Requests and Challenges - Playing for Keeps: Part Four
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Title: Playing For Keeps
Author: girlgotagun
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Part Four
~~~
Dean woke up on the morning of the third day sandwiched between the back of the couch and a warm body. He remembered falling asleep half stretched out, his legs extended in front of the couch. Cas had been seated on the middle cushion. Whether they had moved to lay down completely before actually falling asleep, or whether they had moved in their sleep, he wasn’t sure. But the fact remained that Dean was now stretched out, spooning with his hostage. And to make it worse, he had raging morning wood. Of course he did. Because next to the time that he had woken up after he and Charlie had passed out completely blitzed on her bed, this was probably the most inappropriate time to be hard.
He moved slowly, planning on figuring out how to somehow get out from behind Cas without waking him up. But even the slight movement of the couch that resulted from him trying to sit up was enough to make the younger man stir, a small sigh escaping his lips as he scooted closer to Dean, effectively rubbing his ass against Dean’s dick, which twitched interestedly at the contact. Dean gritted his teeth as he worked to keep himself from rutting into the warmth. It hit him, suddenly, just how long it had been since he had actually gotten laid. In abject defiance towards Sam’s attempts at setting him up, he hadn’t slept with any of the women his brother got him to go out with-didn’t want to give them (or Sam) the idea that he was interested. Add to that his time at the garage, planning this job, and a huge chunk of his time being spent with Charlie-a lesbian-and it all added up to about six months without any action whatsoever.
He decided that subtlety wasn’t going to do it-he had only managed to get himself pinned tighter behind Cas with that approach-and put his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders, holding him in place as he quickly sat up and climbed over him. He heard the man mutter something as he woke up, sounding pretty disoriented at Dean using him as a springboard, but before he could really form a sentence Dean was safely in the bathroom, the door shut and locked behind him.
He sighed in relief, leaning back against the door. That had been close. Hopefully Cas hadn’t noticed anything. He looked down, frowning at the obvious tent in his pajama pants. He was twenty-six. Well past the age of waking up every morning with a raging hard-on; but of course his traitor dick had decided that this morning was the perfect time to get all nostalgic about those days.
He grudgingly turned on the shower, figuring he’d just take care of it in there; make the most of the time, since no matter how cooperative of a kidnapping victim Cas had been so far, he knew it wouldn’t be smart to leave the man alone too long. The thought of Cas brought the memory of his ass pressing into Dean back to the surface of his mind and he beat it down forcibly. It wasn’t actually that Dean had a problem with fucking guys-far from it, really; sex was sex. But Cas was, again, his kidnapping victim. He couldn’t let himself forget that. He was absolutely sure, even if Cas was one hundred percent on-board with the idea of Dean fucking him, that any court in the country would tack that on as sexual assault if he went down for this botched job.
Still, when he stepped into the shower and braced his hand against the wall, letting the other wrap around his hard cock, he didn’t fight too hard to control whether or not it was Cas that he imagined touching him. And of course it was. The man’s proximity alone and the sense memory of his warmth against Dean as he slept was enough to ensure that would be the case. He couldn’t be tried for the things he did in his mind, so he went with it. As he jerked himself off quickly, his mind put Cas through the paces-on his knees, those pouty lips stretched wide around Dean’s cock as the younger man fisted the part he couldn’t fit in his mouth; leaning against the wall, ass jutted out as Dean fucked into him ruthlessly, biting his lip to keep from screaming as his inner muscles milked the older man’s cock; his legs wrapped around Dean’s waist as Dean pressed him into the shower wall, his head thrown back as he screamed Dean’s name, urging him to thrust into him faster, harder…
He came hard, stifling a loud groan that may or may not have contained the younger man’s name against his shoulder as he splattered the tile, his chest heaving as he came back down from the high, knees weak. He quickly washed off, not wanting to draw any questions from Cas regarding the amount of time it took him to shower.
When he came out of the bathroom Cas was waiting for his turn, leaning against the wall. Dean felt himself flush, hoped the younger man didn’t notice.
He didn’t notice the small smile on Cas’s face as he ducked into the bathroom.
~~~
Dean’s phone rang around noon. He and Cas were waiting for the news to come on-Dean hadn’t told Cas why; the younger man probably figured that he had some weird obsession with current local events-and Cas sat up, his eyes wide as he stared at Dean. The freaked-out look on the kid’s face confused the older man for a moment, and then he realized that he probably thought it was a call about the ransom. Dean shook his head. The caller ID told him that it was Charlie, and he hesitated before answering it.
He did, though, catching it right before the ringtone played out. “Hey.”
“Hey so listen; I’ve been thinking about this and I’m not so sure if this is a good idea. It’s definitely going to be a lot harder pulling off a job with an adult and he’s way more likely to pay attention so that he can identify you later. Plus, I’ve been finding my way into up all this stuff on Novak and I don’t think he’s the kind of guy we want to fuck with.”
