Full Leather Jacket: Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Dean is cold. His wrists and shoulders hurt. His head feels fuzzy and… Dean’s eyes fly open as he suddenly realizes that the last thing he remembers is walking toward his car at the hospital.
The first thing he sees is the far-too-close face of Alastair, The Devil’s Own’s sergeant-at-arms and close confidant of Nick Morningstar. And if that unwelcome shock wasn’t enough, he also realizes that he’s buck naked and tied by his bound wrists to an overhead pipe in a dank, dull basement.
“Such a beautiful canvas,” Alastair says, trailing the tip of a knife blade down Dean’s chest.
Dean can’t quite supress his shudder.
“What do you want, Alastair?”
He’s proud of how steady his voice sounds; because there’s no doubting that he’s in serious trouble here.
“What do I want?” Alastair echoes. “I want to motivate you. Michael Santangelo kept your father on a leash and now he plans to keep you on a leash too.”
Alastair’s knife makes another pass down Dean’s chest and this time he presses a little more firmly. Dean hisses as blood beads on his skin and runs down his torso.
“Men like us, we’re not meant to be bound by society’s rules. We’re warriors. Killers. Men from a simpler time. A time when men were real men--”
“Women were real women,” Dean interjects, “and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.”
Dean loves Douglas Adams. Cas does too.
Alastair smiles and Dean doesn’t think he’s seen many things scarier. “You mock me,” he says. “But I’m going to show you your true nature.”
--
When Dean was fourteen he once accompanied his Dad and Bobby to a meeting with Nick Morningstar, Azazel and Alastair. The meeting took place at a Dive Bar and Dean’s pretty sure they would’ve let him in even if he hadn’t been in such infamous company. It’s not that he looked old enough to drink or anything-at fourteen, even in combat boots and a too-big leather jacket he still looked like a kid-no, it was simply the kind of place that didn’t much care for legalities.
The meeting was the first time that Dean had been allowed to participate in business that involved a party outside The Family and he’d been thrilled, and a little nervous.
Truth be told, he’d been disappointed by The Devil’s Own. Nick Morningstar was an arrogant douche who wanted everyone to call him Lucifer. Pathetic. Dean had rolled his eyes at that. Azazel seemed just like any other regular Joe on the street and Dean found him colorless and boring. Alastair had a funny voice. Out of the three of them, he was the only one who Dean really didn’t like and that was because he was skeevy; kept looking at Dean like he was some kind of tasty treat.
Sam and Dean always had a lot of minders and security. Even if the safe house they were staying at was in a low-rent area, they weren’t really in any danger. But they weren’t blind and they weren’t stupid. One place they’d stayed, when Dad had been following an interstate lead, had been a long-stay hotel on a major road. It was the summer school holidays and while Sam mostly stayed inside and read, Dean spent a lot of time sitting out on the steps, sharing his cigarettes with the kids turning tricks out there. There were three girls and two boys and one of the boys, Caleb, had become a good friend. Dean had been planning to ask his dad about the kids as soon as he got back, but when John turned up the first thing he did was instruct one of Dean’s minders to get rid of the kids and find out who was running them, with such a scowl on his face that Dean was almost too scared to speak up.
“It’s not their fault, Dad!” he said, voice shaking. “Please don’t hurt the kids.”
John had explained that he didn’t allow children to work the streets in his territory and that it was against the Winchester creed to hurt kids. He told Dean that whenever the Winchesters found kids turning tricks, they handed them over to Pastor Jim, who ran a shelter for homeless young people, funded by the Winchesters. It was one of the things that bought them a lot of tolerance from the local LEOs.
When John found out who’d been pimping out the kids (from Caleb, who hated the man) he had him beaten to within an inch of his life and then he was dumped, unconscious, just the other side of the state line.
Caleb has been a staunch Winchester loyalist ever since and still works with Pastor Jim.
The point is (Dean actually does have a point; he didn’t just meander down memory lane for no reason) that even at fourteen, Dean recognized what it meant when a guy looked at a kid like the kid was a tasty piece of meat. So Alastair skeeved Dean out from the get-go.
After that Dive Bar meeting, Dean went to the restroom and, yeah, no way was he standing at a urinal in there, so he went into a cubicle. When he came out, Alastair was standing right in front of the cubicle door.
“So pretty,” Alastair said. “So much promise.”
“Get out of my face,” Dean said.
Cold water splashes into Dean’s face, bringing him back to the agony of the present, and he flinches and coughs and opens his eyes.
Alastair is right there. Again.
“Get out of my face,” Dean rasps. His throat hurts from all the screaming.
“Disappointing, Dean,” Alastair sing-songs. “You can’t pass out now; we’re just starting to have fun.”
Fun ain’t the word Dean would use and he actually, on occasion, does find it fun to let people tie him up and hurt him. The right combination of pleasure and pain can be arousing.
What Alastair is doing to him, is not arousing. It’s torture, plain and simple.
Dean’s chest, back, ass and thighs are covered in hundreds of tiny, shallow cuts, made one at a time, over a period of several hours, by Alastair’s very sharp scalpel. Occasionally, Alastair doused Dean’s wounds in methylated spirits or threw salt on them.
Once Alastair decided that he’d finished cutting into Dean he put nipple clamps on him and hung weights from them. Then he put clamps on his balls and hung weights from those too.
Next, he’d wheeled over a trolley with some kind of machine on it; some kind of machine with switches and dials and lots of leads and wires coming off it. Dean’s eyes had darted to Alastair’s in horror.
“I see you recognize my little toy,” Alastair had trilled.
He switched it on, turned one of the dials up about half way and then touched two of the leads together, creating a spark.
“I wonder how loudly you can scream,” he’d said.
It had been the shock administered to his balls, conducted through the metal clamp that had finally taken Dean’s consciousness
“You screamed so beautifully for me,” Alastair says dreamily. He folds his arms and cocks his head. “But as much as I love electric shock therapy, there’s just not enough blood.”
“Why are you doing this?” Dean asks again.
He’s lost track of the number of times he’s asked, but he only ever gets the same confusing answer: to motivate you.
Motivate him to what?
Kill Alastair?
Go after The Devil’s Own?
He gets the same predictable answer yet again and then Alastair’s eyes light up with unholy glee and he claps his hands and then rubs them together.
“Ginger root!” Alastair exclaims. “It will burn so exquisitely inside of you. And while it’s burning, I can make pretty blood-red patterns on your skin with my favorite flogger.”
He moves out of Dean’s line of sight and Dean resumes pulling as hard as he can at the rope that’s suspending him from the beam above. Every now and then he hears a creak and he’s hoping hard that, eventually, he’ll be able to break either the rope or the beam and free himself.
Dean nearly leaps out of his boots-or he would’ve if he’d still been wearing boots-when a loud thumping smash sounds from somewhere above and to the right.
“What the…?” Alastair says.
There’s another crash and then a body comes flying down the stairs and lands in a crumpled, bloody heap on the floor.
Another body quickly follows and Alastair is scrambling for his knives as the thud, thud of heavy footsteps sounds on the stairs.
A massive shadow appears on the wall beside where Dean is hanging and he swallows and wonders what fresh torment this new development will bring.
It brings Sammy, who rushes toward Dean with a pained cry, as if Alastair isn’t even in the room.
Alastair throws a knife at him, which Sam bats away with inhuman speed. He turns on Alastair then and is in front of him in a couple of big, fast strides. He reaches out and snaps Alastair’s neck with his bare hands, snaps it like it’s a twig; like it’s nothing.
Dean has barely blinked and Sam is back by his side. He cuts the rope and Dean collapses; would’ve fallen to the floor if his brother hadn’t caught him.
“Easy, easy,” Sam is saying. “I’ve got you ‘bro.”
Dean is too exhausted to feel humiliated at being caught naked and trussed up like a turkey. He figures that’ll come later.
Sam unties his wrists and Dean pulls off the clamps-sonofabitch!-while Sam finds his clothes bundled in a corner.
He helps Dean get dressed and, yeah, that humiliation? It’s starting to kick in now.
He swats away Sam’s attempts to help him put on his boxers and Sam gets the message. He stands back and watches with undisguised irritation as Dean slowly, painfully, loses his nakedness.
Dean doesn’t make eye contact with his brother until he’s got his boots and his leather jacket on and what he sees nearly makes him collapse all over again.
Sam’s pupils are so enlarged Dean can’t see any hazel. Hell, he can barely see any white.
“Sammy,” he whispered. “What have you done?”
“What needed to be done,” Sam says. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”
Sam’s driving some old rust bucket of a truck and Dean can feel the cuts on his back open and ooze blood as he climbs up into the passenger seat. Much as he loathes riding shotgun, even he has to concede that he’s not up to driving right now.
“Is Ellen okay?” Dean asks, because Sam is clearly not locked in the panic room and he looks drugged to the gills.
“Yeah,” Sam throws the truck into reverse and turns it around, speeding out of the industrial park where Alastair had been keeping Dean captive. “With so many inner-circle men dead and injured, she said we needed all hands on deck and that if anyone could find you, it would be me.”
“Good call,” Dean says. “We were planning on letting you out tomorrow anyway, figured you were clean.”
“I was,” Sam says.
“But?” Dean’s tone is careful. Non accusatory.
“But you were missing,” Sam says. “I knew it had to be The Devil’s Own so I tapped one of my contacts, Ruby. She’s a sweetbutt. Maybe something more. Nick Morningstar seems to respect her some. I met her when I went to confront him that time and we hit it off. She’s a sweet girl. We, uh, may have hooked up a time or two. Partied a little.”
