Chutes and Ladders
Title: Chutes and Ladders Part 2
Author: the_trepverter
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, OC
Spoilers: 6x22
Warnings: Violence, Major character death, Dubious consent (due to having full knowledge)
Word Count: 4,195 this part, 11,903 in total
Summary: Chutes and Ladders is a kids’ game about morality, but really its just a bunch of arbitrary dice rolling and time wasting. Castiel is God, and he’s lost something important in a maze.
A/N: dapperscript is the best beta ever. This junk pile would not make sense without her.
The carpet pattern has changed. It’s the first thing Castiel notices when he steps back into the endless corridor. It was red with a pattern of green grapes. Now it’s brown with a diamond pattern.
“So, what was wrong with this one?” the Sphinx’s voice is clear and loud to his left. Castiel blinks several times, trying to organize the mess in his head before answering. He had been in that false universe for much longer than the rest. It is disorienting to be back in the maze.
Castiel shakes his head the slightest bit. A few weeks or a few hours are a short period of time for God, or an angel. The only thing disorienting here is being in the maze at all.
“This Dean was… he was a poor replica. He was like a colorless copy.”
“A metaphor? From you?” The sphinx snickers.
“A simile, actually.” He corrects her, not really paying attention. From the corner of his eyes, he sees the sphinx shrug, seemingly uncaring.
“Yes, because I care so deeply about things like that.” The sphinx snorts.
“Which door do you recommend?” Castiel asks her, sick of the back and forth. The sphinx settles down to chew at the pad of her left paw.
“Go back through the one you came through.”
Castiel chooses the green door.
Dean’s life has gone a little something like this: John and Sam haven’t talked to him in nearly two years. They both disapprove of this ‘rock star’ idea. Dad wants him to go home and be an auto mechanic. Sam, now a sophomore at UC Berkeley, tells him to go to community college. But Dean, per both of their advice (‘I was a marine, son’ and ‘You can go to college on the G.I bill’) did a tour in Afghanistan. After nearly five years there (yes, a tour is four, but there really isn’t any contracted time period for being held captive by the Taliban), he’d come home to two separate life plans for him laid out by both his father and brother.
He’d told them both to go fuck themselves.
Now, his life goes something like this: Dean lives in L.A, in a massive studio apartment with eight roommates. He and Amanda had moved in at the same time. The other tenants, at the time, had been hipsters and wannabe musicians. Maybe it was because Amanda was a bane on people who are absorbed in their own melodrama (she’s the only survivor of a plane crash and freakishly well adjusted), but all but one of the other tenants had run like cockroaches when the lights turned on. When they had cleared out, Dean and Amanda had had one month of having to split the rent between the two of them, and the only remaining tenant, before the twins moved in. Dean already knew Caitlin from their work together in the Harvelle’s auto repair shop, and getting along with her easygoing brother, Danny, was no problem. Especially when the two of them had spent a week of hard labor, combining Danny’s knowledge as a UCLA architecture student with his sister’s practical construction knowhow, to create a series of sliding walls, steps, and doors, in order to give everyone some privacy. They had also fixed the plumbing. Thank god for that.
After the twins, a foreign exchange student from Dubai had moved in - small guy named Jibrail. Gabriel, in English. Muslim by faith and hedonistic by practice, Dean had engaged in a prank war with the new guy. Dean, much to his surprise, was losing, badly.
Zazie was the most recent arrival, and a student at the Culinary Art academy. Gabriel follows her around like a lost puppy and she pays the least in rent. She also cooks for everyone in the apartment and makes amazing fucking pies.
The last person was the only holdover from before Dean had moved in. Her name was Missy Bender and she was an amazing artist, as well as crazier than the theoretical love child of Charlie Sheen and Francis Farmer.
Dean really fucking likes his life the way it is right now.
~*~
“Oh mi-gosh, Dean put me down!” Zazie is giggling and balancing precariously where she’s sitting on his shoulders. Dean laughs and grips her ankles to keep her from falling. Next to him, Amanda is leaning heavily on her bass, trying not to laugh so hard that appletini comes out of her nose.
“You guys were awesome!” Caitlin claps him on the back nearly hard enough to knock Zazie down. The small blonde shrieks and digs her fingers into Dean’s hair. Amanda, who’s nearly gotten herself under control, starts laughing again. Gabriel starts handing out beers. Ash, the band’s drummer, grabs two.
