FIC: Tripping (NC-17) Chapter 07/13
What do you do when the Universe itself seems to have decided you belong with your very stoic, very angelic, very MALE hunting companion?
Dean's about to find out.
Chapter 07 - Final Tour
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Castiel had sworn he wouldn't drink again. Not after the trouble it had gotten him into the first time. But that was before his father had abandoned him.
Losing faith had a tendency to make one re-think their former oaths.
And so, when he'd received Sam's voicemail he had been completely and unequivocally wasted - or at least that was the term used by the youngest Winchester as he'd taken in Castiel's appearance. Castiel, for his part, couldn't really find it within himself to care. After he'd convinced Sam that the girl they were dealing with wasn't a prophet - mostly by calling him an idiot for doubting him - the two had set down to research.
Or Sam had set down to research. Castiel had discovered Sam's iPod and was busy humming along to one of the lesser played tracks.
AC/DC, the little screen told him. Castiel found he rather liked it.
From the look on Sam's face this was obviously something he found most unusual. Even so, when Sam cleared his throat to speak, Castiel didn't exactly see the subject coming.
“So ah...you and Dean,” Sam began awkwardly.
Castiel blinked up at him from the couch, strings of a glorious song called 'Back in Black' still twanging behind his ears. "Dean and I," he repeated, as Sam seemed to have lost the capacity for words following his halting start.
"I ah..." A broad hand was dragged through mussed hair, "...saw you two in heaven."
Castiel frowned. "I was not in heaven," he pointed out. Was the man hallucinating? Castiel watched as this only seemed to make Sam more awkward.
"Um - yeah, no...I know," Sam hedged.
Castiel, drunk and impatient, decided he didn't want to deal with this. "You are not making any sense. Stop talking if you're not going to make any sense," he ordered, unsurprised when this earned him an eye roll from Sam.
"You were in Dean's heaven," Sam blurted suddenly, and - though Castiel hadn’t thought it possible - he went even redder.
"The road to the garden is where you re-live memories," Castiel said quietly - his mind working at a slightly intoxicated but furious pace. More importantly, the road was where humans re-lived their best memories. Those that had touched them in some way - those that they had enjoyed. Dean enjoyed memories of him?
"Yeah," Sam replied, clearing his throat. "I know."
And it was as Sam refused to meet his eyes that Castiel very suddenly worked out which memory Sam must have witnessed. How...disconcerting...
Castiel watched as Sam squirmed under his scrutiny. "So...do you like him?" Sam asked suddenly.
Castiel frowned. "Of course I like Dean," he answered plainly. He'd rebelled for the man after all; obviously he had some measure of affection for him.
For some reason this answer seemed to pain Sam. This was obviously another one of those instances where humans had assigned subtle connotations to some word, connotations Castiel had a feeling he would never fully understand.
"I mean do you like him..." Castiel watched interestedly as Sam seemed to wince in actual pain,"Romantically."
Castiel frowned harder at the question, suddenly thrown back to his contemplations following his conversation with the Cupid. His feelings for Dean were complicated at best. "I…do not know."
And he didn’t. He knew he cared for Dean; knew that he needed him…
"Well, did you enjoy kissing him?" Sam asked, voice at once curious and cautious.
Castiel thought back to the kisses he and Dean had shared. That, at least, was an easy question to answer. "Yes," he stated firmly. "Dean is very responsive."
Sam's face scrunched up in abject horror at his words. "Dude - I did not need to know that!"
Castiel scowled. "Then don’t ask."
Both of them fell into silence for a time until Castiel almost wanted to hit Sam for his squirming. It was obvious the man wanted to say something more but was having a dilemma about opening his mouth.
Finally, the frustrating Winchester cracked. "Okay, I gotta ask," Sam said suddenly, fixing Castiel with a pained look of equal parts dread and curiosity. The next words out of his mouth were not what Castiel expected. "Where the hell did you learn to kiss like that?"
Castiel suddenly found himself matching Sam's awkwardness of a moment before. Even the alcohol still in his system couldn't dull the sensation. "You...will not like it," he responded edgily.
This only seemed to intrigue Sam more. Castiel watched with trepidation as the man leaned forward, the book in front of him forgotten. "What? Why?"
