my little dump-blog

You shrug as he turns his gaze on you. It’s not one that aims to chill or cut, but it makes you feel a kind of reverence anyway, the kind of casual fear one might feel when praying to a deity far stronger than themselves. He never means to make it happen, much less on someone like you, whom he thinks is deserving of his own position, if not more, but he can’t pretend he doesn’t take a certain joy in the way you look at him like he’s more than a fallen soldier.

“I guess I just-. I don’t know where you came from, that’s all.”

Cas frowns. “Yes, you do. I came from Heaven.”

You chuckle softly, putting your book aside on the table and marking the page with a braided leather bookmark, woven from strips dyed shades of blue. The tassel sweeps a soft arc on the tabletop, tracing over faded condensation rings and etched markings that tell stories better than words could ever manage. The feet of your chair scrape on the floor as you stand, shoes padding across the tile as they carry to you Castiel’s side to look at him properly. His eyes almost seem to glow in this kind of lighting, ancient and knowing, piercing in the kind of way that comes from power and truth.

“I know that. But angels don’t just come out of nowhere, right?”

“…No, I suppose we do not.”

“Then I wanna know where you came from.”

Cas hums a low sound, something that dips and twists until it matches the frequency of the bunker’s buzzing, melding into a symphony with the electricity in the walls and the heat in the vents. His shoulders shuffle awkwardly beneath the jacket, a trapped bird aching to be free from the cage it has the key to.

“It is…rather difficult to explain.”

“I have time.”

Cas smiles, the corner of his mouth tipping up into something small. “I know you have time. I worry I might not have the words to describe it to you.”

Your shoulders slump, a little dejected, the words weighing heavy. There’s a faint twinge of guilt in your stomach that perhaps you pushed it too far, got too greedy with your relationship, that maybe there’s a closed off corner to angel logistics that’s not meant for humans to know about. Humans have secrets too, you’ve taught Cas as much, it’s not fair to press secrets out of him that he’d rather not tell.

“Cas, I-. It’s alright, you don’t need to tell me. I just thought that maybe…” you trail off, unsure of where the sentence was running. “There’s just no lore about it and I got curious.”

“Humans would not have lore on it, no. It is not a question we’ve been asked.”

You tip your head. “Why not?”

“Because humans are obsessed with putting things in boxes. Angels do not fit in your box.”

“Since when did you understand the box metaphor?”

“Since Dean explained it to me with a cat. I find animals easier to understand.”

The angel says it with such a straight face you can’t help but burst into laughter at the situation. Cas doesn’t laugh with you, but his eyes watch your face morph with joy, tracking the way you double over at the absurdity of it. He allows a small smile that, for Cas, feels like something more than just a movement of muscles across carefully schooled neutrality. Something in your eyes when you straighten again hits Cas deep in his heart, overwhelming him with a need to show you.

“I cannot explain,” Cas reiterates. “But I can show you.”

His hand stretches out, palm flat up and fingers outstretched, asking nothing yet wanting everything you have to give. You hesitate for only a second, just long enough for Cas to give you a reassuring nod, a non-verbal promise.

“Where are we going?” you ask.

“Outside.”

You frown. “Is it cold?”

Cas hesitates. “I don’t know. It will not be cold for me, but perhaps…use my coat.”

He shrugs it off, tan material scraping along the sleeves of his shirt as it goes. It gets stuck on one hand forcing him to engage in an awkward sort of flapping motion to free the trapped fabric. The culprit is a beaded bracelet he’s only recently started wearing, one that he insists allows him to feel more human; although you suspect it’s simply the joys of having something that belongs to himself, something that doesn’t exist out of necessity but rather desire. Something that has nothing to do with being an angel but rather has everything to do with being alive.

His palms smooth the coat across your shoulders, patting it down until it fits about as well as it’s going to. It’s a little loose in some places and much too tight in others, but it’s Castiel’s coat, and that alone means more than enough. His palm returns again, and this time you take it in your hand, letting his fingers curl around you and give a light squeeze, as if double-checking that you still want to follow him. Two sets of footsteps trail along the bunker halls and up the stairs, one set pausing to hold the door for the other set to step through, a familiar gravel-covered voice murmuring thanks to the bunker and promising their safe return.

