fic: To Change This Lonely Life, 3/4 [NC-17] Dean/Castiel, Sam/Dean, Sam/Castiel, Sam/Dean/Castiel
To Change This Lonely Life, 3/4 [NC-17] Dean/Castiel, Sam/Dean, Sam/Castiel, Sam/Dean/Castiel
(see part 1 for disclaimer)
*
*
Castiel fell in love early on in Paradise and became afraid. He’d thought he could only love his Father, but he’d been wrong, for love seemed to be everywhere he looked, and like a greedy child, he wanted everything he could see.
Most of all, Castiel loved his brothers, with their rainbow prism light and musical vibrations and towering height, far into Heaven. In all of the eons since he’d forgotten, he’d only remembered because one day, in the human calendar year 1996, Sammy Winchester had been afraid his big brother was going to die, was going to leave with their father and never come back, so he pressed his lips to his brother’s in a protection spell, the kind that were blessed with their own honesty, the way Castiel wished he could be.
But the angels weren’t blessed in that way, and Castiel found that kisses could haunt him just like ghosts haunted certain families, certain places.
Dean fell in love the night when his mother died, alone with the angel in his white room. He felt the angel was his brother, whom he loved and adored. The angel mimicked the way his mother held Sammy, its myriad wings forming a cradle arching beneath his heart, gently rocking in the light.
But that wasn’t right, and Dean found his soul torn between two ends of blissful peace and desolate loneliness. Blinding light and bleakest darkness. Almost twenty-six years later, he still had no answer for either.
*
Castiel was quickly losing faith in his brothers.
They seemed so ugly to him now, so half-formed and ill mannered and cruel. No wonder Dean hated them. No wonder he hated himself.
He saw Alice and Daniel sometimes, preparing the nursery to be a sickly shade of yellow. He thought the eyelet curtains were a little too stuffy, the clown theme a little too generic, and let his bitterness remove Daniel from his life bite by bite.
In its place was a freeing kind of weakness, like he was a vessel inside of his own vessel. He still wanted everything he could see, but now he remembered what to do, even if he didn’t always want to feel it. He remembered saliva on the tongue, and muscle spasms, and breathing.
He began to seek out his brothers, hidden among the suburban ranch-style houses, the places with fences and porches and theme mailboxes. Where he found piles of ash, he tried to set things right, to give the victims a choice, like he had given to Alice, which she had refused. He could turn back time with the flap of his wings, but he would often return to the same place, in a lemon-fresh kitchen with a stupid-faced angel in a suit and tie and a new office job, and a wife who was tired of choosing a status.
Castiel found them sadly boring. He’d waited an entire eternity to choose his status. And maybe he’d never meant to be the angel’s slut in flesh, the ignored savior, but that’s what he was. He’d had enough bad conversations with Dean about destiny to know the irony of his own.
He still saw Dean sometimes, watching from the shadows as he moved on the bed with his brother. Just when he thought he couldn’t sink any lower, he always surprised himself. For as long as he could remember, Castiel had been surprising himself. His seemingly infinite capacity for self-abuse, for instance. Even in the face of the best intentions.
He felt too ashamed to kiss Dean by now, but oh he still wanted to.
They had been a distraction, his newfound, ancient feelings. It had allowed for Sam to blind him and trap him where he stood, finishing himself off behind a tree.
Sam was wearing only his jeans, his hair still wild from the bed. He was all taut muscle from his gut to his fingertips. Intimidating, from his black eyes to his spread hand. Dean’s Sammy. “Stop, Castiel.”
He held up his hand and it worked. Castiel couldn’t move. “You’ve become strong again, Sam.” But he knew why.
“Tell me what you’re doing and I’ll let you go.”
But the words were being pulled from him. The pain was intense. Like the flames of Hell itself. “I’m watching over Dean, just like always.” He was, wasn’t he?
“And?” Sam twisted his hand, angry. “Why are you watching us?”
No. Not this way. “Because I love Dean. And I want him. Because I want you. Because I want the angels to lay with me, so they won’t be judged. So I can be judged. So I can remake Paradise. So my brothers will love me again. So I’m not so alone.”
Sam dropped his hand and Castiel felt his feet fall away beneath him.
He sat for a long time, pondering the truth of what he’d said, and decided it was just. Only… “Never do that to me again, Sam.”
“Castiel, whatever the angels are doing… Why haven’t you shown us the bodies? The locations?”
Cas held up his hand. “Leave it. There are no bodies; these women are still alive. For some of them, it will happen all over again, and for others it won’t. The angels don’t have as much control as they once did.” He rubbed his throat. “Obviously.”
Sam started shaking. “I keep doing these horrible things, Castiel. It’s like I can’t stop.” When he grabbed his arms, Castiel turned to face him. His eyes were dark, but human. Sadly human. “If you know something about me, if you know I must be stopped, you have to tell me.”
Castiel felt his weariness was never going to go away. “I do know about you, Sam. But if you’re going to go on this path, you have to do it with open eyes. With the knowledge of what you are. Has it occurred to you that it’s not something evil? You destroyed the chief executioner in Hell. That was righteous. That changed things down below. I was never told to believe in you, or even to let you live. But I do believe in you, Sam. And not just because Dean does, though he matters. I saw you kill Alastair. You saved your brother’s life.”
Sam finally released him. “And I kept you from being sent back home.”
“Yes. So I set you free from your dungeon, underneath your friend Bobby’s house. Free to go to the convent. When I sent Dean to try to stop you, I believe the angels interfered. I didn’t want to believe they would go that far, but now, I think they’re capable of anything.”
“What’s going on, Castiel?”
Castiel smiled a weak little smile. “I believe it’s not something righteous.”
Sam turned white. “Why did you set me free, Cas? I did it. I killed Lilith.”
“Yes. You killed Lilith, and Alastair. You’ve killed many major demons over the years, Sam. The Seven Sins. Azazel’s family. And Dean killed the demon himself. You’ve lost all of your friends, your parents were sacrificed, your dreams for your life. But you are Hell’s savior. There is no Lucifer in Hell, no Lilith, no Alastair. There is no leader, because of you.”
“What’s going on down there?”
He shrugged. “Confusion. The demons are struggling for power; the souls have been left alone. Much like the angels, they are picking sides.”
Sam’s jaw was set. “And whomever wins will just start this all over again?”
“That depends on who wins. There will always be a Hell, Sam, and you can’t change that. But your brother might never have to go back to that Hell. You could choose a Hell of your own making. You’re a visionary, no matter what else you may be.”
He crept up closer to Sam. Dean was right when he’d said that Ruby knew his kink. Everyone knew Sam’s kink. Fortunately for all of them, Sam really was a savior. “What does your Hell look like, Sam? I believe that will be our new Hell.”
Sam shut his eyes. “I don’t want Hell, or death, or pain. I don’t want any of it. Just an end to it.”
“That’s not possible, Sam. There are absolutes, though not as the Archangels think of it. This is a revolution, but not a complete one. There will still be separate worlds. There will be angels, demons, humans, too, if we’re lucky.”
Sam looked at him with a kind of hope in his eyes. “Why are the demons coming to me?”
“Those demons are offering themselves to you in a way you’ll understand, in a way they understand, just like the demon you called Ruby did. They want you to take their blood, in the hopes that you’ll help them. They want you to use your powers, to go into Hell, and create order out of chaos. The less chaos there is in Hell, the less chance we have of new demons being created, the less chance we have of more demons crossing over to earth. You can offer them an incentive.”
“A reward? They’re monsters.”
Castiel had to look down at that. Dean had thoroughly invaded his soul. “Do you really believe in monsters, Sam? Sometimes I think all of us are monsters, even me. Even Dean has been a monster. He has also always been Dean. I think you will always be Sam. But even Dean doesn’t hold the only vision of you.”
“I don’t want him to lose me, Cas.”
It was kind of cute when he used the nickname. “I don’t want to either. I don’t think I’ll exist without him. I’m not sure if I’m right, and I’m not sure what this will mean. I’m still making it up as I go. But I know you exist without him, Sam, because you’re human.”
