Come to Me 5-6
Title: Come to Me Chapter 5-6
Author: Radioheading
Rating: PG-13, for now.
Genre: Very, very AU
Spoilers:None
Warnings: Unbeta'd
Word Count: 3457
Summary: Dean and Sam aren't hunters but normal, average men. Dean is floundering in his life, moving through the days with no real reason to look forward to the future. He is alone, lonely. But a chance meeting changes that, begins a relationship that will reveal his life as he knows it as a lie. This is the story of how Dean met Castiel.
Acting out of instinct, Dean tries to back up as Castiel pushes closer, tries to add space between them but his body isn't his right now, isn't listening to the impulses shooting violently up his spinal cord, urgent as rapid clicks of Morse code. He throws himself against the stiff reigns that hold him hostage, scratching at the walls of his own mind, trying to force his way back into control so he can end this nightmare.
Shhhh, Dean. Castiel's voice undulates inside him, the strong ring of a bell in a clear sky, the unexpected heat of the sun on an autumn day. It's a slick like black cherry, rich and a little dark and it makes Dean want to let go, makes him want to give himself over to the other man, but his fear keeps him sharp, suspicious, able to resist the draw.
Let me go. If you care about me at all, you'll let me go.
Dean can almost feel the flicker of doubt and regret that passes through Castiel; the other man's face pinches, all regret and urgency but then falls back into a quiet neutrality, a shroud to hide the truth behind.
“I'm sorry Dean,” he hears, and then there's a quick flash of movement, one that's forgotten in the next instant because a tidal wave crashes over him, a suffocating blow that makes his body jerk and shake like a puppet attached to the careless hands of a child. His arms and legs twitch this way and that, sick, cartoonish movements he only vaguely feels as a purer, truer torture takes over, one that's centered on his back. It heaves with exertion, a stretching and snapping feeling that can only be his spine bending before breaking. The slow build of tension, the bend of bones in the wrong direction makes each beat of his heart a task barely worth doing; every second brings a new wave of hot-sick pain and a rise of bile in his throat.
Help is all he can think, God help please dying stop help, patterns that ask for one thing, for the cessation of this burden, this punishment. Because it must be a punishment. Nothing good can come from feeling like a guitar string ripping away from its frets. His breaths come with licks of acid accompanying the air, stripping a throat that reverberates with moans, mewls as his chest rises and falls and he's not sure he can keep going because it's not worth it and maybe suffocating wouldn't be so bad, would make everything stop and that's all he wants, all he needs.
“I have to turn you over, Dean,” Castiel says voice thick as old-fashioned oatmeal, heavy and so sorry, though he doesn't pay attention until he's being touched. The grip is light but it's worse than knives digging into his skin, though it only gets worse when he's laid onto his stomach, when his cheek touches the cool wood of the floor beneath him and the pressure moves to his back, where Castiel's hands rub up and down between his shoulders. All Dean knows next is that he's screaming with his entire body, muscles contracting, blood boiling, back arching like he's possessed, trying to get away from the other man's touch. But then he's pressed down, hips and arms restrained, leaving his head free to bang on the floor, pitiful sobs and gasps punctuating the dull thumps.
“Gotta tear your shirt.” Castiel mumbles, mostly to himself. A second later Dean hears the scrunching noise of fabric tearing and finds a note of relief in it, the air of the room cool on his skin, the pressure of the shirt against his back gone.
Dean, Castiel's voice is the shaky gravel of tears held back, a rushed heartbeat wrapped in desperation and it's reaching for him, pushing past the physical to echo in his core. Please let me help you, please. Dean imagines Castiel with clasped hands and begging eyes opened wide. Just let me in.
Dean doesn't know how to do what Castiel's asking-how does he let go of something that's consuming him, cell by cell? But he knows he's clinging tightly to fear, to the anger of having been fooled, somehow.
Help me, Dean thinks, and this time it's an invitation, a door held open to let Castiel pass through. Relief begins to drip through a part of him he can't explain,, warm droplets that feel like rain on a summer night, each trickle clearing a path through the torture-crack an egg on your head, let the yolk dribble down...the schoolyard chant comes back to him in his delirium, memories of giving others chills, the pebbled skin of goosebumps raised by light touches and the slight scrape of nails-until a dam bursts and ice seems to flow through him, soothing the misfiring nerves inundated with messages of pain. But he can't relax even as the worst of it is over, can't let it sneak up on him again because he's sure, so sure that it's going to come back, that it's going to trap him again and tear his insides apart until he's gone completely. He's still whimpering, trembling, but he's so far gone that shame seems like an abstract concept, something that has nothing to do with him, not when he's been screwed into a vice and crushed only to come out on the other side, if just barely. His eyelids seem to weigh more than theater drapes, the thin skin drooping down to let his lashes brush his cheeks, insistent upon carting him off somewhere where the pain can't follow if it's still chasing him.
The hands on his back have other ideas in mind, though. Because now they're rubbing hard, pressing and kneading every taffy-limp muscle, spreading warmth that makes Dean hiss out air through his teeth, a compliment to the massage that seems to be...coaxing, ushering his body to react. Castiel's hands just dig deeper as he uses more of his strength. It's then that Dean notices the other man is straddling him, legs bent on either side, framing his waist.
“Good, Dean. Just breathe for me.” Somehow, Castiel's words aren't patronizing. The inflection of his voice isn't that used to soothe a wild animal on the brink of a violent outburst; this is to keep him from tearing himself apart, from letting fear's shivered breath back in, carrying with it the heart-stopping pain he'd just been rescued from.
“S'happening?” Dean asks, even as his still-fresh epiphany fills in the blanks, pointing out the silver-soft hollow-boned limbs he can faintly hear now, rustling on either side of him, a gentle shushing that makes him think of his mother, the way she'd rub his back, so like the way Castiel is now, after he'd woken screaming from nightmares that felt more real than his own reality.
“They're coming out,” he says, and Dean's thankful because Castiel doesn't say wings, maybe sort of gets that Dean's a heartbeat away from losing his shit completely, that a single word could push him over that crumbling edge. He grits his teeth, squeezes his eyes shut and feels the warmth of tears track down his face as he digs his teeth into his lip in an effort to keep silent, to muffle the scraping twist of his soul as it cracks within him. He's vulnerable as a newborn, powerless, a fact that digs deep into the quiet pride he's always carried in his capable body and agile mind because neither can help him now. He can't outrun this metamorphosis, can't outsmart it. He's stuck in its throes, bobbing in the waves of the change, just trying to keep his head above water long enough to survive. Questions build in him like a traffic jam, whys and hows and the stomach-dropping fact that nothing will ever be the same, that he's strange and different and maybe not even human. In the time it takes to hitch in a breath, Dean's life is reduced to a lie, thirty years of role-playing, of waiting for a truth he didn't even know existed.
