Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The train moved through the night, its lonely whistle blowing.

In the heat, Dean Winchester stared out at it, snaking black iron in the moonlight.

He smoked a cigarette contemplatively, then dropped it into the cup of forgotten, cold coffee.

There were cracks in the walls. An occasional ant or roach would zip in and out of the cracks while Dean watched.

“No fear, huh,” he commented quietly, but there was no one to hear him.

Sam was asleep in the other bed, snoring softly.

Nights like these, in little Midwestern towns like this, Dean wondered about their lives. Unremarked and forgotten despite their actions.

Nobody would ever know how many times they saved the world.

It made Dean wonder just how many of them were out there, fighting the good fight. How many names and faces Dean himself would never know, who had contributed just as much but were just as forgotten.

Tomorrow, he knew, they’d be moving on.

Hopefully to a nicer motel than this one, but he never held high hopes when it came to their lodging situations.

The worse the motel, the more likely they flew under the radar. And that was getting harder and harder these days. Everyone was tracked, everywhere they went.

Dean liked the anonymity of fake names on credit cards, but preferred cash. There were cameras everywhere these days and he figured it was only a matter of time before they got rumbled.

Hard enough, fighting monsters – a thankless job without pay or benefits or even long enough to form lasting friendships, to find a home.

Dean had longed for home longer than he could remember, but he often wondered if it was a lie. Much like how his mother had turned out not to be what he’d imagined.

Dreams die fast and hard on the road no matter the intention of the dreamer.

And, late at night like this, in the summer heat like this, as alone as he was likely to get, Dean thought of the most singular thing in his life.

He only dared, when it was likely that he would never be caught dreaming.

Those dreams that remained intact were his most precious possession.

And so, in the moonlight, he dreamed of Castiel –

his most private secret, his hidden desire.

He had long since stopped lying to himself about it.

About the way he felt, about the way the angel made him feel –

like lightning, it could strike anywhere, like there was a possibility, as long as he kept his damn fool mouth shut –

because it was his most cherished of secret dreams, and he knew what happened to dreams if he were stupid enough to voice them.

But here, in the privacy of his own mind, he dreamed.

Of himself, of Castiel, of lovemaking and of warm domestic bliss.

Of shared Christmases, of cooking together, of all those many different worlds in which they were not what they were, but had the freedom to choose, and the freedom to choose each other.

Dean knew, in his heart, that Castiel was an angel, and so could never feel as he felt. That his own feelings were some of the most foolish he had ever entertained. But Dean was a man of the road, and as such, not one to give much notice to the usual strict delineations between gay, straight, bisexual, gender essentialism or otherwise. Despite his cavalier attitude and somewhat old-fashioned sense of humor, any drifter knew that all these things were societal labels and therefore relatively meaningless.

Falling for an angel, now that was so unique and strange that Dean knew with certainty nobody had come up with a label for it yet.

Because it’s fucking stupid, he reminded himself, because he doesn’t have the equipment to care.

Nevertheless, no matter how many times he told himself, no matter how viciously he reminded himself this was unutterably stupid behavior, something Sam once said to him reverberated through his mind:

The heart wants what the heart wants

The heart has its reasons, that reason cannot know.

And so Dean stared out, in the hot Midwestern night, and he selfishly dreamed of an angel, his thoughts filled with a bitter longing like the taste of coffee and cigarettes still on his tongue.

Chapter Text

“This charger cable ain’t workin’.”

Sam emerged from the tiny bathroom, toweling off his hair.

“We can pick one up on our way out of Lilliput,” said Sam. “Seriously why is everything here so damned tiny?”

“Ain’t their fault you’re a giant,” said Dean.

“I mean, okay, but the shower head is at like 4 feet!”

“People used to be shorter, I guess.”

“They didn’t build the motel in 1643, Dean.”

“Wow, that’s…incredibly specific.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just head out.”

“This place gettin’ to you, Sam?”

“Small towns always do.”

“What do you mean? We spend all our time in podunk towns all over the States.”

Sam sighed. He gripped the white towel over his shoulder and stared out the window.

Dean wasn’t sure what he was looking at. All there was out there was a parking lot with faded white signage from better days.

“I’m not sure,” Sam said slowly. “This place just gives me the creeps.”

Dean had to send him a rueful grin at that.

“Gives you the creeps, huh?” he said. “A hunter with the creeps. Imagine that.”

***

Later, with the Impala idling outside a store that read ELECTRONICS in big, faded letters, Dean said:

“Maybe that creeps feeling wasn’t so weird after all.”

“Red flags when a hunter gets them, that’s for sure.”

The place was entirely windowed, and the windows had been blacked out.

There were two doors – one in, one out. Beyond the first, in the darkened store, it said ENTRANCE on what looked like a rainbow Lite-Brite toy.

The entire parking lot was empty, save for the Impala.

“You wanna go in there?”

“Not really.”

“How bad do we need this charger cable?”

“You want me to do research on the go, it’s gotta get power from somewhere, and the battery won’t last forever.”

“Now that you mention it, how the hell do you get internet while we’re on the road, on your computer?” Dean asked.

“Dean.”

“Right. Cable. Uh. You wanna be the human sacrifice or should I?”

“I thought where we go, we go together.”

“Okay but I don’t think willingly walking into a hellmouth is the wisest course of action, dude.”

“Nice Buffy reference.”

“Will you – just get out of the car?”

Dean and Sam slammed the doors simultaneously as they approached the store.

Inside, it was…

“Not what I expected,” Dean said.

Clean and cool, with a guy standing behind the counter, smiling at them. On the shelves were trophies made of heavy glass that proclaimed the store’s Best in Area! status, several years’ running.

“And what can I do for you gentlemen today?” asked the man, kindly and cheerful.

“Uh, do you have replacement chargers – ” Sam began, and then he was off to the races, discussing the best way to charge the computer using the cigarette lighter or whatever the fuck.

Dean examined some of the items in the store. Interesting shit, the kind of crap he used to look at when it was Christmas at RadioShack and they had all the cool new tech toys before the world had irrevocably changed.

Back then, he remembered, the mall was magic.

“Can I interest you in anything, sir?” asked a voice at his shoulder.

Dean jumped a damned mile.

The store was shadowy enough that he hadn’t seen or heard the man approach him.

“I’m good,” he said. “Just along for the ride.”

“Well,” said the man, with a smile, “just keep in mind that we sell all kinds of things here. Whatever your pleasure, sir. Something for stamina? A good luck charm?”

The man’s eyes seemed to sharpen like a knife.

“Love potion, perhaps?”

“Okay, I’m ready to go,” said Sam.

“Ten-four,” said Dean, and followed his brother out into the watery sunlight.

He kept looking back over his shoulder.

“There was something really fucking off about that guy,” Dean commented. “Creepy as hell.”

“Really?” asked Sam airily. “I didn’t notice. Sometimes the hunches are wrong.”

And sometimes they’re right, thought Dean.

Either way, he was thrilled to throw the car into drive and make tracks out of there.

Until he reached the city limit sign and was suddenly back on the main street of the town.

“I – ” Dean said, peering out of the windshield. “I must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

“Where?” asked Sam. “It was a straight shot out from the strip mall.”

Dean did not like where this was heading, but all he could do was try.

He went in the other direction.

They passed the city limit sign –

and found themselves back on the main street again.

“What the fuck,” said Dean, but in a resigned, this-is-our-lives kind of way.

“I don’t think the town wants us to leave,” said Sam.

“I see that.”

“What should we do?”

Please don’t ask me to pray to Cas, Dean privately hoped, although he knew it would be futile.

“Try praying to Cas?” asked Sam.

“Sam, he’s not like…a help-dispenser,” said Dean. “It’s not like we got our own personal angel on tap. He’s an – an only use in case of emergency, type thing. Like pulling the fire alarm.”

“I’d say this is an emergency.”

Dean grit his teeth.

“No. I ain’t callin’ him. Nothin’s happened yet! Gettin’ stuck in a town ain’t that big a deal. We can handle it.”

“Dean, we have no idea why – ”

“Will you can it, Sam? I ain’t callin’ him! We can figure it out on our own.”

“Fine,” said Sam, crossing his arms. “But if we’re stuck in this town, I’m not staying in that motel again. Find us something with human-sized beds and showers.”

“As if you’re human-sized,” muttered Dean. “Maybe it’s a good thing? Maybe they need our help.”

“Then why didn’t someone just ask?”

“I don’t know, Sam, I’m just spitballing here.”

“Whatever. We have to go somewhere, unless you want to keep driving in a circle.”

Dean sighed in that long-suffering way of older siblings everywhere, and chose the nearest diner to drown their sorrows in coffee and whipped cream pancakes, and maybe some answers.

Chapter Text

Cas had him taut as a bowstring.

Hard, dripping, Dean whined.

“Soon,” Castiel mouthed a dark laugh into his shoulder. “Oh, Dean. You look so good like this, stuffed full of my cock.”

Dean panted, and he begged.

"Please, Cas."

He felt so full, pinioned, held prisoner here in sweet surrender.

“Anything,” Dean breathed. “I’ll do anything for you, Cas. Anything you want. Fuck.”

“I know,” Castiel said, and suddenly moved in him, making Dean cry out. “And I, you, my love.”

Pathetic, humiliated, perfect, Dean came, without Castiel touching him at all.

***

“Auugh – ah – fuck!”

Dean woke himself up with his shouting, realizing he had been doing a hard, dirty grind against the mattress, desperate as his dream.

Too late, he understood that he had come hard.

“What? What is it?” Sam mumbled into his pillow, muzzy with sleep. “If it’s bedbugs, I am setting you on fire, then this room, and then myself.”

“No – no, it’s not bedbugs, just a – a nightmare,” said Dean, panting because he couldn’t really help it. “Go back to sleep, Sammy.”

“K,” said Sam, who rolled over. “But if there’s bedbugs and you’re lying to me – ”

“There’s no bedbugs, damn,” Dean said, rolling out of bed and scurrying into the shower.

He surreptitiously scratched at his neck and shoulders. Bedbugs were no joke to drifters and he definitely would’ve doused the room with kerosene (and himself). Cockroaches were gross and there was always the horror of getting one in the ear but bedbugs? Dean would take roaches over bedbugs. Hell, he would take demons over bedbugs, so he understood Sam’s half-awake terror.

He stared at himself in the crappy light of the mirror.

He was looking old, and more than a little frail, these days.

He’d taken to dying his hair. Not that he told Sam that – he pretended this was his natural color, and he’d matched it well enough. But he’d seen enough grays that vanity took over and he made sure Sam had been out when he’d done it.

How was he meant to impress an angel like this? As if Cas would ever look his way.

He thought of his dream and the hunger for it, the absolute need – he shuddered with the intensity of his desire, a want that had never been voiced, because –

well, just because.

Shame, fear, anger, don’t ever get too close.

But Dean wanted, and yearned, in a way that he’d never felt before. Tonight, it was stronger than ever.

Fuck. That dream was too real. Almost more real than reality.