“He’s better off without me.”
“You might want that to be true, but it’s not. What is real will still be here, with him. Whatever happens to us.”
*
If Sam found her, he would go with her.
That wasn’t the end of it. They still came to Sam - in lines - when he was alone.
At the library doing research, while taking a break, women came to him and he couldn’t stop them, feverish and weak.
Long-haired freckled girls, girls in pink dresses, three girls at once crawling over him, pinning him to the bathroom stall. At the dive bar hustling pool, trapped by a line of women going out the door, fighting to get back to his brother and fighting the fever and doing nothing but taking them, one after the other.
They wanted him to lead. They wanted him to show them love.
It happened over and over again, in different places. It happened until the fever built, and built, and built, until his body was on fire with it. Until he was sitting on a closed plastic toilet seat at the back of a sticky dive bar (the kind where you might lose a shoe if you don’t hang on tight enough) and letting the dark-eyed demon women ride him, one by one, pressing his arms back against the wall, making him arch up into them, his seed deep in their bodies, their blood in his veins. Sam calling out for help only when he came, helplessly.
Until Castiel came with cold kisses, washing away his fever, soothing his brow with touches of his fingers. He just walked in, and the room cleared as if repelled by him, a preacher in a whorehouse. He could have been in a church, he looked so calm, but there was a deep sea roiling in his eyes, the same sense of danger he felt from the women, but… Castiel was an angel. Angels made him angry like an itching under his skin, their smug faces, judging and cryptic.
When Sam saw him, he’d wanted to crawl up and into the wall like a spider. “What the hell!” Castiel was Dean’s angel. Dean’s. Not his. “Were you following me?”
He pressed his hand to Sam’s face, as if checking for temperature. “I don’t have to follow you - I can feel you, as they can,” and he tipped his head towards the doorway. “It’s your fever. It’s there for a reason, and I think you should listen to it.” He tilted his head. “What is it telling you to do right now, Sam?”
Sam breathed for a moment, wondering why he ever trusted the angel, or any angel. But the answer was going to be what it always was. Always. Castiel wanted Dean. He would settle for helping something Dean loved, and never stop waiting for him. This was Castiel again, alien in these places, looking at him with eyes that couldn’t possibly be that innocent, telling him again: “Sam, you must decide what you really want. It is paramount.”
Sam had wanted Dean, since the oldest memory he could recall. He would settle for something Dean loved, something Dean would let him need.
Sam looked around at the bathroom stall. He couldn’t cover up his sprawled body, dirtied and used, his shirt torn and his hair dampened to his forehead. “I do know. I know what you want too.”
He lowered his body closer to Castiel’s, breathed and reached out, until he was seeking the warm opening of his body, like every sense was tuned to it. Like Castiel’s clothes, his vessel, was nothing.
Sam leaned against the dividing wall and pulled and pressed Castiel to his lap, smeared his sex all over the front of the rumpled suit. “This what you want, angel?” and Castiel closed his eyes and nodded, looked at Sam then, heavy-lidded and pupils-blown. Sam turned him around, pushed his leg over the toilet seat, bent Castiel over, and tore his pants open at the seam. “Come on, come on,” and he teased and pushed his cock deep inside. “Dirty, dirty angel,” he moaned out as Castiel clenched his slick used hole around him.
Sam found nothing but calm inside of the angel, and he dove into it over and over, shaking the walls and almost bucking him off. Castiel was another body to calm the fever, but with every thrust he felt his fever break, his body relax into the fuck, until the pleasure became like constant tiny waves, pleasure silent but so so deep.
Afterwards, Castiel gathered up his coat and left without a word. Sam followed him, but he was gone.
Sam went back home and lost himself inside Dean, anything for Dean, to memories of blood and of demons bending to his will, wanting to be ruled by him, in places where flesh was everything and flesh was nothing. He hoped they were watching him too. He hoped they were…
“What’s gotten into you, Sammy?” Dean asked it the only time he ever would, all panting and sore in the dark.
Sam didn’t know how to answer. He knew Dean pretended self-assurance in this new hazy world of theirs, but he was the only one who still did. Sam didn’t know what evil was anymore, or right and wrong. Because all of this, how ever wrong it had to be, felt right.
Maybe he was evil. Maybe they all were.
*
Castiel had usually been with the angels when he’d had his visions of Sam. He couldn’t have missed him, shining like a beacon to anything not of this particular world.
Castiel had taken on his brothers, one by one, and had seen Sam move from bar to bar, meeting women, the same kinds of women, with dark hair, playful attitudes, willing bodies. He’d been feeling Sam, as he’d watched him at night. His fever had been like a constant pulse, under nothing like control. He had known Sam would go with her, if he found her. And she would have the black eyes of a demon, as always. And she would offer him her blood, which Sam would take. And Sam would stop sending her back to Hell, after the sixth time.
Castiel was covering himself in the sweat of other angel-possessed bodies, still not stopping, the time when Sam finally stopped killing them, the seventh time, when he’d had enough.
Sam had rocked into her body slowly, the ankles of her long legs perched above his round ass, her blonde hair fanned across the flat motel pillows. His mouth had clasped and sucked at the cuts on her arms, clasped above her. He had accidentally called her Jess. And he had let her go.
After that, there were many more. He doubted Sam was keeping count either. He figured somewhere along the way, Dean found out and willingly closed his mind to it. He decided Dean had a right to do that, and probably always would.
Just as he couldn’t seem to say no to his brothers as easily as he’d liked. Just as they seemed to think that they weren’t doing anything against Zachariah’s orders to procreate if they weren’t doing anything against Zachariah’s orders with Castiel. And only with Castiel.
He hadn’t figured on his brothers’ complete lack of imagination. He thought two of them might fall in love, or at least one other angel would see things his way and stand with him. Maybe they’d try to bring what they’d learned to Paradise. Maybe they’d try to bring what they knew of Paradise to earth. His lonely dream was dying a slow death.
Zathiel found him anyway, lurking in the Impala outside of Sam’s hourly-rate hotel room at midnight. He appeared next to him in the front seat in his nurse’s scrubs, didn’t say a word, and kissed him, in slow French kisses like he’d probably seen in the movies.
“I’ve missed you, Castiel,” he finally said, eyes shining like something Castiel remembered once.
“You haven’t really shown it.”
Zathiel smiled. “You been busy spreading your gospel.”
“Since when was spreading my legs considered spreading the gospel?”
The angel rubbed his thumbs against Castiel’s cheeks. “Since you decided to single-handedly give us back what we had forgotten.”
Castiel stared at him and only raised his eyebrows.
“I know. You are right, this is lonely,” Zathiel leaned in for another kiss. “Even if it is what our Father wants us to be.” He smiled. “Have hope, brother. I know you’ve had little luck with our brothers, but I hear good things from our sisters. You should visit up there. It is much easier to travel these days.”
Castiel grabbed him for a kiss, afraid he would disappear. “Don’t go.”
Zathiel squinted at him, mirth in his eyes. Yes, he remembered that once. “Is this the angel, Castiel, afraid to be lonely? Is this the angel, Castiel, without faith? No, there is no such thing. Your brothers will always find you, for better or worse. Your reputation is growing, brother - the willing lover of the humans, the angel who wished for less.”
Castiel let himself be pulled in for another kiss just as he felt Sam’s fever rise under a wave of need and blood. He needed to go to him. No, everything he did here was important. “I’m not wishing for less. Why can’t you see that?”
“What’s going on?”
And that, was Dean. Dean who had gone out looking for Sam, or his baby, and since his baby needed to be double-parked, he’d found his baby first.
Cas heard wings flap and he knew Zathiel was gone. No, had run away. Of course. “Dean, I…” Then he stopped. He sniffled.
“Aw, jeez, Cas. Are you crying?” Dean got in the passenger seat and leaned back to face him. “Cas, stop. My heart is already doing this double-dribble thing in my chest. It’s annoying. So cut it out.”
“I’m not crying.” He had some dignity.
