When they meet Jack at the school, he proudly announces that he's met a witch.
"Excuse me?" says Dean.
"Her name is Haleigh," Jack says. "She's nice! She let me sit at her lunch table. She told me the other kids were 'assholes'. I think she's right," he adds, like this fact frustrates him.
"I mean, yeah, kid, I could have told you that. Grade schoolers are the nastiest little bastards on the planet," Dean says. "Get to the part where she's a witch?"
"Well, she didn't tell me she was a witch, but a girl named Jamie stopped me and told me that Haleigh was a gay witch who put curses on people, and that she hid knives in her locker, and that I shouldn't talk to her again. I thought Jamie was lying, but Haleigh did have strange symbols drawn on her notebook."
Dean massages his temples. "Right. Okay. So, what? We break into Sabrina's locker, see if we find any hex bags or whatever?"
"Her name is Haleigh," Jack says kindly.
"You really are Cas's son," Dean says.
They drive back to the motel to loop Sam in, and Jack draws the symbols he could remember from Haleigh's notebook. Mostly it's the kind of stuff Dean would expect from a goth fourteen year old, pentagrams and anarchy symbols and even the classic Cool S, but there is one that catches Cas and Sam's eyes.
"This is real magic," Sam says.
Cas nods. "The sigil is meant to concentrate existing magical power, to… to amplify it. This Haleigh might actually be a witch."
"Right," Sam says slowly. "But, okay, hear me out… Even if she is, is she hurting anyone? All she did was light a bush on fire and make every day Fishstick Friday."
"She's not hurting anyone now," Dean says. "But what if the junior arsonist decides the shrubbery was just practice for the class bully? Shouldn't we, y'know, intervene before she escalates?"
"Are we her guidance counselors now?"
"C'mon, Sam," Dean groans. "You're the one who's always telling me to get in touch with my feelings and singing about how the children are our future."
"Is she even doing it on purpose?"
"If it's not on purpose, all the more reason to step in before she makes a mistake she can't undo."
"I could talk to her," Jack says, and stops the two of them arguing. "She was nice. She let me have her cookie after they ran out in the lunch line. I don't think she's a bad person."
"We should at least figure out where she got the sigil from," Sam concedes. "Okay. I guess… check her locker for any other evidence. If we don't find anything… it's up to Jack."
It's not hard at all to hack into the computer system to find out which locker is Haleigh's. Sam goes in all prepared to flex whatever skills he's got, but the password to the Principal's account is stuck to her monitor with a post-it note. They creep through the empty halls, guided by flashlights, until they come upon it, and they might have known which one was hers anyway just by looking— someone has very helpfully scrawled some rather rude words across the door. Jack frowns at the sight of it, and at first Dean thinks he's upset on behalf of his new little school buddy, but then the padlock snaps open without so much as being touched.
"Holy— Hey, nice trick," he whispers.
"Cas taught me that one," Jack says proudly. Cas pats him on the shoulder while Sam undoes the lock and swings the locker door open.
And it's… normal. There are some magazine pages taped to the inside, pictures of celebrities Dean's never heard of, and a handful of textbooks lined up at the bottom, and an empty shelf above them, and… nothing. Sam hunches over in front of it, reaching a long arm in to root around, looking for anything hidden, anything they might have missed, even flips through the textbooks, but there's just nothing to be found. His jaw works as he shuts the door behind him and replaces the lock, thinking. Dean can tell Sam's just about to admit defeat when they hear a clatter at the far end of the hallway.
Dean snaps to attention, hand over the weapon at his back pocket. The doors to the classrooms all have one small pane of glass in them, and at this hour, all of them are dark, except one. A solid block of light projects against the far wall. They hear a snatch of music start, and then stop.
On full alert, they tread quietly towards the disturbance. Dean and Sam move into position, flanking either side of the door. Dean peeks in at a sharp angle. Inside, there's a black-clad figure holding a knife over a copper mixing bowl. The room is bathed in an otherworldly pink glow. He gives Sam the signal, nods once, counts to three. Sam thrusts the door open and rushes in, flicking the lights on.
There's a high pitched shriek and a clang as the girl inside drops her knife, which strikes the side of the bowl and sends it clattering to the floor, along with its contents. She's got a tripod set up on one of the desks, and she drops to the ground, cowering under it.
