SPN J2 BigBang 2015 - Dreameater (Destiel) 7/9
//Dreams. Again. Dreams.
For the last month and a half, his life had been about dreams. Dreams being eaten, being stolen, being killed for.
Fantasies, nightmares, hopes, fears, love, and passion. All of these things being battled over in a world that did not realize how lucky it was to have such a privilege. To dream, to hope, to touch the forbidden within one’s heart. Not knowing just how stark reality is when it’s all stripped away.
No wonder they shuddered and died.
Recently, Dean had dreamed about kissing a pair of lips that were dear to him. Missing the touch of the literal man of his dreams. The agony of watching him fly into battle for him, and unable to do anything.
With that thought, when he opened his eyes, looking up into a twilight sky.
That was different.
He also couldn’t hear the gentle swaying of the grass.
Nervous, he sat up and noticed he was wearing the same thing as Gabriel usually did: a white floppy outfit that looked like it came out of a samurai movie, all huge pants and giant sleeves. It wasn’t the only thing he noticed when he looked down at himself. He had noticed that he had a tear in his dream-body and it was bleeding out that foggy blue stuff. It was oozing out slowly, like pudding or something, and it made him uncomfortable to see that. He poked at it, and then hissed-shrieked as it hurt like a motherfucker, the pain radiating like he had slammed his finger with a sledgehammer.
“Have I told you lately that you’re an idiot?”
Dean looked up and found the huge golden-eyed fox staring at him. He blushed and pointed at his giant, oozing tear. “It looks gross. Why doesn’t it hurt?” He paused. “Uh, I mean, when I don’t touch it. Why doesn’t it hurt if I don’t touch it?”
The fox’s tails, all nine, swished once, blowing air across the grasses and making them sway for what looked like miles. Gabe said dryly, “Because Cassie is a bigger idiot than you are.”
Dean frowned, not understanding what that meant. The fox pointed towards the tree with his snout. “Look. The tree is almost bare. He gave it up to save you.”
Dean looked, and, indeed, the cherry tree was nearly empty of blossoms. Underneath it, he could see what looked like a white body resting against the trunk, and he pushed himself upright, despite the pain, ready to run to it, to make sure it wasn’t what - who - he thought it was.
Despite himself, tears bubbled up as his fear took root, and (as in dreams) he realized that he was a fool to not consciously recognizing Cas for so long.
Before he could get away, however, a huge paw stopped him, dropping heavily onto his shoulder.
“Just a second, lover boy,” Gabe said with some amusement. “Given time, he’ll recuperate some. But you…”
Dean blinked as Gabe poked him in the chest, and then yelped because, one, his claws were sharp, and two, his chest hurt from the damn rip up the middle of his dream-body.
Gabe sighed and muttered, “You idiots.” He turned his head to his tail and deliberately snipped one off with his teeth. The tail moved on its own, which was kind of gross, wiggling around to get free. Golden eyes narrowed speculatively at Dean and he panicked when he realized what Gabe was going to do with that tail.
“Oh hell, no! Get away from me!”
Gabe smirked and swatted him like a fly, making him land on his back with a thump. Which hurt tremendously and, in between the tears of pain, he swore roundly at the giant lump of fur.
“Now, now, Dean-o,” Gabe chuckled around the tail, pressing a paw onto Dean’s chest and ignoring his suffering. “You don’t realize how fortunate you are, even with your luck almost gone. Don’t you think it’s interesting that fate gave you a powerful tengu for a bond-mate? And that he knew me, knew I would save you, because of the love I bear him?” He peered down at the human. “What wonders are you going to do in this world, that it has worked so hard to save you, O Righteous Man?”
Dean glared up at Gabe through his pain. “I don’t fucking know, but get off me, Gabe!”
Gabe tutted at him. “Even half gone, your soul still glows like a fire opal under your skin. No wonder he can’t resist you.”
He pushed down on Dean’s chest a bit, making the rip gape. “This might hurt...a lot actually!”
Having said that, he shoved his muzzle and the tail into the gaping hole. Dean’s eyes bugged out at the pain, and he grabbed at Gabe’s head furiously, his screams deafening. He smacked the fox’s head and yanked on his ears to try and relieve the sensation of his spirit being infested by something, something large and snake-like that was curling around his soul and clutching it near.
Then Gabe pulled out, and grinned at Dean, licking the wound as it started to close. “See, Dean-o! All better.” He looked down at the wound, watching it close, and nodded faintly. “We’ll have to see what happens now. I hope you’re strong enough for it.”
Dean had curled onto his side, bringing his knees protectively over his abdomen. He cried at the pain - they were very manly tears - but the ache was slowly subsiding. Now, it just felt like something had taken root inside him, and he wanted to puke at the violation.
He heard Gabriel sigh. “If there were any other way to save you, we would have done it, Dean. Forgive him. He’s suffering too.”
Dean wanted to ask why, but Gabe stepped away and said, “I’m going to go take up the guardian post for now.” Dean opened his mouth to say...something… and Gabe smirked.
“Go find him. After all, wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva…”
He cackled uproariously, before leaping into the air and disappearing into the sky.
“What a dick,” Dean groused, rubbing his stomach. It was down to a dull throb, and, although it felt weird, in comparison to earlier, he felt okay. “What the hell’s with his quoting ‘Princess Bride’ at this point?”
He pulled himself up to his feet, which were in those damn clunky wooden shoes again, and staggered his way to the cherry tree.
There were very few blossoms left on the tree. The trunk was now white, like a sycamore, and he fell to his knees in front of the man collapsed under it.