“Sam said you were watching us. And here you said you wouldn’t perch on my shoulder.”
“I’m not. I’ve spent a very long time in your presence. But can you leave this place right now, Dean, if I asked you to?” He felt Sam’s fever rise. He needed to go to him.
“I don’t think so, Cas. Sam is here.”
“I know. Will you let me take care of him this time?”
Dean looked at him with green eyes flinty with worry.
“I didn’t think so. You won’t like what you see, Dean. It might not go away. Let me explain everything to you, afterwards.”
“Huh. My dad used to say something to me, back when I was young and used to get mad about, well, everything. I didn’t try to show it much, but I used to wonder what it would be like, you know? To have a mother, to not have to take care of Sammy all the time, to have a dad who could stick around and act normal. To have dinner every night and a room of my own and my own place. He said you don’t envy what you know. And I hated it, every time he said it. It was a shitty thing to say to a kid. But, it was true. I don’t envy you, Cas. I think you’re right - I do know you.”
“Thank you. I have to go to your brother. Go back and wait for him. Please, Dean. I have a plan, and I will bring him back to you.”
He got out of the car and watched Dean drive away.
*
Castiel sat next to a tray of eggrolls three hours old and watched them argue.
Dean was taking it well. “What’s been up with you, Sam? The bad dreams, the nights you disappear, I don’t know - it seems a little familiar.”
Sam’s head seemed perpetually in his hands. Castiel could feel the tension and heat in him that seemed to rise and fall with the whims of his brother. “They won’t leave me alone. Whether I’m asleep or awake, outside or alone - the demons are never going to stop coming after me.”
So Dean threw his up. “You did what they wanted you to do. What else do they want?”
“It’s not over, they want… I think they want me to be on their side. Like Ruby.” Sam shrugged. “They want me to believe in their cause. Like, maybe they’re worth saving.”
“As opposed to killing them all? We don’t have a lot of options, Sam, and saving them isn’t one of them.”
“Why not? What if we could save them? Not just kill them.”
“Don’t start that shit again, man. That’s…”
“It’s the truth, Dean. You think we can kill every demon? All of them? And Lucifer? Then what, go after the angels, but only the bad ones? Who does that leave us? Cas? There’s gonna be something else.”
“Everything else is a trick, Sam.” Dean closed his eyes on a shrug. “Always has been.”
“But it’s the truth, Dean. It’s all we’ve got on our side, because the odds don’t look good.”
“So what are you saying? You want to go and try to save all the demons? Turn them into nice and friendly neighbors?”
Sam spoke softly. “Maybe I’m the only one that can.”
“What the fuck…”
“I understand them. Just a little, but I do. You do too, Dean. You had to have wanted Castiel to save you from Hell, at least a little bit, in order to go with him.”
Dean sunk down on the bed. “Is this how it’s gonna be? A human hearts and minds campaign? Maybe you’re lucky there are no really good demons around. You can always settle for really bad people.”
Sam smirked, but it never reached his eyes. “Like you?”
“Yeah, like me.”
“So then. I can go.”
“It’s not up to me. I’m not going to stop you anymore, Sam. You can make your choice. The demons know you. It’s in your blood. Your whole life has been leading up to this. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s worth a shot.”
Eventually, Dean went out for more beer, exhausted.
Castiel stayed and pondered the table. “I’m considering eating one of these eggrolls.”
Sam looked up from the other end of the bed. “Don’t. Really.”
“I know. I’m not even hungry. That’s strange.”
Sam scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know, do you think I’m crazy? Why would I think that Ruby was honest in the end? It doesn’t make sense. And what if her plan, was this plan? Our plan?”
“Does that bother you? You and I have different plans, different paths, but we both love your brother.” Castiel kissed Sam first. He felt his soft pink lips cool underneath his, thirsty and raw. “Are you surprised that I can do that for you, even though I love Dean? Does my love for him keep me away from you? Is it wrong if it doesn’t? It doesn’t work like that, Sam.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Destiny,” Castiel whispered against his cheek.
Sam pushed him back. “Wait. She still lied to me. Tell me I’m not making this up. Tell me I have to do this.”
“I think the rewards are worth more than the risk.” Castiel didn’t let Sam stop him that time. He pressed his body over Sam’s until he found a different kind of hardness, through all of Sam’s endless hardness.
Sam squeezed Castiel’s thighs enough to make an imprint on his slacks. “Didn’t you get enough last night? I haven’t even slept.”
“I don’t know enough. My kind are bad with boundaries.” Castiel writhed, his clothes slipping on Sam’s cotton and flannel. “Why? Do you think that you can stop?”
“No,” Sam moaned. “My kind kinda are too. You?”
“No. That’s why Dean is the one who will stop it. He always has been.”
Sam lifted his head and squinted at him. “You love him. Don’t you?”
“He’s Dean,” was all Cas said. He put the back of his hand to Sam’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty shitty, actually.”
Cas nodded. “You’ve felt this fever before.”
Sam felt his mouth go dry, his sore cock jump in his jeans.
“I can feel it from far away. Most of us can.”
“Is it evil?” Sam almost breathed the question.
Castiel pursed his lips together. Paused for a moment. “I’m not sure I understand good and evil like I once did. The angels seem to have a will of their own, and the demons too. The world is changing, Sam.”
“Yeah,” Sam swallowed. “I feel that too.”
“I can cure your fever, for a little while at least. Does Dean have the same effect on you as I do?”
Sam didn’t look at Castiel as he thought about it, remembering a lifetime with Dean, how he needed Dean like breathing. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess he does.”
“While Ruby and the demons, they make it worse? We need to test this theory again.” Castiel threw his body back against the couch.
“Wait a sec…”
Castiel removed his mouth from where it’d been sucking at his neck. “Dean can watch.”
“You’re serious?”
“Unless you’d prefer another angel.”
*
When Dean returned and walked in the door, the beer he’d been holding dropped to the floor with a hollow pop and a hissing sound.
Sam spoke from the bed, measuring his words. “Dean, I’m going to fuck Castiel now. You” - Castiel was biting down hard on the cords of his neck - “might want to leave.”
“What the hell?” Dean moved against the door, his hand on the knob, but he didn’t break his gaze, or ever turn his wrist, or do anything but slowly slump to the floor, his hand pressing down on his sex as if to shield it from view. Staying or going wasn’t an option. He just sat. And watched his brother.
Castiel pushed him hard, rode him hard like he’d forgotten softness, trapping Sam with his gaze and his mouth and his hunger.
Sam was like someone he’d never seen before, another hidden version of his Sam, never really his Sam at all.
Dean could see a lifetime with Sam, an eternity, and never figure him out beneath his eyes so soft you’d think they’d never known a lie.
And yet, how good he was at lying. How skilled he was at taking from Castiel, at keeping his own remarkable self-possession intact, drawing on his reserves, some other hidden self Dean had never seen, some dark hunter, getting off on making an angel shake and cry tears for him, tasting them and smiling, saying words Sammy would say in the dark, innocent words.
Dean would never call humans graceful, but his brother was. He could never throw that away. Never ever. Never ever. It felt like a curse in a lifetime of being cursed. It felt like his heart turning inside out, doing whatever it takes to keep Sammy, to just keep Sammy.
“Dean.” Castiel moaned his name, started chanting it under his breath each time Sam took him hard, and maybe he’d always wanted to see him like that, since the first time he stabbed him in the heart, pinned down, without shame, without grace.
They were teaching him a lesson, his demon brother, his angel. His heart was reforming in his chest, tears falling down his cheeks from sheer overload. “Cas.” He sobbed his name, connected by the same realization, the same cock, the same grace.
Sammy, every Sammy, had gotten him to Hell and through it. Castiel had brought him back and through it. And god, he was so hard and so close, he gripped the knob hard and twisted it, going nowhere, and let his head fall back hard against the door.
Sam started kissing Castiel then, loud enough he could hear it, wet and messy like a fight. He had to feel it, take his cock in his hand and breathe into his shoulder, like the question of how to deal with it wasn’t all on him, like he wasn’t meant to be the one to stop what he couldn’t.