“Damn, Sammy,” Dean says. “I thought you had better taste.”
Sam’s face twists. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t anything,” he says. “It was just,” he shrugs and Dean gets it, he really does, that need for something to fill the emptiness, even if it isn’t anything good.
“She told me Alastair had you. She said that if I was gonna go up against him, I’d need an edge. She had this glass vial filled with thick red liquid,” Sam’s voice trembles.
“She shot you up with pure Demon Blood.”
It’s a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.”
“Sammy,” Dean’s voice breaks on his brother’s name.
“I know,” Sam says miserably.
And this time it’s Dean’s heart that breaks.
--
Like a scene out of Groundhog Day, Dean stands in front of the panic room door and listens to Sam screaming; begging Dean to let him out.
“You know that ain’t really Sam in there, right?” Bobby says. “Not really.”
Bobby released himself from hospital AMA when he learned that Dean had been kidnapped. He’s on crutches, strong antibiotics and strong painkillers, but he’s still more together than Dean. Maybe Dean should resign and let Bobby be the Boss. He’d probably be better at it.
“Dean?”
“I know, Bobby.”
“He just has to…get it all out of his system.”
Dean nods again. “I need a drink.”
He goes upstairs and finds the whiskey, pouring himself a generous serve.
He turns and Ellen’s there, in her nightgown, which he guesses is fair enough given that it’s gone midnight. She pulls him into a hug and he can’t help flinching and hissing in pain.
Ellen pulls back and looks at him.
“Take your shirt off.”
Dean can’t even muster up a sassy, inappropriate comment. He’s had more than enough involuntary nakedness for one day and he really just needs some privacy to lick his wounds.
“Not now, Ellen,” he says and he knows, by the way her face softens, that she can hear the pain and exhaustion in his voice.
“You’re hurting, Sweetheart,” she says softly. “Please let me help.”
Dean has never been able to say no to a woman offering maternal comfort, so he takes off his jacket, his shirt and his Henley. Ellen’s eyes narrow at the sight of his red abused nipples and then widen when she realizes that his entire torso is covered in tiny cuts. She bustles from the room and is back quickly with a bottle of antiseptic spray, which she applies to his front and back.
The spray stings, but quickly becomes soothing and when Dean remarks on that, Ellen explains that the spray contains an analgesic as well as antiseptic.
“Can I take that with me?” Dean asks when Ellen’s finished.
She hands it over and Dean heads up to bed. He does his best to spray his butt and thighs, and then applies some of the spray to his balls too, because he’s still in a lot of pain down there and he hopes the numbing qualities of the spray will do its thing. He’s just about to switch off the light when there’s a knock at his door. It’s Bobby, and he hands Dean a blister pack of the heavy duty painkillers the hospital had given him.
“Figured you could use these,” he says. “Get a good sleep, because Dean? We’re gonna have to talk about what happened in the morning.”
Dean grimaces, but nods, and Bobby leaves, satisfied.
Dean takes one of the tablets and settles himself down. He’s asleep within minutes and doesn’t stir again until the sound of shouting rouses him, a little after six am.
He stumbles downstairs wearing nothing but his boxers and finds Bobby yelling into his cell phone. Ellen is quiet now, and has tears running down her face as she listens to whoever’s on the other end of her cell phone.
“No, not Roy or Walt,” Bobby is saying, voice loud and urgent. “They were tight with Gordon. Well I don’t know, Kevin!” he bellows after a pause, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little thin on the ground right now!”
“Hey!” Dean interrupts. “What’s going on?”
Bobby lowers his cell phone and rubs a hand over his forehead. “Fire-bombings,” he says. “The main meth lab and The Roadhouse. Ash is dead. Jo is missing.”
“She’s been found,” Ellen says. “She got out. But she’s hurt. Some minor burns and smoke inhalation. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
“Go,” Dean tells her. “You need to be with your daughter.”
Ellen doesn’t need to be told twice.
“What does Kevin need?” Dean asks Bobby.
“Somebody senior to deal with Jody at the meth lab.”
Dean holds his hand out for Bobby’s cell phone.
When Kevin realizes that it’s the Boss himself on the phone, he starts stuttering and Dean has to tell him to take deep breaths until he calms down.
“Kevin, is Jody there yet?”
Kevin says that she isn’t, just a handful of uniforms, but apparently Jody’s on her way.
“Okay, You’re clear on the story?”
“Yessir. We make organic fertilizer here.”
“Very good. You answer as many of Jody’s questions as you feel comfortable answering and you tell her that I’ll be there soon.”
Kevin’s relief is like a living, breathing thing.
“Not so fast, son,” Bobby says when Dean turns to head back upstairs. “We still need to talk about what happened to you yesterday.”
Dean tells him that they will, but that the immediate crisis has to take precedence. “You stay here and keep an eye on Sam. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
--
Jody’s pissed and she gives it to Dean with both barrels. It’s not the fact that The Winchester Family was making organic fertilizer that she’s pissed about; it’s the fact that they couldn’t stop their rivals from blowing the place up and creating a danger to the general public.
“I thought you were handling it,” she grouses.
Dean reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his inside jacket pocket and…it isn’t in there.
Fuck.
“I am handling it,” he tells Jody.
And yeah, Dean figures he deserves Jody’s raised eyebrow and indelicate snort. He can’t even manage to convince himself.
She does tell him that she’s sorry about Rufus and that she’s doing her best to find out who firebombed The Roadhouse and hurt Jo, but to Dean it’s just another way of saying that he can’t look out for his people.
When she finally lets him leave, with his tail well and truly between his legs, Dean sits in his car and calls Michael Santangelo. Again. He gets voicemail. Again.
Fuck.
By the time he gets home, Dean’s feeling pretty ragged. He hurts, he’s craving a nicotine hit, and apparently he sucks at being Head of The Family, if the past few weeks are anything to go by.
Bobby insists on ‘debriefing’ Dean on his kidnapping and torture, which is the exact opposite of fun, and they muse for a while on what Alastair meant by his claim that he was merely ‘motivating’ Dean.
“I think The Devil’s Own want a war,” Dean says. “We know the Santangelos want one. And I think, they’ve told The Devil’s Own that they won’t interfere this time.”
Bobby nods. “It was only the Santangleos getting involved that got The Devil’s Own to back off last time,” he frowns. “But why would the Santangelos want a war? Ain’t nobody gonna come out lookin’ good if there’s a big mob war.”
Dean shrugs. “Maybe they’re hoping we’ll wipe each other out; leave the whole playing field free for them.”
Dean gets to his feet and slaps Bobby on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go and check on Sam.”
Bobby gets a squinty, uncomfortable look on his face.
“What?” Dean says.
Bobby takes his baseball cap off and squeezes it in his hands. “Sam ain’t doin’ so good.”
Dean turns and stares at him. “You think maybe you could’ve led with that? When I first got back?”
Bobby shrugs. “Knew you wouldn’t focus if you knew how bad he was. And there ain’t nothing we can do about it. He’s just gotta get the pure drug outta his system.”
“How long’s that gonna take?” Dean grumbles.
“Hang on,” Bobby snarks, “I’ll just get out my Demon Blood Detox manual. Oh wait, there isn’t one.”
“This ain’t funny, Bobby. Sam could die.”
Bobby nods. “Yeah. He could. This could go bad, Dean. You should maybe start preparing yourself for the worst.”
--
Sam stirs when Dean enters the panic room. His face is pale and grey and he’s soaked in sweat, breathing heavily.
“Dean?” he rasps.
Dean swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s me, man.”
He pulls a chair across and goes and sits beside his little brother.
“How you doin’, kiddo?”
“Been better,” Sam croaks. “You?”
“Been better,” Dean echoes.
Sam takes a shallow, rattling breath and Dean looks at him sharply. “You’re not allowed to die, Sam, okay? You hear me?”
He reaches out and takes hold of his brother’s hand. It’s cool and clammy.
“I’m gonna take care of you, just like I always do. You listening, Sammy?”
Sam smiles and shudders and closes his eyes.
Dean’s eyes widen and his heart beats hard and fast in his chest. He slips his fingers around his brother’s wrist until he can feel his pulse, thready and erratic, but there.
He sits for a moment, just watching Sammy breathe, not sure whether he’s unconscious or just asleep. And then he begins to talk.
“You know, when we were little-you couldn't’ve been more than five-you started asking all these questions. How come we didn't have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you, ‘Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don't want to know.’ I just wanted you to be a kid... Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you... Keep you safe... Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job... I had one job... And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that, I'm sorry. I should’ve been there for you when you needed me. I let you down, man. But I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I care about. I let Dad down. I let Rufus and Ash down. I let Ellen and Jo down. I let Bobby down. If you…if you don’t make it, how am I supposed to live with that? I can’t, man. I won’t.”
Tears are falling freely down Dean’s face now and he wipes at them. God he’s pathetic. He isn’t the man his father thought he was, that’s for sure. And now the whole Family, the whole State probably, is screwed, because he isn’t going to be able to keep things together.
Dean pushes back from the chair and stumbles to his feet. God, he needs a smoke.
“Going out, Bobby,” he calls, snatching up his keys and heading for the door.
He pulls it open and finds Sheriff Mills and Deputy Hanscum on the other side, Jody with her fist raised to knock.
“In a hurry to go somewhere, Dean?” Jody says.
“Ran outta cigarettes.”
“Can we come in?”
“Sure,” Dean widens the door and lets the law inside.
