I Am No Angel Chapter 2
Title: I Am No Angel
Author: Miss Meh
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel, Adam/Michael
Rating: R for swearing and implied sexual situations
Warnings: AU, copious amounts of fluff and sexual innuendo, fusion with Beauty and the Beast
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 5168
Status: WIP
Summary: His wings always seemed to be the problem, Castiel figured. But when he and his family move to Sioux Falls and he meets a Beast locked away in a castle, could his wings be the solution?
Chapter Two: Everything I say to you comes out wrong
It never comes out right, so I said…
--“Why Don’t You & I” Santana
Bobby left the next morning with very little fanfare. Castiel, Michael, and a few people the family knew around town gathered to watch him leave and shout advice and instructions at him. One of their neighbors shook his hand before Bobby could get up onto his horse and said in a lowered voice, “If you are going that way,” he nodded his head toward the path Bobby would be traveling through the forest, “stay on the path. Do not leave it for even a second. There are dangerous things in those woods.”
A shiver chased its way up Bobby’s spine as the man spoke, but he nodded in return before lifting himself up onto his horse’s saddle. With a final wave and a meaningful look in Michael’s direction (which was answered with a nonverbal confirmation of his promise to protect Castiel), Bobby steered his horse down the path and disappeared into the trees.
Castiel stared after him for a second before turning to the neighbor, a man named Bill Harvelle who owned a bar called the Roadhouse (improperly named perhaps, as Sioux Falls did not even have a road, being little more than a collection of buildings). At the moment, Mr. Harvelle was standing beside his wife, Ellen, and their daughter, Jo. “What are these ‘dangerous things’ you speak of?” Castiel asked, his eyebrows furrowing as all of his concentration focused on the man he was questioning.
Bill shifted a bit awkwardly under the intense scrutiny. “I have never seen it myself, but there is a legend about a horrific beast living inside a castle deep within Ilchester Forest. According to the stories, he helps out lost travelers if they happen to stumble across his land and lets them go without any trouble.” He looked away from Castiel, then back again. “Never heard of him actually hurting anyone, but it’s still better if people just steer clear of that area of the forest altogether and stay on the path.”
Little Jo came up to Castiel from where she had been standing between her parents and tugged at the sleeve of his plain work shirt. “Are you going to smite the Beast, Angel?” she asked him, not even trying to disguise the way her eyes were following the miniscule movements his wings were making as they fluttered in the slight breeze.
“Joanna Beth!” Ellen started to protest, though whether it was in reaction to the question itself or Jo’s usage of the nickname Sioux Falls used behind his back, Castiel did not know.
“It is alright, Ellen,” Castiel reassured her. Jo was only a little girl after all; she probably thought that Angel was his real name. He smiled at Jo as he knelt down to her eyelevel. “No, Jo, I am not going to ‘smite the Beast’, as you say. I am not a proponent of violence, so I would not be one to do such a thing.” He paused and looked in the direction of the House of Winchester. “Besides, I cannot even get into the castle as it is,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Michael’s head jerked up when he heard that and the Harvelles stared at Castiel. “You have been to this castle, Castiel?” Michael demanded in his ‘I’m a protective older brother’ voice.
Castiel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and simply met his brother’s glare. “Yes, I have,” he replied. “But as I said, I cannot get in.”
Michael looked slightly flummoxed. “When-?” he trailed off. “How long has this been going on?”
Castiel gave Michael a baffled look and tilted his head quizzically as if to ask, ‘Why is this in the least bit important?’, but he answered the question, “I have been going there every night since my birthday.”
“Your birthday!” Michael burst out. “That was over a month ago! How are you even getting there?”
Castiel looked surprised as he responded. “I flew, obviously,” he said, as though it was common knowledge and Michael was slow for not knowing. Then the realization spread over his face and he guessed, “You did not know?”
“What? That you could fly?” Michael looked like he wanted to hit something. “How was I supposed to know?”
“I knew!” Jo shrieked and stretched her arm up into the air to draw everyone’s attention. Bill and Ellen looked down at the ground somewhat guiltily as Jo added, “Mommy and Daddy knew too; I told them.” She looked back to where Castiel was still kneeling in front of her. “I saw you fly over our house. Is it fun being able to fly? It looks like fun.”
Castiel looked at her uncertainly and told her, “Yes, it is quite enjoyable.”
Michael was glaring at him and muttered something about not being able to protect him if he was in the air, before shaking his head and stalking into the house, leaving Castiel and the three Harvelles staring after him.
Castiel turned back to Jo and reassured her, “Do not worry. It was nothing you did, Jo.” He shot her a small smile. “He is simply upset because I can now go where he cannot follow.”
She looked slightly relieved at his explanation, but her lingering hesitation made Castiel think that she was still upset about something. He waited patiently as she squirmed a bit before blurting out. “Will your Daddy react like that too?” She bit her lip. “What if I’m not around to protect you next time?”
Her concerned question started a genuine laugh out of Castiel. “My father already knows; he doesn’t miss a thing.” He chuckled again before adding, “I thank you kindly for your protection, Jo.”
Jo grinned broadly at him and then started marching up the road, calling back to her parents, “We can leave now. Goodbye, Angel.” Bill and Ellen looked slightly stunned-as though the entire exchange between their daughter and the town’s Angel was reshaping reality-and after saying a quick goodbye to Castiel (to his consternation, they both used the moniker ‘Angel’ as well), they hurried after their daughter.
Castiel lifted himself from where he was still kneeling on the ground and dusted off his pants. He looked toward the house where his brother was waiting and then off toward the castle. Making the quick decision that he didn’t want to deal with his brother’s over-protective nature at the moment, he spread his wings and started flying.
............................................................................................
House of Winchester
Dean Winchester, otherwise known as the Beast of Winchester Castle, was having a bad day. The feather dusters-or ‘pompous feathered dicks,’ as Dean liked to call them-were being particularly annoying this morning, carrying on and on about how this was all his fault and how he was the only one who could stop it. Seriously, with the way they carried on, you’d think he’d started the fucking apocalypse rather than just getting them all cursed and trapped in the castle for the past hundred and fifty years.