Gen (Cas?) was passed out, his face blanched, his iridescent black wings drooping off his shoulders and half in the dirt. Cas’s pure white outfit was as messy as the last time Dean had seen him, dark with soot and blood, his hat gone, and the sleeves ripped to shreds revealing pale, sinewy arms underneath. There was still a hole in his clothing where the Baku had gotten him on his side, although the flesh underneath looked whole and pallid.
Trembling, Dean took Cas’s face between his hands and slapped him a few times, saying, “Cas! Cas! Cas, wake up!”
Slowly, blue eyes opened, but they weren’t supernaturally bright. They were still the color of the summer skies, though. Regret burned through Dean, and he already missed that preternatural light.
Cas coughed, winced, and coughed again. “Dean…” he mumbled, “What happened?”
Dean couldn’t believe it. He pressed his lips together, and pulled his forehead to Cas’s, his eyes closed. “Why didn’t you tell me..?”
Cas blinked, looking unsure of what to make of things. “What do you mea-”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Gen was you?” Dean flashed open his eyes, unaware that Cas had started when he saw they were glowing faintly. “Why!?”
Cas tilted his head slightly, as much as Dean’s hands on his face would allow him, and he said, slowly, “Because this is my job. I have to protect you. I’m not supposed to get involved with my ward, and I tried to separate myself so it wouldn’t overlap.”
More tears escaped Dean, slipping down his face, and dropping off his chin. He hated he was so emotional here, his being stripped of his usual armor. Cas’s eyes were wide with wonder, watching him cry, whispering lowly, “Are these tears for me?”
“Cas, I don’t care if this your job. If… hell, if we need to keep our hands to ourselves, I can do that! But…Please don’t leave me. I...I need you.” Dean whispered hoarsely. “I thought we were bond-mates, partners! Doing this to me is not 50:50, man.”
Cas frowned lightly and touched Dean’s face. “But my life means nothing, Dean. I have lived and died, and now I am alive only to do penance.” He pressed bloodless, chapped lips together and said, softly, “I cannot have you the way I want you, Dean. Please… let me do this. Let me fade away.”
Dean tore away from him, sitting back on his heels and glaring. “No, damn it! I won’t let you fade!”
Cas opened his mouth to say something, when Dean growled and swooped in, sealing his mouth with his own. Dean knocked Cas’s head against the tree, but he planned to make up for it, straddling the tengu’s lap and burying his hands in the long, dark hair that freed itself instantly from its containing thread under the onslaught of his fingers.
He felt Cas’s hesitation before he started kissing back, and then it was desperate hands that pulled Dean closer. Cas’s hands that slid between them, his hands finally on him, slipping over his chest and checking that he was whole and okay. He felt Cas’s callused fingers touch his face, and he pulled back slightly, both of them panting in the small space between us. He ran his thumb over Cas’s reddened bottom lip, and looked into those blown blue eyes. “Is...is this okay?” He ran his other thumb over Cas’s cheek bone, burying his fingers deeper into the hair behind Cas’s head. “A-are we okay?”
“Dean,” Cas murmured, swallowing hard, his hands brushing over Dean’s face as if it were precious. “I have only a few days of spiritual energy left.” He closed his eyes to the pain in those glowing green eyes, both of them still breathing hard, and tapped his head against Dean’s. “You can’t stop it. The cherry tree will die soon, and then I will fade from this world.”
Dean swallowed hard, trying not to cry, and looked over at the pond. It was full of cherry blossoms that were swirling in the water and slowly melting into it. He realized then that Cas had put most of the blossoms into the water to buoy him up after the Baku had stolen his luck.
He grabbed Cas’s face again and shook it, whispering intently, “You stupid, stupid bird! Why did you do that? God damn it, Cas! You can’t give me your energy.”
Cas blinked up at him, his slim human hands sliding up Dean’s thighs encased in bright white hakama, thighs that bracketed his hips, and said, “You have to live. You have to seal the Yumekui. I don’t matter.”
Dean ignored the sob in his own voice as he choked out, “You matter to me, Tweety. You matter to me.”//
Dean
When Dean woke up, it was to Sam’s pathetic puppy-dog eyes and Bobby’s concerned blue-greys. They had dragged him to the couch while unconscious and his body felt stiff and not altogether his. He staggered as he tried to sit up, his abdomen not hurting anymore and he was delighted that he could breathe. Sam immediately put a hand to his back to help him sit up, but he slapped at Gigantor’s giant floppy hands.
“Get your massive mitts off me, you big girl,” he snapped, pushing his brother off. “I feel fine.”
He pushed himself up to his feet, only swaying a bit, and looked around the room. “Cas! Where’s Cas?”
Bobby and Sam exchanged a look, and Sam shrugged. “They were here for a moment and then, suddenly, Cas collapsed and stopped breathing for a second and Gabe carried him away.”
Fear clutched at Dean innards. “He fucking stopped breathing?” He pushed himself forward, to put one foot in front of the other, and grumbled, “Stupid fucking bird! I told him to not do that! Why doesn’t he ever listen to me?!”
Bobby grabbed his arm, fisting into the forest green-plaid flannel Dean was wearing. “You’re barely standing on your own, son. You can’t go out there running after Cas. Gabe’s got him. You’re just gonna have to trust him.”
Dean scowled at Bobby, every part of him wanting to run out to where he knew Cas was waiting with Gabe, out in the grove, in nature, revitalizing himself. He tried to remember what Gabe said in the dream, what he had said about Cas recovering a bit.
His temper flared and he jerked his shirt out of Bobby’s hand. “Fine.” He blew out a huge sigh. “Fine. I get it.”
Sam said, tentatively, “I’ll, uh, go make some coffee.” He gave Dean a concerned look that Dean hated, like he was made out of crystal or some shit, and he waved his little brother out.
After a moment, though, Dean shouted after him, “Make mine a double Irish!”
