SPN Fic: Always Is A Very Long Time (SPN CINEMA 2/2)
Title: Always Is A Very Long Time (2/2)
Author: agirlnamedtruth
Movie Prompt: The Hole (2001)
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jo, background and past Dean/Jo.
Rating: NC17
Word Count: ~6500 (Total; ~12, 500)
Summary: An AU where the Roadhouse never burnt down, Jo is alive, Sam is soulless, Castiel is fighting his civil war in Heaven and Dean’s just Dean. While on a hunt, they find themselves trapped in a decommissioned war bunker together but is there even a spirit to hunt?
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, main character deaths, strong language, mind control, dub-con, dark!Castiel. Some scenes may be triggering for emetophobics (nothing graphic or detailed).
Notes: Lots of love and endless thanks to my beta verucasalt123 for introducing me to the phrase “sweet glittery Jesus”. And y’know, the shocking amount of tense corrections.
He did wake up but by the time he did the sun was high in the sky and shining through the small window in the hatch. He coughed and when he spoke, he still sounded half asleep.
“Cas, seriously? I know you don’t need to sleep but you can’t just sit there for hours on end.”
“Why not?” Castiel said, having been sat for more three hours already.
“Aren’t you bored?”
“No.”
“What about cold?”
“I don’t get cold.”
“Well, you can’t be comfortable.”
“I suppose not.” He waited for a beat and then tested another boundary. “But I have no other option.”
Dean rubbed his eyes and the flipped open the sleeping bag, it was an invitation. “Hurry up, I’m not going freeze to death while you make up your mind.”
Castiel stood, kicking off his shoes and pulling off his coat and the jacket underneath it. It was the first time he’d ever taken off this vessel’s clothes. The shirt sleeves covering his arms looked foreign, so he unbuttoned them and pushed them up to his elbows. He decided that would do and dropped to his knees, crawling until he was against Dean and then lying down flat on his back. Dean didn’t say anything or touch him or make any other hint that he knew Castiel was there other than covering them back over with the sleeping bag.
Castiel spent the night studying every inch of Dean he could without waking him. He counted how many times his heart beat per minute, how many breaths he took. He experimented with how lightly he could brush his fingers over his skin without Dean noticing. At some point in his sleep, Dean rolled over and found Castiel’s chest. He curled into his side, fitting perfectly to it. For few hours Castiel didn’t dare breathe in case he woke him. Then suddenly he was gone again, the hard concrete of the floor making him seek comfort in a different position. After Dean had woken and left him without a word, he got up and stretched in three directions, from the tips of his fingers, to the tips of his toes, to the tips of his wings. He had the romantic notion that maybe he had slept after all.
-x-
They gathered around in a circle, sharing a breakfast of liquor and chips. Castiel declined both and sat considering his options. They didn’t have much food, or any drink, other than alchohol or the water in the taps. The more pleasant option was going to give them liver damage sooner or later if they didn’t stop drinking it. They had plenty of air, Castiel only breathed when he knew they were watching and that he could give up if necessary. He had a week, maybe two, before dehydration would become a real threat, even more so than usual because of the alcohol. Eventually he’d have to let them out. Until then the problem would be keeping them alright with being in.
They’d been in three days already. This was the fourth. They’d soon get sick of each other, tempers would fray and fights would break out. He didn’t care about that, as long as Dean was happy.
He wondered how long it would take them to ask why he couldn’t just open the hatch, he was an Angel after all.
-x-
The day passed quietly. Sam pulled out his books, deciding that if the spirit wouldn’t come out, they would make it. Castiel almost felt sorry for him. There was nothing to call out, except him.
Jo, of course, was hanging off of his every word. He almost felt sorry for her too but he needed her out of Dean’s way and the only way to do that was to put her in Sam’s.
Dean was going through phases of sulking, because he wasn’t being paid attention to, and lavishing his attention on Castiel to overcompensate. Which suited Cas just fine.
He noticed that every time Jo touched Sam, Dean would find some excuse to mirror the touch on him. The amount of imaginary dust that had been brushed off of him was getting unbelievable. If he’d been human, he’d have snapped by now.
He decided that night to put how deeply that habit ran to the test.
-x-
Castiel leaned back against the wall, preparing to spend the night there like he had done before. This time Dean was sober and still very much awake, he didn’t dare push his luck by being presumptuous.
He was rewarded when Dean gave him a look and nodded over to his sleeping bag. He paused for a moment, knowing that unlike last time, he was being watched. He wanted to go round and extinguish all the candles but he knew that would draw even more attention to him. He let them burn.
He paused again. The night before Dean had been fully dressed and Castiel had only undressed enough to be able to lie comfortably. But now Dean was kicking off his jeans, leaving him in only his shirt and his boxers.
He followed suit because he could feel eyes on him. Not Sam’s and Jo’s, he didn’t care what they thought. But he could feel Dean watching him. He knew Dean was waiting to see what he would do. It was almost like he’d done it on purpose.
Again, he got to his knees, this time feeling the concrete scraping against bare skin, and crawled over to Dean, who pulled the sleeping bag across them. They laid like that, in silence, on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, being just far away from each other to not be touching but still dangerously close, until the last candle burnt away to nothing.
The next few hours were almost hard work for Castiel. Once Dean had fallen asleep, he made a vague effort to make sure he stayed asleep. Until the right moment, at least. Another proportion of his concentration went on keeping Sam open to suggestion and keeping his moral compass from interfering. Given his lack of soul, that wasn’t too difficult. Most of his thoughts went to Jo. He made her cold, made her frustrated, made her lonely. He made her think stumbling in the dark over to Sam’s bed was the best idea she’d ever had. Not that it was even her idea but she didn’t know that.
He waited until the last possible moment, until Sam’s breath was coming in pants and Jo couldn’t keep herself muted anymore. Then he woke Dean, making Dean assumed that it had been Jo’s last moan that had woken him.
“What was that?” He whispered into the darkness, gathering Castiel would always be awake.
“I imagine,” Castiel whispered back, leaning towards Dean despite the fact he didn’t really need to. “That was Jo coping with the pressure of climax, vocally.”
There was silence for a few seconds while Dean figured out what that meant. “Oh. Great. That’s just great.”
There was another few seconds of silence before Dean rolled onto his side, pressing himself up against Castiel. He didn’t know if it was intentional or not but Dean didn’t move, so Cas didn’t either.
“Is it me or has she never shown the slightest interest towards him until now.” Dean whispered, his breath so close it warmed Castiel’s skin.
“I don’t claim to understand human behaviour.” His hands itched to move but he kept them pinned by his sides.
“C’mon Cas, this is completely out of character for both of them.”
Castiel almost laughed because the way Dean was leaning into him could be considered out of his character. But that was a thought he didn’t want to linger on so he dismissed it. Instead he nodded his agreement.
“Maybe it’s...this place.” Dean said distractedly.
Castiel felt Dean’s fingertips press against his shirt before pulling away quickly like he had been shocked. Or like he had expected Cas to flinch and pull away first. When he didn’t move away, when he stayed exactly where he was, not even daring to breathe, Dean’s hands returned.
“There’s something...” He whispered, while his fingers fiddled with the buttons on Castiel’s shirt, not quite undoing them. “Unusual.”
Castiel’s restraint snapped and he pushed Dean, so he was flat on his back again, with Castiel leaning over him. His hands held Dean down; despite the fact he wasn’t struggling. Dean’s hands were still trying to get at his shirt and he let them, not really caring what he was doing. He let his vessel’s heady reaction to such friction take him over and before he’d even made the conscious decision to kiss Dean, he was already doing it and Dean was kissing him back.
Dean’s hands gave up on undoing the shirt, simply pushing it up instead so he could feel skin. Neither of them noticed the flicker of torches, neither of them heard shuffling or the muffled cursing or the small clatter of objects that preceded it. All they could hear was each other’s breathing. Castiel, whose hearing was much more acute than a humans would have heard it if his head wasn’t filled with the sound of Dean’s heart thumping, almost matching his own. Dean wouldn’t have heard a brass band at that moment, had there been one. So the little lights and sounds went unnoticed for a few more seconds.
