We Could Plant a House - Part 2

[fete_in_june]

Masterpost | Part 1

Flames dance perilously close to exposed skin, licking unbuttoned shirtsleeves, and Meg holds her breath, but the sleeves don’t ignite. Meat sizzles, and the fire rises higher, then settles. She exhales.

Not that she actually thinks a barbecue can set an angel on fire, but there was a brief moment earlier when she thought he grabbed her holy oil instead of the lighter fluid. Luckily, it had all been a misunderstanding, but Meg also has ten strangers in her kitchen and Cas has never actually barbecued before and while she doesn’t really care if his burgers kill their neighbors, she’s trying to keep a low profile.

In the old days, she’d kill everyone and move on without a second thought.

Now, she tries not to wince as Cas grabs the spatula and flips the burgers, apparently not noticing that the handle was resting over the flames a second before. She pretends to care about whatever Bonnie Dolinger is rambling about. She smirks as a supremely unimpressed Linda Robertson scans the room haughtily, takes a bite of potato salad, and wipes her mouth with an orange-green plaid cloth napkin.

Cas comes in from the patio with a plateful of burgers. He sets it on the table, dripping barbecue sauce on the orange-green plaid tablecloth, and Meg unwraps the buns.

Linda appears at her elbow. “I was just telling Jenny Marlin how much I adore what you’ve done with the yard,” she says, taking the mustard from Meg’s hand. Meg frowns.

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. The family that lived here before, the Hesses, well, they were even worse than Chelsea Winters.” Linda nods in the direction of a woman in her mid-twenties standing out on the patio, sipping a beer and staring into space. Cas is watching her with an unnerving expression on his face. “Weeds everywhere, kids filthy and running all over town without a shred of supervision-they got foreclosed after it turned out they were paying with fake checks. Ran before the sheriff could arrest them. Just as well, I suppose. At least now they’re gone from New River. You and your husband seem like good people, though. How long have you been married?”

Meg glances at the sliding doors. Cas is arranging hot dogs on the grill and Chelsea Winters is pointing at the clouds.

“Three months,” she says.

“Newlyweds! How lovely. I remember when Mark and I were just starting out, finding our dream home here in New River. Seems like only yesterday, doesn’t it, dear?”

Mark Robertson smiles around a mouthful of beef and bread and nods amiably from across the table.

“Anyway,” Linda continues, “I was hoping I could get you to do my garden? I’ve never quite had the touch for it, can’t get a damn thing to grow. I’d be happy to pay, of course. And I have several friends who’d adore a garden like yours as well.”

Cas comes in again. The hot dogs are mostly burnt, and he has a tiny wrinkle between his eyes. “Sure,” Meg says. “Excuse me.”

She ignores Linda’s attempts to pull her back as she weaves through the crowd.

“I don’t think I’m very good at barbecuing,” Cas says. His tone is grave, as it always is, and his eyes are burning into her when he turns. “You seem to have a skill for sewing, however. These are our curtains, aren’t they?”

Meg shrugs. “Hey, I told you I’d take care of it.” She steps closer, resting her hands on his chest and tilting her chin up for a kiss. He doesn’t oblige, just stares at her, and she can feel the heat radiating off of him. She sighs, disappointed, and steps back.

“Linda wants me to do her garden,” she says.

“We could use the money,” Cas says. Meg shrugs.

“You could get a job.”

Cas doesn’t answer. Meg rolls her eyes, grabs a beer, and wanders out onto the porch. She’s considering Linda’s offer. Cas is right; they could use the money. Eventually their neighbors are going to get suspicious if neither of them has a job. And making Linda’s home look inviting to wandering spirits is tempting.

“Hello,” a voice says, knocking her out of her thoughts.

Meg forces a smile. “Chelsea Winters, right?”

The woman nods. “I live on the edge of town,” she says. “Don’t usually come to these things, but Bonnie insisted I get out more. So here I am.”

“Great,” Meg says.

“So, what do you do?”

Meg takes a swig of her beer. “Landscaping,” she finally responds. “I’m thinking of starting my own business.”

“That’s great!” Chelsea says. “I raise birds. Predators. Rent them out sometimes, but mostly they’re my babies. You should come hunting. I think-I’m sorry, but there’s something about you. I think you’d get along well with my birds.”

Meg stares at her. “Thank you?” she says tentatively. She’s not sure what to make of Chelsea. Or any of them, for that matter. She glances back inside, where Cas stands surrounded by Linda and Bonnie and a dark-haired woman Meg doesn’t recognize. His eyes are wide and she thinks, if he still had wings, they’d be flapping like crazy trying to get away.

“Excuse me,” she says. “Sorry. I have to go rescue Cas.”

“Of course,” Chelsea says.

Later, Meg and Cas dump all the plates in the trash, toss the soiled napkins and tablecloth into the washer, and pile the leftovers in the fridge. It’d taken longer than Meg would have liked to kick everyone out of the house, particularly Linda, who wouldn’t shut up about her garden. A couple women whose names Meg doesn’t at all remember also made Meg promise to do their gardens, and Meg supposes she’s well on her way to having a legitimate business.

