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The door to the confessional closed. With a rustling from the other side of the screen, the occupant sat and the weathered bench groaned under their weight as they shuffled to get comfortable. They cleared their throat. They took a deep breath. After a few more, they finally choked out, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” in a mumbled rush of breath. Belatedly, Castiel recognized the voice, but he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge it. He couldn’t see much beyond a shrouded profile through the screen, but he could see Dean Winchester nervously fidgeting with the sleeves of his suit jacket. “And how long has it been since your last confession?”“Uh, y’know, I don’t actually know. Too long, I s’pose.” Dean gave a huff of a laugh and thumped his head against the wall of the confessional. “You tell me,” he joked uncomfortably. “That’s quite alright if you don’t remember.” He suppressed a smile at hearing the man’s voice, however stilted. Dean Winchester was a pleasant enough man to be around. When Dean didn’t say anything further, Castiel prompted, “Tell me of your transgressions?”“Oh, yeah. Right,” he said, as if he’d forgotten, “About that.” Dean hummed and fiddled with his stiffly starched and pressed suit again. “I’ve been, um...”Castiel waited, but the words seemed stuck in Dean’s throat. “Go on,” he urged gently.“I’ve been having these... temptations,” he finally blurted.“Temptations?”“Impure thoughts,” he clarified.“About your wife?”There was a long pause. “No.” The word was barely discernible, yet oddly unabashed.“I see.” He didn’t let judgment color his tone. It was not his place to judge. “Of another, then?”Dean made a vague noise of agreement.Castiel could hear the embarrassed blush in Dean’s tone as much as he could see the silhouette of Dean bringing a hand to the back of his neck. The dull drone of the organ music filled the empty air from outside the confessional as they sat uncomfortably in shared silence. Maybe it was inappropriate to ask, but how else would Dean be fully absolved if he didn’t address his sins directly. After careful deliberation, he asked, “Of what nature?”“Of what-- How do you mean?”“The... thoughts,” Castiel said, “Tell me about them.”“Uh, well they’re… sexual,” Dean stammered. He coughed into his fist and his voice dropped, barely above a whisper. “They’re... homosexual in nature,” he corrected.“Oh.” Castiel’s mouth suddenly went dry and fought to keep himself stoic for Dean’s sake, but he could feel a fluttering in his stomach and he forced himself to swallow thickly around it. “And how often do you experience these thoughts?”“Honestly?”“That’s the idea,” he replied drily. Despite himself, Dean chuckled. “You got me there, Father.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and breathed hard once through his nose. “At least once a week,” he admitted, into the meat of his palm.“About anything in particular?”Dean’s hand flew to the back of his neck again to soothe his nerves. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”Castiel nodded, even though Dean couldn’t really see him. “And for how long have these thoughts been plaguing you?”“I dunno,” he shrugged a shoulder, trying to sweep the question under the rug, but Castiel offered nothing else in return. “I guess--” Clearly nervous, Dean swallowed, throat clicking, and wiped his sweating palms on his thighs before he confessed, “...I guess ever since you came to town?”***Every third Sunday since he took over at the parish, Dean Winchester invited Father Castiel to sit down at their table for dinner by the insistence of his doting wife, Lisa. And Castiel graciously accepted the countless invitations each and every time without fail. From the outside, they were a beautiful, young, loving couple with an equally cookie-cutter suburban home who’d recently been wed and Lisa was currently pregnant with their first child. A boy they planned to name Benjamin, or so they’d told him once at dinner. There was always something to discuss during each meal they shared together, even if just the sermon delivered at mass, but Castiel couldn’t focus half the time, least of all on Lisa. The real issue was that Castiel couldn’t help stare at Dean. His full lips, his pensive eyes like deep pools, his strong hands. The embodiment of temptation if Castiel had ever seen it. His private confession ringing alarm bells in his skull. And oftentimes, he’d found that when they were alone together on the drive home, Dean wasn’t even fighting the fact he was staring back whenever his gaze swept over Castiel from the driver’s seat. And Dean always insisted on driving him.It all seemed like a terrible accident at first. A mistake, much like playing with fire. Something they should avoid in the future as if it never happened. The first time it happened, it could have been brushed off as merely an accident. A weakening of wills, succumbing to their baser instinct. But one could repent and dole out their Hail Mary’s and one could be forgiven as if it never happened at all if they really meant it.The second was just as nefarious as the first, but there was no way to twist it into an altogether prettier picture. Intentional or not, it happened, and Castiel wasn’t sure Hail Mary’s applied to people like them anymore.Now, They drove out past the spot in the wood’s on the edge of town where the high school kids liked to go ‘necking’. Just a little further than that, till the gravelled road gave way to a clearing swathed in pale moonlight. This was their spot. Dean let the engine rumble for a moment in hesitation, like just maybe they could still turn around, turn their backs on the whole ordeal they’d created for themselves out here in the dark, but they didn’t turn around the last two times and this time was no different. Cutting the engine, Dean ran a nervous hand through his neatly combed hair with a huff and the radio cut, taking the mocking melody of Bobby Darin’s ‘Dream Lover’ with it. In turn, they each took a moment for quiet reflection, nary a glance in the other’s direction, as the sweat collected on their palms and under Castiel’s clerical collar. Two sets of blinking eyes staring lost out the windshield as the dead grass swayed in the summer breeze. The only sound filling the cabin of the car was the vacant sound of crickets chirping in the long grass.“Dinner was lovely, Dean,” Castiel said in a fit of nerves. Something he’d already said twice before they left the house. Just something to fill the empty space in the vain chance God was still listening to him anymore. Then Dean weakly voiced, “We shouldn’t be doing this,” as though Castiel had no idea. As though Castiel hadn’t been thinking the exact same thing. It was always this way; this was part of the ritual too. A pathetic last-ditch attempt at repentance before they said to hell with it all and reached across the leather bench seat anyway. But this whole thing had always been Dean’s idea, or so he’d imagined. And Dean always reached first. A strong, calloused hand hesitantly settled itself into the heat of Castiel’s thigh, fingertips grazing just shy of the inseam. Dean released a shuddered breath, like he’d jumped headfirst off a cliff and somehow caught himself just before he hit the ground. Castiel took a sharp inhale through his nose at the touch, a questioning squeeze. And Dean waited, just to see if Castiel would push his hand away, though he never did. He never would. This time, Castiel laid his hand over Dean’s and inched it higher himself over the fabric bunching next to his groin to palm at the burgeoning erection strapped down against his leg. Hand still holding Dean’s firmly in place, Castiel ground himself against the heat of the other man’s palm and he swallowed a needy whimper at the contact. He wouldn’t allow himself the thought that he could never take Dean’s hand in his own simply to hold it.Pupils blowing wide, Dean sat stock still and watched, not moving to retract his hand as it slid and caught friction. Though, in an instant, Dean turned almost animalistic. Clearly not looking to waste any more time, he jerked his hand free to recklessly tear out of his white, pressed button-down shirt and pawed at Castiel’s to do the same; better to avoid staining in the wash load perhaps. And once they were divested of their shirts, Castiel lunged across the seat to pin Dean down against the leather. Dean had a penchant for having his nipples played with, or so they’d discovered last time, and Castiel wanted nothing more than to please him, so he dipped his chin against Dean’s chest and laved his tongue over the hardening buds in equal turn, revelling in the sensation under his tongue and the way Dean’s plush lips parted for him while his fingers wandered.The first time had been strictly necking and rubbing each other through their trousers. It had been shy and awkward and rife with hesitation. With shame. The second was much the same except there was skin to skin contact. Daring to place bare hands on bare cocks. But this time, Castiel was craving more, and based on the way Dean was looking at him, brows screwed up in the middle and eyes silently pleading, Dean wanted it just as desperately.Castiel had never done any of this before that first time. He wasn’t supposed to be doing anything close. But here, in this car, off the beaten road, it didn’t matter at all because Dean had never done it either. Not like this. They were bonded over their inexperience and wanton desires here under the covert darkness, but none of it felt wrong in the slightest. Not to Castiel anyway. Which should have told them everything it needed to.Bringing his hands around to fumble with Dean’s belt buckle, Castiel brought his hungry mouth to Dean’s in some semblance of a kiss, panting against each other’s flushed skin, breathing the same humid air between their messy exchange of saliva. Their fat tongues slid together as Castiel unzipped the fly of Dean’s khaki slacks and he sucked Castiel’s tongue into his own mouth. He clutched at the hinge of Castiel’s stubbled jaw with both hands, not ready to stop kissing him yet, but Castiel pulled away.