CONventional Psychopathy Part 1: Primary Deviance
CONventional Psychopathy
Title: Part 1: Primary Deviance
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jess, John/Mary
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: NC-17/Adult/Explicit
Word Count: Chapter One 6k/Part One 75k
Media: YouTube Playlist
Alternate Link: AO3
Full List of Kinks and/or Warnings: [Spoiler (click to open)]Serial killer AU, disturbing imagery, murder, minor character death, very graphic description of violence and murder, kidnapping of adults, graphic description of various forms of torture (including chemicals, cuts, burns, bone breaking, forced feeding, electricity, etc.), humiliation, bodily fluids/bodily functions (not used in a sexual way), begging, rough sex, manhandling, anal sex, oral sex, bondage, graphic description of medical procedures used for torture, discussion of the off-screen torture and murder of animals and humans (adults and children) committed by both adults and children, homophobia (not Dean or Cas) and homophobic slurs/insults
Setting: Serial Killer AU. I've messed with ages in this fic because I wanted technology available now, but some of the characters needed to be younger.
Summary: Castiel Novak is a Cleaner. He’s one of the agency’s best. Cas and his Handler, Dean Winchester, have a high success rate in a world where the worst criminals aren’t imprisoned for their crimes, but instead are captured by licensed serial killers who dispose of them, doing what they do best while getting paid for it.
Cas doesn’t form attachments, doesn’t leave himself open for a risk like that, but Dean has wormed his way into Cas’ life and into his house, but does Dean realize what falling in love with a serial killer really means?
A/N: This is a ‘verse I’ve had expanding in my head since I was around 10 years old. About two years ago I started writing it out using Supernatural characters, and it worked out so well that I ended up writing 75k in a very short amount of time. The ‘verse is still expanding, and I’m currently at 150k with plans for more. I plan to update every Tuesday and Friday.
This ‘verse is dark and includes concepts that are very far from our social norms. Right now there are three separate parts of this ‘verse, and each part will have its own tags as there is a different subject addressed in each part. This ‘verse is meant to fuck with your head. It's also very self-indulgent.
Thanks go out to my beta Kim for help picking out things that were slowing me down (she's awesome at that) and cheerleading and discussing the 'verse with me. I want to thank outoftheashes/samanddeaninpanties, who was and continues to be an awesome cheerleader. Also royalrowena helped me with more great songs for the playlist and also encouraged me to write a serial killer AU.
Primary Deviance
The first stage in a theory of deviant identity formation. Edwin Lemert conceptualized primary deviance as engaging in the initial act of deviance.
This is very common throughout society, as everyone takes part in basic form violation. Primary deviance does not result in a person internalizing a deviant identity, so one does not alter their self-concept to include this deviant identity.
It is not until the act becomes labeled or tagged that secondary deviation may materialize.
Lemert, Edwin. 1967. Human Deviance, Social Problems and Social Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall O'Grady, William. 2011. Crime in Canadian Context. Ontario: Oxford University Press
~ + ~
Castiel picked up his favorite knife, holding it out so the overhead lighting reflected off the metal, making it shine. His big brother Gabe had given it to him for his twenty-first birthday. It was beautiful, perfectly weighted and balanced, and Cas kept it very sharp.
"I believe the next thing you did was cut off his little finger," Cas said as he walked up to the stainless steel table, which was bolted to the floor.
"No!" the man on the table yelled, squirming as he tried to get away. His brown hair was matted to his forehead, drenched in his own sweat.
The man wouldn't be able to get away. There were straps holding him down, placed strategically at his forehead, upper chest, hips, and another just above the knees along with four separate straps that held his wrists and ankles.
"Please, no," the man said, tears running down the sides of his face as he choked on his own fear. The eyebrow bar glinted in the light, and Cas wanted to pull it out, listen to the man scream.
"So you didn't cut his finger off?" Cas asked, one eyebrow arched upward. He looked the man in the eye, noticing the beautiful combination of brown with lighter yellow hues streaking through the darker color. "You did something else first?"
"I-I didn't do that," the man said, body shivering, goosebumps rising.
Cas frowned, as if he was puzzled and genuinely disappointed in the man's claims. "Mr. Caffrey, I assure you I read through your entire file and did a thorough investigation of my own. I do my best to avoid mistakes, but sometimes bad things happen. If you say you didn't cut off Chad's finger, then I believe you."
Mr. Caffrey relaxed against the table, then let out a noise of distress as Cas held the knife up to the man's right hand. "I said I didn't do it!" he yelled, panicking all over again, fighting his restraints.
Cas let out a wry chuckle. "I know, Mr. Caffrey. I'm not cutting off your little finger. I'm going to cut off your ring finger."
"No! Wait! I didn't do that either!" Mr. Caffrey said just as the blade nicked the skin, a small line of blood welling up on his tanned skin.
Cas sighed, lifting the blade and leaning against the table. The handle of the knife was warm in his hand, fitting perfectly. It couldn't have fit better if it had been made just for him. Knowing Gabe, he'd had it specially made, even though his brother would never admit it. "Well, now I think you're lying."
"No, really, I'm not," Mr. Caffrey said, shaking his head as much as he could, the edges of the strap leaving red lines on his forehead. "I didn't do anything to that kid."
Cas leaned down, his face inches from Mr. Caffrey's. His expression wasn't one of anger, but instead was relaxed and uncaring, detached. It intimidated the people on his table even more, which meant more fun for Cas. Mr. Caffrey smelled of fear, an acidic quality to his sweat that turned Cas on.
"I'm here to punish you for the things you've done. You know that," Cas said softly. "Now, I personally don't like being lied to, but this isn't really about me. It's about what you did to Chad Reynolds. So I'll let that one lie slide. I can assure you, though, I'll punish you for everything you did to Chad."
"No! Please!" Mr. Caffrey said, then let out a long, agonized scream as both his little and ring fingers were cut off by the sharp blade of Cas' eight-inch knife, a few short squirts of blood coming from the stumps before they started sluggishly oozing blood onto the table. It was beautiful.
Cas waited until the man had calmed some, merely whimpering instead of screaming. "I'm not sure how sharp your knife was, but I'm pretty sure mine is sharper than the one you used on Chad. Consider it a courtesy. One you don't really deserve."
"Fuck you!" Mr. Caffrey screamed, then spit at him. A large glob of snot and spit that hit the front of Cas' plastic apron. "Fuck you, you fucking psychopath!"
"Thank you for the compliment," Cas said politely as he held the knife up, the man's blood dripping from the blade. "I'm very good at my job."
"You're sick!" Mr. Caffrey hissed, spit flying from his mouth as he spoke. "You're what's wrong with the world. Not people like me. It's you fucking psychopaths!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Cas said, smiling, "and neither does the government."
"That's because they're just as fucking psycho as the rest of you sickos in the CON," he said, defensive and scared out of his mind, lashing out in the only way he could.
Cas nodded. "It is true that we're not what you would call normal people, but the Handlers who assign us to our cases go through stringent psychological testing and regular counseling. They're also audited twice yearly. It's not easy working with people like me, but there are plenty of rewards. So no, I'd have to disagree with you on your assessment of the very fine people who run the Correctional Operations Network."
"I didn't do it," Mr. Caffrey said, giving up on attacking with his words. "I didn't hurt that kid. I never touched him. Your precious CON got it wrong."
"Oh, did you think that Cleaners like me just blindly follow the CON?" Cas asked, nose scrunched up. "Huh, well, you learn something new every day. No, Cleaners don't just take their assignments and run off to happily let our dark side out to play. We're much more meticulous and calculating than you give us credit for."
"Yeah, I'm sure," Mr. Caffrey said, voice monotone and eyes a little unfocused as the shock of his situation set in. That or he was sensitive to blood loss. He hadn't lost much. Yet.
