Moving On (Destiel)

20: cringiness what's that

The magic didn't last forever though. Dean had gone on with two more fairytales, but eventually, his voice broke, and he cleared his throat after he finished the fairytale about a frog that convinced a girl to kiss it.

Cas hadn't realized how close they were. He had sat next to Dean when he started telling the fairytales, but now they were almost cuddling. Well, almost.

Dean moved away now that the deep mood was broken, and yawned, stretching his arms.

"Did you know that snails reproduce by puking up eggs, Dean?", Cas blurted out of the sudden but sounded so casually like only Cas can.

Dean stopped halfway with his arms and burst out laughing. "What the hell, Cas."

"It's true," Cas nodded eagerly. "A study has proven, for snails to procreate, they bury their way into the soil and then they return the nutrients accumulated in their bodies over time by giving them directly back to the earth, adding to it the eggs contained in their digested remains for reproduction."

Dean gave him a blank look, then shook his head in amusement. "I'm not even going to question this one."

"If you have any questions, Dean, you can ask me," Cas said, filled by the sudden scare that Dean felt too uncomfortable to ask certain questions. "Whatever you want."

"Yes, I- I know that," Dean replied, sounding uncertain. "Just... forget it. Let's talk about something else."

"If you wish not to talk about snails anymore, I will comply to that. I'm sorry if I might have upset you with bringing up the subject." Cas frowned.

Dean frowned too. "No, it's fine. I- it doesn't trigger me to talk... to talk about snails, Cas. We just... kinda misunderstood each other? I wanted to change the subject to avoid awkwardness."

The awkwardness that was now as present as the gayness. 

Of course it was; Cas was there, after all.

"I'm sorry for having you confused," Cas said, now being confused himself.

"Don't apologize, Cas!", Dean laughed, but it was awkward. He scratched his head again. "You didn't confuse me..."

"Then... sorry for... being confused by what you said earlier?", Cas offered, but he was too confused now to understand anything anymore. What was life.

"Don't... Please stop apologizing, Cas. You didn't do anything wrong, okay?"

"Okay...?" Cas begged his mouth to close and stay shut. Everything coming out of it was just making it worse. "Sorry?"

Dean just stared at him. "I actually want you to mean that game now, so I don't get mad because you keep apologizing for literally nothing."

"I didn't mean the game, but if you want to, of course I will go get it – I didn't mean to provoke you, so I'm just rolling with your excuse."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Stay seated, I won't play 'sorry' with you. And just... I hate it when people take so much weight on their shoulders by feeling they didn't do enough. By giving themselves the fault. And I especially don't want you to take any fault when there is nothing wrong, when there is no fault for anything, as there ISN'T anything."

Cas opened his mouth but closed it again immediately. He felt like he weren't going anywhere with this besides making it somehow worse. "Let's change the subject," he decided, and Dean breathed out in relief. "Whatcha wanna talk about?"

Cas hesitated. That was the problem with awkward silences. You never knew what to say afterwards, and if you try to think of a topic to talk about, you becomejust as uncreative af.