Dean had sprung for a fancier place at Sam’s behest – what waste of money, Dean, it’s not even our money! The kind of place that actually provided toiletries. And the shower was one of those fancy waterfall rainforest things. Dean had to grudgingly admit that the good life wasn’t so bad, after all.

But hell. Trying to impress some high-class chick was hard enough.

How was Dean meant to impress an angel? Better not to even try.

Not to mention the intense guilt in him, that this particular angel was man-shaped.

But fuck, it had felt so fucking good.

Dean sighed at his reflection and shook his head.

Then he went about his business, cleaning up, and snapped the light off.

***

“This thing isn’t working.”

“What thing?”

“The charger we bought.”

“Oh.”

Dean felt a strange thought rise unbidden in him, something that had him phening like he was jonesing for a drug.

“Maybe we should go back to the store and see if you can exchange it.”

“I don’t know, man, this one was already crap.”

“Well, if you don’t want to waste money – ”

“There’s gotta be a mall around here somewhere, I’ll just – ”

“We have to go back to that store, Sam!”

The outburst startled Dean just as much as Sam.

“Dean,” said Sam quietly. “Is there something I should know?”

Yes! said Dean’s mind.

“No,” said Dean’s mouth. “I just think we ought to watch our money, you know, since we’re doin’ the big-spender thing here with this fancy hotel.”

“It’s barely even – okay, fine,” Sam sighed. “I don’t want to argue. But if I’m going to figure anything out I can’t have the laptop die on me. So let’s go.”

Dean had to keep himself from running to the car.

He knew something was hinky, but the urge within him whispered that it didn’t really matter.

***

They drove to the store in silence and found themselves, once again, in an empty parking lot.

“Hi,” said Sam, greeting the proprietor. “This isn’t working. I was wondering if I could exchange it.”

“Let’s see,” said the man, who took it from Sam and tried it out. “Oh, shoot. You’re absolutely right. My apologies, sir. We usually pride ourselves on the quality of our merchandise.”

This was ostensibly said to Sam, but the man was looking directly at Dean when he said it.

Then he slowly winked.

“Why don’t you take a look at these other options,” said the man, guiding Sam to a section filled with all kinds of chargers and plugs. “Take your pick, even if it’s more expensive than the one you bought. Free of charge.”

Sam’s entire attention was taken up with the options, and Dean finally sidled over to the man.

He felt lit from within, half-crazed.

His hands were shaking.

He grabbed the countertop to stop them, and to try calming himself down.

“Good to see you in here again,” said the man. “Is there something I might help you with?”

“I – I don’t know,” said Dean, his head swimming. “I don’t think even you can help me. If you even – if you’re. If.”

Dean felt sideways.

“That love potion I mentioned,” said the man casually, as if talking about the weather, “works on supernatural beings as well as people. You seem like a man with a particularly knotty problem. I’d like to help you out.”

“Wh – but why?” asked Dean, plaintive now.

He felt like he was looking at the man down a long, dark corridor.

“Call me a philanthropist,” he said. “Sometimes I like to do favors, just ‘cause.”

And, in his hand, Dean suddenly found a vial.

It was a light lavender-pink and sparkled, like nail polish he’d seen Lisa wear before.

“It’s yours, if you want it,” said the man.

Dean stared at it.

He swallowed.

He took a deep breath.

Then he pocketed it.

“Excellent choice, sir,” said the man, but again, as if talking to Sam, who had returned to the counter with his charger.

“It costs a lot more,” said Sam apologetically. “But it’s a good brand and I think it’ll last.”

“It’s on the house,” said the man.

“Wow, really? Thanks!” said Sam, all smiles.

“Let’s just say I threw it in,” said the man.

Sam gave him a strange look, a little puzzled, but thrilled enough with his nerd purchase that he didn’t question it too much.

As they walked outside into the late afternoon sunlight, Sam chattering away about the man’s generosity and his brand-new high-end charger, Dean felt the weight of the vial in his pocket like a living thing.

Chapter Text

Cas’s voice was soft and certain.

“Don’t come,” he whispered. “Can you do that for me, Dean?”

Dean’s cock was an angry red. He knew if Cas even brushed his knuckles against it, he was going to go off like a Roman candle.

Breathing hard, he shook his head slightly; in Castiel’s lap, facing him, he hid his shame against Castiel’s collarbone.

“Shh. You can, if I ask it of you,” murmured Castiel.

Dean sobbed against Castiel.

“Color?” inquired the angel softly.

Dean swallowed.

“Green,” he said faintly.

“Then be a good boy for me,” said Castiel, voice like water over rocks deep in the forest. “And don’t come.”

Dean clung to him as Castiel wrapped a large hand around his cock. He wailed against his teeth but did not shout, squeezing his eyes shut as Castiel pumped him once, twice. Three times.

“So good for me,” he praised. Dean could feel Castiel’s hardness from where he sat, and the brief closing of his eyes, trying to keep himself under control too.

“What do you want, Dean?” he finally said.

“Please let me come. Please, Cas. Castiel. Please.”

“Your begging is sweet to me,” said Castiel. “But no.”

Dean really wept then, tears falling against Castiel’s skin, long lost to everything the angel could make him feel, the things he would do for him.

“Once more, beloved,” murmured Castiel. Dean shook his head frantically, and then was becalmed, a vessel on the great and wide ocean that was Castiel’s love for him.

And he touched Dean’s cock, which gave a painful kick, making Dean sob out again. A trickle of precome wound its way down Dean’s cock, his thwarted orgasm, as Castiel ran his finger up and then brought his fingertip to Dean’s mouth.

“Taste yourself,” he commanded, and Dean wrapped his mouth around Castiel’s finger and sucked.

He was rewarded with a moan and shudder from the angel.

“You’ve been so good,” said Castiel. “Now. Come for me, Dean.”

The scream was ripped from Dean’s throat just as the orgasm ripped through his body, absolutely covering Castiel’s lower abdomen in come. Dean thrashed with it as Castiel held him firm, wailing as his body thrust reflexively, instinctually, without his direction or permission.

Dean dropped his forehead against Castiel’s shoulder, exhausted and weak, fulfilled and sated.

“You will never be alone again,” Castiel promised. “I will protect you, and I will protect Sam. You can rest now, Dean.”

Dean clung to Castiel, face still wet with tears.

He had never been so happy, so relieved, so safe, and assured that those he loved were also safe, than in this moment, here and now.

***

When Dean woke this time, he was unsurprised to find that he would need to clean up again.

His hand was gripping the tiny vial in his pocket, since he had fallen asleep in his jeans.

“I swear to God if there are bedbugs – ”

“No bedbugs, Sammy. Just dreams.”

“K.”

***

The following night, Sam was still none the wiser about what was keeping them trapped.

Dean held the vial in his hand, in his pocket –

and could feel there was something wrong with it.

It sat there, just like a dead weight.

Then, the horrible thought crossed his mind:

What if it isn’t enough?

Hadn’t Cas said he was the size of the Chrysler Building?

Maybe this amount worked on human-sized creatures, and Cas certainly looked human-sized, but Dean knew he was so much more, in so many ways.

He knew Cas had a high tolerance for alcohol.

Besides, there had been a faint hum coming from the vial before, an ongoing vibration in his hand against his skin, but he’d only noticed it now that it had stopped.

It seemed…empty. Like a dead thing.

Like an empty bottle.

So Dean tossed and turned for a while, thinking:

I need more

Until he grabbed his jacket, checked that Sam was still dead to the world, and sneaked out the door.

***

Cursing himself as he drove in the cold night, because why the hell would an electronics store be open after midnight, Dean stubbornly drove on.

I’ll break in if I have to, he thought, his lockpick kit almost supernaturally ready to go at most times.

A stray thought wandered across his consciousness, casually remarking this is some weird fucking behavior, you know that? Booze, pills. This. All the same shit, different day. You get me?

“Yeah, shut the fuck up,” said Dean to what he assumed was one of his better angels.

Angels.

And he was off to the races again.

He was unaccountably relieved to see that the store was, indeed, open, and the question of what a small town needed with a 24/7 electronics store like a 7-11 only made a brief appearance in his mind before it was taken over by the hunger within him.

“Good evening, sir,” said the man. “I must admit, I’m surprised to see you here.”

“It ain’t workin’,” said Dean.

“Indeed? Have you tried it on the object of your affection?”

Dean blinked at him.

“Uh. No, but I – I just know it’s a lemon,” said Dean.

“You haven’t been imbibing yourself, have you?” asked the man, with a little shake of his head and click of his tongue. “Naughty.”

“No! I haven’t even – anyway, are you gonna help me or not?”

“Of course, sir. We always want satisfied customers. Maybe old-fashioned, but we believe the customer is always right.”

“Okay,” said Dean, calming the fuck down a little.

“May I?” asked the man.

Dean reluctantly handed over the vial.

“I don’t think it’s enough,” he blurted.

The man raised an eyebrow at him.

“This – uh. Does it work on things that are bigger than people? Like way bigger?”

“The dose is the dose, my friend,” said the man. “But if it reassures you some, here.”

This time, he brought out something that was at least three times the size of the original vial, like one of those large, chunky pens with the alternate nibs Dean used to like when he was a little kid. Thick and a little longer than his own hand, Dean pocketed it eagerly.

The hum and vibration off it was stronger.

“Good?” asked the man behind the counter.

Dean nodded, his eyes closing in relief.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” said the man.

“What – how much? How can I pay you?”

“Oh,” he said. “You already have.”

Dean narrowed his eyes, but the vial in his hand was warm and inviting, and he hadn’t slept yet.

“Good night, sir,” said the man, and Dean walked back to the Impala as if he were dreaming.

He drove back to the motel, the vial in his pocket a heavy promise, and took the steps two at a time.

Dean checked briefly on Sam, who had apparently never stirred, and then slid between the covers of his own bed with an eagerness that might have terrified him otherwise.

Vial in hand, Dean closed his eyes and fell asleep, as his heartbeat slowed to a normal rhythm.

Chapter Text

There’ll be no strings to bind your hands,

Not if my love can’t bind your heart…

Castiel stood in the doorway.

On his way out, just like every other time

Only this time wasn’t like all the others.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” he had said. “I just don’t feel the same way you do.”

“Please,” Dean had ground out, fighting against the tears in his throat. “Just – one night. Cas. Can you – for me?”

Castiel looked at him with something like deep pity.

Dean knew he was putting himself on the line here and he felt half-crazed with love and desire and shame, but not enough shame to keep him from the embarrassment of asking.

“Please stay. Stay with me. Just – just tonight, okay? That’s – it’s all I ask.”

Castiel appeared to think it through.

Then he shook his head.

“I can’t do that, Dean,” said Castiel.

And there’s no need to take a stand,

For it was I who chose to start.

Dean reached out for him, his hand brushing the skin of Castiel’s arm. Tears were falling now, and Dean no longer cared how stupid he looked or how desperate.

“You can’t leave it like this, Cas,” he said.

I see no reason to take me home.

I’m old enough to face the dawn.

Castiel sighed, and reached for Dean’s hand.

His heart beat butterfly wings in his chest, his stomach reeling with nausea and excitement and relief.

