Episode 15: Ghosts (Part 1)
Title: Ghosts (Part I)
Masterpost: Supernatural: Redemption Road (for full series info, warnings, and disclaimer)
Author: zatnikatel
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Bobby, Sam, OC and canon characters
Rating: NC-17 for Part I
Word Count: ~20,500 for Part I
Warnings: language, mild violence, explicit sexuality, suggested dubcon, brief allusions to past non-con
Betas: nyoka and electricskeptic
Notes: Due to size this episode is being split into two parts, the first airing here tonight and the second airing on 3/1.
Art: Chapter banner by geckoholic; digital paintings by rumi-nyo, which you can also find here (art contains spoilers for the chapter).
Summary: Bobby casts his vision up again to see Castiel's eyes sparkle cold and calculating, see the angel smile the wolfish smile of a predator…
Mendocino National Forest
California
On days like this he doesn't know why he took up teaching, and he thinks he might not even like kids very much.
Even in the cool of the forest, it's hot. Sweat is running down his face, making his glasses slide inexorably down his nose, and he can smell the stink of it, knows it's soaking through his shirt and staining the fabric dark with saturated patches.
He can hear the brats giggling behind him as they trudge along in his wake, fat guys sweat more, whispered out carelessly loud. They don't even put their hands over their mouths, and when he turns, their collective gaze is mocking and judgmental.
Children of the fucking corn, he thinks. "Keep up," he barks resolutely, gesturing at the stragglers, and swinging his arm up and around to slap at where he can feel something crawling up the back of his neck. He pulls his hand back, and the cracked carapace of a large black spider is oozing yellow and messy all over his palm.
"That could be poisonous, Professor," one of the children sneers.
He scowls, wipes the gore on his pants leg as he keeps walking. "Most spiders aren't dangerous to humans," he declares. "Their fangs are either too short or too fragile to penetrate human skin."
He doesn't see the dead log in his path until he almost trips over it. He reels, barely keeps his footing, and a ripple of laughter breaks out. "Dead and dying trees are a natural and important part of this forest's ecosystem," he raps out frantically. "Who can tell me why?"
They stand in a mute semicircle, glaring at him for his temerity and daring him to point to one of them.
He licks lips gone dry. "Because when trees die and rot on the forest floor, essential nutrients are recycled by insects and other animals," he races out. "This is part of the circle of life, and one reason why clear-cutting and the construction of logging roads can be so devastating to the entire ecosystem. Any questions?"
Their eyes are insolent, their gum-chewing jaws moving rhythmically and idly, as if they're chewing the cud.
"Well. Our landscapes are under siege from a host of threats," he lectures, slicing a finger through the air at them. "Wildfires, climate change, invasive species, and increasing human population put these delicate ecosystems at risk. We must work together…" He nods for emphasis. "Together, to preserve our nation's rich biodiversity, to, to build. Yes, build…build ecologically healthy and resilient landscapes that can adapt and thrive in the face of natural disturbances."
When the hand floats up, his heart sinks. "Yes?"
"They grow pot near here," the girl says, and she winks a bright blue eye at him. "I read about it in the LA Times. There was this raid and the cops confiscated four hundred and sixty thousand marijuana plants. That's some pretty rich biodiversity right there, Professor."
He starts blustering back at her, while her long, spiky eyelashes blink slowly, and her lip curls derision at him.
"Yes, well. Thank you, Claire. You raise an interesting point…these illegal cultivation efforts result in massive environmental damage, and it's-"
It drops on his shoulder lightly for its size, and although he's somewhat distracted by the screaming, and the brightly colored kaleidoscope of children scattering into the woods as football-sized black missiles start hailing down on them from the trees, he could swear it cocks its head at him and calculates just where the skin of his neck will be softest.
He realizes he was wrong about the fangs a few seconds later as the ground looms up to meet him, but he finds he doesn't really mind, because he can't feel anything, and it's oddly peaceful. He can still see though, see the figure that approaches from off the trail, walks right up to him and stares down, while he gazes up into its eyes and wonders what's wrong with them.
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge
Charlestown, RI
"We're not alone."
Castiel doesn't stop walking as he speaks, low and almost casual, but he does slow down, and his unease is palpable in the way his frame tenses and his fingers flex and fan the air next to his thigh.
Bobby darts his eyes around as he slips his Remington off his shoulder. They've been hiking the trail for just over two hours, wending their way through the mix of flat grasslands and wetlands that separate the coastal lagoon to their left from the Atlantic ocean, as they make for the barrier beach they're here to scope. It's been peaceful so far, no sign of what they're here to hunt, whatever it is that vanished all ten birdwatchers on an Audubon society nature walk into thin air. Bobby has let himself drift in the heat, unseasonable as it is for Rhode Island in early Spring, has let his focus wander across the simple beauty of the place.
Now he snaps back to attention, and…it's quiet, he realizes, the chatter of birds and the croaking of frogs suddenly muted. As he registers the hush, the tranquility of the place takes on a haunted, malevolent feel, and when he glances up, the blue sky has turned the same misty gray as winter breath. "What is it?" he asks brusquely, as he turns mid-walk to check their six, tracking his vision across the acres of sedge and rushes, the clumped red maple and deep pink swathes of swamp rose.
"I'm not sure yet." Castiel narrows his eyes as he looks out over the water. "But I think we can safely assume it's a non-native undesirable species."
The angel has taken to carrying a Predator crossbow he liberated from the trunk of the Impala, and his hand drifts almost idly to the weapon and unclips it from its sling. He rests the stirrup on the ground, the tip of his boot holding it firm as he eases the trigger pull up, plucks a metal bolt from a hip-mounted pouch, and slots it into the groove. Castiel performs the action slowly, his fingers deliberate, but Bobby has seen him repeat the motion just as precisely in a blur of deft movement too fast to track.
Castiel glances back beyond Bobby briefly, and his eyes are alert, gleaming molten. The speed with which he switches from placid to feral makes Bobby shiver, like it always does, makes him think the Predator crossbow says it all. It's been months, and even when the mojo is switched off there is still something outcast and exotic in Castiel's regard, an aloof, unblinking gaze Bobby suspects can see into his soul and dissect it; there is still something alien in the self-possessed way he carries himself. On the hunt it magnifies; the angel's poise becomes ruthless calculation and intent, his walk a stealthy, wolf-like lope that promises lethal speed. Dean calls it badass, and his eyes go wide and starved when he says it, but it makes Bobby think of full-moon fever and the wild, bloodthirsty, amoral things that lurk in the darkness. He pushes that thought away, grinds out a surreptitious, "Where is it?"
Castiel's response is terse, with an underlying note of long-suffering amusement. "Everywhere. Be on your guard."
Almost as the words leave the angel's mouth, Bobby sees them shimmer into existence in the shallows on both sides, forming from nothing, a reverse-melt into solid forms with grayish-green skin that glows phosphorescent. Narrow, wispy-haired skulls erupt straight out of their shoulders, and amphibious eyes bulge golden on the sides of flat faces bisected by black, sliced-in mouths that stretch from ear to ear. Tattered clothing hangs from their shoulders, and their arms are short, raptor-like forelimbs that end in clawed hands. The one nearest to him is wearing what looks like a pair of Nikon Trailblazers on a strap around its neck.
"Binoculars," Bobby murmurs as he moves closer to the angel. "I guess we found our birdwatchers." He tallies the hybrids ruefully and swallows down his fear as more flicker into phase. "All ten of them."
Castiel is already raising his crossbow and taking aim. "Don't let them herd you into the water," he says coolly. "It's their element, and they'll have even more of an advantage."
Bobby blows out as he pulls his cap down more firmly on his head, grunts as the things start to fan out and close in. "I'm getting too old for this."
The angel directs a bone-dry look his way, and his reply is utterly flat. "And you tell me this now?" He doesn't blink as he lets the bolt fly, and Bobby hears the serrated zip of the projectile as it cuts through the air. It buries itself dead center between the eyes of one of the hybrids to their left, and the thing lurches, flaps its lipless mouth and bays out a shrieking noise as it belly flops back into the lagoon it emerged from.
And then all hell breaks loose as the things attack.
Bobby gets off a single shot, sees the head of one of the things mist out in a gory splatter of scarlet flecks and globs of gray matter, and breathes out a heartfelt dammit for one second of helpless paralysis before a second mutant tackles him. It's heavy, because when it was still a person it had a body mass index in the late twenties, and it takes him down easily. The gluey, frogspawn slide of its hand around his neck has his guts flip-flopping as he fishes for his Bowie and brings it up and around in a clumsy arc, burying it in the back of the thing's neck as it pummels him. It screeches, a loud, unearthly yammering that makes Bobby's nerves flinch in hideous terror, as its eyelids close up, up, over its eyes.
Snatching a split-second to glance beyond his own tussle on the shingle, Bobby sees that the rest of the semi-human horde have Castiel smothered in confusion and are battering him so hard Bobby can hear the dull thud of the impact. The angel is staggering under the onslaught, lashing out wildly at the ghoulish dead as they chew into his defense, until a blow slams into the side of his head so hard Bobby sees his eyes spin in their sockets as he crashes down onto all fours. He's still conscious though, and he looks right at Bobby and smiles, his mouth dripping scarlet drool.
Bobby tears his gaze away as his own pain-crazed assailant hurls a stream of croaked-out invective at him. Its breath is rich with the stench of rotten, long-dead carrion, and he can see rows of sharp, white teeth in its upper jaw as it snaps hungrily at him. Up close, its skin is scaled like a fish, and its tongue flicks out at him, blue-black and dripping putrid slime. He goes in for the kill again, sinking the blade in, sawing it from side to side, and he's beginning to space out as its grip finally loosens and the pressure on his airways is gone. He sucks in oxygen, blinks away the spots in his eyes, and rolls the twitching form off him as he cranes his neck.
Castiel's sword is drawn now, and he's smiling again, his eyes glinting savage as the creatures prowl around him looking for a weakness. And then he explodes into a blur of fluid movement, the weapon a graceful silvery flash as he lunges, twists and feints, ducking them as they rush him. Every movement is adroit and economical, millennia of skill honed into a brutal, succinct dialogue of metal, flesh, and bone. There is no debate going on in this fight any more, Bobby can see, and he barks out a wry laugh as he watches the angel carve and slice, until the hybrid closest to the back of the group bellows out a harsh, guttural, ill-formed stream of words.
The result is instantaneous.
The fight stops abruptly as Castiel freezes, and Bobby is close enough to see the angel's face go ashen, his sword arm falling as if the weapon is suddenly too heavy to wield. The thing lifts its arm and points, jabbers out what sounds like the same phrases again, sibilant and accusing. Bobby strains to pick out what it's saying but it isn't any language he can recognize, and he gestures frantically as the remaining mutants start to pick up the chant. They're plodding their way in, relentless, and Castiel starts to fall back towards the sea, transfixed by them. Spell, Bobby assumes desperately, and he pushes up onto his feet, hollers the angel's name at the top of his lungs as he takes long, quick strides towards them, his knife ready.
At the sound of Bobby's voice, Castiel winces, passes a hand across his brow, shakes his head and blinks at the five, six, no, seven hybrids reaching out for him. His face snaps around then, his eyes fixing on Bobby, and the light is already starting to blaze eerily out of them. "Take cover," he yells.
Bobby doesn't need convincing. He hits the wet sand hard and buries his face under his arms as static electricity crackles, scorching heat explodes all around him, and high-pitched wailing fills his ears.
