Fic: This Song Will Guide You Home (Dean/Cas, NC-17)
For archiving purposes! The reveal for this exchange was today, so. :D
Title: This Song Will Guide You Home
Recipient: morganoconner over at deancas_xmas. Originally posted here.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None, except that this basically goes AU after 5.22. Certain amount of 'magic made them do it'.
Spoilers: General for S5 and 5.22
Summary: Castiel knows a way to get Sam out of hell - but he needs Dean's help.
Generally, when it comes to the people he calls family, Dean is a pretty honest guy. Putting aside the credit-card fraud and casual conwork that constitute a large part of his dayjob, he tends to keep his promises. But Dean is a big brother, and that, as far as he’s concerned, gives him certain kinds of licence. One of these being the licence not to leave his little brother to burn in hell for eternity, promise or not.
Dean’s pretty sure he’s in the right on this one.
Sam’s been downstairs for maybe a week when Dean first cracks out a book and starts combing it for answers. Unfortunately - albeit, not surprisingly - it doesn’t exactly offer any. The problem here, really, is that the Winchesters have been all too familiar with hell and resurrection for a good few years now, and every book that might be useful has already been scoured and thumbscrewed for information. Previous experience pretty much reduced the tally of beings that could bring someone back from the dead to a meagre two: angels, and crossroads demons. And crossroads demons were a big old question-mark when it came to someone who was probably rocking the Very Important Prisoners rack in Hell.
So that leaves angels.
The first few times he calls Cas, there isn’t anything resembling an answer - not even a flicker of lights or some creepy electricity-generating action, just to say he’s listening. Dean’s, okay, a little pissed, but he keeps trying. For one thing, he knows Cas is busy and all, picking through the debris that Lucifer and Michael and all the other feathery SOBs have left behind. For another, it’s not as if he really has any other options. And for a third - well. It’s not wrong of him to want to see his friends once in a while, is it? When a man’s lost his entire family in the process of saving the world from the freakin’ apocalypse, isn’t he entitled to the occasional get-together with the best friend he has left?
Dean would like to see anyone try to argue against him on that one. He really, really would. And then he’d like to knock their teeth right the hell down their throat. But first, he’d like to see Cas, and there’s no shame in that.
By the time Cas actually shows up, Sam’s been downstairs for seventy-three days. That’s seventy-three days Dean’s gone without the companionship of anyone he can actually talk to, be himself with; seventy-three days since the moment Cas whisked himself off to heaven in a whole cloud of nothing and left Dean all alone in the dark. Dean is torn between growling out how unimpressed he is, and biting his fist so he won’t say something that’ll send Cas shooting back off again, now Dean’s finally managed to get hold of him.
He settles for a bit of belligerent arm-crossing and jaw-jutting, although what’s reflected on his face is only a fraction of the anger and gratitude and loneliness and relief he feels. “So, what, you got your angel-mojo back and forgot how to answer your cell?”
“The network coverage in Heaven is patchy.”
Cas doesn’t smile. Dean doesn’t know why he’s surprised by that - it wasn’t as if Cas had ever been all that up on socially acceptable body-language - but some stupid, childish, clinging part of him is disappointed by it. This Cas, stiff and unamused, reminds him of Castiel, the way he was before they fought and hurt and defeated the apocalypse together. Before Cas learned how it was to feel crushed and betrayed, to drink until the sharp edges of the pain wore dull. Cas isn’t, can’t be Castiel anymore, full of grace or not. He’s more than that, now, and Dean wants to see that in his face.
“Prayer coverage patchy too?” he demands.
Castiel does smile, then, raising his chin a little in acknowledgement, and if Dean’s stomach swoops a little in relief, he won’t be blamed for it.
“What is it you want, Dean?” he asks. “I’m -”
“Real busy, I know, I know.” Dean raises his hands, palm outward, in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. I just.” He shakes his head. “What do you think I want, Cas? I want my brother back.”
Castiel’s smile doesn’t change, but something in his eyes goes soft, the blue washing strangely gentle, like a watercolour. “Your brother is in the Cage, Dean. You saw him fall yourself.”
“Oh, jeez, Cas, really? I actually forgot all about that.” Exasperation makes Dean sarcastic. He scowls, and shoves his hands into his pockets. “So? The cage is in Hell, right?”
“In its very depths,” Castiel confirms, softly.
Dean shrugs. “So, you’ve braved the party in the Pit before. What’s stopping you doing it again?”
“What’s - ?” Castiel’s mouth twists, then, and he isn’t laughing. “Dean, if you are referring to my raising of you, I -” He hesitates. “That was bidden. It was an errand from God.”
“Except that’s not exactly true, is it?” Dean scrutinises Cas’s face for a long moment, and then sits down heavily on the nearest spindly kitchen chair. It groans in protest under the onslaught, but Dean isn’t paying attention. “You said that, but God hasn’t been giving the orders upstairs for a lot longer than that. That order came from Mr Boss Man Angel, and if I’m not mistaken? Right now, that’s your job title.” He crosses his arms again. “Right?”
“I am...sheriffing,” Castiel allows, his voice hesitant. “But, Dean -”
“Oh, no.” Dean shakes his head pointedly. “You don’t get to ‘but, Dean’ me. You’re in charge of heaven? You damn well order yourself downstairs to pull Sammy out.”
“Dean,” Cas says, in a tone suddenly dark with warning, “I may be able to give myself orders, but you certainly do not have that privilege.” He sighs. “I am not being deliberately obtuse on this matter, I promise you. But there are certain - conditions - that must be met, before a soul can be raised from the Pit. I am not able to meet them.”
Dean frowns. “He saved the goddamn world, Cas.”
Cas smiles, small and sad. “Not alone.” He studies Dean for a moment. “He doesn’t deserve to be in Hell. I know that. But you must hear me. I can’t -”
“Why the fuck not!”
“Because!” Castiel’s hands slam flat on the table, eyes blazing. “Because, Dean, Sam is not one of mine. His soul doesn’t call to mine. I wouldn’t be able to find him.” He’s breathing shallow and short, irritated little huffs of air as the words rap out of him.
Dean leans back in his chair, rattled by Cas’s sudden, violent nearness. “What do you mean?” His voice is slow, dubious. Suddenly, he’s not entirely sure he wants to know the answer. But this is Sammy, and that means he has to find out anyway.
