thoughtfully.

“How is that good?” Dean took the bait.

“Cause now you two have at least a solid few minutes to explain to me where the hell you’ve been all this time while we worked your case before I regain enough strength to kick your asses,” you replied, brandishing a disapproving frown.

Cas flipped the blanket up over your feet and clasped his fingers around your swollen and bruised ankle. He met your curious gaze with the trace of a smile softening his dour features, advising, “You’ll need this healed to properly kick both of their asses.” His grace spread warmly through your foot and leg, healing the sprain.

“Thanks…,” you wavered to add the term of endearment, angel, that perched naturally on the tip of your tongue, “…Cas.”

“Yeah, thanks, Cas,” Dean scoffed, “You could have let us have a running start.”

Cas gifted Dean with another unamused scowl. You got the impression from the finely tuned aesthetic of the expression that he did that a lot.

“Clock’s ticking boys,” you impatiently clucked your tongue against the roof of your mouth.

“It was Dean’s drunken idea,” Sam caved first, seeking to release himself of any blame by doing so.

Betrayed by his own flesh and blood, Dean made a sound like a mortally wounded animal.

“Hmm, I don’t doubt it,” you vaulted an inquiring brow in Dean’s direction, “Spill it, Winchester.”

Dean fixed his brother with a steely gaze, “Perhaps you should ask my sweet, innocent, gigantic little brother of an accomplice to hand over the contents of his left front coat pocket.” Dean refused to go down with the ship alone.

Sam’s eyes widened, giant stature shrinking under the weight of the accusation, the shift in body language alone fairly admitting to his guilt as a co-conspirator.

“Touché,” Dean mouthed the word silently to Sam, embellishing it with a wink.

Sam produced an off-white lined piece of paper folded into quarters from the aforementioned pocket, thrusting it in your general direction, all the while glaring indignantly at his brother.

Once or twice Dean glanced away, feigning interest in a speck of dust clinging to the wall, a misalignment of the wallpaper over there, a loop of carpet snagged loose in the corner, only to find Sam still burning a hole in his skull when he again dared to peek over. It made Dean’s skin crawl. After all, Sam hadn’t lied – it was Dean’s drunken idea.

You plucked the paper from between Sam’s clinched fingertips. Unfolding it to reveal the contents, you immediately recognized the neat black ink handwriting as belonging to John Winchester – the paper obviously a page neatly removed from his journal. Skimming the words, you realized it detailed the conclusion of John’s hunt here in Clifton Springs thirteen years ago, outlining the successful slaying of a lovelorn nymph calling herself Calliphaea who had run amuck in the town trying various young women on for size then discarding their lifeless bodies like ill-fitting articles of clothing. She wielded sacrosanct crystals juiced up by a particular alignment of planets occurring every thirteenth year. Curiously, these crystals went missing before he could secure them. John wrongly surmised the nymph was a one-hit wonder and labelled the hunt case-closed. In short, this single slip of paper contained a mountain of exceedingly useful material which would have saved you and Cas a heck of a lot of mis-adventure and a close call with death because, for starters, you never would have left the bunker to follow up on a closed case. Why Sam and Dean withheld this key piece of information, led you and Cas blind-folded into danger, and then ignored all attempts at establishing contact, was beyond your imagining. Dean’s drunken idea? Even drunk, you had a hard time believing Dean could be that malicious, and as far as you knew, you hadn’t done anything deserving of such cold-hearted treatment. You offered the page to Cas for perusal. “Why?” the single word query was all you could muster.

“Look…,” Dean began.

“We’re sorry,” Sam spoke over whatever excuse his brother was going to try and make, knowing the situation warranted an apology first and an explanation second, “This wasn’t supposed to be a real case.”

You wagged your head in disbelief, “What are you talking about? You left leads at the bunker. We followed the research.”

“We thought you were missing,” Cas chimed in, glancing up from the paper, “or worse.”

“I know, we know,” Sam lowered his gaze, “trust me, if we’d known there was any danger we never would have let this charade go on for as long as it did.”

“Charade?” you peered scathingly between the brothers, “A deranged geriatric water nymph and her narcotic-laced-syringe-wielding husband nearly killed me! Would have too if it wasn’t for Cas being an angel and all. Some charade!”

“You saw the journal entry, we thought our dad eliminated the threat here,” Sam counseled.

“She had a sister. Calliphaea had a sister,” you grumbled.

“The really nutty ones always have a sister,” Dean bemoaned.

“Not helping, Dean,” Sam scolded, rubbing his hands exasperatedly over his face.

“Look,” Dean began again, dissatisfied with his brother’s diplomatic approach, “this whole shebang was a set-up, an excuse to get you and Cas together. Together, together. A bonding experience if you will. No real danger, just some implied peril with a couple of not-actually-missing friends nudging things along in the right direction while warming the seats at a cheesy honky-tonk bar just across the county line.” He inserted his patented brand of off-kilter commentated reflection to try to lighten the mood, “Great strawberry daiquiris, by the way. You know, if you’re into girly drinks.” It didn’t work.

“I think you should leave,” you stated in no uncertain terms.

Sam and Dean wasted no time stealing themselves to the exit.

Cas stood stationary at the end of the bed, watching them go.