Okay, so maybe they had reason to be slightly upset.
But, really, they were holding grudges like a bunch of girls. The only actual girl in the bunch was a chick named Anna who would be cool if only Dean hadn’t banged her for-fucking-ever ago when they had been human (even though they had both made peace with it, Dean still didn’t like hanging out with her). She didn’t really give a damn one way or another about the whole “being cursed” thing. Dean thought the reason might be because she had a thing for the groundskeeper/gardener Joshua and enjoyed the extra time she got to spend with him. Zachariah, Uriel, and Raphael on the other hand… Nasty, whiny little bitches that never shut up about the unfairness of their situation.
Dean had woken up in a bad mood that morning anyway and the feather duster’s endless bitching and moaning did nothing to calm his temper. The Angel had not shown up that night and-though he tried to stop the thought from forming-he worried that at long last he might have given up.
He made his way through the castle, up to the top spire, which was where he went when he needed to be alone. Everyone in the castle knew that when he went up there, he was not to be disturbed.
When he arrived in the small stone room at the top of the stairs, he went over to the small window on the side of the circular chamber opposite the door and slumped against the wall beneath it. Dean would never admit it (God forbid if Sammy ever found out), but he enjoyed listening to the birds chirping as they hopped along the roof eating the seed he put up there every evening. As they were frightened by his presence, he stayed seated below the window rather than watching them as he would have liked to do. Today, however, he heard the birds winging away less than ten minutes after he had arrived to make way for the sound of much larger wings making their way toward him.
Dean chanced peaking over the edge of the window to see what had scared away the birds and when he saw what it was he felt a relieved grin break over his face.
It was the angel. Dean could see that he was throwing himself against the invisible Barrier as he had every night for the past six weeks. The point at which the angel was attacking the Barrier was mere yards from the stone framed window through which Dean was watching him; Dean took the opportunity to catalogue his features. The most prominent thing about him was of course his fucking huge black wings. They spread out to at least seven feet on either side of his body, making him appear massive and intimidating. The human part of him wasn’t so large, however. He wasn’t a small man, but he was an inch or two shorter than the height Dean had been as a human and his muscles were less bulky. For all that he had never before been attracted to a man, Dean could see that the Angel had a very nice body. What really drew him in, however, was the angel’s face. Black brows, full lips, and an impressively strong jawline framed the most beautiful blue eyes Dean had ever seen on either a man or a woman. Dean felt that if those eyes were to catch his, they would hold him and he would never be free of them again.
And then the unthinkable happened when the angel’s gaze moved up to meet his.
.................................................................................................
When Castiel noticed the green eyes peering out at him from over a window ledge, his first reaction was shock. There were people here! Castiel hadn’t been sure why he was trying so hard to get past the Barrier apart from the feeling that he needed to do so. He felt somewhat vindicated now. There was a reason for everything. Then, a heat and longing blasted through him as that gaze met his, rendering him unable to think, unable to move, unable to do anything but hold those green eyes with his. They stared at each other for what seemed like endless moments before a deep rumbling voice interrupted the silence.
“Are you here to kill us, Angel?”
---
Dean wanted to smack himself. Couldn’t he have come up with something a hell of a lot better than asking the fucking angel of his dreams whether he intended to kill him? Jesus, this wasn’t going to end well.
---
Castiel tilted his head in a questioning manner as he spoke. “I am no angel,” he said, his voice deep but lifting slightly at the end as though he were questioning his own answer.
---
Holy fucking shit, how did that voice come out of that body? And did angels have hypnotizing abilities? ‘Cause, hell, he could’ve asked Dean anything in that voice and he would have given in without a second thought. Oh god, he was turning into a fucking teenage girl. Sam was going to laugh his ass off if he heard about this.
---
The eyes just stared at Castiel for a second as though mesmerized and he finally noticed the rest of the face they were set in-or at least what he could see over the edge of the window. The Beast was quite hairy with fur covering every inch of what Castiel could see and large upright canine ears set behind demonic-looking horns of equal size.
The Beast seemed to collect himself for the space of a second; then, he answered Castiel’s earlier denial with, “What the fuck are you then?”
---
The angel didn’t flinch at the coarse language, Dean noticed, and it made him like the Angel more. Even Sam got onto him for his language at times. “I do not know what I am,” the angel told him. “But I do know that I dislike being called Angel. They refer to me as such in the village and it makes me somewhat of an outcast. It is as though they do not even know my name,” he scowled.
Dean couldn’t resist and he voiced the next question before he had even consciously thought about it. “What is your name?” Dean noticed that the angel looked surprised-as though nobody had ever asked him this before-and felt sadness course through him on the angel’s behalf.
---
“Castiel,” he replied. “My name is Castiel.” Then he smiled at the Beast in pure happiness-for truly no one had ever asked him for his name before. Then, because he really did wish to know, he returned the question. “And you? What are you called?”
---
Dean felt an emotion he had never felt before flow through him at the sight of the angel (Castiel, his mind provided with yet another surge of girly happiness) smiling at him. What the fuck had Castiel asked him again? Oh yeah…
“Dean,” he provided.
“Dean,” Castiel repeated, his eyes widening. Dean felt a familiar heat run through him as Castiel said his name. God damn it, what the fuck is wrong with me? Castiel hesitated for a few seconds before the question burst out of him. “As in, Dean Winchester?”
Dean burst up from where he had been crouched, demanding, “How the fuck did you know that?”
---
Castiel’s eyes nearly doubled in size as he caught sight of what Dean had been hiding behind the wall. The rest of his body was covered with fur as well, but that wasn’t what startled Castiel. It was the long curved tusks that jutted up from beneath his bottom lip and the cruel-looking claws that he sported on what used to be hands but were now more like paws. Surprisingly enough, he felt no fear. He was rather startled by Dean’s appearance but he didn’t generate the bone-chilling terror Castiel had been expecting. Now that he thought about it, he supposed fear was a most unnecessary emotion to feel around Dean. After all, he had once been human and he still acted like a human. Also, Castiel was almost certain by this point that the Barrier kept Dean in just as it kept Castiel out. Besides, Castiel realized that he already liked Dean and smiled slightly in his relief that Dean’s appearance didn’t change this.
