(no subject)
Emmanuel was still looking at her helplessly, waiting for her to tell him what to do. Daphne couldn’t stand it. She fled up the stairs, locking herself in her bedroom. She opened the widow, dry heaves shaking her body and she didn’t know any longer if it was because of the cinnamon or because her marriage was built on the shakiest of foundations and it felt as it was about to be washed away.
She breathed in the smell of the night air and tried to stop herself from shaking. Slowly, she raised her hand to her cheek, finding tears there. Daphne hadn’t even noticed she’d been crying before but she realized that they must have started before, downstairs, when Emmanuel was asking her if he loved her. They both knew the answer but neither of them were prepared to say it. Her fingers were smudged black with mascara and Daphne realized with another sad blow that Emmanuel hadn’t even commented on the change in her. He hadn’t even noticed it.
He had just been waiting for his woman who loved apple pie.
She found some tissues in her purse and wiped away the make-up. She threw the dress in the back of the closet and lay down in bed, waiting for the sick feeling to subside. Beneath her she could hear Emmanuel pottering about, cleaning up and opening the downstairs windows to let the scent of the pie escape. She wondered if he’d come to the same conclusion she had, that this wasn’t working and would never work, or if he was hanging on to some hope that Daphne might be the person he really loved.
**
The next morning the black car was still parked up in the street. Daphne was running late for work. She’d fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning and slept through her alarm. In a way she was grateful because it gave her an excuse to avoid Emmanuel. She ran down the porch steps, almost barrelling into the man who was just coming up them. The man grabbed her arm to steady her and Daphne found herself looking up into a handsome, slightly weather beaten face. He had green eyes and a bit of stubble. He glanced for her towards then house and then back again.
“I’ve come to see Emmanuel,” he said, still looking at her questioningly. “A friend of mine told me he’d be able to help me. Does he live here?”
Suddenly the questioning look made sense. Daphne smiled, relaxing slightly and brushed off the hand on her arm.
“Yes, Emmanuel is inside,” she said. “I’m his wife, but I’m late for work. I’m sure Emmanuel will be able to help you with whatever you need.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” the guy said, taking a step back to let her pass. “My name’s Dean, by the way.”
“Daphne,” Daphne called over her shoulder, waving to him as she got into her own car. She watched just long enough to see Dean knock on the front door and for Emmanuel to open it then she was gone.
**
Coming back at lunch time hadn’t been in Daphne’s plan. She had wanted to stay away for as long as she could to give herself some space and run through her options. As Daphne could see it there were really three choices she could make - attempt to make the marriage work but accept that they might have to find out more about Emmanuel’s past; continue to lie and stay married or get a divorce and allow Emmanuel to try to find himself without her at his side. She twisted her wedding ring round her finger, thinking of the promises they had made each other and amended divorce to annulment. Their marriage had never been consummated and suddenly she was glad of that.
She had cried. She had cried mostly because leaving Emmanuel would mean swallowing down her pride and admitting that she had been wrong. She mourned the life she’d imagined they’d have together and her loss of place in church society but she didn’t mourn Emmanuel. She’d never really known him. He was just a lost man who’d been in the wrong place at the right time. She’d been foolish to think that she could hide him from his past, that it wouldn’t matter. She’d been foolish to think she could force him to fall in love with her any more then she could force herself to fall in love with him. Everything had been rushed, wrong and she saw that now.
She saw it, but that didn’t mean she wanted to get out of the car, go into the house and confront Emmanuel with the truth but she didn’t know where else to go. She’d been so distraught that her boss had sent her home and now she was simply sitting outside her house, waiting for a sign. She could go and talk to Pastor Mark but she couldn’t take his knowing looks and his pity. She’d always known he’d thought she was pushing things, moving too fast. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.
She could have just kept driving but that wouldn’t have solved the problem she would have eventually had to come back to. She parked up in the drive way and waited till she could collect her thoughts enough to have a proper conversation with Emmanuel. As she walked up the steps to the house she slipped her wedding ring off her finger and put it in her pocket. Every time she saw it, it felt as if the ring was mocking her. How could she wear it and call herself Emmanuel’s wife when he was in love with someone else? She’d never made any attempts to find out who he was before he came into her life. She had always been afraid that there was already someone out there with a claim on him. Now she wished she’d simply faced that possibility head on, rather than leaving herself this heart ache.