Other people come up and clap him on the back. Missy scowls when the guests wandering through their apartment brush up against her paintings. Danny leans in, listening intently to one of the girls he’s flirting with. The air is hot but not quite stuffy, and Amanda’s jasmine incense is thick in the air. Music from his performance tonight - Ash must have recorded it - echoes off the walls.
“Hello.” Dean turns slowly, keeping Zazie steady on his shoulders.
The man who greeted him is standing stiffly, a beer held awkwardly in his left hand. Dean would put his age at thirty-one, maybe thirty-two. His suit and jacket are a size too big. Dean snorts at the CPA look. Who the hell even let this guy in? Then the guy turns his attention away from one of Missy’s frightening paintings to meet Dean’s eyes and Dean can suddenly understand why whoever opened the door did so. His eyes are a bright, shocking ice blue, and for a moment Dean feels unsteady on his feet.
“Hi!” Zazie waves down at him from Dean’s shoulders. “I’m Zazie! Did you like the cupcakes? I tried using Orange peel in the batter for extra flavor.”
The man looks up at her and squints.
“My name is Castiel. And no, I have not tasted the cupcakes.”
Zazie lets out a gasp and hits Dean’s shoulder.
“Let me down, let me down! I gotta go get him a cupcake.”
Dean helps Zazie slide off his shoulders, setting her down on the floor. The minute the small woman is on the ground, she takes off to the kitchen, looking for an untouched tray of pastries.
“Sorry about her. She’s kind of like a five year old on a permanent sugar high.” Dean waves his hand awkwardly in Zazie’s direction. Castiel’s eyes flicker in her direction and then he turns back to Dean.
“There is no need to apologize. She is rather friendly.” Castiel speaks as formally as he dresses, apparently.
“Anyways, I’m Dean.” Dean holds out a hand. Castiel looks confused for a moment, but then shakes.
“Got a nickname, Castiel? Cause that’s one hell of a mouth full.”
Castiel’s smile is small, but warm.
“Yes. A friend of mine… he used to call me ‘Cas’.”
Dean grins widely in return.
“Well, why don’t you throw that Corona light away, Cas? I’ve got a stash of better beer in the back of the fridge.”
~*~
He sees Cas again, over the next few weeks. Sometimes he shows up in clubs that Dean’s band is playing at. Other nights they happen to be in the same bar. Once, they run across each other while Dean is walking the twins’ dog. It’s not strange, exactly - L.A is a big city, but people stay in their very localized little neighborhoods. Besides, there’s something about Cas that seems to fit in his life. Dean never had friends in his life till he moved out to L.A. Before, it was just Dad and Sammy, moving from one town to the next, like they were trying to flee Mary’s ghost. And now that he does have friends, Cas is unlike any of them. They shouldn’t work together. He doesn’t like arguing about car parts or jamming to a Zeppelin song. Instead, whenever he and Dean hang out, they barely talk.
But it does work, somehow. Maybe his quiet intensity is something Dean’s always needed to balance the loud people in his life, always competing for attention. Maybe… hell maybe Dean knew him in a past life, or some crap like that. Dean stops trying to question it. How doesn’t really matter. Just that it is, is enough.
~*~
“No, dude, you have to inhale it down into your lungs. And, you know what, rule two - shoes, socks, coat and jacket off. You can’t smoke pot and wear that shit.”
Dean snorts, watching Danny try to talk Cas through breathing in the joint. The older man can’t seem to grasp the concept. No surprise, really - Dean would bet he was the type who actually waited till twenty-one to have his first beer. Maybe he was a former member of some super extreme religious group and he’s just breaking out for the first time. In a very subtle way, Cas reminds him of one of those fundamentalist Christians. Not in the shouting or espousing of stupid right wing issues, but there’s a conviction in… something, that reminds him of an utterly devout man.
“Here, Dean. Show him how it’s done.” Danny hands him the blunt. Dean rolls it between his fingers. He’s not a stoner, but every once in a while he’ll have a smoke.
Across from him, Cas has already shrugged off his coat and jacket, but has managed to tangle his fingers in his laces. Danny snorts, amused.
“Here Cas. Like this.” Dean tilts his head back, breathing in as deeply as he can. Smoke curls down into his lungs, and he holds his breath for a moment, before releasing it. When he hands the blunt over to Cas, he can feel the edges of things begin to grow soft.
