#spilledinknet

I was tagged by the lovely coeurdean and the wonderful kapllan, and i’m tagging all the other beautiful writers in the spilled ink network, and my darling a-rose-and-a-tardis :)

When Cas discovered Welcome to Night Vale, Sam and I barely slept for like a month. The dude would not shut up! Apparently, Night Vale is this fake podcast about some made-up town that has like an angel infestation or something? Or maybe it was aliens, I don’t even know. Regardless, it made Clarence’s little nerdy heart sing, and he talked about it nonstop for weeks. Sam forbade him from playing it out loud after the first couple days. He said he was too creeped out to study while it was playing. (He still talked about it all the time, though.) If I’m honest, it weirded me out, too, but I wasn’t about to tell Cas that. One morning, I woke up and Cas had totally covered his arms and face in these crazy Sharpie tattoos, taped a drawing of an eye on his forehead, and was wearing a white lab coat from who-knows-where. He said he was “cosplaying” this guy Cecil from Night Vale, and he had “seen it on tumblr”. After a few weeks, he was basically over it, and now he only listens to it occasionally, but those were some weird days. Cas is definitely a little crazy, but if he didn’t have things to be so passionate about, he’d probably go actually clinically insane. So, I guess I’m glad for Night Vale, and all of his other obsessions. They make Cas who he is, and he’s a pretty cool dude.

sorry i haven’t been around consistently for like three months?! that sounds really bad oh my word i am so sorry i love you guys so much it’s just that i have so much going on and i always have something that needs to be done and gets really overwhelming to the point where, when i do have free time, i’m spending it cooling off with my friends or just popping on here and queueing a few posts and leaving without answering asks and stuff because then everyone starts sending asks and i feel bad when i don’t have the time or energy to answer them all :/

anyways, tonight i’ll be on for a bit answering asks and queueing more posts because tomorrow morning after church, i leave for summer camp! i’m so excited, but sad to be away from you guys for yet another week. i’ll be back on saturday, and hopefully i’ll have some more free time and less stress then.

Usually in the morning, when their breath comes thick and heavy and their eyes are still cloudy from sleep. Dean will just wake up, grab his camera, go sit on the porch, and wait for Sam.

Sam used to always get up before Dean, but now that he’s finished grad school he can take things a little more slow, so he actually sleeps in a little.

Dean loves when Sam appears with mugs of coffee and a blanket, and they sit on the swing together in silence and inhale the steam, looking out over the rolling hills beyond the road in front of their little farmhouse. Life is good, so Dean takes a picture then, capturing Sam’s soft profile; he doesn’t even wear glasses on these mornings, and it makes the image that much more raw.

Later, when it’s developed, Dean looks at it, and he remembers when they were young together, on the streets, doing whatever they could to scrape by. Without glasses, Sam looks so young. Innocent, even. Just like Dean had always wished for his little brother. Dean cooks all their meals now; they’re vegan and loving it. They eat raw almost all the time, too, so their meals consist of a lot of vegetables with hummus and fruits covered in nut butter. Dean’s found his own little ways to make eating plants cool.

Cas holds his tongue between his teeth, his brow furrowed in concentration. His plump fingers work clumsily as he tries to connect the daisies without crushing the petals or breaking the stems.

Dean, on the other hand, is restless, plucking the heads from the daisies and tossing them at the tree Cas is leaning against. He begins to pull off the petals individually, counting softly as he does. Eventually, however, he tears the rest of the oval petals off in frustration, turning to Cas with a frown tilting his pink lips down.

"Cas," he groans in a lilting voice, "I’m bored." He draws out his last word, coupling his pleading tone with a flutter of eyelashes.

Cas ignores him; too focused on his project to bother lifting his head to entertain Dean. His pink tongue moves in time with his fingers; his blue eyes squinting in the sunlight. Finally he creates and ouroboros from the daisies, completing the chain into a circle.

"There!" He shouts, holding his masterpiece carefully in his hands, "It’s a crown!"

Dean grins, glancing briefly at the daisy chain before losing interest and returning his attention to Cas, “Can we play now, Cassie?”

Cas nods, “But only if you wear the crown.”

Dean agrees and Cas steps closer, small hands gently laying the crown on Dean’s dark blonde hair. He steps back, clapping his hands, “There! Now you’re King Dean!”

Dean laughs, “And you’re King Cas!”

Cas shakes his head, “No. I don’t have a crown.” His lower lip trembles, tiny fists shaking.

Dean steps closer, taking Cas’s hand in his own, sweaty palm on sweaty palm, “I’ll make you one, I promise.”

Cas bites his lip, “But I don’t want to be King… I want to be something else…”

Dean stares at him, his young mind unable to comprehend how someone could not want to be a King. He opens his mouth to speak, perhaps to offer the role of Prince to Cas. He is rudely interrupted, however, by the rowdy voices of Cas’s older twin brothers, Michael and Lucifer.

Lucifer stands too close to Dean, so close he has to tilt his head up to look at him. He reaches out to pluck the crown from Dean’s head, but Dean steps back before Lucifer can catch hold of the daisy chain.

Lucifer sneers at him, taking a step back himself so he is standing shoulder to shoulder with Michael. The dark haired twin opens his mouth, allowing poison to spill from his lips, “Only pansies wear flower crowns,” he turns to Lucifer, “Geddit? Pansies? Flower crowns?”

Lucifer chuckles, “Yeah. Only girls wear daisy chains.”

Dean feels tears prick his eyes, a lump growing at the back of his throat. He grits his teeth, refusing to cry, refusing to give them more ammunition against him.

Michael and Lucifer are still laughing when he feels a small hand slipping into his. Cas steps up beside him, blue eyes ice cold as they glare at his older brothers.

"Don’t say that to Dean." He says, young voice shaking with passion, "He’s a much better friend than you two."

Dean squeezes Cas’s hand tightly, tears no longer threatening to fall. He lifts his chin, pulling Cas with him as he turns away, “You’re just bullies.” He allows the wind to carry his words to the twins, deciding to keep his eyes straight ahead.

When they are out of earshot, Dean turns to Cas with a serious expression, “You aren’t a King, Cassie. You’re a lionheart.”

angel!dean with golden wings and a voice like thunder and a brow furrowed by centuries of service as the best warrior of the garrison

nerd!cas with a soft spot for theatre and thick horn-rimmed glasses and ugly oversized sweaters who always has some dog-eared paperback classic bouncing around in his bookbag

hipster!sam with geometric tattoos and a coffee addiction and long(er) hair pulled back into a bun and tucked under soft knit beanies

punk!dean with full sleeves of tattoos and spiky leather clothes and an eyebrow piercing and a permanent bitter curl to his lip

preppy!cas with a higher-than-4.0 GPA who always wears bow ties and sings in choir and has an incredible mathematical mind that only dreams of being among the stars

professor!sam with a school-appropriate haircut and suit who always stays late to help his students and gives remarkably profound advice