But dwelling isn't an option, not when there's something new happening, a building, frenzied warmth, an electric charge that works its way through veins and cells and move down to the smallest parts of him, awakening dormant genes, shifting what is into what should be. Dean's back is twitching, feels like the first stretch after waking, pleasure streamed with the ache of sleep-stiffened muscles. There's a sick sound, like the crack of an egg only now it's combined with the snap of breaking skin and something heavy falls onto his back, plastering itself there warm and sticky and wrong, and then it happens again and the sensation flares, sending him so high the blackness behind his closed eyes bursts with shapes and sparks of color, each the roll of something new through him, ecstasy and quickened breath after a kiss and waking up with the sun on his face, seconds of perfection where thought stops, problems fall away and nothing matters because all he can feel is hope. But highs don't last long, and though the aftertaste of it is still on his tongue, flooding his senses, Dean can't help but gather himself and step back down to the ground.
With strength he doesn't have, Dean reaches in front of him with shaking arms, looking to pull himself forward, to crawl to the bathroom door that's only a few feet away. His effort is hampered in that Castiel is still kneeling over him, his legs holding Dean's hips in place.
“Get off me.” He tries for threatening, but his bare bones voice is barely a rasp. The things on his back shudder, half-adhered by whatever they're covered in. Their movement, the reminder that they're there at all makes a bloom of anger crack open inside Dean, jagged and insistent. It fuels him, helps his legs find enough purchase to kick and buck until he bears no burden. He half-drags himself to the bathroom, grips the cool porcelain of the sink there and pulls himself up with shaking arms onto legs that threaten to buckle under his weight. But when he does fall, it's not from weakness. He barely feels the impact as he smacks his new appendage (wing, a nasty little voice chimes) on the side of the tub before landing on it. Nothing can touch him, not now. Not after what he's just seen of himself.
His reflection, a reverse of his likeness trapped by a pane of glass, is that of a man in shock. His skin is pale and one side of his face is plastered with blood, the same liquid that coats the wings, the wings that rise easily behind him, arching out above his head even when folded. They're huge, a steel sort of silver, maybe. He can't quite tell because of the blood that covers them, wetting them down so they stick in clumps, ragged-looking and rough. He can't stop looking at them, staring past his own face, the wide-blown pupils and the death mask of fear that grips his lips tight, thinning them into a line barely differentiated from the rest of his skin. The wings aren't heavy but awkward, pull him out at strange angles and knock off his balance, and when he sees them twitch again, looking like they're trying to get comfortable, to find an easier place against him and he feels it, the new sinews and tendons in his back adjusting, his world jumps its rails and he's losing grip, falling through air that's too thin to catch him.
Castiel's hands are on him before he even hears the man approach. He's sliding his fingers over the wing Dean fell on, pushing past feathers into down and skin and bone. Dean feels every touch, every tingle and drag that set his teeth on edge, desire beginning to burn down low.
“Get away from me,” he pushes Castiel's hands away, cheeks burning. He's not getting off on this, not getting turned on by things that shouldn't fucking exist. “You're a monster,” he spits, watching the concerned frown on Castiel's face bleed into hurt, a quick flash of surprise in eyes that soften again quickly. But it's there, and now Dean knows how to cut, where to stab. “And you've turned me into one too.”
Castiel opens his mouth to protest, to try and fix this whole thing, but Dean's not ready to deal with it, with any of it. “Did I walk right into it? Did you have fun seducing me, turning me into a fucking freak?”
“I just want to help you,” Castiel says, drawing closer, hands outstretched to take Dean into his arms. But Dean's done, and though he knows, somehow, that this isn't Castiel's fault, that he's burning his only bridge, he can't stop.
“I don't want your help. I want you to walk out of my door and never come back.”
“Dean, I can't leave you like this,” his eyes are wide with appeal, the need to make Dean use sense, to understand that he can't do this alone.
“Then you shouldn't have done this to me, huh?” There's no warmth left in him. His wings flutter again, moving forward to curl around his body, to hide him from the world but he beats them back savagely, ripping out clumps of blood-slicked feathers.
“Get out!” Panic is close but anger blinds it for the moment, a band-aid working to hold back a flood.
This time, Castiel listens.
***
Red circles the drain, dark-cherry colored water painted by Dean's blood, liquid that's running down the wings in rivulets, trickles of a life falling away-because his life is over, really. What kind of normalcy can he find when he's got-when he's not a person anymore? He scrubs the wing he's got stretched in front of him harder, swallowing the responding pain down. He wants to hurt, wants to tear the things apart, get them off of him; all they are is proof that his body isn't his own anymore. It's funny, though, that when he touches the new limbs gently, straightening the patterns of down and feathers, it doesn't feel like it did when Castiel touched them. It's pleasant, like hair being stroked, but nothing like the shock of lust-need that had taken hold of him under the other man's hands.
Castiel's face flashes in front of his eyes, the hurt in those drowning-pool eyes as he'd turned on his heel and left the apartment. It's getting harder to convince himself that this is all Castiel's fault, though he holds onto the assumption, keeps it close to his heart where it sits like ice, soaking in the warmth of his body in favor of a cold front, an impenetrable wall.
When the water's lukewarm and the last of the red has trickled down the drain, Dean turns the shower off and steps out, toweling off his dripping body. The wings rustle behind him, and like a sneeze, he only knows what's coming a moment before it happens. They extend on their own, snapping open, knocking into either wall before shaking back and forth, the picture of a dog after it steps out of a lake. When it's over, he's soaked again, as is the rest of the bathroom, and the wings are folded against him again, neatly tucked like they'd never been out. Dean stares at his crumpled pants on the floor, the red-soaked waist of the denim.
What would have happened if he hadn't have been here? Something like his conscience asks, disappointment and guilt clinging to the thought. Would you have survived? He seems himself on the floor again, howling like a man possessed, twisting and turning in an attempt to stave off the insanity that comes with all-consuming pain. You've sent away the only person who can help you, you ungrateful idiot.
He's rescued from himself by a sharp knock on the door, one that has his heart in his throat, a name forming on his lips.
“Dean?” a voice calls, a voice that certainly isn't the light gravel of Castiel's own.
“Dean, let me in.”
