The Last Guys on the Bench // Part 7

[inplayruns]

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Castiel has never held a soul before, and he believes he probably should have had practice before this one. It grapples and snarls and tries to claw its way out of his grip. The bites and slashes don’t hurt; the soul is too broken to cause harm to something as mighty as an angel, but Castiel does not want to drop the chaotic mass of anger and guilt and lose it to the universe. He’s been told it is important.

Hell is no place to remake any soul, obviously, particularly one that’s still half-demon and screaming to go back, and especially a soul that snapped its fingers in half clinging to a rock as Castiel heaved it out of the Pit. Heaven will be full of other, nosy angels, and Castiel suspects they will bother him too much in his attempts to rebuild this soul. Earth is a possibility, but Castiel fears making any mistake; it may rend the fabric of that universe and destroy it before any of them are given Paradise.

He takes the soul of Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man of Heaven, to the only other dimension he is aware of - Purgatory.

*

Castiel is - unsure. Even the sound of the word sounds odd resonating inside him, but he was not given further orders beyond saving Dean Winchester from Hell.

He realizes his form has become human, his true vessel on Earth, its skin gone milky compared to Purgatory’s eternal night. (Castiel’s vessel during the last time he was stationed on Earth was a wiry farmer’s wife; this one seems somewhat older, male, with the same kind of lean runner’s strength.) No beasts attack him, even as they snarl in the distance; they can recognize what he is, and all the power inside him. His wings flare high up, as a notice to the souls in Purgatory to stay away.

“Hey, fuck you,” the screaming soul inside Castiel’s arms howls out. The thing thrashes, a maelstrom inside its limiting human frame. Castiel has seen the way sharks circle around bloody chum, staining the water red, and it reminds him of this - only he is holding what holds all this fear and anger and hate, all of it directed at Castiel.

His claws rip into the flesh of Castiel’s new body. Castiel heals the injury instantly, and feels no pain, but there’s a wound on his own insides he cannot simply close. He lost so many of his brothers in the garrison in their journey through Hell, the ugly battles, and there was no proper time to mourn them. Their song merely winked out inside his Grace.

And now, he is here in Purgatory. The voices of his brothers echo inside him, but he feels alone, just him and this twisting soul with a demon taint settled deep inside it. Take me back, it heaves. The breath of the - Castiel knows so much, knows the names of every supernatural spirit he’s been fighting since the bright morning he came into existence, but he doesn’t know what to call this thing that squirms against him and kicks at him. He only knows it breathes on his nascent skin and the feel of it is so odd.

Castiel can wait. Surely, his other brothers and sisters will come to find him here. After Hell, this is a simple mission with their numbers combined.

*

An utter blast wave of creatures streams from the darkness. Castiel recognizes them all, and can even see the mark on some of them where his brothers or, in a few cases, himself, banished their souls here to fight among themselves for all eternity.

Too many of them know Dean Winchester, too. He’s sent so many things here. Many of them cower in the darkness, afraid, but others want revenge. And Castiel can tell, even as they’re little more than teeth and claws and sheer anger and adrenaline - it’s personal.

Castiel is, truthfully, more brutal than any of the things in Purgatory. He’s just as merciless. He suspects Dean is too; Castiel found him hips-deep in blood, some of it his own but most of it not. Maybe that’s why Dean was chosen, to become just one more soldier. (It seems unfair, but it’s not Castiel’s place to have an opinion on this.) Just because Castiel’s brutality is measured, just because there are battle plans, just because his cause is right, doesn’t change the word.

He takes advantage of it, now. He spreads his wings, wide, knowing many of the beasts are aware of what he is. Several of them explode into nothingness at the mere sight of his true form. The rest continue on, ragged and sore, but Castiel slashes at the air and they fall in half, crumpling over. Another long swipe of his vessel’s arms and they’re sent elsewhere in Purgatory, their wrecked forms a warning to anything else.