Dean dropped himself back into the couch with a grunt and flung his arms over his head to block out the world. He tried to ignore Bobby’s presence, as the older man took a seat in the desk chair he had parked nearby to keep an eye on Dean. “So,” Bobby started slowly, “Want to talk about it?”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” Dean growled from under his forearms.
“Well, neither do I, princess! But if it has a bearing on what the fuck happened when Cas collapsed, I still want to hear about it.”
Dean grumbled and, under the pressure of Bobby’s gaze, said, “Fine!”
He sat up and faced Bobby and laid it out all on the line about the Baku; how her getting stronger translated into her getting greedy for his luck; how she had plucked out most of his luck, leaving a gaping wound in his spirit; how Gabe and Cas had been fighting her off this whole time and he hadn’t known until recently; and how Cas had saved him by giving him most of his own spirit.
He skipped over the tail thing because that was creepy and he really didn’t know how he was going to face Gabe again after that, even knowing that Cas’s power hadn’t been enough to fix him, but only enough to staunch the flow. Still, there was a part of Gabe’s ass inside him and, if he thought about it too hard, he’d give himself an aneurysm.
If he thought of it at all, it would be because occasionally, just... occasionally as he sat there and talked and talked, he thought he could feel it wiggling under his sternum.
Sam had come back in with the double Irish coffee (Hallelujah!) and the hot liquored beverage went a long way in making him feel human again. But, I’m not anymore, am I?
He ignored that niggling voice in his head and told them how Cas was fading because of the transfer, and how they were going to have to chase down the Baku because there was no more time.
He wasn’t doing it without Cas. He just wasn’t.
Of course, now that Sam had him pinned, he demanded the full story, which made Dean groan and Bobby chuckle. “I’m gonna go check how the teams are doing.”
“Did that onmyōji show up?” Dean asked, giving his brother a ‘give me a fucking break’ look, only to have it parried with bitchface #4, ‘Dean, you’re being a dick.’
“He’s gonna be here later today. He’ll probably want to have a long parley with Cas and Gabe, seeing as they’re traditionally not all that friendly, what with onmyōji trapping them and/or killing yōkai.”
“Whatever,” Dean muttered, stretching out on the couch and covering his face with his arms again. “Just as long as he leaves them alone, it’s cool.”
“Gotten attached, Dean?” Bobby chuckled on his way out the door.
“Bite me, you old coot.” Dean snapped. To Sam, he grumbled, “He’s getting too old for this shit. We need to save some money and get him a condo in Florida or something.”
“I heard that! Idjit!”
Sam laughed softly at their banter, but soon grew serious.
“Dean,” He said, and Dean groaned because it was his ‘sharing and caring’ voice. “You almost died out there by being smacked in the head with a baseball. Are you sure everything’s okay?”
Dean sighed and moved his arms down to stare at the water-stained ceiling. “As sure as I can be,” he muttered, thinking about Cas’s predicament. “Now, can we drop it? I’m exhausted, nauseous, and not allowed to nap.”
Sam pressed his lips together, frowning slightly with disapproval, and said, “Yeah, okay.”
Dean almost counted that as proof his luck was back.
Gabriel’s Grove
“You are the biggest idiot, Cassie.”
“Shut up, Gabriel. Just… let me rest for a bit.”
“You leaving me with guard duty, little bro?”
“Gabriel… I’m not your little brother. Furthermore, yes. I am afraid I cannot move.”
“Ha ha ha! Ah, you’re such a child, Cassie. Fine, I’ll go watch over your lover boy. And stop getting all embarrassed and red. You weren’t all embarrassed and red when you were licking his tonsils under the cherry tree.”
“Gabriel, I might be weak, but I will still strive to kill you if you don’t shut up now.”
“Love you too, Cassie. Now rest up and I’ll go watch hot pants and that tall hot drink of Oh-My-God he calls a younger brother.”
“Thank you, Gabriel.”
“No problemo, little man.”
Baku
The night Eve had ripped the luck from Dean, she had come back triumphant and swallowed it whole. It had tasted delicately of cinnamon and silver, and she savored it as it settled in her abdomen, next to the nest of souls she had stolen, all held in by a thin membrane that was a harvested bit of Dean’s life force, reinforced by the bit she drained away each and every night.
But tonight, with her big haul, she was ready to start the spell. She had enough power to finally call the nue from beyond, and, with its help, she could then devour enough souls to bring the Hyakki Yagyō, the Night Parade, to this place and then to the world.
She was in a newly-stolen den, a place that oversaw the city from the very top of a building. They called it a ‘penthouse.’ The lights were brighter, but the air was fresher. She could look out and see the world she was going to devour and smile. She didn’t care if the spells she was plotting out would eventually destroyed her; she was taking the world with her, and this time there was no one to stop her.
No tengu. No onmyōji. No one.
Dean Winchester would not survive long without his luck, and that damned kitsune and tengu were not going to do much about it.
The kitsune...she chewed her thumb nail, worrying it as she stared out. They couldn’t save him… could they?
The kitsune was the big unknown. He was powerful enough to face her, even after she had devoured these thousand souls. Even after she had stolen all of Dean’s luck. He was older than she was, much older, and tricky. A definite trickster, fooling her in that last battle into thinking she had the advantage and then raking through her defenses with his claws and teeth.
She hadn’t wanted to spend more energy on healing than she had to; she had plans for her accumulated energy after all. Discretion was the better part of valor sometimes, and she knew she was outmatched when the fucking tengu reappeared, even looking worse for wear. She grinned. That one was on the short slope to oblivion. She just had to wait and he’d peter out like a gutted candle.
But that kitsune… she wasn’t sure what to make of him, although she knew he was helping Dean Winchester somehow. Those who had confronted Dean themselves never returned, and she wasn’t sure how that one puny human was killing off her brethren, her children, so easily. But she suspected the kitsune was somehow involved.