Sam. It's Sam.
***Chapter 6***
The next sound Dean hears is the terrifying metal glide of a key finding its way into a lock, because of course he has a spare hidden in the most obvious place possible, taped to the top of the door frame. He's sure the tape must be gummy with age now, barely sticking to the wood for all the dust that's collected there since he moved in years ago.
Dean barely has time to think, to let loose an errant Fuck before the door swings open and Sam's barreling through the entryway, eyes wide and searching, scanning the floors.
He's looking for a body, Dean knows, somehow, an instinct that makes him speak up, makes him scrape the gravel from his throat so he can rustle a shadow of his voice, what's hasn't been lost to the power of his screams just a few hours ago.
“Sammy,” he whispers as his brother rounds the corner, almost stumbling into him. But it's dark, so his brother stops short, squints at him in the darkness and his color, that warm amber, streaks crimson with confusion, one that matches his tone of voice when he calls Dean's name in the dark.
“Dean?” Sam's voice shakes, a tremor of black-tinged fear, the kind that shouldn't drip easily from the tones of a six-foot-three man who knows how to handle himself. But it does, and the oily trail of that fear permeates the hallway, hangs heavy on Dean's skin like a film of dust so he has to force himself to breathe, to draw air in even as it makes him gag on its way down. The wings twitch, rustling and stretching forward, extending at the tips, straining to make contact with Sam. Dean jerks, stumbling back a few steps, horrified. But he can all but hear Sam's unease and it's calling to him, asking him to make it right, to make it better.
“Dean,” Sam says again, but now it's punctuated with a scrabbling sound, the scratch of fingers against a wall, moving up and down, an audible search that's halted by a plastic flick, one that's followed a split second later by a flood of yellow light, the paltry glow of a low-watt bulb. But it's more than enough to display the change that's overtaken his body, the new additions that seem to have a will of their own. Even now, as Dean's eyes widen and he tries to retreat further, they're going against him, pushing forward as he pulls back.
“Sam,” his own voice is husky, strained as his gaze slides to the floor, avoiding the horror he's sure must be twisting his brother's expression, pulling at pronounced lips, arching eyebrows down until they almost hide the hazel irises below. Dean waits for his brother to react, to shout sharp-angled words made to cut, to hurl acid on vulnerability he can't hide, a form his body can't deny. His muscles tense, readying themselves for the fallout of rejection, the label of 'monster' that's sure to be laid down. The wings flutter-shudder like a cold breeze had been swept over them, through them. They stop grasping forward, fall still before sweeping back, wrapping around his chest like Kevlar around his heart, protection cocooning around the exposure of flesh, and even more than that, his soul. Because he's laid bare now, secrets bleeding into the air like a wound that can't be staunched, privacy, normalcy now forgotten things he flies by like the painted lines of a road, gunning ever forward.
“Dean,” Sam says again, a dry-swallow chopping his name in half, an awkward human noise that has him snorting at his younger brother, even as he continues to try and form a functional sentence.
“Are-Dean, are those-”
“Wings, Sammy?” Dean interrupts, gaze jerking up to pinpoint Sam's reaction, to try to nail down the mottled tones of Sam's color, the veiled emotions in his eyes. “Looks like it, huh?”
“Oh, God,” Sam's mouth stays slack as he takes the wings in, tracing their lines. Dean watches his brother's eyes tick back and forth, as he forgets himself and reaches out to touch, to brush his fingers through and make sure his mind isn't tricking him, that this isn't the result of chemicals going haywire. And then the feathers are twitching under Sam's palms, itching to open, to welcome. They slide open, now that they seem to know that there's no threat, spreading behind him. It feels like the nimble tingle of a hairdresser carding through wet locks about to be shorn, nothing more; what Cas evoked when he'd laid his hands on the wings was something older, something unnerving, powerful as a tornado's pull.
“Holy shit, Dean.” Sam's collecting himself now, his body easing its way through the first part of shock, adrenaline cutting out of the blood even as it leaves the mind sharp, ready to examine every angle, to look at the problem until it's solved. But Dean's pretty certain there's no solving this, no easy way to explain spontaneous wing growth without being carted away and experimented on by lab-coat bedecked gawkers, proverbial kids a scientific candy store.
“Don't freak out, Sam,” Dean knows it's a lot to ask, but he's in over his head and the waters of panic are rising, rushing to slip over his head and extinguish the last bit of control that still burns inside, the animal snarl of self-preservation that's barely holding him steady. But his brother doesn't let go, keeps his hand buried in the feathers and down of the wing he's gripping and just stays, motionless, waiting for Dean to start, to try to explain what's happened. Sam burns bright, his stare no match for the sunset shock of gold hovering just above his skin, the outpouring of his soul as it spreads over Dean, protective, worried, but most of all amazed, somehow euphoric.
“It was just bruising at first,” Dean starts, allowing the words to flow out, a trickle at first that begins to crack the foundation of doubt and denial he'd built so high inside, washing it away like sand.
“He said he just wanted to help me through it ,” he gulps around the weight of the words, the way they chip at his teeth like a mouth full of gravel. Because he's not even talking to Sam anymore, doesn't blink when his eyes glaze over, unseeing. There's a picture held carefully in his mind of the man who should be there, who should be the one next to him, holding onto him.
“And I think I believe him.”
***
“But you don't know him, Dean.” Sam's incredulity is thick like concrete as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I mean, we don't even know what this...” Sam gestures awkwardly at the wings that have folded neatly behind Dean's back, loses his smooth stream of thought as he tries to duck around the elephant in the room. The whir of Sam's racing mind is almost audible, a circling shark working over the facts and figures. But this isn't a car accident, a 'his breaks failed, I couldn't swerve' retracing of events, a division of blame and guilt. This bends time and space and breaks every rule Dean knows-including, maybe, gravity. For a split second, he sees himself in the sky, the wings wide and free, balancing and banking easily, supporting him with ease legs will never know. They flex in response, a little jerk of aching muscles, tendons and tissue that weren't there yesterday.
“I do know, Sam.” He drags his hands through his hair, over his forehead. “There's something in me that just knows he was just trying to help.”
“But what if he put that there? What if it's just a result of what he did to you?”
“God, Sam!” He vaults up from the backwards chair he'd been straddling awkwardly, wicker seams leaving their intricate patterns of long lines and s curves in his arms. Sam's color flares, mimicking the quick wince that pulls his lips thin.
