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Dean couldn’t believe that Sam had managed to rope him into this. Under normal circumstances, it would take a lot of actual rope, and possibly a pair of handcuffs, and a straitjacket, to get him this high up in the air.
As it was, all it had taken was a sponsorship form and some gleefully generous friends, who had all agreed to give large amounts to Dean’s charity, the Impala House, if he jumped out of a plane. Dean had tried to convince himself to back away, but the House was getting more and more full up with kids from every walk of life, turning up on their doorstep needing a home. With the sponsorship money, Dean would be able to pay for an extension on the House, and new beds, and extra blankets for the coming winter. Maybe there’d even be enough left to hire a bus and book a hotel somewhere, take the kids on a little holiday. This money would be the best thing that had happened to Dean since he started the Impala House five years ago – he just had to fall eleven thousand feet through the air, first.
It’ll be fine, he thought. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.
The plane was juddering slightly in the wind. Dean shut his eyes tight and clenched his hands into fists, making a little whining noise in the back of his throat that he swiftly turned into humming a song when he remembered who was sitting behind him.
He jumped a little as he felt a hand lightly grasp his shoulder, reaching from behind. He opened his eyes and turned his head, looking back at the man behind him.
“Are you humming?” asked Castiel, his diving instructor.
“Metallica,” replied Dean, speaking around the lump of nerves in his throat and hearing his voice come out unnaturally high. He was silently grateful that they were the only two people in the plane, and no one else had heard that.
“Ahh, is he scared?” came a voice from behind Castiel, shouting to be heard over the roar of the plane. Dean leaned back and caught sight of the plane’s pilot; from what he could make out of the man’s profile, he was grinning widely.
“Ignore Gabriel,” Castiel said firmly. “It’s normal to be nervous, but it’s going to be perfectly OK.”
“You’re lucky, boy,” Dean heard Gabriel shout. “You’re skydiving with the Angel, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“The Angel?” Dean said, and Castiel rolled his eyes.
“It’s what they call me,” he explained. “Because I make a lot of smooth landings.”
“That’s reassuring,” Dean said, trying for a grin. He was pretty sure that it ended up as more of a grimace, but Castiel responded anyway, a little smile curving up the corners of his full lips. For a moment, Dean’s heart forgot that it was racing because he was thousands of feet above the ground, and started racing for quite a different reason. The guy was seriously good-looking, and Dean found himself wishing that he was back on solid ground. In a bar, he’d be smooth-talking this guy all the way to a dinner date. Or at least, blushing and stammering his way through an invitation to a dinner date, which the guy might possibly accept. Maybe. Probably not.
Perhaps it was a good thing that Dean’s mouth was too dry to do much talking, after all.
“I’m glad,” Castiel said, his eyes bright and fixed on Dean’s. ‘Angel’ suited his diving instructor in more ways than one, Dean thought; embarrassing himself horribly whilst asking him out might have been worth it, for the chance to spend an evening looking into those startling blues. He realised that he was staring, and quickly turned back around to face the front.
“Reaching ten thou’!” Dean heard Gabriel shout, and then Castiel’s hands were on his hips, and their bodies were pressed up close.
“I’m securing us together with the straps on your harness,” Castiel said, his voice low and calming. Dean’s back was pressed against his chest, and he was a warm, solid weight. Dean hoped that Castiel couldn’t feel his heartbeat, pumping loud and almost painfully fast. “I apologise if the proximity makes you uncomfortable.”
“Touched by an Angel,” Dean joked half-heartedly, trying to stop his fingers shaking. Castiel fastened their shoulder straps together, and then leaned forwards against Dean.
“Move forwards,” he instructed. “Towards the end of the bench.”
“Eleven thousand AGL!” Dean heard Gabriel shout. “Nearly there!”
Dean was sitting at the end of the bench. The door was still closed, but he could hear the sound of the wind rushing past the plane, and the sick, nervous feeling in his stomach intensified. A pair of goggles appeared over his shoulder.
