Sam and Samuel turn up later that day, rumbling into the scrapyard like a stormcloud. Dean pours himself another cup of coffee and watches Bobby and Samuel size each other up like a couple of fighting dogs.
"You're Bobby Singer?" Dean doesn't know how Samuel always manages to sound so unimpressed with everything all the time. Guy woke up almost forty years in the future and decided it sucked, go figure. The shit they play on the radio is its own kind of Hell, so maybe Dean can sympathize a little.
"Name's on the sign, ain't it?"
Sam peers curiously at Dean. "No fix yet?"
"Dean turns back into a pumpkin 'bout three weeks from now," Bobby says. Dean sips his coffee, watching Sam's face guardedly.
"That's it? Huh." Sam looks at Dean again. Dean can practically see him crunching the numbers in his head. "Well, until then, as a feminist—"
"Do not finish that sentence," Dean says. This is payback for all the Samantha jokes, he knows it.
"What? I'm proud to have a strong, independent sister who—"
"I can and will stick a maxipad to your forehead. Don't think I won't."
"If you girls are done?" Samuel says with a roll of his eyes. And evidently he's not the family picnic type, because he's back on the road inside of five minutes.
Hunting with Sam again should be like slipping on a familiar pair of shoes, but Dean's old shoes aren't fitting too well these days, and neither is Sam. Before Samuel split, he left Sam with some intel on a haunting in Oklahoma. Dean stays awake for the long drive by keeping the music loud, and Sam doesn't complain once. Dean sleeps an hour or two in the motel while Sam does some interviews, and they meet back up at nightfall in the cemetery for the salt and burn. Everything goes just as planned, but it still settles in Dean's gut like lead. Sam's still awake, sitting on the opposite bed, when Dean falls asleep, and when he wakes up later than he means to, Sam's on the floor doing fucking ab crunches.
"Who are you, and what'd you do with my brother?" Dean grumbles on his way to the bathroom.
"What?" Sam freezes mid-crunch. Dean frowns blearily at him.
"What?"
Sam clears his throat. "I mean, same to you, sis."
"Yeah, all right," Dean says dismissively, and closes the door behind him.
Samuel feeds them their next case, too, a string of vampire attacks back north. The missing all fit a profile: young, pretty but bookish, and when they follow the leads, it all points them to an honest-to-god goth nightclub.
"I have an idea," Sam says, and looks at Dean like he's about to get punched for it. Dean grits his teeth, but bids him to continue. "Honeypot?"
It wouldn't be the first time Dean's been bait. He's pulled it before, the old car trouble trick to draw the monsters in for what looks like easy prey. Hell, he'd been pulling that one for years, 'cause what's an easier target for a hungry freak of nature than a shrimpy twelve-year-old trying to find his dad? They never expect the dad to be waiting around the corner with a machete.
Of course, there's an implication to this suggestion that Dean doesn't like one little bit.
"You mean you want me to pretend I'm the Bella to some douchebag's Edward."
"Glad you're familiar with the source material," Sam says with a shitty little smile. Dean flips him off. He's not about to tell Sam he's already got the perfect disguise for the job.
"No. Fuck no." Dean's had his fun, and now he's done with all that. Hell, he should have thrown it all in the trash, the makeup, the dress, everything. It's all stuffed into a plastic bag and burning a hole in the bottom of his duffel.
"Are we gonna have a better opportunity to find our way to the nest? It's that or keep trawling these message boards for the saddest girls in the poetry club."
Dean's jaw works. He sucks in a breath and holds it, fuming.
"Okay, fine," Dean says, and Sam looks so smug Dean considers taking to back immediately. "But— you have to leave me alone while I… get ready."
"Done."
Dean drops Sam at the motel and drives away, ostensibly to buy clothes, like he doesn't already have them. Dean guesses he could get more. He's got access to his stolen cards again. But that defeats the whole purpose of having gotten this out of his system. He doesn't need new clothes. It's not like he's ever going to be able to wear them again after this is over.
He curses, pulling into the parking lot of a shopping mall, because somehow, that just makes him want to do it more.
If he's gonna play like he's some teenage princess of the night, he's gonna need to look the part. His dress might work, but only if it's paired with the right gear. He's never set foot in a Hot Topic before, but once he does, he's assaulted by the noise coming out of the speakers and entire floor-to-ceiling walls of t-shirts emblazoned with pictures of lantern-jawed, constipated pretty boys. Dean's alarmed to find that there's a little section just for the Supernatural books. There's even a little tin replica of the amulet Sam had given Dean as children. Dean swallows a wave of nausea and avoids that section entirely.
He ends up with fishnet stockings, black nail polish, and a black choker. That'll have to be enough to sell the look, cause he's not getting his ears pierced at a mall kiosk, and if Dean has to listen to one more whiny kid scream about lipstick stains over an out-of-tune guitar, he's gonna shoot the damn speakers out. He shoves it all into his secret bag of girly shit and drags it back to the motel. Maybe he can pass it off as having just bought all of it in one go.
