Come to Me 7-8/8
Title: Come to Me Chapter 7-8
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.
As quickly as the man's enormous wings were revealed, an effective intimidation tactic, they're gone, slipping away into the ether, leaving a relatively normal-looking man behind though Dean can't help but see him as the moment in a storm just before thunder rocks through the sky, reminding the people below that their delusion of omnipotence is just that, a slippery illusion at best. The man's stature is small, unimpressive and inches shorter than Dean's own but there is no questioning who's really in control here, who has the upper hand in a situation he can't even begin to make sense of. The man watches him like he's something under a microscope, eyes never moving away, barely blinking. Dean tries not to twitch, but he feels himself begin to sweat under that bronze gaze, one that speaks of experiences and years beyond his reckoning. But with age comes wisdom, usually from seeing things that would turn the hardiest of people cold inside. And that, Dean thinks vaguely, is why this man is so intimidating-he crackles with life, a light that hasn't been snuffed out under the wheel of hardship and grief.
“It's easy,” the man says, conversationally, taking a small step toward him. His eyes, Dean's sure, aren't just shining under the cheap bulbs of the overhead lamp-they're glowing. “To put them away. To walk around outside without looking like a freak.” The man sharps his k, makes it pointy like the tips of icicles that grow on door frames, waiting for a slam hard enough to detach, to shatter against the ground like cold pieces of glass. They splinter in Dean's veins instead though, shards of sobering truth, a rush of embarrassment over how badly he's acted.
“I didn't mean to,” Dean starts, looking everywhere but at the man, glancing at the glare on the television, at the dust slinging to the screen.
“But you did,” is his reply, an interruption paired with sudden movement, a hand slipping into his and then there's a burst of emotion going off inside of him that's so strong he isn't sure he can be in one piece. Not when rejection's teeth clamp down on his throat, choking the air before digging in harder, injecting shame and almost uncontrollable desire to rip and tear at himself until nothing's left but ribbons of fabric laced with blood, until what he feels inside is outside and away from him because he can't bear its weight, how it makes him just want to run until he can't anymore, until he collapses and closes his eyes and they stay that way, unseeing. But then whatever's happening lets off and Dean finds himself on his knees, pressed into the man's shoulder, breaths coming ragged and thick like he's slurping milkshake air through a straw.
“What are you doing to me?” He gasps into the fucker's shirt, the taste of strawberry on his tongue as he inhales, sweet and light and entirely unexpected.
“What you did to him,” he hears, the man's voice deep but softer now, bereft of the quaking anger that had burned quietly in his earlier words. “You fucked up, kid. And I can't say I blame you. But you need to open up those pretty eyes and figure out who's on your side before you burn your only bridge.”
“It's so big,” Dean mutters, stiffening when he feels fingers on his neck. But they only slide up to skim through his hair, drawing paths over his scalp, a calming, caring gesture that's like nails on a chalkboard-halting and strange, such a tender gesture after surfacing from such a total-body assault. “I'm so tired.” His words slur into the man's coat.
“It's what happens when you're over a decade late for nephilim puberty.” The man laughs harshly, the sound like a period to the end of a sentence. “And now imagine how Castiel feels, helping those like you over the years, people with minds too stubborn to let their bodies tell them the truth.”
Dean shakes his head, or tries to, though he ends up just irritating his cheek against the slightly harsh fabric of the man's jacket. His jacket....
“How,” Dean starts, but the words he tries to pull together scramble away, spiders skittering on long legs, moving just fast enough to slip through his shaky grasp. But it seems, as the man who's now pretty much holding him up starts to laugh, really laugh, that he doesn't actually need to speak aloud.
“I'm a bit of a different breed, Dean-o. You and Castiel? Halflings. I'm the real deal, non-diluted 100% angel.” He shifts Dean a bit, so he can catch his gaze, can look into Dean's core with those lion's eyes and continues nonchalantly. “But you can call me Gabriel.”
“G-Gabriel?” Though Dean's never been religious, he knows that name. He's in the arms of what might be Heaven's most powerful archangel, a no-one, a nothing little half-breed.
“Come on Dean,” Gabriel stands and they're moving and Dean's got to be drunk tired because he's giggling over a 5'8'' man carrying his solid frame with such ease. He hasn't been lifted this easily since he was five years old in his father's arms, clinging tightly for some reason or another, breathing in the musk of a scent he knew as protection and safety and the best thing in the world. “Don't fall into the angsty teenage roll just yet.”
He's being put down onto soft sheets, the unmade bed in his own dark room where the quiet hovers like a blanket he feels himself sink into, a perfection that pushes him farther down the path to sleep. The door closes behind him, softly, but he doesn't hear.
***
Dean wakes from dreamless sleep to the deep thrum of low voices passing through a wall, the bass of his brother's coffee thick tones like a hand shaking his shoulder, urging him up and into the world. He's not sure what time it is because he doesn't know when he fell asleep, but the cooking smells he notices are too heavy to be of breakfast. He's on his stomach, the wings stretched out, soft down and longer, tapered feathers acting like a built-in quilt, looking to keep him warm. The gesture seems strange, the thought that a part of him could be acting independently, trying to protect him. He frowns at them, and they shake once before folding up, curling against his back. But they brush his skin as they go, the touch silk light and almost nice. Before he knows what he's doing, exactly, Dean finds himself working muscles that react to a thought barely released from its synapse before it's obeyed, before the wings snap out again, sending him forward onto his arms with a quiet 'oof.'
He gets up, glad he's alone, and tries another silent command, one that feels like rotating his arms, moving them from his sides to point straight out in front, though his arms don't usually come with a wall of feathers that muffles the outside world almost completely. Either way, the wings stay still as he lifts his hand, drags it through the down, through softness that's faintly warm and just a bit slippery, though his fingers come back dry. It's the feel of legs moving between sheets, hands clasped on a windy day, the air slipping between pressed palms. It's strange and it's real-the sensations flow through the wings, up his back and then bloom in him. And for a second, alone in the dark, Dean thinks that maybe, maybe, this could be alright. That the heat comfort worming its way around his iced-over heart could be good. Because as much as this is all fucked up and strange, as much as it hurts to stand up straight and deal with the sudden and overwhelming torrent of pain that comes from abandoning the numbness he'd fallen into so long ago, the way the wings affect him now makes him think there might be good in all this, too.
When he leaves the bedroom, abandoning the comfort of the sleep-warmed sheets now strewn across the bed, he finds his brother chatting idly with the archangel Gabriel. Both have sweating beer bottles in their hands, though Sam all but chokes on the sip he's taking when he catches sight of Dean.
“Hey,” he says, taking a few hurried steps forward until he's at his brother's side. Sam's color, Dean notices, is not streaked with fear, lined with terror. It's strong, vibrant where it brushes his skin, sending sparks of energy through his still foggy mind.
“Do you know who that is?” Dean nods at the other presence in the kitchen before sliding out of his brother's grasp.
“The wings made it sort of hard to forget,” Sam says, pressing white teeth into a grin that reaches up toward his eyes, deepening the few crows-feet his years have given him.
“You're having a beer with Gabriel. The Gabriel.”
“He was explaining things,” Sam says, and though he's defensive, steps back and away from Dean, there's guilt there, a bit of shame.
