Fic: I'm not an addict (baby that's a lie) 1/2
Title: I’m not an addict (baby that’s a lie)
Author: bree_black
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, slight Dean/Risa
Spoilers Through 5.04 “The End”
Word Count: 14k
Betas: dress_myself_up, gwendolynd and a_happy_place have all helped with this, though I take all credit for any flaws.
Warnings: Drug addiction, blood-play, blood-drinking, consent issues, angst. This is pretty dark, sorry.
Summary: In 2014, there isn’t much Dean Winchester isn’t willing to do to gain an advantage in the fight against the forces of Hell. And Cas? Cas is just trying to hold himself together - with whatever chemical assistance he can find. But when they discover a potential new weapon - and with Lucifer approaching the camp - they’ll need to decide whether there are any lines they still can’t cross. 2014 ‘verse AU.
Castiel likes brightly-coloured objects. They remind him of heaven, except not. Though heaven was always cold and white and the light shining through stained glass or glinting off beads and metal masks in his cabin is warm, there’s a similar kind of beauty there, in the celebration of sunlight and God’s divine light. Cas spends hours lying on the floor of his cabin, basking in reflections and refractions.
“I’m making a list for the next supply run,” Chuck interrupts Cas’ peace, sticking his head through the doorway. “Is there anything you need?” Castiel sighs heavily as he sits up. He hates that no one ever stops to knock. Just because his doorway is made of beads doesn’t mean anyone can come traipsing in whenever they please.
“No.” Castiel aims his answer in the direction of the most stationary Chuck he can see. Currently there are four of them in sight, washed in a variety of pastel colours.
“Are you sure,” Chuck presses, “like, you don’t need any more condoms?”
Castiel frowns and lifts up a nearby rug, glancing underneath. “Yeah, maybe,” he agrees, “and can you pick me up a refill of these?” He crawls to a nearby cupboard and pulls out several transparent yellow pill bottles, tossing them in the direction of the relatively stationary Chuck.
Chuck misses the catch, of course, and bends to retrieve the plastic containers. His eyes darken as he reads the labels. “Listen, Cas,” he begins, “I don’t know if we can find...”
“Do your best,” Castiel interrupts. “Generic is fine, if you can’t find the good stuff, and if you can’t find that just grab what’s around. You know how I like surprises.”
Chuck plants his feet and makes his “I’m important, really” face, so Cas braces himself. “Listen,” he says, “we can’t afford to waste medical resources on recreational use. You need to get off the drugs, man.”
Cas knows the puppy dog eyes won’t work on Chuck, so he appeals to authority instead. “Dean said I could have them.”
Chuck hesitates, but only for a moment. “Dean’s got a lot on his mind. He doesn’t have time to deal with your...”
“I don’t have time to deal with his what?” Dean asks, walking in - without knocking, Cas notes - and swatting at the bead curtain in irritation.
Castiel tenses, and so does Chuck. Dean had left on a mission only a couple of hours before, and returning so soon does not bode well. Chuck glances from Castiel, to his list, to Dean, and back down to his list. “Nothing,” he mutters, “you can handle him just fine.”
Cas isn’t sorry to see Chuck and his pastel clones leave. He shakes his head vigorously to clear it and focuses his blurry vision on Dean. Dean doesn’t have any colourful shadow-clones; there has only ever been one of Dean.
“What’s Chuck harassing you about?” Dean asks. Cas is dying to ask him about the mission, but he knows Dean will talk about that only in his own time.
“Supplies,” Cas answers, “Condoms, mostly.”
Dean lifts one corner of his mouth - the closest to a smile he gets these days. ‘Yeah, couple of pregnancy scares this month.”
“Any of them mine?” Cas asks.
“You never can tell, with you.” Dean answers, and his lip twitches upwards again. Cas counts this as a victory. Castiel one, apocalypse eight million and seventeen.
In the brief moment before Dean speaks again, Cas can almost believe they’re okay, that the shiny bright dancing lights he’s filled his cabin with indicate real peace, not just some a pale imitation.
“We need a Plan D,” Dean says, and the illusion is shattered.
“What happened?” Cas asks, though he doesn’t really want to know.
“The Colt’s gone,” Dean’s voice is matter of fact, as if his words don’t mean they’ve sacrificed two years and countless lives for nothing. “I saw them melt it down with my own eyes. They wanted me to see, that’s why we found ‘em so easy.”
Cas sucks in a breath. “Okay, so Plan D, no problem,” he blurts out, because there’s nothing else he can say. “I’ll get right on that.”
There’s something heartbreaking about Dean’s almost-smile this time, and it makes Cas want to run to the nearest pill bottle. “Keep this between us, yeah?” Dean asks, and Cas is surprised to hear that it’s a question, not an order. “No sense freaking out the whole camp.”
“Yes, sir.” Cas agrees, though he has none of a soldier’s discipline anymore. He steps forward and touches Dean’s shoulder, then busies himself pulling Dean’s green jacket off of his shoulders.
“I should go say a few words. Jackson didn’t make it out of the hot zone,” Dean’s voice is serious and he pushes, surprisingly gently, at Castiel’s chest. Castiel wonders at how the loss of the Colt is so devastating to them both, but the loss of one of their comrades wasn’t even worth mentioning except as an afterthought.
“The dead can wait,” Cas murmurs, as he tosses Dean’s jacket to the ground. “We’re still alive.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, though the words don’t seem to match his expression. “We’re still alive.”
***
Dean leaves just before dinner, and Cas doesn’t see him for three days. It’s not an unusual occurrence, but Chuck still smiles at him as they pass each other on the path to the latrine, as if he feels sorry for Cas. Camp Chitaqua is a small place - there are maybe fifty or sixty survivors left living there - and gossip goes around fast when there’s nothing much else to do. Dean and Castiel are always one of the hot topics, even when nothing’s wrong.
The gossip had been one of the reasons Castiel had started up all his New Age bullshit in the first place, actually. He’d been really into it for awhile, as his powers drained away and he came to accept that God had truly left the building. It had seemed to fill the void his Father had left, for awhile - or maybe that was the drugs. In any case, when they’d first set up the camp it had nearly been torn apart by rumour, panic and fear. Chuck had suggested they find everyone a hobby, and Cas had been unofficially appointed as their spiritual and recreational leader-slash-babysitter. He had been less than thrilled at first, but the perks - orgies and prescription drugs - really helped him adjust to his new position.
But people still gossip, it’s just that now it’s equal parts “We’re all gonna die!” and “Did you hear what went on in so-and-so’s cabin last night?” More often than not, so-and-so is Castiel. And yeah, a lot of people spend a lot of time doing a lot of interesting things in Cas’ cabin, but you’d really think they’d have gotten used to the idea by now. Even Chuck couldn’t seem to stay away from all the water cooler talk, and he’d been there when they’d schemed to shut it down.
Castiel glances over his shoulder as he knocks on the door to Dean’s cabin - the only one painted red in the whole camp so it can be easily found in darkness or smoke. Yep, there were definitely at least three people watching him, prepared to analyze the way Dean greeted him and report back to the rumour mill. The gossip doesn’t bother Cas, but he knows it bugs Dean. Or it used to, though as the weeks go by Dean seems to care less and less about anything. Not that Cas can really complain without being an enormous hypocrite.
“He’s not there,” one of the watching women calls to Castiel, pausing her work at the water pump for a moment and wiping sweat off her brow. Castiel thinks she may have been at Friday’s orgy, which probably means he should remember her name. “He stayed in Risa’s cabin last night. You could probably find him there?” She raises her voice at the end like it’s a request, like she wants Cas to go see Dean at Risa’s just for shits and giggles.
“No, thanks. I just wanted to discuss next week’s ceremony with him,” Castiel calls back, super-casual. “But it can wait.” He makes a point of strolling down the dirt path back to his own cabin like he’d come out to get some fresh, incense-free air and not to see Dean at all.
***
Dinner that night is slop again. Whoever the guy on kitchen duty this week is, he claims it’s turkey stew, but the moment Castiel walks in he can see that it’s slop. They’d eaten fairly well when they’d first moved in, but the river is running short of fish and the squirrels are smart enough to stay away at this point. Mostly they survive on whatever canned crap they can find on supply runs, thickened with copious amounts of flour and, Castiel suspects, possibly grass.
Castiel skips dinner hour whenever he can manage it, but Chuck is less and less willing to save him some food and try as he might, Castiel can’t manage to make his body survive on absinthe alone. So tonight he’s stuck in the dining hall, trying not to get slivers off the wooden benches. He’s high, of course, but he’s running short on drugs and trying to ration, so not nearly high enough. The crush of people - voices, smells, accidental touches - is too much for him in public. He can handle it in his own cabin, on his own turf as Dean would say, but even then he makes his guests wash for the orgies. Chuck is always complaining about the amount of water his cabin uses.