"Haleigh?" Jack stands between her and Sam, peering down.
"Who's there?" comes Haleigh's quivering, tearful voice. Dean and Sam exchange looks, relaxing their stances. Whatever Haleigh is, she's pretty convincingly not a threat.
"It's Jack."
A head peeks out from behind the desk, tearful eyes surrounded by thickly-applied purple eyeshadow. "Jack…? Wh— what are you— who are—"
"We're here to help."
Sam examines Haleigh's setup more closely, his eyes scanning over the mess she's made of it, and at the open book on the desk by her tripod. "This is… This is some seriously powerful stuff for a kid to be messing with."
"Who are you?" Haleigh scoots away from Sam, her voice quaking.
"It's okay," Jack says, and kneels down to help Haleigh stand. She's short, pale, and round-faced, with dark, tightly-curled hair, and her school uniform is doctored to the point where she looks like she could be auditioning for The Craft. Dean must be old, if stuff from when he was a high schooler has looped back around to being cool again. "This is my family."
Haleigh looks frantically between the three of them, and then at Sam and Dean in particular.
"Your dads?"
"Yes."
"Jack," Dean sputters, "man, you gotta stop telling people— We're not," he starts to tell Haleigh, who frowns up at him with enormous brown eyes. He coughs, clears his throat. "I'm Dean, this is my brother, Sam, and this over here," he says, "is Cas. We're not here to hurt you."
"Pearl dust, dandelion pods… This, this incantation, this is all wish-granting magic," says Sam. Haleigh looks at him in alarm, her chin wobbling.
"How did you know that?"
"This is what we do," Dean says. Haleigh looks between the four of them, her hands shaking, looking like she'd have bolted already if they weren't blocking the door. "Now just calm down, and tell us what's going on."
"Were you the one who caused the 'miracles'?" Jack asks. Tears track their way down Haleigh's cheeks when she nods.
"Why are you in here recording yourself casting spells?" Sam's doing his very best trust-me-I'm-sensitive voice, and damn him, it works, because Haleigh's shoulders seize and she lets out a great shuddering sob.
"It— it's for TikTok," she whimpers.
"What's TikTok?" comes a chorus of four separate voices. Dean scowls at Sam, who shrugs his enormous shoulders. Haleigh takes her phone off its tripod and thumbs through something on her phone before turning it around so they can see. Dean squints, leaning closer.
There's a video of Haleigh, dressed similarly to how she is now, in a darkened classroom lit only by colorful cycling LEDs. She bops around to a track Dean could only call music if he were feeling very charitable, adding pouches of ingredients to a mortar and pestle and reciting incantations that are helpfully captioned on the tiny screen.
"This is my most popular video," she says in a wavering voice. "I started getting tons more views when I posted real spells."
"How many people have seen this?" Cas asks.
"Um… like… five hundred thousand…"
"Five hundred—" Sam chokes, running his hand back through his hair and pacing in a circle. "That can't be right."
"I don't know, but that's how many views it's got… Am… Am I in trouble?" Haleigh's eyes fill with tears again. "Are you gonna tell my mom?"
"Look, no, we're not gonna narc on you, kiddo," Dean says. "But you gotta cool it with this shit or someone's gonna get hurt. Magic isn't something you wanna go messing with just to make it big on the internet. Where did you even get all this stuff?"
"Mom and I stayed in the city over Christmas break, and I… I told her I was going to walk down to the Kroger, but there was this cool magic shop, and… I told the lady about Witchtok, and she said I could have the book for free if I did a blessing for her." Haleigh sniffs once, loud and wet. "She was like, super nice."
Sam's lips thin. "Haleigh," he says carefully. "Can you show us the blessing?"
—
They drop Haleigh off quietly, about a block away from her house, so she can sneak back in without being caught. She cooperated with a firm but gentle request to delete some of her videos and to surrender the spell book. Jack's got the name of a magic shop in Indianapolis on a scrap of paper. He traded it for his phone number, which is actually just Cas's phone number, since Jack doesn't have one of his own yet, but Haleigh's promised to give them a call if she's ever in real trouble.
Back at the motel, Sam finally lets how stressed he is show.
