DCBB Black Glass pt.11

[babygatsby]

Part 10



“Papa! Papa, where did you go?”

Cas grunted and sloshed to the shore, taking his time to hang their clothes and damning his decision to teach Girl to speak. It had been a learning experience for them both. He flapped his wings once or twice to air them, fanning them out in the sun, humming when the warmth seeped to his very bones. His joints and pinions creaked and rubbed against each other, his age was making itself known in his bones but his skin still refused to show it.

“Here, Girl, water.” He called into the woods, keeping a wary eye on the tree line. They couldn’t afford to be so loud, they weren’t in a place that liked noise, Cas could tell. Girl melted from the dark, appearing at the edge of the sandy banks. She had grown quickly, wilderness demanded it of her, and did not look the four years she possessed. She had a bony figure-she had her mother to thank for that-and long tangles of black hair that Cas attempted time after time to cut off when it became too much to handle. She had kicked his knife away and had nearly broken his fingers for his trouble. Her favorite article of clothing was the wolf’s head hood and cloak Cas made her for her third birthday, she wore it every day since, and it was looking particularly pathetic at that point. Cas would have to make her another.

“Papa, where are we going?”

“West, child.”

“I know west, but why? What is west?”

“Does not concern you.”

“It concerns me! I go with you!”

Cas smiled to himself, so familiar with the line of conversation that it didn’t alarm him anymore.

“I leave you, let moose raise you.”

She wrinkled her little button nose when she sat next to him on a rock.

“No mooses here, I would be raised by wolf.”

He hummed thoughtfully and she laughed, a bright tinkling noise that still calmed him no matter the situation, no matter what he was doing or feeling.

“Papa, who is Dean?”

Cas froze in the middle of folding a shirt.

“What makes you say that name?”

“You say it when you’re quiet at night, when your eyes are closed and you’re supposed to be sleeping but you’re not.”

He knew of what she spoke. His star walks became more and more frequent the further west he went, the further away from Dean he went.

“Never say it again.”

She protested when he packed away their clothes and stamped out their fire in a flurry of dark emotion. He missed the days when he had no words and his actions were loud enough.

“But papa, who is he?”

“No!” He shouted, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her to the ground, sitting her there while he finished packing the camp. “No,” he repeated, “do not talk.”

She hiccupped but didn’t speak again. Cas had taught her well. When he was too angry for speech, he learned quickly that Girl didn’t know what was happening to him, tried to talk to him, and that would anger him more till he almost did leave her, once. It was a shameful memory, he would never leave her, couldn’t…so he made sure to teach her about his time before words. Sometimes, he had told her, he needed someone as silent as he had been. He didn’t tell her that before he was with Dean, and silence was his game. Now he had nothing, he had no reason to speak yet he could.

He sighed and patted Girl’s head softly, rubbing her cheek in apology. She pouted up at him, but he could see the beginnings of a smile twinkle in her youthful eyes. He nudged her back and she jumped up to help him pack the rest of their things. They draped the remainder of their still drying clothes along the high bow of their canoe and set out onto the river. In the past, Cas held an aversion to deep water. That day in his childhood still stuck firm in his mind, and falling in and drowning was not something he particularly desired. But this river wasn’t deep at all. At its midpoint he could stand and the rushing water would merely reach his chest. He could keep his wings up, outstretched behind him, and he could keep them from becoming waterlogged, the thing that had doomed him before.

The further they went, the sparser the woods grew, till they saw more sand than trees. The river wound into rocky outcroppings that gradually changed into a gaudy mix of yellow orange and white, rather than the imposing dark gray Cas was used to in his homeland. The going was slow, but the change was so instant Cas had to take pause and actually look at their surroundings.