At least he gets to sit at the front table by virtue of his seniority, which tends to be less crowded and less violent because Dean doesn’t put up with shit. Castiel pushes through the crowd - pulling himself away from several of the most devout of his flock along the way - and collapses gratefully onto the bench of the head table farthest from the crowd. His head suddenly feels really heavy, and he lets it slump forward on his shoulders.
“Have a long day of doing shit-all, Cas?”
Castiel groans, and lets his forehead clunk satisfyingly onto the picnic table. “A good evening to you as well, Risa,” he says into the wood. He would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of the evening in exactly that position - he’d tell his congregation he’d been meditating or something - but then something thick and hot and slimy splashes onto his face.
He sits up and gazes down into his bowl of slop, infinitely disappointed with the state of his life. “Thanks Chuck,” he mutters with absolutely zero conviction.
“The man can get his own food,” Risa snaps, and Chuck winces. “Why do you keep babying him?”
“The guy’s been through a lot,” Chuck mumbles, altogether too apologetic.
“We’ve all been through a lot,” Risa insists, and even though she’s giving him a headache, Castiel really can’t disagree with her there.
“Children, children, please don’t fight.” He tries to keep his voice low and soothing, the way Dean has taught him. “Your mucus will get cold.” He watches a stream of the grey liquid slide greasily off his spoon and back into the bowl.
“You’re disgusting.” There isn’t much heat behind Risa’s insult, and her expression indicates she isn’t thrilled about tonight’s culinary adventure either.
“Takes one to know one,” Castiel retorts and okay, that isn’t his best work.
“Hey guys,” Dean says from the end of the table, voice scratchy and exhausted. Without being asked, the other diners slide over on the bench, squeezing together to give Dean more room than he needs. He plants himself down next to Chuck, across from Castiel, bowl in hand. Dean’s bowl contains twice as much slop as anyone else’s - the kitchen always gives him double rations - but Castiel knows he’ll barely touch it. Dean’s body lives off the hunt like Castiel wishes his body could survive on intoxicants.
“Dean, what’s wrong?” There’s an uncharacteristic gentleness in Risa’s voice, and it’s enough to startle Castiel into looking up. His buzz dies immediately when he does.
Dean’s eyes are sunken and red-rimmed. He obviously hasn’t shaved in days, and if the smell is anything to go by, he hasn’t changed his clothes either. There’s nothing particularly strange about this - Dean has a tendency to get caught up in his work and forget about little things like personal hygiene. It’s the look on Dean’s face that frightens Castiel. He hasn’t seen an expression like that since they got the big news out of Detroit.
“Fuck,” he says, and for some reason Dean looks grateful.
“What’s up?” Kyle asks, eyes darting between Dean and Castiel. He’s Dean’s second in command or whatever, and he feels like he always needs to be the first to know everything. Cas feels just a little bit smug when Dean ignores him.
“I’m, uh, calling a meeting for tonight at ten. My cabin. On a need-to-know basis, okay?” There’s a chorus of muted agreement and nodding of heads around the head table. Castiel almost forgets to nod himself, he’s so distracted by Dean’s expression.
“You in, Cas?” Dean asks, and Cas is the first person he’s made eye contact with tonight.
“Of course,” Castiel answers, but Dean is already rising from the bench, bowl of slop abandoned. His steps are purposeful but deliberately calm; he’s trying not to alarm the civilians. Castiel struggles to follow him, tangling his legs with Risa’s as he rushes to stand.
“Cas,” she says when he’s finally upright, “catch.” He does, barely, and finds he’s holding an expired protein bar. It basically amounts to gold in Camp Chitaqua. “See if you can get him to eat,” Risa explains.
Castiel nods in her direction, than hurries to catch up to Dean. He has to jog and whatever he took before dinner isn’t friends with coordination, but the crowd parts around him and soon he’s walking comfortably at Dean’s side. No one tries to touch Castiel when he’s with Dean.
***
Dean’s cabin is sort of the opposite of Castiel’s. Where Castiel has tried to add some homey, atmospheric touches of colour and light to his assigned space, Dean’s cabin is always dark and slightly damp. He rarely opens his curtains and he only turns on the lamp when he needs to read. Though many of them had been able to create some semblance of home in this shithole, Dean hasn’t even made an effort. His cabin is depressingly barren, furnished only by a rusty camp cot and a picnic table borrowed from the mess hall stacked with books and papers, unlit lamp pulled up next to it.
“You know I’ve got some of the newbies weaving stuff out of old clothes and shit,” Castiel says as he follows Dean inside, “I could get you a rug or something. Maybe a quilt.”
Dean doesn’t respond, but Castiel didn’t expect him to. He closes the door behind them, then leans against it, as if he’s holding it shut against an invisible intruder. Castiel waits.
“We ran into another pocket of survivors,” Dean finally begins, “couple hundred miles east. Said they’d come from Chicago.” He takes a long, slow breath before continuing. “They were running from something, someone. A tall guy, they said, with dark hair and sideburns wearing, get this, a fucking white suit.”
Castiel catches his breath. “Listen, we don’t know for sure...”
“I showed them a photo,” Dean interrupts, “one of the old fake IDs. It was Sam.” His voice cracks on the name, like he’s out of practice saying it. He leans his head back against the door and closes his eyes, looking more tired than Castiel has ever seen him, which is saying something.
“Fuck,” Cas repeats, because it seems appropriate. “What are we going to do?”
Dean’s mouth twitches at “we,” though it looks more like a sneer than a smile. He opens his eyes. “Well,” he says, “I was thinking I’d kill the son of a bitch” and Cas knows he means Lucifer, not Sam.
Castiel bites back all the obvious questions like “How?” and “When?” and “You and what army?” Instead he merely nods, “Sounds simple enough.”
“Piece of cake,” Dean agrees, and then he’s moving, pushing Castiel roughly against the cabin wall. Everyone is still at dinner so it’s quiet outside, almost too quiet. Undoing the snaps on Dean’s jacket makes a sound like miniature gunshots.
Dean presses Castiel’s shoulders into the rough wooden wall and Cas knows he’ll have slivers tomorrow but he doesn’t much care. He remembers Risa’s protein bar too late - it’ll be hopelessly crushed in the back pocket of his jeans now, but he doesn’t much care about that either. Everything is getting pleasantly blurry now, everything except for Dean’s hot mouth at his throat and the tips of his fingers burning into his skin, branding him where they dig into his hips.
Castiel is used to rough sex, with Dean at least. Secretly he thinks it’s funny that the rest of his sex life, with his devout followers or the very very bored in camp is so much gentler than this, is supposed to be about expression and connection and the fucking dragonfly eye of group mind. It’s all so fucking worthless, a meaningless distraction at best but this, pressed up against a wall in the dark and the damp feels like it matters, not that Castiel would ever admit it.
Today is rougher than usual though, even for Dean. Castiel knows he’ll have bruises on his hips and chest tomorrow, and bite marks on his neck. And especially given how they left the mess hall together, people will talk. He can’t bring himself to push Dean away or tell him to lighten up though, not when he can feel Dean’s heart pounding even through multiple layers of fabric. Not when he can hear the needy, whimpering noises Dean makes in the back of his throat as they kiss, the closest Dean ever comes to sobs.
Castiel’s accustomed to pleasure-pain and he knows how to ride Dean out, but he’s still surprised by the sharp, sudden pain at his throat. He yelps in a totally undignified fashion and Dean pulls away, takes a step back.
Dean’s eyes go wide, and he reaches out to touch Castiel’s neck. When he pulls his hand back, there’s blood on his fingertips. It shouldn’t be a big deal and maybe it wouldn’t have been a few years back, but the Croatoan virus spreads through blood contact and the smallest cut or scrape sends them running for the disinfectant these days. There are even rumours it’s gone airborne in the snatches of radio they catch off the military frequencies. Being bitten is everyone’s worst nightmare.
Dean licks Castiel’s blood off his finger, and Castiel shivers. Dean looks surprised, though Castiel’s not sure if it’s by his own action, the taste or Castiel’s reaction. He closes the gap between them and leans forward, licking a long stripe up Castiel’s throat, where the blood must’ve dripped. He swallows loudly, and Castiel can feel his breath on the freshly broken skin, stinging slightly. Dean lowers his mouth again and Castiel feels the pain first, swiftly replaced by a flood of pleasure starting at his throat but spreading quickly downwards, where it settles in his cock. He shakes under Dean’s body as Dean sucks at Castiel’s throat, blissful pressure. One of Dean’s hands cups Castiel’s chin, lifting it slightly to expose more of his throat, and the other rests lightly on his shoulder. Castiel thinks - ridiculously - that this is the most intimate moment they’ve had in years, as Dean drinks his blood. He doesn’t really believe any of the bullshit he preaches, but for a moment he feels a sort of union, a communion, with Dean, shivering together in the dark.