Cas’ eyes flicker up at him briefly, and then he takes the joint and tips his own head back slightly, mimicking Dean. He breaths in hard enough that the rush of air is audible. For a moment, Dean fixates on his delicate pink lips contrasting with the white paper of the joint. Then Cas exhales and Dean snaps his gaze away. They pass the blunt back and forth between the three of them a few times, scolding Cas when he nearly drops it.
Whatever lazy feeling has permeated the air is snapped when Danny’s phone begins a high pitched version of ‘Hair of the Dog’, his sister’s ring tone. Danny snorts and picks up his phone.
“What…yeah.” There’s a long pause and then Danny groans in frustration. “You’re fucking kidding. Fine. On my way.” The dark haired man snaps the phone shut.
“Sup?” Dean asks him.
“Some Native American tribal meeting bullshit. Apparently, if I’m going to school on an aboriginal peoples’ scholarship, I have to pretend to give a shit about my culture.”
Dean frowns.
“Aren’t you, like, Osage, or Sioux or something? That’s out in Oklahoma. Why do you have to do Indian shit out here?”
Danny nods distractedly, searching the room for his car keys. A moment later he comes up with the jangling handful of trinkets and keys.
“Then…?” Dean trails off.
“Hey - the white man makes the rules about scholarship funding. Us red men just follow ‘em.” Danny manages to hunt down his wallet as well, then starts lacing up a ragged pair of skate shoes that actually have duct tape holding them together.
Dean laughs - the joke isn’t terribly funny, but the weed is already starting to work.
“Well, go pow wow, Dances With Wolves.” Dean jokes. Danny fucking hates that movie. The one time it was on T.V, he went into a twelve minute diatribe on the complete ‘fail hard’ of the portrayal of Native Americans in entertainment.
“Fuck you. I hope you trip balls on my weed and end up hiding under the couch, waiting for Big Brother to come for you.” Danny flicks aside the thin, plywood door that leads to Dean’s room. Dean chases him out, throwing a pillow at the back of his head.
“Hey! That was just one time, cocksucker!”
Danny’s laugh follows him out the door of their shared apartment. Dean retrieves his pillow and returns to his room. The music that spills out of the C.D player is Billie Holliday’s ‘Gloomy Sunday’. It’s a depressing song - Danny’s music, not his. Normally he’d bitch about someone else using his stereo system, but it had been Danny’s weed.
Dean sighs and slumps down next to Cas, too lazy to go and search through his music collection for something better. The song is winding to a close and this is one of Danny’s strange mixed C.Ds, so with any luck the next song will be something livelier.
Almost subconsciously, Dean leans into Cas, a relaxed feeling seeping through his body. ‘My Funny Valentine’ starts up. An instrumental version of the song filters through the air. The strong, sweet smell of the pot smoke makes the room feel slightly muggy, but not uncomfortably so. Dean takes another hit off the blunt and passes it to Cas.
“I don’t feel anything.” Cas tells him. Dean chuckles.
“Maybe it’s because you’re really Robocop. Or the Terminator. That would explain a lot, actually.”
Castiel frowns and Dean laughs again, knowing the other man doesn’t get the reference.
Already pressed up against him, Dean throws an arm around Cas’ shoulders. He sways along to the music, humming along under his breath. It’s a soft sound, and normally Dean tries to keep from singing anything other than loud rock music. When the girls get him drunk enough to sing Sinatra at their stupid karaoke outings, his voice always sounds soft and breathy. Now, though, he half mutters the lyrics. It was on one of the tapes in Dad’s car - specifically the one titled Mary’s favorites. He vaguely remembers it from warm summer nights, listening to it while John had driven from one town to another, and both he and Sam were supposed to be asleep.
Cas shifts slightly and Dean’s head falls naturally into the space between the other man’s neck and shoulder. Without really thinking about it, Dean leans in and sucks lightly at his neck. Cas gasps and tenses up. Dean immediately jerks away.
“Jesus, man, I am so sorry.” His words come out slower than he means to, but he scuttles backwards and hold up both hands, trying to show - no harm, no foul. This thing he has with Cas, this easy friendship, is not something he wants to ruin.
