Fic: Meet me at the Chapel (And we're gonna get married)
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenoko1Title: Meet me at the Chapel (And we’re gonna get married)
Author: Tenoko1
Rating: PG
Summary: Continuation of ‘The Path We Choose’ Verse, in which case, it’s Dean and Cas’ wedding day. Was done per a prompt on this page .
AN: If someone wants to draw Cas and Dean in their wedding outfits, I swear to you, I will owe you a huge favor, and will quite possibly agree to any fic request you make, podfic or text.
Dean was an absolute nervous wreck. Which he knew was really stupid. It was really stupid, yet he had a better understanding of why it was called ‘The Big Day’. And oh, it was. It had been made into a HUGE freaking day, way bigger than he wanted or would have been interested in, but seriously, it was a big deal as well, and deserved to be treated as such.
He’d have been fine with going to the courthouse. Simple, intimate. Just him and Cas, and the couple of people they considered family.
He was getting married. To Castiel.
That thought filled him with nothing but joy and pride.
It was the thought of all the people, angels, demons, reapers, and well, even Death himself in the audience that had him freaking out. Apparently, their wedding was the event of the millennium, and it had been declared a sort of national holiday in which case all work was cancelled and everyone got along.
At least they weren’t getting married in a church. Dean didn’t think he could have handled that much pressure in an enclosed space. Getting married in an outside ceremony with only the green and blue of the world around them and wide-open expanse of space made it much easier. The idea of it left him feeling like he could breath a little easier.
His heart was still hammering like he’d run a marathon though.
Carefully, he peeked around the trellis on his side, swallowing thickly at the sight that created him. It was beautiful, no doubt. No expense spared either, all generously afforded by the King of Hell himself as he was still trying desperately to get out of the Winchester’s debt and he, and well, everyone else was bound and determined that the happy couple were going to have the perfect wedding. Anna and Crowley had joined forces in an amazing display of ability to organize and delegate.
The candelabras were black iron with off-white candles. The flowers were tiny white things seeming to spill over their containers like water pouring from a pitcher, equally small lavender colored flowers tucked in here and there to draw your eye to the soft contrast. That was the theme, actually: contrast, Dean thought with a snort, ducking back out of sight, and shaking his hands out as he took a breath.
He wanted to tug at the cravat at his throat, the high collar of his jacket feeling like a dog collar, even though it didn’t enclose him. He was glad there wasn’t a mirror to nervously check his reflection in. He looked like a damn aristocratic vampire and he knew it, sans the cape though. He pretty much wore solid black, except for his cravat. His jacket was old fashioned, with long tails in the back, and actual black lace spilling from the ends of his sleeves to cover part of his hands.
He was ‘the dark prince’, Anna had explained, to go with the theme. Castiel would be the one wearing white, as he was an angel, so it was fitting his nature. This was also reflective of how they’d first met, too. Dean a demon in hell, while Castiel was the holy warrior that swept in and saved him. Dean actually liked the imagery behind it all, and was really very curious to see Castiel.
Gabriel had offered to make Cas an actual bride for their wedding, jokingly, surprised when it had actually made Dean mad, the hunter snapping at him that no, he wanted Castiel to look just the way he normally did, because that was the Castiel Dean was in love with, and dammit stop teasing him that Cas’ dress for the wedding was very pretty and becoming, because no, that wasn’t funny in the freaking least.
Dean knew damn well Cas wouldn’t be wearing a dress to their wedding. Unless he took Gabe up on his offer, but Cas wanted to walk down the aisle and marry Dean in the form they were both most fond of. This wasn’t just their wedding, it was kind of a retelling of their story as well.
Thus the reason Dean looked liked he’d raided Lestat’s closet.
Sam and Jo made their way to him then, Jo holding up her lavender dress with one hand and her bouquet of flowers in the other. Sam had gotten a real tuxedo for this occasion, looking almost as nervous and excited as Dean.
“Hey,” his brother greeted when they reach him, “how are you doing?”
Dean glanced over his shoulder at the entrance, hearing the music playing softly. “Peachy.” He looked at his brother. “How’s Cas?”
“As nervous and aglow as I’ve ever seen him,” said Sam with a grin. “He keeps wanting to come over here to make sure this is what you want and that you don’t feel pressured into it and that’s why you’re doing this. We’ve tried explaining it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
“I am not the bride,” quipped Dean. “And neither is Cas, even if he is the one in white.”
His little brother rolled his eyes. “I know. It’s just the tradition, Dean. Relax.”