Castiel straightens; shakes his head. “Dean, I wasn’t the only angel sent into the Pit to find you. Why do you think it was me that pulled you out?”
Dean stares, eyes wide. “I don’t know,” he confesses. It isn’t something he’s ever really thought about. Cas came, Cas saved. That was all.
“I was the only one who could hear your soul,” Cas says, quietly. “Souls are strange things. They interlock, like cogs. I found you only because we were already connected in that way. My raising of you only strengthened the bond.”
Slowly, he reaches out a hand. Dean is utterly bemused for a minute, until suddenly there’s a whiplash crack of shocked heat curling through him, radiating out from the handprint burned onto his shoulder, where Cas’s palm now rests. Dean jerks; pulls away. “Jesus, Cas!”
Castiel shrugs. “That is the bond. When I touch my mark on you, it is as if I am touching the place where your soul is anchored to mine.” He presses his lips together. “But Sam - Sam’s soul is not mine. I can’t hear it. It would be entirely impossible for me to locate him.”
Dean frowns. It’s a lot to take in, and he needs to reserve a moment later to potentially freak out in, but right now he doesn’t have the time for that. “I’ve got to help him, Cas,” he says, low and plaintive. “He’s my brother. He’s Sammy. I look out for him. That’s what I do.” He raises his eyes to Cas’s. “There’s really no possible way to do it?”
Cas is silent for so long that Dean is about to repeat himself, thinking Cas hasn’t heard right, when Cas speaks. “I can think of one thing.”
Dean sits sharply upright in his chair. “Well?”
Castiel hesitates. “I don’t think it will be to your liking.”
Dean frowns. “Dude, do me a favour and let me be the judge of that, okay? If it means getting Sam outta there, I’ll do anything. No questions asked.”
“Will you unite your soul with mine?”
Dean blinks. Castiel’s eyes are bright with earnestness, but Dean is suddenly at a loss. “I thought you said we were already - united, or whatever?”
Castiel shakes his head slowly. “I said there was a connection. As, indeed, there is: a profound bond between us, in fact. But I would need more than that.”
Dean frowns. “Explain.”
“You and your brother,” Castiel says. “You were always drawn back to each other. It wasn’t coincidence. In Heaven, you were given shared space. You are, in common parlance, ‘soulmates’.” Castiel’s fingers make little quotation marks in the air. “Neither of you is entirely himself. You have a fraction of Sam’s soul in you even now, and Sam has a piece of yours.”
“Sammy has a piece of my soul?” Dean’s already gone through the motions of scorn, outrage and mild embarrassment at being called his brother’s soulmate, back when Ash said it that one time in Heaven. Now is not the time to get hung up on that. “So how come you’re not drawn to him through that, if you can hear my soul, or whatever?”
“The piece is not big enough,” Castiel explains. “The thought had occurred to me, but unfortunately, it wouldn’t be sufficient.”
“So what’s the point in talking about this ‘soulmates’ bullshit, then?” Dean demands.
“The point,” Castiel says, “is that my soul is not drawn to Sam’s, but yours is.” He takes a deep breath, and Dean immediately braces himself for something mind-blowingly disturbing. “You would be able to find your brother anywhere, but unfortunately, you are not an angel. However, if you were to unite with me - literally and entirely meld your soul with mine, such that the combined soul inhabited both of our bodies - I would be tethered to him, as you are. I would be able to find him.”
“Do it,” Dean says, without a second’s pause.
Castiel actually looks taken aback. Dean can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Cas knocked off balance like that, and it always makes him smile a little, whatever amount of fucked-uppery may be piling up around them. Castiel, though, is not smiling. “This is a very serious matter, Dean,” Castiel says, voice low and cautious.
“Damn right it is,” Dean shoots back. “So get on it, huh?” He crooks his fingers towards himself, the universal gesture of c’mon c’mon bring it. “Meld our souls already.”
Castiel takes a deep breath, as if he’s about to protest, and then stops, as if he’s thought better of it. Dean barely has time to be really fucking grateful about it before Cas is all up in his space, hand cradling the nape of Dean’s neck, his chest pressed warm and solid against Dean’s.
Dean blinks, one hand coming up to Cas’s waist in a gesture half-steadying, half-protesting. “Uh,” he says. “What’re you doing?”
“Marrying our souls,” Castiel tells him, matter-of-factly. And kisses him.
For a second, Dean is too startled to move. His hands stiffen on Cas’s waist, his mouth slack and still against Cas’s. But Cas is kissing him regardless, fingers curling around his jaw to better angle his face, and then his tongue flickers over the inside of Dean’s lower lip, and Dean’s body decides to get with the freaking program.
It’s not like he’s never noticed before that Cas is kind of an attractive guy. It was just that it kind of kept coming back to him that, actually, it was really Jimmy who was the attractive guy, even if it was Cas that Dean liked to hang with and smile at and maybe sort of daydream about, and that was just a boatload of confusing. Then there was the part where Jimmy’s body was, like, Presbyterian or something, and Cas was a goddamn angel of the Lord, and between these two things Dean didn’t think any offers of mansex would be very well received.
Except that, apparently, Cas’s full-on angel self is down with the mansex, or at least the man-kissing, and he’s really fucking good at it. His mouth works Dean’s open all firm and insistent, the flat of his tongue stroking rough over Dean’s, and Dean can’t bite back the groan that rises up in the back of his throat; doesn’t even want to. He doesn’t really get what this unexpected amorous interlude has to do with the whole soul situation, but he’s willing to put aside his thoughts on the matter in favour of kissing Cas stupid.
And then Cas - pulls away.
Dean makes a soft sound of protest, and brings his hands up to clutch at Cas’s hair. “Why’re you stopping?”
Castiel stares at him. “Dean, you don’t understand. Marrying our souls in this way will require - “ and there’s an honest-to-God flush creeping across his cheeks “ - marrying our bodies.” Cas clears his throat primly. “I would be required to reach completion inside you.”
Dean laughs at his discomfort. “Dude.” He waves his hands vaguely. “I’m not complaining. You’re hot.” He pauses. “Or - Jimmy’s hot, I guess.”
