We Could Plant a House - Part 1
Masterpost
Meg’s not there when it goes down.
She hears about it from an informant, who heard it from an ally, who heard it from a double-agent, who heard it from one of Crowley’s closest. How Castiel and Crowley worked together, and Cas turned on him (good boy, she can’t help thinking) and took all of Purgatory into himself. He’s God now, according to her informant.
Clarence playing God. Now there’s a thought. Meg’s just glad she’s safely tucked away, in a beach house in Sydney surrounded by demons and holy oil and covered in warding sigils. Her informant says the protection didn’t help Crowley-Cas got to him anyway, reinstated him as King of Hell as the rumors go-but Meg doesn’t care. She’s almost looking forward to their inevitable meeting.
Her informant, a crossroads demon called Kai, paces the length of the beach house and back again. His eyes flare red, sending a slight glow down the bare chest of the surfer he’s currently possessing. If Crowley wanted, he could trace Kai’s position, but Kai’s very much a lower-level dealer and anyway, he’s assigned to Australia. It’s one of the reasons Meg’s chosen it. Allies are few and far between these days.
“He’s going to find you,” Kai says at last. He rubs at his scarred cheek and broken nose-souvenirs from surfing during a hurricane in South Carolina last year, according to memories Kai digs out of the guy’s brain. “These can’t protect you.”
“I know,” Meg says. She picks up the angel blade from the side table and twirls it in her fingers. The bright sunlight reflects off the shiny surface. Outside, waves crash on the beach, mixing with the sound of children shrieking and laughing. She stabs the blade into her armchair. “Kai, what did I tell you about people on my beach?”
“It’s a public beach,” Kai says. Meg rolls her eyes and pulls the blade out of her chair, pointing the sharp end at her informant.
“And this is the last time I let you find me a safehouse. There are four demons standing guard outside, get them to do something useful.”
He nods and disappears out the front door. Meg sighs and drops her head back on the chair. This was supposed to be a respite for her. She can watch the mayhem on TV, safely away from anyone trying to kill her, until Castiel shows up. And he will. He won’t be able to stay away, Meg’s sure of that.
“Crowley will find you, too,” Kai says, coming back inside. Her beach is silent, save for seagulls and ocean. If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend the crying seagulls are the screams of the damned. Maybe this safehouse isn’t so bad after all. Kai moves to block the window and crosses his arms over his chest. She raises an eyebrow, and he continues: “Hell, your angel might hand you over to him as a consolation prize.”
Meg laughs. “No, he won’t,” she says. She’s worked her way under Clarence’s skin.
“Just know that when he comes, you’re on your own.”
She bows her head, smirking. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
Castiel doesn’t come for her that day, or the next, or the day after that. Meg passes the time watching news reports of mass smitings and miracle healings. Some of them reference a mysterious dark-haired man in a tan overcoat. Some don’t, but Meg can see Cas’s hand anyway. Occasionally someone will have a video, and it’s usually grainy and blurry and taken on someone’s iPhone while they run away (and, often, ends with the cameraman falling). No one has gotten a real, clear look at their new God yet.
Outside, her beach remains clear. She goes out sometimes, lies in the sand and waits for the occasional hapless tourist to wander by. Then she sends them inside the house for drinks and corruption, and Kai gets another soul, and Crowley stays out of his way. As long as Kai’s a good little employee of Hell, meeting his quota, Crowley has no reason to come visit. Businessmen. Sure, it was fine when Crowley was just wrangling the crossroads demons, but now that he’s in charge of everyone, Hell’s become much less fun.
After a week of sitting around and waiting for an attack that clearly isn’t coming, Kai finally agrees that maybe getting out of the house would be good for her. It takes Meg holding the angel knife to his throat and musing that this thing killed hellhounds-do you think it kills demons, too? He looks stricken, and relents easily. Meg wonders when her informant became her bodyguard, but as having him and the others around means she’s got something to throw at Crowley’s hounds before she makes a run for it, she puts up with his overprotective crap. Mostly.
Meg goes alone. Kai drops into a nightclub to make a few deals for Crowley, and Meg wanders around the alleyways, contemplating the perfect combination of destruction and fun and covertness.
That’s when she sees him, standing at a dead end, suit and trenchcoat and blue tie and all, silhouetted by eerie holy light. He raises a hand and Meg walks to him, her feet moving of their own accord, stiletto heels clacking and echoing through the alley.
Then he lowers his hand, and she screams.
~ * ~
He hurts.
Meg’s borrowed skin ripples and burns, boiling and tearing and the next instant healing smooth, only to bleed again. She kneels, naked, on the hard concrete. It’s all she can do to keep her gaze firmly locked on her hands, her fingers gripping her bare thighs. He’s so bright, he could burn the eyes right out of her head.
She screams when he touches her cheek, feels the skin melt away and the sharp cold of air strike her exposed bones. He draws his hand away and she heals, though frantic sobs still tear their way out of her throat.
“Meg,” he says, and she feels her eardrums break. “I have reinstated Crowley as King of Hell.”
So she’s still a fugitive. Or, she will be, if by some miracle she survives this encounter with the new God. She isn’t sure which is worse-death at Crowley’s hands, or at Castiel’s. Neither is likely to be quick.
“But I am strangely fond of you,” he continues. “I am compelled to make you an offer. A chance to stop running from your King.”
“What do I have to do, Clarence?” she asks, and the words turn to acid on her tongue. Blood slides down her chin.
