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The concepts of family and religion make Claire sick to her stomach.They used to be comforting and familiar. An angel, of all things, ripped that away from her. Now all they do is leave her with a sour taste in her mouth and rage clutching her chest.Her father's corpse has been stalking her. Being an angel one would think he'd be better at covering his tracks, but Claire's hunted enough angels to know the signs.
She feels eyes watching her. She lights a cigarette half-hanging out of her mouth, and tries to resist the urge to turn around and find those damning eyes. He'll come to her when he's ready, with no consideration into her own feelings about it.
An angel hellbent on gaining forgiveness. How fucking ironic.Claire flicks ash onto the pavement that makes up the motel room parking lot she's in. Sure enough, she hears footsteps moving towards her. She sighs out smoke. She's had a very long couple of days, two back-to-back hunts that took up most of her sleeping hours; she doesn't have the energy for this right now. But when did it ever matter what she wanted?“Claire,” her warped father's voice says to her.Claire drops her cigarette and stomps on it. “Castiel.”“You… shouldn’t be smoking. It's not good for you.”That pisses her off more than it usually would.“Fuck you, Castiel,” she snaps, voice shaking with anger. “You don't get to tell me how to live my fucking life. I don't want you near me anyways, so fuck off.”Castiel has the audacity to look offended. Claire scoffs at his incredulous face. She has to look away when he frowns. It reminds her too much of--No, we are not doing that. We're not going there, she thinks to herself.
“Claire, I just wanted to ask if… if you need anything. I have cash, or I could get a better car for you, or--”“The fuck is wrong with my car?” she retorts before she can stop herself. Not the important part, but offense at his statement rolls through her anyways.“Well, I've noticed it's not very reliable and--”“Don't touch my fucking car,” Claire snaps at him. “Just go, Castiel.”She turns and walks away from him, footsteps swift as if he's not able to catch up with her easily.
He does. He grabs her arm and, without thinking, she whirls around and punches him in the nose.
She hears a crack but Castiel looks unaffected. Just… sad.“I think you broke your hand,” Castiel mumbles, almost looking ashamed.Claire grits her teeth. Her eyes betray her as they fill with unshed tears.“Leave me alone!” she shouts. She takes off running in the other direction.She isn't sure how long she runs, just knows that when she stops, the town she's staying in has disappeared and she is now surrounded by woods. Her hand pulses with pain, already blotchy with bruises, and she curls it towards her chest, trying not to sob.
Fucking angels. Angels who don't know a single damn thing about humans, but try to act above them. She wants to hunt down every last one of them and rip their wings off. Never mind the fact that she's just a hunter, a young one at that, and she's alone in her crusade.
Well. She's been alone for a long damn time now. So alone it is.A few days later, hand now wrapped in a brace, Claire sleeps. She dreams.She dreams of her mother braiding her hair, of Thanksgiving dinner, of playing house with neighborhood friends in the backyard. She dreams of cold, blue eyes out of her reach.She's next to a lake. The water is calm. Fog moves slowly around the edge. It's isolated, but it's comfortable. Quiet.“Claire?”Claire freezes. No, not here. Not now.She turns slowly, and finds her father's corpse looking at her. She knows instantly that it's not her dad. The way he's standing, the furrowed brow, the deeper voice; that's all Castiel.He steps closer to her and she takes a step back. He understands and keeps his distance.
“What are you doing here?” Claire asks.“I wanted to check on your hand. When you wake, I can heal it for you.”Claire frowns. “When I wake… am I dreaming? Wait, are you… really here? In my head?”“Yes.”Claire groans. “Dude, that's creepy as fuck. Get out of my head.”Castiel looks uncomfortable. “I only came because… I heard your longing. In your dreams.”Fear grips her heart in an icy grasp, but she tries to play it off, acting annoyed.“Whatever. You probably would've showed up anyways, like you always do. Can't angels take a hint?”“I think the punch was an unsubtle hint for me,” Castiel jokes lightly. He says it hesitantly, looking almost afraid of her reaction. She rolls her eyes and he relaxes.“Then why do you keep showing up?”“Because… I feel like I can help you, if you accept.”“No you don’t,” Claire scoffs. “All you want is to be forgiven for ruining my life.”Castiel looks down at the ground. Claire looks at him smugly. Gotcha.“Perhaps that's true. All the same, I want to help.”He sounds earnest, which rubs Claire the wrong way.It would be so much easier if he had no remorse for what he's done, if he didn't care whether she lived or died. Then she could just spend the rest of her life hating him without a second thought. But with this pathetic display in front of her, she has these feelings of guilt for hating him so much. She scowls at that feeling; it has no place here.“Well… I guess you could heal my hand. The next time I see you, I mean. It hurts like a bitch.”Castiel looks a little bit pleased with himself. It makes Claire wish she had a gun.“Alright. Is there anything else I can do for you? Anything at all.”Claire cocks her head a little. A morbid curiosity fills her. “Is there any real way to hurt you? Besides an angel blade. Like if I need to punch you again.”“Well… yes. If I'm depowered properly, then I can bleed and feel pain just as a human does. But an angel blade is the most efficient way which… you don’t have, of course.”There's a bit of suspicion in Castiel's gaze, so Claire drops the subject.