Dean is whole in his arms, even after the blast of holy light, and he exhales. It’s a strange sensation, the way oxygen, present even here, lights up his bloodstream. The rise and fall of his chest, knowing the way his lungs inflate and deflate - his Father was right, humans are endlessly fascinating.

Castiel wonders how Dean’s lungs will look, protected by the white bone of his ribcage. He wonders if he’ll get the privilege of placing them all back together and laying him back in his grave, breathing life back into him.

Suddenly, Dean twists in Castiel’s arms, like he’s trying to dive back in with the other creatures here. Castiel clutches his form tighter, ignoring the sparks and Dean’s hiss of pain.

*

Most of the powerful archdemons still bide their time deep in Hell, Castiel knows. They await Lucifer rising from his Cage to walk the Earth again. Only Alastair was involved in the battles in Hell, and he preferred to let his horde of ebony-eyed underlings do his dirty work. But the angels found several others, bolder and foolish enough to think they could reign havoc on Creation, and ended them, long ago.

It shouldn’t be so surprising, then, that one of their number finds Castiel and approaches him, still alone except for the rattling half-demon inside his grip. “A little living angel, how delicious,” the archdemon says. His eyes are as red and dead as any other soul in Purgatory. “I bet you’ll taste sweet.” A hideous smirk passes over his twisted wreck of a soul. “And the other thing you have with you, even better. If I don’t take him myself.”

Anna had been the one to kill Dumatria, all those millennia ago, and he still ached for her guidance deep inside his Grace. Castiel knew it would not do to express those feelings, especially not at a time like this. All he could do was something that might earn him her respect, if she was here.

Dumatria may be much more powerful, but he’s also dead, and Castiel whips his hand to the demon’s forehead and feels Heaven’s power course through him, even here in Purgatory. The light flashing from his fingers feels like the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a very long time, since he went into Hell, and Dumatria crumples to the ground like an empty pile of fabric.

Still, this is Purgatory. Nothing truly dies here, Castiel knows that. He can feel the way the darkness inside Winchester curls out toward Dumatria’s body, trying to cling to it and anchor him there. “No,” Castiel rasps out, sinking his fingers into the demon taint and tearing it away, before he disappears into another part of this eternal forest.

*

“Why’d you do that,” Dean asks, later. He’s trying to growl, but his voice sounds choked instead. The darkness still shimmers around him, all its frayed edges shifting in the breeze. “Why do you keep - you keep saving me. You saw the shit I did.”

“I had to save you.”

Dean’s not even human yet, but he twists what could be his head to the side, and definitely snorts. Again, the sensation of breath on his skin is so strange. Two thousand years away from Earth was like a human blink, but Castiel is still unused to the ways things were there. “Fuck you.”

Castiel merely glares, even as he refuses to let go. “You are important, Dean Winchester. You are saved for a reason.”

“Really fuck you. Millions of souls in that pit, and you pick one that couldn’t even hold out…”

At that, Castiel spears his hand into what serves as Dean’s hair, twisting his head so he looks right at him. “It was Hell, Dean. All souls break.”

“There are unbroken souls there, why didn’t you take one of them?!”

“I don’t know!” As soon as the words are out, Castiel regrets them, and Dean’s limbs actually cease squirming, as if they’ve been shocked by the admission that an angel does not know something. “I was told to take you, and I sensed your soul in the Pit -”

There’s a noise from the bundle of half-flesh, half-demon darkness. Castiel still can’t believe he’s holding something that’s so beautiful and awful at once, all of it meshed together. It takes him a beat to realize the noise was a snort. “My soul. Shit’s beaten down, you can’t tell? Nothing left, probably.”

“That’s not accurate.” Castiel can see it even now, how it resists the way the dark tentacles try to attach itself. The soul inside Dean’s shape flares up, forcing them back. “Your soul is intact. Damaged, but intact. Truthfully, it was hard not to notice.”

