snippet
... from the WIP that I'm working on, faintly edited to remove any broader clues as to plot and setting.
“I think Dean is falling in love with me,” Castiel confessed.
The fire was burning low, and it was almost midnight by the stars; but everybody was restless and nobody was much inclined to sleep.
Balthazar squinted at him, and flicked fish guts into the fire with the tip of his knife. “So you haven’t lost your touch. How shockingly unremarkable.”
Castiel glared at him.
“I thought you were angling for just this. Infatuation, reverence, adoration, the dreamier the better.”
“It isn’t better for Dean.”
“You, my lad,” Balthazar declared, “are becoming soppy. If you’re leading him by the nose, or whatever part of him you’ve got your delicate little claws into, it’s all to his own good in the end. After all, he’ll be keeping the throne.”
There was a hard edge underneath that, and Castiel pursued it ruthlessly. “We will leave, Balthazar. Sooner or later, we will return home, and he’ll be left here.”
“Cassie, darling,” Balthazar said, and he laughed. “You’ve never worried about leaving broken hearts before. What makes this boy so special?”
“The land depends on Dean,” Castiel replied at once. “I can’t leave him bitter.”
Balthazar took on his sage look. “When one is in love one begins by deceiving others and ends by deceiving oneself. That is what the world calls a romance.”
“Go away, Balthazar.”