Then Castiel pushed his hand away and closed his eyes.

“It’s not right,” he said. “I cannot do that to you.”

“I can handle it,” Dean argued. “You said – you said you loved me. Cas. Castiel.”

Just call me angel of the morning, angel

Just touch my cheek before you leave, baby

Just call me angel of the morning, angel

Castiel seemed to think better of it, and returned to Dean – to his arms, to his grateful kisses, to his professions of love, spoken into the angel’s skin.

In all this, he felt like marble.

He allowed himself to be touched, but he did not melt into it at all.

Dean knew he was doing this because he felt guilty about leaving, about admitting that he didn’t really love him, about…using Dean to get his rocks off or whatever did it for an angel.

But Dean was beyond caring, only counting the moments, greedy for every second spent with the angel in his arms.

Then slowly walk away

I won’t beg you to stay

With me…

“Dean,” Castiel said gently, after a time. “I need to go.”

“No,” said Dean, because apparently it still wasn’t enough, and he was a fucking masochist or something.

He clung tightly to Castiel.

Cas patiently took his hands and removed them, setting them down by Dean’s side.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” he said again.

Maybe the sun’s light will be dim,

And it won’t matter anyhow

If morning’s echo says we’ve sinned

Well it was what I wanted, now

“Is it something I did?” Dean asked. “Is there – I can change, Cas, you’ve seen me do it. Just – I can’t leave it like this, you can’t leave me like this, please just – ”

“I’ve tarried long enough,” said Castiel. “Thank you for last night.”

And we were victims of the night

I won’t be blinded by the light

And Dean had to watch the love of his life walk out of it without the evidence of what they’d done the night before or the whispered words they’d shared, nonchalant as if it meant nothing to him, as Dean stood there watching him go, unable to hear over the rushing cascade of his breaking heart.

He remembered his comment, long ago, regarding angels, and how ‘maybe they don’t have the equipment to care’.

Dean had no idea if Castiel knew just what he had given, and also what he had ultimately taken away.

Just call me angel of the morning, angel

Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby

Just call me angel of the morning, angel

Dean’s tears fell freely now, since there was no one to see them, and it had long ago ceased to matter.

Then slowly walk away

I won’t beg you to stay

With me

Through the tears of the day

And the years, baby, baby, baby

Just call me angel of the morning

Angel…

***

“Dean! Dean, wake up!”

Dean woke, groggy and stupid, to Sam shaking him like a doll.

“S – Sam, stop it, I’m up,” Dean managed, in a mouth thick with…he had no idea what, but it wasn’t pleasant.

“Like hell I will!” Sam said, shaking him hard again. “You were comatose, Dean! I couldn’t get you – hey, where are you going!”

Dean charged out of bed for the bathroom, a migraine hitting him between the eyes like a 2x4 on the way there, and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

Belatedly, he realized that his stomach didn’t have much in the way of content in it.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Sam demanded. “Something’s going on with you and you need to tell me, because this – I can’t have you out of commission on this one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” groaned Dean, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand and instantly regretting it as he retched again but nothing came up this time. He clung to the toilet bowl and thought he must’ve tied one on hard the night before.

Thing was, he didn’t remember going to a bar at all.

Then he registered the heavy weight in his pocket, and the terrible dream he had –

bad trip

and immediately his body tried to retch again, full-body this time, but once again failed.

The horror of the situation, the inability to stop begging, the – the song, for fuck’s sake, which he’d frankly never be able to hear again without some visceral reaction –

“Cas,” said Dean miserably.

“That’s what I was trying to wake you up and tell you,” said Sam. “Cas can’t get here. I even gave him our coordinates. He’s tried several times and described it as like a bird hitting a window.”

Dean blinked up at Sam.

“Cas can’t come here,” he said quickly.

“Yeah, that’s what I just said,” Sam told him.

“No, I mean. I don’t think he’s safe.”

“From what?”

Dean paused.

His stomach seemed to have settled, and he finally stood, wobbling a little as he made it over to the basin to wash his hands in the sink.

He stared at his reflection, then splashed water in his face and drew a hand down it.

Then he turned to his brother.

“From me.”

Chapter Text

“From you?” asked Sam. “What the hell does that mean?”

Dean sat down heavily on the edge of the motel bed.

“You better be straight with me, Dean. This is no time for fucking around.”

Dean laughed.

“Sorry,” he said immediately. “Just – your wording, Sam.”

“Well? Spit it out.”

“The guy – the electronics store guy. Gave me something.”

“Yeah? What?”

Dean, guilty, pulled it out of his pocket.

“Holy shit Dean put that away!” Sam said, alarmed, as he ran to the window and drew the curtains after peering out to check there was nobody out there. “You want to get us kicked out of here or something?”

Dean stared down at the thick vial in his hand.

It still hummed, a little, but it looked relatively harmless.

“Why?” he asked, because direct questions usually got direct answers and they were in some trouble here.

“Because you have a fucking syringe full of God knows what?!” Sam demanded.

Dean looked down into his hand again.

There was a syringe in it, filled with sickly yellow fluid.

“What the fuck – ” Dean shouted, dropping it like a hot potato.

Sam sat down on the other bed in front of him.

“Dean,” he said, and oh no here came that syrupy tone Dean hated, “I’ve had my problems, you know that, with the – the demon blood, and everything. You gotta talk about it, man.”

“Oh for the love of – ”

“You don’t get to do that right now,” said Sam. “Out with it.”

Dean sighed.

“Fine. It’s Cas.”

Sam had the look of a man who was not expecting that particular turn of events.

“What’s Cas?”

“This. I didn’t even know it was a syringe. I got it from the dude at the store.”

“The electronics store?”

“Yeah, Sam, I just told you that. Try to keep up.”

“Why the – why were you buying drugs from that guy?”

“I told you, I didn’t know it was drugs.”

“Well what did you think it was, then?”

Dean tightened his jaw.

“A love potion.”

“A – what?” asked Sam. “A love potion? And you were – ”

“Going to use it on Cas. Yeah. Get it? Okay. We good?”

Sam opened his mouth.

Then he closed it again.

“I don’t think you need to – okay, first things first, were you shooting up and you didn’t even know it?”

“Apparently.”

“Fuck,” said Sam. “Okay. We should go back to the store, see if we can shake the guy down.”

“I – I’m not sure if I should.”

Dean had closed his eyes.

“You want me to get rid of this for you?”

“Yes please,” said Dean. “Pick it up with a rag or something. If it’s magic, I don’t know how it works. Don’t touch it directly.”

“I’ll destroy it. I promise. Then we are going to the store.”

“Okay.”

***

There was an empty lot where the store had been.

Litter and some weeds, a dumpster, some empty cigarette packs, a few lonely broken bottles.

“Okay,” said Sam calmly, but Dean could hear the fear in his voice.

“Sam,” said Dean.

“Yeah?”

“What if – ”

“What?”

“What if I don’t need to take it again?” he asked. “What if that was enough?”

Sam passed a hand over his eyes.

“I think we should go talk to some of the people in town.”

Chapter Text

“I’m starting to think what’s keeping us here is the local motel association,” grumped Sam, as yet another attempt at getting out rewarded him with the main street.

“Thought you wanted to talk to the people.”

“Yeah, I just thought – ”

Sam shook his head, peering up and out of the windshield at the diner while Dean sat beside him, trembling a little bit, even though he hadn’t felt anything like withdrawals yet.

He paused while looking at Dean with that evaluating way he always had, made him look like a constipated therapist or something.

“Are you okay, Dean?”

Dean had decided to man up. It was time.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I think we should pray to Cas again. See if he can get through this time.”

“Oh, good,” said Sam, “because I’m coming up snake eyes here. Earlier I tried to leave on foot, but no – north, south, east, west, just back on Main Street Small Town America.”

“Just don’t, uh.”

Dean gave his brother a beseeching look.

“Dean,” said Sam, in his you are being insufferably stupid voice #34, “I really don’t think Cas would – ”

“Just don’t, okay?”

“Okay.”

***

Inside the diner, the waitress pouring their coffee smiled down at them.

She was a Black lady getting up in her years, round and smiling like a sunflower.

Dean grinned back. He loved ladies like this, they put him in mind of Missouri.

He doubly loved those people who were like little rays of sunshine.

“Hey sweetheart,” he said warmly.

“Don’t you sweetheart me, sunshine,” she retorted, and Dean’s grin widened.

“You had any trouble around these parts recently?” asked Dean.

“Nothin’ more’n you’d expect,” she said, turning to Sam.

She paused, evaluating him, up and down.

“Well ain’t you just a tall drink o’ water,” she said.

Sam shifted uncomfortably on the bench.

“Uh. Thanks,” he said.

Dean kicked him under the table.

“What, uh, my brother meant was whether anything strange had happened here,” said Sam.

The waitress stood up, hand on hip.

“Now that you mention it, there was somethin’ odd last week,” she said. “We got a cow in one of the department stores, must be the last JC Penney’s in America! That the kinda thing you mean?”

“No, ma’am, not exactly,” said Sam. “But thank you.”

“Didn’t your mama tell you never call a young lady ma’am?” asked the waitress. “It’s Bernice, sweetheart.”

“You just said –  ” Dean argued.

“That was for you,” Bernice told him.

She turned to Sam.

“See you around, handsome.”

Sam grinned at Dean, who scowled at his brother.

He started bouncing his leg, flexing his hands.

Need was pouring through him like a flood, although it was nowhere near bedtime and he had no outward evidence of withdrawals from whatever had been in the syringe.

And suddenly, with a great whoosh and thump, the diner bench was alarmingly, startlingly full of a supremely irritated Castiel.

“Cas!” Sam exclaimed. “Thank fuck. Good to see you.”

“I broke through,” he explained. “It was…embarrassing.”

He did not elaborate.

Then he turned his gaze on Dean.

“Hello, Dean,” he said –

And suddenly, Dean was breathless.

Chapter Text

Dean sat and admired Castiel’s profile from a few inches away.

His aquiline nose and that stern staring thing he did was super fucking hot. He’d always loved that.

When he was younger he absolutely did not nurse a crush on Methos in the show Highlander but hey Castiel kinda reminded him of that, all…immortal and long-lived and shit, kinda intense.

“Dean, you are running a low fever,” said Castiel in measured, gravel tones. “Let me – ”

And he put out a hand to test Dean’s forehead for temperature.

“I, uh, wouldn’t do that if I – ” Sam began, eyes wide as goldfish bowls, but it was too late.

Dean moaned and came in his pants at the mere touch of Castiel’s cool touch on his skin.

Startled, Cas dropped his hand.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Sam?”

“Dean got himself in some trouble,” said Sam. “He picked up some kind of – ”

Dean, even in his state, managed to fix Sam with a death glare.

“ – of potion and, I got rid of it, but.”

He waved a hand at the general state of things.

“You should take him to the motel room,” Sam suggested, inching away. “I’ll, uh, go sweet-talk Bernice, see if I can get any other info. Okay? Okay.”