“I regret to inform you,” Jody says, when they’re all seated, “that your known acquaintance Elwood Kubrick has been found dead.”
And that? Dean wasn’t expecting. In fact, he’d completely forgotten that Kubrick was still on the loose.
His genuine surprise must show on his face, because both Jody and Donna deflate just a little.
“You didn’t know?” Donna says.
Dean shakes his head. “How did he die?”
“Someone slit his throat. Any idea who may have had a grudge against him?”
Jody’s looking at him closely, with narrowed eyes. So, okay, she knows something about the in-house issues he’s been having.
“Kubrick was one of a small group who were having some trouble adjusting to me being in charge. But I didn’t order him killed. I figured he-and everyone else-would come around eventually, and honestly, I’ve had more important things on my mind.”
“I was sorry to hear about Rufus,” Donna says. Her face brightens suddenly. “But you’ll be pleased to hear that Joanna-Beth is doing well. She’s a spitfire that one. Her Momma sure has her hands full there.”
Dean smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
--
Dean uses his passcode to unlock the key safe and a moment later he’s unlocking the front door of the safe house. He puts his bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter and then opens the fridge and puts the milk inside. All of the Winchester safe houses are stocked with food-except for perishables-and most even have the odd bottle of alcohol left over from previous tenants. Dean’s brought his own though, and he finds himself a glass and an ashtray and goes and sits in the living room, with his feet up on the coffee table.
Cigarettes. Tequila. Netflix. Cell phone. He has all the makings of a guy’s night in right here.
He switches on the television and orders a meat lovers pizza with a side serve of buffalo wings and hot sauce and then pours himself a generous serve of Tequila and lights a cigarette.
Dean knows he’s being a coward, staying here instead of going back to Bobby’s, but everything about that place-Bobby’s crutches, Ellen’s sad face, his brother, locked in the panic room, maybe dying-is a reminder of just how badly he’s failed. He just. He needs a break.
And maybe if he gets drunk enough (Dean pours himself another drink) he’ll be able to go out and find someone to fuck him without feeling like he’s somehow betraying Cas.
Dean’s cell phone rings and it’s as if the thought of Cas somehow conjured the man himself.
“Dean,” Cas’s gravelly voice is like a balm to his soul.
“Hey. I was just thinking about you.”
There’s a pause and then Cas says, “I heard that you had been kidnapped by Alastair and that Alastair is now dead.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Dean pours himself another drink. “Sammy rescued me. He was awesome.”
“I heard about Rufus too. And The Roadhouse.”
“Yeah,” Dean savors the Tequila’s burn as it slides down his throat. “Lost a Meth lab too. Ash died.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cas says.
“S’ok,” Dean shrugs. “Shit happens.”
The doorbell rings.
“Ooh. Hang on a minute, Cas. My pizza’s here.”
There’s a pause while he pays for the pizza and then he’s back on the sofa, shoving a piece in his mouth.
“Oh, hey, what are you wearing, Cas? We could have phone sex!”
“Please don’t talk while you’re chewing, Dean.”
“Dean?”
Dean swallows. “You said not to talk while I was chewing! Can’t have it both ways, man.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Yep. I’m on my fourth triple shot of Tequila right now.”
“No more,” Cas says.
Dean sniggers. “Ooh, Cas. I like it when you get all bossy with me.”
Cas sighs. “I know you do, Dean. But right now I have some important information to tell you, so can you please focus?”
“Yep,” Dean says, picking up another slice of pizza. “Focusing right now.”
“I have been privy to some interesting conversations. The Santangelos-or at least some of them-want a full scale war; a total mob apocalypse. Zachariah has been very busy meddling, trying to play your Family and The Devil’s Own off against each other. His plan is for the Santangelos to come in toward the end of the troubles and mop up whatever dregs remain, taking for themselves the territory that currently belongs to both The Winchesters and The Devil’s Own. The only thing I am uncertain of, is whether Michael knows. I have been unable to get hold of him.”
Dean scoffs. “Yeah, join the club,” he sighs. “But why? Mob wars are messy. A lot of people die. LEOs get twitchy. We all come under a lot of scrutiny. Michael said you guys were happy with the distribution of businesses and territory when I talked to him at Dad’s funeral. Why would The Santangelos do this? Why now?”
“The answer to why is always power. The answer to why now…things are unstable. You’re a new leader. Young. Inexperienced.”
“They think I’ll be easy to pick off,” Dean says sourly.
“We need to speak to Michael,” Cas says. “We need to stop this.”
“Preaching to the choir, buddy.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence and then Cas asks how Sam’s doing.
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
There’s another awkward silence.
Dean pours himself another drink. “Man, we suck at talking on the phone.”
He sighs. “Maybe I should just…go to The Devil’s Own’s compound, shoot Lucifer and then cap as many of ‘em as I can get before they get me. Maybe that’d be enough to shut them down.”
“That is a terrible idea,” Cas growls.
“Yeah, well. Sometimes going nuclear’s the only option you got left. Ice the devil, save a whole bunch of people.”
“Unless you kill all of them, you’ll just trigger a series of revenge attacks. And you’ll be dead. I am not okay with that plan.”
‘Aw, Cas. I didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Well, we have developed a fairly profound bond.”
Dean snorts. “And the sex is good too.”
“It is,” Cas agrees. “I’ve missed it.”
“You can do better than me, Cas. I‘m like the ultimate unattached drifter. And you should maybe choose someone who’s likely to have a longer life span.”
“Nothing in life is certain,” Cas says cautiously, and ain’t that the truth.
Dean makes a half-hearted attempt to get Cas to have phone sex with him, but Cas doesn’t quite seem to get the concept and they end up saying good night. Dean tries not to make it sound too much like good bye, even though he knows it could very well be.
It’s late, but he calls Bobby to get an update on Sam.
Sam’s still asleep-or in a coma-no one’s really sure. Bobby warns him again to be prepared for the kid not making it through the night. And yeah, he’s preparing for that.
Bobby also tells him that Ellen called to say that Jo had taken a turn for the worse; developed some kind of infection in her burned skin or something.
Dean pours himself yet another drink. Really, the best thing he can do right now is go and wipe out The Devil’s Own; the full patches at any rate. Sure, that’ll leave a lot of prospects and hangers-on-but foot-soldiers need leadership and if Dean cuts the head off the snake, it’ll save a lot of lives, even if it costs him his own. Azazel and Alastair are already dead. That leaves Nick Morningstar, Crowley, Rosco and Raul. He’ll probably have to kill Lucifer’s Old Lady, Lillith, too, because she’s a bitch and a half and quite capable of leading the Demons in a vendetta against The Winchesters. Besides, he’s positive it was The Devil’s Own who firebombed The Roadhouse and the lab. He has to be seen to deal with them; can’t let the law be the ones to do it.
Dean goes and gets his weapons duffle. He’ll go tonight. Element of surprise and all that. Get this thing done. And if Sammy doesn’t make it through the night, well there’s a good chance Dean won’t either.
He has another shot of Tequila, for the road.
--
The Devil’s Own Compound-known as The Pit-is deep in the heart of Kansas City’s industrial district. It’s surrounded by a twelve foot high, chain-link fence that’s topped with barbed wire, it’s flood-lit and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Dean parked several blocks away, as is his custom when there’s mayhem afoot, because it makes for an easier getaway if your vehicle isn’t caught up in a roped-off crime scene. He’s currently one building over from The Pit, surveying it from a rooftop. He suspects that the amount of Tequila he consumed over the course of the evening may have had something to do with him having made what he now concedes was a very bad decision.
There is no way, no how, that he’s getting into The Pit without some serious planning. Drunken wishful thinking is not going to get him access. Luckily, it’s not too late for him to just back away and go home and that’s exactly what he’s planning to do when a noise from somewhere behind has him turning his head. He doesn’t get it very far turned before something slams into him and a moment later he’s pressed against the rooftop railing and somebody has an arm around his throat and a hand across his mouth.
Dean’s had this particular body pressed against him enough times to recognize it, and he knows the person’s smell too. He relaxes in Castiel’s grip and is compliant when the man spins him around. Cas is-Dean’s pretty sure angry would be an understatement. His eyes are flashing righteous fury and Dean may be a badass, but he finds himself shrinking back, a little scared by the depths of emotion he’s seeing here.
Cas grabs hold of the lapels of Dean’s leather jacket, hauls him forward and then slams him back against the railing.
“I rebelled for you,” Cas hisses through clenched teeth. “And this is how you repay me? By giving in? By trying to martyr yourself?”
He slams Dean back against the railing a couple more times and Dean lets him. Actually, Cas is surprisingly strong so ‘lets’ is probably overstating things.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “It was a dumb move.”
The words seem to take the wind out of Cas’s sails just a little. He’s still staring down at Dean like some kind of wrathful avenging angel, but he looks a little less smite-y now.
“Good,” Cas says.
And then he’s on Dean, his lips pressing brutally hard and his tongue demanding entrance. Dean has no choice but to accept the ferocious plundering of his mouth; not that he ever had any intention of resisting. Still, it’s an angry kiss, as if Cas is trying to punish him. And Dean kind of gets that. He was on the brink of doing something stupidly suicidal, after all.
When Cas finally pulls back his ire doesn’t seem to be dampened. In fact, he’s looking pretty fired up again.
“Cas,” Dean begins.
“Shut up,” Cas says, and Dean finds himself spun around again. “Hands on the rail.”
Dean complies.
Cas reaches around and unzips Dean’s jeans.
“Hey!” Dean’s hands fly off the rail as his jeans and boxers are yanked down.