Slowly, Daphne pushed the front door open. She was surprised to find it unlocked. She wondered if Dean from this morning was still here or if Emmanuel had already solved his problem. She opened her mouth to call out his name then shut it again quickly.
She had heard a moan.
Quietly, on tiptoes, Daphne edged towards the door to the living room. There were any number of thoughts running through her mind but nothing prepared her for the sight that greeted her when she pushed the door open a crack. Emmanuel was on his hands and knees on the living room rug, as naked as he’d been when she pulled him from the lake, and Dean was kneeling behind him. Daphne swallowed hard. She had always thought Emmanuel was attractive but she had had no idea. He was wild here, his head thrown back, moaning in pleasure as Dean drove into him, hips smacking against the soft swell of Emmanuel’s ass.
Everything seemed to click into place now, how their marriage had never been consummated and Daphne found her cheeks reddening. She would never have thought that what Emmanuel wanted, what turned him on, would be being pinned down underneath another man. Was that who he loved then? Some man who liked beer, apple pie and rock music? Daphne would never have been able to live up to that. She was missing some of the equipment.
This Dean wasn’t though. His hips snapped back and Daphne caught a glimpse of his cock, slicked and big, before he forced it back inside Emmanuel. Emmanuel mewled for it, fingers dug into the rug beneath him and Daphne wondered how her usually timid, sexually disinterested husband could have been coaxed down onto the floor and fucked by a stranger. Did he just miss men that much that he would have let anyone with a cock have him?
As she leaned in though, she realized that Dean was muttering something, something which made Emmanuel moan louder, and she strained her ears to hear it.
“You got married?” Dean asked. “You forgot me that quickly? Forgot my cock?” He slammed forward at this point, as if trying to remind Emmanuel just exactly what was going on. “She could never do this to you, Cas. She couldn’t make you come the way I do. I had no idea I was going to find you here, I thought I’d lost you. You’re the best surprise ever, Cas. Fuck, and you’re so tight for me.”
“Dean,” Emmanuel - no, Cas, that was his name - moaned and Daphne felt heat rise in her cheeks. This was her husband’s lover, the one he’d been trying to please subconsciously. All the pieces fitted now, slotting neatly into place and Daphne wondered how she could never have considered that Cas might be gay.
“Yeah, you remember me now I’ve fucked it back into you,” Dean murmured and Daphne could hear the fondness in his voice. She could see the smile on his face and even if he couldn’t say the words, she knew what he really meant. He was holding onto Cas so tightly, as if he was afraid the man might slip away from him again if he didn’t grip on to him. His thrusts might look punishing but Daphne could see what else was behind them, could see the possession in his movements. Dean wanted to mark the man below him so thoroughly that Cas would never forget him again.
What was going on in front of her eyes might seem brutal but Daphne saw the love underneath it all. Emmanuel, or the man she’d thought of as Emmanuel at least, had been a lost sheep. She had only been there as a caretaker, someone to watch over him until Dean found him again. Now his Dean was here and Emmanuel was gone, replaced by whoever Cas was. The two men fitted together like separate pieces of a puzzle, locked together so tightly now that if it wasn’t for the little half hitches of Dean’s hips, Daphne wouldn’t know they were even moving. They were wound as tightly round each other as two people could get but she had the feeling that that wasn’t enough for them.
They could fuck and fuck, probably had been even since she’d left that morning and Dean had realized just who Emmanuel was. Or maybe he’d known all along? Maybe it had been his car parked out on the street and he’d been watching them, waiting for the right moment when he could get Cas alone and remind him of who he really was. It was calculating if that was what he’d done and Daphne knew she should be angry, that the man was a home wrecker intent on stealing her husband but she couldn’t find it in her to feel that way. Emmanuel had never been hers. He’d never been real. Dean couldn’t be stealing something from her that she had never had. Cas had always belonged with someone else.
She really did mean to give them their privacy. She meant to close the door and tiptoe away as quietly as she’d come, but then Cas gave another shuddering cry. Her eyes were drawn right to him and to the rug that he was ruining, his whole body spasming as he came. Dean held him through his orgasm, whispering something that Daphne couldn’t hear no matter how hard she listened for it.