When he emerges from the bathroom in full Evanescence-fan drag, Sam's holding his phone up. It clicks.
"Delete that," Dean barks. "What the fuck, man?"
"What? You look good!" Sam says, and ducks away from Dean when he takes a swipe at him. He shoves his phone into his back pocket. "Don't worry, I won't show anyone. Except Bobby."
"You cannot fucking show that picture to Bobby," Dean growls. His face burns, not the least because he's dismayed by how much he likes the damn choker. If Bobby sees him looking like this, he'll never be able to look the man in the eye again. "I swear to god, if you show that picture to Bobby, I'll superglue your asscheeks together."
"Jesus, okay!" Sam pulls his phone out, mashing buttons with his thumb, his forehead creased in concentration. "There. Your secret is safe."
Dean squints at him suspiciously. Sam's face suddenly softens into a look of hurt and dismay.
"Dean, I was kidding. I wouldn't."
"Really?"
"Really. Come on, Dean, you know me. I'm just teasing you. If it's important, I'll leave it alone."
"It's not that, it's—" This is almost worse, being looked at by Sam with the same drippy expression he uses to coax traumatized women into talking to him. "You know what, just get your ass in the car."
The nightclub the vampires use as their hunting ground is a lot more populous than Dean would have guessed. Apparently, darkness is in this year. He's only surprised there's no rave.
"You think they got blood sprinklers, Sammy?" Dean says, smirking as he side-steps a person wearing head-to-toe rubber. All sorts of hidden gems in these little midwestern cities.
"You wish you were Wesley Snipes," Sam says.
"I've always thought of myself as more of a Ryan Reynolds, but I'd take it."
"Okay, Jessica Biel."
Dean bites down on his cheek. Jessica Biel is hot. If he looked like her, he'd have way fewer problems easing into this being a girl thing.
They split up, scanning the club for vampires or their potential victims. The usual tells don't stand out at much in this crowd. Dean orders a drink and finds a good seat, somewhere out of the bustle but still open to the bulk of the room. He fiddles with the choker around his neck, an invitation. One vulnerable, morose-but-approachable vampire juice box coming right up.
Except the vamps aren't biting. He sips his little cocktail and scans the crowd for an hour, but there's something about him that makes him invisible. Mostly he's just surprised by how… liberated the clientele seems to be, for a place tucked away in Nowheresville, Indiana. He spotted a couple of guys getting handsy with each other and nobody even batted an eye, 'cept maybe him.
Maybe that's his problem, that the guys here are a little less Edward and a little more Lestat. And isn't that just a hilarious bit of irony for him.
His attention falls on a girl who fits the profile. A little shadowed under the eyes, pretty, but fragile, and a sunken-cheeked twerp with a popped collar whispering in her ear and leading her outside. Dean abandons his empty glass, sends Sam a text, and follows them at a comfortable distance.
Things get a little crazy after that.
Forty-eight hours later, Dean's scrubbing blood out of his dress in a motel bathroom, cold water running over his thumbs. He's lucky he learned how to get bloodstains out of fabric when he was young. He's honestly just grateful that the dress is already red. It'd be ideal if it were black, but he'll take what he can get.
Sam had watched him. He'd watched Dean get jumped by those vamps, and he'd let it happen. Dean might have been losing his shit, but he knows what he saw. He can't even look Sam in the eye right now. It's a goddamn miracle that Samuel had come, and that he knew a cure for vampirism. Too good to be true, he'd think, if it seemed like Sam gave one single solitary shit that he'd come inches away from something worse than death.
At least he got the rest of the nest in the bargain. Vampire strength, even half-starved, and suicidal rage had been enough for him to collect their heads. The women—the girls, he felt bad for. They were just kids who'd made their last, worst mistake. But the men, with their lying mouths and their greedy hands, he found satisfaction in ending.
They wanted a monster? They got one.
He's dressed down to his boxers and a t-shirt, scrubbed pink. He'd sat in the tub, letting the shower take away the rest of the blood and the unholy mess still caking his mouth after he'd puked his guts up. Sam had let him get turned. Whoever that guy on the other side of the door was, it wasn't his brother.
He hangs the dress up to dry on the curtain rod, choosing not to interrogate the fact that he could just throw it away, because it's not like he's ever going to need it again. He leaves the water running. When he speaks, it's quietly enough that he hopes he can't be heard in the other room.
"Cas," Dean says. "Castiel. Please, I'm begging you, man. Something's wrong with Sam, I don't know what it is, but—" Dean runs his fingers through his damp hair, hunching over the sink. "I need your help right now. I don't know what the fuck to do. He woulda let me die, man. And I— There's too much. It's all. It's all just too much, and I just. I need someone on my team right now. So can you put your flaming sword down for a minute and just... " He shrugs, his shirt sticking to his damp skin and pulling. He shakes his head. "Forget it, you're not listening. Whatever."