Castiel’s hands lifted away from Dean’s chest, no longer pinning him because he was certain he didn’t need to anymore, if he ever had. He put on hand on the concrete, propping himself up. His other hand worked its way between them. He brushed his fingers over Dean’s boxers for the barest of seconds, teasing, testing his reaction. When he pushed up against his hand, Castiel took that to be all the tacit agreement he needed. He slipped his hand under the waistband of his boxers, grasping Dean’s cock.
He got the tiniest glimpse of Dean’s head falling back in pleasure, exposing his neck, before he was blinded by light. For a second, he thought all the rumours about sinning had been true and he was being called back to Heaven to be punished but his eyes quickly adjusted to the light.
It was the overhead florescent lights; they hadn’t had a reason to use them yet. He followed them down to where the switch was and saw Jo, standing there, hand still on the switch.
It was difficult to tell who looked more like a rabbit caught in headlights, him and Dean or her. Dean pushed Castiel away, trying to pull back any semblances of innocence. Castiel let himself be pushed. Jo was standing there open mouthed and if anyone had asked her, she wouldn’t have said it was because what they had been doing. It was because she could have sworn, for a split seconds when the lights flickered on, she saw the shadows of wings spread over the floor and over Dean.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She said, when she realised what she’d interrupted.
“It’s not...” Dean tried to say it’s not what it looks like but he couldn’t think of any plausible explanation for what else it could have been so he trailed off.
“No, no. It’s just we...” She coughed awkwardly. “I heard...and I wasn’t sure what was going on.” She shrugged as another apology. “I’ll just...” She turned the lights back off and Dean presumed she’d gone back to Sam’s bed. Castiel saw her go back to her own but he didn’t tell Dean that. They didn’t say anything else all night.
-x-
The next morning Jo looked pale and hung over. She was, mildly, but that wasn’t all that was affecting her. Castiel had let his guard down, let his influence slip from her mind and forgot to assert it again. She was suffering from having an Angel in her head. It was comparable to going on a weeklong bender and then trying to remember what she had done and why on Earth she had thought it a good idea. Castiel could have cured her in a second, told her she was better and made her believe anything but she didn’t matter anymore, she had played her part.
Dean had left him and got dressed quickly. It wasn’t an ideal reaction to what had happened but Castiel gathered from past anecdotal evidence from Sam that it wasn’t an unusual reaction. He knew that eventually Dean would have to face him. He had stayed in their makeshift bed, not wanting to surrender the night to the dawn.
Sam was tidying, or at least pretending to. Castiel knew he didn’t sleep, just like he himself didn’t. He knew Sam had likely heard everything. Castiel wondered whether Dean had realised that yet. Either way it was starting to unnerve Castiel how much Sam saw, how keenly he observed everything for observation’s sake. Eventually he would call Cas out on how calm he was. It would become obvious how he wasn’t as passive as everyone believed. He wanted this. He was engineering this.
“I want to go home.” Jo said, she spoke barely above a whisper but it echoed in the silence.
There was a few seconds where everyone stopped, staring at her. Sam was the first to speak, the imaginary housekeeping forgotten. “But this is your hunt.”
“I don’t care.” She shook her head, as if she was trying to convince herself as well. “I mean, nothing’s happened, has it? So what’s the point?”
Castiel closed his eyes. He wished he’d kept a tighter rein on her now.
“We got shut in. That happened.” Dean pointed out.
“Yeah, but this place is iron. Let’s just shut it in and make sure nobody can ever open it again.” Jo shrugged.
“Jo, even if we wanted to,” Dean started and Castiel marked his choice of words with a smile. “We can’t go anywhere, not while that hatch is being held down.”
“Get him to open it.” Jo stood and pointed over to Castiel. He inwardly sighed; he knew this would happen, sooner or later. “That’s why we brought him, right?”
“You didn’t bring me, I’m risking Heaven giving way to chaos just by being here.” He answered, his tone was threatening but he still didn’t move. He wasn’t going to until he absolutely had to.
“See, he wants to get out here too.”
Castiel inwardly kicked himself for rising to her bait. He couldn’t deny the fact as he was meant to want to serve Heaven and that meant wanting to leave. Dean looked over to him and he couldn’t bear the intensity of the questioning in his eyes so he looked away.
“I think we should stay, see this thing out.” Dean said, eyes darting between Castiel on the floor and Jo. Castiel almost turned back to face him, to thank him somehow but he knew he couldn’t.
“You do that then. I’ll find my own way back.” Jo said and in that second Castiel hated her. She knew what she was doing and he knew it too. She was playing on the fact that Dean felt responsible for her and wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She was manipulating him like a child would a parent. She would win.
“Fine. Get your stuff.” Dean said and Castiel bit his tongue to stop himself saying anything.
-x-
As soon as he was dressed, they made Castiel climb the ladder and open the hatch. Or that’s what they expected to happen. It wasn’t too difficult to fake, they were all out of immediate eyeshot and none of them could claim to know enough about what he was capable of to judge his acting. He turned the handle slightly, enough for the metal to grind and give the impression he was really trying. His mind was working, figuring out what he was going to say. He decided weakness was the easiest explanation.
“It’s not opening.” Dean called up.
“I can see that.” Castiel shouted back. He searched around for the sharpest bit of metal and cut his hands open on it, fighting his body’s automatic ability to heal. He paused for a second, twisting his wrist as he’d become accustomed to do while projecting his power. He disturbed something in the chemistry of Jo’s internal organs. She wouldn’t notice anything for a while but for a day, maybe two, they would each be battling to see which one would fail first. Everything would have been fine if she’d let Dean stay. It was her own fault.
Castiel climbed down the ladder, making it look more difficult than it was.
“I can’t move it.” He didn’t need to draw attention to his hands, in a few seconds the blood would start dripping and do it for him.
“I thought you were all super strength.” Jo said.
“Usually I am but since coming here...” He paused knowing Dean would pick up his story, back it up without even being asked.
“He’s right. I’ve felt odd since we’ve been in here.” His mind flashed back to the night before; Maybe it’s...this place.
“I have to admit, I don’t feel right either.” Jo admitted.
“I’m fine.” Sam said, ruining the moment.
“Cas has been affected worst though. Remember the other night, he was drunker than all of us and alcohol isn’t meant to affect him.” Dean said and Castiel had to stop himself smiling. At the time he’d merely meant to make himself look suggestible but now it was working in his favour. He could get away with this. If anything, he’d be the victim.
“Are you bleeding?” San said, finally noticing the blood.
Dean’s eyes skimmed over him, looking for any damage before lifting up one of his hands, taking it in both of his.
“It must have been the hatch. I didn’t notice.” He kept his eyes down.
“Shit, Cas.” Dean dragged him over to where his bags were, making him sit on the sleeping bag. He rummaged in a bag for a minute before bringing out bandages and a flask. He reached over and took two bowls from another bag.
“Can one of you fill this with hot water?” Dean asked and Sam and Jo both nodded, taking one of the bowls to the small bathroom.
He crossed his legs and balanced the other bowl on his knee. He made Castiel hold up one hand, so it was over the bowl. Then he took Cas’ other hand and put it on his thigh, almost absently, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“This is going to hurt like a bitch.” Dean said then nodded down to the hand on his thigh. “You feel pain, you pass it on to me.” He thought for a second before adding. “Without breaking anything.”
Castiel nodded and gripped Dean’s thigh tighter, accepting the invitation. He made himself feel the white hot sting of the alcohol as it trickled out of the flask. His nails dug into the stiff material of Dean’s jeans and his mind threw him an image of his nails dragging against bare skin exactly like that. “Fuck.” He said breathlessly. He’d all but forgotten about the cuts on his hands.