Cas slid down onto his forearms, a pleased noise vibrating through his body and Dean followed him, body moulding to the one underneath him, laughing softly.
“I haven’t finished with you yet,” he said, teasing now and Daphne wondered just how often they’d done this already. Dean moved slowly, carefully, as if mindful that Cas underneath him would still be spent from his orgasm. Daphne gasped softly as she saw him pull free, saw that Dean’s cock was still hard. It was a delicious looking thing, shiny with slick and she entertained herself for a moment, wondering how many times Cas had been down on his knees, worshipping that cock with his mouth.
Dean sat back on his haunches, cock bobbing free and obscene between his spread thighs and Cas half-turned his head, licking his lips as he caught sight of it. Daphne pressed her legs together, aware that this was more arousing than anything she and Emmanuel had ever got up to together. This was where Emmanuel belonged, spreading his legs for Dean. Suddenly, Dean reached out, gripping the other man tightly and flipped him so they were face to face.
“Much better, now I can see you,” he murmured, licking his lips and leaned forward to kiss Cas. Daphne turned her head away quickly. This was a private moment, somehow much more personal and erotic than the sex she’d been watching. They were in love and she was intruding. She really did mean to pull herself away but then Cas made another one of those breathless, needy noises and she turned her head in time to see Dean pulling him up into his lap, feeding his cock into Cas’s already stretched hole in one sure, slow thrust. Cas wrapped his arms and legs around Dean, sinking till he was fully seated in the man’s lap and they rocked together like that.
Daphne could see the muscles in Dean’s thighs straining as he moved. She knew they must hurt, supporting both him and Cas but the man didn’t seem to care, not moving to another position. She’d thought they’d been as close as they could get before but this was different. Before had been about claiming, about showing Cas who he belonged to, this was more slow, more loving. It was hard to tell where one of them ended and the other began, they were one now.
Cas lifted his head, eyes half-lidded, mouth a little ‘O’ of pleasure as Dean hit the right spot inside him. Daphne scrambled for the door handle but not fast enough. Their eyes locked across the room. In an instant the relaxed, happy man who’d been in Dean’s arms was gone. Cas was ramrod straight, closed off and Dean must have realized something was wrong because he’d stopped rocking, turning his head slightly to try and see what it was that had upset Cas.
Daphne didn’t try to hide herself.
“Fuck,” Dean swore, trying to untangle himself from the man in his lap which was easier said than done since Cas seemed in no hurry to go anywhere. “Did you like the free show? Want to throw me my pants?” He swore again under his breath, finally managing to dislodge Cas from his lap. Daphne found his jeans slung over the arm of the couch. She couldn’t find his underwear but at this moment she supposed anything was better than nothing. She threw them to him and he caught them, muttering as he pulled them on. He was still half-hard, she noted out of the corner of her eye.
Cas sat on the floor, apparently unashamed by his nudity or the fact that his wife had caught him being fucked by another man. He made no move to cover himself. Eventually Dean threw a shirt at him, a t-shirt that must have been one of his own and which Cas accepted with a little nod, slipping it over his head. He stood up and Daphne swallowed slowly. The t-shirt skimmed the tops of his thighs. If he bent over then nothing would be left to the imagination. She would be able to see everything. She noticed Dean palming himself through his jeans. Obviously the same thought had occurred to him and Daphne wondered if it would have been better if Cas had stayed nude.
“This is Dean,” Cas said finally, gesturing to the man who couldn’t quiet meet Daphne’s eye. “And I’m not Emmanuel, I’m Castiel.” He said the name as if he was trying it out, not completely believing that it was his own. “Dean calls me Cas.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed, his voice rough with emotion. He turned to Daphne, his cheeks flushed red but there was determination in his eyes. “Look, I know you’re married but he’s not who you think he is. Cas is mine. We’ve been together through things you couldn’t even begin to understand. I’m sorry you saw us, but I’m not sorry we did it. Where do you get off marrying some guy with amnesia anyway? He could have been anyone. I was looking for him!”
Daphne didn’t know what to say that. She had always know, somewhere in the back of her mind, that someone would be looking for the man she’d found but she’d been selfish. She’d decided he was supposed to be hers and ignored every indication to the opposite. She’d kept him from finding Dean, until Dean tracked him down. In a way she knew she’d been stupid to take a stranger in. She wanted to say she’d been helping a stranger, following the parable of the Samaritan but the words wouldn’t come because she knew she was lying.