The kid is about a half-foot taller than when Dean last saw him.
He's some distance away, in the outfield, knees bent, feet apart, hands up and ready, his eyes glued to the hitting zone and the point of contact, in case a flyball heads his way. Dean knows the kid is out there because he's got a strong right arm and an eagle eye, and he's a team player, happy to back up the infield and the outfield. The kid has a good memory; he's good at keeping a bead on the score, knows the number of outs, the type of hitter he's up against, can pinpoint the location of any runner on base and think on his feet, shifting positions according to the situation, the pitcher, and the batter. Dean knows the kid knows to do all that because he remembers telling him, telling him outfielders are probably the most overlooked players in baseball, and it didn't matter if he wasn't batting, he was still vital to the game.
He explodes into action now, feet speedy as he darts to his right, his glove out and ready, and Dean tenses, his own fingers strumming the air in anticipation as the kid reaches-
"I'm sorry, but do I know you?"
Her face is slightly suspicious, slightly puzzled, but her eyes are warm brown, like they always were. Her arms are folded across her chest, a little defensive. "You just look really familiar, but I can't place you…"
She's wearing one of his old t-shirts, and that throws Dean for a second, so he fumbles his reply. "Uh. I don't think so…" She was dazed and confused in the hospital, he remembers, her eyes foggy with drugs when he hovered at the doorway to her room. Even though her eyes are curious, there isn't any real spark of recognition in them. He's safe, he reckons. "I think I just have one of those faces," he offers lamely, and he shrugs.
"Yeah, I guess," she tells him, and her focus is already drifting away, back to the game, past the modest throng of other parents who got off work early for Friday Little League practice.
"One of them yours?" Dean asks her, and he knows he shouldn't, hears his voice go a little faint as he does, because he loved her, loved her son too, and a part of him still does and always will.
"Yeah," she murmurs distantly, but she remembers her manners. "How about you?"
He's with it sufficiently to answer more smoothly, waves a noncommittal hand over at the cluster of kids on the diamond. "Nephew. I was just passing."
She's nodding distractedly, not looking at him, already taking the first steps away. She reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and the ring on her finger gives him a garish, mocking wink. His inner voice spits, cubic fuckin' zirconia at it, but it still glitters hurtfully as she strides away, back towards the tall guy in the baseball cap who's ruffling Ben's hair and looking back over his shoulder to see where she went.
"Your boy's good," he calls out after her, and he switches on his million-watt grin when she turns.
She paces backwards for a few steps before she stops, hands on her hips. "Yeah," she agrees, still a little wary. "He and his dad practice a lot."
Dean shifts on his own feet, bites his lip. "Well, you tell him outfielders are the backbone of the team," he says hoarsely. "You tell him it doesn't matter if he's not batting, he's still vital to the game."
After a beat, her expression softens a little. She smiles at him, and it's tolerant and amused, the smile she directed at him every time he told her he and Sid were headed out to the links for a round of let's-hit-balls-with-sticks. "Funny," she muses. "He says that himself, before every game." And then she spins back around, and she swings her hips a little as she goes.
"Yeah," Dean breathes out himself, because it isn't her fault, none of it, even if it hurts him a little to watch her go, even if a part of him imagines jogging after her, grabbing her arm and swinging her around. Don't go, he imagines himself saying. You do know me. "You tell him I said that," he shouts instead. "Me. Dean Winchester."
She glances back once more but she's too far away now for him to see the expression on her face, and the man is walking towards her, reaching for her hand.
Like the gun? she'd purred at him all those years ago, in some dive bar in Cicero.
"Dean Winchester," he echoes himself softly. "Like the gun."
The Impala is pulling into the parking lot as he walks across the grass, and Sam ducks his head and squints out past him over at the game as he clunks the passenger door closed. "I set a bunch of wards at their new house," Sam comments neutrally as Dean leans his head back on the seat.
"Yep, all good," Dean replies, and he's amazed his voice comes out so firmly.
"Plus, Bobby will still have his people checking in on them. And we know Cas cloaked them both anyway, when he wiped their memories," Sam adds, and his tone is still level and non-judgmental, because he's trying here, Dean knows, trying to be good with the shady crap Dean pulled when he asked Castiel to erase him from their existence. "So, at least we know Crowley probably has no clue where they are now they've moved."
Dean closes his eyes, sniffs, and then breathes out deep. "Thanks for tracking them down for me," he mutters.
There's a brief silence, then, "Are you alright?" Sam asks him tentatively, sympathetically.
"I'm alright." Dean clears his throat, forces a grin as he sidetracks. "You know, since we're down here and all…we aren't all that far from Kennedy Space Center."
His brother's face doesn't light up like he hoped it would. "Bobby called," he replies instead.
It's really all Sam has to say, because his voice is somber and careful, and a sudden streak of fear grabs Dean by the heart and doesn't let go, has him sitting bolt upright, impatience flaring through him while sheer dread quells it and tells him that maybe he'd rather not know. He finds he can't even gasp, no, and he feels the dull pressure that's been there in the distance behind his eyes all day suddenly start throbbing remorselessly, even as his brother throws him a look that assesses his symptoms and diagnoses sheer terror in the space of a second.
Sam raises a hand and hurries out more words, reassuring now. "He's okay, Dean, both of them are. You hear me? But they both got knocked about a little."
The relief takes a moment to calm him, and Dean knows he's blinking at his brother almost confusedly because panic has stolen his voice and his throat is so constricted by fright it feels like a noose is looped around it, choking the air from his lungs.
"They were jumped while they were checking out those disappearances in Quonochontaug," Sam continues, and he's cranking the ignition now, looking over his shoulder as he backs them out of the parking bay along to the throaty growl of the engine. "Birdwatchers, remember? Anyway, we were right, looks like more of the same…Bobby says it was a bunch of those weird half-and-half fish-ghoul things, like the ones we ran into in Galveston."
Dean finally manages a response, and it's just a parched scrape of air vibrating barely across his vocal cords. "But they're both alright? Cas is alright too?"
Sam nods as he eases them out onto the road. "He did his magic light trick, turned them into crispy critters. But Bobby says it was like they targeted Cas. And they said some things that seemed to really spook him."
Dean absorbs that for the span of a few still vaguely frantic heartbeats, before he finds the force in his voice again. "What things?"
Sam huffs. "Well, Bobby doesn't know. It was some weird mystical dialect. And Cas flaked out like he always does after he goes nuclear. He hasn't woken up yet." He side-eyes Dean for moment. "He's alright," he reiterates gently.
Dean tightens his jaw, manages to maneuver himself back into something resembling self-possession, and steadies his voice enough to joke, "Yeah, nine lives." It's weak and he isn't even really convinced he believes it himself, because no sooner has he said the words than he's mentally tallying just how many Castiel has used up so far, and how many he realistically has left now he's running low on juice. "He has nine lives," he repeats, because maybe if he says it enough it'll be true.
"Yeah." Sam's fingers tap out a way-too casual rhythm on the steering wheel as they tool along. "Hey, why don't you drop me at the airport?" he offers. "I can push onto New York by myself, get a head start on this haunting if you want to check in at Bobby's first, make sure everything's okay?"
Even through his anxiety, Dean can pick out the caginess in Sam's tone. It's a red flag to the fact his brother's scrutiny still sees too deep for comfort sometimes, and there's a moment where it bothers him, where he feels his cheeks start to heat.
"Dean?" Sam prods. "It'll set your mind to rest."
It will, Dean knows. "Yeah, okay," he says quietly.
He keeps his eyes staring forward as he speaks, doesn't glance to his right as they circle the park. He pays no mind to the loud smack of the ball on the bat, and the kid running across his peripheral vision, and he closes his ears to the sound of cheering.
He leaves the dream of a normal family in his dust forever.
Dean creeps into Castiel's room at six in the morning, when the sun is just starting to cast the sky orange on the horizon. Castiel is facing away from him, curled up and hugging himself defensively in his sleep.
Dean is stealthy, toeing off his boots and socks, easing his jeans and boxers down and heaving his t-shirt over his head. His cock is already at half-mast as he eases in under the covers and wraps himself around Castiel from behind, and the angel makes a barely conscious but pleased-sounding huff of welcome from the depths of the pillow.
"I missed you," Dean murmurs as he fits himself to the slope of Castiel's shoulder, the arch at the small of his friend's back, the curve of his ass, and the long sweep of his legs. And fuck, he did, he marvels, as he smoothes his hand across the sleek skin of Castiel's torso and up to the raised scar. He pulls Castiel in so tight to himself it's like they're joined down the whole length of their bodies, and he thinks he might never grow tired of this, six feet of perfect, warm skin and angular, wiry hardness pressed against him from chest to toes; thinks that just for a while he's putting all the crap out of his mind and letting himself have this.
He occupies himself kissing the vertebrae between Castiel's shoulders, inhaling the scent of Ivory soap and sweat, and tasting salt. A trail of vicious bruises wends its way up Castiel's back, and his shoulder blade is badly grazed, the skin blossoming raw. The rage that electrifies through Dean when his eyes fall on it surprises him. He manages to rein it in, nuzzles the purplish blotches, kisses the sore area and feels Castiel wince under his ministrations. "Tell me you're alright," Dean whispers into his skin. "Tell me what those things said to you."
He trails the tip of his tongue upwards, draws a circle around the knob of bone at the nape of Castiel's neck. He fastens his lips around it, scrapes his teeth along the hardness just under the skin, bites down until he feels give. Castiel's hand is on the globe of his ass now, pulling Dean in as he pushes back onto the rigid line of Dean's cock, so the tip of it nudges into the slot at the top of his legs. Dean groans at the promise of snug heat there, at his friend's fingertips sliding down to play deftly in his cleft as he drives deeper into the tight space, the slight resistance of sweat-tacky skin and the scratch of coarse hair forming exquisite friction against the head of his dick.
"I'm alright," Castiel confirms, and he twists agilely, so that Dean finds himself caught up in the tangle of his arms and legs. "And I don't really remember what they said," the angel continues blearily. "A spell of some kind perhaps…and I'm fairly sure they insulted me too, so there's that."
Castiel cants his head, kisses Dean slowly and damned thoroughly, his tongue exploring every nook and cranny of Dean's mouth until he pulls away and yawns, remembering his manners sufficiently to drift a slow hand up to cover it. His knuckles are split and bloody, and Dean snakes his own hand up, closes his fingers around Castiel's wrist, studies the broken skin darkly. "They were lucky you got there first," he growls, gazing briefly into the angel's sleepy, affectionate eyes. "I would have ended those sumbitches slowly."
Castiel flexes his hand into a fist, considers the battered skin. "Speed was of the essence, Dean," he concludes. "And you know I can take care of myself."
Dean responds with a noncommittal grunt, releases the hand, and dips down to mouth his way along Castiel's jaw. "I have to pull out in a couple of hours," he mutters as he laps at the pulse that flutters beside Castiel's larynx. "New York. Sam headed up there already…" He clucks sympathetically as he notes more bruises, the pooled-blood shape of fingers imprinted into the juncture of his friend's neck and shoulder. "This pisses me off," he gripes as he presses kisses to the evidence of a hard-won fight. "No one gets to mark you but me."