Dean nodded at Sam and then fastened his gaze on Castiel, who –

shit, looked like a thunderstorm fast approaching over a dark sea.

He put out a hand, to Dean’s terror and delight, but this time, it was for the purpose of transportation.

***

Dean writhed naked on the bed.

Castiel studiously stared out the window.

“What have you done,” he muttered to himself.

But Dean could tell he was fighting.

Himself, maybe, something else.

Funny how he didn’t give a shit about anything anymore, kinda like when that turducken sandwich got him high.

Like some kinda fuckin…ecstasy or whatever.

Hand on his cock, lazy strokes, just watching Cas in the window.

It was like the best porn ever, like being teased, like being edged.

Just looking at him standing there.

“C’mon, Cas, I know you wanna,” he whined.

"No," said Cas, stern and resolute.

Dean whined.

Something glinted in the corner of his eye.

He looked over to the other bed.

There was the vial, glittering purple.

Dean narrowed his eyes at it.

Sam said he got rid of that thing.

So how’d it end up back here?

Dean had often thought, when he was in a philosophical sort of mood, about this angel that had beyond all expectation or reason joined him right down here in the dirt. In the darkness of the motels, in the loneliness and grit of the empty American roadside, filled with debris and forgotten bodies more often than not, and the neon welcome of the truck stop gas station signs.

It was a meek existence, certainly, but it was said they’d inherit the world.

Dean didn’t want it.

He wanted Castiel.

He had no idea why Castiel had given up what Dean assumed was five-star service and first class flights and Michelin restaurants and swimming pools of champagne, or whatever heaven was like for angels, to stand around here in the dirt with Dean Winchester.

But he was here, and for that, Dean had always been grateful.

Like hope. Like light. Like a Christmas carol, those songs always used to fill him with joy and awe and wonder.

O come, all ye faithful, thought Dean, and he giggled, high and loud.

But Castiel –

oh, he was distant and unknowable and unfathomable and holy.

Unassailable. Unattainable. Aloof. Above all these human vices, these petty little things.

Dean was a trailer park, a roadside motel.

Dependable, utilitarian.

There.

As a human, not much to offer. Not much to see here.

Blood on his hands, so much blood, like he’d once read in history blood that flowed through the streets to the height of the horses’ knees.

Blood invisible now but Dean could see it all the same.

He didn’t deserve Castiel.

He knew it.

He knew Castiel was above him. So far above him.

Castiel was good. Better. Best.

Dean could see it now, with Castiel's thinly veiled disgust, with Castiel refusing to even look in his direction.

Castiel would never want him.

And it hurt.

Guilt zinging through his veins, Lord help him, Dean turned to the side and snagged the vial, palming it and hiding it from view.

It vibrated in his hand, a warm comfort and promise.

“Cas,” he sang out on a soft sigh. “Look at me. Please, Cas.”

Inexorable, as if pulled by a string, Castiel looked.

Dean knew he couldn’t help himself, because he always did as Dean asked, for some reason.

And Dean knew what a picture he made, here on the bed, laid out for Castiel like an offering.

“C’mere,” he said, debauched and beautiful, an open invitation. “I need you. Cas, please.”

Castiel stared.

Dean could see him grind his teeth, and sent thanks to the strange shopkeeper that the vial was already having its intended effect.

And some dam broke within Castiel, who was suddenly bracketing him, scenting the place where his collarbone met his neck, and murmured:

“You are irresistible, Dean Winchester. How could I say no to such an invitation, when you are spread out before me like a feast?”

Triumphant, Dean plunged the syringe into him, and Castiel roared.

***

"Dean? Dean!"

Fingers were snapping in front of his eyes.

Dean was startled to find himself back in the diner with his brother and Castiel.

Castiel, who he turned to look at, leaned his chin on his hand, and sighed, smiling.

"Man, you were out of it for like...ten whole minutes!" said Sam, voice laced with concern.

Castiel turned to look at Dean, and he absolutely melted.

"I see what you mean, Sam," said Castiel. "Something must be done."

Chapter Text

Bernice was back again with her trusty coffeepot.

“Anything I can get for you, sugar?” she asked Castiel. “My my my, look at those baby blues.”

“You said – ”

“Like I said, that was for you.”

“No thank you,” ground out Castiel, and shit, his proximity was doing things for Dean. “Has anything strange been happening here in this town?”

There was something about Castiel that seemed to give her pause, this time, as clammed-up as she had been with both Dean and Sam despite her opinions about Sam’s looks.

“Can’t say that I have,” she said, but she and Castiel seemed to be having an entire conversation with their eyes.

“My friends here have noticed a few things gone awry,” he informed her.

She did not move from her position, about to pour coffee into his mug. She smiled and began to pour.

“Careful,” she said, behind her smile, like a ventriloquist. “He may be watching.”

“He?” asked Castiel.

“He’s always watching,” she said, and then in a normal tone, “You sure you don’t want anything? We got chocolate chip pancakes with Hershey’s syrup, best in the state. M and M pancakes, too, whipped cream on top and everything.”

Sam shook his head and Dean was about to respond in the negative when his stomach growled loudly.

“Chocolate chip or M and M?” asked Bernice, in a voice a little more kindly than the ones she had used with Dean before.

“M and M,” said Dean. “If it still comes with the Hershey’s syrup and whipped cream.”

“Even comes with a side of bacon,” said Bernice.

“Bernice. I think I’m in love with you.”

“Well that’s too bad, sugar, because you ain’t my type. But if you put in a good word with either of these two, well…”

She winked, all sunshine and sunflowers again.

But this time, Dean read the message telegraphed there.

Be careful.

He is watching.

***

Dean knows there is a general distrust between drifters and those who stand still.

Those who stand still usually want you there-and-gone. After all, that is the nature of drifters. It is what they do.

So if Dean’s busted-up heart lingered longer in some town or bar or on a guy or a chick for just that little too long, those who stand still would let him know it was time to move on, son.

Sometimes with words. Sometimes with a cooling attitude.

Sometimes, memorably, with fists.

So he had chalked up Bernice’s reticence, at first, to the usual distrust of drifters, because Bernice was One Who Stood Still.

Heartbreakers, these drifters are.

You do best what you do most, and what Dean did best was leaving.

But honestly in his heart of hearts there was a tenderness so vulnerable he built strong walls around it.

He left, yes, because he was a drifter, and that is what drifters do.

He left, yes, because he was a hunter, and it was part of the job.

But he also left because…

well, you can’t get left if you’re the one doing the leaving.

And now – the drifter’s absolute worst fear:

Getting stuck in one place.

Maybe getting to know people.

This was why Dean blew outta town the minute he could.

Otherwise, he’d start getting attached.

And he’d lost enough in his lifetime that he never wanted to experience loss again, if he could help it.

So he didn’t bother anymore.

Getting close.

All it did was lose him friends and lovers.

You only ever look happy when you’re leaving, some long-forgotten lover told him once. When you’re on your way somewhere else.

Another voice, just as long ago:

What are you running from, Dean?

Well, the pat answer of monsters, obviously, didn’t make a lick of sense when he considered that Bobby had his own house and home base. Not every hunter was a drifter too.

That was the province of Dean and Sam.

And, strangely, Garth.

But much like a drifter’s greatest fear was getting stuck in one place, no small town wanted drifters shacking up there for a while.

Here for a job, and then out again. That’s the way they liked it. Small town distrust of outsiders, packsackers, carpetbaggers, whatever name was in current vogue and in common parlance in their area, they didn’t trust. Hell, in some places you could never become a local.

That sentiment was visited a thousandfold upon drifters, whose nomadic lifestyle was already distrusted by everyone.

Dean’s occasional good luck scoring at bars had a lot more to do with his fed badge than his good looks or his drifter status. Chicks (and sometimes guys) found out you were a drifter, it was like having serial killer stamped on the forehead.

Not that there hadn’t been drifter serial killers, but there had been serial killers of all different kinds of people. Somehow the drifter serial killer thing tended to stick.

Ain’t easy to trust the kind of man who’s here today, gone tomorrow, and impossible to find.

He always used protection, so that wasn’t much of a concern (although Sam kept at him with you know nothing besides abstinence is 100 percent, right, Dean?)

Then he’d finally broken down and asked Castiel if he’d had any…mishaps of that kind, on the road.

Castiel assured him that he had no children, but had in fact cured him of a number of STDs – then assured him that while he could acquire them, he could not distribute them. Perks of being the Michael Sword, once upon a time, Dean supposed.

But he had been red in the face for weeks following, and glaring at Castiel with his never tell Sam about this, ever, look that he had patented while growing up with his overgrown hairball of a brother.

Seriously, Chewbacca must be a relative.

But Dean had, as he had once told a priest, been pedal to the metal for years. Sure, he’d tried things with Lisa, but the road always called him home.

Besides, he loved the idea of Lisa more than Lisa herself, and she deserved better than that. Ben, too.

So Dean just kept going, despite his vague desires to experience something different, maybe for the first time.

Despite Sam’s cajoling with someone who understands the life?

And deep within him, in his soul or his heart, he nursed the most sacred secret he had ever kept, the thing that got him out of bed in the mornings, the one ultimate, unswayable truth of his self:

Dean Winchester was in love with his guardian angel.

And there was the great equation no drifter had ever managed to solve, like one of those math problems on university chalkboards that are ultimately amazingly solved by some random clever janitor one day:

How does a man whose first love is the road find a love that will last, a love that will not require him to give up his first love of drifting, a love that willingly goes with him and loves the life himself?

Because strangely, drifters being the solitary souls they are, do not tend to end up together. Another strange mystery of human life.

And then –

there was his late-night janitor’s answer, that unpredictable unexpected answer from the strangest place imaginable.

Castiel, his own guardian angel.

A love he could not leave, and would not leave him.

A blessing and a curse in equal measure.

Dean only wished he felt the same way.

Like that bitch Naomi said that one time.

She may have been a bitch, but she was right.

Who was Dean to want something as – as – awesome, in the literal sense of the word, as Castiel?

And suddenly, it was happening again.

Dean’s face, pushed into the pillow, hips canted up.

Castiel, fully seated within him, tracing the skin around his hole, where Castiel’s substantial cock was filling him.

Dean, in tears, because it felt fucking amazing.

“So good for me, aren’t you,” Castiel purred. “Take my cock so well. Stretched around me. Accepting me inside you. Fuck.”

Dean shivered.

He was so fucking hard he could pound nails.

But this time, Dean realized it wasn’t happening.

He didn’t remember how they got there, the foreplay, anything.

“You’re not real,” he grit out. “This isn’t real – ”

***

Dean was sitting in the diner again, Sam waving a jumbo size hand in front of his face.

“Dude,” said Sam. “You are like, in and out of reality. Your food showed and you didn’t even react.”

Castiel observed him with something like curiosity.

Dean blinked.

He looked down.

Sure enough, those M and M pancakes were there.

He tried to take a bite.

They had gone cold.

But they were still delicious, so he wolfed them down.

“I think we ought to take this conversation elsewhere,” said Castiel. “Perhaps it is best if I speak with Dean alone, Sam.”