---
What the fuck? Dean thought. Why the hell wasn’t he screaming and flying away, never to return-never to free them? And why did that fucking smile of his make Dean want to do back flips to make it happen again?
“What?” Dean snapped, his face taking on a confused expression that made Castiel chuckle deep in his throat. Dean was torn between feeling pleased that he had miraculously made Castiel laugh and upset because Castiel was laughing at him.
---
When Castiel saw the hurt in Dean’s eyes, his laughter quickly dried up. “Dean,” Castiel said, his voice serious and his eyes intense once more. “I was not laughing at you. I was merely amused by the fact that someone had told me that you were horrific and hideous when I find you to be at most slightly unsettling.”
Dean’s face went slack with surprised awe and he mumbled, “You are nothing like I thought you would be.”
Castiel tilted his head, a perplexed expression on his face. “What did you think I would be?"
Dean waved a paw in Castiel’s direction and Castiel got the feeling that he was self-conscious. “You know-” he told Castiel. When Castiel just stared at him, Dean let out a loud rumbling sigh that sounded almost like a growl. “You’re a fucking angel. I thought you’d be a bit more… You know, angelic or some shit like that.” Dean was rambling. He knew he was rambling and yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Castiel wasn’t doing a damn thing to help him with that either, what with the staring and all. Shit. “I thought you’d meet me and I’d fuck it up and then you’d leave or try to kill me and then we’d be cursed forever and-”
Castiel cut him off. “You mean that I can save you? How?” he demanded urgently. “I can’t even get past the Barrier.”
Dean looked away from Castiel and refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t know how exactly,” Dean hedged and Castiel knew he was lying, but Dean’s feeling of humiliation was almost tangible, so he said nothing. “I just know that an angel is supposed to break the curse. My brother Sam is a geek-brained loser. He has nothing better to do. He’ll think of some way to break the Barrier.”
---
Dean stared at the ground resolutely. He couldn’t tell Castiel that they would need to… No fucking way. Too embarrassing.
Castiel simply nodded and continued to gaze intently at him. Dean felt himself beginning to fidget and knew he needed to say something.
“So,” Dean blurted out. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you’re not here?”
“Well,” Castiel started. “My family and I moved into the forest from a rather large city called Lawrence. When we were there, I wasn’t allowed out much because of my wings, so I helped my father out at the salvage yard and read in my spare time. That’s how I knew about you. There were many books with conspiracy theories about what happened to your family, Dean. You were rather well-known,” Castiel informed him. “When I saw the Winchester Crest on the gate and you told me your name, I concluded that you must be the Dean Winchester.”
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” Dean sighed. “Hell, I’m surrounded by geeks, why not add nerd angels to the bunch?” Dean shook himself out of his thoughts. “So what do you do now that you live out here with us mud monkeys? We aren’t as sophisticated as those city fuckers. I’m sure there isn’t a library or any shit like that wherever you’re living.”
“No,” Castiel said, not sounding upset by it at all. “I have discovered new hobbies for when I am not working.” He didn’t continue.
“So?” Dean prompted. “What are they?”
“Well, I discovered a fondness for observing plants as they grow, which led to an interest in growing my own in the garden my father and brother gave me for my birthday.” Castiel smiled a shy smile of pleasure at the memory. Dean’s heart sped up at the sight of Castiel’s smile and he resolutely ignored it. “I enjoy flying as well. It is very freeing.” He looked slightly wistful for a second then his gaze sharpened to focus on Dean. “That is how I found you. I was so excited after I planted those seeds in my garden that I flew in a direction that I had been warned not to go in.” His eyes took on an amused glint for all that his voice did not change inflection in the least. “I wonder why the villagers would tell me to avoid this part of the forest.” He looked around as if in surprise. “It is quite lovely.”
Castiel’s deadpan humor surprised a bark of laughter out of Dean. “Jeez, Cas,” Dean growled around the rather scary looking grin that refused to leave his face. “You didn’t tell me that you had a sense of humor.”
Cas? Dean thought. Where the fuck had that come from? Dean looked closely at Cas’s face. He didn’t seem to mind so Dean would ignore his slip up and go with it.
---
Castiel noticed the shortening of his name but he didn’t comment-no one had ever given him a nickname before. “Yes, well, you did not ask,” Castiel said. Yet another span of time passed in which they did nothing but stare at each other. Strangely enough, it wasn’t awkward at all. Castiel wanted to speak, however, so he broke the silence. “Dean, how have you kept yourself occupied in the vast amount of time you must have been here?”
Dean shrugged-well, he attempted to anyway. “I don’t do much actually. I can’t clean my weapons or practice with them anymore, which used to be a big part of what I did in my off time. I can’t hunt either because I can’t leave the castle grounds.” Castiel nodded when Dean confirmed his suspicions about the Barrier. “Mostly, I bug my little brothers and I feed the birds and I wait.” Castiel could hear the loneliness in Dean’s voice-could see it in his eyes-and it strengthened his resolve.
“I will find a way to get you out of here, Dean,” Castiel stated, no doubt in his voice and so completely serious that his voice was dragged down an octave. “I swear it to you.” Dean didn’t have faith in much, but now, hell, he wanted to have faith in Castiel.
Cas left soon after that, saying something about his brother being upset with him. He had also told Dean that he would not be coming back that night, but that he would see Dean the next night. Dean had promised to be waiting for him.
.................................................................................................
Dean was in a very good mood for the rest of the day. He even toned down the amount of pranks he played on his brothers that day. He kept it down to two, and as one had been done before Cas had shown up, Dean figured that it didn’t count, so really, it was just one. He even said something downright nice to Gabriel, whom he actually got along okay with, as long as the guy wasn’t being a total asshole (though neither would ever admit to it). When Sam asked him if Gabriel had slipped something into his food again (yeah, Sam was the only one brave enough to bring that up), Dean’s mood didn’t darken, he just smiled and said, “Everything’s great, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam,” he corrected Dean automatically. He didn’t really care about that at the moment. There was something up with his brother and Sam was going to find out what it was.