Cas is happy for her, she thinks, as he responds to the news by dragging her up the stairs and pinning her against her bedroom door, kissing her until a normal human would pass out from breathlessness.

“What was that for?” she asks when he finally pulls away.

“Don’t ask questions,” he responds. She smirks and shoves at his shoulders, walking him backwards until his knees hit the edge of her bed and he collapses backward. “What-”

“Don’t ask questions” she echoes, smirking. Cas scowls at her, grabbing her arms and rolling them over.

“I find you strange as a housewife,” he murmurs. “Strange and a little foreboding. Can you explain that?”

Meg drags her nails down his bare arms, leaving little red tracks. “I can,” she says. “But I think you already know.” She cants her hips, rubbing herself against the slight bulge in Cas’s khaki pants, showing him how she’s not wearing panties under her sundress.

She flips them again and grabs the headboard as she mounts him. It breaks under her fingers, and when he rolls her over and fucks her into the ground, the bed frame buckles and splinters under the force of his thrusts.

Meg refuses to buy a new one, and Cas starts spending most of his nights tangled in her sheets.

~ * ~

The neighbors’ gardens, under Meg’s hands, bring bad fortune. Pay cuts, minor car collisions, and a couple a few streets over gets arrested for tax evasion. She remembers doing their garden, and thinks their name is something like Arsten, but she’s done jobs for so many by now she can hardly keep track.

She’s expanded, too; she has a website that’s almost impossible to navigate and a few jobs in Phoenix. She has a steady stream of mostly-legitimate cash, and the small amusement of watching her clients’ misfortunes. She never plants anything truly horrible-she doesn’t want to summon demons or anything-and nobody dies, but a young suburban couple fails to maintain their plants and a poltergeist moves in. Unfortunately, the couple moves out before the poltergeist can do any real harm, and Meg finds it hard to mask her disappointment. She’d done some research on the couple and found some rather interesting skeletons from the guy’s past as a prison guard.

Inelegant bastard. If there’s one thing Meg can’t stand, it’s amateurs. And now that Crowley’s redesigned Hell, all the new demons are going to end up populating DMV offices and nobody will be able to tell the difference. Which destroys the whole point of having demons.

A few weeks into her new business, she’s working on planting wards around the city limits when three demons show up. She kills two of them with the angel blade and is about to finish off the third when something he says stops her. One strangled syllable. Kai.

She drives the sword through his neck. His eyes and mouth glow orange-white, and then he falls. Meg shakes her head. If Kai managed to find her-if he thought it was necessary to send some of his employees after her-he either wants to threaten her, or he wants a favor. Neither is very appealing.

Meg sheathes her blade and returns to work. Kai will figure out his demons are dead eventually, and then he’ll have to call her directly.

Three days later, Kai contacts her. He’s in Salt Lake City, because for some reason Crowley wants his demons buying up Mormons, and-there’s a problem. Turns out demons aren’t the only one who like the city. She tells him she’s not talking over the phone, and he’s an idiot, and she digs through her closet for her secure line.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Meg asks the bubbling chalice. She’s in the heart of Phoenix, and there’s a fratboy at her feet, his throat slit open. The office building across the street, a brokerage firm, wants her to do their landscaping, on a recommendation from Meg’s neighbor’s cousin or something like that. She’s already thinking of all the horrible things she can make happen to the firm.

“Look, I know you’re in hiding, playing pretty housewife with some guy-seriously, Meg, that’s what you do with exile?-but we could use your help here. And it’d be worth your time.”

“How so?”

“I won’t tell Crowley where you are, for starters.”

Meg slams the back of her head into the brick wall behind her. “You’re threatening me,” she says calmly. “Not a smart move.”

“Maybe not, but it’s the only one I have. Now, are you going to help me?”

“Fine,” she says. It will give her a chance to eviscerate the little toad, anyway. Demons. They used to have integrity. Back when it was her and her brother and their father, and Alistair her teacher, being a demon meant something. Something more than being a slimy dick.

But they’re all gone now. It’s just her.

She packs up the chalice and returns to her car.

~ * ~

“One week. I promise.”

Cas doesn’t look convinced. In fact, if Meg didn’t know any better, she might think the angel looks downright terrified. Like he’s scared of her leaving him alone. It’s ridiculous, of course, but-this isn’t quite Cas. Not anymore. Now it’s just a guy with no memories and a shady, mysterious past, and the one tie to who he was is running off.

Yeah, maybe he’s scared.

“I’ll have Linda Robertson look in on you, if you’re that worried,” Meg suggests.

“No,” Cas says, glaring. He grabs her shoulders and spins them around, deposits her on the bed with her knees bent and her legs dangling off the edge. She props herself up on her elbows and watches him curiously.

He unbuttons her jeans and slides them down her legs, tossing them thoughtlessly in the corner, and rubs her through her panties. She groans and pushes against his fingers.