Castiel shakes his head. “Jimmy has long since vacated this body, Dean. I am alone in it.” His face tightens. “Although I would not be, if you were to allow this. You would be in it with me, as I would be in yours with you.” He draws a shaky breath. “You must understand, Dean. This would not be as simple as a single sexual encounter. You would be bound up in me, and I in you. You could, physically, perform sexually with other people, but you would never be able to connect emotionally to anyone outside of myself and Sam.” He studies Dean’s face, and his eyes are complicated and blue.
“I don’t care,” Dean says. He doesn’t know until he speaks the words how absolutely true they are, but they are. It’s a big thing, he gets that, a huge thing, and yet nothing in what Castiel is saying would really alter anything about anything. If Dean does this, he will love Cas, and he’ll love Sammy, and any sex he has with girls in bars will be entirely, hopelessly meaningless.
It sounds just like his life, except that this way, it’ll have Sammy in it again. And also, which is no less appealing, sex with Cas. Which is always an awesome thing to have with the person you’ve been crushing kind of ridiculously on for two years.
“Cas,” he says. “Do you see me emotionally connecting to anyone else?” He holds Cas’s eyes.
“Lisa -”
“I’m here because Sammy asked me to be,” Dean says. “It was practically his dying wish; I had to. And she’s been great, but we’re not - I mean, we’re not together. I’ve never really felt that way about a girl. I guess I’m warped inside.” He shrugs. “But, hey. Might as well use that, right?” He lifts his chin. “C’mon, Cas. Make it so, already.”
And so, after half a beat’s final hesitation, Castiel does.
It’s good. Just kissing, even, is good with Cas; their mouths feel right against each other, Cas’s tongue clever and quick against Dean’s, lips and teeth and wet heat sparking an answering warmth that builds in the pit of Dean’s stomach. By the time Cas has worked Dean’s shirt off, they’re on the floor, and Cas is skinning out of his trenchcoat and suit-jacket and that fucking button-down shirt he’s worn through two separate spontaneous explosions. Dean reaches up to help, shoves it down off Castiel’s shoulders, and then they’re skin against skin, and the drag of their bodies together is smooth-hot-good.
It’s been a while since Dean’s done this, got messily naked with another guy and leaked all over his stomach, but it turns out to be kind of like riding a bicycle. When they wriggle out of their pants, Cas is on Dean immediately, their legs tangled together as they rut and slick all over each other’s abdomens. Cas’s fingers, when they curl around Dean’s cock to smear the wetness there - when they dip between his legs to find him, circling - are as clever as his tongue. Dean arches his pelvis, lifts his hips to the invasion.
When Cas presses into him, thick and throbbing, it occurs to Dean - stupidly, irrelevantly - that this is the first time he’s ever done this bareback. He can feel Cas inching into him, every line and curve of him; can feel him slicking the way with his own wetness, and it’s somehow fitting, that he’s the first one to do it like this. That he’s going to be the first to fill Dean like that, to shoot off inside him, because Cas is gonna be as far inside Dean as it’s possible to get, and Dean wants that. He lifts up his knees when Cas bottoms out and stills; presses his heels at the small of his back until he moves, and it’s perfect, the burn and the pleasure, Cas’s fire and his balm.
Dean’s not quiet. It’s not in his nature to be quiet, and in bed (on the floor, against the wall - ) is no exception. By the time Cas has found his prostate, hips angled up to thrust over and over against it, Dean is crying out underneath him, clutching at his hair and his shoulderblades and his slick skin, any way he can get it. It escalates quickly, the thrust-shiver want of it, and then Cas’s hand clamps down on Dean’s arm, seals over his mark, and Dean feels as if his brain has spontaneously imploded.
“Now,” Cas pants, but his voice has gone strangely vague and dim, somewhere on the edge of Dean’s perception. “Now, Dean. Come to me. Now.”
There’s whiteness everywhere, behind his eyes and inside them, beyond them. Everything’s too bright, too hot, but Cas’s hand is firm on his arm, on his soul, and Dean clings to that, wraps himself up in it.
“Yeah,” he manages; rocks up into Cas’s warmth, clings tight to his back. “Yeah - fuck - Cas -” and then Cas is coming inside him, he can feel it; the quicksilver rush of it filling him up until he arches up and comes too, with a shout half-surprised out of him.
When he opens his eyes, for a moment he thinks he’s died. Castiel is glowing above him, the lines of his body hazed in gold, and when he turns his head, a certain trick of the light casts his eyes moss-green, as Dean’s are.
Cas says, “Dean,” and smiles at him. It’s as if Dean feels it, as well as hearing it; as if Castiel’s thoughts are somehow moving in some strange space inside himself, as well as in Cas. It’s odd, almost ticklish, but it’s warm, too, and it makes Dean want to roll Cas over and kiss him again, lick into his mouth until they’re hard against each other and Cas spreads for him, takes him, and -
Cas makes a soft sound, strangled in the back of his throat, and rolls over onto his back. “Dean, please.”
Dean doesn’t understand, for a minute; but only for a minute. “You can read my mind?”
Castiel shakes his head. “Not read it, exactly, but - your arousal. Your sorrow, your joy; any strong emotion. I can feel them.” He touches Dean’s wrist. “I’ll need that in Hell, Dean. I’ll need you to make Sam feel your closeness, so I can hear him responding to it.”
“All right,” Dean says, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I can - I can do that.”
Castiel stands; the world shifts, and then he’s clothed again, exactly as before. Dean frowns. “Now?”
“As soon as possible,” Castiel says, reaching up to straighten his lapels. “You want him back, do you not?”
Dean considers, on a scale of one to ten, just how bad of a big brother it would make him if he said not until I’ve had you again. Probably about an eleven. “Course I do,” he says, instead.
“Well then,” Cas says. And disappears.
The thing is, though, that although Dean can’t see him any more - can’t see anything but dustmotes dancing in the spot where he’d stood - the room doesn’t quite feel empty. Or rather, his head doesn’t quite feel empty, the way it used to when Cas vanished before without warning. There’s a dull sort of buzz at the back of his mind, this tight, loved feeling, and Dean somehow knows it’s Cas even before he hears the semiverbal shiver of his thoughts.
(heat heat endless heat endless endless darkness burning dean - )
It’s strange, Cas’s voice, and yet not a voice at all; more Cas’s presence, and flashes of the things he feels. Dean responds to him without thinking about it, without knowing even what he’s doing, feeling the glide of his thoughts from his own mind into Cas’s, bleeding easily across a gap that is no gap.