The hill under which the bunker lies is covered in the kind of soft grass that whispers at your ankles, bending to the will of your boots and springing back in your absence. Moss lies in between the blades, spongy and gentle in the kind of way only something natural can be. A twig crunches underneath Cas’s foot, snapping like fireworks in the quiet of nighttime, echoing out into something only the stars will hear. His face is turned skyward as you walk, barely looking at the ground for longer than to make sure he’s putting one foot in front of the other. His eyes are trained on the stars, watching them as they journey across the sky, tracing constellations you recognize and more that don’t exist until he points out their existence.

Each gust of wind ruffles Cas’s hair, brushing it upright until it looks something like a dandelion dipped in dark ink, an explosion of blank space where light would normally exist. The air around him seems to hum thicker like heat on asphalt, sliding off him in waves that blur the treeline into something watercolour and liquid, as if the world itself knows he’s not quite human. If you look at him out of the corner of your eye, you can almost see a strange sort of disturbance that you’re fairly certain is his wings, existing in some other plane that your brain can’t comprehend no matter how desperately you want to.

“Cas?” you whisper, afraid to disturb the pensive silence.

“Yes?”

You swallow. “What- are we doing here?”

He blinks, almost concerned. “You asked where I came from.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“And I am showing you. Sit.”

Cas slides the coat off your shoulders, warm hands prickling goosebumps along your arms at the touch. The night air isn’t cold despite the crispness to the clouds and the depth of the sky, and you suspect that Cas has something to do with the subtle heat. The coat becomes a blanket, corners guided by his fingers and the wind until they make an even square for you to sit on, crossing your legs and breathing deep once you’re comfortable. Two warm fingers get pressed to your forehead, flooding you with the kind of heat that sits in bones and feels like summer, tingling the way it does when he heals you; a manifestation of his grace, pretty and warm. Castiel doesn’t sit beside you like he’s expecting to. Instead, he stands beside you, hands in his pockets and shoulders squared against the sky as the world tips harshly left.

You don’t fall, although you brace your hands on the grass anyway, feeling how the blades prickle at your skin like tiny pinpricks of the earth. One of Castiel’s hands comes to rest on your shoulder, accompanied by a gravel voice.

“Are you cold?”

You pause, analysing. The wind is chilly, but it doesn’t do anything more than make you shiver occasionally with the strong gusts. Any chill in the air is just superficial, hesitating on your skin as if waiting for permission to do anything further. But Castiel never asks if he’s not looking for a reason to provide warmth, because everything he does is done with intent that means more than simple moral obligation. Even though the cold isn’t bothersome, you nod in response, hoping for something shaped like closeness.

What you get is more than you were expecting. Instead of his arms wrapping around you as he sinks to your level, he stays standing next to you, fingers on one hand twitching occasionally in your direction as if begging to reach you and hold you. You barely catch the ripple of his dress shirt out of the corner of your eye, ripples in a pond where the air seems to stretch and move in unnatural ways to accommodate the intrusion. A slight rustling sound as they unfurl, and then your body is being cupped by the shape of a wing, radiating warmth that could never burn but throws off enough heat to make the dead of winter feel warm. You can’t see them, because whatever they’re made of is invisible to your mortal eye, but they hug you into their depths with tenderness and the deliberate kind of care that only Castiel can give.

You meet his gaze, something unspoken passing between you; an agreement that this does not leave the proverbial room. In some way, you think his wings are the part of him he’s the proudest of. Strong, majestic, a symbol of his celestial home. But in some way, they mean more than simply the title of ‘angel’. These are wings that hold his lover, wings that wrap around your arms and keep you close when he needs more than just his skin touching you. These are wings that have kept you safe on more than one occasion, the final barrier between life and death keeping your feet firmly on the safe side of the veil. He saves this part of him for you and only you, because it means too much for it to be shared with anyone else.

You turn your eyes on the land before you. The ground doesn’t look any different, still solid and real and unmarred by time. The trees still stand ghostly tall and proud, surveying the land they rest on like they can protect it from whatever evil trespasses. If you listen closely, you can hear the animals scampering in the treeline, foraging and running and doing whatever it is that animals do when they haven’t been domesticated to expect anything else. Strangely enough, the faint sound of passing cars on the freeway is gone, silence replacing the hole that’s left in its place.