Castiel considers it a victory that there is no snort against his skin, this time, merely quiet. (He will likely be chastised by Zachariah and others for thinking his skin. It is a dangerous way of thinking.)

“Can you fix it?” Now Dean snorts, and what felt like a victory dissolves. “Sound like my friggin’ brother, hoping like this.”

“I don’t know.” Castiel does not enjoy saying the words, but it’s truth; without his brothers and sisters, he is far weaker. He may be well-liked in his garrison, and pulling the Righteous Man from Hell will prove rewarding no matter what Zachariah thinks of him, but he fears recreating Dean’s soul. For obvious reasons, he doesn’t want to destroy it.

“Yeah, well, fuckin’ figures. Goddamn angel don’t know how to put me back together, not like anyone could.”

Castiel knows this isn’t entirely Dean Winchester, that part of his soul has been marred and changed permanently by his time in Hell. He’d heard about Dean’s lack of faith, studied it even, along with his devotion to his family and his love of strange human things. (Many members of the Host were rather cynical about Dean being Heaven’s Righteous Man, even if they never spoke their doubts out loud.) Experiencing it, however, is an entirely different situation altogether.

Dean is the sort of man who would meet the angel who saved him and spit in his face. Not because he wasn’t grateful, but because he didn’t think he deserved it. Because he would’ve shoved every other soul in the Pit up to Castiel and the other angels in offering, had he known.

“I will try,” Castiel hisses, and once more the soul he’s cradling stiffens inside his vessel’s arms. “Because you are worth it.”

If asked, Castiel would tell anyone it was for Heaven’s reasons; God commanded it, so Dean must be saved. But truth be told, Castiel is fascinated by the way Dean’s soul pulses against the darkness inside it, trying to drive it back. The slow, quiet beat of it sounds like a promise that in time, it will tell him how it’s entranced Castiel so much.

*

Castiel extending his wings is enough to drive back most of the beasts in Purgatory. They’re all too frightened to approach an angel, he’s aware. Still, they creep around the periphery of his senses, waiting for any break in his guard.

It will not come. Their waiting is foolish.

Dean grunts in his arms, but does not protest out loud otherwise.

*

Two dots of light, nearly gold, swim in the distance until they approach. A body forms around them, the identity of it startling.

“Hello, Castiel,” he says, voice gone raspy, a grin Castiel never knew on him across his face.

Castiel lets a swallow move down his human throat. “Hello, Azazel.”

He recognizes the form of what had once been his brother, the demon face and dark energy stark against the angel’s wings that spread from his back. Azazel Fell so long ago, not long after Lucifer. Castiel had heard whispers that he was enjoying Hell, that he had power there, but he could not quite believe it until he witnessed Azazel gleefully setting traps for young mothers-to-be. Ten years, and I don’t even want your soul, he told them, making his smile as warm as possible.

Castiel had asked Zachariah why Michael, or God, would allow such things to happen, but he’d merely gotten a sneer in response. Once Anna Fell, Castiel stopped asking; the other angels were constantly looming over their garrison, anyway. No need to draw more attention there.

“I won’t go through the formalities, brother,” Azazel all but spits, and a too-human blast of nausea throbs through Castiel. “You’ve got the Winchester boy that put the bullet that killed me right in my forehead.” Still grinning, he holds up a bony finger to his forehead and taps a few times. There’s an ugly gash there. It fits him. “And I want revenge.”

“No.”

“I’m your brother, Castiel.”

Castiel doesn’t even respond; he just forces his wings up, until a massive gust of wind bursts out from them, to smack Azazel backwards. Lights flare up in the wind, and it’s a relief. Castiel’s not so far off from Heaven, after all. “You’re not taking Dean Winchester.” His vessel’s foot is on Azazel’s chest, now. Human sensation’s so limiting and exhilarating in its focus at once. “This is not your fight any more.”