[got you got you i’m here i have you where are you, what, what do you need?]
With his eyes closed, it’s easier, the heat of the Pit almost tangible on his skin.
(filter i’m a filter i’ll filter you to him / call / no sign / no sign of him / call him to us / dean)
Dean grits his teeth, reaches down deep into himself. It’s easy, somehow, with his mind an open channel like this, to grope down under the stopper he’s created inside himself, tap into a vein of emotion that spurts up like a geyser.
[cascascasloveyoucas]
(sam, dean, sam / find sam / tell me about sam)
He’s dizzy with it, the rush of colour and sound, the phantom sensations all through him.
[sammy / sam / where won’t leave you got you it’s m’job sammy where ]
- and then inside him, arcing up like a hook, like the pain of a limb he’d known all his life and lost -
dean? dean?
[sammy] punches out of him, violent as a wave in a storm, and then Cas, triumphant, (see him i see him yes dean dean dean yes tell me show me keep it going - )
dean - !
The wave crashes backward, over him, submerging him, lifting, and for a moment of exaltation and fear, Dean sees nothing but light so bright he feels he must be going blind.
“Cas?” he calls out, not realising he’s spoken aloud until the word is out, broken, uncertain while his mind seems to dissolve.
There’s a sudden sound, a thud like the end of the world, and then Dean can see again, and what he sees is
“Sam!”
Sam was, apparently, the thud. Dean had almost forgotten just how big he is, and how the fuck that happened when he grew up on Spaghetti-o’s overboiled by his older brother, Dean will never know. But he is that big, and also covered in blood like a baby fresh out of the womb, and he looks confused as fuck and he smells like dead things, but he’s Sam, half-dazed in Cas’s supporting arms, and Dean’s never been squeamish about blood.
“Jesus Christ!” He hauls Sam up against him by the shoulders, gripping, and Sam hangs there lax for only a moment before he’s gripping back, crushing Dean to him with a strength apparently undiminished by however many years of demonic torture. The curve of his neck still smells like Sammy under the blood, and Dean presses his face there for as long as his dignity will allow.
“The hell happened?” Sam’s voice sounds unused, dry as dust, but unmistakably, absolutely Sam. “I heard you in my head, Dean.”
Dean grins at him, shakes him a little, just because he can. “Cas happened.”
Cas is still crouched behind Sam, although he’s dropped his arms, and Dean grins up at him; hesitates barely a second before leaning up, pulling him close, kissing his mouth. Cas hauls him upward with all the power Dean always forgets that he has, and the force of the kiss sings somewhere deep in Dean’s head.
“Uh,” Sam says, apparently from very far away. “I guess there were some developments while I was downstairs, huh?”
Dean pulls away to grin at him, cocky with elation. “Oh, yeah. Cas and me, we’re one soul, baby.” He winks; refocuses the grin on Cas. “Ain’t that so?”
Dean has the distinct impression that Cas is hiding a smile fit to burst his face beneath his ostentatious eyeroll. He can feel it, the rush of love welling up inside of him like blood, and under it, a flutter of shame at responding so predictably to such a horrible line. Cas will never be able to hide anything from him again, and Dean, for whatever reason, loves that. He laughs aloud with the joy of it.
“You’re nuts,” Sam says, bemused, but he’s smiling. “I don’t - I mean, I heard you. Cas pulled me out, right? But - “
“We both did,” Cas tells him, tearing his eyes away from Dean with an effort Dean feels in his gut. He lays his hand on Sam’s upper arm, and Dean sees the mark there only a second before the strange feeling starts up in his head again, the warm wash of connection, like water supporting them all. It’s different to the way it feels when Cas touches his own mark, lacking the psuedo-sexual spark, but it’s good, and Dean feels them all there for a moment, the three of them in some space inside him.
“Wait a second,” he says, when Cas takes his hand away and Dean stops feeling too drunk to speak. “Sam’s not gonna be able to feel us fucking, is he?”
Sam’s nose wrinkles. “Gross, dude.” He glances up at Cas. “If that’s true, you guys are never having sex again; I’m just saying.”
Cas smiles. “No, Dean. The bond between you and your brother has been there all his life, and you’ve never had that problem before, have you?”
Dean considers. “Guess not.”
“So,” Cas says, nodding. “He’ll feel us when we touch him, our thoughts, a little. Not the same way that you and I can feel each other. He is a separate soul, still. You and I are the same one.”
“Hold the phone,” Sam says, “What?”
Dean shakes his head. There’s a warmth pooling in his stomach, which he’s distinctly sure is coming from an outside source. Cas is teasing him, the bastard, and Dean would actually sort of like to go along with it, but not with his brother in the room, Jesus Christ.
“I’ll explain later,” he tells Sam shortly. “When you don’t smell like salt-and-burn.” He gives Sam a brief once-over. “And when you have some pants on. It disturbs me that you’re naked, man.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Gee, Dean, I’m sorry I forgot to dress appropriately before I got hauled outta hell by your boyfriend.” He stands up, slowly, flexing his arms and legs as if relearning the way it feels to have them - and Dean remembers what that’s like. “Besides which, you used to bathe me, Dean, for God’s sake. Get over it.”
Dean flips him off as Sam pushes open the bathroom door, and it feels so good.
And then Cas is stroking fingers through his hair, turning him to press their mouths together, and that feels even better.
“You,” Dean says against his mouth, “I just - Cas - “
“I know,” Cas breathes; and the truth of it breathes through Dean, coursing through his veins with his blood. It strikes Dean, in that moment, that Cas does know, that he’ll always know all this stuff about Dean, without Dean ever really having to say it.
For a man with serious difficulties with emotional expression, that’s a really fucking awesome trick to have access to.
He breathes deep, sends it back; pulses in his mind the [thank you love you want you, cas / god, god, god ]
“God has nothing to do with it,” Cas tells him lightly, slipping his fingers underneath Dean’s bloodstained shirt.
Dean lets him push it up; leans into him and opens his mouth to be kissed. “Reunited,” he grins, “and it feels so good.”
“If that was a reference to something,” Cas says, thumbing Dean’s nipple and relishing [bastard] the way it makes Dean shiver, “then I think I missed it.”