“You too, Cas,” it pained you to say it, but you needed some time alone. Time to think. Time to ponder how you felt having learned this whole ordeal was a sham-gone-sideways.

The angel met your gaze, a dejected haze muddying the crystal blue of his eyes as they searched yours and perceived the detached sincerity of your request – it instilled him with a sense of emptiness unlike anything he’d heretofore experienced. He was unsure what to say to console you, to plead his case for remaining by your side, to insist that the emotion he felt stirring inside himself toward you existed separate from Sam and Dean’s meddling. Wary of using the wrong words again, haunted by and frightened of repeated failure, he said nothing at all and slipped mutely from the room.

Over-wrought, weary of mind, body and heart, you sank into a dreamless sleep. You awoke late the next morning to gently caressing beams of sunshine spilling through the curtains to touch upon your cheeks. The beams flickered and skipped around you, broken in fits by the flutter of leaves in swaying trees outside the motel. The dance of light tickled your sleep-bleared vision; you couldn’t help but smile at the effect until you remembered – remembered curtly sending the angel away, remembered the anguished look clouding his aspect, remembered that despite the ridiculous circumstances under which it happened, in spite of yourself, you loved him.

Rolling from bed, you spotted your phone on the dresser. Like everything else in your possession last night now meticulously arranged on the wood surface, it had gotten saturated in the torrent of water. You realized it didn’t matter; you didn’t have Cas’ number anyway. You’d been inseparable these few days, and never had reason to get it. You didn’t suppose the phone directory would conveniently contain a listing for angels. You smacked your palm to your forehead, jostling your apparently also waterlogged mind – you could always pray. Your idea was deflected by the notice of an envelope slipping beneath the bottom of the door. Circling cautiously nearer, craning your neck, you read your name scrawled in perfect winding script across the front. You picked it up, turning it over in your hands a few times before carefully unsealing the flap.

The note composed inside read:

Y/N,

As you don’t wish to be in my company at present, and since in your presence I seem incapable of articulating what I mean, I’ve taken the impetus to write you this letter in an effort to restore all that which has been lost without fear of making the already regretful circumstances worse.

Firstly, regarding the grievous mess instigated by the Winchesters – while the error in Sam and Dean’s judgement is unquestionable, their hearts are in the right place. More than once they’ve forgiven me for doing far worse with the best of intentions. Each time I wonder what I have done to deserve such a loyal friendship as theirs has been. I sincerely hope for their sake, with time, you might find it in your heart to absolve them of their guilt.

Above all else, I owe you an apology. You declared your love to me, and in the delicate fleeting moment you bared this most reverent of emotions lodged within the bounds of your kind heart and beautiful soul to my unworthy being, I humbly failed to reciprocate the sentiment. It was not then, nor is it now because I do not love you in return.

This feeling when I’m with you, when you look at me, when we touch, when you laugh, when you smile, when we’re apart, when I think of you – there is no word in my vocabulary with which to contain it, none in any language I know, and I expect a term may not exist anywhere in the whole of creation itself. What you mean to me…it is so much more than love.

If you’ll allow me, I vow to spend the rest of my existence endeavoring to define for you all that you are to me.

Yours, Castiel

Note held quivering in your fingertips, dewy tears brimmed your eyes to spatter and smudge the ink in spots. Smearing your wet cheeks with the backs of your hands, you twisted the doorknob and swung in the door.

Castiel, your angel of contradictions, abided patiently on the other side – for all his awkward ineloquence in speaking his heart, he was nonetheless a poet. His sky-blue gaze illumined an impossible shade brighter when his eyes alit upon yours. He said nothing – everything that required saying already fluently expressed in the letter still held in your trembling grasp.

Awed to the point of speechlessness, you might have stood there in the rapt quietude gaping at him for hours if it wasn’t for your noticing the laptop tucked in the crook of his arm and your habitual neurotic impulse to fill silent voids with mundane observation. “What’s with the computer?” you sniffled, tears abating, “I thought you were strictly low tech.”

If Cas was surprised by your redirection, he didn’t let it show in his reply. “Sam loaned it to me,” he answered unfalteringly, “If you recall, you suggested we should watch a movie together when the case concluded.”

A delighted smile frolicked across your features at the pleasant shared memory, “I remember, in the corn field with that stunning sunrise.” Closing your eyes for a moment, you vividly evoked the elating combined warmth of his regard and the rising sun on your face, murmuring, “I fell, and you caught me.”

A blushing smile reflected in the angel’s aspect – he fell too, there in the corn field – fast and far and forevermore. “I asked Sam to arrange it so we can watch it on this device,” he offered you the computer, “That is, if you still want to…with me.”

“There isn’t anything else in the world I’d rather do right now, angel,” you shifted onto the tips of your toes to press a soft kiss to his unshaven cheek.

“Then, it’s a…,” he bashfully regarded the ground between his shoes, shuffling his weight from foot to foot, a full grin unfurling across his flushed countenance, “it’s a date?”

“It’s a date,” you clasped his hand in affirmation, giggling as you tugged him over the threshold and into your open arms. A date, a fresh start, and precisely the nudge neither of you knew you needed – all thanks to a freaking Winchester, no less.

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