Hello! I will be continuing with the real characters soon but I just had a lot of unresolved feelings between the cousins that I wanted to address, as well as establish their personalities and relationship a little more. I won't have as many OC centric chapters later, unless you tell me otherwise! PS I've been in a little writers block lately, so updates might not be as frequent. Sorries!
Love it? Hate it? Things you'd like to see next? Please give me some feedback :)
Henry sighed in irritation as he sat on the hood of the car, just watching his cousin. James was sitting in the nearby feild, the wildflowers were dipping and bowing and brushing his legs as he stared at the ground, a vacant stare, as if he were looking through everything as he absent-mindedly fiddled with the stem of a wildflower. A breeze raked through his hair, and he set the plant down with a little sigh, he brought his knees to his chest and hugged them. He wasn't taking the news so well.
Henry conjured a lollipop from thin air and began to suck on it, and frowned a little when he heard his phone begin to jingle. Or rather, the phone he'd jacked this morning, seeing that his cell phone didn't work on this old-school service. The contact said "Samuel Smith-FBI". It must have been in case the phone rang while they were working. This must have been Dean's.
"Yeah?" He answered, not taking his eyes off of James as his cousin slid his hands over his face and combed through his dark locks, still not looking in Henry's direction.
"Hi, Henry." Sam said softly, sweetly. Henry smiled a little; his dad was such a big softie, and he still seemed a little reserved with him. Hell, if he'd had a kid come out of nowhere claiming he wasn't exactly human, he'd be pretty weirded out too."Are you two doing alright?"
Henry chuckled as he heard Dean in the background grumble something that sounded like 'I don't care, I'm going to whoop some ass when they get back here'.
"We're okay. Just heading home." He pulled the lollipop from his mouth and looked at James again. "We're just..um...talking things out."
There was a soft sigh on the other line. Henry observed James for a little longer as he buried his face in his hands. "...Henry?" Sam asked, extremely quietly. "...I promise I'll love you no matter what, okay?"
Henry screwed up his face, and he felt his stomach go in a small knot. "I..uh, sure, pops. Why are you saying this to me?"
Silence.
Finally, Sam was the one who spoke up again, and he was speaking in barely a whisper. "Please just come home soon, okay?"
"Okay." Henry closed the phone and ran a hand through his hair as he sighed and finally decided to walk up to James, as his footsteps crunched down the slight dip as he began walking through the mostly bare field out to James.
His cousin's head turned to the direction of the noise, a little startled, but then he avoided Henry's eyes again.
"C'mon, couzie. Our dads are getting worried about us." Henry said, hating that his cousin had to have found out this way. He didn't want him to find out at all.
James rested his chin on top of his knees and closed his eyes. "I'm not ready to leave. Because if I leave, and we start talking about this..it's going to become real." His voice began to shake at the end as he lifted his eyes finally and glared at Henry. "Why? Why did you do this for me, Henry?"
"Don't get mad at me for saving your life, James." Henry clenched his hands into fists.
"Well, I am mad at you." James shot back quickly. "Sure, you saved my life, but you ruined yours, okay?"
Henry sat down next to James, he extended his legs and leaned back onto his arms as he let out a sigh at looked upwards. "I didn't ruin my damn life, James. It's going to be as long as a regular human's, okay? And that's perfectly fine with me."
"But we're not human!" James insisted, tears springing to his eyes this time. "We're supposed to be immortal, and..what am I supposed to do without you?" He suddenly sounded like he was five years old again and had just gotten a scrape on the knee. "When you've killed yourself?"
"Dean's not going to live forever. My dad's not going to live forever." Henry pointed out irritably. He'd accepted that he'd needed to do this a long time ago, and now it felt like James was undoing all that mental preparation, making doubts creep up once again that he' worked for a long time to supress.
"They'll be in heaven! And you'll be, just, gone! Can't you see that?!" Tears were freely shimmering on his reddening face.
"Stop blubbering. You'll find some girl; angel, nephil, human, I don't know what she'll be and I don't care, and you're going to fall in love. And you won't need me there with you anymore. You're allowed to forget me, James." James looked up with immeasureable hurt in his eyes, about to say something, when Henry interrupted him again.
"Why do you think I'm so carefree and such an ass? I know my days are numbered, and I'm making the most of them. I've accepted this a long time ago, Jimmy. I don't care."
"I don't want you to leave me." James said in the quietest of voices, and he buried his face in his hands as his body began to shake with sobs. He leaned into Henry's chest, and Henry automatically wrapped an arm around him.
"Hey, I'm not leaving for a while yet. And you'll have couzie Kate, and hell, maybe my dads will pop out a few other kids when he's finally done working. Like a mini baby-boom, right? Gabe home from war?" He was attempting to make James laugh, but so far he'd been quiet as a mute. "You'll be surrounded by dozens of little assholes like me. And you could be the older brother, right? Isn't that something nice?"