"We have no idea what we're walking into here. We have no idea how much bad mojo this witch has been skimming off these kids, or if Haleigh's even the only one."
Calling the spell Haleigh showed them a blessing wouldn't be totally inaccurate, if you happened to be the target. In truth, it was an energy transfer spell. On a small scale, it wouldn't necessarily hurt its caster— much. It had taken some coaxing to get Haleigh to admit that the spell only called for a little bit of blood. If she'd drained herself dry, it might have been a real dark magic power boost, but on its own, it wouldn't do much.
Unless you somehow managed to get hundreds of people across the country to participate.
"Honestly, I'm kinda surprised no one's tried it sooner," Dean says. "Modernized the dark arts. Friggin'... crowdsourced human sacrifice."
"I don't like going in half-blind either, but we have to put a stop to it," Cas says, then turns her gaze to Jack, who's already been texting rapidly with Haleigh on Cas's phone. The kid's only a few months old, and he's already glued to that damn screen, Dean thinks, amusing himself. "You've done good here, Jack. Without you, we might never have known."
"She's asked for a photo to use in her contacts. Can I take one with you?"
Dean snorts. "I think she probably just wants one of you."
"But it's Cas's phone."
"Okay, here," Dean says, and grabs Cas's phone out of Jack's hand. He waves Cas and Jack over, until they're in the frame together. "Do a duckface."
Dean snaps the photo right when Cas squints, asking, "What face does a duck make?" It might be the funniest goddamn thing he's ever seen.
"There you go," he says, and hands the phone back. "Send me a copy of that, will you?"
"I'll hit the net again, see what I can find out about this shop," Sam says, a deep crease between his eyebrows as he settles into a chair and flips open the laptop. Dean walks over, ruffles his hair, and Sam slaps his hand away, scowling.
"Unclench," Dean says. "Leave it for the morning. We've fried bigger fish. We'll ride in, do some recon, all goes well, maybe we put a bullet in a witch. Wham bam."
"Yeah. Yeah, okay."
—
Dean looks around the room. He could call it his. He's been here longer than anywhere else. Longer than Lawrence, longer than Lebanon. This was the first place he made his own, the first place he left his mark on.
There's a soul right there on the rack, all lined up, all strapped down, waiting for him to leave his mark there, too.
Things take shape the way he expects them to, here. Days pass like years, but bodies mean little beyond what meaning his human mind assigns to them. The soul he sees takes a familiar shape. He spent a year with it, fighting next to it, getting close to it. For a short while, real close. Broad shoulders, a strong jaw, a close-cropped beard. Bright blue eyes looking up at him, trusting him. The man on the rack is nude, his thick chest and belly covered in a layer of downy hair, rising and falling evenly.
"It's all right, brother," Benny says. "Go ahead."
Benny winces at the first cut, his throat working. By the time Dean gets to the third, he's screaming. As long as Dean's been doing this, it starts to fade out into just so much background noise. Anyway, the screams are nothing compared to the sound the sound the saw makes when it hits bone, or the crack of the ribs.
When he reaches into the cavity, Benny's lips are slick with blood. Benny's mouth always tasted like copper. He finds what he's looking for, clutches it in his fist. Benny's bright eyes have gone hazy. Dean knows what it feels like, has been on the other end of it often enough to know that at a certain point, the capacity to process the pain fails, all sensations blurring into a great blankness. He's felt that way for longer than he can remember now.
"It's okay," Benny says. His voice is nothing but a wet sound, the sound of meat hitting a cutting board.
The heart pulls free with some effort. Dean is coated to his bicep in gore, the smell of it thick and metallic. It's a greater effort still to get his teeth through it, to tear the meat and chew.
This is how the Angel finds him. Its thousand eyes burn with holy fire, its many wings flapping so greatly it nearly sends Dean to his knees. He can't look directly at it. It sears with pain when he tries, pain he didn't know he had the capability to feel any longer. God help him, it hurts.
A hand grips his shoulder, and something washes over him, so cold it burns. He feels like he's being flayed apart. He wants it. He wishes the Angel would burn him to ash, and salt the ashes, and burn them again, until nothing is left.
The voice rattles in his skull like rocks from a cliffside: Dean Winchester is saved.