Sam looked caught between indecision and very clearly, absolutely not wanting to be there if shit went down.

“What do you want me to do in the meantime?” asked Sam in a low voice.

“Return to the site of the store you found,” said Castiel. “Look closely for clues. And try to find a way out.”

“But then you’ll be stuck here together,” Sam said quietly.

“Better Dean in here with an angel than the two of you in here without one,” said Castiel. “If you can get out, you can find further assistance. If you can’t, we will have to stand and fight this together.”

“Understood,” Sam told him.

He stood to leave.

“We will be returning to the motel now,” said Castiel.

“OK, I’ll see you later,” said Sam.

Dean swallowed the last of his pancakes and then hurriedly stood to follow Castiel, who was sweeping majestically out of the diner, trenchcoat billowing around himself.

“Come, Dean,” Castiel growled. “We have much to discuss.”

Dean’s eyes closed briefly.

He followed Castiel to the motel, and through the door.

This time, he wasn’t imagining things.

Now he was in the motel room with Castiel.

Alone.

Dean was certain this was going to kill him.

Chapter Text

They were alone in the motel, Castiel sitting primly by the curtains.

This was far too much like Dean’s little dream sequence-hallucination-whatever the fuck for Dean’s own personal comfort.

“Okay,” Dean began, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I gotta – so I’m just gonna say it. We don’t have time, so.”

Castiel gave him a curious look.

“If there’s something you’ve been keeping from your brother and from me, this is not the time, Dean,” said Castiel.

Dean rubbed his eye against a sudden strange headache forming in the corner of it.

“No, um,” he said. “Nothing I’ve been keeping from Sam.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes.

“Something you’ve been keeping from me?” he asked. “Why?”

Dean groaned inwardly, because where the fuck did he start?

“The, uh, guy,” he began, and great, this was gonna go about as well as a stick shift Ford Pinto back in the 70s, fits and starts and probably an explosion, because Dean was just that lucky. “The suspicious one. The one from the electronics store.”

Castiel nodded, but said nothing, which meant that Dean had no distractions and would have to continue.

“He was also dealin’, if you get what I mean.”

“Dealing?” asked Castiel. “Drugs?”

Dean laughed a little, breathy and soft, a little wild.

“If only,” he said. “No, I think – I’d say magic.”

“Dean,” said Castiel, and great, here’s the red-alert warning, “What did you do?”

Now Dean couldn’t face the angel at all.

He just rubbed his palms nervously against the denim of his jeans, over his thighs.

“He offeredmealovepotionandItookit,” Dean muttered.

The carpet was an interesting combo, a daring blend of burnt umber and avocado, and while Dean had seen both in his long line of motels but never as a mélange –

“Dean. Did you just tell me that you bought a love potion off that man?”

Dean blew out through his teeth.

He hazarded a look up.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said.

Castiel gave him a strange, sad look, and sighed like he had been deflated.

“Dean,” he said, and shook his head.

“But then it turned out that it was a syringe full of God knows what and I’d apparently been blacking out and injecting it into myself somehow,” said Dean, easy now to speak once the big info had been communicated.

“That is certainly distressing,” said Castiel. “But may I ask you why?”

“Why what?” asked Dean, and too late realized that he hadn’t exactly dropped the real Trinity gadget quite yet.

“Why did you want a love potion?” asked Castiel. “It seems to me that you have enough interest from others not to need one. Vastly smaller numbers than you pretend to your younger brother, but you never struck me as a man disappointed in love.”

Dean stared at the carpet again.

Well, here goes nothin’.

“It was for you,” he said in a small voice. “Cas, I’m so sorry. If you never speak to me again, I – ”

“Me?” asked Castiel, startled. “Whatever for?”

“C’mon, Cas, you can’t be that dumb.”

“I only meant that there was really no need.”

“No need? You – you try harboring a crush on your guardian angel best friend for like, a decade, and – ”

Great, so now that the keg was tapped, it was all coming out in a flood.

This was exactly the reason Dean never talked to anyone about anything.

“What do you mean?” Castiel gave him that trademark puzzled head-tilt.

Dean couldn’t help it.

He fell even more in love, the longing intensifying – if that were possible.

“What do you mean, what do I – ”

“Dean. We’ve been married for years.”

Dean opened his mouth.

Then he closed it again.

His eyes near bugged out of his head.

“No way,” he said. “Now that, I would have remembered.”

Cas gave an eloquent shrug.

“Different cultures,” he explained. “Have you ever heard the story about a young member of the Peace Corps working on a small island? They agreed to a few dinners and other dates with a local. Then they left at the end of the job, as those in the Peace Corps often do. The local was heartbroken afterwards and wrote some of the nation’s most beautiful love songs about how their partner had left them, because in that culture, they had been married.”

“Cas, shut up about the fucking Peace Corps!” Dean said, “You said we were married!”

“We are,” Castiel confirmed. “I was merely attempting to illustrate cultural differences and norms.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dean’s voice escalated like a man trying to get to the next level of a supermarket. Dean sounded like a teapot that had better things to do than whistle.

“I wasn’t going to mention it.”

“What, ever?”

“If necessary.”

“Why?”

“Because I am in love with you, Dean. And I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. When you were ready – but I knew that you may never be ready.”

Dean was dizzy. He had to sit down.

“How did you – we – since when?”

“Since I pulled you from Hell.”

Dean blinked at him.

“But I can be patient. As you know. Dean, I have been your husband for several years now. I thought you knew.”

This had to be another fucked-up, drug-fueled hallucination.

It had to be.

But no - there was Cas, watching him serenely, and no diner do-over seemed imminent.

Dean spread his hands in disbelief.

“And you thought, what, I was bein’, like, shy or something?”

Castiel nodded his head gravely.

“Or something. I was prepared to wait.”

This was a lot to take in, his secret crush all this time had been –

“When a claim is laid on a human soul, it makes a mark,” Castiel intoned. “And there is precedent in the Bible, a mark upon your arm, a mark upon your heart. Song of Songs.”

“Buddy, you can’t just go branding Property of Castiel on people and claiming they’re your husband!”

“I was not the one who proposed it.”

Then he stared at Dean, clearly willing him to get it.

“I proposed to you?” he asked in disbelief.

“Our time together in Hell, and after, as I rebuilt you, was…longer than you recall. I admit, afterwards - I was - knowing you must have forgotten."

He closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them again, they were full of mischief.

"And the brand on your arm doesn’t say Property of Castiel.”

“Cas – ”

Castiel interrupted him with a wicked grin.

“That’s what it says on your ribs.”

“Cas, the point is, you can’t just – you just can’t!”

Castiel sighed, and looked out the window of the motel.

“I did figure out, eventually, that – wasn’t how it was going to work,” he admitted. “But then. I – I was selfish, I suppose. And what harm could it be, for me to love my husband even from a distance, to help where I could, to ease his way? To ease his pain? Even just a little.”

Well, damn.

There was something deep within Dean’s chest that hurt when he looked at Castiel.

He'd long ago heard somewhere that war was really a game of poker, not a game of chess.

And fuck it, he thought. It was time.

He was going all in.

“Okay,” he said to himself. Then, “Okay,” out loud.

He walked over to where Castiel was seated beside the window.

And Cas’s big blue eyes, wide and startled in the sun striping him from the blinds, and his full, gorgeous lips parting around his name:

“Dean?”

Like a question.

Like an answer, all in one.

Dean dropped into his lap and kissed him for all he was worth.

Chapter Text

“Dean!”

Sam was shaking him.

“Cas, he’s seizing – do something!”

And Dean was staring up at the ceiling of the diner, and Sam’s terrified face, and Bernice in the background with the coffee.

Dean rolled to the side and retched.

“I need it, Sam,” he croaked. “Where is it.”

“Gone. Sorry. It’s cold turkey for you.”

“I think – it’s gonna kill me. It’s the DTs or – hallucinations, you gotta – ”

And with sudden total clarity, the words dropped into his mind as if from heaven:

It’s the town.

It’s the diner.

It's all of it, top to bottom, left to right, sky to blacktop.

“It’s not…real,” Dean managed to say, before he fell unconscious.

***

To Sam’s utter horror, Castiel drew his angel blade and sliced open Dean’s arm.

He closed his eyes briefly, Dean wondered for a moment is he disgusted with me?

And suddenly Castiel was sucking his blood.

This was not helping Dean’s libido in any way, but he was a little too out of it to care.

Dean was sure he moaned, but nothing was clear anymore.

“Sorry, Sammy,” he tried to say.

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Sam.

Good ol’ Sammy, ridin' to my rescue. Aw. How sweet.

Dean realized that his brain was currently the consistency of crème brulee.

Crème brulee. Mmm. What other dessert do you get to light on fire and then smack really hard with a blunt object?

“There is a poison in him I cannot draw out,” said Castiel, sitting back and wiping the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You’re so fuckin’ hot, Cas, holy shit, oh my God,” Dean said, but it came out like a garbled mumble.

Probably for the best, considering Sam was like. Right there.

“What does that mean?” Sam asked, ignoring Dean.

Cas looked around the diner, then up at the ceiling for some reason.

“Venom,” he announced.

“You can’t draw venom out like that, you know,” said Sam.

“This was no rattlesnake, Sam."

Castiel stood.

"You stay with him.”

Then he stalked through the diner, grabbing individual customers by the fronts of their shirts and peering into their eyes before dropping them back into their seats with an air of slight disgust.

He burst out of the diner double-doors like a man on a mission.

“Where are you going?” Sam shouted after him.

Castiel paused, and looked over his shoulder.

“I’m going to find the source,” said Castiel.

Then he disappeared.

“He’s like a cowboy, huh Sam?” Dean asked. “Just, effortlessly badass.”

Sam patted him, obviously not seeing the similarity at all, or maybe Dean wasn’t enunciating.

CASTIEL

Rattlesnakes.

Castiel had to be sure.

He found his target.

There was little to say or do.

One objective:

Total obliteration.

If Dean –

He did not allow himself to think on this further.

He had heard of forests that could walk, and breathe, and think.

Dunsinane Hill, Birnam Wood.

Concepts not so old to Castiel, although very old to a human.

This was new.

He had heard of small towns destroying lives.

Swallowing people whole.

But never met a small town that was sentient.

Until now.

Chapter Text

“Whatever entity is responsible for this, show yourself!”

Castiel’s voice boomed in the empty parking lot where Sam had told him the electronics store had been.

He turned, slowly.

Castiel had fought many enemies over his long lifetime, but never one from the inside.

His mind touched, briefly, on Jonah and the whale.

When he completed his turn, the store was there, just as Sam had told him.

He walked inside, more cautious now.

A man, smiling at him, from behind the counter.

Crystal trophies flanked him, Town’s Best! Voted Three Years in a Row!

Castiel walked up to him, grabbed him by the shirt, and hauled him halfway over the countertop.

“Let us go. Now,” Castiel growled, his eyes blue with grace for emphasis.

“Oh, sir, you must have me mistaken for someone else,” said the man.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m just a lowly shopkeep, sir. But I may have something that would interest you?”