Even stranger yet is the sky. It’s still there, still glowing an insistent blue-black and glimmering with millions of tiny pinpricks of light, making shapes that round out the sharp corners of life and soften it into something survivable. In the spaces between constellations are dozens of other pinpricks, stars you’ve never seen with your own eyes because, as you soon realize, they’re stars that don’t exist anymore. You’re seeing a sky of the past, thousands of years older than you, at least. There’s no light pollution either, no faint rim of gold streaking the horizon from cities and towns and bustle even in the dead of night. It’s just you, Castiel, and a million-year-old sky.

“How old is this?” you ask, pointing at the stars.

Cas frowns, contemplating. “Roughly four and a half billion years old. If we account for the time it took to form the earth…perhaps closer to five billion. There was no need to document the year.”

You laugh, amazed. The sky appears to unfold above you, a tapestry woven from eons of life existing where none has before. This was the sky before the ground you sit on existed in its current form, back when it was nothing more than dust in a space too vast for words. It hits you then that Castiel has seen this. This is a picture of something he remembers, maybe even something older. He was around when these stars existed, he saw the life and death of thousands of them, watching them form constellations and shift in a dance bigger than the whole world.

“This…this is where I come from.”

He gestures into space, palm open and proud as if holding the cosmos in one hand the way you’ve imagined ancient gods holding the earth. Atlas, holding up the earth on his shoulders; Castiel, holding your world on his. Both brave, proud, strong, carrying a weight not destined for them to carry but placed there by hands crueler than theirs. Bound to a destiny they should never have had to fulfill.

“You come from space?” you ask, a hint of teasing in your voice.

“No. Watch,” he replies, shushing you gently.

His brow furrows as he changes the scene, shifts it further left and zooms in until he settles on the star he wants to find. Why he’s chosen this one of all stars is lost on you still, until he focuses in on the glowing core, ropes of bright white pulsing around the exterior.

“What do you know about supernovae?” Cas asks, solemn.

“Um…” you say. “Nothing much, other than they come from dead stars, I think.”

“Good. This is a good start.”

You hesitate. “Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Did you come from a supernova?”

A pause, as if he’s deciding how much to say out loud and how much to keep hidden. A split second, where he seems to realize that maybe he wants to tell you more than he realizes. A decision, where his mouth forms the word before his brain is caught up, uttering it like gospel truth into the darkness of night and the deepest parts of your heart.

“Yes.”

“Cas…”

It’s hard to find the words to explain what you see; suddenly, Cas’s inability to explain to you makes sense. The star before you expands, growing bigger and bigger as it spins furiously against the night, like a top that’s destined to spin until its final breath. Then, suddenly, it collapses, and Castiel winces involuntarily at the sight.

“I remember this part,” he says. “I do not believe I will encounter any pain that compares to this.”

You make a sympathetic sound in your throat, making your careful way to your feet as the star continues to compress. The trench coat you were sitting on flutters backward almost of its own accord in a bid to avoid your shoes treading on its material, rolling over itself until it lands in a heap behind you. Cas’s wing accommodates your movements, shifting restlessly until it can flutter to rest again at your back and tuck you close to his side. If it were practical, he would have a wing wrapped around you all day every day, but the bunker was not built to accommodate such celestial intrusions. Your hand winds with his, squeezing tight as you lean into him, head on his shoulder as he lays a soft breath of a kiss to your cheek.

“What happens next?” you say, gesturing at the star that’s become impossibly small against the vastness of space.

Cas hums, the sound vibrating through you. “Watch.”

It comes in waves. They ripple out from the star in arcs that break the limits of science, defying sound and time and every rule that makes life exist. Colours you’re certain you’ve never seen before and certainly others you can’t see thread through the light, tides of space that lap up along starlit shores and sink back into the heated core of the star. As the second wave pulses, you see them. Things that move so fast they’re nothing more than the absence of light, streaking out from the abyssal star like they can outrun their destiny if they try hard enough.

“That’s-. That’s the angels,” you murmur, pointing.

“Yes. This is where I came from. These are my origins.”

The light fades from white to blue and back again, then dies off into pale yellow, twinkling relentlessly against the night. It picks up speed, spinning faster and faster until you’re certain it’ll blow itself apart, but it doesn’t; it stays together through sheer stubbornness, defying fate with all it has left, light still coming from it in sporadic waves.