—
Dean wakes up in Redbud, Indiana. Sam is asleep in the bed next to his, and Jack is on the pull-out couch across the room. Dean's clothes are damp and tacky with sweat, the sheets half torn off the mattress underneath him. Castiel is sitting next to him, holding his shoulder. Some of her hair has come loose, and it stretches down toward him as she leans over. It's hard to make out her expression in the dark. Dean feels viscous blood running down his throat, choking him. His chest works, struggling to take breath.
"Dean, it's okay. You're okay," Castiel whispers fervently. "You're having a nightmare. It's all right."
Dean tries to speak, and it comes out as a whimper. Castiel's face crumples, and she swipes a thumb across his forehead, cradling his face. Ice-cold, her grace shivers through him, then just as suddenly, he's warm all over, the rabbit-pace of his heartbeat easing. His throat relaxes, and air rushes into his lungs. His head swims with it. Cas just keeps stroking her fingers across his temple, through his hair. When he feels like he can sit up without getting dizzy, he pushes her away, tearing the sheets off and staggering into the bathroom. He can't look her in the eye right now.
He takes a shower even though it's 3 AM, scrubs until he can't feel blood caking under his nails, and when he comes back out wrapped in a towel, Castiel is still sitting right where he left her on the bed, watching the bathroom door. He rushes past, digging for his clothes in his travel bag.
Cas doesn't say anything. Dean isn't sure if that's better or worse than being asked if he's okay again. Dean yanks his clothes on, beyond caring how much Cas can see. "I'm going outside," he rasps. "Don't wait up."
The whiskey is right where he left it in the glove compartment, and he takes a long pull, gasping after he swallows, his throat burning.
The Hell dreams still get him, sometimes, even when he's had enough to drink to shut his brain up, but it's never been quite like this before. He's never dreamt of that moment. He knows it didn't really happen like that, that Benny had never set foot in Hell. He's been in Purgatory since before Dean was born. But some other soul was there, and another before that, and another, and another. Too many to count.
Dean thinks about Cas, holding his hand, calling his soul 'beautiful'. He thinks about Benny, all loyalty and trust, while he stood there and watched Dean take a blade to his neck. Then he drinks until he can't think about it anymore.
—
Indianapolis is, by technical definition, a city. Dean's never found it all that much to write home about, though compared to Redbud, it's a booming beacon of civilization.
The shop they're looking for, The Ivory Key, is tucked into a crumbling brick building in a quiet neighborhood. The place is choked with tchotchkes and smells powerfully of incense, beaded ribbons and talismans dangling low from the ceiling so that Sam has to duck to avoid getting a faceful. A bell rings when they open the door, and a hunched white woman in her fifties emerges from behind a curtain, squinting at them through thick-lensed eyeglasses that would look at home in an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
"Afternoon," she says.
"Ma'am," Dean says, with his most charming smile.
"You looking for anything special, or just looking?"
"Well, we were hoping you might be able to tell us something about this?" Dean's hand is over the gun in his pocket when Sam holds up the spell book for the clerk to see.
Her eyes flick to Sam's. Aside from that, she doesn't react. Dean holds position, his fingers twitching. Before either of them can move, another voice comes from the back room, thin and lilting.
"It's all right, dear. Let them come back."
The clerk scans over the four of them, tense and untrusting, but after a moment, she holds the curtain back, ushering them in. Dean catches Castiel's eye, then Sam's. He pulls the pistol from his pocket, holds it ready just in case, letting the clerk see him do it. Try anything and I'll smoke you and your friend, is the implicit warning, but she's not fazed by it in the slightest.
The back room is lined with shelves and drawers. A candle flickers away on a desk littered with jars and stacks of books. In the center of all this is an overstuffed chair, in which a small, fine-boned woman sits. Her face is long and sharp, her copper-red hair cropped short and curling around her ears. Her vibrant eye makeup matches the jewel tones of her long dress, and she reclines with all the careless attitude of the cat who caught the canary.
"Hello, boys," says Rowena, her painted mouth curling into a smile. She gives Sam a long once-over before her eyes drift across to the rest of them, and when she lands on Cas, her smile curves even wider, her eyebrows rising into her hairline. "Hello, girls! Is that you, angel face?" Cas shifts awkwardly next to Dean, and Rowena's eyes sparkle with mirth, taking her in. "You look fabulous. Your fashion sense could still use a lot of help, but I have to say, whoever did your work is an artist." She leans forward, her motions slow and deliberate. "If you'd have let me do it, I could have helped you find a better ensemble. But I suppose that just wasn't in the cards, aye?"
