The Answer (Supernatural, Claire!Castiel/Dean, NC17)
Title: The Answer
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairings: Claire!Castiel/Dean
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 2929
Warnings: Underage vessel (seventeen)
Summary: Swapping vessels didn't change Castiel after the world ended, but sharing room with the Leviathans had.
Author's Notes: AU; written for steerpikesister's request for post-apocalyptic Claire!Castiel/Dean smut and betaed by my gorgeous fahrenheit_f430!
Once they had spread to every corner of the world, the Leviathans stopped hiding. Within a week they were all the news showed; within a month the news ceased showing anything.
Two months passed before the streets all ran black and the safest place for a human to hide was underground. Not in sewers or underwater - wherever water flowed, a Leviathan wasn't far behind - but in subways and basements, in mines and caves. Of course, that also meant showers and baths were no longer an option. Some people went into denial, coating themselves liberally with whatever deodorants they could get their hands on, and the rest had largely given up on staying clean and minty-fresh.
Dean guessed that was part of why he wasn't the only one bewitched by Castiel these days. Everyone was filthy except her.
After the battle between Castiel and the Leviathans left his vessel a corrupted and oozing mess, Castiel finally escaped to the next best thing.
Claire had grown up into a pale seventeen year old blonde with wide blue eyes and battle-scarred arms, and one of the best hunters Dean had ever seen. He couldn't remember anymore if Claire had been blue-eyed before Castiel first climbed inside her, just that her willowy teenage limbs had hidden how strong she was even before she had an angel's power filling them out. That, and how she had known more about him and Castiel than anyone ought to know, let alone a kid.
"He thought about you more than God. Even after they burned him half to death for it."
It was one of the politest things Claire ever said about it; when she wanted to provoke Dean, usually when something brought her dead mother or missing father to mind, she liked to taunt him.
"He would have fucked your brains out."
Dean tried not to think about how she'd learned that before hitting puberty, or about why he believed her.
When Castiel took her, the grit and scars of a hunter's life evaporated from her skin in an instant. Anyone could see it, even if Dean and Sam were the only humans who knew what it meant. It was hard to miss afterwards how she almost glowed in her cleanliness, moving through filthy tunnels without a spot of dirt clinging to her.
Even so, despite her being visibly otherworldly, most of the survivors - Dean and Sam obviously excepted - still treated her like a little girl. They didn't entirely recognise that she had been replaced by something much, much older, and they hadn't paid much attention to the fact that she hadn't been a child for years even before Castiel took her over.
Castiel didn't notice how the others treated her unless she wanted to - and that was strange too, how Dean had found it easy calling Castiel "Her", far easier than when Raphael had swapped vessels. Angels didn't buy into gender constructs but that didn't mean the humans around them could get used to the idea.
Slim hips and small breasts had made Claire look childish, but Castiel wore her skin with so much weight that anyone who knew her true age should have seen it. Few bothered to look at her eyes because after killing enough monsters with human faces it was hard to like making eye contact, but wide and blue didn't mean innocent. The hair-thread laughter lines said adolescent; the ageless stare said immortal.
Everyone could see one truth though. They all saw that she was beautiful.
When Castiel was male Dean had tried desperately to ignore certain realisations; Castiel knew it too, and when Dean failed to hide his reactions to her new form she'd been resentful at first. Dean wanted to blame her, and did so under his breath in public, but inside he knew he didn't believe it. He'd loved Castiel before she swapped vessels. The only difference was that now he couldn't lie to himself about it.
Castiel knew him better than himself and almost as well as Sam, and Dean had thought crushing guilt and awkward wet dreams were all he deserved.
Castiel didn't. Sharing a vessel with the Leviathans for so long seemed to have left her hungry, and she wasn't shy about it for long.
They had been leading their group through an abandoned mine safely enough until Dean discovered a wooden bridge had rotted by falling through the slats. Castiel had caught him at the last minute, defying the odds by reaching across what remained of the bridge to grab his wrist, but unable to stop his arm dislocating from the sudden jolt of being caught mid-drop.
Before she had a chance to heal it his dislocated shoulder had hurt like fuck, but any pain was worthwhile when escaping a messy death. It had been even more worthwhile when he and Castiel were next on watch together and she used their time alone to kiss him senseless.
Just because she wasn't a skilled kisser at first it didn't mean she was bad - she was enthusiastic and quick to learn, even if Dean had to teach her a thing or two along the way. Her strength just happened to apply to her facial muscles as well, and he'd never known "battling tongues" to be something other than a euphemism before he'd had to pull back to warn her she was literally choking him.