“Hands. On. The. Rail.” Cas punctuates each word with a hard smack to Dean’s ass.
“Fuck!” Dean grabs the rail again and tries to decide whether this is the hottest or the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to him.
Little Dean seems to be voting for hottest if the way he’s standing to attention is any indication.
“Don’t move,” Cas says. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
And he leaves Dean leaning up against the rooftop railing with his ass hanging out.
He’s not gone long. In fact, after dithering for a short, embarrassed moment, Dean has just bent down to pull up his pants when Cas returns.
“I told you not to move,” Cas growls, smacking Dean’s ass again. “Hands back on the rail!”
“Ow! Fuck. Stop it, Cas!”
Cas stops with the smacking as soon as Dean’s hands are back on the rail. Dean really wants to reach back and rub at his stinging ass, but he gets a feeling Cas isn’t going to let him do that, so he waits. He hears a squelch and then two lube-slicked fingers are pressing into his ass.
The prep is fast and rough, but when Cas finds Dean’s sweet spot and rubs against it with a fingertip, Dean can’t help moaning and spreading his legs wider.
“C’mon, Cas,” he says. “Fucking give it to me.”
Now it’s Cas’s turn to be compliant. Dean’s nowhere near stretched enough, but he relishes the burn and the feeling of too full, too fast. Pretty soon Cas is hammering his sweet spot with every thrust and Dean’s gripping the rail tightly and trying not to sound like a two dollar whore.
Dean feels Cas’s thrusts start to speed up erratically and knows that he’s about to come. He takes a hand off the rail and reaches for his dick and Cas pulls back and slaps his ass hard.
“Cas!” Dean whines. “I can’t come like this, man. C’mon.”
“Too bad,” Cas snarls and comes hard.
In Dean’s ass.
Without a condom.
Fuck.
Cas pulls out and then pulls up Dean’s boxers and jeans. Dean feels Cas’s come sliding out of him and grimaces.
“You’re not seriously gonna leave me like this, are you?” he presses a hand against his aching groin.
Cas raises an eyebrow. “You need to learn patience,” he says. “So you can wait ‘til we get home.”
And apparently Dean has a kink for being ridden hard and put away wet, because he almost comes in his pants at the thought.
Huh.
“We’ll take your car,” Cas adds.
Dean frowns. “How did you get here anyway? You don’t even have a car.”
“Hotwired one,” Cas says shortly.
“And the lube?”
Cas shrugs. “Just happened to be in the car.”
Dean pulls a face. “Gross! Who even knows where that’s been?”
Cas is serenely unperturbed by the horror of second hand lube and Dean is planning to bathe in hand sanitizer when an even better question occurs to him.
“Wait…how did you know I’d be here?”
Cas sighs. “You sounded…depressed…when we spoke earlier. I was worried you might do something stupid. So I tracked your phone. When it became obvious where you were going, I moved to intercept you.”
They arrive at the Impala and Dean stands stock-still and stares at Cas. “You…tracked my phone?”
“Yes. There’s an app.”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “Right. Coz that’s not creepy and stalkerish at all.”
“You live a dangerous life, Dean,” Cas raises his chin, completely unrepentant. “I could imagine many scenarios where being able to find you quickly would be advantageous. Last night, for example, had I known you were missing sooner, I could have helped find you much more quickly.”
And that brings a lump to Dean’s throat, because if Cas had been someone who Sam and Bobby and Ellen would’ve contacted as a matter of course, then Sam wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now against full strength Demon Blood.
“Give me your keys,” Cas says.
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“You’ve been drinking, Dean. I don’t think you should be driving.”
“Well you’re not driving my Baby.”
Cas stares at him. “The government trusted me with a fighter jet; I think you can trust me with your car.”
“And if she had wings,” Dean slides behind the wheel, “maybe I would,” he cocks his head. “But probably not.”
Cas opens the passenger door. “You are an infuriatingly stubborn man, Dean Winchester.”
“Cas? You owe me an orgasm, so get in the damn car.”
--
Dean wakes up and stretches languidly. His ass is aching and throbbing and he’s not surprised after the workout it got last night.
After they got in the car, Cas suggested that actually, it would probably be better if they went to Dean’s place, because Cas didn’t want to risk any of the Santangelos realizing that he and Dean knew each other.
As soon as they got inside the Safe House, Cas bent him over the back of the sofa and slid inside him in one determined push and then fucked him until the friction from his dick rubbing against the sofa tipped Dean over the edge.
They cleaned up and moved things to the bedroom, where Dean got out a box of condoms and threw them at Cas.
“Dude,” he said. “We fucked bare twice. Not cool.”
Cas explained that he’d had himself tested and was clean; he even got the test results out of his wallet to prove it.
“And I am confident that you are clean,” he said, “because you have always been very diligent about condoms with me and you carry hand sanitizer around with you and get grossed out by second hand lube.”
Dean had to laugh at Cas’s observation, because he’s not wrong. When it comes to hygiene, Dean is somewhat particular. Bobby often calls him Princess Fussypants. Not that he intends to give Cas that particular piece of ammunition to mock him with.
The next hour had involved Cas edging Dean to the brink of insanity and then blowing his brains out through his dick-Dean may have even blacked out for a while; either that or just plain fallen asleep. Either way, he’d woken up sometime later, on his stomach, with Cas pushing into him from behind. Cas had rolled his hips slowly, thrusting in so deeply that Dean could feel it in his stomach, and with his hands pinned, Dean had no option but to let the pressure of the sheets against his cock bring him slowly, but steadily to orgasm.
Dean pulls himself gingerly into a sitting position and reaches for his phone. It’s a little after 10.00am and he can hear Cas pottering around in the kitchen.
Dean calls Bobby who tells him that Sam is a lot better this morning and so is Jo. Dean is so relieved that he almost cries.
Cas bringing in coffee and a stack of pancakes is a welcome distraction and as they sit together in bed and eat breakfast, Dean reflects on how much he likes this and how much more grounded and content he feels when Cas is around.
They talk when they’ve finished eating. Dean apologizes again for going off half-cocked. He explains about Sam, tells Cas how scared he was that his little brother was going to die.
“I wasn’t planning to survive,” he says. “I was just gonna try to take as many Demons with me as I could.”
Cas growls low in his throat.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “It was stupid and selfish and I’m sorry. We do need to deal with the situation though.”
Both Cas and Dean try to call Michael and when they don’t get through yet again, Cas tries to call his brother Gabriel, but he can’t get through to him either. Finally, he calls his mom and asks her if she’s heard from either Michael or Gabriel lately. Naomi is vague and elusive. She says something about them both being on sabbatical and when Cas hangs up his eyes are narrowed.
“Something big’s going on,” he shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”
Dean shrugs. “Well, whatever it is, we still need a plan to deal with the situation on the ground here. Cas…how do you feel about coming to a meeting with Bobby? Maybe meeting Sam?”
Cas’s face lights up. “I would love to meet Sam. And Bobby too.”
“Just a heads up. They know about us. Sam even knows who you are.”
Cas’s eyes become comically wide and he swallows.
“It’s okay,” Dean reassures him. “They’re cool with it.”
Cas doesn’t look convinced.
--
It turns out that Bobby is less ‘cool with it’ when he knows who Cas actually is. In fact he damn near hyperventilates when he learns that Cas isn’t just some random foot soldier, but Michael’s younger brother. Even learning that Cas has been providing Dean with insider information doesn’t mollify him, in fact he pulls Dean aside and hisses in his ear that if Cas was willing to betray his blood family, then surely he’ll betray anyone. He settles down a little when Dean explains that they’re not convinced that Michael knows what’s going on and that maybe it’s Zachariah who is the real betrayer.
When Sam comes slowly and carefully down the stairs looking like he just went ten rounds with a hellhound or a werewolf or something, Dean’s mouth falls open and he rushes to take his brother’s arm.
“I’m okay,” Sam says. But he leans against Dean anyway.
“You scared the crap outta me little brother,” Dean says.
Sam grimaces. “Yesterday was intense. But by this morning I wasn’t feeling too bad. I think with it just being that one dose, it moved through my system pretty quickly. I’m feeling a little shaky right now, but my head’s clear and I feel okay.”
Sam spots Cas sitting on Bobby’s sofa and freezes, cocking a questioning eyebrow at Dean.
Dean grins. “Sammy, I’d like you to meet Cas. Cas, this is my brother Sam.”
Sam moves into the living area with a pleased smile on his face. He brushes back his wayward hair and then reaches out a hand.
Cas stands up and takes it.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Cas says formally.
“Yeah. You too, man. So, you’re my brother’s….?”
He makes it a question and slides a sideways look at Dean.
“Yeah,” Dean says fondly. “He is. And I’m his.”
Cas’s face lights up and he reaches for Dean and drags him into a very thorough kiss.
Bobby makes gagging noises.
“All right, break it up you two before I turn the hose on you.”
Dean pulls away from Cas and sees that both Bobby and his brother are looking quietly pleased. It means a lot to him.
Bobby makes coffee and fixes snacks and they sit around the kitchen table and talk out the situation with the Santangelos and The Devil’s Own. They propose and discard several possible solutions and then Ellen comes in beaming, saying that Jo’s infection has cleared up and they’re hoping to let her go home tomorrow. The news makes Dean’s heart feel even lighter.
Once Ellen has gone, the war council resumes and Dean notices that Sammy has that intense inner stare that means he’s nutting something out inside his noggin.
“You wanna share with the class, Sammy?”
Sam refocuses and clears his throat. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he says.