Castiel frowned. "Because you and Dean disapprove of my looking into peoples' minds."
Sam's eyes widened. "You've been spying on people's thoughts?" the hunter asked incredulously. "To get...kissing tips?"
"Not all their thoughts," Castiel retorted defensively, something which he found somewhat annoying. He'd never had an ethical problem reading peoples' minds before Sam and Dean had made such a fuss over it. "Just the ones of Dean and I."
Sam balked visibly."People think about you and Dean?" he asked, shocked. "Like...together?"
Castiel nodded, watching as Sam's face seemed to grow even more haunted. "It is a result of the Cupids' power," he explained, something he'd only really come to realise himself since he'd gained answers from the cherub. "People believe he and I should be together in a sexual sense, and so they imagine it."
Sam looked like someone had just plopped a dead animal on the table in front of him. "That's...so wrong," the youngest Winchester uttered.
"You have no idea," Castiel agreed, his voice low and serious. "Some of the things I've seen...they cannot be unseen."
It was true, too. Waitresses, cashiers, people passing them on the street - everywhere he turned were visions of him and Dean in compromising, heated, sometimes physically impossible positions. Although admittedly he'd found more than one of the fantasies he'd stumbled upon rather intriguing, others...he didn't have words for the horror they'd instilled in him.
Castiel was pulled suddenly out of his inner musings as Sam snorted with mirth. The look he turned on Sam in response only seemed to fuel his humour, and before he knew it, Castiel was watching Sam almost fall off the couch laughing.
"Cas," Sam gasped, eyes watering. "You...you're a giant perve!"
Castiel watched as the man dissolved into hysterics in front of him once more.
Well. Really. And he was the drunk one.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By the time Dean finally showed up at the motel, hands covered in blood, Castiel's alcoholic buzz was already sliding into the horrific realm of hangover. He had been sitting out the front of the motel, throbbing head in his hands when Dean had approached him, bottle of magic pills on offer.
"How many should I take?" Castiel asked forlornly as Dean sat down next to him, handing the pills over.
"You?" Dean snorted. "Just down the whole bottle."
Castiel nodded before returning his head to his hands. If he didn't look at anything the pain was marginally less. The sudden touch on the back of his neck made him freeze up for a moment before the sensation really sunk in. When it did, he found the feel of fingers rubbing tight circles into the muscles of his neck made him almost boneless.
"That is...very good," he murmured, tension easing out of him as Dean worked some kind of hedonistic magic with his fingers.
"It's called a neck rub," Dean informed him, slight amusement evident in his tone. "Best thing for a hangover."
Castiel thought he could probably stand to be hungover more often if this is what resulted. And it wasn't just the pain relief he was appreciating either. He wasn't certain when he'd started to enjoy Dean's touch so much; he only knew that now - with the feel of Dean's heat beside him and the blissful pressure on his skin - something warm and almost tangible had bloomed somewhere behind his ribcage.
Unbidden, Sam's words of an hour ago returned to his mind.
Dean's heaven. Their kiss had been a part of Dean's heaven. And with the explanation from the Cupid...
Did Dean...what was it Sam had asked? Ah yes - did Dean like him?
"I get it, you know," Dean said beside him. “I’m a big expert on deadbeat dads, so. Yeah. I know how you feel."
Very suddenly the reason he was in this situation crashed back down onto Castiel's shoulders and he sagged. "How do you manage it?" he asked, bringing his eyes up to meet Dean's.
The gaze he found directed back on him was one of wry understanding. "On a good day, you get to kill a whore."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Castiel had meant to tell Dean then about the Cupid's words. With Dean's touch on the back of his neck and their gazes locked, it would have been an ideal time. Except Sam and the priest had chosen that moment to join them out the front.
The rest of the night was a blur. Their failed first attempt at the killing, the agony as the Whore had aimed a dark Enochian spell straight for his grace and then Dean... Dean overcoming the scripture and killing the Whore with his own two hands. Or rather, not overcoming the scripture - adhering to it.
The pain kept Castiel from realising it sooner, realising what the Whore's death meant. The horror of realisation only hit him the moment Dean turned to look at him, eyes heavy as he'd headed for the door of the motel.
"Relax, I'm just getting more bandages," he'd assured Sam. The look in his eyes betrayed something completely different.