“Sorry.” Dean muttered, taking the other hand and repeating the procedure. Castiel growled low in throat, it was taking all of his effort to hold himself back. He was keeping himself from healing, keeping himself from blocking his nervous system, keeping himself from all the thoughts and impulses that were rushing through him. The latter was the hardest. Dean thought it was a reaction to the pain. Castiel let him think that. By the time the water arrived, he was in control of himself again.
Dean cut a small section of bandage from the reel. He dipped it in the water and used it to clean the wounds properly. He then wrapped a bandage around each hand, covering both palms. He was an expert at this and every few seconds his skin would brush Castiel’s as he wound the material round. By the time he was finished, Castiel was completely calm again and soothed by the gentle way Dean had taken care of him. The whole charade was worth those fifteen minutes.
-x-
In the bathroom, Jo chucked the bowl in the sink, making no effort at filling it.
“What’s going on?” Jo asked Sam in a hushed whisper.
“Hey, you came to me, remember?”
Jo rolled her eyes. “Not that. We’ll get to that later. I mean what’s going on with your brother and Cas?”
“Search me. This is new...as far as I know.” Sam shrugged.
“It didn’t look new to me. He had his hand down Dean’s pants. It looked like pretty established territory to me!” Jo’s whispers were getting louder.
“Are you jealous?” Sam raised his eyebrows.
“No!”
“You sound like you are.”
“What about Castiel suddenly being all powerless then? There’s something off about that.”
“Maybe he’s got to recharge. He’s still a man.” Sam laughed to himself, frustrating Jo more.
“Why aren’t you taking this more seriously?”
“Because it’s silly.” He steered Jo until she was pressed against the sink. “So what if he’s fucking Cas. That’s what Dean does.”
“I think something’s up.” She said distractedly as Sam kissed along her neck.
Last night this had seemed like a good idea. This morning it had seemed like the worst mistake of her life. Now she didn’t know what she thought.
“Besides, we can’t talk. It was probably you that woke them up.” He turned her so that she was facing the barely reflective mirror. Her hands automatically grasped the sink. He unbuttoned her jeans, stroking her through her panties until she came, his hand covering her mouth.
“Now we’re all back in the lead.” Sam buttoned up jeans back up and filled the bowl with warm water, giving her a minute or two to make herself look presentable again before they took it out.
-x-
They all sat around the little portable barbeque that was cooking their dinner, discussing what their newly realised imprisonment meant.
Castiel had done this at the time. He knew better than they did how long their bodies could last in these conditions. He had plenty of time left. Jo didn’t but that wasn’t based on how much air or food they had left. Not that she knew that.
The instant she swallowed her food, she felt sick. She excused herself to the bathroom and within a few seconds they heard her throw up.
“You should check on her.” Dean told Sam with a slightly accusatory look.
The instant he was out of sight, and presumably earshot, Castiel leaned over and took Dean’s plate away from him, demanding his attention.
“You appear to be avoiding me.” He stated.
“I’m not avoiding you, Cas, I’m just...” He trailed of. Trapped in a hole, there was no possible excuse he could think for a single thing he was doing other than avoiding him.
“It wasn’t a question, you are avoiding me. Why?” Castiel asked and when Dean didn’t answer he clarified. “That is a question.”
“I know it’s a question.” Dean gave him a mildly withering look. “I don’t know, alright? I guess I feel guilty.”
“Why?” He asked again.
Dean sighed, color rising in his cheeks. “Because you’re the most naive person I know and I took advantage of that. I think.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Jesus, Cas, can you stop with the whys?” Dean looked away. “Stuff happened between us and I feel responsible. Like I corrupted you or something.”
“Because I’m a virgin?”
“Because you’re an Angel.” Dean said, incredulous that he had to spell it out.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
“Isn’t that...what else would be bothering me?”
“I presumed you were struggling to accept the notion that you want to engage in sexual acts with someone you consider to be a friend. Or the idea that you enjoyed having another man’s hand pleasuring you was an unwelcome revelation. This is what bothers most humans.”
“Fuck.” Dean visibly swallowed. Castiel moved over to him, pushing him back until all that was keeping him off of the floor was his elbows. Castiel straddled his lap, the floor hard on his knees so he let his weight rest on Dean and Dean didn’t complain.
“So none of that bothers you?”
“No.” Dean said breathlessly, then he coughed in an attempt to make himself sound less affected than he was. “Not a damn bit.”
“It’s only the fact that you’re concerned for my purity and my grace that is stopping you from giving yourself to me entirely?”
Dean nodded. “I guess.”
“So if I were to assure that any act of love performed with you would be more akin to redemption than sinning, would that reassure you?”
“What does that mean?”
Castiel leant down so he could whisper. “It means fucking me would be the most celestial experience of your life.”
His words had their desired effect and he was on his back so fast his mind could barely keep up. Because of how Castiel had been sat before, Dean had landed naturally between his legs, keeping them spread. Dean’s mouth was on his, forming bruises he didn’t have the focus to heal. Dean’s hands were pulling at his clothes, fighting a war with his tie, loosening it further. Castiel’s hands were on Dean’s hips, angling them, pushing them down until Dean’s erection met with his own, the stiff material of his jeans rubbing against the thin material of his pants, making him curse in a language even he wouldn’t have been able to indentify at that moment. He held Dean’s hips tighter, rising to meet them, wriggling underneath him, creating friction every way he could.
There was a loud cough and Dean looked around. Castiel could see Sam over his shoulder and by the look on his face he’d been stood there unnoticed for a while.
“Something’s wrong with Jo.” He finally said.
Dean gave Castiel a last look, one that said if we ever get a moment alone, we’ll finish this. He got up and followed Sam, leaving Castiel on the floor, trying to catch a breath he couldn’t convince himself he didn’t need.
-x-
When Dean saw Jo, he decided while there was something wrong with her, it was only a bad hangover, a delayed effect of a few days hard drinking. When he told her that she stuck her middle finger up at him and mumbled something that sounded slightly like “Fuck off.”
“She’s best left to get it out of her system and sleep it off.” Dean said once out of her earshot. “You didn’t knock her up did you?” He added as a joke.
Sam replied with something that was very clearly “Fuck off.”
-x-
The last few hours of light was spent with Sam holding back Jo’s hair and Dean filling up water bottles for her to drink. It was a pointless exercise seeing as the instant she swallowed it, it forced its way back out of her. Occasionally Sam and Dean would swap jobs in order to either stretch or rest their legs.
When darkness fell they offered to drag her bed into the bathroom but Jo shook her head and said she could find her way around with a torch, if necessary.
As Castiel crawled into the sleeping bag next to him, still half dressed, he selfishly wished she’d taken them up on their offer because Sam would have volunteered to stay with her and he and Castiel would have had a few moments to themselves. He had to settle for Cas curled against him, drawing patterns onto his bare chest until he fell asleep.
A few hours later he was woken by a hand over his mouth and a whisper in his ear. “They’re gone.” His other hand strayed down to Dean’s cock, stroking it to hardness and making sure he wasn’t going to fall back asleep.
Castiel looked Dean over and realised that in the darkness Dean’s human eyes couldn’t see him so he whispered again. “Are you awake? Can I take away my hand?”
“It depends which hand you’re talking about.” Dean muttered against his fingers. Castiel smiled and removed his hand from Dean’s mouth, replacing it with his lips.
When Dean needed to breathe, he moved his kisses along his jaw, down his neck, over his chest. His other hand left Dean’s cock so that he could support himself as he worked his way down. Eventually the sleeping bag stood in his way and he had to dip under. In the darkness of the sleeping bag and in this close proximity even his eyes couldn’t keep up with what he was pressing his mouth against. It was only when he trailed over a hip bone he knew where he was going. He pulled Dean’s underwear down just far enough to free his cock.
“What if they come back?” Dean asked in a loud whisper.
“Honestly? I’m past caring.” Castiel said, one hand keeping him balanced and Dean still while the other was on his cock, acting as a guide for his mouth. As soon as his lips touched the head, all future protests were instantly forgotten.
