Surface Tension (Chapter 1)
In the continuing adventures of "Christina is too lazy to cross-post to Livejournal," here's the first chapter of the longfic I've been working on. I'm up to chapter 4 on AO3, but I'll space them out here over a day or two so I don't clog your flists. There's no other way to say this... I'm writing pirate!AU. And Castiel is a merman with the lower body of an octopus. There is rampant multishipping. Later, there will be tentacle porn. I apologize for nothing.
Summary: As the son of the (late) famous pirate John Winchester, Dean has inherited a dangerous reputation, insurmountable debts, and a sailing ship called The Impala. Desperate to keep his ship, and to keep his brother out of the family business, Dean has been smuggling for John's old contacts for most of his adult life. He has struck a delicate balance between duty and debauchery, running jobs with the fate of his crew on his shoulders while simultaneously maintaining lovers in every port from the Carolinas to South America. But just when his balancing act begins to crash down around him, he meets one of the elusive creatures living in the water off the Atlantic Coast. Half human, half sea creature, these beings don't enjoy human attention. It's only through a series of happenstances that Dean finds himself inextricably bound to the young merman named Castiel at a time when both their lives are poised to change forever.
Mostly Dean/Castiel. Also Dean/Anna. More ships involving Dean to come, because I enjoy it when people love Dean and have sex with him. Sam/Jess because fuck canon. Crowley's here too. It's a party.
Dedicated to Rae. Because it's all her fault.
-----
They sailed up the North Carolina coast under cover of darkness. There wasn't much risk of being recognized here, off these sleepy little coastal towns, but The Impala's lean design and dark coloring were distinctive enough that they didn't dare take the risk of making berth in daylight.
Dean Winchester stood at the wheel, steering with one hand. His relaxed, unconcerned posture was a practiced lie - his eyes constantly darted between the shore and the sea and across the deck of his ship. As they slid past the dim lights on the shore of the little town of Stanford, Dean's nervousness broke through and he began drumming his fingers on the spokes.
"Almost there." The voice behind him was reassuring, as if talking to a child.
Dean turned in time to see the figure of his first mate step out of the shadows. Even in the dark, her hair was scorchingly red. "I know, Anna."
"Calm down."
"I am calm."
Anna stepped up to the wheel and closed her hand around Dean's fingers, stilling them. "There's nothing you can do about it now. Try to enjoy being home."
"Stanford isn't home," Dean was quick to say.
"Close enough." When Dean resumed drumming on the wheel, she added, "You think you're hiding your feelings, but you're not. Even if the crew doesn't notice, they feel it. Your fear affects them. It makes us all weak."
Dean stopped drumming and gripped the wheel. "This could be it for us, Anna."
"I know."
"We were always hanging by a thread, and now that we fucked up this job..."
She laid her hand on his shoulder. "Dean, I know."
She squeezed his shoulder rhythmically, calmingly, as he steered the Impala past Stanford, up the shoreline a few more miles, and into a little cove. After the splash of the anchor and the rattle of the chain playing out, the creaking of the rigging was the only sound to be heard. No lights on the shore. No movement from the horizon, which was just beginning to glow pink. They'd made it. Dean allowed himself a deep breath.
Once on shore, they went their separate ways. Even though they were a small crew, it would have been suspicious for them all to turn up in town at once. Some, like Dean, were heading for Stanford. Some planned to make the somewhat longer journey to the bigger town - almost a city - up the coast where there was more to do and see. They knew to return to the ship when it was time to cast off again.
Anna lingered as Dean prepared to leave. She never went to Stanford, but the rest of the crew reported that she was never seen in the city either. Dean wasn't sure where she went, and he didn't ask. "Talk to Sam," she advised.
"Why do you think I'm here?"
"No," she said, staring him down until he dropped his eyes. "Really talk to him."
"Fine," he said, not sure yet whether or not he was lying.
It wasn't a long walk to Stanford from the hidden cove, but for much of the journey there were no roads. Dean eventually found a trail, which turned into a path, which turned into the dirt road that led into Stanford. By the time he passed the first buildings on his way into town, the sun was above the horizon.
No one recognized him there. Or if they did, they recognized him as Sam Campbell's vagabond brother, who breezed into town a handful of times per year and then breezed back out again. They nodded at him as he passed. He nodded back, resisting the urge to pull his hat low to hide his face.
He spotted Sam before Sam spotted him. Sam was just stepping out of what passed for a house - a small single room attached to the back of a shop - and into the orangey light of the sunrise. No matter how many years passed, he still looked like the serious-faced kid who once sat on the deck of The Impala with sailors flowing around him, like a rock in a river, determinedly jamming his toy soldiers into the gaps in the planks. Except taller. And with longer hair. And with an air of belonging to a place that Dean never saw in him as a kid, and that he had long since given up on for himself.
Sam fit so seamlessly into that quiet, small-town morning that Dean almost hesitated to call out to him, to walk back into his life like the dark reminder that he knew he was. As long as Dean wasn't around, Sam could be the happy man that Dean saw standing there in the sun. The moment Dean made himself known, Sam would once again become the son of John Winchester, the notorious pirate.
While he was still standing there with his mouth hanging open, mustering up the nerve to speak, Sam noticed him. "Dean!" he called out, his face splitting into a smile. He walked toward his brother, his hands rising ahead of him, and Dean stepped forward into his arms.
"Been a while," Dean choked out, his voice going low and gruff to hide the emotion being squeezed out of him.
"I wasn't worried. You always come back."
Dean pulled away and studied Sam's face. "You were worried," he said with a smug grin.