In Heaven, Azazel had been little more powerful than Castiel himself. In Hell, he’d come to be Lucifer’s feared lieutenant. In Purgatory, right now, he knows Castiel could blink him out of here with a mere look. Azazel attempts to keep that smile on his face, but the last fact means it falters.

There’s no other choice. Castiel reaches deep down into Azazel, his beating heart - once angel, turned human, turned demon - and rips him apart. A sick sensation swoops through Castiel as he does it, his own Grace igniting as it senses his brother’s flaring out, but he scatters Azazel through Purgatory like ash.

If he ever decides to bother Castiel again, it will have to be a long time from now. Azazel was always an excellent tactician, but putting himself together again won’t be easy.

At this time, Castiel realizes he let Dean go, a heap on a bed of leaves, and he returns there. His borrowed heart jackhammers, an unpleasant sensation he doesn’t understand. Dean will have fled, Dean will be digging his way back to Hell - but no, he’s still there, shadowy hands dug into the ground to keep himself steady.

“That was Yellow-Eyes,” he sputters. “You just - you tore him apart like he was nothing.”

“He’s just a soul here,” Castiel states, gathering Dean back up beside him. “I’m an angel.”

“Why’d you do it?” He presses on, breathless and disbelieving.

“You.” The truth is, Castiel has ceased to think of Dean as a mission or a duty. He allows himself a beat of gratitude that his brothers are not here to sense his thoughts, after which a flurry of panic bursts inside him.

Maybe it’s a trick of his power still resounding through Purgatory, the flashes of Heaven’s light and rage as he tore Azazel’s form to pieces, but some of the darkness cradling Dean’s soul is flaking away, tiny bit by bit.

*

“Are the other angels even coming?” Dean asks. Maybe there’s a touch of demon sneer to his tone, the taunt none of them can resist, but it’s certainly a legitimate question. A few Leviathan skitter around the edges of Castiel’s sight; Castiel stiffens when he sees them, but they’re just ugly serpents here. They cannot harm him, not with his full powers.

“Truthfully, I’m less and less certain,” Castiel admits. The other angels would never allow him this kind of doubt; he aches for their return. Missing them must be what’s making the uncertainty twist through him, and he must resist it like Dean’s soul tries to drive the demon taint backward.

Dean stretches backward into Castiel’s grip. There’s far less thrashing these days, Castiel is sure of that much at least. “You could do it,” Dean says, in a very small voice. Castiel could choose to ignore the words, if he wanted, or at least they could go unacknowledged and it wouldn’t be considered an insult.

He tightens his grip on Dean’s forearms, instead, imagining human flesh stretched taut under his hands. Surely it is a good sign that whatever Dean has as skin now doesn’t burn away with an angel’s touch.

*

Dean saw Castiel plunge his fist - his vessel’s fist, whatever, Castiel doesn’t really have a fist or human features at all - into Azazel’s form and tear him apart, exploding him into black chunky things that dissolved to ash. So yeah, he’s a little apprehensive when Cas holds his wide, already calloused, palms out and offers to try and recreate Dean.

“Just be careful with the merchandise.” It hurts to have himself pressed against Cas all these endless days, a burst of pain when their skin rubs together. Gotta be some kind of instinctual demon reaction to an angel, and Dean wants to puke - both because it hurts for him to touch an angel because he’s become too much of a demon, and because being a demon doesn’t feel all that fucking different from what he was before. Maybe he hadn’t been down there long enough, but - fuck.

“There is no merchandise.”

At least he can still roll his eyes. “Here,” he offers, holding out his arm.

Castiel chews on his lip for a moment, then touches his pointer and middle fingers to Dean’s wrist, where the pulse would beat if he had one.

Dean feels the tick of it, and it’s a shock because he forgot what it was like. There’s warmth, like when he drapes a shirt over a radiator and shrugs it back on after cranking the heat up. And he gasps, and it makes his pulse ratchet up. Just in his wrist, but fuck it’s good.