In her own defense, she had pulled a large band of hyōsube (the hairier, dirtier, meaner cousins of the kappa), making sure this time they were enough of them to kill off the priests that the human hunters had brought in. She had also pulled several oni, a new kijo, an obariyon to hound walkers, and even a couple of betobetosan to feast on the fear she had piled up in the city.
Eve smiled lovingly as she thought about her new companions.
She loved how the obariyon clamped onto unsuspecting humans and slowly ground them into paste with its weight on their backs.
She loved the formlessness of the betobetosan, made of nothing but ether and wooden sandals, the way their wooden sandals clacked in time as they synchronized their pace with walkers and followed them as long as they could. The betobetosan would get closer and closer with each step, invisible and bodiless. The humans, already terrified by the events menacing the city, would run, looking behind them, looking for the haunting sound of footsteps that followed them. But each and every time they turned to see what was following them, they’d find nothing.
Sometimes she encouraged other yōkai to work with it, so that the betobetosan chased the foolish humans into their waiting maw. It was how she often made sure the onihitokuchi, that big-mouthed woman eater, got fed.
She had even managed to release a tsuchi-gumo, which had fled and gone into hiding, preferring its own strategies for finding prey. She suspected that, like the kijo, it had fled into the mountain to find its food there. Spiders that size were sure to get attention in the human city anyway.
Even with all the yōkai, though, human hunters still swarmed to the city. Did they not understand yōkai were endless? They could not stop all the black specter dogs, all the corpse-eating ghosts, all the spirit-eating Will-o-wisps. They couldn’t.
Perhaps if they had a particularly powerful onmyōji to aid them, but the time of onmyōji had passed.
This was the time of science, not magic; a time of logic, not belief.
And she would eat at it until it was gone.
Eve smiled again, reaching over to the calligraphy brush she had found. The apartment she had taken as her new den had been owned by a fan of Japan, and they had collected many interesting artifacts. They had been a fan, of course, until she had fed them to the tsuchi-gumo as part of the summoning, both he and his mistress, another shrill, disbelieving blonde.
She frowned and wondered why so many of the women she encountered were blonde and shrill? She’d met dark-haired women, but they just didn’t seem as shrill. She put the thought away to think on it, wondering if it was because she was always meeting them under the worst circumstances?
She shrugged and dipped the brush into the blood-ink, made of the ashes of a hundred yōkai and a hundred humans’ blood (she had only needed the smallest drop, but some of the yōkai were insatiable and literally left nothing). She elegantly and swiftly drew the sigils onto her abdomen to bring forth the nue, with a quick flick of her wrist finishing this character, a small dip finishing that character, until her entire stomach and chest was covered in interlocking sigils and creating the spell so her body could house the nue.
It was critical to get it right. She’d have no other chance until after Nurarihyon emerged to lead the Night Parade. When she had sucked Dean Winchester dry of his life force, she would summon Nurarihyon and then it would be the end of days.
And the nue was the portent of end of days. It brought storms and darkness, nightmares and sickness. It cultivated fires and wielded lightning.
She would feed and then she would destroy the human world.
She smiled as the sigils lit up, each burning into her flesh with a small sizzling sound, the gods accepting her sacrifices: the thousand human souls, the luck of the Righteous Man, and the willing womb of a corrupted baku.
Three days. She needed three days for it to come into fruition.
She patted her belly and purred, “Let’s rain destruction soon, my pretty.”
Soon.
Dean
Onmyōji Akira Abe was a surprise.
For one, Akira was a woman, and they had all been under the impression that an onmyōji had to be a man. She had laughed at their stunned faces, a husky sound that shouldn’t have come from such a thin body, and said, “My name is very ambiguous for a reason. Akira is a man’s or a woman’s name.” She had smiled mysteriously and added, “I prefer it. I can be either.”
For another, she was a young woman in her mid-twenties, who was purely gorgeous and an interesting mix of Japanese and American cultures. She had the brash American personality; she laughed loudly and with her head thrown back, and she swore with the best of them. She had shoulder-length hair that glowed like polished onyx, and her eyes were a rich caramel that were nearly as mischievous as Gabe’s amber-hued ones. She was short at five-foot-five, and made of all angles and tight New York City energy that she could settle in a breath, surprising everyone.
She constantly drank coffee, despite her ‘spiritual being’ suffering from the dosing, but she shrugged off any funny looks she received with, “Better that than everyone suffer from my hella bad mood.”
And Akira had immediately jumped into the fray, nodding approval at the protective sigils on the walls and surrounding the property, looking over the reports that Bobby had meticulously compiled for future hunters, and even diagnosing Dean with a look. He wasn’t sure if she had gleaned what the issue was from what Bobby told her, or if it was more mystical Japanese hoodoo that he had no idea about. Somehow she had not only figured out his problem but she had also decocted an ‘herbal supplement.’ From her ginormous tote bag that looked bigger than she was, she offered him a decoction in a slim purple thermos that tasted like paint thinner with a ginger aftertaste (making him choke and gag, while she gleefully laughed and slapped his back), and told him to drink it all. She would make more and it would help boost what life force and luck he had left.
Sam, the big girl, would called it a ‘tincture.’
Dean didn’t give a shit what it was called because he was positive it was made up of ground yōkai ass with a sprinkle of ginger, because that was just how his luck (literally) ran. When he gagged, and tried not to vomit afterwards, he managed to choke out his suspicions. She smiled patiently and didn’t deny it, and he eyed the thermos suspiciously while Akira winked at Sam and Bobby.
Sam and Bobby positively adored her from that moment on.