“Nothing at all,” he says. He takes a fistful of her hair and pulls, and she stands. “I am God,” he says, more to himself than to her. “I will have what I want.” He crushes her to him, covering her lips with his own, cleaning out her mouth with his tongue. She screams into the kiss, claws at him and fights and struggles, her entire body burning. He touches her arms, her back, cups the swell of her ass, and she feels her skin sloughing off in the fire. It’s not like those of Hell-this fire cleans her, purifies her, turns her into a mockery of her race. Into something else.
Finally, the burning stops, and there’s only his lips on hers and his hands brushing through her hair, and she kisses him back just as passionately.
He fucks her against the wall, holding her on his cock with one hand while the other presses her shoulder to the rough cracks in the bricks. She digs her nails into the back of his neck, into his bicep, sinks her teeth into his lower lip and draws blood. Meg spits it on the ground-God’s blood is bitter and slimy and tastes like fish.
“You are mine, now,” he says, voice rumbling in her ear. “Bound to me.”
Meg just laughs. She presses down on his shoulders and lifts herself, rocking slowly on his cock. His hands falter on her, his eyes widening slightly. “Why?” she asks, dropping roughly onto him. “Why do this?”
“I want to watch you and Crowley fight for control of Hell,” he says.
“Sure,” Meg says. She’s not convinced. His deal with Crowley was somewhat less than secret after the Winchesters found out. Crowley made the angel his bitch. And this new Cas wants control. She can read it in his hands, pressed to her skin; in his cock, driving into her; in the total lack of dominance he actually displays as she easily prompts him to fuck her just the way she likes. He couldn’t care less about Hell-he wants to watch them fight over him.
It’s adorable, really.
“So I am yours,” she says, keeping the laugh out of her voice. She seals her oath with her teeth on his neck, hard enough to draw blood. It doesn’t taste like fish this time-it tastes like raw power, and she laps up several drops before sharing his blood between them. He bites her lip, and she tastes sulfur.
With a shout he comes inside her. Cleansing flames shoot through Meg’s body, and she feels the black smoke of her soul compress and shine just a little. She slides a hand down her stomach and presses at her clit, grunting her release a moment later.
She shakes herself out, removing herself gingerly from Cas’s cock and stepping to the floor. Cas’s hair is mussed and his lips are bruised and there are marks in the shape of her teeth on his neck and his blood drips on his collar. He puts his cock back in his slacks and zips them, and not even God can make that look dignified. On the other hand, she feels clean and pure and exposed.
“Remove your scourge from me,” she says, tossing her head back and writhing against the wall, her arms thrown wide in rapture. “I am overcome by the blow of your… well, your dick.”
He doesn’t look amused. In fact, he hardly hears her at all. He’s distracted, his eyes glazed over, head tilted as he listens to something calling him from far, far away. Without a word he disappears. She drops to the ground, laughing. As she is Cas’s, Cas is hers. Not wholly, not completely, but just enough. She is inside him, twisting and biting, And he knows it.
~ * ~
She returns to herself, slow and certain, the taint within her turning back into beautiful hellfire. Cas tries to summon her. She ignores him. Not because she’s angry, not because she’s uninterested, but simply because she can. Whoever or whatever told Cas he could bind her with one little fuck against a wall had vastly underestimated her. Meg is Azazel’s daughter. She is Alastair’s pupil. She is Lucifer’s favored child. Something like her can’t be bound that easily. He hadn’t even noticed she’d taken some of Purgatory’s power into herself. Meg considers making a show, lighting up the sky or something like that, but decides against it. She’s going to need that extra boost, that sad little soul-slice, and she’s saving it for someone special.
Meg still has designs on Crowley’s throne, despite the jealous ex-lover sitting in the stands. Her agents are out there, monitoring the situation, reporting back to her. She’ll have to strike soon, while he’s distracted and she’s still thrumming with Cas’s power. And she will, once she stops wanting to rip the shining meat from her bones.
In the meantime, she’s content to flip through news reports of miracles and God-sightings. Her bodyguards have gone on an extended spree since Meg wandered back reeking of Angel-God, not that she blames them. Kai drops by once, to let her know he has to return to Crowley. He speaks to the wall over her shoulder, tucking a hand into the pocket of his stiff black leather jacket. He’s possessing a wannabe biker, all slicked-back leather hair and pale, pointed face. He’s thin and gangly, his barely-faded jeans belted tightly around his waist and his boots still squeak when he walks. The guy even has a small moustache and goatee that looks like it’s taken four months to grow. None of it’s surprising-though for a crossroads demon, she’d think he’d want to look a little bit less like a serial killer.
He sends her messages on occasion, but nothing of much interest. Bought a soccer mom and a couple stockbrokers. Crowley’s not impressed. Neither is she. But she’s grateful for the peace.
It takes several days and many more failed summoning attempts for Castiel to finally show up in Meg’s living room. His eyes are sunken and he’s starting to show little scars at his temples, but power still rages through him and Meg shudders a little under his gaze.
“You disobey your God,” he says. “Why have you not come when summoned?”
At the word come she smirks. “I’ve been a bad girl, haven’t I?” she asks, sauntering to his side, her hips swaying a little. She tips her head up to look him in the eyes, and it doesn’t burn her away. Her lips part and she knows he can feel her breath on his skin. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I can’t see your face.” His expression is even, but behind his relaxed eyes Meg can see a storm raging, little flecks of light just barely restrained, and she shivers under the scrutiny. “Your true face is hidden to me. What have you done?”