“I want to try something,” Castiel said, skin flushed and trying to catch his breath. Something he’d thought about often as a younger man, before everything, as he lay awake at night. Something he figured Lisa with her cherry tinted lipstick, her blood red manicures, and perfectly pressed Sunday dresses would never deign to do. “Yeah,” Dean panted, breathless. He nodded hastily, throat clicking. “Whatever it is, just do it,” he stammered, thrusting his fully-fledged cock against Castiel’s palm. “Please.” Dean was practically pleading as his hands slid over Castiel’s sides, down his taut abdomen to grope at his clothed erection and undo his belt. “Need you, Cas.”Castiel bit back a moan at the feeling of Dean thrusting against his hand, hot and wanting, and he slid the hem of Dean’s slacks under his ass, letting his flushed erection bob free against his stomach like an offering. With obvious desire, Castiel positioned himself over Dean’s hips and dipped his head to place open mouthed kisses down Dean’s stomach and over his hip bones as he squirmed underneath him, impatience only growing. But Dean was spread out for him and the part of Castiel that was saying this was wrong was long gone now. Without further preamble, he licked a long, wet stripe up the underside of Dean’s cock, all the way from the balls to the tip, letting his tongue flit under the head. He could taste the precum beading at the tip. A bitter, salty flavor that Castiel couldn’t seem to get enough of if he tried. And god, had he tried. Dean let out a guttural moan as that same strong hand came to rest at the top of Castiel’s head. Grabbing the base of his cock, Castiel suckled at the tip to lap up more and Dean couldn’t contain himself. His head fell back against the driver side window with a thud and he pushed at the back of Castiel’s head, fingers curling to grip his dark hair, as a not so subtle suggestion. “Cas, please,” he urged through his teeth.Castiel had thought about this moment every day since the first time he laid eyes on Dean, he wasn’t about to stop now. Hollowing out his cheeks, he sucked as best he could and as deeply as he could, curling his tongue around the shaft and whether he was doing it right or not, Dean couldn’t seem to get enough of it either way. Every moan he wrought from Dean’s throat, he echoed himself, sending gravelled vibrations straight through Dean’s cock. The second he brought a hand up to cup his balls, Dean’s hips lost all control, fucking into his mouth.Dean’s fingers tightened almost painfully against his scalp. “Cas, I’m gonna--”“Mmmh,” Castiel choked.“Cas--”Suddenly, there was cum filling his mouth and shooting down the back of his throat. Some even dribbling out the corners. Castiel relished all of it with a pathetically needy moan and he drank it readily, hungrily, like Dean was bestowing the holy sacrament upon his tongue. And then Dean was tugging his face back up to lick the semen from his lips. To taste himself there. He brokenly moaned the word “fuck” into Castiel’s mouth and then Dean was on him, pushing his black pants past his hips mid-thigh and pinning him down against the passenger seat. Dean didn’t hesitate to suck Castiel into the wet heat of his mouth and Castiel cried out for nothing in particular. Perhaps Dean had done this once before, or he just knew what he liked, because he seemed more sure in his movements than Castiel had been. The flat of his tongue sliding against the hard flesh of his cock as he sucked it in deeper. His tongue teasing the slit when he would pull back. Within minutes, Castiel was scrabbling for purchase against the sweating glass with one hand, the other clutching the back of the bench seat. “Dean,” Castiel cried, the name on a loop on his tongue as he watched him, Dean’s reddened lips stretched around him. Castiel’s possessive fingers eventually found their way to grip into Dean’s greased hair instead as Dean sucked him with vigor.“I love you,” he hadn’t meant to utter, but it slipped out of his mouth anyway at the sight of Dean peering up at him through his lashes. And Dean moaned around his cock, lust-blackened eyes never leaving his, as he took him deeper still. Moments later, Castiel’s orgasm was racking through his body and he came into the heat of Dean’s mouth with a punched out sob. But when Dean pulled off, he didn’t say it back. Withdrawing himself, he opened the driver’s side door, craned his neck out to spit Castiel’s seed into the dirt, and he simply wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. And then they tucked themselves back into their slacks and replaced their shirts in silence. Each button like a lock on a door. “I’m sorry, Dean, I-” started Castiel. With a thick swallow, he hazarded a glance in Dean’s direction. “I didn’t mean to-”Holding a palm up between them, Dean cut him off. “It’s fine, Cas. Just got carried away.” Twisting the keys in the ignition, the car rumbled to life starting up the radio again to another discordant tune. He laid his forearm on the back of the bench seat to reverse and then he put it in drive. “Doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered to himself as they made their way back to the main road.Though, to Castiel, it meant everything.Dean dropped him off at the parish rectory, scarcely a word between them, as though the whole thing never happened. When they pulled in, Dean put the car in park by the curb and idled, waiting for Castiel to get out, waiting for something, but the straining tension was obvious.Chewing his lip, Dean finally released the strained breath he’d tried to contain the whole way there. “We can’t keep doing this,” he said. Running fingers through his greasy, mussed hair, he snorted to himself. His eyes looked wild. “It’s just- it’s wrong, is what it is. I mean, shit, I’m going to be a father.” He shook his head. “I have a wife,” he amended softer, as if to remind himself more than anything. Dean seemed to be having some sort of fit. He ran a palm over his face to bring himself back. “And for God’s sake, how are you just sitting there? How are you so keen on all this? You’re a goddamn priest!” “Because I love you”, he wanted to say. But he’d already said that and it didn’t seem to change any of the above. If anything it made it worse.Instead, eyes resolutely soaking in the black of the night outside the window, Castiel nodded silently. “I know,” he managed to croak out, voice a hoarse whisper, “I know.” Hell, Castiel knew better than most.Dean blinked hard and his fists gripped painfully tight around the steering wheel. “I’m sayin’ this can’t happen again and that’s all you gotta say?”“What more would you like me to say? Everything you’ve said is true. Unless, you'd like for me to argue you.” Because Castiel didn't want to stop, but he wasn't going to force Dean to do anything he didn't want to do.Chancing another glance in Dean’s direction, Dean’s expression was inscrutable as he stared out the windshield, though his wide green eyes were glassy. Memorizing Dean’s profile in the poor street light just in case, Castiel said, “Thank you, Dean,” as he reached for the door handle. “For everything.”Dean’s jaw clenched in the dark and he gave a wordless nod, eyes glued forward like he couldn’t even bare to look at him anymore, before Castiel closed the car door and the tires peeled away.This would also be the last time Before.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It had started subtly enough. The occasional bouts of anger. The erratic behavior. The venomous words. Waking in the middle of the night to wholly imagined sounds or speaking to voices that weren’t there. Sometimes speaking in a different language altogether; languages he couldn’t fathomably know. Then the violence started. Or so, that's what Sam Winchester had told him. That’s when Sam had decided to finally ask for his assistance. And Castiel had blindly returned to Dean Winchester’s home for the first time since the last, but when he got there he hadn’t been primed for any of it. The way Dean’s blackened eyes seemed to darken even further whenever Castiel stepped nearer. Dean hadn’t been violent towards him though, so Castiel suspected that just maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, he was simply ill. Some form of brain sickness that could be the result of any number of things. It wouldn’t be so unheard of, he thought, and he’d advised Sam to telephone the local physician for a mental health evaluation and that would put an end to that.But that had been weeks ago. It hadn’t been so easy.Now, Castiel stood in front of his mirror in the basement of the parish adjusting his clerical collar and laying his shirt buttons flat. Reaching for his jacket, he shrugged it on and went into his office to grab his well-loved edition of the King James from his desk, the special rites, and to pocket a vial of holy water. The book felt almost like a mockery under his hands, the vial a lead weight, but he carried it under his arm dutifully as he made his way out to the parking lot and he slipped his rosary around his neck like a noose. Upon stepping outside, he spotted the gleam of the black paint easily as the rumbling engine idled for him. He rounded the car towards the passenger side with an acknowledging nod as he gripped the door handle and seated himself in that all too familiar passenger seat. The smell of the smooth leather upholstery still a fresh memory in his mind after all this time.“Hello, Sam,” he greeted as he climbed inside.“Hey, Father,” Sam replied, distracted. His tone and the dark circles under his eyes only growing darker with each visit Castiel had made. This was also the third time Sam Winchester had picked him up in the last month. There’d been no progress yet. The mental health practitioner all but abandoned them in the eleventh hour. Dean was still the same, if not worse, but this time Castiel was prepared. He didn’t need permission from the Church. Losing Dean wasn’t worth the wait.Sam got onto the main road and headed east, without so much as a word, until they started seeing rolling cornfields. “He was asking for you again,” Sam said eventually, as he turned onto a narrow side road. “Demanding, really.”“That doesn’t surprise me in the least.” There was a ritual he could try, Castiel had told Sam the last time they spoke over the phone. A desperate, last-ditch effort. An exorcism of sorts, though Sam seemed appropriately skeptical. Having already given his acts of contrition multiple times these last few weeks, Sam didn’t need to know Castiel wasn’t technically sanctioned to perform an exorcism at all.“So, you, uh… you really think this’ll work?” By the tone of his voice, Sam sounded as though he were losing faith. Castiel wouldn’t tell him this, but he wasn’t sure he had much left either.