When Gabe walked in, sucking on his usual Chupa Chup, he paused when he saw her. She also stopped mid-sentence and the tension in the room skyrocketed as everyone (being Dean, Sam, and Bobby) realized it was a potentially explosive situation. Yōkai, even friendly ones like Gabe, and onmyōji were not exactly friendly on the best of days.
Today, Dean noted, Gabe was wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt over a neon-green t-shirt that said, ‘FLAWLESS’ in big black letters and ‘I woke up this way’ under that. He was also wearing ratty orange flip-flops and well-worn jeans. He looked, as usual, completely not as powerful as he actually was.
Gabe eyed her and, popping out his lolly to point at her with it, said flatly, “So, you’re the big time medicine woman Bobby called in.”
She eyed him and, hands on her hips, replied in the exact flat tone, “So, you’re the big time kitsune, who thinks he knows everything.”
He stuffed his lollipop back in his mouth, eyed her a moment more, seeming to evaluate her, and then he nodded. “Okay, you can keep her,” he said, while turning to walk away.
Dean hadn’t realized it until he heard Bobby and Sam do it too, but they had all three been holding their breath.
Akira chuckled and turned back to face them, amusement glittering in her caramel eyes. “That is one fucking powerful fox you guys wrangled in on this.” She grinned at Dean. “Someday, you’re going to have to tell me how you managed it.”
Dean heaved a sigh. “I’d say luck, but I’m seriously low on that.” He paused, wondering if he should mention Cas, but then shrugged because she was going to have to meet him eventually. “My, erm… bond-mate.” He flushed red, not used to saying it out loud, and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “My... guardian, Cas - well, Castiel - is the one who summoned him. I just helped.”
Akira’s eyes had sharpened on his flailing ‘explaining’ hand, having glimpsed something, and then narrowed. She pulled on his hand so she could see the palm, making him yelp because, seriously, she was strong for such a fine-boned thing. She scrutinized the characters on it with incisive eyes and rubbed the dark marks with her thumb, making Dean shift uncomfortably. Finally, she lifted her perceptive gaze up and asked, “Akio?”
She pointed at it, making Dean grateful that her fingernails were short and blunt. “What is this doing here?”
Dean opened his mouth to say something, when a soft, husky voice said, “It’s… his contract. With Gabriel. A promise til Dean’s death or the Baku’s dealt with.”
Dean’s open mouth turned into a gape as he spied Cas.
Cas stood in the doorway in his ‘true’ form: standing tall, his dark hair pulled back, and with bright-blue human eyes. At his back, two huge raven-black wings were tucked in close to his body. A small, black lacquer pill-box hat sat on his head, and he was wearing a larger version of his original outfit: the pants he called hakama; the big sleeved white kimono-looking top (kosode, his brain supplied); his vest made of giant red pompoms; and there were these things that looked like shin-guards for soccer that were wrapped around his calves, tucking in the billowing black cloth of his pants, and making the white split-toe socks visible. Dean had never seen the leg wear, probably because Cas had never had to wear socks as a bird.
It was not the sexiest thing Dean had ever seen, and, if he were honest (and he wasn’t going to be), he preferred the white flowing outfit from his dreams to this brash, bright outfit. Cas’s slim frame, angular face, slender hands looked like he should be dressed in elegant clothes. Not whatever this was.
Cas was half-leaning on the door frame, and he tried to bow properly. “It… is nice… to meet you.” He managed it, but Dean still moved to help him. It was just as well, as Cas sucked in his breath in pain and struggled to get upright again.
Akira watched them carefully, her expression carefully blank. As Cas struggled to remain standing, she then bowed respectfully and said, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. This one is called Abe Akira. This one’s forefathers were onmyōji for the Imperial family. This one’s many times over grandfather was Abe no Seimei. This one thanks thee, O honorable daitengu, for thine presence here today.”
Sam, Dean noticed, was frowning, but Cas looked pleasantly surprised and replied, “Abe Akira. I know thine family well. I am now called ‘Castiel,’ but it would please me to be friends. Please call me ‘Cas’ as friends would.”
They both bowed (Cas with some help from Dean) and tentatively smiled at each other. While trying to help Cas stand and not hurt himself, Dean overheard Sam ask Bobby what just happened, and he realized with a shock that Akira and Cas had been speaking some fancy-ass version of Japanese. He chalked it up to the language thing Cas mentioned before, and put it on the list of ‘things to ask Cas later.’
He ignored Akira’s knowing eye and leaned deep into Cas’s space to softly ask, “Are you okay?”
Cas huffed and straightened himself up completely, grimacing as he did. “Well, I’ve certainly been better.”
Akira stepped in closer and peered into Cas’s eyes (on her tiptoes, but that did not help the spike of jealous that speared Dean), humming and flat out saying, “You’re going to die soon, daitengu-dono.”
Cas smiled sweetly at her, his pale lips barely moving, and he murmured, “Yes, I am.”
In a rush, Dean asked, “Can you help him?”
He tried to ignore the panic in his voice, that the hand that was gripping Cas’s shoulder to help him stand was tightening just that little bit more. That’s when he felt Cas’s hand move to his lower back and rub circles into it, trying to soothe him.
He grimaced, realizing that Cas - his in-serious-pain-and-near-death Cas - was trying to soothe him. He was such an ass. Cas was trying to be strong, and he was being a whiny bitch about it. Dean pressed his lips together and, ignoring the part of himself that wanted to beg out loud, sent pleading looks at Akira.
Akira tilted her head slightly, regarding them evenly, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. He’s already being helped as much as he can be by that fox. There’s nothing I can do.”
Anguish stabbed through Dean’s chest, almost as painful as the claws ripping out his luck, and he said quietly, “C’mon Cas. Let’s go rest in my room. We can listen to some music or something.”