Castiel snorts in amusement, bares his throat obediently, and Dean grunts in satisfaction at his submissiveness, his whipcord strength pliant and yielding as Dean smears a silky trail of saliva along the protective script that underlines his collarbone. He entwines his fingers in the softness of Castiel's hair while the angel rubs at the back of his neck and uses the heel of his hand to knead the muscles of Dean's shoulder as they flex. Castiel's nipple is already rising as Dean flicks his tongue across it, exhaling a cool blast of air across the tender nub so that it stiffens even more. He hears his friend hiss from above him, and he chuckles, slides his palm down Castiel's ribs to massage the crest of the hip that rolls up into his touch. He contemplates biting at that sharp point of bone in the next few minutes, sucking a few hickies into the skin there, and the plan sends a heavy ache of want throbbing low and productive through his belly on its way to his cock.
Castiel hums agreeably as Dean flips a leg across his thighs, plants a hand either side of his face and leans forward to lick his way back in between the angel's lips, pulling at their plump succulence with his teeth. He nudges his dick against Castiel's lower belly, maneuvering a few inches further up the bed so his friend's morning wood is sliding behind his sac and brushing against his asshole. The sensitive skin there twitches reflexively, ripping a growl from deep in Dean's throat, before the disorganized shift and prod of Castiel's cock settles into long, slow strokes along Dean's perineum, in time with the curling dance of their tongues.
Castiel's fingers flit lightly up and down the ridge of Dean's spine, and he moans into Dean's mouth, a soft, low sound of pleasure at once so innocent and so fuckin' hot Dean feels it in his heart and his balls at the same time. The angel slips a hand down in between them and rubs the pad of his thumb across the ridge of skin under the swelling bulb of Dean's dick, spreading the wetness that already beads there, the caress skittering deliciously across Dean's nerves so that he gasps. Castiel grunts decisively then, pushes up under Dean, his hand at Dean's shoulder, impatient as he grips Dean's thigh and urges him up.
Dean shuffles forwards on his knees, his cock bobbing and pointing the way, its one eye fixed unerringly on its destination as Castiel reaches behind himself to tug the pillows into a mound underneath his head, propping himself up. He opens wide for Dean, and his mouth is burning, velvet heat that has Dean stutter out an incoherent curse, a perfect wet vacuum as Castiel suckles greedily. The angel is wild-haired and debauched looking, his lips stained dark pink with the rush of blood, shiny with spittle and swollen luscious with Dean's own kisses, and their stretch and drag as he leans in almost as far as the base and pulls away are sweet and blissful. His eyes blink lazily, the lashes thick, sooty black crescents on his cheekbones as Dean grips the metal headboard and stares down avidly at his dick sliding in and out.
"Fuckin' gorgeous," Dean mumbles hoarsely, and he can hear his own breath, slow and strained, as Castiel's fingers close around his shaft, and the tip of his cock pushes into the firm, springy flesh that encloses him, bulging Castiel's cheek outwards. Almost-painful sensations rocket up Dean's length and he whimpers as Castiel pulls back, swirling his tongue across the fold of skin under the head, probing the slit. Castiel's hand is flat to Dean's hip, his thumb a distracting tickle as it moves over the jut of bone and his fingers splay out across Dean's asscheek. Dean brings one leg up, runs his fingers up the back of Castiel's head, a silent question that Castiel answers with a husky aaaah.
Dean pushes in, slow at first, speeding up until he's making shallow, fast thrusts that butt his cock up against the back of his friend's palate. Castiel swallows him deep, his teeth scraping the spine of Dean's cock, his fingers teasing the back of Dean's thigh and trailing up into his crack, his fingernail a tantalizing scratch across the rim of muscle hidden there, until he pulls off abruptly and slides lithely away, vanishing from sight.
Dean feels lips mouthing his sac then, feels the warm tip of Castiel's tongue at his entrance, hungry, wet swipes and pokes at the puckered skin that have Dean cursing and tilting his ass back invitingly, leaning his brow on the cool wall above the headboard and losing himself in hazy satisfaction for endless moments. Castiel is relentless, piercing deeper with each incursion before withdrawing to lick gentle, sloppy stripes from Dean's balls upwards, his thumbs pulling Dean's ass apart for better access. It isn't good enough for him though, because in one fluid move he's up on his knees behind Dean, hands urging him back almost roughly, and Dean is only too happy to oblige, falling down onto his elbows on the bed as Castiel resumes his assault, his hands like twin vises at Dean's hips.
Castiel eats Dean out like he's starving for him, his breath scorching, his lips clamped to the skin. It's filthy, unholy, the sounds the angel makes so obscene Dean thinks he could come from them alone, and Castiel's tongue is fervent and slick as it skips nimbly around the rim before stabbing in for a skillful twist and curl. Just the thought of it, pink and glistening as it works him open, has Dean only too willing to help, and he drives himself back onto the wet blade of it as it spears him, hears Castiel make a muffled, surprised mmmpphh sound. Dean grabs for his cock at the same time, gasping out tiny moans, barely biting off a cry as he feels the thicker, more solid press of a finger glide in deep and stroke almost curiously across his prostate, so that he ignites inside. He throws a heated glance over his shoulder, sees Castiel's own dick rising, engorged and angry looking, from its bed of dark curls. He decides he'll flip himself around to get his mouth on it and suck it dry, then finds he can't even concentrate on that as another whiteout of pleasure blinds him. He has to bury his face in the pillow to muffle his own strangled whines, just in case-
A creak, footsteps, his overactive imagination, fuck, no it isn't, because there's a soft knock at the door.
"Cas…?"
Dean freezes in utter horror, tensing so tight he wonders briefly and abstractedly if his ass might be cutting off the blood supply to Castiel's finger, which remains exactly where it is. He spares a frantic look back at his friend, hisses, "It isn't locked," through teeth clenched tight with anxiety, but Castiel just blinks at him almost dreamily, his eyes black with lust.
Bobby is quiet, considerate. "You up yet, boy?"
Castiel smiles slowly then, licks his lips deliberately. "No…" he drawls in the direction of the closed door. "I'm not up, Bobby. Not yet. But I hope to be at some point soon."
Dean widens his eyes at the subtext, frowns bloody murder, finally regains control of his slack jaw for long enough to mouth don't you fuckin' dare, as his friend shifts his finger assertively, buries it deep, crooks it and slides it idly and so damned skillfully across that spot again, once, twice, three times in succession. Dean's head swims hazily, and he shudders, has to sink his teeth into his knuckles to stop himself from whimpering out his rapture at the glorious shocky bursts.
"Only I'm heading into town in a while," Bobby continues obliviously. "Supply run. Thought you might want to come."
Dean tries to pull away, but Castiel's hand on his hip is like iron, holding him in place. "I'd like to come, Bobby," Castiel answers, and his eyes drift closed as he nuzzles Dean's ass. "I'd like to come very much. But I'm not quite ready."
Bobby sniffs. "Well. Looks like the boys got in last night," he says finally. "Car's outside. I could use the company. Maybe one of them might come."
Castiel's smile is sly as he snaps his eyes open again, winks at Dean and sucks in a mouthful of flesh, worrying at it with wicked teeth, the nips savage enough to make Dean squeak impotent fury. "Oh, I think that's highly likely, Bobby," he declares.
The angel's voice is deadpan and steady, as steady as the back and forth sweep of his clever finger, as steady as the bead of sweat Dean can feel trickling down between his shoulder blades when he wraps his hand around his cock again and starts to jack himself erratically, while the embers set by Castiel's remorseless pressure on the gland catch and start to blaze out of control. He gulps back a sob of pained ecstasy as he hears the scrape and creak of Bobby's boots on the stairs, pants it out as quietly as he can as soon as he thinks the old man might be out of earshot. "Fuck, Cas…gonna come, gonna…fuck."
The room spins as he's tossed over onto his back with no ceremony whatsoever, and Castiel is suddenly devouring him almost to the root, bathing him in sultry heat, throat constricting around him and drinking him down as he pulses and empties. Dean hears a reedy, incriminating cry start to make its way up his throat, and then Castiel is right there, swallowing down the noise, the taste of his tongue salt-bitter with Dean's own come, his lips bruisingly hard.
Dean gives as good as he gets for a minute, as he feels the thick, solid cap of his friend's dick nudge up behind his balls like it's feeling its way home. The pressure of it sends heady, delirious need skipping through Dean, and he fists his hand in Castiel's hair, pulls his head up. "I want you in me so damn much," he pants out. "So damn much, Cas."
Castiel's eyes are blazing passion down at Dean, his mouth is open, and his breathing is fast and shallow. He makes a small, choked out sound far back in his throat, sucks in his bottom lip, and the press of him there at Dean's core is suddenly harder and relentless, and it's the promise of pain and horror, it's Hell, it's Alastair, and it's terrifying and too much. It shatters the moment of reckless desire into a thousand pieces that can't ever be fitted back together and Dean flinches involuntarily, freezes, hears himself gasp out a strangled, "No. No…"
The pressure withdraws in the same second, and Castiel's eyes have gone liquid now, naked with something Dean can't even look at. He shifts himself further up, so that Dean can feel the wet smear of him in the crease of his thigh, dips his head in, and kisses Dean with a tenderness that constricts Dean's chest so tightly it's suddenly an effort to breathe. "You exist on the cusp of desperation, Dean," he whispers. "But you don't have to with me…you don't have to when we're like this." His hand is gentle on Dean's cheek as he continues, and his voice is smoky. "Ol g-chis-ge…beloved." He smiles. "We have no word for it in Enochian, you see…"
Castiel leans in again, plays chaste lips over Dean's, croons more sounds Dean doesn't recognize, even if he understands at some deep level what his friend is saying. "Od ol g-chis-ge ol zorge…Ol g-chis-ge in od olani oia amiran…"
Castiel starts to make small, rocking motions with his hips then, grinding his cock into Dean's lower belly, and Dean feels his tension drain out of him, feels safe, and he tracks his hands around to clamp Castiel's ass and pull him in closer, securing him in place with a leg tucked around the angel's thighs. "I'm sorry," he says softly.
"Sshhhhhh," Castiel breathes into Dean's open mouth. "You are my beloved, and you are my friend," he soothes, the words hot and devoted around Dean's tongue. "You are mine. And I am yours." He pulls his mouth away then, and his hand is a solid, tingling weight on Dean's scar as he circles his hips sinuously, pumps in, the slip-slide of him across Dean's skin rhythmic and leisurely.
It doesn't take long, less than a minute at the most, before Castiel chokes out a raw noise into Dean's neck at the same time as Dean feels a tremor run through his friend's body, feels slick, wet heat spurt between them. "I love you, Dean," Castiel whispers raggedly as he collapses on Dean and stills, his lips fluttering damply on Dean's skin. "I love you. I love you. I love you."
Some small part of Dean has known it all along, and he wraps his arms and legs around Castiel with something like desperation, because it's too much and yet it's not enough, will never be enough to describe his need for this. His heart is jackhammering its euphoria inside him, and he can feel the staccato percussion of Castiel's heartbeat keeping tempo against his chest.
I love you, Dean.
When Lisa said it to him in the dark, he'd curl his arm around her and say, Me too, while he stared over at the window and wondered what might be out there eating its way through civilians now he was benched. It got to be comfortable, and automatic, needed no thought or consideration whatsoever, got so the words were right there to be spoken, by rote, when she wanted to hear them.
I love you, Dean…I love you. I love you. I love you.
It overwhelms him. He doesn't answer.