Castiel narrowed his eyes.

“I highly doubt it.”

“Hear me out.”

DEAN

Dean finally got his metaphorical feet under him again, and hauled himself back up to a sitting position in the diner.

“I think we should get going,” Sam said.

“Yeah.”

They paid the bill and made their way outside, back to the motel again.

Dean was starting to get very tired of this motel room.

“I hope Cas figures this shit out soon. I want to be out of this shithole town.”

“You think we should have told him about the – ”

“Absolutely not, Sammy. Not on your life. Doesn’t matter anyway, not like it’s gonna affect him.”

“I don’t know. Do you want to talk abou – ”

“You finish that sentence, I’m kicking  your ass on principle.”

Sam sighed the sigh of the world-weary.

“Fine. But I get to say I told you so.”

“If we all make it through this alive, be my guest.”

CASTIEL

“Your heart’s desire,” the man’s voice echoed in his head.

Castiel did not like to admit it, but he had been right.

Somewhere, an alarm bell was sounding, deep within him; this was sleight of hand, managing to get him to look elsewhere.

His hunch, he was certain it was right.

That meant these were mirages, sent out to defend itself after being sniffed out.

And Castiel knew this, on some level.

But oh, such sweetness in victory.

Castiel had been a warrior for a long, long time.

Circumspect, these days, because that was the requirement, and he could adapt.

But long ago, victorious in battle, Castiel would have wanted to enjoy the spoils of war.

Dean, mounted; Dean, praise and worship bleeding from his mouth, adoration and awe;

Castiel, soaked in the blood and ichor of their enemies, black wings spread high and proud, taking, and taking, and taking, that carnal desire for his charge once shameful but now reveled in, in all his glory and his power and his might.

“That’s it,” Castiel growled in his ear, holding Dean down, claiming him, cock buried to the hilt in him, as Dean confessed and professed and offered himself as a sacrifice. “You’re mine, do you understand?”

“Yes, yours,” Dean said, and oh, to possess him, surround him with his love, to be honored and worshiped by this creature that had so captivated Castiel –

But there was the problem.

Dean had, for all intents and purposes, gentled Castiel.

A wild, unpredictable, absolute warrior of God –

Once.

Now, he sent emojis and liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

This Castiel, he thought, was vastly preferable to the one who had only ever known war, and death, and blood.

“I am not that angel anymore,” he said. “You cannot tempt me.”

DEAN

“He sure is takin’ his sweet time,” muttered Dean.

“He’s an angel. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Yeah, except there were all those times when he wasn’t.”

Dean had the beginnings of an idea, then – one that he did not explain to his brother, since after all, he didn’t know who might be watching.

Dear Castiel, Dean began to pray. I’m hopin’ this is one line of communication we’ve still got hidden.

They’re gonna try to get their hooks in you any way they can, man. Show you a perfect future. Offer you somethin’ you want so badly you’d crawl right outta your own damned skin to get it.

Don’t buy it. It’s a trap. I think this place wants to eat us alive and you’re probably a feast. I don’t know how it works but I do know I fell for it.

Just…come back to us, okay?

Come back to me in one piece. Safe an’ sound.

You got that?

Dean opened his eyes, and the motel room remained empty of Castiel.

Sighing, he could only hope he had gotten through.

CASTIEL

Dean’s prayer fell into Castiel’s mind in full.

His grip tightened on the man’s shirt.

“Your efforts here are worthless,” he snarled. “You don’t understand anything at all.”

“I admit, it is something of a learning curve,” said the man, still smiling. “But nobody’s perfect on the first try, after all.”

And suddenly, Castiel was standing in some kind of an arbor.

Lights drifted around him that reminded him of fireflies.

And in the low light, Dean stepped out, wearing a tuxedo.

Love shone in his eyes, a deep green now, matching the surrounding forest.

He took Castiel’s hands, gentle in his own calloused ones, a man who had seen far too much pain and warfare.

“I love you, Cas,” said Dean.

His eyes were wet with unshed tears, and the deep conviction of the words shook Castiel to his core.

He looked behind himself, at the small crowd of people there, seated on white folding chairs.

Sam. Jody. Donna. So many other friends and compatriots.

Castiel turned back to Dean.

He was even more handsome than he had been a moment before, the last time Castiel had looked at him.

Underneath it all, Dean’s soul glowed warm and familiar, golden and welcoming, like the embers of a hearth-fire, like coming home.

“I’ve been in love with you for years, Cas,” said Dean, in a rough voice that denoted a struggle with overwhelming emotion. “I can’t believe we’re here, after all this time.”

And he slid a simple silver band around Castiel’s ring finger.

Castiel’s breath stopped in his throat.

His heart, too.

Dean leaned forward and captured his lips in a soft kiss.

Castiel whined against his mouth, how plush and full his lips felt, how much he loved this man.

“I love you too, Dean,” he finally said.

Chapter Text

Castiel’s caress was eliciting the sweetest sounds from Dean he could have dreamed.

All he had ever wanted to do was be allowed to love him, and to express that love.

It was good that Dean could not sense longing, as he could, because Castiel’s was overwhelming.

Now, here, he drank his fill. But he knew, even here, he could never be satisfied. It could never be enough. There would always be some part of Dean still left to explore, to ache, to touch with willing hands.

He was beautiful, and that was the simple truth of it.

Not in the traditional human sense of the word, although Castiel was given to understand that Dean was appealing to other humans.

No, it was all that made him Dean, that made him lovely.

Sensual, so responsive, Dean’s body responded beautifully to him, just as he knew it would.

Castiel had centuries of observation he wanted to put to the test.

Should I touch you here, like this…or like this – to see, to experiment, with all he had learned over these many centuries –

and Dean’s trembling ecstasy, as Castiel held nirvana just out of reach, was the greatest reward he had known as an angel.

Come back to me, Dean’s voice echoed, sudden and real, from some distant elsewhere.

And, shuddering, Castiel closed his eyes, stepping back from Dean –

and when he opened them again, the wild beseeching look in his green eyes that said don’t leave me, don’t leave me here like this – just don’t leave me –

Even though Castiel now knew this to be a mere shade, he couldn’t help apologizing:

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” he said.

***

Castiel was in the store again, staring into the shop keeper’s eyes.

This time, the man quailed a little beneath his strong hands.

“I can do this until the stars burn out,” Castiel growled. “I will find a way to kill you. Or you can let us go.”

“You are one tough customer,” grinned the man. “Hm. Perhaps…?”

***

Castiel was home.

Home.

He stared up at the rafters of his house, slightly puzzled, because he recognized it as home despite the human cast of the place.

Perhaps he had gone native in more ways than one.

He never thought he would see it again.

His part of Heaven – the Shining City.

A soldier knows he may never see his home again.

But this was where Castiel had come from, here, many thousands of years ago.

Before he was sent to war, long before the chain of events he often referred to as remarkable, because it never came to pass.

A fallen angel, afterwards; Castiel long thought Heaven locked and barred to those like him –

Technically, one become Fae – not cruel enough for the Pit, no longer good enough for Heaven, cursed to walk the Earth for the crime of falling in love.

“Heya, Cas,” came a voice, free and easy.

Castiel’s eyes fastened to the rafters of the house again –

And there was Dean, lying on his stomach, reading a book, with a pendant in his mouth, zipping it back and forth on its string.

More arresting, however, was the fact that there were wings growing out of Dean’s back – strong and delicate all at once like the man himself, tawny brown and green like duck-feathers.

Castiel’s mouth went dry.

The right feathers for a hunter from the Midwest, went through his head crazily.

Dean’s bright-white smile dazzled him, even though the house itself was made of light wood and windows – or perhaps there were no windows at all, the place was open to the elements, what elements there were in Heaven.

“This isn’t real,” whispered Castiel. “This can’t be real.”

Especially given the fact that Castiel was more like a beam of light than any human concept of an angel.

But seeing Dean like that –

Oh, it was doing something for Castiel, enough that he was speechless, enough that he did not know where to look and had apparently forgotten how to walk.

“Cat got your tongue?” asked Dean, a light and gentle tease, as he landed in front of Castiel with all the grace of any angel, wings flapping with little effort as he landed on the balls of his bare feet.

God, you’re beautiful, thought Castiel, here in the Shining City and with a soul that seemed to outshine the sun itself.

Then Dean kissed him, pulled his hands behind his back, let him touch the downy soft underside of the feathers.

Castiel sobbed against him, the counterpoint of Dean’s firm body, the feathers, the scent of the oil he knew was from Dean’s back, and also from his own.

The angel wrenched himself away.

“No,” he said firmly.

He thought of Lot’s wife.

He did not look back.

***

Castiel let the man go.

The electronics store seemed dim and dull after the bright whites and golds and sunlight on the clouds of Heaven.

Castiel’s heart was breaking, and breaking, and breaking, like waves on the shoreline.

But he had also realized something.

“I will not feed you,” he said. “Monster.”

The man looked hurt.

“No more monster than you are,” he said.

“Perhaps,” said Castiel. “But I am loved.”

Now this, he was certain of, although he did not know exactly what shape it took –

but he knew Dean loved him.

The man scoffed.

“You would rather this half-life than the beautiful one I have shown you?”

Castiel nodded once, sharp.

“The real Dean is more than any vision of him could be,” he said. “Whether he chooses to love me in the way I would prefer. I only wish to be near him. I do not care what form that takes. He loves me, and that is enough. You wouldn’t understand. Because no one loves you.”

The man blanched.

Castiel leaned in closer again, just to make his point.

“You are alone,” he said. “And you may be something I have never encountered before, but you are just the same as the smaller monsters. A djinn, with its fantasies. A vampire, sucking blood for sustenance. A changeling, drinking. It matters not – you may be bigger, but you are no different from each other: all leeches, of a different name.”

And suddenly, there was Dean, again –

writhing beneath him, calling for him.

“Say my name,” Castiel growled in his ear, holding Dean flush against his body. “Fucking say it.”

“Castiel,” Dean wept, and in it there was sacrifice, submission, veneration. “Castiel.”

Like prayer. Like peace. Dean subsumed entirely within him.

“Yes, Castiel, yes,” Dean was chanting softly. “I give myself over wholly.”

Castiel remembered these words, Dean had said them before – but it was now for him, only him, and it was an invitation –

to possess, to enter Dean not only as a lover, but as a vessel housed, to fill up every corner of him, to know him more deeply and intimately than he could have ever hoped or dreamed.

But somehow, this fantasy was the most evidently false.

Because while Castiel, in his angelic desires, may have fervently wished for such a thing, he knew Dean would never allow it.

The spell broke, again.

“You are running out of ideas,” Castiel told the man. “And you are running out of time.”

Chapter Text

DEAN

“Now you!”

A clang.

“What the fuck is that,” Dean muttered.

Sam twitched the curtain open.

His mouth fell open.

“It’s Bernice, from the diner.”

“From the diner?”

“I literally just said that, Dean.”

Dean rolled his eyes. So he wasn't all there yet.

“What’s she doin’ out in the street?”

He joined his brother at the window.