“Cas is coming with me,” Dean said, staring her down as if he expected her to make a fuss about it but Daphne could only find herself nodding.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, he should go with you. He loves you.”
Dean looked shocked. Daphne could understand that. Maybe if she hadn’t seen them together, if she’d still been trying to convince herself that this was a marriage with a future instead of a mistake then she would have made a fuss but she wouldn’t. She should have been helping Castiel. That was what God had wanted. She knew that now.
“I’m not gonna say thank you or anything. What you did was wrong.”
“I know,” Daphne said softly, hanging her head.
Dean threw his hands up in the air, unable to find words and then pointed at Castiel. “You, put clothes on, we’re going.” He turned back to Daphne, “And you, I don’t even know.”
Castiel hunted around the room, finding their clothes. Daphne was surprised to see that their underwear had ended up pushed down the back of the couch. No wonder she hadn’t been able to find it before. He pulled on his slacks and Dean grabbed the shirt that had formally belonged to Castiel and together they managed to get dressed, Dean shoving his underwear into his jacket pocket.
Finally Castiel slipped off his wedding ring and handed it wordlessly to Daphne.
He didn’t look angry. He looked sad and that was worse. Daphne could try to pretend but she would always know she had taken advantage of the man, used him when he was vulnerable and didn’t know any better. It made her a horrible person. She had always thought of herself as a nice person, a person who followed Gods word but now she didn’t know who she was. She would never have believed herself capable of the things she’d done, but she’d done them with a dogged determination that shocked her now she looked back on it.
It was almost a blessing that their marriage had never been consummated. The very thought of what she’d tried to do made her feel sick now.
Castiel half raised his hand to touch her but Dean shook his head.
“Let her remember,” he said. Daphne scrunched her face up, trying to understand what he meant by that remark but then the two men were leaving. She followed them to the door, standing on the porch as they walked down together and towards the big, black car.
Dean stopped at the trunk, opening it and Daphne squinted to see what he was retrieving from its depths. It was an old, tatty trench coat. As she watched, he slipped it around Castiel’s shoulders.
For the first time she saw Castiel smile.
She breathed in the smell of the night air and tried to stop herself from shaking. Slowly, she raised her hand to her cheek, finding tears there. Daphne hadn’t even noticed she’d been crying before but she realized that they must have started before, downstairs, when Emmanuel was asking her if he loved her. They both knew the answer but neither of them were prepared to say it. Her fingers were smudged black with mascara and Daphne realized with another sad blow that Emmanuel hadn’t even commented on the change in her. He hadn’t even noticed it.
He had just been waiting for his woman who loved apple pie.
She found some tissues in her purse and wiped away the make-up. She threw the dress in the back of the closet and lay down in bed, waiting for the sick feeling to subside. Beneath her she could hear Emmanuel pottering about, cleaning up and opening the downstairs windows to let the scent of the pie escape. She wondered if he’d come to the same conclusion she had, that this wasn’t working and would never work, or if he was hanging on to some hope that Daphne might be the person he really loved.
**
The next morning the black car was still parked up in the street. Daphne was running late for work. She’d fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning and slept through her alarm. In a way she was grateful because it gave her an excuse to avoid Emmanuel. She ran down the porch steps, almost barrelling into the man who was just coming up them. The man grabbed her arm to steady her and Daphne found herself looking up into a handsome, slightly weather beaten face. He had green eyes and a bit of stubble. He glanced for her towards then house and then back again.
“I’ve come to see Emmanuel,” he said, still looking at her questioningly. “A friend of mine told me he’d be able to help me. Does he live here?”
Suddenly the questioning look made sense. Daphne smiled, relaxing slightly and brushed off the hand on her arm.
“Yes, Emmanuel is inside,” she said. “I’m his wife, but I’m late for work. I’m sure Emmanuel will be able to help you with whatever you need.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” the guy said, taking a step back to let her pass. “My name’s Dean, by the way.”
“Daphne,” Daphne called over her shoulder, waving to him as she got into her own car. She watched just long enough to see Dean knock on the front door and for Emmanuel to open it then she was gone.