"You can believe whatever you want to believe," Cas said, shrugging, "but the CON never found out about Rick or Brianna."
The man's eyes widened, his jaw dropping open, breath catching in his chest. "How did you find out about that?!" he asked, voice quivering. He'd already broken one blood vessel in his eye from all the screaming, the white of his eye stained a beautiful pinkish red.
"I do my own research," Cas said, giving his victim a small smile. "I don't trust anyone, even the government agency that pays my bills."
"But I... But...," the man stammered, breathing a little uneasy and ragged. "How? I got rid of everything!"
"I talked with the other dealers," Cas said, leaning in a little closer to take another whiff of that acidic fear sweat. "You hired Rick and Brianna because they were runaways. You thought no one would miss them if something went wrong on a drug deal."
"They weren't kids," Mr. Caffrey said, biting out the word like a curse.
"No, but runaways don't form many attachments, even as adults," Cas said flippantly. "Or at least that's what most people think. In fact, runaways form very strong attachments to a small group of friends. They watch out for each other and they all notice when one goes missing."
"Those fucking little vagrants? You believe the shit that comes out of their filthy mouths?" Mr. Caffrey said, almost vibrating with rage.
"If you're kind to people and feign interest in their lives," Cas said, tilting his head to the side, "they'll tell you anything you want to know."
"I didn't kill them," Mr. Caffrey said through clenched teeth, spit bubbling out from between his teeth in a way that amused Cas.
"I know," Cas said, nodding. "You made sure they knew exactly how angry you were, then you sold them."
"Are you going to sell me?" the man asked, an almost hopeful tone to his voice.
Cas chuckled, squashing that hope very quickly. "No. You won't survive everything that was done to the seven people you've hurt."
"Seven?!" the man blurted, indignant.
"The CON knew about Chad, Marissa, and Kate," Cas said, "but they won't mind if I go ahead and punish you for Rick, Brianna, Casey, and Haley too. Did I miss anyone? Feel free to tell me."
There was a momentary flash of surprise on Caffrey's face, but it quickly bled away, and the man let out a chuckle. "You've got me there. The only one you missed was my first wife. I never sent her to the hospital, but I smacked her around a lot. You fucked up and missed something in your research," he said, beyond fear and bordering on hysterical as he laughed at himself.
"Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Caffrey," Cas said, then backhanded the man across the face hard enough that a tooth was knocked loose and blood sprayed out onto the steel table. "This shouldn't take more than a few hours."
*
Cas finished cleaning up after himself, using the shower in the bathroom built onto the side of his kill room. His kill room was a very nice setup. One he wouldn't have had without backing from the government. It was conveniently fitted with a drain and power washer as well as a wide variety of tools, tables, and anything else Cas could possibly want.
Counters ran the length of two walls, an L-shape starting directly to one's left as they walked in the door, and across from the door was another smaller counter top. There were plenty of built-in drawers under the counter tops, everything raised three inches from the floor so Cas could easily clean underneath and, once the drawers were closed, the spray from the washer wouldn't penetrate the weather sealing on the drawers. There were more cabinets attached to the walls over the counter tops, slimmer cabinets that could hold smaller tools, then a locker to the right of the door that held his cleaning supplies.
He took one last look around the room, then locked the door on the way out, heading for the back door of his home naked so that he wouldn't cross-contaminate even though he was very meticulous about cleaning his kill room and likely wouldn't cross-contaminate anyway. The washer and dryer in the attached bathroom allowed him to keep everything separate from his home, where he had another washer and dryer for personal use.
Cas changed into jeans and a soft gray T-shirt before making himself a sandwich and sitting down at his desk in the office with a glass of milk. His cell phone rang, and just as he was about to hit 'ignore' he realized it was his Handler.
"Novak," Cas answered.
"Hey, Cas," Dean said, a smile evident in his tone of voice. "How'd it go?"
"It's finished," Cas said around a bite of sandwich. "I'll send the forms to you after I get done eating."
"Ooh, what'cha havin' tonight?" Dean asked, interested and enthusiastic.
"A sandwich," Cas said, more relaxed now that he'd been able to work on Caffrey for a while.
"What kind of sandwich?" Dean's voice was playful.
Cas sighed. He liked Dean, but sometimes the man was just too nosy. "Ham and cheese with lettuce and mustard."
"Sounds good," Dean said. "I had a microwave dinner. It sucked."
Cas played with the lettuce sticking out of his sandwich. Dean always tried to charm him, would ask him to dinner or try to come over with pizza and a few movies and beer, but Cas always turned him down, besides the times he occasionally ate meals in the kitchen with him.
He didn't need to form attachments, and Dean was already close enough with his breakfast sandwiches and coffee and that little thing where he was the voice in Cas' ear when he was on assignment.
"Do you have a case for me?" Cas asked, hoping to stop the small talk.
Dean chuckled. "What do you say?" he drawled.
Cas never could figure out why he felt such a flare of anger and irritation in his chest at the same time as he felt something like fondness. Or at least what others had described to him as fondness. Cas wasn't sure. It was confusing and completely unnecessary. Dean did that to him.
"Please," Cas said, patronizing his Handler.
"Even serial killers should have good manners," Dean said, and Cas could hear the grin.
Cas wondered if Dean would like to see his kill room. Up close and personal. "Are you sending the documents to me?" he asked.
"Yup, they should be in your account already," Dean nearly chirped, totally pleased with himself for getting Cas to be polite.
Cas let out another sigh as he leaned forward and grabbed his mouse, clicking his way to the CON's website and filling in his username and password. "Thank you, Dean."
"You're welcome, Hot Wings," Dean said.
"Dean, I told you not to call me-," he started, but was cut off when Dean hung up on him. Cas took a cleansing breath, forcing away the irritation, then started looking through the files Dean had dumped into his account.
Dean was the only one who could get under his skin. The only one Cas ever let get under his skin. He knew it would bite him in the ass one day, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
*
Cas slid down in the front seat of his black SUV, settling in for an evening of watching his latest case. He didn't interfere in the first few days. No matter what.
It was a job that 'normal' people just couldn't handle, and that's why the CON had been formed years ago. Someone with compassion and empathy couldn't sit there and calmly watch while a person was hurt or killed by a repeat offender or serial killer. It was human nature to try and stop it from ever happening in the first place.
That's where police, FBI, and other agencies failed. They were quick to swoop in and save people, and that's where they fucked up.
The CON wasn't in place to catch people who were simply violent or committed petty crimes. It was in place for the worst. The ones who were hard to catch, manipulative, sneaky, intelligent, and very dangerous. Those who had a high kill count.
Sending a team of trained professionals after someone like that resulted in unnecessary death, evidence was destroyed or never found, and the legal system, in their attempts to be fair, often couldn't do what was needed, especially if there was questionable evidence or defense lawyers who were too good at their jobs.
The CON was a good solution to a fucked up situation. There were serial killers in the world who not only enjoyed their profession, but they also didn't mind having cases assigned to them if it paid well and allowed them to work without threat of being thrown in prison.
Cas signed up the day he turned eighteen. Now, fifteen years later he was highly respected, got some of the most difficult cases, and had a very high success rate.
Darryl Coulter didn't know Cas was watching him, so Darryl wasn't worried about flirting with the pretty girl he wanted to take home and kill. Cas watched as Darryl smiled and laughed and bought her a nice dinner out on the patio of a nice restaurant.
Maria didn't know Cas was watching them, and she didn't know her blind date was a serial killer, so she wasn't worried about flirting back. Cas watched as she giggled, rubbed her knee against Darryl's under the table, and allowed him to feed her a few bites of steak from his fork.