When he consulted Gabriel on the matter, Gabriel started laughing. “He’s happy because his Angel came to visit him this morning. The big baby actually stopped acting like a prepubescent girl with a crush long enough to talk to him.”
Sam looked at Gabriel incredulously. “How the hell do you know that?”
Gabriel leered at him. “I’ll exchange information for sexual favors.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“No, Gabriel, tell me what you know,” Sam demanded.
“Fine,” Gabriel huffed. “I followed Dean up to that tower of his and-”
“You followed Dean up there?” Sam sounded offended on Dean’s behalf. “And you didn’t bring me with you?” Sam’s face was in full-on puppy dog pout mode.
Gabriel snorted. “You and I both know that you can’t sneak anywhere, so I did us both a favor and went by myself.” Sam looked at him in both embarrassment and understanding, shuffling the base of his body a little bit. Even that small movement made quite a bit of noise as wood scraped against stone. Considering his point made, Gabriel took that as his cue to continue. “Anyway, the angel showed up a little while after Dean got there and I left when they started eyefucking as if I wasn’t even there.” He slapped a wounded expression onto his face and sniffed as though the pain of being overlooked was too great a burden to bear.
“Eyefucking?” Sam completely ignored Gabriel’s attempt at playing the victim. “What the hell is eyefucking?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Sam? I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.” He sighed. “Oh, Sammy, such an innocent.” He started talking very slowly as if speaking to a child. “You see, eyefucking is what happens when a complete idiot-that would be your brother, by the way-is so good at repressing both his emotions and his sexuality that when he meets his Angel, he isn’t man enough to actually do anything about it. Instead, he uses his eyes to get the message across. You see, your brother’s eyes were-”
“Stop!” Sam put his fingerless palms up as if they could actually stop Gabriel’s words. “I don’t need to hear about what my brother’s eyes were doing to that angel. I’ve walked in on him enough times as it is and I don’t need you adding any more perverted imagery to my brain.”
Gabriel grinned at him lasciviously. “Speaking of perverted imagery, what about those sexual favors we were discussing earlier?” He advanced on Sam in a predatory manner. This was a rather hilarious image actually, considering Sam had about five feet on Gabriel height-wise and-well let’s not get into the weight issue; Sam’s a bit… sensitive.
“Gabriel,” Sam said weakly and allowed Gabriel to lead him back to their bedroom. Not that they actually used a bed-seeing as they were now a grandfather clock and a candelabra-but it was a remnant from when they had been human. Besides they had to have somewhere to, well, you know…
Ten minutes later, they realized that no matter how hard they tried, they still couldn’t have sex in their current forms.
“God damn it!” Gabriel banged out of their room as if he were on fire. Oh yeah, he is, Sam thought, then groaned internally. Really lame joke. “Why didn’t you remind me that it wouldn’t work like you usually do?”
Sam shrugged and looked a bit sheepish. “You did that thing where you take charge and act like you’re bigger than me. You know how hot that makes me.”
“Shit,” Gabriel cursed as he attempted to jump on Sam and plant a kiss on his lips. It wasn’t as dramatic as it would have been had they been human; Sam had to lift Gabriel after he tried and failed to jump high enough the first few times. “When we turn back into humans, I am so going to fuck your brains out.”
..........................................................................................
Dean wasn’t ready to tell Sam and Adam about Cas yet. For one thing, Sam would tell Gabriel which would lead to it being spread around the rest of the castle. Gabriel liked to talk and Dean knew it. He wasn’t ready for the hopeful looks or for the stupid feather dusters to start pestering him again. And god damn it, Dean just wanted to fucking enjoy being the only one to talk to Cas for now. He knew that once Sam heard, he would want to speak with Cas and Dean didn’t want to share. Cas was his Angel.
He and Cas met up on several occasions after that first time and Dean found himself loosening up a bit. Instead of meeting at the tallest tower and forcing Cas to hover over him while they talked, they sat on either side of the front gate. Not only was this much more comfortable for Cas, but it also brought them closer together, allowing Dean to read the small changes in Castiel’s expression as he spoke-and he spoke a lot.
Castiel hadn’t struck Dean as a talkative person, but the longer they spent in contact with each other, the better Dean got at making Castiel talk about himself. He told Dean all about his father, Bobby, leaving; the fight between he and his brother, Michael; and how he spent his days working in the fields. For his part, Dean found that Cas could get him to admit to things that he had never told anyone before. He had revealed to Cas his guilt over all of the people he had trapped here through his association with that fucking demon and ranted for almost twenty minutes about his hate-hate relationship with the feather dusters.
Dean knew that his brothers and the rest of the castle’s occupants watched he and Cas every night. He could almost feel their desperate stares on the back of his neck, but he didn’t care as long as they stayed inside and he was able to hang out with Cas. He was actually somewhat surprised when after nearly two weeks, Sam hadn’t dragged his huge ass outside and forced them to endure his company.
After this occurred to him, Dean decided to ask Sam about it at dinner, only to have him laugh and reply, “Dude, do you really want me to come out there and cockblock you?” Sam wasn’t laughing a second later when Dean started spluttering and spit his dinner out all over him.
It started raining soon after dinner ended. Dean glared up at the fucking clouds that were ruining his night before staring somewhat dejectedly out at the forest. He didn’t try to fool himself into thinking that Cas would be coming that night-not in all of this rain. He understood why, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Sam and Adam decided to distract him by dragging him off to play poker for a few hours. It wasn’t really the best example of a poker game that Dean had ever seen, but it was distracting-what with Dean attempting to hustle his brothers out of their chips, Gabriel ‘whispering’ possible moves to Sam, and Adam leaving wet tea spots on all of his cards.
Just before midnight, the wind stopped shrieking long enough for them to hear wolves howling and the gates in front of Winchester Castle creaking open before crashing shut. The three brothers-and Gabriel-looked at each other before rushing toward the front hall.
As they reached the entryway, they were in time to watch the handle turn and the door swing open to admit a stumbling, haggard-looking man in from the rain.