He turns the faucet off. When he dresses and walks back out into the room, all Sam cares about is what he saw in the nest. Like he saw anything but cages full of girls tortured into being feral animals. That could have been him, if he were just a little weaker, a little less prepared. That was almost him.
Dean waits until he's alone to call Bobby. That conversation is less one-sided than his prayer to Cas, but he doesn't end it feeling any more assured. He considers calling Jody for half a second—she offered her number, after all—but he doesn't know what she could possibly do about this, and he abandons the idea pretty quickly. He goes to sleep with his hand by his pistol. When he wakes, Sam is already up, with coffee and a muffin, like some unspoken apology. Dean eats it without tasting a bite. He drives, one of Dad's tapes in the deck, fingers slotted into grooves in the steering wheel well-worn by his father, and he hears his father's voice in his ear, his dying words: If you can't save him, you'll have to kill him.
Hours into their drive, Sam asks, "You okay?" Dean glances at Sam out of the corner of his eye, catching a flash of the creased brow, the thin, downturned mouth. He and Sam are used to long, comfortable silences. It must be showing on his face more than he realized, just how unsettled he is.
"Just need some time to shake it off," Dean says, and lets Sam take from that whatever he wants. Then, at the next motel, he gets a separate room without asking first. Sam blinks, his face twitching in confusion when Dean tosses him the key.
"What—"
"I can't want some alone time? You snore, and I need a solid eight after, you know. Becoming a fucking creature of the night. I feel like shit."
Dean can't read the expression on Sam's face, but he doesn't like it much, whatever it is. There's something flat and far-away about him. After a moment, Sam schools his face into a casual smile, nothing behind his eyes.
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
"'S probably been a while since you had any alone time, too, eh, Sammy?" Dean goes for playful and teasing, but he feels the brittleness of it. He forces his way through with a grin. "Bat outta hell, you gotta be looking for a little paradise by the dashboard light, yeah?"
Sam's face contorts. "Since when do you listen to Meat Loaf?"
"Since I grew tits," Dean lies, and lugs his duffel out of the backseat.
The sad thing is, he actually does try to sleep for a while. He drinks the last beer in their cooler and lies down. He closes his eyes. He fucking counts sheep.
Heart in his throat, he even tries getting a hold of Cas. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Castiel will pick up the damn phone," he says quietly. His hands make loud rustling noises on top of the blankets in the dark room. "It's just you and me, buddy, if you're listening up there. Or wherever you are. You there, Cas, or are you too busy shanking halos? Cas? Castiel?"
He lays in silence for a while before he gives up and pushes himself out of bed.
Now that he's done it a couple of times, the makeup goes on much more quickly. Apparently it takes practice to keep a steady hand. He leaves his dress in the bag, he's not ready to look at it yet, but his nails are still glossy black, and he figures hey, the choker can come to the party too. Why not. He thinks it makes his neck look slimmer.
There's a bar just down the block, but Dean's not going anywhere he runs the risk of Sam seeing him. Wondering if Sam is around and awake to hear the rumble of the car starting, he takes off down the highway and stops at the next roadhouse he finds.
He said he was done with this, but his head's a hurricane, nothing but screaming wind and shutters rattling against the walls. He needs to shut it up a while. He needs… he needs someone to fuck the noise out of his head. The second he allows himself to think it, he goes hot from head to toe, squirming with shame and want. God, what the fuck is wrong with him?
Did he feel like this before the spell? Is it some side-effect of having this body? Is it programmed to want this way? Is it Dean's brain, crossed wires making him picture himself like this? He thinks about how his life might have been different, if he'd been born with this body. It's hard to imagine. Would he have left a broken-hearted boy behind in every state, or would he still have wanted the girls? The girls were happy enough to kiss him behind the bleachers until he didn't take them up on their offers to introduce him to their parents, whose two-car garages and table manners and pointed stares of mistrust made him feel like an alien playing at being human. Would the boys have just let it be temporary, like Dean knew it had to be? Would his father have quietly permitted it, like he'd always let Dean fool around, or would he have put a stop to it?
Would he even be a hunter? If he'd been raised a girl, would he still be a killer, or would his father have thought of him as something worth protecting?
It makes his stomach ache to think about. The noisy southern rock inside the roadhouse drowns the thoughts out, and he's grateful for it. He does a shot of whiskey and edges his way into a pool game. He doesn't care if he wins or loses this time, because he's not playing for cash. No, he's playing for the way his opponent sidles past him from behind, pressing too close, letting Dean press back into him with an appreciative look. His prize is being followed into the bathroom afterward and fucked up against the stall until the echoing sound of the door's latch rattling drowns out the last horrible needling thought in his head.
Despite what his reputation might be, Dean's never fucked a woman in a bathroom. He prefers to at least take them back to his car, because the Impala is a classy broad and she always treats Dean's guests right. Objectively, it should be disgusting—the guy's got his foot braced against the toilet so he can fuck Dean harder—but for whatever reason, it fires off all the right synapses in his fucked up brain to make him come, gasping, with his cheek pressed up against a carved-in phone number and his pants around his ankles. Thank whatever god is actually listening for the condom dispenser on the wall.