O’ ye of little faith.
Castiel tore his sights off the sea of swaying corn husks to study the profile of Sam’s face. The jut of his furrowed brows. The concern creasing his young face. With a gentle nod, Castiel contemplated. “It has to,” is what he said, voice unwavering, as he glanced out the window again. Conviction not entirely devoid of selfishness.“And if it doesn’t?”Castiel wouldn’t even consider it. “Failure isn’t an option I’m willing to entertain.”They pulled up the gravel driveway of Bobby Singer’s farmhouse just before 3 in the afternoon. The sun was hanging off to the west and the squabbling of chickens clearing the driveway were the first things Castiel noticed. All in all, it was a typical afternoon at the quaint home, from what he’d seen of it, despite what he knew was lurking within. They’d had to take him here. It was remote.Castel noted the absence of Bobby’s banged up truck in the driveway. With a tilt of his head, he asked, “Where’s Bobby?”“Oh, he, uh-- I told him to head into town. He didn't think this was a good idea. The less he knows the better, right?”Castiel hadn’t seen Dean in weeks, though the last time he had, Dean was hostile in tone and belligerent in action. Slinging wicked insults and attempting bodily harm. A far cry, from the Dean he’d observed over the course of their Sunday dinners. From the Dean he’d come to know in the dark. But they were out of options now.As they closed the car doors on rusted hinges, they walked in step with each other. Both ambling forward, but neither seeming to want to walk faster to get there. “He’s worse.” Sam cleared his throat once they got to the top of the porch steps. “We, uh, had to chain him up. He’s in the basement now. Just thought you should know what you’re walking into.”Castiel furrowed his brow and regarded Sam’s haunted expression carefully. “What happened?”Scrubbing a hand over his bristly face, Sam let out an exhale, shaking his head a bit. “Lisa. He tried to-- He had a knife. Who knows how he got it, we made sure to hide everything y’know, but he found it somehow.” He blinked hard before he spoke. “He tried to kill her, Father.”Shock swept over him, threatening to buckle him at the knees. “Is she- Is Lisa alright?”“Yeah, she’s staying with her mother up in Atchison. Somehow, we convinced her not to press charges. Said he was sick. Real unwell. Better for the baby this way.”“Why didn’t you tell me?”Sam gave a sheepish shrug. “Me and Bobby, we’ve kinda had our hands tied here. You’ll see what I mean.” Ushering Castiel through the front door, Sam led him past the living room and down the hall towards the kitchen. The basement door was just around the corner, but Sam made no move to go near it, instead angling himself against the edge of the formica countertop. “You sure you don’t need any help with this?” Judging by the look on his face, Sam was praying the answer was ‘no’.So Castiel, gave it to him. “No, Sam. I think it best to do this alone.” It probably wasn’t true, but no sense in having anyone else getting hurt.Sam gave a reluctant nod, but the tension drained from his shoulders a bit. “He’s down there,” he sighed, pointing his finger. “Just… see for yourself.”Castiel regarded Sam and the weathered door with caution. The house was quiet, barely a sound save for the chickens clucking around the backyard. One would think there’d at least be angry howling or signs of a struggle from down below. There was nothing. Castiel swallowed thick his idle fear and stepped towards the door. He needed to be strong for Dean. He couldn’t be afraid. Demons fed on fear. That much he remembered.His hand turned the brass knob with a click and the wooden door creaking on its hinges cut the silence. “Lock this door behind me,” he instructed before descending. The first step squeaked and groaned under his foot and it continued on like that with each step down the rickety basement stairs. “Good luck,” Sam said. He didn’t follow, instead he closed the door behind him once Castiel reached the bottom. And then the lock slid into place.He’d never been alone with Dean. Not like this.Dry concrete coated the ground and his eyes followed a cracked vein in the earth all the way until it hit the sole of a dirty, bare foot. Dean’s foot. He was slumped in the corner atop a sad, forgotten twin mattress, wrists handcuffed around a water pipe, bloody white t-shirt loosely hanging from them in an attempt to get the thing off. A rusted pipe no less. It hardly seemed like enough to contain him. His eyes were downcast, if not closed, and he barely recognized when Castiel cautiously stepped forward from the shadows into the beam of light streaming in from the cracked pane of the ground level window. Subconsciously, his hand gripped the bible under his arm just a little tighter.The act seemed to rustle Dean out of his trance. His sights wavered and then oh so subtly, out the corner of his eye, he assessed Castiel. Narrow eyes dull and calculating. “I’ve been waiting for you, Father.” He spoke, voice deep and cutting. When Castiel made no move forward, Dean edged his chin towards him. “Oh, goodie, you brought your book with you today,” he noted, tone bored. Castiel considered him where he sat half concealed in shadows. “You tried to murder Lisa.”“Did I?” The corner of Dean’s mouth lifted. “What, no ‘Hello Dean’ today? How very rude of you.”“I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re not Dean.”“No?” Dean chuckled, but it was devoid of its usual mirth. Replaced instead with a musical note that shivered down Castiel’s spine. “How do you know?” His blackened eyes were searching, but they had a mischievous gleam.“The Dean that I know would never attempt to murder his wife and unborn child,” he stated frankly.“The Dean that you know is a spineless milksop who wouldn't know his ass from his elbow,” he spat in defiance, “Besides, I never intended to harm the child, I was merely trying to cut him out.” His harsh tongue emphasized the ‘T’s.“Because that’s better,” Castiel snarked.“I think so. And what would you care if Lisa were dead? That would make things painfully easy for you, wouldn’t it?” After a beat, he added, “I was doing it for you, Castiel. Because of you. You have to know that.”Castiel swallowed, but he didn’t speak. He wouldn’t play into its mind games anymore than he had to. He resolved it would be best to just cut to the chase then if he wanted to finish this before Bobby returned home.“We’ve met before,” Dean continued. “I’m a bit offended you don’t remember me. I remember you.”“I don’t know you,” Castiel dumbly denied. He attempted to flip through the worn pages of his bible to find the correct scripture from the other side of the room.A damnable smirk spread across Dean’s shadowed face and he tilted his head, studying Castiel’s jerky movements. “How can you be so sure?” he asked once the silence became insufferable.Castiel huffed. “Because I would remember,” he said not tearing his attention away from the pages. He wanted Castiel to play along, to take the bait, but Castiel didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Fishing around in his pocket, Castiel clutched the vial of holy water in his fist and he closed his eyes to deliver a silent prayer for himself. The Lord’s Prayer.“You were… preoccupied,” dismissed Dean just as he’d come to the part about temptation.Castiel opened his wary eyes to regard him, jaw and fist clenching. “With what?” he dared to ask.Dean broke out into ridiculous, off-key song. “Dream lover, where are you? With a love, oh, so true…” he hummed the rest of the chorus and clapped his bound hands along, seemingly oblivious to Castiel’s question. “Boy, I just love that song. Don’t you?” He laughed at Castiel’s bemused expression.The blood drained from Castiel’s face. “You--?”Tilting his head back to rest against the concrete slabbed wall, Dean lolled his head to meet Castiel’s haunted eyes. In the light, Castiel could see three ghastly gashes scratched across Dean’s gaunt eye socket. Blood encrusted scab wounds starting and ending in crescent moons. Lisa’s blood red fingernails like claws. A devilish grin split Dean’s face into something menacing. “That’s too easy. Think harder, Father,” he said. Like driving a hot spike just a few millimeters too close, he was clearly amused now. “Before.”He couldn’t hold his stare. The black flecks sullied the pure green of Dean’s eyes. Castiel’s gaze fell to his chest then. His skin was matted with sweat from struggling and marred with dirt from the concrete floor, bones protruding where they should be hidden. No bruises. Just blood caked and dried brown from nonexistent bodily wounds trailing over the flesh of his stomach. Lisa’s blood, he realized. His denim-clad legs were spread wide on the mattress, mocking him, while his fingernails picked at the calcium sediment in the wall. The idle buzz of a fly hitting the narrow window snapped Castiel out of it. “No,” he said, feebly, mouth going dry. “No, that’s not possible.”Castiel had seen it before. Once, when he was only a small boy. It had been his father then, reminding him what a pusillanimous nuisance he’d been. A dark spot in their proud family tree. Castiel deserved it. Castiel had made him do it. Worse, Castiel wanted it because he was a ‘faggot’. Or so his father would say every time he would use his belt among other more intimate, brutalized punishments. And now, apparently, the damnable thing had crawled inside Dean Winchester. The smile hadn’t left his face, but it warped into something injured to mimic Castiel’s own expression. “Isn’t it?” Finally, Castiel dared to look him in the eye. “How?”“Because of you,” he said simply. “It’s always been you.” With a swallow, Castiel willfully ignored his intentioned stare. Pulling the vial from his pocket with unsteady hands, Castiel bestowed himself with the mark of the cross and kissed his thumbnail as he hazarded a few steps towards the edge of the mattress. No sense dawdling.Dean’s gaze locked onto the vial, eyes widening a fraction of an inch. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “What’s that?” From where he stood, Castiel could see the whites of his tainted eyes. He didn’t answer him. He found his place in the Book and he began to read from the Litany of Saints, weakly stringing together their names, as he bent over to bestow the cross upon Dean as well. Dean hissed like a snake, a spitting thing at the back of his throat, but when Castiel continued reading he began to laugh all the while. “Do you really think this will work?” Dean mocked, eyebrows twisting with pity. Castiel ignored him and he read on, uncapping the vial of holy water, and anointing small droplets onto Dean’s exposed skin. And Dean gasped and growled a fearsome thing. An animalistic snarl catching in his throat as the water burned welts on his skin.“How many dinners?” He choked out eventually. “How many dinners did you insist upon attending before you corrupted him?” He hawked spit by the sole of Castiel’s shiny black shoes, but he continued on just as Castiel did. “A married man? On the Lord’s day, no less?” The two of them competing to find the bigger voice. “Was the Lord not good enough for you, Father?”