The rock walls now towered over their heads and the river lost most of its force, the current churning lazily rather than the roiling wrath they set out in so long ago on those distant northern shores. The days also grew warmer; it was a phenomenon Cas wasn’t familiar with at all. He found himself beginning to sweat profusely after only a few hours of rowing. He shucked his fur cloak and set it at the bow with the rest of their things and instantly felt cooler. The sun was still the same sun; he did not understand how it could possibly be hotter than back home. Then again, home had trees that never died and snow that fell year round, even in the tenuous spring. This was something new.

“Papa, it is so hot!” Girl cried as she languished in the center of the canoe, trailing her fingertips in the nearly still water that had grown lazy, and deeper, now more of a long winding lake than a river.

“Take off your cloak.”

“But I do not want to…”

“Then be hot.”

Girl groaned and flopped around like a fish out of water before she sat up and begrudgingly removed her wolf head cloak. Her ratty tangles had become sweaty and plastered to her forehead. Cas wrinkled his nose, perhaps he would cut it all off in her sleep. She pushed up her sleeves and pants legs, till she gave up on that and removed those too, sitting in only a thin sleeveless top and her underpants. She sighed dramatically, giggling when a breeze stirred her matted hair.

“Papa, this is so much better! Take off your shirt; it is too hot for those clothes here.”

Cas grumbled but did not comply. In his life, only his mate and the wild had seen his naked body, and he wanted to keep it that way as long as possible. Girl shrugged and hummed a tuneless song under her breath as Cas kept up rowing. At midday the sun hung low and heavy over their heads, making everything shimmer beneath a white haze, and even the river heated to the temperature of bathing water. He sighed in satisfaction when he let his wing tips trail through the water, but he didn’t dare completely submerge them. The added weight of the water would surely upset the balance of their little boat and send them and their belongings into the river. A few more hours of the sun on his head had Cas growling in dissatisfaction before he finally tore off his overcoat and his buckskin jacket from beneath that. The wind whistled and snapped around his sweat covered skin and it felt divine, the salt water instantly drying and caking onto his exposed flesh. His pants were the last to go, as were his boots, till all he had were a short pair of buckskin leggings.

He blinked down at his paste pale skin and grimaced, but he knew from experience that it would tan quickly, to match his face and scarred hands. His scars would turn white, as pale as his skin was now instead of the pink they were. Some would fade in time, but the old ones on his hands and chest would last forever. They were curious shaped wounds, warped by the growth of his flesh and bones. His hands were strange things to him, not limbs of his body but instruments, a means. They creaked and groaned like his bow of aged wood, taut and well used. They could be utilized as weapons, deadly as said bow, and his many knives and blades. They could also be used to raise Girl. He raised her from the day she had been birthed, he pulled her from between her mother’s legs and cleaned her bloodied body, had fed her, clothed her, had taught her to speak and hunt and fight. He had taught her to survive and live with these scarred hands.

Girl laughed at his disgruntlement and flicked water at him. He flinched when it hit his bare skin but he smiled indulgently. He felt too exposed now, and every rocky outcropping could hold a hidden foe, every gentle lapping wave against the side of the canoe could mean movement of something lurking beneath them. That thought alone had him speed his rowing. He wasn’t aware of eyes on him till the next month. The sun was shrouded behind low lying clouds, and for the first time in days Cas could take a proper look around without squinting. First he saw movement, and then he heard the soft sound of pebbles skittering down the sides of the canyon into the water below, swallowing the rasp of bare feet and flesh against stone. He grasped Girl’s now sun-browned shoulder-she had freckles, like her father-and pulled her close. She had fallen silent shortly after Cas had, possibly sensing his unease.

Cas let the canoe drift, and he held Girl tight, remaining as still as possible. The people he saw on the cliffs were unlike any he had seen before. Their skins were dark from a lifetime in the sun, and they wore little more than limp cloths that covered their genitals, some of the women were even bare from the waist up. Their weapons were primitive in comparison with the Empire’s, but Cas was never one to judge. Their arms and legs were painted with greenish blue lines that differed with each person; it made them strange and alien to him. They seemed to gather en masse, more and more appeared the further they drifted, and Cas almost wanted to turn the canoe around and row back the way they came, but soon they were surrounded by other boats, and people standing in the water. They were all silent, and all were staring at them.