Despite his naive appearance Castiel knew what he was doing. He circled his tongue over the head while his hand steadily worked the shaft. In the distance, he heard Dean’s fingernails scrape over concrete where he was used to having sheets. He pulled his mouth away, not wanting to waste what was possibly their only opportunity for a while.
“Have you done anything like this before?” Castiel asked, his head returning from under the sleeping bag.
“Not exactly.” Dean didn’t feel the need to elaborate that his somewhat forced gender experimentation that night a long time ago had gone quite a bit further than the pink panties.
Castiel considered relenting his high ground, letting Dean fuck him but he decided they didn’t have the time to talk him through it. There’d always be next time. When they got out of here, Castiel planned on spending a considerable amount of time exploring every possible next time. “I’ll be gentle.”
“Wait, you’ve done this before?”
“No. I just happened to live through the Greeks. And to a lesser extent the Romans. And we were all around for the war at Troy, just in case things went badly.”
“Right.” Dean replied, more confused than before he’d asked.
Dean was vaguely aware of the sleeping bag being pulled away entirely then feeling something cold and wet before Castiel inserted a finger inside him. Castiel was thankful he didn’t ask what he was using for lube because his only answer would have been I lied, I’m fully functional as an Angel and I willed it into existence in what humans would call a minor miracle. Luckily Dean didn’t even think about it. He was too busy adjusting to the burn of Castiel opening him up. When Castiel found his prostate and pressed against it, he couldn’t think at all.
Soon one finger became two, and then three just to be on the safe side. Castiel kept one eye on Dean, who was shuddering beautifully on the floor, the mixture of pleasure and pain making him forget every other sensation in the world, and the other eye on the bathroom door.
When Dean threatened to come from Castiel’s fingers alone, he withdrew them and pushed down his own underwear. He picked up Dean’s hips and pulled him half onto his lap. He entered him slowly, kneeling gradually, letting Dean get used to both burns, his tightness adjusting around Castiel’s cock and the higher angle his legs had to be at. Castiel knew that even as a hunter, Dean wasn’t exactly flexible.
He set a slow pace, still mildly aware they were on limited time but more concerned for Dean’s pleasure than his vessel’s and by proxy his own. He knew this would only end one of two ways, either with Dean coming or them being caught. He tried to angle his hips to recreate what he’d been doing with his fingers and placed a hand on Dean’s cock in case he couldn’t.
He was so immersed in Dean that he didn’t notice his own orgasm sneaking up on him. His vessel had been set on edge for days and it hadn’t been sated since Castiel took control of it and it had decided it was taking this moment for itself.
When it released its hold on him and gave him back control over himself, he apologized to Dean and pulled out. He shuffled backwards and replaced his lax hand with his mouth, working hard and fast until Dean was coming, Castiel willingly swallowing around him.
Castiel led back beside Dean pulling the sleeping bag over them as best he could. He didn’t think they’d been caught but in all honesty, Sam and Jo could have turned the overhead lights on and he wouldn’t have noticed. As it was the overhead lights would never work again.
That night it didn’t matter that one of them wasn’t human, they both slept like they were.
-x-
The next morning things spiralled out of control.
Castiel had woken up happy. As had Dean. They both had a moment of quiet realisation that if they wanted, they could wake up like this every morning.
It only lasted a few moments because they soon came to the conclusion they had been woken up by Sam.
“It’s Jo.” He paused dramatically, or what seemed dramatically to Castiel. “Dean, she’s dead.”
“Fuck!” He swore honestly. It wasn’t that he regretted his actions as such, he’d just forgotten them entirely.
Dean just stared at him disbelievingly.
It was true, obviously. But even when he was led over to her dead body in the bathroom, blood in a puddle around her mouth where it had dripped out, he still didn’t believe it.
“But she was fine. I mean she was sick but...” Dean trailed off. “Cas?” He looked at Castiel for some divine explanation of her death.
“I don’t know. Could have been supernatural or it could just have been...natural. I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it. I know you’re not properly powered up. It was stupid to ask.”
They held her a small funeral. They couldn’t give her a proper hunter’s cremation because they were indoors so instead they carried her up to the walkway and placed her by the hatch. Castiel wasn’t sure if they were trying to offer her up as some belated sacrifice in a bid for freedom or if they were admonishing the spirit by saying look what you’ve done.
Of course there wasn’t a spirit and he could see what he’d done quite clearly. He reassured himself by telling himself Dean would get over it sooner or later. Sam glared at him from across the room. He might take longer.
-x-
They all sat quietly for several hours. Sam sat on his own and Dean laid across the floor, his head in Castiel’s lap with Cas stroking his hair. It was a gesture that had evolved quickly and Castiel deemed it as the best perk of starting a physical relationship with Dean. There was something unexplainably soothing in the tactility and the repetitiveness of stroking someone’s hair. That’s why humans liked keeping pets.
There was a moment when the air seemed to grow thicker than chemically possible and every cell in him could sense a confrontation coming. All he could do was brace himself for it.
“This is your fault.” There wasn’t much feeling in the words and it sounded like Sam was only saying them because Jo had inferred something similar before.
“How is it his fault?” Dean said instantly.
“He broke the lock, getting in.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, now we can’t get out. If we’d gone when she wanted to she’d still be alive.”
“That’s not his fault and you know it.”
It made Castiel’s skin crawl to hear them talk about him, and for him, like he wasn’t there. He suspected it was because Sam was right and Dean was putting his faith in him and he was lying.
“Why couldn’t he do anything!” Sam shouted suddenly, getting to his feet, pointing at Castiel like he was on trial.
“He tried!” Dean got up to match him.
“And why is that? Does fucking you somehow take away all Angelic powers? Because we sure as shit could have done with knowing that while we were fighting Lucifer. All we would have needed is for you to bend over and bang, no more apocalypse!”
Dean launched himself at Sam, meaning to drive him back against the wall lie he’d done more times that he could count. But something in Castiel’s control broke and his powers struck out, taking what Dean had started and finishing it. Sam’s head snapped back against the concrete wall too hard and he was dead before the blood started pouring.
Dean kneeled over Sam’s lifeless body, caught somewhere between crying and shouting. He’d thought he’d done it. Castiel crouched beside him, he tilted Dean’s head until it was on his shoulder and then he kissed the top of it, knocking him unconscious.
-x-
He laid Dean in his sleeping bag, in case he woke up early. In theory he shouldn’t wake up until Castiel woke him up, somewhat like a twisted version of sleeping beauty, but he’d never tested it over a long distance before. He looked over Dean’s body. He still had two or three days before dehydration would get him. Even if it did, he could just bring him back to life again when he got back.
He dragged Sam’s body and put it head to toe with Jo’s. He stared down at them in contempt. They had fucked everything up for him.
He picked up his coat on the way to the hatch. He couldn’t remember where he’d put his shoes and God knows what Dean had done with his tie. There was dirt ingrained into the knees of his trousers from kneeling and crawling over concrete too much. The blood smeared over that was a recent addition. His shirt was open from where Dean had accidentally ripped it open last night.
He took a deep breath and wrenched open the hatch. It was harder than it should of been but not as hard as he pretended a few days ago. He was getting weaker, that was all. He needed a top up. He needed a soul.
He took one last at Dean, sleeping directly in the beam of brilliant sunlight. Even he couldn’t pretend it was natural. “I’ll be back soon. Then I’ll fix all this. I promise.” He didn’t see the point in kissing him goodbye, he wouldn’t feel it. He wouldn’t hear the words either but they were more for his own benefit anyway. He’d come back, stronger, and bring back Sam and Jo, wipe this from all of their memories. He’d start fresh, try again. Sooner or later Dean would have to love him. Until he did, he’d just keep trying.
He turned off everything that made his vessel more than human. Hunger would catch up with him. So would thirst. So would exhaustion. It would all make whatever story he had yet to think up believable when he turned up alone and helpless on Bobby’s doorstep, begging for his soul.