“From all evil, deliver us, O Lord... From all sin... From your wrath... From sudden and unprovided death... From the snares of the devil…”
Rising to his knees, Dean snarled, “I am not the devil! The devil fears me!” Another splash of holy water and Dean was jerking the cuffs binding his wrists, the rusty water pipe rattling with it. Castiel paused to turn the page, unintentionally glancing up, and the two of them made eye contact. Something dark and dangerous was alight behind Dean’s blackened eyes.“Every time, I was there,” he asserted low. “Every time you’ve thought about getting his duplicitous cock up your ass. Every time you looked. Every time you so much as breathed in his general direction, I was there!” His teeth clenched as he fought against the metal around his wrists. Like he was willing to flay the meat from the bone to free himself. “I was there for you!”Castiel couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t. He pressed on. “Do not keep in mind, O Lord, our offenses or those of our parents, nor take vengeance on our sins.” “You put on quite the show, Castiel! Swallowing him down on your knees like a cocksucking whore! I guess some things never do change. If the priesthood couldn’t save you, what could?” He laughed a maniacal thing, head lolling back. “What would your father say to you now? Why, he’s down here with us, wouldn’t you like to know?”“Enough!” Castiel’s voice was stronger than before, a bellowing command, but he’d caved in before he could recite the Lord’s Prayer aloud. He wasn’t supposed to be swayed so easily by the twisting tongue of a demon. Dean’s eyes flared in challenge and he began suggestively undulated his hips, pressing his groin into the water pipe to taunt him. “I know this is what you really want,” he gasped. “You can have it, you know. I’d let you. You just have to let me go.”“You know nothing of which you speak.”Dean cackled. “On the contrary, I know everything! I was inside you just as I am him! Deeper than you’ve ever dared. Dreaming about being bent over your church pews. On your knees like a subservient leech while his dutiful wife and unborn child are none the wiser.” He spat at him again. “A couple of godless cocksuckers. You’re perfect for each other,” he sneered.Another anointment. Castiel recited the Lord’s Prayer aloud now as Dean flailed in his confines. And once he stopped, Castiel splashed him again to keep his burning cries stoked. He read through Psalm 53 as Dean slumped back against the mattress, visibly weakened, but it was still in his eyes. The blackness. “God, whose nature is ever merciful and forgiving, accept our prayer that this servant of yours, bound by the fetters of sin, may be pardoned by your loving kindness.”Dean smirked again as he watched Castiel. “You better hope that’s true, for your own sake,” he said.“I command you, unclean spirit,” Castiel began again, “whoever you are, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord for judgment, that you tell me your name. I command you to obey me, for I am a minister of God despite my unworthiness; nor shall you be emboldened to harm in any way this creature of God, or the bystanders, or any of their possessions. Tell me your name!”“But you know it still!”Gripping his fingers in Dean’s crop of dirty, overgrown hair, Castiel tugged his head back, exposing his throat. “Tell me,” he demanded through gritted teeth. Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned like he was revelling in the pain until Castiel released him with a shove. “Guess it,” he egged, tongue poking between his teeth.“I won’t fall prey to your games, demon.” Castiel laid his sweating palm roughly against Dean’s forehead, keeping his neck pinned against the concrete despite all his efforts to wriggle free. “They shall lay their hands upon the sick and all will be well with them,” he followed. “Give me the name!” But Dean wouldn’t. He just smiled, unphased. “The Lord be with you.”“And also with you.” Dean chuckled.Dabbing holy water on his fingers, Castiel laid the tips against Dean’s bloody forehead, his lips, and his chest and he recited the Gospel of John over Dean’s retched cries. “May the blessing of almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, come upon you and remain with you forever.” Castiel fumbled to pull the rosary from his neck. He set the book down, and came to kneel at Dean’s feet at the edge of the mattress. Clutching the arms of the cross between his fingers, he held out the stem to sear upon the flesh of Dean’s unmarred neck, but just before it grazed him Dean shrieked an inhuman laugh. “My name,” he gasped, “I’ll give you a name.”“What is your name?”“Michael,” he spat, too willingly.Castiel faltered, but he knew he was being lied to. Yanked like a dog on a chain. “You’re lying!” When Dean just grinned again, pinned under his hand, Castiel laid the cross upon his neck and Dean screamed bloody murder layered with guttural growls impossible for any human to utter as he shook the pipe in an effort to claw himself free. The shape etched into his flesh like a hot brand. Lord be with you. “You’re no angel!” “Neither are you! That’s why I chose you!”Signing the cross over his chest, Castiel sprinkled the holy water as he watched Dean squirm. “Why Dean?”“Why not?” Dean rasped breathlessly. “Dean doesn’t deserve this!”“He prayed for this too! Every Sunday.”“Dean would not ask for this!”“But he did! You both did! You did this to him!”Castiel ignored him once more, flipping his pages on the dirty concrete floor. The exorcism rite. Finally. “I cast you out, unclean spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he started.Dean’s chest arched off the mattress and fell back with a thud, but it punched another laugh from his chest. “Uh-uh,” he clucked his tongue against his teeth. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he taunted. “It’s against the rules! Why, you could hurt Dean! And then what would keep your cock warm?”“Your name!”“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Castiel. Perched on your shoulder. Clawing through your perverted mind,” he spat. “You’ve put up quite the fight for nothing. You might as well give in now.”“I won’t listen to you!” He carried on with the exorcism and the darkness behind Dean’s eyes grew desperate.“If you untie me, you could have it, you know,” he offered when it became apparent that Castiel wasn’t listening to him. “Everything you’ve prayed for when you should have been praying to God. I could give it you,” he said simply. Words emphasized by an upwards thrust of his groin. “Or, you could take it,” he wantonly suggested when Castiel didn’t stop, opening to him on the dirty mattress like a twisted blossom. His eyes were searching for Castiel’s weakness.Castiel mistakenly allowed himself one disapproving glance as he turned the page. Their eyes met. Dean grinned knowingly.“Ah, there it is.” He spoke hushed. Like a secret just between the two of them. “He doesn't love you, Castiel, but I could. I could give you anything you want. No one would have to know.” His hips were writhing against the bed in a tormented, seductive lure. The motion caused his loose jeans to inch lower under his ass, exposing the sharp jut of his emaciated hip bones, and the faint trail of hair that disappeared beneath the hem to the base of Dean’s cock. “You’re wrong. I would know.” Castiel tried his best to ignore it, but his eyes lingered there a little too long. On the dirty skin slicked with sweat. “God would know.”“What do you care about God?” Dean choked back another laugh as Castiel glowered at him over the bible. “What makes you think he’s even paying attention?” “Stop talking!”“If you won’t have me, then I’ll take it from him!”Castiel read on.“Cas,” he began to moan over and over, when Castiel stopped giving him the attention he craved. The familiar syllable was grating against his ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. “Cas, please! I love you, Cas!” He was restlessly rocking his hips again, working the denim lower. “Need you, Cas,” he begged, broken just as Dean had sounded the last time. “Need your pitiful excuse for a cock in my whore mouth!” A depraved cackle erupted from his throat. Castiel spilled the holy water on his face, into his mouth and up his nose, and Dean sputtered and squealed around it, limbs flailing as he struggled to breathe. He laid his crucifix to Dean’s forehead, embedding it with his palm, and he raised his voice higher over him still, repeating the exorcism, casting him out once more and ignoring the way Dean’s body contorted and convulsed against the mattress.In the back of his mind, Castiel feared Dean might choke on his own tongue, but if the exorcism didn’t work, choking might be preferable to this. And Dean spasmed bodily as he read, metal chain of the handcuffs rattling as it tugged on the water pipe all the while. The whites of his eyes rolled back into his head as he shook, foaming spit leaking from the corners of his lips followed by a river of blood, but when Castiel blinked the blood was gone.