“Well?” Castiel says, turning to you. “Does this answer your question?”

You nod, lost for words. Your mouth opens and closes trying to find meaning to your thoughts, but it stays lost in your bloodstream, carrying itself further from your tongue until you have no choice but to give up and admit linguistic defeat. The hand you’re using to hold Castiel’s hand drifts upward along his shoulder, looping around the back of his neck and shoulders, palm placed on the broad expanse of his back. The other hand cups his cheek, stroking a thumb over the stubble on his face, dipping into the curve of a scar he’s allowed himself to carry in an effort to feel human.

Your lips meet his in a kiss full of tenderness, communicating everything you can’t bring yourself to say with your words. It carries gratitude and acceptance, understanding of something so divine that few have ever witnessed it. It carries promises and guarantees of secrecy, to keep his divine nature safe from prying eyes and ears. It carries warmth and safety and all the unwritten things that are never said but are laced into every action. It carries life and love and everything good that comes with it. When you part, Cas rests his forehead on yours, tipping it further down to press a lingering kiss to the place where your skin met at your temple.

“Do you ever miss it?” you whisper.

“Miss what?”

You shrug. “Space. Your home.”

“That is not my home,” he says, steady and true.

“No?”

“No. This is my home. Here. With you.”

He seals it with a kiss as the sky reverts back to its modern-day state, light returning and light fading, washing out the bright parts and keeping the shadows deep with hidden night. His wing doesn’t leave you until you enter the bunker, and he keeps some part of him touching you the entire night. When you fall asleep on his chest with his fabricated heartbeat strong in your ear, he murmurs a goodnight in a language too complex for your ears to understand, those stardust eyes watching your chest rise and fall with your breathing.

the first time ryland notices, it's subtle.

you're reaching for something on the shelves. out of the corner of his eye, a silver of skin peeks out at him under your shirt. he can't help it: it's right there, all smooth and soft and ticklish.

you were basically begging for it.

that's what justifies the frankly, quite cruel action in ryland's head. he simply couldn't resist- the thought of your body squirming and bright laughter pouring out of you is more than enough to sway his judgement. his hands creep towards you and land a series of rapid squeezes over your bare sides.

"a-ahAHA," you burst into giggles, horrified to find that the element of surprise has made the sensation ten times worse. ryland picks up on it- of course he does. he makes a mental note to sneak up on you more often. his fingers follow you, tickling as you slowly go limp, curling up on the floor.

evidenced by his crinkling smile, ryland finds this ordeal immensely hilarious. he reaches up, easily grabbing the jumpsuit off the locker shelf and handing it to you.

you glare at him, pouting petulantly on the floor, refusing to accept his olive branch. ryland's eyebrow twitches upward. you want more? he seems to question. his hands form claws, opening and closing.

you blush and grab the jumpsuit from his hands, refusing to meet his eyes.

ryland doesn't miss the way you stare at his teasing hands for far too long, nor the ghost of a crestfallen face as you leave to change into your jumpsuit.

the second time ryland notices.

there is something about ryland's hands. they are mesmerizing in a way that makes you stare.

your eyes can't help but trace the outlines of his soft fingers as they shuffle with paperwork, the crevices folding and unfolding. his left hand runs across his blonde hair, carving a path of runes.

his fingers tap, tap, tap across the surface of the table as he ponders over something, and you squirm, almost imperceptible. your brain envisions unholy things- his digits running across your skin. scratching. scribbling. tickling.

what the hell.

ryland's head turns in your direction, ever so slightly. you panic, and occupy yourself with stacking random papers on your desk. out of your peripheral, you can sense the corner of ryland's lip twitch in amusement.

it doesn't help your case at all when your trembling hands knock pieces of paper away from your messy pile, floating and cascading across the room. one lands directly next to ryland. he quirks an eyebrow.

"fuck." you murmur under your breath as you scoot down to pick it up. ryland raises his other brow.

"language.” he emphasises with a quick, gentle scribble at the back of your neck and you fold with a yelp, clutching the floorboards as though you could melt through them if you tried hard enough.

you pick up your piece of paper. the white gleams at you. pointedly. the fluttering traces of ryland’s fingers linger on your neck, teasing but not quite there.

ryland's already turned back to his work: you gawk at him. then back at the piece of paper- a desperate manifestation of your need.