“Nothing, I swear.” Liar, she thinks. “Maybe it’s a side effect of you trying to bind yourself to me. Now that we are one, you can’t see past the mask.”
He grabs her arm. “You’re lying. You’ve done something.” She wonders if anyone has defied him and lived to tell about it. She suspects she’s about to be the first, as she realizes Cas isn’t going to kill her. Can’t kill her. She’ s gotten to him, and he’s not about to burn her away now. Provoking an angry God gets a little less exciting.
But only a little.
“Are you going to spank me?” she breathes.
“Perhaps I should,” Cas says. She moans softly, tossing back her head and letting her long, dark curls cascade down her back. Her throat is bared for his teeth, and she waits for him to take. Long moments pass, and he doesn’t. She opens her eyes and lowers her chin. He’s looking at her, a bemused expression on his face that quickly turns into a superior little smile. She wants to kiss it off his lips.
“I won’t,” he continues. “Not now. But I will figure out what you’ve done, and it will be undone. A demon cannot flaunt God’s Will.” He disappears, leaving her wet and frustrated and somewhat impressed. The one thing that would actually be punishment for her, and he’s found it. Controlled himself enough to leave her. Yes-she’s impressed.
It’s still extremely annoying, Meg thinks, as she drops into her recliner and glares at the ceiling. It’s boring hiding all the time, boring enough that she’s tempted to provoke a confrontation with Crowley for the hell of it. He’s probably hiding from Cas, probably as bored as she is, and would be grateful for the entertainment.
Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t end well for her, and Cas has left her too turned-on to focus on anything else. Instead, she opens her laptop and scrolls through her bookmarks for the YouTube video of a strange trenchcoated man smiting some douchebag preaching about The Power of Self-Actualization. Whatever that is. She cranks the volume.
The picture quality is terrible, though that’s not surprising considering the cameraman was using an iPhone and trying to decide whether or not to run screaming. But Cas is still visible, and it’s still obviously him, dark hair and trenchcoat and all. His voice rings clear and true though her speakers.
”The only true path is through Me,” he says. The camera cuts to the confused man on the stage. He has a horrendous toupee. “All of you who follow these misguided teachings do so at insult to Me. But I do not blame you, for you are weak of mind and of soul. Listen to My words. Cast aside this liar.”
Meg trails her fingers down her ribs, over her hipbone, slides her hand past the elastic of her underwear. Her other hand comes to her breast and she plays with her nipple for a bit, before pressing a finger inside herself.
“He does not wish to help you,” Cas-God-continues. “He desires only your money, and after he has spoken he laughs at you. Foolish little humans, so desperate for help. Forsaken by a God who no longer cares, forced to seek fulfillment from these charlatans.”
She moans softly, letting his deep, rough voice sink into her skin. It sparks against the half-bond and her moan turns into a cry. She presses a second finger inside herself and twists them as she arches into her own touch. Her nails scrape against her nipple.
“I will put a stop to this.” He steps forward, raising his hand. Meg moves her fingers faster, takes her hand away from her breast to rub at her clit. Cas smiles, powerful and certain, and she groans again.
“May your words no longer lead them astray,” he says. The man’s hands fly to his throat. He claws at the buttons on his shirt, sending them flying, but still he chokes. Meg adds a third finger and squirms desperately on her hands.
“May you find what you seek in Me and Me alone, and may you love Me above all else. I am a new God, a better God. Your God.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Meg says, her sarcasm almost masked by her moans.
The man stops choking and falls facedown on the stage, dead. Cas disappears and reappears on the stage, faces the crowd and raises his arms. “I am the Lord your God,” he says. “You will love Me.”
All at once, the audience stands, then drops to their knees, crying out their worship, while Meg cries out in worship of a different kind.
She licks the mess from her fingers and watches God descend the stage. He glides through the crowd, hardly noticing the little humans embarrassing themselves. With perfect certainty, he walks up to the man with the camera. He looks straight through the lens. Right at her. He presses a finger to his lips, and her own fingers fall from hers.
~ * ~
She goes back to the States. Gets herself onto the private plane of some CEO’s playboy kid. He’s been on a surf vacation, but now he and his buddies (assholes, all of them) are going to party in Vegas. Meg’s invited, of course. She smiles gratefully, takes another swallow of her drink, and watches the dancers.
The kid and his friends end up in Hawaii, on one of the tiny islands in the middle of a pineapple field, and she puts her feet up and orders another drink. Margarita, cherry, no salt.
Vegas sounds good, she thinks.
~ * ~
Meg’s leaning against the blackjack table when she feels a bone-deep chill. She frowns. Demons don’t get cold, not normally, and it echoes through her with a sharp, vicious edge. Just the wrong side of clensing and she knows. Cas. Something’s happened.
Or something’s about to.
She swipes a few chips off the drunk guy next to her and saunters off. It’s not her problem. Cas can handle himself. She goes off in search of something to get her mind off the cold and the pain and the screaming in the back of her mind that something’s coming and you need to go.
It doesn’t work.
Meg gets to the warehouse with seconds to spare. She hadn’t been planning to come at all. She’d been busy with three former Chippendales dancers and a bartender and twin acrobats. Which wasn’t at all an attempt to annoy a certain God who thinks he owns her.
But she’s got some lingering affection for the angel said God used to be, it turns out. And someone seems to have power over her, because the tug at her arm is definitely something that happened, and now she’s in the reeds and the cold’s abated and something’s happening.