Chapter One | Masterpost | Chapter Three
Author: Miss Meh
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel, Adam/Michael
Rating: R for swearing and implied sexual situations
Warnings: AU, copious amounts of fluff and sexual innuendo, fusion with Beauty and the Beast
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 5168
Status: WIP
Summary: His wings always seemed to be the problem, Castiel figured. But when he and his family move to Sioux Falls and he meets a Beast locked away in a castle, could his wings be the solution?
Chapter Two: Everything I say to you comes out wrong
It never comes out right, so I said…
--“Why Don’t You & I” Santana
Bobby left the next morning with very little fanfare. Castiel, Michael, and a few people the family knew around town gathered to watch him leave and shout advice and instructions at him. One of their neighbors shook his hand before Bobby could get up onto his horse and said in a lowered voice, “If you are going that way,” he nodded his head toward the path Bobby would be traveling through the forest, “stay on the path. Do not leave it for even a second. There are dangerous things in those woods.”
A shiver chased its way up Bobby’s spine as the man spoke, but he nodded in return before lifting himself up onto his horse’s saddle. With a final wave and a meaningful look in Michael’s direction (which was answered with a nonverbal confirmation of his promise to protect Castiel), Bobby steered his horse down the path and disappeared into the trees.
Castiel stared after him for a second before turning to the neighbor, a man named Bill Harvelle who owned a bar called the Roadhouse (improperly named perhaps, as Sioux Falls did not even have a road, being little more than a collection of buildings). At the moment, Mr. Harvelle was standing beside his wife, Ellen, and their daughter, Jo. “What are these ‘dangerous things’ you speak of?” Castiel asked, his eyebrows furrowing as all of his concentration focused on the man he was questioning.
Bill shifted a bit awkwardly under the intense scrutiny. “I have never seen it myself, but there is a legend about a horrific beast living inside a castle deep within Ilchester Forest. According to the stories, he helps out lost travelers if they happen to stumble across his land and lets them go without any trouble.” He looked away from Castiel, then back again. “Never heard of him actually hurting anyone, but it’s still better if people just steer clear of that area of the forest altogether and stay on the path.”
Little Jo came up to Castiel from where she had been standing between her parents and tugged at the sleeve of his plain work shirt. “Are you going to smite the Beast, Angel?” she asked him, not even trying to disguise the way her eyes were following the miniscule movements his wings were making as they fluttered in the slight breeze.
“Joanna Beth!” Ellen started to protest, though whether it was in reaction to the question itself or Jo’s usage of the nickname Sioux Falls used behind his back, Castiel did not know.
“It is alright, Ellen,” Castiel reassured her. Jo was only a little girl after all; she probably thought that Angel was his real name. He smiled at Jo as he knelt down to her eyelevel. “No, Jo, I am not going to ‘smite the Beast’, as you say. I am not a proponent of violence, so I would not be one to do such a thing.” He paused and looked in the direction of the House of Winchester. “Besides, I cannot even get into the castle as it is,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Michael’s head jerked up when he heard that and the Harvelles stared at Castiel. “You have been to this castle, Castiel?” Michael demanded in his ‘I’m a protective older brother’ voice.
Castiel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and simply met his brother’s glare. “Yes, I have,” he replied. “But as I said, I cannot get in.”
Michael looked slightly flummoxed. “When-?” he trailed off. “How long has this been going on?”
Castiel gave Michael a baffled look and tilted his head quizzically as if to ask, ‘Why is this in the least bit important?’, but he answered the question, “I have been going there every night since my birthday.”
“Your birthday!” Michael burst out. “That was over a month ago! How are you even getting there?”
Castiel looked surprised as he responded. “I flew, obviously,” he said, as though it was common knowledge and Michael was slow for not knowing. Then the realization spread over his face and he guessed, “You did not know?”
“What? That you could fly?” Michael looked like he wanted to hit something. “How was I supposed to know?”
“I knew!” Jo shrieked and stretched her arm up into the air to draw everyone’s attention. Bill and Ellen looked down at the ground somewhat guiltily as Jo added, “Mommy and Daddy knew too; I told them.” She looked back to where Castiel was still kneeling in front of her. “I saw you fly over our house. Is it fun being able to fly? It looks like fun.”
Castiel looked at her uncertainly and told her, “Yes, it is quite enjoyable.”
Michael was glaring at him and muttered something about not being able to protect him if he was in the air, before shaking his head and stalking into the house, leaving Castiel and the three Harvelles staring after him.
Castiel turned back to Jo and reassured her, “Do not worry. It was nothing you did, Jo.” He shot her a small smile. “He is simply upset because I can now go where he cannot follow.”
She looked slightly relieved at his explanation, but her lingering hesitation made Castiel think that she was still upset about something. He waited patiently as she squirmed a bit before blurting out. “Will your Daddy react like that too?” She bit her lip. “What if I’m not around to protect you next time?”
Her concerned question started a genuine laugh out of Castiel. “My father already knows; he doesn’t miss a thing.” He chuckled again before adding, “I thank you kindly for your protection, Jo.”
Jo grinned broadly at him and then started marching up the road, calling back to her parents, “We can leave now. Goodbye, Angel.” Bill and Ellen looked slightly stunned-as though the entire exchange between their daughter and the town’s Angel was reshaping reality-and after saying a quick goodbye to Castiel (to his consternation, they both used the moniker ‘Angel’ as well), they hurried after their daughter.
Castiel lifted himself from where he was still kneeling on the ground and dusted off his pants. He looked toward the house where his brother was waiting and then off toward the castle. Making the quick decision that he didn’t want to deal with his brother’s over-protective nature at the moment, he spread his wings and started flying.
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House of Winchester
Dean Winchester, otherwise known as the Beast of Winchester Castle, was having a bad day. The feather dusters-or ‘pompous feathered dicks,’ as Dean liked to call them-were being particularly annoying this morning, carrying on and on about how this was all his fault and how he was the only one who could stop it. Seriously, with the way they carried on, you’d think he’d started the fucking apocalypse rather than just getting them all cursed and trapped in the castle for the past hundred and fifty years.