Cas just frowns at her, at a loss. Dean doesn't really know what to say either, because last he heard, he was pretty sure Rowena was a smoking pile of bones crushed under Lucifer's heel.
"Go on," she says, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Ask me."
Sam speaks on behalf of the both of them. "Rowena... how are you—"
"Samuel, dearest, you should know better than to think something piddly like dying means anything to me, by now." A finely manicured hand reaches up to toy with a short lock of hair behind her ear. "I always have a back-up plan."
Sam huffs, his jaw working. "Does that back-up plan involve tricking a bunch of kids into doing blood sacrifices? That how you got juiced back up?"
"Blood sacrifices." Rowena scoffs, her mouth round and offended. "Papercuts! They've had worse going for their shots at the doctor's. It was just a wee little gift, in exchange for all the help I gave them. Surely there's nothing wrong with that."
Sam frowns down at her. She sighs laboriously.
"Oh, Sam, I did miss your moral posturing so."
"You've got five minutes to explain yourself, Rowena," Dean says. He clicks the gun's safety off as punctuation.
"What's to explain?" Rowena scoffs. "A little pinch here, a little dab there, all freely given, and not a drop of that power will ever be missed! I'm not harming anyone!"
"You manipulated little girls into bleeding themselves for you," Dean says. "How much teen spirit you got coursin' through your veins right now?"
Rowena's smile falls. "Would you like to find out, lad?"
Cas rushes forward, standing in front of Dean like a shield. Dean grabs Cas's shoulder, wrenching her aside, but Rowena doesn't move an inch from where she's sitting, enveloped by the chair.
"We can't let you keep doing this," Sam says. "Argue all you want, but you know if you hurt innocent people, we are duty bound to hunt you."
"Hunt me?" Rowena huffs a voiceless laugh. Her arm moves, and Dean raises the gun in his hand on instinct, but she doesn't cast. She reaches down slowly and deliberately, grasping something by her feet, propped against the arm of the chair— a cane, black with gold trim— and pushing herself to standing. Rowena's arm begins to tremble with effort. Her feet haltingly anchor her to the floor, knees threatening to buckle underneath her. Her knuckles are white, the skin thin where she grips the handle. Dean hears Sam breathe in sharply when she begins to flicker, like a TV signal going out. One moment, she's resplendent in royal purples. The next, she's pale and gray. The shadows under her eyes are pronounced, her face clean of makeup. When she reaches her full height, she looks very small in the cramped room. "Look at me. Look at what he's made of me. Would you call it hunting to kill an animal caught in a trap, wasting away?"
"Rowena," Sam says, stricken.
"He made a ruin of me." Rowena's voice is low and wounded. Her body quakes to stand. She looks like she might crumple, but Sam ducks to catch her arm, his hand at her back guiding her back into her chair. "I can't just— I can't just lie here, helpless, when he might—"
"Lucifer is gone," Sam says, bent to one knee. Dean hates the way Sam sounds as he says it, like he's a child again, in need of protection that Dean isn't big enough or strong enough to give him. The very thought of Lucifer reverts Sam to a smaller version of himself, and he doesn't even have to be in the same room to do it. He doesn't even have to be on the same damn plane of existence. "He's trapped. He can't get to you here."
"Even if I believed that was true," says Rowena, steeling herself, "Which I do not, because I didn't live this long by being a damned fool… I'm as helpless as a babe now. I survived, yes, but the cost was tremendous. As you can see." She breathes out a trembling sigh. "I didn't want you to see."
Sam's hand is balled into a fist by Rowena's knee. She slides a hand over it. Dean can see the slight tremor as she does so.
"I want myself back," she says. "I want to be whole again. Surely you can understand that, Sam?"
Dean's head falls back in frustration. He already knows how this is going to end, because he knows his brother. He glances over at Cas to see if he can at least get some backup in his displeasure, but his heart sinks when he sees the look on Cas's face. Outnumbered two to one, then.
Sam looks back over his shoulder, pleading. Dean clenches his teeth.