***
Before he leaves, Cas tries to give Dean Risa’s thoroughly squished protein bar. He has it in his head that it’s not a good idea for Dean’s stomach to be empty but for Castiel’s bodily fluids. Dean refuses the bar, pushing it on Castiel instead.
“You eat it and tell her I did,” he says, “You probably need it more anyway.” And now that Dean’s mentioned it, Castiel does feel a little light-headed, though light-headedness is sort of par for the course with him.
Castiel eats the protein bar, goes back to his own cabin and finds his first aid kit. It’s not easy bandaging his own neck without a mirror, but he manages it, using a generous amount of disinfectant. Then takes a shot of the homemade moonshine a couple of his followers had given him after his last faith meeting, and lets himself take a short nap, collapsing onto one of the woven rugs on the cabin floor.
When he wakes up the sun has set completely, and Castiel swears. He stumbles to his feet, groggy as hell, and to the front door. The meeting’s probably already started, and Castiel doesn’t exactly have a reputation for responsibility as it is. He considers it a victory that he doesn’t trip on any tree roots on the path to Dean’s cabin, and he makes sure to knock before walking in, to set a good example.
The room is tense, but people are still talking in low voices so the meeting hasn’t officially started yet. There are six of them in the room, clustered around the picnic table, which has been cleared of about half its books. Someone has brought an extra lamp so they can actually see each other, and most people have brought their own chairs too. Plastic crap mostly, but Kyle’s is woven wicker. Show-off.
Dean sits at one end of the picnic table, with Risa to his left and Kyle to his right. Kyle’s obviously invited Jeff, his suck-up best friend, who sits off to the side, a few feet from the table. Also present is April, an explosives expert who served in the Iraq, and Chuck, of course, with pen and paper, ready to take the minutes. No one ever reads the minutes, but they like to give Chuck something to do and he says one day he may make a novel out of all this.
Cas pulls a plastic chair up next to Chuck, and sinks into it with some caution. Once stable, he puts his boots up on the picnic table, grinning at the assembled group. “How’s it going, guys?”
The others just gape at him, and Risa scoffs, but Cas sees approval in Dean’s eyes. Castiel’s primary function in this camp is as a distraction. People who are busy being irritated by Cas spend less time staring at and whispering about Dean. Dean may have no choice but to be a hero, but that doesn’t mean he likes the attention.
“You’re late,” Kyle observes.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Cas answers. To be honest he’s not one hundred percent clear on the reference, but experience has taught him that most humans don’t know what they’re talking about half of the time either. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the goody bag he likes to carry with him, popping two of the most brightly coloured pills.
“You’re high?” April’s voice is incredulous. She’s not usually invited to these meetings.
“That’s just how I roll, sweetheart,” he answers, then bangs twice on the table with the heel of his boot. “I officially call this meeting to order.” He turns to gaze at Dean with exaggerated attention, “Speak, oh fearless leader.”
Dean clears his throat, shuffles some papers, then drops the bomb with his usual lack of social grace. “The Colt is gone, and Lucifer’s headed in this direction from Chicago.”
The room falls dead silent, so all Cas can hear is the ringing in his own ears. He prefers the sound of his own voice. “So should we set an extra place at dinner?”
Apparently that’s enough to break the embargo on speech, and everyone starts babbling at once.
“What happened to the Colt?” Risa asks.
“How long have we got?” Kyle demands at the same time, causing Chuck to make a noise of distress and start scribbling frantically.
“I could blow him to smithereens,” April suggests, and everyone falls silent again. They try to keep it quiet among the general population, but everyone in this room knows exactly whose body Lucifer is riding, and exactly what exploding him means.
Dean’s jaw is set and his teeth are gritted, but he nods in April’s direction.
“That’s one idea,” he acknowledges, and Cas is reminded that someone had invited April here tonight, and that it had probably been Dean himself. “I want him dead,” Dean announces, and Castiel sees that his knuckles are white where he’s gripping the table. “but if we don’t know how to get rid of him, we can at least slow him down by destroying his vessel.”
April, who must’ve sensed that she’d said something wrong, practically sighs with relief.
“Listen,” Dean continues, “I called this meeting primarily to update you all on what’s going on, but also to start a, uh, brainstorming session. The Colt’s not in play anymore, we need a new idea.”
“Well doesn’t he know some spell or hex or something?” Jeff jerks his head in Castiel’s direction as he asks, and Cas feels all eyes turn to him. See, Cas has a bit of a reputation around camp for being strange, for seeing and knowing things he shouldn’t. Only Dean and Chuck know he’s an angel - albeit a pretty useless one - but everyone else has figured out there’s something off about him. Castiel knows languages they’ve never even heard of, can read any ancient text they put in front of him, and is always the first to recognize when someone’s been infected, even if the symptoms aren’t showing yet. There was also that embarrassing few weeks when the forest animals kept gathering around him like he was Snow fucking White, though they’d stopped when they’d figured out that was the quickest way to end up in a stew.
“Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that devil-killing spell I know,” Castiel says drily, “thanks for the reminder, I’ll get right on that.”
“Hey,” Dean snaps, and even he looks surprised by his volume. “Hey,” he says, more softly now, “stop fighting and start thinking. We’ll meet again in a couple of days. Just come with possibilities and lists of required equipment.”
The group takes this as dismissal and starts to break apart, a few stopping to talk to Chuck, probably to complain about rations running low. Risa hangs back and puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder, an invitation if Cas has ever seen one, but Dean shrugs her off.
“I’m going hunting,” he says, voice cold, and Cas isn’t sure if he means like, for deer and squirrels or hunting hunting.
***
The next day’s scheduled supply run is an unprecedented success. The crew comes back with an entire pallet’s worth of two-ply toilet paper piled into one of the Jeeps, and boxes of other stuff, canned food included, in the other. The news spreads like wildfire through the camp, and Cas doesn’t envy Chuck the job of systematic distribution.
Everyone’s pretty jazzed actually, which is why Cas is surprised to find Kyle at his door shortly after their return, looking grim.
“Hi Castiel,” he says, awkward as all fuck because he sure as hell isn’t a regular at this cabin.
“Hi.” Castiel answers. “Do you want to come in?”
“Yeah,” Kyle answers, though he hesitates before braving Castiel’s bead curtain.
Cas offers Kyle a drink, but he turns it down in favour of shifting nervously from foot to foot, looking way too interested in all of the knick knacks.
“So,” he finally says, “could you come down and take a look at Dean?”
Castiel’s blood runs cold. “What do you mean look at Dean?”
Kyle takes a step back. Castiel hadn’t even realized he’d moved forward. “It was a pretty tough fight out there today. Our intel was bad and the Croats outnumbered us four to one. Dean took on about twenty of them all on his own while we loaded the truck. That’s the only reason we brought back so much. We tried to retreat, but Dean wouldn’t let us. He said he could handle it.” Kyle’s voice is defensive, like he wants to pre-empt Castiel’s accusations.
“And?” Castiel says, “You made it out, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Kyle agrees, but there’s no joy in his voice. “But you should’ve seen him, man. He was savage. He ran out of bullets and he just started ripping them apart with his bare hands.”
“You think he was bitten.”
“How could he not have been?”
Castiel trips over three tree roots on his way to Dean’s cabin, and he still gets there in less than two minutes. Kyle hands him a gun at the entrance and Castiel takes it gingerly - not because he doesn’t know how to use it, Dean taught him that - but because he know what Kyle expects him to have to do with it. He grips it firmly, though his hand is shaking, and enters without knocking.
Dean is bent over the picnic table, reading a sheet of yellowed paper. He glances up at the sound of footfalls and meets his eyes, and Castiel’s whole body nearly collapses with relief. Dean’s eyes are clear and whatever is left of Castiel’s grace knows that he is not infected.
“Hey,” Dean says, “what’s with the gun?”
Castiel looks down at his hand, then back at Dean. “Kyle thought you might’ve been bitten out there,” he admits, “He wanted me to check.” The consequences of failing the test go unstated, but he and Dean both know what they are.
“Good man,” Dean says, clearing his throat and standing. And though Castiel knows Dean’s not infected, he can see what worried Kyle. Dean moves with a certain nervous energy, a tapping of his toes and twitching of his fingers he’d never had before. Dean has learned to be perfectly calm under pressure, to conserve his energy.
“Well?” Dean asks, holding his arms out to his sides, and interrupting Castiel’s efforts to pinpoint exactly what’s different.
“Oh,” he answers, “you’re clean.”
“Good.” Dean seems uncomfortable standing in one place, like a wild animal poorly domesticated. He crosses the room to stand in front of Cas, placing his palm over the muzzle of the gun. “So if you’re not gonna need to shoot me, we can probably put this down.”
Castiel lets Dean take the gun from him and tuck it into the waistband of his own pants. “You got anywhere you need to be?” he asks.