He cleans himself up and limps back outside. He honestly feels like he could curl up and sleep in the car, but he knows he needs to wash away the evidence before Sam sees him in the morning. He adjusts the rearview mirror to take a long, drowsy look at himself. Just a slice of his face, the smudged black makeup around the same old eyes he's always had. It's just him. At the end of the night, it's always just him.
It becomes habit. He endures long silences with Sam. He looks for work. He goes to his room alone, and he sneaks out at night, tarted up like one of those teenagers on TV who can't go to the homecoming dance because they're so grounded.
This time, he lets a guy follow him back to the motel. He's not as broad as some of the guys Dean's let fuck him, but he's taller than Dean, long-limbed and rangy, with warm brown eyes and an easy smile that says he's up for just about anything. Dean feels like he can trust this guy, Thien, to get the fuck out when he needs him to, and that ends up working in his favor. Also, he called Dean's tits "perfect," which means he gets the privilege of fucking Dean with his bra off. He's staring at them right now, holding Dean's legs over his shoulders while they fuck, and honestly, it's about time someone appreciated his tits the way they deserve. He's dissatisfied with a few things about his body, but that's not one of them.
Hell, Cas hadn't even seemed to notice he had tits at all, which shouldn't rankle the way it does. Not more than him never answering Dean's prayers, at least. Maybe that just wasn't the kind of guy—angel—whatever—that Cas was. What is Cas when he's not wearing a little dude suit, anyway? Whatever he is, he'd probably burn Dean's eyes out or make his head pop clean off. Maybe angels don't even get hot over humans at all… except Anna definitely did. They'd had a pretty memorable night before Dean did what he always does and ruined her life.
Cas had left a mark behind, when he'd raised Dean from Hell. He can remember it, the way it ached like a burn only a few days healed, the skin raised and thin-textured, like plastic wrap. Anna had ridden him in the backseat of his car, and she'd slid her fingers over Castiel's handprint burned into his arm, lips parted on a gasp. Did Cas's true form have human hands?
"Woah, uh." Thien's stopped moving, and Dean's about to complain when he opens his eyes and sees someone else in the room.
"Cas?!" Dean yelps, trying to cover himself, but it's kind of a losing fight when there's still a guy bending him in half. "What the fuck—"
Cas is standing by the window, backlit by the red glow of the vacancy sign through the blinds. Dean can't really see his face, but he knows his shape by now. He grasps fruitlessly for the lightswitch, knocking the clock on the side table over before he finds it, casting the room in warm, dingy yellow light. Now that he can make it out, it's clear Cas is frozen in place, his eyes wide and uncharacteristically lost.
"Is this your boyfriend?" Thien sounds less alarmed than Dean thinks he ought to, considering his dick is still inside him. Dean ignores him.
"Now, Cas? Now you show up? I've been trying to get you down here all week."
Cas's mouth falls open slightly, a comically perfect little o, but it seems he's dumbstruck. The same cannot be said for the other man in the room.
"Is this, like, a cuckolding thing? Am I cucking this dude right now?"
"What?" Dean looks up at the guy who is currently inside of him, who, rather than pissed off, or embarrassed, or anything rational, just looks kind of curious.
"I mean, that's cool if it is. I could be into that."
"What?"
"You wanna watch me fuck her?" Thien directs this question to Cas, whose eyes snap to his, growing rounder. He doesn't answer. "Does he wanna watch me fuck you?" He punctuates the question with a little half-thrust that makes Dean suck in a breath. He can see Cas's eyes fall to the movement of his breasts before they trail back up to Dean's face.
It's like he's silently asking permission. Dean's skin prickles from his scalp all the way down to his toes. He can feel his hair standing on end. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip. If Cas hadn't been paying attention before, he certainly was now. Fuck.
"Cas," Dean says. His mouth has gone dry. His face is burning up. Cas looks rooted to the spot or like he could bolt at any second, both in equal measure. "Cas, do you… Are you staying or going?"
Dean can't believe he's saying it, but the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He didn't ask Cas to stay, he tells himself. He's just giving him an out. And besides, it's like watching porn for Cas, he figures. It's not like these are typical circumstances. Dean's not really important here so much as the fact that, at the moment, he's a chick, reportedly with perfect tits. Hasn't he been saying Cas needs to enjoy Earthly pleasures a little bit more often? If this is what it takes to get Cas to snap out of whatever battlefield fog he's in, isn't it worth it?
Thien starts moving again, and then all Dean can do is go along for the ride. Cas can dip out any time he wants. He doesn't need doors to do it. But he's just standing stock-still, transfixed. Dean feels dizzy. Thien moves Dean's leg, changing the angle, and fucks into him, hard—Dean's head falls back, unable to stop the noise it forces out of his throat. When he turns to look at Cas again, his eyes are dark and focused. Oh god. This is really happening. He's letting this happen.