“Put these on,” Castiel said. “Or you won’t be able to see anything.”
“Not sure I mind,” Dean called back over his shoulder, but he pulled the goggles on over his head anyway. Castiel gave his shoulder a little reassuring squeeze, and suddenly somehow Dean’s roiling stomach managed to make space for a few butterflies, on top of everything else.
“We’re good to go!” Gabriel called. Castiel leaned forwards, bending Dean’s body with him, and hooked his fingers under the bar at the bottom of the door. He pulled, and the door slid up neatly – and there was the ground, laid out beneath them like scruffy sketchwork, the details tiny and blurred at this height. Dean fought back the urge to be sick.
“If I die,” he said, “I want Led Zeppelin played at my funeral, OK?”
“If you die,” Castiel replied gravely, “then I will probably die too.”
There was a pause, in which the noise of the wind was the only sound. Then –
“Not because I can’t live without you,” Cas added. “But because a fatal fall will kill us both.”
“Yeah, thanks, man,” Dean squeaked. “I got it.”
“Ready to go in three – two – one,” Castiel said, and before Dean could protest, before he could offer up resistance or a prayer or any better last words, Castiel pushed them both out of the plane.
Dean felt the wind tearing at his face, his hair, his whole body, pushing and pulling at his limbs. He felt tiny and utterly powerless, his own yells barely a whisper over the roar of the air rushing past him. His muscles seemed to have seized and frozen with fear, his eyes were squeezed shut behind his goggles, his stomach was roiling and heaving with every brutal twist –
And then, quite suddenly, everything seemed to even out. The wind was still a howl in his ears, but he wasn’t being tossed around like a ragdoll anymore but instead falling flat, the air pushing up against his front. He chanced opening his eyes, and then quickly snapped them shut again. The ground was so far away, and there was nothing in between him and it, and he was falling directly towards it, and the only thing that could possibly keep him alive in this situation were the straps attached to his shoulders and hips –
“I’m going to undo the straps between our shoulders, now that the ‘chute is up,” Dean heard Castiel say. “To put less strain on them.”
Dean made a kind of squeaking noise and tried to turn round to face the diving instructor, but it was impossible.
“You’re untying us?!” he shouted, hoping that Castiel could hear him. He felt a reassuring hand squeeze his shoulder.
“Only at the shoulders,” Castiel replied. “Our hips straps will remain fastened. This may be a little uncomfortable for you, but it is safer.”
Dean didn’t have time to protest further; Castiel quickly unclipped the straps joining their shoulders together. Dean felt the pressure from the straps around his hips increase considerably; when he tried to let out a manly grunt of pain, it came out as more of a high-pitched whimper.
“Is that alright?” Castiel said, his hand back on Dean’s shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Dean called back. “I didn’t want to have kids, anyway.”
He heard Castiel laugh. The sound uncoiled his fear a little, though not enough for him to risk opening his eyes again. He concentrated on breathing, in and out, as smoothly as he could, trying not to gasp and clutch at the air whipping over his face. After a few seconds, he heard Castiel speak again.
“It’s very beautiful, don’t you think?”
Dean swallowed automatically, though his throat was still so dry that it was pointless.
“Oh, yeah,” he called back, eyes pressed tight shut. “It’s beautiful. Most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I love it.”
There was a long pause.
“You have your eyes closed, don’t you,” said Castiel.
“…no,” Dean said, opening his eyes the tiniest amount as he said it, so that it wasn’t technically a lie. The faint blur of far-off land that he saw through the crack in his eyelids made his stomach turn.
“I would suggest that you do open them. It’s a stunning view today.”
“Yeah, I appreciate the thought, man,” Dean said, “but I’m just gonna cruise back down to the ground and then collect my money afterwards, thanks.”
“Money?”
“That’s right. I’m not here for the scenery, I’m here for the cash.”
“I see,” Dean heard Castiel say, his tone slightly colder than it had been before. “Some kind of bet?”