Internally, she wonders how one does depower an angel properly.
“Well… good for you, I guess. Anyways, you can leave now,” Claire tells him, keeping her eyes on the water.
“Of course. I'll let you rest. If you need anything else, just pray for me.”A flash of pain goes through Claire. Prayer. Yeah, right. What did prayer ever get her, besides silence and a dead father and a missing mother?
Castiel fades and disappears.A couple hours later Claire wakes up to the sunrise. She watches the sun slowly fill her motel room, gray reaching towards light.“A depowered angel…” she mutters.Seems she has some research to do.Her hands are shaking as she lights a cigarette. Twilight moves into night where she stands on the porch in front of her room. The motel is mostly deserted, which is good. Anything could happen tonight.Everything is set up the way she needs it to be. She just hopes that Castiel wasn't spying on her as she prepared. She doesn't truly know how he'll react, so she needs to be ready for any scenario.She takes her time with her cigarette, trying to calm her nerves. It does the trick for a moment, but once it reaches the filter, she flicks it away and her nerves are shot again. She rubs her hands on her jeans.Claire looks into the night sky, and does something she vowed to never do again. She prays.“Castiel… I-I need you. I need your help,” she whispers. She feels like she's going to throw up.
And now she waits.It doesn't take too long; she's sitting on the edge of the bed inside when there's a soft rap on the door.In her hand are handcuffs carved in intricate runes; ones made for holding back the power of angels.She swallows, then opens the door.The element of surprise is on her side. As soon as she sees Castiel, hand still raised to knock, she slaps one cuff onto his wrist.“Claire--?”Before he can react, she grabs the other hand and secures the cuff into place. She yanks on the chain to bring him inside, Castiel stumbling, and shuts and locks the door.With his arms handcuffed in front of him, he makes quick work of figuring out the situation. When he realizes his powers are subdued, his eyes widen. Claire smirks, panting a little from anticipation.
She pulls out a gun from her waistband and points it at him.
“Sit.”He doesn't.“Claire, what is going on? What is this, what are these handcuffs?”She pistol-whips him across the face. When a streak of blood appears, Claire grows ecstatic.
“I said sit the fuck down.”Castiel feels her seriousness, her desperation. He looks at the chair placed in the center of the room, and sits.“Okay. You're in control here.”“You're damn fucking right I am,” she hisses. “Here's how this is going to go. You're going to sit there and be quiet. If you try to run, I will shoot you. If you try to attract attention, I will shoot you. If you try to talk me out of this, I will shoot you. Are we understood?”Castiel glowers at her. “Yes.”“Good,” she says, placing the gun back in her waistband. She grabs a knife from the table. “Let's get started.”She circles him with the knife in her shaking hand. Castiel glances down at it, then back to her face. It's set in grim determination, but there's a wavering to it.
“Claire… you don't have to do this-- Ah!”She slices him across the cheek not already bloodied. She grabs his hair on the back of his head and pulls.“What did I fucking say about talking me out of it?”
Castiel grits his teeth, panting. “Fine. Do this if you must. If this is what it takes for you to forgive me, then so be it.”Red-hot rage fills her vision. Before she can stop herself, she slams the knife into his thigh. Castiel bites back a scream, remembering her rule about being quiet.How fucking dare he give her permission to torture him.“You're fucking pathetic, Castiel,” she hisses.Castiel has the audacity to look broken up about it. “I know.”“This isn't about forgiveness. This is about punishment. This,” she leans in and slices down the center of his chest, blood blooming in a fine line. He grunts in pain. “Is about revenge.”Claire has gotten used to the stinging smell of blood by now. She's known blood most of her life. Seeing the angel bleed brings her a deep satisfaction that is almost primal. She feels half-crazed with the copper biting smell in the air and the red blossoming on Castiel's skin.She has a moment, just one second, where Castiel grunts in pain and it reminds her of her father.It's gone in a flash, forced away by Claire's mind.She slices at will, finding spots of sensitive skin and ripping away clothes to give her more access. Castiel is a soldier through and through; he grits his teeth together and makes little sound. He endures everything she throws at him, and it's making her feel even more enraged. Can’t he do anything right by her? Can't he be the whimpering, moaning mess that Claire wants him to be? But he takes each cut with a strong will.The worst part of it is the forgiveness and the resignation in his eyes. She wants him to hate her as much as she hates him, but there in his blue eyes that feel all-too-familiar, he watches her with a sense of sadness.She needs to change tactics, she realizes. Not in her right mind, she thinks quickly of the most effective way to break him.The idea comes with a feeling of a lightning strike across her body.Back turned to him, she sets her knife down on the table and breathes, steadying herself. Castiel breathes a small sigh of relief, bare chest heaving.“Are you satisfied, Claire?” he asks softly.She purses her lips in anger. She takes off her jacket, throwing it onto the motel bed.Finally she turns and looks at him. He senses the change in her demeanor and fidgets uncomfortably.“Did you know,” Claire says, moving closer to him. “That I would have dreams about my father?”To his horror, she straddles him in the chair. It feels foreign, perhaps even wrong, but Claire does not feel present at the moment. She feels like she's watching herself from above her body, setting events in motion like a puppeteer.