“You come here,” Dean closes the space between himself and the angel, too angry to care about who he's about to piss off, “And you do whatever it was that you did to me, and then explain all this shit to my brother? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“I think I'm the one who only gave you a taste of what Castiel felt when you pushed him away after he saved your life, Winchester. I'm the one who's trying to help sort this out when, believe me, I have better things to be doing. So if I were you, I'd be grateful,” Gabriel's narrowed eyes hold Dean down, paralyzed where he stands. The angel seems bigger, greater somehow, filling the room with a straining tension that's seconds away from being discharged and taking out everything around him. “But if you can't do that, at least do us a favor and shut up, ok?”
And then Dean's body is his again and he's glaring daggers at the angel, though his thoughts are circling around something else, something strangely important. He doesn't notice Sam glancing back and for the between them, looking like he's watching a tennis game only he can see.
“But I don't get it-why would Cas feel so bad? Who am I to him?”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. An archangel is rolling his eyes at Dean Winchester.
“God, humility. There's a fine line, you know, between that and idiocy.” Gabriel catches him by the arm and ushers him out of the kitchen, calling behind them to Sam. “Sorry, kid, but we've got to protect some trade secrets.” To Dean, he just mutters under his breath, an afterthought that leaves the nephilim more puzzled than when the conversation started. “God, you're both idiots. I like you, Winchester, but thick-sculled doesn't begin to cover it.”
***
Dean clutches a slip of paper, tucking it against the palm of his hand, protecting it from any errant winds or his own clumsiness. He can't take the chance of losing it, finding its crinkled face, adorned with barely-legible chicken scratch, gone. Because on it is an address, a destination he'd decided not to drive to because it would be too quick, wouldn't last long enough for him to get his head together a little bit before he gets there. So he takes to the streets, walking slowly, hands stuffed into the pockets of his long jacket, comfortable for the first time in days because of the darkness that drapes itself over all the hard edges, softening the world just a bit. His breath comes out as mist, dragon's breath that disperses as it rises, losing its color to the velvet dark sky. His back is tender but normal, and though he didn't say it aloud when he had the chance, he is grateful to Gabriel.
Tucking wings away, it turned out, was a lot like stretching in reverse. Gabriel was not what anyone would call a patient teacher, but Dean favored the angel's bluntness, the terse words spat between teeth because they were real, and usually right.
“It's hard to control your power when you're in the middle of denying its existence,” he'd murmured tonelessly when Dean had sat down hard, sweat moistening his red face and aching back. Gabriel had leaned close, slid too-warm fingers over the joints where the wings met his back and pressed down, making the muscles beneath twitch and jerk.
“Not the wings, Dean. Your wings. Now let's act like a big boy and get a hold of them, shall we?”
But they went on like that for what felt like hours, a circular exchange of insults and frustration, two brick walls standing parallel, waiting for the other to move. Finally, Gabriel walked away, muttering to himself. Dean, still on his knees on the floor, started when the wings-his wings-came down around him, slumping toward the floor. He was hot, tired and there was sweat dripping into his eyes, making it hard to see. That's why they started to water, why hot tracks tore down his face like a train speeding over rails. Returning footfalls were unexpected, made for a hasty wiping of eyes and face. He kept his gaze on the floor, waiting for Gabriel to tell him what a failure he is, how he can't be helped. Instead, a piece of paper was all but thrust in his face. He blinked a few times to bring it into focus, and it only said two things:
Castiel
1394 Archway Drive
It's not even a ten minute drive.
“How badly do you want to fix this Dean? How badly do you want an explanation?”
It was quick after that, a reverse stretch and burn that was sweeter than it was painful, rolling shoulders and skin reclaiming a human facade, a back that bore no strange marks, no distinctions for which it would be labeled other or different.
“God, have you figured it out yet?” Gabriel asked, still frustrated, though his eyes are shining.
*
It's funny, Dean thinks as he strolls through the dark. It almost feels strange without the weight of the wings, the light warmth they carried. Now his bare back feels almost vulnerable, open and waiting for someone to creep up behind him. But he pushes that thought away, folds his hand around the paper harder and smiles so hard he feels like his face might split. He's going to find Castiel. He's going to fix the poison he'd so carelessly spewed. Everything will be ok.
He approaches the mouth of an alleyway, barely notices its cavernous emptiness until he hears what sounds like feminine gasping-but not that derived from pleasure. This is a base sound, a scream because there's nothing else that can be done. It's giving in, a realization of powerlessness that comes just before death's last rattle. He's in the alley before he knows what he's doing, searching with eyes that fill with the darkness until they're blind for the origin of the screams. He turns, spins in a circle and sees nothing until a flash of yellow bursts into sight like a solar flare, two lights set eye-width apart, and they're getting closer.
“My, my, my,” A voice like batteries in a food processor whisper, feigned surprise coating the words like oil. “Aren't we a little old for a newborn?”
Dean can't say anything, is rooted to the spot over the strange and sickening sense of deja-vu the eyes are giving him. Because that's what they are, eyes gleaming with a putrid yellow light, a monster lit up in the darkness.
“No matter,” it continues, coming closer. “I'll enjoy you just the same.”
***Chapter 8***
Dean should be moving. He should be fighting, struggling under the grasp that's encircled his wrists, that's walked him backward into cold brick that catches his skin and hair, rubbing the former raw as he squirms against its surface. But he isn't do anything, isn't pushing back, is trapped under the weight of those eyes, the slick well of evil as it pours over his body, the thing's aura reaching out, expanding to encircle him, to eat him alive.
“Purity of an angel and the sins of a mortal,” cold fingers crawl up his cheek, nails digging into the soft flesh as his jaw is held and jerked up harshly so his neck is bared. Lips touch down there, teeth nipping as the monster inhales deeply, taking what feels like Dean's essence with him. Revulsion and nausea roll through his churning stomach, sending bile up his throat to splash at his teeth. But all it does is burn as it slides over his tongue and he has to force it back down because it's blocking his airway and the world begins to sway in front of him, a roar building in his ears. The mouth leaves his skin, the air taking its place, cooling the left-behind saliva, a shock that raises the hair on his neck.
“Such a good mixture.” The words are growled into his hair, a rough cheek pressed against his own. “Call me Azazel,” he continues, the name curling around Dean's spine, electric-hot wires that tighten every second the thing's contact continues. “Believe me, you'll scream it later.” The cold wet of the thing's tongue snakes out to curl over Dean's cheek, It’s clear, then, like the light of morning as it drapes its insistent rays over thinly-veiled eyes that Dean isn’t going to make it out of this alive. Not when the odorless breath of the man, carrying a cackle made only of malice, ghost over his lips and he breathes it in, the taste of grease leaving its imprint behind. Staring into the monster’s yellow eyes, though, he feels strangely calm. Worry isn’t far away, peers over his shoulder, leaving its prints behind as it grasps hard, but he can’t feel it, can’t be bothered by it. A film of what he thought was just darkness ripples against him, blackness that works its way down to his soul, a lack that might be worse than evil because it’s just bare-empty, colder than winter’s bone-breaking chill. The barrenness of the aura is like diamond-hard knives cutting into his own soul, a blade that slashes and tears until the warmth that fills him, his goodness and lightness is pouring out hot like blood, trickles draining into the black hole man.
