I've kind of taken a break from fanfiction, and I've never written for Supernatural before, but I love Castiel, I love Charlie, and I absolutely fell in love with their friendship in 10.18. And then, well. You know... Anyway, I've had these scribbled on post-it notes all over my room for weeks now, and I wanted to get them out before the finale destroys us.
(While the obvious focus is on Charlie and Cas's friendship, I do ship Destiel, and there may be a tiny tiny reference here or there about it.)
I do not claim to own any of the characters mentioned or any of the other nerdy things in here.
Happy reading!
1. There was a point during his existence in which he considered Anna, Hester, and Hannah to be his sisters. Charlie, though—Charlie's something else. She calls him "dude" and tells him good morning and teaches him how to play beer pong. And she gives hugs. He's gotten a few hugs from Sam and Dean and one from Hannah, but they were never under the best circumstances. These "nice to see you" and "thanks for buying me Poptarts" kinds of hugs are very different, but he thinks that these are the normal kinds of hugs. And he thinks, maybe, that Charlie is the closest thing he's ever had to a sister.
2. Charlie takes great delight in testing his pop culture skills. She's determined to find something he doesn't understand. Whoever this Metatron is, he did a damn good job of installing all kinds of nerdy trivia into Cas's weird angel brain. She flips through a copy of the Monster Manual, a beautiful glossy-covered book with Prince Orcus on the front. "What's the AC of a Dracolich?" she asks.
Cas thinks for a moment and gives her a blank stare, almost looking through her rather than at her. Then he answers, "Standard, Blackfire, or Runescribed?"
"What the frick."
He tries not to let her see the triumphant little smirk growing on his face.
3. She folds cootie-catchers all the time. He tries—honestly tries—to play along when she predicts that he'll get a bad tattoo, and she just laughs and punches his shoulder.
4. Charlie folds other things too. At the end of a particularly exhausting day, he finds a tiny origami angel by his phone charger. It has a tiny blue tie colored in with sharpie. Really, it doesn't share his likeness at all, but he keeps it in the pocket of his coat anyway.
5. "There isn't any possible way you can make me look like a fairy, is there?"
6. "ScarJo and I will have the best wedding ever," Charlie says, sighing in front of her laptop.
"Scarlett Johansson is a female," Cas says in that pragmatic, almost uncomprehending way of his. He's flipping through one of Sam's books, one with elegantly scrawled notes in the margins and beaten up binding.
"Dude, that's kind of the point of being a lesbian." She rolls her eyes.
They sit in silence for a while, just coexisting while Charlie scrolls and Cas flips.
"Can I tell you something?" Cas asks after a while.
"That's what best friends are for," she says, only half ironically.
"I don't exactly feel things like you humans do, but sometimes the female form does not seem as—as agreeable as…" He trails off here, awkward in a way that Charlie hasn't seen yet. He waits for a "what the hell" or maybe a nonchalant "whatever you say"—waits for a Winchester answer—but it doesn't come.
Instead, Charlie stops looking at pictures of Scarlett Johansson and meets his gaze. "I know what you mean. Thanks for telling me," she says, and her little grin is all lopsided and genuine. Then she turns back to her screen and says, "If we could both get married in Black Widow's costume, that'd be frickin' awesome."
7. It is so nice to talk to someone about the Winchesters who isn't one of the Winchesters.
8. Charlie feels like she's going to throw up the night before Sam and Cas are going away. Sam won't tell her what exactly they're doing or where they're going, but it's sneaky and wrong and she just knows something bad is going to happen. She tries to keep her mind off of them by watching old episodes of Geek and Sundry's live Dungeons and Dragons games and mug after mug of chamomile tea, but it doesn't work. Just knowing that she'll be stuck in the bunker with their half-lies for an indeterminate amount of time is enough to make her stomach lurch.
As the players on screen roll their dice, Castiel appears just outside of her door. He clears his throat and hesitates a moment, examining her surprised face and the way that the light of her laptop illuminates her sad eyes. "You're praying to me," he says in confusion.
"Oh. Uh, sorry. Didn't know you could hear that."
"No, it's—it's fine. It's just that no one but Dean has done that in a long time." He shuffles his feet and then gives a little nod down the hall as a way of excusing himself.
"Hey," she says before he turns around. "For the record, I wasn't praying to you. I was praying for you. Stay safe, okay?"
9. "What do your wings look like?" Charlie asks, making small talk over the pizza and orange Fanta on the table.
"They're not as impressive as they once were."
"Dude, at least you have wings."
10. "Do they know that this is not accurate?" Castiel asks, watching Charlie play a video game. It's too late at night for Sam to be up and too early in the morning for Dean, but here Charlie is, huddled in a men's bathrobe and waiting on a cup of coffee.
She scrunches her nose. "It's just a game. I mean, I hope they know that Eve wasn't a baby with projectile tears. So yeah, probably." She holds down the arrow keys and mashes the space bar before grumbling, "Fracking hell, I lost again."
Charlie looks over her shoulder at Cas, who watches her with a furrowed brow. "You should play," she says. "It's kind of relaxing, in a weird way. You can pick your character. You can play Isaac, Eden, Judas, Cain—"
"Not Cain," Cas interrupts.
"Oh, right," she says sheepishly. "I, uh, kind of forgot."
11. Charlie's soul is so light, and Castiel can't help but smile the first time he meets her. Sam and Dean's souls, despite being familiar and comfortable, are so exhausting. But Charlie—she's refreshing.
12. "Cas. Castiel. Thanks for everything. Thanks for keeping those bitches alive. You know, mostly alive."
"You are welcome, Charlotte."
Cas doesn't know why Charlie bursts out laughing. "That's not my name," she says through a little snort, and he doesn't understand why that's funny, but she's happy, so he doesn't question it.
13. "I've got a daughter. Or my vessel does. Did. I don't know anymore. But, uh, anyway, it is her birthday soon, and I believe that it is customary to give gifts for birthdays. I don't know what to get a human girl for a birthday. Do you?" He makes a vague gesture around himself as he seeks help.
"What's she like?" Charlie asks.
"She…wears a lot of eyeliner," Cas says definitively.
Charlie looks at him with a quirked eyebrow. "Like, Taylor Swift or Taylor Momsen?"
She can all but see his mind processing this, and he answers, "Momsen?"
"Try Hot Topic."
14. Charlie asks Castiel if they've tried true love's first kiss yet, and even though she was joking, he makes a serious comment about how it does seem to be a cure-all.
15. "I've never had a best friend," he confides.
I think 8 is my favorite. Which one is yours?
Shoutout to supernaturalapocalypse for inspiring #14. Geek and Sundry (#8) was founded by Felicia, and the stream is called Critical Role. #2 is from first MM of Dungeons and Dragons 4e. And #10 is from a video game called The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
This could be a longer series in the future, but it's complete for right now. :)
Thanks for reading!