Cas - and Dean doesn’t know why he’s calling him that, he’s seen the guy tear Yellow-Eyes to bits, he’s a badass angel who blasted back whole waves of demons to pull him out of Hell - moves his hands up around Dean’s neck. Dean winces, both because of the spark of pain and the fact that he’s got freakin’ hands around his neck.

But then there’s this flare of something, and the flare doesn’t go away because it’s warmth. It’s the pulse in his neck, back again, and he heaves out a breath.

A breath. He didn’t realize how much he was missing it until he watches it fog out and dissipate into the darkness. “Shit,” he whispers.

Cas’ fingers don’t move, and Dean tries to nudge into them. “Are you alright?” he asks.

“I’m great,” Dean answers, breathlessly, and when Castiel’s fingers trace up his jawline and cradle his cheekbones, he leans forward best he can and kisses him, because he can’t not. The wet heat of it is the best thing he’s felt in his whole fucking life. (If he thinks about it, it’s kind of the first thing he’s felt, but he’s not fucking thinking about it.)

He has to pull away when pain lances up through his chest, everywhere he’s pressed against Castiel. “Shit,” he gasps, and staggers backward so he can double over, heaving emptily into the ground.

“Was that unsatisfactory?”

Dean looks up, blinking. His hand lands right in some black, goopy shit on the forest floor. Just goddamn lovely, really. “Fuck no,” he rasps out. “Just - I’m still too much demon, I think.”

Just got his throat working properly and it’s all sour bile, of fuckin’ course. He spits onto the ground again, and Cas doesn’t flinch. “Trust me, that wasn’t the issue,” Dean pants, rolling onto his back.

Dean’s always known he’s - well, that sometimes he could go for dudes too. It was part of him he couldn’t stamp out, and it came bubbling out every now and then. So what, he was a natural flirt. That’s how he brushed it off.

Just, Christ, he wasn’t running around even looking for just sex with guys too often, not with Sam and especially Dad around. And Cas, or Cas’ vessel, whatever, was really kind of smoking hot, not that this is a real appropriate observation to have about the thing that pulled you out of Hell and gave you your pulse and breath back, but he was. Now it’s just them and the trees and Dean remembering the way mouths slot together and the warmth of a body underneath his hands.

So, yeah. Kissing wasn’t the issue here.

“Just go slow,” Dean warns him, stretching out best he can. His arms and legs are still jerky, and he’s unused to them. He trusts, trusts this supernatural thing that could break him with a thought, but won’t.

Every part of Dean’s that Castiel remakes, he presses a kiss to. Dean chuckles at it at first - angels and their benedictions, man, that’s fuckin’ weird - until it leaves his whole body feeling like a just-rung bell. Then, he’s not in any mood to do much of anything but gasp.

Cas pouts over the back of Dean’s thigh, which he has hitched up. “What?” Dean heaves out, breathless.

“It’s not… right yet.” And Cas works his fingers through the muscle, down into the nerves somehow. Dean just yowls and imagines this is how the rim of a beer bottle must feel, after you slick a finger across it and make it sing. (Bad bar trick, but hey, some people were still impressed.) It’s like he climbed up a few flights of stairs, but God, the burn feels so good. Dean barely hears the better now or senses Cas’ dry lips touching the new expanse of skin, he’s so blissed out over everything else.

But when Cas kisses the tip of his dick, yeah, Dean fuckin’ notices. He feels his cock jump and get wet at the tip, and shit, he forgot about that and it’s too good. His fingertips, still ringing with Cas’ kiss there too, can only dig into the dirt; Dean doesn’t give a shit if they get dirty, not right now.

“Oh,” Cas says. “So, that’s working.”

Dean barks out a relieved laugh. It’s not the rough snarl of a demon, not any more, not since Cas tore those old vocal chords out and spun new ones from - God, he doesn’t even know. “Dude, quit braggin’.” Fuck, it feels good to let a smile stretch over his face.