“I bet you wish this was a dream,” Azazel whispers, cat's-tongue rough, voice a whisper but deafening, soul-shaking in its innate wrongness, the way Dean's stomach curls and twists as more taunts are poured over him.
“Are you begging yourself to wake up yet, nephilim? Praying to God, asking for his help?”
I have a secret for you, the thing continues, but now he's inside Dean's head, a shriek of acid-tipped teeth snagging at his thoughts, the soft, vulnerable parts of himself he doesn't show anyone. And now they're laid bare, open and waiting for Azazel to play with as he may. God doesn't care, if he exists at all. I'm your God now.
Laughter echoes through Dean as he finds himself slipping, not falling, but moving in a way he's never before, a unnatural, unsettling shift that pulls behind his navel first before spreading through his blood and muscles, rippling cold through and then he's falling downward through what feels like spider webs, light and sticky, a mist that huddles around him and makes his skin crawl, awakens an instinctive drive to clean himself off, to jerk and twist until whatever is on him slides away. But he can't move, isn't even sure he's breathing because there's nothing, no one except Azazel, though Dean doesn't know he senses the thing's presence; he sure as hell can't see the monster. And then it all stops and they're in a basement, that unmistakable dank smell in Dean's nose, the half-wet cool of mold rushing at him with each heavy breath he takes. His heart's marathoning in his chest, trying to outrun Azazel maybe, gasping and stuttering forward, looking to stay a step ahead.
Sorry, the monster says in his head, saccharine sweet. Moving in and out of existence is always a little uncomfortable the first time. He appears in front of Dean and a light flashes on, illuminating the face of a man, the shell of a human being with a sharp jaw, light stubble and similar colored hair. But Dean knows different, knows better. The thing in front of him is nothing, no one. The humanity it displays is a front, a visage, and nothing more. He's not sure of exactly what Azazel is, but he knows what it isn't. It leans forward, thin lips twisting into a leer, the yellow eyes shining, a glint that makes Dean swallow hard., though his throat has gone dryer than the Sahara, sand gritting under his teeth.
“Oh,” Azazel says aloud, pressing closer, resting his chin on Dean's forehead. “Do keep that up. Your fear tastes amazing.” Then he sighs, breathes out air that rustles through Dean's hair and pushes back. “But I can't go wasting you all at once.” Fingers with nails just a bit too long land on his neck. “Be a dear and go to sleep for me, hmm?”
***
Even in what Dean assumes to be dreams, he finds no rest. Everything moves quickly and he's stumbling, heaving forward with an almost-drunk swimming mind, unable to place anything or anyone around him. He's surrounded, stiff-shouldered people on all sides, a crowd that refuses to part, that he forces himself through, sure something's waiting on the other side. The bodies are like brick, unyielding limbs that slow him down as he pinballs through, searching for a reason to keep going because he's getting so tired, so confused and not entirely sure if he can stand for much longer. The blocked-out horizon, hazed over by the details of the swarm Dean's trapped by (brunette in a black dress, old man in a suit, all dead eyes and faces) spins and tilts, trying to force him under, away. And it's easy, really, to let go, much easier than fighting, but it's what Dean does best, first for Sam after their Dad died, then for himself when no one thought he would go anywhere, that Sam was the brains and he was just the odd-jobs brawn, keeping the smarter half afloat so he could go out into the world and do big things. Darwinism, don't you know.
And just at the last second, when it feels like the light within him is about to go out, hands grip him by the elbows, hauling him up gently, somehow, allowing him to sag into a sturdy chest.
Dean, he hears, and it's a balm inside him, that morning blue that goes to work immediately, working to sooth what's been roughened by the sandpaper mind of his captor. Dean what's happening? Where are you?
Sorry Cas, he mumbles, voice slurred even in his dreams. Went to find you...thing, Azazel...so sorry Cas, meant to say sorry.
Dean, Cas' voice pitches high, desperate, almost frenzied. It doesn't matter, it's ok, ok? Just please help me now, can you do that?
Yes, Dean wants to say, but it dies as a gurgle in his throat. Something's pulling, grabbing him from deep inside, tearing him away piece by piece.
Dean! It's a bit far away, like the murmur of talk through soft music or voices behind a wall. Dean you have to let me in now, ok? Please just let me in.
Dean wishes he knew what Cas meant, what he wanted. But he smiles at the thought of the other nephilim, the intensity of eyes locked on his, blue piercing green and staying, leaving a part of himself in Dean to carry. Because that's what Cas did, as he helped Dean's nature emerge; he left himself behind, a fingerprint on his soul. He smiles, thinking about what it would have been like, what exploring Cas, all the spaces people keep hidden from the rest of the world would have been like. He imagines lightness, the absence of bodies or cares, escaping into one another until time falls away and all that's left is them.
That's it Dean, just a little more!
Cas...Dean sees sunrises, feels the brush of summer wind and all he can smell in the tingling combination of mint and body heat-warmed cologne. Think I could love you, he cracks open an eye and sees a field, open spaces that blend into the sky, no roads, no civilization to be seen. No swarming crowd, no human barricade. And there Cas is, kneeling over Dean, hands jerking out to pull him up, to support him.
Not goodbye Dean, not goodbye.
But it is. Because all it takes is a blink, closeopen and the dream fades away like steam off cooling food. His eyes stick, lashes clinging to one another as he opens them and finds himself back in that dark basement with the film of dust and grease layered over his tongue.
“Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty.” The fake playfulness is gone from the monster's voice, replaced with the fractures of sharp-edged glass. “Trying to escape, are we?” He breathes, touching Dean's cheek lightly before backhanding him, a searing heat that most certainly leaves a hand print behind, a calling card of raised, stinging skin.
“What?” Dean's head lolls on his neck, coming back around just enough for him to squint through cloudy eyes, trying to bring Azazel back into focus.
“Playing dumb, nephil?” he hisses before hitching his leg up, moving forward so he's straddling Dean, their chest pressed together. His heart pounds, echoes into the empty cavern of Azazel's ribs, bones that obviously protect nothing. “Doesn't matter,” he says into Dean's shoulder. “You don't have long, anyway.”
The next thing Dean feels is hot breath on his neck, an exhale before a deep inhale that sends a wave of drowsiness over him, the kind of full-bodied exhaustion that comes after an orgasm, fatigue that pulls at eyelids and tries to make the mind forget about sticky bodies. His head jerks down but Azazel's hands catch his chin, hold it steady, and then the monster's lips are almost touching his, eyes wide and sickly-gold, nothing like the beauty, the purity he'd seen in Gabriel.
Gabriel. Hope he takes care of Cas.
Azazel's breathing hard.
Taking, Dean notes. Taking everything, leaving nothing behind. Death isn't as bad as he thought it would be, not when it comes to Azazel. Dean had imagined knives and torture, slow peels and deep cuts, the black sheen blood takes when it pours from an almost-empty body, veins with nothing left to give. But this is easy, and there's light now, shining behind his eyes, coming stronger now so he can barely see.
Azazel pauses, digs his nails in to leave half-moon indents, another signature.
“Don't worry,” he whispers into Dean's mouth. “The blood will come later, after I take it.”
Dean wonders, idly, what it is, exactly, but there isn't time.