“I think the camp can get by without me.”
Dean smirks that almost-smile, then Castiel’s back is slamming against the nearest wall. “Shit,” he says on reflex.
“Fuck,” Dean corrects, like he still needs to teach Castiel to swear properly.
“Yes,” Castiel says, and smirks, as he reaches for Dean’s belt buckle. They’re across the room from where they’d been the night before, and Castiel stares at the spot on the wall. He can imagine them standing there, Castiel shaking and thrusting against Dean’s leg, Dean’s mouth stained red with blood. The memory is enough to get him hard.
Dean follows Castiel’s gaze across the room, and they must be on the same page. “We can do it again, I mean, if you want.” Sexual insecurity isn’t part of Dean’s M.O. and Cas is startled by the indirect nature of the question. But then, there’s an uncharacteristic shakiness in Castiel’s voice as he answers, too.
“Yeah,” he says, inhaling sharply, “if you want.”
***
Dean still spends his nights with Risa, and Castiel tells himself that shouldn’t bother him. It’s not like Dean’s his boyfriend, even if Cas did have him first.
They’d kept things as casual as they could, so painfully aware of how dependent they were on one another already that they naturally steered away from making their relationship about anything other than sex. Cas could never be Sam, and Dean couldn’t replace Castiel’s lost brothers and sisters either. They’d stuck together initially because they’d thought they could fix this, and as that possibility got dimmer and dimmer they’d held on to one another because they had no one else. Bobby had been too stubborn - had refused to leave his home - but Dean and Cas had found Chuck, and the three of them had watched out for each other ever since.
Of course by now it’s pretty clear Dean is taking care of him and Chuck, not the other way around. Even Chuck pulls his weight around camp though, in his own nerdy, paranoid way, so Cas is really the one letting down the team. Dean still brings him on missions occasionally - when he needs someone who really has his back - but lately he’s been choosing Jeff or Kyle more and more often, and Cas’ major contribution to camp is fucking anything that moves, preventing boredom and panic.
Or Risa, Dean is choosing Risa a lot more often too. Cas can’t quite pinpoint when that changed, when Dean stopped sleeping with all the girls and focused his attention on one. It shouldn’t bother Castiel - he’s still getting plenty of action, from Dean and everybody else - but it does. He’s not jealous, exactly, though he knows everyone thinks he is, he’s more confused. Because Dean had never spent so long with one woman before, and Castiel keeps trying to figure out what’s so special about Risa. He knows he’d probably like her if she was a friend, or if he bothered to get to know her. She’s calm under pressure with a head for strategy, a great ass and a mean right hook. She also speaks her mind, even if it means questioning Dean’s authority occasionally, and she can be just as sarcastic as Cas.
The thing is, Castiel doesn’t want to like Risa, because it feels too good to hate her. Castiel hates the way she walks next to Dean like his equal, gun slung casually over one shoulder. He hates that Dean watches her out of the corner of his eye when he’s describing missions, like he’d call it off if she disapproved. He hates that Dean stays the night with Risa, probably curled around her on her cot. Castiel treasures his hatred, hides it deep inside his ribcage, nourishes and protects it. And maybe that does sound like jealousy, but mostly Cas just wants to know how it happened and why he missed it.
Anyway, Castiel makes a pretty big show of not pining over Dean. His orgies are fucking legendary; most newcomers to the camp make their way to his cabin sometime during their first week and his regular visitors - his congregation, he privately calls them - make up close to half the camp by now. Most of the women and a non-trivial number of the men in camp spend at least a few hours each week in Castiel’s “church”. It’s not all about sex, of course - he has them make small practical crafts some days, while he delivers sermons consisting of whatever New Age bullshit the drugs inspire - but that’s definitely his favourite part. Cas considers himself the camp entertainment, and he’s not ashamed of that.
Though he’d really like to be more than entertainment to Dean.
***
It takes Castiel a few days to figure it out, and he feels like an idiot when he finally does. At first it seems like nothing - Dean’s a little on edge, maybe, but Cas chalks that up to the fresh reports that Lucifer’s still wearing Sam’s meat-suit, and coming closer. But people at Camp Chitaqua love to whisper, and rumour has it Dean goes out to the forest every night, and usually comes home with fresh meat. A few squirrels, a deer, one time a black bear he claimed he’d found already injured and merely put out of its misery. They usually schedule missions every two days, but Dean’s gone out three days running, taking a fresh set of soldiers with him each time. When the men get back they seem spooked and they give Dean a wide berth, as if they’re afraid of him.
Castiel doesn’t see Dean for a few days and that’s not a big deal, except that when they finally do meet up - on the path out to the outhouses in the morning - Dean can’t seem to look him in the eye, gaze focused just below his chin instead, on the dark bruise still prominent on Castiel’s throat. Dean’s gaze is hungry and Cas freaks out just a little.
He turns so sharply he almost overbalances, and heads back the way he’d come.
“Don’t you need to piss?” Dean calls after him, and there’s something desperate in his voice.
“Changed my mind,” Cas answers, not even slowing down.
Back at his cabin, Castiel wishes he had a real door, not a fucking beaded curtain. He doesn’t know exactly what he wants it for though - to keep Dean out, to just have some privacy for once? He pushes his cot in front of the doorway. It wouldn’t be hard to step over, of course, but it feels good to make the effort at least. Then Castiel practically runs to his quickly diminishing stash.
Three shots and six shiny pills later, Castiel feels a lot better. He rummages through the pile of books which had been under his cot, pulls out one of the oldest and creepiest looking, and flips purposefully through its pages. It’s been a long time since he did any real research, but the process is soothing.
Despite the fact that he’s sitting cross-legged, Cas jumps about two feet in the air when there’s a knock on his doorframe. Castiel can see Dean through the bead curtain, frowning at the cot pulled up against the doorway.
“Hi,” Dean says, “I can stand outside, if you want.”
Castiel shakes his head. It’s not like the cot’s much protection anyway and, especially if his research is anywhere close to correct, he’s no match for Dean even in the best of circumstances. “Come in.”
Dean steps over the cot with ease, careful not to get his muddy boots on Cas’ sheets. He moves closer - but not too close - and joins Castiel on the floor, also sitting cross-legged. The pose looks strange on Dean, restrictive.
“So you’re freaked out,” Dean begins, running a hand through his hair. It’s a nervous habit Dean had dropped at some point, learning to conserve his energy for only necessary movement - running, fighting, fucking. Seeing him pick it up again is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
“You could say that.”
“I don’t blame you.” Dean is very deliberately looking only at his face, but Castiel can see his gaze drifting downwards occasionally, until Dean catches himself and jerks it back up. “This is a pretty freaky situation.”
Castiel had pretty much prepared a lecture, but he’s out of practice telling Dean what to do and maybe the drugs have damaged his neural pathways or something, because he can’t remember a fucking word of it.
“But isn’t this whole situation pretty freaky? I don’t just mean with us,” Dean clarifies, making a sweeping gesture with his arms, “but with everything?”
“Sure,” Castiel says, but he feels like he’s walking into a trap.
“Then why flip out about one more little messed up thing? Especially when it’s helping.”
Castiel freezes, and Dean apparently takes his silence as a cue to continue.
“I mean, you should see me hunt now, Cas. I can run faster than I ever have before, which means I can go farther into the forest for game. And you’ve seen what we’ve found on supply runs, now that I can buy the guys more time.” He leans forward and puts one hand on Castiel’s knee. “We need this, Cas...especially now.”
“Fucking hell, Dean, do you realize who you sound like?” Cas screams, pulling himself violently back and away from Dean. He expects the reference to Sam to make Dean leave, or yell, or at least flinch. Instead, he just looks sad.
“I know. And you can’t imagine how bad I feel about that,” Dean acknowledges, but Cas doesn’t think he feels bad in the way he’s supposed to. “I didn’t listen to him, or I didn’t try to understand. I thought it made him a monster when he was only trying to help, and it tore us apart.”
Cas knows he should argue, should point out that Dean has everything backwards. But the drugs are making him groggy and he can’t hold on to his anger or even his fear. Dean’s hand is back on his knee and he’s looking at Cas like he really sees him, for once, and Cas’ stomach twists not-unpleasantly every time Dean’s eyes drift down to his throat.
“It tore Sammy and me apart, Cas,” Dean insists, “Don’t let it get between us, too. Please.”
It’s too much like the first time. Please, Dean had said against his skin after they’d killed that werewolf, just weeks after Sam and Dean had gone their separate ways, Please, Cas. Dean and Castiel had fallen into each other, saved each other from drowning in grief for lost brothers and fathers, and truth be told Castiel knows they’ve been falling ever since. Castiel knows he’ll fall all the way to Hell for Dean Winchester if he has to.
“Okay,” he says, objections crushed under the weight of Dean’s gaze. “It’s okay.” Dean leans forward to touch him, and Castiel bites his own lip hard enough to draw blood.