The sun is streaming in through a gap at the top of the curtains when Dean blinks awake again, and his wristwatch tells him it's seven-thirty. He doesn't remember falling asleep, only remembers Castiel's weight on him growing heavier as his friend drifted away, his mouth pressed to Dean's scar. He stares blearily up at the cracked ceiling for a few lethargic moments while he gets his bearings.
He feels utterly sated, and the slow recall of what caused his contentment has his cock twitching hopefully at the thought of round two. He briefly debates coiling himself back around the warm body next to him, but his bladder is sending up distress flares, he could use a shower, and he can smell the aromas of coffee and bacon on the air. He cranes his neck and kisses Castiel's shoulder, notes that the abrasions there are less inflamed before easing himself away. He plucks Castiel's - his he notes with a wry grin - sweats off the end of the bed and tugs them on, followed by his t-shirt, before he pads downstairs, stopping off in the bathroom to piss like a Kentucky Derby winner. Partway down the stairs he gets a clue, swivels and sneaks back up again, eases the door to the spare room open and makes a cursory effort to ensure the mattress on the floor looks like he slept on it. "Fuckin' idiot," he admonishes himself as he agitates the sheet and blankets, and he feels like one, because he's damn sure the old man knows the deal anyway.
Bobby glances up from his newspaper as Dean shuffles into the kitchen, directs his one good eye at him and grunts a welcome through a split lip. "What time did you get in?"
Dean scratches his belly as he pours himself a mug of steaming joe, pulls out a chair and plants his butt there. "About five-thirty. Sam headed on up to New York on a job, so I bedded down in the spare room." He covers the lie with a gulp of coffee, and Bobby doesn't bat an eyelid, just slides a plate of toasted bagels over towards him. Dean liberates one of them and gestures towards Bobby's face, wincing. "That's a heck of a shiner," he declares, as he sinks his teeth into the bread.
"Tell me about it," Bobby says ruefully, and he reaches up to poke carefully at the puffy flesh. "Goddamn things came out of nowhere." He drains his mug, pushes up and heads to the stovetop, where bacon is sizzling in a skillet. "What's in New York?" he queries, as he spears a strip of the meat and flips it over.
Dean swallows his mouthful, washes it down with more coffee. "Haunting at an art gallery, college buddy of Sam's owns it. We helped her out a few years ago." He leans back in his chair, contemplates the room for a moment before he backtracks the conversation. "Sam said you told him those fish-guys zeroed right in on Cas, said something that rattled him pretty bad."
Bobby throws him a significant look as he fusses over the food. "Seemed that way," he confirms. "One of them sent me flying, but even after I took the damn thing out it was like I wasn't even there. They started in on him, herding him into the sea. I could've stripped naked and danced the can-can for all the mind they paid me."
Dean can't help blanching at that mental picture, and he sees Bobby roll his eyes before he turns back to the bacon and starts hooking it out onto a plate. "What did they say to him?" he prompts.
"I don't really know," Bobby muses. He pauses, shakes his head at the memory. "I couldn't make all of it out. It was a bunch of stuff…most of it sounded like gibberish. Spell, maybe."
Dean nods. "That's what Cas said." He swallows self-consciously as he realizes his slip. "I looked in on him just now," he adds hastily, and then he throws in a quick deflection for good measure. "And he told me he thought they were insulting him too."
The old man snorts at that. He sets the plate of bacon down in front of Dean, pours himself some more coffee and sits opposite again. "Well, whatever it was, it got to him bad…he went as white as a sheet and just - switched off. I hollered at him, and it seemed to bring him round." He stops, sips from his mug. "Then his eyes flashed like they do when he's about to smite your ass to kingdom come, and he yelled at me to duck and cover. I hit the deck, place lit up like a damn A-bomb, and after the noise died down he was out cold, and the hybrids were just charred bones."
Bobby reaches into his back pocket as he speaks, fishes out a piece of folded paper. He smoothes it out and passes it over. "It was just a bunch of sounds, consonants, vowels. It didn't seem to make proper words, but I wrote a couple of things I managed to pick out down before I hit the road away from there. All phonetic though."
Dean scans the paper, and Bobby is right, it's nothing recognizable. Except for…"Ol," he reads, and he sees Castiel's eyes, so damned blue and earnest with his devotion, can almost feel the soft tickle of the angel's lips on his skin as he murmured the words. "I'm sure that's Enochian," he ventures, before he reads the rest of words again, out loud this time. "Ol. Mal. Perg. Shoo. Dobe. Rof. Ay. Tase." He frowns at the old man. "Have you tried translating it from Enochian?"
Bobby tugs at his beard as he nods. "Yep. Nearest I found was malpirg - it's Enochian, like you said, it means fire." He blows out a sharp, reflective exhale. "Assuming that's what they actually said, and that's anyone's guess. None of the other stuff fits though." He throws up an apologetic hand at Dean's sigh. "Sorry, boy. It was hard to make any of it out. Fish lips."
Dean rubs a hand roughly over his chin, deliberates. "I don't know if I like him being out there," he risks stiltedly, because he knows how damned pathetic it sounds.
Sure enough, the look Bobby gives him is maybe two parts empathy, eight parts dripping sarcasm. "Dean, he's as safe as any of us on the hunt, probably safer with the mojo, and-"
"Not if he's being targeted," Dean counters. "This isn't the first time he's been singled out, you know that - what about New Jersey, those shadow-things in the sea? And those fire vampires, last time we were in Rhode Island. I just…" He stops himself, thinks about the rumpled pile of sheets and blankets on the mattress in the spare room, keeps going even if he knows his face is giving him away. "Bobby, I just - I don't want anything to happen to him. Not now, when things are, uh…" He grimaces, casts his eyes down, embarrassed as he feels his cheeks tingle, draws in a breath of courage. "You know. Different with him and me. Better. For, uh. All of us."
He figures that if he forks a chunk of bacon into his mouth and gets on with his chow the old man might let that one lie, but he's aware that Bobby is still examining him with beady eyes as he follows up the bacon with a hunk of toast. He squirms a little under the scrutiny, chews the mouthful to a manageable size before he squawks an irritated, high-pitched, "What?" out into the silence, spitting a modest shower of toast crumbs as he speaks.
"So. When I called, Sam said you were in Winter Park." Bobby's voice is serious. "How'd that go?"
Still pinned in place by Bobby's gimlet stare, Dean gives in and puts his fork down, thinks ironically that as painful as the memory of Lisa Braeden's blank mask of suspicious non-recognition is, he's almost grateful for the detour. "I went to see her," he confesses awkwardly. "I mean - not see see. She's still none the wiser. But it was - weird. Seeing what could have been, what I could have had. A normal family." He shakes his head, feels a strange and unexpected regret surge up inside him, like the yearning that swelled unbidden in his chest as she walked away. "I might still be there if Sam hadn't shown up in Cicero," he says wistfully. "I loved her, Bobby. I loved them both. I still do." He pauses then, gulps, and dredges up a shot of courage before he goes on. "Maybe it's not the same way I l-"
"You could have that back."
The voice is faded and tired, but it has a note underlying it that might be disappointment, or shock, or both. When Dean twists in the chair and looks towards the doorway, to the shadows where his friend is hovering, he sees that's exactly what it is.
Castiel's eyes are huge, stunned, inky blots in a pale, crestfallen face. "Just tell me where they are, Dean," he says, and he cards a distracted hand through his hair, messing it up even more, as Dean stares at him. "If that's what you want."
Dean rubs a hand roughly over his chin, thrown off-kilter by the distraught look on Castiel's face, because it's an uncomfortable gut-punch reminder of his friend's stricken expression when he asked Dean to stand with him before he opened Purgatory, and what happened afterwards. He smothers the memory, gropes for words, fumbles out, "Uh…I don't think that is what I want," and from behind him he hears Bobby give a quiet huff.
Dean swivels his head back to see Bobby's eyebrows hiked up in disbelief, and he throws up a helpless hand. "What?" he demands.
"You don't think?" Bobby echoes him witheringly, and he rolls his eyes.
"Wait, just - it isn't that simple," Dean defends, as he darts his eyes back to where Castiel still stands, sees that his friend's face has gone as guarded as Lisa's was, in place of the distress that marked him a few seconds before.
Castiel clears his throat and gives a composed shrug. "I'm sure it isn't," he says quietly. "So, why don't you give it some thought and tell me when you're sure. Since you don't seem to be presently. And since you have options."
Dean wants to tell Castiel that those options aren't any kind of options he wants, not really, but his mouth is goldfishing because he can't quite join the dots to find out how he ended up with this picture in front of him, and his friend is already walking back up the hallway.
"Tact," Bobby clips out brusquely as Dean pushes up and makes a beeline for the door. "Look it up. It's under T."
Castiel is reaching for the front doorknob, but he turns on his heel as Dean strides up behind him. His face is set steel, and he raises his hands before Dean has the chance to speak.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Dean," he says quietly. "And I know it isn't simple. I understand this, believe me. This is your family. And like I said, perhaps you need to think-"
"Cas, don't. Just…stop."
There's a flare of panic streaking through Dean's gut as he steps right up into Castiel's personal bubble, crowding him up against the door. He can tell the indifferent note in his friend's voice is contrived, can feel Castiel is wound up tight now he's pressed up close, his well-disguised skittishness a reflection of the tension that vibrates through Dean's own body. Dean wonders if his own eyes are as bleak as Castiel's as he clamps his hands to the angel's cheeks and licks his way into Castiel's mouth like he can't get enough, because it's true, he can't.
"Don't," he mutters again, into wet heat, sliding his fingers up into Castiel's hair. "It is simple." He hears the small, fragile, almost-but-not-quite inaudible sound that comes from the back of Castiel's throat, the thrum of his own heart in his chest. "It is simple," he says again.
The sound of the phone in the kitchen is loud and jarring, shakes Dean back to enough sense to realize he left the door to the room swinging ajar behind him, and that Bobby is probably getting an eyeful of this. He drops his hands and steps back, twisting swiftly as he hears the scrape of the old man's chair, the low timbre of Bobby's voice, Singer Salvage, and the usual patter, how his words speed up and become urgent.
Bobby turns to face him, directs a look Dean can't quite decode in their direction, and Dean mentally calculates the odds of it being the expression Bobby might pull out of his repertoire after witnessing him dry-hump a male-shaped angel of the Lord against his own front door. When Bobby puts his fingers up to cover the receiver, Dean isn't quite sure what to expect and half-wonders if it'll be an accusation. Sure enough, it comes out as an edgy snap.
"We got a problem. A big one."
Dean puts his hands out palm up, placates as best he can. "Look, Bobby, I know…I wanted to tell you, and I'm sorry, it just-"
"Not that," Bobby barks. "Idjit." He half-turns away, speaks into the phone again, quieter now, where? and when?, before he fishes a pen out of his pocket and starts scribbling details on the message pad. "We'll be there," he says down the phone, and then he puts it down and turns back, his eyes traveling beyond Dean. "That was Amelia Novak," he says simply.
Dean gapes for a few seconds as Castiel steps out from behind him and gestures for the pad, glancing at it briefly, his face impassive, before he tears the paper off and folds it.
Bobby shakes his head, blowing out wearily. "Her kid's gone missing. And she said…"
The sentence trails off into nothing, because Dean is looking at empty space.
He takes a confused step forward, blinks a couple of times. "Cas, you sonofabitch," he murmurs.