“You're not taking anything,” he hears, but it's not Azazel, couldn't be. This new voice is the softness of caramel as it's melted down, the smoothness of coffee prepared by someone who actually knows what they're doing. The light dies as fast as it came, but the voice does something to him, makes his wings snap out, fighting with the ropes he hadn't noticed he was bound with. The twist and writhe, burning with each small shudder.
“Help him, Cas,” the voice says.
“Aw, Gabriel,” Azazel, sounding even more gruff, more of a taint in the presence of such unbearable purity, mocks. “What do you want with the little Nephil? And what makes you think you'll take him?”
“Come Dean,” a voice says in his ear, an auditory feel of choking sobs and tightness in his chest, relief as powerful as an ocean in the midst of a hurricane. Rightness seeps through him like hot soup on a bitter January day when hands touch the ropes and the disintegrate, sand dribbling down his clothing. “You don't need to see this.”
And then they melt away, but it doesn't feel like nails screeching across a chalkboard, isn't the tailspin trip Azazel took him on. This is a flutter of wind through his hair, standing at the top of a mountain and looking at the world below, letting its joy fill you until there's no room left, until all that's left is the crackle of electricity burning hot like fireworks through veins. Something curls around him, soft and perfect, a mother's caress and a lover's embrace, and Dean knows he might be crying, might be letting wetness leak from his eyes but he's not quite corporeal at the moment and is too far gone to care.
“Azazel took a lot, Cas,” is the first thing Dean hears when he comes to, and though he feels like he's been hit by a meteor, ground into nothingness and rebuilt, he knows he's solid, knows he'll make it.
“He'll come back to me, Gabriel,” Cas says, and then makes a noise like he's going to continue, but doesn't. Instead, he appears in Dean's line of sight, blurry, like he's gazing through water, but the other nephilim is there. Is real.
“Cas,” Dean sighs, his voice a scrape in the back of his throat. He's shushed, looks into eyes burning bright, not tearing but just so alive that he loses his breath, reaches a trembling hand up to make contact because the yearning in the other man's eyes doesn't leave him any other options.
“Lay with me,” he says, and Cas does. Their bodies settle together like they belong that way, long lines and slim muscle adjusting without effort. Sleep comes even easier.
***
Upon waking, Dean is panicked, shoving at blankets that have become a prison, have trapped him back in his cell waiting to be devoured.
“Dean,” a soft voice next to him calls, and he turns, looks into eyes a split seconds before soft lips touch his own, before he's grounded by Cas' body. Because that's who has him, who protects him, whose essence he can feel now, coiled inside, twined with every cell he has.
“Azazel,” he says, no inflection in the name.
“A demon,” Cas says, a simple identification, but there's something more, something deeper. Dean can feel it. And Cas knows it.
“Nephilim are usually helped with their transition by their fathers,” Cas says slowly, sooty lashes shielding his eyes, locking his soul away from Dean. “Your father, Dean, was killed by a demon. By Azazel. It's why you never changed, why you were stuck.”
Dean nods, but he can't feel anything. He had a father, a human father whose imperfections might have been numerous, but he'd been blood and love and support when it meant the most.
“Is that what you do?” He whispers into Cas' lips, curling his tongue just a bit, edging it out to lick at the corner of the other man's mouth, reveling in the mint found there. “Wake us up, find the orphans and late bloomers?” He keeps his voice light, but he needs to know if he's just been a job, if he was a task to be carried out.
“Everyone deserves a chance,” Cas says, a side-step explanation. But his tongue parts Dean's lips, licks into the younger Nephilim's mouth teasingly. “But you were not a duty, Dean. You were pleasure, my pleasure, my happiness. The only...” Dean hears Cas swallow hard, like he's building to something, trying to convince himself to go through with it. “The only love I've ever known.”
Love. The only love.
“Love,” he repeats. “Only love, Cas.” Without warning, his wings unfold again, stiff and aching but seemingly intact. He moans at their sudden appearance.
“What is this,” he growls, though there's more than a bit of a playful edge in his words, “An angelic boner?”
When Cas doesn't answer, Dean knows he's accidentally struck the truth, hard. So to speak.
“Fuck,” he moans, snatching his hands from the sheets to cover his eyes before falling back into Cas, reaching for his collar, snagging the fabric and kissing him like it's the end of the world, mouths moving to make up for the time they've lost, for the innocence that's been taken from Dean. Because he's not ok and he knows it, but he can't go there now, can't stare what's happened in the face, not so soon. Not when his soul is being rebuilt by a searing kiss that makes him feel more solid, like he's still alive.
“Jesus, guys!” He hears, and then Gabriel's mock-disgusted face comes into view, toffee eyes light with mirth. “Keep it in your pants for five minutes. You're the walking wounded, Dean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters as Gabriel winks and begins to retreat. “Wait, Gabriel,” he calls, watching as the archangel turns, peers over his shoulder. “Did you kill the fucker?”
A grin spreads across Gabriel's lips, thinning them into a velvet red line. His eyes flicker with something old and powerful and maybe a bit wrathful, revealing a being that isn't entirely harps and calm meditation.
“Yeah, Dean. And I made sure he felt it.” Gabriel leaves then, disappearing with a chorus of wings, the shuffle of birds easing into the air, much to the jealousy of humans. Dean just smiles, and maybe he shouldn't feel just a little better, but he does.
“Dean,” Cas says, pulling him back into the present, into awe-filled expressions and the burst of unexpected love, unfamiliar emotion as it breaks the dam he'd constructed so long ago.
“I want to...”
“Are you trying to ask for sex, Cas?” he jokes, though catches a laugh as it tries to tumble from his lips when he notices the other man's suddenly serious expression.
“I want to show you how nephilim love, Dean,” Cas all but whispers, looking at everything but him. Dean doesn't say anything, doesn't have to, but his eyes widen and he just kisses the other man again, hungry this time, fierce and claiming.
Shh, Cas says into his mind, easing Dean onto his back. He goes still for a moment, just straddling Dean, staring down at him. But then his eyes are too bright, gleam with an inhuman light that seems to spread over the other man's entire body. He's shining, fucking shining, like a 100 watt bulb, skin lit up with an ethereal glow. He reaches for Dean's wrist, circles it gently and then the light spreads, moves up Dean's fingers and down his arm. He traces its progress, mouth open, as his heart speeds up and pleasure unfurls within him, heating his blood, pouring a frenzied need through him. What happens next makes no sense but doesn't need to; he's slipping past his body, mingling with a mist of pulsing heatlightperfection, barely notices that Cas has collapsed on top of his tangible self. He wraps himself around Cas, around his essence.
Grace, the other man corrects, laughter like quiet bells ringing through Dean, sending shivers down a spine he doesn't quite possess.
Grace, he repeats, twisting and threading himself until they can't be told apart, until they're just life and all its good moments, until waves of Cas are cresting inside of him, pulling and shaping the most intense ecstasy he's ever experienced. This isn't sex, this is mating, bonding in the deepest way possible, looking into and through another person, seeing every fault and crack and staying, accepting, embracing. He's laughing and crying and feeding Cas moments of his life, saving the best, the other nephilim's kiss, for last, for when he can't hold on anymore, for when he loses himself to the atmosphere, spreading out until he's touching everything, a part of everyone.
Dean hears his heart first when he comes back to himself. But more importantly, he feels Cas', the steady tattoo that echoes his own, skin on skin. A connection he almost lost, that took him forever to find.