“You’ll learn,” Dean says with conviction, and leans up to kiss him again.
***
Title: This Song Will Guide You Home
Recipient: morganoconner over at deancas_xmas. Originally posted here.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None, except that this basically goes AU after 5.22. Certain amount of 'magic made them do it'.
Spoilers: General for S5 and 5.22
Summary: Castiel knows a way to get Sam out of hell - but he needs Dean's help.
Generally, when it comes to the people he calls family, Dean is a pretty honest guy. Putting aside the credit-card fraud and casual conwork that constitute a large part of his dayjob, he tends to keep his promises. But Dean is a big brother, and that, as far as he’s concerned, gives him certain kinds of licence. One of these being the licence not to leave his little brother to burn in hell for eternity, promise or not.
Dean’s pretty sure he’s in the right on this one.
Sam’s been downstairs for maybe a week when Dean first cracks out a book and starts combing it for answers. Unfortunately - albeit, not surprisingly - it doesn’t exactly offer any. The problem here, really, is that the Winchesters have been all too familiar with hell and resurrection for a good few years now, and every book that might be useful has already been scoured and thumbscrewed for information. Previous experience pretty much reduced the tally of beings that could bring someone back from the dead to a meagre two: angels, and crossroads demons. And crossroads demons were a big old question-mark when it came to someone who was probably rocking the Very Important Prisoners rack in Hell.
So that leaves angels.
The first few times he calls Cas, there isn’t anything resembling an answer - not even a flicker of lights or some creepy electricity-generating action, just to say he’s listening. Dean’s, okay, a little pissed, but he keeps trying. For one thing, he knows Cas is busy and all, picking through the debris that Lucifer and Michael and all the other feathery SOBs have left behind. For another, it’s not as if he really has any other options. And for a third - well. It’s not wrong of him to want to see his friends once in a while, is it? When a man’s lost his entire family in the process of saving the world from the freakin’ apocalypse, isn’t he entitled to the occasional get-together with the best friend he has left?
Dean would like to see anyone try to argue against him on that one. He really, really would. And then he’d like to knock their teeth right the hell down their throat. But first, he’d like to see Cas, and there’s no shame in that.
By the time Cas actually shows up, Sam’s been downstairs for seventy-three days. That’s seventy-three days Dean’s gone without the companionship of anyone he can actually talk to, be himself with; seventy-three days since the moment Cas whisked himself off to heaven in a whole cloud of nothing and left Dean all alone in the dark. Dean is torn between growling out how unimpressed he is, and biting his fist so he won’t say something that’ll send Cas shooting back off again, now Dean’s finally managed to get hold of him.
He settles for a bit of belligerent arm-crossing and jaw-jutting, although what’s reflected on his face is only a fraction of the anger and gratitude and loneliness and relief he feels. “So, what, you got your angel-mojo back and forgot how to answer your cell?”
“The network coverage in Heaven is patchy.”
Cas doesn’t smile. Dean doesn’t know why he’s surprised by that - it wasn’t as if Cas had ever been all that up on socially acceptable body-language - but some stupid, childish, clinging part of him is disappointed by it. This Cas, stiff and unamused, reminds him of Castiel, the way he was before they fought and hurt and defeated the apocalypse together. Before Cas learned how it was to feel crushed and betrayed, to drink until the sharp edges of the pain wore dull. Cas isn’t, can’t be Castiel anymore, full of grace or not. He’s more than that, now, and Dean wants to see that in his face.
“Prayer coverage patchy too?” he demands.
Castiel does smile, then, raising his chin a little in acknowledgement, and if Dean’s stomach swoops a little in relief, he won’t be blamed for it.
“What is it you want, Dean?” he asks. “I’m -”
“Real busy, I know, I know.” Dean raises his hands, palm outward, in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. I just.” He shakes his head. “What do you think I want, Cas? I want my brother back.”
Castiel’s smile doesn’t change, but something in his eyes goes soft, the blue washing strangely gentle, like a watercolour. “Your brother is in the Cage, Dean. You saw him fall yourself.”
“Oh, jeez, Cas, really? I actually forgot all about that.” Exasperation makes Dean sarcastic. He scowls, and shoves his hands into his pockets. “So? The cage is in Hell, right?”
“In its very depths,” Castiel confirms, softly.
Dean shrugs. “So, you’ve braved the party in the Pit before. What’s stopping you doing it again?”
“What’s - ?” Castiel’s mouth twists, then, and he isn’t laughing. “Dean, if you are referring to my raising of you, I -” He hesitates. “That was bidden. It was an errand from God.”
“Except that’s not exactly true, is it?” Dean scrutinises Cas’s face for a long moment, and then sits down heavily on the nearest spindly kitchen chair. It groans in protest under the onslaught, but Dean isn’t paying attention. “You said that, but God hasn’t been giving the orders upstairs for a lot longer than that. That order came from Mr Boss Man Angel, and if I’m not mistaken? Right now, that’s your job title.” He crosses his arms again. “Right?”
“I am...sheriffing,” Castiel allows, his voice hesitant. “But, Dean -”
“Oh, no.” Dean shakes his head pointedly. “You don’t get to ‘but, Dean’ me. You’re in charge of heaven? You damn well order yourself downstairs to pull Sammy out.”
“Dean,” Cas says, in a tone suddenly dark with warning, “I may be able to give myself orders, but you certainly do not have that privilege.” He sighs. “I am not being deliberately obtuse on this matter, I promise you. But there are certain - conditions - that must be met, before a soul can be raised from the Pit. I am not able to meet them.”
Dean frowns. “He saved the goddamn world, Cas.”
Cas smiles, small and sad. “Not alone.” He studies Dean for a moment. “He doesn’t deserve to be in Hell. I know that. But you must hear me. I can’t -”
“Why the fuck not!”
“Because!” Castiel’s hands slam flat on the table, eyes blazing. “Because, Dean, Sam is not one of mine. His soul doesn’t call to mine. I wouldn’t be able to find him.” He’s breathing shallow and short, irritated little huffs of air as the words rap out of him.
Dean leans back in his chair, rattled by Cas’s sudden, violent nearness. “What do you mean?” His voice is slow, dubious. Suddenly, he’s not entirely sure he wants to know the answer. But this is Sammy, and that means he has to find out anyway.