Dean knew exactly what Castiel was thinking; that he was just another rich guy who’d bet his rich friends that he had the balls to jump out of a plane, and that when this was over he’d collect his winnings and blow it on a new car or a new boat or a new plane. Actually, given his performance today, Castiel probably didn’t think Dean would spend it on a plane.
“Sponsorship,” Dean corrected, feeling a little twinge of triumph at subverting Castiel’s expectations. “I run a charity, and people have been sponsoring me to do this jump.”
“Oh,” replied Castiel, his surprise reflected in his tone. Ha, thought Dean. Not the shell of a man you thought I was. “What kind of charity?”
“It’s an orphanage,” Dean said. “The Impala House, home for any kid, no matter the background. We’ll take ‘em in, clean ‘em up, maybe give ‘em something to look forward to. A future, I guess.” The straps around Dean’s hips were digging in worse and worse, but talking with Cas was distracting him from the discomfort a little.
“That’s wonderful,” Castiel said. Dean had heard this reaction many times, usually a platitude in the mouths of the superficially impressed, but Castiel’s voice seemed to suggest something that went deeper, a genuine wonder. Dean scrunched his eyes up a little tighter and was glad that Castiel couldn’t see his face, because he was blushing.
“Yeah, well, it’s not enough, but it’s something. And it’s gonna be something more after I’ve done this.”
“Do the children know that you’re making the jump?” Castiel asked.
“Yeah,” Dean replied, smiling a little at the thought of the kids this morning, most of them yelling at him to be careful, and a couple telling him they’d planned his funeral weeks ago when he took away their TV privileges for trying to set fire to a tree in the yard, so he shouldn’t worry as he was falling to his death. “Yeah, they’re gonna be waiting to hear all about it.”
“Are you going to tell them that you had your eyes shut the entire time, or will you lie to them?” Castiel asked.
Dean went quiet. He hadn’t thought of the kids’ reactions. He was pretty hopeless at lying to them, if he was honest; it just didn’t sit right, so he usually fluffed an answer and got caught on purpose. He could just imagine their faces when they learned that he hadn’t looked at the ground once, the whole way down. He wouldn’t live it down for weeks.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean said. “I’m gonna have to open my eyes.”
Castiel didn’t reply, which was probably for the best; if he’d expressed any kind of triumph or vindication, Dean might have decided to keep his eyes closed purely to defy him. As it was, he tried to psych himself up for it. I will not be sick, he thought. I will not be sick.
“Don’t be sick,” Castiel said, as though reading his mind. “The difference in the velocity of our fall versus the fall of the vomit would result in it hitting you in the face.”
“Right,” Dean said, swallowing hard and feeling his nausea increase. “Delightful.”
He took a few deep breaths, trying to work up the courage to open his eyes, but his bravery levels stayed resolutely low. After all, if he didn’t open his eyes, he could convince himself that he was just strapped to the ceiling by his hips, being blown in the face with a very powerful hairdryer. A strange image, but a more comfortable one than being thousands of feet up in the air with only a thin strip of material saving him from certain splatteration.
“Is splatteration a word?” Dean called.
“No,” Castiel replied. “Maybe it would help if you did a count down?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Yeah, OK. Good idea.”
“Start from three,” Castiel suggested.
“Three, are you crazy?” Dean squeaked. “I mean, uh, I need time to – to adjust to the idea, you know, think it through, build up to the… transcendence… of this, uh, this life-changing moment, this great, big, huge, incredible –”
“Dean, you’re stalling.”
“Right, okay. Alright, from five.”
Dean sucked in a deep breath, and then let it go.
“Five,” he said. “Four. Three.” Where were the numbers going? He needed to slow down.
“… two,” he said, drawing it out. “One.”
Last moment. Burning stomach. Brain in a panic.
“Zero.”
There was a long silence.
“… Dean?”
“Minus one. Minus two. Minus three…”
“Dean.”