Part Two
Author: bree_black
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, slight Dean/Risa
Spoilers Through 5.04 “The End”
Word Count: 14k
Betas: dress_myself_up, gwendolynd and a_happy_place have all helped with this, though I take all credit for any flaws.
Warnings: Drug addiction, blood-play, blood-drinking, consent issues, angst. This is pretty dark, sorry.
Summary: In 2014, there isn’t much Dean Winchester isn’t willing to do to gain an advantage in the fight against the forces of Hell. And Cas? Cas is just trying to hold himself together - with whatever chemical assistance he can find. But when they discover a potential new weapon - and with Lucifer approaching the camp - they’ll need to decide whether there are any lines they still can’t cross. 2014 ‘verse AU.
Castiel likes brightly-coloured objects. They remind him of heaven, except not. Though heaven was always cold and white and the light shining through stained glass or glinting off beads and metal masks in his cabin is warm, there’s a similar kind of beauty there, in the celebration of sunlight and God’s divine light. Cas spends hours lying on the floor of his cabin, basking in reflections and refractions.
“I’m making a list for the next supply run,” Chuck interrupts Cas’ peace, sticking his head through the doorway. “Is there anything you need?” Castiel sighs heavily as he sits up. He hates that no one ever stops to knock. Just because his doorway is made of beads doesn’t mean anyone can come traipsing in whenever they please.
“No.” Castiel aims his answer in the direction of the most stationary Chuck he can see. Currently there are four of them in sight, washed in a variety of pastel colours.
“Are you sure,” Chuck presses, “like, you don’t need any more condoms?”
Castiel frowns and lifts up a nearby rug, glancing underneath. “Yeah, maybe,” he agrees, “and can you pick me up a refill of these?” He crawls to a nearby cupboard and pulls out several transparent yellow pill bottles, tossing them in the direction of the relatively stationary Chuck.
Chuck misses the catch, of course, and bends to retrieve the plastic containers. His eyes darken as he reads the labels. “Listen, Cas,” he begins, “I don’t know if we can find...”
“Do your best,” Castiel interrupts. “Generic is fine, if you can’t find the good stuff, and if you can’t find that just grab what’s around. You know how I like surprises.”
Chuck plants his feet and makes his “I’m important, really” face, so Cas braces himself. “Listen,” he says, “we can’t afford to waste medical resources on recreational use. You need to get off the drugs, man.”
Cas knows the puppy dog eyes won’t work on Chuck, so he appeals to authority instead. “Dean said I could have them.”
Chuck hesitates, but only for a moment. “Dean’s got a lot on his mind. He doesn’t have time to deal with your...”
“I don’t have time to deal with his what?” Dean asks, walking in - without knocking, Cas notes - and swatting at the bead curtain in irritation.
Castiel tenses, and so does Chuck. Dean had left on a mission only a couple of hours before, and returning so soon does not bode well. Chuck glances from Castiel, to his list, to Dean, and back down to his list. “Nothing,” he mutters, “you can handle him just fine.”
Cas isn’t sorry to see Chuck and his pastel clones leave. He shakes his head vigorously to clear it and focuses his blurry vision on Dean. Dean doesn’t have any colourful shadow-clones; there has only ever been one of Dean.
“What’s Chuck harassing you about?” Dean asks. Cas is dying to ask him about the mission, but he knows Dean will talk about that only in his own time.
“Supplies,” Cas answers, “Condoms, mostly.”
Dean lifts one corner of his mouth - the closest to a smile he gets these days. ‘Yeah, couple of pregnancy scares this month.”
“Any of them mine?” Cas asks.
“You never can tell, with you.” Dean answers, and his lip twitches upwards again. Cas counts this as a victory. Castiel one, apocalypse eight million and seventeen.
In the brief moment before Dean speaks again, Cas can almost believe they’re okay, that the shiny bright dancing lights he’s filled his cabin with indicate real peace, not just some a pale imitation.
“We need a Plan D,” Dean says, and the illusion is shattered.
“What happened?” Cas asks, though he doesn’t really want to know.
“The Colt’s gone,” Dean’s voice is matter of fact, as if his words don’t mean they’ve sacrificed two years and countless lives for nothing. “I saw them melt it down with my own eyes. They wanted me to see, that’s why we found ‘em so easy.”
Cas sucks in a breath. “Okay, so Plan D, no problem,” he blurts out, because there’s nothing else he can say. “I’ll get right on that.”
There’s something heartbreaking about Dean’s almost-smile this time, and it makes Cas want to run to the nearest pill bottle. “Keep this between us, yeah?” Dean asks, and Cas is surprised to hear that it’s a question, not an order. “No sense freaking out the whole camp.”
“Yes, sir.” Cas agrees, though he has none of a soldier’s discipline anymore. He steps forward and touches Dean’s shoulder, then busies himself pulling Dean’s green jacket off of his shoulders.
“I should go say a few words. Jackson didn’t make it out of the hot zone,” Dean’s voice is serious and he pushes, surprisingly gently, at Castiel’s chest. Castiel wonders at how the loss of the Colt is so devastating to them both, but the loss of one of their comrades wasn’t even worth mentioning except as an afterthought.
“The dead can wait,” Cas murmurs, as he tosses Dean’s jacket to the ground. “We’re still alive.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, though the words don’t seem to match his expression. “We’re still alive.”
***
Dean leaves just before dinner, and Cas doesn’t see him for three days. It’s not an unusual occurrence, but Chuck still smiles at him as they pass each other on the path to the latrine, as if he feels sorry for Cas. Camp Chitaqua is a small place - there are maybe fifty or sixty survivors left living there - and gossip goes around fast when there’s nothing much else to do. Dean and Castiel are always one of the hot topics, even when nothing’s wrong.
The gossip had been one of the reasons Castiel had started up all his New Age bullshit in the first place, actually. He’d been really into it for awhile, as his powers drained away and he came to accept that God had truly left the building. It had seemed to fill the void his Father had left, for awhile - or maybe that was the drugs. In any case, when they’d first set up the camp it had nearly been torn apart by rumour, panic and fear. Chuck had suggested they find everyone a hobby, and Cas had been unofficially appointed as their spiritual and recreational leader-slash-babysitter. He had been less than thrilled at first, but the perks - orgies and prescription drugs - really helped him adjust to his new position.
But people still gossip, it’s just that now it’s equal parts “We’re all gonna die!” and “Did you hear what went on in so-and-so’s cabin last night?” More often than not, so-and-so is Castiel. And yeah, a lot of people spend a lot of time doing a lot of interesting things in Cas’ cabin, but you’d really think they’d have gotten used to the idea by now. Even Chuck couldn’t seem to stay away from all the water cooler talk, and he’d been there when they’d schemed to shut it down.
Castiel glances over his shoulder as he knocks on the door to Dean’s cabin - the only one painted red in the whole camp so it can be easily found in darkness or smoke. Yep, there were definitely at least three people watching him, prepared to analyze the way Dean greeted him and report back to the rumour mill. The gossip doesn’t bother Cas, but he knows it bugs Dean. Or it used to, though as the weeks go by Dean seems to care less and less about anything. Not that Cas can really complain without being an enormous hypocrite.
“He’s not there,” one of the watching women calls to Castiel, pausing her work at the water pump for a moment and wiping sweat off her brow. Castiel thinks she may have been at Friday’s orgy, which probably means he should remember her name. “He stayed in Risa’s cabin last night. You could probably find him there?” She raises her voice at the end like it’s a request, like she wants Cas to go see Dean at Risa’s just for shits and giggles.
“No, thanks. I just wanted to discuss next week’s ceremony with him,” Castiel calls back, super-casual. “But it can wait.” He makes a point of strolling down the dirt path back to his own cabin like he’d come out to get some fresh, incense-free air and not to see Dean at all.
***
Dinner that night is slop again. Whoever the guy on kitchen duty this week is, he claims it’s turkey stew, but the moment Castiel walks in he can see that it’s slop. They’d eaten fairly well when they’d first moved in, but the river is running short of fish and the squirrels are smart enough to stay away at this point. Mostly they survive on whatever canned crap they can find on supply runs, thickened with copious amounts of flour and, Castiel suspects, possibly grass.
Castiel skips dinner hour whenever he can manage it, but Chuck is less and less willing to save him some food and try as he might, Castiel can’t manage to make his body survive on absinthe alone. So tonight he’s stuck in the dining hall, trying not to get slivers off the wooden benches. He’s high, of course, but he’s running short on drugs and trying to ration, so not nearly high enough. The crush of people - voices, smells, accidental touches - is too much for him in public. He can handle it in his own cabin, on his own turf as Dean would say, but even then he makes his guests wash for the orgies. Chuck is always complaining about the amount of water his cabin uses.
