video;

[strangelic]

I want to--Um...

I feel like life would be improved here if we all played more games, and... [ Kate, why are you making him do this? ] I-I wanted to ask if anyone else had any games that they could teach us. Party games, this time, not card games. Like Twister.

[ He glances off screen cautiously, then looks back, trying to seem more courageous on the subject than he is. ]

Kate thinks that life here would be much improved if we all played more together, and I have to agree with her. Play is important...for the well being of people, especially those who don't have anything else to occupy their time.

So...that is to say, if we could organize a...party, I suppose, everyone would be invited. We could hold it at the bar.

[ Yep, that's it. ]

Comments

action;

[kickingand]

[ Dean doesn't know how to take it, but at least it's easier than the helpless look Cas was shooting him moments before. It's in no way a breath of fresh air, the air between them chaotic and smelling of more things than Dean can even reason with, but the fight behind Cas' eyes is something Dean is familiar with. The body that slammed up against his own, forced him into a wall and told him 'I fought for you', the one that demanded he pay attention because Cas could take charge if he chose to.

It made it easier to breathe. It took the soft edges out of the moment and made them rough and tumble the way Dean knew, except--

Except the words were not easy.

The words were laced with too much to bear and Dean looked away, stared at anything else because he was terrified. Every moment was a terror and this was of the worst kind, the kind where he hated himself for feeling a single thing, for not knowing or understanding or being able to comprehend where he stood against Cas any longer. He wanted to go for a walk, wanted to return to hunting through the books, wanted to shield himself behind a wall of I don't care, but it was too late for that because Cas kept pounding him down with words until he was nothing but a pile of rubble.

All he wanted to do was put up a hand and say enough. Please. Please, just let him walk away. Let him breathe, give him a second to catch up, let him chase his own feelings down instead of hounding them away and maybe he could get there. But like this it was too overwhelming, too terrifying, the world crumbling down in a way he only knew how to face it when the apocalypse was streaming across the sky and his worries were not faced upon himself. ]

I'm not mad at you. For anything. For any of this, for- [ He took a stuttered breath, words curling behind his tongue. Because he didn't know what to do and he just couldn't say it, couldn't say that he was furious with himself for everything and he hadn't been able to change that for years. ]

I am trying, Cas.

[ But he just didn't know how much harder he could before he might burst. Especially when his next words weren't so much lies as they were desperate attempts to convince himself that he truly had. ] I've stowed it, okay? It's gone- in the past. Don't worry about it, right?

action;

[strangelic]

[ Castiel didn't believe a word of it, because as they'd already been working out, Dean was ready to explode at any possible moment over a thousand other things he'd stowed away. Asking him to do it with this, with how he felt, was unkind on every possible way, but Castiel didn't know how to deal with in the short term. Dean needed to know that it would be feasible to be them again first, before they could actually achieve it for real.

They'd opened a door, and everything was pushing against the other side of it. All they were doing, now, was shoving a heavy dresser up against it and hoping that the truth wouldn't get through. Castiel knew that, and if what Lucifer had told him was true... No, it couldn't be. He shook his head ever so slightly, denying it even now. Dean was in too much agony for it to be true.

He stepped back, and gestured for Dean to come with him. ]

Let's put everything back where it was. Come on.

action;

[kickingand]

[ Dean still didn't feel like he could take a breath. It felt as if something had jammed up hard inside of his lungs, was situated right beneath his rib cage, sitting hard and fast and refusing to dislodge. He couldn't pull himself free from his insides and no matter what he tried, no matter what he thought or didn't think - all the words he wasn't saying - nothing was removing it and he was petrified. It didn't help that Cas kept compounding it with more words upon words, that everything had to mean a hundred times more than he could bear and so it remained heavier and heavier until Dean was sure he was going to snap.

But at least he backed off for now.

At least there was that.

Dean remained stoically broken, his expression falling nervously flat, edgy and still torrentously upset. He wanted to storm out, wanted to give himself room, but instead he made his way closer, picking up a book along the way and tossing it in his palm. If he wasn't going to storm out then this would have to do for now, and he flipped open the pages, ruffling through even more alien language. ]

Sure.