“OK, OK, that time didn’t work. I’ll do it again, and I’ll actually open my eyes this time, I swear.”
“We’ll reach the ground before you open them,” Castiel said, but he sounded amused, a little hint of warmth hiding behind the corners of his flat monotone.
“This is hard, alright? I’m – I’m scared,” Dean said, feeling like a defensive seven-year-old as he said it. “But I can do it,” he added, his tone a little too aggressive this time. Damn, he was behaving like one of his own kids back at the House. Not attractive at all.
Castiel’s mind seemed to be running along the same lines.
“If one of your kids was scared of doing something like this, what would you tell them?” he asked.
Dean thought about it. The plain fact was that opening his eyes wouldn’t make what he was doing any more dangerous; he was being irrational, like when one of the kids had a nightmare last week and wouldn’t come out from under the bed.
“I’d tell them to just do it,” he said. “No count downs, no waiting until the moment is right. Save being scared for after, and just get on and do it.”
“That sounds like good advice, Dean.”
Dean agreed. It was very good advice. It was also very difficult advice to take. Next time Rory had a nightmare and was hiding under the bed, he was going to be a lot more understanding.
“Are your eyes open?” Castiel said. Dean took a deep breath, gritted his teeth tightly together, packed away the shudderings of fear running down his back.
“Yes,” he said, and he opened his eyes.
The ground was laid out below him like a rich, textured carpet, a thickly-woven tapestry, so much more vast and strange and beautiful than Dean had expected; he felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of the sun-stroked, shadow-strewn fields. On the ground, they were just wheat and water and dirt, but from above, they were endeavour and engineering and seemingly endless; they were golden promises for tomorrow’s food, for the future. Maybe in a few months, the wheat in those fields would be feeding him, and the kids at the House, all the people he knew – and all the people he hadn’t met yet, people who he was going to meet one day. Maybe tonight he’d eat a sandwich made from wheat, and somewhere in the city, the person he was one day going to marry would also be eating a sandwich made from wheat grown right next to the wheat used to make his own sandwich. That idea felt very strange and big and confusing. And a little exciting. A little hopeful.
Dean caught sight of a tiny car, smaller than an ant, moving along a grey string road. The sight made his stomach twist again, but he kept his eyes open.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Castiel said, and Dean nodded.
“It’s something,” he replied quietly, too quietly to be heard, so he spoke up when he added, “does every thought feel so big up here?”
It was a weird question, and Dean expected Cas not to answer, or to say that he didn’t understand – but he replied at once, as though he knew exactly what Dean meant.
“Yes,” he said.
“I was just thinking about sandwiches, and it turned into some weird Cat’s Cradle kinda crap.”
“It’s the height, and the space. It is very difficult to think small things up here. Every thought becomes great and wonderful.”
Dean considered this.
He tried to think of something small and everyday. I need to get some potato chips for the kids, he tried. They were running out of snack food. He did his best to give the kids hearty meals, full of vitamins and all the food groups – he’d done his research – but nothing made the kids happier than bringing out a big variety pack of chips and letting them choose their favourite flavour. The way their faces lit up was a kind of magic – especially when it happened for the first time, when a child had just arrived at the House and couldn’t quite believe that they were allowed to pick any flavour, yes, any flavour, even Smoky Bacon, the choice is yours… it was as though Dean were offering them superpowers, not snacks. But in a way, he thought, weren’t they the same thing, here? He was giving them the power of choice, a power that they’d been missing, that the world had unthinkingly taken from them. None of them had chosen to be homeless, or helpless, or lost. And when they came to the Impala House, none of them thought that they had any power to choose different circumstances. But day by day, with tiny, everyday occurrences and little decisions, Dean gave them back their power to choose.
“What are you thinking?” Castiel asked.
“I’m gonna save the world,” Dean replied. “With potato chips.”
“That sounds like a very noble calling,” Castiel responded gravely, not missing a beat. Dean grinned, and realised that he’d been looking down at the ground for ages without even noticing. He quickly logged away a few details to tell the kids – the tiny trees, the bug-like cars, the way the tall buildings of the city not too far away looked like playthings.
