Title:
In Hopes of a GardenSubtitle: Come with Me, Take Three
Author:
dracox-serdrielWord Count: 2,897
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: language, violence, sexual content, noncon, sexsomnia, incubus
"I am your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you."
Sam's desperation pined out of him, and it frayed Castiel's already splitting nerves. So he waved his hand, and the younger Winchester fell unconscious.
"Sammy!" Dean cried as he ran to his brother and knelt over him. Dean turned to Castiel and asked, "What did you do to him?"
"You didn't stand down," Cas said idly, the monotone in his voice clear and steady. "But I have fixed Sam anyway. Goodbye, Dean."
Castiel vanished.
"Balls!" cursed Bobby.
Dean and Bobby wrangled Sam's body into a stolen car. They'd have to come back for the Impala later; it was in no condition to drive.
"What the hell jus' happened?" Bobby asked.
"I wish I knew."
Dean drove for about an hour before Bobby suggested they switch cars. After all, Sam had stolen the one they were driving, and given the state of mind he was in at the time, they couldn't really trust that he covered his tracks all that well.
"Okay, how about we ditch the car, I'll head back for the Impala with a rental or something, and you take Sam back to the Panic Room."
"Cas said he fixed him," Bobby said.
"Yeah but Death warned Sam not to scratch at the wall because whatever came through would stick, so even with it fixed... he might not be good, Bobby. It'd be better for him to wake up somewhere he knew. And - somewhere we can lock him in, if we have to."
"Okay, not arguin'," Bobby said. "We gonna talk abou' it?"
"What?"
"Nah, it's nothin'. Just, you know, Cas turnin' into God and whatnot."
"We gotta deal with what's in front of us, Bobby," Dean evaded as he left the car. "I'll be back no later than tomorrow. Okay?"
"Righ'," Bobby replied tritely. "I guess we'll jus' ignore it then."
Dean didn't respond. He found his way to a local toeing and hauling place and rented a vehicle. He had the demon knife with him, in case any of Crowley's minions showed up, but he managed to retrieve the Impala with little more than a quick lie to the police.
The Impala gave Dean three days of excess travel to get back to Singer's Lot, which gave him three days of reprieve from the conversations he didn't want to have about Cas and Sam.
Sam woke up the day after Dean returned. He was disoriented and couldn't remember anything about the dungeon or Cas declaring himself God. But he also couldn't remember anything about Hell, so Dean counted it as a win.
"So, what's been going on since I've been out?" Sam asked casually over his third helping of potatoes.
"Uh, nothing," Dean said.
"Did you kill Crowley?" Sam asked. "What happened to Cas?"
Dean's stomach dropped at the mention of the name, and his mouth went very dry. So Bobby was the one that spoke.
"He's, uh, out - " Bobby began. "He said he was God and disappeared."
Sam's potatoes dropped from his mouth. As he struggled to clean himself, he asked, "You mean like - God, God?"
"Yeah," Dean huffed. "He fixed your head and split."
"That's it?"
"After he exploded Raphael," Dean added. "And let Crowley escape."
"So..." Sam said. "What does that mean?"
"Means we've gotta bigger problem on our hands than Crowley at the moment," Bobby pointed out.
"Has he been...doing things?" Sam asked, the confusion annoyingly palpable on his face.
"Hard to tell," Bobby started. "We got a lotta crap comin' in from other hunters. Definite stuff, like a surprise meteor shower with dozens of amnesiac John and Jane Does appearing in a stretch of plains land."
"Fallen angels?" Sam asked.
"Yeah," Bobby replied. "O' course, the bigger issue is that all those angels had vessels with real human identities - "
"It'll screw with a lot of crap for the next couple of months," Dean cut Bobby off. "And one of the hunters that called Bobby said the angel remembered he was an angel, but he had no powers. None. Nada. Zip."
"So, Cas yanked out their - Grace or something?" Sam asked.
"Must've."
"Woah," was all Sam could think to say.
"There's bin a lotta other stuff, but hard to tell if it's Cas or jus' ever'thin' hittin' the fan," Bobby said. "That bein' said, we've got hundreds of reports of bodies. Eyes burned out of their heads, insides liquefied."
"Isn't that - angels killing demons?" Sam asked.
"Or monsters," Dean added. "It's never just the one body, either. Three or four, a dozen. A couple of them were like mass graves."
"Okay, so," Sam said, unsure of how to proceed. "I mean, we're talking about dead monsters an demons, so - why do you guys look so glum?"
"Because the dude is off the reservation!" Dean said more loudly that he intended. "Wiping out all monsters? I'm all for it. But a new god, with a capital 'G'? That's just - "
Dean didn't finish his sentence, and he didn't have to. Bobby and Sam never spoke openly about it, but both of them knew that his relationship with Castiel was tremendously important to him, even if he would never say that out loud. They also knew that the angel dying would tear Dean's world apart, but losing him to a megalomaniac power trip? That could very well kill him.