He ignored the thoughtful look from Akira and the sympathetic look from his giant moose of a brother. He and Cas had been through a lot, some of it neither Bobby nor Sam knew about. He had a feeling that Gabe knew, but that canny bastard wouldn’t say anything that would hurt Cas. Him, maybe. Cas? No.
He mostly carried Cas up the stairs, Cas’s shortness of breath bothering him more than he wanted to say, and when they got to his room, he sat Cas down carefully as possible, taking special care of his wings. He removed Cas’s silly hat and pompom vest despite his protests and forced him to lay down, his wings flaring open a bit so he could lay down more comfortably. As Dean adjusted the pillows, Cas huffed out another laugh. “How pathetic is this?”
Dean didn’t answer, nor did he wait for permission; he crawled in next to Cas, pulling the tengu in so he laid against his shoulder, and he nearly sighed happily when those dark wings flared up and around them in a feathery cocoon.
“Cas,” he whispered against his ear, “why didn’t you show us this form from the beginning?”
Against his shoulder, slightly muffled, Cas murmured, “I was a monk before I was a tengu. A bad monk. I gambled. I played around with men and women. I drowned in excess. I broke with my brethren in doing so, breaking my Sangha into factions, some wanting me back, some wanting me dead. In Buddhism, these are sins.” He sighed, and laid his hand on Dean’s chest, patting it softly. “I was too defiled to move on, but not evil enough to land in Hell. But there is no easy forgiveness. As an ex-monk, you must work out your sins, repent, and, to do so, you become a tengu.”
Dean’s breath caught as Cas nuzzled into the junction between his shoulder and throat, the tip of his nose cold against his skin.
“You begin as a lowly crow tengu, almost mindless, a slave to your superior because you cannot be trusted. They’re endless days of relentless chores, meditation, and prayers. As you show repentance, you work your way up the ladder, until finally you are trusted enough to be given a task.”
Dean dropped a kiss onto Cas’s head and whispered, “And yours was to guard the Yumekui.”
Cas thumped Dean’s chest gently with his palm, punctuating each word. “Mine was to guard the Yumekui.”
Dean chuckled at Cas’s patting him, especially when he smiled up at him. Then his breath caught yet again as Cas raised his hand and touched his fingers to Dean’s face with a ridiculous amount of wonder, tracing over his forehead, down his cheek and under his eye to brush over his nose. He touched his fingers to Dean’s lips, over the dip in his upper lip to press just at the point where his lips became moist, pushing in the tip of his finger, and gasping lightly when Dean licked him. His eyes darkened, and he swallowed hard, looking up into Dean’s eyes.
“But I failed to protect the Yumekui,” he muttered. “And every night, and every day, I saw you. I saw your beautiful soul and…”
His words faltered. He closed his eyes and licked his lips, pressing them together as he visibly tried to pull himself together. “Dean, I have… no right to have feelings for you.”
Dean took Cas’s hand in his and gently kissed his palm. “Don’t I get a say in this?” He asked gruffly.
He wasn’t prepared for the sorrow that fluttered over Cas’s face. The depth of regret in his cerulean eyes burned him, hurt him in ways he didn’t know was possible. He released a shuddering breath, and pulled Cas closer to him, relishing the scent of cherry blossoms, leather, and sandalwood. In his ear, the warm, rumbling voice whispered, “I am prohibited from falling in love, and I have broken my vows for you. I will be punished.”
Dean vehemently shook his head. No, no, no, no…
“W-we just have to kill the Baku, right? J-just the Baku and we’ll both be right as rain,” he mumbled into Cas’s hair. “Y-you’re going to be okay, Cas. Just...stay with me.”
His dream came to mind, the barrier that separated them, the desperation of being left behind and not knowing what was going to happen next to his loved ones.
“Please,” he unintentionally whimpered, and the sound made him stop and suck in his breath, to try and regain control. He wasn’t crying, but the tears were threatening to fall. He felt the sobs catching his throat, making his throat feel hoarse and scratchy. He felt Cas’s hands fist into his shirt, one on his chest, the other at his back.
He tried again.
“Please, don’t leave me here. I-I don’t want to be alone. Not anymore.”
He sniffled loudly as he sucked back a big gasp of air, not letting waterworks get the better of him, and laid small kisses on Cas’s head, feeling the tengu trembling in his arms. “Every fucking day, you’ve been with me almost twenty-four hours a day. Every day, Cas!”
To silence him, Cas raised his head and clumsily kissed Dean, bumping their noses together. When Dean moved a bit, and they slotted together right, however, it was like coming home. All those nights under the cherry tree, talking and laughing. All those days, joking together and fighting for each other.
Cas gasped as Dean’s hand moved to the space between his wings and they quivered, the feathers rustling in the hush of the room, even as Dean ran his hand over that spot and buried his fingers in Cas’s hair. As he ran his fingers into the soft hair, his fingers ran into the tie and freed it, letting it fall around his shoulders. He tightening his grip gently and Cas gasped, arching slightly into him, moaning hoarsely, “Dean!”
Dean licked at the seam of Cas’s mouth and, desperately, they came together again. Cas tasted like cherries and tears, and Dean tried to burn the taste into his memory.
When they parted with a gasp, Cas kept his eyes on Dean’s lips, sliding his thumb against the bottom one slowly, as if doing his own bit of memorization. And then he said, looking up into Dean’s eyes, that sorrow still there, breaking Dean’s heart, “Dean, I’m sorry. Either way, I’m doomed. Please forgive me.”
Sam
Sam had had a rough two weeks. In the two weeks since his brother had called him, he had had to rush all his projects; get special permission to leave because of a 'family emergency'; and run into a ton of Shintoists, Buddhists, and even a Ying-yang master. But the weirdest thing, he thought, was his brother and the tengu.