Cas and Darryl knew about the drugs that had been slipped into her drink, but when Maria started to feel a little sick to her stomach, she was surprised. Cas couldn't hear either of them, but he was good at reading lips, and when Darryl offered to drive her home early, she accepted.
Her legs were wobbly, which had nothing to do with the high-heeled shoes she was wearing, but Darryl had an arm around her middle and acted the part of a concerned date, asking her if she was okay, if she minded that he put her seatbelt on for her, and he made sure her legs and arms were out of the way before closing the passenger door on his shitty old sedan.
Following them home, Cas wondered if Maria was paying attention to where Darryl was taking her, because it wasn't her neighborhood. By the time they pulled into the garage, her head was on Darryl's shoulder, and any chance she had of escaping was long gone.
Cas parked his SUV around the corner, then walked to Darryl's house. He was wearing black jeans and a black mock turtle neck that allowed him to blend into the darkness, his black boots quiet on the pavement.
It was a quiet neighborhood. Mostly young families with kids, both parents working to make ends meet, and the yards and homes were kept up as best they could given their schedules.
Darryl used his daughter's bedroom to kill. The same daughter that he no longer had custody of because his wife had left him two years ago. The separation had set him off. He'd lost it and hadn't been right since. His ex had lied in court, said awful things about him, and Darryl had watched as his little girl had waved goodbye to him for the last time.
Cas assumed that was why each of the women Darryl murdered had long, light brown hair and dark brown eyes. They looked so much like his ex-wife that Cas could have picked out Darryl's next victim for him.
Darryl's daughter looked more like her daddy. She had dark brown, almost black hair, green eyes, and was way too innocent and sweet to be left in the care of Darryl's bitch of an ex.
That wasn't Cas' business, though. Cas had been given Darryl's case, and unless he put in a special request, he had to leave the former Mrs. Coulter alone. No matter how many bruises Darryl's daughter had.
And that was another reason why the CON worked so well. Anyone with compassion or empathy would've looked at Darryl's case and felt bad for him. Sure, he was murdering women, but under the monster's shell was a broken man. A man who had been abused by his ex-wife, then had to sit by and watch as that same woman had lied about it all, taking his daughter from him. Darryl didn't know his ex was hurting their daughter, but the pain that woman had caused him was enough to break anyone who had devoted their life to their child.
Cas wasn't involved emotionally. He'd like to get his hands on the former Mrs. Coulter, but not out of some sense of revenge or anger. And he wasn't after Darryl for those reasons either. Emotions didn't trip him up or get in the way, and it made Cas good at what he did. It made all the Cleaners in the CON good at what they did.
The light came on in the daughter's room, and Cas backed up against the fence in the back yard, able to see fairly well through the window. He'd researched and learned all he could from Darryl's files, as had Dean, but files couldn't tell him how Darryl's brain worked. That was something Cas needed to see first-hand.
Darryl was carrying the woman. She was drowsy and mostly limp, one high-heeled shoe having fallen off sometime after pulling her out of the car, but she wasn't unconscious. He dropped her onto the bed and started undressing her. There was nothing sexual about what Darryl did, Cas knew, but what he wasn't sure of was the reason the women never had their own clothes on when the police found them.
Cas watched as Darryl left the woman naked on the bed, then walked into his own bedroom. Cas crept around the corner of the house so he could look in Darryl's bedroom window. There were curtains obstructing his view for the most part, but he was able to see through the slit between the panels. Darryl opened the closet and Cas had his answer.
Darryl's ex had been a shopaholic. She hadn't bothered taking any of her clothes with her when she left. She didn't need to when she was getting alimony and child support. Darryl pulled out a short sundress that was white with little blue flowers all over it.
Instead of holding it carefully, he yanked it off the hanger and slammed the closet door shut, the waistline of the dress bunched up in his fist as he stalked back to his daughter's room.
Cas walked back around the corner in time to see Darryl putting the dress on Maria. She was confused and disoriented, but didn't have a choice in the matter as Darryl zipped up the dress. Cas noted the pretty red nipple rings she had as her breasts flopped this way and that, Darryl caring less about them than he would a casserole he was preparing in the kitchen.
Darryl was distracted by what he was doing, so Cas got closer. He could hear Maria crying, begging that he just let her go, speech slurred and voice not all that loud. It was no wonder the neighbors hadn't heard the women being killed.
"You don't get to tell me what to do anymore," Darryl said, opening the drawer of his daughter's dresser and pulling out a long rod made of wood. He kept it in a plastic bag.
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Cas had seen the pictures of the other women, and he'd seen pictures of Darryl and his wife. They had something in common. Darryl tried to hide the bruises, but sometimes his clothes didn't quite cover them. The bruises in all the pictures fit with the damage from a rod like the one Darryl was holding.
"You fucking cunt!" Darryl hissed as he brought the rod down on Maria's stomach.
She was too weak to fight, and didn't even scream with the wind knocked out of her. She curled in on herself, but it didn't stop the violence. Cas watched, taking note of the controlled way Darryl was hitting her. Each strike was planned and placed just where he wanted it to be, stopping to reposition her when she flinched or twisted enough to hide a portion of her body he wanted to hit, and Cas wondered if it was a practiced fantasy of Darryl's to do the same to his ex or if those were all the places he'd been hit.
The final strike was a blow to her head, cracking her skull open. Each strike had been exactly the same as all the photos Cas had looked at from the crime scenes. The police had no idea who Darryl was or where he killed the women. There just hadn't been enough evidence yet because the kills were done in one place and the bodies dropped at another. No witnesses. No leads. So the case had been given to Cas.
As Cas watched the man clean up, carefully pulling on gloves and wrapping her up in a bag, changing his clothes, and wiping down the entire bedroom, changing the linens on the bed, he knew the police would've never found anything. Darryl was good, but not good enough to keep under the radar of another serial killer.
Darryl left the bodies in areas where they weren't quickly found, damaging what little evidence he might have left behind. The only reason Cas had found him was because Cas' brain worked like a serial killer's. The dump sites weren't so random, and Cas waited, finally seeing the man with the last kill he'd made and following him on his winding path home.
Once Darryl was done cleaning up after Maria, Cas followed him to the new drop site, texting the address to Dean once Darryl had doused the body in a toxic mixture of bleach and ammonia, further destroying evidence as the fumes rose from her body, creating a beautiful scene.
Darryl was wearing a gas mask, and as he walked away from the body, mist rising from her, garbage and filth surrounding them in the alleyway, darkness creeping in save the moonlight hitting her body and the back wall of the complex, Cas found himself unable to look away. Darryl pulled the mask off, and the movements were practiced, easy. Cas appreciated good work, and Darryl had been fun to watch.
It was a bad section of town, and no one would dare speak up about a body left in an alleyway behind the apartments. It wouldn't have been found for a while either.
Darryl went home, had a beer, then went to bed, sleeping better than he had the night before. No tossing and turning. No pacing the house. No midnight snacks or TV watching. Darryl was calm for the time being. Until the urge flared again.
*
"How's it goin', Cas?" Dean asked, way too cheerful for seven o'clock on a Tuesday morning.
Cas turned the ear bud down just a little as he rolled over in bed. "I'm fine."
"Did I wake you up?" Dean asked.
"Yes," Cas said, and he really should've been irritated, but he wasn't.
"Well, since you weren't doing anything, you wanna go out to breakfast with me?" Dean asked, hopeful tone to his voice.
"I was doing something," Cas said, words a bit slurred because half of his face was smashed against the pillow.
"But I'm hungry," Dean whined, "and I know you are too. You spent hours last night watching Damon."
"Darryl," Cas corrected, even though he knew Dean had used the wrong name on purpose.