"So, what, you just want to let her get off scot-free?"
"That's not— Of course not, but… Come on, Dean." Sam pushes himself up, walks over to talk quietly to Dean, like they're not in a room the size of a walk-in closet. "I think we should keep an eye on her for a while."
"Keep an— you mean you want to move to goddamn Indiana, or you want Rowena to be our newest roommate?"
Rowena scoffs. "He means he wants to put me under house arrest."
Sam gestures like he actually thinks that's a great idea and not a desperate attempt to soften the blow of whatever it is he thinks he's doing. "Yeah, kind of. Look, we can watch her, make sure she doesn't do anything, you know—"
"Evil," Dean says.
"Necessary," Rowena corrects.
"Stupid," Sam says. "And Rowena, you'll be safe with us. I promise you, nobody wants to keep Lucifer locked up more than we do." Sam sounds so earnest it hurts, and even Rowena's resistance seems to have softed. "You can get your strength back. It's not a terrible idea. Right Cas?"
Dean gives Cas his best please do not betray me look. It has no effect.
"Dean," she says. Here it comes. "If we give Rowena time to heal, she might be able to help us with something important down the line."
"What is so damn important that we need to shack up with the witch? Do I have to remind you the shit she's done to us? To you in particular?"
"I'm fully aware," Cas says. She's got that stubborn look in her eye that Dean's seen a hundred times before, usually before she did something to recklessly endanger herself. "But she needs our help. And so does Mary."
Dean's stomach turns over, and he knows he's lost the argument. Not just to Cas and Sam, but to himself. "She can't… You think she can help us save Mom like this?"
"Not now. But maybe if we help her recover, she'll be inclined to help us when she's able."
"I knew I liked you, Castiel." Rowena says. "Listen to your very sensible feathered friend and your much more handsome brother, Dean."
Dean's cheek spasms.
"Fine, whatever," he says. He pockets his gun, brushing Cas off when she goes to touch his shoulder and storming back out into the shop. "Trust the witch. It's on your ass when it goes south."
—
Rowena has more bags than can fit in the trunk. She insists that she will have her friend send them along, and makes Sam sit with her in the backseat holding one. She's asked Cas to sit on her other side, so Jack's got shotgun while she's sandwiched between her and Sam in the back. Dean's got a headache already.
Rowena also insists that she won't stay anywhere with less than three stars, and as they're driving through Missouri she does some wizardry on her phone and then dictates exactly where they'll be going, like she's the queen of the road and not some wrung-out criminal on a semi-voluntary trip to a very homey prison cell.
Seeing their set of rooms softens Dean's displeasure a little bit, though. He can count on one hand the number of times he's stayed in a hotel as nice as... whatever this one is. He peers around at the room, catching the Marriott logo on a pad of paper by one of the beds. Right, that one.
They've been cagey with her about exactly who Jack is, which is probably for the best, because right now they're getting along swimmingly. Jack is polite and respectful and has the benefit of never having met Rowena when she was trailing around after the King of Hell alternately trying to get into his good graces or have him killed, depending on her fickle moods. Right now she's propped up on a pile of fluffy white pillows in the middle of a bed much larger than she, introducing Jack to the wonderful world of reality television. Dean's never met a "real" housewife who looked like that. He hopes it doesn't give Jack a warped view of the world to see a bunch of rich people with no jobs except to bitch at each other about brunch invitations all day.
"Free breakfast," Sam says, looking at the listed amenities with raised eyebrows.
"Don't think you can bribe me with a stale muffin," Dean says. He hopes Sam doesn't expect Jack to stay in this room with Rowena alone. He doesn't trust her not to figure out Jack's a little more juiced up than a regular kid and try to take advantage of that, or worse, find out he's Lucifer's kid.
"There's a self-serve waffle maker," Sam adds with a little smile. Dean points an accusing finger at him.
"Don't think you can bribe me with all-you-can-eat waffles, either." Dean mills around the room, peeking into what he hopes is a mini-bar, but is actually just an empty mini-fridge. He slaps the door shut with an irritated noise.
"I miss waffles," Cas says a little wistfully. Dean puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I promise not to eat any in front of you, then."
"I like watching you eat," she says. "You enjoy it."
Dean's neck feels hot. He turns away, fiddling with the dial on the AC unit by the window.