<
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Back to MasterPost
Dean is cold. His wrists and shoulders hurt. His head feels fuzzy and… Dean’s eyes fly open as he suddenly realizes that the last thing he remembers is walking toward his car at the hospital.
The first thing he sees is the far-too-close face of Alastair, The Devil’s Own’s sergeant-at-arms and close confidant of Nick Morningstar. And if that unwelcome shock wasn’t enough, he also realizes that he’s buck naked and tied by his bound wrists to an overhead pipe in a dank, dull basement.
“Such a beautiful canvas,” Alastair says, trailing the tip of a knife blade down Dean’s chest.
Dean can’t quite supress his shudder.
“What do you want, Alastair?”
He’s proud of how steady his voice sounds; because there’s no doubting that he’s in serious trouble here.
“What do I want?” Alastair echoes. “I want to motivate you. Michael Santangelo kept your father on a leash and now he plans to keep you on a leash too.”
Alastair’s knife makes another pass down Dean’s chest and this time he presses a little more firmly. Dean hisses as blood beads on his skin and runs down his torso.
“Men like us, we’re not meant to be bound by society’s rules. We’re warriors. Killers. Men from a simpler time. A time when men were real men--”
“Women were real women,” Dean interjects, “and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.”
Dean loves Douglas Adams. Cas does too.
Alastair smiles and Dean doesn’t think he’s seen many things scarier. “You mock me,” he says. “But I’m going to show you your true nature.”
--
When Dean was fourteen he once accompanied his Dad and Bobby to a meeting with Nick Morningstar, Azazel and Alastair. The meeting took place at a Dive Bar and Dean’s pretty sure they would’ve let him in even if he hadn’t been in such infamous company. It’s not that he looked old enough to drink or anything-at fourteen, even in combat boots and a too-big leather jacket he still looked like a kid-no, it was simply the kind of place that didn’t much care for legalities.
The meeting was the first time that Dean had been allowed to participate in business that involved a party outside The Family and he’d been thrilled, and a little nervous.
Truth be told, he’d been disappointed by The Devil’s Own. Nick Morningstar was an arrogant douche who wanted everyone to call him Lucifer. Pathetic. Dean had rolled his eyes at that. Azazel seemed just like any other regular Joe on the street and Dean found him colorless and boring. Alastair had a funny voice. Out of the three of them, he was the only one who Dean really didn’t like and that was because he was skeevy; kept looking at Dean like he was some kind of tasty treat.
Sam and Dean always had a lot of minders and security. Even if the safe house they were staying at was in a low-rent area, they weren’t really in any danger. But they weren’t blind and they weren’t stupid. One place they’d stayed, when Dad had been following an interstate lead, had been a long-stay hotel on a major road. It was the summer school holidays and while Sam mostly stayed inside and read, Dean spent a lot of time sitting out on the steps, sharing his cigarettes with the kids turning tricks out there. There were three girls and two boys and one of the boys, Caleb, had become a good friend. Dean had been planning to ask his dad about the kids as soon as he got back, but when John turned up the first thing he did was instruct one of Dean’s minders to get rid of the kids and find out who was running them, with such a scowl on his face that Dean was almost too scared to speak up.
“It’s not their fault, Dad!” he said, voice shaking. “Please don’t hurt the kids.”
John had explained that he didn’t allow children to work the streets in his territory and that it was against the Winchester creed to hurt kids. He told Dean that whenever the Winchesters found kids turning tricks, they handed them over to Pastor Jim, who ran a shelter for homeless young people, funded by the Winchesters. It was one of the things that bought them a lot of tolerance from the local LEOs.
When John found out who’d been pimping out the kids (from Caleb, who hated the man) he had him beaten to within an inch of his life and then he was dumped, unconscious, just the other side of the state line.
Caleb has been a staunch Winchester loyalist ever since and still works with Pastor Jim.
The point is (Dean actually does have a point; he didn’t just meander down memory lane for no reason) that even at fourteen, Dean recognized what it meant when a guy looked at a kid like the kid was a tasty piece of meat. So Alastair skeeved Dean out from the get-go.
After that Dive Bar meeting, Dean went to the restroom and, yeah, no way was he standing at a urinal in there, so he went into a cubicle. When he came out, Alastair was standing right in front of the cubicle door.
“So pretty,” Alastair said. “So much promise.”
“Get out of my face,” Dean said.
Cold water splashes into Dean’s face, bringing him back to the agony of the present, and he flinches and coughs and opens his eyes.
Alastair is right there. Again.
“Get out of my face,” Dean rasps. His throat hurts from all the screaming.
“Disappointing, Dean,” Alastair sing-songs. “You can’t pass out now; we’re just starting to have fun.”
Fun ain’t the word Dean would use and he actually, on occasion, does find it fun to let people tie him up and hurt him. The right combination of pleasure and pain can be arousing.
What Alastair is doing to him, is not arousing. It’s torture, plain and simple.
Dean’s chest, back, ass and thighs are covered in hundreds of tiny, shallow cuts, made one at a time, over a period of several hours, by Alastair’s very sharp scalpel. Occasionally, Alastair doused Dean’s wounds in methylated spirits or threw salt on them.
Once Alastair decided that he’d finished cutting into Dean he put nipple clamps on him and hung weights from them. Then he put clamps on his balls and hung weights from those too.
Next, he’d wheeled over a trolley with some kind of machine on it; some kind of machine with switches and dials and lots of leads and wires coming off it. Dean’s eyes had darted to Alastair’s in horror.
“I see you recognize my little toy,” Alastair had trilled.
He switched it on, turned one of the dials up about half way and then touched two of the leads together, creating a spark.
“I wonder how loudly you can scream,” he’d said.
It had been the shock administered to his balls, conducted through the metal clamp that had finally taken Dean’s consciousness
“You screamed so beautifully for me,” Alastair says dreamily. He folds his arms and cocks his head. “But as much as I love electric shock therapy, there’s just not enough blood.”
“Why are you doing this?” Dean asks again.
He’s lost track of the number of times he’s asked, but he only ever gets the same confusing answer: to motivate you.
Motivate him to what?
Kill Alastair?
Go after The Devil’s Own?
He gets the same predictable answer yet again and then Alastair’s eyes light up with unholy glee and he claps his hands and then rubs them together.
“Ginger root!” Alastair exclaims. “It will burn so exquisitely inside of you. And while it’s burning, I can make pretty blood-red patterns on your skin with my favorite flogger.”
He moves out of Dean’s line of sight and Dean resumes pulling as hard as he can at the rope that’s suspending him from the beam above. Every now and then he hears a creak and he’s hoping hard that, eventually, he’ll be able to break either the rope or the beam and free himself.
Dean nearly leaps out of his boots-or he would’ve if he’d still been wearing boots-when a loud thumping smash sounds from somewhere above and to the right.
“What the…?” Alastair says.
There’s another crash and then a body comes flying down the stairs and lands in a crumpled, bloody heap on the floor.
Another body quickly follows and Alastair is scrambling for his knives as the thud, thud of heavy footsteps sounds on the stairs.
A massive shadow appears on the wall beside where Dean is hanging and he swallows and wonders what fresh torment this new development will bring.
It brings Sammy, who rushes toward Dean with a pained cry, as if Alastair isn’t even in the room.
Alastair throws a knife at him, which Sam bats away with inhuman speed. He turns on Alastair then and is in front of him in a couple of big, fast strides. He reaches out and snaps Alastair’s neck with his bare hands, snaps it like it’s a twig; like it’s nothing.
Dean has barely blinked and Sam is back by his side. He cuts the rope and Dean collapses; would’ve fallen to the floor if his brother hadn’t caught him.
“Easy, easy,” Sam is saying. “I’ve got you ‘bro.”
Dean is too exhausted to feel humiliated at being caught naked and trussed up like a turkey. He figures that’ll come later.
Sam unties his wrists and Dean pulls off the clamps-sonofabitch!-while Sam finds his clothes bundled in a corner.
He helps Dean get dressed and, yeah, that humiliation? It’s starting to kick in now.
He swats away Sam’s attempts to help him put on his boxers and Sam gets the message. He stands back and watches with undisguised irritation as Dean slowly, painfully, loses his nakedness.
Dean doesn’t make eye contact with his brother until he’s got his boots and his leather jacket on and what he sees nearly makes him collapse all over again.
Sam’s pupils are so enlarged Dean can’t see any hazel. Hell, he can barely see any white.
“Sammy,” he whispered. “What have you done?”
“What needed to be done,” Sam says. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”
Sam’s driving some old rust bucket of a truck and Dean can feel the cuts on his back open and ooze blood as he climbs up into the passenger seat. Much as he loathes riding shotgun, even he has to concede that he’s not up to driving right now.
“Is Ellen okay?” Dean asks, because Sam is clearly not locked in the panic room and he looks drugged to the gills.
“Yeah,” Sam throws the truck into reverse and turns it around, speeding out of the industrial park where Alastair had been keeping Dean captive. “With so many inner-circle men dead and injured, she said we needed all hands on deck and that if anyone could find you, it would be me.”
“Good call,” Dean says. “We were planning on letting you out tomorrow anyway, figured you were clean.”
“I was,” Sam says.
“But?” Dean’s tone is careful. Non accusatory.
“But you were missing,” Sam says. “I knew it had to be The Devil’s Own so I tapped one of my contacts, Ruby. She’s a sweetbutt. Maybe something more. Nick Morningstar seems to respect her some. I met her when I went to confront him that time and we hit it off. She’s a sweet girl. We, uh, may have hooked up a time or two. Partied a little.”