Meg glances up to see the moon shade over, and the warehouse explodes with light.
“What-”
For a split second, she can see through Cas’s eyes. Purgatory splitting open, the souls pouring back in, dragged back against their will, and it tears at her insides just as it must be tearing at his. Meg gapes at the sight. She wishes she could be in there to see it firsthand, to get a glimpse into Purgatory-Crowley’d been so set on going there, she thinks she’d like seeing what all the fuss is about.
Slowly, the light fades from the windows. The only sound comes from the wind rustling through the grass and the trees. There’s no sign of anything wrong, no explosion, no Clarence appearing to gloat and take her. The eclipse is over. Meg lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
“So, it worked then?” she asks the grass. A thin layer of dew makes it shine in the almost-predawn.
The minutes tick by. The sun breaks over the horizon, and a few birds chirp hopefully. Then she hears the rattling of a fence, and she sees a black, bloodied trenchcoat, and Cas, stumbling towards the lake.
Dean and his fake dad stand on the bank as Cas walks into the water and disappears. Meg feels something tighten in her chest-apprehension, maybe-and watches the water swirl around where Cas sank. Then something black and murky shoots out from him, and his trenchcoat washes up on the shore, and Dean picks it up and walks away.
For a brief moment, she thinks he’s dead-that he brought her here just to witness his end. But then Meg hears a tiny cough some ways down the edge of the reservoir. She curses and kicks a rock into the lake before sighing and going over to check on her drowned angel.
~ * ~
Meg kneels in the reeds and pushes the man’s wet hair away from his forehead. Like this, she could almost convince herself he’s human. But beneath her fingertips she can feel his Grace thrumming away. It’s dimmer than it was back when he pushed her against that grimy prison wall and slid his lips against hers, his hand tangling in her hair, as she lifted his sword. And the pulse has shifted. Dim and erratic. If he were still God, it should be bright enough to burn the demon right out of her and throbbing slow and even. She wonders what it means.
He stirs, his eyes fluttering open, and she tries to stumble away. Tries, because there’s a hand around her wrist and yeah, he’s definitely still an angel-or enough of one to be dangerous.
“What-” he coughs, murky black water dribbling from his lips. “What’s going on? Who are you? What have you done to me?”
She stares. The angel scrambles around in the grass, like he’s never felt earth before, and she swears it isn’t endearing at all. “What do you remember?”
He shakes his head. “Light. Dark. Pain, and drowning. Nothing.” Nothing. He remembers nothing. He’s an angel who doesn’t know he’s an angel and, better still, doesn’t know she’s a demon. Doesn’t know not to trust her. She could dance with the beauty of it all.
Oh, yes. This is good. There’s no reason she should tell Clarence who he is. Not yet, anyway. Not until she has him.
“You had an accident,” she says. A slight edge of glee works its way into her words, and she hopes he’s still too out of it to notice. “You died.”
“I died.” He turns the words over in his mouth, over and over. “I died. I died. I-” he stops. “Do you know who I am?”
“Clarence,” she says. He makes a face. “But your friends call you Cas,” she amends, and his expression softens. She smiles encouragingly. “I’m Meg. You trust me.”
He nods. A strange look overtakes him, as his cheeks turn bright pink and his hands travel down to cover himself. “I seem to have-misplaced my clothes,” he says. She laughs. He looks so lost, so uncertain, so in need of her guidance. And she’ll give it to him.
“My car,” she says. Meg pauses, then takes off her own jacket and hands it to him. He tries to cover himself, wrapping the soft leather around his waist. He looks ridiculous. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
She hesitates for a moment, her hand twitching by her side, then gives in to the urge and cards her fingers through the angel’s hair. It’s wet and slimy from the reservoir, but still sends tiny sparks of power through her. He smiles softly, his wide blue eyes shining with gratefulness, and she jerks her hand away so fast she takes a few strands of hair with her.
There’s a green sedan in the parking lot a few yards away. Meg smashes in the window and goes rummaging through the seats. Not much-a few dollars, a half-eaten sandwich (which she ends up tossing in a ditch, grimacing at the mold) and a bicycle pump. She has better luck with the trunk, where she finds golf clubs and a briefcase and a sports bag with a change of clothes. She slings the bag over her shoulder and returns to Cas.
“Here,” she says, tossing him the bag. “Get dressed.”
Meg turns around while he changes, as much for her sake as for his. The longer she’s around him, the harder it is to resist throwing him to the ground and riding him until he screams. Oh, she plans to do that eventually-that’s a given-but right now she needs him to trust her. There’s a suspicious glint in his heaven-blue eyes when he looks at her, and she can only hope she feels familiar enough to him that he doesn’t run off the second he has pants.
“Are you certain these are my clothes?” he asks. She turns around and promptly doubles over in hysterics.
The clothes are made for a man four inches taller and at least a hundred pounds heavier than him. His pants are a horrible yellow-green plaid polyester, cinched around his waist with a brown leather belt, and he’s holding them on with one hand. He also has a short-sleeved orange button-down shirt, paired with a blue and white argyle sweater vest.
“Sorry,” she chokes out. “They’re-a coworker’s. It’s all I had in my car.” She wipes her eyes and shakes her head. “We’ll find you something more appropriate later.”
He looks amused. “Do you usually have coworkers’ clothes in your car?”
“Sometimes,” she says. Cas smirks. She offers a hand to him. “Come on.”