"Whatever," Dean said. "C'mon. I found this really quiet place that's got awesome pancakes."
Nobody knew him as well as Dean did. If anybody could get him to go out to breakfast, Dean could.
"I'm tired," Cas said, "and I'm finishing the Coulter case tonight, so I need some rest."
"You also need to have some fun," Dean insisted, "and you didn't eat yet. I can hear your stomach growling."
"No, you can't," Cas said, reaching up to end the call.
"Wait!" Dean said, as if he could see Cas getting ready to hang up on him.
"What?" Cas asked, finger hovering over the tiny button on his earbud.
"Will you eat if I bring food to your house?" Dean asked.
Cas hit the button, eyes already closed. His bed was warm, his pillow the perfect size and shape, and his blanket was soft. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep again.
"No," Cas groaned into the pillow not even thirty minutes later when he heard someone in his house.
He wasn't concerned. He knew it was Dean. Even if it wasn't, which it was, they would've made a huge mistake by breaking into a serial killer's house.
"Breakfast!" Dean said from the doorway of Cas' bedroom.
"I sleep with a gun and a knife," Cas grumbled.
"Pancakes," Dean sing-songed.
"Pancakes don't taste very good when I shove them up your ass," Cas hissed as he sat up in bed, scowling at Dean.
"Ooh, kinky," Dean said, smirking. "You're already awake, I brought pancakes and bacon and eggs and toast and fruit," he said, counting off everything on his fingers.
"Okay, okay," Cas said, sliding off the bed and walking to his en suite bathroom completely naked.
He turned just before he walked through the doorway and caught Dean checking him out.
"You also know I sleep in the nude," Cas said.
"I do," Dean said, nodding, completely shameless.
Cas rolled his eyes and walked into the bathroom. He pissed with the door open, because it was his bathroom, damn it.
"I didn't come empty-handed," Dean said.
Cas glanced at him over his shoulder. "I know. You brought food."
"No, I knew that wouldn't get you all excited," Dean said with a huff. "I brought a new case so you wouldn't slit my throat for getting you out of bed."
Cas flushed the toilet and turned to wash his hands. "Thoughtful, but I don't really feel like cleaning up all the blood this morning."
"Oh, okay, well, you still have a new case," Dean said, shrugging.
Cas brushed by Dean and grabbed his jeans, pulling them on while Dean ogled. "I'm not finished with the Coulter case. You know I only work on one case at a time."
"Yeah," Dean said, "but I think you'll like this one. And it'll give you incentive to finish Donald."
"Darryl," Cas said, pulling his biggest and oldest T-shirt over his head. It was soft and warm and had stains on it from when he was a teenager. But it was his favorite. "I don't need incentive. Unless you've forgotten, my incentive is finishing a case. You know, the whole killing part?"
Dean walked ahead of him as they went out to the kitchen, and Cas took the opportunity presented and ogled Dean's ass right back while the man was too busy watching where he was going.
"I know," Dean said, heading straight for Cas' cupboard and pulling out two plates like he owned the place, "but it's a really cool case. Something you're gonna like."
"It can wait," Cas said as he sat down at the kitchen table.
Dean sat down and set a plate in front of each of them, then started pulling boxes out of a paper bag. There were plastic sporks in the bag, but Cas hated using plastic cutlery, so he stood up and walked to the counter, grabbing two forks and two knives out of the top drawer before sitting down again.
"Not even a little hint?" Dean asked as he used a spork to pile eggs on each of their plates.
"No," Cas said, stabbing three pancakes with his real fork and dropping them onto Dean's plate before doing the same for himself.
"Okay, but I think you'd be really interested in the fact that the guy saves the left ear of all his victims," Dean teased, grinning at Cas.
He stopped grinning when Cas reached out and grabbed his neck, pulling him close, their faces so close that Cas could feel Dean's breath on his lips. Dean's eyes widened as he realized he'd pushed a little too far.
"I'll research the case when I'm done with Darryl," Cas said, voice completely calm and controlled.
"Sorry," Dean said with a sheepish look on his face, the spork in his lap along with some of the eggs that he'd been putting on Cas' plate.
Cas wondered if Dean sometimes forgot just what Cas was. He saw quite a lot and heard even more, but Dean never seemed to develop a fear of Cas. Oh, he had a healthy respect of him. If he hadn't, Dean wouldn't have lasted a week being Cas' Handler.
Dean gave him an adorably charming smile as Cas let go of him, scooping up the eggs with his spork and eating what had fallen onto his jeans.
"I got your coffee just the way you like it," Dean said, dropping the spork into the paper bag before setting a large coffee in front of Cas. "All the girly cream you can handle."
Cas wanted to punch Dean in the balls. It was a sudden urge, but he controlled himself. He pulled the top off the cup and, just like Dean had promised, he found the perfect amount of caramel macchiato. Really it was only about two tablespoons of the liquid. Cas just liked a little bit of sweetness, and Dean had watched closely the first time they'd gotten coffee at Cas' favorite little place down the street. Ever since then, Dean had gotten him coffee exactly the way Cas liked it. Not that Cas really liked coffee, but if Dean was going to buy it for him and put in some sweetness, then Cas would drink it.
"Thank you, Dean," Cas said after taking a sniff of his morning coffee.
"Eh, wasn't a problem," Dean said. "I was hungry, you were hungry, we had a late night, and I missed your face."
"You just saw me yesterday," Cas said.
Dean shrugged. "Yeah, but I had to listen to you and your heavy breathing all night."
"I don't breathe heavily," Cas said, frowning.
"I'm the guy on the other end of the microphone," Dean said, chomping on a piece of bacon. "I think I'd know if you were a heavy breather."
Cas let out a huff. "If I were that loud, I'd never be able to sneak up on anyone."
"No," Dean said, shaking his head and using a second piece of bacon to point at Cas, "you're freakishly quiet when you're hunting, like sometimes I wonder if our connection has dropped because you're just so quiet, but when you're watching someone kill? That's a totally different story. You were practically panting last night when Darryl was doin' the deed."
"No, I wasn't," Cas said, and he knew he was pouting, but he didn't care.
Dean smirked. "Okay, well, you're the guy in charge, so if you say you don't get all hot and heavy when you watch your targets doing what they do best, then you must not."
Cas ignored him. Or at least he tried to. Dean, unfortunately enough, was hard to ignore. Especially when he was grinning and self-satisfied. Cas wondered what he'd look like after an orgasm or two. Probably even more cocky than he looked the rest of the time. Bastard.
"I'm killing tonight," Cas said, changing the subject.
"Yeah, I heard you the first time," Dean said with a mouthful of food.
"Coulter is content for the time being," Cas said, "and I'd like to take him when he's still relaxed and feeling the high from his kill."
"When you wanna leave?" Dean asked as he spread some fake butter on his toast.
Cas didn't like fake butter. He could taste the chemicals in it. Thankfully, Dean had also brought some little packets of strawberry jelly. Cas squeezed them out onto his sourdough toast.
"Seven forty-five," Cas said.
"Not seven forty-nine?" Dean asked, straight-faced.
Cas got another urge. He had a lot of them when he was around Dean. Well, if he was being honest, he got a lot of urges around a lot of people, but Dean was the only one he wanted to hurt and pleasure. He hadn't fucked anyone in a long time, and even though his hand was more than enough when he felt the need to release some tension, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to make Dean scream in pain.
He wondered if Dean could come from pain like Cas could. Not many people could come from pain, and an even smaller number of people could come from the screams and struggling of another human being as they begged and cried. Cas could.
"Seven forty-five," Cas said again. "If you're late, I'll hurt you."
"Promises, promises," Dean said.
Cas didn't twist the skin of Dean's upper arm, but he really wanted to.
