Fic: 'Loyalty'

[sakuri69]

Title: Loyalty

Rating: T

Characters and/or Pairing: Demon!Dean/Fallen!Castiel pre-slash

Genre: UST?

Warnings: Demonic Winchesters. D/s undertones.

Word Count: 2051

Summary: Castiel convinces Dean of his loyalty.

A/N: IMPORTANT - This fic is part of my Darkside Verse, and is set between ' Screw Destiny' and 'Sensation' for those who're reading chronologically.


Sam was high as a fucking kite by the time they got back to the motel, riding his demon-blood buzz for all it was worth. Dean didn’t think it worked that way with normal demons, but Sam wasn’t exactly a normal demon. He hadn’t been made into what he was by any of the usual methods: hadn’t been possessed, hadn’t sold his soul, hadn’t even visited Hell, unlike Dean. No, Sam had literally drank himself to demonhood, gorging on blood until he’d become exactly what he’d hunted, and even now the cravings remained with him. It was one of the reasons the Winchesters weren’t particularly well liked by Hell’s minions, since they killed just about as many fellow demons as they did humans in order to support Sam’s habit. Dean didn’t mind. He’d never set out to be well liked.

He shoved his brother towards the bed with fond exasperation as they traipsed inside. Sam went without protest, collapsing face-down onto the mattress like a felled redwood. Dean snorted and shucked off his ruined jacket. Every piece of clothing he was wearing had gotten spattered and smeared with blood while he’d been cleaning up the mess Sam had made, but that was par for the course by this point. His T-shirt joined the jacket on the floor, and he was just about to head for the shower when the increasingly familiar sound of wingbeats froze him in his tracks.

He turned back towards the door slowly, poised to defend himself against whatever angelic douchebag had found them this time, silently cursing Sam for choosing now to be spaced-out and useless.

But it was just Castiel.

Dean didn’t know when exactly he’d stopped thinking of this particular angel as a threat, only that he had. By all rights, it made no sense. Castiel, after all, had proven the most resilient of all the angels they’d gone up against, had come the closest to killing them, had at one point trapped them in a god damn warded room - and really, that last one was just adding insult to injury.

But the fight seemed to have gone out of him lately. He and Dean even had a weird sort of truce going on, unspoken and unexplained and probably the most unnatural alliance either of them had ever been part of. For the past couple of months, ever since they’d seen the last of the angels trying to smite them, Castiel had essentially been trailing after them like some kind of lost pet. He’d appear at random and unannounced intervals, sometimes in the motel, sometimes the back of the Impala, and on one memorable occasion Dean had looked up from the knife he’d had buried in some guy’s throat only to find Castiel watching solemnly like they were some sort of rare wildlife and he was Richard fucking Attenborough.

Currently, Castiel was giving the same sort of studious examination to Dean’s blood-stained appearance, before flicking a glance in the direction of the bed, where Sam had rolled onto his back and was dazedly licking the last traces of red from his mouth. He didn’t seem to have noticed the angel’s arrival.

“You’ve been hunting,” Castiel observed, voice totally without inflection.

“Yup.” He shrugged, aiming for nonchalant. In all honesty, though, he still got a bit nervous in moments like these when it was made patently obvious what he and Sam were. Truce or no truce, Castiel was still an angel who’d been sent to exterminate them, and it probably wasn’t wise to constantly throw reminders of that fact in his face. “But if it makes you feel any better, it was a demon this time. Sammy needed a fix.”

Castiel made a noncommittal noise, carefully picking his way around the discarded pile of Dean’s clothing as he wandered further into the room. “You are without bias, at least,” he murmured absently.

“Huh?”

Blue eyes flashed across his face like a lightning strike. “You kill without bias. Angels, demons, humans. It doesn’t matter to you, does it?”

Dean shrugged again, awkwardly. “Not really, no.” He scratched his stomach, dried blood flaking off his skin.

Castiel let out a strange sound, a weak huff of cynical amusement. “What’s that like? Having no loyalty?”

“Hey, I got loyalty.” He rolled his shoulders defensively, and together they both looked down at Sam.

“That’s not what I meant,” the angel pointed out, but he didn’t push the matter. In fact, he looked somewhat at a loss and more than a little out of place, hovering there in the middle of their messy motel room.

“So what’s up, anyway?” Dean prompted, after a few uncomfortable moments had drifted by. “What’s with the stalker routine?”

Castiel tilted his head to an angle that looked almost painful.

Dean sighed, and added, “Why’re you following us? For that matter, how do you even know where to find us half the time?”

The angel’s gaze flickered minutely to the left, and Dean followed it down to the handprint scar emblazoned on his shoulder, acquired the last time he’d gotten too close to Castiel. His eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding, right?”

“The mark makes it... significantly easier to locate your whereabouts.” And if Dean didn’t know better, he’d have said the angel looked shifty as he said that.

“Dude, I’m pretty sure that’s, like, cheating or something.”

“I didn’t think you, of all people, would object to the occasional underhand tactic.”

With anyone else Dean would have sworn that was sarcasm, but Castiel was so completely deadpan, so ridiculously other, that he found he couldn’t quite be sure. He frowned, annoyed. “And again I ask, what do you want?”