Sam covered Castiel and half the bed. The angel’s legs looked like bent wings sticking out from under his brother. His hands fumbled all over the place, trying to touch himself, to match Sam’s rhythm, but Dean knew how hard that was, how Sam only let him have his way in the end because Dean threatened to punch him if he didn’t and because Dean was the oldest. Cas needed him. Dean smiled at that, just a bit.
“Let him go, Sam.”
“No. Wanna get him off. Just like this.” Sam was stubborn, and relentless he was almost cruel. Cas needed that too.
“Can you do that, Cas? You let other people do you like that?”
Cas barely got it out so Dean could hear it. “Not like Sam.”
“Need this, Dean. Trust me.” Sam’s eyes, golden-green. “We all need this.”
Dean turned to the wall, his back against the side of the desk, his hand still on the doorknob, and worked his hand on his cock roughly, the smell of his precome mixing with the new smell of Castiel, human warm and sweet.
“God, can smell you.” Sam groaned, his whole body stopping at Castiel, but his head turned toward Dean, seeking him.
He wanted Sam to open his eyes, to see the expression on his face, whatever it was, and he stared at Sam until he did. And he spread out his legs and turned to his brother, his cock in his hand, and he knew whatever he was gonna see, he was gonna see him, wanting him and brave for him and unafraid.
Sam looked at him with golden-green eyes, searching his entire body for what he knew. Dean saw it when he found it, the look in his eyes when he bowed his head against Castiel’s chest, thrust once more with a moan and came inside of him.
Dean had to thrust into his fist the whole way through it, riding the seat of his jeans and banging his elbow against the door, like fucking the whole image before him, letting it undo him. Castiel was still moving under his brother in time with Dean’s breathing, like he could feel him.
“You gonna come with me, Cas?” Then a chorus of yes but it wasn’t time yet, was still too much, and he had to start again. Took his hand off the doorknob and squeezed his cock and smoothed around his precome and looked at Cas and started again.
“Do you want me to fuck you too, Cas? Do you need it?”
And god, he wished his voice didn’t sound like that, and god, he wished it even mattered what Cas said.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” was all Cas said. But it was everything.
“For so long.” Cas moaned that last, and Dean felt that moment where his body took over because his mind was just… too… much… Cas called his name to the exact time of wads of his come hitting the wall, the sound of his heart, and Dean knew the angel was coming too, riding the spent cock of his brother for all he could get of Dean.
Sam finally let him go and sprawled on the other bed, his jeans pulled up halfway over his ass and looking like an oversexed little boy in bare feet.
Dean watched his brother sleep. He looked like a little boy. His little brother, breathing hard and out cold like he was running through a dream.
Dean cleaned off the wall with his discarded t-shirt and crawled next to Castiel’s bed, straightening his clothes, then resisting the urge to press himself up next to him and muss them all up again. So Dean just leaned over and breathed against his temple and watched him come awake to meet him.
*
Alice dragged her suitcase to her car, threw it in the trunk, and drove across the street. Her life had really become extremely clichéd, she had to admit. Minus the whole angel part. Daniel might be content with his television and his hurt pride and leave her alone. It wasn’t so much sad as disappointing. It’s just that she had wanted it to be so much more.
Christy had invited her on a road trip, females only, “Virginia Woolf style” she had said. Somewhere along the way, it had become more than just a road trip. She felt as if the world was suddenly giving her things she actually wanted - a completely new perspective, a life she could have control over, a child in a place with no fears. The flatlands of Texas stretched out to the horizon, then turned into desert with deceptive colors, purples and greens and pinks. The air was a suffocating heat, seeping into her and the desert all at once. It was like a dream. All of this was. And nothing seemed coincidental, not even her mistakes.
When she asked Christy if she was an angel too, somewhere outside of El Paso, with its refineries glowing like torches after an apocalypse, she found that she didn’t have to ask. She already knew.
“You were a test,” Christy said, with her face like it was in dreams. “Every human being is going to be a test, just like always, only with… more options besides two, besides the light and the dark.”
Alice looked down, leaned back against the old Corvette, and felt her disappointment start to creep back in. She’d done all the wrong things; made all the same stupid choices. This was not gonna be the life she could have. “So the angels lost this round, huh?”
“No, not at all.” Christy took her face in her hands. “I have you. Only the wrong angels lost.”
When she kissed her, Alice felt her breath like the desert heat against her face, the flood between her legs enough to soak her jeans through, and the lights blinking above to the beat of her heart.
The line between Heaven and earth was very thin indeed.
*
Castiel stood in the open doorway, a sheet around his waist like he’d seen Sam do so many times. “It’s raining again.”
Dean walked over to the cheap wooden desk and straddled a corner, swinging his feet and just missing Castiel. He offered him a cigarette. “Sam was right. You’ve been watching us. What’s going on?”
Castiel watched Dean’s shining, searching eyes. “I love watching you, you know. Maybe too much.”
“Maybe. Maybe I need to know you’re there more often.”
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
“Yes. What’s going to happen to Sam?”
“I don’t know. We’re the wild cards here, because we don’t fit into any one faction. Sam is the closest thing the demons have to a leader, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be more moderate than Lucifer. I’m not sure what I am anymore, but I’d still like to think I’m on the same side as my brothers and sisters, if they’d only remember. If they let me show them a better way, with you.”
“Then what am I?”
“You’re the savior of all of us. I don’t envy you the job. I’m trying to hold the world in order. The angels are afraid to fall, to really fall, into what humanity has to offer. They still think they can hold onto Heaven and control this world too. But they don’t understand it. My brothers come to me, but they’re afraid to feel me. The demons go to your brother, and they want his humanity very very badly. They worship him, and how he does not fall. But they will not know how to stop when the time comes. Sam could still be lost.”
“No. No, Cas. Whatever they want him to do, he’s not doing it.”
“I am afraid the angels will exert their will. Many of us have lost our mercy. Many of the demons have a sense of hope. Nothing is certain. We may need your brother to do what he can.”
“Because he started this.”
Cas nodded. “The angels can’t see the end of the war, but I know that your brother must remain free to work his own will to counteract the angels, just as you must be the one to finish it.”
“Stop saying that, Cas.”
“I still have faith in you, Dean.”
*
Castiel often ventured in circles around the world when he was done seeing Dean, the energy shooting off of him in stars. Especially since Jimmy had given up on him, and given himself over to his fate as a comet’s tail, never to be heard from again.
It was sad the way the world worked, but that was part of free will too. Choosing your station in life, as Zachariah would say, not really knowing what he meant when he said it.
Still, Castiel felt sorry for Daniel since Alice left. He watched him sit on the couch and play video games. He liked to check his heavenly Blackberry for updates from the Host, even if they were unimportant memos. Most of their memos were unimportant. Zachariah just liked to play games with electronic toys and play heavenly CEO, head of the dicks. Whole worlds crept beneath his notice.
“I expected different from you, Castiel,” Daniel accused, his hands full of groceries he would probably never think to taste. “I thought you would want the best thing for your own kind. Instead of trash.”
“I want the best of all kinds, brother. For all of us. And I will get my wish.” Castiel turned to go, asking himself if he would ever return, but he knew that he would. He always returned to watch; he knew how pleased Daniel’s wife was with her decision, and couldn’t resist to rub it in. “Say hello to Alice for me.”
Daniel paused and tightened his hand on a box of Fruit Loops. “Why did you let us go, Castiel? If you’re so sure the flood is coming, why aren’t you killing us all, like you killed Uriel?”
It wasn’t in his best interest to correct him. He didn’t owe Daniel as much as he’d thought. “It’s not that kind of a flood. And I’m not your enemy.”
“Then what do you know that I don’t? What could you possibly know about the mud monkeys that we don’t already know?” He threw the WonderBread into the oversized breadbox.
Castiel felt the certainty of his words. “I know their bodies. I know what it means to be generous. I have yet to find the limits.”
He shook his head. “But their bodies are so limited, Castiel. It’s like playing with an animal.”