“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I cast you out!”Dean’s body fell still, slumping his straining neck against the embroidered mattress. Castiel waited a minute for movement, though there was none, and panic began to overtake him at the thought of anything happening to Dean down here in this dank basement. Because of him. Unsticking his hand, the crucifix peeled out of the brand and coiled off to the side. He waited a moment longer still. Nothing. Craning his neck in to hover over Dean, Castiel placed his ear by Dean’s mouth and he could discern a whispering breath. A reedy, wet sound. Dean was still alive, hanging on by a thread. In a rush, Castiel recited the Lord’s Prayer again in closing, before he pushed himself to his feet. He was scrambling for the staircase, taking them two at a time, and when he got to the top he banged on the door with open palms. “Sam! Sam!” he called, until the lock clicked on the other side of the door. As soon as it opened, he was tumbling through it, practically crashing into Sam into the kitchen. “Phone the paramedics,” he panted, hands falling to his knees, “I think I’ve finally done it!”The massive weight Sam carried sloughed off at the proclamation. He darted for the kitchen drawer by the corded telephone, fishing around for the handcuff key as he dialed on the rotary. “Hello!” he shouted, tossing Castiel the key, “Yes! I need an ambulance!” Sam delivered the address as Castiel thundered down the basement steps and crossed the concrete floor.Kneeling by the edge of the mattress, Dean hadn’t moved, but he was still breathing and that was something. It had to be enough, he thought, as he jammed the tiny key into the pinhole size lock of the handcuffs. He opened one to free him from the pipe, and he brought Dean’s limp arm around to rest in his lap. He undid the second cuff and tossed them aside on the mattress with his rosary. “Dean,” Castiel urged, clapping a clammy palm to the side of his heavy face. “Dean, can you hear me? Wake up.” He clapped again, firmer, as his other hand rubbed at the red marks around his wrists. “Wake up!” He gave another slap.Sucking in a rasping, wet breath, Dean coughed and coughed until he couldn’t breathe, but then he shot up vertically and hacked something dark and liquid between his legs. It ran down his chin and tear ducts, as his sunken eyes flicked up to meet Castiel’s. “Father?” It came out confused. And Dean was looking at him as if he were a virtual stranger. Finding his voice, he weakly asked, “What happened?” Castiel took the holy water in his hand once more and he dribbled the last remaining drops on Dean’s wrists just to be sure. No burning, no welts. Thrusting the crucifix into his slack hands, he checked this too. No reaction. “Dean!” Reaching for the other man, he hauled him into his arms and it didn’t matter that Dean didn’t remember or was too weak to return the sentiment or that he stank of unwashed excrement. Castiel released the first sigh of relief he’d ever allowed himself. Dean Winchester was saved and that was more important than all else.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Castiel hadn’t seen Dean in three months. Not even at Sunday mass. Last he’d heard from Sam, Lisa returned home from Atchison, and after taking the necessary time to heal, Dean was back to work with his uncle Bobby at the garage as if the whole ordeal never happened.Benjamin had been born only a few weeks prior, and when he’d answered the telephone last week in the midst of writing a sermon, he hadn’t expected to hear Dean’s warm voice on the other end of the line delivering the news to him. “That’s wonderful, Dean,” he’d intoned. The news sat with him in all the wrong ways, but he certainly couldn’t show it. And at the insistence of Lisa, Dean invited him to dinner for the following weekend as a ‘thank you’ and to meet their newborn son.*** After the following mass, he telephoned a yellow cab to pick him up from the parish. The wind whipped around him while he waited, dead autumn leaves dancing across the pavement. When the cab pulled around to the curb, Castiel opened the back door and climbed inside, his bible habitually clutched between his fingers as he settled against the seat and straightened his collar with nervous fingers.The cab driver eyed him through the rearview mirror. “Where to, Father?” “Um, 37 Woodridge. Thank you.”“You got it.”It wasn’t a long drive across town. Castiel watched the barren trees planted along the curbs as they traveled through suburban back roads. White houses. White picket fences. Children still tossing balls to each other out in the yard before being called in for dinner. All the houses looked relatively the same, including Dean’s, save for the freshly trimmed rose bush hedging along the fence, clinging to stay alive in the cold. Lisa had told him once about her gardening over dinner. He’d added the appropriate “Mhm’s” and nods and asked questions just to fill the gaps and to avoid staring across the table.When they pulled into the driveway, Castiel instinctively reached for his wallet, but Dean had been waiting by the front door on bated breath and he jogged over to greet the driver, money already in hand. “Dean, that’s not necessary,” started Castiel, still fumbling with his own wallet, “I have the appropriate change.”“Nonsense, Father,” he said with his usual gleaming white smile. Flipping through the bills, Dean said to the driver, “The Father here saved my life. Payin’ for his cab is the least I can do.” He handed the money to the driver and instructed him to keep the change before reaching to open the back door for him.“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said when the cab pulled away, though he could feel his face heating up where he stood. “Ain’t no trouble,” he returned, easy smile never leaving his face all the while.Dean looked handsome like this. Cheeks flushed from the chill in the air. Hands finding themselves to rest low in the pockets of his trousers. A freshly pressed button-down that still smelled of fabric softener as the wind caught and mussed up his combed hair. The only evidence of anything gone awry were the fresh pink scars etched into the skin of his cheek.Castiel met his eyes again. “You look well.”Dean’s green eyes grew soft and lingered, falling to Castiel’s lips for an instant so brief, he questioned whether it happened at all. “Yeah, well, hey, uh, Lisa’s got a roast on,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the house, “Should probably get back inside. Cold out here.” He shivered just to make his point.“Yes, you’re right. We should.” Though, it took a full thirty seconds for either of them to move. Holding his hand out towards the house, Castiel gestured, “After you.”The smell of mashed potatoes and gravy wafted into the parlour where Dean and Castiel sat with their legs crossed on opposing sides of the good sofa, both with a finger of whiskey to sip while they waited. The static sounds of the radio carried over from the other room while it played some overly sweet melody; they could hear Lisa puttering around to it while she finished cooking dinner. The silence between them was rife with unnamed tension and Castiel wasn’t sure how to proceed.“Benjamin seems wonderful,” he broached for lack of anything else. Benjamin was a quiet baby. He made hardly a fuss, of which Castiel was thankful for. He was never very good with children as it were. Quietness made him alright by Castiel’s standards.That seemed to bring Dean’s attention around again. “Yeah,” he said eagerly swallowing his whiskey with a sharp hiss. “Yeah, he’s great. Really takes after Lisa in the looks department,” he said with a chuckle. “Was kinda hopin’ we’d end up havin’ some things in common, y’know?”“I’m sure you will.”“Yeah.” Dean sighed. Quieter, he said, “Between you and me, I don’t really know what I’m doin’ here. I just let Lisa handle most of it and stay outta her hair.”“You’ll learn.” Castiel gave him a small, reassuring smile and clapped a hand to his shoulder. “God works in mysterious ways or something like that?”“Something like that.” Dean huffed a laugh and stared into his nearly empty glass. “Hope you’re right.”“I’m always right,” he cracked, and Dean smiled at him, eyes going soft again.Just then Lisa swept around the corner carrying a steaming casserole dish of mashed potatoes between mitted hands. “Dinner’s ready,” she said. Voice also overly sweet, she asked, “Dean, honey, could you bring in the roast?”Dean had set the table before Castiel arrived. He could tell by the way none of the silverware was where it was supposed to be. As Lisa rearranged the forks with an annoyed huff, Dean set the roast in the center of the table and motioned for Castiel to take the seat set across from him. They squabbled for a moment in hushed whispers over what Castiel presumed was the silverware debacle, but then Lisa untied her apron and smoothed out her dress and flashed Castiel a cloying smile. “You shouldn’t have to see us bicker,” she said, patting down her flyaway hairs. “Please, sit, Father.” She gestured to the open chair as well. So he did. They joined hands around the table in a circle and Castiel recited the words of grace, to which they said in unison, “Amen.” He adamantly ignored the notion that Dean’s hand lingered on his before he pulled it back into his lap. Castiel served himself a modest portion, despite Lisa’s insistence he take more, and he told her “Everything looks delicious, Lisa,” as usual, while he tried to remember which was the dinner fork from the unnecessary line of silverware and cutlery. Dean offered him the bottle of Cabernet and he accepted, holding out his empty wine glass by the stem. “Thank you,” he said with a smile, lifting it between them in toast, “To Benjamin.”“To Benjamin,” they repeated with proud smiles, clinking his glass. Dean cleared his throat after they drank. “Actually, I’d like to make another toast... To Cas, for saving my life, I guess.” He gave a sheepish smile. “I don’t know where I’d be without you. Probably dead, or worse.” Castiel’s face and neck heated up at Dean’s words. At ‘Cas’. As far as Dean and everyone else had been concerned, he’d suffered from an all-absorbing case of hysteria and that was that. He had no memory of their consorts. He didn’t feel he could take credit for saving Dean when he was the cause of Dean’s ordeal in the first place, but he raised his glass to the toast anyway.Lisa looked uncomfortable at the informality, but held hers up regardless. “To Father Castiel,” she corrected, and they drank to it.“I see your rosebush is still blooming,” Castiel said during one of the lulls in conversation, which started Lisa up going a million miles per minute about fertilizer and sunlight and a handful of other things Castiel wasn’t knowledgeable about, but he listened anyway because he’d always found the idea of gardening rather charming. Anything not to hold Dean’s reverent gaze across the table.