Dean swallowed, his eyes flitting to Cas. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Apparently he had a younger son; Castiel wasn’t always the last in the line. His name was Gabriel and apparently he drown in their pool when he was seven but it’s weird, because when I dug deeper, the FBI was all over it when it first happened. The report that he drowned wasn’t the original autopsy, either. The original one cited that a cause of death couldn’t be confirmed although there was water present in the lungs consistent with drowning.” She sounded like she was reading the last part out loud. “Seriously, Dean, I’m getting the creepy-vibes off of this guy.”
“Yeah. Yeah, me too.” Dean stood up, suddenly full of nervous energy. “Listen, can I call you back?”
“What? Why? I really think we need to figure out what we’re-”
“Bye, Charlie.” Dean hung up the phone. Panic was seeping deep into his bones and he could feel Cas’s confused stare on his back. He threw open the window and climbed out onto the fire escape, needing fresh air, needing to be out of the suddenly-tiny apartment. His hands fumbled with this cigarettes and lighter, out of nervous habit associated with being on the fire escape, and once he had one lit he leaned over the edge of the railing, trying to will his nerves to calm down.
“Dean?” Cas’s voice was close behind him; the younger man had followed him onto the platform. He sounded concerned, way more concerned than he should have when talking to his kidnapper.
Dean wanted to laugh hysterically, felt it bubbling up in his chest, barely able to contain it. Of course Cas was concerned about him. Of course it didn’t matter that Dean was a monster who kidnapped him. Because Cas had been raised to love a monster who had killed one of his children and abused the rest. Compared to that, Dean was fucking Mary Poppins.
“Cas…” Dean began, turning to look at the man once he was sure he wasn’t going to break down in hysterics. “What happened to Gabriel?”
The light disappeared in Cas’s eyes. It was like the younger man shut down completely, his face impassive, posture slack. And Dean knew, even before the younger man turned and went back inside, even before he heard the distant slam of his bedroom door, that he wasn’t going to answer.
~~~
Cas didn’t reappear until late that night. Dean had finished watching the ten o’clock news-eighty-two hours since Cas had gotten in his car and still nothing-and he was stretched out on the couch, eyes drooping with fatigue but mind unable to stop spinning long enough to let him fall asleep. Cas reappeared, little by little, and Dean didn’t move, didn’t want to scare the other man off as he tracked his movements in the shadows of first the hall, then the doorway, and then the edge of the room.
When Cas moved to sit on the couch, Dean moved his legs to let the man curl up against the arm. The older man waited, his eyes watching Cas carefully-Cas’s eyes dull and out of focus as he stared at the infomercial that was slotted to follow the new.
It chops! It dices! It blends! Just one Ninja can replace all five of these household appliances, saving you from dealing with the aggravating clutter!
“Gabriel was a warning.” Cas’s words were sudden, sharply-spoken, his voice bitter and low. “He was a sweet kid; liked to joke around a lot, ate candy like it was the only food on the planet. He wasn’t really supposed to-our dad was really strict about what we ate. But we’d all sneak Gabriel candy. Because he was the baby, and it made him happy. Even Michael.” He paused, his eyes narrowed. “I think Michael would kill me or Raphael or Luc if our dad told him to. Definitely Luc. But even he had a soft spot for Gabe. Spoiled him rotten.”
Dean nodded. He could feel the younger man’s body trembling where his leg was touching his hip, could hear it in his voice. He wanted to sit up, to pull Cas close to him and try to comfort him as he told the story. But he was afraid that doing so would scare him, would make him retreat again.
“Gabe didn’t even really do anything wrong. It wasn’t about him; it was about us. I was starting high school. Luc and Michael were in college, and Raphael was a senior. I think our dad started to worry that one of us would rebel, would challenge him, finally decide we had had enough. And I guess he was right, cause Luc walked away a few years ago and never looked back.” Cas shook his head. “But I think he was trying to scare us, you know? Keep us in line. So he brought us outside one night, told us to never forget what would happen if we decided to go against him. And then…he showed us what would happen.” His voice was getting thick, his eyes watering. “He held Gabe underwater, held him and made us watch until Gabe stopped fighting. Until he couldn’t fight. And we… I just watched. I was too scared, couldn’t move. I was too scared that he would kill me to try to save Gabe.”
And then Dean did sit up, did draw the man towards him as he shattered completely, shoulders heaving as he cried.
He didn’t fight Dean, just kept talking as though he couldn’t stop now that he had started. “He had…these s-scratches…all up and down his arms…for w-weeks. And the police saw. Saw and d-didn’t say anything. They s-said that Gabe d-drowned. That it w-w-was and accident.” The last word was hissed with venom, drawing a fresh wave of hot tears from the man. They dripped onto Dean’s forearm where it was circled around the man’s chest.