Girl whined and Cas squeezed her shoulder, silencing her. They needed to remain calm, the people might not even mean them harm, they could just be watching them because they were so different, as different as they were to him. He prayed it was not a fool’s hope. His wings fluttered and twitched behind him erratically, irritated, and he looked back to see women and children caressing his longer flight feathers in gentle awe. He hissed and bunched them up by his shoulders, crowding them into the canoe. After hours of drifting, Cas noticed they weren’t drifting at all, the people in the water were pushing their canoe, guiding it through the rock framed river, passing them gently from hand to hand. The going was slow, but they were in these people’s territory now, he couldn’t do anything hasty.

Before long, the people steered them through a thin crevasse in the rock face, leading them down a narrow passage. The light was dim down the way, and Cas looked up to see the rock eroded away in waving patterns, revealing sediment layers striped into the sides of the walls, like a glacier. The way grew brighter, and then they were deposited into a lake, revealing a veritable oasis. Everywhere they saw, people stopped to stare at them, ceasing their daily activities, some mid-motion. Cas wound his full arm around Girl’s thin shoulders, fighting the instinct to snarl under such scrutiny. Cas remembered one of the few times his father had sat him, Sam, and Dean down by the fire to tell them a story about the savage tribes in the west that feasted on human flesh and used the skulls of little boys for dinner bowls. Mary had knocked him upside the head for telling such tales, but the idea stuck in Cas’s head ever since. All stories start from somewhere, despite truthfulness.

Their canoe nudged the shore, and the people in the water that had guided them from the river emerged and stood on the bank, naked and dripping, staring, waiting. Cas growled low in his throat, a distressed sound more than any of aggression. Others came forward and took their things, taking care not to drag their packs in the water. Cas made an attempt to stop them, but couldn’t find the courage to do so. Soon enough, when all the people continued to do was stare at him, Cas jerkily lifted Girl into his arms and stepped out into the shallows. The water was warm against his feet, pleasant even, but he refused to let the small comfort make him complacent. Girl clung to him and whimpered against his throat; he could feel her shaking in fright. He took a hesitant step forward, and the people turned and walked ahead, some even returning to their earlier activities.

Small children ran up behind him, tracing his steps giggling, poking at his wings only if the bravest dared. No one led him, but Cas held the distinct notion that he was being guided by the calmness of the tanned and painted people; he was stared at if he walked out of place, till he noticed a pattern in the fern covered huts that seemed to reveal a main street of some sort, so he followed it. The huts cleared, leading to an eroding stone monolith, the shape of which Cas could not place, and another hut at the base, though this one was much larger than the others surrounding it. Perhaps this was where the chieftain resided, and perhaps this chieftain spoke the common tongue, or at least understood the crude dialect that Cas had developed for Girl and himself. A blonde man emerged from the hut, equally tanned as the rest of the people, yet did not possess similarly colored dark hair or eyes. His eyes were blue, like Cas’s.

“Welcome, stranger.” He greeted, holding his arms out wide in a gesture of greeting. He had strange scarification around his eyes and brows, and the near entirety of his forearms, thighs and calves were decorated with the same blue-green paintings as the other people from the water. His accent was strange, it didn’t sound anything like his or Dean’s, he sounded more like his father.

“We did not mean to intrude…” Cas replied slowly, so as not to stumble over his words and make a fool of himself. His only audience for years now had been Girl, and she was never one to correct his mistakes. The man quirked a brow but said nothing about his hesitant diction, and he strode forward, keeping a wary eye on Cas’s wings. He shifted them nervously, it had been so long he had nearly forgotten about their effect on strangers. Dean was no longer by his side to cover for him.

“It is no intrusion, unless you are from the Empire…?” The man asked, his tone darkening at the mere mention of it.

“We are not from that place.” Cas hissed, not missing how the man relaxed, albeit minutely.