Cas just kisses over the middle of his shaft in return. He might have dry lips, but the seam of his mouth is all damp in the middle, and if Dean makes a totally embarrassing - he can’t even call it a moan, it’s more like just a noise - he knows Cas isn’t gonna tell anyone.

Cas slides up his body, spending time on not just the slope of his hips and the curve of his ass, not just making Dean moan when his lips part just a little over his nipples, but getting behind his knees too. He sucks into the soft part of Dean’s elbow, where it bends, and his cry is frankly embarrassing even if no one hears it.

His throat’s still vibrating when Cas spots kisses on his chin, his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. Dean’s already sweaty there, human and gross and probably streaked with Purgatory dirt too, and Cas doesn’t care, just wipes it off with his vessel’s elegant hands. Dean’s still coiled, but it’s not the constant hate pressing down on his own guts from inside, from when he was a demon; it’s anticipation, and he’s hard, sure, and it’s great, but it’s more that coil in his gut that he relishes.

Dean’s eyes are the last place Castiel gets to, and even with them closed he feels a dizzy spray of sparks in front of them, and then a kiss over both of them, light like Cas just brushed his own eyelashes over Dean.

Dean’s eyes open, now. Human. That darkness is still inside him, never gonna be flushed out entirely, but he’s not a demon. Looking at Cas makes him ache, but not because it hurts the way it did before, where his holy light pierced the place inside him that was forgetting sunlight and warmth and everything but the hot darkness of Hell, and the cold gloom of Purgatory.

And the thing that held him, even though it hurt both of them, even if he couldn’t stop churning and rolling in a pathetic attempt to get away. He’s still got that thing, borrowed hands on him - a thing, and he doesn’t mind.

“Cas?” he rasps out, testing his voice. Funny how you forget the way just a word hums through your whole body, how incredible the interplay of breath and sounds works out. Every fucking syllable is a miracle, and he wouldn’t have it without Castiel.

The angel crouches down to the ground, getting his knees all muddy - for Dean, it’s all for Dean, and he’s dizzy with too much that gets ratcheted up when they kiss, again, hot and purposeful this time. Guess Hell didn’t stop him from his hedonism, the need for more and more and more and too much to escape the shittiness of his life.

“Fuck,” Dean gasps, when Cas’ fingers dig into his back. At first it feels like they’re cutting in, gonna rip him apart after all, but no, it’s just more sensation. His body’s the same body he had before, used to sleeping on hard mattresses or the floor, and yet brand new at once. Touch feels so good, because it’s so overwhelming, because where Cas grips his back and bumps his thighs and keeps their lips together’s like burning. Dean forgot how warm skin was, how good it felt to be so close to someone else.

“I can stop.”

“Don’t you dare.” He grins, hitches a leg around Cas’, and tugs them both down onto the dirt. Dean almost wants to laugh when he feels the leaves brush against his thighs and the back of his neck because it’s tickling him, and he’s never calling that annoying again.

But then he has Cas, entirely a warm line all down his front, Dean’s body arching up involuntarily so they can be skin on skin, and yeah, he ain’t laughing.

Stupid as it sounds, Dean speaks the language of sex. His life made him fluent in sex and violence, and the former’s way more fun. Not really a spoken language at all, even, at least if it’s fuckin’ good, just skin on skin and closeness and for a while it doesn’t have to matter who he is, or who the other person is.

Then again, it’s been a whole new lifetime. But he feels Cas’ dick - angel dick, this is so weird - gone fat and warm and trapped between their bodies, and maybe this is just like riding a bike after all.

“Hey - you -” and Cas is rearing up over him just like Dean wanted. The body he’s using - not in it quite yet, he’d explained, just a way that Dean could perceive him without being permanently damaged - isn’t that pale, but in Purgatory’s darkness he might as well be marble, his features stark and cut in the night.