Dean and Castiel fell down towards the ground in silence, letting the wind talk for them, filling the silence. Dean was mostly wrapped in his thoughts, but every now and then he heard Castiel cough, or felt him move, and was reminded that he wasn’t alone in the sky. He had great eyes, Dean thought. And a good – a good brain. Dean wondered what Castiel would think of the Impala House, if he came to visit. He wondered whether he’d be good with the kids. He wondered whether Castiel liked music, or books, or art, or cars, and if he had reasons, or just found that liking them made him happy. He wondered if Castiel liked dinner. He wondered if Castiel liked him. He wondered if Castiel could be persuaded to like both dinner and him at the same time.
Suddenly, the wind didn’t feel big enough to fill the stillness between them. The silence was like the yawing mouth of a baby bird, begging to be filled with the question on Dean’s mind. Ask, it seemed to say. Ask, ask, ask!
What the hell, Dean thought. I managed to jump out a plane. Asking a guy out on a date is simple. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, as the kids say. Easy as pie. Easy as opening your eyes.
The moment didn’t feel right; Dean didn’t think he’d ever come across a moment that did feel right for anything. Moments weren’t right, they just were; and right now, the moments were slipping away, moving past him as he stayed silent and a little scared –
Save being scared for after, Dean thought, and opened his mouth.
“Castiel,” he said, making sure to speak loud enough to be heard. “Do you – would you like to go to dinner?”
There was a little pause, in which Dean swore he could hear each individual wingbeat of the butterflies in his stomach.
“Yes, Dean,” Castiel said, and Dean could hear the smile in his voice. “I would.”
Dean felt as though he’d jumped out of a plane all over again, with a whole vast landscape of wide possibility suddenly thrown open beneath him.
“With me?” he clarified, just in case it hadn’t been clear. “Like a date?”
“With you,” Castiel confirmed solemnly. “Like a date.”
Dean found himself grinning, so hard that it almost hurt.
“Tonight?”
“That sounds excellent.”
The next few minutes were mostly spent thinking about Castiel’s voice, and trying to stop smiling. The fields beneath him were very much closer now, and the roads and trees more defined.
“Ready to land us, Angel?” Dean said, and felt Castiel chuckle.
“Ready,” he said. The ground moved nearer more quickly than Dean was expecting, as though it were rising up to meet them, like the arms of a relieved mother reaching to pull her boys back home.
“Brace yourself,” Castiel said, and Dean clenched his hands into fists, remembering to keep the rest of his body as loose as possible as they came within fifty feet of the ground, then thirty, twenty, ten –
They landed as softly and sweetly as if they’d just stepped off a bus. Castiel immediately started to pull at the straps between them, whilst Dean wobbled slightly and then collapsed to his knees.
“That was one of my best landings,” Castiel said, from above him. “I hope you appreciated it.”
“Show-off,” Dean muttered, reaching out and burying his hands in the soft, dry, slightly yellowing grass of the field where they’d landed. He was vaguely aware of other people moving around them, calling to each other and laughing. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Castiel reaching down a hand, ready to help him up. He looked at it for a moment, seeing the little lines on the skin, tiny as the roads had seemed from up in the sky. Dean thought that Castiel was a world, with little parts making up the whole.
He put his hand in Castiel’s, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
“Any preferences for dinner tonight?” he asked, as they began to make their way towards the edge of the field.
“Sandwiches,” said Castiel, after a moment. “And potato chips.”
Dean grinned. As they moved, he reached out his hand, and tentatively brushed the backs of his fingers against Castiel’s. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean thought he saw Castiel smile, felt him press back against his hand. They walked together, side-by-side, with their fingers reaching, touching – not quite interlocking, but rather exploring, figuring out the best way to tessellate. It felt natural, and simple, and small, and huge.
Easy, thought Dean. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.