**
Coming back at lunch time hadn’t been in Daphne’s plan. She had wanted to stay away for as long as she could to give herself some space and run through her options. As Daphne could see it there were really three choices she could make - attempt to make the marriage work but accept that they might have to find out more about Emmanuel’s past; continue to lie and stay married or get a divorce and allow Emmanuel to try to find himself without her at his side. She twisted her wedding ring round her finger, thinking of the promises they had made each other and amended divorce to annulment. Their marriage had never been consummated and suddenly she was glad of that.
She had cried. She had cried mostly because leaving Emmanuel would mean swallowing down her pride and admitting that she had been wrong. She mourned the life she’d imagined they’d have together and her loss of place in church society but she didn’t mourn Emmanuel. She’d never really known him. He was just a lost man who’d been in the wrong place at the right time. She’d been foolish to think that she could hide him from his past, that it wouldn’t matter. She’d been foolish to think she could force him to fall in love with her any more then she could force herself to fall in love with him. Everything had been rushed, wrong and she saw that now.
She saw it, but that didn’t mean she wanted to get out of the car, go into the house and confront Emmanuel with the truth but she didn’t know where else to go. She’d been so distraught that her boss had sent her home and now she was simply sitting outside her house, waiting for a sign. She could go and talk to Pastor Mark but she couldn’t take his knowing looks and his pity. She’d always known he’d thought she was pushing things, moving too fast. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.
She could have just kept driving but that wouldn’t have solved the problem she would have eventually had to come back to. She parked up in the drive way and waited till she could collect her thoughts enough to have a proper conversation with Emmanuel. As she walked up the steps to the house she slipped her wedding ring off her finger and put it in her pocket. Every time she saw it, it felt as if the ring was mocking her. How could she wear it and call herself Emmanuel’s wife when he was in love with someone else? She’d never made any attempts to find out who he was before he came into her life. She had always been afraid that there was already someone out there with a claim on him. Now she wished she’d simply faced that possibility head on, rather than leaving herself this heart ache.
Slowly, Daphne pushed the front door open. She was surprised to find it unlocked. She wondered if Dean from this morning was still here or if Emmanuel had already solved his problem. She opened her mouth to call out his name then shut it again quickly.
She had heard a moan.
Quietly, on tiptoes, Daphne edged towards the door to the living room. There were any number of thoughts running through her mind but nothing prepared her for the sight that greeted her when she pushed the door open a crack. Emmanuel was on his hands and knees on the living room rug, as naked as he’d been when she pulled him from the lake, and Dean was kneeling behind him. Daphne swallowed hard. She had always thought Emmanuel was attractive but she had had no idea. He was wild here, his head thrown back, moaning in pleasure as Dean drove into him, hips smacking against the soft swell of Emmanuel’s ass.
Everything seemed to click into place now, how their marriage had never been consummated and Daphne found her cheeks reddening. She would never have thought that what Emmanuel wanted, what turned him on, would be being pinned down underneath another man. Was that who he loved then? Some man who liked beer, apple pie and rock music? Daphne would never have been able to live up to that. She was missing some of the equipment.
This Dean wasn’t though. His hips snapped back and Daphne caught a glimpse of his cock, slicked and big, before he forced it back inside Emmanuel. Emmanuel mewled for it, fingers dug into the rug beneath him and Daphne wondered how her usually timid, sexually disinterested husband could have been coaxed down onto the floor and fucked by a stranger. Did he just miss men that much that he would have let anyone with a cock have him?
As she leaned in though, she realized that Dean was muttering something, something which made Emmanuel moan louder, and she strained her ears to hear it.
“You got married?” Dean asked. “You forgot me that quickly? Forgot my cock?” He slammed forward at this point, as if trying to remind Emmanuel just exactly what was going on. “She could never do this to you, Cas. She couldn’t make you come the way I do. I had no idea I was going to find you here, I thought I’d lost you. You’re the best surprise ever, Cas. Fuck, and you’re so tight for me.”
“Dean,” Emmanuel - no, Cas, that was his name - moaned and Daphne felt heat rise in her cheeks. This was her husband’s lover, the one he’d been trying to please subconsciously. All the pieces fitted now, slotting neatly into place and Daphne wondered how she could never have considered that Cas might be gay.