The advantages of having an angel on their side included how angels didn't need to sleep or breathe. Castiel was more effective than a canary and a watchdog combined; she could smell gas pockets before anyone took a naked flame somewhere explosive or walked into an ambush while they still had time to change their route or hide.
With her senses at hand all day and night, having other people on watch when she was around wasn't necessary, but it made the humans who weren't hunters feel safer.
The disadvantages of having her around weren't her fault either. No one knew how her grace would fare against the Leviathans but experience with her last vessel indicated poor odds, and her current vessel occasionally attracted the wrong sort of attention. Thankfully, creeps came along less than horror movies would generally suggest for an apocalyptic world, and she was more than capable of dealing with them herself.
Dean knew Castiel's age; he knew that when he slid her hand into her underwear she was more than old enough to know what he was doing, because he loved Castiel, and because he wanted to make her come. Strangers who joined the group and a few stubbornly stupid non-believers didn't know her age; they thought when they grabbed her waist or brushed her hair behind her ear that the seventeen year old body they were touching belonged to a seventeen year old.
Castiel was not innocent. Naive on occasion, perhaps, but not innocent. If someone didn't listen to "Don't", she broke their fingers. If they still didn't listen, she broke worse.
The Leviathans were not the only monsters she protected the camp from on her watches.
There wasn't much of a plan for defeating the Leviathans anymore, just a plan for survival. When Castiel had turned up they had interrogated her, but all she had to offer from her time as the Leviathans' plaything inside Jimmy was what they had gathered already.
Leviathans ate each other to gain strength and ate humans to sustain what they already had. They could not burn or freeze, physical wounds healed almost instantly, and they developed immunity to any poison or disease they were exposed to within seconds. Even so, they were still animals - they needed rest, water, and food. It was a long shot, but humanity's survival largely seemed to depend on how long it would take a cannibalistic population of thousands to starve to death.
At the same time it meant not dying from a lack of resources themselves, and with just two hunters and a handful of soldiers in their group, the chance of everyone returning intact and uninfected from a trip back to the surface was minimal. They had lucked out by finding a food canning plant to make a base beneath, even if most people were getting a little tired of tinned spaghetti-and-whatever combinations. As for clothes and tents, pretty much everyone who survived had been sensible enough to bring whatever they could carry when they first moved underground. The remaining problem, and the main reason for continuing to explore as far underground as they could, was water; a five gallon bottle was heavy as fuck and only went so far despite that, and without a power source to help purify it, recycled urine didn't go much further.
Of course, anyone who knew the area they were hiding under also knew about the natural spring. They just didn't happen to know anything about whether it was still drinkable, and who or what might have taken notice of it.
Dean knew Castiel would volunteer to go exploring before she raised her hand or opened her mouth, even though no one could be sure what sort of risk she was taking. Sam glanced between her and Dean, not saying anything but perfectly aware of what it meant for Dean to keep quiet; Sam was the only one in the camp who knew about Dean's relationship with Castiel because he was the only one who wouldn't judge him for it.
Neither of them protested - self-sacrifice wasn't exactly unheard of on Castiel's part and he couldn't weigh one angel's life against fifty humans', but he'd grabbed her afterwards and asked, "Do you want to die a virgin?"
She punched him once, hard, and disappeared with a flap of wings that sounded just as loud as they had when Jimmy wore them.
He braced himself for another punch when she returned, but he didn't get one.
Castiel had taken with her what she could carry without interrupting her flight - two empty five gallon bottles between her legs, and one more tucked under each arm - and she'd brought all four of them back. Full. Dean didn't pretend to be more than passively thankful for them - he'd fought long enough to know the difference between surviving and living, and while the water would let him survive, Sam and Castiel kept him alive - but he joined everyone in praising her for a job well done.
It was worth seeing the expressions on a few of the more doubtful members of the camp when they were struck dumb by the honest to God miracle dropped in front of them.
Castiel's tent was set up at a distance from everyone else's, and despite everyone's attempts to give her attention she no doubt deserved, she stormed over to it and made a clear point of demanding that everyone give her a moment's peace.
Keen to thank her in whatever way they could, the rest of the camp obeyed her and set about celebrating the small victory, allowing Dean to approach her tent without notice once he dared to. He didn't have a chance to tap on the canvas before her hand darted out through the open zip, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and dragged him inside.