“Look, I totally didn’t mean for it to happen. If you want to steer clear of me from now on, I get it.” Dean starts to get up, waiting for the inevitable ‘faggot’. His sexuality isn’t usually fluid - he’s screwed plenty of girls and he likes the soft breasts and round hips. The last time he tried anything with a guy had been over a year ago and he’d nearly thrown up on himself afterwards. Growing up with John had instilled a knee-jerk homophobic reaction that made self-loathing crawl up into his gut and rest there uncomfortably when he played for the other team.
Cas reaches out, griping his shoulder much harder than Dean would have thought the smaller man capable of.
“Wait.” Cas says softly, and moves closer. The first press of his lips is tentative and rather naïve. It’s a dry kiss, more like touching their mouths together. Dean lets out a shaky, relieved breath and forces down his racing pulse. John disapproves of the way he lives his life to the point that, Dean’s sexuality not withstanding, they haven’t spoken in a long while. It’s time he stopped letting the old bastard sit up in his head, judging every move.
Dean slides his hand along Cas’ face, tilting his head back.
“Okay.” He whispers. Cas really doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing - maybe Dean was right and Cas is some kind of ex Evangelical.
“Okay. You… you have to purse your lips.” Dean explains. He leans in.
“Here, like this.” Dean tells him. He lightly threads his fingers through Cas’ hair, giving him every chance to push Dean away and reject him. Instead Cas leans forward.
The kiss isn’t perfect - it’s sloppy and a bit too wet. But it doesn’t try to be perfect. It’s not meant to be some kind of show of what’s to come, or a display of well practiced technique and sexual prowess.
Cas’ fingers let go of where they’re digging into Dean’s shoulders too tightly, and run along the line of Dean’s jaw with surprising finesse. Dean sighs and moves into it, weed clouding his head just enough that he doesn’t freak out and move away. He slumps forward against Cas. Cas leans back, supporting his weight against the wall.
“Mmm…” Dean mumbles softly. “C’mon. Bed.” He stands sluggishly and Cas follows him up quickly. Maybe he really is Arnold Shwarznegger in disguise. It would certainly explain the complete tolerance to alcohol and now marijuana. Dean giggles (actually, it was a proper manly snicker, if anyone asks) and flops down on the bed. Cas sits lightly on the mattress until Dean pulls him down, slipping their bodies next to each other. For a while, they make out lazily. Cas doesn’t demand any more. He simply kisses back and runs his hands lightly up and down Dean’s sides. For his part, Dean doesn’t try and pull off any of Cas’ clothes in a hurry.
“This is nice.” Cas’ voice is usually low, but now it’s a deep rumble that sends chills up Dean’s spine.
“It gets better.” Dean says lasciviously. Then he pauses, remembering that most of this is probably pretty new to Cas.
“You ever been with a guy before?” Dean asks.
“No.” Cas answers.
Dean hesitates, pausing his hand where it’s rubbing slow circles on Cas’ hip.
“Do you want to?” His voice is soft. Castiel gives him a long, searching look. For a moment, Dean thinks he can see something more than just a man behind those blue eyes. Then it’s gone, just as quickly.
“Yes.” Cas answers.
Dean nods once and slowly runs his fingers down the length of Castiel’s shirt, undoing buttons as he goes. Castiel rolls himself halfway on top of Dean, giving him better access to pull the smaller man’s shirt tails from his pants. Dean doesn’t bother to unknot his tie, instead he simply slips the loose knot over Cas’ head, mussing his hair even further. When he finally manages to get Cas’ shirt all the way off, Dean snorts.
“An undershirt? Really, man? How the hell do you wear this many layers in L.A, in summer?”
Castiel shuts him up by leaning back and pulling the undershirt over his head. Dean takes a minute to admire the other man’s lean body. He’s got the look of a swimmer or a runner -slender, with subdued outlines of muscle underneath. Dean shifts slightly, letting his legs fall on either side of Cas, and then sits up to catch his mouth. Cas groans in response and grinds down against him. Dean can feel the other man’s hard-on pressing against his leg. His own dick is also taking an interest in the proceedings. Dean cups the other man through his stupid office drown pants and gets a hard press of fingers into his hips in response. A moment later, Dean’s shirt is being dragged over his head.
“So… so how to do you want to do this?” Dean stares awkwardly off to the side, posters looking down on the two of them. Johnny Cash looks surprisingly approving about this whole thing.
Castiel finds Dean’s zipper.