“Yeah, you remember me now I’ve fucked it back into you,” Dean murmured and Daphne could hear the fondness in his voice. She could see the smile on his face and even if he couldn’t say the words, she knew what he really meant. He was holding onto Cas so tightly, as if he was afraid the man might slip away from him again if he didn’t grip on to him. His thrusts might look punishing but Daphne could see what else was behind them, could see the possession in his movements. Dean wanted to mark the man below him so thoroughly that Cas would never forget him again.
What was going on in front of her eyes might seem brutal but Daphne saw the love underneath it all. Emmanuel, or the man she’d thought of as Emmanuel at least, had been a lost sheep. She had only been there as a caretaker, someone to watch over him until Dean found him again. Now his Dean was here and Emmanuel was gone, replaced by whoever Cas was. The two men fitted together like separate pieces of a puzzle, locked together so tightly now that if it wasn’t for the little half hitches of Dean’s hips, Daphne wouldn’t know they were even moving. They were wound as tightly round each other as two people could get but she had the feeling that that wasn’t enough for them.
They could fuck and fuck, probably had been even since she’d left that morning and Dean had realized just who Emmanuel was. Or maybe he’d known all along? Maybe it had been his car parked out on the street and he’d been watching them, waiting for the right moment when he could get Cas alone and remind him of who he really was. It was calculating if that was what he’d done and Daphne knew she should be angry, that the man was a home wrecker intent on stealing her husband but she couldn’t find it in her to feel that way. Emmanuel had never been hers. He’d never been real. Dean couldn’t be stealing something from her that she had never had. Cas had always belonged with someone else.
She really did mean to give them their privacy. She meant to close the door and tiptoe away as quietly as she’d come, but then Cas gave another shuddering cry. Her eyes were drawn right to him and to the rug that he was ruining, his whole body spasming as he came. Dean held him through his orgasm, whispering something that Daphne couldn’t hear no matter how hard she listened for it.
Cas slid down onto his forearms, a pleased noise vibrating through his body and Dean followed him, body moulding to the one underneath him, laughing softly.
“I haven’t finished with you yet,” he said, teasing now and Daphne wondered just how often they’d done this already. Dean moved slowly, carefully, as if mindful that Cas underneath him would still be spent from his orgasm. Daphne gasped softly as she saw him pull free, saw that Dean’s cock was still hard. It was a delicious looking thing, shiny with slick and she entertained herself for a moment, wondering how many times Cas had been down on his knees, worshipping that cock with his mouth.
Dean sat back on his haunches, cock bobbing free and obscene between his spread thighs and Cas half-turned his head, licking his lips as he caught sight of it. Daphne pressed her legs together, aware that this was more arousing than anything she and Emmanuel had ever got up to together. This was where Emmanuel belonged, spreading his legs for Dean. Suddenly, Dean reached out, gripping the other man tightly and flipped him so they were face to face.
“Much better, now I can see you,” he murmured, licking his lips and leaned forward to kiss Cas. Daphne turned her head away quickly. This was a private moment, somehow much more personal and erotic than the sex she’d been watching. They were in love and she was intruding. She really did mean to pull herself away but then Cas made another one of those breathless, needy noises and she turned her head in time to see Dean pulling him up into his lap, feeding his cock into Cas’s already stretched hole in one sure, slow thrust. Cas wrapped his arms and legs around Dean, sinking till he was fully seated in the man’s lap and they rocked together like that.
Daphne could see the muscles in Dean’s thighs straining as he moved. She knew they must hurt, supporting both him and Cas but the man didn’t seem to care, not moving to another position. She’d thought they’d been as close as they could get before but this was different. Before had been about claiming, about showing Cas who he belonged to, this was more slow, more loving. It was hard to tell where one of them ended and the other began, they were one now.
Cas lifted his head, eyes half-lidded, mouth a little ‘O’ of pleasure as Dean hit the right spot inside him. Daphne scrambled for the door handle but not fast enough. Their eyes locked across the room. In an instant the relaxed, happy man who’d been in Dean’s arms was gone. Cas was ramrod straight, closed off and Dean must have realized something was wrong because he’d stopped rocking, turning his head slightly to try and see what it was that had upset Cas.