He started walking.
Author: agirlnamedtruth
Movie Prompt: The Hole (2001)
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jo, background and past Dean/Jo.
Rating: NC17
Word Count: ~6500 (Total; ~12, 500)
Summary: An AU where the Roadhouse never burnt down, Jo is alive, Sam is soulless, Castiel is fighting his civil war in Heaven and Dean’s just Dean. While on a hunt, they find themselves trapped in a decommissioned war bunker together but is there even a spirit to hunt?
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, main character deaths, strong language, mind control, dub-con, dark!Castiel. Some scenes may be triggering for emetophobics (nothing graphic or detailed).
Notes: Lots of love and endless thanks to my beta verucasalt123 for introducing me to the phrase “sweet glittery Jesus”. And y’know, the shocking amount of tense corrections.
He did wake up but by the time he did the sun was high in the sky and shining through the small window in the hatch. He coughed and when he spoke, he still sounded half asleep.
“Cas, seriously? I know you don’t need to sleep but you can’t just sit there for hours on end.”
“Why not?” Castiel said, having been sat for more three hours already.
“Aren’t you bored?”
“No.”
“What about cold?”
“I don’t get cold.”
“Well, you can’t be comfortable.”
“I suppose not.” He waited for a beat and then tested another boundary. “But I have no other option.”
Dean rubbed his eyes and the flipped open the sleeping bag, it was an invitation. “Hurry up, I’m not going freeze to death while you make up your mind.”
Castiel stood, kicking off his shoes and pulling off his coat and the jacket underneath it. It was the first time he’d ever taken off this vessel’s clothes. The shirt sleeves covering his arms looked foreign, so he unbuttoned them and pushed them up to his elbows. He decided that would do and dropped to his knees, crawling until he was against Dean and then lying down flat on his back. Dean didn’t say anything or touch him or make any other hint that he knew Castiel was there other than covering them back over with the sleeping bag.
Castiel spent the night studying every inch of Dean he could without waking him. He counted how many times his heart beat per minute, how many breaths he took. He experimented with how lightly he could brush his fingers over his skin without Dean noticing. At some point in his sleep, Dean rolled over and found Castiel’s chest. He curled into his side, fitting perfectly to it. For few hours Castiel didn’t dare breathe in case he woke him. Then suddenly he was gone again, the hard concrete of the floor making him seek comfort in a different position. After Dean had woken and left him without a word, he got up and stretched in three directions, from the tips of his fingers, to the tips of his toes, to the tips of his wings. He had the romantic notion that maybe he had slept after all.
-x-
They gathered around in a circle, sharing a breakfast of liquor and chips. Castiel declined both and sat considering his options. They didn’t have much food, or any drink, other than alchohol or the water in the taps. The more pleasant option was going to give them liver damage sooner or later if they didn’t stop drinking it. They had plenty of air, Castiel only breathed when he knew they were watching and that he could give up if necessary. He had a week, maybe two, before dehydration would become a real threat, even more so than usual because of the alcohol. Eventually he’d have to let them out. Until then the problem would be keeping them alright with being in.
They’d been in three days already. This was the fourth. They’d soon get sick of each other, tempers would fray and fights would break out. He didn’t care about that, as long as Dean was happy.
He wondered how long it would take them to ask why he couldn’t just open the hatch, he was an Angel after all.
-x-
The day passed quietly. Sam pulled out his books, deciding that if the spirit wouldn’t come out, they would make it. Castiel almost felt sorry for him. There was nothing to call out, except him.
Jo, of course, was hanging off of his every word. He almost felt sorry for her too but he needed her out of Dean’s way and the only way to do that was to put her in Sam’s.
Dean was going through phases of sulking, because he wasn’t being paid attention to, and lavishing his attention on Castiel to overcompensate. Which suited Cas just fine.
He noticed that every time Jo touched Sam, Dean would find some excuse to mirror the touch on him. The amount of imaginary dust that had been brushed off of him was getting unbelievable. If he’d been human, he’d have snapped by now.
He decided that night to put how deeply that habit ran to the test.
-x-
Castiel leaned back against the wall, preparing to spend the night there like he had done before. This time Dean was sober and still very much awake, he didn’t dare push his luck by being presumptuous.
He was rewarded when Dean gave him a look and nodded over to his sleeping bag. He paused for a moment, knowing that unlike last time, he was being watched. He wanted to go round and extinguish all the candles but he knew that would draw even more attention to him. He let them burn.
He paused again. The night before Dean had been fully dressed and Castiel had only undressed enough to be able to lie comfortably. But now Dean was kicking off his jeans, leaving him in only his shirt and his boxers.
He followed suit because he could feel eyes on him. Not Sam’s and Jo’s, he didn’t care what they thought. But he could feel Dean watching him. He knew Dean was waiting to see what he would do. It was almost like he’d done it on purpose.
Again, he got to his knees, this time feeling the concrete scraping against bare skin, and crawled over to Dean, who pulled the sleeping bag across them. They laid like that, in silence, on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, being just far away from each other to not be touching but still dangerously close, until the last candle burnt away to nothing.
The next few hours were almost hard work for Castiel. Once Dean had fallen asleep, he made a vague effort to make sure he stayed asleep. Until the right moment, at least. Another proportion of his concentration went on keeping Sam open to suggestion and keeping his moral compass from interfering. Given his lack of soul, that wasn’t too difficult. Most of his thoughts went to Jo. He made her cold, made her frustrated, made her lonely. He made her think stumbling in the dark over to Sam’s bed was the best idea she’d ever had. Not that it was even her idea but she didn’t know that.
He waited until the last possible moment, until Sam’s breath was coming in pants and Jo couldn’t keep herself muted anymore. Then he woke Dean, making Dean assumed that it had been Jo’s last moan that had woken him.
“What was that?” He whispered into the darkness, gathering Castiel would always be awake.
“I imagine,” Castiel whispered back, leaning towards Dean despite the fact he didn’t really need to. “That was Jo coping with the pressure of climax, vocally.”
There was silence for a few seconds while Dean figured out what that meant. “Oh. Great. That’s just great.”
There was another few seconds of silence before Dean rolled onto his side, pressing himself up against Castiel. He didn’t know if it was intentional or not but Dean didn’t move, so Cas didn’t either.
“Is it me or has she never shown the slightest interest towards him until now.” Dean whispered, his breath so close it warmed Castiel’s skin.
“I don’t claim to understand human behaviour.” His hands itched to move but he kept them pinned by his sides.
“C’mon Cas, this is completely out of character for both of them.”
Castiel almost laughed because the way Dean was leaning into him could be considered out of his character. But that was a thought he didn’t want to linger on so he dismissed it. Instead he nodded his agreement.
“Maybe it’s...this place.” Dean said distractedly.
Castiel felt Dean’s fingertips press against his shirt before pulling away quickly like he had been shocked. Or like he had expected Cas to flinch and pull away first. When he didn’t move away, when he stayed exactly where he was, not even daring to breathe, Dean’s hands returned.
“There’s something...” He whispered, while his fingers fiddled with the buttons on Castiel’s shirt, not quite undoing them. “Unusual.”
Castiel’s restraint snapped and he pushed Dean, so he was flat on his back again, with Castiel leaning over him. His hands held Dean down; despite the fact he wasn’t struggling. Dean’s hands were still trying to get at his shirt and he let them, not really caring what he was doing. He let his vessel’s heady reaction to such friction take him over and before he’d even made the conscious decision to kiss Dean, he was already doing it and Dean was kissing him back.
Dean’s hands gave up on undoing the shirt, simply pushing it up instead so he could feel skin. Neither of them noticed the flicker of torches, neither of them heard shuffling or the muffled cursing or the small clatter of objects that preceded it. All they could hear was each other’s breathing. Castiel, whose hearing was much more acute than a humans would have heard it if his head wasn’t filled with the sound of Dean’s heart thumping, almost matching his own. Dean wouldn’t have heard a brass band at that moment, had there been one. So the little lights and sounds went unnoticed for a few more seconds.