At least he gets to sit at the front table by virtue of his seniority, which tends to be less crowded and less violent because Dean doesn’t put up with shit. Castiel pushes through the crowd - pulling himself away from several of the most devout of his flock along the way - and collapses gratefully onto the bench of the head table farthest from the crowd. His head suddenly feels really heavy, and he lets it slump forward on his shoulders.
“Have a long day of doing shit-all, Cas?”
Castiel groans, and lets his forehead clunk satisfyingly onto the picnic table. “A good evening to you as well, Risa,” he says into the wood. He would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of the evening in exactly that position - he’d tell his congregation he’d been meditating or something - but then something thick and hot and slimy splashes onto his face.
He sits up and gazes down into his bowl of slop, infinitely disappointed with the state of his life. “Thanks Chuck,” he mutters with absolutely zero conviction.
“The man can get his own food,” Risa snaps, and Chuck winces. “Why do you keep babying him?”
“The guy’s been through a lot,” Chuck mumbles, altogether too apologetic.
“We’ve all been through a lot,” Risa insists, and even though she’s giving him a headache, Castiel really can’t disagree with her there.
“Children, children, please don’t fight.” He tries to keep his voice low and soothing, the way Dean has taught him. “Your mucus will get cold.” He watches a stream of the grey liquid slide greasily off his spoon and back into the bowl.
“You’re disgusting.” There isn’t much heat behind Risa’s insult, and her expression indicates she isn’t thrilled about tonight’s culinary adventure either.
“Takes one to know one,” Castiel retorts and okay, that isn’t his best work.
“Hey guys,” Dean says from the end of the table, voice scratchy and exhausted. Without being asked, the other diners slide over on the bench, squeezing together to give Dean more room than he needs. He plants himself down next to Chuck, across from Castiel, bowl in hand. Dean’s bowl contains twice as much slop as anyone else’s - the kitchen always gives him double rations - but Castiel knows he’ll barely touch it. Dean’s body lives off the hunt like Castiel wishes his body could survive on intoxicants.
“Dean, what’s wrong?” There’s an uncharacteristic gentleness in Risa’s voice, and it’s enough to startle Castiel into looking up. His buzz dies immediately when he does.
Dean’s eyes are sunken and red-rimmed. He obviously hasn’t shaved in days, and if the smell is anything to go by, he hasn’t changed his clothes either. There’s nothing particularly strange about this - Dean has a tendency to get caught up in his work and forget about little things like personal hygiene. It’s the look on Dean’s face that frightens Castiel. He hasn’t seen an expression like that since they got the big news out of Detroit.
“Fuck,” he says, and for some reason Dean looks grateful.
“What’s up?” Kyle asks, eyes darting between Dean and Castiel. He’s Dean’s second in command or whatever, and he feels like he always needs to be the first to know everything. Cas feels just a little bit smug when Dean ignores him.
“I’m, uh, calling a meeting for tonight at ten. My cabin. On a need-to-know basis, okay?” There’s a chorus of muted agreement and nodding of heads around the head table. Castiel almost forgets to nod himself, he’s so distracted by Dean’s expression.
“You in, Cas?” Dean asks, and Cas is the first person he’s made eye contact with tonight.
“Of course,” Castiel answers, but Dean is already rising from the bench, bowl of slop abandoned. His steps are purposeful but deliberately calm; he’s trying not to alarm the civilians. Castiel struggles to follow him, tangling his legs with Risa’s as he rushes to stand.
“Cas,” she says when he’s finally upright, “catch.” He does, barely, and finds he’s holding an expired protein bar. It basically amounts to gold in Camp Chitaqua. “See if you can get him to eat,” Risa explains.
Castiel nods in her direction, than hurries to catch up to Dean. He has to jog and whatever he took before dinner isn’t friends with coordination, but the crowd parts around him and soon he’s walking comfortably at Dean’s side. No one tries to touch Castiel when he’s with Dean.
***
Dean’s cabin is sort of the opposite of Castiel’s. Where Castiel has tried to add some homey, atmospheric touches of colour and light to his assigned space, Dean’s cabin is always dark and slightly damp. He rarely opens his curtains and he only turns on the lamp when he needs to read. Though many of them had been able to create some semblance of home in this shithole, Dean hasn’t even made an effort. His cabin is depressingly barren, furnished only by a rusty camp cot and a picnic table borrowed from the mess hall stacked with books and papers, unlit lamp pulled up next to it.
“You know I’ve got some of the newbies weaving stuff out of old clothes and shit,” Castiel says as he follows Dean inside, “I could get you a rug or something. Maybe a quilt.”
Dean doesn’t respond, but Castiel didn’t expect him to. He closes the door behind them, then leans against it, as if he’s holding it shut against an invisible intruder. Castiel waits.
“We ran into another pocket of survivors,” Dean finally begins, “couple hundred miles east. Said they’d come from Chicago.” He takes a long, slow breath before continuing. “They were running from something, someone. A tall guy, they said, with dark hair and sideburns wearing, get this, a fucking white suit.”
Castiel catches his breath. “Listen, we don’t know for sure...”
“I showed them a photo,” Dean interrupts, “one of the old fake IDs. It was Sam.” His voice cracks on the name, like he’s out of practice saying it. He leans his head back against the door and closes his eyes, looking more tired than Castiel has ever seen him, which is saying something.
“Fuck,” Cas repeats, because it seems appropriate. “What are we going to do?”
Dean’s mouth twitches at “we,” though it looks more like a sneer than a smile. He opens his eyes. “Well,” he says, “I was thinking I’d kill the son of a bitch” and Cas knows he means Lucifer, not Sam.
Castiel bites back all the obvious questions like “How?” and “When?” and “You and what army?” Instead he merely nods, “Sounds simple enough.”
“Piece of cake,” Dean agrees, and then he’s moving, pushing Castiel roughly against the cabin wall. Everyone is still at dinner so it’s quiet outside, almost too quiet. Undoing the snaps on Dean’s jacket makes a sound like miniature gunshots.
Dean presses Castiel’s shoulders into the rough wooden wall and Cas knows he’ll have slivers tomorrow but he doesn’t much care. He remembers Risa’s protein bar too late - it’ll be hopelessly crushed in the back pocket of his jeans now, but he doesn’t much care about that either. Everything is getting pleasantly blurry now, everything except for Dean’s hot mouth at his throat and the tips of his fingers burning into his skin, branding him where they dig into his hips.
Castiel is used to rough sex, with Dean at least. Secretly he thinks it’s funny that the rest of his sex life, with his devout followers or the very very bored in camp is so much gentler than this, is supposed to be about expression and connection and the fucking dragonfly eye of group mind. It’s all so fucking worthless, a meaningless distraction at best but this, pressed up against a wall in the dark and the damp feels like it matters, not that Castiel would ever admit it.
Today is rougher than usual though, even for Dean. Castiel knows he’ll have bruises on his hips and chest tomorrow, and bite marks on his neck. And especially given how they left the mess hall together, people will talk. He can’t bring himself to push Dean away or tell him to lighten up though, not when he can feel Dean’s heart pounding even through multiple layers of fabric. Not when he can hear the needy, whimpering noises Dean makes in the back of his throat as they kiss, the closest Dean ever comes to sobs.
Castiel’s accustomed to pleasure-pain and he knows how to ride Dean out, but he’s still surprised by the sharp, sudden pain at his throat. He yelps in a totally undignified fashion and Dean pulls away, takes a step back.
Dean’s eyes go wide, and he reaches out to touch Castiel’s neck. When he pulls his hand back, there’s blood on his fingertips. It shouldn’t be a big deal and maybe it wouldn’t have been a few years back, but the Croatoan virus spreads through blood contact and the smallest cut or scrape sends them running for the disinfectant these days. There are even rumours it’s gone airborne in the snatches of radio they catch off the military frequencies. Being bitten is everyone’s worst nightmare.
Dean licks Castiel’s blood off his finger, and Castiel shivers. Dean looks surprised, though Castiel’s not sure if it’s by his own action, the taste or Castiel’s reaction. He closes the gap between them and leans forward, licking a long stripe up Castiel’s throat, where the blood must’ve dripped. He swallows loudly, and Castiel can feel his breath on the freshly broken skin, stinging slightly. Dean lowers his mouth again and Castiel feels the pain first, swiftly replaced by a flood of pleasure starting at his throat but spreading quickly downwards, where it settles in his cock. He shakes under Dean’s body as Dean sucks at Castiel’s throat, blissful pressure. One of Dean’s hands cups Castiel’s chin, lifting it slightly to expose more of his throat, and the other rests lightly on his shoulder. Castiel thinks - ridiculously - that this is the most intimate moment they’ve had in years, as Dean drinks his blood. He doesn’t really believe any of the bullshit he preaches, but for a moment he feels a sort of union, a communion, with Dean, shivering together in the dark.