"No..." Castiel had gasped but by the time he'd managed to grab Sam's attention the engine of the Impala was already rumbling.
And they'd lost him. Castiel had lost Dean.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dean had thought about visiting Lisa. Hell, he’d even thought about visiting Cassie. But in the end he didn’t. It wouldn’t have made a difference either way. He’d make sure they were taken care of - there was no way he wouldn’t, but any words he could think to say just didn’t seem right anymore.
He could imagine telling Lisa that when he thought of himself happy it was with her. That if his life had been different he would have loved to have had her and Ben. And it was true…or rather, it had been. If he’d wanted normal he would have wanted that but he didn’t want normal anymore. Which was why this situation was so irreversibly fucked.
God had taken his dreams from him. Why not give Michael the reality?
And so he’d retreated to Lawrence, Kansas. Because things may as well finish where they’d damn well started.
In retrospect, visiting the one town that housed a psychic who was well-tuned into Channel Winchester probably wasn’t the smartest of moves. That Missouri had picked Cas’s phone number out of her psychic hat though? That was something even Dean couldn’t have seen coming.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dean was packing up his razor, half bottle of Jack in hand when a quick glance in the bathroom mirror revealed Cas’s glowering countenance behind him. He couldn't say he was surprised really. He'd known there'd been a slight chance of someone tracking him down before he could do what he had to do. Fate was a bitch like that. That it was Cas though... God Dean wished it hadn't been Cas.
Sighing, Dean looked down again, taking his sweet time packing away his toothbrush. “Fuck off, Cas.”
“No,” the angel said behind him, voice hard as granite and Dean rolled his eyes more at himself than the tone.
“You can't stop me from doing this,” Dean said, finally turning to face the angel. The moment he did he wished he hadn't.
Dean hadn’t let himself think about Cas - about what the angel’s reaction would be to what he planned on doing. He had known Sammy would be disappointed. Had known Bobby would likely want to tear him a new one. Cas though - he hadn’t let himself think about what he’d be doing to him. Not least because giving in to Michael was probably more of a betrayal of Castiel than anyone else.
So he’d done what he did with every other damn uncomfortable thing - he’d ignored it. And now he knew why - because in all his fucked up imaginings there was no way Dean could have done justice to the unabashed mix of agony and fury he was seeing in Cas now.
“I gave everything for you,” Cas growled, voice vibrating with anger - more furious than Dean had ever heard him before. More on edge. Well, Dean was nothing if not good at pushing.
He barked a sharp stab of laughter, a masochistic part of him almost relishing it when Cas's eyes narrowed on him. “That was your second mistake,” he replied, voice taking on the pained jeering quality that never failed to make Sam clench his jaw. “The first was pulling me out of the pit in the first place.”
“I had-”
“Yeah, you had orders,” Dean spat, the anger rising in him like poison. “And you're a good little soldier, aren't you, Cas?”
From the flare in Cas's eyes Dean knew Cas was remembering the last time Dean had said those words.
“It should have been Michael,” Dean snarled, not knowing where the words were coming from and not caring. He was flying on instinct and everything in him was pushing the venom into his voice. “He should have been the one to pull me out. The guy's a dick but at least he's got his priorities straight.”
Dean watched the words hit Cas, punching holes in him the way bullets never had. And a part of him withered with it but another... God, another almost welcomed it. It was then that Dean realised what he was doing. He could say he'd never wanted to hurt Cas but he'd be lying - Dean wanted it to hurt; wanted to see the pain and betrayal flash through Cas's eyes. Because pain led to hate. And Cas hating him would make what he had to do that much easier.
Cas didn't see the gun, that much was obvious. Dean had it in hand and pressed to his temple before the angel could even blink. It was a stupid and desperate move maybe but Dean was in that sort of zone. And if Zachariah couldn't find him on the other side he didn't damn well deserve to catch him.
“And now I do too,” he rasped, harsh and bitter, and he squeezed.
And god but he had fully fucking underestimated Cas's speed.
Everything seemed to happen at once. One moment the trigger was giving beneath his finger and the next his vision was full of tan trench-coat, his wrist on fire as the gun was twisted from his hand. And he fought back, more out of instinct than anything else, until a blow like a sledgehammer caught him across the jaw.