Episode 15: Ghosts (Part 1 Continued)
Masterpost: Supernatural: Redemption Road (for full series info, warnings, and disclaimer)
Author: zatnikatel
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Bobby, Sam, OC and canon characters
Rating: NC-17 for Part I
Word Count: ~20,500 for Part I
Warnings: language, mild violence, explicit sexuality, suggested dubcon, brief allusions to past non-con
Betas: nyoka and electricskeptic
Notes: Due to size this episode is being split into two parts, the first airing here tonight and the second airing on 3/1.
Art: Chapter banner by geckoholic; digital paintings by rumi-nyo, which you can also find here (art contains spoilers for the chapter).
Summary: Bobby casts his vision up again to see Castiel's eyes sparkle cold and calculating, see the angel smile the wolfish smile of a predator…
Mendocino National Forest
California
On days like this he doesn't know why he took up teaching, and he thinks he might not even like kids very much.
Even in the cool of the forest, it's hot. Sweat is running down his face, making his glasses slide inexorably down his nose, and he can smell the stink of it, knows it's soaking through his shirt and staining the fabric dark with saturated patches.
He can hear the brats giggling behind him as they trudge along in his wake, fat guys sweat more, whispered out carelessly loud. They don't even put their hands over their mouths, and when he turns, their collective gaze is mocking and judgmental.
Children of the fucking corn, he thinks. "Keep up," he barks resolutely, gesturing at the stragglers, and swinging his arm up and around to slap at where he can feel something crawling up the back of his neck. He pulls his hand back, and the cracked carapace of a large black spider is oozing yellow and messy all over his palm.
"That could be poisonous, Professor," one of the children sneers.
He scowls, wipes the gore on his pants leg as he keeps walking. "Most spiders aren't dangerous to humans," he declares. "Their fangs are either too short or too fragile to penetrate human skin."
He doesn't see the dead log in his path until he almost trips over it. He reels, barely keeps his footing, and a ripple of laughter breaks out. "Dead and dying trees are a natural and important part of this forest's ecosystem," he raps out frantically. "Who can tell me why?"
They stand in a mute semicircle, glaring at him for his temerity and daring him to point to one of them.
He licks lips gone dry. "Because when trees die and rot on the forest floor, essential nutrients are recycled by insects and other animals," he races out. "This is part of the circle of life, and one reason why clear-cutting and the construction of logging roads can be so devastating to the entire ecosystem. Any questions?"
Their eyes are insolent, their gum-chewing jaws moving rhythmically and idly, as if they're chewing the cud.
"Well. Our landscapes are under siege from a host of threats," he lectures, slicing a finger through the air at them. "Wildfires, climate change, invasive species, and increasing human population put these delicate ecosystems at risk. We must work together…" He nods for emphasis. "Together, to preserve our nation's rich biodiversity, to, to build. Yes, build…build ecologically healthy and resilient landscapes that can adapt and thrive in the face of natural disturbances."
When the hand floats up, his heart sinks. "Yes?"
"They grow pot near here," the girl says, and she winks a bright blue eye at him. "I read about it in the LA Times. There was this raid and the cops confiscated four hundred and sixty thousand marijuana plants. That's some pretty rich biodiversity right there, Professor."
He starts blustering back at her, while her long, spiky eyelashes blink slowly, and her lip curls derision at him.
"Yes, well. Thank you, Claire. You raise an interesting point…these illegal cultivation efforts result in massive environmental damage, and it's-"
It drops on his shoulder lightly for its size, and although he's somewhat distracted by the screaming, and the brightly colored kaleidoscope of children scattering into the woods as football-sized black missiles start hailing down on them from the trees, he could swear it cocks its head at him and calculates just where the skin of his neck will be softest.
He realizes he was wrong about the fangs a few seconds later as the ground looms up to meet him, but he finds he doesn't really mind, because he can't feel anything, and it's oddly peaceful. He can still see though, see the figure that approaches from off the trail, walks right up to him and stares down, while he gazes up into its eyes and wonders what's wrong with them.
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge
Charlestown, RI
"We're not alone."
Castiel doesn't stop walking as he speaks, low and almost casual, but he does slow down, and his unease is palpable in the way his frame tenses and his fingers flex and fan the air next to his thigh.
Bobby darts his eyes around as he slips his Remington off his shoulder. They've been hiking the trail for just over two hours, wending their way through the mix of flat grasslands and wetlands that separate the coastal lagoon to their left from the Atlantic ocean, as they make for the barrier beach they're here to scope. It's been peaceful so far, no sign of what they're here to hunt, whatever it is that vanished all ten birdwatchers on an Audubon society nature walk into thin air. Bobby has let himself drift in the heat, unseasonable as it is for Rhode Island in early Spring, has let his focus wander across the simple beauty of the place.
Now he snaps back to attention, and…it's quiet, he realizes, the chatter of birds and the croaking of frogs suddenly muted. As he registers the hush, the tranquility of the place takes on a haunted, malevolent feel, and when he glances up, the blue sky has turned the same misty gray as winter breath. "What is it?" he asks brusquely, as he turns mid-walk to check their six, tracking his vision across the acres of sedge and rushes, the clumped red maple and deep pink swathes of swamp rose.
"I'm not sure yet." Castiel narrows his eyes as he looks out over the water. "But I think we can safely assume it's a non-native undesirable species."
The angel has taken to carrying a Predator crossbow he liberated from the trunk of the Impala, and his hand drifts almost idly to the weapon and unclips it from its sling. He rests the stirrup on the ground, the tip of his boot holding it firm as he eases the trigger pull up, plucks a metal bolt from a hip-mounted pouch, and slots it into the groove. Castiel performs the action slowly, his fingers deliberate, but Bobby has seen him repeat the motion just as precisely in a blur of deft movement too fast to track.
Castiel glances back beyond Bobby briefly, and his eyes are alert, gleaming molten. The speed with which he switches from placid to feral makes Bobby shiver, like it always does, makes him think the Predator crossbow says it all. It's been months, and even when the mojo is switched off there is still something outcast and exotic in Castiel's regard, an aloof, unblinking gaze Bobby suspects can see into his soul and dissect it; there is still something alien in the self-possessed way he carries himself. On the hunt it magnifies; the angel's poise becomes ruthless calculation and intent, his walk a stealthy, wolf-like lope that promises lethal speed. Dean calls it badass, and his eyes go wide and starved when he says it, but it makes Bobby think of full-moon fever and the wild, bloodthirsty, amoral things that lurk in the darkness. He pushes that thought away, grinds out a surreptitious, "Where is it?"
Castiel's response is terse, with an underlying note of long-suffering amusement. "Everywhere. Be on your guard."
Almost as the words leave the angel's mouth, Bobby sees them shimmer into existence in the shallows on both sides, forming from nothing, a reverse-melt into solid forms with grayish-green skin that glows phosphorescent. Narrow, wispy-haired skulls erupt straight out of their shoulders, and amphibious eyes bulge golden on the sides of flat faces bisected by black, sliced-in mouths that stretch from ear to ear. Tattered clothing hangs from their shoulders, and their arms are short, raptor-like forelimbs that end in clawed hands. The one nearest to him is wearing what looks like a pair of Nikon Trailblazers on a strap around its neck.
"Binoculars," Bobby murmurs as he moves closer to the angel. "I guess we found our birdwatchers." He tallies the hybrids ruefully and swallows down his fear as more flicker into phase. "All ten of them."
Castiel is already raising his crossbow and taking aim. "Don't let them herd you into the water," he says coolly. "It's their element, and they'll have even more of an advantage."
Bobby blows out as he pulls his cap down more firmly on his head, grunts as the things start to fan out and close in. "I'm getting too old for this."
The angel directs a bone-dry look his way, and his reply is utterly flat. "And you tell me this now?" He doesn't blink as he lets the bolt fly, and Bobby hears the serrated zip of the projectile as it cuts through the air. It buries itself dead center between the eyes of one of the hybrids to their left, and the thing lurches, flaps its lipless mouth and bays out a shrieking noise as it belly flops back into the lagoon it emerged from.
And then all hell breaks loose as the things attack.
Bobby gets off a single shot, sees the head of one of the things mist out in a gory splatter of scarlet flecks and globs of gray matter, and breathes out a heartfelt dammit for one second of helpless paralysis before a second mutant tackles him. It's heavy, because when it was still a person it had a body mass index in the late twenties, and it takes him down easily. The gluey, frogspawn slide of its hand around his neck has his guts flip-flopping as he fishes for his Bowie and brings it up and around in a clumsy arc, burying it in the back of the thing's neck as it pummels him. It screeches, a loud, unearthly yammering that makes Bobby's nerves flinch in hideous terror, as its eyelids close up, up, over its eyes.
Snatching a split-second to glance beyond his own tussle on the shingle, Bobby sees that the rest of the semi-human horde have Castiel smothered in confusion and are battering him so hard Bobby can hear the dull thud of the impact. The angel is staggering under the onslaught, lashing out wildly at the ghoulish dead as they chew into his defense, until a blow slams into the side of his head so hard Bobby sees his eyes spin in their sockets as he crashes down onto all fours. He's still conscious though, and he looks right at Bobby and smiles, his mouth dripping scarlet drool.
Bobby tears his gaze away as his own pain-crazed assailant hurls a stream of croaked-out invective at him. Its breath is rich with the stench of rotten, long-dead carrion, and he can see rows of sharp, white teeth in its upper jaw as it snaps hungrily at him. Up close, its skin is scaled like a fish, and its tongue flicks out at him, blue-black and dripping putrid slime. He goes in for the kill again, sinking the blade in, sawing it from side to side, and he's beginning to space out as its grip finally loosens and the pressure on his airways is gone. He sucks in oxygen, blinks away the spots in his eyes, and rolls the twitching form off him as he cranes his neck.
Castiel's sword is drawn now, and he's smiling again, his eyes glinting savage as the creatures prowl around him looking for a weakness. And then he explodes into a blur of fluid movement, the weapon a graceful silvery flash as he lunges, twists and feints, ducking them as they rush him. Every movement is adroit and economical, millennia of skill honed into a brutal, succinct dialogue of metal, flesh, and bone. There is no debate going on in this fight any more, Bobby can see, and he barks out a wry laugh as he watches the angel carve and slice, until the hybrid closest to the back of the group bellows out a harsh, guttural, ill-formed stream of words.
The result is instantaneous.
The fight stops abruptly as Castiel freezes, and Bobby is close enough to see the angel's face go ashen, his sword arm falling as if the weapon is suddenly too heavy to wield. The thing lifts its arm and points, jabbers out what sounds like the same phrases again, sibilant and accusing. Bobby strains to pick out what it's saying but it isn't any language he can recognize, and he gestures frantically as the remaining mutants start to pick up the chant. They're plodding their way in, relentless, and Castiel starts to fall back towards the sea, transfixed by them. Spell, Bobby assumes desperately, and he pushes up onto his feet, hollers the angel's name at the top of his lungs as he takes long, quick strides towards them, his knife ready.
At the sound of Bobby's voice, Castiel winces, passes a hand across his brow, shakes his head and blinks at the five, six, no, seven hybrids reaching out for him. His face snaps around then, his eyes fixing on Bobby, and the light is already starting to blaze eerily out of them. "Take cover," he yells.
Bobby doesn't need convincing. He hits the wet sand hard and buries his face under his arms as static electricity crackles, scorching heat explodes all around him, and high-pitched wailing fills his ears.