“And how are you two doing?” Castiel asked letting his eyes flit between them after a while. “After… everything.”Dean pointedly took a long sip from his wine and Lisa plastered on a smile for Castiel’s benefit alone. “Things are going great! You know with Ben and everything, it’s just taking a little getting used to still,” she went on, “but, I think after everything that’s happened, it’s really only made us stronger. Don’t you, honey?” She laid a dainty hand on top of Dean’s clenched fist on the tablecloth and looked to him imploringly. He swallowed his wine with an audible gulp and rested the glass down. Turning his head, he gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, course, Lis. Things are going real swell for us. No complaints here.”“That’s wonderful.” Forcing himself to give a reassuring smile, Castiel wiped the corners of his mouth and laid his silverware down. “If you’ll excuse me, I just need to use the restroom.”Castiel headed down the narrow hallway towards the bathroom and locked the door behind him. He was starting to question his own sanity due entirely by the fact he’d agreed to come back to this house. To sit opposite of Dean Winchester after everything that had happened between them, and force himself not to think of any of it. To think of Dean and the way his fingers imprinted themselves in his bare skin. Or the way Dean’s breath wavered whenever he’d been overcome by sensation. To think of the way Dean had said his name then. Said ‘Cas’ just now. All of it marred by visions of black ooze and spitting venom.He filled both palms with cool water and splashed his face. The droplets clung to his skin and trickled off the tip of his nose as he blinked up at his own reflection. He was an idiot. He flushed the toilet just to make a convincing display and headed back to the dining room when he heard the gurgled babbling of an infant in the throes of a dream. Tossing a cautionary glance down the hall, Castiel set his sights on the darkened nursery room, on the crib casting barred shadows on the floor. He approached the edge of the crib warily and looked on as baby Benjamin chewed his lip and rubbed his tiny fingers together.Dean had tried to cut him out, he thought ever so briefly before he buried the horrific notion back into the depths of his mind. That wasn’t Dean.Castiel brought a tentative finger up to the baby’s fat cheek and his eyes peaked open at the gentle touch. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Maybe pools of black to peer back at him, to taunt him. Some scene out of an old horror film. But there was just small blue eyes, innocently watching him, before they drifted off again. When Castiel returned to the dining room, Dean and Lisa were stacking the dirty dishes on the kitchen counter. “Do you mind if I borrow your telephone?” he asked, hanging back in the doorway. “I should be heading back to the parish and I need to phone for another cab,” he explained.“Of course not, Father,” Lisa started to say, just as Dean had replied with, “Don’t be ridiculous!” Lisa furrowed her brow in Dean’s direction as he set his stack of plates down in the sink. “Don’t be ridiculous, Cas,” he repeated. “I can drive you back.”Castiel hesitated for a brief moment. He shouldn’t accept. He told himself he wouldn’t which was why he called for the cab in the first place. Temptation was an easy trap to fall into, especially in regards to Dean. But that wasn’t what he said.“You wouldn’t mind?”Dean beamed. “Of course not! Just give me a sec to take care of a couple things! You can go wait in the car.”He nodded and headed for the coat rack.Shrugging into his trench coat by the door, Castiel grabbed his bible off the dining table and headed out to the driveway. The chill in the air was biting through his coat sleeves, but he felt odd sitting in the car alone, in Dean’s car, so he waited with his arms protectively wrapped around his middle. He waited for what felt like... too long. Minute upon minute passed without any sign of Dean. Maybe they were bickering again, he figured. His fingers were going numb so he stuffed them into his pants when distantly there was a crash and a shatter that came from somewhere inside the home.Though, just when he’d decided to head towards the front door to investigate the sound, Dean appeared at the door haloed by a rectangle of light. “I won’t be long,” he called back to Lisa as he pulled his arms through his coat sleeves and closed the front door behind him.Standing there next to the shining black machine, Castiel felt butterflies queueing up in his stomach at the pleased look on Dean’s face, despite every urge to tamp them down. Dean chuckled as he walked down the bricked front path, keys jingling in his fist. “Thought I told you to wait in the car.” “I had gotten out to check on you,” he lied. “Is everything alright?”“‘Course. Lisa’s just got those butter fingers,” he said, comically wagging his own. “Dropped a dish.” Dean breezily waved his concern off and rounded the fender, opening the car for him like they were sweethearts going on their first date and Castiel mentally scolded himself for the ludicrous notion before he sank into the passenger seat. Dean rounded back and opened the door, smoothly sliding into the driver’s seat as he turned the key in the ignition with that all too familiar rumble.The first few minutes of the drive were quiet, but the air inside the car grew stifling. Castiel cranked his window down a fraction of an inch just to gulp at the cold air hissing through the slit in the glass. “Really gettin’ cold out lately,” Dean said again in the way of topical conversation. “It is,” agreed Castiel, eyes resolutely watching the darkness pass by, only temporarily interrupted by yellow halos emitted from evenly placed street lamps. But despite the cold filtering in through the cracked window, Castiel still felt his skin getting clammy with sweat. Every roll of the tire was inching them closer to that turn off at the edge of the road and nearly every fibre of his being wanted nothing more than to drive past it, lest he risk putting Dean in danger again with sinful urges and feelings he couldn’t seem to control no matter how much distance was put between them. Though, there was still that last bastion of desire, somewhere buried deep, that wanted to make the turn anyway. As they drew closer to it, Castiel felt sick to his stomach for the umpteenth time today, but he swallowed the salivating feeling back down.Suddenly, Dean reached his hand out for the knob on the radio to lower the volume and Castiel’s gaze flitted from his thick fingers to his twisted profile watching the road. Something was eating at Dean too, it seemed, his eyebrows contorting in strange ways. His lips parted as if to speak, but he didn’t say anything, he just pressed his mouth into a thin line. Then, as if reading Castiel’s transparent mind, he pulled off the main road. Castiel didn’t object. He couldn’t even pretend.They drove out to the clearing, to their spot, but Dean didn’t kill the engine, he let it rumble. Maybe he really would turn around this time, he thought, but Castiel didn’t dare ask.After what felt like a lifetime, Dean softly spoke above the rumble. “I remember.” He peered at Castiel out the corner of his eye, but maintained his sight line on the sea of dead grass ahead. The cold air danced like smoke in front of the beaming headlights as they sat idle. The low crooning of ‘Earth Angel’ serenaded them as they sat uncomfortably on their respective sides of the car. Dean swallowed thick, jaw clenching with nerves, fingers clenching around the steering wheel, and he scanned the treeline instead of looking at Castiel. “I remember what happened... Y’know... Before. Being here.” His head lolled back, eyes upturned to the roof of the car. Anywhere, but Castiel. “I remember what you said.” The muscles in his jaw clenched tight in that way of his.He doesn’t love you, Castiel, hissed a familiar voice inside his head.Castiel’s mouth fell open, but he couldn't speak. He forced himself to ignore that treacherous voice in his head, despite all reason.Squeezing his eyes shut, Dean finally killed the engine. “Cas, I-- I gotta tell you somethin’. Not as a priest, okay? Just us. Just between you and me.” The nerves ate Castiel inside out. He forced himself not to be hopeful. “Okay,” he managed to say. He gently shook himself to focus. “Of course, Dean. You know you can tell me anything.”“Cas-” His face began to crumple. “Cas... I was so damn stupid.” Castiel watched an escaped crystalline tear roll out the corner of his eye and down the side of his face. Just the one. “We both were,” he murmured back. “No, not you,” Dean asserted low. “Just me. You gotta know that, don’t you?”Castiel fought to keep his hand where it was laid on the seat. “I’m not sure what to say, Dean... We made many mistakes together, seemingly one after another, but you have nothing to worry about. I can assure you it won’t happen again. I won’t try to touch you--”“Cas, no. No. That’s not what I’m saying.” His face contorted as if in pain. “Dean,” he breathed, “...What are you saying?”“I’m sayin’ I… I’m saying I can’t do it anymore.” “Can’t do what?”“I don’t want to be with Lisa. I never did! I want to be with you. I want us to be together!”Castiel couldn’t speak. He simply stared, eyes going glassy and strained as he wet his lips. “I- I don’t know what you want me to say, Dean.”Dean huffed a wet laugh, the corner of his mouth tugging up minutely. “God, y’know what’s funny about you, Cas?”Castiel’s breath caught in his throat, but he absently shook his head in answer. He wasn’t funny at all, but he was willing himself to listen. To memorize the way Dean’s fingers felt tickling the back of his knuckles across the seat and the way his teeth dragged over his full lower lip as he shook his head.“You’re either talkin’ too much or not enough,” Dean chided.Dean’s fingers slipped away and were quickly replaced by his hand cupping the side of Castiel’s face and Castiel gasped at the warmth of it. Leaning in, Dean’s full lips hesitantly brushed against Castiel’s, and when he didn’t pull away, he turned into something else altogether.Something more urgent. Castiel caught up quickly, closing his eyes to it, and Dean was kissing him almost painfully, pressing in against Castiel’s teeth and forcing his tongue in. He belatedly responded by gripping the front of Dean’s jacket tightly between his fingers, holding on, and breathing against his mouth a raspy, “Dean.”