“Which is why you are so far west.”

“Yes.”

“Huh,” The man nodded, extending a hand in front of Cas’s chest, “You may stay as long as you like, and you may call me Lucifer.”

Cas glanced down at the hand, remembering vaguely, once, when another man greeted John the same way. He took the offered hand, but knew not what to do with it.

“I am Cas, and this is my child, I call her Girl.”

The man laughed heartily and clasped his other hand against Cas’s.

“’Girl’? That’s quite a name for a child.”

“There was no other name for her…” Cas stated fondly, looking down at his mate’s daughter. If only she knew; she would not look up at him with such love and admiration in her eyes. She was Cas’s child, well and truly, but was still the fruit of another man’s loins.

“Well, you are quite welcome here, Cas.  Any enemy of the Empire is a friend of mine.”

Cas nodded his thanks and swept a wing around Girl’s shoulders. They had found a home, temporary as it may be, but still home. Lucifer glanced at Cas’s wings once again, with a curious expression.

“You know, I, too, had wings like yours. Fine things they were; bold, white as the middle land snow,” he paused and turned to the side, to show his bare back, “till I burned them off and sent myself into exile.”

Cas’s wings bristled and he shivered, looking at the still sickeningly black stumps where wings had indeed once sprouted.

“Why…why would you burn…?” Cas stammered, taking a cautious step back.

“Why do all men commit wrong and right in the same lifetime? So that he may repent, even when old gods turn from his face and he must embrace new fathers and mothers…”

“I…I do not understand you…”

“It is fine, cousin, you need not understand me now. But you will, in time.”

“What is this talk of gods? I believe in no gods, I would never understand you.”

“Then your journey will be far simpler than my own. You have nothing to forget, only something to run towards.”

“Why not fly?”

Lucifer smiled then, ill mood forgotten.

“Where you must go, you cannot fly. The water will weigh you down, your wings will become the weight of a thousand men, and they will drag you down with them. In time you will see.”

“And why do I have to go…?”

“The only reason why one such as you would flee this far west is because you are protecting someone.”

He turned and walked back to his hut, beckoning others to come forward to lead Cas and Girl to a hut close by. Cas watched him go, saw the black stubs again, and could not bear the thought of ripping his wings from his own back, cauterizing the wounds till all that remained were charred bones and numb cartilage. But he knew now of what Lucifer spoke of as he watched Girl run ahead with the other children, laughing and skittering about in the shallows. He would rip them away with his own hands if it meant saving his child…if it meant getting his mate back.

Michael tried to pay attention at the next ministers meeting-really, he did-but he was beginning to question his decision to have Dean stand servant during the duration of the conference. He had dressed him provocatively in a slip of midnight cloth that barely resembled the common slave’s smock. It hung loosely over one shoulder and tied doubly around his waist to prevent any untoward slips of flesh in the presence of the politicians. He was too busy focusing on the line of his slave’s throat as the man poured another more wine rather than listening to a minister to his left ramble about some sort of drought that had occurred in the southernmost tip of the Empire.

“Slave! More wine, and ah, more of those cherry tarts as well, there’s a good lad.” A portly minister to Michael’s left shouted out between discussions. Michael glowered at the fat man. It irked him to no end when others spoke to Dean as if he were slow, or did not understand the common tongue. He understood just fine, and he was hardly mentally challenged. But, nevertheless, his slave was a good slave. Dean would simply smile indulgently and fulfill their commands. He looked around and noticed he wasn’t the only one garnering pleasure from the view of Dean bending over the table in the back, retrieving the minister’s refreshments. When Dean walked over to the minister, the man took the plate with a small grin and beckoned him closer.

“Here, sweet thing, have one, they are quite delectable.”