Dean would have fallen then, under just one punch, except Cas moved too fast, lifting him practically off his feet as he slammed Dean bodily into the glass above the bathroom counter.
“I rebelled for this?” Cas hissed in his face, practically nose to nose with Dean, eyes electric and livid. “So you could surrender like a coward?”
Something broke inside Dean at the words. The world had condensed down to pain and fire and blue - so much blue and everything was collapsing in on him. He closed his eyes, cringing away from Cas and everything else he was trying to just fucking run from.
“I fought for you! I died for you!” Cas growled against him, pressing him harder into the broken glass at his back. And a part of Dean welcomed it; welcomed the pain. It was real. It was real like nothing else in this whole situation was.
“I’m sorry,” Dean said brokenly, feeling Cas’s grip on him shudder at the words. He hadn’t really meant to say it but once it was out Dean knew it was true, true like nothing else he’d been saying. Dean opened his eyes, meeting Cas’s impossibly blue ones and forcing himself to take it in; forcing himself to feel it.
“I’m sorry,” he choked again, his grip on Cas’s wrists faltering, sliding from coat to bare skin. It was an innocuous movement - something that should have been inconsequential, and yet the moment skin touched skin, the charged energy in the bathroom switched frequencies. Dean’s breath caught as Cas’s eyes darkened.
Dean would never know who moved first - only that one moment they had been held frozen, glaring and immovable, and the next moment Cas’s mouth was on his, hard and demanding as the angel pressed himself everywhere Dean could never admit to needing him.
It was their first kiss not forced by outside events. It was also the first kiss that Dean didn’t think. He didn’t let himself. Because if this was to be his last kiss before the end of the world, he was not going to let goddamn destiny or a few clinging snags of heterosexuality keep him from enjoying it.
Dean had already been half sitting on the bathroom counter following Cas’s slamming him bodily into it and he didn’t argue when Cas leveraged him all the way up. Not even the thought that this was something he could totally see himself doing to a girl could stop the shudder as Cas took advantage of the new position to push between Dean's legs. The kiss never broke and Dean felt his head swimming at the hot familiarity of the sensation.
Cas kissed like he was a drowning man and Dean was oxygen - all desperation and passion. Now that he was being recklessly honest with himself, it was something that Dean could admit had never failed to twist his insides into tightly coiled knots. But it was nothing compared to the sensation of Cas coming undone, small sounds escaping the angel when Dean hit the right sort of rhythm or touch.
The unadulterated gasp he ripped from Cas when he wrapped one leg around the angel’s hip and ground their lower bodies together almost sent Dean over the edge right there.
“Dean…I need - ohfuck…”
It was the first time Dean had ever heard Cas swear, and while a small part of him found the action extremely hilarious, everything else in him was taken over by just how hot Castiel sounded when he was flying apart.
Riding an instinctual high Dean trailed a line of open-mouthed kisses down the angel’s neck before biting down, rolling their bodies together once more as Cas bucked against him - his unbridled moan making Dean’s heart skip a beat.
“Dean, we can’t…” Cas gasped, voice harsh as the hands even now leaving bruises on Dean’s hips; hands pulling him closer.
“Yes we can,” Dean ground out, surprised at the pain that saturated his voice. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters…”
And God he hadn’t meant to say it like that. Not so hopeless and horrifying. He held tighter as he felt Cas freeze in his arms.
“Please don’t,” he heard himself plead helplessly. “Don’t stop.”
But the moment was already slipping away. Taking with it the bliss of forgetting - forgetting what he had to do; forgetting why he had to do it; forgetting that even this - these moments weren’t real…
“Please,” he begged softly, his hands tangled in Cas’s clothing as he pressed his face into the angel’s neck. The feel of fingers carding through his hair was an unexpected but wholly pleasant one.
“I’m sorry,” Cas whispered, his voice soft and heavy beside his ear. “I should have told you sooner.”
Dean barely had time to frown before the touch on his neck dragged him down into darkness.
When he awoke it was to find himself tied to a metal pipe in a dry, neatly kept basement.
“What the hell?” Dean sputtered, only to freeze as the shadows before him shifted. The figure that was revealed was the last one Dean expected.
“So,” the Cupid began sheepishly. “We need to talk.”
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