“I’m not letting you go without something to remember me by,” he murmurs. Her underwear is getting damp and uncomfortable, sticking to her cunt, but still he continues to tease her.

“Needs to be a bit more memorable than that,” she says. He smirks and lowers his head, kissing the wet fabric and sucking.

The sensations are horribly muted with that horrible scrap of cotton between his lips and her skin, but it’s enough to make her tremble slightly as she moans, high and breathy.

Meg grabs his shoulders and pulls him down with her. She rolls them over until she’s sitting heavily on his chest, then strips her underwear off and runs her fingers through his hair. His lips are parted softly in surprise, and she lowers herself over his mouth. He licks tentatively at her folds, then grabs her ass and pushes her closer. He presses his tongue inside her, wriggling in and out and she gasps, her fingers grabbing the headboard and her hips jerking towards his face. He holds her steady, not missing a beat as he continues to lick and suck at her center.

His teeth graze her clit, and she comes hard three times in quick succession, trembling and shouting as he keeps moving his lips against hers, relentless and just this side of painful. Meg tumbles to the side, gasping, and he props himself up on his elbow and grins at her.

~ * ~

Kai’s a dick.

Meg wipes Leviathan slime off her arm. She’s tempted to just kill Kai and be done with it, but as much as she hates to admit it, she kind of needs him. Early warning system against Crowley, and everything.

He keeps the head and she steals his truck. The green BMW was getting too conspicuous, and a pickup truck is a more believable vehicle for a landscaper. That’s how she figures it, anyway. Mostly she just wants to annoy and inconvenience him.

Meg stops for gas in Flagstaff. The station’s across the street from a glistening motorcycle dealership, and it makes her think-Cas hates riding in cars, acts like it’s crushing wings she knows he can’t feel, and she smiles to herself as she decides.

The machine is black and powerful. There’s no storage area-she finds them inelegant, and in any case, what could he possibly need to tow around? She pays in cash stolen from the wallets of a few bankers out to lunch, and loads the bike into the back of her truck, and hurries back to New River.

When Cas sees the bike, he drags her inside and proceeds to fuck her hard against the curtains. Meg gives as good as she gets, shoving against him and tearing the curtains-rods and all-from the walls. They rip massive holes in the drywall, forming long, ugly cracks in the plaster. Cas doesn’t care. He grips her hair and plunders her mouth with his tongue and she laughs, delighted.

“Thank you,” he says, when they’re lying exhausted and sweaty in the pile of fabric and dust.

“I thought you might like it,” Meg says, leaning in and drawing her tongue across his lower lip.

They don’t bother cleaning up the curtains.

~ * ~




~ * ~

Cas spends all morning going from store to store in the little town. Meg is throwing a Christmas Eve (Eve) potluck at their house, because the barbecue had been such a hit. Cas wonders what barbecue she attended. He can only recall charred burgers and awkward napkins, but figures she just wants to sell more plants. He’s supposed to be making a cauliflower casserole later, and while he’s almost gotten the hang of pancakes and burgers, he’s not sure he can manage something that complex. Meg says it shouldn’t matter-anyone can follow a recipe and, if Meg does her job right, they’ll all be too wasted to notice if it’s terrible. He’s not exactly convinced.

But before he can worry about his cooking skills, there’s the small matter of the destroyed curtains and giant holes in the walls. They’d been perfectly content to let the wall stay like that through Thanksgiving and the first weeks of December, but now that she’s having actual people over, Meg’s decided something needs to be done about it. Cas’s task is to find new curtains and heavy-duty bolts and caulk to fill the holes. She’d given him a dirty little smirk at the last item.

Cas has his backpack, which should be large enough to transport curtains and bolts. It fits nicely over the curve of his shoulders, padded by his faded black leather jacket. His t-shirt is a light blue, which Meg says brings out his eyes; his jeans are acid-wash; his boots aren’t quite broken in yet. The clothes aren’t very comfortable, but they are necessary. He’s taken the bike, leaving the truck for Meg in case she needs to run to the grocery store. Or that’s what he tells her, anyway-the bike was supposed to be for both of them, but he’s taken a particular liking to it. Riding it feels like flying, feels familiar and soothing. Meg smiled that strange, secretive smile when he told her. That look that meant he was referencing something about his life before the accident, but she wasn’t going to tell him what it was. It’s obnoxious, and he hates it, but he’s confident he’ll figure out exactly where to press to make her tell him everything.

He comes up empty at the bare-bones hardware store. All their little devices for securing curtains to a wall are flimsy at best and one of them breaks apart in his hand. Cas doesn’t fare much better at the convenience store near the edge of town, either. Which means he’ll have to go a little bit farther.

Meg’s warned him about leaving town. She likes to point out that in their little haven, no one will find out who Cas is or what he’s done. He still doesn’t know what she means, but from what he can gather, the accusations are false. It doesn’t sit well with him, not knowing, but even thinking about what he could have done makes his blood run cold and his hands tremble and his breath come fast and uneven. She says outside, there’s nothing to protect him. He’ll be found and punished and she can’t save him.