At least when she pushed him down and kissed him roughly he knew he didn't have to worry whether she was still angry with him or not. Neither did he breathe a word of protest when her rough treatment meant he banged his head despite the sleeping bag spread beneath them.
"My virginity is unimportant," Castiel said, her tone showing the irritation her volume couldn't if they wished to keep their relationship secret. "I do not wish to die at all."
He'd wanted to do this somewhere softer or better lit, but Castiel had her own ideas when she straddled him, the narrow outline of her silhouetted in what little light came from the group's campfire. He hoped that no one could see her in turn, that the shadows in the tent weren't copied outside, because otherwise it would mean his hands were just as obvious when he started unbuttoning her shirt.
Thinking about the visual, even if he didn't want it to be true, was enough to have him hardening so quickly it hurt; distracting himself from arousal wasn't easy either with the warmth of her skin under his hands and her breaths seeming louder than any of the idle chatter outside.
Despite the dark he knew what to feel for, knew what she liked - when to massage her breasts and pinch her nipples, when "More" meant harder and when "More" was an order to drop his hands below her waist.
She'd traded slacks for sweatpants when she took on her new vessel, and helping her slide them and her panties down her hips was easy with elasticated waistbands all that had held them in place.
The shirt stayed on, light cotton brushing across his stomach when she moved down, dragging his jeans off before settling in his lap. "This isn't our last day on Earth," she said, and Dean felt the slick folds of her rub against his cock in a tease he guessed was intentional. "It isn't our last day anywhere."
She was quick and decisive in a way he could never be when she stretched out over him, bracing one hand by his shoulder and guiding him inside her with the other, a sharp intake of breath and clench of her thighs around his hips all he had to gauge her reaction by. He'd remember that little gasp for the rest of his life, remember how it accompanied the first time he got to feel the hot grip of her cunt around his cock, better than her fist, better even than her mouth.
When Dean gripped her by the hair, he wasn't the one drawing her into a kiss - she was the one who let him kiss her, immovable unless she wished to move, and she wanted him to know it. She set the pace, rocking back and forth against him at a speed that suited her, slowing cruelly to a complete halt every time she wanted to kiss him.
She was going to be the end of him. Each break forced him to take in everything - how the slick around his cock cooled a little every time he slid out of her, how she tasted, how she smelled - ozone and sex, an angel and a girl. At the same time, going faster would have meant trying to keep up with someone who could break every bone in his body by accident, and the slight chill from that thought should have been more effective in helping him hold out than it was in practice.
Dean only wished they had done this somewhere he could see her, raised his hands to her face and stroked her cheeks, the flat of her forehead, the curve of her lips. He couldn't see with his fingers, but it was worth a shot.
"Why are you doing that?" Castiel asked, and Dean couldn't answer, closing his eyes before letting his hands drift down to something they did know, cupping her breasts and feeling the rub of her nipples against his palm.
She didn't adjust her pace when he threw his head back and came, gritting his teeth against any noise he wanted to make; she rode his cock until he finally slipped out of her, grabbed one of his hands and brought it between her legs quickly.
"Help me," she ordered, soft and insistent, and he did what he could, no grace in his fingers when he fucked her with them but her reaction suggesting that none was needed.
She didn't make a sound, but he knew what it meant when her breath caught and her thighs trembled. The way his fingers were soaking wet were a clue as well, and Dean wondered if he wanted to lick them or not.
He eventually decided on 'not', pulled them out and wiped them clean on her shirt before hugging her close, knowing she could dry herself with next to no effort.
"That was interesting," Castiel said, letting her own arms wrap loosely around Dean's neck for a moment; Dean laughed, kissed her hair and made himself comfortable. "I have to go on watch."
"Do you?" Dean asked, only half-serious. He knew what she meant to the camp, knew her importance in keeping them safe.
"Someone has to look after you. Go to sleep," Castiel ordered, touching a finger to her chest once to clean herself and a second time to dress. Dean let the urge to protest slide in favour of watching her leave, the tent zipping up behind her with a click of her fingers, before trying to relax into something like sleep.
By all rights with everything going on above ground he ought to have grown scared of the dark, but with Castiel around he couldn't bring himself to fear it. It wasn't that she made him fearless or that she lit up the shadows - it was something only a little less simple, but just as cliché.
Castiel had come back from the dark. She'd fought every step of the way and it still had the power to take her again under the right circumstances, but she had come back.