He can't look at Cas for long. It makes him feel too much, his head too full. He can still feel his eyes on him, on his face, on his body, watching some other man's dick plunge into him, making him arch and strain and clench his fists into the sheets. It's been more than a year since Cas told him he'd never been with anyone like this before. Has that changed? Dean doubts it. Does Cas even know what it feels like, or can he only guess from watching? Dean wants him to know it's good, wants him to know what he's missing out on. He bites his lip between sharp teeth.
"He like watching?" Thien says, short of breath and smiling through it. It takes Dean a second to process it.
"I—I dunno."
"Think he does. I mean, look at this," he says, and pushes Dean's thighs down, fucking him deeper, the loud slap of skin on skin filling the room. Dean can't hold back the sounds he's been biting his tongue against. "Look at you, you slut."
"Fuck," Dean pants. "Oh my fucking god." Dean's thighs are going to burn when this is done, but the angle is so good, it's hard to care. Thien's not even touching his clit right now.
"Your pussy's so tight, but you just take all of it," he says. Dean's eyes roll back and he shuts his eyes tight. Oh fuck, it's so embarrassing. Why does it make him so hot? He feels himself clench around Thien's cock, feels the way it makes him lose his pace, and there's something oddly powerful about it. About him. "Yeah, you love it. You fucking love it. You love getting fucked like this, don't you?"
He should say it's a lie. He should shove him off and say he's full of shit, that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
"I—"
"Tell him. Tell him how much you love it."
Thien slows, and suddenly Dean's empty. He looks down, bereft, his mouth falling open on a faint protest.
"See? She can't get enough. Fuck, she probably wants both of us at the same time."
Dean's brain screams, imagining Cas slotting up behind him, fucking him from behind while this guy takes the front. He's seen that in porn before, too, but this is him. This is him and Cas. He can't help but look over at Cas, who's still standing right where Dean left him. He can only look for a moment, because if he looks any longer he'll have a fucking meltdown. He's gone so deep into the well of shame, he's so submerged in it, that it almost has no power over him anymore. Like he opened his mouth, expecting to drown, and found he could breathe anyway.
"Please," Dean whispers.
"How's this," Thien says, and shifts Dean over to his side, straddling one of his legs and holding the other against his chest. It's a hard angle, but Dean's facing Cas now, fully on display.
Cas doesn't look disgusted. His face is flushed, his eyes bright, his lips parted. But he also doesn't look like he's planning on coming over, on sliding his hands between Dean's thighs and pulling them apart and—
Thien's dick slides against him, not fucking him yet. Dean whines, low and needy.
"Oh, fuck. Please, fuck me, I need you to— please, just—"
"Yeah, you're a greedy slut, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Dean agrees breathlessly, because he is, he feels like it, he's a slut and he wants this guy to fuck him and he wants Cas to watch. Thien teases the head of his dick against Dean's clit, and Dean jolts. God, he must make a picture. "Please, come on, fuck me."
Thien fills him up slowly while Dean shudders around him, gripping the sheets, his own thigh, anything to brace himself. Then he's fucking him, really fucking him, moving him against the bed and fucking all kinds of desperate noises from him.
"Dirty little—" Thien pants, sweat beading on his temple. "Making him watch you take some other guy's dick. Begging me for it."
"He, he doesn't—" Dean protests, but breaks off into a moan when Thien licks his thumb and presses it to Dean's clit. Cas doesn't want me like that, he thinks. We aren't like that. Cas doesn't even know what to do with a woman.
"Yeah, he doesn't get to have you. He doesn't get to fuck you. He's not the one who's gonna make you come on his dick."
He could if he wanted, Dean thinks, and then he really is coming, throbbing and convulsing under Thien's hand, around his cock.
When he's present enough to move again, he realizes his face is wet, the pillowcase smudged with black. Thien is prone next to him on the bed, going soft in the condom. Cas is gone.
"Your boyfriend left pretty quick, huh?" Thien's still out of breath, but he heaves himself up to throw the condom out. Dean feels a hand on his hip, not tender, not cruel, just a bracing point of contact. "You good? You ever did that before?"
"No," Dean says hazily. He's not sure which question he's answering.
"Shit. He coming back? We didn't piss him off, did we?"
"I dunno." Dean wipes at his eyes. "Thanks and all, but I think you'd better get outta here."
"Sure. Uh, thank you, too?"
"Yeah, all right." Dean covers his face, wincing. He keeps his eyes shut through the sound of clothes rustling, the sink running, and finally, the door opening and closing, followed by heavy silence.
He lies still, cold and sticky and sore. The sensation of floating, bubbling with pleasure, has subsided. He's crashed back down to Earth, and he just feels heavy and hollowed out. If he washes off, maybe he'll feel better, but right now, he thinks if he moves, he's going to start freaking out, and he can't risk it.