It’s hyperbole, he thinks. There’s a big industrial place in Phoenix-right on the outskirts of the suburbs. Not even inside the city limits, not really. He doubts there’ll be a fleet of officers waiting to take him to jail. It’s a twenty-minute drive, if he speeds, and they need curtains.

Still. His heart pounds in his ears as he passes the sign welcoming visitors to New River, over the white line and past Meg’s row of plants. It’s terrifying and thrilling and it occurs to him, not for the first time, how much he hates her. The brush of her body against his makes him want to scrub until his skin sloughs off. Her mere presence is familiar, but not in a good way. Yet he’s addicted, and he stays, and he lets her push him and nudge him until he shoves back. And she loves it, every second of it, every bruise and bite and every crack in their walls and dent in their bed.

Cas wonders if he’ll be disgusted with himself when he gets his memories back. If he gets his memories back. He’ll probably hate himself. More than he hates himself now, that is.

The warehouse is at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by dust and brush, and he parks his bike in the empty lot near the back door. A man in a plain black suit and yellow tie waits by the door, arms crossed and back straight and feet shoulder-width apart like a bodyguard.

He approaches cautiously. “Hello?”

“State your business.”

“I need a sturdy curtain rod and wall-fastenings,” he says.

“Name?”

“Cas.” The man grins. It reminds Cas of a shark.

“Oh, that changes everything.” He opens the door and gestures for Cas to enter. “Someone will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you,” Cas says. He glances behind him, but sees nothing save his bike and some brush. The man waits, and Cas crosses into the building. Immediately he feels something pass through him, chilling his blood and stinging his cheeks and the tips of his fingers. He gasps. “What-”

There’s another man. He’s startlingly tall and broad-shouldered, and wears a gray sweater and blue jeans and white tennis shoes. He has long brown hair, curling slightly over his forehead. His eyes are hazel behind wire-rimmed glasses. He taps his leg as he approaches. There’s something almost familiar about the man. Something pushing at the edge of Cas’s memory, something about the way the man’s hair flops in his eyes, and it itches. It hurts, because whatever it is about those eyes, whatever memories he can’t retrieve, there’s pain.

“So, the bitch finally let you off your leash.”

“I beg your pardon?” Cas says, shocked. He’s not sure which is worse-that the man is insulting Meg like this, or that he knows about her at all. And yes, she can be manipulative, and she can be horrible, but he’s not much better.

The man smiles at him. His face is horrible, deformed, and Castiel tries not to let his revulsion show. Perhaps the man had an accident. It’s not his right to judge. “My name’s Brian,” he says. “I know about you, Cas. I know you had an accident, and I know you don’t remember. I know what that slut of yours won’t tell you. Probably for the best, though. If you knew…” He clucks his tongue and shakes his head, a mockery of compassion.

“And how do you know all this?”

“I have my ways,” Brian says. He takes off his glasses and looks away. “I could tell you. But it would cost you. Not money, but the truth… it may be more than you can manage.”

Cas wrings his hands together. “Meg can’t protect me forever,” he says. “And I have to know.”

“Very well.” Brian raises his head and looks straight at Cas. His eyes blacken, and Cas stumbles back.

“What-” he chokes. “You’re not-”

“Human? No.” His eyes turn hazel again, though his face remains repulsive. “I’m a demon, Cas. And there’s a lot worse than me out there in the dark. Like, for example, you.”

“No,” Cas says. “No, I’m-” Panic rises in his throat. Footsteps approach behind him, and he swings his fist on instinct. The guard he met at the door falls unconscious at his feet.

Brian’s beside him in an instant, hand closed around his throat and pressing, cutting off his air. Cas’s head swims and he claws at the hand, kicks at the demon’s (man’s, there’s no such thing as demons, it’s a trick of the light) shins. He catches a kneecap and Brian goes down. Cas lands another kick to Brian’s nose. Blood sprays on his jeans.

As he runs from the warehouse, he hears Brian shouting after him. “Michelle Walker, Cas. Michelle Walker and millions like her. Can’t run forever, we’ll find you. You’re the worst of all of us. The King will find you.”

He bursts out the door and into the bright sun. It burns his eyes. Brian still shouts, Can’t run, can’t run, this is who you are, and Cas slams the door shut. The heavy steel warps under his hand.

Brian’s wrong, he tells himself. Brian’s crazy. Brian’s just a Fed, trying to scare him. Or someone from his past, messing with him. Or Brian’s crazy and Cas just happened to be the most immediate receptacle for his delusions. There are a million explanations, all more reasonable than demons and- He can’t think about that. There’s no such thing. A trick of the light, and steroids.

He mounts his bike and tears out of the parking lot. No matter how he tries, the name stays with him. It echoes in his mind, and it won’t leave him. Michelle Walker. Whoever she is. He’s not sure he wants to know.