Dean hadn't trusted a second chance before, but he was willing to give it a shot for her.
The End
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairings: Claire!Castiel/Dean
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 2929
Warnings: Underage vessel (seventeen)
Summary: Swapping vessels didn't change Castiel after the world ended, but sharing room with the Leviathans had.
Author's Notes: AU; written for steerpikesister's request for post-apocalyptic Claire!Castiel/Dean smut and betaed by my gorgeous fahrenheit_f430!
Once they had spread to every corner of the world, the Leviathans stopped hiding. Within a week they were all the news showed; within a month the news ceased showing anything.
Two months passed before the streets all ran black and the safest place for a human to hide was underground. Not in sewers or underwater - wherever water flowed, a Leviathan wasn't far behind - but in subways and basements, in mines and caves. Of course, that also meant showers and baths were no longer an option. Some people went into denial, coating themselves liberally with whatever deodorants they could get their hands on, and the rest had largely given up on staying clean and minty-fresh.
Dean guessed that was part of why he wasn't the only one bewitched by Castiel these days. Everyone was filthy except her.
After the battle between Castiel and the Leviathans left his vessel a corrupted and oozing mess, Castiel finally escaped to the next best thing.
Claire had grown up into a pale seventeen year old blonde with wide blue eyes and battle-scarred arms, and one of the best hunters Dean had ever seen. He couldn't remember anymore if Claire had been blue-eyed before Castiel first climbed inside her, just that her willowy teenage limbs had hidden how strong she was even before she had an angel's power filling them out. That, and how she had known more about him and Castiel than anyone ought to know, let alone a kid.
"He thought about you more than God. Even after they burned him half to death for it."
It was one of the politest things Claire ever said about it; when she wanted to provoke Dean, usually when something brought her dead mother or missing father to mind, she liked to taunt him.
"He would have fucked your brains out."
Dean tried not to think about how she'd learned that before hitting puberty, or about why he believed her.
When Castiel took her, the grit and scars of a hunter's life evaporated from her skin in an instant. Anyone could see it, even if Dean and Sam were the only humans who knew what it meant. It was hard to miss afterwards how she almost glowed in her cleanliness, moving through filthy tunnels without a spot of dirt clinging to her.
Even so, despite her being visibly otherworldly, most of the survivors - Dean and Sam obviously excepted - still treated her like a little girl. They didn't entirely recognise that she had been replaced by something much, much older, and they hadn't paid much attention to the fact that she hadn't been a child for years even before Castiel took her over.
Castiel didn't notice how the others treated her unless she wanted to - and that was strange too, how Dean had found it easy calling Castiel "Her", far easier than when Raphael had swapped vessels. Angels didn't buy into gender constructs but that didn't mean the humans around them could get used to the idea.
Slim hips and small breasts had made Claire look childish, but Castiel wore her skin with so much weight that anyone who knew her true age should have seen it. Few bothered to look at her eyes because after killing enough monsters with human faces it was hard to like making eye contact, but wide and blue didn't mean innocent. The hair-thread laughter lines said adolescent; the ageless stare said immortal.
Everyone could see one truth though. They all saw that she was beautiful.
When Castiel was male Dean had tried desperately to ignore certain realisations; Castiel knew it too, and when Dean failed to hide his reactions to her new form she'd been resentful at first. Dean wanted to blame her, and did so under his breath in public, but inside he knew he didn't believe it. He'd loved Castiel before she swapped vessels. The only difference was that now he couldn't lie to himself about it.
Castiel knew him better than himself and almost as well as Sam, and Dean had thought crushing guilt and awkward wet dreams were all he deserved.
Castiel didn't. Sharing a vessel with the Leviathans for so long seemed to have left her hungry, and she wasn't shy about it for long.
They had been leading their group through an abandoned mine safely enough until Dean discovered a wooden bridge had rotted by falling through the slats. Castiel had caught him at the last minute, defying the odds by reaching across what remained of the bridge to grab his wrist, but unable to stop his arm dislocating from the sudden jolt of being caught mid-drop.
Before she had a chance to heal it his dislocated shoulder had hurt like fuck, but any pain was worthwhile when escaping a messy death. It had been even more worthwhile when he and Castiel were next on watch together and she used their time alone to kiss him senseless.
Just because she wasn't a skilled kisser at first it didn't mean she was bad - she was enthusiastic and quick to learn, even if Dean had to teach her a thing or two along the way. Her strength just happened to apply to her facial muscles as well, and he'd never known "battling tongues" to be something other than a euphemism before he'd had to pull back to warn her she was literally choking him.