"This is all on my tab, boys," Rowena says. "There's a restaurant downstairs, but I think some room service is in order, don't you?"
"Do we even want to know how you've got the money for this?" Sam says, looking down at her with his arms crossed over his broad chest, like she would ever be intimidated by that.
"No, you absolutely don't," she says sweetly, and flips open the menu on her side table.
Dean tries to relax and enjoy the rare luxury, escaping to the second room to take the hottest shower he can after eating the most overpriced hamburger he has ever encountered. He uses all the little free shampoos and soaps and lotions, toweling off and changing out of his car-stale clothes. There's some dumbshit movie on about Samuel L. Jackson fighting a bunch of snakes on a plane, but all the cussing's been edited out, and maybe another time that would be hilarious enough to distract him, but his brain is buzzing, and all he can think about is that a drink would really quiet that the hell down.
When he goes on a hunt with Sam, he expects they'll see some kind of action. A little adrenaline, a little hot-blooded firefight. Maybe he ends the day with a few bruises and a split lip, or worse, but he also sleeps like a damn baby. He woke up this morning expecting a chase. Now he's like a dog in a kennel, all pent up with nowhere to run.
He goes downstairs and tries having a drink at the hotel bar, but that just makes him feel itchy and out of place. It's not a shithole, is the problem. He feels anonymous and forgettable in dive bars, maybe just interesting enough to find someone to spend the night with and nothing more. But here, it's just guys in dress pants and CNN on the television. He puts the tab on their room's bill and clears out after just one drink.
The little general store in the lobby proves more fruitful. They sell snacks and toiletries there, but they also sell liquor. Dean takes his buddy Jack Daniels outside so they can lean against the side of the Impala together, drinking and watching the sun go down over the office park next door.
Cas approaches when it's just getting dark. Her hair is loose around her shoulders. She must have let it down while the weird little family vacation they've got going was watching TV upstairs. Dean kind of wants to get his hands in it. He buries the urge by shoving a hand in his pocket and taking another swig.
"Here you are," she says, shoulders sinking in relief. "I thought maybe you would be downstairs. The clerk told me you left."
"Just gettin' some air," Dean says, and slides to the side a little bit to allow Cas room. She hesitates a moment before joining him, her shoulder nearly touching his where she leans against the side door. She looks up at the sky, faded blue where it meets the horizon. There's too much light pollution out here. Dean wonders if angels can see the stars even when it's light out, or if they just see the same barely-there pinpricks humans do. "Want some?"
Cas looks at the bottle in his hand like it's a puzzle. "You know I can't really taste it."
"'Sup to you." Dean holds the bottle out towards her with a shrug. She looks at him a moment, then takes it, bringing the bottle to her lips and taking a generous sip. She lets it sit in her mouth a moment, then swallows. The shine it leaves on her lips catches the glint of the streetlights in the parking lot. She hands the bottle back to Dean, her head canting to the side. "Well?"
"It tastes like Diet Coke."
"What?" Dean snorts. "How do you figure?"
"Everything does," Cas says, her voice low, and her face falls into a little pout of consternation. Dean tries to smother a smile. "It's all just… molecules and chemical compounds. The only thing I can compare it to is Diet Coke. It always tasted like that, even when I was human."
Dean can't stop himself from grinning at that. "Well, I guess this is just one more thing I'll have to enjoy for the both of us." He nudges her shoulder with his, then takes another drink, trying not to notice her watching him.
They sit in companionable silence for a while, watching the sky grow darker and listening to cars pass by on the highway. Dean steals a glance, looking at the dark hair that spreads out over her shoulders.
"You took it out," he says. Cas stills, but doesn't look at him. "You want me to fix it again, or d'you like it better down?"
"I…" Dean feels his face growing hot the longer it takes her to say anything. He clears his throat.
"Just offering, you don't gotta. I mean, if you don't want—"
"No, I like it," she says. "You can… Please, if you don't mind."
"Nah, it's no problem," Dean says, and sets the bottle on the ground, gesturing for Cas to stand in front of him, facing away. She goes obediently, tilting her head back to allow him better access.