Chapter 2 (Coming Soon) || Master Post
Title: Part 1: Primary Deviance
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jess, John/Mary
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: NC-17/Adult/Explicit
Word Count: Chapter One 6k/Part One 75k
Media: YouTube Playlist
Alternate Link: AO3
Full List of Kinks and/or Warnings: [Spoiler (click to open)]Serial killer AU, disturbing imagery, murder, minor character death, very graphic description of violence and murder, kidnapping of adults, graphic description of various forms of torture (including chemicals, cuts, burns, bone breaking, forced feeding, electricity, etc.), humiliation, bodily fluids/bodily functions (not used in a sexual way), begging, rough sex, manhandling, anal sex, oral sex, bondage, graphic description of medical procedures used for torture, discussion of the off-screen torture and murder of animals and humans (adults and children) committed by both adults and children, homophobia (not Dean or Cas) and homophobic slurs/insults
Setting: Serial Killer AU. I've messed with ages in this fic because I wanted technology available now, but some of the characters needed to be younger.
Summary: Castiel Novak is a Cleaner. He’s one of the agency’s best. Cas and his Handler, Dean Winchester, have a high success rate in a world where the worst criminals aren’t imprisoned for their crimes, but instead are captured by licensed serial killers who dispose of them, doing what they do best while getting paid for it.
Cas doesn’t form attachments, doesn’t leave himself open for a risk like that, but Dean has wormed his way into Cas’ life and into his house, but does Dean realize what falling in love with a serial killer really means?
A/N: This is a ‘verse I’ve had expanding in my head since I was around 10 years old. About two years ago I started writing it out using Supernatural characters, and it worked out so well that I ended up writing 75k in a very short amount of time. The ‘verse is still expanding, and I’m currently at 150k with plans for more. I plan to update every Tuesday and Friday.
This ‘verse is dark and includes concepts that are very far from our social norms. Right now there are three separate parts of this ‘verse, and each part will have its own tags as there is a different subject addressed in each part. This ‘verse is meant to fuck with your head. It's also very self-indulgent.
Thanks go out to my beta Kim for help picking out things that were slowing me down (she's awesome at that) and cheerleading and discussing the 'verse with me. I want to thank outoftheashes/samanddeaninpanties, who was and continues to be an awesome cheerleader. Also royalrowena helped me with more great songs for the playlist and also encouraged me to write a serial killer AU.
Primary Deviance
The first stage in a theory of deviant identity formation. Edwin Lemert conceptualized primary deviance as engaging in the initial act of deviance.
This is very common throughout society, as everyone takes part in basic form violation. Primary deviance does not result in a person internalizing a deviant identity, so one does not alter their self-concept to include this deviant identity.
It is not until the act becomes labeled or tagged that secondary deviation may materialize.
Lemert, Edwin. 1967. Human Deviance, Social Problems and Social Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall O'Grady, William. 2011. Crime in Canadian Context. Ontario: Oxford University Press
~ + ~
Castiel picked up his favorite knife, holding it out so the overhead lighting reflected off the metal, making it shine. His big brother Gabe had given it to him for his twenty-first birthday. It was beautiful, perfectly weighted and balanced, and Cas kept it very sharp.
"I believe the next thing you did was cut off his little finger," Cas said as he walked up to the stainless steel table, which was bolted to the floor.
"No!" the man on the table yelled, squirming as he tried to get away. His brown hair was matted to his forehead, drenched in his own sweat.
The man wouldn't be able to get away. There were straps holding him down, placed strategically at his forehead, upper chest, hips, and another just above the knees along with four separate straps that held his wrists and ankles.
"Please, no," the man said, tears running down the sides of his face as he choked on his own fear. The eyebrow bar glinted in the light, and Cas wanted to pull it out, listen to the man scream.
"So you didn't cut his finger off?" Cas asked, one eyebrow arched upward. He looked the man in the eye, noticing the beautiful combination of brown with lighter yellow hues streaking through the darker color. "You did something else first?"
"I-I didn't do that," the man said, body shivering, goosebumps rising.
Cas frowned, as if he was puzzled and genuinely disappointed in the man's claims. "Mr. Caffrey, I assure you I read through your entire file and did a thorough investigation of my own. I do my best to avoid mistakes, but sometimes bad things happen. If you say you didn't cut off Chad's finger, then I believe you."
Mr. Caffrey relaxed against the table, then let out a noise of distress as Cas held the knife up to the man's right hand. "I said I didn't do it!" he yelled, panicking all over again, fighting his restraints.
Cas let out a wry chuckle. "I know, Mr. Caffrey. I'm not cutting off your little finger. I'm going to cut off your ring finger."
"No! Wait! I didn't do that either!" Mr. Caffrey said just as the blade nicked the skin, a small line of blood welling up on his tanned skin.
Cas sighed, lifting the blade and leaning against the table. The handle of the knife was warm in his hand, fitting perfectly. It couldn't have fit better if it had been made just for him. Knowing Gabe, he'd had it specially made, even though his brother would never admit it. "Well, now I think you're lying."
"No, really, I'm not," Mr. Caffrey said, shaking his head as much as he could, the edges of the strap leaving red lines on his forehead. "I didn't do anything to that kid."
Cas leaned down, his face inches from Mr. Caffrey's. His expression wasn't one of anger, but instead was relaxed and uncaring, detached. It intimidated the people on his table even more, which meant more fun for Cas. Mr. Caffrey smelled of fear, an acidic quality to his sweat that turned Cas on.
"I'm here to punish you for the things you've done. You know that," Cas said softly. "Now, I personally don't like being lied to, but this isn't really about me. It's about what you did to Chad Reynolds. So I'll let that one lie slide. I can assure you, though, I'll punish you for everything you did to Chad."
"No! Please!" Mr. Caffrey said, then let out a long, agonized scream as both his little and ring fingers were cut off by the sharp blade of Cas' eight-inch knife, a few short squirts of blood coming from the stumps before they started sluggishly oozing blood onto the table. It was beautiful.
Cas waited until the man had calmed some, merely whimpering instead of screaming. "I'm not sure how sharp your knife was, but I'm pretty sure mine is sharper than the one you used on Chad. Consider it a courtesy. One you don't really deserve."
"Fuck you!" Mr. Caffrey screamed, then spit at him. A large glob of snot and spit that hit the front of Cas' plastic apron. "Fuck you, you fucking psychopath!"
"Thank you for the compliment," Cas said politely as he held the knife up, the man's blood dripping from the blade. "I'm very good at my job."
"You're sick!" Mr. Caffrey hissed, spit flying from his mouth as he spoke. "You're what's wrong with the world. Not people like me. It's you fucking psychopaths!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Cas said, smiling, "and neither does the government."
"That's because they're just as fucking psycho as the rest of you sickos in the CON," he said, defensive and scared out of his mind, lashing out in the only way he could.
Cas nodded. "It is true that we're not what you would call normal people, but the Handlers who assign us to our cases go through stringent psychological testing and regular counseling. They're also audited twice yearly. It's not easy working with people like me, but there are plenty of rewards. So no, I'd have to disagree with you on your assessment of the very fine people who run the Correctional Operations Network."
"I didn't do it," Mr. Caffrey said, giving up on attacking with his words. "I didn't hurt that kid. I never touched him. Your precious CON got it wrong."
"Oh, did you think that Cleaners like me just blindly follow the CON?" Cas asked, nose scrunched up. "Huh, well, you learn something new every day. No, Cleaners don't just take their assignments and run off to happily let our dark side out to play. We're much more meticulous and calculating than you give us credit for."
"Yeah, I'm sure," Mr. Caffrey said, voice monotone and eyes a little unfocused as the shock of his situation set in. That or he was sensitive to blood loss. He hadn't lost much. Yet.