Still, now his curiosity has been piqued, he doesn’t think he can let it go.

He returns to New River, and goes to the tiny hardware store, and buys some random fastenings and a caulking gun and several mismatching curtains (which he only realizes when the checkout girl raises a pierced eyebrow and asks if these are really the ones he wants, and Meg will probably be annoyed but he doesn’t really care and anyway if it bothers her so much they can always destroy the curtains and go shopping for new ones again).

Besides, once he gets back, he plans to distract Meg so much she won’t have the capacity to complain about the curtains. Or notice Cas stealing away to find information on Michelle Walker.

~ * ~

Meg’s baking cupcakes when he comes home. She watches out of the corner of her eye as he tosses his backpack into the laundry room and comes toward her, loosening his tie and draping it and his dress shirt over a kitchen chair. Then he comes up behind her and kisses her neck.

She laughs. “Eager much?” she asks as his large hands come to rest at her waist. He pushes up the skirt of her rose-patterned dress and slides his fingers across her thigh. She’s naked under her dress, and he smirks against her skin when he realizes this.

“Well?” she asks, breathless. He presses two fingers to her cunt in answer, sliding them deep inside, and she gasps, bearing down on his hand. He brushes his thumb across her clit and her hips jerk.

“Stay still,” he whispers, rumbling, into her ear. “Keep frosting.”

She rocks against his fingers, moaning. “Can’t you just fuck me?”

He grins against her skin. “No,” he says. “Frost.”

He presses his cock, thick and hard, against her hip as she continues trying to fuck herself on his fingers. He stops moving them and she whines.

“You’re very bad at following orders.”

“Yeah, well, takes one to know one,” she mutters. He tilts his head slightly, curious, and though she doesn’t look back he thinks she knows how he’s looking at her. She shakes her head. “Never mind. I’ll be good.” She picks up a chocolate cupcake and the knife to prove it and smears pink frosting over the top of the cupcake. Cas starts moving his fingers again.

Her body shakes with the force of it, her hands trembling as his fingers twist and press and thrust inside her, and he can hear the soft wet noises over her pants and gasps. Her knees are practically knocking together, he can tell-she’s having trouble staying upright, and her knuckles are white with the effort to keep herself standing. From the way she’s slapping pink on cupcakes in giant, lopsided globs, not bothering to spread the frosting and make the cakes look elegant, Cas knows she’s barely paying attention to what she’s doing. He thinks he should reprimand her, but honestly he doesn’t care-she has three dozen, and he likes watching her fall apart under his relentless hands.

She’s desperate, moaning just on the edge of a scream, and clenching hard on his fingers. Cas watches her dripping on the tile floor, mesmerized. His free hand comes to squeeze her breast, playing with her nipple through the thin fabric of her dress. She shouts, twisting in his grasp, but with her attention focused as it is on how turned on she is, his strength easily outpaces hers, and he keeps her still, flicking her nipple casually and pinching it hard. She gasps, clenching tight around his fingers and he can feel her shuddering as desire courses through her.

Finally, she slops frosting on the last cupcake and practically throws it at the plate in her hurry to grab the counter with both hands and bear down on Cas’s fingers. He smirks, withdrawing his fingers from her, and she slams her palm on the counter in protest. He stops playing with her breast and wraps his arm around her waist.

“Good girl,” he whispers. He laughs at the indignant little noise she makes, and he half-carries her over to the table. He spins her around and sets her down, legs dangling off the edge of the table. She hooks her ankles behind his ass and grabs his collar and pulls him in, biting hard at his lips and sucking on his tongue. He sighs at the pressure on the back of his neck and kisses just as frantically, tugging at her hair and pushing his tongue past her full lips to lick at her mouth.

They pull away, gasping for air, and he makes quick work of his belt and zipper to pull out his hard cock. He lets her glimpse it for a split second, watches the way her eyes widen slightly, then buries himself deep inside her. He slides in easily with how wet and stretched she is. Her back hits the hard wood, and his hands are pressing her down, pushing her dress up to pass his thumbs across her bare nipples. She pulls him in closer, moving her hips in time with his thrusts. He brushes rough fingers across her clit and that’s all it takes, she comes, bearing down hard on his cock as he fucks her through it, then keeps playing with her clit until she comes again, shouting. He keeps doing that, waiting until she comes down from one orgasm and then sending her straight into another, until finally she’s gasping, whimpering, boneless on the table.

Then he grabs her hips hard enough to bruise and pounds into her, head bowed and sweat-damp hair hanging into his eyes, and spills hot and wet inside her. She screams like it burns her.

He collapses on her, breath coming in harsh little pants against her skin. She shoves at his shoulders.

“Hey. Crushing me, here,” she says.

“Sorry.” He sits up and frowns at her. Meg’s lying on the table, ankles still wrapped around his thighs, laughing breathlessly. Her dark curls are damp, plastered to her forehead, and her eyes are bright. He growls, frustrated. Her stamina still far outpaces his, though-he thinks with a perverse sort of pride-he’s improved greatly from their first fuck.