He doesn’t take it.
“Where else are you going to go?” she asks. “I can give you answers. But you have to trust me, okay?”
Cas plucks a thread from his sweater vest. “Clothes first,” he says. His fingers are warm against her palm.
~ * ~
The owner of the car clearly isn’t a fan of keeping his gas tank full, because they barely get two miles away from the warehouse before Meg realizes they’re going to be stranded if she doesn’t find a station quick. It’s annoying, but Cas is still fidgeting in his oversized, tacky outfit, and he’s being very distracting.
She lifts a couple credit cards from a guy in the parking lot. Normally, she’d just kill everyone, but now that she has Cas with her, she finds she can’t slaughter quite as easily. Like the mere presence of an angel has given her a conscience.
He finds a suitable plain gray t-shirt and a pair of jeans that mostly fit, and changes in the bathroom while Meg wanders around picking out snacks. Something of everything, which gets her a couple strange looks from three shady guys standing near the audiotapes. She’s not sure if amnesiac angels eat, but even if it turns out they don’t, she’s hungry.
Meg makes her way to the counter and drops it all in front of the cashier. He puts down his Maxim and regards her with deep-set, bloodshot eyes. “And Pump Three,” she adds, as he starts ringing up the food. He shoots her a look of deep loathing mixed with boredom and hash.
“This, too,” Cas says behind her, dropping three burgers onto the counter. Well, that answers that, she thinks. Angels like burgers. She starts to tell him that gas-station burgers are horrible, but then she turns around.
“Look at you!” she says, smiling proudly at his new outfit. It’s a vast improvement. As awesome as it was seeing an angel wander around in oversized, tacky golf clothes, seeing said angel in a skintight t-shirt and low-slung jeans is much more appealing. She tugs at the hem of his shirt, grinning.
Cas looks startled. “Please stop that,” he says. Meg pouts, but pulls her hand away. She doesn’t want to frighten the poor guy into running. But she’s determined to get him out of that shirt soon, actually feel those powerful muscles she didn’t quite get to enjoy while he was lying naked by a lake, and-
“Hey, lady, are you going to pay for this shit?”
She tosses him the stolen card. The guy blinks at the name-Rolf Eriksen-but shrugs and runs it through anyway. Meg piles the candy and chips into a plastic bag while Cas gathers his burgers. She leads the way. Behind her, she can hear Cas unwrapping one of his burgers and biting into it. She rolls her eyes.
“Don’t get any of that on my car,” she warns him. “New interior.” Not that it’s her car, but she wants to see if he’ll obey her.
He responds by taking another huge bite and sliding silently into the passenger seat.
They get almost another sixty miles in silence. Cas finishes all three of his burgers-thankfully, without dripping ketchup and mustard on the seats-and continues staring out the window. There’s a tiny crease between his eyes, as he concentrates on the scenery. He’s looking for something familiar, she suspects, trying to get his memory back from the trees and farmhouses and fields of nothing.
“Pull over,” he says suddenly. She glances at him. He looks panicked, and his fingers are wrapped around the handle of the car door. And she really doesn’t feel like scraping angel off the interstate. Sighing, she pulls into the grass and stops.
“Need to take a leak?”
“Look, I appreciate the clothes, and the burgers, and the ride, but-I don’t understand. Who are you? Why do I trust you? What the hell happened and who the hell am I?”
“I told you,” she says. “I’m Meg. We’re friends.”
“I remember you,” he says. Her eyes widen. “I mean-you feel very familiar.” He still looks suspicious, and she doesn’t blame him-their familiarity isn’t exactly the kind where they chat over a fence and he mows his lawn and she makes him lemonade. Unless you want to play fast and loose with euphemisms, which would probably all go over the angel’s head anyway.
“Do I?” she smirks.
He nods and raises his hand, palm hovering an inch from her face. “May I?”
“Yes,” she breathes, and shudders as he cups her cheek, icy fingers stroking her skin.
Then his lips are on hers, and though the pressure is feather-light, she can feel the power coursing through his body and passing into her, burning her and setting her alight. She gasps and he pulls away. He’s smiling.
“Friends, huh?” he says. She blushes.
“I didn’t want to push you,” she says. “And yes, there was… more.”
He backs her against the car, hands pressing her shoulders against the curved roof. “How much more?”
She tilts her chin up, challenging. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He lets her go. “I would,” he says softly. “I want to know who I am, what-but I don’t,” he growls, frustrated. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She curls her fingers through his, stroking the top of his hand with her thumb. He jerks away.
“Just tell me who I am.”
Meg shakes her head. “That’s not a good idea,” she says. She wants to-dammit, she wants to tell him everything-but she’s been warned, and she can’t be certain Cas-with-memories won’t just smite her. She can’t even be certain reminding him will bring back her fluffy-winged Clarence. It could just as easily bring back Our Lord Castiel. “I don’t even know everything. I told you. I was sent to find you. We may know each other, but we’re not exactly best friends. You’ve never braided my hair.”
“I see.” He frowns at her. “I think I am beginning to understand.”
“Good,” Meg says. “Then can we get back in the car?”
“For now.”
It’s good enough.
~ * ~
He stares out the window. Cas stares out the window.
It still sounds strange. His name is familiar, yes, but not entirely in a good way; on Meg’s lips it sounds like a hiss, like a joke, and in his mind it sounds like a knife wound. If knife wounds had sounds. It echoes through his mind in a hundred, a thousand different voices, He doesn’t recognize any of them. Not the ones that scream, condemning him and tearing at him and shoving him down. And not the ones that whisper his name in pain.