“You let those sad white boys go!” she shouted at the sky, banging her coffee pot with a spoon. “Aintcha got enough already? You let ‘em go! Now!”

Dean and Sam opened the motel room door and went down the stairs to where Bernice was standing in the street.

She turned to them, all smiles again.

“Oh, there you are,” she said. “I’m so sorry for all this bother.”

And there was Cas, walking toward them with a purpose.

Dean swooned.

A little.

Once he got close enough, and Dean could see the blaze of blue in his eyes, he said:

“Wow, Cas, did I ever tell you that you kinda remind me of Xena?”

Sam gave him some hard side-eye for that one.

Sue him, he was barely coherent right now.

Suddenly, he doubled over in pain, a shout that turned into a scream as he collapsed.

“Dean!” Castiel shouted, but Dean was really not aware anymore.

He thought about when he was a kid and he absolutely fucking hated rollercoasters, out of control shit dropping you out of the fucking blue. Hated flying too, the one time John had coaxed him and Sam on a damned plane and the thing nearly crashed, he thought never again –

That certain abject terror this is it, I’m going to die went through his head, because that was how bad the pain was, he’d never felt anything like it in his life.

It went on and on and on, and he just kept screaming.

“Let them go!” Bernice yelled, banging on the coffeepot. “Let them go, or there will be hell to pay, you mark my words!”

And she threw the coffeepot on the ground, where it shattered into a million pieces.

Suddenly, there was something like an earthquake, and the entire town raised up and rolled sickeningly.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel slid down the road as it tilted upwards and onto the road beneath it, where the Impala sat waiting, as if they had all been shaken out of a pepper grinder.

Through Dean’s pain, to Sam’s consternation, and Castiel’s faint surprise, the town stood up on two legs. Its underneath was a hairy belly, like long grass hanging down.

It shook itself a little, like a dog getting to its feet.

Bernice sat on the edge now, where the road ended, and waved a cheery goodbye.

“What just happened?” Sam called up to her.

“Oh, you know,” she said with a shrug and a smile. “He gets overzealous sometimes. Takes more than he should. A glutton, really.”

“He – the town?” asked Sam. Bernice nodded.

And from this angle, it was clear that everything within it – motel, diner, streets, everything – made up a giant creature, the same way some animals had the patterns of eyes.

Only this particular camouflage was the best any of them had ever seen.

“You can’t just go around eating people!” Sam yelled.

“Please don’t kill him,” Bernice said, a sad note in her voice now. “He really don’t know any better.”

She looked up at the new interstate curving past the area now.

“Besides,” she said. “He’ll die soon. Eventually. Like all small towns do - all on his own.”

“Are you human?” asked Sam.

Bernice nodded.

“Yessir,” she said.

“Well, don’t you want to come with us?”

She smiled at him.

“Funny that,” she said. “You were wrong, you know. He ain’t alone.”

She sighed.

“Ain’t fallin’ in love a funny thing.”

 She nodded at them.

“You take care of yourselves now,” she said.

She patted the roadside.

“Time to go, sweetheart,” she said –

and the town vanished, between one heartbeat and the next.

***

The pain in Dean’s right side slowly dissipated, until he could sit up against the Impala.

He was exhausted.

Castiel knelt by his side, checking him over.

“I’m okay,” said Dean, pushing Castiel’s hands away, because the last thing he wanted to deal with was Castiel, and Castiel touching him, up close and personal, after this particular adventure. “I’m fine, Cas, get a grip.”

Castiel nodded, relinquished his hold, and then turned to Sam.

“What I don’t understand,” he said slowly, “is why we were both so effected but you were not.”

“It, he, showed us things we wanted. Heart’s desire, type thing,” Dean agreed.

“I don’t know,” said Sam.

Dean eyed him suspiciously.

“Or,” he said, and Sam squirmed a little. “Or, all he really wanted was a good laptop charger?”

Sam wouldn’t look at him.

“Oh my fucking God.”

Chapter Text

“So where to next?”

“Anywhere but a small town. Kinda had my fill for now.”

The highway stretched out before them, in a great prairie now, no sign of human habitation anywhere nearby.

“Agreed.”

***

They found themselves in the outskirts of a big city.

“Big cities eat people alive too, you know,” said Sam.

“Yeah, but in the traditional way,” Dean replied.

Things had been a little stilted on the ride up.

Neither Cas nor Dean wanted to talk about it.

Sam had made some lame-ass excuse to disappear and had hissed talk to him! before jetting off to fuck-knows-where and removing the moose-sized prim Victorian barrier between them.

So here they were, alone in some prissy coffeeshop that Dean had to grudgingly admit at least employed privacy and very nice sofas.

The fakey log-cabin theme was getting on his nerves though.

He brought Castiel his coffee and they sat there, not looking at each other.

“I – ” they both started.

Finally Castiel leveled that gaze at him, steely and strong.

Dean actually felt his heart skip a beat.

Or too much coffee.

Or something.

“I am in love with you, Dean Winchester,” he stated.

Dean clapped a hand over his mouth to stop the spit-take.

“What the fuck, Cas, you can’t just say that,” he said.

Castiel looked at him with all the serenity of a calm ocean hiding a giant squid just beneath the surface.

“I just did,” he said. “And I would like to lay you out and bring you the greatest ecstasy you as a human will ever know in this life or the next.”

Dean slowly set down his coffee.

“If you’re ‘game’,” said Castiel, complete with airquotes.

“Get your – I’m gonna – fuck, Cas, you’re on. But. Uh, where?”

Castiel raised a delicate eyebrow.

“I have a place.”

“You what now?”

***

Dean whistled.

“This is one hell of a place, Cas,” he said.

The entire city at his feet, Dean stood in a penthouse suite the likes of which a man of his status could merely dream.

“I like it,” Castiel said. “It reminds me of heaven.”

“Buddy,” said Dean, and then just spread his arms in resignation, because he had no words.

They stared at each other.

“Words have never really been our thing,” Dean finally said.

“Words are not the only form of communication,” said Castiel, and kissed him.

Chapter Text

The kiss did not last as long as Dean had hoped, and he opened his eyes, dreamy and a little confused.

“Hm?” he asked.

Castiel just stood there, looking at him.

“So where’s all this ecstasy you promised?” Dean asked. “C’mon, Cas. Fuck me up.”

Castiel stared at him a moment longer.

Then a wicked smile carved his face, one that Dean had never seen before.

Dean’s eyes widened.

“Shit,” he said.

***

Dean was moaning into the mattress with abandon.

He didn’t give a shit who heard him.

Kneeling on the bed, face pressed to the side against the mattress by an invisible force.

“Imagine all the wealth of your divinity, Dean,” Castiel said gently, sitting across the room from him. “All for me.”

Another wash of beautiful, near-painful pleasure went through Dean. His cock spurted precome as he desperately fucked at nothing.

Castiel, the bastard, laughed low in his throat behind him.

“That’s…” Dean took a deep breath, trying to see through the haze. “That’s cheating, y’know.”

“You asked. I delivered,” said Castiel. “Besides. I like seeing you like this. Breathless. Speechless. At my mercy.”

He sighed.

“Framed by a beautiful sunset giving way to the stars of the night,” he continued. “They remind me of your freckles, you know. Always have. In fact, I put constellations there.”

“On me or in the sky?”

“Both. A matched pair.”

Then Dean shuddered again as whatever-it-was drifted through him, spiraling him higher and higher with no promise of relief in sight.

“You are lovely like this, you know. Debauched and perfect.”

Precome spattered softly onto the sheets beneath him.

Dean took a deep breath.

“Big words from a dude who ain’t participating,” he said.

He actually felt the temperature in the room lower a bit.

But that was all right.

Because if there was one thing Dean was good at, it was taunting.

And he wanted to see what would happen if he pushed.

He was something of a daredevil that way.

“As you wish,” Castiel murmured, and suddenly there he was, caressing Dean’s skin, his hands everywhere.

Dean cried out, because somehow this felt more electric than whatever Castiel had been doing before.

“Fuck, yeah, Cas,” Dean muttered.

Castiel made a sound then that Dean wanted to hear again and again for the rest of his life.

And then Cas was opening him up with lube-slicked fingers and Dean was a begging mess.

Cas leaned over and said on a soft growl:

“Is this what you meant by participation?” earning him a long, high whine from Dean.

“Please, Cas, get a fuckin’ move on,” Dean breathed. “Fuck me. Please.”

Dean heard a sharp inhalation behind him, and then Castiel was lining himself up.

When he started to push in, the broken oh, Dean –

made Dean thrill with pride.

“Yeah, c’mon, that’s it,” Dean said.

He was always mouthy in the sack and hell if he was gonna keep his mouth shut now that he got to have this.

Dean breathed out, relaxing into it, and Castiel slid inside.

“Ah! Ah, fuck!” the angel cried out, deep voice rough and ragged, as his hand scrabbled uselessly against Dean’s back for a moment.

Dean hid a smile in the mattress.

Now that’s more like it, he thought.

And then, Castiel began to move.

Dean was sobbing, shouting, begging, mindless pleasure, reduced to where Castiel was bound with him now, and the angel had lifted him light as a feather, wrapping his powerful arms around Dean, around his hips, as he made his claim on the man he had recreated in his own image, Pygmalion’s dream come true.

Castiel was absolute.

Dean saw, now, in the mirrored reflection of the windows as the sun’s last rays disappeared, great black wings rising from Castiel’s back, watched himself get fucked by his angel in the reflection, with the city beyond.

“Oh – I’m – Dean, I’m – ” Castiel said, as he began to stutter and lose rhythm.

“Come in me,” Dean said through his teeth. “Fuckin’ do it. C’mon, Cas. Fuckin’ do it. You wanna come so fuckin’ hard in me, I know you do, fuck, you feel so good, cock is so fuckin’ huge, splittin’ me open, fuck, Cas, c’mon, please, Castiel – ”

Suddenly, Castiel threw him back down onto the bed and pressed his face into the mattress as he jackrabbited into him, making strange sounds deep in his chest, muttering things in another language, one Dean did not understand and yet understood they were of claim and of love and desire and victory, because their intention was crystal clear.

“Oh – Oh – ” Castiel chanted, and suddenly, Dean’s vision blacked out as the angel clapped a hand over his eyes.

The subsequent shockwave and explosion went through the room before Dean felt Castiel’s cock throbbing within him, and he thought holy fuck Cas is coming in me, holy fucking –

And he came all over the bedsheets, weeping in the sheer joy of relief and the aftershocks of the best fucking orgasm of his life.

Behind him, Castiel collapsed, exhausted, pulling out.

***

After returning from the bathroom, Dean grinned at Castiel.

“Took the sheets off, huh?” he asked, sliding into bed beside the angel.

“I thought it prudent.”

“Thanks,” said Dean, yawning. “Man, I’m beat.”

Castiel smiled, showing teeth.

He looked lovesick and Dean was sure he looked about the same.

“But I’ll say you sure as hell keep you promises.”

They lay there for a while, wrapped in each other, looking over the city.

“Do you think it’s weird,” Dean began.