Perhaps if he had been there from the beginning, he wouldn’t have thought it so odd to see his brother constantly getting in a large human-ish bird’s space - as if a child-sized bird in a Japanese mountain monk’s outfit wasn’t wacky enough - and getting all buddy-buddy. But, even so, his brother didn’t treat Castiel the way he treated Gabriel: a sort of 'we’re drinking buddies' vibe ruled that relationship.
Even odder, Dean found reasons to keep Cas to himself. He found ways to sit and laugh with the tengu and, occasionally, they could even be found sitting by the river not talking at all. For Dean, that was damn odd: he’d never been the contemplative type. Because of this, Sam was endlessly curious, since he wasn’t sure how they had interacted when, apparently, Cas had legitimately looked like a glowing-eyed raven. The only thing that was certain was whatever relationship they had hobbled together in that time before he arrived was something solid now, unbreakable.
It was also disconcerting that he occasionally caught his brother flirting with the bird. Admittedly, the air of pure burning embarrassment that swirled around the tengu was worth watching. It was, however, the fondness in Dean’s eyes - even as he roared with laughter, throwing his head back, and patting Cas on the back - that made Sam wonder (weirdly) if his brother actually wasn’t crushing on a three-foot-tall magic bird demon from Ancient Japan™.
Sam had also had to reckon the tengu was crushing right back.
He didn’t make that observation lightly. After all, he had seen bird documentaries. Heck, he’d even looked up raven mating on YouTube. And, although it wasn’t as obvious as flaring out all his feathers and doing a mating dance around Dean (Sam would’ve killed things to see that!), it was there if you were just paying attention. The way the bird’s eyes followed Dean, their supernatural glow somehow softer. The way he paid intense attention to what Dean said, something Sam knew Dean thought was flattering. The way he made food for Dean, like perfect sandwiches or pancakes with a ton of bacon on the side. The way he made sure Dean was well-rested, staying with him all night, swiping his feathered fingers over Dean’s forehead, pressing down the quilts to keep him warm, and, sometimes, cooing over his head before falling asleep himself in the corner of the bed.
If Cas had known Sam had been watching from the hallway those few times, making sure Cas was not a threat in and of himself, Cas had never mentioned it.
For Sam whole time back in Sioux Falls, it had been like this: a bizarre relationship that he just couldn’t really fathom.
There were so many things that hadn’t made sense until today, when the very human-esque - well, more so than usual - Castiel stood in the doorway, pale and somehow thin. Sam could see the tengu’s male body was already skinny, although he’d say it leaned more towards ‘wiry’, but it was more than that. It was like a spiritual thin.
Sam was sure neither Bobby nor Akira had missed the surprised and then the subtle brooding expression on Dean’s face that Sam knew all too well. He hid it behind his playful mask, but Sam knew Dean was worrying for the tengu. The - now that very attractive tengu at that.
Sam wasn’t blind.
Bobby caught his eye and jerked his chin at Dean’s swift rescue of Cas, as the winged-dude started to slide off the doorway and fall. Again, Dean had schooled his expression swiftly, but not before the two men who knew him best caught the sadness that flickered over him and then cemented into just a concerned face.
Sam had no idea what was going on, but it was obvious that Cas was something more than just a bird buddy or a bond-mate. Going by that, Gabe was also in a contract with Dean, and Dean didn’t look like he wanted to wrap the fox in cotton and save him from himself.
Or maybe he did, but he doubted it. Dean treated Gabe like a bro, but he treated Cas with kid gloves, like he was precious.
And, of course, Gabe might have known something, but that wily fox had just grinned at him and made inappropriate suggestions over the last few days that Sam somehow thought were anatomically impossible unless you were a yoga master. Gabe’s wagging eyebrows seemed to suggest otherwise.
But, now, Dean had retreated upstairs with Cas in tow, and showing no signs of coming back down.
On one hand, it was comforting that Dean had other things to preoccupy him than the battle with the Baku.
On the other hand, Sam was leery of Dean getting involved with a supernatural creature.
It was all very weird.
Behind him, he heard Akira and Bobby talking about the game plan. The groups of hunters were working out of their own bases - more because Bobby’s house couldn’t hold that many people- and they called in to keep everyone in touch and on top of the game, and using Skype to communicate face-to-face when necessary. Sam had been about to commend Dean on getting Bobby to level up and join the 21st Century, until he heard Bobby bitching about Gabe fucking around with his electronics, and that computers had buttons not whatever this thing was - AKA, Sam’s iPad.
No wonder there was suddenly Wi-Fi in the house.
He walked over to them, noting everyone was just ignoring the bead watching anime off Hulu on the small laptop, and asked, “So what’s the plan?”
Akira said, “Your brother has maybe three days to get this done before the tengu dies.” She frowned slightly, her rich caramel eyes distant for a moment, before she added, “And possibly your brother. He’s barely surviving without any luck as it is. But something is animating him. Something powerful.”
There was a snort somewhere to their collective left and a tiny fox was sitting on the desk, its tail briskly wagging back and forth.
“That powerful thing,” it intoned, “is my ass.”
Bobby started to roll his eyes and even Sam started to, but Akira’s look startled and somewhat frightened, saying, “Wait. You’re Gabriel. You.... oh fuck… did you put one in him?”
The smug smirk on Gabe’s face made Sam want to smack him off the table, but he refrained. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean my literal ass,” Gabe chuckled with a wink. “Here, for the slow ones in class… let me show you!”
He leaped off the desk into the middle of the room where there was more space. A short pop and a puff of smoke later, there was a horse-sized white fox in the middle of the room with eight giant, golden-tipped tails hanging out. “Ha ha, guess I’m not a kyuubi anymore!” The giant fox shrugged and yawned. "Well, it'll grow back eventually."