“Remember wanting this,” he said, pressing himself in closer. “Remember wantin’ you.” Dean sucked in a harsh breath before dipping back in to capture Castiel’s wet lower lip between his teeth. “Wanted you so much. Still do. Need you, Cas.”The endearment sent a shiver down Castiel’s spine and his blood turned to fire and ice at the same time. He turned his head away to look out the windshield. There weren’t even any stars in the inky, black sky. Unease surged through his veins.“Dean,” he spoke, eyes pinching and fingers gripping tighter when Dean interpreted the action to mouth along the tendon in Castiel’s neck that was peaking above his clerical collar. “Dean, we shouldn’t be here.” His voice was wavering. Unconvincing even to his own ears. Dean had always been the one to voice that opinion. Why wasn’t he now?Dean just snorted against his throat. “There you go again with all that talkin’.” He moved to kiss and nip along the sharp cut of Castiel’s stubbled jaw and Castiel sucked in a long, grounding breath through his nose. “Love you,” he whispered low and urgent against the shell of Castiel’s ear. “Know you love me too.” Dean worried the lobe between his teeth and Castiel fought to stifle a groan at the sensations coursing through him straight to the pit low in his stomach. When Castiel answered only in pitiful noises, he snaked a wide, warm palm up the inseam of Castiel’s thigh and asked, “...You still love me don’tcha, Cas?”Castiel’s choked out a deep, graveled moan as Dean palmed over his growing erection through his black trousers. Desperately, he gasped. “Yes,” he groaned, the sound dragged over hot coals. “I never stopped.”Dean moaned against his jaw. Inching himself across the seat, Dean crowded Castiel against the passenger door. His teeth grazed the thick column of Castiel’s throat as his fingers moved hastily down the row of shirt buttons. He slipped his warm hands under the fabric, roughly shoving either side over Castiel’s shoulders, exposing his firm chest, as he massaged his hands over his pecs, thumbs rubbing intentioned circles over his nipples. Castiel’s hands tangled desperately in Dean’s clean dress shirt and he grasped at it, clutching between his fingers, tugging it out from under his belt. He raked his fingernails over the exposed small of Dean’s back. The skin there was smooth and hot and caused Dean to buck against him.Dean undid Castiel’s belt buckle easily, letting the leather straps hang loosely in their loops, and popped the button. The whispering hiss of the zipper sounded in the air between them. “Show me,” Dean mumbled against the skin of his throat. “Show me how much.”Overcome, Castiel nodded in a daze, head heavy against the window, fingernails digging into Dean’s back. “How?” His mouth hung open with a gasp as Dean pulled his hot, hardened cock out of the splayed opening of his pants, exposing him to the chill in the air.“Wanna be inside you,” Dean purred against the side of his face, warm breath ghosting over Castiel’s rough cheek. “Wanna fuck you, Cas. Please.” He emphasized it with another nip to his lower lip. “Can I?”Castiel’s eyes pinched shut. His mind warring with itself at the notion. A fantasy he told himself long ago he’d never have, couldn’t dare to desire, being presented to him by the man he told himself he could never have. But he was here, crouched between his legs, offering. Begging.“I-- Dean, I don’t know how,” he confessed with a pitiful groan when Dean’s hand wrapped around him and stroked him slow from the root.Dean growled in his ear and pushed back to undo his own fly. He didn’t even bother undoing the buttons of his shirt. “Turn over,” he instructed, as he kneeled back.Surprisingly, it took very little convincing. Castiel pushed his pants down around the crook of his knees as he faced the passenger side window. He listened to the rustling sounds of Dean fumbling with his belt and fly, while one hand propped up his weight and the other tightly clutched the back of the leather bench seat.And then Dean was there, pressing in close behind him. Castiel could feel the heat caressing the backs of his thighs as his muscles trembled with fear and anticipation. Dean’s strong hands came up to knead and spread his cheeks as he dangled a line of hot spit, landing just shy of his clenched hole. Without much finesse, the tip of Dean’s thumb spread the saliva in slow circles around his rim, relaxing him, until he swallowed the tip of it. They groaned together at the sight and the feeling and he flexed his thumb in deeper, cautiously sliding the digit in and out, tugging at the rim.“Dean,” he moaned, breath heaving, unsure. Bringing his free hand around, Dean hooked two fingers into Castiel’s parted mouth and goaded him to suck. Distractedly, Castiel wrapped his lips around them and laved his tongue over his thick fingers until they were soaked, Dean working his thumb all the while restraining his own grunts of arousal. Dean spit around his thumb again and pulled it out, only to replace its absence with the fingers in Castiel’s mouth. The burn was manageable. Gripping the back of the seat, his fist tightened with a squeak of the leather and he bit his lower lip between his teeth at the alien sensation. And then he hit something inside him that caused his entire body to quiver.“More.” He heaved a shaky exhale. “Please, Dean.”“Yeah, Cas, I got you,” he cooed. “Don’t worry.” His hand was massaging Castiel’s ass while he attempted to insert a third finger. Castiel’s thighs were vibrating as Dean accidentally brushed over that spot again.“Dean, please! Please!” The word kept slipping off his tongue.He heard Dean spit again onto his own leaking cock as he coated it and then he was lining himself up. Pressing the dull head against Castiel’s rim until he sunk in past the tight ring of muscle. They both let out guttural noises in tandem at the heat and the stretch. The fullness on Castiel’s end. At letting Dean inside of him. Dean waited a moment as he panted and Castiel adjusted around him before he started dragging himself out slow and back in even slower. Barely there jerks of his hips.Castiel shuddered at the feeling, knees feeling wobbly and unreliable underneath him. One hand found its way to trail messy fingerprints down the foggy glass. “Move, Dean,” he urged, “I can take it.”When Dean afforded him a glance in the reflection of the passenger side window, it was stained black with wanton lust. “You sure?”Castiel bit his lip hard enough to turn white and gave a jerky nod, reaching his hand back to spur Dean’s hips inward to prove it. He released it with a moan.Dean bowed his head to his chest and buckled at the waist, breath hot and humid against Castiel’s back. “Look so good for me like this, Cas,” he groaned, voice raw. Steadily, Dean increased his pace and angle whenever Castiel moaned around his name. “You really want this don’t you? Want my cock?”Dean’s fingertips pressed bruises into the skin of Castiel’s hip and shoulder as he began picking up an almost brutal pace. On every third thrust, he hit Castiel’s prostate and punched a shout from his throat. “Dean-” he grunted, feeling close to the edge.“God, could listen to you all day.” His breathing was ragged. “Tell me you love me, Cas.”“I-- I love you,” he stammered between thrusts.“Never doubted you.” Dean hummed before biting the top of Castiel’s spine. When Castiel eagerly began meeting his thrusts, Dean emitted a filthy growl. “Come for me, Cas. Wanna feel you come.”Bringing his own hand back around, Castiel’s attentions flew to his neglected erection drooling precum against the leather upholstery and he tugged at it briskly in time with Dean’s thrusts until, with a whimpering moan, he came over his fist. His cum splashed across the seat and across the front of his clerical shirt. But Dean continued to fuck into him, hot breath heaving against Castiel’s back. “Ah, fuck, you’re so tight, could fuck you forever.” Suddenly, teeth were sinking into the meat of his shoulder again. Finally Dean came careening over that edge too, filling Castiel with his own hot load. And then Dean stilled. He peeled himself away from Castiel’s sweaty skin, and his spent cock unceremoniously slipped out from between Castiel’s cheeks, leaving Castiel to clench and flutter around nothing. Dean pressed his thumb in to trap his cum and Castiel laid his forehead against the back of his forearm, sighing at the gentle pressure filling him again. “Dean,” he babbled on a breathless loop into the vacant cabin of the car. “I love you.”Dean arched over him and mouthed over the delicate skin at the nape of his neck and down the top of his spine. Their gaze locked in the reflection playing off the glass of the passenger side window. Dean’s pupils blackened and blown inordinately wide. Behind his ear, Dean nuzzled his forehead against Castiel’s shoulder blade and breathed heavy, scorching breaths against his back again. “Love you too.” Dean’s hand was fidgeting with his slacks still bunched around his thighs. His arm returned, snaking around Castiel’s naked torso in some sort of awkward one-armed embrace. “...But you really don’t remember my name?”It took a second to register, but then Castiel’s lazy, half lidded eyes flew open wide in dreaded realization, his once flushed skin drained white.Without warning, the sharp point of a small paring knife was threatening to pierce through the meat between his ribs. The shine of the blade glinting as it caught the moonlight. Just inches from his heart. “I wouldn’t do anything rash now, if I were you.”Castiel stilled, frozen under his weight. “Was any of it real?”Dean’s eyes flicked back to the reflection in the window. Taunting him. An impish grin slowly spreading out across his face while he teased the point of the knife across the sensitive skin at Castiel’s side and wiggled his thumb still inserted in him. Castiel involuntarily shivered under the touch. “Y’know, you’re really beautiful when you come like that, Cas.”