The first fuck he can remember, anyway. He wonders how he was in bed before he lost his memories. He can’t have been that awful, he figures, or Meg probably wouldn’t have bothered fishing him out of the reservoir.

Still, he has his pride, and he steps away from her, fastening his jeans. She goes up on her elbows, curiously, just as Cas drops to his knees between her thighs. He hooks one of her legs over his shoulder and bites at the soft skin of her inner thigh, over and over, trailing bites ever-closer to her center until, with satisfaction, he hears her head whack against the table. He presses his lips to hers, sucking softly and licking his come from her. Meg combs her fingers through his hair, encouraging but not pushing, and Cas stabs his tongue inside her. The hand on his head falters.

He licks her clean, thorough, and he can feel her leg trembling and he can hear her breath quicken. He presses his tongue to her clit, sucking and brushing his teeth lightly against that spot. Meg’s back arches, her heel digging into Cas’s shoulder. He licks the resulting dampness from her cunt, not stopping, wondering how many times he can make her come with just his lips and tongue.

Cas makes six before she passes out.

Then he scoops her into his arms and carries her into their room. He leaves her on their bed, sleeping soundly. His own knees protest under the exertion; she’s not the only one who’s tired out, though if she had done to him what he’d just done to her… well, he kind of doubts he’d even survive it. Though he welcomes the challenge.

The bed is tempting, particularly with Meg’s body warming the sheets. But getting into her study, finding out the truth behind Brian’s words back at the warehouse-that’s even more tempting, which surprises him.

She’s never explicitly forbidden him from entering her sanctuary. If she had, Cas probably would have broken in long before. But even walking down the hall gives him a dark sense of foreboding, and he doesn’t want to go anywhere near the door. It’s the same discomfort Cas felt as he left town, and now he knows to take it seriously. Not that he was flippant before, but there’s a difference between believing something bad will happen and actually having something bad happen. Sure, he’d gotten out of there, but…

Hopefully, finding out the truth will help.

He doubts it.

He doubts it even more when he touches the doorknob, only to jerk away and press his mouth to his shoulder, muffling his scream. His hand throbs, skin blossoming bright pink and blistered, and the doorknob glows white before slowly fading to bronze.

Alarm bells ring in his head.

The need to know what the demons were talking about overrides the desire to run back to bed. He strips off his shirt and wraps his burned hand in the cloth, steels himself, and grabs the knob. The shirt barely makes a difference, as his skin is further scalded and at least one of the blisters pops, but this time Cas is prepared for the pain. He grits his teeth and throws open the door.

His shirt falls to the floor, and he’s pretty sure his jaw follows after. Whatever he was expecting, even with the strange burning doorknob, it wasn’t this. Meg’s “study” (what she could be studying in here, Cas isn’t sure he want to know) is covered in odd symbols. Crosses, pentagrams, letterings that Cas can’t read but that feel darkly, horribly familiar, and a few that evoke sheer panic, like they’re meant to hurt him. Some are done in black paint, others are done in dark red that Cas fears might be blood. There’s a table on the far side of the room, like a-like an altar-with half-melted candles and bones and talismans. Cas picks one of them up. A tiny skull, with a pointed nose and sharp teeth, stares at him through empty sockets. He drops it. The skull bounces on the carpet and rolls under the table.

Meg’s laptop is on a chair next to the altar. He kneels next to it and flips open the lid. Her wallpaper is a bright sunflower, and there’s nothing on her desktop except an icon labeled Internet.

Since he walked out of the lake, Cas has never used a computer. He’s seen Meg with her laptop before, typing away in the kitchen, but he’s never thought to use it himself. He’s not sure he even knows how. But it can’t be too difficult, he figures, as he opens the browser and locates the search bar.

Michelle Walker, he types. It takes him awhile, as he has to search for each key (the letters aren’t in order, and it’s very confusing). He manages, though, and clicks the search button.

Thousands of hits pop up. He finds Michelle Walker’s website first-she’s an incumbent senator, he discovers, or she was. The first page is taken up by an In Memorium He skims it, but it doesn’t offer much information. A tragedy, he sees; a terrorist attack. Those responsible will be brought to justice. Something tightens in his throat.

The next few results are the same. Articles about Michelle Walker’s time in office, her great service to her community, how much her constituents mourn the loss. Cas finds himself getting more and more frustrated-so a senator’s campaign headquarters was attacked. What does this have to do with him? What does this have to do with demons setting up shop outside his town?

Finally, he comes across a video linked in the comments of someone’s blog post about the incident. It’s black and white and grainy, but he can see clearly-a man in a trenchcoat, the bloodbath, the man’s insane grin at the camera.

At him.

The man is him.

He did this. He killed them.

There are more videos. Shaky, horrible quality, fuzzy sound and worse picture, but it’s enough. Over and over again he watches himself kill innocent people, listens to his voice condemn them. This man, this person that Cas is, he thinks he’s God. And the things he can do-choking a man with a look, shoving his hand through the chest of another-it’s horrible.