The advantages of having an angel on their side included how angels didn't need to sleep or breathe. Castiel was more effective than a canary and a watchdog combined; she could smell gas pockets before anyone took a naked flame somewhere explosive or walked into an ambush while they still had time to change their route or hide.
With her senses at hand all day and night, having other people on watch when she was around wasn't necessary, but it made the humans who weren't hunters feel safer.
The disadvantages of having her around weren't her fault either. No one knew how her grace would fare against the Leviathans but experience with her last vessel indicated poor odds, and her current vessel occasionally attracted the wrong sort of attention. Thankfully, creeps came along less than horror movies would generally suggest for an apocalyptic world, and she was more than capable of dealing with them herself.
Dean knew Castiel's age; he knew that when he slid her hand into her underwear she was more than old enough to know what he was doing, because he loved Castiel, and because he wanted to make her come. Strangers who joined the group and a few stubbornly stupid non-believers didn't know her age; they thought when they grabbed her waist or brushed her hair behind her ear that the seventeen year old body they were touching belonged to a seventeen year old.
Castiel was not innocent. Naive on occasion, perhaps, but not innocent. If someone didn't listen to "Don't", she broke their fingers. If they still didn't listen, she broke worse.
The Leviathans were not the only monsters she protected the camp from on her watches.
There wasn't much of a plan for defeating the Leviathans anymore, just a plan for survival. When Castiel had turned up they had interrogated her, but all she had to offer from her time as the Leviathans' plaything inside Jimmy was what they had gathered already.
Leviathans ate each other to gain strength and ate humans to sustain what they already had. They could not burn or freeze, physical wounds healed almost instantly, and they developed immunity to any poison or disease they were exposed to within seconds. Even so, they were still animals - they needed rest, water, and food. It was a long shot, but humanity's survival largely seemed to depend on how long it would take a cannibalistic population of thousands to starve to death.
At the same time it meant not dying from a lack of resources themselves, and with just two hunters and a handful of soldiers in their group, the chance of everyone returning intact and uninfected from a trip back to the surface was minimal. They had lucked out by finding a food canning plant to make a base beneath, even if most people were getting a little tired of tinned spaghetti-and-whatever combinations. As for clothes and tents, pretty much everyone who survived had been sensible enough to bring whatever they could carry when they first moved underground. The remaining problem, and the main reason for continuing to explore as far underground as they could, was water; a five gallon bottle was heavy as fuck and only went so far despite that, and without a power source to help purify it, recycled urine didn't go much further.
Of course, anyone who knew the area they were hiding under also knew about the natural spring. They just didn't happen to know anything about whether it was still drinkable, and who or what might have taken notice of it.
Dean knew Castiel would volunteer to go exploring before she raised her hand or opened her mouth, even though no one could be sure what sort of risk she was taking. Sam glanced between her and Dean, not saying anything but perfectly aware of what it meant for Dean to keep quiet; Sam was the only one in the camp who knew about Dean's relationship with Castiel because he was the only one who wouldn't judge him for it.
Neither of them protested - self-sacrifice wasn't exactly unheard of on Castiel's part and he couldn't weigh one angel's life against fifty humans', but he'd grabbed her afterwards and asked, "Do you want to die a virgin?"
She punched him once, hard, and disappeared with a flap of wings that sounded just as loud as they had when Jimmy wore them.
He braced himself for another punch when she returned, but he didn't get one.
Castiel had taken with her what she could carry without interrupting her flight - two empty five gallon bottles between her legs, and one more tucked under each arm - and she'd brought all four of them back. Full. Dean didn't pretend to be more than passively thankful for them - he'd fought long enough to know the difference between surviving and living, and while the water would let him survive, Sam and Castiel kept him alive - but he joined everyone in praising her for a job well done.
It was worth seeing the expressions on a few of the more doubtful members of the camp when they were struck dumb by the honest to God miracle dropped in front of them.
Castiel's tent was set up at a distance from everyone else's, and despite everyone's attempts to give her attention she no doubt deserved, she stormed over to it and made a clear point of demanding that everyone give her a moment's peace.
Keen to thank her in whatever way they could, the rest of the camp obeyed her and set about celebrating the small victory, allowing Dean to approach her tent without notice once he dared to. He didn't have a chance to tap on the canvas before her hand darted out through the open zip, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and dragged him inside.