"You can believe whatever you want to believe," Cas said, shrugging, "but the CON never found out about Rick or Brianna."
The man's eyes widened, his jaw dropping open, breath catching in his chest. "How did you find out about that?!" he asked, voice quivering. He'd already broken one blood vessel in his eye from all the screaming, the white of his eye stained a beautiful pinkish red.
"I do my own research," Cas said, giving his victim a small smile. "I don't trust anyone, even the government agency that pays my bills."
"But I... But...," the man stammered, breathing a little uneasy and ragged. "How? I got rid of everything!"
"I talked with the other dealers," Cas said, leaning in a little closer to take another whiff of that acidic fear sweat. "You hired Rick and Brianna because they were runaways. You thought no one would miss them if something went wrong on a drug deal."
"They weren't kids," Mr. Caffrey said, biting out the word like a curse.
"No, but runaways don't form many attachments, even as adults," Cas said flippantly. "Or at least that's what most people think. In fact, runaways form very strong attachments to a small group of friends. They watch out for each other and they all notice when one goes missing."
"Those fucking little vagrants? You believe the shit that comes out of their filthy mouths?" Mr. Caffrey said, almost vibrating with rage.
"If you're kind to people and feign interest in their lives," Cas said, tilting his head to the side, "they'll tell you anything you want to know."
"I didn't kill them," Mr. Caffrey said through clenched teeth, spit bubbling out from between his teeth in a way that amused Cas.
"I know," Cas said, nodding. "You made sure they knew exactly how angry you were, then you sold them."
"Are you going to sell me?" the man asked, an almost hopeful tone to his voice.
Cas chuckled, squashing that hope very quickly. "No. You won't survive everything that was done to the seven people you've hurt."
"Seven?!" the man blurted, indignant.
"The CON knew about Chad, Marissa, and Kate," Cas said, "but they won't mind if I go ahead and punish you for Rick, Brianna, Casey, and Haley too. Did I miss anyone? Feel free to tell me."
There was a momentary flash of surprise on Caffrey's face, but it quickly bled away, and the man let out a chuckle. "You've got me there. The only one you missed was my first wife. I never sent her to the hospital, but I smacked her around a lot. You fucked up and missed something in your research," he said, beyond fear and bordering on hysterical as he laughed at himself.
"Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Caffrey," Cas said, then backhanded the man across the face hard enough that a tooth was knocked loose and blood sprayed out onto the steel table. "This shouldn't take more than a few hours."
*
Cas finished cleaning up after himself, using the shower in the bathroom built onto the side of his kill room. His kill room was a very nice setup. One he wouldn't have had without backing from the government. It was conveniently fitted with a drain and power washer as well as a wide variety of tools, tables, and anything else Cas could possibly want.
Counters ran the length of two walls, an L-shape starting directly to one's left as they walked in the door, and across from the door was another smaller counter top. There were plenty of built-in drawers under the counter tops, everything raised three inches from the floor so Cas could easily clean underneath and, once the drawers were closed, the spray from the washer wouldn't penetrate the weather sealing on the drawers. There were more cabinets attached to the walls over the counter tops, slimmer cabinets that could hold smaller tools, then a locker to the right of the door that held his cleaning supplies.
He took one last look around the room, then locked the door on the way out, heading for the back door of his home naked so that he wouldn't cross-contaminate even though he was very meticulous about cleaning his kill room and likely wouldn't cross-contaminate anyway. The washer and dryer in the attached bathroom allowed him to keep everything separate from his home, where he had another washer and dryer for personal use.
Cas changed into jeans and a soft gray T-shirt before making himself a sandwich and sitting down at his desk in the office with a glass of milk. His cell phone rang, and just as he was about to hit 'ignore' he realized it was his Handler.
"Novak," Cas answered.
"Hey, Cas," Dean said, a smile evident in his tone of voice. "How'd it go?"
"It's finished," Cas said around a bite of sandwich. "I'll send the forms to you after I get done eating."
"Ooh, what'cha havin' tonight?" Dean asked, interested and enthusiastic.
"A sandwich," Cas said, more relaxed now that he'd been able to work on Caffrey for a while.
"What kind of sandwich?" Dean's voice was playful.
Cas sighed. He liked Dean, but sometimes the man was just too nosy. "Ham and cheese with lettuce and mustard."
"Sounds good," Dean said. "I had a microwave dinner. It sucked."
Cas played with the lettuce sticking out of his sandwich. Dean always tried to charm him, would ask him to dinner or try to come over with pizza and a few movies and beer, but Cas always turned him down, besides the times he occasionally ate meals in the kitchen with him.
He didn't need to form attachments, and Dean was already close enough with his breakfast sandwiches and coffee and that little thing where he was the voice in Cas' ear when he was on assignment.
"Do you have a case for me?" Cas asked, hoping to stop the small talk.
Dean chuckled. "What do you say?" he drawled.
Cas never could figure out why he felt such a flare of anger and irritation in his chest at the same time as he felt something like fondness. Or at least what others had described to him as fondness. Cas wasn't sure. It was confusing and completely unnecessary. Dean did that to him.
"Please," Cas said, patronizing his Handler.
"Even serial killers should have good manners," Dean said, and Cas could hear the grin.
Cas wondered if Dean would like to see his kill room. Up close and personal. "Are you sending the documents to me?" he asked.
"Yup, they should be in your account already," Dean nearly chirped, totally pleased with himself for getting Cas to be polite.
Cas let out another sigh as he leaned forward and grabbed his mouse, clicking his way to the CON's website and filling in his username and password. "Thank you, Dean."
"You're welcome, Hot Wings," Dean said.
"Dean, I told you not to call me-," he started, but was cut off when Dean hung up on him. Cas took a cleansing breath, forcing away the irritation, then started looking through the files Dean had dumped into his account.
Dean was the only one who could get under his skin. The only one Cas ever let get under his skin. He knew it would bite him in the ass one day, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
*
Cas slid down in the front seat of his black SUV, settling in for an evening of watching his latest case. He didn't interfere in the first few days. No matter what.
It was a job that 'normal' people just couldn't handle, and that's why the CON had been formed years ago. Someone with compassion and empathy couldn't sit there and calmly watch while a person was hurt or killed by a repeat offender or serial killer. It was human nature to try and stop it from ever happening in the first place.
That's where police, FBI, and other agencies failed. They were quick to swoop in and save people, and that's where they fucked up.
The CON wasn't in place to catch people who were simply violent or committed petty crimes. It was in place for the worst. The ones who were hard to catch, manipulative, sneaky, intelligent, and very dangerous. Those who had a high kill count.
Sending a team of trained professionals after someone like that resulted in unnecessary death, evidence was destroyed or never found, and the legal system, in their attempts to be fair, often couldn't do what was needed, especially if there was questionable evidence or defense lawyers who were too good at their jobs.
The CON was a good solution to a fucked up situation. There were serial killers in the world who not only enjoyed their profession, but they also didn't mind having cases assigned to them if it paid well and allowed them to work without threat of being thrown in prison.
Cas signed up the day he turned eighteen. Now, fifteen years later he was highly respected, got some of the most difficult cases, and had a very high success rate.
Darryl Coulter didn't know Cas was watching him, so Darryl wasn't worried about flirting with the pretty girl he wanted to take home and kill. Cas watched as Darryl smiled and laughed and bought her a nice dinner out on the patio of a nice restaurant.
Maria didn't know Cas was watching them, and she didn't know her blind date was a serial killer, so she wasn't worried about flirting back. Cas watched as she giggled, rubbed her knee against Darryl's under the table, and allowed him to feed her a few bites of steak from his fork.