“You've always been a good judge of character, Dean.” Sam assures quickly, trying to gloss over the implications he'd laid down, unconscious suspicions of Dean himself, whether the change had left him the same or if he'd been twisted by it, molded into something new, something darker. And then Sam's looking at him but closer, head tilting, new light behind irises that have spots of blue and white in them, minute splatter-painting patterns Dean had never noticed before. Because he'd never been able to see them before, especially not from across the room. His fingers busy themselves with rubbing the impressions on his skin away, a nice, human distraction that lets him hide from Sam's probing gaze and his own screaming mind. But he isn't allowed to drift away for long because Sam speaks again, says something that cuts through the beginnings of his meltdown.
“Colors.”
It's only two syllables, an innocuous little word, but it manages to slice through Dean, tripping the breath he takes, making him choke on it.
“You remember. God, you were so little.”
“I-pieces, Dean. But that was-can you still?”
“It came back a few days ago.” Dean sags back into the chair, so tired suddenly at admitting that there's more, that the wings aren't all. That his sight is getting too sharp, that he sees things, maybe the souls of people-and if that's true, what is he? But as he sits there, the world pressing down on his shoulders, making the wings droop to the floor, he remembers in a flash, a word that rolls over his tongue, past his lips so quietly Sam has to lean forward, has to ask Dean to repeat himself, though he doesn't bother, is too busy getting up to go to his desk and tap furiously at the keypad of his computer until it wakes up beneath the impatient jabbing. Opening the internet, he types a word into the search bar and holds his breath. He clicks on the first link because Wikipedia has yet to fail him, and reads silently until he feels Sam's breath on his shoulder, the echo of words moving out loud.
“When the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them... They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
“Nephilim,” Dean says, finishing the thought, solidifying, naming himself as best he can. “I...heard it, in my dreams, I think.”
“But that means that mom-”
“I'm not seeing another explanation, Sammy, unless you can rationalize why a perfectly normal human would grow wings and see auras, or whatever the fuck they are.” Dean sighs as a flicker of curiosity alights over Sam's face before his expression smooths back into practiced neutrality. Who does he think he's fooling? If Dean could read people before, their tells are flashing lights now, red flags waving in the wind caught with no effort, no analysis needed.
“It's like a bronze-gold. It's nice, ok?” He watches his brother pretend not to care, though he can't help the pleased smile that ghosts over his lips, pulling them up slightly at the corners.
“Such a girl,” he mumbles, though now he's smiling too because this feels normal, not forced, and for a split second he feels like maybe things could be ok. Maybe.
“Jerk,” Sam shoots back, though the fact that he's now grinning so wide his face may be in danger of cracking undermines the insult somewhat. They lapse into silence together, turning back to the computer to read the rest. Sam turns back to the living room when he's finished but Dean catches his wrist, pulls him back before he can very far.
“Stay still for a second,” he orders, releasing his grip on Sam's wrist, though he doesn't move away completely. “Just hold your hand out.” Dean chews his bottom lip, dimpling indentations into the skin, though it doesn't hurt. Not like it should. He flicks the thought away, though, and takes a breath before he runs his hand over the Sam's color, dragging tapered fingers through the thick shine, the buzzing warmth it holds. It reacts like seaweed in water, pulsing away before drawing back, wrapping around his digits lightly, a static-cling tangle that tickles slightly. He's too busy toying with the strange light heat feeling of it, the deep calm he's suddenly filled with, trails of trust and love and loyalty following close behind, to hear the stutter-gasp that gurgles from Sam's throat. He does manage to catch his brother as his knees give way, though, saving him from the unforgiving wood of the floor beneath.
“I think I understand,” Sam says, face flushed, eying the wings, which have flinched out, flexing to keep Dean balanced.
“What are you talking about?” Dean's heart stomps inside his chest, guilt and anger at his own curiosity bubbling like bile. He'd experimented on his brother, hurt him without trying.
“No,” Sam says firmly, seemingly reading his mind. “It-you're good, Dean. I haven't felt that-” His tongue snakes out to moisten his lips, eyes tracking up, to the right, looking for the words to try and communicate what's going on inside, what Dean's done to him. For him. “Light,” he decides. “I haven't felt that light since I was a kid. Since before mom died.” He grabs Dean's arms harder, bracing himself against his brother, a half-embrace of a strange absolution, leaving the past to fold itself away neatly, to move forward into the future born anew. Dean feels it, the connection as it opens, the love of a brother stronger than most, strength stemming from the determination he'd had to stay, to raise Sam after their Dad's heart finally gave, when he finally followed their mother to wherever people go when they leave this world. Dean's touching his hair, snaking his hand around to pat a too-broad back. “Sammy, it's ok.”
His brother clears his throat, gathers his too-long limbs and sniffles quickly before swiping a hand across his cheeks.
“This is so fucking big, Dean.” Sam rubs his fingers together, smearing the tears into his skin until the salt's absorbed again, pushed back into cells, collected and replaced.
“I know.” He shakes his head, lashes splaying against his cheeks, trying to find solace in the blackness behind his eyelids. “I know.”
It's a good moment, a quiet one that neither will speak of again because it's too raw and open, like muscle and blood in open air; it doesn't belong, doesn't make sense to dwell on, and so the fact that Dean's stomach rumbles, or, as Sam says, “has a mini earthquake,” might just be a blessing in disguise. Sam's sent to get food and groceries, since Dean's apartment is all but bare and he's pretty sure he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
But ten minutes or so after Sam leaves, Dean hears the door open again, footfalls echoing across the entryway.
“Hey,” he says absently, gaze still trained on his laptop, scrolling pages of conflicting information. “Did you forget something?”
“Dean Winchester?” a voice asks, an unfamiliar drawl of silk and velvet, cocky confidence. His head snaps toward the sound, eyes more whites than iris as he stares at the unfamiliar man standing casually in his living room, hands curved through the belt loops of his jeans. He's not a large man, definitely shorter than Dean himself, but there's something electric about him, a powerful warning that screams 'do not fuck with me.'
“Who are you?” Dean stammers, the stupid wings snapping out, trying to spread into a threat, but all he knows is that they're evidence, that this stranger is now more dangerous than ever and oh, fuck, what if he has a camera?
“What are you doing in my house?” Dean growls, though the threat falls flat and he knows it.
“You don't know me,” the stranger says, gold-brown eyes glinting under the soft light of the apartment. A familiar rustle sounds then, a raincoat glide that manifests itself in wings larger than Dean's own, the shade close to the man's eyes, tawny and almost hawk-like. He smiles at Dean's shock, an amused grin that is anything but full of mirth.