At least when she pushed him down and kissed him roughly he knew he didn't have to worry whether she was still angry with him or not. Neither did he breathe a word of protest when her rough treatment meant he banged his head despite the sleeping bag spread beneath them.
"My virginity is unimportant," Castiel said, her tone showing the irritation her volume couldn't if they wished to keep their relationship secret. "I do not wish to die at all."
He'd wanted to do this somewhere softer or better lit, but Castiel had her own ideas when she straddled him, the narrow outline of her silhouetted in what little light came from the group's campfire. He hoped that no one could see her in turn, that the shadows in the tent weren't copied outside, because otherwise it would mean his hands were just as obvious when he started unbuttoning her shirt.
Thinking about the visual, even if he didn't want it to be true, was enough to have him hardening so quickly it hurt; distracting himself from arousal wasn't easy either with the warmth of her skin under his hands and her breaths seeming louder than any of the idle chatter outside.
Despite the dark he knew what to feel for, knew what she liked - when to massage her breasts and pinch her nipples, when "More" meant harder and when "More" was an order to drop his hands below her waist.
She'd traded slacks for sweatpants when she took on her new vessel, and helping her slide them and her panties down her hips was easy with elasticated waistbands all that had held them in place.
The shirt stayed on, light cotton brushing across his stomach when she moved down, dragging his jeans off before settling in his lap. "This isn't our last day on Earth," she said, and Dean felt the slick folds of her rub against his cock in a tease he guessed was intentional. "It isn't our last day anywhere."
She was quick and decisive in a way he could never be when she stretched out over him, bracing one hand by his shoulder and guiding him inside her with the other, a sharp intake of breath and clench of her thighs around his hips all he had to gauge her reaction by. He'd remember that little gasp for the rest of his life, remember how it accompanied the first time he got to feel the hot grip of her cunt around his cock, better than her fist, better even than her mouth.
When Dean gripped her by the hair, he wasn't the one drawing her into a kiss - she was the one who let him kiss her, immovable unless she wished to move, and she wanted him to know it. She set the pace, rocking back and forth against him at a speed that suited her, slowing cruelly to a complete halt every time she wanted to kiss him.
She was going to be the end of him. Each break forced him to take in everything - how the slick around his cock cooled a little every time he slid out of her, how she tasted, how she smelled - ozone and sex, an angel and a girl. At the same time, going faster would have meant trying to keep up with someone who could break every bone in his body by accident, and the slight chill from that thought should have been more effective in helping him hold out than it was in practice.
Dean only wished they had done this somewhere he could see her, raised his hands to her face and stroked her cheeks, the flat of her forehead, the curve of her lips. He couldn't see with his fingers, but it was worth a shot.
"Why are you doing that?" Castiel asked, and Dean couldn't answer, closing his eyes before letting his hands drift down to something they did know, cupping her breasts and feeling the rub of her nipples against his palm.
She didn't adjust her pace when he threw his head back and came, gritting his teeth against any noise he wanted to make; she rode his cock until he finally slipped out of her, grabbed one of his hands and brought it between her legs quickly.
"Help me," she ordered, soft and insistent, and he did what he could, no grace in his fingers when he fucked her with them but her reaction suggesting that none was needed.
She didn't make a sound, but he knew what it meant when her breath caught and her thighs trembled. The way his fingers were soaking wet were a clue as well, and Dean wondered if he wanted to lick them or not.
He eventually decided on 'not', pulled them out and wiped them clean on her shirt before hugging her close, knowing she could dry herself with next to no effort.
"That was interesting," Castiel said, letting her own arms wrap loosely around Dean's neck for a moment; Dean laughed, kissed her hair and made himself comfortable. "I have to go on watch."
"Do you?" Dean asked, only half-serious. He knew what she meant to the camp, knew her importance in keeping them safe.
"Someone has to look after you. Go to sleep," Castiel ordered, touching a finger to her chest once to clean herself and a second time to dress. Dean let the urge to protest slide in favour of watching her leave, the tent zipping up behind her with a click of her fingers, before trying to relax into something like sleep.
By all rights with everything going on above ground he ought to have grown scared of the dark, but with Castiel around he couldn't bring himself to fear it. It wasn't that she made him fearless or that she lit up the shadows - it was something only a little less simple, but just as cliché.
Castiel had come back from the dark. She'd fought every step of the way and it still had the power to take her again under the right circumstances, but she had come back.
Dean hadn't trusted a second chance before, but he was willing to give it a shot for her.
The End