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.
As quickly as the man's enormous wings were revealed, an effective intimidation tactic, they're gone, slipping away into the ether, leaving a relatively normal-looking man behind though Dean can't help but see him as the moment in a storm just before thunder rocks through the sky, reminding the people below that their delusion of omnipotence is just that, a slippery illusion at best. The man's stature is small, unimpressive and inches shorter than Dean's own but there is no questioning who's really in control here, who has the upper hand in a situation he can't even begin to make sense of. The man watches him like he's something under a microscope, eyes never moving away, barely blinking. Dean tries not to twitch, but he feels himself begin to sweat under that bronze gaze, one that speaks of experiences and years beyond his reckoning. But with age comes wisdom, usually from seeing things that would turn the hardiest of people cold inside. And that, Dean thinks vaguely, is why this man is so intimidating-he crackles with life, a light that hasn't been snuffed out under the wheel of hardship and grief.
“It's easy,” the man says, conversationally, taking a small step toward him. His eyes, Dean's sure, aren't just shining under the cheap bulbs of the overhead lamp-they're glowing. “To put them away. To walk around outside without looking like a freak.” The man sharps his k, makes it pointy like the tips of icicles that grow on door frames, waiting for a slam hard enough to detach, to shatter against the ground like cold pieces of glass. They splinter in Dean's veins instead though, shards of sobering truth, a rush of embarrassment over how badly he's acted.
“I didn't mean to,” Dean starts, looking everywhere but at the man, glancing at the glare on the television, at the dust slinging to the screen.
“But you did,” is his reply, an interruption paired with sudden movement, a hand slipping into his and then there's a burst of emotion going off inside of him that's so strong he isn't sure he can be in one piece. Not when rejection's teeth clamp down on his throat, choking the air before digging in harder, injecting shame and almost uncontrollable desire to rip and tear at himself until nothing's left but ribbons of fabric laced with blood, until what he feels inside is outside and away from him because he can't bear its weight, how it makes him just want to run until he can't anymore, until he collapses and closes his eyes and they stay that way, unseeing. But then whatever's happening lets off and Dean finds himself on his knees, pressed into the man's shoulder, breaths coming ragged and thick like he's slurping milkshake air through a straw.
“What are you doing to me?” He gasps into the fucker's shirt, the taste of strawberry on his tongue as he inhales, sweet and light and entirely unexpected.
“What you did to him,” he hears, the man's voice deep but softer now, bereft of the quaking anger that had burned quietly in his earlier words. “You fucked up, kid. And I can't say I blame you. But you need to open up those pretty eyes and figure out who's on your side before you burn your only bridge.”
“It's so big,” Dean mutters, stiffening when he feels fingers on his neck. But they only slide up to skim through his hair, drawing paths over his scalp, a calming, caring gesture that's like nails on a chalkboard-halting and strange, such a tender gesture after surfacing from such a total-body assault. “I'm so tired.” His words slur into the man's coat.
“It's what happens when you're over a decade late for nephilim puberty.” The man laughs harshly, the sound like a period to the end of a sentence. “And now imagine how Castiel feels, helping those like you over the years, people with minds too stubborn to let their bodies tell them the truth.”
Dean shakes his head, or tries to, though he ends up just irritating his cheek against the slightly harsh fabric of the man's jacket. His jacket....
“How,” Dean starts, but the words he tries to pull together scramble away, spiders skittering on long legs, moving just fast enough to slip through his shaky grasp. But it seems, as the man who's now pretty much holding him up starts to laugh, really laugh, that he doesn't actually need to speak aloud.
“I'm a bit of a different breed, Dean-o. You and Castiel? Halflings. I'm the real deal, non-diluted 100% angel.” He shifts Dean a bit, so he can catch his gaze, can look into Dean's core with those lion's eyes and continues nonchalantly. “But you can call me Gabriel.”
“G-Gabriel?” Though Dean's never been religious, he knows that name. He's in the arms of what might be Heaven's most powerful archangel, a no-one, a nothing little half-breed.
“Come on Dean,” Gabriel stands and they're moving and Dean's got to be drunk tired because he's giggling over a 5'8'' man carrying his solid frame with such ease. He hasn't been lifted this easily since he was five years old in his father's arms, clinging tightly for some reason or another, breathing in the musk of a scent he knew as protection and safety and the best thing in the world. “Don't fall into the angsty teenage roll just yet.”
He's being put down onto soft sheets, the unmade bed in his own dark room where the quiet hovers like a blanket he feels himself sink into, a perfection that pushes him farther down the path to sleep. The door closes behind him, softly, but he doesn't hear.
***
Dean wakes from dreamless sleep to the deep thrum of low voices passing through a wall, the bass of his brother's coffee thick tones like a hand shaking his shoulder, urging him up and into the world. He's not sure what time it is because he doesn't know when he fell asleep, but the cooking smells he notices are too heavy to be of breakfast. He's on his stomach, the wings stretched out, soft down and longer, tapered feathers acting like a built-in quilt, looking to keep him warm. The gesture seems strange, the thought that a part of him could be acting independently, trying to protect him. He frowns at them, and they shake once before folding up, curling against his back. But they brush his skin as they go, the touch silk light and almost nice. Before he knows what he's doing, exactly, Dean finds himself working muscles that react to a thought barely released from its synapse before it's obeyed, before the wings snap out again, sending him forward onto his arms with a quiet 'oof.'
He gets up, glad he's alone, and tries another silent command, one that feels like rotating his arms, moving them from his sides to point straight out in front, though his arms don't usually come with a wall of feathers that muffles the outside world almost completely. Either way, the wings stay still as he lifts his hand, drags it through the down, through softness that's faintly warm and just a bit slippery, though his fingers come back dry. It's the feel of legs moving between sheets, hands clasped on a windy day, the air slipping between pressed palms. It's strange and it's real-the sensations flow through the wings, up his back and then bloom in him. And for a second, alone in the dark, Dean thinks that maybe, maybe, this could be alright. That the heat comfort worming its way around his iced-over heart could be good. Because as much as this is all fucked up and strange, as much as it hurts to stand up straight and deal with the sudden and overwhelming torrent of pain that comes from abandoning the numbness he'd fallen into so long ago, the way the wings affect him now makes him think there might be good in all this, too.
When he leaves the bedroom, abandoning the comfort of the sleep-warmed sheets now strewn across the bed, he finds his brother chatting idly with the archangel Gabriel. Both have sweating beer bottles in their hands, though Sam all but chokes on the sip he's taking when he catches sight of Dean.
“Hey,” he says, taking a few hurried steps forward until he's at his brother's side. Sam's color, Dean notices, is not streaked with fear, lined with terror. It's strong, vibrant where it brushes his skin, sending sparks of energy through his still foggy mind.
“Do you know who that is?” Dean nods at the other presence in the kitchen before sliding out of his brother's grasp.
“The wings made it sort of hard to forget,” Sam says, pressing white teeth into a grin that reaches up toward his eyes, deepening the few crows-feet his years have given him.
“You're having a beer with Gabriel. The Gabriel.”
“He was explaining things,” Sam says, and though he's defensive, steps back and away from Dean, there's guilt there, a bit of shame.