Two videos show the man healing. He supposes that’s some kind of comfort, but in the face of all the blood and destruction he’s caused, Cas knows it’s not enough.

He’s a serial killer, he realizes. An insane, delusional, psychotic serial killer. And Meg-Meg must be some kind of witch. His partner, perhaps. Maybe she’s waiting for him to snap, so they can continue their spree. Maybe this is a vacation for her. Maybe when she goes on those business trips (landscaping, how could he be so naïve) she’s really finding a few people to kill. Pass the time until her partner remembers who he is.

Cas feels sick. He stumbles out of her room. He doesn’t bother to close the laptop or the door behind him, though he does grab his shirt, and puts it on inside-out as he makes his way into the garage. He has to get out of here.

He lurches onto his motorcycle and blasts out of the driveway. There’s nowhere he can go, and he knows it-everywhere he’ll be terrified someone will know him, will recognize him, and he-he doesn’t remember killing all those people and yet he knows it’s the truth. He knows what he is. He’s always known. He’s a monster, and a killer, and he needs to-

Get away. That’s what he needs. He needs to get away from this place, from Meg’s façade of normal, from Meg’s smile and her touch. From the images burned into his mind of himself, standing among mutilated bodies, blood on his coat and a manic grin on his face.

He doesn’t notice when his neighbor pulls in front of him on his mountain bike, and the first sign that something might be wrong is the sudden appearance of clouds and a heavy weight on him and numb, throbbing pain through his entire body.

Very slowly, he finds himself crashing back into reality.

“Oh, God,” Cas gasps. He shoves the motorcycle off of him. His side is throbbing with pain, and he’s pretty sure he has at least a couple broken ribs, but he digs his fingers into the dirt and drags himself into the street. Joseph Anderson’s chest moves up and down, slow but even, and he sighs in relief. He hasn’t killed his neighbor.

Not yet, anyway.

“Hey, Joe?” He shakes the man’s shoulder lightly, and Joe’s head lolls to the side, but his eyes remain shut. Cas closes his own as panic overtakes him. His phone is smashed at the side of the road; nobody knows he’s out here; nobody will think to look for Joe until it’s too late. Joe’s going to die. It’s going to be Cas’s fault and that plus the massacre-

He’s going to go to jail. After everything Meg’s done to keep him safe, he’s going to go to jail anyway. It’s far, far less than he deserves, and he knows it, but the thought still frightens him. Locked away…

Cas rests a hand on Joe’s forehead. “Come on,” he whispers. “Wake up. Please wake up.”

Something shoots through him, blindingly hot and powerful, and Cas jerks away. His hand feels like it’s on fire, and his head follows into the flames shortly after. He shoves his other fist in his mouth and bites down, muffling his own screams, and barely registers Joe waking up and standing.

“What-you okay, man?” Joe asks from far away. Cas can’t see him. He sees wings and death and fire, so much fire, so much destruction and so much-stretching on and on forever. He lets out a tiny sob and Joe grabs his bike. “I’ll get someone,” he says. “Just-hang in there, buddy, okay?”

Cas’s hand falls from his mouth and he screams.

~ * ~

He remembers waves crashing on the beach. He remembers standing with his brothers, an endless procession, and Michael standing before them and announcing God’s plan. He remembers watching a fish crawl onto the beach, and he remembers running forward to greet it.

He remembers Gabriel holding him back, wrapping him in bright wings, telling him to stay still. As centuries go by, and Castiel grows and learns and fights, watches his brothers turn on each other and Lucifer cast into Hell, he never forgets that fish. He never forgets what that fish became.

Countless millennia of war and despair, so much that it’s nothing but a blur in Castiel’s mind.

And then there’s the Winchesters. There’s Dean, and Sam, and the Apocalypse that never was. Castiel falls, becomes human, then dies again and is remade. And then he makes a pact with the King of Hell.

Death. Despair. It never ends. Rachel and Balthazar and Raphael, fallen under Castiel’s blade. Sam, broken at Castiel’s hand. And always the demon whispers in his ear, whispers that he is all Castiel has anymore, and Castiel believes it.

The Winchesters only wanted him around when he could be useful, when he could fix their problems or do them a favor. Crowley’s almost the same, but with one exception-Crowley gives Castiel assistance in return.

And, of course, Castiel turns on Crowley as well. Declares himself God, and Castiel’s amazed he hasn’t been thrown into the cage with Michael and Lucifer, to rot with his prideful brothers. To have them tear at his wings and mind until the end of time. He’d deserve it, for what he’s done.

Shame and regret and despair well up inside of him, choking him, and he falls to the pavement and wails.

~ * ~

He must have passed out, because when he comes to, Meg is shaking his shoulder and staring at him with something like concern on her face. Only it isn’t concern, because she’s a demon.

“Cas?” she asks. “Joe said-there was an accident. Are you alright?”