He did that in front of Cas. He let him see everything. From a distance, he can rationalize it—Cas probably knows worse things about him than whatever he just saw. Cas has seen his life, all his failures and misdeeds. He's seen Dean in Hell, at his objective lowest. Daddy's little girl, he broke in thirty. The ugliest side of him, the shit he wouldn't even let Lisa see, drunk and crying and retching into the sink at three in the morning. Cas knew all that, and he still called Dean an ally. A friend. Someone worth giving up God's plan for.
It still feels different. And Cas left. He flew off without a word. Maybe he's just busy, like he always is. Or maybe this was just a step too far. Maybe he really was frozen in terror, a deer in Dean's headlights. Maybe Dean won't see him for another year after this. Or ever again.
It's that thought that makes him break. He can't go another year like this, pretending Sam's fine, pretending he's okay.
He curls up on his side, holding himself, heaving soundlessly, letting his makeup run. The pillowcase is already a lost cause. He doesn't know what to do. He needs someone to tell him what to do, but there's no one. No Dad to tell him he needs to get up for Sam's sake, no Lisa to tell him he needs to get up for Ben's. No Mom to hold him and tell him angels are watching him.
He laughs, and it comes up wet and bubbling. He holds himself closer.
The next town, the next motel, Dean begs off early. It's obvious even to Sam that he hasn't slept, that his eyes are red and shadowed, to the point Sam asks him if he's sick and tries to feel his forehead. Dean agrees, says, "Maybe, yeah. Pick up some whiskey for me?" When Sam gives him a look, he amends, "Or NyQuil, whichever."
Whiskey was their dad's old trick for clearing up a head cold. That, and canned soup with enough cayenne pepper added to forcibly vacate your sinuses. He still feels like there's something medicinal about whiskey, even when he's not sick. He doesn't know why Sam's such a prude about it now, because it's not like they ever had enough to get really drunk when they were kids, and it always helped Dean sleep better. Hell, Dean dipping his thumb in a bottle from their dad's stash and letting Sam have a taste was the only thing that got them through the teething years intact. It's not like he'd let a kid drink hard liquor now, but him and Sam weren't like other kids. It was just Dad taking care of them the best way he knew how. It's one of the few memories of him that doesn't turn Dean's stomach now.
While Dean's lying down, Sam sets the NyQuil on the table and leaves. Dean's not really sick, but he takes some anyway just so he can get some shut-eye, brushing his teeth to get the awful, syrupy taste out of his mouth.
He does sleep, then, for six dreamless hours, until he wakes up in the middle of the night. The room is empty, quiet but for his own breathing and the rattling of the AC unit in the window. Despite that, he feels certain he's not alone. It should send him reaching for his gun, but instinct stops him.
"Cas?" He's whispering, his voice weaving into the white noise. "Castiel, if you're around… You can come down, man. I wanna talk to you."
He sees him then, a dark specter in the corner. You could mistake him for a coat rack if you weren't looking closely.
"Cas… come over here. Sit down or something."
Cas steps closer. Dean can see the sharp line of his cheekbone in the faint light, the glint of his eye, and little else. He imagines what expression might be on his face. Fear, or fury, or maybe just dead passivity. He isn't sure which one he dreads most.
"Are you pissed at me?"
He sees Cas's head move. A confused tilt.
"Why would I be 'pissed'?" He hears the click of Castiel's teeth, the frustrated quality of his breathing. "I'm the one who… violated your privacy."
That isn't the conversation Dean thought they were about to have. "I didn't tell you to leave. Cas, would you sit down or something, you're making me nervous just looking at you."
Cas sits robotically in the chair by the little square table. The light filtering in from the parking lot strikes him more clearly there. He just looks lost, and oddly small. A thunderstorm shoved into a shoebox. Dean rolls out of bed. He's just in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, but the darkness conceals him comfortably. He's in no hurry to flip the light on, and he knows Cas isn't the sort to care about that kind of thing. It's not like he needs it to get around.
"Are you freaked?"
Cas doesn't answer him. He sees his broad hands fidgeting in his lap, smoothing out his pants just to crinkle them up again.
"Are you grossed out? You gotta talk to me, man."
"No, Dean," Cas says, seeming to grasp what he's getting at. "Because you aren't 'dirty'. That man, he called you dirty. You aren't."
Dean's face burns. "That's just… it's just sex talk, it doesn't mean anything," he says, but his eyes prickle with relief.
"Is this another lie humans tell? To get what they want, they pretend to be disgusted by it?"
"No," Dean says reflexively, then freezes. "I mean, it's just… it's not like… It's porn shit. I don't know how to explain it."
"I don't like it," Cas says. Dean's stomach drops.
"Sorry for making you see it, then."
"You didn't force me to… I didn't like how he spoke to you, but I… it was…" Cas shifts in his seat, his hands still methodically rubbing the creases from his pants. "You aren't angry with me? For watching?"
"Nah, man, I'm just, you know… embarrassed."
"You have nothing to be ashamed of," Cas says, with such conviction and sincerity that Dean finds it hard to breathe for a moment.
"So you're not... Does that mean you never found some bangin' angel lady to settle down with? You know, when all this is over."
Cas is quiet for a moment. "When this is… over?"