Jo regarded him with an amused expression, her hair up and falling in ringlets around her face. “Cas said he’s having a hard time separating which emotions he’s feeling are his own, and which ones are yours.”
The brunette nodded. “I am right there with him. Literally and figuratively.”
Hooray for angelic bonds. Dean could often times sense Cas, like he were standing at Dean’s back just out of sight, their backs so close yet not quite touching, but it the closeness of the other man that was a comfort. Moments like this, it was like he could reach out and take Cas’ hand in his own, even when he couldn’t.
He looked at both of them. “I look alright, don’t I? I feel ridiculous, but I want him to like it. Will he like it? How does he look?”
“You’ll both want to make babies together when you see each other,” Jo assured him, patting his arm. She whistled and made a show of fanning herself. “Your boy looks… like an angel.”
“Hands to yourself. I saw him first,” threatened Dean teasingly, trying to calm his nerves. It wasn’t really working. “You ready to escort me down the aisle?”
Their wedding party was a little unorthodox. Sam was both of their best man, and would be the first to walk down the aisle, waiting up at the front. Jo was Dean’s ‘best girl’, and would be escorting him to the front on one side, while Anna would be doing the same for her brother on the aisle on the far side, both women in gowns of soft lavender.
She winked at him. “I won’t let you fall.”
There was a shift in music that made Dean stiffen, his ears straining, and all three of them looked toward the entrance he would walk through in just a moment. His green eyes swiveled to his brother in panic, Sam clapping both hands on the shorter man’s shoulders.
“You’re going to do great. Keep your eyes on Cas and say your line. ‘I do’. I know it’s a mouthful, but I think you’ll manage.” He grinned that wide, contagiously happy smile that made his eyes dance in delight. “Good luck.”
He darted away, moving around so he could come down the center aisle by himself, the only person that would, Dean and Jo ducked out of sight until they would walk down the far aisle on their side.
“I’ve been to enough weddings to know,” Jo began softly. He glanced at her questioningly, and her eyes met his with an affectionate smile. “When you see him, everyone else is going to disappear. It’ll be over before you know it. One day, when you look back… everything else is going to be a vague blur, but the sight of him will still stand out in your mind like a photograph.”
Swallowing thickly, he nodded, heart hammering painfully against his ribs as the music shifted again and she led him to the entranceway, everyone turning to look.
Oh yeah, this was going to be fun.
“Don’t let me fall,” he whispered to her. Her smile widened and she gave his forearm a squeeze.
They stepped out in sync, Dean pointedly keeping his gaze locked forward despite how badly he wanted to glance to his right, to where he knew Cas and Anna would be walking up the aisle on the far side. They weren’t suppose to see each other until they were all the way at the front, when they would turn the corner to come meet at the center, but God did he want to see him. Heaven help him if he did though, he might take off running to meet the angel, forget pacing and timed steps.
And oh God, was it ever worth it. He almost did falter in his step, thank God for Jo, the moment he laid eyes on his angel. Cas looked like an angel. If Dean was suppose to be a Prince of Darkness, then Cas was a Prince of Heaven. His suit was solid white, elaborately embroidered designs on the jacket, fringe of the shoulders, and long coat tails in the back. It made the dark of his hair and the blue of his eyes stand out even more, and he honestly seemed to glow, to radiate, a smile breaking across his lips as soon as they finally, finally saw each other.
And Jo had been right. The moment he saw Cas, Dean was blind and deaf to everyone else but him. He was only vaguely aware of Jo kissing his cheek before she left his side, a beautiful Anna doing the same for Cas, locking her gaze with Dean’s in order give him a smile as she moved off to stand next to the blonde hunter.
When it was just them at the front now and the pastor began to speak, words washing nonsensically over Dean, the hunter took Cas’ hands in his as he let his gaze take in every detail of the angel’s face, so many things welling up in him until his eyes pricked painfully and he actually had to look down, focusing instead on their hands and trying to compose himself so he wouldn’t humiliate himself and cry.
Cas squeezed his hands, tentatively poking at their internal bond in worried question. Biting on his bottom lip, Dean took a shuddering breath, daring to chance glancing up to meet Cas’ gaze. Confusion colored the angel’s face, his head angling to the side only just slightly. Dean knew he had tears in his eyes.
“You look beautiful,” he mouthed, the corners of his mouth wobbling.
Part of him wanted to laugh at his word choice, but there was no better way to describe Cas’ appearance, because it was like falling in love all over again, and pride at the fact that not only did this perfect creature want Dean, but that he would belong to Dean for forever, as well.
