Fic: Of the Ocean

[thunder_nari]

Title: Of the Ocean
Author: thunder_nari
Artist: temporalranger
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Word count: ~5000
Warnings: character death, Stockholm syndrome, dub con, tentacle porn

Summary: Castiel is a creature of the ocean but he is just that, a creature. Not a God like the humans believe and prone to all the failings, weaknesses, and temptations of any animal. When the humans throw another sacrifice into the water to him in the hopes of good fortune and good weather, Castiel finds himself tempted and Dean finds himself caught.

Art Masterpost: coming soon



Of the Ocean
**

The humans were at it again. They were such foolish animals.

While the skies were clear and the seas calm they took their vessels out onto the water, a fleet of them that spread out into a circle. Their oars broke the surface and stirred up the schools of fish, sending them darting away, and the noise of wood against wood as they stroked brought sharks. Birds excited for an easy meal circled above. And Castiel waited in the murkier depths where he could see the dark undersides of the boats above him and watch as one broke formation and made its way to the center. In another moment, a body would be shoved over the ship's edge and crash into the water. Sometimes they were conscious, beating at the water and screaming for help, while sometimes they didn't move at all. Those ones had put up too much of a fight.

Castiel didn't blame them. Who wanted to be sacrificed for nothing?

Stupid legged beasts. Castiel couldn't control the skies or the tides of the seas. He wasn't a God, just a creature. But when the weather was good they threw him down another sacrifice, prayed and celebrated that Castiel might keep their good fortune. Castiel didn't. He didn't keep their fortune and he didn't keep their sacrifice. Let them drown. Let the sharks have them.

The body broke the surface, water and light rippling away from it to where the water turned dark and Castiel watched.

It was Castiel's fault for letting himself be spotted. Once was all it took to form a legend. Maybe a few times after that as well. All because Castiel couldn't keep his curiosity to himself. But these humans had reeked of trouble and here it was. Their prayer and celebration only disrupted the world underneath them. They over fished Castiel's hunting grounds. They threw down great nets and Castiel had nearly found himself caught in them. Now here was another body to pollute his world and the minds of the other sea creatures.

If we eat it, we will become as strong as it. This sentiment came from the sharks.

Castiel watched one break through the beams of light that filtered the water and approach the slowly sinking man with an easy push from its wide tail. The man was bleeding. Castiel could taste it on the water as surely as the shark could.

It will pollute you. The same way it does everything else. Humans are not strength. Castiel cautioned. Thoughts drifted easier than words beneath the water.

The shark thrashed its tail, turning course to find Castiel in the dark. You would know. You're half-human. I should eat you and maybe I would gain your strength. The shark rushed him, a flash of gray through the water, easily deterred when Castiel flared his tentacles around him. Twice as long as the shark and just as thick, it knew better. Sharks were cowards at heart and it darted away, leaving Castiel alone with the sinking human.

Anger boiled up inside him. Why hadn't he let the shark eat the poor animal?

Castiel moved over to the human and curled a tentacle around its wrists to stop it. The man was young. Innocent looking in his probable death. Castiel eyed the cut on his forehead that had attracted the shark. What had this human done to merit being thrown into the sea? It was never the good or the righteous that got tossed Castiel's way, he was sure. The good and righteous wouldn't struggle so hard to stay above water, they would be glad to offer themselves for the cause.

I suppose you need to breathe, Castiel thought and with his tentacle still suctioned around the young human's wrists, he hauled them both upwards.

They broke the surface in a shower of water and Castiel gasped at the air that trickled thickly along his throat and through the gills largely hidden to the back of his neck. Soon he'd be the one suffocating out here but he stayed with the human in his tentacles. He'd forgotten the circle of boats, the mass of humans.

“There it is!”

Castiel understood them and he ignored them. One great tentacle circled the man's torso.

“It's going to eat him. Our sacrifice is accepted!”

A squeeze and the water expelled from the human's lungs, leaving him gasping for sudden breath, convulsing in Castiel's grip.

“Thank you, God!”

Stupid legged beasts.

The one in his arms was limp but breathing now. Castiel would question his own motives later. For now he hung on, and the water rippled behind them in waves as he drove them across the top of the water, away from the sight of the boats. Black ink spread across the surface. If there had ever been a chance the humans might leave him alone, it was gone now.

**

Dean woke and the salt water burned in his nose and lungs. He remembered the blunt force of hitting the water, could feel the ache to his head, the sting of a gash. But he wasn't in the water now. He could feel it lapping against his feet but he could also feel the sun baking his skin and the sharp points of rock beneath his back.