Castiel straightens; shakes his head. “Dean, I wasn’t the only angel sent into the Pit to find you. Why do you think it was me that pulled you out?”
Dean stares, eyes wide. “I don’t know,” he confesses. It isn’t something he’s ever really thought about. Cas came, Cas saved. That was all.
“I was the only one who could hear your soul,” Cas says, quietly. “Souls are strange things. They interlock, like cogs. I found you only because we were already connected in that way. My raising of you only strengthened the bond.”
Slowly, he reaches out a hand. Dean is utterly bemused for a minute, until suddenly there’s a whiplash crack of shocked heat curling through him, radiating out from the handprint burned onto his shoulder, where Cas’s palm now rests. Dean jerks; pulls away. “Jesus, Cas!”
Castiel shrugs. “That is the bond. When I touch my mark on you, it is as if I am touching the place where your soul is anchored to mine.” He presses his lips together. “But Sam - Sam’s soul is not mine. I can’t hear it. It would be entirely impossible for me to locate him.”
Dean frowns. It’s a lot to take in, and he needs to reserve a moment later to potentially freak out in, but right now he doesn’t have the time for that. “I’ve got to help him, Cas,” he says, low and plaintive. “He’s my brother. He’s Sammy. I look out for him. That’s what I do.” He raises his eyes to Cas’s. “There’s really no possible way to do it?”
Cas is silent for so long that Dean is about to repeat himself, thinking Cas hasn’t heard right, when Cas speaks. “I can think of one thing.”
Dean sits sharply upright in his chair. “Well?”
Castiel hesitates. “I don’t think it will be to your liking.”
Dean frowns. “Dude, do me a favour and let me be the judge of that, okay? If it means getting Sam outta there, I’ll do anything. No questions asked.”
“Will you unite your soul with mine?”
Dean blinks. Castiel’s eyes are bright with earnestness, but Dean is suddenly at a loss. “I thought you said we were already - united, or whatever?”
Castiel shakes his head slowly. “I said there was a connection. As, indeed, there is: a profound bond between us, in fact. But I would need more than that.”
Dean frowns. “Explain.”
“You and your brother,” Castiel says. “You were always drawn back to each other. It wasn’t coincidence. In Heaven, you were given shared space. You are, in common parlance, ‘soulmates’.” Castiel’s fingers make little quotation marks in the air. “Neither of you is entirely himself. You have a fraction of Sam’s soul in you even now, and Sam has a piece of yours.”
“Sammy has a piece of my soul?” Dean’s already gone through the motions of scorn, outrage and mild embarrassment at being called his brother’s soulmate, back when Ash said it that one time in Heaven. Now is not the time to get hung up on that. “So how come you’re not drawn to him through that, if you can hear my soul, or whatever?”
“The piece is not big enough,” Castiel explains. “The thought had occurred to me, but unfortunately, it wouldn’t be sufficient.”
“So what’s the point in talking about this ‘soulmates’ bullshit, then?” Dean demands.
“The point,” Castiel says, “is that my soul is not drawn to Sam’s, but yours is.” He takes a deep breath, and Dean immediately braces himself for something mind-blowingly disturbing. “You would be able to find your brother anywhere, but unfortunately, you are not an angel. However, if you were to unite with me - literally and entirely meld your soul with mine, such that the combined soul inhabited both of our bodies - I would be tethered to him, as you are. I would be able to find him.”
“Do it,” Dean says, without a second’s pause.
Castiel actually looks taken aback. Dean can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Cas knocked off balance like that, and it always makes him smile a little, whatever amount of fucked-uppery may be piling up around them. Castiel, though, is not smiling. “This is a very serious matter, Dean,” Castiel says, voice low and cautious.
“Damn right it is,” Dean shoots back. “So get on it, huh?” He crooks his fingers towards himself, the universal gesture of c’mon c’mon bring it. “Meld our souls already.”
Castiel takes a deep breath, as if he’s about to protest, and then stops, as if he’s thought better of it. Dean barely has time to be really fucking grateful about it before Cas is all up in his space, hand cradling the nape of Dean’s neck, his chest pressed warm and solid against Dean’s.
Dean blinks, one hand coming up to Cas’s waist in a gesture half-steadying, half-protesting. “Uh,” he says. “What’re you doing?”
“Marrying our souls,” Castiel tells him, matter-of-factly. And kisses him.
For a second, Dean is too startled to move. His hands stiffen on Cas’s waist, his mouth slack and still against Cas’s. But Cas is kissing him regardless, fingers curling around his jaw to better angle his face, and then his tongue flickers over the inside of Dean’s lower lip, and Dean’s body decides to get with the freaking program.
It’s not like he’s never noticed before that Cas is kind of an attractive guy. It was just that it kind of kept coming back to him that, actually, it was really Jimmy who was the attractive guy, even if it was Cas that Dean liked to hang with and smile at and maybe sort of daydream about, and that was just a boatload of confusing. Then there was the part where Jimmy’s body was, like, Presbyterian or something, and Cas was a goddamn angel of the Lord, and between these two things Dean didn’t think any offers of mansex would be very well received.
Except that, apparently, Cas’s full-on angel self is down with the mansex, or at least the man-kissing, and he’s really fucking good at it. His mouth works Dean’s open all firm and insistent, the flat of his tongue stroking rough over Dean’s, and Dean can’t bite back the groan that rises up in the back of his throat; doesn’t even want to. He doesn’t really get what this unexpected amorous interlude has to do with the whole soul situation, but he’s willing to put aside his thoughts on the matter in favour of kissing Cas stupid.
And then Cas - pulls away.
Dean makes a soft sound of protest, and brings his hands up to clutch at Cas’s hair. “Why’re you stopping?”
Castiel stares at him. “Dean, you don’t understand. Marrying our souls in this way will require - “ and there’s an honest-to-God flush creeping across his cheeks “ - marrying our bodies.” Cas clears his throat primly. “I would be required to reach completion inside you.”
Dean laughs at his discomfort. “Dude.” He waves his hands vaguely. “I’m not complaining. You’re hot.” He pauses. “Or - Jimmy’s hot, I guess.”