"Yeah. Your big war. The thing taking up all your time and energy and give-a-shit."
"I don't know that it'll ever be truly over, Dean," Cas says. "Not for me."
Dean scoffs. "What, you're just gonna keep fighting forever?"
"Forever, no, though in human terms, it could perhaps last much longer than your lifetime," Cas says, like it's some throwaway fact. The Earth rotates around the Sun, and Castiel will wage war until long after Dean is dead and gone. "But even if we do secure victory, I don't imagine I'll live to see it."
"That's bullshit," Dean says. "What's the point of doing all this, then?"
"Saving humanity is the point," Cas says.
"What’s the point of saving humanity if you don't get to be a part of it?" Dean's chest clenches painfully to think of a world Cas saved without him in it. "You deserve to enjoy it as much as anyone, Cas. More than most people, honestly, even if you are a dick sometimes."
"It's worth it," Cas says, righteousness lighting him up like a beacon in the dark room. "Even if I never get to experience it, knowing I died in service of protecting this world and its people will have been worth it." His shoulders sink, his fingers pressing into his knees. "What about you? You suffered, you fought and died for the sake of others. Don't you deserve peace?"
"Even if I'm a dick?" Dean laughs bitterly. "Yeah, tried that. Didn't really work out." But Cas is different from Dean. He's old, older than Dean can comprehend, but he's still so new. He keeps learning, changing as fast as any human. He's not like Dean at all. Every time Dean changes, it's back into something familiar, something worn out and well-used. There's an inescapable persistence to Dean's past, and he knows he can't outrun it for much longer. He's only got a few days left in this body, and when they run out, so will his excuses.
But Cas, he's still got a chance. It's not too late for him.
"But even if you never get it," Dean says, "You gotta have something to look forward to, Cas. Something personal to fight for. Running into a fight with a death wish, that's an easy way to punch your ticket early and end up losing. You gotta have something. Some light at the end of your tunnel. Imagine you win. You save the world. You're free. You can do whatever you want. What do you want to do?"
Cas doesn't speak for such a long time that it startles Dean when he answers. "What do you think I should do?"
"The point of free will is that you get to pick, buddy," Dean says. "If you haven't met an angel you wanna, you know, get with, you could try hanging out on Earth a little more. Meet some humans. You know, besides me and Sam and Bobby."
"I like you," Cas says simply. Dean huffs.
"Yeah, and there are plenty of better humans. Like a billion of them, so you're bound to meet one you like. Buy a house. Make some little angel-human hybrid babies."
Cas sucks in a sharp breath. "The creation of Nephilim is one of the most profane acts under Heavenly law."
"Okay, shit, sorry," Dean says, though he thinks the profanity of it is half the fun. "No babies. Unless you wanna adopt, I guess."
"Cohabitation."
Dean shrugs. "Yeah. Or just copulation, if you're not the settling type."
"Is that what you want?"
"Doesn't everyone?" Dean gnaws on his lip, afraid to delve too deep into what he wants to ask. "When you were watching, did you wanna… you know, try it?" He can see the frown on Cas's brow, the way his shoulders stiffen. "Sex, I mean. In general. I mean, I wasn't sure if angels…"
"They do. They can. It's rare. I've never… I don't know. How do you know?"
Dean laughs uncomfortably. "Well, I dunno, Cas, you ever had a boner?" Castiel's brow furrows. Dean clarifies. "Does your dick get hard?"
"Oh." Cas's eyes fall, lids heavy with contemplation. This might be one of the stranger conversations Dean's had in his life. "I… Oh. I thought I was angry."
"You thought being angry made your dick hard?"
Cas looks up, round-eyed and helpless. "I didn't like what he said to you."
"You mean yesterday?" Dean swallows, heat prickling down into his belly.
"He was verbally abusing you. You wanted that?"
"Jesus, I dunno, Cas," Dean says, covering his face with his hand, hunched over with an elbow on his knee. "Sex is weird. Your wires get crossed. Sometimes people like getting, you know, called names. Sometimes they like getting slapped. Some people do it with like, harnesses and handcuffs and shit. It doesn't always make sense, it just feels good. But you don't have to do any of that stuff if you don't want to." Dean scrubs his hand back through his hair. "I guess Jimmy Novak was a missionary kind of guy."
"Only for a few months, when he was young. He went to Guatemala."
It takes Dean a second. "No, I—not that kind of—like. You know, lights off, under the covers, for procreation only. No bells and whistles. Sex, Cas."
"Oh. I don't know. I never saw him have sex with his wife. And he's dead now, so I don't think it would be polite to ask."
Dean doesn't know what to make of that, so he just thinks, Yikes, and moves on.
"I mean, rule of thumb, you can't really go wrong just… doing whatever the other person likes. Not saying you have to go along with, like, anything and everything, but just… I dunno, for me, that's the good part. Figuring out what someone likes and giving it to them. And I like a lot of stuff, so, you know. It usually works out good."
