Fic - Shape the Invisible
Title: Shape the Invisible
Book Three: In the House of Stone and Light
Author: Lady Eternal
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Word Count: 75,446
Spoilers: none
Warnings: Fractured fairy-tale. Heaven's prison. Sam’s Powers. Pre-series/Season 1. Bareback. Fellatio. Wing Kink. First Time. Zachariah is a dick in any universe. Bobby Singer = Grumpy Bear. Pining!Castiel. Virgin!Castiel. Bottom!Dean. Bottom!Gabriel.
Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, certain events would NEVER have happened and there would be unabashed pr0n. I own little more than a tabby that gets destructive when he feels ignored and am only playing with these worlds for my own amusement and the free entertainment of others.
Author’s Notes: Please see the Master Post for complete summary, warnings and acknowledgements.
Feedback is adored, so if you like the fic, please comment! And the more details the better; I love knowing what people like about my work.
Music:
Temple of Love - Sisters of Mercy
Shape the Invisible - Martin Page
Breath of Life - Florence and the Machine
The Light - Disturbed
The Sweetest Taboo - Sade
~ooooOOOoooo~
They didn’t speak as Mehujael escorted them back to their rooms. Upon entry, Dean rounded on the elder as Sam found his way to a chair and flopped into it. “Did you know he was gonna just shut us down like that?” he demanded.
“No.” For once, the older man allowed his face to show signs of his inner thoughts, and there was a disturbed air around his eyes. “Is it true?” he asked, his dark eyes flickering to Sam. “Did Gabriel mark you as his mate?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Sam replied. His own expression shifted after he said it, reshaping from misery to thoughtfulness. “Unless… do you mean this?” He stood and turned, gathering his shirt until it exposed the raised handprint scar at his waist.
Mehujael started towards him, but didn’t get more than a step before Dean put himself between them, warning radiating through every pore. “You’ve seen it,” Dean growled softly. “Now what do you know?”
“Only…” If possible, Mehujael’s face had gone even paler, and his eyes were wide as they pulled away from the scar on Sam’s waist and met Dean’s. “Before the Flood, when angels and humans walked the Earth in common, seraphim marked their mates in such ways. It was a sign of a profound bond between lovers, but also a warning to other immortals that the human was claimed, spoken for, protected. In many ways, they echo the Mark YHWH left on my great-grandfather, though the intent in the leaving of them couldn’t have been more different.”
“So it’s not just an angel hickey?” Dean asked. Only Sam knew how forced the sarcasm in his voice was. How Dean was reeling internally from the implications of the mark on his own thigh given the new information.
“No.” Mehujael shook his head, his gaze shifting to Sam again. “It cannot be raised in the wake of simple lust; there must be true devotion on the part of the angel, far beyond the love that compelled their oaths to Edom. And because it is a mark on your soul as well as your physical body, the human has to accept the connection in order for the mark to be created. It ties soul and grace eternally, able to follow one another through any realm or reincarnation. At least,” he hedged, “that is if the tales are to be believed. It has been millennia since such a bond was even formed.”
“Jae, you have to help us.” Sam stepped forward until he was chest-to-back with Dean, doing nothing to disguise the way this felt like grasping at a last, desperate hope. “Please… if you know where the door is…”
“I do not,” he replied firmly. “Qa-yin has never sought to return to the lands of his youth, and he would never permit us to journey there. The memories are too painful, I think, for him to ever allow it even to sate the most academic of curiosity.”
Dean was watching the older man’s face, reading the signals quickly now. “But there’s something, isn’t there? You’ve got an idea.”
For a long, heavy moment, Mehujael hesitated, clearly weighing something in his own mind. “I know that he seems unreasonable,” he began, his voice low and clearly treading carefully on what he could or couldn’t say. “No amount of time will ever dim his hatred for YHWH, I think, or his anger with his seraphic uncles for refusing to see what he thought was obvious in his heart.”
“But?” Dean coaxed.
“But I do not think he would begrudge it if Sam wanted to return to the library tonight.” Dean’s eyebrows went up even as Sam looked between them in confusion. “From the stories he’s told me, it’s possible that Sam reminds him of Habel, and he never could refuse Habel whatever he desired… especially if Habel argued his side persistently enough.”
Understanding dawned. The brothers looked at one another. “Do you think-?”
“Don’t know until you try, Sammy,” Dean replied before looking at Mehujael. “As long as he won’t be in any danger in there?”