***
Before he leaves, Cas tries to give Dean Risa’s thoroughly squished protein bar. He has it in his head that it’s not a good idea for Dean’s stomach to be empty but for Castiel’s bodily fluids. Dean refuses the bar, pushing it on Castiel instead.
“You eat it and tell her I did,” he says, “You probably need it more anyway.” And now that Dean’s mentioned it, Castiel does feel a little light-headed, though light-headedness is sort of par for the course with him.
Castiel eats the protein bar, goes back to his own cabin and finds his first aid kit. It’s not easy bandaging his own neck without a mirror, but he manages it, using a generous amount of disinfectant. Then takes a shot of the homemade moonshine a couple of his followers had given him after his last faith meeting, and lets himself take a short nap, collapsing onto one of the woven rugs on the cabin floor.
When he wakes up the sun has set completely, and Castiel swears. He stumbles to his feet, groggy as hell, and to the front door. The meeting’s probably already started, and Castiel doesn’t exactly have a reputation for responsibility as it is. He considers it a victory that he doesn’t trip on any tree roots on the path to Dean’s cabin, and he makes sure to knock before walking in, to set a good example.
The room is tense, but people are still talking in low voices so the meeting hasn’t officially started yet. There are six of them in the room, clustered around the picnic table, which has been cleared of about half its books. Someone has brought an extra lamp so they can actually see each other, and most people have brought their own chairs too. Plastic crap mostly, but Kyle’s is woven wicker. Show-off.
Dean sits at one end of the picnic table, with Risa to his left and Kyle to his right. Kyle’s obviously invited Jeff, his suck-up best friend, who sits off to the side, a few feet from the table. Also present is April, an explosives expert who served in the Iraq, and Chuck, of course, with pen and paper, ready to take the minutes. No one ever reads the minutes, but they like to give Chuck something to do and he says one day he may make a novel out of all this.
Cas pulls a plastic chair up next to Chuck, and sinks into it with some caution. Once stable, he puts his boots up on the picnic table, grinning at the assembled group. “How’s it going, guys?”
The others just gape at him, and Risa scoffs, but Cas sees approval in Dean’s eyes. Castiel’s primary function in this camp is as a distraction. People who are busy being irritated by Cas spend less time staring at and whispering about Dean. Dean may have no choice but to be a hero, but that doesn’t mean he likes the attention.
“You’re late,” Kyle observes.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Cas answers. To be honest he’s not one hundred percent clear on the reference, but experience has taught him that most humans don’t know what they’re talking about half of the time either. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the goody bag he likes to carry with him, popping two of the most brightly coloured pills.
“You’re high?” April’s voice is incredulous. She’s not usually invited to these meetings.
“That’s just how I roll, sweetheart,” he answers, then bangs twice on the table with the heel of his boot. “I officially call this meeting to order.” He turns to gaze at Dean with exaggerated attention, “Speak, oh fearless leader.”
Dean clears his throat, shuffles some papers, then drops the bomb with his usual lack of social grace. “The Colt is gone, and Lucifer’s headed in this direction from Chicago.”
The room falls dead silent, so all Cas can hear is the ringing in his own ears. He prefers the sound of his own voice. “So should we set an extra place at dinner?”
Apparently that’s enough to break the embargo on speech, and everyone starts babbling at once.
“What happened to the Colt?” Risa asks.
“How long have we got?” Kyle demands at the same time, causing Chuck to make a noise of distress and start scribbling frantically.
“I could blow him to smithereens,” April suggests, and everyone falls silent again. They try to keep it quiet among the general population, but everyone in this room knows exactly whose body Lucifer is riding, and exactly what exploding him means.
Dean’s jaw is set and his teeth are gritted, but he nods in April’s direction.
“That’s one idea,” he acknowledges, and Cas is reminded that someone had invited April here tonight, and that it had probably been Dean himself. “I want him dead,” Dean announces, and Castiel sees that his knuckles are white where he’s gripping the table. “but if we don’t know how to get rid of him, we can at least slow him down by destroying his vessel.”
April, who must’ve sensed that she’d said something wrong, practically sighs with relief.
“Listen,” Dean continues, “I called this meeting primarily to update you all on what’s going on, but also to start a, uh, brainstorming session. The Colt’s not in play anymore, we need a new idea.”
“Well doesn’t he know some spell or hex or something?” Jeff jerks his head in Castiel’s direction as he asks, and Cas feels all eyes turn to him. See, Cas has a bit of a reputation around camp for being strange, for seeing and knowing things he shouldn’t. Only Dean and Chuck know he’s an angel - albeit a pretty useless one - but everyone else has figured out there’s something off about him. Castiel knows languages they’ve never even heard of, can read any ancient text they put in front of him, and is always the first to recognize when someone’s been infected, even if the symptoms aren’t showing yet. There was also that embarrassing few weeks when the forest animals kept gathering around him like he was Snow fucking White, though they’d stopped when they’d figured out that was the quickest way to end up in a stew.
“Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that devil-killing spell I know,” Castiel says drily, “thanks for the reminder, I’ll get right on that.”
“Hey,” Dean snaps, and even he looks surprised by his volume. “Hey,” he says, more softly now, “stop fighting and start thinking. We’ll meet again in a couple of days. Just come with possibilities and lists of required equipment.”
The group takes this as dismissal and starts to break apart, a few stopping to talk to Chuck, probably to complain about rations running low. Risa hangs back and puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder, an invitation if Cas has ever seen one, but Dean shrugs her off.
“I’m going hunting,” he says, voice cold, and Cas isn’t sure if he means like, for deer and squirrels or hunting hunting.
***
The next day’s scheduled supply run is an unprecedented success. The crew comes back with an entire pallet’s worth of two-ply toilet paper piled into one of the Jeeps, and boxes of other stuff, canned food included, in the other. The news spreads like wildfire through the camp, and Cas doesn’t envy Chuck the job of systematic distribution.
Everyone’s pretty jazzed actually, which is why Cas is surprised to find Kyle at his door shortly after their return, looking grim.
“Hi Castiel,” he says, awkward as all fuck because he sure as hell isn’t a regular at this cabin.
“Hi.” Castiel answers. “Do you want to come in?”
“Yeah,” Kyle answers, though he hesitates before braving Castiel’s bead curtain.
Cas offers Kyle a drink, but he turns it down in favour of shifting nervously from foot to foot, looking way too interested in all of the knick knacks.
“So,” he finally says, “could you come down and take a look at Dean?”
Castiel’s blood runs cold. “What do you mean look at Dean?”
Kyle takes a step back. Castiel hadn’t even realized he’d moved forward. “It was a pretty tough fight out there today. Our intel was bad and the Croats outnumbered us four to one. Dean took on about twenty of them all on his own while we loaded the truck. That’s the only reason we brought back so much. We tried to retreat, but Dean wouldn’t let us. He said he could handle it.” Kyle’s voice is defensive, like he wants to pre-empt Castiel’s accusations.
“And?” Castiel says, “You made it out, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Kyle agrees, but there’s no joy in his voice. “But you should’ve seen him, man. He was savage. He ran out of bullets and he just started ripping them apart with his bare hands.”
“You think he was bitten.”
“How could he not have been?”
Castiel trips over three tree roots on his way to Dean’s cabin, and he still gets there in less than two minutes. Kyle hands him a gun at the entrance and Castiel takes it gingerly - not because he doesn’t know how to use it, Dean taught him that - but because he know what Kyle expects him to have to do with it. He grips it firmly, though his hand is shaking, and enters without knocking.
Dean is bent over the picnic table, reading a sheet of yellowed paper. He glances up at the sound of footfalls and meets his eyes, and Castiel’s whole body nearly collapses with relief. Dean’s eyes are clear and whatever is left of Castiel’s grace knows that he is not infected.
“Hey,” Dean says, “what’s with the gun?”
Castiel looks down at his hand, then back at Dean. “Kyle thought you might’ve been bitten out there,” he admits, “He wanted me to check.” The consequences of failing the test go unstated, but he and Dean both know what they are.
“Good man,” Dean says, clearing his throat and standing. And though Castiel knows Dean’s not infected, he can see what worried Kyle. Dean moves with a certain nervous energy, a tapping of his toes and twitching of his fingers he’d never had before. Dean has learned to be perfectly calm under pressure, to conserve his energy.
“Well?” Dean asks, holding his arms out to his sides, and interrupting Castiel’s efforts to pinpoint exactly what’s different.
“Oh,” he answers, “you’re clean.”
“Good.” Dean seems uncomfortable standing in one place, like a wild animal poorly domesticated. He crosses the room to stand in front of Cas, placing his palm over the muzzle of the gun. “So if you’re not gonna need to shoot me, we can probably put this down.”
Castiel lets Dean take the gun from him and tuck it into the waistband of his own pants. “You got anywhere you need to be?” he asks.
“I think the camp can get by without me.”