“But we need to talk.”
Author: Radioheading
Rating: PG-13, for now.
Genre: Very, very AU
Spoilers:None
Warnings: Unbeta'd
Word Count: 3457
Summary: Dean and Sam aren't hunters but normal, average men. Dean is floundering in his life, moving through the days with no real reason to look forward to the future. He is alone, lonely. But a chance meeting changes that, begins a relationship that will reveal his life as he knows it as a lie. This is the story of how Dean met Castiel.
Acting out of instinct, Dean tries to back up as Castiel pushes closer, tries to add space between them but his body isn't his right now, isn't listening to the impulses shooting violently up his spinal cord, urgent as rapid clicks of Morse code. He throws himself against the stiff reigns that hold him hostage, scratching at the walls of his own mind, trying to force his way back into control so he can end this nightmare.
Shhhh, Dean. Castiel's voice undulates inside him, the strong ring of a bell in a clear sky, the unexpected heat of the sun on an autumn day. It's a slick like black cherry, rich and a little dark and it makes Dean want to let go, makes him want to give himself over to the other man, but his fear keeps him sharp, suspicious, able to resist the draw.
Let me go. If you care about me at all, you'll let me go.
Dean can almost feel the flicker of doubt and regret that passes through Castiel; the other man's face pinches, all regret and urgency but then falls back into a quiet neutrality, a shroud to hide the truth behind.
“I'm sorry Dean,” he hears, and then there's a quick flash of movement, one that's forgotten in the next instant because a tidal wave crashes over him, a suffocating blow that makes his body jerk and shake like a puppet attached to the careless hands of a child. His arms and legs twitch this way and that, sick, cartoonish movements he only vaguely feels as a purer, truer torture takes over, one that's centered on his back. It heaves with exertion, a stretching and snapping feeling that can only be his spine bending before breaking. The slow build of tension, the bend of bones in the wrong direction makes each beat of his heart a task barely worth doing; every second brings a new wave of hot-sick pain and a rise of bile in his throat.
Help is all he can think, God help please dying stop help, patterns that ask for one thing, for the cessation of this burden, this punishment. Because it must be a punishment. Nothing good can come from feeling like a guitar string ripping away from its frets. His breaths come with licks of acid accompanying the air, stripping a throat that reverberates with moans, mewls as his chest rises and falls and he's not sure he can keep going because it's not worth it and maybe suffocating wouldn't be so bad, would make everything stop and that's all he wants, all he needs.
“I have to turn you over, Dean,” Castiel says voice thick as old-fashioned oatmeal, heavy and so sorry, though he doesn't pay attention until he's being touched. The grip is light but it's worse than knives digging into his skin, though it only gets worse when he's laid onto his stomach, when his cheek touches the cool wood of the floor beneath him and the pressure moves to his back, where Castiel's hands rub up and down between his shoulders. All Dean knows next is that he's screaming with his entire body, muscles contracting, blood boiling, back arching like he's possessed, trying to get away from the other man's touch. But then he's pressed down, hips and arms restrained, leaving his head free to bang on the floor, pitiful sobs and gasps punctuating the dull thumps.
“Gotta tear your shirt.” Castiel mumbles, mostly to himself. A second later Dean hears the scrunching noise of fabric tearing and finds a note of relief in it, the air of the room cool on his skin, the pressure of the shirt against his back gone.
Dean, Castiel's voice is the shaky gravel of tears held back, a rushed heartbeat wrapped in desperation and it's reaching for him, pushing past the physical to echo in his core. Please let me help you, please. Dean imagines Castiel with clasped hands and begging eyes opened wide. Just let me in.
Dean doesn't know how to do what Castiel's asking-how does he let go of something that's consuming him, cell by cell? But he knows he's clinging tightly to fear, to the anger of having been fooled, somehow.
Help me, Dean thinks, and this time it's an invitation, a door held open to let Castiel pass through. Relief begins to drip through a part of him he can't explain,, warm droplets that feel like rain on a summer night, each trickle clearing a path through the torture-crack an egg on your head, let the yolk dribble down...the schoolyard chant comes back to him in his delirium, memories of giving others chills, the pebbled skin of goosebumps raised by light touches and the slight scrape of nails-until a dam bursts and ice seems to flow through him, soothing the misfiring nerves inundated with messages of pain. But he can't relax even as the worst of it is over, can't let it sneak up on him again because he's sure, so sure that it's going to come back, that it's going to trap him again and tear his insides apart until he's gone completely. He's still whimpering, trembling, but he's so far gone that shame seems like an abstract concept, something that has nothing to do with him, not when he's been screwed into a vice and crushed only to come out on the other side, if just barely. His eyelids seem to weigh more than theater drapes, the thin skin drooping down to let his lashes brush his cheeks, insistent upon carting him off somewhere where the pain can't follow if it's still chasing him.
The hands on his back have other ideas in mind, though. Because now they're rubbing hard, pressing and kneading every taffy-limp muscle, spreading warmth that makes Dean hiss out air through his teeth, a compliment to the massage that seems to be...coaxing, ushering his body to react. Castiel's hands just dig deeper as he uses more of his strength. It's then that Dean notices the other man is straddling him, legs bent on either side, framing his waist.
“Good, Dean. Just breathe for me.” Somehow, Castiel's words aren't patronizing. The inflection of his voice isn't that used to soothe a wild animal on the brink of a violent outburst; this is to keep him from tearing himself apart, from letting fear's shivered breath back in, carrying with it the heart-stopping pain he'd just been rescued from.
“S'happening?” Dean asks, even as his still-fresh epiphany fills in the blanks, pointing out the silver-soft hollow-boned limbs he can faintly hear now, rustling on either side of him, a gentle shushing that makes him think of his mother, the way she'd rub his back, so like the way Castiel is now, after he'd woken screaming from nightmares that felt more real than his own reality.
“They're coming out,” he says, and Dean's thankful because Castiel doesn't say wings, maybe sort of gets that Dean's a heartbeat away from losing his shit completely, that a single word could push him over that crumbling edge. He grits his teeth, squeezes his eyes shut and feels the warmth of tears track down his face as he digs his teeth into his lip in an effort to keep silent, to muffle the scraping twist of his soul as it cracks within him. He's vulnerable as a newborn, powerless, a fact that digs deep into the quiet pride he's always carried in his capable body and agile mind because neither can help him now. He can't outrun this metamorphosis, can't outsmart it. He's stuck in its throes, bobbing in the waves of the change, just trying to keep his head above water long enough to survive. Questions build in him like a traffic jam, whys and hows and the stomach-dropping fact that nothing will ever be the same, that he's strange and different and maybe not even human. In the time it takes to hitch in a breath, Dean's life is reduced to a lie, thirty years of role-playing, of waiting for a truth he didn't even know existed.