Mehujael smiled, a hint of conspiracy tucked into the corners. “What harm could befall him among reams of ancient parchment?”
“Plenty,” Dean growled, warning clear in his tone. “So none of it better happen, or I’m gonna rip somebody’s lungs out, God-marked or not.”
A laugh rang out from Mehujael’s throat at that. “Do you know? I truly believe you could.”
* * *
Hours passed almost fitfully. Both brothers tried to nap, but sleep eluded them even when they were tangled into the same bed. Provisions that were ostensibly for their journey back to the realms of men were brought for them, and they arranged their packs as if they had every intention of leaving as Caine had bid them. But underlying everything they did, there was a nervous crackle in the air that neither could find a way to shake.
When Mehujael returned after their dinner had been cleared away, Dean looked at Sam. “Last chance to let me try instead, Sammy.”
“It’s okay, Dean.” Sam smiled at his brother, trying for a reassurance he wasn’t sure he managed. “You got Cas on board, and that got us this far. Gotta start pulling my weight sometime.”
“This was your idea,” Dean pointed out helpfully. “And it’s your angel boyfriend we’re trying to spring.”
“Archangel,” Sam corrected, a grin breaking over his face.
“Bitch,” Dean retorted automatically.
“Jerk.” Sam stood up even as the reflexive response left him, and pulled Dean into a fierce hug. “I’ll be fine,” he promised. “He won’t hurt me… and I have to try.”
“Yeah, okay.” Dean withdrew from the hug after a long moment, patting Sam’s shoulder as his brother stepped over to the open door. He caught sight of a box on the table that hadn’t been there before and frowned. “What’s that?”
“A gift,” Mehujael explained, “to occupy your mind while Sam is away.”
Dean lifted one eyebrow. “What is it?” he repeated.
“You’ll see.” There was, if possible, mischief in the elder’s smile as he turned and left, taking Sam with him.
* * *
When they arrived at the library, Mehujael retrieved a taper, set it in a small metal candleholder and lit it off one of the torches in the hall. “You’ll have to go the rest of the way on your own.”
“Caine’s not going to be angry with you about this, is he?” Worry had begun to gnaw away at Sam’s gut as they’d walked. It was bad enough what Gabriel was suffering because of Sam’s moment of doubt, and the risks to himself were a price he would gladly pay to undo what that falter in his faith had cost the archangel. But the number of people at risk besides himself kept growing: Dean. Castiel. Abariel. Now Mehujael. Who knew how many other angels that they would convince to help them by the time this was over.
Sam wasn’t sure how many lives he could bear to ruin.
His concern must have been more transparent than he’d thought, because Mehujael smiled comfortingly as he handed Sam the candle, placing his free hand on Sam’s upper arm. “It won’t be the first time we’ve been at odds. He’ll probably refuse to speak to me for a decade or so, but eventually, I’ll earn his forgiveness and everything will be as it should again. Is that not how it is in families anymore?”
The word startled Sam briefly. Despite knowing that the man who stood beside him was Caine’s great-grandchild, it hadn’t occurred to Sam to think of them as ‘family’. “Well… it depends on the family, I guess.”
Patting Sam’s arm, Mehujael nodded towards the library door. “Go on… and good luck.”
“Thanks, Jae.” Taking a deep breath as the monk disappeared from sight, Sam opened the door to the library and slipped inside.
* * *
For a long moment after they’d gone, Dean eyed the box on the table. It didn’t appear to be anything more than a block of wood. Picking it up carefully, Dean’s fingers found fine seams that the lamplight hadn’t let him see, and he turned it over and over in his hands in consideration of how the pieces had to fit together.
“If a bunch of Cenobites come popping outta this thing, I’m gonna be pissed,” Dean finally muttered to himself, his fingers finding the right pressure points to start pushing the box open.
All at once, Dean felt something slam down against his hand, knocking the box to the floor before he could open it. “What the-” He looked up to find shockingly familiar blue eyes staring back at him, wide with urgency and edged with anger. “Cas?”
“Dean, what were you thinking?” Castiel demanded. “You could have died opening that.”
“What are you…?” Dean’s mind stumbled, then shook itself back into order. “Nevermind that now, Cas; how the fuck did you get in here?”
“I sensed that your life was in danger,” Castiel explained, his own voice stretched with impatience.