“Demon,” he says. “There are demons, just outside of town. I saw them.”

She strokes his hair. “Cas-”

“I killed all those people. I saw it. Demons exist and I’m a murderer. I’m worse than a murderer. All those people-”

“What are you talking about?”

Castiel balls his hands into fists. “The demons told me what to look for. I found the videos. I found myself-I saw myself kill. I saw myself turn into a monster.”

“I’m sorry,” Meg says. She almost sounds like it, too, and it just makes him angrier.

He shoves her away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he shouts. “Why-you couldn’t have-”

“You crawl out of the reservoir with no memory and no clothes and the first person you come across starts talking about demons,” Meg says. “You’d think they were insane.”

Castiel shakes his head. Who cares if she didn’t tell him about demons. That’s hardly the most pressing issue here. She knew he’d-he’d caused that massacre, he’d stood there and murdered all those people, and she’d just pretended nothing had happened. “No, but-”

“You were possessed,” she says. “It wasn’t you.”

“Possessed by a demon?”

“Among other things.” Meg shrugs. So she’s going for evasive. Castiel needs to get away from her. Memories are smashing together, and he can almost feel those things inside him as he fights to remember who he is. “I don’t exactly know all the details,” she continues. “I wasn’t there. Too busy running away from my own demon problems. But you-you’re special.” That’s one word for it. Castiel can think of a few far more appropriate ones.

“I killed people. And you knew about it.”

She doesn’t answer. Her presence is revolting. He can’t see her true face, and he might have an idea why, but everything about her reeks of Hell. Castiel tries to spread his wings, tries to disappear, but his feathers are shredded and his wing-joints are broken and he nearly screams when he tries to move them. The Leviathans must have destroyed his wings while they were inside him, and not being in control of his healing abilities, his wings had stayed broken.

He finds he doesn’t care as much as he should, and he jumps to his feet and stalks over to his motorcycle.

“Cas, please. We have to get back. The potluck-”

He ignores her. Screw her potluck. He needs to be alone. He needs to do something. There were demons at the warehouse. Crowley’s demons, he thinks, or at least not Meg’s. They’ll know something.

It occurs to him as he slings a leg over the sleek bike that he doesn’t care whether they know anything about anything or not. He’s not planning on interrogating them either way. Crowley will find him sooner or later.

They’re demons. They need to die. That thought keeps him going, keeps him sane or near enough as new memories bubble to the forefront of his mind, the faces of his fallen brothers and sisters flashing like strobe lights against the visor of his helmet.

Brian’s standing outside the warehouse when Castiel arrives. Like he’s been waiting. Like he knew Castiel would be coming back-and it occurs to him that the demon probably did know. He’s smirking, anyway.

“Castiel!” Brian greets cheerfully, as Castiel lets his bike fall in the gravel and tosses his helmet on top. “How is my favorite mass murderer this evening?”

Brian doesn’t look a thing like Sam Winchester. He’s several inches too short; is hair is a shade too light; his eyes are too round and too wide; his expression is too sinister. Even when Sam was under the influence of demon blood, even when he was Lucifer, even when he was walking around with no soul, there was always a glimmer of goodness in him. There was faith in him, too, whenever he looked at Castiel, and that never wavered even when Sam learned what Castiel had done.

Castiel slams his hand against Brian’s forehead and burns the demon out of him. Brian screams, lighting up in flames, his eyes burning away, and Castiel smiles to himself. There are three more demons in the warehouse, and he disposes of them just as easily.

Then he’s left with their bodies, strewn about the place, and their smoldering eye-sockets and the stench of death. These demons were possessing humans. It’s possible the human souls had been destroyed before Castiel showed up, but there’s a chance-

So his body count is even higher. Four more. He doesn’t know how many total he’s killed. How many humans, how many angels, how many-

He carries their bodies out behind the warehouse, one by one, allowing himself to labor under their weight. He finds a shovel in the warehouse and digs a grave, finds salt and fuel and burns the bodies. He sits next to the flames and watches them rise into the sky. It’s dusk, now, the sky is red and purple and he can see the first few stars blinking faintly. Meg’s potluck should be starting soon, and he almost laughs at the thought.

Meg’s potluck.

He never did make that casserole.

Slowly, he gets to his feet and walks away from the grave. He’ll return to her, of course. Where else would he go? Sam and Dean wouldn’t want to see him, and while the thought of throwing himself on Crowley’s mercy has some appeal, it wouldn’t solve anything. And he’s curious, he must admit. She’s taken care of him, for whatever that’s worth, and while he knows she didn’t do it out of the goodness of her heart, he appreciates it. He can remember all the things he’s done with that-with her, and while they disgust him, the sensations the memories evoke are not entirely unpleasant.

He gets back on his motorcycle and heads back to their house. He can-he can heal people, still. The thought of killing anything sickens him, but he can heal people. Meg doesn’t have to know his memories are back. He can hide out here and try to make up for his sins.

It’ll never be enough, but he can try.

Part 3