Dean smirks that almost-smile, then Castiel’s back is slamming against the nearest wall. “Shit,” he says on reflex.
“Fuck,” Dean corrects, like he still needs to teach Castiel to swear properly.
“Yes,” Castiel says, and smirks, as he reaches for Dean’s belt buckle. They’re across the room from where they’d been the night before, and Castiel stares at the spot on the wall. He can imagine them standing there, Castiel shaking and thrusting against Dean’s leg, Dean’s mouth stained red with blood. The memory is enough to get him hard.
Dean follows Castiel’s gaze across the room, and they must be on the same page. “We can do it again, I mean, if you want.” Sexual insecurity isn’t part of Dean’s M.O. and Cas is startled by the indirect nature of the question. But then, there’s an uncharacteristic shakiness in Castiel’s voice as he answers, too.
“Yeah,” he says, inhaling sharply, “if you want.”
***
Dean still spends his nights with Risa, and Castiel tells himself that shouldn’t bother him. It’s not like Dean’s his boyfriend, even if Cas did have him first.
They’d kept things as casual as they could, so painfully aware of how dependent they were on one another already that they naturally steered away from making their relationship about anything other than sex. Cas could never be Sam, and Dean couldn’t replace Castiel’s lost brothers and sisters either. They’d stuck together initially because they’d thought they could fix this, and as that possibility got dimmer and dimmer they’d held on to one another because they had no one else. Bobby had been too stubborn - had refused to leave his home - but Dean and Cas had found Chuck, and the three of them had watched out for each other ever since.
Of course by now it’s pretty clear Dean is taking care of him and Chuck, not the other way around. Even Chuck pulls his weight around camp though, in his own nerdy, paranoid way, so Cas is really the one letting down the team. Dean still brings him on missions occasionally - when he needs someone who really has his back - but lately he’s been choosing Jeff or Kyle more and more often, and Cas’ major contribution to camp is fucking anything that moves, preventing boredom and panic.
Or Risa, Dean is choosing Risa a lot more often too. Cas can’t quite pinpoint when that changed, when Dean stopped sleeping with all the girls and focused his attention on one. It shouldn’t bother Castiel - he’s still getting plenty of action, from Dean and everybody else - but it does. He’s not jealous, exactly, though he knows everyone thinks he is, he’s more confused. Because Dean had never spent so long with one woman before, and Castiel keeps trying to figure out what’s so special about Risa. He knows he’d probably like her if she was a friend, or if he bothered to get to know her. She’s calm under pressure with a head for strategy, a great ass and a mean right hook. She also speaks her mind, even if it means questioning Dean’s authority occasionally, and she can be just as sarcastic as Cas.
The thing is, Castiel doesn’t want to like Risa, because it feels too good to hate her. Castiel hates the way she walks next to Dean like his equal, gun slung casually over one shoulder. He hates that Dean watches her out of the corner of his eye when he’s describing missions, like he’d call it off if she disapproved. He hates that Dean stays the night with Risa, probably curled around her on her cot. Castiel treasures his hatred, hides it deep inside his ribcage, nourishes and protects it. And maybe that does sound like jealousy, but mostly Cas just wants to know how it happened and why he missed it.
Anyway, Castiel makes a pretty big show of not pining over Dean. His orgies are fucking legendary; most newcomers to the camp make their way to his cabin sometime during their first week and his regular visitors - his congregation, he privately calls them - make up close to half the camp by now. Most of the women and a non-trivial number of the men in camp spend at least a few hours each week in Castiel’s “church”. It’s not all about sex, of course - he has them make small practical crafts some days, while he delivers sermons consisting of whatever New Age bullshit the drugs inspire - but that’s definitely his favourite part. Cas considers himself the camp entertainment, and he’s not ashamed of that.
Though he’d really like to be more than entertainment to Dean.
***
It takes Castiel a few days to figure it out, and he feels like an idiot when he finally does. At first it seems like nothing - Dean’s a little on edge, maybe, but Cas chalks that up to the fresh reports that Lucifer’s still wearing Sam’s meat-suit, and coming closer. But people at Camp Chitaqua love to whisper, and rumour has it Dean goes out to the forest every night, and usually comes home with fresh meat. A few squirrels, a deer, one time a black bear he claimed he’d found already injured and merely put out of its misery. They usually schedule missions every two days, but Dean’s gone out three days running, taking a fresh set of soldiers with him each time. When the men get back they seem spooked and they give Dean a wide berth, as if they’re afraid of him.
Castiel doesn’t see Dean for a few days and that’s not a big deal, except that when they finally do meet up - on the path out to the outhouses in the morning - Dean can’t seem to look him in the eye, gaze focused just below his chin instead, on the dark bruise still prominent on Castiel’s throat. Dean’s gaze is hungry and Cas freaks out just a little.
He turns so sharply he almost overbalances, and heads back the way he’d come.
“Don’t you need to piss?” Dean calls after him, and there’s something desperate in his voice.
“Changed my mind,” Cas answers, not even slowing down.
Back at his cabin, Castiel wishes he had a real door, not a fucking beaded curtain. He doesn’t know exactly what he wants it for though - to keep Dean out, to just have some privacy for once? He pushes his cot in front of the doorway. It wouldn’t be hard to step over, of course, but it feels good to make the effort at least. Then Castiel practically runs to his quickly diminishing stash.
Three shots and six shiny pills later, Castiel feels a lot better. He rummages through the pile of books which had been under his cot, pulls out one of the oldest and creepiest looking, and flips purposefully through its pages. It’s been a long time since he did any real research, but the process is soothing.
Despite the fact that he’s sitting cross-legged, Cas jumps about two feet in the air when there’s a knock on his doorframe. Castiel can see Dean through the bead curtain, frowning at the cot pulled up against the doorway.
“Hi,” Dean says, “I can stand outside, if you want.”
Castiel shakes his head. It’s not like the cot’s much protection anyway and, especially if his research is anywhere close to correct, he’s no match for Dean even in the best of circumstances. “Come in.”
Dean steps over the cot with ease, careful not to get his muddy boots on Cas’ sheets. He moves closer - but not too close - and joins Castiel on the floor, also sitting cross-legged. The pose looks strange on Dean, restrictive.
“So you’re freaked out,” Dean begins, running a hand through his hair. It’s a nervous habit Dean had dropped at some point, learning to conserve his energy for only necessary movement - running, fighting, fucking. Seeing him pick it up again is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
“You could say that.”
“I don’t blame you.” Dean is very deliberately looking only at his face, but Castiel can see his gaze drifting downwards occasionally, until Dean catches himself and jerks it back up. “This is a pretty freaky situation.”
Castiel had pretty much prepared a lecture, but he’s out of practice telling Dean what to do and maybe the drugs have damaged his neural pathways or something, because he can’t remember a fucking word of it.
“But isn’t this whole situation pretty freaky? I don’t just mean with us,” Dean clarifies, making a sweeping gesture with his arms, “but with everything?”
“Sure,” Castiel says, but he feels like he’s walking into a trap.
“Then why flip out about one more little messed up thing? Especially when it’s helping.”
Castiel freezes, and Dean apparently takes his silence as a cue to continue.
“I mean, you should see me hunt now, Cas. I can run faster than I ever have before, which means I can go farther into the forest for game. And you’ve seen what we’ve found on supply runs, now that I can buy the guys more time.” He leans forward and puts one hand on Castiel’s knee. “We need this, Cas...especially now.”
“Fucking hell, Dean, do you realize who you sound like?” Cas screams, pulling himself violently back and away from Dean. He expects the reference to Sam to make Dean leave, or yell, or at least flinch. Instead, he just looks sad.
“I know. And you can’t imagine how bad I feel about that,” Dean acknowledges, but Cas doesn’t think he feels bad in the way he’s supposed to. “I didn’t listen to him, or I didn’t try to understand. I thought it made him a monster when he was only trying to help, and it tore us apart.”
Cas knows he should argue, should point out that Dean has everything backwards. But the drugs are making him groggy and he can’t hold on to his anger or even his fear. Dean’s hand is back on his knee and he’s looking at Cas like he really sees him, for once, and Cas’ stomach twists not-unpleasantly every time Dean’s eyes drift down to his throat.
“It tore Sammy and me apart, Cas,” Dean insists, “Don’t let it get between us, too. Please.”
It’s too much like the first time. Please, Dean had said against his skin after they’d killed that werewolf, just weeks after Sam and Dean had gone their separate ways, Please, Cas. Dean and Castiel had fallen into each other, saved each other from drowning in grief for lost brothers and fathers, and truth be told Castiel knows they’ve been falling ever since. Castiel knows he’ll fall all the way to Hell for Dean Winchester if he has to.
“Okay,” he says, objections crushed under the weight of Dean’s gaze. “It’s okay.” Dean leans forward to touch him, and Castiel bites his own lip hard enough to draw blood.
Part Two