Castiel’s hands lifted away from Dean’s chest, no longer pinning him because he was certain he didn’t need to anymore, if he ever had. He put on hand on the concrete, propping himself up. His other hand worked its way between them. He brushed his fingers over Dean’s boxers for the barest of seconds, teasing, testing his reaction. When he pushed up against his hand, Castiel took that to be all the tacit agreement he needed. He slipped his hand under the waistband of his boxers, grasping Dean’s cock.
He got the tiniest glimpse of Dean’s head falling back in pleasure, exposing his neck, before he was blinded by light. For a second, he thought all the rumours about sinning had been true and he was being called back to Heaven to be punished but his eyes quickly adjusted to the light.
It was the overhead florescent lights; they hadn’t had a reason to use them yet. He followed them down to where the switch was and saw Jo, standing there, hand still on the switch.
It was difficult to tell who looked more like a rabbit caught in headlights, him and Dean or her. Dean pushed Castiel away, trying to pull back any semblances of innocence. Castiel let himself be pushed. Jo was standing there open mouthed and if anyone had asked her, she wouldn’t have said it was because what they had been doing. It was because she could have sworn, for a split seconds when the lights flickered on, she saw the shadows of wings spread over the floor and over Dean.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She said, when she realised what she’d interrupted.
“It’s not...” Dean tried to say it’s not what it looks like but he couldn’t think of any plausible explanation for what else it could have been so he trailed off.
“No, no. It’s just we...” She coughed awkwardly. “I heard...and I wasn’t sure what was going on.” She shrugged as another apology. “I’ll just...” She turned the lights back off and Dean presumed she’d gone back to Sam’s bed. Castiel saw her go back to her own but he didn’t tell Dean that. They didn’t say anything else all night.
-x-
The next morning Jo looked pale and hung over. She was, mildly, but that wasn’t all that was affecting her. Castiel had let his guard down, let his influence slip from her mind and forgot to assert it again. She was suffering from having an Angel in her head. It was comparable to going on a weeklong bender and then trying to remember what she had done and why on Earth she had thought it a good idea. Castiel could have cured her in a second, told her she was better and made her believe anything but she didn’t matter anymore, she had played her part.
Dean had left him and got dressed quickly. It wasn’t an ideal reaction to what had happened but Castiel gathered from past anecdotal evidence from Sam that it wasn’t an unusual reaction. He knew that eventually Dean would have to face him. He had stayed in their makeshift bed, not wanting to surrender the night to the dawn.
Sam was tidying, or at least pretending to. Castiel knew he didn’t sleep, just like he himself didn’t. He knew Sam had likely heard everything. Castiel wondered whether Dean had realised that yet. Either way it was starting to unnerve Castiel how much Sam saw, how keenly he observed everything for observation’s sake. Eventually he would call Cas out on how calm he was. It would become obvious how he wasn’t as passive as everyone believed. He wanted this. He was engineering this.
“I want to go home.” Jo said, she spoke barely above a whisper but it echoed in the silence.
There was a few seconds where everyone stopped, staring at her. Sam was the first to speak, the imaginary housekeeping forgotten. “But this is your hunt.”
“I don’t care.” She shook her head, as if she was trying to convince herself as well. “I mean, nothing’s happened, has it? So what’s the point?”
Castiel closed his eyes. He wished he’d kept a tighter rein on her now.
“We got shut in. That happened.” Dean pointed out.
“Yeah, but this place is iron. Let’s just shut it in and make sure nobody can ever open it again.” Jo shrugged.
“Jo, even if we wanted to,” Dean started and Castiel marked his choice of words with a smile. “We can’t go anywhere, not while that hatch is being held down.”
“Get him to open it.” Jo stood and pointed over to Castiel. He inwardly sighed; he knew this would happen, sooner or later. “That’s why we brought him, right?”
“You didn’t bring me, I’m risking Heaven giving way to chaos just by being here.” He answered, his tone was threatening but he still didn’t move. He wasn’t going to until he absolutely had to.
“See, he wants to get out here too.”
Castiel inwardly kicked himself for rising to her bait. He couldn’t deny the fact as he was meant to want to serve Heaven and that meant wanting to leave. Dean looked over to him and he couldn’t bear the intensity of the questioning in his eyes so he looked away.
“I think we should stay, see this thing out.” Dean said, eyes darting between Castiel on the floor and Jo. Castiel almost turned back to face him, to thank him somehow but he knew he couldn’t.
“You do that then. I’ll find my own way back.” Jo said and in that second Castiel hated her. She knew what she was doing and he knew it too. She was playing on the fact that Dean felt responsible for her and wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She was manipulating him like a child would a parent. She would win.
“Fine. Get your stuff.” Dean said and Castiel bit his tongue to stop himself saying anything.
-x-
As soon as he was dressed, they made Castiel climb the ladder and open the hatch. Or that’s what they expected to happen. It wasn’t too difficult to fake, they were all out of immediate eyeshot and none of them could claim to know enough about what he was capable of to judge his acting. He turned the handle slightly, enough for the metal to grind and give the impression he was really trying. His mind was working, figuring out what he was going to say. He decided weakness was the easiest explanation.
“It’s not opening.” Dean called up.
“I can see that.” Castiel shouted back. He searched around for the sharpest bit of metal and cut his hands open on it, fighting his body’s automatic ability to heal. He paused for a second, twisting his wrist as he’d become accustomed to do while projecting his power. He disturbed something in the chemistry of Jo’s internal organs. She wouldn’t notice anything for a while but for a day, maybe two, they would each be battling to see which one would fail first. Everything would have been fine if she’d let Dean stay. It was her own fault.
Castiel climbed down the ladder, making it look more difficult than it was.
“I can’t move it.” He didn’t need to draw attention to his hands, in a few seconds the blood would start dripping and do it for him.
“I thought you were all super strength.” Jo said.
“Usually I am but since coming here...” He paused knowing Dean would pick up his story, back it up without even being asked.
“He’s right. I’ve felt odd since we’ve been in here.” His mind flashed back to the night before; Maybe it’s...this place.
“I have to admit, I don’t feel right either.” Jo admitted.
“I’m fine.” Sam said, ruining the moment.
“Cas has been affected worst though. Remember the other night, he was drunker than all of us and alcohol isn’t meant to affect him.” Dean said and Castiel had to stop himself smiling. At the time he’d merely meant to make himself look suggestible but now it was working in his favour. He could get away with this. If anything, he’d be the victim.
“Are you bleeding?” San said, finally noticing the blood.
Dean’s eyes skimmed over him, looking for any damage before lifting up one of his hands, taking it in both of his.
“It must have been the hatch. I didn’t notice.” He kept his eyes down.
“Shit, Cas.” Dean dragged him over to where his bags were, making him sit on the sleeping bag. He rummaged in a bag for a minute before bringing out bandages and a flask. He reached over and took two bowls from another bag.
“Can one of you fill this with hot water?” Dean asked and Sam and Jo both nodded, taking one of the bowls to the small bathroom.
He crossed his legs and balanced the other bowl on his knee. He made Castiel hold up one hand, so it was over the bowl. Then he took Cas’ other hand and put it on his thigh, almost absently, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“This is going to hurt like a bitch.” Dean said then nodded down to the hand on his thigh. “You feel pain, you pass it on to me.” He thought for a second before adding. “Without breaking anything.”
Castiel nodded and gripped Dean’s thigh tighter, accepting the invitation. He made himself feel the white hot sting of the alcohol as it trickled out of the flask. His nails dug into the stiff material of Dean’s jeans and his mind threw him an image of his nails dragging against bare skin exactly like that. “Fuck.” He said breathlessly. He’d all but forgotten about the cuts on his hands.