He’s not sure which is worse.
It doesn’t feel complete, either, which he thinks is fitting. An incomplete name for an incomplete person. The burgers sit heavy in Cas’s stomach, and it occurs to him the familiarity he felt towards the food might have come from a very different source. Perhaps he is supposed to be a vegetarian. Perhaps he’s allergic to something in the bun or the meat. Meg had looked amused at his choice, though she hadn’t said anything. And she knew him. If he had picked something lethal, she would have warned him.
Maybe.
Cas watches the clouds roll over the tops of the trees. Every so often he sees a flock of birds, high above the car, and his chest aches. His shoulders dig painfully into the car’s leather seats, and his legs feel trapped under the glovebox. He can see the speedometer from where he’s sitting, and Meg’s going well over the speed limit, but it still doesn’t feel fast enough.
Slow. Confining.
He hates it. Hates all of it. Maybe it would be better if nothing felt familiar. If he’d walked out of the lake and into the arms of a total stranger, one who didn’t keep hinting at a past Cas could no longer remember. If he could have a new name, a new life, rather than try to fit into a life that feels right and wrong and upside-down and nothing at all.
Most of all, he hates Meg. She makes his skin crawl. She’s like an infection and at the same time he’s drawn to her. They were lovers. He wants her and needs her, and he hates himself for it. He’s not a bad person-he thinks he’d probably feel it if he were-but there’s a darkness inside of him, eating at him, a darkness Meg’s hinted at but won’t say more about. He wants to know, and he doesn’t want to know, and he hates her and needs her and she laughs in his face.
He lets his head fall back against the seat and closes his eyes. The sun pours through the windows, despite the tint. He lets his mind wander, over mountains and to the deepest depths of the ocean, and through plains and up stairs and then he finds himself falling and it’s tearing at him but at the same time he’s never felt more alive.
Then Meg’s voice is calling him, and he opens his eyes. It’s dark. He can see her smile in the moonlight.
“We’re here,” she says.
“Where’s here?”
“New River, Arizona. About half an hour north of Phoenix. You were out for awhile. Guess amnesia really takes it out of a guy.”
He considers, then decides he agrees with that statement. Regardless, his mind is clearer, and the pangs are duller. He wishes they’d go away entirely, but as long as Meg’s around, he’s pretty sure he’s not going to get that fresh start. He climbs out of the car wearily and frowns at the motel she’s picked. It’s charming, he thinks, suited to what he can see of the rural desert town. Which isn’t much, as there’s no streetlamps-only the moon and a bright scattering of stars across the sky. The motel feels familiar, maybe, like he’s stayed in hundreds of places like this before, and from what Meg’s told him he supposes he must have. It didn’t seem like they had a home.
Then she brushes her fingers over his wrist, and he finds he doesn’t care about any of it as she leads him into their room.
Meg’s gotten two queens, which surprises him, but he doesn’t question it. He grunts in acknowledgment and picks the one closest to the door, pulls back the quilt, and lies down. Meg gets into the other bed, muttering something about shopping for a house and the various things living in motel sheets. He waits for the sound of her breathing to even out before rolling over and squeezing his eyes shut tight.
He’s not tired. He’s just-drained, perhaps, and still disoriented, and above all he’s confused. She wants to buy a house. Which means she’s picked this place to settle down. He’s not sure why it’s so strange. That’s what normal people do, right? That’s what people do.
Still. As cramped and uncomfortable and slow as that car was, being on the road felt familiar. The concept of living in a house is so completely foreign that Cas almost relishes the sensation.
Almost.
~ * ~
They buy a three-bed-two-point-five-bath from a nervous realtor in an atrocious green sports coat. It’s a foreclosure, the only one in the neighborhood, and the realtor is more than happy to get rid of the place. It’s been on the market for six months and has been sending the value of the entire street into the gutter. Meg takes one look at the crayon-covered kitchen walls and offers a twelve hundred dollar down payment. She arranges for a payment plan she doesn’t intend to follow. Cas walks around the house like he’s never had four walls and carpets before (and she knows he hasn’t) and spends that first night tucked in the backseat of the fat golfer’s car.
Meg takes advantage of his absence to paint bloody runes on the walls of the smallest room. They overlap the train-patterned border near the top, and she has to use a stepstool to cover the ceiling in sigils. There are little marks where glow-in-the-dark stars were stuck. She gets a few drips on the bright blue carpet, near where the carpet fades and indents from a bunk bed and ladder, and she sets up an altar over them. On the door, she paints the angel-banishing sigil.
She wakes him up bright and early, rapping on the car windows until Cas blinks awake. His lips are parted slightly, his eyes bleary but peaceful, the lines in his forehead all but gone. Sleep’s done him good, she thinks-he’s finally relaxed a little. Meg wonders if Cas sleeps or if he just kind of zones out for a little while. Either way, he looks better than he did when he crawled out of that lake. His skin is a little less pallid, the circles under his eyes a little less noticeable. His face is sprinkled with stubble, but no more than it usually is. His hair is messy. Meg likes it that way. She hates it when Cas tries to smooth it down-she’s never liked the feel of grease between her fingers. It’s all sticky like blood only it’s nowhere near as sexy. And oh, she likes pulling on the angel’s hair. Likes it when he pulls on hers, too.