Okay, so maybe they had reason to be slightly upset.
But, really, they were holding grudges like a bunch of girls. The only actual girl in the bunch was a chick named Anna who would be cool if only Dean hadn’t banged her for-fucking-ever ago when they had been human (even though they had both made peace with it, Dean still didn’t like hanging out with her). She didn’t really give a damn one way or another about the whole “being cursed” thing. Dean thought the reason might be because she had a thing for the groundskeeper/gardener Joshua and enjoyed the extra time she got to spend with him. Zachariah, Uriel, and Raphael on the other hand… Nasty, whiny little bitches that never shut up about the unfairness of their situation.
Dean had woken up in a bad mood that morning anyway and the feather duster’s endless bitching and moaning did nothing to calm his temper. The Angel had not shown up that night and-though he tried to stop the thought from forming-he worried that at long last he might have given up.
He made his way through the castle, up to the top spire, which was where he went when he needed to be alone. Everyone in the castle knew that when he went up there, he was not to be disturbed.
When he arrived in the small stone room at the top of the stairs, he went over to the small window on the side of the circular chamber opposite the door and slumped against the wall beneath it. Dean would never admit it (God forbid if Sammy ever found out), but he enjoyed listening to the birds chirping as they hopped along the roof eating the seed he put up there every evening. As they were frightened by his presence, he stayed seated below the window rather than watching them as he would have liked to do. Today, however, he heard the birds winging away less than ten minutes after he had arrived to make way for the sound of much larger wings making their way toward him.
Dean chanced peaking over the edge of the window to see what had scared away the birds and when he saw what it was he felt a relieved grin break over his face.
It was the angel. Dean could see that he was throwing himself against the invisible Barrier as he had every night for the past six weeks. The point at which the angel was attacking the Barrier was mere yards from the stone framed window through which Dean was watching him; Dean took the opportunity to catalogue his features. The most prominent thing about him was of course his fucking huge black wings. They spread out to at least seven feet on either side of his body, making him appear massive and intimidating. The human part of him wasn’t so large, however. He wasn’t a small man, but he was an inch or two shorter than the height Dean had been as a human and his muscles were less bulky. For all that he had never before been attracted to a man, Dean could see that the Angel had a very nice body. What really drew him in, however, was the angel’s face. Black brows, full lips, and an impressively strong jawline framed the most beautiful blue eyes Dean had ever seen on either a man or a woman. Dean felt that if those eyes were to catch his, they would hold him and he would never be free of them again.
And then the unthinkable happened when the angel’s gaze moved up to meet his.
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When Castiel noticed the green eyes peering out at him from over a window ledge, his first reaction was shock. There were people here! Castiel hadn’t been sure why he was trying so hard to get past the Barrier apart from the feeling that he needed to do so. He felt somewhat vindicated now. There was a reason for everything. Then, a heat and longing blasted through him as that gaze met his, rendering him unable to think, unable to move, unable to do anything but hold those green eyes with his. They stared at each other for what seemed like endless moments before a deep rumbling voice interrupted the silence.
“Are you here to kill us, Angel?”
---
Dean wanted to smack himself. Couldn’t he have come up with something a hell of a lot better than asking the fucking angel of his dreams whether he intended to kill him? Jesus, this wasn’t going to end well.
---
Castiel tilted his head in a questioning manner as he spoke. “I am no angel,” he said, his voice deep but lifting slightly at the end as though he were questioning his own answer.
---
Holy fucking shit, how did that voice come out of that body? And did angels have hypnotizing abilities? ‘Cause, hell, he could’ve asked Dean anything in that voice and he would have given in without a second thought. Oh god, he was turning into a fucking teenage girl. Sam was going to laugh his ass off if he heard about this.
---
The eyes just stared at Castiel for a second as though mesmerized and he finally noticed the rest of the face they were set in-or at least what he could see over the edge of the window. The Beast was quite hairy with fur covering every inch of what Castiel could see and large upright canine ears set behind demonic-looking horns of equal size.
The Beast seemed to collect himself for the space of a second; then, he answered Castiel’s earlier denial with, “What the fuck are you then?”
---
The angel didn’t flinch at the coarse language, Dean noticed, and it made him like the Angel more. Even Sam got onto him for his language at times. “I do not know what I am,” the angel told him. “But I do know that I dislike being called Angel. They refer to me as such in the village and it makes me somewhat of an outcast. It is as though they do not even know my name,” he scowled.
Dean couldn’t resist and he voiced the next question before he had even consciously thought about it. “What is your name?” Dean noticed that the angel looked surprised-as though nobody had ever asked him this before-and felt sadness course through him on the angel’s behalf.
---
“Castiel,” he replied. “My name is Castiel.” Then he smiled at the Beast in pure happiness-for truly no one had ever asked him for his name before. Then, because he really did wish to know, he returned the question. “And you? What are you called?”
---
Dean felt an emotion he had never felt before flow through him at the sight of the angel (Castiel, his mind provided with yet another surge of girly happiness) smiling at him. What the fuck had Castiel asked him again? Oh yeah…
“Dean,” he provided.
“Dean,” Castiel repeated, his eyes widening. Dean felt a familiar heat run through him as Castiel said his name. God damn it, what the fuck is wrong with me? Castiel hesitated for a few seconds before the question burst out of him. “As in, Dean Winchester?”
Dean burst up from where he had been crouched, demanding, “How the fuck did you know that?”
---
Castiel’s eyes nearly doubled in size as he caught sight of what Dean had been hiding behind the wall. The rest of his body was covered with fur as well, but that wasn’t what startled Castiel. It was the long curved tusks that jutted up from beneath his bottom lip and the cruel-looking claws that he sported on what used to be hands but were now more like paws. Surprisingly enough, he felt no fear. He was rather startled by Dean’s appearance but he didn’t generate the bone-chilling terror Castiel had been expecting. Now that he thought about it, he supposed fear was a most unnecessary emotion to feel around Dean. After all, he had once been human and he still acted like a human. Also, Castiel was almost certain by this point that the Barrier kept Dean in just as it kept Castiel out. Besides, Castiel realized that he already liked Dean and smiled slightly in his relief that Dean’s appearance didn’t change this.