"I was so fucking worried," Sam admitted. "You usually at least send letters."
"Yeah, sorry. I had a bit of trouble."
"What kind?"
Dean opened and closed his mouth like a fish as Anna's words flashed into his mind, but he finally shrugged and said, "Nothing I couldn't handle."
"Right." Sam narrowed his eyes suspiciously for a second, but only for a second before he let the subject drop. "Come on in and say hi to Jess."
As they passed through Sam's little one-room annex and in through the back door of the shop, Dean chuckled, "She hasn't dumped your ass yet? When are you gonna grow a pair and propose to her?"
"Well, um..."
As soon as they crossed the storeroom and came out behind the sales counter, the round-faced blonde beauty at the cash drawer turned, saw them, and let out a triumphant shout. "Dean!" Jess launched herself at him, latched her tiny, strong hands onto his arm, and dragged him the rest of the way into the shop. "You're back! How long are you staying?"
"Not very..." Then he took another look at her beaming, wild-eyed face and amended himself to, "I think I might be staying however long you say I'm staying."
"Good answer," said Jess. "Because your brother has refused to marry me unless you're there to give him away."
Dean turned very slowly back to where Sam was standing in the doorway and looking sheepish. "You want me to give you away?"
"I just want you to be there, okay?" Sam sighed. "I proposed right after the last time you left. I didn't think you'd be gone so long." He turned to Jess with a baffled grin. "Or that you'd be so impatient."
"Well, what do you expect?" said Jess. "I want a piece of that ass!"
"Atta girl!" Dean cackled as Sam turned a unique shade of red.
Then Jess took a closer look at Dean and sighed, her shoulders slumping and her smile drooping. "You're not staying, are you?"
"Sorry, kids," said Dean. "I've got a few loose ends to tie up. Shouldn't take long. A week, maybe."
"And then you'll come to our wedding?" said Jess.
"Wouldn't miss it." This time Dean truly didn't intend to make a liar of himself. He just hoped circumstance wouldn't do the job for him.
"At least stay for the day. You can have dinner with me and Jess's family," said Sam.
"Wouldn't miss that either."
Dean was expecting to get a day of rest, but as soon as the store started getting customers Jess put him right to work fetching things from the storeroom for her. He put up some token grumbling, but he had to smile whenever she thanked him in that bubbly voice of hers. And spending time in the storefront meant he had a good view of Sam as he worked.
Sam had left The Impala when he was sixteen - far too old to begin an apprenticeship. But he hadn't let that consign him to a life of menial labor or military service. Instead, he'd taken what he'd learned from growing up on a pirate ship and turned it into a marketable skill. From his table at the rear of the shop, he took damaged pistols, rifles, and nautical equipment to be repaired.
"You always hated fixing our gear for us," Dean remarked quietly.
"Yeah, but I'm good at it," said Sam with a shrug and a smile.
Jess leaned over the counter and called over to Dean, "Sam does more than patch up firearms and compasses. He's been helping the townsfolk draw up legal documents."
"That right?" said Dean, swelling with pride. Back when they were children, Sam and Dean had scurried about underfoot, snatching loot of their own from each of the ships John had conquered. For Dean, that had been sweets and adventure novels. For Sam, it had been a stack of volumes on British and colonial law. While Dean had learned to read from Don Quixote while sharing his dried fruit and molasses candy with Sam, Sam had devoured the textbooks that took up most of the space in his tiny corner of the barracks.
"Nothing fancy," Sam mumbled. But he smiled anyway when Dean thumped him on the back and told him that he was proud of him.
Dinner that evening was the usual awkward affair, with Jess's parents asking ever-more-pointed questions about what Dean did during all those months he spent at sea and Dean becoming more and more belligerent each time he had to dodge them. Finally he crammed the rest of his food into his mouth and excused himself. As he slipped out the door, he could barely hear Jess's father saying to her, "Sam is such a smart, well-mannered young man. It's hard to believe the two of them are related."
Sam followed Dean out and spun him around by his shoulder before he could find an alley to disappear into. "Don't leave like this," he begged. "Let me talk to them."
"No use, Sammy," Dean sighed. "I just don't fit in here."
"You could. Come on, Dean, you can't live like this forever. You could do like I did - give up the sailing, settle down. Meet someone."
But Dean was already shaking his head. "I was twelve the first time I saw a poster with my name and a price on it," he said. "This kind of life - your kind of life - it was never in the cards for me. And if I stay, I'll just mess it up for you too."
"No one knows who we are here."
"No one knows who you are here. It wouldn't take long for people to start getting suspicious about me, especially if they caught a glimpse of Baby."
Sam gave a frustrated grunt and ran his fingers through his hair. "You could sell The Impala," he tossed out as a last-ditch, hopeless effort.
"I am never going to sell The Impala," said Dean, his eyes flashing murderously.
A long pause, and then they both looked at the ground. Even though he had technically won the argument, as he always did, Dean felt as defeated as Sam looked.
"You leaving then?" said Sam.
"I'll be back soon."
Sam's lips twitched into a halfhearted smile. "You'd better be, or Jess will kill you for delaying her wedding again." Then, "Hey, Dean. Those loose ends you're tying up wouldn't have anything to do with the bit of trouble you ran into, would it?"
Damn. And Dean thought he had been so smooth. "I..." he croaked before trailing off into nervous laughter. And for a second, he contemplated telling Sam everything. To share that burden. With Sam. Sam, who was happy. Who was safe. Who was getting married.
"I've got it under control." He said it so confidently that he almost convinced himself.