“Sorry.” Dean muttered, taking the other hand and repeating the procedure. Castiel growled low in throat, it was taking all of his effort to hold himself back. He was keeping himself from healing, keeping himself from blocking his nervous system, keeping himself from all the thoughts and impulses that were rushing through him. The latter was the hardest. Dean thought it was a reaction to the pain. Castiel let him think that. By the time the water arrived, he was in control of himself again.
Dean cut a small section of bandage from the reel. He dipped it in the water and used it to clean the wounds properly. He then wrapped a bandage around each hand, covering both palms. He was an expert at this and every few seconds his skin would brush Castiel’s as he wound the material round. By the time he was finished, Castiel was completely calm again and soothed by the gentle way Dean had taken care of him. The whole charade was worth those fifteen minutes.
-x-
In the bathroom, Jo chucked the bowl in the sink, making no effort at filling it.
“What’s going on?” Jo asked Sam in a hushed whisper.
“Hey, you came to me, remember?”
Jo rolled her eyes. “Not that. We’ll get to that later. I mean what’s going on with your brother and Cas?”
“Search me. This is new...as far as I know.” Sam shrugged.
“It didn’t look new to me. He had his hand down Dean’s pants. It looked like pretty established territory to me!” Jo’s whispers were getting louder.
“Are you jealous?” Sam raised his eyebrows.
“No!”
“You sound like you are.”
“What about Castiel suddenly being all powerless then? There’s something off about that.”
“Maybe he’s got to recharge. He’s still a man.” Sam laughed to himself, frustrating Jo more.
“Why aren’t you taking this more seriously?”
“Because it’s silly.” He steered Jo until she was pressed against the sink. “So what if he’s fucking Cas. That’s what Dean does.”
“I think something’s up.” She said distractedly as Sam kissed along her neck.
Last night this had seemed like a good idea. This morning it had seemed like the worst mistake of her life. Now she didn’t know what she thought.
“Besides, we can’t talk. It was probably you that woke them up.” He turned her so that she was facing the barely reflective mirror. Her hands automatically grasped the sink. He unbuttoned her jeans, stroking her through her panties until she came, his hand covering her mouth.
“Now we’re all back in the lead.” Sam buttoned up jeans back up and filled the bowl with warm water, giving her a minute or two to make herself look presentable again before they took it out.
-x-
They all sat around the little portable barbeque that was cooking their dinner, discussing what their newly realised imprisonment meant.
Castiel had done this at the time. He knew better than they did how long their bodies could last in these conditions. He had plenty of time left. Jo didn’t but that wasn’t based on how much air or food they had left. Not that she knew that.
The instant she swallowed her food, she felt sick. She excused herself to the bathroom and within a few seconds they heard her throw up.
“You should check on her.” Dean told Sam with a slightly accusatory look.
The instant he was out of sight, and presumably earshot, Castiel leaned over and took Dean’s plate away from him, demanding his attention.
“You appear to be avoiding me.” He stated.
“I’m not avoiding you, Cas, I’m just...” He trailed of. Trapped in a hole, there was no possible excuse he could think for a single thing he was doing other than avoiding him.
“It wasn’t a question, you are avoiding me. Why?” Castiel asked and when Dean didn’t answer he clarified. “That is a question.”
“I know it’s a question.” Dean gave him a mildly withering look. “I don’t know, alright? I guess I feel guilty.”
“Why?” He asked again.
Dean sighed, color rising in his cheeks. “Because you’re the most naive person I know and I took advantage of that. I think.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Jesus, Cas, can you stop with the whys?” Dean looked away. “Stuff happened between us and I feel responsible. Like I corrupted you or something.”
“Because I’m a virgin?”
“Because you’re an Angel.” Dean said, incredulous that he had to spell it out.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
“Isn’t that...what else would be bothering me?”
“I presumed you were struggling to accept the notion that you want to engage in sexual acts with someone you consider to be a friend. Or the idea that you enjoyed having another man’s hand pleasuring you was an unwelcome revelation. This is what bothers most humans.”
“Fuck.” Dean visibly swallowed. Castiel moved over to him, pushing him back until all that was keeping him off of the floor was his elbows. Castiel straddled his lap, the floor hard on his knees so he let his weight rest on Dean and Dean didn’t complain.
“So none of that bothers you?”
“No.” Dean said breathlessly, then he coughed in an attempt to make himself sound less affected than he was. “Not a damn bit.”
“It’s only the fact that you’re concerned for my purity and my grace that is stopping you from giving yourself to me entirely?”
Dean nodded. “I guess.”
“So if I were to assure that any act of love performed with you would be more akin to redemption than sinning, would that reassure you?”
“What does that mean?”
Castiel leant down so he could whisper. “It means fucking me would be the most celestial experience of your life.”
His words had their desired effect and he was on his back so fast his mind could barely keep up. Because of how Castiel had been sat before, Dean had landed naturally between his legs, keeping them spread. Dean’s mouth was on his, forming bruises he didn’t have the focus to heal. Dean’s hands were pulling at his clothes, fighting a war with his tie, loosening it further. Castiel’s hands were on Dean’s hips, angling them, pushing them down until Dean’s erection met with his own, the stiff material of his jeans rubbing against the thin material of his pants, making him curse in a language even he wouldn’t have been able to indentify at that moment. He held Dean’s hips tighter, rising to meet them, wriggling underneath him, creating friction every way he could.
There was a loud cough and Dean looked around. Castiel could see Sam over his shoulder and by the look on his face he’d been stood there unnoticed for a while.
“Something’s wrong with Jo.” He finally said.
Dean gave Castiel a last look, one that said if we ever get a moment alone, we’ll finish this. He got up and followed Sam, leaving Castiel on the floor, trying to catch a breath he couldn’t convince himself he didn’t need.
-x-
When Dean saw Jo, he decided while there was something wrong with her, it was only a bad hangover, a delayed effect of a few days hard drinking. When he told her that she stuck her middle finger up at him and mumbled something that sounded slightly like “Fuck off.”
“She’s best left to get it out of her system and sleep it off.” Dean said once out of her earshot. “You didn’t knock her up did you?” He added as a joke.
Sam replied with something that was very clearly “Fuck off.”
-x-
The last few hours of light was spent with Sam holding back Jo’s hair and Dean filling up water bottles for her to drink. It was a pointless exercise seeing as the instant she swallowed it, it forced its way back out of her. Occasionally Sam and Dean would swap jobs in order to either stretch or rest their legs.
When darkness fell they offered to drag her bed into the bathroom but Jo shook her head and said she could find her way around with a torch, if necessary.
As Castiel crawled into the sleeping bag next to him, still half dressed, he selfishly wished she’d taken them up on their offer because Sam would have volunteered to stay with her and he and Castiel would have had a few moments to themselves. He had to settle for Cas curled against him, drawing patterns onto his bare chest until he fell asleep.
A few hours later he was woken by a hand over his mouth and a whisper in his ear. “They’re gone.” His other hand strayed down to Dean’s cock, stroking it to hardness and making sure he wasn’t going to fall back asleep.
Castiel looked Dean over and realised that in the darkness Dean’s human eyes couldn’t see him so he whispered again. “Are you awake? Can I take away my hand?”
“It depends which hand you’re talking about.” Dean muttered against his fingers. Castiel smiled and removed his hand from Dean’s mouth, replacing it with his lips.
When Dean needed to breathe, he moved his kisses along his jaw, down his neck, over his chest. His other hand left Dean’s cock so that he could support himself as he worked his way down. Eventually the sleeping bag stood in his way and he had to dip under. In the darkness of the sleeping bag and in this close proximity even his eyes couldn’t keep up with what he was pressing his mouth against. It was only when he trailed over a hip bone he knew where he was going. He pulled Dean’s underwear down just far enough to free his cock.
“What if they come back?” Dean asked in a loud whisper.
“Honestly? I’m past caring.” Castiel said, one hand keeping him balanced and Dean still while the other was on his cock, acting as a guide for his mouth. As soon as his lips touched the head, all future protests were instantly forgotten.