“You come here,” Dean closes the space between himself and the angel, too angry to care about who he's about to piss off, “And you do whatever it was that you did to me, and then explain all this shit to my brother? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“I think I'm the one who only gave you a taste of what Castiel felt when you pushed him away after he saved your life, Winchester. I'm the one who's trying to help sort this out when, believe me, I have better things to be doing. So if I were you, I'd be grateful,” Gabriel's narrowed eyes hold Dean down, paralyzed where he stands. The angel seems bigger, greater somehow, filling the room with a straining tension that's seconds away from being discharged and taking out everything around him. “But if you can't do that, at least do us a favor and shut up, ok?”
And then Dean's body is his again and he's glaring daggers at the angel, though his thoughts are circling around something else, something strangely important. He doesn't notice Sam glancing back and for the between them, looking like he's watching a tennis game only he can see.
“But I don't get it-why would Cas feel so bad? Who am I to him?”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. An archangel is rolling his eyes at Dean Winchester.
“God, humility. There's a fine line, you know, between that and idiocy.” Gabriel catches him by the arm and ushers him out of the kitchen, calling behind them to Sam. “Sorry, kid, but we've got to protect some trade secrets.” To Dean, he just mutters under his breath, an afterthought that leaves the nephilim more puzzled than when the conversation started. “God, you're both idiots. I like you, Winchester, but thick-sculled doesn't begin to cover it.”
***
Dean clutches a slip of paper, tucking it against the palm of his hand, protecting it from any errant winds or his own clumsiness. He can't take the chance of losing it, finding its crinkled face, adorned with barely-legible chicken scratch, gone. Because on it is an address, a destination he'd decided not to drive to because it would be too quick, wouldn't last long enough for him to get his head together a little bit before he gets there. So he takes to the streets, walking slowly, hands stuffed into the pockets of his long jacket, comfortable for the first time in days because of the darkness that drapes itself over all the hard edges, softening the world just a bit. His breath comes out as mist, dragon's breath that disperses as it rises, losing its color to the velvet dark sky. His back is tender but normal, and though he didn't say it aloud when he had the chance, he is grateful to Gabriel.
Tucking wings away, it turned out, was a lot like stretching in reverse. Gabriel was not what anyone would call a patient teacher, but Dean favored the angel's bluntness, the terse words spat between teeth because they were real, and usually right.
“It's hard to control your power when you're in the middle of denying its existence,” he'd murmured tonelessly when Dean had sat down hard, sweat moistening his red face and aching back. Gabriel had leaned close, slid too-warm fingers over the joints where the wings met his back and pressed down, making the muscles beneath twitch and jerk.
“Not the wings, Dean. Your wings. Now let's act like a big boy and get a hold of them, shall we?”
But they went on like that for what felt like hours, a circular exchange of insults and frustration, two brick walls standing parallel, waiting for the other to move. Finally, Gabriel walked away, muttering to himself. Dean, still on his knees on the floor, started when the wings-his wings-came down around him, slumping toward the floor. He was hot, tired and there was sweat dripping into his eyes, making it hard to see. That's why they started to water, why hot tracks tore down his face like a train speeding over rails. Returning footfalls were unexpected, made for a hasty wiping of eyes and face. He kept his gaze on the floor, waiting for Gabriel to tell him what a failure he is, how he can't be helped. Instead, a piece of paper was all but thrust in his face. He blinked a few times to bring it into focus, and it only said two things:
Castiel
1394 Archway Drive
It's not even a ten minute drive.
“How badly do you want to fix this Dean? How badly do you want an explanation?”
It was quick after that, a reverse stretch and burn that was sweeter than it was painful, rolling shoulders and skin reclaiming a human facade, a back that bore no strange marks, no distinctions for which it would be labeled other or different.
“God, have you figured it out yet?” Gabriel asked, still frustrated, though his eyes are shining.
*
It's funny, Dean thinks as he strolls through the dark. It almost feels strange without the weight of the wings, the light warmth they carried. Now his bare back feels almost vulnerable, open and waiting for someone to creep up behind him. But he pushes that thought away, folds his hand around the paper harder and smiles so hard he feels like his face might split. He's going to find Castiel. He's going to fix the poison he'd so carelessly spewed. Everything will be ok.
He approaches the mouth of an alleyway, barely notices its cavernous emptiness until he hears what sounds like feminine gasping-but not that derived from pleasure. This is a base sound, a scream because there's nothing else that can be done. It's giving in, a realization of powerlessness that comes just before death's last rattle. He's in the alley before he knows what he's doing, searching with eyes that fill with the darkness until they're blind for the origin of the screams. He turns, spins in a circle and sees nothing until a flash of yellow bursts into sight like a solar flare, two lights set eye-width apart, and they're getting closer.
“My, my, my,” A voice like batteries in a food processor whisper, feigned surprise coating the words like oil. “Aren't we a little old for a newborn?”
Dean can't say anything, is rooted to the spot over the strange and sickening sense of deja-vu the eyes are giving him. Because that's what they are, eyes gleaming with a putrid yellow light, a monster lit up in the darkness.
“No matter,” it continues, coming closer. “I'll enjoy you just the same.”
***Chapter 8***
Dean should be moving. He should be fighting, struggling under the grasp that's encircled his wrists, that's walked him backward into cold brick that catches his skin and hair, rubbing the former raw as he squirms against its surface. But he isn't do anything, isn't pushing back, is trapped under the weight of those eyes, the slick well of evil as it pours over his body, the thing's aura reaching out, expanding to encircle him, to eat him alive.
“Purity of an angel and the sins of a mortal,” cold fingers crawl up his cheek, nails digging into the soft flesh as his jaw is held and jerked up harshly so his neck is bared. Lips touch down there, teeth nipping as the monster inhales deeply, taking what feels like Dean's essence with him. Revulsion and nausea roll through his churning stomach, sending bile up his throat to splash at his teeth. But all it does is burn as it slides over his tongue and he has to force it back down because it's blocking his airway and the world begins to sway in front of him, a roar building in his ears. The mouth leaves his skin, the air taking its place, cooling the left-behind saliva, a shock that raises the hair on his neck.
“Such a good mixture.” The words are growled into his hair, a rough cheek pressed against his own. “Call me Azazel,” he continues, the name curling around Dean's spine, electric-hot wires that tighten every second the thing's contact continues. “Believe me, you'll scream it later.” The cold wet of the thing's tongue snakes out to curl over Dean's cheek, It’s clear, then, like the light of morning as it drapes its insistent rays over thinly-veiled eyes that Dean isn’t going to make it out of this alive. Not when the odorless breath of the man, carrying a cackle made only of malice, ghost over his lips and he breathes it in, the taste of grease leaving its imprint behind. Staring into the monster’s yellow eyes, though, he feels strangely calm. Worry isn’t far away, peers over his shoulder, leaving its prints behind as it grasps hard, but he can’t feel it, can’t be bothered by it. A film of what he thought was just darkness ripples against him, blackness that works its way down to his soul, a lack that might be worse than evil because it’s just bare-empty, colder than winter’s bone-breaking chill. The barrenness of the aura is like diamond-hard knives cutting into his own soul, a blade that slashes and tears until the warmth that fills him, his goodness and lightness is pouring out hot like blood, trickles draining into the black hole man.