Dean had the decency to blush as he looked to his master for approval. Michael waved his hand, allowing Dean to do as he pleased. The slave smiled at the minister again, but it was small, and restrained. He leaned over, for the man would not allow him to take the treat by hand, and opened his mouth obediently. The man chortled and smeared the red, gooey pastry over Dean’s lips, chin and nose before setting it in the man’s mouth. Dean’s blush deepened, mortified, and Michael could have been mistaken, but he swore he saw a flash of murderous hatred cross the man’s face before it was gone in an instant as he chewed slowly.

“Ah, would you look at that, the wolf has gone and made a mess of himself.”

The others laughed at the slave’s expense, but Michael did not join in their mirth. His pen snapped in his grip and his cheeks burned hot. No one spoke of Dean that way. Only Michael could. Dean’s eyebrows were furrowed in consternation, and he clearly struggled to keep his hands docilely clasped in front of him instead of wiping the mess away himself, which would surely earn him a swift reprimand, perhaps even punishment.

“Well come on then,” The minister goaded, slapping Dean’s bare thigh with a lewd smack, “clean yourself off, lick your lips, boy. Show us how wolves clean themselves.”

Dean’s eyes flew to meet Michael’s, and he licked his lips ever so slightly, though he was still blushed crimson in humiliation.

“Minister,” Michael started softly, startling the others into silence, “Keep your hands from what is mine, or I shall have your hands.”

The minister paled and immediately placed his hands in his lap, food and good humor forgotten. Michael jerked his head to the door, and his slave left with his head down, shoulders hunched and shaking. But Michael knew from experience his slave would not break from such treatment. The things Michael subjected him to in the bedroom were far worse than a little cherry jelly on his face, but he knew the fact that it was so very public humiliated his slave. What Michael did to him in private hardly fazed him, but this was open mockery. Dean had been kept separate from other highborn men so he wouldn’t know how others treat their slaves. Dean was special, he should know very well by now.

Dean fought back sobs as Michael choked him while fucking him, again. When he had returned from the conference to find Dean cleansing his face in the slave baths, he had taken him by his arm, led and locked him into his chambers, and hadn’t spoken a word since. Dean forced choked out moans and gasped for air when he could, trying to make it convincing this time so Michael wouldn’t send him from the room. He thought of Cas…how if Cas were taking him like this Dean would be horribly aroused. He would be writhing for it, like a bitch in heat. He let Cas’s scent flow into his mind, the remembered weight of his body, how his cock felt inside of him. Not brutal, but still just as claiming. He felt himself steadily growing hard, and he nearly wept in relief when Michael saw, wide eyed, and removed his hand from his neck. Michael leaned over Dean, crushing him into the bed linens and cushions as he licked at his chest and nipples, suckling them and then trailing up his neck, to his still sweet tasting face.

“No one can touch you like that, sweet thing…No one but me…” Michael sobbed into his sticky flesh, licking at it and taking his lips in bruising dominant kisses that were more teeth and tongue than tender. Dean dared to raise his hands and embrace Michael as he rocked into him, rubbing along Michael’s spine, feeling his muscles bunch and relax as he fucked his slave.

“Yes, your grace…” Dean replied breathily when he heard Michael grunt, and felt the telltale spread Michael’s release. Michael slumped against him, limp, and Dean was grateful that they were almost the same in size, though Dean held more muscle in his frame.

“I want to keep you in my chambers. No one else can see you or touch you.”

“Yes, your grace.” Dean fought to keep relief from coloring his words.

“Come morning we will wash ourselves, you will dry me, dress me, and then I will be off to business. You will stay here with the door locked, clean up around the room, air the linens, and place orders for whatever food you desire. But you will not leave these chambers, is that understood?”

“Yes, your grace.” Dean replied easily; after all, this was what he had been praying for since he had been taken as Michael’s slave. Michael placed one more kiss against his slave’s neck, then after a few short minutes Dean could hear the man’s soft snores. Dean wriggled uncomfortably, trying to settle down further into the rich mattress, but he had grown sick of such luxury long ago. He wanted his bedroll back, he wanted the hard forest floor, he wanted Cas at his back and not this disgusting pig of a man who dared call himself Dean’s master.