"Speakin' of," Bobby began with trepidation, "Angela, a hunter out East, called me before we sat down. She was lookin' into a few sketchy suicides, and she tol' me about this reporter she ran into."
"Cut to the chase, Bobby," Dean said rudely.
"Reporter said a man in a trench coat demanded she publish an article she scrapped. 'Parently, she tossed the damn thing 'causa death threats, but this guy said God was on'er side and she needed to go ahead with it."
"What was she writing about?" Sam asked.
"That's your question?" Dean shot at his brother incredulously.
Before the bickering began, Bobby started in, "An expose on hate groups and crimes. One o' her features included revealing the names Ku Klux Klan members."
"So Cas wants a reporter to spill the beans on some bigots?" Dean asked. "I thought dead people were involved."
"Sketchy suicides," Bobby confirmed.
"Any chance that these suicides were members of the KKK?" Sam asked, glaring daggers at Dean.
"Yep," Bobby said.
"So, they know they can't stop this woman from publishing, so they kill themselves?" Dean asked.
"Not all of them," Bobby said. "Easily twenty bodies so far. An' it can't be that they're exposed, 'cause the paper hasn't published that yet."
"You - you think Cas is killing people?" Sam asked.
Bobby looked guilty, but he didn't say anything.
"We don't know if he's killed anyone. I mean, if he's God, wouldn't he want his wrath to be known, or whatever?" Dean asked.
"Actually, I know fer a fact he has killed people," Bobby said quietly.
If any of them still had an appetite, it disappeared at that very moment.
"What're you talking about? You never said - "
"'Cause I wasn' sure and when I was I thought you'd take the news badly, so I waited fer Sam to get better - "
"Damn it, Bobby!" Dean said. "You can't keep shit from me!"
"You wanna yell, or you wanna listen?" Bobby asked.
Dean backed down, but his eyes glinted with menace and his body language said he was ready to lash out with his handgun.
"Right, well. Foun' what kin only be described as plague-related deaths. Death by locusts and fly swarms, boil asphyxiation, rare livestock disease i' the middle of Chicago, gnats and lice, 'accidental' deaths in the middle of a blackout, even frogs."
"Bobby," Dean said when he finished. "That is the most random-ass crap I've heard. You're assuming they're connected?"
"Lamb's blood was smeared over their bodies, and the same message was writt'n on the wall nearest them: God's Wrath is Always Just. In Latin, so the translation - "
"Why would Cas kill people with plagues, then sign his work?" Sam asked. "I mean, it's gotta be hard to kill someone with frogs. Why not just stab them or do that angel-light blasting thing?"
"Dunno," Bobby said.
Dean knocked his chair over as he got to his feet.
"Where're you going?" Sam asked.
"For a drive!" Dean yelled over his shoulder as he left.
Castiel watched as Dean drove aimlessly south. He wondered why he had wasted so much effort to win Dean, but now that he had invested his energies in this endeavor, he planned to finish it. Part of his inner psyche recognized that he should feel ashamed at how he abused the Dean in the last timeline after he locked him in the dungeon. He acknowledged that his conscience didn't consider his actions vile and disgusting, but nothing inside him felt guilt or regret over it. Dean's pleads for freedom, his frantic efforts to escape, and even his suicide attempts yielded nothing but annoyance to Castiel.
Dimly, he remembered that his initial attempt at claiming the hunter was driven by desire and his right as the new Authority. However, he no longer wanted a companion, not like he did before, and he certainly didn't need one. His desire for Dean was very specific and highly sexual; the fact that he had the hunter's heart was irrelevant to him, except that it enabled him to win what he wanted.
His caring for humanity as a whole dwindled, but he still tended to the Earth as Heaven was meant to do. With any luck, Dean would stay away from Bobby Singer's home and be forced to take a motel room somewhere. Then Cas would have his opening.
Dean found a motel in the middle of nowhere, Utah after he realized he'd been driving all day. He texted his brother not to worry and crashed miserably on the bed. He tried to sleep, but his brain wouldn't turn off.
"Damn it, Cas!" Dean bellowed. "Why? Why would you do that?"
"Do what, exactly?" Castiel asked mildly.
"Woah, what're you - "
"Doing here?" Cas completed in his generic monotone. "You yelled towards Heaven Dean, and I was in the area. What activities of mine are you concerned about?"
Dean swallowed hard. He wasn't sure if his Cas was still in there, but he must be. Why else would the former angel come to him when he yelled?
"Those plague killings," Dean said. "The ones with wrath of God or whatever written on them. Was that you?"
"Yes."
The answer bowled Dean over, and it took him a moment to continue. "Why? Why would you kill people, Cas?"
"I need not answer to you. You have no authority over me," he replied. "I came here under the mistaken assumption that you wished to apologize."
"You're killing people, Cas! Not demons or monsters, but people! You gotta know that's wrong!"
Castiel barely blinked at Dean's outrage, and he spoke slowly when he replied. "It is not wrong to kill the wicked."
"Wicked?" Dean repeated. "Who qualifies as 'wicked,' Cas? Huh?"
