Title: Our bodies, possessed by light
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~42,000
Summary: Purged of all his souls, Castiel is a changed being, stronger than an angel and too powerful for Jimmy's body to contain. Happily, there's an archangel's vessel on hand, and he could use fixing, too. Dean isn't too happy about the idea of his brother acting as a vessel for Castiel, and Sam can guess why, but it isn't until Castiel gets inside his head and they learn to share the vessel -- and their thoughts -- that Sam realises Cas is as in love with Dean as Dean is with him. It's unfortunate that there's nothing much to be done about it now, but Castiel will get another vessel soon. The Winchesters will make damn sure of that. In the meantime, it's up to the three of them to establish their own strange accord, and Dean realises more fully than ever that it's Castiel, and not his vessel, that he loves.
Warnings/Promises: This fic does contain character death (non-pairing). It does not contain Sam/Dean, Sam/Castiel, or Sam/Dean/Castiel. There is no oral-genital or genital-genital contact between Dean and Sam's body; there is no making out. However, please note that there is one scene depicting a mild sexual situation between Dean and Cas-in-Sam's body: [more explicit spoiler] there is cuddling and over-the-clothes, above-the-waist touching after a lot of UST. The result of this is dry humping at the climax of which Cas comes. There is a brief chaste kiss. Sam has consented to be Castiel's vessel and to kissing, as long as he doesn't have to hear about it, but not explicitly to anything further, which may trigger those with vessel consent issues. While my beta
qthelights didn't find her incest squick to have been hit too badly by this fic, I know that others have been triggered and I'm sorry about that and for my failure to warn correctly in the first instance. In case the specifics of the NC-17 sex scene are a dealbreaker for anyone [spoiler]: it's Dean/Misha-shaped Castiel.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to my wonderful artist,
smallworld_inc, for the huge amount of beautiful art she produced for this fic. ♥ Thank you also to my document-creepers,
qthelights,
cautionzombies,
annundriel,
hils and
oddlyfamiliar for making me feel pressured enough to keep going (♥) and to
oddlyfamiliar in particular for the beta.
Special Thanks: To
cautionzombies. ♥ This fic is for you, babe. Without Jen's constant texts, emails, GDoc comments and gchat pingings of encouragement, abuse and squee, I would never have managed to finish this. I went into this knowing that I wanted to start at point a, convey theme b and arrive eventually at point d, but without Jen, there would have been no bridge c. Or porny outtakes. I ♥ you, babe. Thank you also to
qthelights for making noises of horror when I said there wasn't going to be any sex in this at all. :P
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part one .
part two .
part three .
part four.
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outtakes (read warnings!).
PDF .
AO3 .
art post .
eta: I have altered my warnings above, but to reiterate here: I am truly sorry if my failure to warn correctly in the first instance led anyone to be triggered by this fic. It was not my intention to distress anyone, and I fully appreciate that I have done so.