Then Cas’ moves over so their legs are trapped together. At the first bump of their cocks - shit, shit, shit, Dean should’ve thought this out better because there’s no way he can handle it, not this soon -

And then Cas slides, and Dean doesn’t know how all of Purgatory doesn’t come pouring in to tear them apart with the noise he makes. “Dean,” Cas breathes, and damn if his ears don’t ring with it. “I can stop if -”

“Gotta be kidding me,” Dean interrupts, rolling his hips for emphasis. He’s so fucking dirty already, the line of precome shiny down the front of his thigh and smeared on his stomach, dirt everywhere, rutting with an angel while every sensation is new enough to be like fire searing into his skin to take the place of all the scars Cas wiped away from him. And it’s so, so good.

Cas is looming, and maybe this should make Dean want to freeze and toss the angel off him, but no. There’s trust there; Cas dragged his hands and lips everywhere along his body, pushed those hands into his chest - he could’ve ripped Dean apart like he did Azazel - but instead clasped them together, rubbing them against the embers of his soul stomped down into tiny things by Hell, until they flared up to shock him to life again.

Normally, Dean prides himself on being good in bed, or at least that he can keep his shit together no matter how good it feels. Here, though, he’s not exactly surprised that he’s coming undone too quickly, and he doesn’t even care. “Fuck,” he rasps out, when he feels a throb on his dick and realizes it’s not his own, that he’s that close.

“Think I love you,” Dean says, voice so low he’s not sure Castiel hears it. Purgatory’s stripped him down, to the point where yeah, he’ll fuckin’ say it. His emotions feel flayed to shreds and brand new at once, and there’s a rush in the fact that he remembers how to feel after all, that he wasn’t put back like some fucked-up robot or just another soulless demon. It’d be too much if he didn’t have Cas here, hands grounding him, and the dirt itchy - not that he gives a shit - under his back.

Usually, he - saying he doesn’t rush in is the understatement of the universe. But this doesn’t feel like rushing in, not at all; Cas might as well have cradled his soul inside his Grace for a billion years. Hell, maybe he did, and Dean will come back to find the world gone, and Sammy with it. The thought makes him shudder, so he turns back to Castiel, the thing he trusts over just about anyone, the thing that gave a shit about him.

“Cas - oh -” He bites back the God, because it’s probably a bad idea to piss off the angel that just put you back together and is celebrating it by fucking into the groove of your hip with blasphemy. Not that this isn’t already pretty awesomely blasphemous, now that he thinks about it.

To cut himself off, Dean digs hands into Cas’ hair to drag his head down and kiss him, opening his mouth under Castiel’s this time. He forgot how much he missed kissing until he’s slipping his tongue forward, and it’s wet and filthy and he’s sure his mouth is gonna be a swollen mess and his body’ll look worse, but fuck it.

When it hits him, his orgasm feels like taking that last step up a hill and finally seeing the top, knowing you can start trotting down now, and the bright shock of the sun as it flares into view at once. It’s good, it’s so good, and it bubbles up inside him and crashes hard. In any other situation, he’d be embarrassed at the way he jackhammers it out, smearing it up his chest and Cas’ too, but he doesn’t care right now, too thoroughly fucked out in the best way.

The next thing he’s aware of, Cas still has that damn looming thing going on, only he’s staring down at his own erection, blood-flushed and so wet it’s glossy. Guy’s looking back and forth between that and his palm, and it’s almost cute, and Dean’s on the verge of asking if he needs any help over there when Cas must make the connection and starts pumping himself. It’s harder than Dean would like on himself, and maybe he’ll get to teach him technique, but it only takes a few fast strokes, twisting at the base, before he shudders, hard, and empties over Dean’s thigh.

He totally doesn’t mind, not even when Cas flops on top of him. They’re gonna get sealed together, probably, and now that he’s coming back to himself there are definitely some wood chips digging into his ass hard. And man, is it awesome.