James sobbed and Henry gripped him a little tighter.
"But you're smart and funny and tough as hell...and I don't want to forget you!" James whimpered and buried his face in his clothes.
"Aw, c'mon. You'll ruin my jacket with all this water, crybaby." Henry said quietly. "You really think I'm tough as hell?" He chuckled.
"You grew a damn face for your first addition and you're still kicking." James pointed out, smiling a little bit out of admiration.
"Well, that wasn't the worst thing I've done. Did I tell you about that one time that someone gave me an indian burn on the playground? Aw, that was brutal."
"I fuckin' hate you, you assfuck." James managed to choke out, mad that he'd made him laugh just a little, and Henry dipped his head a little and planted a kiss on his dark head of hair.
"Meh," Henry replied, smiling just a little. "I hate you too, buddy."
...
The car ride back was awkward to say the least. James almost seemed to be shrinking away into the car door, and Henry kept his eyes on the road as he felt the silence pressing onto him almost as if it were tangible. Henry wanted to speak up, as well as James, but both of them had no idea where to start.
"So-" Henry started, clearing his throat.
"Yeah." James answered quickly, and Henry finally felt the ice break and he snorted back a laugh. Since when had they been like this?
"Henry, this isn't funny." James shot back moodily, keeping his eyes looking out the window. "I can't believe that you would plan to just-"
Henry gripped the steering wheel even tighter, as well as locking his jaw. He'd accepted his fate a long time ago, and now James was reopening those wounds and just prodding around in them.
And once again, a cold ice froze over the car and they didn't speak for the whole car ride home. It was finally when Henry shut off the car and a stuffy silence from the absence of the engine's rumble filled the car, when one of them spoke up again. Henry had pulled the handle and was about to wrench open the old, squeaky door when James spoke up again.
"Henry?" James spoke up quietly, his arms wrapping around his torso as if he were hugging himself.
"I..I wanted to thank you. For doing that for me, even if it made us get into this huge mess."
Henry's lips tugged upward just a little bit as he heard James say the word "us". Maybe he wouldn't have to do this by himself, he wouldn't have to keep this dark secret any longer or hide it when he got those painful twinges around the graft.
Henry smiled just a little as he remembered when James had been so tiny, and when he'd felt so proud that he'd been the sole purpose for him being okay. He remembered feeling such a sense of purpose as he'd stepped inside the bedroom where Dean was holding his new baby cousin.
Dean had the black-haired baby tucked securely into his chest, and he was quiet as he kept his head bowed. Cas was on the bed, only a tuft of black hair and a limp hand was seen as he lay underneath the covers.
"Cas!" Henry gasped, feeling terrified as he saw him underneath that cover like a dead person. "What happen?" He whined, coming up to the side of the bed and trying to get a better view of his uncle. He felt betrayed as he weighed the option of that suited man cheating him. "Is he o.k.? He died?"
He looked up with teary eyes as Dean put a hand on Henry's small head, the small boy sniffled and dragged his hand across his nose, leaving a little shiny trail of snot.
"Henry, he's only resting. He's okay." Dean answered in a quiet, yet joyful voice.
"I want to see my brother." Henry said determinedly, narrowing his eyes. He needed to see the reason for that uncomfortable feeling he had in his chest.
"Henry, this is your cousin, James." Dean corrected him, but lowered the little baby so that Henry could see.
His eyes were closed and puffy around them, and his hair was dark and wispy, and bald patches of his head could be seen underneath the soft hairs. His nose was tiny, as well as his chubby arms and little fingers, and as Henry touched his arm tentatively. "He looks silly. And tiny."
Dean chuckled. "You won't say that for long." (Henry smiled again he was walking back to the Men of Letters HQ. He still did say that.)
"Brother." Henry insisted, maybe a little too loudly, crossing his arms. Dean made a motion for him to lower his voice as Cas stirred slightly.
"He just might be his brother, Dean. They've half-angels, and half-brothers." Sam said from the doorway, where he was leaning and observing the scene. "Henry, come here."
The boy quickly pattered over and threw his arms around Sam's shins. He could tell that his dad was feeling pretty sad as he saw that James had two of his parents with him. "Don't be sad, papa. I helped them." He beamed up at Sam, who lifted the boy up from under his armpits and held him on his hip. "Good job, Henry. Thank you for waiting outside." Henry hadn't bothered to correct him.
"I didn't expect you to thank me so soon." Henry voiced as the two stood side-by-side outside, waiting for the door or open.
James rolled his eyes, and rolled back a little on his heels, rocking slightly back and forth. "Yeah, well, you're still a stupid son of a bitch."
Henry didn't know what he would have done without this little punk in his life.