Daphne didn’t try to hide herself.
“Fuck,” Dean swore, trying to untangle himself from the man in his lap which was easier said than done since Cas seemed in no hurry to go anywhere. “Did you like the free show? Want to throw me my pants?” He swore again under his breath, finally managing to dislodge Cas from his lap. Daphne found his jeans slung over the arm of the couch. She couldn’t find his underwear but at this moment she supposed anything was better than nothing. She threw them to him and he caught them, muttering as he pulled them on. He was still half-hard, she noted out of the corner of her eye.
Cas sat on the floor, apparently unashamed by his nudity or the fact that his wife had caught him being fucked by another man. He made no move to cover himself. Eventually Dean threw a shirt at him, a t-shirt that must have been one of his own and which Cas accepted with a little nod, slipping it over his head. He stood up and Daphne swallowed slowly. The t-shirt skimmed the tops of his thighs. If he bent over then nothing would be left to the imagination. She would be able to see everything. She noticed Dean palming himself through his jeans. Obviously the same thought had occurred to him and Daphne wondered if it would have been better if Cas had stayed nude.
“This is Dean,” Cas said finally, gesturing to the man who couldn’t quiet meet Daphne’s eye. “And I’m not Emmanuel, I’m Castiel.” He said the name as if he was trying it out, not completely believing that it was his own. “Dean calls me Cas.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed, his voice rough with emotion. He turned to Daphne, his cheeks flushed red but there was determination in his eyes. “Look, I know you’re married but he’s not who you think he is. Cas is mine. We’ve been together through things you couldn’t even begin to understand. I’m sorry you saw us, but I’m not sorry we did it. Where do you get off marrying some guy with amnesia anyway? He could have been anyone. I was looking for him!”
Daphne didn’t know what to say that. She had always know, somewhere in the back of her mind, that someone would be looking for the man she’d found but she’d been selfish. She’d decided he was supposed to be hers and ignored every indication to the opposite. She’d kept him from finding Dean, until Dean tracked him down. In a way she knew she’d been stupid to take a stranger in. She wanted to say she’d been helping a stranger, following the parable of the Samaritan but the words wouldn’t come because she knew she was lying.
“Cas is coming with me,” Dean said, staring her down as if he expected her to make a fuss about it but Daphne could only find herself nodding.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, he should go with you. He loves you.”
Dean looked shocked. Daphne could understand that. Maybe if she hadn’t seen them together, if she’d still been trying to convince herself that this was a marriage with a future instead of a mistake then she would have made a fuss but she wouldn’t. She should have been helping Castiel. That was what God had wanted. She knew that now.
“I’m not gonna say thank you or anything. What you did was wrong.”
“I know,” Daphne said softly, hanging her head.
Dean threw his hands up in the air, unable to find words and then pointed at Castiel. “You, put clothes on, we’re going.” He turned back to Daphne, “And you, I don’t even know.”
Castiel hunted around the room, finding their clothes. Daphne was surprised to see that their underwear had ended up pushed down the back of the couch. No wonder she hadn’t been able to find it before. He pulled on his slacks and Dean grabbed the shirt that had formally belonged to Castiel and together they managed to get dressed, Dean shoving his underwear into his jacket pocket.
Finally Castiel slipped off his wedding ring and handed it wordlessly to Daphne.
He didn’t look angry. He looked sad and that was worse. Daphne could try to pretend but she would always know she had taken advantage of the man, used him when he was vulnerable and didn’t know any better. It made her a horrible person. She had always thought of herself as a nice person, a person who followed Gods word but now she didn’t know who she was. She would never have believed herself capable of the things she’d done, but she’d done them with a dogged determination that shocked her now she looked back on it.
It was almost a blessing that their marriage had never been consummated. The very thought of what she’d tried to do made her feel sick now.
Castiel half raised his hand to touch her but Dean shook his head.
“Let her remember,” he said. Daphne scrunched her face up, trying to understand what he meant by that remark but then the two men were leaving. She followed them to the door, standing on the porch as they walked down together and towards the big, black car.
Dean stopped at the trunk, opening it and Daphne squinted to see what he was retrieving from its depths. It was an old, tatty trench coat. As she watched, he slipped it around Castiel’s shoulders.
For the first time she saw Castiel smile.