Cas clears his throat, frowning with disapproval and confusion, and she realizes she’s been staring. She smirks and winks at him, just for that little taken-aback look. Eyes wide and mouth open just a little and innocent really is a good look on him. Of course, she prefers it when he’s staring at her with lust and loathing, but hey-she’ll take what she can get.
“Get in the front,” she says. “We’re going furniture shopping. Unless you want to sleep in the back of the car. I, on the other hand, prefer a bed.”
He scowls at her, but does as she asks, crawling out of the back and into the passenger seat. His t-shirt is rumpled to hell and back, not that he seems to notice, and she wants to trace the creases and rip it off him.
“Do you know how to drive?” she asks. He shrugs.
“I don’t know.” Cas stares at his hands. “I feel like-cars are familiar. But I’m not sure if I’m driving.”
She doesn’t respond. This is ridiculous. She should just give Cas the stolen credit card and bail on this whole thing. Fuck his protection, he’s more likely to lie down and weep in this state. She’s not spending however long hiding in Arizona and waiting for Crowley to find her. The prospect of maybe getting the angel to screw her is not worth his weird moping.
And he’s probably a terrible lay without his memories or his whole God thing.
“Thank you for… looking out for me,” Cas says nervously.
Once he gets his memories back he’ll run straight to his precious Winchesters, maybe stopping to hand her over to Crowley. He won’t protect her. No matter how nice she is to him.
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” she says. He smiles. He can’t keep her safe any more than he would want to if he could remember and Crowley’s going to find them before the Winchesters do and they’re both going to die.
She drives to the furniture store.
~ * ~
They look at beds first. Meg splays out across each one, curling her toes in the display quilts, peering at Cas through heavy-lidded eyes. Cas refuses to try them out with her, until finally she grabs his hand and pulls him onto the bed. He turns bright red-angels blush, how about that-and says he likes it fine. Meg asks if he wants one or two, and he answers two before running off to look at sofas.
Meg laughs against the pillows, and goes to find a salesperson.
They get matching beds, ridiculous king size four-posters that Meg thinks will be excellent for bondage and Cas gives no opinion on. She splurges on silk sheets and velvet coverlets, which Cas eyes warily-hers are deep red, and his are navy blue, and his hand twitches against the fabric. But he doesn’t object.
Cas himself picked out the furniture for the living room. They have a plain brown leather sofa and matching recliner, and a glass coffee table. He even picked out a book for the table-a giant thing on North American birds. Meg asks him why that book, and Cas answers that he likes birds and thinks their wings are lovely, and then he gets very quiet and she drops the subject.
Picking out curtains turns out to be somewhat more difficult. Cas likes plaid, and Meg thinks he’s out of his mind, but he’s insistent and plaintive and finally Meg gives in. The curtains for her bedroom match her bed set in solid deep red, and the ones for Cas’s room are a blue and white plaid that would almost be inoffensive except Meg knows full well why he picked them. The curtains for the three windows in their living room, on the other hand, are a strange orange-green plaid and she swears to herself that she’s going to find some way to destroy the things. No matter how much Cas looks at them with longing.
Back at the house, Cas nearly drills his hand to the wall, but eventually he manages to put the things up. Meg circles the outside with a small can of paint, drawing warding symbols near the dirt where the crabgrass swallows them up. She tells Cas she’s weeding the garden, and he offers to pick up some plants. Meg refuses. The gardens will be hers and hers alone.
He shrugs and agrees and goes back to fussing over the reminders of a past life.
~ * ~
Meg brushes her hands off on her apron. Her lilacs are coming in nicely, considering, and she’s well on her way to having a half-decent collection of herbs. Arizona isn’t exactly the greatest place to grow the plants necessary for hex bags and warding spells, but Meg’s resourceful. Cas stands in the doorway and smirks at her.
“Didn’t take you for a gardener.”
“I dabble,” Meg says. “Besides, it makes us look normal.”
He closes the door behind him, crosses the porch and sits on the step. “Makes us not look like a couple of fugitives, you mean?” he asks.
“Something like that.”
“Tell me.” She glances up. Cas’s fists are clenched by his side, his head is bowed, yet his eyes are fixed on her. He’s desperate, she can tell. “I’m sick of not knowing.”
She sighs. “Believe me, it’s better this way.”
“I’ve been good,” he says. “I’ve played along. I let you buy a house and move us in. But you can’t keep lying to me.” He stands up and stalks toward her, placing one of his large hands against her throat. “So tell me. What happened.”
Meg takes a deep breath, feeling her throat push against Cas’s hand. He restricts the breaths she doesn’t need to take. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll tell you.” But not the whole story. The whole story would prompt Cas to leave her, to wander off into the wild blue and probably end up dead somewhere. And that’s the absolute last thing Meg needs. She’s invested a lot in this angel and he’s the only ally she’s got.
She steps closer to him, so that her body is nearly pressed against his, and stares into his eyes. He watches her distrustfully. As he should. “There was an accident,” she says slowly. “It wasn’t your fault. Or, it was, but seriously no one could have predicted-and people got hurt. No jury would convict you, but there are-other things you did. We did. It’s a mess and I don’t know the whole story but it doesn’t matter anymore because you don’t remember, and I don’t care, and we’re safe. Okay?”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he nods anyway. “I think-I think you’re right,” he says slowly. “I think it’s better if I don’t know.” Slowly, he raises a hand and places it gently on her breast, thumbing her nipple almost absently. “Before, you said we had a sexual relationship.”