"Members of a crime syndicate selling humans into slavery. Pedophiles. Serial killers. What you would call war criminals. People organizing or designing any element of biochemical warfare."
Dean bit back his retort. For some reason, he assumed Castiel would go after religious creepazoids or something like that.
"Oh," Dean said, not sure how to respond. He looked at his own feet for a moment, and when he tried to speak again, the former angel was gone.
Defeated and unhappy, Dean closed his eyes, almost certain he wouldn't sleep.
But he did.
The solution to Castiel's problem was so simple. Breaking or controlling Dean's will would always end badly because the elder Winchester had cultivated resistance and resilience in Hell. No matter how irrelevant his struggles, he still tried.
But Dean Winchester's will co-existed with a number of other psychological elements, including the unconscious, which surfaced in his dreams. Cas didn't need to do much. He put Dean into a deep sleep and waited for REM to begin. Chemical paralysis of the body prevented Dean from literally acting out his dreams, but the neuroscience was nothing to Cas. He could amplify the hunter's dreams, then flood the brain with antagonist chemicals so Dean's physical body would engage in the activity. He might even modify the visual cortex temporarily, so Dean's eyes could be open without his brain trying to understand the visual stimulus.
Dean slept soundly for about an hour and a half before slipping into REM-state, which gave Castiel the time he needed to destroy a few demons hiding out in the area. When he returned, his work went quickly. The hunter remained in the intense dreaming state, but his eyes were open and oddly vacant, despite their nearly constant movement.
"Dean," Castiel whispered. "Dean."
"Cas," Dean replied, sitting up in bed and pulling the former angel closer with the aid of his tie. "Castiel."
"Yes?"
"I want - I want you."
"How much do you want me?" Cas asked with a smile on his face. "Will you show me how much you want me?"
Dean made a moaning sound as he kissed and licked Cas, eventually kneeling in front of him and working off his pants. His lips closed around the head of Cas's erection, and the hunter performed one of the best blowjobs the new Authority could remember. Cas stroked his hair idly as Dean lived out his submissive fantasies, finally bringing the former angel to orgasm with a wet sucking pop.
Dean stared up at Cas with his beautiful emerald eyes wide and hopeful. Cas brought him to his feet only to toss him on the bed. Dean scrambled to get himself up by the headboard, and the former angel joined him. Cas loved this particular dream of Dean's, which culminated in Cas folding him in half against a wall and screwing him sideways.
Simplicity was always the best solution. All Cas had to do was prolong REM state, heal Dean, and clean up afterwards, and the brain, which was designed to prevent the conscious mind from actively remembering the majority of dreams, would do the rest.
Dean woke the next day surprised that he slept for eight hours, especially since insomnia had plagued him for almost a week before. But he packed up and continued out to California after Bobby called him about a possible case to check out.
Oddly, the strange events amounted to be nothing more than a smuggling ring for exotic animals that lost some of its merchandise. It took Dean all of a day to figure out before he headed back to Singer's Lot.
Castiel avoided Dean at Bobby's. With Sam and Bobby both nearby at night, one of them was bound to notice the noises coming from Dean's temporary bedroom. At first it was a nuisance that almost drove Castiel to kidnapping, but then something delightful happened for the new Authority.
Dean didn't remember the nighttime romps with the former angel, but he did notice that he slept nearly eight hours when he was alone in a motel room. He felt more alert and healthier with the additional sleep, so Dean sought out private lodging on a nightly basis within a few weeks of Castiel's first nocturnal visitation.
A year passed. Crowley and all his minions were dead, leaving Hell a place of souls in despair with no demons to plague the Earth.
Castiel had spent weeks hunting down and slaying the last of the monsters in the world. The cleverest Children of Eve, almost all of them dragons, had acclimated to life and seemed almost human. Almost.
Heaven had only a hundred or so angels left to attend to the world, but the Pagan deities and spirits were the only resistance they had to consider. Simplicity made everything run faster.
Castiel had more than he ever wanted or ever dared to hope for when he was a mere angel.
But he wasn't happy.
Actually, he didn't know what happiness was anymore. The souls inside his body had transmogrified his inner form, shaping him into a mixture of angel, Leviathan, and monster. The small amount of humanity found in Eve's children originally balanced the hunger of the Leviathan, but after a year of being both an incubus and God, most of the humanity burned off, leaving him lustful and destructive. He had memories of emotion, vague husks of what they once were.
Everything had been so important six months ago. A year ago. Two years ago -
Ultimate power with no resistance made him crave something novel. Castiel became curious about his former emotions, his former understanding of the world. He hadn't been curious in such a long time. He hadn't been much of anything in such a long time.
The blackness in his body, the black goo that wasn't quite blood, boiled hard and fast as the idea unfolded to him. Leviathans were pure Hunger, but an angel with Leviathan blood was pure chaos.
Castiel, the new Authority, would take the universe as his own, and his Hunger would be a mere memory, like his emotions. All he needed was one more time slip.
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