Sam pressed his lips together, but he nodded and said, "Okay. Come here." He grabbed Dean by the shoulder and pulled him into an embrace. "Be safe."
"I'm the safest person you know," said Dean. He pounded Sam on the back a couple of times before letting go.
It was a long walk back to the ship. He arrived just as the sun was sagging against the horizon. He was the first of his crew to return to the little cove.
But he was not alone.
When he went to climb onto the deck of the ship from the dinghy, a hand appeared in front of his face, its fingers crooked invitingly. Dean's eyes followed the slope of the arm up to the face looming over him. "Hello, my boy."
Dean's heart dropped into his stomach, but he took the hand anyway. "Hey, Crowley," he said as he was pulled up onto the deck. He glanced around the perimeter of the cove. There, hidden in the shadow of the shoreline, was the familiar outline of the Crossroad Deal - Crowley's ship. Dean could have punched himself in the face for missing it.
Crowley stood in the middle of the deck, his arms crossed and his feet planted wide as if he owned the place, his suit somehow still impeccable after a sea journey. Three of his men stood behind him, and crashing sounds from below decks suggested that there were more just out of sight. Dean felt the railing at his back. It was already far too late to run.
A trapdoor slammed open, and a woman crawled out. She went straight to Crowley and whispered something in his ear. At a nod from him, she stepped behind him to join his crowd of backup. As if Dean weren't already outnumbered.
"How much money do you owe me, Dean?" said Crowley as he began to pace slowly back and forth. "No, don’t answer that. I know you have trouble with big numbers. What I can't understand is how, after all the chances I've given you to get out of the truly tragic money-hole your father dug you into before he died, you still manage to cock up even the simplest milk runs I send you on."
"I can explain..."
"I'M NOT FINISHED SPEAKING."
Dean managed not to flinch, but every muscle in his body was coiled as tightly as a spring. Slowly, his hands swung back until they found the edge of the railing, and he squeezed so hard that he felt his fingernails leave tiny indentations in the wood. He shut his mouth.
"That's better," said Crowley, as if he had never raised his voice. "Now, not only does my assistant here tell me that you don't even have half of the cargo I sent you to retrieve, but I had to follow you all the way to Stanford to discover this fact. I can deal with incompetence. In fact, I have to as long as you work for me. But one thing I will not tolerate is a jumped-up captain who scrapes by on his daddy's reputation STEALING MY CARGO AND FUCKING OFF UP THE COAST WITH IT."
There was a long, terrible pause, but Dean didn't dare speak until Crowley spread his arms and raised his eyebrows, making it clear that he was waiting for an answer. "There was a Navy ship waiting for us when we left the drop point," Dean said. "We couldn't have outrun them if we hadn't dumped some of the cargo."
"So the merchandise I bought and paid for is lying at the bottom of the Caribbean somewhere." Crowley rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Excellent. Now do you care to explain why I had to chase you down and corner you in order to learn this very basic information?"
"I was on my way to you."
"You sailed right past me."
"I haven't seen my brother in months, okay? I came here first. So shoot me."
Dean didn't even have time to regret his poor choice of words before Crowley drew a flintlock pistol from his belt and pointed it at Dean's head. "That can be arranged."
And oddly enough, Dean's hands unclenched and his limbs relaxed. Somehow, the open threat of violence was easier for him than the tense, interminable standoff. He had had pistols pointed at him loads of times. At least with a pistol pointed at him, he knew where he stood. He even managed a cocky smile as he replied, "Come on, Crowley. How are you gonna recoup your losses if you shoot me, huh?"
Crowley laughed as he sauntered up close to wave the pistol in Dean's face. "Oh this? I'm not going to shoot you. The sound might attract all kinds of unwanted attention. And as for my losses, well, I figure your ship will about cover that when I sell her at auction next week."
Dean's throat closed up. Suddenly getting shot didn't seem like such a bad prospect, comparatively.
"She's too recognizable for anyone to want to sail her as-is," Crowley went on, his smug grin growing as he watched Dean's face sink. "But a nice paint job might give her a new lease on life. Some retrofitting, maybe. Or the buyer might just want to break her down for parts. It doesn't matter much to me."
In retrospect, taking a swing at Crowley was a poor decision. But Dean's fist was already flying, and there was nothing he could do to call it back. It might have almost been worth it if he had connected, but Crowley ducked it easily and came back up with an expression so tranquil that Dean knew immediately that he was in the worst kind of trouble.
He didn't see the butt of the pistol before it thudded into his temple. All he saw was how the world seemed to shimmer and pitch as an overwhelming pain blossomed in his head. He didn't feel himself staggering backwards, but he felt the railing as he tumbled over it backwards. He saw the sky, the sunset turned upside-down and mottled as darkness crept into his vision like spider webs. Then he saw the water.
Then he saw nothing, and all he felt was the cold.
-----
Dean opened his eyes, and immediately regretted it. His skull seemed determined to redefine pain for him. He screwed his eyes back shut and tried to return to the dream he'd been having - about being cradled in a chilly, many-armed embrace and flying over sand and rock through air as thick as water while still acutely aware of the fact that he was a terrible brother who had gone and ruined Sam's wedding forever by getting himself killed.
When the pain refused to go away, he gave up and opened his eyes again. The ceiling above him was low, uneven, and dimly lit in mottled blue. At first he thought his vision was still swimming from the concussion, because the light was dancing in flecks and waves. But then he heard the sound of gently-lapping water and realized that the light was reflecting off of the ripples.