“Fuck,” he bit out to himself a second before he rolled over and vomited water onto the jutting rock. Ocean water swirled around it in eddies, the sun reflected off it and hurt his eyes. Well, why shouldn't they join the party? The rest of him already hurt. Dean took a chance and looked up, swallowing hard at the sight of nothing but water stretching out before him. There was nothing, not in any direction, save for the small formation of rocks he was sitting on. Had he been washed up onto them?

So much for their theory of sea monsters and sacrifices. Or maybe the undersea beasts didn't even want Dean.

He let his head thump back down, stared up at the clouds. With no idea what to do, he did nothing, but soon boredom drove him and some irritating desire to survive even when survival seemed impossible.

Sitting up stole Dean's breath and fire spread along his ribs. When he glanced down at himself, ready to take stock of his injuries (would he be able to swim to an unseen shore with them?) what he saw was a thick black bruise that circled his torso. Cautious fingers probed his ribs and Dean hissed between his teeth but nothing shifted, the bones weren't broken. It was hard to breathe but whatever had happened to him before or after he was thrown into the water, it was nothing he couldn't recover from.

He gained his feet and amended the last thought. Nothing he couldn't recover from if he could find a way off this rock. But there, there was something on the water in the distance. A boat maybe but it was moving too quickly and a second later, disappeared beneath the waves. Dean narrowed his eyes but minutes passed and nothing resurfaced. Some sea creature then, and no sooner had he thought it than a heavy wave hit his rock, knocking him off balance and with it came an explosion of tentacles.

One caught him around the shoulders, two more wrapped around and suctioned onto his rock. His place of safety that Dean would quite happily dive off if he thought he could swim away. There wasn't time for fear, just a push of adrenaline, the world spinning around him, and Dean was face to face with a man.

“Holy God,” Dean breathed and stared straight into angry blue eyes.

“That's what you humans have wrong.” The man's voice came thick, slow, as if the words were a struggle to push through the air. “I am not a God!”

Dean felt himself shoved into the water and he sunk beneath the surface but he was awake this time. The man - the creature - circled Dean slowly, eying him like a shark while Dean hovered mid water, lungs already burning for breath.

Did you wish for this? Are you disappointed to find yourself alive? Unmauled and uneaten?

The words sank into Dean's head and he jolted, let out a gasp of air that bubbled to the surface and Dean kicked with his legs to follow them. He was sure to feel the tug of a tentacle around his ankles but there was nothing and he broke the surface with gasping breaths, gaze darting around to find the shadow of the creature beneath the water.

“No,” Dean said when he found the breath, “I'm kind of happy to still be alive actually.” It didn't matter how many times he told himself not to mouth off to the monster right beneath him. It was his mouth that had gotten him into trouble before. It wasn't going to stop now. “And unmauled?” The waves from the tentacles were pushing water into his mouth and he choked on his words. “I think the bruise around my chest says otherwise.”

He watched as the creature surfaced again and like this, with only his head and shoulders showing, like Dean's, Dean could believe him a man. The creature even raised a hand to dash the rivulets of water from his face. He looked confused, frowning and head tilted. “Aren't you afraid of me?”

“Terrified,” Dean replied truthfully. “But there's not really much I can do about that, is there?”

“No, I suppose not. Your brethren threw you to me, like so many others before. And all of them I let sink to their deaths, to the jaws of sharks.”

Dean's heart was pounding. As though teeth would grab his leg in the next second. “Nice of you tell me what to expect.”

“Do you want to die?”

“No, man!” But he was so sure he was going to, voice breaking in desperation, looking again for a way out. Even a weapon, to sink into the tentacles below him.

“Then you will not die. Not today,” the creature told him and the tapered end of one tentacle lifted from the water, winding its way up Dean's arm and anchoring him there.

**

The creature, who said its name was Castiel, took him to the cove of a small island.

“I know humans prefer the land,” Castiel said and Dean wanted to roll his eyes but he also didn't want to anger this creature who was doubtlessly unstable. “And here there is fresh water, shade from the sun, and some food and no other people who would throw you to your death.”

Dean thought Castiel truly believed he was doing Dean a favor and, hell, maybe he was. It wasn't like Dean wanted to go back to those ships, to a life just barely scrapped by where he had scars both figurative and literal to show for it. Was it really a step backwards to be imprisoned on an island, basic needs cared for and no one to try and protect himself from? No one except for the sea monster in front of him, but that sea monster only unwinds the tentacle from around Dean's chest that had dragged him here.