Castiel shakes his head. “Jimmy has long since vacated this body, Dean. I am alone in it.” His face tightens. “Although I would not be, if you were to allow this. You would be in it with me, as I would be in yours with you.” He draws a shaky breath. “You must understand, Dean. This would not be as simple as a single sexual encounter. You would be bound up in me, and I in you. You could, physically, perform sexually with other people, but you would never be able to connect emotionally to anyone outside of myself and Sam.” He studies Dean’s face, and his eyes are complicated and blue.
“I don’t care,” Dean says. He doesn’t know until he speaks the words how absolutely true they are, but they are. It’s a big thing, he gets that, a huge thing, and yet nothing in what Castiel is saying would really alter anything about anything. If Dean does this, he will love Cas, and he’ll love Sammy, and any sex he has with girls in bars will be entirely, hopelessly meaningless.
It sounds just like his life, except that this way, it’ll have Sammy in it again. And also, which is no less appealing, sex with Cas. Which is always an awesome thing to have with the person you’ve been crushing kind of ridiculously on for two years.
“Cas,” he says. “Do you see me emotionally connecting to anyone else?” He holds Cas’s eyes.
“Lisa -”
“I’m here because Sammy asked me to be,” Dean says. “It was practically his dying wish; I had to. And she’s been great, but we’re not - I mean, we’re not together. I’ve never really felt that way about a girl. I guess I’m warped inside.” He shrugs. “But, hey. Might as well use that, right?” He lifts his chin. “C’mon, Cas. Make it so, already.”
And so, after half a beat’s final hesitation, Castiel does.
It’s good. Just kissing, even, is good with Cas; their mouths feel right against each other, Cas’s tongue clever and quick against Dean’s, lips and teeth and wet heat sparking an answering warmth that builds in the pit of Dean’s stomach. By the time Cas has worked Dean’s shirt off, they’re on the floor, and Cas is skinning out of his trenchcoat and suit-jacket and that fucking button-down shirt he’s worn through two separate spontaneous explosions. Dean reaches up to help, shoves it down off Castiel’s shoulders, and then they’re skin against skin, and the drag of their bodies together is smooth-hot-good.
It’s been a while since Dean’s done this, got messily naked with another guy and leaked all over his stomach, but it turns out to be kind of like riding a bicycle. When they wriggle out of their pants, Cas is on Dean immediately, their legs tangled together as they rut and slick all over each other’s abdomens. Cas’s fingers, when they curl around Dean’s cock to smear the wetness there - when they dip between his legs to find him, circling - are as clever as his tongue. Dean arches his pelvis, lifts his hips to the invasion.
When Cas presses into him, thick and throbbing, it occurs to Dean - stupidly, irrelevantly - that this is the first time he’s ever done this bareback. He can feel Cas inching into him, every line and curve of him; can feel him slicking the way with his own wetness, and it’s somehow fitting, that he’s the first one to do it like this. That he’s going to be the first to fill Dean like that, to shoot off inside him, because Cas is gonna be as far inside Dean as it’s possible to get, and Dean wants that. He lifts up his knees when Cas bottoms out and stills; presses his heels at the small of his back until he moves, and it’s perfect, the burn and the pleasure, Cas’s fire and his balm.
Dean’s not quiet. It’s not in his nature to be quiet, and in bed (on the floor, against the wall - ) is no exception. By the time Cas has found his prostate, hips angled up to thrust over and over against it, Dean is crying out underneath him, clutching at his hair and his shoulderblades and his slick skin, any way he can get it. It escalates quickly, the thrust-shiver want of it, and then Cas’s hand clamps down on Dean’s arm, seals over his mark, and Dean feels as if his brain has spontaneously imploded.
“Now,” Cas pants, but his voice has gone strangely vague and dim, somewhere on the edge of Dean’s perception. “Now, Dean. Come to me. Now.”
There’s whiteness everywhere, behind his eyes and inside them, beyond them. Everything’s too bright, too hot, but Cas’s hand is firm on his arm, on his soul, and Dean clings to that, wraps himself up in it.
“Yeah,” he manages; rocks up into Cas’s warmth, clings tight to his back. “Yeah - fuck - Cas -” and then Cas is coming inside him, he can feel it; the quicksilver rush of it filling him up until he arches up and comes too, with a shout half-surprised out of him.
When he opens his eyes, for a moment he thinks he’s died. Castiel is glowing above him, the lines of his body hazed in gold, and when he turns his head, a certain trick of the light casts his eyes moss-green, as Dean’s are.
Cas says, “Dean,” and smiles at him. It’s as if Dean feels it, as well as hearing it; as if Castiel’s thoughts are somehow moving in some strange space inside himself, as well as in Cas. It’s odd, almost ticklish, but it’s warm, too, and it makes Dean want to roll Cas over and kiss him again, lick into his mouth until they’re hard against each other and Cas spreads for him, takes him, and -
Cas makes a soft sound, strangled in the back of his throat, and rolls over onto his back. “Dean, please.”
Dean doesn’t understand, for a minute; but only for a minute. “You can read my mind?”
Castiel shakes his head. “Not read it, exactly, but - your arousal. Your sorrow, your joy; any strong emotion. I can feel them.” He touches Dean’s wrist. “I’ll need that in Hell, Dean. I’ll need you to make Sam feel your closeness, so I can hear him responding to it.”
“All right,” Dean says, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I can - I can do that.”
Castiel stands; the world shifts, and then he’s clothed again, exactly as before. Dean frowns. “Now?”
“As soon as possible,” Castiel says, reaching up to straighten his lapels. “You want him back, do you not?”
Dean considers, on a scale of one to ten, just how bad of a big brother it would make him if he said not until I’ve had you again. Probably about an eleven. “Course I do,” he says, instead.
“Well then,” Cas says. And disappears.
The thing is, though, that although Dean can’t see him any more - can’t see anything but dustmotes dancing in the spot where he’d stood - the room doesn’t quite feel empty. Or rather, his head doesn’t quite feel empty, the way it used to when Cas vanished before without warning. There’s a dull sort of buzz at the back of his mind, this tight, loved feeling, and Dean somehow knows it’s Cas even before he hears the semiverbal shiver of his thoughts.
(heat heat endless heat endless endless darkness burning dean - )
It’s strange, Cas’s voice, and yet not a voice at all; more Cas’s presence, and flashes of the things he feels. Dean responds to him without thinking about it, without knowing even what he’s doing, feeling the glide of his thoughts from his own mind into Cas’s, bleeding easily across a gap that is no gap.