But dwelling isn't an option, not when there's something new happening, a building, frenzied warmth, an electric charge that works its way through veins and cells and move down to the smallest parts of him, awakening dormant genes, shifting what is into what should be. Dean's back is twitching, feels like the first stretch after waking, pleasure streamed with the ache of sleep-stiffened muscles. There's a sick sound, like the crack of an egg only now it's combined with the snap of breaking skin and something heavy falls onto his back, plastering itself there warm and sticky and wrong, and then it happens again and the sensation flares, sending him so high the blackness behind his closed eyes bursts with shapes and sparks of color, each the roll of something new through him, ecstasy and quickened breath after a kiss and waking up with the sun on his face, seconds of perfection where thought stops, problems fall away and nothing matters because all he can feel is hope. But highs don't last long, and though the aftertaste of it is still on his tongue, flooding his senses, Dean can't help but gather himself and step back down to the ground.
With strength he doesn't have, Dean reaches in front of him with shaking arms, looking to pull himself forward, to crawl to the bathroom door that's only a few feet away. His effort is hampered in that Castiel is still kneeling over him, his legs holding Dean's hips in place.
“Get off me.” He tries for threatening, but his bare bones voice is barely a rasp. The things on his back shudder, half-adhered by whatever they're covered in. Their movement, the reminder that they're there at all makes a bloom of anger crack open inside Dean, jagged and insistent. It fuels him, helps his legs find enough purchase to kick and buck until he bears no burden. He half-drags himself to the bathroom, grips the cool porcelain of the sink there and pulls himself up with shaking arms onto legs that threaten to buckle under his weight. But when he does fall, it's not from weakness. He barely feels the impact as he smacks his new appendage (wing, a nasty little voice chimes) on the side of the tub before landing on it. Nothing can touch him, not now. Not after what he's just seen of himself.
His reflection, a reverse of his likeness trapped by a pane of glass, is that of a man in shock. His skin is pale and one side of his face is plastered with blood, the same liquid that coats the wings, the wings that rise easily behind him, arching out above his head even when folded. They're huge, a steel sort of silver, maybe. He can't quite tell because of the blood that covers them, wetting them down so they stick in clumps, ragged-looking and rough. He can't stop looking at them, staring past his own face, the wide-blown pupils and the death mask of fear that grips his lips tight, thinning them into a line barely differentiated from the rest of his skin. The wings aren't heavy but awkward, pull him out at strange angles and knock off his balance, and when he sees them twitch again, looking like they're trying to get comfortable, to find an easier place against him and he feels it, the new sinews and tendons in his back adjusting, his world jumps its rails and he's losing grip, falling through air that's too thin to catch him.
Castiel's hands are on him before he even hears the man approach. He's sliding his fingers over the wing Dean fell on, pushing past feathers into down and skin and bone. Dean feels every touch, every tingle and drag that set his teeth on edge, desire beginning to burn down low.
“Get away from me,” he pushes Castiel's hands away, cheeks burning. He's not getting off on this, not getting turned on by things that shouldn't fucking exist. “You're a monster,” he spits, watching the concerned frown on Castiel's face bleed into hurt, a quick flash of surprise in eyes that soften again quickly. But it's there, and now Dean knows how to cut, where to stab. “And you've turned me into one too.”
Castiel opens his mouth to protest, to try and fix this whole thing, but Dean's not ready to deal with it, with any of it. “Did I walk right into it? Did you have fun seducing me, turning me into a fucking freak?”
“I just want to help you,” Castiel says, drawing closer, hands outstretched to take Dean into his arms. But Dean's done, and though he knows, somehow, that this isn't Castiel's fault, that he's burning his only bridge, he can't stop.
“I don't want your help. I want you to walk out of my door and never come back.”
“Dean, I can't leave you like this,” his eyes are wide with appeal, the need to make Dean use sense, to understand that he can't do this alone.
“Then you shouldn't have done this to me, huh?” There's no warmth left in him. His wings flutter again, moving forward to curl around his body, to hide him from the world but he beats them back savagely, ripping out clumps of blood-slicked feathers.
“Get out!” Panic is close but anger blinds it for the moment, a band-aid working to hold back a flood.
This time, Castiel listens.
***
Red circles the drain, dark-cherry colored water painted by Dean's blood, liquid that's running down the wings in rivulets, trickles of a life falling away-because his life is over, really. What kind of normalcy can he find when he's got-when he's not a person anymore? He scrubs the wing he's got stretched in front of him harder, swallowing the responding pain down. He wants to hurt, wants to tear the things apart, get them off of him; all they are is proof that his body isn't his own anymore. It's funny, though, that when he touches the new limbs gently, straightening the patterns of down and feathers, it doesn't feel like it did when Castiel touched them. It's pleasant, like hair being stroked, but nothing like the shock of lust-need that had taken hold of him under the other man's hands.
Castiel's face flashes in front of his eyes, the hurt in those drowning-pool eyes as he'd turned on his heel and left the apartment. It's getting harder to convince himself that this is all Castiel's fault, though he holds onto the assumption, keeps it close to his heart where it sits like ice, soaking in the warmth of his body in favor of a cold front, an impenetrable wall.
When the water's lukewarm and the last of the red has trickled down the drain, Dean turns the shower off and steps out, toweling off his dripping body. The wings rustle behind him, and like a sneeze, he only knows what's coming a moment before it happens. They extend on their own, snapping open, knocking into either wall before shaking back and forth, the picture of a dog after it steps out of a lake. When it's over, he's soaked again, as is the rest of the bathroom, and the wings are folded against him again, neatly tucked like they'd never been out. Dean stares at his crumpled pants on the floor, the red-soaked waist of the denim.
What would have happened if he hadn't have been here? Something like his conscience asks, disappointment and guilt clinging to the thought. Would you have survived? He seems himself on the floor again, howling like a man possessed, twisting and turning in an attempt to stave off the insanity that comes with all-consuming pain. You've sent away the only person who can help you, you ungrateful idiot.
He's rescued from himself by a sharp knock on the door, one that has his heart in his throat, a name forming on his lips.
“Dean?” a voice calls, a voice that certainly isn't the light gravel of Castiel's own.
“Dean, let me in.”
Sam. It's Sam.