But once again the angel declined to answer. His eyes had returned to Sam, lingering there with a morbid sort of curiosity. Dean didn’t like that; didn’t like anyone, friend or foe, watching Sammy when his brother was in this condition. He let his hand drift down to pop the button on his jeans, and sure enough Castiel’s attention instantly zeroed back in on him. He didn’t look particularly turned on, though, which was the usual reaction Dean was accustomed to whenever he started taking off his clothes. Instead he merely studied the demon dispassionately, like he was waiting for something, and after a while Dean shrugged and stepped into the bathroom.

He knew with strange, utter certainty that Castiel would follow.

He did, and within seconds of his crossing the threshold Dean was on him. He kicked the door shut with a sharp movement, and with his hands fisted in Castiel’s coat, spun them both across the cramped space of the room. Whether out of shock or something else, the angel put up no resistance as he was shoved face-first into the mirror over the sink. He did bring his hands up to catch himself, though, and there was a crunch as the glass spiderwebbed under his fingers. But he made no other move to push back. He stayed frozen like that, hands pressed to the cracked mirror, head bowed so he wouldn’t have to meet the demon’s reflected gaze, and Dean was almost incredulous at how easily submission came to him.

He pressed in tight, peering over Castiel’s shoulder. “C’mon. No fight?”

“What are you doing?” came the murmured response, reluctant and barely audible.

And that was the question, wasn’t it? Honestly, Dean had no idea what the fuck he was doing, only that Castiel was so... so damn transient. He kept flitting in and out of their lives without warning or permission. His very existence was a potential threat to them, even though he hadn’t done anything in months. He was impermanent and mysterious and not quite trustworthy, and Dean just needed to pin him down for a moment; hold him down and get in close until he could see clearly Castiel’s obscure motives.

“Why do you keep coming here?” he hissed angrily into the angel’s ear. “What do you get from it, following us around?”

“Where else do I have to go?!” Castiel snapped suddenly, bucking under Dean’s hands, though he didn’t actually succeed in going anywhere. They both knew he was far stronger than the demon, and that he could have thrown off the restraint if he’d really wanted to, so it seemed a token struggle more than anything else. At last he took a slow breath, calming, and went pliant again. “...Where else do I have to go? The Host is gone. Returned to Heaven. I’m alone in this place where I know nothing and no one - no one but you!”

Dean huffed softly against the back of his neck. “Say that like it’s a bad thing...” he muttered, while his mind raced. So the heavenly douchebags really had given up the fight, at least for the moment. And in doing so, apparently, left behind their little angel that could. Huh.

He studied their reflections in the mirror, both of them distorted by the smashed glass. At length he blinked, allowing his eyes to dilate demonic black, just to see what would happen. Castiel didn’t even flinch, but stared back in obvious fascination.

“So... what?” Dean prompted. “You’re just planning to tag along with a couple of demons?”

Castiel’s mouth tipped cynically. “I’m Fallen. It seemed... appropriate.”

“Not good enough, sorry.”

With no more warning than that, Dean reared back, pulling the angel with him and spinning him around, before pressing him back against the sink and crowding close. There was blood on the ruined mirror, red and tantalizing, but Castiel didn’t seem particularly concerned. His frown communicated only mild curiosity. “Why?”

“You’re too dangerous to be a passing acquaintance, Cas.”

The slight expression that had been forming on the angel’s face promptly shut itself down, going blank and empty. “You wish me to leave you alone.” It wasn’t a question.

But Dean still had an unrelenting grip on his wrist, forestalling. “Didn’t say that. Leave, if you want to. But you should probably know that if you’re gonna stick around, it’s for good.”

Castiel blinked, taken aback.

Dean went on, quiet and insistent. “Me and Sam, we might not be loyal to any ‘higher power’, like you, but we’re damn well loyal to each other. Us against the world, always has been.” He looked the angel up and down, assessing. “So you, you’re either with us or against, but there’s no half-measures. Choose.”

And for a moment, Castiel actually looked pained, visibly conflicted. “Dean. I-I can’t... I need...”

“What?”

“Give me an instruction, I’ll follow it.” Blue eyes rose to meet his black ones, oddly pleading. “Tell me what to do. Tell me to stay, if you want me. Tell me to... obey.” He looked away then, shamed. “Please. I can be loyal.”

Dean shivered hard, immediately overcome by the urge to make the angel prove it there and then, on his knees and certainly not to pray.

Before the thought was even fully formed, however, they were interrupted. The bathroom door clicked open behind them and they both turned to see Sam leaning lazily against the frame, blurry-eyed and blood-flushed. He glanced blandly around the room, taking it in without reaction, as though it were perfectly normal to walk in on Dean shirtless and bloodstained, his jeans open at the crotch and his eyes demon-black, while the angel pressed up against him idly picked glass shards from his bloodied palms. After a few seconds of prolonged, slightly awkward silence, Sam raised his hand in vague greeting. “Hey Castiel.”

The angel looked up as though surprised to be addressed. He hesitated, sliding a glance across at Dean, who nodded. Only then did Castiel offer in return, “Hello Sam. I... apologise, if we woke you.”

Sam hiked his eyebrows up in puzzlement. “Uh. No problem... So do I actually wanna know what’s going on in here or should I just back away slowly?”

Dean snorted. “Relax, dude. Nothing like that.” Unfortunately. “Just talking bout Cas maybe sticking with us for a while.”

Surprised, Sam stood up straighter. “Oh? Any particular reason?”

Dean grinned bright and sharp; a knife-edge smile. “Yeah actually.” He raised a hand to grip the angel’s shoulder in a blatantly possessive manner, making Castiel lean into him. “’Cause I said so.”

Castiel just sighed with something like relief.