[got you got you i’m here i have you where are you, what, what do you need?]
With his eyes closed, it’s easier, the heat of the Pit almost tangible on his skin.
(filter i’m a filter i’ll filter you to him / call / no sign / no sign of him / call him to us / dean)
Dean grits his teeth, reaches down deep into himself. It’s easy, somehow, with his mind an open channel like this, to grope down under the stopper he’s created inside himself, tap into a vein of emotion that spurts up like a geyser.
[cascascasloveyoucas]
(sam, dean, sam / find sam / tell me about sam)
He’s dizzy with it, the rush of colour and sound, the phantom sensations all through him.
[sammy / sam / where won’t leave you got you it’s m’job sammy where ]
- and then inside him, arcing up like a hook, like the pain of a limb he’d known all his life and lost -
dean? dean?
[sammy] punches out of him, violent as a wave in a storm, and then Cas, triumphant, (see him i see him yes dean dean dean yes tell me show me keep it going - )
dean - !
The wave crashes backward, over him, submerging him, lifting, and for a moment of exaltation and fear, Dean sees nothing but light so bright he feels he must be going blind.
“Cas?” he calls out, not realising he’s spoken aloud until the word is out, broken, uncertain while his mind seems to dissolve.
There’s a sudden sound, a thud like the end of the world, and then Dean can see again, and what he sees is
“Sam!”
Sam was, apparently, the thud. Dean had almost forgotten just how big he is, and how the fuck that happened when he grew up on Spaghetti-o’s overboiled by his older brother, Dean will never know. But he is that big, and also covered in blood like a baby fresh out of the womb, and he looks confused as fuck and he smells like dead things, but he’s Sam, half-dazed in Cas’s supporting arms, and Dean’s never been squeamish about blood.
“Jesus Christ!” He hauls Sam up against him by the shoulders, gripping, and Sam hangs there lax for only a moment before he’s gripping back, crushing Dean to him with a strength apparently undiminished by however many years of demonic torture. The curve of his neck still smells like Sammy under the blood, and Dean presses his face there for as long as his dignity will allow.
“The hell happened?” Sam’s voice sounds unused, dry as dust, but unmistakably, absolutely Sam. “I heard you in my head, Dean.”
Dean grins at him, shakes him a little, just because he can. “Cas happened.”
Cas is still crouched behind Sam, although he’s dropped his arms, and Dean grins up at him; hesitates barely a second before leaning up, pulling him close, kissing his mouth. Cas hauls him upward with all the power Dean always forgets that he has, and the force of the kiss sings somewhere deep in Dean’s head.
“Uh,” Sam says, apparently from very far away. “I guess there were some developments while I was downstairs, huh?”
Dean pulls away to grin at him, cocky with elation. “Oh, yeah. Cas and me, we’re one soul, baby.” He winks; refocuses the grin on Cas. “Ain’t that so?”
Dean has the distinct impression that Cas is hiding a smile fit to burst his face beneath his ostentatious eyeroll. He can feel it, the rush of love welling up inside of him like blood, and under it, a flutter of shame at responding so predictably to such a horrible line. Cas will never be able to hide anything from him again, and Dean, for whatever reason, loves that. He laughs aloud with the joy of it.
“You’re nuts,” Sam says, bemused, but he’s smiling. “I don’t - I mean, I heard you. Cas pulled me out, right? But - “
“We both did,” Cas tells him, tearing his eyes away from Dean with an effort Dean feels in his gut. He lays his hand on Sam’s upper arm, and Dean sees the mark there only a second before the strange feeling starts up in his head again, the warm wash of connection, like water supporting them all. It’s different to the way it feels when Cas touches his own mark, lacking the psuedo-sexual spark, but it’s good, and Dean feels them all there for a moment, the three of them in some space inside him.
“Wait a second,” he says, when Cas takes his hand away and Dean stops feeling too drunk to speak. “Sam’s not gonna be able to feel us fucking, is he?”
Sam’s nose wrinkles. “Gross, dude.” He glances up at Cas. “If that’s true, you guys are never having sex again; I’m just saying.”
Cas smiles. “No, Dean. The bond between you and your brother has been there all his life, and you’ve never had that problem before, have you?”
Dean considers. “Guess not.”
“So,” Cas says, nodding. “He’ll feel us when we touch him, our thoughts, a little. Not the same way that you and I can feel each other. He is a separate soul, still. You and I are the same one.”
“Hold the phone,” Sam says, “What?”
Dean shakes his head. There’s a warmth pooling in his stomach, which he’s distinctly sure is coming from an outside source. Cas is teasing him, the bastard, and Dean would actually sort of like to go along with it, but not with his brother in the room, Jesus Christ.
“I’ll explain later,” he tells Sam shortly. “When you don’t smell like salt-and-burn.” He gives Sam a brief once-over. “And when you have some pants on. It disturbs me that you’re naked, man.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Gee, Dean, I’m sorry I forgot to dress appropriately before I got hauled outta hell by your boyfriend.” He stands up, slowly, flexing his arms and legs as if relearning the way it feels to have them - and Dean remembers what that’s like. “Besides which, you used to bathe me, Dean, for God’s sake. Get over it.”
Dean flips him off as Sam pushes open the bathroom door, and it feels so good.
And then Cas is stroking fingers through his hair, turning him to press their mouths together, and that feels even better.
“You,” Dean says against his mouth, “I just - Cas - “
“I know,” Cas breathes; and the truth of it breathes through Dean, coursing through his veins with his blood. It strikes Dean, in that moment, that Cas does know, that he’ll always know all this stuff about Dean, without Dean ever really having to say it.
For a man with serious difficulties with emotional expression, that’s a really fucking awesome trick to have access to.
He breathes deep, sends it back; pulses in his mind the [thank you love you want you, cas / god, god, god ]
“God has nothing to do with it,” Cas tells him lightly, slipping his fingers underneath Dean’s bloodstained shirt.
Dean lets him push it up; leans into him and opens his mouth to be kissed. “Reunited,” he grins, “and it feels so good.”
“If that was a reference to something,” Cas says, thumbing Dean’s nipple and relishing [bastard] the way it makes Dean shiver, “then I think I missed it.”
“You’ll learn,” Dean says with conviction, and leans up to kiss him again.
***