“Damn, Sammy,” Dean says. “I thought you had better taste.”
Sam’s face twists. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t anything,” he says. “It was just,” he shrugs and Dean gets it, he really does, that need for something to fill the emptiness, even if it isn’t anything good.
“She told me Alastair had you. She said that if I was gonna go up against him, I’d need an edge. She had this glass vial filled with thick red liquid,” Sam’s voice trembles.
“She shot you up with pure Demon Blood.”
It’s a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.”
“Sammy,” Dean’s voice breaks on his brother’s name.
“I know,” Sam says miserably.
And this time it’s Dean’s heart that breaks.
--
Like a scene out of Groundhog Day, Dean stands in front of the panic room door and listens to Sam screaming; begging Dean to let him out.
“You know that ain’t really Sam in there, right?” Bobby says. “Not really.”
Bobby released himself from hospital AMA when he learned that Dean had been kidnapped. He’s on crutches, strong antibiotics and strong painkillers, but he’s still more together than Dean. Maybe Dean should resign and let Bobby be the Boss. He’d probably be better at it.
“Dean?”
“I know, Bobby.”
“He just has to…get it all out of his system.”
Dean nods again. “I need a drink.”
He goes upstairs and finds the whiskey, pouring himself a generous serve.
He turns and Ellen’s there, in her nightgown, which he guesses is fair enough given that it’s gone midnight. She pulls him into a hug and he can’t help flinching and hissing in pain.
Ellen pulls back and looks at him.
“Take your shirt off.”
Dean can’t even muster up a sassy, inappropriate comment. He’s had more than enough involuntary nakedness for one day and he really just needs some privacy to lick his wounds.
“Not now, Ellen,” he says and he knows, by the way her face softens, that she can hear the pain and exhaustion in his voice.
“You’re hurting, Sweetheart,” she says softly. “Please let me help.”
Dean has never been able to say no to a woman offering maternal comfort, so he takes off his jacket, his shirt and his Henley. Ellen’s eyes narrow at the sight of his red abused nipples and then widen when she realizes that his entire torso is covered in tiny cuts. She bustles from the room and is back quickly with a bottle of antiseptic spray, which she applies to his front and back.
The spray stings, but quickly becomes soothing and when Dean remarks on that, Ellen explains that the spray contains an analgesic as well as antiseptic.
“Can I take that with me?” Dean asks when Ellen’s finished.
She hands it over and Dean heads up to bed. He does his best to spray his butt and thighs, and then applies some of the spray to his balls too, because he’s still in a lot of pain down there and he hopes the numbing qualities of the spray will do its thing. He’s just about to switch off the light when there’s a knock at his door. It’s Bobby, and he hands Dean a blister pack of the heavy duty painkillers the hospital had given him.
“Figured you could use these,” he says. “Get a good sleep, because Dean? We’re gonna have to talk about what happened in the morning.”
Dean grimaces, but nods, and Bobby leaves, satisfied.
Dean takes one of the tablets and settles himself down. He’s asleep within minutes and doesn’t stir again until the sound of shouting rouses him, a little after six am.
He stumbles downstairs wearing nothing but his boxers and finds Bobby yelling into his cell phone. Ellen is quiet now, and has tears running down her face as she listens to whoever’s on the other end of her cell phone.
“No, not Roy or Walt,” Bobby is saying, voice loud and urgent. “They were tight with Gordon. Well I don’t know, Kevin!” he bellows after a pause, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little thin on the ground right now!”
“Hey!” Dean interrupts. “What’s going on?”
Bobby lowers his cell phone and rubs a hand over his forehead. “Fire-bombings,” he says. “The main meth lab and The Roadhouse. Ash is dead. Jo is missing.”
“She’s been found,” Ellen says. “She got out. But she’s hurt. Some minor burns and smoke inhalation. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
“Go,” Dean tells her. “You need to be with your daughter.”
Ellen doesn’t need to be told twice.
“What does Kevin need?” Dean asks Bobby.
“Somebody senior to deal with Jody at the meth lab.”
Dean holds his hand out for Bobby’s cell phone.
When Kevin realizes that it’s the Boss himself on the phone, he starts stuttering and Dean has to tell him to take deep breaths until he calms down.
“Kevin, is Jody there yet?”
Kevin says that she isn’t, just a handful of uniforms, but apparently Jody’s on her way.
“Okay, You’re clear on the story?”
“Yessir. We make organic fertilizer here.”
“Very good. You answer as many of Jody’s questions as you feel comfortable answering and you tell her that I’ll be there soon.”
Kevin’s relief is like a living, breathing thing.
“Not so fast, son,” Bobby says when Dean turns to head back upstairs. “We still need to talk about what happened to you yesterday.”
Dean tells him that they will, but that the immediate crisis has to take precedence. “You stay here and keep an eye on Sam. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
--
Jody’s pissed and she gives it to Dean with both barrels. It’s not the fact that The Winchester Family was making organic fertilizer that she’s pissed about; it’s the fact that they couldn’t stop their rivals from blowing the place up and creating a danger to the general public.
“I thought you were handling it,” she grouses.
Dean reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his inside jacket pocket and…it isn’t in there.
Fuck.
“I am handling it,” he tells Jody.
And yeah, Dean figures he deserves Jody’s raised eyebrow and indelicate snort. He can’t even manage to convince himself.
She does tell him that she’s sorry about Rufus and that she’s doing her best to find out who firebombed The Roadhouse and hurt Jo, but to Dean it’s just another way of saying that he can’t look out for his people.
When she finally lets him leave, with his tail well and truly between his legs, Dean sits in his car and calls Michael Santangelo. Again. He gets voicemail. Again.
Fuck.
By the time he gets home, Dean’s feeling pretty ragged. He hurts, he’s craving a nicotine hit, and apparently he sucks at being Head of The Family, if the past few weeks are anything to go by.
Bobby insists on ‘debriefing’ Dean on his kidnapping and torture, which is the exact opposite of fun, and they muse for a while on what Alastair meant by his claim that he was merely ‘motivating’ Dean.
“I think The Devil’s Own want a war,” Dean says. “We know the Santangelos want one. And I think, they’ve told The Devil’s Own that they won’t interfere this time.”
Bobby nods. “It was only the Santangleos getting involved that got The Devil’s Own to back off last time,” he frowns. “But why would the Santangelos want a war? Ain’t nobody gonna come out lookin’ good if there’s a big mob war.”
Dean shrugs. “Maybe they’re hoping we’ll wipe each other out; leave the whole playing field free for them.”
Dean gets to his feet and slaps Bobby on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go and check on Sam.”
Bobby gets a squinty, uncomfortable look on his face.
“What?” Dean says.
Bobby takes his baseball cap off and squeezes it in his hands. “Sam ain’t doin’ so good.”
Dean turns and stares at him. “You think maybe you could’ve led with that? When I first got back?”
Bobby shrugs. “Knew you wouldn’t focus if you knew how bad he was. And there ain’t nothing we can do about it. He’s just gotta get the pure drug outta his system.”
“How long’s that gonna take?” Dean grumbles.
“Hang on,” Bobby snarks, “I’ll just get out my Demon Blood Detox manual. Oh wait, there isn’t one.”
“This ain’t funny, Bobby. Sam could die.”
Bobby nods. “Yeah. He could. This could go bad, Dean. You should maybe start preparing yourself for the worst.”
--
Sam stirs when Dean enters the panic room. His face is pale and grey and he’s soaked in sweat, breathing heavily.
“Dean?” he rasps.
Dean swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s me, man.”
He pulls a chair across and goes and sits beside his little brother.
“How you doin’, kiddo?”
“Been better,” Sam croaks. “You?”
“Been better,” Dean echoes.
Sam takes a shallow, rattling breath and Dean looks at him sharply. “You’re not allowed to die, Sam, okay? You hear me?”
He reaches out and takes hold of his brother’s hand. It’s cool and clammy.
“I’m gonna take care of you, just like I always do. You listening, Sammy?”
Sam smiles and shudders and closes his eyes.
Dean’s eyes widen and his heart beats hard and fast in his chest. He slips his fingers around his brother’s wrist until he can feel his pulse, thready and erratic, but there.
He sits for a moment, just watching Sammy breathe, not sure whether he’s unconscious or just asleep. And then he begins to talk.
“You know, when we were little-you couldn't’ve been more than five-you started asking all these questions. How come we didn't have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you, ‘Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don't want to know.’ I just wanted you to be a kid... Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you... Keep you safe... Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job... I had one job... And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that, I'm sorry. I should’ve been there for you when you needed me. I let you down, man. But I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I care about. I let Dad down. I let Rufus and Ash down. I let Ellen and Jo down. I let Bobby down. If you…if you don’t make it, how am I supposed to live with that? I can’t, man. I won’t.”
Tears are falling freely down Dean’s face now and he wipes at them. God he’s pathetic. He isn’t the man his father thought he was, that’s for sure. And now the whole Family, the whole State probably, is screwed, because he isn’t going to be able to keep things together.
Dean pushes back from the chair and stumbles to his feet. God, he needs a smoke.
“Going out, Bobby,” he calls, snatching up his keys and heading for the door.
He pulls it open and finds Sheriff Mills and Deputy Hanscum on the other side, Jody with her fist raised to knock.
“In a hurry to go somewhere, Dean?” Jody says.
“Ran outta cigarettes.”
“Can we come in?”
“Sure,” Dean widens the door and lets the law inside.