“No, it’s not. Not at all. I’m sorry, Daniel, but I don’t have the patience to teach you, and I don’t think you deserve to know.”
*
Part 4
(see part 1 for disclaimer)
*
*
Castiel fell in love early on in Paradise and became afraid. He’d thought he could only love his Father, but he’d been wrong, for love seemed to be everywhere he looked, and like a greedy child, he wanted everything he could see.
Most of all, Castiel loved his brothers, with their rainbow prism light and musical vibrations and towering height, far into Heaven. In all of the eons since he’d forgotten, he’d only remembered because one day, in the human calendar year 1996, Sammy Winchester had been afraid his big brother was going to die, was going to leave with their father and never come back, so he pressed his lips to his brother’s in a protection spell, the kind that were blessed with their own honesty, the way Castiel wished he could be.
But the angels weren’t blessed in that way, and Castiel found that kisses could haunt him just like ghosts haunted certain families, certain places.
Dean fell in love the night when his mother died, alone with the angel in his white room. He felt the angel was his brother, whom he loved and adored. The angel mimicked the way his mother held Sammy, its myriad wings forming a cradle arching beneath his heart, gently rocking in the light.
But that wasn’t right, and Dean found his soul torn between two ends of blissful peace and desolate loneliness. Blinding light and bleakest darkness. Almost twenty-six years later, he still had no answer for either.
*
Castiel was quickly losing faith in his brothers.
They seemed so ugly to him now, so half-formed and ill mannered and cruel. No wonder Dean hated them. No wonder he hated himself.
He saw Alice and Daniel sometimes, preparing the nursery to be a sickly shade of yellow. He thought the eyelet curtains were a little too stuffy, the clown theme a little too generic, and let his bitterness remove Daniel from his life bite by bite.
In its place was a freeing kind of weakness, like he was a vessel inside of his own vessel. He still wanted everything he could see, but now he remembered what to do, even if he didn’t always want to feel it. He remembered saliva on the tongue, and muscle spasms, and breathing.
He began to seek out his brothers, hidden among the suburban ranch-style houses, the places with fences and porches and theme mailboxes. Where he found piles of ash, he tried to set things right, to give the victims a choice, like he had given to Alice, which she had refused. He could turn back time with the flap of his wings, but he would often return to the same place, in a lemon-fresh kitchen with a stupid-faced angel in a suit and tie and a new office job, and a wife who was tired of choosing a status.
Castiel found them sadly boring. He’d waited an entire eternity to choose his status. And maybe he’d never meant to be the angel’s slut in flesh, the ignored savior, but that’s what he was. He’d had enough bad conversations with Dean about destiny to know the irony of his own.
He still saw Dean sometimes, watching from the shadows as he moved on the bed with his brother. Just when he thought he couldn’t sink any lower, he always surprised himself. For as long as he could remember, Castiel had been surprising himself. His seemingly infinite capacity for self-abuse, for instance. Even in the face of the best intentions.
He felt too ashamed to kiss Dean by now, but oh he still wanted to.
They had been a distraction, his newfound, ancient feelings. It had allowed for Sam to blind him and trap him where he stood, finishing himself off behind a tree.
Sam was wearing only his jeans, his hair still wild from the bed. He was all taut muscle from his gut to his fingertips. Intimidating, from his black eyes to his spread hand. Dean’s Sammy. “Stop, Castiel.”
He held up his hand and it worked. Castiel couldn’t move. “You’ve become strong again, Sam.” But he knew why.
“Tell me what you’re doing and I’ll let you go.”
But the words were being pulled from him. The pain was intense. Like the flames of Hell itself. “I’m watching over Dean, just like always.” He was, wasn’t he?
“And?” Sam twisted his hand, angry. “Why are you watching us?”
No. Not this way. “Because I love Dean. And I want him. Because I want you. Because I want the angels to lay with me, so they won’t be judged. So I can be judged. So I can remake Paradise. So my brothers will love me again. So I’m not so alone.”
Sam dropped his hand and Castiel felt his feet fall away beneath him.
He sat for a long time, pondering the truth of what he’d said, and decided it was just. Only… “Never do that to me again, Sam.”
“Castiel, whatever the angels are doing… Why haven’t you shown us the bodies? The locations?”
Cas held up his hand. “Leave it. There are no bodies; these women are still alive. For some of them, it will happen all over again, and for others it won’t. The angels don’t have as much control as they once did.” He rubbed his throat. “Obviously.”
Sam started shaking. “I keep doing these horrible things, Castiel. It’s like I can’t stop.” When he grabbed his arms, Castiel turned to face him. His eyes were dark, but human. Sadly human. “If you know something about me, if you know I must be stopped, you have to tell me.”
Castiel felt his weariness was never going to go away. “I do know about you, Sam. But if you’re going to go on this path, you have to do it with open eyes. With the knowledge of what you are. Has it occurred to you that it’s not something evil? You destroyed the chief executioner in Hell. That was righteous. That changed things down below. I was never told to believe in you, or even to let you live. But I do believe in you, Sam. And not just because Dean does, though he matters. I saw you kill Alastair. You saved your brother’s life.”
Sam finally released him. “And I kept you from being sent back home.”
“Yes. So I set you free from your dungeon, underneath your friend Bobby’s house. Free to go to the convent. When I sent Dean to try to stop you, I believe the angels interfered. I didn’t want to believe they would go that far, but now, I think they’re capable of anything.”
“What’s going on, Castiel?”
Castiel smiled a weak little smile. “I believe it’s not something righteous.”
Sam turned white. “Why did you set me free, Cas? I did it. I killed Lilith.”
“Yes. You killed Lilith, and Alastair. You’ve killed many major demons over the years, Sam. The Seven Sins. Azazel’s family. And Dean killed the demon himself. You’ve lost all of your friends, your parents were sacrificed, your dreams for your life. But you are Hell’s savior. There is no Lucifer in Hell, no Lilith, no Alastair. There is no leader, because of you.”
“What’s going on down there?”
He shrugged. “Confusion. The demons are struggling for power; the souls have been left alone. Much like the angels, they are picking sides.”
Sam’s jaw was set. “And whomever wins will just start this all over again?”
“That depends on who wins. There will always be a Hell, Sam, and you can’t change that. But your brother might never have to go back to that Hell. You could choose a Hell of your own making. You’re a visionary, no matter what else you may be.”
He crept up closer to Sam. Dean was right when he’d said that Ruby knew his kink. Everyone knew Sam’s kink. Fortunately for all of them, Sam really was a savior. “What does your Hell look like, Sam? I believe that will be our new Hell.”
Sam shut his eyes. “I don’t want Hell, or death, or pain. I don’t want any of it. Just an end to it.”
“That’s not possible, Sam. There are absolutes, though not as the Archangels think of it. This is a revolution, but not a complete one. There will still be separate worlds. There will be angels, demons, humans, too, if we’re lucky.”
Sam looked at him with a kind of hope in his eyes. “Why are the demons coming to me?”
“Those demons are offering themselves to you in a way you’ll understand, in a way they understand, just like the demon you called Ruby did. They want you to take their blood, in the hopes that you’ll help them. They want you to use your powers, to go into Hell, and create order out of chaos. The less chaos there is in Hell, the less chance we have of new demons being created, the less chance we have of more demons crossing over to earth. You can offer them an incentive.”
“A reward? They’re monsters.”
Castiel had to look down at that. Dean had thoroughly invaded his soul. “Do you really believe in monsters, Sam? Sometimes I think all of us are monsters, even me. Even Dean has been a monster. He has also always been Dean. I think you will always be Sam. But even Dean doesn’t hold the only vision of you.”
“I don’t want him to lose me, Cas.”
It was kind of cute when he used the nickname. “I don’t want to either. I don’t think I’ll exist without him. I’m not sure if I’m right, and I’m not sure what this will mean. I’m still making it up as I go. But I know you exist without him, Sam, because you’re human.”
“He’s better off without me.”
“You might want that to be true, but it’s not. What is real will still be here, with him. Whatever happens to us.”