Akira gasped. “No… not a kyuubi with only eight tails.” She looked up at him and asked, “And how did he take it?”
“Ah, onmyōji. Always the curious ones.” Gabe sneered, popping back to his toy-sized self. He leaped on top of Bobby’s desk again. “He’s alive. Which is more than he would have been if Cassie and I hadn’t intervened.”
Akira slammed her small hands down on the desk, ignoring the piles of books and maps that was taking up space on it. “But the lore says that’s dangerous. The tail on its own is capable of doing monstrous things!”
At which point both Bobby and Sam got a clue and hollered, “What?!”
Gabe took a moment to lick his balls, ignoring her completely.
“Gabriel,” she said desperately.
He continued to ignore her, apparently finding something of intense interest by his tail.
“AKIO,” she hissed in a commanding tone, and Gabriel snapped his attention to her face with narrowed eyes.
“Watch yourself, magician,” he said in measured tones. “Your kind may be used to commanding spirits, but I have no tie to you.”
She hung her head, closed her eyes, and tucked her lips in together, appearing to try and collect herself. In her own measured tones, she said, “Fine. But tell me what will stop that tail from changing Dean into something else?”
Three sets of eyes on him didn’t make Gabriel budge. He stood, turned around in a circle a few times, and then curled into a ball on the edge of the desk. They heard him say, “Who knows? As you know, the Divine has plans for us all and I’m not privy to all of them.”
Gabe yawned as they watched, and then, after tucking his nose under his tail, shockingly started to snore.
“嘘じゃないと思う,” said a voice by Bobby’s left hand, and they all recoiled. Sam had seen the bead a few times, but it was always disturbing. The bead, now a spider-looking thing with a giant eyeball and disconcertingly long eyelashes, was watching them. He said some stuff that made Bobby and Akira nod, and Sam had to clear his throat and get their attention.
“Non-speaker,” he said plaintively, pointing at himself and trying out his sad puppy eyes on Akira.
Akira eyed him, not really buying it, but translated. “He said that he doesn’t think that Gabe is lying. Gabe really doesn’t know what’s going to happen. It was an emergency measure.” The bead interrupted and said some more stuff, causing Bobby and Akira to chuckle. Sam made a mental note to learn Japanese because this was some bullshit and his Latin and Greek weren’t helping him at all.
This time Bobby translated. “He said that the long-haired one - he means you Sam - should be thinking more about how to protect yourself from Gabe’s advances.” Which sort of explained why Sam thought he had heard the phrase 'cherry-boy' in the bead’s monologue, but Gabe’s sudden, “Meee-ow, baby!” from behind him did not comfort him at all. He threw a dirty look at the fox, and then rolled his eyes when Gabriel just winked and made some lewd motions with his long fox tongue.
Akira was, thankfully, task driven and, having scooped up the bead to consult with it, Sam was left with Bobby and the fake-napping Gabriel.
“Bobby?” Sam asked slowly, feeling a headache coming on, and rubbing his temples with his hand, only to slide it down and pinch the bridge of his nose. “When did this become our lives?”
“Hell if I know kid. Hell if I know.” Bobby pointed to the map on the desk that he and Akira had been looking at. “But according to Akira, if the Baku is playing by the rules, she should have a nest around here, where the ley lines create a box at the center of a pentacle shape for calling shit up. That’s why there were specific yōkai kills in those specific areas, to activate the main points.”
Akira came briskly back about fifteen minutes later, carrying the disgusting looking bead with no fear. “Ichiren-Bozu here told me about the yōkai, the contract, and the curse slash bond-mate sitch.”
She carefully dropped the bead next to his laptop so he could continue watching whatever it was he was watching, and she said, “It’s a good thing that before I came, I checked the stars and did some divination.”
Akira leaned back and gave Sam an unfathomable look, “Although I said your brother and the tengu only have three days, max, I wasn’t being completely clean about it.”
She pointed at the map and the spot Bobby had pointed out. The areas where there had been yōkai attacks had been clearly marked in red, with hauntings and other phenomena (like betobetosan attacks, which were just annoying) were marked in blue. She pulled out a black marker and started to draw on the map revealing the pentacle, and then several smaller markings outside the pentacle, marking it with sigils.
“Here,” she said confidently, snapping the cap onto her marker. “Those are the points we should check. I’m betting that she had to summon those yōkai in or around those spots in order to do this.”
She pointed to the spots of origin for each of the yōkai. “There are probably hidden sigils that look like these in these areas. We should send people to investigate.”
“What does that even mean,” Sam asked, looking over the map sharply.
“If my divination is right - and it’s never wrong - there was an indication of possible apocalypse. A star that hasn’t been seen in a millennium.” She caught the gazes of the two men and said firmly, “The harbinger of fate and doom, the nue, is going to be born if we don’t stop the Baku soon.”
She stretched her neck out, closing her eyes, and ignoring Bobby’s sharp inhalation and low-level cussing, while Sam was confused.
“Yep,” she added. “And the only two who can stop that shit are upstairs getting all melancholy and weepy as fuck.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” came from the fake-sleeping lump at the end of the desk.
<< PREVIOUS Chapter Next Chapter >> Kyuubi: If you watch anime, you may know this word from Naruto. It means "9 tails." That's it.
Kitsune reminder: They grow new tails as they age, although 9 is the general limit.
Akio v. Gabriel: To clarify, Akio is Gabriel's Japanese name, which means he can be summoned by it. He doesn't like that.
Cherry-boy: Male virgin in Japanese. Not very nice.
JAPANESE TRANSLATION: I don't think it's a lie. (Informal. Just in case you missed it.)