‘I love you,’ he told Cas internally as he was forced to drop his gaze again, trusting himself a little more to voice his feelings that way rather than aloud. If he said it out loud, he knew he’d choke on the words, and that the tears threatening to fall probably would.
Cas’ thumbs stroked the backs of Dean’s fingers, feelings that rivaled his pouring off the angel. ‘I love you, too.’
He realized that the preacher was speaking directly to them then, asking if they had prepared any special vows. Dean hadn’t, neither of them had, just the basic ‘I do’s was all they wanted. Dean wasn’t eloquent or flowery. Sam was the girl, not Dean Winchester.
“Uh, yeah,” he heard himself saying; Cas’ eyebrows shot up infinitesimally in surprise. “I want to…” He faltered awkwardly, and the older man gave him a nod to continue. The hunter swallowed thickly, looking down at their clasped hands, then up at Cas, the angel regarding him with curiosity, his head angled just slightly. The angel squeezed his hands encouragingly, and it was just them again. Just him and Cas.
“Once, you came to me and asked me to swear a vow to Heaven, to put my faith in angels and a plan I wanted nothing to do with, to obey your siblings when I didn’t trust them any further than I could throw them.” His tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip. “But I trusted you. I trusted you and I took the vow, but when I took it, when I said the words, I wasn’t really swearing my allegiance to Heaven, to your brothers, or to their plan. I was swearing my allegiance to you. Though I would go along with their plan, I was trusting you to be there if it all went south- when it would inevitably go south. I put my faith in you, because from the moment I met you…”
He shook his head. “You and I somehow became a pair. We didn’t even like or trust each other at first, but it was like some inevitable fall. You, who I should have been the most unwilling to trust, because you were one of the enemy really. An angel, just like all your siblings that simply saw us as tools in their war. You weren’t family. You weren’t a hunter. But you became one of my own, and before I knew it, I trusted you even when I knew I couldn’t trust or rely on anyone else, trusted you more than I trusted anyone else, even when you didn’t have faith in yourself, I did, because… because the best part of me was always you.”
He watched as Cas had to swallow thickly, his eyes bright, and Dean wondered if the angel wasn’t very close to tearing up himself.
He continued, “But I want to be there for you now. As much as I’ve always relied on you, I want you to know I’d give anything to keep you safe, to keep you with me. As willing as I was to sell my soul to save my brother, know I would do so much more in order to save you. They gave me a year for the exchange, but I’d give it up again in an instant for nothing in return other than your own safety. I’d swear a vow to Heaven and follow every order without question for all eternity if I had to. I’d crawl the earth or take on an apocalypse single-handedly to keep you safe, because without you in my life,” He shook his head, “It would be no life at all.”
A soft, wet chuckle escaped Cas, his hands squeezing Dean’s tightly as he looked down and then at the man marrying them.
“May I kiss him now?” he questioned simply, causing Dean to chuckle, swallowing back the own welling of tears inside him.
The elder man looked at Dean. “Do you take this angel, and all that entails, as your own? To love and cherish, through sickness and health, through good times and bad, for as long as you both shall live?”
Dean smiled at Cas, just the curling up of the corner of his mouth. “I do.”
The man’s gaze swept to Cas, repeating the question in regards to the hunter. The angel’s thumbs swept gently over Dean’s fingers again.
“I do.”
“Then by the power invested in me, I know pronounce you married.” His gaze slid to Dean, who was waiting anxiously for the signal. The elder man winked. “You may now kiss the angel.”
Dean did, grinning as one hand slid up and into Cas’ hair as he pulled the angel toward him, their mouths finding each other’s easily, Castiel’s hands on his hips, fingers digging in like he didn’t want to let go, like this chaste touch wasn’t enough and he wanted so badly to just throw his arms around the hunter as their mouths moved against each others. Cheers and applause erupted loudly from the audience, breaking the couple away with a laugh to find everyone in attendance on their feet and cheering for them.
Ellen’s eyes were bright and red rimmed, and if anyone asked, no, she did not cry at the wedding. But Jo, who had been watching from the stage, knew that was a lie. Jo and Anna both knew that, well, there pretty much hadn’t been a dry eye in the house when Dean gave his impromptu speech to Castiel. Not even Sam, the big girl that he was. Jesus, Dean might as well have been the one wearing white after that speech.
Except of course, he was too tainted to wear solid white, but he’d come to terms with that a long time ago. And Cas looked better in it, anyway.