He tried to sit up, but stopped with a whimper. The slightest movement made his vision strobe and his head throb. So he felt around with his hands and moved his eyes without moving his head, trying to get his bearings. He could feel wet rock underneath him, and if he reached far enough to his right he could feel where the rock ended. He reached over the edge and dipped his fingers into cold water. The blue glow on the ceiling continued down the walls. It appeared to be some sort of moss or algae. The room was small, no wider than fifteen feet, and with no visible exit.
A sea cave. It finally clicked. He was in a sea cave. A little pocket of breathable air trapped in a rocky cavern. Which meant he probably wasn't dead. Yay. Unless Hell was a sea cave, in which case: huh?
Eventually the chill of his wet clothes set him shivering, and he realized that he had better get moving if he didn't want to either freeze to death or suffocate in there - whichever happened to come first. Or maybe his head was already literally killing him. It sure felt like it, especially when he levered himself up into a sitting position with a groan.
And then, as if this weren't surreal enough already, Dean glanced around and saw the naked body of a man lying on the rocks beside him. It took Dean several seconds to even process the fact that he was not alone in the cave. It took him several more seconds to confirm that he did not know this man - the lean, muscular body and messy black hair were unfamiliar to him. Several more seconds, and he managed to convince himself that the man was not knocked unconscious as Dean had been, but merely sleeping, his head resting on his folded arms and his back rising and falling rhythmically.
So he had been staring for a good long while before he realized that only the man's upper body was safely on the rocks, and that the rest of him was hanging over the ledge into the water. The slightest movement could send him toppling in.
Dean reached out and closed his hand around the man's wrist, trying to keep him from falling. At just that slight contact, the man's eyes fluttered open and he twisted and stretched himself awake. And as his limbs flexed, Dean was finally able to make out the outline of his body beneath the shining surface of the water. Not legs, but a twisting mass of ropy tendrils that fanned out behind him, pulsing gently.
"Gshk!" Dean half-gasped, half-coughed, and let go of the man so suddenly that they both flinched, and the man slid backwards into the water with a splash. His head soon popped back above the surface. His lower body flapped like a jellyfish, keeping him afloat. Dean tried to focus on his face, but his eyes kept sliding back down to where his pelvis should have been, where his body split into many slender, tapering legs. An octopus. His dazed brain finally came up with the word. Octopus.
"I didn't mean to frighten you," the man said in a voice much deeper and much, much more human than Dean had been expecting.
"Where am I?" Dean demanded, his speech only slightly slurred.
"In a sea cave."
Dean stared at the wall and took a deep breath. "Thanks a bunch," he said through gritted teeth. "Yeah, I figured that out. Why am I in a sea cave?"
"I didn't think you wanted to re-surface right away, with the person who harmed you still in the cove. But I deduced that you might want to breathe some time before he left, so I brought you here." This was all said so matter-of-factly that Dean honestly couldn't tell if it was meant to be sarcastic.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Castiel."
"No, I mean..." Dean tried to gesture discreetly to the man's lower half where his legs still waved just under the water, but he ended up making a sort of frustrated flailing motion. "Who are you?"
Castiel squinted his eyes at Dean, regarding him very seriously. His shoulders shrunk down into the water, receding, almost as if he were embarrassed. "I should go," he muttered. In an instant he disappeared completely beneath the surface with a soft splash.
"Wait, wait!" Dean called after him, leaning over the rocky ledge to peer into the water. "How am I supposed to get out of here?" But he saw nothing but rocks and shadow and the reflection of the ceiling's blue light.
He waited. He couldn't be sure of how long, because time seemed suspended in that weirdly-lit underwater bubble, but he waited until the shock of meeting Castiel wore off and he started shivering again.
He found a loose rock on his perch and dropped it into the water, but he soon lost sight of it as it fell, and it made no sound when it landed (if it landed). Besides, even if he knew how deep the cave was, there was no telling how long or treacherous the tunnel leading to the surface would be. Could he even make it alone?
But the alternative was sitting in that cave, twiddling his thumbs and banking on the slim chance that Castiel would come back for him. So he eased himself into the water, took a deep breath, and let his head slip below the surface.
The pressure on his head was excruciating, but he continued to drop down until he felt his feet hit rock. Then, by the remnants of the light from above, he found a narrow tunnel. Though his lungs were already burning, he kicked and clawed his way through. His head ached so badly that he wasn't sure if he would be able to make another attempt if he were to give up now.
The tunnel was pitch-black for a few terrible yards. Then a light appeared up ahead. It was blue - not the cold blue of the cave, but the welcoming blue of morning sunlight filtered through shallow water. He burst out of the end of the tunnel and into the bright waters of the cove. Above him, he could see the sun through the glittering surface.
But it was too far. Though he kicked and swam, he simply did not have the strength or the air to climb those last few yards to the sunlight above. The paddling of his arms slowed before his eyes as he weakened. Instead of getting closer, the surface began to slip away. He was sinking.
There was a great crash as the glassy surface shattered, and the yellow light of the sun was replaced by a billowing flash of red. Strong, narrow fingers closed around his wrist and bit into his shoulder, and then he was being borne up, up, and finally breaking through into the air. He choked and gasped, barely aware that Anna was doggedly towing him toward shore.
Once he was safe on the sand, Anna pounded him on his back until he spit up the last of the sea water he had been on the verge of inhaling. "That's it, Dean," she said. "You're okay. Just breathe. Deep breaths. Come on, you can do it."
She waited for him to catch his breath before asking, "What the hell happened to you?"
Dean's mouth tasted of salt. He worked up a gob of saliva and spat it out, but the taste remained. "Long story," he said hoarsely.
"Where's the ship?"