“I bet you wish this was a dream,” Azazel whispers, cat's-tongue rough, voice a whisper but deafening, soul-shaking in its innate wrongness, the way Dean's stomach curls and twists as more taunts are poured over him.
“Are you begging yourself to wake up yet, nephilim? Praying to God, asking for his help?”
I have a secret for you, the thing continues, but now he's inside Dean's head, a shriek of acid-tipped teeth snagging at his thoughts, the soft, vulnerable parts of himself he doesn't show anyone. And now they're laid bare, open and waiting for Azazel to play with as he may. God doesn't care, if he exists at all. I'm your God now.
Laughter echoes through Dean as he finds himself slipping, not falling, but moving in a way he's never before, a unnatural, unsettling shift that pulls behind his navel first before spreading through his blood and muscles, rippling cold through and then he's falling downward through what feels like spider webs, light and sticky, a mist that huddles around him and makes his skin crawl, awakens an instinctive drive to clean himself off, to jerk and twist until whatever is on him slides away. But he can't move, isn't even sure he's breathing because there's nothing, no one except Azazel, though Dean doesn't know he senses the thing's presence; he sure as hell can't see the monster. And then it all stops and they're in a basement, that unmistakable dank smell in Dean's nose, the half-wet cool of mold rushing at him with each heavy breath he takes. His heart's marathoning in his chest, trying to outrun Azazel maybe, gasping and stuttering forward, looking to stay a step ahead.
Sorry, the monster says in his head, saccharine sweet. Moving in and out of existence is always a little uncomfortable the first time. He appears in front of Dean and a light flashes on, illuminating the face of a man, the shell of a human being with a sharp jaw, light stubble and similar colored hair. But Dean knows different, knows better. The thing in front of him is nothing, no one. The humanity it displays is a front, a visage, and nothing more. He's not sure of exactly what Azazel is, but he knows what it isn't. It leans forward, thin lips twisting into a leer, the yellow eyes shining, a glint that makes Dean swallow hard., though his throat has gone dryer than the Sahara, sand gritting under his teeth.
“Oh,” Azazel says aloud, pressing closer, resting his chin on Dean's forehead. “Do keep that up. Your fear tastes amazing.” Then he sighs, breathes out air that rustles through Dean's hair and pushes back. “But I can't go wasting you all at once.” Fingers with nails just a bit too long land on his neck. “Be a dear and go to sleep for me, hmm?”
***
Even in what Dean assumes to be dreams, he finds no rest. Everything moves quickly and he's stumbling, heaving forward with an almost-drunk swimming mind, unable to place anything or anyone around him. He's surrounded, stiff-shouldered people on all sides, a crowd that refuses to part, that he forces himself through, sure something's waiting on the other side. The bodies are like brick, unyielding limbs that slow him down as he pinballs through, searching for a reason to keep going because he's getting so tired, so confused and not entirely sure if he can stand for much longer. The blocked-out horizon, hazed over by the details of the swarm Dean's trapped by (brunette in a black dress, old man in a suit, all dead eyes and faces) spins and tilts, trying to force him under, away. And it's easy, really, to let go, much easier than fighting, but it's what Dean does best, first for Sam after their Dad died, then for himself when no one thought he would go anywhere, that Sam was the brains and he was just the odd-jobs brawn, keeping the smarter half afloat so he could go out into the world and do big things. Darwinism, don't you know.
And just at the last second, when it feels like the light within him is about to go out, hands grip him by the elbows, hauling him up gently, somehow, allowing him to sag into a sturdy chest.
Dean, he hears, and it's a balm inside him, that morning blue that goes to work immediately, working to sooth what's been roughened by the sandpaper mind of his captor. Dean what's happening? Where are you?
Sorry Cas, he mumbles, voice slurred even in his dreams. Went to find you...thing, Azazel...so sorry Cas, meant to say sorry.
Dean, Cas' voice pitches high, desperate, almost frenzied. It doesn't matter, it's ok, ok? Just please help me now, can you do that?
Yes, Dean wants to say, but it dies as a gurgle in his throat. Something's pulling, grabbing him from deep inside, tearing him away piece by piece.
Dean! It's a bit far away, like the murmur of talk through soft music or voices behind a wall. Dean you have to let me in now, ok? Please just let me in.
Dean wishes he knew what Cas meant, what he wanted. But he smiles at the thought of the other nephilim, the intensity of eyes locked on his, blue piercing green and staying, leaving a part of himself in Dean to carry. Because that's what Cas did, as he helped Dean's nature emerge; he left himself behind, a fingerprint on his soul. He smiles, thinking about what it would have been like, what exploring Cas, all the spaces people keep hidden from the rest of the world would have been like. He imagines lightness, the absence of bodies or cares, escaping into one another until time falls away and all that's left is them.
That's it Dean, just a little more!
Cas...Dean sees sunrises, feels the brush of summer wind and all he can smell in the tingling combination of mint and body heat-warmed cologne. Think I could love you, he cracks open an eye and sees a field, open spaces that blend into the sky, no roads, no civilization to be seen. No swarming crowd, no human barricade. And there Cas is, kneeling over Dean, hands jerking out to pull him up, to support him.
Not goodbye Dean, not goodbye.
But it is. Because all it takes is a blink, closeopen and the dream fades away like steam off cooling food. His eyes stick, lashes clinging to one another as he opens them and finds himself back in that dark basement with the film of dust and grease layered over his tongue.
“Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty.” The fake playfulness is gone from the monster's voice, replaced with the fractures of sharp-edged glass. “Trying to escape, are we?” He breathes, touching Dean's cheek lightly before backhanding him, a searing heat that most certainly leaves a hand print behind, a calling card of raised, stinging skin.
“What?” Dean's head lolls on his neck, coming back around just enough for him to squint through cloudy eyes, trying to bring Azazel back into focus.
“Playing dumb, nephil?” he hisses before hitching his leg up, moving forward so he's straddling Dean, their chest pressed together. His heart pounds, echoes into the empty cavern of Azazel's ribs, bones that obviously protect nothing. “Doesn't matter,” he says into Dean's shoulder. “You don't have long, anyway.”
The next thing Dean feels is hot breath on his neck, an exhale before a deep inhale that sends a wave of drowsiness over him, the kind of full-bodied exhaustion that comes after an orgasm, fatigue that pulls at eyelids and tries to make the mind forget about sticky bodies. His head jerks down but Azazel's hands catch his chin, hold it steady, and then the monster's lips are almost touching his, eyes wide and sickly-gold, nothing like the beauty, the purity he'd seen in Gabriel.
Gabriel. Hope he takes care of Cas.
Azazel's breathing hard.
Taking, Dean notes. Taking everything, leaving nothing behind. Death isn't as bad as he thought it would be, not when it comes to Azazel. Dean had imagined knives and torture, slow peels and deep cuts, the black sheen blood takes when it pours from an almost-empty body, veins with nothing left to give. But this is easy, and there's light now, shining behind his eyes, coming stronger now so he can barely see.
Azazel pauses, digs his nails in to leave half-moon indents, another signature.
“Don't worry,” he whispers into Dean's mouth. “The blood will come later, after I take it.”
Dean wonders, idly, what it is, exactly, but there isn't time.