Despite his naive appearance Castiel knew what he was doing. He circled his tongue over the head while his hand steadily worked the shaft. In the distance, he heard Dean’s fingernails scrape over concrete where he was used to having sheets. He pulled his mouth away, not wanting to waste what was possibly their only opportunity for a while.
“Have you done anything like this before?” Castiel asked, his head returning from under the sleeping bag.
“Not exactly.” Dean didn’t feel the need to elaborate that his somewhat forced gender experimentation that night a long time ago had gone quite a bit further than the pink panties.
Castiel considered relenting his high ground, letting Dean fuck him but he decided they didn’t have the time to talk him through it. There’d always be next time. When they got out of here, Castiel planned on spending a considerable amount of time exploring every possible next time. “I’ll be gentle.”
“Wait, you’ve done this before?”
“No. I just happened to live through the Greeks. And to a lesser extent the Romans. And we were all around for the war at Troy, just in case things went badly.”
“Right.” Dean replied, more confused than before he’d asked.
Dean was vaguely aware of the sleeping bag being pulled away entirely then feeling something cold and wet before Castiel inserted a finger inside him. Castiel was thankful he didn’t ask what he was using for lube because his only answer would have been I lied, I’m fully functional as an Angel and I willed it into existence in what humans would call a minor miracle. Luckily Dean didn’t even think about it. He was too busy adjusting to the burn of Castiel opening him up. When Castiel found his prostate and pressed against it, he couldn’t think at all.
Soon one finger became two, and then three just to be on the safe side. Castiel kept one eye on Dean, who was shuddering beautifully on the floor, the mixture of pleasure and pain making him forget every other sensation in the world, and the other eye on the bathroom door.
When Dean threatened to come from Castiel’s fingers alone, he withdrew them and pushed down his own underwear. He picked up Dean’s hips and pulled him half onto his lap. He entered him slowly, kneeling gradually, letting Dean get used to both burns, his tightness adjusting around Castiel’s cock and the higher angle his legs had to be at. Castiel knew that even as a hunter, Dean wasn’t exactly flexible.
He set a slow pace, still mildly aware they were on limited time but more concerned for Dean’s pleasure than his vessel’s and by proxy his own. He knew this would only end one of two ways, either with Dean coming or them being caught. He tried to angle his hips to recreate what he’d been doing with his fingers and placed a hand on Dean’s cock in case he couldn’t.
He was so immersed in Dean that he didn’t notice his own orgasm sneaking up on him. His vessel had been set on edge for days and it hadn’t been sated since Castiel took control of it and it had decided it was taking this moment for itself.
When it released its hold on him and gave him back control over himself, he apologized to Dean and pulled out. He shuffled backwards and replaced his lax hand with his mouth, working hard and fast until Dean was coming, Castiel willingly swallowing around him.
Castiel led back beside Dean pulling the sleeping bag over them as best he could. He didn’t think they’d been caught but in all honesty, Sam and Jo could have turned the overhead lights on and he wouldn’t have noticed. As it was the overhead lights would never work again.
That night it didn’t matter that one of them wasn’t human, they both slept like they were.
-x-
The next morning things spiralled out of control.
Castiel had woken up happy. As had Dean. They both had a moment of quiet realisation that if they wanted, they could wake up like this every morning.
It only lasted a few moments because they soon came to the conclusion they had been woken up by Sam.
“It’s Jo.” He paused dramatically, or what seemed dramatically to Castiel. “Dean, she’s dead.”
“Fuck!” He swore honestly. It wasn’t that he regretted his actions as such, he’d just forgotten them entirely.
Dean just stared at him disbelievingly.
It was true, obviously. But even when he was led over to her dead body in the bathroom, blood in a puddle around her mouth where it had dripped out, he still didn’t believe it.
“But she was fine. I mean she was sick but...” Dean trailed off. “Cas?” He looked at Castiel for some divine explanation of her death.
“I don’t know. Could have been supernatural or it could just have been...natural. I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it. I know you’re not properly powered up. It was stupid to ask.”
They held her a small funeral. They couldn’t give her a proper hunter’s cremation because they were indoors so instead they carried her up to the walkway and placed her by the hatch. Castiel wasn’t sure if they were trying to offer her up as some belated sacrifice in a bid for freedom or if they were admonishing the spirit by saying look what you’ve done.
Of course there wasn’t a spirit and he could see what he’d done quite clearly. He reassured himself by telling himself Dean would get over it sooner or later. Sam glared at him from across the room. He might take longer.
-x-
They all sat quietly for several hours. Sam sat on his own and Dean laid across the floor, his head in Castiel’s lap with Cas stroking his hair. It was a gesture that had evolved quickly and Castiel deemed it as the best perk of starting a physical relationship with Dean. There was something unexplainably soothing in the tactility and the repetitiveness of stroking someone’s hair. That’s why humans liked keeping pets.
There was a moment when the air seemed to grow thicker than chemically possible and every cell in him could sense a confrontation coming. All he could do was brace himself for it.
“This is your fault.” There wasn’t much feeling in the words and it sounded like Sam was only saying them because Jo had inferred something similar before.
“How is it his fault?” Dean said instantly.
“He broke the lock, getting in.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, now we can’t get out. If we’d gone when she wanted to she’d still be alive.”
“That’s not his fault and you know it.”
It made Castiel’s skin crawl to hear them talk about him, and for him, like he wasn’t there. He suspected it was because Sam was right and Dean was putting his faith in him and he was lying.
“Why couldn’t he do anything!” Sam shouted suddenly, getting to his feet, pointing at Castiel like he was on trial.
“He tried!” Dean got up to match him.
“And why is that? Does fucking you somehow take away all Angelic powers? Because we sure as shit could have done with knowing that while we were fighting Lucifer. All we would have needed is for you to bend over and bang, no more apocalypse!”
Dean launched himself at Sam, meaning to drive him back against the wall lie he’d done more times that he could count. But something in Castiel’s control broke and his powers struck out, taking what Dean had started and finishing it. Sam’s head snapped back against the concrete wall too hard and he was dead before the blood started pouring.
Dean kneeled over Sam’s lifeless body, caught somewhere between crying and shouting. He’d thought he’d done it. Castiel crouched beside him, he tilted Dean’s head until it was on his shoulder and then he kissed the top of it, knocking him unconscious.
-x-
He laid Dean in his sleeping bag, in case he woke up early. In theory he shouldn’t wake up until Castiel woke him up, somewhat like a twisted version of sleeping beauty, but he’d never tested it over a long distance before. He looked over Dean’s body. He still had two or three days before dehydration would get him. Even if it did, he could just bring him back to life again when he got back.
He dragged Sam’s body and put it head to toe with Jo’s. He stared down at them in contempt. They had fucked everything up for him.
He picked up his coat on the way to the hatch. He couldn’t remember where he’d put his shoes and God knows what Dean had done with his tie. There was dirt ingrained into the knees of his trousers from kneeling and crawling over concrete too much. The blood smeared over that was a recent addition. His shirt was open from where Dean had accidentally ripped it open last night.
He took a deep breath and wrenched open the hatch. It was harder than it should of been but not as hard as he pretended a few days ago. He was getting weaker, that was all. He needed a top up. He needed a soul.
He took one last at Dean, sleeping directly in the beam of brilliant sunlight. Even he couldn’t pretend it was natural. “I’ll be back soon. Then I’ll fix all this. I promise.” He didn’t see the point in kissing him goodbye, he wouldn’t feel it. He wouldn’t hear the words either but they were more for his own benefit anyway. He’d come back, stronger, and bring back Sam and Jo, wipe this from all of their memories. He’d start fresh, try again. Sooner or later Dean would have to love him. Until he did, he’d just keep trying.
He turned off everything that made his vessel more than human. Hunger would catch up with him. So would thirst. So would exhaustion. It would all make whatever story he had yet to think up believable when he turned up alone and helpless on Bobby’s doorstep, begging for his soul.
He started walking.