“Um. Thanks, I guess,” Dean replied once he'd gained his feet and stumbled through the surf to the sandy beach.

Castiel inclined his head and then was gone, sinking back beneath the water and Dean thought perhaps he'd seen the last of the thing.

The island was exactly as Castiel had said it would be. Dean could walk it end to end in a matter of hours but there were pockets of fresh water, held in the cup of leaves or the base of trees. There was shelter from the fronds of palm trees and Dean used them to build a better one. No people came here, not even signs of them. Which only left food but other than small birds and smaller lizards, Dean could find nothing through the hot hours of the afternoon. Castiel had said there was food and Dean doubted he had reason to lie. The plants, maybe? With Dean's luck he would pick a toxic one and he spent awhile fingering different leaves in indecision.

A large splash from the shore caught his attention and Dean looked over in time to spot a huge tentacle roll up onto the sand. In it's grasp was a fish, held in offering. Tentatively Dean stepped forward and took it. Castiel surfaced from the deeper water and Dean marveled over just how long those tentacles must reach..

“Is this supposed to be dinner? Raw fish?” Dean shouted to be heard over the breaking waves.

Castiel didn't answer, he stared for a moment before his tentacle slid from the beach and Castiel disappeared from sight.

It was the only way Dean saw Castiel for days.

**

Castiel wished that he knew what he was doing. Keeping a human as though he were keeping a common pet. Such a human thing to do in itself. But he found himself fishing for the man, patrolling the waters around the island, watching him.

Dean, the man had haltingly returned his name when Castiel had given his. What had ever possessed him to give a human his name? There was so much power in names. It was all a change from normality, that was certain, and Castiel found himself enjoying it. There was some good to be had in taking care of another, in having something more to think about.

Human desires, how trivial. The want for a pet or a friend or a mate. Castiel had never given in to them before and they were a harsh reminder that there was some human in him. Some part of him was based off of them or vise versa, Castiel couldn't remember anymore who had come first.

Dean seemed receptive to all this, at least. He readily ate the fish that Castiel brought him and he listened when Castiel described the plants he could eat without becoming ill. Somehow Dean created fire but humans always managed to do that and Castiel, like all creatures, kept his distance from the island when he saw the telltale curl of smoke.

Every movement Dean made sparked curiosity through Castiel. He could spend hours watching and the other creatures and animals of the sea had often said that Castiel's curiosity would lead him to disaster one day. He listened to their warnings and tried to heed them but then Dean actually called for him and Castiel found himself drawn back. Over and over Castiel was pulled back and then something new started to happen. Dean began to talk to him, sitting just out of reach of the waves that rolled up onto the beach, and even if Castiel's tentacle washed up with the water, he stayed and didn't tense.

He told Castiel why he'd been sacrificed to the water.

“You know what it's like to be an older brother, Cas?” Castiel shook his head and Dean didn't look surprised. “Did you ever care about anyone?” Castiel shook his head again and Dean sighed. “Then you probably won't get it.”

“But I do,” Castiel said and shocked even himself. He looped a tentacle onto the beach. The water sloshed up against Dean's feet and Castiel wound his tentacle around Dean's ankle, the tip flicking up around his calf. Dean didn't flinch.

“Alright,” Dean allowed, a little slow and maybe cautious but not as much as either of them should have been. “Well, it was for my brother. He fucked up because...family has a tendency of fucking up. He mixed in with the wrong crowd. Not bad guys but...vigilantes, you know what those are?”

Castiel didn't. Human words and customs were often useless and trivial to him.

“Sort of...taking out the bad guys, the criminals, without the okay of the community.” Castiel frowned and Dean grinned. “Yeah, we frown on civilians making the streets safer. But it's not a very long story. Sam is as slippery as you. When the police couldn't get their hands on him, they got me instead and figured I'd serve as an example.”

“And so you died for your brother.”

Dean shrugged. “I think they were a little desperate for a sacrifice this time around.”

“Are you worried about him now?”

“Nah. Not really. He can take care of himself. Besides, they'll just throw him over the side of a ship, too, and you'd spare him wouldn't you?”

Castiel was surprised to find that he would.

**

For a few days, Dean didn't see Castiel. It felt like a loss and not only because without Castiel, there was no fresh fish brought to the shores. Dean had learned what other things could be eaten off the island. The good plants from the toxic and some were beginning to grow fruit now. But the birds didn't talk back to him and the lizards posed no lasting interest. There wasn't much that interested Dean for long. Castiel did. And when he didn't appear off the shores, not even when Dean called him, Dean worried.