Dean closed his eyes, tried to calm his own anger at the story. It wouldn’t help Cas any for him to get angry-might even scare the man. So he stayed quiet, stayed calm-or at least made it a point to seem like it-and held the other man tight, enveloping him with his own body to hold him together as he fell apart.
~~~
Dean lost track of how long they had laid there like that; how long Cas had sobbed or how long it was after he stopped that he fell asleep. He wasn’t sure exactly when his right leg had fallen asleep, but he was trying not to move it, not to wake Cas. His mind was still spinning over the story that the man had told him.
There was no way that he could send Cas back to that. No way in hell. Four brothers had stood in a row as their father murdered the fifth, and they had all been too terrified to do anything to stop it; too terrified to speak up later. And Dean didn’t blame Cas or his brothers for any of that. But it meant that if he sent Cas back, and something happened to him, that no one was going to step in to stop it, or speak for him after the fact. And Dean couldn’t handle that thought, couldn’t deal with the idea of Cas fighting as his dad held him under…until he stopped fighting.
He just couldn’t figure out how to handle not sending him back, either. There was no guarantee, if the eldest Novak was that kind of man, that he didn’t have privately hired guys on Dean’s trail right now. It would explain the lack of police involvement even after so much time. So even if he and Cas ran away-and that was if Cas would even want to stay with him-there was no guarantee that someone wouldn’t find them eventually, that Novak wouldn’t still get hold of his youngest (surviving) son.
The idea hit him just before sunrise, and he gently untangled himself from around Cas, laying the man back gently on the couch. He went to his room and found Cas’s coat on the hook by the closet, the Fallen Grace Print credit card still in the pocket. He was willing to bet that the card didn’t have ATM privileges-that would grant Cas access to too much resources without a paper trail on what they were being used for-but luckily no such restriction had ever stopped Charlie.
He called her, using up every last favor he had wracked up in their decade-long friendship, and finally convinced her to stop asking questions and crack the damned card. When all was said and done, she pulled nearly three million dollars from it before the fraud protection algorithms got too complex and locked her out effectively. It made Dean’s head spin. He had never considered that kind of money being at their disposal. But it wasn’t, really.
It was for Cas.
“You want me to filter it into the normal accounts?” Charlie asked, sounding nearly as awed as Dean felt.
Dean shook his head despite the fact that she couldn’t see him. “No. Set up a new one. Dump it in there.”
“What name?”
Dean paused, his mind racing. “Cas Winchester.”
There was a pause, and then Charlie exploded. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
~~~
Dean spent the rest of the night packing. He hadn’t brought much with him for his planned six-week-max stay at the apartment, but he kept making nervous circuits around the house, the feeling that he had forgotten something eating at him.
It was a few hours before he realized what was causing the feeling.
It was Cas. He felt like he was forgetting something because he didn’t know yet if he was taking the man with him, or parting ways with him in the morning.
The latter thought was like a knife through his heart.
~~~
The sun had risen completely, making Dean blink in the glare on the fire escape. The sounds of Cas stirring inside jarred his nerves, and he took another long drag off of his cigarette. Eight crushed filters were lined up at the bottom of the rail. He hadn’t smoked this much…ever. He’d never had his nerves this much on edge.
He heard the younger man clammer onto the fire escape after a few minutes, looking disoriented in the bright light. His eyes landed on Dean’s, and he shifted nervously.
“I’m sorry for breaking down like that.” His voice was low, embarrassed. “I’m sure that was awkward. When I started to tell you the story, I thought I would be able to do it without getting so emotional.”
Dean furrowed his brow, confused by Cas apologizing for being upset about the death of his baby brother. If it had been Sammy… Well, Dean couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would have done if it had been Sammy.
“Has my father called?”
Dean tossed the cigarette in his hand, cringing as it sailed down. It was a good thing they weren’t staying-regardless of what circumstances they left under-because he was going to burn someone in the alley one day. “I never called him.”
“What?” Cas sounded confused.
“I never called him. At first I figured that you could use a day or two away, even if it wasn’t a great situation, cause of how weird you acted about going back. And then all this stuff about your dad started coming out and then last night…” He swallowed, bracing himself for the next part, for any myriad of reactions from the younger man. “Last night I decided I’m not taking you back. Charlie pulled as much as she could off of your corporate card and buried the trail so that it couldn’t be traced. Nearly three million dollars. I don’t know what kind of money that is to someone like you, but trust me, you can do pretty well with it on your own. I had her put it in a bogus account.”
Cas seemed to be taking a moment to absorb this information. “On my own?” he repeated finally.
Dean nodded. “I…I want you to go with me. We can get a place, live off of your dad’s radar. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him from finding you; whatever it takes to keep you safe. But you don’t have to. You’re not my hostage anymore. You can…”
Dean didn’t get to finish his sentence before Cas’s lips were on his.
Continue to Part Five