The kid is about a half-foot taller than when Dean last saw him.
He's some distance away, in the outfield, knees bent, feet apart, hands up and ready, his eyes glued to the hitting zone and the point of contact, in case a flyball heads his way. Dean knows the kid is out there because he's got a strong right arm and an eagle eye, and he's a team player, happy to back up the infield and the outfield. The kid has a good memory; he's good at keeping a bead on the score, knows the number of outs, the type of hitter he's up against, can pinpoint the location of any runner on base and think on his feet, shifting positions according to the situation, the pitcher, and the batter. Dean knows the kid knows to do all that because he remembers telling him, telling him outfielders are probably the most overlooked players in baseball, and it didn't matter if he wasn't batting, he was still vital to the game.
He explodes into action now, feet speedy as he darts to his right, his glove out and ready, and Dean tenses, his own fingers strumming the air in anticipation as the kid reaches-
"I'm sorry, but do I know you?"
Her face is slightly suspicious, slightly puzzled, but her eyes are warm brown, like they always were. Her arms are folded across her chest, a little defensive. "You just look really familiar, but I can't place you…"
She's wearing one of his old t-shirts, and that throws Dean for a second, so he fumbles his reply. "Uh. I don't think so…" She was dazed and confused in the hospital, he remembers, her eyes foggy with drugs when he hovered at the doorway to her room. Even though her eyes are curious, there isn't any real spark of recognition in them. He's safe, he reckons. "I think I just have one of those faces," he offers lamely, and he shrugs.
"Yeah, I guess," she tells him, and her focus is already drifting away, back to the game, past the modest throng of other parents who got off work early for Friday Little League practice.
"One of them yours?" Dean asks her, and he knows he shouldn't, hears his voice go a little faint as he does, because he loved her, loved her son too, and a part of him still does and always will.
"Yeah," she murmurs distantly, but she remembers her manners. "How about you?"
He's with it sufficiently to answer more smoothly, waves a noncommittal hand over at the cluster of kids on the diamond. "Nephew. I was just passing."
She's nodding distractedly, not looking at him, already taking the first steps away. She reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and the ring on her finger gives him a garish, mocking wink. His inner voice spits, cubic fuckin' zirconia at it, but it still glitters hurtfully as she strides away, back towards the tall guy in the baseball cap who's ruffling Ben's hair and looking back over his shoulder to see where she went.
"Your boy's good," he calls out after her, and he switches on his million-watt grin when she turns.
She paces backwards for a few steps before she stops, hands on her hips. "Yeah," she agrees, still a little wary. "He and his dad practice a lot."
Dean shifts on his own feet, bites his lip. "Well, you tell him outfielders are the backbone of the team," he says hoarsely. "You tell him it doesn't matter if he's not batting, he's still vital to the game."
After a beat, her expression softens a little. She smiles at him, and it's tolerant and amused, the smile she directed at him every time he told her he and Sid were headed out to the links for a round of let's-hit-balls-with-sticks. "Funny," she muses. "He says that himself, before every game." And then she spins back around, and she swings her hips a little as she goes.
"Yeah," Dean breathes out himself, because it isn't her fault, none of it, even if it hurts him a little to watch her go, even if a part of him imagines jogging after her, grabbing her arm and swinging her around. Don't go, he imagines himself saying. You do know me. "You tell him I said that," he shouts instead. "Me. Dean Winchester."
She glances back once more but she's too far away now for him to see the expression on her face, and the man is walking towards her, reaching for her hand.
Like the gun? she'd purred at him all those years ago, in some dive bar in Cicero.
"Dean Winchester," he echoes himself softly. "Like the gun."
The Impala is pulling into the parking lot as he walks across the grass, and Sam ducks his head and squints out past him over at the game as he clunks the passenger door closed. "I set a bunch of wards at their new house," Sam comments neutrally as Dean leans his head back on the seat.
"Yep, all good," Dean replies, and he's amazed his voice comes out so firmly.
"Plus, Bobby will still have his people checking in on them. And we know Cas cloaked them both anyway, when he wiped their memories," Sam adds, and his tone is still level and non-judgmental, because he's trying here, Dean knows, trying to be good with the shady crap Dean pulled when he asked Castiel to erase him from their existence. "So, at least we know Crowley probably has no clue where they are now they've moved."
Dean closes his eyes, sniffs, and then breathes out deep. "Thanks for tracking them down for me," he mutters.
There's a brief silence, then, "Are you alright?" Sam asks him tentatively, sympathetically.
"I'm alright." Dean clears his throat, forces a grin as he sidetracks. "You know, since we're down here and all…we aren't all that far from Kennedy Space Center."
His brother's face doesn't light up like he hoped it would. "Bobby called," he replies instead.
It's really all Sam has to say, because his voice is somber and careful, and a sudden streak of fear grabs Dean by the heart and doesn't let go, has him sitting bolt upright, impatience flaring through him while sheer dread quells it and tells him that maybe he'd rather not know. He finds he can't even gasp, no, and he feels the dull pressure that's been there in the distance behind his eyes all day suddenly start throbbing remorselessly, even as his brother throws him a look that assesses his symptoms and diagnoses sheer terror in the space of a second.
Sam raises a hand and hurries out more words, reassuring now. "He's okay, Dean, both of them are. You hear me? But they both got knocked about a little."
The relief takes a moment to calm him, and Dean knows he's blinking at his brother almost confusedly because panic has stolen his voice and his throat is so constricted by fright it feels like a noose is looped around it, choking the air from his lungs.
"They were jumped while they were checking out those disappearances in Quonochontaug," Sam continues, and he's cranking the ignition now, looking over his shoulder as he backs them out of the parking bay along to the throaty growl of the engine. "Birdwatchers, remember? Anyway, we were right, looks like more of the same…Bobby says it was a bunch of those weird half-and-half fish-ghoul things, like the ones we ran into in Galveston."
Dean finally manages a response, and it's just a parched scrape of air vibrating barely across his vocal cords. "But they're both alright? Cas is alright too?"
Sam nods as he eases them out onto the road. "He did his magic light trick, turned them into crispy critters. But Bobby says it was like they targeted Cas. And they said some things that seemed to really spook him."
Dean absorbs that for the span of a few still vaguely frantic heartbeats, before he finds the force in his voice again. "What things?"
Sam huffs. "Well, Bobby doesn't know. It was some weird mystical dialect. And Cas flaked out like he always does after he goes nuclear. He hasn't woken up yet." He side-eyes Dean for moment. "He's alright," he reiterates gently.
Dean tightens his jaw, manages to maneuver himself back into something resembling self-possession, and steadies his voice enough to joke, "Yeah, nine lives." It's weak and he isn't even really convinced he believes it himself, because no sooner has he said the words than he's mentally tallying just how many Castiel has used up so far, and how many he realistically has left now he's running low on juice. "He has nine lives," he repeats, because maybe if he says it enough it'll be true.
"Yeah." Sam's fingers tap out a way-too casual rhythm on the steering wheel as they tool along. "Hey, why don't you drop me at the airport?" he offers. "I can push onto New York by myself, get a head start on this haunting if you want to check in at Bobby's first, make sure everything's okay?"
Even through his anxiety, Dean can pick out the caginess in Sam's tone. It's a red flag to the fact his brother's scrutiny still sees too deep for comfort sometimes, and there's a moment where it bothers him, where he feels his cheeks start to heat.
"Dean?" Sam prods. "It'll set your mind to rest."
It will, Dean knows. "Yeah, okay," he says quietly.
He keeps his eyes staring forward as he speaks, doesn't glance to his right as they circle the park. He pays no mind to the loud smack of the ball on the bat, and the kid running across his peripheral vision, and he closes his ears to the sound of cheering.
He leaves the dream of a normal family in his dust forever.
Dean creeps into Castiel's room at six in the morning, when the sun is just starting to cast the sky orange on the horizon. Castiel is facing away from him, curled up and hugging himself defensively in his sleep.
Dean is stealthy, toeing off his boots and socks, easing his jeans and boxers down and heaving his t-shirt over his head. His cock is already at half-mast as he eases in under the covers and wraps himself around Castiel from behind, and the angel makes a barely conscious but pleased-sounding huff of welcome from the depths of the pillow.
"I missed you," Dean murmurs as he fits himself to the slope of Castiel's shoulder, the arch at the small of his friend's back, the curve of his ass, and the long sweep of his legs. And fuck, he did, he marvels, as he smoothes his hand across the sleek skin of Castiel's torso and up to the raised scar. He pulls Castiel in so tight to himself it's like they're joined down the whole length of their bodies, and he thinks he might never grow tired of this, six feet of perfect, warm skin and angular, wiry hardness pressed against him from chest to toes; thinks that just for a while he's putting all the crap out of his mind and letting himself have this.
He occupies himself kissing the vertebrae between Castiel's shoulders, inhaling the scent of Ivory soap and sweat, and tasting salt. A trail of vicious bruises wends its way up Castiel's back, and his shoulder blade is badly grazed, the skin blossoming raw. The rage that electrifies through Dean when his eyes fall on it surprises him. He manages to rein it in, nuzzles the purplish blotches, kisses the sore area and feels Castiel wince under his ministrations. "Tell me you're alright," Dean whispers into his skin. "Tell me what those things said to you."
He trails the tip of his tongue upwards, draws a circle around the knob of bone at the nape of Castiel's neck. He fastens his lips around it, scrapes his teeth along the hardness just under the skin, bites down until he feels give. Castiel's hand is on the globe of his ass now, pulling Dean in as he pushes back onto the rigid line of Dean's cock, so the tip of it nudges into the slot at the top of his legs. Dean groans at the promise of snug heat there, at his friend's fingertips sliding down to play deftly in his cleft as he drives deeper into the tight space, the slight resistance of sweat-tacky skin and the scratch of coarse hair forming exquisite friction against the head of his dick.
"I'm alright," Castiel confirms, and he twists agilely, so that Dean finds himself caught up in the tangle of his arms and legs. "And I don't really remember what they said," the angel continues blearily. "A spell of some kind perhaps…and I'm fairly sure they insulted me too, so there's that."
Castiel cants his head, kisses Dean slowly and damned thoroughly, his tongue exploring every nook and cranny of Dean's mouth until he pulls away and yawns, remembering his manners sufficiently to drift a slow hand up to cover it. His knuckles are split and bloody, and Dean snakes his own hand up, closes his fingers around Castiel's wrist, studies the broken skin darkly. "They were lucky you got there first," he growls, gazing briefly into the angel's sleepy, affectionate eyes. "I would have ended those sumbitches slowly."
Castiel flexes his hand into a fist, considers the battered skin. "Speed was of the essence, Dean," he concludes. "And you know I can take care of myself."
Dean responds with a noncommittal grunt, releases the hand, and dips down to mouth his way along Castiel's jaw. "I have to pull out in a couple of hours," he mutters as he laps at the pulse that flutters beside Castiel's larynx. "New York. Sam headed up there already…" He clucks sympathetically as he notes more bruises, the pooled-blood shape of fingers imprinted into the juncture of his friend's neck and shoulder. "This pisses me off," he gripes as he presses kisses to the evidence of a hard-won fight. "No one gets to mark you but me."