He knew there were sharks and other things patrolling the waters around the island. Castiel had warned him.

“Stay out of the water. There are other creatures. Their interest is piqued because mine is but theirs is not something you would want focused on you.”

Dean could read between the lines. Don't get in the water because something might eat you. But he set foot in the water anyway, braced as though a single step would bring the real monsters down on him. Nothing happened so he took another, waded until the water lapped around his knees and then his thighs and then his stomach. But nothing happened.

“Castiel!”

Actual worry churned at his stomach. Castiel was his captor but what did that matter? His captor showed him more consideration than the people (Dean's people) when they tossed him over that ship.

“Cas!”

Something dark moved in the water around him and Dean whipped his head around, heart in his throat with hope and fear. But it was dusk and he couldn't tell a shark from a tentacle from a school of fish. Not until it wound around his leg and up his thigh and Dean breathed a sigh of relief.

“You've been gone for days.”

Castiel surfaced a little ways off, beyond the incline where the beach dropped suddenly into open ocean. “There was much to consider.”

“Oh yeah? Like what? The best way to give me a fucking heart attack?”

Another tentacle circled around his torso and with no more ceremony, jerked him forward into the water and over the drop off. Dean's head went under, he gasped in water and came up coughing but Castiel's tentacles held him afloat and Dean glared.

“Yeah, like that,” he snapped but Castiel only stared at him. Castiel always only stared at him, unshakable, unmovable. No, he moved. He moved his tentacles in snug coils around Dean's body, moved his hand (so human) to touch Dean's face. That was new. Castiel had only ever touched with his tentacles before. And Castiel kissed Dean and he tasted like salt. “Or like that,” Dean said more quiet but Castiel just did it again.

Dean was surrounded, held in a cradle of Castiel's arms, both human and not. Castiel dragged him beneath the water, breathed air into his lungs. When they surfaced, Dean repaid the favor. And they coupled the way they could, in a way that stung from the salt water and the thickness of Castiel's thinnest tentacle finding it's way inside him but it didn't matter because another wrapped around his dick and Dean was swept away.

They were both swept away in the tide. The currant caught them and stranded them in open water. Dean was spent, laid on a raft of Castiel's tentacles, watching distant storm clouds on the horizon and the occasional flash of lightening that touched down against the water. A ship stood out against one of the flashes, a huge mast and a black sail that inexplicably made Dean shiver.

“Maybe we should go back to the island,” he said and Castiel heard him though his head was under the water where he could breathe easier.

They went back and Dean slept out on the beach and Castiel stayed just off the shores.

**

The ship that Dean had spotted against the horizon moved closer. Castiel watched it over the course of days and it had a pattern, sweeping back and forth across the sea. It brought with it a sense of foreboding and Castiel watched Dean and wondered if he should get Dean away. The ship was still miles off but too close for safety.

“We're leaving,” Castiel announced when the ship was close. He hated to uproot Dean who seemed to have settled on the island and he knew that humans liked to settle. To nest.

“Why?”

“That ship.” He looked back over his shoulder and Dean, still on the beach, shielded his eyes from the sun to follow his gaze. “It is much too close.”

Dean studied it another moment before looking back to Castiel. “It's pirates or vigilantes.”

“I don't like ships. They bring trouble.” They threw people into his waters. In the final case it was Dean but he is all that Castiel wanted. He thrust a tentacle out to Dean who rolled his eyes but stepped forward and together they disappeared across the water but always the ship seemed to follow them.

Each new island that Castiel found where Dean could live it was only days before the black sail of the ship appeared on the horizon until Castiel felt chased. When he felt chased, he felt angry, cornered and frightened. Dean tried to comfort him.

“It's a pirate ship. They're probably sweeping the area for other ships to attack. They're definitely not looking to try and rescue a crazy guy on an island.” Dean laughed but Castiel could detect the worry around his eyes. “Or they're thrill seekers looking for a glimpse of a monster.”

“Then they shall glimpse me.”

Castiel was tired of being chased. He would give them a monster if that was what they wanted. He would give them a God. One of destruction and wrath and maybe that would finally scare the humans away from him. Dean called out his name but Castiel ignored him. He dove beneath the water and his tentacles fanned behind him as he cut through the ocean and made his way towards the black ship.

The ship's hull rolled the water in great waves before it as it plunged onward. The wind drove it on with force and Castiel was no God, he was no Leviathan from the deep. It struck his tentacle and it hurt but Castiel was fierce and he was protective and the ship was angled now straight at the island where Castiel's mate waited.