---
What the fuck? Dean thought. Why the hell wasn’t he screaming and flying away, never to return-never to free them? And why did that fucking smile of his make Dean want to do back flips to make it happen again?
“What?” Dean snapped, his face taking on a confused expression that made Castiel chuckle deep in his throat. Dean was torn between feeling pleased that he had miraculously made Castiel laugh and upset because Castiel was laughing at him.
---
When Castiel saw the hurt in Dean’s eyes, his laughter quickly dried up. “Dean,” Castiel said, his voice serious and his eyes intense once more. “I was not laughing at you. I was merely amused by the fact that someone had told me that you were horrific and hideous when I find you to be at most slightly unsettling.”
Dean’s face went slack with surprised awe and he mumbled, “You are nothing like I thought you would be.”
Castiel tilted his head, a perplexed expression on his face. “What did you think I would be?"
Dean waved a paw in Castiel’s direction and Castiel got the feeling that he was self-conscious. “You know-” he told Castiel. When Castiel just stared at him, Dean let out a loud rumbling sigh that sounded almost like a growl. “You’re a fucking angel. I thought you’d be a bit more… You know, angelic or some shit like that.” Dean was rambling. He knew he was rambling and yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Castiel wasn’t doing a damn thing to help him with that either, what with the staring and all. Shit. “I thought you’d meet me and I’d fuck it up and then you’d leave or try to kill me and then we’d be cursed forever and-”
Castiel cut him off. “You mean that I can save you? How?” he demanded urgently. “I can’t even get past the Barrier.”
Dean looked away from Castiel and refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t know how exactly,” Dean hedged and Castiel knew he was lying, but Dean’s feeling of humiliation was almost tangible, so he said nothing. “I just know that an angel is supposed to break the curse. My brother Sam is a geek-brained loser. He has nothing better to do. He’ll think of some way to break the Barrier.”
---
Dean stared at the ground resolutely. He couldn’t tell Castiel that they would need to… No fucking way. Too embarrassing.
Castiel simply nodded and continued to gaze intently at him. Dean felt himself beginning to fidget and knew he needed to say something.
“So,” Dean blurted out. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you’re not here?”
“Well,” Castiel started. “My family and I moved into the forest from a rather large city called Lawrence. When we were there, I wasn’t allowed out much because of my wings, so I helped my father out at the salvage yard and read in my spare time. That’s how I knew about you. There were many books with conspiracy theories about what happened to your family, Dean. You were rather well-known,” Castiel informed him. “When I saw the Winchester Crest on the gate and you told me your name, I concluded that you must be the Dean Winchester.”
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” Dean sighed. “Hell, I’m surrounded by geeks, why not add nerd angels to the bunch?” Dean shook himself out of his thoughts. “So what do you do now that you live out here with us mud monkeys? We aren’t as sophisticated as those city fuckers. I’m sure there isn’t a library or any shit like that wherever you’re living.”
“No,” Castiel said, not sounding upset by it at all. “I have discovered new hobbies for when I am not working.” He didn’t continue.
“So?” Dean prompted. “What are they?”
“Well, I discovered a fondness for observing plants as they grow, which led to an interest in growing my own in the garden my father and brother gave me for my birthday.” Castiel smiled a shy smile of pleasure at the memory. Dean’s heart sped up at the sight of Castiel’s smile and he resolutely ignored it. “I enjoy flying as well. It is very freeing.” He looked slightly wistful for a second then his gaze sharpened to focus on Dean. “That is how I found you. I was so excited after I planted those seeds in my garden that I flew in a direction that I had been warned not to go in.” His eyes took on an amused glint for all that his voice did not change inflection in the least. “I wonder why the villagers would tell me to avoid this part of the forest.” He looked around as if in surprise. “It is quite lovely.”
Castiel’s deadpan humor surprised a bark of laughter out of Dean. “Jeez, Cas,” Dean growled around the rather scary looking grin that refused to leave his face. “You didn’t tell me that you had a sense of humor.”
Cas? Dean thought. Where the fuck had that come from? Dean looked closely at Cas’s face. He didn’t seem to mind so Dean would ignore his slip up and go with it.
---
Castiel noticed the shortening of his name but he didn’t comment-no one had ever given him a nickname before. “Yes, well, you did not ask,” Castiel said. Yet another span of time passed in which they did nothing but stare at each other. Strangely enough, it wasn’t awkward at all. Castiel wanted to speak, however, so he broke the silence. “Dean, how have you kept yourself occupied in the vast amount of time you must have been here?”
Dean shrugged-well, he attempted to anyway. “I don’t do much actually. I can’t clean my weapons or practice with them anymore, which used to be a big part of what I did in my off time. I can’t hunt either because I can’t leave the castle grounds.” Castiel nodded when Dean confirmed his suspicions about the Barrier. “Mostly, I bug my little brothers and I feed the birds and I wait.” Castiel could hear the loneliness in Dean’s voice-could see it in his eyes-and it strengthened his resolve.
“I will find a way to get you out of here, Dean,” Castiel stated, no doubt in his voice and so completely serious that his voice was dragged down an octave. “I swear it to you.” Dean didn’t have faith in much, but now, hell, he wanted to have faith in Castiel.
Cas left soon after that, saying something about his brother being upset with him. He had also told Dean that he would not be coming back that night, but that he would see Dean the next night. Dean had promised to be waiting for him.
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Dean was in a very good mood for the rest of the day. He even toned down the amount of pranks he played on his brothers that day. He kept it down to two, and as one had been done before Cas had shown up, Dean figured that it didn’t count, so really, it was just one. He even said something downright nice to Gabriel, whom he actually got along okay with, as long as the guy wasn’t being a total asshole (though neither would ever admit to it). When Sam asked him if Gabriel had slipped something into his food again (yeah, Sam was the only one brave enough to bring that up), Dean’s mood didn’t darken, he just smiled and said, “Everything’s great, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam,” he corrected Dean automatically. He didn’t really care about that at the moment. There was something up with his brother and Sam was going to find out what it was.
