Warnings: references to drug abuse, some homophobia, references to adult situations, major character death
Disclaimer: not mine, clearly
(flashing lights, and we
took a wrong turn, and we
fell down a rabbit hole)
They meet across the aisle of a college lecture hall.
It is An Introduction to Modern American Literature, and Prof. Edlund is a spaced-out crackhead and an enigmatic conversationalist all at once. There is a flow to his words, like jazz notes, just a little behind the beat, ebbing and crashing like salt-blue thoughts on sand.
Castiel is captivated; Dean is hooked. The room thrums, electric-fresh, and they race to answer the questions that he throws out in twos and threes. When Castiel pronounces Kerouac a derogatory, overrated, sexist bastard, Dean raises an eyebrow and Castiel meets his gaze defiantly, chin tossed up, across the three feet of space that separates them. So Dean implies that Bukowski is an untalented hack, trying and failing to capture the brilliance of youth in unnecessarily nebulous phrases. Castiel frowns at him, almost reprimanding, like a displeased schoolteacher and Dean flashes a unrepentant smirk, lips caught in half-smile, and Castiel's baby blues widen fractionally before he blushes and looks away.
Dean's smile grows curious, wanting, half-forgotten and the sunlight from the massive west windows catches the razor-edge of Castiel's cheekbones, the soft pink of his lips.
When Prof. Edlund briefly touches upon criticism of Vonnegut as a part of their upcoming syllabus, Castiel takes no part in the discussion. "Nothing to say?" Dean mouths at him, and Castiel's lips form the words, "It is Vonnegut," the way a devout pastor might say, It is Jesus, all ardent devotion.
Dean thinks that's when he fell in love.
(you held on tight to me
'cause nothing's as it seems
spinning out of control)
Castiel has an apartment off-campus.
Dean is endlessly grateful.
They are firmly, utterly, absolutely in love with each other, wrapped up in each other's skin, in the taste of their lips, and the raw edge of narrow hips, in love, in love, oh so in love.
Dean stays the nights, and Castiel traces birdcages into his skin and whispers John Donne in his ear.
Unseparated by three feet of an aisle, Castiel is worlds different - messy, petulant, the faint scent of roses and weed clinging to him, but still blue-eyed in wonder of everything, of the entire world. There is a childlike curiosity in his movement, the gait of a hesitant bird in his walk, and Dean. Well, Dean is helplessly endeared to his junkie, messed-up, adorable boyfriend.
In that moment, Dean thinks, they are infinite.
('Capturing the brilliance of youth in unnecessarily nebulous phrases' does not, for once, bother him. Dean Winchester is in love.)
(didn't they tell us don't rush into things?
didn't you flash your green eyes at me?
didn't you calm my fears with a cheshire cat smile?)
Later, Dean wishes he had been bothered.
It is not the drugs that messes it up, nor Castiel's erratic moods. It's not the fact that Dean's a Neanderthal compared to Castiel's high-brow post-post-modern zeitgeisty art crowd - Vonnegut is the older Winchester's saving grace. It isn't Cas' enduring love for God or his terrible collection of acoustic, indie crap or that Dean runs from his emotions like a white girl in a slasher flick.
It is, in fact, Thanksgiving.
It is so banal and it so, so stupid.
Mary Winchester calls him up, and says, "Your father misses you, sweetheart. Sam misses you." He hears the unsaid 'I miss you too' and melts, and acquiesces.
"And," she adds, hesitant, "If there's- there's someone you want to bring... That would be lovely, Dean. We'd like to meet her."
Her.
A little bit of Dean twists and hurts, burning with an ache that is needle-sharp. "Yeah, yeah okay, Ma. I gotta go now, okay?"
(didn't it all seem new and exciting?
I felt your arms twisting around me
it's all fun and games till somebody loses their minds.)
You will not tell them. Ever?
They dissolve, they crash, they bleed a thousand deaths.
Dean stands at the foot of the bed. Castiel is all pale skin, and twisted sheets wrapped around, awash in the nightlight's soft amber sheen.
"I'm not gay!" he yells at his boyfriend, heedless of the rawness of Castiel's eyes, heedless of the wet spot of lube and come that dries on the bedspread. (They forgot condoms when they went shopping.)
"Not... Not like you."
Not like me?
"I- I'm Dean friggin Winchester. Jock, player, football, beer. And women. Women." He spits the word like an expletive. "Goddamnit Cas, you know all that. I can't tell them, man."
You coward. Leave.
"Wh- What?"
Get out! Castiel screams, and Dean falters, a thousand apologies struggling for release, but Castiel's eyes are steady, merciless, hateful.
He leaves. Outside, the world is cold.
(we found wonderland
you and I got lost in it
and we pretended it could last forever.)
They can't help themselves. They are quiet, writhing bodies, cloaked in the desperation of the night.
Dean will come to Cas' apartment, half past too late and Cas will draw him in each time, biting harsh kisses that hurt, and ravage skin. Fingers that bruise, that punish, that want.
And even in this, in this angry, hurried coupling, there is peace. Sometimes, in a fogged up bathroom, Dean will drag his tired fingers across purpling marks Cas brands into his skin and try not to hate himself, and try not to want more, more of Cas, everything of Cas.
He wants Cas in him, around him, breathe in the sweat of his skin, taste it, he is intoxicated, desperate. Dean Winchester may be in love, but he is entirely out of time.
(I reached for you
And you were gone
I knew I had to go back home)
Castiel disappears from Prof. Edlund's class.
Dean is a madman, running from his empty apartment to the quiant coffee shops, dialling Balthazar and Anna and nobody knows where he's gone, no one, and Dean is choking on blank feverish terror, because Castiel's used to have these moments, these blank spaces between thoughts when he'd drag the edge of a knife along his wrists, and cock his head to the side, and murmur, "What do we look like inside, Dean?"
He returns to the apartment, he sees Castiel a thousand ways, dead, glassy blue eyes, slack unmoving lips, he wraps himself in Castiel's sheets and he tries to breathe.
It is nearly the witching hour, and the door creaks open. Dean bolts from the bed, a stiff mass of agitated nerves. Castiel is shocked, still. He wears jeans that are clearly not his own, and no shirt at all. But he isn't cold.
His eyes are black pinpricks, drowning in blue and Dean is drowning in a thousand colors of relief.
"Cas." His name is a prayer.
What are you doing here?
"Wh- I- Where were you, Cas? No one knew, and why didn't you come to cl-"
Stop. Why are you here, Dean?
"I- I- Cas."
And they meet halfway, Dean sobbing his prayers and cascading relief into the soft give of Castiel's lips, and Cas groans into the lush burn of Dean's mouth. The kiss is burning, blazing, Roman-candle-bright. Cas wraps his hands in the collar of Dean's jacket drawing his closer, wrapping a leg around his thigh, cinching them so close, so close.
Dean. Dean. Dean.
Why don't you ever stay, Dean? he whispers the shards of his broken heart into Dean's skin.
Why can't I be enough? And Dean tries to be brave enough to want Castiel the way he is wanted, the way he is missed, the way he is loved.
(you searched the world for something else
to make you feel like what we had
and in the end, in wonderland
we both
went
mad.)
Castiel Meyer dies of a heroin overdose on a Saturday morning, in the fall semester of his final year. There is a small, poorly-attended funeral. A stone marker under an oak, a simple epitaph.
Dean joins the Army. He dies three years later, from an IED on the outskirts of Baghdad.
There are two statistics amongst thousands.
They do not matter.
They crash and they burn, brilliant and bright and all that is youth.
And the brightest still fall.