*
If Sam found her, he would go with her.
That wasn’t the end of it. They still came to Sam - in lines - when he was alone.
At the library doing research, while taking a break, women came to him and he couldn’t stop them, feverish and weak.
Long-haired freckled girls, girls in pink dresses, three girls at once crawling over him, pinning him to the bathroom stall. At the dive bar hustling pool, trapped by a line of women going out the door, fighting to get back to his brother and fighting the fever and doing nothing but taking them, one after the other.
They wanted him to lead. They wanted him to show them love.
It happened over and over again, in different places. It happened until the fever built, and built, and built, until his body was on fire with it. Until he was sitting on a closed plastic toilet seat at the back of a sticky dive bar (the kind where you might lose a shoe if you don’t hang on tight enough) and letting the dark-eyed demon women ride him, one by one, pressing his arms back against the wall, making him arch up into them, his seed deep in their bodies, their blood in his veins. Sam calling out for help only when he came, helplessly.
Until Castiel came with cold kisses, washing away his fever, soothing his brow with touches of his fingers. He just walked in, and the room cleared as if repelled by him, a preacher in a whorehouse. He could have been in a church, he looked so calm, but there was a deep sea roiling in his eyes, the same sense of danger he felt from the women, but… Castiel was an angel. Angels made him angry like an itching under his skin, their smug faces, judging and cryptic.
When Sam saw him, he’d wanted to crawl up and into the wall like a spider. “What the hell!” Castiel was Dean’s angel. Dean’s. Not his. “Were you following me?”
He pressed his hand to Sam’s face, as if checking for temperature. “I don’t have to follow you - I can feel you, as they can,” and he tipped his head towards the doorway. “It’s your fever. It’s there for a reason, and I think you should listen to it.” He tilted his head. “What is it telling you to do right now, Sam?”
Sam breathed for a moment, wondering why he ever trusted the angel, or any angel. But the answer was going to be what it always was. Always. Castiel wanted Dean. He would settle for helping something Dean loved, and never stop waiting for him. This was Castiel again, alien in these places, looking at him with eyes that couldn’t possibly be that innocent, telling him again: “Sam, you must decide what you really want. It is paramount.”
Sam had wanted Dean, since the oldest memory he could recall. He would settle for something Dean loved, something Dean would let him need.
Sam looked around at the bathroom stall. He couldn’t cover up his sprawled body, dirtied and used, his shirt torn and his hair dampened to his forehead. “I do know. I know what you want too.”
He lowered his body closer to Castiel’s, breathed and reached out, until he was seeking the warm opening of his body, like every sense was tuned to it. Like Castiel’s clothes, his vessel, was nothing.
Sam leaned against the dividing wall and pulled and pressed Castiel to his lap, smeared his sex all over the front of the rumpled suit. “This what you want, angel?” and Castiel closed his eyes and nodded, looked at Sam then, heavy-lidded and pupils-blown. Sam turned him around, pushed his leg over the toilet seat, bent Castiel over, and tore his pants open at the seam. “Come on, come on,” and he teased and pushed his cock deep inside. “Dirty, dirty angel,” he moaned out as Castiel clenched his slick used hole around him.
Sam found nothing but calm inside of the angel, and he dove into it over and over, shaking the walls and almost bucking him off. Castiel was another body to calm the fever, but with every thrust he felt his fever break, his body relax into the fuck, until the pleasure became like constant tiny waves, pleasure silent but so so deep.
Afterwards, Castiel gathered up his coat and left without a word. Sam followed him, but he was gone.
Sam went back home and lost himself inside Dean, anything for Dean, to memories of blood and of demons bending to his will, wanting to be ruled by him, in places where flesh was everything and flesh was nothing. He hoped they were watching him too. He hoped they were…
“What’s gotten into you, Sammy?” Dean asked it the only time he ever would, all panting and sore in the dark.
Sam didn’t know how to answer. He knew Dean pretended self-assurance in this new hazy world of theirs, but he was the only one who still did. Sam didn’t know what evil was anymore, or right and wrong. Because all of this, how ever wrong it had to be, felt right.
Maybe he was evil. Maybe they all were.
*
Castiel had usually been with the angels when he’d had his visions of Sam. He couldn’t have missed him, shining like a beacon to anything not of this particular world.
Castiel had taken on his brothers, one by one, and had seen Sam move from bar to bar, meeting women, the same kinds of women, with dark hair, playful attitudes, willing bodies. He’d been feeling Sam, as he’d watched him at night. His fever had been like a constant pulse, under nothing like control. He had known Sam would go with her, if he found her. And she would have the black eyes of a demon, as always. And she would offer him her blood, which Sam would take. And Sam would stop sending her back to Hell, after the sixth time.
Castiel was covering himself in the sweat of other angel-possessed bodies, still not stopping, the time when Sam finally stopped killing them, the seventh time, when he’d had enough.
Sam had rocked into her body slowly, the ankles of her long legs perched above his round ass, her blonde hair fanned across the flat motel pillows. His mouth had clasped and sucked at the cuts on her arms, clasped above her. He had accidentally called her Jess. And he had let her go.
After that, there were many more. He doubted Sam was keeping count either. He figured somewhere along the way, Dean found out and willingly closed his mind to it. He decided Dean had a right to do that, and probably always would.
Just as he couldn’t seem to say no to his brothers as easily as he’d liked. Just as they seemed to think that they weren’t doing anything against Zachariah’s orders to procreate if they weren’t doing anything against Zachariah’s orders with Castiel. And only with Castiel.
He hadn’t figured on his brothers’ complete lack of imagination. He thought two of them might fall in love, or at least one other angel would see things his way and stand with him. Maybe they’d try to bring what they’d learned to Paradise. Maybe they’d try to bring what they knew of Paradise to earth. His lonely dream was dying a slow death.
Zathiel found him anyway, lurking in the Impala outside of Sam’s hourly-rate hotel room at midnight. He appeared next to him in the front seat in his nurse’s scrubs, didn’t say a word, and kissed him, in slow French kisses like he’d probably seen in the movies.
“I’ve missed you, Castiel,” he finally said, eyes shining like something Castiel remembered once.
“You haven’t really shown it.”
Zathiel smiled. “You been busy spreading your gospel.”
“Since when was spreading my legs considered spreading the gospel?”
The angel rubbed his thumbs against Castiel’s cheeks. “Since you decided to single-handedly give us back what we had forgotten.”
Castiel stared at him and only raised his eyebrows.
“I know. You are right, this is lonely,” Zathiel leaned in for another kiss. “Even if it is what our Father wants us to be.” He smiled. “Have hope, brother. I know you’ve had little luck with our brothers, but I hear good things from our sisters. You should visit up there. It is much easier to travel these days.”
Castiel grabbed him for a kiss, afraid he would disappear. “Don’t go.”
Zathiel squinted at him, mirth in his eyes. Yes, he remembered that once. “Is this the angel, Castiel, afraid to be lonely? Is this the angel, Castiel, without faith? No, there is no such thing. Your brothers will always find you, for better or worse. Your reputation is growing, brother - the willing lover of the humans, the angel who wished for less.”
Castiel let himself be pulled in for another kiss just as he felt Sam’s fever rise under a wave of need and blood. He needed to go to him. No, everything he did here was important. “I’m not wishing for less. Why can’t you see that?”
“What’s going on?”
And that, was Dean. Dean who had gone out looking for Sam, or his baby, and since his baby needed to be double-parked, he’d found his baby first.
Cas heard wings flap and he knew Zathiel was gone. No, had run away. Of course. “Dean, I…” Then he stopped. He sniffled.
“Aw, jeez, Cas. Are you crying?” Dean got in the passenger seat and leaned back to face him. “Cas, stop. My heart is already doing this double-dribble thing in my chest. It’s annoying. So cut it out.”
“I’m not crying.” He had some dignity.
“Sam said you were watching us. And here you said you wouldn’t perch on my shoulder.”
“I’m not. I’ve spent a very long time in your presence. But can you leave this place right now, Dean, if I asked you to?” He felt Sam’s fever rise. He needed to go to him.