“I regret to inform you,” Jody says, when they’re all seated, “that your known acquaintance Elwood Kubrick has been found dead.”
And that? Dean wasn’t expecting. In fact, he’d completely forgotten that Kubrick was still on the loose.
His genuine surprise must show on his face, because both Jody and Donna deflate just a little.
“You didn’t know?” Donna says.
Dean shakes his head. “How did he die?”
“Someone slit his throat. Any idea who may have had a grudge against him?”
Jody’s looking at him closely, with narrowed eyes. So, okay, she knows something about the in-house issues he’s been having.
“Kubrick was one of a small group who were having some trouble adjusting to me being in charge. But I didn’t order him killed. I figured he-and everyone else-would come around eventually, and honestly, I’ve had more important things on my mind.”
“I was sorry to hear about Rufus,” Donna says. Her face brightens suddenly. “But you’ll be pleased to hear that Joanna-Beth is doing well. She’s a spitfire that one. Her Momma sure has her hands full there.”
Dean smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
--
Dean uses his passcode to unlock the key safe and a moment later he’s unlocking the front door of the safe house. He puts his bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter and then opens the fridge and puts the milk inside. All of the Winchester safe houses are stocked with food-except for perishables-and most even have the odd bottle of alcohol left over from previous tenants. Dean’s brought his own though, and he finds himself a glass and an ashtray and goes and sits in the living room, with his feet up on the coffee table.
Cigarettes. Tequila. Netflix. Cell phone. He has all the makings of a guy’s night in right here.
He switches on the television and orders a meat lovers pizza with a side serve of buffalo wings and hot sauce and then pours himself a generous serve of Tequila and lights a cigarette.
Dean knows he’s being a coward, staying here instead of going back to Bobby’s, but everything about that place-Bobby’s crutches, Ellen’s sad face, his brother, locked in the panic room, maybe dying-is a reminder of just how badly he’s failed. He just. He needs a break.
And maybe if he gets drunk enough (Dean pours himself another drink) he’ll be able to go out and find someone to fuck him without feeling like he’s somehow betraying Cas.
Dean’s cell phone rings and it’s as if the thought of Cas somehow conjured the man himself.
“Dean,” Cas’s gravelly voice is like a balm to his soul.
“Hey. I was just thinking about you.”
There’s a pause and then Cas says, “I heard that you had been kidnapped by Alastair and that Alastair is now dead.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Dean pours himself another drink. “Sammy rescued me. He was awesome.”
“I heard about Rufus too. And The Roadhouse.”
“Yeah,” Dean savors the Tequila’s burn as it slides down his throat. “Lost a Meth lab too. Ash died.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cas says.
“S’ok,” Dean shrugs. “Shit happens.”
The doorbell rings.
“Ooh. Hang on a minute, Cas. My pizza’s here.”
There’s a pause while he pays for the pizza and then he’s back on the sofa, shoving a piece in his mouth.
“Oh, hey, what are you wearing, Cas? We could have phone sex!”
“Please don’t talk while you’re chewing, Dean.”
“Dean?”
Dean swallows. “You said not to talk while I was chewing! Can’t have it both ways, man.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Yep. I’m on my fourth triple shot of Tequila right now.”
“No more,” Cas says.
Dean sniggers. “Ooh, Cas. I like it when you get all bossy with me.”
Cas sighs. “I know you do, Dean. But right now I have some important information to tell you, so can you please focus?”
“Yep,” Dean says, picking up another slice of pizza. “Focusing right now.”
“I have been privy to some interesting conversations. The Santangelos-or at least some of them-want a full scale war; a total mob apocalypse. Zachariah has been very busy meddling, trying to play your Family and The Devil’s Own off against each other. His plan is for the Santangelos to come in toward the end of the troubles and mop up whatever dregs remain, taking for themselves the territory that currently belongs to both The Winchesters and The Devil’s Own. The only thing I am uncertain of, is whether Michael knows. I have been unable to get hold of him.”
Dean scoffs. “Yeah, join the club,” he sighs. “But why? Mob wars are messy. A lot of people die. LEOs get twitchy. We all come under a lot of scrutiny. Michael said you guys were happy with the distribution of businesses and territory when I talked to him at Dad’s funeral. Why would The Santangelos do this? Why now?”
“The answer to why is always power. The answer to why now…things are unstable. You’re a new leader. Young. Inexperienced.”
“They think I’ll be easy to pick off,” Dean says sourly.
“We need to speak to Michael,” Cas says. “We need to stop this.”
“Preaching to the choir, buddy.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence and then Cas asks how Sam’s doing.
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
There’s another awkward silence.
Dean pours himself another drink. “Man, we suck at talking on the phone.”
He sighs. “Maybe I should just…go to The Devil’s Own’s compound, shoot Lucifer and then cap as many of ‘em as I can get before they get me. Maybe that’d be enough to shut them down.”
“That is a terrible idea,” Cas growls.
“Yeah, well. Sometimes going nuclear’s the only option you got left. Ice the devil, save a whole bunch of people.”
“Unless you kill all of them, you’ll just trigger a series of revenge attacks. And you’ll be dead. I am not okay with that plan.”
‘Aw, Cas. I didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Well, we have developed a fairly profound bond.”
Dean snorts. “And the sex is good too.”
“It is,” Cas agrees. “I’ve missed it.”
“You can do better than me, Cas. I‘m like the ultimate unattached drifter. And you should maybe choose someone who’s likely to have a longer life span.”
“Nothing in life is certain,” Cas says cautiously, and ain’t that the truth.
Dean makes a half-hearted attempt to get Cas to have phone sex with him, but Cas doesn’t quite seem to get the concept and they end up saying good night. Dean tries not to make it sound too much like good bye, even though he knows it could very well be.
It’s late, but he calls Bobby to get an update on Sam.
Sam’s still asleep-or in a coma-no one’s really sure. Bobby warns him again to be prepared for the kid not making it through the night. And yeah, he’s preparing for that.
Bobby also tells him that Ellen called to say that Jo had taken a turn for the worse; developed some kind of infection in her burned skin or something.
Dean pours himself yet another drink. Really, the best thing he can do right now is go and wipe out The Devil’s Own; the full patches at any rate. Sure, that’ll leave a lot of prospects and hangers-on-but foot-soldiers need leadership and if Dean cuts the head off the snake, it’ll save a lot of lives, even if it costs him his own. Azazel and Alastair are already dead. That leaves Nick Morningstar, Crowley, Rosco and Raul. He’ll probably have to kill Lucifer’s Old Lady, Lillith, too, because she’s a bitch and a half and quite capable of leading the Demons in a vendetta against The Winchesters. Besides, he’s positive it was The Devil’s Own who firebombed The Roadhouse and the lab. He has to be seen to deal with them; can’t let the law be the ones to do it.
Dean goes and gets his weapons duffle. He’ll go tonight. Element of surprise and all that. Get this thing done. And if Sammy doesn’t make it through the night, well there’s a good chance Dean won’t either.
He has another shot of Tequila, for the road.
--
The Devil’s Own Compound-known as The Pit-is deep in the heart of Kansas City’s industrial district. It’s surrounded by a twelve foot high, chain-link fence that’s topped with barbed wire, it’s flood-lit and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Dean parked several blocks away, as is his custom when there’s mayhem afoot, because it makes for an easier getaway if your vehicle isn’t caught up in a roped-off crime scene. He’s currently one building over from The Pit, surveying it from a rooftop. He suspects that the amount of Tequila he consumed over the course of the evening may have had something to do with him having made what he now concedes was a very bad decision.
There is no way, no how, that he’s getting into The Pit without some serious planning. Drunken wishful thinking is not going to get him access. Luckily, it’s not too late for him to just back away and go home and that’s exactly what he’s planning to do when a noise from somewhere behind has him turning his head. He doesn’t get it very far turned before something slams into him and a moment later he’s pressed against the rooftop railing and somebody has an arm around his throat and a hand across his mouth.
Dean’s had this particular body pressed against him enough times to recognize it, and he knows the person’s smell too. He relaxes in Castiel’s grip and is compliant when the man spins him around. Cas is-Dean’s pretty sure angry would be an understatement. His eyes are flashing righteous fury and Dean may be a badass, but he finds himself shrinking back, a little scared by the depths of emotion he’s seeing here.
Cas grabs hold of the lapels of Dean’s leather jacket, hauls him forward and then slams him back against the railing.
“I rebelled for you,” Cas hisses through clenched teeth. “And this is how you repay me? By giving in? By trying to martyr yourself?”
He slams Dean back against the railing a couple more times and Dean lets him. Actually, Cas is surprisingly strong so ‘lets’ is probably overstating things.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “It was a dumb move.”
The words seem to take the wind out of Cas’s sails just a little. He’s still staring down at Dean like some kind of wrathful avenging angel, but he looks a little less smite-y now.
“Good,” Cas says.
And then he’s on Dean, his lips pressing brutally hard and his tongue demanding entrance. Dean has no choice but to accept the ferocious plundering of his mouth; not that he ever had any intention of resisting. Still, it’s an angry kiss, as if Cas is trying to punish him. And Dean kind of gets that. He was on the brink of doing something stupidly suicidal, after all.
When Cas finally pulls back his ire doesn’t seem to be dampened. In fact, he’s looking pretty fired up again.
“Cas,” Dean begins.
“Shut up,” Cas says, and Dean finds himself spun around again. “Hands on the rail.”
Dean complies.
Cas reaches around and unzips Dean’s jeans.
“Hey!” Dean’s hands fly off the rail as his jeans and boxers are yanked down.