“You mean to ask who is going to sodomize who?” Castiel sounds ridiculously nonchalant. Dean nearly yelps.
“Christ man, you gotta be so clinical?!” He slugs Cas lightly in the arm. Cas stares down with intense blue eyes.
“I have no preference, as long as I am permitted to share this with you.” Classic Castiel move - say something cool and a little bit biting, only to follow it up with something far too intimate.
Dean swallows. Normally, he’d prefer to be on top. But this is Cas’ first time (at least with a guy. Maybe ever. It wouldn’t be that big of a surprise) and Dean doesn't want it to suck. And, taking it up the ass - news flash, it can hurt a bit. Or a lot.
“Okay. Alright, okay. You, in me.” Dean tells him. “But dude, pants off first.”
Dean manages to get Cas’ pants off rather quickly. His own are a hassle for a minute, until Cas reaches down and - holy Hell he’s strong - practically lifts Dean out of them. This is normally the point where gay panic sets in. Confronted by another guy’s dick, Dean will usually screw his eyes shut and just fuck into whatever hole is provided, or screws them shut even tighter if he’s the one getting fucked.
With Cas, he keeps them open and drops a hand down between them. At the first touch of his hand on Cas’ dick, the wiry man tenses up and lets out a sound halfway between a gasp and a moan. Dean shushes him softly and strokes for a moment, getting used to the heft of it in his hand. Above him, Cas makes delicious little noises.
Dean lets out a gasp of his own when Cas grinds down against him. His cock slips between their stomachs and the warmth and pressure feels amazing. Cas’ fingers dig into Dean’s hips, pulling him up, pressing their bodies closer together.
“Lube.” Dean interrupts him. It takes a few seconds to dig around for the half empty tube under his bed.
“I need you to give me instructions.” Castiel’s normally calm voice is breathy and uneven. For a moment Dean feels a surge of pride, cause, yeah. That crazy, wild look on Cas’ normally calm face, and the flat voice sounding so shaken up is all a real accomplishment.
“Fingers. You need to get them covered in the stuff. Then press them in. Go slow.” Dean emphasizes.
“I won’t hurt you again.” Cas tells him, so soft that he almost doesn’t catch it. For a moment, Dean feels like the man above him is talking to someone else. He reaches up for the long, delicate line of Cas’ neck (to say ‘look at me, you dumb ass, not someone else, me’) but then thinks better of it and lets the comment go in favor of digging his hands into tangled black hair.
Cas pushes in slow, but it’s not nearly slow enough to stop the uncomfortable burn. Dean winces and tries to hold still as one finger gets swapped out for two. It’s been a long time since he last did this and it’s not feeling right yet. It fucking hurts, and Dean is just about ready to pull away and offer mutual blowjobs when Castiel crooks his fingers and hits that rough spot, and everything is great.
It’s messy and imperfect. Dean forgets to lube up Cas’ cock and the guy actually has to pull out for a moment to fix that, cause Dean does not want to explain his ‘funny walk’ for the next week. And then Cas is a bit too shy and scared and gentle, so Dean has to urge him on with his tongue flicking out at the shell of Cas’ ear before bruising it with his teeth, and with his heels dug sharply into Cas’ back. And at some point none of it matters because they find a slow, easy rhythm. Dean feels the second before his orgasm hits him - like the weightless second when you jump in the air, before you fall back to earth. For an instant, he feels suspended, fingers curled in Cas’ hair, looking into eyes that are far too blue. And then he’s gasping into Cas’ neck and coming all over his stomach, Cas following him over the edge.
~*~
The ice cream is dripping in his hand. Dean absentmindedly takes a bite. The plastic bag with the small, stupidly expensive cheese he thought Cas might like cuts into his hand and waiting for the 'Don't Walk' sign to change makes him really wish he'd taken the car.
The last week has had the world spinning off its axis. Amanda wolf whistling at him and Cas in the halls, Wednesday nights are spent on the couch, trying to explain why Steve McQueen is awesome, Saturday afternoons teaching Cas to cook - somehow, the other guy has become a stable fixture in his life. He doesn’t know what to call it - boyfriend seems too high school and premature, ‘this guy I keep falling into bed with’ makes Caitlin roll her eyes and tell him to stop pussy footing around, and partner sounds… well, just way too gay.
Dean sees the car that runs the red light. He just doesn’t have time to jump out of the way.