“I don’t think so, Cas. Sam is here.”
“I know. Will you let me take care of him this time?”
Dean looked at him with green eyes flinty with worry.
“I didn’t think so. You won’t like what you see, Dean. It might not go away. Let me explain everything to you, afterwards.”
“Huh. My dad used to say something to me, back when I was young and used to get mad about, well, everything. I didn’t try to show it much, but I used to wonder what it would be like, you know? To have a mother, to not have to take care of Sammy all the time, to have a dad who could stick around and act normal. To have dinner every night and a room of my own and my own place. He said you don’t envy what you know. And I hated it, every time he said it. It was a shitty thing to say to a kid. But, it was true. I don’t envy you, Cas. I think you’re right - I do know you.”
“Thank you. I have to go to your brother. Go back and wait for him. Please, Dean. I have a plan, and I will bring him back to you.”
He got out of the car and watched Dean drive away.
*
Castiel sat next to a tray of eggrolls three hours old and watched them argue.
Dean was taking it well. “What’s been up with you, Sam? The bad dreams, the nights you disappear, I don’t know - it seems a little familiar.”
Sam’s head seemed perpetually in his hands. Castiel could feel the tension and heat in him that seemed to rise and fall with the whims of his brother. “They won’t leave me alone. Whether I’m asleep or awake, outside or alone - the demons are never going to stop coming after me.”
So Dean threw his up. “You did what they wanted you to do. What else do they want?”
“It’s not over, they want… I think they want me to be on their side. Like Ruby.” Sam shrugged. “They want me to believe in their cause. Like, maybe they’re worth saving.”
“As opposed to killing them all? We don’t have a lot of options, Sam, and saving them isn’t one of them.”
“Why not? What if we could save them? Not just kill them.”
“Don’t start that shit again, man. That’s…”
“It’s the truth, Dean. You think we can kill every demon? All of them? And Lucifer? Then what, go after the angels, but only the bad ones? Who does that leave us? Cas? There’s gonna be something else.”
“Everything else is a trick, Sam.” Dean closed his eyes on a shrug. “Always has been.”
“But it’s the truth, Dean. It’s all we’ve got on our side, because the odds don’t look good.”
“So what are you saying? You want to go and try to save all the demons? Turn them into nice and friendly neighbors?”
Sam spoke softly. “Maybe I’m the only one that can.”
“What the fuck…”
“I understand them. Just a little, but I do. You do too, Dean. You had to have wanted Castiel to save you from Hell, at least a little bit, in order to go with him.”
Dean sunk down on the bed. “Is this how it’s gonna be? A human hearts and minds campaign? Maybe you’re lucky there are no really good demons around. You can always settle for really bad people.”
Sam smirked, but it never reached his eyes. “Like you?”
“Yeah, like me.”
“So then. I can go.”
“It’s not up to me. I’m not going to stop you anymore, Sam. You can make your choice. The demons know you. It’s in your blood. Your whole life has been leading up to this. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s worth a shot.”
Eventually, Dean went out for more beer, exhausted.
Castiel stayed and pondered the table. “I’m considering eating one of these eggrolls.”
Sam looked up from the other end of the bed. “Don’t. Really.”
“I know. I’m not even hungry. That’s strange.”
Sam scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know, do you think I’m crazy? Why would I think that Ruby was honest in the end? It doesn’t make sense. And what if her plan, was this plan? Our plan?”
“Does that bother you? You and I have different plans, different paths, but we both love your brother.” Castiel kissed Sam first. He felt his soft pink lips cool underneath his, thirsty and raw. “Are you surprised that I can do that for you, even though I love Dean? Does my love for him keep me away from you? Is it wrong if it doesn’t? It doesn’t work like that, Sam.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Destiny,” Castiel whispered against his cheek.
Sam pushed him back. “Wait. She still lied to me. Tell me I’m not making this up. Tell me I have to do this.”
“I think the rewards are worth more than the risk.” Castiel didn’t let Sam stop him that time. He pressed his body over Sam’s until he found a different kind of hardness, through all of Sam’s endless hardness.
Sam squeezed Castiel’s thighs enough to make an imprint on his slacks. “Didn’t you get enough last night? I haven’t even slept.”
“I don’t know enough. My kind are bad with boundaries.” Castiel writhed, his clothes slipping on Sam’s cotton and flannel. “Why? Do you think that you can stop?”
“No,” Sam moaned. “My kind kinda are too. You?”
“No. That’s why Dean is the one who will stop it. He always has been.”
Sam lifted his head and squinted at him. “You love him. Don’t you?”
“He’s Dean,” was all Cas said. He put the back of his hand to Sam’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty shitty, actually.”
Cas nodded. “You’ve felt this fever before.”
Sam felt his mouth go dry, his sore cock jump in his jeans.
“I can feel it from far away. Most of us can.”
“Is it evil?” Sam almost breathed the question.
Castiel pursed his lips together. Paused for a moment. “I’m not sure I understand good and evil like I once did. The angels seem to have a will of their own, and the demons too. The world is changing, Sam.”
“Yeah,” Sam swallowed. “I feel that too.”
“I can cure your fever, for a little while at least. Does Dean have the same effect on you as I do?”
Sam didn’t look at Castiel as he thought about it, remembering a lifetime with Dean, how he needed Dean like breathing. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess he does.”
“While Ruby and the demons, they make it worse? We need to test this theory again.” Castiel threw his body back against the couch.
“Wait a sec…”
Castiel removed his mouth from where it’d been sucking at his neck. “Dean can watch.”
“You’re serious?”
“Unless you’d prefer another angel.”
*
When Dean returned and walked in the door, the beer he’d been holding dropped to the floor with a hollow pop and a hissing sound.
Sam spoke from the bed, measuring his words. “Dean, I’m going to fuck Castiel now. You” - Castiel was biting down hard on the cords of his neck - “might want to leave.”
“What the hell?” Dean moved against the door, his hand on the knob, but he didn’t break his gaze, or ever turn his wrist, or do anything but slowly slump to the floor, his hand pressing down on his sex as if to shield it from view. Staying or going wasn’t an option. He just sat. And watched his brother.
Castiel pushed him hard, rode him hard like he’d forgotten softness, trapping Sam with his gaze and his mouth and his hunger.
Sam was like someone he’d never seen before, another hidden version of his Sam, never really his Sam at all.
Dean could see a lifetime with Sam, an eternity, and never figure him out beneath his eyes so soft you’d think they’d never known a lie.
And yet, how good he was at lying. How skilled he was at taking from Castiel, at keeping his own remarkable self-possession intact, drawing on his reserves, some other hidden self Dean had never seen, some dark hunter, getting off on making an angel shake and cry tears for him, tasting them and smiling, saying words Sammy would say in the dark, innocent words.
Dean would never call humans graceful, but his brother was. He could never throw that away. Never ever. Never ever. It felt like a curse in a lifetime of being cursed. It felt like his heart turning inside out, doing whatever it takes to keep Sammy, to just keep Sammy.
“Dean.” Castiel moaned his name, started chanting it under his breath each time Sam took him hard, and maybe he’d always wanted to see him like that, since the first time he stabbed him in the heart, pinned down, without shame, without grace.
They were teaching him a lesson, his demon brother, his angel. His heart was reforming in his chest, tears falling down his cheeks from sheer overload. “Cas.” He sobbed his name, connected by the same realization, the same cock, the same grace.
Sammy, every Sammy, had gotten him to Hell and through it. Castiel had brought him back and through it. And god, he was so hard and so close, he gripped the knob hard and twisted it, going nowhere, and let his head fall back hard against the door.
Sam started kissing Castiel then, loud enough he could hear it, wet and messy like a fight. He had to feel it, take his cock in his hand and breathe into his shoulder, like the question of how to deal with it wasn’t all on him, like he wasn’t meant to be the one to stop what he couldn’t.
