#so... here

Think Charon, shinigami, Valkyries, Baron Samedi, or the Archangels Michael, Samael or Azrael. If you're familiar with Discworld, tall bony fellow in black WHO TALKS LIKE THIS; if it's Sandman, eldest sister of the Endless, a pretty young goth woman wearing an Ankh. The term translates from Greek to guide of souls. A liminal figure personifying the transition from life into death, a psychopomp ushers spirits of the dead to... wherever it is they go.

They can be frightening, but they don't have anything to do with the actual moment of death or the destination a spirit reaches. They don't take lives and they don't condemn or save souls. All they do is tidy up the aftermath. Some are reassuring figures, gentle and patient, who delight in life as it flourishes and give what comfort they can to the deceased. For the most part, though, they're implacable and inscrutable - but not cruel.

Vash, I think, knows them well. They've met before, and they'll meet again. He knows to pay the ferryman for safe passage, and how much.

A single coin.

Cas has been laid up for a month with a broken foot, and he’s feeling a way he never thought he’d ever feel: fed the fuck up with Dean fucking Winchester.

Maybe it’s the painkillers, maybe it’s the ongoing and fucking exhausting lack of Grace and all the attendant eating, sleeping, farting, pissing, shitting, and not having any idea what the fuck is going on, but he is fucking done. Cas is self-aware enough to know that he’s never had what anyone would properly call a ‘sense of humor’ but he has stopped being able to see even the potential for humor in anything, and forget about the potential for anything else. For fuck’s sake. Every other word in his internal fucking monologue is fuck. That can’t be a good fucking sign.

And Dean just… fucking Dean. Just sitting there, slouching like that in his chair, cleaning his fucking gun in his underwear and socks, taking up fucking space and air like he always does, with all that big Dean energy. Fuck, Cas is sick of him. Sick of the way he sneers certainty all over everything all the time and the way his voice is always so fucking full of the conviction that every fucking thing he says is fucking important? Like he’s the only fucking guy who can whatever the fuck he’s saying he’s gotta fucking do?

Cas is also, he has to admit, just fucking tired. He’s tired, and he’s also fucking high as fuck. And, in fact, he’d like a fuck, please. He hasn’t had a good fuck in some time. Dean and his gun. Just fucking sitting there. Clean that fucking gun, Dean. Yes. That’s what’s important.

When Cas was powered up, he’d thought of guns with pity – a crutch of the powerless. All they had to defend themselves. Now he sees what they really are: a crutch for the impotent. A fucking second cock you can use if you’re feeling weak, and now that they’re living in a properly post-apocalyptic hellscape constantly in danger of being overrun by virally mutated former humans, and everyone’s feeling a little weak, aren’t they. Cas suddenly feels like crying. He wants to be held. He hasn’t been held in weeks. It’s painful, not being held.

Dean seems to like his guns. He hangs them on his wall. Tucks them jauntily into his waistband in the back, wears them sexily strapped to his thigh – and Cas can tell: they make Dean feel like a big man. Big man with a big gun. Oooh Dean, is that a gun in your pocket? All at once it’s hits him how fucking ridiculous a thing a man is, and laughter just forces its way out. A little explosion. A short, sharp burst. Oh great, maybe his celebrated sense of humor has returned.

“What’s so funny?” Dean shoots at him.

“Pew Pew!” Cas thinks, delirious and unsteady. Like he’s falling from a great height.

“Absolutely nothing, Dean,” he pulls himself together to shoot back, serious as a heart attack.

Dean rolls his eyes and goes back to his gun. Cas watches him ream out the barrel for a moment, not without a certain tinge of longing, and then just says it:

“Dean, I want you to fuck me.”

Dean doesn’t even bother to look at him, just says “Nah. I’m busy.”

“With your gun, Dean. Fuck me with your gun.”

Now Dean does look at him. He doesn’t say anything. Just stares. Lets his face say it: “What the fuck?”

“I’m serious, Dean. Let’s go all the way.”

“Cas, shut the fuck up,” he sneers. He looks at Cas with those beautiful, dead fucking eyes in that beautiful fucking face, and then: “What the hell happened to you, man?”

Like he doesn’t know.

Cas just looks at him for a beat. His face feels uncomfortable. Like he can’t quite tell what it’s doing. Doesn’t know what his stupid human face is saying without his permission.

“You, Dean. You happened.”

That’s when he loses it. Just starts laughing and laughing. His face a rictus, tears rolling down his cheeks. God, it’s all so funny. So fucking hilarious. He can’t stop. It hurts. He just keeps laughing and laughing. At least he thinks he is? He’s not so sure. All he knows is that whatever he’s doing, he’s powerless against it, and he can’t stop. It feels like laughing, right until it doesn’t.

Then it feels like dying.

Dean turns to face him. Stares for a moment. His mouth turned down at the edges and something bordering on an expression in his eyes.

“Hey,” he says, “hey… hey, hey, hey, hey Cas. What the—?”

Cas folds himself in half. Hugs his arms close, feels like he might fly apart. Wishes he could! And then Dean is there, a hand on his shoulder, a hand in his hair. Oh.

“Hey, Cas. Buddy. C’mon,” he says in a voice Cas hasn’t heard in far too long. “C’mon Cas.”

“Don’t say ‘it’s ok’ Dean. Just don’t,” he sobs, stupidly.

“Man, I know it’s not ok. Cas, look, I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry. I know this is all on me. I’m just… so sorry. I’ve ruined everything. I’m poison. Don’t tell me I ruined you, too.”

“Even me, huh, Dean? Jesus. Fuck off,” Cas says into his own hands, “This is not ‘you’ time.”

“Cas, Cas. I need you,” Dean says, “I need you whole.”

“I’m not whole, Dean, and I never will be.”

Dean pulls Cas’s hands away from his face, takes Cas's head in his hands. Makes Cas look him in the eyes, and now Dean’s eyes aren’t dead. They aren’t. They’re wet and shining. They’re so green, and they are full of Dean again. Like… he’s home again.

“That’s not what I meant,” Dean says, soft, without all his bluster. “That’s not what I meant, Cas. You know it’s not.”

Dean wipes at Cas’s tears with his thumbs. It's rough and clumsy, but it's Dean.

“I’m not going to fuck you with my gun,” he says gently, “that’s not me, Cas, and it’s not you either.”

_____

Also here:

Endversetober 2022 (1758 words) by wellofdean

Chapters: 2/?

Fandom: Supernatural (TV 2005)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Characters: Endverse Dean Winchester, Endverse Castiel (Supernatural)

Additional Tags: Endversetober | Endverse Inktober (Supernatural), cocks vs hands, Feelings, References to Croatoan/Endverse (Supernatural), suggested misuse of a gun, angst and sadness

Summary: