Fic: All-in

Nov 03, 2009 17:48

Title: All-in
Characters: Castiel/Patrick
Ratings/Warnings: NC-17/Spoilers for 5.07
Word Count: 2800
Summary: An angel and a warlock sit down for a friendly game of poker..that gets a little more than friendly.
Notes: Thanks to ibroketuesday for inspiring, peer-pressuring, and betaing this.



Patrick had tried everything to forget her, but it seemed a week stretched out just as long with nine hundred years under your belt as it did with a mere coupla decades. That first day, with her body slumped at the table, her creamy skin gone all to tissue paper, had taken ages. Ages of staring, of weeping, of being a pathetic mess. She’d have wanted him to be a pathetic mess - at least for a little while. She’d had a beautiful petty streak, his Lia - it’s part of why he’d loved her.

He also knew she’d have wanted him to get over her, to forget and move on, and so he tried. He threw himself under a bus and tried to laugh at the horrified expressions on the driver and onlookers. He started a food poisoning panic at a fried chicken chain restaurant and tried to smile when he watched the stocks plummeting on the news. He tried to enjoy the game. He did. But all the while, he felt her years singing through him, winnings so unwanted they damn near burned. The clacking of the chips pulled a sour taste through his mouth.

The night the stranger in the trench coat strode into his basement establishment, Patrick fancied himself about three hands away from throwing a game and quite literally forfeiting the last of his chips.

It was raining fiercely outside, yet the man who sat down opposite him at the table didn’t seem bothered by the damp. Beads of rainwater rolled down his firm cheeks and off his strong chin. “Are you the witch who trades years?”

“I am,” Patrick answered, sitting forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Although I prefer ‘warlock’, if you don’t mind.”

“My apologies.” The stranger’s gravely voice struck a chord somewhere deep in Patrick’s chest that made him pay close attention. It wasn’t the voice of a man, he suspected - and the web of energy he sensed enveloping the room made him sure of it.

“Have a seat, friend. Texas Hold ‘em. Buy-in’s twenty-five years.”

The stranger frowned slightly as he sat down but nodded as twenty-five chips were stacked before him. “That seems fair.”

“‘Course it is. Does this look like the face of an unfair man?”

The stranger peered at him, sharp blue eyes narrowed, and Patrick suddenly felt as if he were standing in the middle of the street in nothing but his skin. He cleared his throat, looking away from the stranger’s inquisitive, rain-slicked face, and dealt.

The stranger watched his hands carefully, keeping his own cradled gently around his cards. When he dipped his head to look at them, droplets pattered down from the tips of his messy hair. It looked as if he’d slept in that trench coat, and Patrick found himself wondering idly what was underneath it.

Each turn, the stranger picked up a single chip and placed it firmly on the center of the table, saying nothing. And when Patrick flipped over the final community card, the stranger considered it with a brief scrunching of his nose and then went all-in.

“You sure about that?” Patrick asked the first time.

“Yes,” replied the man flatly.

Patrick watched him carefully for a tell - for anything, really, because the guy wore an expression like he’d been in church for six hours. It was the same sort of carefully executed neutrality Patrick had taken decades to master. Clearly, he was working with a pro.

He’d let him win this once.

“I fold.”

The stranger laid down his hand - not a bad one, not great - and squinted at the pile of chips pushed his way but said nothing.

The same thing happened again: one year a turn, all-in at the showdown. This time, Patrick matched the stranger’s bet with his own years, running purely on curiosity. He couldn’t read that expression with bifocals. It hadn’t changed since the last round, but this time his cards were downright piteous - a three and a six against a royal flush.

“Hard luck,” Patrick said, collecting the chips from him. “Nice doing business with you.”

“I’d like more chips,” said the stranger. “Fifty, please.”

Patrick eyed him, trying to assess an age in the creases under the eyes and the firmness of the lips. Couldn’t be more’n forty, but certainly not young enough to have a good shot at surviving fifty lost years. “I ain’t in the business of murdering folks.”

“I’m not in the business of being murdered,” responded the stranger, with the hint of a smirk. “Make it a hundred.”

And hell, how could he resist that?

The third round passed the same way, and the fourth, and the fifth. The stranger lost every time, but the longer it went on, the less dour he looked. If anything, he seemed to be cheered by his losses.

“Jesus!” Patrick hissed as he took the four hundredth year.

“Not exactly,” muttered the stranger. And then, with an almost chipper rise in his voice: “I’ve never done this before. It’s a fascinating game.”

He’d never- Patrick nearly choked. “You’re joking me. This here isn’t your first poker game.”

“It seemed like a good place to learn. A hundred more, please.”

Patrick passed him the chips and dealt. “This here game, with the betting of years and the high mortality rate, this is how you chose to learn?”

“I thought it best to start with something low stakes,” the stranger said, tossing in his usual single chip.

“Low stakes?” Patrick repeated, unable to keep his jaw hinged. “Are you saying my table’s low stakes?”

The stranger barely looked up at him. “I have a friend who enjoys the game, and I’d like to play against him. The humiliation of losing there outweighs a few years here. I’m at no loss for years.”

Patrick licked his lips, watching the careful way the man tipped his head to look at his cards. “Well, then,” he said. “I can teach you the rules if you like.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Patrick gave him the quick verbal rundown of the game, and the stranger listened with the whole of his attention, in that naked-making way of his. By the time he got to the subject of the river, it was beginning to be almost pleasant, that strange gaze. Patrick loosened his collar, laying his hands down on the table as he finished. He’d never been one to get nervous speaking in front of people, but his palms were slick with sweat against the varnished wood. “Now,” he said, “let’s run through a game, as practice. You tell me what you’ve got and I’ll tell you how to handle it.”

“And you won’t use that information against me?”

“I’ll play like I’m as bad as you, yeah?”

The stranger smirked again. It was downright charming, after the poker face. “I have a queen and a nine.”

They took turns betting, and each time Patrick laid down a card, he told the stranger what his hand could make with it. They each threw in their chips, and he found himself gravitating across the table, sitting beside the man with his cards pressed to his chest, trying to help him out. This was the first time in a week, he realized, that he had been able to table his grief for more than the duration of a cheap joke. It felt good. Better than it ought to, actually. It was a thrill.

“Three nines,” he said, reaching across the man’s hands to point, and his wrist brushed those curled fingers.

“Can’t do much with the five,” he said, clapping a hand on the man’s arm.

He laid out a final card - a king - and the stranger frowned at the cards.

“All-in?” Patrick asked, and was surprised to find his voice more teasing than anything.

“I was considering it,” the stranger said, gazing over at him. Jesus, those eyes could melt steel. “But I don’t know if you have the better hand.”

“As well you won’t, in a real game,” Patrick said, raising an eyebrow. “Do I look like I have a good hand? Can you read me?”

That scrunch line appeared on the stranger’s nose, and creases rode the length of his forehead. Then suddenly, his face slackened, and he said, “Oh. I’m sorry for your loss. She was a remarkable woman.”

Patrick blinked hard for a second, then drew back, his cards abandoned on the table. “Get out of my head,” he hissed.

The stranger rose to follow him. “Patrick, you didn’t have to help me tonight, but you did. I’d like to do something for you in return.” He closed the distance between them, and Patrick felt the concrete wall against his shoulders. The stranger was very near, his eyes close enough to count the lashes, and for the first time, Patrick could read him: the guy was analyzing him, digging through his mind like a box of old photos. He swallowed. The stranger’s eyes widened slightly. His full lips parted. Then he pressed them against Patrick’s roughly.

Patrick leaned into the kiss greedily. The stranger tasted like rain and earthy things and-he could swear there was just a hint of cheeseburger on that tongue. Whatever it was, he gripped the man’s lapels and tugged him close, suddenly desperate for the touch. The game took a backseat to the kiss. Hell, breathing seemed a secondary concern. Just when he thought he might drown in it, the stranger pulled back, licked his lips carefully, and said, “I hope I’m not being too forward.”

“Forward is an underrated direction,” Patrick answered breathlessly, wondering what the man’s Adam’s apple tasted like. “What are you, anyway? You’re not a warlock, that’s for damned sure.”

“My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of the Lord.”

“Angel of Thursdays?” Patrick flashed him a grin, the first he’d managed to summon up in days. “Well, lucky me, I was born on a Thursday.”

“You recognize my name?” Castiel said, looking puzzled. “No one’s ever done that.”

“I was raised in the Golden Age of Catholicism,” Patrick said, running his fingers through the damp ruffs of the angel’s hair. “You’re snogging a good Catholic boy. Well, in a way. The heart and mind stray elsewhere, but the guilt never leaves, yeah?”

“Guilt is a difficult thing,” Castiel intoned with some significance.

“Enough sermon. Your lesson’s still not over.” Patrick surged forward, meeting the angel’s mouth. “Two nines,” he said, and kissed him deeply. “A king.” The angel pressed against him, and he pushed him backwards. “A five.” He worked his way down the angel’s cheek, stubble scraping against his lips. “And a three.” He felt the angel’s legs impact the table, and he reached for the lapels of the trench coat, peeling the waterlogged fabric off. It landed with a wet sound against the concrete floor, and Castiel slid backwards onto the table as Patrick explored that soft neck with his tongue.