Sam covered Castiel and half the bed. The angel’s legs looked like bent wings sticking out from under his brother. His hands fumbled all over the place, trying to touch himself, to match Sam’s rhythm, but Dean knew how hard that was, how Sam only let him have his way in the end because Dean threatened to punch him if he didn’t and because Dean was the oldest. Cas needed him. Dean smiled at that, just a bit.
“Let him go, Sam.”
“No. Wanna get him off. Just like this.” Sam was stubborn, and relentless he was almost cruel. Cas needed that too.
“Can you do that, Cas? You let other people do you like that?”
Cas barely got it out so Dean could hear it. “Not like Sam.”
“Need this, Dean. Trust me.” Sam’s eyes, golden-green. “We all need this.”
Dean turned to the wall, his back against the side of the desk, his hand still on the doorknob, and worked his hand on his cock roughly, the smell of his precome mixing with the new smell of Castiel, human warm and sweet.
“God, can smell you.” Sam groaned, his whole body stopping at Castiel, but his head turned toward Dean, seeking him.
He wanted Sam to open his eyes, to see the expression on his face, whatever it was, and he stared at Sam until he did. And he spread out his legs and turned to his brother, his cock in his hand, and he knew whatever he was gonna see, he was gonna see him, wanting him and brave for him and unafraid.
Sam looked at him with golden-green eyes, searching his entire body for what he knew. Dean saw it when he found it, the look in his eyes when he bowed his head against Castiel’s chest, thrust once more with a moan and came inside of him.
Dean had to thrust into his fist the whole way through it, riding the seat of his jeans and banging his elbow against the door, like fucking the whole image before him, letting it undo him. Castiel was still moving under his brother in time with Dean’s breathing, like he could feel him.
“You gonna come with me, Cas?” Then a chorus of yes but it wasn’t time yet, was still too much, and he had to start again. Took his hand off the doorknob and squeezed his cock and smoothed around his precome and looked at Cas and started again.
“Do you want me to fuck you too, Cas? Do you need it?”
And god, he wished his voice didn’t sound like that, and god, he wished it even mattered what Cas said.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” was all Cas said. But it was everything.
“For so long.” Cas moaned that last, and Dean felt that moment where his body took over because his mind was just… too… much… Cas called his name to the exact time of wads of his come hitting the wall, the sound of his heart, and Dean knew the angel was coming too, riding the spent cock of his brother for all he could get of Dean.
Sam finally let him go and sprawled on the other bed, his jeans pulled up halfway over his ass and looking like an oversexed little boy in bare feet.
Dean watched his brother sleep. He looked like a little boy. His little brother, breathing hard and out cold like he was running through a dream.
Dean cleaned off the wall with his discarded t-shirt and crawled next to Castiel’s bed, straightening his clothes, then resisting the urge to press himself up next to him and muss them all up again. So Dean just leaned over and breathed against his temple and watched him come awake to meet him.
*
Alice dragged her suitcase to her car, threw it in the trunk, and drove across the street. Her life had really become extremely clichéd, she had to admit. Minus the whole angel part. Daniel might be content with his television and his hurt pride and leave her alone. It wasn’t so much sad as disappointing. It’s just that she had wanted it to be so much more.
Christy had invited her on a road trip, females only, “Virginia Woolf style” she had said. Somewhere along the way, it had become more than just a road trip. She felt as if the world was suddenly giving her things she actually wanted - a completely new perspective, a life she could have control over, a child in a place with no fears. The flatlands of Texas stretched out to the horizon, then turned into desert with deceptive colors, purples and greens and pinks. The air was a suffocating heat, seeping into her and the desert all at once. It was like a dream. All of this was. And nothing seemed coincidental, not even her mistakes.
When she asked Christy if she was an angel too, somewhere outside of El Paso, with its refineries glowing like torches after an apocalypse, she found that she didn’t have to ask. She already knew.
“You were a test,” Christy said, with her face like it was in dreams. “Every human being is going to be a test, just like always, only with… more options besides two, besides the light and the dark.”
Alice looked down, leaned back against the old Corvette, and felt her disappointment start to creep back in. She’d done all the wrong things; made all the same stupid choices. This was not gonna be the life she could have. “So the angels lost this round, huh?”
“No, not at all.” Christy took her face in her hands. “I have you. Only the wrong angels lost.”
When she kissed her, Alice felt her breath like the desert heat against her face, the flood between her legs enough to soak her jeans through, and the lights blinking above to the beat of her heart.
The line between Heaven and earth was very thin indeed.
*
Castiel stood in the open doorway, a sheet around his waist like he’d seen Sam do so many times. “It’s raining again.”
Dean walked over to the cheap wooden desk and straddled a corner, swinging his feet and just missing Castiel. He offered him a cigarette. “Sam was right. You’ve been watching us. What’s going on?”
Castiel watched Dean’s shining, searching eyes. “I love watching you, you know. Maybe too much.”
“Maybe. Maybe I need to know you’re there more often.”
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
“Yes. What’s going to happen to Sam?”
“I don’t know. We’re the wild cards here, because we don’t fit into any one faction. Sam is the closest thing the demons have to a leader, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be more moderate than Lucifer. I’m not sure what I am anymore, but I’d still like to think I’m on the same side as my brothers and sisters, if they’d only remember. If they let me show them a better way, with you.”
“Then what am I?”
“You’re the savior of all of us. I don’t envy you the job. I’m trying to hold the world in order. The angels are afraid to fall, to really fall, into what humanity has to offer. They still think they can hold onto Heaven and control this world too. But they don’t understand it. My brothers come to me, but they’re afraid to feel me. The demons go to your brother, and they want his humanity very very badly. They worship him, and how he does not fall. But they will not know how to stop when the time comes. Sam could still be lost.”
“No. No, Cas. Whatever they want him to do, he’s not doing it.”
“I am afraid the angels will exert their will. Many of us have lost our mercy. Many of the demons have a sense of hope. Nothing is certain. We may need your brother to do what he can.”
“Because he started this.”
Cas nodded. “The angels can’t see the end of the war, but I know that your brother must remain free to work his own will to counteract the angels, just as you must be the one to finish it.”
“Stop saying that, Cas.”
“I still have faith in you, Dean.”
*
Castiel often ventured in circles around the world when he was done seeing Dean, the energy shooting off of him in stars. Especially since Jimmy had given up on him, and given himself over to his fate as a comet’s tail, never to be heard from again.
It was sad the way the world worked, but that was part of free will too. Choosing your station in life, as Zachariah would say, not really knowing what he meant when he said it.
Still, Castiel felt sorry for Daniel since Alice left. He watched him sit on the couch and play video games. He liked to check his heavenly Blackberry for updates from the Host, even if they were unimportant memos. Most of their memos were unimportant. Zachariah just liked to play games with electronic toys and play heavenly CEO, head of the dicks. Whole worlds crept beneath his notice.
“I expected different from you, Castiel,” Daniel accused, his hands full of groceries he would probably never think to taste. “I thought you would want the best thing for your own kind. Instead of trash.”
“I want the best of all kinds, brother. For all of us. And I will get my wish.” Castiel turned to go, asking himself if he would ever return, but he knew that he would. He always returned to watch; he knew how pleased Daniel’s wife was with her decision, and couldn’t resist to rub it in. “Say hello to Alice for me.”
Daniel paused and tightened his hand on a box of Fruit Loops. “Why did you let us go, Castiel? If you’re so sure the flood is coming, why aren’t you killing us all, like you killed Uriel?”
It wasn’t in his best interest to correct him. He didn’t owe Daniel as much as he’d thought. “It’s not that kind of a flood. And I’m not your enemy.”
“Then what do you know that I don’t? What could you possibly know about the mud monkeys that we don’t already know?” He threw the WonderBread into the oversized breadbox.
Castiel felt the certainty of his words. “I know their bodies. I know what it means to be generous. I have yet to find the limits.”
He shook his head. “But their bodies are so limited, Castiel. It’s like playing with an animal.”
“No, it’s not. Not at all. I’m sorry, Daniel, but I don’t have the patience to teach you, and I don’t think you deserve to know.”
*
Part 4