And then, for the first time since he fell from the deck, Dean looked out over the cove. No Impala. No Crossroad Deal. There was not a ship to be seen. Crowley had made good on his word, and taken The Impala a prize.
"Son of a bitch."
( Chapter 2)
Summary: As the son of the (late) famous pirate John Winchester, Dean has inherited a dangerous reputation, insurmountable debts, and a sailing ship called The Impala. Desperate to keep his ship, and to keep his brother out of the family business, Dean has been smuggling for John's old contacts for most of his adult life. He has struck a delicate balance between duty and debauchery, running jobs with the fate of his crew on his shoulders while simultaneously maintaining lovers in every port from the Carolinas to South America. But just when his balancing act begins to crash down around him, he meets one of the elusive creatures living in the water off the Atlantic Coast. Half human, half sea creature, these beings don't enjoy human attention. It's only through a series of happenstances that Dean finds himself inextricably bound to the young merman named Castiel at a time when both their lives are poised to change forever.
Mostly Dean/Castiel. Also Dean/Anna. More ships involving Dean to come, because I enjoy it when people love Dean and have sex with him. Sam/Jess because fuck canon. Crowley's here too. It's a party.
Dedicated to Rae. Because it's all her fault.
-----
They sailed up the North Carolina coast under cover of darkness. There wasn't much risk of being recognized here, off these sleepy little coastal towns, but The Impala's lean design and dark coloring were distinctive enough that they didn't dare take the risk of making berth in daylight.
Dean Winchester stood at the wheel, steering with one hand. His relaxed, unconcerned posture was a practiced lie - his eyes constantly darted between the shore and the sea and across the deck of his ship. As they slid past the dim lights on the shore of the little town of Stanford, Dean's nervousness broke through and he began drumming his fingers on the spokes.
"Almost there." The voice behind him was reassuring, as if talking to a child.
Dean turned in time to see the figure of his first mate step out of the shadows. Even in the dark, her hair was scorchingly red. "I know, Anna."
"Calm down."
"I am calm."
Anna stepped up to the wheel and closed her hand around Dean's fingers, stilling them. "There's nothing you can do about it now. Try to enjoy being home."
"Stanford isn't home," Dean was quick to say.
"Close enough." When Dean resumed drumming on the wheel, she added, "You think you're hiding your feelings, but you're not. Even if the crew doesn't notice, they feel it. Your fear affects them. It makes us all weak."
Dean stopped drumming and gripped the wheel. "This could be it for us, Anna."
"I know."
"We were always hanging by a thread, and now that we fucked up this job..."
She laid her hand on his shoulder. "Dean, I know."
She squeezed his shoulder rhythmically, calmingly, as he steered the Impala past Stanford, up the shoreline a few more miles, and into a little cove. After the splash of the anchor and the rattle of the chain playing out, the creaking of the rigging was the only sound to be heard. No lights on the shore. No movement from the horizon, which was just beginning to glow pink. They'd made it. Dean allowed himself a deep breath.
Once on shore, they went their separate ways. Even though they were a small crew, it would have been suspicious for them all to turn up in town at once. Some, like Dean, were heading for Stanford. Some planned to make the somewhat longer journey to the bigger town - almost a city - up the coast where there was more to do and see. They knew to return to the ship when it was time to cast off again.
Anna lingered as Dean prepared to leave. She never went to Stanford, but the rest of the crew reported that she was never seen in the city either. Dean wasn't sure where she went, and he didn't ask. "Talk to Sam," she advised.
"Why do you think I'm here?"
"No," she said, staring him down until he dropped his eyes. "Really talk to him."
"Fine," he said, not sure yet whether or not he was lying.
It wasn't a long walk to Stanford from the hidden cove, but for much of the journey there were no roads. Dean eventually found a trail, which turned into a path, which turned into the dirt road that led into Stanford. By the time he passed the first buildings on his way into town, the sun was above the horizon.
No one recognized him there. Or if they did, they recognized him as Sam Campbell's vagabond brother, who breezed into town a handful of times per year and then breezed back out again. They nodded at him as he passed. He nodded back, resisting the urge to pull his hat low to hide his face.
He spotted Sam before Sam spotted him. Sam was just stepping out of what passed for a house - a small single room attached to the back of a shop - and into the orangey light of the sunrise. No matter how many years passed, he still looked like the serious-faced kid who once sat on the deck of The Impala with sailors flowing around him, like a rock in a river, determinedly jamming his toy soldiers into the gaps in the planks. Except taller. And with longer hair. And with an air of belonging to a place that Dean never saw in him as a kid, and that he had long since given up on for himself.
Sam fit so seamlessly into that quiet, small-town morning that Dean almost hesitated to call out to him, to walk back into his life like the dark reminder that he knew he was. As long as Dean wasn't around, Sam could be the happy man that Dean saw standing there in the sun. The moment Dean made himself known, Sam would once again become the son of John Winchester, the notorious pirate.
While he was still standing there with his mouth hanging open, mustering up the nerve to speak, Sam noticed him. "Dean!" he called out, his face splitting into a smile. He walked toward his brother, his hands rising ahead of him, and Dean stepped forward into his arms.
"Been a while," Dean choked out, his voice going low and gruff to hide the emotion being squeezed out of him.
"I wasn't worried. You always come back."
Dean pulled away and studied Sam's face. "You were worried," he said with a smug grin.
"I was so fucking worried," Sam admitted. "You usually at least send letters."
"Yeah, sorry. I had a bit of trouble."
"What kind?"
Dean opened and closed his mouth like a fish as Anna's words flashed into his mind, but he finally shrugged and said, "Nothing I couldn't handle."