Castiel snorts in amusement, bares his throat obediently, and Dean grunts in satisfaction at his submissiveness, his whipcord strength pliant and yielding as Dean smears a silky trail of saliva along the protective script that underlines his collarbone. He entwines his fingers in the softness of Castiel's hair while the angel rubs at the back of his neck and uses the heel of his hand to knead the muscles of Dean's shoulder as they flex. Castiel's nipple is already rising as Dean flicks his tongue across it, exhaling a cool blast of air across the tender nub so that it stiffens even more. He hears his friend hiss from above him, and he chuckles, slides his palm down Castiel's ribs to massage the crest of the hip that rolls up into his touch. He contemplates biting at that sharp point of bone in the next few minutes, sucking a few hickies into the skin there, and the plan sends a heavy ache of want throbbing low and productive through his belly on its way to his cock.
Castiel hums agreeably as Dean flips a leg across his thighs, plants a hand either side of his face and leans forward to lick his way back in between the angel's lips, pulling at their plump succulence with his teeth. He nudges his dick against Castiel's lower belly, maneuvering a few inches further up the bed so his friend's morning wood is sliding behind his sac and brushing against his asshole. The sensitive skin there twitches reflexively, ripping a growl from deep in Dean's throat, before the disorganized shift and prod of Castiel's cock settles into long, slow strokes along Dean's perineum, in time with the curling dance of their tongues.
Castiel's fingers flit lightly up and down the ridge of Dean's spine, and he moans into Dean's mouth, a soft, low sound of pleasure at once so innocent and so fuckin' hot Dean feels it in his heart and his balls at the same time. The angel slips a hand down in between them and rubs the pad of his thumb across the ridge of skin under the swelling bulb of Dean's dick, spreading the wetness that already beads there, the caress skittering deliciously across Dean's nerves so that he gasps. Castiel grunts decisively then, pushes up under Dean, his hand at Dean's shoulder, impatient as he grips Dean's thigh and urges him up.
Dean shuffles forwards on his knees, his cock bobbing and pointing the way, its one eye fixed unerringly on its destination as Castiel reaches behind himself to tug the pillows into a mound underneath his head, propping himself up. He opens wide for Dean, and his mouth is burning, velvet heat that has Dean stutter out an incoherent curse, a perfect wet vacuum as Castiel suckles greedily. The angel is wild-haired and debauched looking, his lips stained dark pink with the rush of blood, shiny with spittle and swollen luscious with Dean's own kisses, and their stretch and drag as he leans in almost as far as the base and pulls away are sweet and blissful. His eyes blink lazily, the lashes thick, sooty black crescents on his cheekbones as Dean grips the metal headboard and stares down avidly at his dick sliding in and out.
"Fuckin' gorgeous," Dean mumbles hoarsely, and he can hear his own breath, slow and strained, as Castiel's fingers close around his shaft, and the tip of his cock pushes into the firm, springy flesh that encloses him, bulging Castiel's cheek outwards. Almost-painful sensations rocket up Dean's length and he whimpers as Castiel pulls back, swirling his tongue across the fold of skin under the head, probing the slit. Castiel's hand is flat to Dean's hip, his thumb a distracting tickle as it moves over the jut of bone and his fingers splay out across Dean's asscheek. Dean brings one leg up, runs his fingers up the back of Castiel's head, a silent question that Castiel answers with a husky aaaah.
Dean pushes in, slow at first, speeding up until he's making shallow, fast thrusts that butt his cock up against the back of his friend's palate. Castiel swallows him deep, his teeth scraping the spine of Dean's cock, his fingers teasing the back of Dean's thigh and trailing up into his crack, his fingernail a tantalizing scratch across the rim of muscle hidden there, until he pulls off abruptly and slides lithely away, vanishing from sight.
Dean feels lips mouthing his sac then, feels the warm tip of Castiel's tongue at his entrance, hungry, wet swipes and pokes at the puckered skin that have Dean cursing and tilting his ass back invitingly, leaning his brow on the cool wall above the headboard and losing himself in hazy satisfaction for endless moments. Castiel is relentless, piercing deeper with each incursion before withdrawing to lick gentle, sloppy stripes from Dean's balls upwards, his thumbs pulling Dean's ass apart for better access. It isn't good enough for him though, because in one fluid move he's up on his knees behind Dean, hands urging him back almost roughly, and Dean is only too happy to oblige, falling down onto his elbows on the bed as Castiel resumes his assault, his hands like twin vises at Dean's hips.
Castiel eats Dean out like he's starving for him, his breath scorching, his lips clamped to the skin. It's filthy, unholy, the sounds the angel makes so obscene Dean thinks he could come from them alone, and Castiel's tongue is fervent and slick as it skips nimbly around the rim before stabbing in for a skillful twist and curl. Just the thought of it, pink and glistening as it works him open, has Dean only too willing to help, and he drives himself back onto the wet blade of it as it spears him, hears Castiel make a muffled, surprised mmmpphh sound. Dean grabs for his cock at the same time, gasping out tiny moans, barely biting off a cry as he feels the thicker, more solid press of a finger glide in deep and stroke almost curiously across his prostate, so that he ignites inside. He throws a heated glance over his shoulder, sees Castiel's own dick rising, engorged and angry looking, from its bed of dark curls. He decides he'll flip himself around to get his mouth on it and suck it dry, then finds he can't even concentrate on that as another whiteout of pleasure blinds him. He has to bury his face in the pillow to muffle his own strangled whines, just in case-
A creak, footsteps, his overactive imagination, fuck, no it isn't, because there's a soft knock at the door.
"Cas…?"
Dean freezes in utter horror, tensing so tight he wonders briefly and abstractedly if his ass might be cutting off the blood supply to Castiel's finger, which remains exactly where it is. He spares a frantic look back at his friend, hisses, "It isn't locked," through teeth clenched tight with anxiety, but Castiel just blinks at him almost dreamily, his eyes black with lust.
Bobby is quiet, considerate. "You up yet, boy?"
Castiel smiles slowly then, licks his lips deliberately. "No…" he drawls in the direction of the closed door. "I'm not up, Bobby. Not yet. But I hope to be at some point soon."
Dean widens his eyes at the subtext, frowns bloody murder, finally regains control of his slack jaw for long enough to mouth don't you fuckin' dare, as his friend shifts his finger assertively, buries it deep, crooks it and slides it idly and so damned skillfully across that spot again, once, twice, three times in succession. Dean's head swims hazily, and he shudders, has to sink his teeth into his knuckles to stop himself from whimpering out his rapture at the glorious shocky bursts.
"Only I'm heading into town in a while," Bobby continues obliviously. "Supply run. Thought you might want to come."
Dean tries to pull away, but Castiel's hand on his hip is like iron, holding him in place. "I'd like to come, Bobby," Castiel answers, and his eyes drift closed as he nuzzles Dean's ass. "I'd like to come very much. But I'm not quite ready."
Bobby sniffs. "Well. Looks like the boys got in last night," he says finally. "Car's outside. I could use the company. Maybe one of them might come."
Castiel's smile is sly as he snaps his eyes open again, winks at Dean and sucks in a mouthful of flesh, worrying at it with wicked teeth, the nips savage enough to make Dean squeak impotent fury. "Oh, I think that's highly likely, Bobby," he declares.
The angel's voice is deadpan and steady, as steady as the back and forth sweep of his clever finger, as steady as the bead of sweat Dean can feel trickling down between his shoulder blades when he wraps his hand around his cock again and starts to jack himself erratically, while the embers set by Castiel's remorseless pressure on the gland catch and start to blaze out of control. He gulps back a sob of pained ecstasy as he hears the scrape and creak of Bobby's boots on the stairs, pants it out as quietly as he can as soon as he thinks the old man might be out of earshot. "Fuck, Cas…gonna come, gonna…fuck."
The room spins as he's tossed over onto his back with no ceremony whatsoever, and Castiel is suddenly devouring him almost to the root, bathing him in sultry heat, throat constricting around him and drinking him down as he pulses and empties. Dean hears a reedy, incriminating cry start to make its way up his throat, and then Castiel is right there, swallowing down the noise, the taste of his tongue salt-bitter with Dean's own come, his lips bruisingly hard.
Dean gives as good as he gets for a minute, as he feels the thick, solid cap of his friend's dick nudge up behind his balls like it's feeling its way home. The pressure of it sends heady, delirious need skipping through Dean, and he fists his hand in Castiel's hair, pulls his head up. "I want you in me so damn much," he pants out. "So damn much, Cas."
Castiel's eyes are blazing passion down at Dean, his mouth is open, and his breathing is fast and shallow. He makes a small, choked out sound far back in his throat, sucks in his bottom lip, and the press of him there at Dean's core is suddenly harder and relentless, and it's the promise of pain and horror, it's Hell, it's Alastair, and it's terrifying and too much. It shatters the moment of reckless desire into a thousand pieces that can't ever be fitted back together and Dean flinches involuntarily, freezes, hears himself gasp out a strangled, "No. No…"
The pressure withdraws in the same second, and Castiel's eyes have gone liquid now, naked with something Dean can't even look at. He shifts himself further up, so that Dean can feel the wet smear of him in the crease of his thigh, dips his head in, and kisses Dean with a tenderness that constricts Dean's chest so tightly it's suddenly an effort to breathe. "You exist on the cusp of desperation, Dean," he whispers. "But you don't have to with me…you don't have to when we're like this." His hand is gentle on Dean's cheek as he continues, and his voice is smoky. "Ol g-chis-ge…beloved." He smiles. "We have no word for it in Enochian, you see…"
Castiel leans in again, plays chaste lips over Dean's, croons more sounds Dean doesn't recognize, even if he understands at some deep level what his friend is saying. "Od ol g-chis-ge ol zorge…Ol g-chis-ge in od olani oia amiran…"
Castiel starts to make small, rocking motions with his hips then, grinding his cock into Dean's lower belly, and Dean feels his tension drain out of him, feels safe, and he tracks his hands around to clamp Castiel's ass and pull him in closer, securing him in place with a leg tucked around the angel's thighs. "I'm sorry," he says softly.
"Sshhhhhh," Castiel breathes into Dean's open mouth. "You are my beloved, and you are my friend," he soothes, the words hot and devoted around Dean's tongue. "You are mine. And I am yours." He pulls his mouth away then, and his hand is a solid, tingling weight on Dean's scar as he circles his hips sinuously, pumps in, the slip-slide of him across Dean's skin rhythmic and leisurely.
It doesn't take long, less than a minute at the most, before Castiel chokes out a raw noise into Dean's neck at the same time as Dean feels a tremor run through his friend's body, feels slick, wet heat spurt between them. "I love you, Dean," Castiel whispers raggedly as he collapses on Dean and stills, his lips fluttering damply on Dean's skin. "I love you. I love you. I love you."
Some small part of Dean has known it all along, and he wraps his arms and legs around Castiel with something like desperation, because it's too much and yet it's not enough, will never be enough to describe his need for this. His heart is jackhammering its euphoria inside him, and he can feel the staccato percussion of Castiel's heartbeat keeping tempo against his chest.
I love you, Dean.
When Lisa said it to him in the dark, he'd curl his arm around her and say, Me too, while he stared over at the window and wondered what might be out there eating its way through civilians now he was benched. It got to be comfortable, and automatic, needed no thought or consideration whatsoever, got so the words were right there to be spoken, by rote, when she wanted to hear them.
I love you, Dean…I love you. I love you. I love you.
It overwhelms him. He doesn't answer.