He doesn't have a hairbrush, which is how he excuses getting all ten of his fingers on her head and scratching his way down her scalp, gently tugging his fingers through to get the tangles out. There aren't many snags this time, and he gradually combs it out, tucking it behind her ears and trying to brush it away from her face as best he can before he starts braiding. There's a few wispy little stray hairs at the back of her neck that escape no matter how much he tries to manipulate them. When he reaches the end, it takes real effort to summon his voice to ask if she's got a tie. Cas holds up her hand. The tie is secured around her wrist. Dean slips his finger under it, easing it over and off her rigid hand. Her fingers are long, the nails blunt and short.
Dean ties off the braid, then gives it a gentle tug. "All right, you can turn around now."
Castiel turns where she stands. Shadows carve hard lines across her features and make her blue eyes as dark as the sky. A long, curling lock of hair rests on her cheek.
"How do I look?" Cas holds herself very still. Dean's teeth swipe across his lip.
"Uh, you've got a little... " He points, then reaches out, brushing it away from her forehead. Cas sucks in a sharp breath. Her eyelashes flutter. In the dark, she looks so much like her old vessel.
Dean startles when she reaches up, grasping his wrist and holding it still.
"Stop." Castiel's voice is strained, like it's taking all of her strength just to speak. Dean's stomach drops and cold anxiety creeps in. Her fingers tighten on his wrist. Dean flinches.
"Sorry. Shit, Cas, I didn't mean to—" Dean tries to pull his hand away. Castiel holds tight, swaying into his space, so close that his breathing stirs the hair falling into her face. He tenses, sucking in his stomach, trying to curl away from her. Dean's breath feels too loud, his heartbeat in his ears drowning out the sound of his own voice. "Cas?"
"Please," Cas breathes. "Please, just—" Her gaze is fixed somewhere low, unable to meet his eyes. "You keep touching me," she says. Her voice is practically a whisper. "If you don't stop, I won't be able to stop wanting it."
Dean swallows hard, unable to move. "Why the hell would I want you to stop?"
Castiel's eyes snap to his, and then he's being backed against the car, his wrist gripped tightly in her fist, pinned to the metal. Her body slots up against his, knee to chest, but it's Dean who falls in to press their mouths together. Castiel is hard and unyielding against him, lips parting in shock, nothing but bruising pressure and teeth, until Dean licks his way in, canting his head until the kiss shifts into an easy, wet slide. Cas groans into his mouth. Dean's free hand reaches up, finding the curve of Castiel's jaw and cradling it, urging Cas closer.
He's thought about this before. He can admit that to himself, here in the moment. He's wondered what it might be like to kiss Cas, to be kissed by Cas. Fleeting thoughts of clueless fumbling from a being who had next to no experience, or later, thoughts of a bloodied mouth meeting his, tasting copper and then healing it all with a touch. None of that compares to the reality of Castiel crowding against him like any space between them is too much, opening up for him so eagerly. A leg slots between his, and, helplessly, Dean grinds against it. Sparks of pleasure burst through him, up his spine, until he's dizzy with it.
To their left, a burst of unfamiliar laughter and catcalls startles him. He yanks his head back, knocking it against the roof of the car. Someone's seen them. Of course someone has, he thinks furiously, because he and Cas are making out in the fucking parking lot where anyone could see them. Icy cold panic lights up his nerves, killing all the giddy excitement of the minutes before. Someone saw them. They'll know.
Frantic, Dean scans the parking lot to see a group of twenty-somethings in rumpled dress shirts, all men, who look like they've already been partying for a while. They're jeering and hollering at the two of them. He shoves Cas away, stumbling back and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
But the guys just move on, heading into the hotel lobby. In the quiet, Dean looks back at Castiel, and it hits him. They don't know who Cas is. They can't see anything but what their eyes tell them. As far as the men who just walked by know, Castiel is a woman, and Dean's a man.
The relief rocks him like a wave. It's followed soon after by shame, creeping in sick and slow, because what kind of a coward does that make him?
He swipes his hand back through his hair. His mouth still tastes like whiskey.
"Sorry," he croaks. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've— Shit."
"Dean," Cas starts, but Dean just grabs the bottle up from the pavement, staggering back towards the building.
"Fuck. I'm sorry." Dean can't look at her, can't look at the way he's leaving her with kiss-bitten lips, alone, in the dark, because he's too chicken-shit not to. "I can't."