“Claire, stop--”“I would have dreams of him fucking me,” she tells him. His eyes widen. “They only started after he died. After you killed him. What do you think that means, Castiel?”She breathes along his neck, tasting his blood on her lips. He squirms underneath her and tries to move her off of him.“I-I don't know, Claire, but I promise, you don't want this--”“I'm only doing what you're making me do, Castiel. You turned me into this. This is your fault. Everything that happens in here is because of you.”To her delight, Castiel chokes out a soft sob. She kisses it from his lips.“No, please, stop--” he mutters in between kisses. She grabs a hold of his hair to keep him in place. With her other hand, she travels down his body, wet with blood, and grabs a hold of his cock through his pants.“Ah!” he cries.“See, Castiel? You're enjoying this,” she whispers against his lips. “I bet you've thought about this. Ever since you possessed me… you can't hide your true feelings. Not from me.”He adamantly shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut.“No, Claire, I promise,” he whimpers. She mocks his whimper.
“Don't act all high and mighty now,” she scoffs. She grinds on him, and he breaks out a soft moan. A look of horror washes over him. “You wanted this. You wanted me to make you feel better about destroying my family, right?”“Not-not like this, Claire. Please,” he begs. She has to admit that him begging her is a good feeling.What feels even better, in the haze of adrenaline, is her grinding against his lap and feeling his hard-on against her. It should feel wrong, it should stop her cold, but it feels poetic in a sense. The angel that fucked her over is going to get fucked whether he wants it or not.She wasn't lying about her dreams. The first time it happened, she was so revolted with herself she made herself throw up. After a while, though, with her father being truly gone and her mother abandoning her, she got a sick sense of comfort from them. Perhaps this is where her crazed idea came from; wanting that feeling again, while simultaneously able to punish the angel who caused it.Too late to back out now. Her heart racing, fingers shaking, she reaches down and takes him out of his pants. Castiel is struggling against her now, but without his powers, she's able to keep him in place with her arms and thighs around him. She shimmies out of her own pants and underwear quickly, not wanting to lose the control she has over him.
“Claire, it's not too late, please, just think for a minute--”“Shut up,” she growls, and without hesitating, she sinks down onto him.A mixture of pleasure, horror, shame, and ecstasy washes over her as the angel fills her. Castiel cries out loudly, enough for her to cover his mouth to keep him quiet. She rises and sinks down onto him, feeling his cock pulsate inside of her, or maybe that's from her.
“Look at me,” she murmurs. He doesn't, so she grabs a hold of his hair tighter. “I said, look at me.”What looks back at her is a broken angel. His lips tremble, his eyes are glazed over, his cock inside of her, and he's covered in streaks of his own blood. She has broken him, defeated him at last.She giggles, a half-broken sound that betrays her crumpled mind. She gets close to him, nose to nose, eyes that look so much like her own staring back at her with a gaunt terror.“I win,” she whispers.Castiel sobs.She chases her own pleasure, riding him, chair creaking underneath them. Castiel has stopped fighting her, acceptance sweeping across his face. She feels separated from her body, unable to orgasm, feeling on the precipice of it, but she still feels like she's riding a high she'll never come down from.After a while, she stops, breathing hard with exertion. Castiel looks numbed out, almost unresponsive, proof of her breaking him.She gets off of him and dresses herself. Castiel doesn't move or say anything, just watches her gather her things. She glances at her work one last time, committing it to memory. She thinks about her father's memory, and finds herself somewhat at peace.“Goodbye, Castiel,” she tells him.She leaves without looking back.The next week goes by in a fog.After leaving Castiel behind, she drove until the sun came up and she was practically falling asleep at the wheel. She pulled over to the side of the road and slept, until she woke up screaming from a nightmare.She hardly ate or slept the following days; she just drove, only stopping for gas. Her mind was quiet except for one thought: just keep going.
A week since leaving Castiel, Claire isn't sure where she's running to, she just knows that she has to keep at it. Her life feels pointless now that she got her revenge. She had glanced at a newspaper during one of her stops and saw a possible hunt, but it didn't compel her to see it through. So she kept driving, going west.She thinks about that night every waking moment, going over every detail in her mind. She feels numb to it, like it happened to someone else, except for the fact that it feels so clear to her. She remembers the taste of his blood, the feeling of him inside of her, his look of defeat at the end of it all. She doesn't know if she's supposed to learn a greater lesson from this, or if she had just gone insane. Maybe both.But if she's learned one thing from all of this, it's this: forgiveness is overrated.