***Chapter 6***
The next sound Dean hears is the terrifying metal glide of a key finding its way into a lock, because of course he has a spare hidden in the most obvious place possible, taped to the top of the door frame. He's sure the tape must be gummy with age now, barely sticking to the wood for all the dust that's collected there since he moved in years ago.
Dean barely has time to think, to let loose an errant Fuck before the door swings open and Sam's barreling through the entryway, eyes wide and searching, scanning the floors.
He's looking for a body, Dean knows, somehow, an instinct that makes him speak up, makes him scrape the gravel from his throat so he can rustle a shadow of his voice, what's hasn't been lost to the power of his screams just a few hours ago.
“Sammy,” he whispers as his brother rounds the corner, almost stumbling into him. But it's dark, so his brother stops short, squints at him in the darkness and his color, that warm amber, streaks crimson with confusion, one that matches his tone of voice when he calls Dean's name in the dark.
“Dean?” Sam's voice shakes, a tremor of black-tinged fear, the kind that shouldn't drip easily from the tones of a six-foot-three man who knows how to handle himself. But it does, and the oily trail of that fear permeates the hallway, hangs heavy on Dean's skin like a film of dust so he has to force himself to breathe, to draw air in even as it makes him gag on its way down. The wings twitch, rustling and stretching forward, extending at the tips, straining to make contact with Sam. Dean jerks, stumbling back a few steps, horrified. But he can all but hear Sam's unease and it's calling to him, asking him to make it right, to make it better.
“Dean,” Sam says again, but now it's punctuated with a scrabbling sound, the scratch of fingers against a wall, moving up and down, an audible search that's halted by a plastic flick, one that's followed a split second later by a flood of yellow light, the paltry glow of a low-watt bulb. But it's more than enough to display the change that's overtaken his body, the new additions that seem to have a will of their own. Even now, as Dean's eyes widen and he tries to retreat further, they're going against him, pushing forward as he pulls back.
“Sam,” his own voice is husky, strained as his gaze slides to the floor, avoiding the horror he's sure must be twisting his brother's expression, pulling at pronounced lips, arching eyebrows down until they almost hide the hazel irises below. Dean waits for his brother to react, to shout sharp-angled words made to cut, to hurl acid on vulnerability he can't hide, a form his body can't deny. His muscles tense, readying themselves for the fallout of rejection, the label of 'monster' that's sure to be laid down. The wings flutter-shudder like a cold breeze had been swept over them, through them. They stop grasping forward, fall still before sweeping back, wrapping around his chest like Kevlar around his heart, protection cocooning around the exposure of flesh, and even more than that, his soul. Because he's laid bare now, secrets bleeding into the air like a wound that can't be staunched, privacy, normalcy now forgotten things he flies by like the painted lines of a road, gunning ever forward.
“Dean,” Sam says again, a dry-swallow chopping his name in half, an awkward human noise that has him snorting at his younger brother, even as he continues to try and form a functional sentence.
“Are-Dean, are those-”
“Wings, Sammy?” Dean interrupts, gaze jerking up to pinpoint Sam's reaction, to try to nail down the mottled tones of Sam's color, the veiled emotions in his eyes. “Looks like it, huh?”
“Oh, God,” Sam's mouth stays slack as he takes the wings in, tracing their lines. Dean watches his brother's eyes tick back and forth, as he forgets himself and reaches out to touch, to brush his fingers through and make sure his mind isn't tricking him, that this isn't the result of chemicals going haywire. And then the feathers are twitching under Sam's palms, itching to open, to welcome. They slide open, now that they seem to know that there's no threat, spreading behind him. It feels like the nimble tingle of a hairdresser carding through wet locks about to be shorn, nothing more; what Cas evoked when he'd laid his hands on the wings was something older, something unnerving, powerful as a tornado's pull.
“Holy shit, Dean.” Sam's collecting himself now, his body easing its way through the first part of shock, adrenaline cutting out of the blood even as it leaves the mind sharp, ready to examine every angle, to look at the problem until it's solved. But Dean's pretty certain there's no solving this, no easy way to explain spontaneous wing growth without being carted away and experimented on by lab-coat bedecked gawkers, proverbial kids a scientific candy store.
“Don't freak out, Sam,” Dean knows it's a lot to ask, but he's in over his head and the waters of panic are rising, rushing to slip over his head and extinguish the last bit of control that still burns inside, the animal snarl of self-preservation that's barely holding him steady. But his brother doesn't let go, keeps his hand buried in the feathers and down of the wing he's gripping and just stays, motionless, waiting for Dean to start, to try to explain what's happened. Sam burns bright, his stare no match for the sunset shock of gold hovering just above his skin, the outpouring of his soul as it spreads over Dean, protective, worried, but most of all amazed, somehow euphoric.
“It was just bruising at first,” Dean starts, allowing the words to flow out, a trickle at first that begins to crack the foundation of doubt and denial he'd built so high inside, washing it away like sand.
“He said he just wanted to help me through it ,” he gulps around the weight of the words, the way they chip at his teeth like a mouth full of gravel. Because he's not even talking to Sam anymore, doesn't blink when his eyes glaze over, unseeing. There's a picture held carefully in his mind of the man who should be there, who should be the one next to him, holding onto him.
“And I think I believe him.”
***
“But you don't know him, Dean.” Sam's incredulity is thick like concrete as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I mean, we don't even know what this...” Sam gestures awkwardly at the wings that have folded neatly behind Dean's back, loses his smooth stream of thought as he tries to duck around the elephant in the room. The whir of Sam's racing mind is almost audible, a circling shark working over the facts and figures. But this isn't a car accident, a 'his breaks failed, I couldn't swerve' retracing of events, a division of blame and guilt. This bends time and space and breaks every rule Dean knows-including, maybe, gravity. For a split second, he sees himself in the sky, the wings wide and free, balancing and banking easily, supporting him with ease legs will never know. They flex in response, a little jerk of aching muscles, tendons and tissue that weren't there yesterday.
“I do know, Sam.” He drags his hands through his hair, over his forehead. “There's something in me that just knows he was just trying to help.”
“But what if he put that there? What if it's just a result of what he did to you?”
“God, Sam!” He vaults up from the backwards chair he'd been straddling awkwardly, wicker seams leaving their intricate patterns of long lines and s curves in his arms. Sam's color flares, mimicking the quick wince that pulls his lips thin.