“Shoulda let me take care of that.”

“Maybe.” Cas makes no move to get off him. Dean’s okay with it. “You should rest, if you want. I’ll keep watch.”

Dean kisses him, long and slow and worn-out on both their parts, but he still pours everything he can into it. Cas tastes like salt under his tongue, and there’s some hint of the darkness of the dirt under them, but he’s also weirdly clean. Angel, figures.

“Sure.” And if he lets Cas lift him, just a little, until his back feels warm and comfortable and not on the friggin’ dirt any more, well no one else is here. He doesn’t know if angels sleep, but Cas isn’t leaving him.

*

Angels don’t sleep, not normally, but Castiel knows he can put this body - not truly his, an approximation of his vessel who is still on earth in reality, but the sensations are dangerously real and intoxicatingly so - into a state of stasis and rest with Dean. Then again, this is borne of a feeling that he has done so much, and deserves the rest, and that’s too close to pride.

Castiel worries, but never gets the opportunity to decide. Because that is when Zachariah and Hamaliel approach, their boundless energy pushed into human vessels, to find his body tangled with Dean’s in a sweaty, messy heap, all the skin on their legs touching and entwined almost like a knot.

“Zachariah -” Castiel starts, alarmed, but he never has a chance to finish because Zachariah extends his vessel’s hand and slashes it through the air, and Castiel is gone in the next moment.

*

“Cover him up,” the angel Dean doesn’t know, snub-nosed and reedy and taller than even Sam, sneers at - well - Dean’s own naked ass. “I don’t want to see that.”

Zachariah’s face is twisted in disgust, too, but he moves his hand again and Dean’s usual clothing falls onto his body with a thump, heavy jeans and a t-shirt fitting across his form. “They are rather repulsive, humans,” Zachariah sighs. “I expected more from Castiel, though.”

“Why?” The other angel snorts. “He’s just an underling, and he’d been so close to Anna, too.”

“But he was in my garrison, Hamaliel.”

“Maybe your garrison is trouble.” An ugly smirk twists over Hamaliel’s face.

Zachariah shoots the other angel a look that would likely level several forests, before his mouth springs back to its usual corporate douchebag smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s not fight,” he urges, all smarm. “Got very important business to take care of.”

They both hunch over Dean’s body, crowded in so tightly their bodies completely cover it. When they pull away, he’s gone. Hamaliel is dusting off his hands very deliberately.

“I removed the Winchester boy’s ability to hear us in our true forms,” Zachariah all but crows. “Perhaps it was unfortunate to do that, it could have been useful to communicate with the vessel later, but we can’t have Dean and Castiel speaking too easily now, can we?”

“But Michael -”

“We’ll find another way. We’ve got fate on our side; all will work out according to plan in the end.”

The other angel nods. “You didn’t get rid of his Hell memories, did you?”

“Of course not,” Zachariah snorts. “Just this little… Brokeback Purgatory adventure. The Hell memories, oh, those are useful, if the Winchester boy needs any… convincing.”

Dean really doesn’t like the smile that cracks over the other angel’s face. “I didn’t even consider that.”

“That’s why I’m in charge, Hamaliel.”

“Would you like to take care of Castiel, as well?”

“Of course.” Zachariah sighs, deep and exaggerated. “Memory wipes take so much out of you.”

Hamaliel casts deeply hooded eyes on Zachariah. “You do recognize that you must be very watchful over your garrison from now on. One little slip, and little Cassy gets demoted.”

Zachariah nods, even though he’s clearly disgusted with the idea of taking any sort of command. Hamaliel offers a smug nod of his own in return. In the next instant, they’re gone, and Purgatory lights up with angry red and yellow eyes, a canopy of all the rage and fury stuffed in that dimension with only Castiel and the other angels holding it back.

part 8 >>