Maybe this was helping, he thought. A strange way of helping, but maybe the angel saw how much he needed the touch. How much he needed the distraction. The space to heal-

Merciful Christ, the angel had some strength to him! Patrick hardly felt it until he himself was back-down against the face of the table, the man’s body pressed hard against his, hip to hip with a wet mouth trailing down to the gap at his collar.

“Your best bet is using two nines,” Patrick said, his breath hitching as the angel’s tongue wetted his breastbone.

Castiel undid the buttons of his shirt one at a time, and as their weight shifted, the table creaked slightly under them and chips skittered and rolled off the sides. Patrick felt a handful of his last bet lodged under one shoulder blade, five years’ worth of chips digging into his skin through the fabric, but he couldn’t find it in him to care - not with an angel of the goddamn Lord sucking his way across his navel.

“And a-a king,” he said, beginning to lose his focus. “Three of a kind and a king-queen kicker. That’s a good hand.”

The button on his slacks popped, and his hips rose against the fingers that were undoing his zipper. Warm, sure fingers pulled his cock free from the layers of cloth, and he gasped. At his hips, Castiel smirked - he was absolutely sure that was what it was, this time - and stroked him a few times before taking him into his mouth.

“Christ!” Patrick hissed, and laughter hummed up along his shaft. He grasped the angel’s hair with one hand and the edge of the table with the other, his toes curling helplessly against the insides of his shoes.

It was unbelievable. It was-ah, to hell with class, it was fucking heavenly. Castiel hit such a perfect rhythm that if he hadn’t been sure angels were psychic before then, he would’ve now, and only the pressure of one strong hand against his hip kept him from bucking upwards.

And it was-well, it was weird. He had to admit it was weird, being sucked off by an angel. He’d nearly been burned at the stake once for much lighter blasphemy than that. But then, he’d had nine hundred years’ experience. That was time enough to gather quite a few odd experiences, and-

Christ, that was good.

There’d been that time in Amsterdam, after he’d taken the mushrooms that Dutch witch had enchanted, and the hunter he’d seduced in the opium den-

Good Lord.

And the succubus who’d traded him the-the-

He moaned. It wasn’t eloquent, but his companion didn’t seem to mind. The pressure on his cock increased, Castiel’s mouth growing more insistent and taking him even deeper.

Patrick dug his fingers into the angel’s hair, his knees curling up. “Ohhhh god,” he said, his head angling back. His hair brushed a stack of chips, sending them toppling to the floor. “Castiel,” he moaned. “Christ, it’s times like this I wish I-wish I remembered my Latin, I-fuck-”

He jerked, coming hard in the angel’s mouth. Heat and tremors blossomed up his torso, and Castiel continued to tug incoherent sounds out of him. The rhythm slowed, then stopped.

Patrick laid there, breathing heavily, his hands pressed against his face as the angel made him presentable again, zipping him in and buttoning him up. All right, he admitted - this was in the top five weirdest sexual encounters. Castiel reached the top button at his collar, his face inches from Patrick’s and his breath warming his chin.

“You gonna tell me you’ve never done this before, either?” Patrick snuffed.

“No.” The angel panted slightly, swallowed, and said, “This I’ve had some practice at recently.”

Patrick stared at him for a second, then began to laugh. It shook his whole body and the table beneath him, rattling the chips. An angel of the Lord, practicing his cocksucking. Now that was something he’d never heard of! Patrick laughed so hard he had to stop himself to keep breathing. It occurred to him, as the laughter died down, that it was the first time since Lia died that he’d laughed at all - much less this hard.

She would’ve wanted this for him, he realized. A spot of happiness, whatever the cause.

“What’s so funny?” Castiel asked, and the seriousness of his voice combined with his head tilt nearly sent Patrick into another round of giggles.

“Never mind,” he answered, coughing away a laugh as he pulled himself off the table. “We never did finish your lesson, did we?”

Castiel took his seat again, no matter the array of messed cards and the rain of chips on the floor. “I don’t know what cards you have, but I’d like to go all-in.”

“You can’t just read my mind?”

“I could,” the angel admitted, “but where’s the fun in that?”

Patrick could point out a few instances where reading somebody’s mind led to fun, but he humored the angel. “All right, then. I’ll match your bet. Cards down.”

Castiel assessed Patrick’s king and jack for a moment before smiling at his win.

“Beginner’s luck,” Patrick chided, leaning back in his chair. “Well, go ahead and take your years. You’ve won them fairly.”

“Keep them,” Castiel said, letting himself up from the table. Shrugging on his trenchcoat, he gave Patrick a small nod and disappeared with a sound like ruffling wings.

Patrick sighed, slouching onto the mess that was his poker table. He picked up one of the chips that the angel had won and left behind and turned it between his fingers. So many years, just left for him to have. He smiled. For the first time in a week, he actually wanted them.

The end!

peer pressure works, idek, fic: supernatural, castiel is such a slut

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