“Yeah, but…” Dean gestured around. “The wards? How’d you get past ‘em?”
The question brought Castiel up short. It occurred to Dean suddenly that Castiel had come on instinct, without thinking about how it was that he would reach Dean or what the consequences might be of going to Dean’s side. “I…” Those blue eyes went unfocused for a moment, and then he looked back up at Dean. “Someone has added my name into them in a way that excludes me from the warding. This shouldn’t… be possible… Dean, what have you and your brother done?”
The exchange from a few minutes ago replayed itself in Dean’s mind, and Dean almost laughed aloud when the final pieces came together. “It wasn’t us… it was Jae. Mehujael. He must’ve changed ‘em so they’d let you in. But what the Hell was in that thing he gave me?”
“A needle, coated in poison. Such things were often used as ancient traps for the unwary and overcurious.” Castiel regarded the box for a moment, his eyes serious. “This Mehujael… he is Caine’s great-grandson?”
“Yeah.” Dean glanced at the box again, then back at Castiel. With the distraction of shock and confusion melting away, he felt his eyes widen again as awe at what he was seeing replaced them. “And he’s apparently got a way better sense of humor than the old man.”
“What do you mean?”
Unable to answer right away, Dean just stood and stared at the angel. He could understand now why, in the months after Gabe’s disappearance, Sam had been so adamant that his lover had been an angel despite the apparent lack of proof. The fires of the lamplight were reacting with Castiel’s grace, casting him in a glowing, living nimbus and highlighting the edges of the eldritch shadows that were his guardian’s wings, sweeping in graceful arches from the angel’s back.
“They don’t know I can see you right now, do they?” Dean asked, bypassing the angel’s question.
Castiel’s eyes widened briefly, and then he nodded almost in wonder. “I wouldn’t have been here even this long if they could. Caine’s wards must be hiding us from them.” Slowly, as if reaching into Hellfire, Castiel’s right hand came up to hover just a whisper above Dean’s chest. “They can’t see us...”
Dean’s heartbeat thrummed in his ears as he stepped closer, Castiel’s hand coming to rest over his heart. “Which means we can do whatever we want.”
In a heartbeat, the angel’s arms wrapped around his neck, and Dean let the world tilt around him as their mouths fused together, desperate and devouring. Vaguely, Dean could smell the must of the strange bed they’d landed on, could feel the dips and curves of it beneath his back as Castiel’s weight came to rest against his hips, his knees shifting open to let it settle more comfortably where he wanted it most.
“Please…” It was a groan swallowed between their mouths, a gravelled mess of urgency. “Please, Dean… just this once…”
“Fuck, yeah…” Dean ground up into the angel’s hips, fingers groping for the edges of the shirt he wore and pulling it up until he could get at the skin beneath. “Fuck me, angel… come on…”
A growl vibrated against Dean’s lips as Castiel kissed him, deep and demanding; Dean’s hands palmed at Castiel’s back as it seemed to radiate through him, shivering under his skin like an electrical current and Dean couldn’t help crying out as his entire body seemed to go up in flames, winding around Castiel’s and dragging him closer and oh…
The strange, shimmering wave had left them both naked, the angel’s need slippery against Dean’s own. “Fuck, that’s hot,” Dean panted, his mouth freed only because Castiel had turned his lips’ attention to the curve of the human’s throat.
“Dean…” It was a whisper in the hollow where his pulse beat, Castiel’s hands skating along his skin as though afraid they would brand him again if they settled. “I don’t…”
“Need me to steer you around the curves, Cas?” The tease earned him a sharp, pinching bite at the base of his collarbone, driving a low cry of want from Dean’s throat even as more saline blurted between them. “Or have you been watching then, too?”
“I never-”
The protest was cut off as Dean lunged with all of his weight, surprising Castiel and rolling them until the angel was spread out beneath him, his knees bracketing Castiel’s flanks and their erections grinding together as Dean bent and captured his mouth in an open kiss, deep and wet with promise. “Because that’s kinda hot,” he murmured, delighting in the way Castiel’s eyes widened in response.
Words stolen from Castiel’s mouth, Dean straightened and shifted until his guardian could see all of him: sculpted arms and broad shoulders, flecked by scars and freckles. Abdominals that flexed and jumped as he moved that melted into narrow hips and a gentle pudge that testified to his love of good food and cheap beer. Arousal curving away from the nest of sandy curls between his powerful thighs, braced apart by Castiel’s body and leaving the mark Castiel had left on him clearly visible.