“You're not taking anything,” he hears, but it's not Azazel, couldn't be. This new voice is the softness of caramel as it's melted down, the smoothness of coffee prepared by someone who actually knows what they're doing. The light dies as fast as it came, but the voice does something to him, makes his wings snap out, fighting with the ropes he hadn't noticed he was bound with. The twist and writhe, burning with each small shudder.
“Help him, Cas,” the voice says.
“Aw, Gabriel,” Azazel, sounding even more gruff, more of a taint in the presence of such unbearable purity, mocks. “What do you want with the little Nephil? And what makes you think you'll take him?”
“Come Dean,” a voice says in his ear, an auditory feel of choking sobs and tightness in his chest, relief as powerful as an ocean in the midst of a hurricane. Rightness seeps through him like hot soup on a bitter January day when hands touch the ropes and the disintegrate, sand dribbling down his clothing. “You don't need to see this.”
And then they melt away, but it doesn't feel like nails screeching across a chalkboard, isn't the tailspin trip Azazel took him on. This is a flutter of wind through his hair, standing at the top of a mountain and looking at the world below, letting its joy fill you until there's no room left, until all that's left is the crackle of electricity burning hot like fireworks through veins. Something curls around him, soft and perfect, a mother's caress and a lover's embrace, and Dean knows he might be crying, might be letting wetness leak from his eyes but he's not quite corporeal at the moment and is too far gone to care.
“Azazel took a lot, Cas,” is the first thing Dean hears when he comes to, and though he feels like he's been hit by a meteor, ground into nothingness and rebuilt, he knows he's solid, knows he'll make it.
“He'll come back to me, Gabriel,” Cas says, and then makes a noise like he's going to continue, but doesn't. Instead, he appears in Dean's line of sight, blurry, like he's gazing through water, but the other nephilim is there. Is real.
“Cas,” Dean sighs, his voice a scrape in the back of his throat. He's shushed, looks into eyes burning bright, not tearing but just so alive that he loses his breath, reaches a trembling hand up to make contact because the yearning in the other man's eyes doesn't leave him any other options.
“Lay with me,” he says, and Cas does. Their bodies settle together like they belong that way, long lines and slim muscle adjusting without effort. Sleep comes even easier.
***
Upon waking, Dean is panicked, shoving at blankets that have become a prison, have trapped him back in his cell waiting to be devoured.
“Dean,” a soft voice next to him calls, and he turns, looks into eyes a split seconds before soft lips touch his own, before he's grounded by Cas' body. Because that's who has him, who protects him, whose essence he can feel now, coiled inside, twined with every cell he has.
“Azazel,” he says, no inflection in the name.
“A demon,” Cas says, a simple identification, but there's something more, something deeper. Dean can feel it. And Cas knows it.
“Nephilim are usually helped with their transition by their fathers,” Cas says slowly, sooty lashes shielding his eyes, locking his soul away from Dean. “Your father, Dean, was killed by a demon. By Azazel. It's why you never changed, why you were stuck.”
Dean nods, but he can't feel anything. He had a father, a human father whose imperfections might have been numerous, but he'd been blood and love and support when it meant the most.
“Is that what you do?” He whispers into Cas' lips, curling his tongue just a bit, edging it out to lick at the corner of the other man's mouth, reveling in the mint found there. “Wake us up, find the orphans and late bloomers?” He keeps his voice light, but he needs to know if he's just been a job, if he was a task to be carried out.
“Everyone deserves a chance,” Cas says, a side-step explanation. But his tongue parts Dean's lips, licks into the younger Nephilim's mouth teasingly. “But you were not a duty, Dean. You were pleasure, my pleasure, my happiness. The only...” Dean hears Cas swallow hard, like he's building to something, trying to convince himself to go through with it. “The only love I've ever known.”
Love. The only love.
“Love,” he repeats. “Only love, Cas.” Without warning, his wings unfold again, stiff and aching but seemingly intact. He moans at their sudden appearance.
“What is this,” he growls, though there's more than a bit of a playful edge in his words, “An angelic boner?”
When Cas doesn't answer, Dean knows he's accidentally struck the truth, hard. So to speak.
“Fuck,” he moans, snatching his hands from the sheets to cover his eyes before falling back into Cas, reaching for his collar, snagging the fabric and kissing him like it's the end of the world, mouths moving to make up for the time they've lost, for the innocence that's been taken from Dean. Because he's not ok and he knows it, but he can't go there now, can't stare what's happened in the face, not so soon. Not when his soul is being rebuilt by a searing kiss that makes him feel more solid, like he's still alive.
“Jesus, guys!” He hears, and then Gabriel's mock-disgusted face comes into view, toffee eyes light with mirth. “Keep it in your pants for five minutes. You're the walking wounded, Dean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters as Gabriel winks and begins to retreat. “Wait, Gabriel,” he calls, watching as the archangel turns, peers over his shoulder. “Did you kill the fucker?”
A grin spreads across Gabriel's lips, thinning them into a velvet red line. His eyes flicker with something old and powerful and maybe a bit wrathful, revealing a being that isn't entirely harps and calm meditation.
“Yeah, Dean. And I made sure he felt it.” Gabriel leaves then, disappearing with a chorus of wings, the shuffle of birds easing into the air, much to the jealousy of humans. Dean just smiles, and maybe he shouldn't feel just a little better, but he does.
“Dean,” Cas says, pulling him back into the present, into awe-filled expressions and the burst of unexpected love, unfamiliar emotion as it breaks the dam he'd constructed so long ago.
“I want to...”
“Are you trying to ask for sex, Cas?” he jokes, though catches a laugh as it tries to tumble from his lips when he notices the other man's suddenly serious expression.
“I want to show you how nephilim love, Dean,” Cas all but whispers, looking at everything but him. Dean doesn't say anything, doesn't have to, but his eyes widen and he just kisses the other man again, hungry this time, fierce and claiming.
Shh, Cas says into his mind, easing Dean onto his back. He goes still for a moment, just straddling Dean, staring down at him. But then his eyes are too bright, gleam with an inhuman light that seems to spread over the other man's entire body. He's shining, fucking shining, like a 100 watt bulb, skin lit up with an ethereal glow. He reaches for Dean's wrist, circles it gently and then the light spreads, moves up Dean's fingers and down his arm. He traces its progress, mouth open, as his heart speeds up and pleasure unfurls within him, heating his blood, pouring a frenzied need through him. What happens next makes no sense but doesn't need to; he's slipping past his body, mingling with a mist of pulsing heatlightperfection, barely notices that Cas has collapsed on top of his tangible self. He wraps himself around Cas, around his essence.
Grace, the other man corrects, laughter like quiet bells ringing through Dean, sending shivers down a spine he doesn't quite possess.
Grace, he repeats, twisting and threading himself until they can't be told apart, until they're just life and all its good moments, until waves of Cas are cresting inside of him, pulling and shaping the most intense ecstasy he's ever experienced. This isn't sex, this is mating, bonding in the deepest way possible, looking into and through another person, seeing every fault and crack and staying, accepting, embracing. He's laughing and crying and feeding Cas moments of his life, saving the best, the other nephilim's kiss, for last, for when he can't hold on anymore, for when he loses himself to the atmosphere, spreading out until he's touching everything, a part of everyone.
Dean hears his heart first when he comes back to himself. But more importantly, he feels Cas', the steady tattoo that echoes his own, skin on skin. A connection he almost lost, that took him forever to find.