Cas and Darryl knew about the drugs that had been slipped into her drink, but when Maria started to feel a little sick to her stomach, she was surprised. Cas couldn't hear either of them, but he was good at reading lips, and when Darryl offered to drive her home early, she accepted.
Her legs were wobbly, which had nothing to do with the high-heeled shoes she was wearing, but Darryl had an arm around her middle and acted the part of a concerned date, asking her if she was okay, if she minded that he put her seatbelt on for her, and he made sure her legs and arms were out of the way before closing the passenger door on his shitty old sedan.
Following them home, Cas wondered if Maria was paying attention to where Darryl was taking her, because it wasn't her neighborhood. By the time they pulled into the garage, her head was on Darryl's shoulder, and any chance she had of escaping was long gone.
Cas parked his SUV around the corner, then walked to Darryl's house. He was wearing black jeans and a black mock turtle neck that allowed him to blend into the darkness, his black boots quiet on the pavement.
It was a quiet neighborhood. Mostly young families with kids, both parents working to make ends meet, and the yards and homes were kept up as best they could given their schedules.
Darryl used his daughter's bedroom to kill. The same daughter that he no longer had custody of because his wife had left him two years ago. The separation had set him off. He'd lost it and hadn't been right since. His ex had lied in court, said awful things about him, and Darryl had watched as his little girl had waved goodbye to him for the last time.
Cas assumed that was why each of the women Darryl murdered had long, light brown hair and dark brown eyes. They looked so much like his ex-wife that Cas could have picked out Darryl's next victim for him.
Darryl's daughter looked more like her daddy. She had dark brown, almost black hair, green eyes, and was way too innocent and sweet to be left in the care of Darryl's bitch of an ex.
That wasn't Cas' business, though. Cas had been given Darryl's case, and unless he put in a special request, he had to leave the former Mrs. Coulter alone. No matter how many bruises Darryl's daughter had.
And that was another reason why the CON worked so well. Anyone with compassion or empathy would've looked at Darryl's case and felt bad for him. Sure, he was murdering women, but under the monster's shell was a broken man. A man who had been abused by his ex-wife, then had to sit by and watch as that same woman had lied about it all, taking his daughter from him. Darryl didn't know his ex was hurting their daughter, but the pain that woman had caused him was enough to break anyone who had devoted their life to their child.
Cas wasn't involved emotionally. He'd like to get his hands on the former Mrs. Coulter, but not out of some sense of revenge or anger. And he wasn't after Darryl for those reasons either. Emotions didn't trip him up or get in the way, and it made Cas good at what he did. It made all the Cleaners in the CON good at what they did.
The light came on in the daughter's room, and Cas backed up against the fence in the back yard, able to see fairly well through the window. He'd researched and learned all he could from Darryl's files, as had Dean, but files couldn't tell him how Darryl's brain worked. That was something Cas needed to see first-hand.
Darryl was carrying the woman. She was drowsy and mostly limp, one high-heeled shoe having fallen off sometime after pulling her out of the car, but she wasn't unconscious. He dropped her onto the bed and started undressing her. There was nothing sexual about what Darryl did, Cas knew, but what he wasn't sure of was the reason the women never had their own clothes on when the police found them.
Cas watched as Darryl left the woman naked on the bed, then walked into his own bedroom. Cas crept around the corner of the house so he could look in Darryl's bedroom window. There were curtains obstructing his view for the most part, but he was able to see through the slit between the panels. Darryl opened the closet and Cas had his answer.
Darryl's ex had been a shopaholic. She hadn't bothered taking any of her clothes with her when she left. She didn't need to when she was getting alimony and child support. Darryl pulled out a short sundress that was white with little blue flowers all over it.
Instead of holding it carefully, he yanked it off the hanger and slammed the closet door shut, the waistline of the dress bunched up in his fist as he stalked back to his daughter's room.
Cas walked back around the corner in time to see Darryl putting the dress on Maria. She was confused and disoriented, but didn't have a choice in the matter as Darryl zipped up the dress. Cas noted the pretty red nipple rings she had as her breasts flopped this way and that, Darryl caring less about them than he would a casserole he was preparing in the kitchen.
Darryl was distracted by what he was doing, so Cas got closer. He could hear Maria crying, begging that he just let her go, speech slurred and voice not all that loud. It was no wonder the neighbors hadn't heard the women being killed.
"You don't get to tell me what to do anymore," Darryl said, opening the drawer of his daughter's dresser and pulling out a long rod made of wood. He kept it in a plastic bag.
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Cas had seen the pictures of the other women, and he'd seen pictures of Darryl and his wife. They had something in common. Darryl tried to hide the bruises, but sometimes his clothes didn't quite cover them. The bruises in all the pictures fit with the damage from a rod like the one Darryl was holding.
"You fucking cunt!" Darryl hissed as he brought the rod down on Maria's stomach.
She was too weak to fight, and didn't even scream with the wind knocked out of her. She curled in on herself, but it didn't stop the violence. Cas watched, taking note of the controlled way Darryl was hitting her. Each strike was planned and placed just where he wanted it to be, stopping to reposition her when she flinched or twisted enough to hide a portion of her body he wanted to hit, and Cas wondered if it was a practiced fantasy of Darryl's to do the same to his ex or if those were all the places he'd been hit.
The final strike was a blow to her head, cracking her skull open. Each strike had been exactly the same as all the photos Cas had looked at from the crime scenes. The police had no idea who Darryl was or where he killed the women. There just hadn't been enough evidence yet because the kills were done in one place and the bodies dropped at another. No witnesses. No leads. So the case had been given to Cas.
As Cas watched the man clean up, carefully pulling on gloves and wrapping her up in a bag, changing his clothes, and wiping down the entire bedroom, changing the linens on the bed, he knew the police would've never found anything. Darryl was good, but not good enough to keep under the radar of another serial killer.
Darryl left the bodies in areas where they weren't quickly found, damaging what little evidence he might have left behind. The only reason Cas had found him was because Cas' brain worked like a serial killer's. The dump sites weren't so random, and Cas waited, finally seeing the man with the last kill he'd made and following him on his winding path home.
Once Darryl was done cleaning up after Maria, Cas followed him to the new drop site, texting the address to Dean once Darryl had doused the body in a toxic mixture of bleach and ammonia, further destroying evidence as the fumes rose from her body, creating a beautiful scene.
Darryl was wearing a gas mask, and as he walked away from the body, mist rising from her, garbage and filth surrounding them in the alleyway, darkness creeping in save the moonlight hitting her body and the back wall of the complex, Cas found himself unable to look away. Darryl pulled the mask off, and the movements were practiced, easy. Cas appreciated good work, and Darryl had been fun to watch.
It was a bad section of town, and no one would dare speak up about a body left in an alleyway behind the apartments. It wouldn't have been found for a while either.
Darryl went home, had a beer, then went to bed, sleeping better than he had the night before. No tossing and turning. No pacing the house. No midnight snacks or TV watching. Darryl was calm for the time being. Until the urge flared again.
*
"How's it goin', Cas?" Dean asked, way too cheerful for seven o'clock on a Tuesday morning.
Cas turned the ear bud down just a little as he rolled over in bed. "I'm fine."
"Did I wake you up?" Dean asked.
"Yes," Cas said, and he really should've been irritated, but he wasn't.
"Well, since you weren't doing anything, you wanna go out to breakfast with me?" Dean asked, hopeful tone to his voice.
"I was doing something," Cas said, words a bit slurred because half of his face was smashed against the pillow.
"But I'm hungry," Dean whined, "and I know you are too. You spent hours last night watching Damon."
"Darryl," Cas corrected, even though he knew Dean had used the wrong name on purpose.
"Whatever," Dean said. "C'mon. I found this really quiet place that's got awesome pancakes."