A mating mark, Caine had called it. This angel, who had saved his life before they’d ever spoken a word to one another, had tied himself to Dean without demanding anything in return. Only seeking to protect and love from the shadows because that was all he’d believed he would ever be permitted to have.
It left Dean feeling almost drunk as he reached down and took himself in hand, watching Castiel’s throat bob at the sight. “Too bad we don’t have any lube,” he teased, breathless with the intoxicating power of what was happening between them. “You could watch me open myself up… you’ve seen it before, Cas; I know you have… except this time it’d be you I’d go down on…
“Or would you rather do it?” He watched the angel’s hands twitch restively, as if Castiel was forcing himself to not touch. “Get those fingers nice and wet… slide ‘em right up in and get me ready for you… hold me down and work me up until I’m begging for it…”
As quickly as he’d moved, Castiel was quicker: flipping them back down again and sealing his mouth around one of Dean’s nipples for a lightening-sharp bite that left Dean gasping. “You don’t beg,” Castiel growled, pushing Dean’s thighs apart as he selected another sensitive patch of skin and pinched his teeth into it. “None of them have ever touched you deep enough.”
Dean’s entire body trembled as fingers brushed along the seam of his backside, trailing something slick in their wake. “I knew you fucking watched,” he teased, the last syllable shaking out as the taut muscle hidden there was breached by just the barest tip of a finger.
“May the Father forgive my faults and failures in His service.” Before Dean could so much as quirk an eyebrow, Castiel drew his tongue up the long vein of Dean’s erection as he pushed one finger up to the base knuckle into Dean’s body without a trace of uncertainty.
Banter was impossible. Thought dissolved under the angel’s touch, a half-formed taunt firing across the back of Dean’s mind as Castiel did exactly what Dean had proposed: one finger became two, then three, every increase slicker than the last as he stretched Dean’s body wide for what felt like forever. A faster learner than Dean could have predicted, Castiel noted the way he let out a stuttering plea for more when his fingertips brushed the bundle of nerves deep inside and returned to it at random: massaging in deep circles one moment, retreating in favor of scissoring Dean’s muscles into pliancy and only grazing the edge of it the next.
It left Dean trembling wreck even as Castiel’s free arm was braced over his heart, a subtle pressure on his chest that held Dean in place as if he’d been tied down. And all the while, Castiel was dusting tiny kisses along Dean’s hips, the line of his thighs, tracing just beyond the edges of the handprint scar that marked Dean as his mate. Words in a language Dean didn’t know sometimes drifted out, lost in the deafening roar of Dean’s pulse as the angel drove him to the very brink of orgasm and then backed off, building an aching need in layer upon layer until Dean was almost sobbing his frustration.
“Cas…” It was a whine, high and reedy, his hips riding against Castiel’s fingers as two of them drew lazy circles inside his body, then drew out almost completely. “Dammit, Cas… you’re a fucking tease…”
“Do you want me inside you, Dean?”
There was an earnestness in the question that had Dean’s eyes opening. Castiel hovered over him, watching his face with a strangely intent expression. It slowly dawned on Dean that the hand that had been braced on his chest was lower now, drawn down and curled around his hip, and for all that the way the angel had taken him apart hadn’t been, uncertainty hovered in the deep blue of those eyes.
On instinct, Dean came up until he was on his knees again, Castiel between them and watching his every move. The hypnotic color of them almost disappeared when Dean took the angel’s thus-far neglected erection in hand, the way Castiel’s pupils blew wide as his lips parted on a gasp radiating through the hunter with a renewed sense of his own sensual power. “Yes.”
A shudder drove through Castiel at Dean’s consent, and then those glorious eyes were rolling up as Dean spread his knees a fraction wider and sank down. The blunt head of the angel’s need was an insistent pressure for just long enough to be torture before Dean’s relaxed muscles gave way, and Castiel was buried half-deep into his human’s tight heat before either of them knew it had happened.