“You've always been a good judge of character, Dean.” Sam assures quickly, trying to gloss over the implications he'd laid down, unconscious suspicions of Dean himself, whether the change had left him the same or if he'd been twisted by it, molded into something new, something darker. And then Sam's looking at him but closer, head tilting, new light behind irises that have spots of blue and white in them, minute splatter-painting patterns Dean had never noticed before. Because he'd never been able to see them before, especially not from across the room. His fingers busy themselves with rubbing the impressions on his skin away, a nice, human distraction that lets him hide from Sam's probing gaze and his own screaming mind. But he isn't allowed to drift away for long because Sam speaks again, says something that cuts through the beginnings of his meltdown.
“Colors.”
It's only two syllables, an innocuous little word, but it manages to slice through Dean, tripping the breath he takes, making him choke on it.
“You remember. God, you were so little.”
“I-pieces, Dean. But that was-can you still?”
“It came back a few days ago.” Dean sags back into the chair, so tired suddenly at admitting that there's more, that the wings aren't all. That his sight is getting too sharp, that he sees things, maybe the souls of people-and if that's true, what is he? But as he sits there, the world pressing down on his shoulders, making the wings droop to the floor, he remembers in a flash, a word that rolls over his tongue, past his lips so quietly Sam has to lean forward, has to ask Dean to repeat himself, though he doesn't bother, is too busy getting up to go to his desk and tap furiously at the keypad of his computer until it wakes up beneath the impatient jabbing. Opening the internet, he types a word into the search bar and holds his breath. He clicks on the first link because Wikipedia has yet to fail him, and reads silently until he feels Sam's breath on his shoulder, the echo of words moving out loud.
“When the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them... They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
“Nephilim,” Dean says, finishing the thought, solidifying, naming himself as best he can. “I...heard it, in my dreams, I think.”
“But that means that mom-”
“I'm not seeing another explanation, Sammy, unless you can rationalize why a perfectly normal human would grow wings and see auras, or whatever the fuck they are.” Dean sighs as a flicker of curiosity alights over Sam's face before his expression smooths back into practiced neutrality. Who does he think he's fooling? If Dean could read people before, their tells are flashing lights now, red flags waving in the wind caught with no effort, no analysis needed.
“It's like a bronze-gold. It's nice, ok?” He watches his brother pretend not to care, though he can't help the pleased smile that ghosts over his lips, pulling them up slightly at the corners.
“Such a girl,” he mumbles, though now he's smiling too because this feels normal, not forced, and for a split second he feels like maybe things could be ok. Maybe.
“Jerk,” Sam shoots back, though the fact that he's now grinning so wide his face may be in danger of cracking undermines the insult somewhat. They lapse into silence together, turning back to the computer to read the rest. Sam turns back to the living room when he's finished but Dean catches his wrist, pulls him back before he can very far.
“Stay still for a second,” he orders, releasing his grip on Sam's wrist, though he doesn't move away completely. “Just hold your hand out.” Dean chews his bottom lip, dimpling indentations into the skin, though it doesn't hurt. Not like it should. He flicks the thought away, though, and takes a breath before he runs his hand over the Sam's color, dragging tapered fingers through the thick shine, the buzzing warmth it holds. It reacts like seaweed in water, pulsing away before drawing back, wrapping around his digits lightly, a static-cling tangle that tickles slightly. He's too busy toying with the strange light heat feeling of it, the deep calm he's suddenly filled with, trails of trust and love and loyalty following close behind, to hear the stutter-gasp that gurgles from Sam's throat. He does manage to catch his brother as his knees give way, though, saving him from the unforgiving wood of the floor beneath.
“I think I understand,” Sam says, face flushed, eying the wings, which have flinched out, flexing to keep Dean balanced.
“What are you talking about?” Dean's heart stomps inside his chest, guilt and anger at his own curiosity bubbling like bile. He'd experimented on his brother, hurt him without trying.
“No,” Sam says firmly, seemingly reading his mind. “It-you're good, Dean. I haven't felt that-” His tongue snakes out to moisten his lips, eyes tracking up, to the right, looking for the words to try and communicate what's going on inside, what Dean's done to him. For him. “Light,” he decides. “I haven't felt that light since I was a kid. Since before mom died.” He grabs Dean's arms harder, bracing himself against his brother, a half-embrace of a strange absolution, leaving the past to fold itself away neatly, to move forward into the future born anew. Dean feels it, the connection as it opens, the love of a brother stronger than most, strength stemming from the determination he'd had to stay, to raise Sam after their Dad's heart finally gave, when he finally followed their mother to wherever people go when they leave this world. Dean's touching his hair, snaking his hand around to pat a too-broad back. “Sammy, it's ok.”
His brother clears his throat, gathers his too-long limbs and sniffles quickly before swiping a hand across his cheeks.
“This is so fucking big, Dean.” Sam rubs his fingers together, smearing the tears into his skin until the salt's absorbed again, pushed back into cells, collected and replaced.
“I know.” He shakes his head, lashes splaying against his cheeks, trying to find solace in the blackness behind his eyelids. “I know.”
It's a good moment, a quiet one that neither will speak of again because it's too raw and open, like muscle and blood in open air; it doesn't belong, doesn't make sense to dwell on, and so the fact that Dean's stomach rumbles, or, as Sam says, “has a mini earthquake,” might just be a blessing in disguise. Sam's sent to get food and groceries, since Dean's apartment is all but bare and he's pretty sure he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
But ten minutes or so after Sam leaves, Dean hears the door open again, footfalls echoing across the entryway.
“Hey,” he says absently, gaze still trained on his laptop, scrolling pages of conflicting information. “Did you forget something?”
“Dean Winchester?” a voice asks, an unfamiliar drawl of silk and velvet, cocky confidence. His head snaps toward the sound, eyes more whites than iris as he stares at the unfamiliar man standing casually in his living room, hands curved through the belt loops of his jeans. He's not a large man, definitely shorter than Dean himself, but there's something electric about him, a powerful warning that screams 'do not fuck with me.'
“Who are you?” Dean stammers, the stupid wings snapping out, trying to spread into a threat, but all he knows is that they're evidence, that this stranger is now more dangerous than ever and oh, fuck, what if he has a camera?
“What are you doing in my house?” Dean growls, though the threat falls flat and he knows it.
“You don't know me,” the stranger says, gold-brown eyes glinting under the soft light of the apartment. A familiar rustle sounds then, a raincoat glide that manifests itself in wings larger than Dean's own, the shade close to the man's eyes, tawny and almost hawk-like. He smiles at Dean's shock, an amused grin that is anything but full of mirth.
“But we need to talk.”