"Right." Sam narrowed his eyes suspiciously for a second, but only for a second before he let the subject drop. "Come on in and say hi to Jess."
As they passed through Sam's little one-room annex and in through the back door of the shop, Dean chuckled, "She hasn't dumped your ass yet? When are you gonna grow a pair and propose to her?"
"Well, um..."
As soon as they crossed the storeroom and came out behind the sales counter, the round-faced blonde beauty at the cash drawer turned, saw them, and let out a triumphant shout. "Dean!" Jess launched herself at him, latched her tiny, strong hands onto his arm, and dragged him the rest of the way into the shop. "You're back! How long are you staying?"
"Not very..." Then he took another look at her beaming, wild-eyed face and amended himself to, "I think I might be staying however long you say I'm staying."
"Good answer," said Jess. "Because your brother has refused to marry me unless you're there to give him away."
Dean turned very slowly back to where Sam was standing in the doorway and looking sheepish. "You want me to give you away?"
"I just want you to be there, okay?" Sam sighed. "I proposed right after the last time you left. I didn't think you'd be gone so long." He turned to Jess with a baffled grin. "Or that you'd be so impatient."
"Well, what do you expect?" said Jess. "I want a piece of that ass!"
"Atta girl!" Dean cackled as Sam turned a unique shade of red.
Then Jess took a closer look at Dean and sighed, her shoulders slumping and her smile drooping. "You're not staying, are you?"
"Sorry, kids," said Dean. "I've got a few loose ends to tie up. Shouldn't take long. A week, maybe."
"And then you'll come to our wedding?" said Jess.
"Wouldn't miss it." This time Dean truly didn't intend to make a liar of himself. He just hoped circumstance wouldn't do the job for him.
"At least stay for the day. You can have dinner with me and Jess's family," said Sam.
"Wouldn't miss that either."
Dean was expecting to get a day of rest, but as soon as the store started getting customers Jess put him right to work fetching things from the storeroom for her. He put up some token grumbling, but he had to smile whenever she thanked him in that bubbly voice of hers. And spending time in the storefront meant he had a good view of Sam as he worked.
Sam had left The Impala when he was sixteen - far too old to begin an apprenticeship. But he hadn't let that consign him to a life of menial labor or military service. Instead, he'd taken what he'd learned from growing up on a pirate ship and turned it into a marketable skill. From his table at the rear of the shop, he took damaged pistols, rifles, and nautical equipment to be repaired.
"You always hated fixing our gear for us," Dean remarked quietly.
"Yeah, but I'm good at it," said Sam with a shrug and a smile.
Jess leaned over the counter and called over to Dean, "Sam does more than patch up firearms and compasses. He's been helping the townsfolk draw up legal documents."
"That right?" said Dean, swelling with pride. Back when they were children, Sam and Dean had scurried about underfoot, snatching loot of their own from each of the ships John had conquered. For Dean, that had been sweets and adventure novels. For Sam, it had been a stack of volumes on British and colonial law. While Dean had learned to read from Don Quixote while sharing his dried fruit and molasses candy with Sam, Sam had devoured the textbooks that took up most of the space in his tiny corner of the barracks.
"Nothing fancy," Sam mumbled. But he smiled anyway when Dean thumped him on the back and told him that he was proud of him.
Dinner that evening was the usual awkward affair, with Jess's parents asking ever-more-pointed questions about what Dean did during all those months he spent at sea and Dean becoming more and more belligerent each time he had to dodge them. Finally he crammed the rest of his food into his mouth and excused himself. As he slipped out the door, he could barely hear Jess's father saying to her, "Sam is such a smart, well-mannered young man. It's hard to believe the two of them are related."
Sam followed Dean out and spun him around by his shoulder before he could find an alley to disappear into. "Don't leave like this," he begged. "Let me talk to them."
"No use, Sammy," Dean sighed. "I just don't fit in here."
"You could. Come on, Dean, you can't live like this forever. You could do like I did - give up the sailing, settle down. Meet someone."
But Dean was already shaking his head. "I was twelve the first time I saw a poster with my name and a price on it," he said. "This kind of life - your kind of life - it was never in the cards for me. And if I stay, I'll just mess it up for you too."
"No one knows who we are here."
"No one knows who you are here. It wouldn't take long for people to start getting suspicious about me, especially if they caught a glimpse of Baby."
Sam gave a frustrated grunt and ran his fingers through his hair. "You could sell The Impala," he tossed out as a last-ditch, hopeless effort.
"I am never going to sell The Impala," said Dean, his eyes flashing murderously.
A long pause, and then they both looked at the ground. Even though he had technically won the argument, as he always did, Dean felt as defeated as Sam looked.
"You leaving then?" said Sam.
"I'll be back soon."
Sam's lips twitched into a halfhearted smile. "You'd better be, or Jess will kill you for delaying her wedding again." Then, "Hey, Dean. Those loose ends you're tying up wouldn't have anything to do with the bit of trouble you ran into, would it?"
Damn. And Dean thought he had been so smooth. "I..." he croaked before trailing off into nervous laughter. And for a second, he contemplated telling Sam everything. To share that burden. With Sam. Sam, who was happy. Who was safe. Who was getting married.
"I've got it under control." He said it so confidently that he almost convinced himself.
Sam pressed his lips together, but he nodded and said, "Okay. Come here." He grabbed Dean by the shoulder and pulled him into an embrace. "Be safe."
"I'm the safest person you know," said Dean. He pounded Sam on the back a couple of times before letting go.