“Oh, fuck…” Dean’s head tipped back, his entire body buzzing and alive. One hand was gripping at Castiel’s shoulder hard enough to bruise a human in a desperate need to keep himself steady, and both of Castiel’s hands were on his hips in a grip so reverent that Dean’s head swam. “Goddamn, you feel good…”
“Dean…” It trembled out of Castiel’s throat, hot breath stuttering against Dean’s skin. Dean let himself sink just a fraction more, and the sound that Castiel made in response seemed almost punched out. “Beloved…”
“Come on, Cas,” Dean urged again, the hand that had been keeping Castiel’s erection at the right angle coming up so that he could drape both arms around the angel’s neck. “Fuck me like we’ll never get another chance.”
A groan dragged up from the depths of Castiel’s chest, and then he was kissing Dean again as he tipped their bodies down. Dean was on his back again, his legs wrapping around Castiel’s hips and his fingers tangling in night-black hair as Castiel slowly began to rock inside him. Shallow pushes, learning the rhythm that Dean’s body already knew by heart. Deeper and deeper until Dean could feel their hips press flush with every long drive. Careful and sure, stroking into him like Castiel was afraid they might crumble into pieces. Not like Dean was fragile, but like this rare, precious thing between them could somehow be damaged if he brought them together too harshly.
Riding up against one long drive, Dean bore down just enough to rip a ragged shout from Castiel’s throat at the tight, perfect grip Dean’s body had him in. “Give it to me,” he urged against Castiel’s mouth, his own voice wrecked from want. “Wanna feel you for days, Cas…”
“I’m stronger than you think,” Castiel warned. His grip on Dean’s hips was flexing, hovering on the line between caress and possession. It wouldn’t leave bruises.
Dean wanted it to. “So’m I.” He flexed his internal muscles again, and finally sank a bite of his own into the tender lobe of Castiel’s ear. “C’mon, mate,” he dared. “Make me feel it.”
Castiel’s head reared back in shock as the word registered. He stared at Dean and the human stared back, an open challenge cast in the space between their eyes. A challenge that would have obscured everything from anyone other than Castiel.
They were kissing again, Dean’s mouth crushed beneath the angel’s for hot, breathless seconds that made spots dance behind Dean’s eyes. It left his senses reeling when Castiel’s mouth lifted away from his, only a heartbeat before the angel all but pulled out and drove in hard.
It shocked a cry out of Dean that melted into a long moan as he shifted, bringing his left leg up and sliding it over Castiel’s right shoulder. Castiel’s hand wrapped around his thigh to steady him as he leaned into the rhythm, his hips finding a pounding cadence that Dean swore he could feel in his throat. Dimly, he heard himself babbling nonsense encouragement even as Castiel’s left hand threaded into his right and held fast. Almost every third thrust hammered against Dean’s prostate, making him whine and twist beneath his lover for want of more, desperately chasing the climax that seemed just beyond his reach…
“Let go, beloved.” The gravelled growl in his ear made Dean cry out again, the angel’s hand gliding between his thighs to cup firmly around Dean’s steadily-leaking erection. “Let me see you…”
The deep throb in that voice snapped the final tether, and Dean shouted the angel’s name as he shattered beneath him, spilling between them and coating Castiel’s fist. His muscles clamped down on the thick heat pounding into him, and then Castiel was crying out in something like agony as he followed Dean over the edge of the world.
Slowly, achingly, Dean felt his heartbeat return to normal and his breath come more evenly. Castiel hovered above and inside him, his head lolling limply on his neck and his eyes closed against the intensity of his release. Dean could see the delicate lashes that framed them more easily now that their color was hidden away, could feel the soft twitches inside him as their bodies settled back into themselves.
For long moments, they didn’t speak. Words felt too small. Dean’s left leg slid off Castiel’s shoulder and Castiel reluctantly shifted until he pulled free of Dean’s body with a soft, wet sound that somehow embarrassed them both. It was only then that Castiel ventured to meet Dean’s eyes, his own once again strangely uncertain.
Or maybe not so strange. Reaching up, Dean let his hands frame the angel’s face and he brushed a sweeter kiss than he could ever remember giving anyone over those soft mauve lips. “Come here,” he beckoned gently.
It seemed like the most natural thing in the world for Castiel to fit himself down against Dean’s slightly-longer frame, his head coming to rest in the curve of Dean’s shoulder as he nestled in. Despite the fact that Dean had no idea how long Sam would be gone, or how quickly they’d have to move once Sam’s conversation with Caine came to a head, he found himself closing his eyes as Castiel gave a soft sigh of contentment. Just for a minute, he told himself. We can stay here... just… just for one more minute…
Chapter Three