Nobody knew him as well as Dean did. If anybody could get him to go out to breakfast, Dean could.
"I'm tired," Cas said, "and I'm finishing the Coulter case tonight, so I need some rest."
"You also need to have some fun," Dean insisted, "and you didn't eat yet. I can hear your stomach growling."
"No, you can't," Cas said, reaching up to end the call.
"Wait!" Dean said, as if he could see Cas getting ready to hang up on him.
"What?" Cas asked, finger hovering over the tiny button on his earbud.
"Will you eat if I bring food to your house?" Dean asked.
Cas hit the button, eyes already closed. His bed was warm, his pillow the perfect size and shape, and his blanket was soft. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep again.
"No," Cas groaned into the pillow not even thirty minutes later when he heard someone in his house.
He wasn't concerned. He knew it was Dean. Even if it wasn't, which it was, they would've made a huge mistake by breaking into a serial killer's house.
"Breakfast!" Dean said from the doorway of Cas' bedroom.
"I sleep with a gun and a knife," Cas grumbled.
"Pancakes," Dean sing-songed.
"Pancakes don't taste very good when I shove them up your ass," Cas hissed as he sat up in bed, scowling at Dean.
"Ooh, kinky," Dean said, smirking. "You're already awake, I brought pancakes and bacon and eggs and toast and fruit," he said, counting off everything on his fingers.
"Okay, okay," Cas said, sliding off the bed and walking to his en suite bathroom completely naked.
He turned just before he walked through the doorway and caught Dean checking him out.
"You also know I sleep in the nude," Cas said.
"I do," Dean said, nodding, completely shameless.
Cas rolled his eyes and walked into the bathroom. He pissed with the door open, because it was his bathroom, damn it.
"I didn't come empty-handed," Dean said.
Cas glanced at him over his shoulder. "I know. You brought food."
"No, I knew that wouldn't get you all excited," Dean said with a huff. "I brought a new case so you wouldn't slit my throat for getting you out of bed."
Cas flushed the toilet and turned to wash his hands. "Thoughtful, but I don't really feel like cleaning up all the blood this morning."
"Oh, okay, well, you still have a new case," Dean said, shrugging.
Cas brushed by Dean and grabbed his jeans, pulling them on while Dean ogled. "I'm not finished with the Coulter case. You know I only work on one case at a time."
"Yeah," Dean said, "but I think you'll like this one. And it'll give you incentive to finish Donald."
"Darryl," Cas said, pulling his biggest and oldest T-shirt over his head. It was soft and warm and had stains on it from when he was a teenager. But it was his favorite. "I don't need incentive. Unless you've forgotten, my incentive is finishing a case. You know, the whole killing part?"
Dean walked ahead of him as they went out to the kitchen, and Cas took the opportunity presented and ogled Dean's ass right back while the man was too busy watching where he was going.
"I know," Dean said, heading straight for Cas' cupboard and pulling out two plates like he owned the place, "but it's a really cool case. Something you're gonna like."
"It can wait," Cas said as he sat down at the kitchen table.
Dean sat down and set a plate in front of each of them, then started pulling boxes out of a paper bag. There were plastic sporks in the bag, but Cas hated using plastic cutlery, so he stood up and walked to the counter, grabbing two forks and two knives out of the top drawer before sitting down again.
"Not even a little hint?" Dean asked as he used a spork to pile eggs on each of their plates.
"No," Cas said, stabbing three pancakes with his real fork and dropping them onto Dean's plate before doing the same for himself.
"Okay, but I think you'd be really interested in the fact that the guy saves the left ear of all his victims," Dean teased, grinning at Cas.
He stopped grinning when Cas reached out and grabbed his neck, pulling him close, their faces so close that Cas could feel Dean's breath on his lips. Dean's eyes widened as he realized he'd pushed a little too far.
"I'll research the case when I'm done with Darryl," Cas said, voice completely calm and controlled.
"Sorry," Dean said with a sheepish look on his face, the spork in his lap along with some of the eggs that he'd been putting on Cas' plate.
Cas wondered if Dean sometimes forgot just what Cas was. He saw quite a lot and heard even more, but Dean never seemed to develop a fear of Cas. Oh, he had a healthy respect of him. If he hadn't, Dean wouldn't have lasted a week being Cas' Handler.
Dean gave him an adorably charming smile as Cas let go of him, scooping up the eggs with his spork and eating what had fallen onto his jeans.
"I got your coffee just the way you like it," Dean said, dropping the spork into the paper bag before setting a large coffee in front of Cas. "All the girly cream you can handle."
Cas wanted to punch Dean in the balls. It was a sudden urge, but he controlled himself. He pulled the top off the cup and, just like Dean had promised, he found the perfect amount of caramel macchiato. Really it was only about two tablespoons of the liquid. Cas just liked a little bit of sweetness, and Dean had watched closely the first time they'd gotten coffee at Cas' favorite little place down the street. Ever since then, Dean had gotten him coffee exactly the way Cas liked it. Not that Cas really liked coffee, but if Dean was going to buy it for him and put in some sweetness, then Cas would drink it.
"Thank you, Dean," Cas said after taking a sniff of his morning coffee.
"Eh, wasn't a problem," Dean said. "I was hungry, you were hungry, we had a late night, and I missed your face."
"You just saw me yesterday," Cas said.
Dean shrugged. "Yeah, but I had to listen to you and your heavy breathing all night."
"I don't breathe heavily," Cas said, frowning.
"I'm the guy on the other end of the microphone," Dean said, chomping on a piece of bacon. "I think I'd know if you were a heavy breather."
Cas let out a huff. "If I were that loud, I'd never be able to sneak up on anyone."
"No," Dean said, shaking his head and using a second piece of bacon to point at Cas, "you're freakishly quiet when you're hunting, like sometimes I wonder if our connection has dropped because you're just so quiet, but when you're watching someone kill? That's a totally different story. You were practically panting last night when Darryl was doin' the deed."
"No, I wasn't," Cas said, and he knew he was pouting, but he didn't care.
Dean smirked. "Okay, well, you're the guy in charge, so if you say you don't get all hot and heavy when you watch your targets doing what they do best, then you must not."
Cas ignored him. Or at least he tried to. Dean, unfortunately enough, was hard to ignore. Especially when he was grinning and self-satisfied. Cas wondered what he'd look like after an orgasm or two. Probably even more cocky than he looked the rest of the time. Bastard.
"I'm killing tonight," Cas said, changing the subject.
"Yeah, I heard you the first time," Dean said with a mouthful of food.
"Coulter is content for the time being," Cas said, "and I'd like to take him when he's still relaxed and feeling the high from his kill."
"When you wanna leave?" Dean asked as he spread some fake butter on his toast.
Cas didn't like fake butter. He could taste the chemicals in it. Thankfully, Dean had also brought some little packets of strawberry jelly. Cas squeezed them out onto his sourdough toast.
"Seven forty-five," Cas said.
"Not seven forty-nine?" Dean asked, straight-faced.
Cas got another urge. He had a lot of them when he was around Dean. Well, if he was being honest, he got a lot of urges around a lot of people, but Dean was the only one he wanted to hurt and pleasure. He hadn't fucked anyone in a long time, and even though his hand was more than enough when he felt the need to release some tension, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to make Dean scream in pain.
He wondered if Dean could come from pain like Cas could. Not many people could come from pain, and an even smaller number of people could come from the screams and struggling of another human being as they begged and cried. Cas could.
"Seven forty-five," Cas said again. "If you're late, I'll hurt you."
"Promises, promises," Dean said.
Cas didn't twist the skin of Dean's upper arm, but he really wanted to.
Chapter 2 (Coming Soon) || Master Post