The rest of the day was pretty much a happy blur. Smiles and laughter and talk and jokes and fun. The reception was outside under a huge white tent that hadn’t been set up before the wedding ceremony, and Dean wasn’t sure how they got it all up and ready during the short time slot, but there it was nonetheless. It was fun. More than Dean ever would have thought possible. Unorthodox as hell, as well. Since Dean and Sam were orphans, and Cas was an angel, rather and than apparent-child dance, there was a sibling dance. Er, dances. Cas and all of his siblings went first, actually. That was a more tradition dance, because they all took a turn spinning on the dance floor, all lining the edge of the floor until they stepped forward and the sibling before them spun Cas and handed him off, and it was in no way serious at all, but more fun, some more wistful in the dance than others that clearly had fun spinning their brother around the floor and then out, Cas actually grinning and laughing.
Sam and Dean, of course, couldn’t let that pass and couldn’t be out done. They stood on opposite sides of the dance floor, meeting a few feet apart and bowing to the other, before coming together in the tradition stance for a slow dance, both with serious expressions while waiting for the music to start. They waited for a moment for the soft music to really strike up, soft instrumentals and violins giving way to rock music, before jumping away from each other and jamming out, causing all their friends and family to burst out laughing and clapping.
Who ever said the Winchesters’ didn’t know how to have fun?
Years later they would still have their wedding album out, almost bursting with all the photos of the day. Sam and Dean taking turns dancing with Jo on the floor, the closest thing to a sister as they’d ever had, and of course, both of them dancing with Ellen who’d become a surrogate mother to both boys. There were pictures of the only near violent moment to have taken place at the reception, when a caterer had gotten Lucifer’s food order wrong and then had been less than groveling about it and Meg had nearly launched herself at the disrespectful worm, her high heels and slinky gown be damned. In the picture, Lucifer has an arm looped around her waist, one hand grasping her elbow as he physically restrained her, and her feet weren’t even on the floor as she fought to get loose, swearing and threatening in a demonic dialect Dean had forgotten he knew until he heard it and laughed, causing Sam to look at him in surprise. In the next photo, Lucifer and Meg are dancing and kissing on the dance floor, humans and angels around them, dancing as well.
Much, much later, Gabriel magicked one of those giant inflatable water slides, and being the mature adults that they were, on Dean’s wedding day none the less, Sam and Dean were racing and shoving each other to try and be the first to the top and then down. They ended up grappling and coming down the slide together, Savvy laughing and taking their picture when they landed in a ‘sploosh’ of water and spray, both choking on water and laughing. If Dean had thought Gabriel was gutsy, or that angel’s thought themselves too good to have very basic fun with a bunch of humans, he was wrong. Balthazar came up behind Meg, wrapping his arms around her and appearing at the top of the inflatable to drop her unceremoniously onto the slide, an indignant shriek escaping her as she hit the cold water.
There’s also a picture of Lucifer with a dumped bucket of water on his head and smug, albeit, drenched Meg, standing with her arms crossed next to him. He’d kinda asked for it by nearly falling out of his chair laughing at Balthazar’s antics, at the sight of Meg rising out of the water looking like a drench cat.
It had been a long road to get there, none of them ever having fathomed it would end the way it did, that enemies would become friends and family. Until then, Dean never knew any of them could smile so much, a day so filled with joy, seemingly the beginning in a tradition of days of smiling.
Sam and Sarah’s wedding was another day of smiling till their faces hurt, and yet none of them could seem to stop. Bobby marrying Jody was another such day. Sarah and Sam’s first child being born…
Where their memories had once been so full of pain and grief and fighting and anguish, now they had mantles and refrigerators overflowing with pictures and memories of smiles and laughter and lives so happy they would never thought themselves capable of it, would have never dared wish for it because they knew they couldn’t handle the heartbreak of not ever obtaining it.
Dean would die before admitting it, but as he looked around at his family, one arm curled around Cas, he figured that, well, if happy endings really existed, he’d finally gotten his. Not perfect, never perfect, but happy was better than perfect. Better yet, it was his, and well, that was worth the path they’d chosen that finally led them to it, and he’d do it all again, a million times over, so long as it still brought him to this same blissfully happy place.
THE END
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-25 04:39 am (UTC)This is gorgeous, of course, so easy to see Misha in white. All the things Dean is willing to do to keep Cas safe, swooons, so tender. Dean's vows made me cry (wicked writer) hard core crying from sheer love and beauty! Its so joyfoul to see these boys get their well-deserved happiness and love.
This is just beauttiful, I am so impressed, I adore it!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-27 07:00 pm (UTC)