"please tickle me. more." the words are slipping off the tip of your tongue, but your embarrassment swallows them down, down, down your throat and into your stomach until nothing remains.

you miss the entertained spark present in ryland's eye in your tickle-less misery.

the third time, ryland doesn't notice. he confronts.

"you like it."

"hmm?" you can't recall what you're doing, but something in his tone makes you glance up, curious.

"the tickling."

it's abrupt, the splutter that explodes out of you. your insides churn. you open your mouth to protest. then close it. you're half-convinced you look like a gaping fish.

ryland's scrutinising you like he's watching a puppy chase her tail in circles. his eyes are all wide and doting, catching your every miniscule movement.

"that- that wasn't a question." you manage to say.

"that wasn't an answer."

a pause. one that you don't trust. if it were anyone else, you would've thought that they had already let it go. but ryland grace doesn't just let things go. he starts intrigued: then he pushes, and he shoves, until every single one of his hypotheses are proved.

and you've just become his newest experiment.

"noho, look at me."

your eyes flicker hesitantly to meet his lens-covered ones, and to his delight, your cheeks tint a rosy pink.

"so you agree then."

"what?" your voice comes out squeakier than intended.

"you want," ryland whispers tauntingly. "to be tickled by me."

a string of stutters and protests pour out of your mouth. that doesn't deter ryland in the slightest. the way he looks at you, all fond and teasing, is too much to bear.

"okay,” his voice is factual. serious. “i won't tickle you, then."

and you know him well enough- ryland will follow through. a whine of frustration builds up in your throat.

"ryland." you clear your throat. you attempt to bargain with your pleading gaze.

"yes?"

you sigh.

"please." the walls suddenly look very interesting to you.

"please what?" you can practically feel the mischief radiating off of him.

"...please tickle me."

it comes out as a garble of syllables, the dreaded word spreading heat across your face. but despite the incoherency, this just about satisfies ryland. in a split second, he’s already making his way towards you.

oh, fuck.

you scamper across the room, ryland and his smirk swiftly following.

"w-wahait!" your hands are held in front of you as a weak means of defence.

"wait for what?" ryland laughs at the absurdity.

you struggle to find a proper response. instead, you dance around the room, evading his every step. ryland's circling you like prey and you can't help it- an anticipatory giggle bubbles up your throat.

"noho, back off!"

"but if i back off," the cocky grin on ryland's face is contagious. "how will i tickle you?"

he reaches for you and a gasp erupts from your mouth.

"bad grace!" you must be picking up rocky's vocabulary.

"did you just scold me," ryland snorts. "like a dog? you are so dead."

you whimper when ryland lunges for you, managing to duck past his arm. but when he grabs a handful of your shirt and reels you into his chest, a pair of strong arms wrapping around your stomach, you realise that ryland is always right- you are so dead.

"hi," he whispers into your ear for dramatic effect, laughing at your whimper as you glance back at him.

ryland drums his fingers, gently against your waistline. your hands circle his wrists, tugging them away but they don't budge an inch. even now, you can't help but stare at his fingers. intoxicating. calculating. tickling.

ryland notices, flexing them intentionally.

"where should i tickle, baby?"

oh god.

"noho- nohowhehre," your voice breaks off into helpless giggles when he claws gently around your stomach.

"i thought you wanted this!" ryland has the audacity to pout at you.

"shuhut uhp!"

"did you just shush me? hmm?" he vibrates his hands into your ribcage and a squeal escapes from you. "that was pretty rude of you."

you try and fail to pry his wrists away from your torso. ryland conveniently decides to ignore the way you're slowly going limp in his arms, landing stray scribbles over your sides as he holds you upright.

"had enough?"

you look back, mirth-coated eyes meeting his.

"oh my god." ryland laughs, a loud, genuine sound. like this is the funniest fuckin' sight he's ever come across. "oh my god, you really like this."

you forget how to talk.

in your embarrassed state, you spin in his grasp to face him, before your own hands skitter up his sides and into the hollows of his armpits. the result is instantaneous- ryland folds, breaking into tiny, wheezy giggles. you can't help but laugh along with him.

he grabs your wrists in a panicked frenzy and now, you're panicking.

you're pretty sure they could've heard you back down on earth.