It was a long walk back to the ship. He arrived just as the sun was sagging against the horizon. He was the first of his crew to return to the little cove.
But he was not alone.
When he went to climb onto the deck of the ship from the dinghy, a hand appeared in front of his face, its fingers crooked invitingly. Dean's eyes followed the slope of the arm up to the face looming over him. "Hello, my boy."
Dean's heart dropped into his stomach, but he took the hand anyway. "Hey, Crowley," he said as he was pulled up onto the deck. He glanced around the perimeter of the cove. There, hidden in the shadow of the shoreline, was the familiar outline of the Crossroad Deal - Crowley's ship. Dean could have punched himself in the face for missing it.
Crowley stood in the middle of the deck, his arms crossed and his feet planted wide as if he owned the place, his suit somehow still impeccable after a sea journey. Three of his men stood behind him, and crashing sounds from below decks suggested that there were more just out of sight. Dean felt the railing at his back. It was already far too late to run.
A trapdoor slammed open, and a woman crawled out. She went straight to Crowley and whispered something in his ear. At a nod from him, she stepped behind him to join his crowd of backup. As if Dean weren't already outnumbered.
"How much money do you owe me, Dean?" said Crowley as he began to pace slowly back and forth. "No, don’t answer that. I know you have trouble with big numbers. What I can't understand is how, after all the chances I've given you to get out of the truly tragic money-hole your father dug you into before he died, you still manage to cock up even the simplest milk runs I send you on."
"I can explain..."
"I'M NOT FINISHED SPEAKING."
Dean managed not to flinch, but every muscle in his body was coiled as tightly as a spring. Slowly, his hands swung back until they found the edge of the railing, and he squeezed so hard that he felt his fingernails leave tiny indentations in the wood. He shut his mouth.
"That's better," said Crowley, as if he had never raised his voice. "Now, not only does my assistant here tell me that you don't even have half of the cargo I sent you to retrieve, but I had to follow you all the way to Stanford to discover this fact. I can deal with incompetence. In fact, I have to as long as you work for me. But one thing I will not tolerate is a jumped-up captain who scrapes by on his daddy's reputation STEALING MY CARGO AND FUCKING OFF UP THE COAST WITH IT."
There was a long, terrible pause, but Dean didn't dare speak until Crowley spread his arms and raised his eyebrows, making it clear that he was waiting for an answer. "There was a Navy ship waiting for us when we left the drop point," Dean said. "We couldn't have outrun them if we hadn't dumped some of the cargo."
"So the merchandise I bought and paid for is lying at the bottom of the Caribbean somewhere." Crowley rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Excellent. Now do you care to explain why I had to chase you down and corner you in order to learn this very basic information?"
"I was on my way to you."
"You sailed right past me."
"I haven't seen my brother in months, okay? I came here first. So shoot me."
Dean didn't even have time to regret his poor choice of words before Crowley drew a flintlock pistol from his belt and pointed it at Dean's head. "That can be arranged."
And oddly enough, Dean's hands unclenched and his limbs relaxed. Somehow, the open threat of violence was easier for him than the tense, interminable standoff. He had had pistols pointed at him loads of times. At least with a pistol pointed at him, he knew where he stood. He even managed a cocky smile as he replied, "Come on, Crowley. How are you gonna recoup your losses if you shoot me, huh?"
Crowley laughed as he sauntered up close to wave the pistol in Dean's face. "Oh this? I'm not going to shoot you. The sound might attract all kinds of unwanted attention. And as for my losses, well, I figure your ship will about cover that when I sell her at auction next week."
Dean's throat closed up. Suddenly getting shot didn't seem like such a bad prospect, comparatively.
"She's too recognizable for anyone to want to sail her as-is," Crowley went on, his smug grin growing as he watched Dean's face sink. "But a nice paint job might give her a new lease on life. Some retrofitting, maybe. Or the buyer might just want to break her down for parts. It doesn't matter much to me."
In retrospect, taking a swing at Crowley was a poor decision. But Dean's fist was already flying, and there was nothing he could do to call it back. It might have almost been worth it if he had connected, but Crowley ducked it easily and came back up with an expression so tranquil that Dean knew immediately that he was in the worst kind of trouble.
He didn't see the butt of the pistol before it thudded into his temple. All he saw was how the world seemed to shimmer and pitch as an overwhelming pain blossomed in his head. He didn't feel himself staggering backwards, but he felt the railing as he tumbled over it backwards. He saw the sky, the sunset turned upside-down and mottled as darkness crept into his vision like spider webs. Then he saw the water.
Then he saw nothing, and all he felt was the cold.
-----
Dean opened his eyes, and immediately regretted it. His skull seemed determined to redefine pain for him. He screwed his eyes back shut and tried to return to the dream he'd been having - about being cradled in a chilly, many-armed embrace and flying over sand and rock through air as thick as water while still acutely aware of the fact that he was a terrible brother who had gone and ruined Sam's wedding forever by getting himself killed.
When the pain refused to go away, he gave up and opened his eyes again. The ceiling above him was low, uneven, and dimly lit in mottled blue. At first he thought his vision was still swimming from the concussion, because the light was dancing in flecks and waves. But then he heard the sound of gently-lapping water and realized that the light was reflecting off of the ripples.
He tried to sit up, but stopped with a whimper. The slightest movement made his vision strobe and his head throb. So he felt around with his hands and moved his eyes without moving his head, trying to get his bearings. He could feel wet rock underneath him, and if he reached far enough to his right he could feel where the rock ended. He reached over the edge and dipped his fingers into cold water. The blue glow on the ceiling continued down the walls. It appeared to be some sort of moss or algae. The room was small, no wider than fifteen feet, and with no visible exit.