He wrapped tentacles around two of the oars that helped the wind propel the ship forward and ripped them from the hands of the humans to cries of shock and “There it is!”

“If it is me you want, then here I am,” Castiel called to them and he ripped another oar from the side of the ship before latching his strongest tentacles onto the rudder. Let these humans become directionless. Let them try to chase him then.

“It's not you I want.” A man appeared over the edge, his hands gripped the railing and Castiel knew him. He knew his eyes and he knew his determination. Dean's brother. Dean had spoken of Sam a time or two. “I'm looking for revenge.”

The wooden rudder groaned and began to crack beneath the pressure of Castiel's tentacles. “I did not throw your brother into the water.”

“Then I'll destroy those who did next. I-” Here Sam paused, replaying the words over in his mind. “Did you speak to him before you killed him?”

Humans, they thought they had everything figured out but there was nothing of this world that they understood. Castiel sneered and longed to throw this human into the water, to take the sacrifice he offered to himself. But Dean. Dean spoke fondly of his brother the few times he did and Castiel let his tentacles slide away from the ship, leaving the rudder intact.

“Leave my waters. I won't be so merciful again.”

Sam laughed. “Really? Because I don't believe you're a God. I think you're as mortal and weak as the rest of us. So you must understand eye for an eye. You hurt my brother...” Sam trailed off and raised his arm. The sun glinted off the pointed tip of a spear.

Castiel thought to flee but knew that Sam and his crew would follow. They would keep following. Dean had said his brother was tenacious. Stubborn and smart and a little zealous. A dangerous combination but he had spoke to Castiel and there was reason there. “I did not hurt your brother. I kept him.” As a pet and a mate and he loved Dean as well as he could. “He was a sacrifice to me, given to me by your people, and I kept him.”

The spear was thrown so fast and with such accuracy that Castiel had no time to flinch until the point buried itself into a thick tentacle. Castiel fled, the pain burned him, and he left a trail of fire in blood behind him across the surface of the water. The rope fastened to the other end of the spear pulled taught and jerked him to a stop, embedding the hook of the spear deeply in him. Tethered, he felt fear pour through him in a way he never had before. It hurt and Castiel had never hurt before. Had never been so openly attacked. What could he do but return that attack?

One great tentacle raised from the water and wrenched once again against the rudder but the ship was large and the men were many and Castiel was only a creature. Even for his life and for his mate, he could not win this fight.

**

“Dean!”

Dean sat on the beach with the water rushing over his feet. The water felt cold to him, the breeze on the air was surely frigid. Castiel had gone and Dean had spent the past hour watching him return. Dragged through the ocean by the ship with the black sail that Dean didn't recognize because there were so many like it. It wasn't pirates though other people who didn't know any better might call them that. No. Sam and his crew saved lives. But they took them when they saw fit as well.

The waters below were probably filled with sharks, ready to take advantage of the fact that someone had finally won the battle against Castiel that they never could. Castiel had told Dean that the sharks weren't fond of him.

“But they may as well have me when it's time,” Castiel had said. “Who knows, perhaps their beliefs will have been right all along and they'll find some strength that way.”

The ship dropped anchor as close to the island as it could get and Sam rowed out in a small boat, heaving oars against the swells that were starting up. A storm was coming. Sam's boat ran aground only feet from where Dean sat but he still didn't move. Sam called his name again.

“You killed him,” Dean said. Fat raindrops were beginning to fall. “You killed him, Sam, and it's raining.” Maybe human beliefs were right all along and Castiel really was a God.

Sam looked up at the dark clouds gathering overhead. “I killed an animal. Dean...” Sam hesitated, crouching down and settling his hand over Dean's shoulder. It felt larger, heavier than Dean remembered. “We need to get you on the ship. You need to eat something.” Dean could suddenly feel how boney his shoulder had become under Sam's palm.

“But he...” Dean started and frowned, unsure. Castiel had fed him. Once a day he would bring Dean some fish.

“Dean, what happened to you?”

Dean could only stare ahead where the first shark's fin had surfaced.

**

Sam got Dean onto the ship. He got Dean a hot meal, a warm bath, clean clothes. Clothes that hung from his brother's frame and Sam tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the serpentine bruises on Dean's arms and legs and wrapping around his torso.

The storm had broken overhead but Sam doubted it wept for the sea creature Castiel. If anything, it wept for Dean, who stood at the side of the ship and said only;

“Cut him down. Let the ocean have him.”