“Hands. On. The. Rail.” Cas punctuates each word with a hard smack to Dean’s ass.
“Fuck!” Dean grabs the rail again and tries to decide whether this is the hottest or the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to him.
Little Dean seems to be voting for hottest if the way he’s standing to attention is any indication.
“Don’t move,” Cas says. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
And he leaves Dean leaning up against the rooftop railing with his ass hanging out.
He’s not gone long. In fact, after dithering for a short, embarrassed moment, Dean has just bent down to pull up his pants when Cas returns.
“I told you not to move,” Cas growls, smacking Dean’s ass again. “Hands back on the rail!”
“Ow! Fuck. Stop it, Cas!”
Cas stops with the smacking as soon as Dean’s hands are back on the rail. Dean really wants to reach back and rub at his stinging ass, but he gets a feeling Cas isn’t going to let him do that, so he waits. He hears a squelch and then two lube-slicked fingers are pressing into his ass.
The prep is fast and rough, but when Cas finds Dean’s sweet spot and rubs against it with a fingertip, Dean can’t help moaning and spreading his legs wider.
“C’mon, Cas,” he says. “Fucking give it to me.”
Now it’s Cas’s turn to be compliant. Dean’s nowhere near stretched enough, but he relishes the burn and the feeling of too full, too fast. Pretty soon Cas is hammering his sweet spot with every thrust and Dean’s gripping the rail tightly and trying not to sound like a two dollar whore.
Dean feels Cas’s thrusts start to speed up erratically and knows that he’s about to come. He takes a hand off the rail and reaches for his dick and Cas pulls back and slaps his ass hard.
“Cas!” Dean whines. “I can’t come like this, man. C’mon.”
“Too bad,” Cas snarls and comes hard.
In Dean’s ass.
Without a condom.
Fuck.
Cas pulls out and then pulls up Dean’s boxers and jeans. Dean feels Cas’s come sliding out of him and grimaces.
“You’re not seriously gonna leave me like this, are you?” he presses a hand against his aching groin.
Cas raises an eyebrow. “You need to learn patience,” he says. “So you can wait ‘til we get home.”
And apparently Dean has a kink for being ridden hard and put away wet, because he almost comes in his pants at the thought.
Huh.
“We’ll take your car,” Cas adds.
Dean frowns. “How did you get here anyway? You don’t even have a car.”
“Hotwired one,” Cas says shortly.
“And the lube?”
Cas shrugs. “Just happened to be in the car.”
Dean pulls a face. “Gross! Who even knows where that’s been?”
Cas is serenely unperturbed by the horror of second hand lube and Dean is planning to bathe in hand sanitizer when an even better question occurs to him.
“Wait…how did you know I’d be here?”
Cas sighs. “You sounded…depressed…when we spoke earlier. I was worried you might do something stupid. So I tracked your phone. When it became obvious where you were going, I moved to intercept you.”
They arrive at the Impala and Dean stands stock-still and stares at Cas. “You…tracked my phone?”
“Yes. There’s an app.”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “Right. Coz that’s not creepy and stalkerish at all.”
“You live a dangerous life, Dean,” Cas raises his chin, completely unrepentant. “I could imagine many scenarios where being able to find you quickly would be advantageous. Last night, for example, had I known you were missing sooner, I could have helped find you much more quickly.”
And that brings a lump to Dean’s throat, because if Cas had been someone who Sam and Bobby and Ellen would’ve contacted as a matter of course, then Sam wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now against full strength Demon Blood.
“Give me your keys,” Cas says.
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“You’ve been drinking, Dean. I don’t think you should be driving.”
“Well you’re not driving my Baby.”
Cas stares at him. “The government trusted me with a fighter jet; I think you can trust me with your car.”
“And if she had wings,” Dean slides behind the wheel, “maybe I would,” he cocks his head. “But probably not.”
Cas opens the passenger door. “You are an infuriatingly stubborn man, Dean Winchester.”
“Cas? You owe me an orgasm, so get in the damn car.”
--
Dean wakes up and stretches languidly. His ass is aching and throbbing and he’s not surprised after the workout it got last night.
After they got in the car, Cas suggested that actually, it would probably be better if they went to Dean’s place, because Cas didn’t want to risk any of the Santangelos realizing that he and Dean knew each other.
As soon as they got inside the Safe House, Cas bent him over the back of the sofa and slid inside him in one determined push and then fucked him until the friction from his dick rubbing against the sofa tipped Dean over the edge.
They cleaned up and moved things to the bedroom, where Dean got out a box of condoms and threw them at Cas.
“Dude,” he said. “We fucked bare twice. Not cool.”
Cas explained that he’d had himself tested and was clean; he even got the test results out of his wallet to prove it.
“And I am confident that you are clean,” he said, “because you have always been very diligent about condoms with me and you carry hand sanitizer around with you and get grossed out by second hand lube.”
Dean had to laugh at Cas’s observation, because he’s not wrong. When it comes to hygiene, Dean is somewhat particular. Bobby often calls him Princess Fussypants. Not that he intends to give Cas that particular piece of ammunition to mock him with.
The next hour had involved Cas edging Dean to the brink of insanity and then blowing his brains out through his dick-Dean may have even blacked out for a while; either that or just plain fallen asleep. Either way, he’d woken up sometime later, on his stomach, with Cas pushing into him from behind. Cas had rolled his hips slowly, thrusting in so deeply that Dean could feel it in his stomach, and with his hands pinned, Dean had no option but to let the pressure of the sheets against his cock bring him slowly, but steadily to orgasm.
Dean pulls himself gingerly into a sitting position and reaches for his phone. It’s a little after 10.00am and he can hear Cas pottering around in the kitchen.
Dean calls Bobby who tells him that Sam is a lot better this morning and so is Jo. Dean is so relieved that he almost cries.
Cas bringing in coffee and a stack of pancakes is a welcome distraction and as they sit together in bed and eat breakfast, Dean reflects on how much he likes this and how much more grounded and content he feels when Cas is around.
They talk when they’ve finished eating. Dean apologizes again for going off half-cocked. He explains about Sam, tells Cas how scared he was that his little brother was going to die.
“I wasn’t planning to survive,” he says. “I was just gonna try to take as many Demons with me as I could.”
Cas growls low in his throat.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “It was stupid and selfish and I’m sorry. We do need to deal with the situation though.”
Both Cas and Dean try to call Michael and when they don’t get through yet again, Cas tries to call his brother Gabriel, but he can’t get through to him either. Finally, he calls his mom and asks her if she’s heard from either Michael or Gabriel lately. Naomi is vague and elusive. She says something about them both being on sabbatical and when Cas hangs up his eyes are narrowed.
“Something big’s going on,” he shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”
Dean shrugs. “Well, whatever it is, we still need a plan to deal with the situation on the ground here. Cas…how do you feel about coming to a meeting with Bobby? Maybe meeting Sam?”
Cas’s face lights up. “I would love to meet Sam. And Bobby too.”
“Just a heads up. They know about us. Sam even knows who you are.”
Cas’s eyes become comically wide and he swallows.
“It’s okay,” Dean reassures him. “They’re cool with it.”
Cas doesn’t look convinced.
--
It turns out that Bobby is less ‘cool with it’ when he knows who Cas actually is. In fact he damn near hyperventilates when he learns that Cas isn’t just some random foot soldier, but Michael’s younger brother. Even learning that Cas has been providing Dean with insider information doesn’t mollify him, in fact he pulls Dean aside and hisses in his ear that if Cas was willing to betray his blood family, then surely he’ll betray anyone. He settles down a little when Dean explains that they’re not convinced that Michael knows what’s going on and that maybe it’s Zachariah who is the real betrayer.
When Sam comes slowly and carefully down the stairs looking like he just went ten rounds with a hellhound or a werewolf or something, Dean’s mouth falls open and he rushes to take his brother’s arm.
“I’m okay,” Sam says. But he leans against Dean anyway.
“You scared the crap outta me little brother,” Dean says.
Sam grimaces. “Yesterday was intense. But by this morning I wasn’t feeling too bad. I think with it just being that one dose, it moved through my system pretty quickly. I’m feeling a little shaky right now, but my head’s clear and I feel okay.”
Sam spots Cas sitting on Bobby’s sofa and freezes, cocking a questioning eyebrow at Dean.
Dean grins. “Sammy, I’d like you to meet Cas. Cas, this is my brother Sam.”
Sam moves into the living area with a pleased smile on his face. He brushes back his wayward hair and then reaches out a hand.
Cas stands up and takes it.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Cas says formally.
“Yeah. You too, man. So, you’re my brother’s….?”
He makes it a question and slides a sideways look at Dean.
“Yeah,” Dean says fondly. “He is. And I’m his.”
Cas’s face lights up and he reaches for Dean and drags him into a very thorough kiss.
Bobby makes gagging noises.
“All right, break it up you two before I turn the hose on you.”
Dean pulls away from Cas and sees that both Bobby and his brother are looking quietly pleased. It means a lot to him.
Bobby makes coffee and fixes snacks and they sit around the kitchen table and talk out the situation with the Santangelos and The Devil’s Own. They propose and discard several possible solutions and then Ellen comes in beaming, saying that Jo’s infection has cleared up and they’re hoping to let her go home tomorrow. The news makes Dean’s heart feel even lighter.
Once Ellen has gone, the war council resumes and Dean notices that Sammy has that intense inner stare that means he’s nutting something out inside his noggin.
“You wanna share with the class, Sammy?”
Sam refocuses and clears his throat. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he says.
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