“Stop,” Castiel said through gritted teeth. The knife traveled its way to land underneath the crook of his throat. Steeling himself, he foolishly said, “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”“Is that what you want?”Castiel didn’t reply.Dean seemed to consider it for a moment ever so briefly with a flick of his knife. “You know, I could.” It came out like a casual thought. Just something he might have considered. To let Castiel know he was capable of such a feat and all it would take is a little force behind his hand, but he didn’t press it in. “That would be silly, afterall.” “I’m not scared of you,” Castiel warned.Draping himself over Castiel, Dean’s sweaty skin sticking to his back, he hummed along to another discordant melody, before he positioned his lips just shy of Castiel’s ear. Their eyes still locked in the reflection, Dean’s black and shiny. Poised and dangerous, compared to Castiel’s blue ones colored with desperation. “Are you sure?” When Castiel didn’t answer this either, he said, “I’d like to make a confession, Father. Just between you and me.” When Castiel didn’t dignify it with a response, Dean pressed the tip ever so slightly into his throat. Hardly a scratch, but Castiel’s reaction proved his bluff. “Go on,” Castiel hoarsely demanded, once he allowed himself to breathe. Eyes well past the verge of tears, though his face clung to stoicism.“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” He pumped his thumb, cuing Castiel in that it was supposedly his turn to speak. “And what are your transgressions,” he forced out through clenched teeth, stomach churning.Dean paused solely for the drama, before confessing, “Murder.”Castiel’s eyes squeezed shut and his jaw clenched on automatic response. “How many?”“Two,” he replied, almost coyly. “Maybe three, give or take.”“Who?”The look on Dean’s face said all it needed to. “I don’t suppose you’ll find many obstacles in your path now, Father.”“You’re bluffing.”“Am I?”Sick threatened to well up against the back of his throat, because the truth was he honestly couldn’t tell, but Castiel forced himself to breathe through his nose. Fear wouldn’t do anyone any good. Sucking in a large breath, he asked, “What do you want from me?”“I’ve already gotten what I want. I have you right where I want you, don’t I, Castiel?”Castiel pathetically sobbed when the pad of his thumb skimmed over that one spot again. “Why won’t you just leave?” He forced himself to growl. Forced himself to fight through the pleasure that was all too abruptly morphing into pain. “‘Cause I love you, Cas,” he answered in Dean’s cadence, like it was clear as a blue sky on a spring day. No other answer in the world more obvious. A sickening marionette display. A fat tear rolled down Castiel’s cheek, but his face remained impassive. “You’re incapable of the feeling.”“On the contrary, I’ve done so much for you, Castiel. I did all of it for you. If only you knew.” He drew patterns into his skin as he mulled it over. Skin raising with gooseflesh and turning white underneath the blade. “The way I see it is, you can either submit to me, or someone else has to go, but I can’t promise you’re going to like the answer.”Castiel said nothing.“I’ve killed them, Castiel. In fact, right before we got in this very car. Two birds, one stone, and you were none the wiser.”“You killed Benjamin.” He meant it as a horrific question, but that wasn’t how it left his mouth. Entirely flat and devoid of surprise. It hadn’t been the first attempt.“He was a failed experiment, at best. Drowned in his own blood.”Fighting back another wave of nausea, Castiel asked, “And Lisa?”Dean laughed. “She let her guard down. You’d be surprised how easy it is to kill someone when they aren’t paying attention. At Castiel’s silence, he added, “Don’t worry, it was a clean break.”“You said three.”“That’s to be determined.”Another tear escaped before he forced his eyes closed. “Why?”“So we could be together. No obstructions,” Dean said. “And now, as I’ve already told you, you can either come with me and we can be together or you need to practice your Goodbyes, because Dean’s next on the roster and you’d be the only suspect left with a pretty incriminating alibi, wouldn’t you agree?”Searching for a loophole, Castiel asked, “What would killing Dean accomplish that killing me wouldn’t?”“Because if you refuse me, I want to make you suffer. Rotting away in a claustrophobic prison cell until someone takes mercy on you and euthanizes you. Just as you tried to do to me. Best case scenario for slaughtering an innocent family, afterall, Father.” Dean grinned. “If I can’t have you no one can.”“What does that get you?”“Don’t you worry about that.” “If I say yes?”He let out a pleased sound. “I could possess you instead, or I could lie in wait. I’m not particular on the details, but my way you at least get to fuck it out,” he offered, as if it were a simple business negotiation. Castiel pointedly made no attempt to reply.Dean shrugged. “You’ll be mine either way. As above, so below. You know how that saying goes. And don’t even think about killing yourself, Father, because suicide is a mortal sin too, you know. Or, then again… maybe you don’t.”Unsticking his knees from the leather, Castiel shifted uncomfortably. “So, that’s it then? Run away with you like we’re Bonnie and Clyde or be framed for a heinous crime I would never commit? Be damned no matter which way I choose?”Dean hummed in his ear. “Well, when you put it like that, looks like your stuck with me. So, what’s it gonna be?” Inclining his head, Dean leaned in close, closing his eyes to revel in the scents of sex hanging in the air and clinging like sweat to Castiel’s skin.In a burst of defiance, Castiel threw his head back nailing the demon with a sharp crunch of cartilage. A howling shout cut the air. Dean dropped the knife and slipped his thumb out to clutch at his nose now pouring red streamers of blood over his lips and down his chin. The hot droplets seared Castiel’s neck as they landed, but he wrestled with the door handle and clambered himself out from under. The shock of the cold air was sobering as he landed bodily in the dirt and fought to right himself. But before he could steady himself vertically, Dean was crawling out of the car with the glinting knife in hand. Castiel fell to his knees, tripping on his own feet as his pants were strapped around his knees, and Dean circled him, each step snapping fallen twigs like brittle bone. He came to stop in front of him, looming over him as Castiel toppled back on his backside, arms uselessly falling behind to prop him up. Castiel found his lips stringing together soft, indiscernible words. The words to an exorcism, the ones he could remember, but he was in a state of shock, and for what it was worth, he may as well have been speaking in tongues.“You really thought it would be that easy,” spat Dean, looming over him.Bringing a hand up to his bloodied face, Dean slotted his broken nose back into place with a sickening snap. “It’s all rather sad, don’t you think? The adulterer and the infidel; I’m not sure which one of you is more pathetic.”The words tumbled out of Castiel’s mouth, blue eyes open wide like saucers reflecting the moonlight, as Dean’s face crumpled in on itself with rage. Fishing around in his pocket, Castiel clutched onto his crucifix.In an instant, Dean’s expression shifted to mocking amusement. “You truly never learn, do you?” Encroaching on his space, Dean stalked towards him and crouched to eye level. Knife glinting. “Your empty words won’t work, Castiel!”Suddenly, Dean was on him and it all clicked into place. Lisa. Benjamin. A failed experiment. His face creased. You were here long before I was, Castiel realized without knowing what to do with it. The knife fell to the dirt as Dean’s strong hands came to wrap around his throat, squeezing.“Dean,” he gasped, clawing for breath. “Dean, you have to force him out! Please! I know you’re in there! I know you can hear me! You have to force him out!”The demon cackled. “And what makes you think he can?”“Because you’re not here for me!” Castiel slipped a finger under its grip and sucked in a strangled breath.“All of this is because of you,” Dean growled, clamping down and forcing his head into the cold, hard ground.He pulled Dean’s wrists and pierced him with his fingernails. The grip eased just enough. Gaining force, Castiel shifted his knee into the back of Dean’s scrotum and he grunted in pain, losing balance. “I am not ashamed of how I feel,” he growled, rolling on top of Dean, holding his chest down with his knees, forearm pressing into his windpipe. “I am not ashamed of who I am!”“This is all your fault, Castiel!” Dean repeated shrilly, inhumanly in the voice of his mother.Castiel laid into his throat with all his force. “You were never my cross to bear!” Taking the cross between his fingers, he pressed it against Dean’s chest and Dean shrieked. “Cast him out, Dean!”Dean’s fingers clutched and scrambled in the dirt, legs flailing out to displace the weight against him. His chest heaved upwards to the heavens, towards the starless sky, and for a moment it glimmered with hope, as Dean choked on words he couldn’t say.
He recited the ritual from the top. A long string of words leaving his tongue, unbounded.But as quickly as it never happened, fingers wrapped around the handle of the paring knife buried under the autumn leaves and brought the blade to Dean’s throat, hand shaking in a silent battle. Before Castiel could retract it, the top of the blade pierced the soft hollow of his throat. Ripe blood surged and steamed once it hit the air and Castiel stilled, horrified as Dean’s body wracked and convulsed.“Dean! What did you do!?”Desperately, Castiel pressed his palm to the wound to stop the bleeding, as hot, thick blood seeped between his fingers. “Dean, stay with me!”The color in Dean’s skin was fading as quickly as the light’s in his eyes as they frantically searched the nothingness appearing in front of him. “Dean,” Castiel cried when his movements slowed to a stop. He looked on with vacant eyes, past the haunting face staring up at the sky, to the disturbed earth underneath. The black pool of blood forming a halo behind his head. He looked down to his own hand holding the knife and how everything swam into focus in an instant.Heavily, he shifted himself off and slumped in the dirt; heart racing, mind blank, and shirt soaked in his lover’s fresh blood. The silence around him was deafening. The headlights of Dean’s car shone spotlights between the densely packed trees like a beacon telling him to run, but he couldn’t run. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere to go.From above, it began to snow. From below, the ground began to shiver.Asmodeus, the darkness whispered in his ear. My name is Asmodeus. It's nice to meet you again, Castiel.When he blinked, everything turned to black.