The sun is streaming in through a gap at the top of the curtains when Dean blinks awake again, and his wristwatch tells him it's seven-thirty. He doesn't remember falling asleep, only remembers Castiel's weight on him growing heavier as his friend drifted away, his mouth pressed to Dean's scar. He stares blearily up at the cracked ceiling for a few lethargic moments while he gets his bearings.
He feels utterly sated, and the slow recall of what caused his contentment has his cock twitching hopefully at the thought of round two. He briefly debates coiling himself back around the warm body next to him, but his bladder is sending up distress flares, he could use a shower, and he can smell the aromas of coffee and bacon on the air. He cranes his neck and kisses Castiel's shoulder, notes that the abrasions there are less inflamed before easing himself away. He plucks Castiel's - his he notes with a wry grin - sweats off the end of the bed and tugs them on, followed by his t-shirt, before he pads downstairs, stopping off in the bathroom to piss like a Kentucky Derby winner. Partway down the stairs he gets a clue, swivels and sneaks back up again, eases the door to the spare room open and makes a cursory effort to ensure the mattress on the floor looks like he slept on it. "Fuckin' idiot," he admonishes himself as he agitates the sheet and blankets, and he feels like one, because he's damn sure the old man knows the deal anyway.
Bobby glances up from his newspaper as Dean shuffles into the kitchen, directs his one good eye at him and grunts a welcome through a split lip. "What time did you get in?"
Dean scratches his belly as he pours himself a mug of steaming joe, pulls out a chair and plants his butt there. "About five-thirty. Sam headed on up to New York on a job, so I bedded down in the spare room." He covers the lie with a gulp of coffee, and Bobby doesn't bat an eyelid, just slides a plate of toasted bagels over towards him. Dean liberates one of them and gestures towards Bobby's face, wincing. "That's a heck of a shiner," he declares, as he sinks his teeth into the bread.
"Tell me about it," Bobby says ruefully, and he reaches up to poke carefully at the puffy flesh. "Goddamn things came out of nowhere." He drains his mug, pushes up and heads to the stovetop, where bacon is sizzling in a skillet. "What's in New York?" he queries, as he spears a strip of the meat and flips it over.
Dean swallows his mouthful, washes it down with more coffee. "Haunting at an art gallery, college buddy of Sam's owns it. We helped her out a few years ago." He leans back in his chair, contemplates the room for a moment before he backtracks the conversation. "Sam said you told him those fish-guys zeroed right in on Cas, said something that rattled him pretty bad."
Bobby throws him a significant look as he fusses over the food. "Seemed that way," he confirms. "One of them sent me flying, but even after I took the damn thing out it was like I wasn't even there. They started in on him, herding him into the sea. I could've stripped naked and danced the can-can for all the mind they paid me."
Dean can't help blanching at that mental picture, and he sees Bobby roll his eyes before he turns back to the bacon and starts hooking it out onto a plate. "What did they say to him?" he prompts.
"I don't really know," Bobby muses. He pauses, shakes his head at the memory. "I couldn't make all of it out. It was a bunch of stuff…most of it sounded like gibberish. Spell, maybe."
Dean nods. "That's what Cas said." He swallows self-consciously as he realizes his slip. "I looked in on him just now," he adds hastily, and then he throws in a quick deflection for good measure. "And he told me he thought they were insulting him too."
The old man snorts at that. He sets the plate of bacon down in front of Dean, pours himself some more coffee and sits opposite again. "Well, whatever it was, it got to him bad…he went as white as a sheet and just - switched off. I hollered at him, and it seemed to bring him round." He stops, sips from his mug. "Then his eyes flashed like they do when he's about to smite your ass to kingdom come, and he yelled at me to duck and cover. I hit the deck, place lit up like a damn A-bomb, and after the noise died down he was out cold, and the hybrids were just charred bones."
Bobby reaches into his back pocket as he speaks, fishes out a piece of folded paper. He smoothes it out and passes it over. "It was just a bunch of sounds, consonants, vowels. It didn't seem to make proper words, but I wrote a couple of things I managed to pick out down before I hit the road away from there. All phonetic though."
Dean scans the paper, and Bobby is right, it's nothing recognizable. Except for…"Ol," he reads, and he sees Castiel's eyes, so damned blue and earnest with his devotion, can almost feel the soft tickle of the angel's lips on his skin as he murmured the words. "I'm sure that's Enochian," he ventures, before he reads the rest of words again, out loud this time. "Ol. Mal. Perg. Shoo. Dobe. Rof. Ay. Tase." He frowns at the old man. "Have you tried translating it from Enochian?"
Bobby tugs at his beard as he nods. "Yep. Nearest I found was malpirg - it's Enochian, like you said, it means fire." He blows out a sharp, reflective exhale. "Assuming that's what they actually said, and that's anyone's guess. None of the other stuff fits though." He throws up an apologetic hand at Dean's sigh. "Sorry, boy. It was hard to make any of it out. Fish lips."
Dean rubs a hand roughly over his chin, deliberates. "I don't know if I like him being out there," he risks stiltedly, because he knows how damned pathetic it sounds.
Sure enough, the look Bobby gives him is maybe two parts empathy, eight parts dripping sarcasm. "Dean, he's as safe as any of us on the hunt, probably safer with the mojo, and-"
"Not if he's being targeted," Dean counters. "This isn't the first time he's been singled out, you know that - what about New Jersey, those shadow-things in the sea? And those fire vampires, last time we were in Rhode Island. I just…" He stops himself, thinks about the rumpled pile of sheets and blankets on the mattress in the spare room, keeps going even if he knows his face is giving him away. "Bobby, I just - I don't want anything to happen to him. Not now, when things are, uh…" He grimaces, casts his eyes down, embarrassed as he feels his cheeks tingle, draws in a breath of courage. "You know. Different with him and me. Better. For, uh. All of us."
He figures that if he forks a chunk of bacon into his mouth and gets on with his chow the old man might let that one lie, but he's aware that Bobby is still examining him with beady eyes as he follows up the bacon with a hunk of toast. He squirms a little under the scrutiny, chews the mouthful to a manageable size before he squawks an irritated, high-pitched, "What?" out into the silence, spitting a modest shower of toast crumbs as he speaks.
"So. When I called, Sam said you were in Winter Park." Bobby's voice is serious. "How'd that go?"
Still pinned in place by Bobby's gimlet stare, Dean gives in and puts his fork down, thinks ironically that as painful as the memory of Lisa Braeden's blank mask of suspicious non-recognition is, he's almost grateful for the detour. "I went to see her," he confesses awkwardly. "I mean - not see see. She's still none the wiser. But it was - weird. Seeing what could have been, what I could have had. A normal family." He shakes his head, feels a strange and unexpected regret surge up inside him, like the yearning that swelled unbidden in his chest as she walked away. "I might still be there if Sam hadn't shown up in Cicero," he says wistfully. "I loved her, Bobby. I loved them both. I still do." He pauses then, gulps, and dredges up a shot of courage before he goes on. "Maybe it's not the same way I l-"
"You could have that back."
The voice is faded and tired, but it has a note underlying it that might be disappointment, or shock, or both. When Dean twists in the chair and looks towards the doorway, to the shadows where his friend is hovering, he sees that's exactly what it is.
Castiel's eyes are huge, stunned, inky blots in a pale, crestfallen face. "Just tell me where they are, Dean," he says, and he cards a distracted hand through his hair, messing it up even more, as Dean stares at him. "If that's what you want."
Dean rubs a hand roughly over his chin, thrown off-kilter by the distraught look on Castiel's face, because it's an uncomfortable gut-punch reminder of his friend's stricken expression when he asked Dean to stand with him before he opened Purgatory, and what happened afterwards. He smothers the memory, gropes for words, fumbles out, "Uh…I don't think that is what I want," and from behind him he hears Bobby give a quiet huff.
Dean swivels his head back to see Bobby's eyebrows hiked up in disbelief, and he throws up a helpless hand. "What?" he demands.
"You don't think?" Bobby echoes him witheringly, and he rolls his eyes.
"Wait, just - it isn't that simple," Dean defends, as he darts his eyes back to where Castiel still stands, sees that his friend's face has gone as guarded as Lisa's was, in place of the distress that marked him a few seconds before.
Castiel clears his throat and gives a composed shrug. "I'm sure it isn't," he says quietly. "So, why don't you give it some thought and tell me when you're sure. Since you don't seem to be presently. And since you have options."
Dean wants to tell Castiel that those options aren't any kind of options he wants, not really, but his mouth is goldfishing because he can't quite join the dots to find out how he ended up with this picture in front of him, and his friend is already walking back up the hallway.
"Tact," Bobby clips out brusquely as Dean pushes up and makes a beeline for the door. "Look it up. It's under T."
Castiel is reaching for the front doorknob, but he turns on his heel as Dean strides up behind him. His face is set steel, and he raises his hands before Dean has the chance to speak.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Dean," he says quietly. "And I know it isn't simple. I understand this, believe me. This is your family. And like I said, perhaps you need to think-"
"Cas, don't. Just…stop."
There's a flare of panic streaking through Dean's gut as he steps right up into Castiel's personal bubble, crowding him up against the door. He can tell the indifferent note in his friend's voice is contrived, can feel Castiel is wound up tight now he's pressed up close, his well-disguised skittishness a reflection of the tension that vibrates through Dean's own body. Dean wonders if his own eyes are as bleak as Castiel's as he clamps his hands to the angel's cheeks and licks his way into Castiel's mouth like he can't get enough, because it's true, he can't.
"Don't," he mutters again, into wet heat, sliding his fingers up into Castiel's hair. "It is simple." He hears the small, fragile, almost-but-not-quite inaudible sound that comes from the back of Castiel's throat, the thrum of his own heart in his chest. "It is simple," he says again.
The sound of the phone in the kitchen is loud and jarring, shakes Dean back to enough sense to realize he left the door to the room swinging ajar behind him, and that Bobby is probably getting an eyeful of this. He drops his hands and steps back, twisting swiftly as he hears the scrape of the old man's chair, the low timbre of Bobby's voice, Singer Salvage, and the usual patter, how his words speed up and become urgent.
Bobby turns to face him, directs a look Dean can't quite decode in their direction, and Dean mentally calculates the odds of it being the expression Bobby might pull out of his repertoire after witnessing him dry-hump a male-shaped angel of the Lord against his own front door. When Bobby puts his fingers up to cover the receiver, Dean isn't quite sure what to expect and half-wonders if it'll be an accusation. Sure enough, it comes out as an edgy snap.
"We got a problem. A big one."
Dean puts his hands out palm up, placates as best he can. "Look, Bobby, I know…I wanted to tell you, and I'm sorry, it just-"
"Not that," Bobby barks. "Idjit." He half-turns away, speaks into the phone again, quieter now, where? and when?, before he fishes a pen out of his pocket and starts scribbling details on the message pad. "We'll be there," he says down the phone, and then he puts it down and turns back, his eyes traveling beyond Dean. "That was Amelia Novak," he says simply.
Dean gapes for a few seconds as Castiel steps out from behind him and gestures for the pad, glancing at it briefly, his face impassive, before he tears the paper off and folds it.
Bobby shakes his head, blowing out wearily. "Her kid's gone missing. And she said…"
The sentence trails off into nothing, because Dean is looking at empty space.
He takes a confused step forward, blinks a couple of times. "Cas, you sonofabitch," he murmurs.
Episode 15: Ghosts (Part 1 Continued)