When he consulted Gabriel on the matter, Gabriel started laughing. “He’s happy because his Angel came to visit him this morning. The big baby actually stopped acting like a prepubescent girl with a crush long enough to talk to him.”
Sam looked at Gabriel incredulously. “How the hell do you know that?”
Gabriel leered at him. “I’ll exchange information for sexual favors.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“No, Gabriel, tell me what you know,” Sam demanded.
“Fine,” Gabriel huffed. “I followed Dean up to that tower of his and-”
“You followed Dean up there?” Sam sounded offended on Dean’s behalf. “And you didn’t bring me with you?” Sam’s face was in full-on puppy dog pout mode.
Gabriel snorted. “You and I both know that you can’t sneak anywhere, so I did us both a favor and went by myself.” Sam looked at him in both embarrassment and understanding, shuffling the base of his body a little bit. Even that small movement made quite a bit of noise as wood scraped against stone. Considering his point made, Gabriel took that as his cue to continue. “Anyway, the angel showed up a little while after Dean got there and I left when they started eyefucking as if I wasn’t even there.” He slapped a wounded expression onto his face and sniffed as though the pain of being overlooked was too great a burden to bear.
“Eyefucking?” Sam completely ignored Gabriel’s attempt at playing the victim. “What the hell is eyefucking?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Sam? I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.” He sighed. “Oh, Sammy, such an innocent.” He started talking very slowly as if speaking to a child. “You see, eyefucking is what happens when a complete idiot-that would be your brother, by the way-is so good at repressing both his emotions and his sexuality that when he meets his Angel, he isn’t man enough to actually do anything about it. Instead, he uses his eyes to get the message across. You see, your brother’s eyes were-”
“Stop!” Sam put his fingerless palms up as if they could actually stop Gabriel’s words. “I don’t need to hear about what my brother’s eyes were doing to that angel. I’ve walked in on him enough times as it is and I don’t need you adding any more perverted imagery to my brain.”
Gabriel grinned at him lasciviously. “Speaking of perverted imagery, what about those sexual favors we were discussing earlier?” He advanced on Sam in a predatory manner. This was a rather hilarious image actually, considering Sam had about five feet on Gabriel height-wise and-well let’s not get into the weight issue; Sam’s a bit… sensitive.
“Gabriel,” Sam said weakly and allowed Gabriel to lead him back to their bedroom. Not that they actually used a bed-seeing as they were now a grandfather clock and a candelabra-but it was a remnant from when they had been human. Besides they had to have somewhere to, well, you know…
Ten minutes later, they realized that no matter how hard they tried, they still couldn’t have sex in their current forms.
“God damn it!” Gabriel banged out of their room as if he were on fire. Oh yeah, he is, Sam thought, then groaned internally. Really lame joke. “Why didn’t you remind me that it wouldn’t work like you usually do?”
Sam shrugged and looked a bit sheepish. “You did that thing where you take charge and act like you’re bigger than me. You know how hot that makes me.”
“Shit,” Gabriel cursed as he attempted to jump on Sam and plant a kiss on his lips. It wasn’t as dramatic as it would have been had they been human; Sam had to lift Gabriel after he tried and failed to jump high enough the first few times. “When we turn back into humans, I am so going to fuck your brains out.”
..........................................................................................
Dean wasn’t ready to tell Sam and Adam about Cas yet. For one thing, Sam would tell Gabriel which would lead to it being spread around the rest of the castle. Gabriel liked to talk and Dean knew it. He wasn’t ready for the hopeful looks or for the stupid feather dusters to start pestering him again. And god damn it, Dean just wanted to fucking enjoy being the only one to talk to Cas for now. He knew that once Sam heard, he would want to speak with Cas and Dean didn’t want to share. Cas was his Angel.
He and Cas met up on several occasions after that first time and Dean found himself loosening up a bit. Instead of meeting at the tallest tower and forcing Cas to hover over him while they talked, they sat on either side of the front gate. Not only was this much more comfortable for Cas, but it also brought them closer together, allowing Dean to read the small changes in Castiel’s expression as he spoke-and he spoke a lot.
Castiel hadn’t struck Dean as a talkative person, but the longer they spent in contact with each other, the better Dean got at making Castiel talk about himself. He told Dean all about his father, Bobby, leaving; the fight between he and his brother, Michael; and how he spent his days working in the fields. For his part, Dean found that Cas could get him to admit to things that he had never told anyone before. He had revealed to Cas his guilt over all of the people he had trapped here through his association with that fucking demon and ranted for almost twenty minutes about his hate-hate relationship with the feather dusters.
Dean knew that his brothers and the rest of the castle’s occupants watched he and Cas every night. He could almost feel their desperate stares on the back of his neck, but he didn’t care as long as they stayed inside and he was able to hang out with Cas. He was actually somewhat surprised when after nearly two weeks, Sam hadn’t dragged his huge ass outside and forced them to endure his company.
After this occurred to him, Dean decided to ask Sam about it at dinner, only to have him laugh and reply, “Dude, do you really want me to come out there and cockblock you?” Sam wasn’t laughing a second later when Dean started spluttering and spit his dinner out all over him.
It started raining soon after dinner ended. Dean glared up at the fucking clouds that were ruining his night before staring somewhat dejectedly out at the forest. He didn’t try to fool himself into thinking that Cas would be coming that night-not in all of this rain. He understood why, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Sam and Adam decided to distract him by dragging him off to play poker for a few hours. It wasn’t really the best example of a poker game that Dean had ever seen, but it was distracting-what with Dean attempting to hustle his brothers out of their chips, Gabriel ‘whispering’ possible moves to Sam, and Adam leaving wet tea spots on all of his cards.
Just before midnight, the wind stopped shrieking long enough for them to hear wolves howling and the gates in front of Winchester Castle creaking open before crashing shut. The three brothers-and Gabriel-looked at each other before rushing toward the front hall.
As they reached the entryway, they were in time to watch the handle turn and the door swing open to admit a stumbling, haggard-looking man in from the rain.
Chapter One | Masterpost | Chapter Three