A sea cave. It finally clicked. He was in a sea cave. A little pocket of breathable air trapped in a rocky cavern. Which meant he probably wasn't dead. Yay. Unless Hell was a sea cave, in which case: huh?
Eventually the chill of his wet clothes set him shivering, and he realized that he had better get moving if he didn't want to either freeze to death or suffocate in there - whichever happened to come first. Or maybe his head was already literally killing him. It sure felt like it, especially when he levered himself up into a sitting position with a groan.
And then, as if this weren't surreal enough already, Dean glanced around and saw the naked body of a man lying on the rocks beside him. It took Dean several seconds to even process the fact that he was not alone in the cave. It took him several more seconds to confirm that he did not know this man - the lean, muscular body and messy black hair were unfamiliar to him. Several more seconds, and he managed to convince himself that the man was not knocked unconscious as Dean had been, but merely sleeping, his head resting on his folded arms and his back rising and falling rhythmically.
So he had been staring for a good long while before he realized that only the man's upper body was safely on the rocks, and that the rest of him was hanging over the ledge into the water. The slightest movement could send him toppling in.
Dean reached out and closed his hand around the man's wrist, trying to keep him from falling. At just that slight contact, the man's eyes fluttered open and he twisted and stretched himself awake. And as his limbs flexed, Dean was finally able to make out the outline of his body beneath the shining surface of the water. Not legs, but a twisting mass of ropy tendrils that fanned out behind him, pulsing gently.
"Gshk!" Dean half-gasped, half-coughed, and let go of the man so suddenly that they both flinched, and the man slid backwards into the water with a splash. His head soon popped back above the surface. His lower body flapped like a jellyfish, keeping him afloat. Dean tried to focus on his face, but his eyes kept sliding back down to where his pelvis should have been, where his body split into many slender, tapering legs. An octopus. His dazed brain finally came up with the word. Octopus.
"I didn't mean to frighten you," the man said in a voice much deeper and much, much more human than Dean had been expecting.
"Where am I?" Dean demanded, his speech only slightly slurred.
"In a sea cave."
Dean stared at the wall and took a deep breath. "Thanks a bunch," he said through gritted teeth. "Yeah, I figured that out. Why am I in a sea cave?"
"I didn't think you wanted to re-surface right away, with the person who harmed you still in the cove. But I deduced that you might want to breathe some time before he left, so I brought you here." This was all said so matter-of-factly that Dean honestly couldn't tell if it was meant to be sarcastic.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Castiel."
"No, I mean..." Dean tried to gesture discreetly to the man's lower half where his legs still waved just under the water, but he ended up making a sort of frustrated flailing motion. "Who are you?"
Castiel squinted his eyes at Dean, regarding him very seriously. His shoulders shrunk down into the water, receding, almost as if he were embarrassed. "I should go," he muttered. In an instant he disappeared completely beneath the surface with a soft splash.
"Wait, wait!" Dean called after him, leaning over the rocky ledge to peer into the water. "How am I supposed to get out of here?" But he saw nothing but rocks and shadow and the reflection of the ceiling's blue light.
He waited. He couldn't be sure of how long, because time seemed suspended in that weirdly-lit underwater bubble, but he waited until the shock of meeting Castiel wore off and he started shivering again.
He found a loose rock on his perch and dropped it into the water, but he soon lost sight of it as it fell, and it made no sound when it landed (if it landed). Besides, even if he knew how deep the cave was, there was no telling how long or treacherous the tunnel leading to the surface would be. Could he even make it alone?
But the alternative was sitting in that cave, twiddling his thumbs and banking on the slim chance that Castiel would come back for him. So he eased himself into the water, took a deep breath, and let his head slip below the surface.
The pressure on his head was excruciating, but he continued to drop down until he felt his feet hit rock. Then, by the remnants of the light from above, he found a narrow tunnel. Though his lungs were already burning, he kicked and clawed his way through. His head ached so badly that he wasn't sure if he would be able to make another attempt if he were to give up now.
The tunnel was pitch-black for a few terrible yards. Then a light appeared up ahead. It was blue - not the cold blue of the cave, but the welcoming blue of morning sunlight filtered through shallow water. He burst out of the end of the tunnel and into the bright waters of the cove. Above him, he could see the sun through the glittering surface.
But it was too far. Though he kicked and swam, he simply did not have the strength or the air to climb those last few yards to the sunlight above. The paddling of his arms slowed before his eyes as he weakened. Instead of getting closer, the surface began to slip away. He was sinking.
There was a great crash as the glassy surface shattered, and the yellow light of the sun was replaced by a billowing flash of red. Strong, narrow fingers closed around his wrist and bit into his shoulder, and then he was being borne up, up, and finally breaking through into the air. He choked and gasped, barely aware that Anna was doggedly towing him toward shore.
Once he was safe on the sand, Anna pounded him on his back until he spit up the last of the sea water he had been on the verge of inhaling. "That's it, Dean," she said. "You're okay. Just breathe. Deep breaths. Come on, you can do it."
She waited for him to catch his breath before asking, "What the hell happened to you?"
Dean's mouth tasted of salt. He worked up a gob of saliva and spat it out, but the taste remained. "Long story," he said hoarsely.
"Where's the ship?"
And then, for the first time since he fell from the deck, Dean looked out over the cove. No Impala. No Crossroad Deal. There was not a ship to be seen. Crowley had made good on his word, and taken The Impala a prize.
"Son of a bitch."
( Chapter 2)