“I did,” she says. Meg can feel her skin growing warmer, radiating heat in Cas’s presence and throbbing quiet and dull under Cas’s hand. “We did.”
He grabs her wrist and pulls her along with him, inside the house, slamming the door shut and pinning her against it. “Remind me,” he says.
Meg arches against him, wrapping one leg around his waist and pulling him in. “You-always so strong-” she groans, tossing her head back and crying out to hide the urge to smirk at him. Cas slams a palm against the door, shoves his knee between her legs, and she rocks down on it with dramatic, exaggerated rolls of her hips. It doesn’t really do much for her, but Cas scrunches his eyes shut and ducks his head, his cheeks flushed slightly, and that does it.
“Did we-against the wall?”
“Yes,” Meg gasps. “Many times.”
“Yes,” Cas echoes, distracted, and Meg wonders what he’s thinking-if he can recall their tryst in the alley, or pushing her against the wall of Crowley’s prison and taking what he wanted, or if he’s not reminded of her at all but of someone else whose back he slammed against bricks or concrete.
He shakes his head, then, refocusing on her, tangling his fingers in her hair (oh, how she likes that) and leaning down to kiss her. His mouth is a solid presence against hers, his tongue insistent but not painful, and she flicks her own against his. He seems startled at that, losing his rhythm for a moment, but just as quickly he takes it back. His lips are rougher than she remembers. When she opens her eyes, she can see the concentration in the lines on his forehead, and she smirks into the kiss.
It barely takes a push to turn the tables on him, switching their positions so that he’s against the wall and she’s pinning his wrists by his sides. She teases him with light kisses, makes him want more, laughs to herself as he tries to follow her mouth with his lips.
She can feel the frustration brimming to the surface, his hands thrumming with the need to act, before he breaks free of her grasp and slams her into the wall. Meg cries out softly in shock, her head knocking hard against the drywall, and her hand comes up to grab hold of the curtains. She uses it to hoist herself up, wrapping her legs around Cas’s waist and rubbing against his crotch. He’s hard, tenting the front of his jeans, and she wants nothing more than for him to rip them off and fuck her hard.
Cas’s hands grab the back of her pants and he tries to slide them off. Meg watches him, curious, as he struggles-they’re tight and form-fitting and there’s no way he’s going to manage, but she’s curious to see if he’ll rip the fabric. Which he does, tearing a seam down her right leg, and she drops her legs and undoes her button and zipper to ease the removal of the garment. He rips the buttons from her blouse, tearing it off her and leaving her in just her underwear. She passes her hand over her bra-clad chest, smirking.
“Off,” Cas growls, and she suspects it’s a ruse to hide the fact that her angel doesn’t have a clue how to remove bras. When they fucked before, they were mostly clothed. She was his first woman, probably-aside from whatever Cas did to seal his deal with Crowley and if, as she suspects, he’s been bending over for the Winchester boys. He wouldn’t have any other reference.
She reaches a hand behind her and flicks open the fastenings, sliding her bra off and revealing her pointed nipples to the cool air. Cas ducks his head at once, mouthing along one of her breasts, flicking his tongue against her skin. Meg groans and moves her hands to his belt, sliding it out in one sharp, fast motion. He looks up, startled, and she smirks. It’s in her hand, still, folded, and she waves it in front of his face. His eyes widen and she knows what he’s thinking.
“Maybe someday,” she says, tossing the thing aside. “But I think it’s still a bit too advanced for you.” He blushes furiously, tries to hide it by kissing her neck, but she can’t help laughing. It ends on a sharp cry, though, as he bites down on a particularly sensitive spot and starts sucking a bruise into her skin.
Meg manages to get his pants unfastened, and he takes over from there, shoving them down off his legs and kicking them at the couch. He’s slightly smaller than she remembers, though she can’t say it’s too disappointing. He’s not especially long, just over average, but he is as thick as he was in the alley, and she groans at the sight. Cas kisses her, slow and intense, hitching her legs up around his waist and sliding into her easily. She pants into his mouth, moaning at the hot, slow stretch of him, squirming as he gets her fully seated on his cock.
She grabs the curtain for leverage and pulls herself up. He slides out of her, her breath catching at the sudden emptiness inside her, before letting go and dropping back on Cas’s cock. Cas’s hands tighten on her hips, pressing bruises into her pale skin, and he shoves her against the wall.
They end up on the floor, ripped pieces of curtain wrapped around their naked bodies and tying them together. Meg’s on top, then Cas, then Meg again and finally Cas, pushing her knee to her chest and pistoning his cock in and out of her. She’s come twice already, just from Cas’s dick, and she feels another orgasm building. It crashes over her just as Cas’s movements become harsher, more erratic, and finally he comes, fucking her as he spills inside her.
Later, Meg gathers the soiled, ruined curtains and promises to take care of them. They won’t work as curtains anymore, but she won’t throw them away. Cas looks grateful, even as there’s a confused mourning in his eyes.
While she’s taking care of that, Cas goes to pick out new curtains. He comes back with a horrible mustard-yellow, vomit-green, and brown plaid. Meg just sighs and helps him hang them. She should give up, just let him have his curtains, but it’s more fun to ruin them. Soon, she decides.
For now, she has an idea, and a sewing machine, and Linda Robertson from down the street’s been trying to get them to come over for dinner.
She’ll do Linda Robertson one better.
Part 2