“Do I think what’s weird?”

“Well…Bernice fell in love with a monster town. It doesn’t – it’s not anything like the same as her, and the sheer scale of the thing.”

“I’ve heard of people falling in love with towns before.”

“Well, yeah, maybe, but not so literally.”

“So you’re asking whether I think it’s weird that a human fell in love with a creature she doesn’t really understand, knows nothing about, is around 100 times her size, and is nothing like her in any way, shape, or form – except that it can sometimes appear as a man?”

Castiel gave Dean a certain look.

Dean smiled.

“Then no, Dean. I don’t think it’s weird at all.”

“You know what? You’re right. It ain’t that weird at all.”

And beneath the two lovers, the city slept, and the lit windows of the buildings looked like stars.

Chapter Text

The concept of being trapped in a small town is one of the greatest fears of any drifter, for obvious reasons.

Not to say the small town where I was stuck during much of the pandemic was a bad one - on the contrary, one of the more positive and community-oriented types of places I've been, so I feel fortunate to have been 'trapped' there, if I had to be anywhere.

I am going to add a couple other notes to this one but they will discuss some aspects of addiction and alcoholism as well as a few other things that might be difficult for some, so don't feel that you need to read those.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're all doing okay out there.

Chapter Text

Dean’s symptoms in this story are based on end-stage alcoholism.

Yes, in the story, it’s caused by a vial/magic syringe of some kind, which isn't real. But those symptoms are, and an example of all the kinds of exciting things you have to look forward to when things get bad.

I wanted to discuss this here because I am concerned that people who wish to emulate Dean as a character might want to take a step back from the bottle. He is an alcoholic.

I am, too.

I’ve been a whisky drinker as long as I’ve been drinking. It is my drink of choice – some would say my poison.

I'm a heavy drinker, good at holding it - would drink an entire bottle of Glenfiddich to myself in a night just because I could.

And I haven’t shared this with many people but I thought I might get through to somebody.

Dry drunks often say things like everybody finds their rock bottom. The lucky ones find it before it’s too late.

I experienced a pancreatic attack. This is one of those things you don’t hear about much, because cirrhosis gets the attention. But apparently death by pancreatitis is one of the worst and most painful you can experience – the pancreas begins digesting itself and in chronic pancreatitis, it calcifies. They don’t have strong enough painkillers for it so those who die of this, die screaming. And it ain't a quick way to go either, from what I gather.

My own experience with it was horrific and I was shit-scared.

But I didn’t quit drinking.

I’ve seen people diagnosed with pancreatitis ask things like can I go on just one last bender and shit like that. This really illustrates what an insidious drug alcohol is, what a dumb asshole it can make of you, and how it’s so much a part of our daily lives we don’t think much about it. And how much is too much? Look up the actual recommended daily amount of booze for anybody. It's hell of a lot less than you think.

I never hit the same rock bottom as other drunks have done. But that doesn't mean I never hit various things that would be rock bottom for other people. This is another lie it tells: well at least you're not that bad, you're not like that guy, and it's a lie well-meaning friends will also parrot. You're ok. You're not an alcoholic.

Except you are 'that guy' to someone else, to another observer telling themselves the same lies. Including the old saw about moderation.

Drunks can't moderate. It's never one-and-done. It's Pringles time.

For most alcoholics, drinking started out as a positive. Made them feel good. Soothed the pain. That's how it begins, but not how it progresses or ends.

Living on the road as I do, it's a lot easier to hide a lot of shit. Nobody's around me enough, for the most part, to see it - and those who have been, well. Drunks are very good at hiding things, including their inebriation.

Drunks are also great at coming up with an excuse:

I've gone through shit/I've had a hard life. Well, I've had a life so hard I've never heard of one harder outside of wartime and you know what? You want those memories to eat you alive, go ahead and drink. It's no escape - it makes you relive things you rather wouldn't.

I deserve it/deserve to relax/deserve to celebrate/need to wind down on the positive end. Alcohol is a depressant. It actively makes you unhappy. Sleep after drinking isn't restful. It also makes you fat, not only because of high caloric content but because your body needs to busy itself getting rid of the alcohol/poison before it can process any real food, much of which is the 3AM tacos type of healthy.

And I knew all of that, but I kept drinking.

Then I heard somewhere that if you quit drinking alcohol for 2 years, you will get some kind of mental clarity reward after that long of your brain and body repairing itself.

This, ultimately, was my key – not a rock bottom, but something that sounded like an intriguing challenge.

So I stopped drinking.

And let me tell you something, withdrawal and PAWS ain't pretty. But that's what you gotta do to heal, and here's how I found out it was worth the trouble:

When I was young, I wrote so much that I could not stop writing. It was like a waterfall of inspiration I was lucky to catch as much as I did, learning how to type faster and word processing because that’s how fast it went.

I had assumed this went away because of age.

But during those two years I didn’t drink, it all came back – the inspiration, the constant writing, idea after idea after idea. I think those of you who have read my stories for a while will know that I am a prolific writer. I do wish the ideas would be more stuff I can actually publish and make money on instead of another Dean and Cas story.

But it did come back. And I often wonder now what other things adults ascribe to age might in fact be due to drinking. Not even heavily - but alcohol even in small amounts is often a part of daily life.

When my own two years were up, I drank on a couple of nights with some friends, as we had planned. I didn’t experience anything particularly revelatory at the two-year mark, but maybe the point was all the days leading up to it that brought my ability to write back to me.

I was slightly surprised to find that I found the experience kind of dull. Like it was okay and that's about it.

And then –

After dealing with the payment for this 'fun', including the annoyances of hangover, dehydration, etc. which I had forgotten were the shitty parts of the experience –

I couldn’t write.

I had to take a hiatus from writing even from these stories for a few weeks because it was like someone turned the waterfall off.

I was amazed that alcohol – even that little of it – could do that kind of damage. By that point, I was pretty sure my storytelling ability would come back eventually – after all, it had before.

But there's always the chance that one day, it wouldn't, and Russian roulette ain't the kind of odds I like.

Trading the ability to tell stories in exchange for booze doesn’t really seem like a good deal to me. So I decided I would rather retain the ability to write and share stories with people than drink.

I’ve had a few warning shots over the bow before with drinking, even prior to the pancreatic attack. I remember I was walking up the street somewhere and I tried to smile at some guy passing me on the way. I was totally hammered but trying to show I was friendly and not a threat, because it was long after midnight in a rough part of the city. This guy gave me a terrified look, clutched at his pockets, and hurried away. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a store window and all I remember was that I couldn’t even focus on my own reflection to see why I looked so scary to this guy.

Other times – forgetting entire nights. Forgetting too much in general. I also found that the wall I usually employ against my memories – of which there are many very seriously traumatic ones – is nonexistent when I drink, and if things don’t go quite right during the evening it can send me into some of the most terrifying flashbacks I’ve experienced. There was even one full hallucination which I am only aware of because a friend was there and snapped me out of it.

Some behaviors in the past I’d give the hard side-eye. Throwing up and going right back out to the bar for more, over and over, throughout the night. This happened more than once. Sex with people I did not remember in the morning – as a drifter these kinds of encounters are relatively rare, but they do happen (everybody’s looking for comfort). And it’s a hell of a thing to wake up and have no idea what you did the night before or remember the name or face of the person you just woke up beside. There’s a strange part of drinking where you are aware at the time but the short-term memory goes, leaving you piecing together the great mystery in the morning.

Then comes the dread – what did I say? What did I do? And it’s a snake looking for something to match up with the intense fear and shame you are feeling. These aspects are discussed at length between alcoholics. Because at the end of the day, we are all human, and this is how alcohol effects human beings. Yeah, even if you’re good at holding your liquor. Eventually, you gotta pay the price.

In this story, Dean experiences the DTs, the hallucinations, and pancreatitis (abdominal pain in the extreme). I did not include the shadow people but this is also an aspect of alcoholism and particularly withdrawal. You want to see a bunch of spooks and scare yourself to death this is the best way to do it. I do not recommend it. I should put here: don’t cold turkey booze, it can kill you.

Dean also experiences that panic of drunks everywhere, what if there isn't enough? and even thinks of Castiel's need for an entire liquor store to get smashed. Any drinker will tell you that the fear of the liquor store closing before they get another bottle of wine or whatever is a real one. There's this moment, even while you are drinking, where you think what if there isn't enough? and it will prompt drunks to get in the car and drive to the store for another bottle of something, preferably a large bottle (or a box of wine, something that will last, like you'd stock up on food before a storm, before the panic dissipates). And since we're on the topic: wine has no more health benefits than you can get from grape juice, and it turns out that there are probably zero health benefits from any alcohol at all.

None of the actual payment for Dean’s alcoholism has been portrayed in the show, but I try to include it in the stories I write because I think it’s important to portray the lived reality of people with this problem. And how extremely unappealing and unromantic it can be. There are examples throughout the stories I tell (vomiting, blacking out, etc.) but this time I wanted to write something specific to the disease of alcoholism, so to speak. I also think it’s a little irresponsible of the show to gloss over the repercussions of this type of addiction – especially because alcohol is freely available and easy to get. I've long thought of Dean as a smoker as well - they hint at it a couple of times in earlier seasons, and it does make sense given his age and his attitude - and his drinking - the drink bone's connected to the smoke bone is something frequently said in our community. However, they don't show heroes smoking anymore because of the impressionable audience. I feel like drinking ought to be treated the same way. It is one of the only legally and socially accepted drugs. It does far, far more damage than many other drugs have done or will do, not least because of the proliferation of it.

There is a romantic notion of the drunk writer – Hemingway, Joyce, the list is a long and relatively sad one. Many people think it’s the alcohol that helped their creativity. That’s what I used to think, too, until I experienced the return of so much inspiration without it.

And it made me wonder what they could have done without it, too.

Hemingway committed suicide and I often think about something he said beforehand: what a marvelous cure, but they've taken my business from me. He could no longer write. I couldn't even imagine a life in which I no longer could - but it seems that is exactly what happens with alcohol.

Glorifying booze, in whatever way we do it, does us all a disservice. Whether it’s people insisting they need it to relax or involving it in other non-drinking aspects of life (drunk yoga, I saw one time), it is everywhere. Everyone also gets defensive about it, or oh I don’t have a problem, I’m not like those people, or I can hold my liquor as some kind of mark of badassery when it is really a mark of encroaching alcoholism.

The defensiveness also tends to come from a place of discomfort, because it forces them to ask themselves if they need to examine their own drinking habits, too.

I suppose all this rambling is probably meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I thought if I was able to get anyone reading these stories to reconsider before they hit their rock bottom, then I had to try.

I know I’m not going to save the world with this or probably get anyone to give a dry life a go. All I can tell you is what happened to me. And I can never say never, regarding whether I will drink again one day. I find that absolute statements tend to make me rebel, because I have enough of a problem with authority that I will rebel against myself.

But I can tell you that if I hadn’t given up drinking, these stories would not be here.

And I think that says all that needs saying.

Take care of yourselves out there, and come back to the campfire when you can.

I’ll have a story for you.