Castiel looks at him, oddly soft. Dean ducks his head again. He's not usually so shy about sex, but this feels different.
"You just gotta practice. Sounds stupid, maybe, but that's the only way to figure it out. Sometimes you hit it off with someone right away, but you have to figure out what you're doing first. If… if that's what you wanna do." Dean steals another look at Cas, pale and dreamlike in the faint, cold light. Cas is intense, sharp and deadly, but also weirdly gentle. He lets Dean push him around, even though he could kill Dean with a blink. Lets him nudge his shoulder and drag him through bad neighborhoods, lets him fix his tie. He's an unknowable, sometimes violent force of nature, and he's a weird, silly little dude.
And he's handsome, even if it's borrowed handsomeness. All those big ideas and contradictions sheathed in that perfectly normal human vessel make him something, someone different. Someone special. It's not hard to think that would appeal to some woman out there.
"I mean, you'd be a catch."
But maybe the days of Castiel letting Dean push him around are over. Maybe they ended more than a year ago in an alleyway. Apocalypse averted, Cas couldn't get away from him quickly enough. It's kind of a miracle he's still listening at all.
"What am I supposed to do?" Dean's startled when Cas finally speaks. "If I'm caught?"
Dean's cheeks fold into a smile. "Take the coat off, for one. You don't wanna look like a flasher."
Cas frowns, but he stands, shrugging out of his coat and draping it over the back of his chair. He sits again, then looks at Dean expectantly.
"This too," Dean says, and reaches for his crooked tie, loosening it with his fingers. Cas is as stiff and straight as a metal beam. The tie slips right off. Dean lets it drop, coiled on the table. Then he pops the top button of his shirt, then the second. "That's better. Now you don't look like a fed." Dean directs Cas to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves as well, so Cas can show off his tensing forearms. He swallows. "Yeah. Much better. Women like that whole vibe. Like you're dressed nice but you're about to start fixing a car or something. Powerful, but approachable."
"Am I approachable?"
"I dunno," Dean says, and tousles his hair a little, not that it needs the help. "You let me approach you. You gonna fix my car, sweetheart?"
Cas looks at him tremulously. "I—I wouldn't know how to fix your car, Dean."
"It was a joke," Dean says. "I'm being the woman."
"Oh," Cas says, the same way he always does when Dean tells a joke he's missed the context for. That's all right, Dean's used to it.
"You gotta learn about girl code. Women won't always come right out and say what they want. They gotta talk around it, or else people think they're easy."
"Women have to be difficult?"
"No—Well." Dean puzzles that out. "They have to act like they don't wanna have sex, because people talk shit about sluts. Not me, though," he says proudly. "I love sluts. But people are assholes and society is a prison, so they have to act a certain way in public."
"More lying."
"No, not lying, just… talking around it," Dean says. "They can't say, 'I wanna fuck', but they can say, 'Oh, I just can't get this leaky pipe under my sink to quit, can you come over and help me out?' So then you... you know."
Cas frowns. He doesn't know.
"You go over and help her out."
"'Fixing a leaky pipe' is a euphemism for sexual intercourse."
"Gold star for the A student. You know what to do then?"
"I understand the mechanics, yes," Cas says. Dean snorts.
"Mechanics. Funny. 'Cause pipes?"
Cas sighs, like he's finally gotten tired of entertaining Dean. Panic rises in his chest. He just wants Cas to stay a while longer. They're having fun. They're laughing, or at least Dean is. He hasn't laughed in ages. He won't bug Cas with questions about Sam, or questions about the war, or questions about why he can't be bothered to find time for him anymore as long as Cas stays.
Dean puts a knee up onto Cas's chair, bracketing his legs on the side. Cas stills. "Um. So what would you do?" Dean waits for him to answer, but he doesn't. He just looks up at Dean, a skyscraper's worth of cosmic power sitting obediently in a battered motel room chair. "Show me."
Castiel's eyes dart around, wide and unable to settle in one place on Dean's body. Dean takes pity on him.
"Maybe I should show you first. Have you ever, you know, gotten yourself off?"
"Gotten myself off of what?"
Dean walked into that one. Poor guy.
"Okay, baseline, you oughta know what it feels like for you to understand what it's like for someone else. Do you, uh…" Dean backs down off the chair, bare feet shuffling on the grubby carpet. "Masturbate?"
"No," Cas says. "Humankind seems to have dedicated… an unusual amount of time and energy to the practice. I didn't understand why until…" He ducks his head, eyes downcast.
"Well, shit, pal," Dean says. "That's just tragic."
Cas turns his eyes back up, wide and sad and blue as anything. Dean makes a decision.
"How about I show you what it's like?" He clears his throat. "Just, you know. So you're ready for it. When it happens for real."
Cas doesn't answer. He doesn't move. He looks like a statue, sitting there in that chair and gazing up at him, carved from marble, like one of the ones about saints seeking mercy or benediction.
Dean kneels, and the illusion softens when Cas turns his head down to watch. He smooths his hands over Cas's knees, waiting.
"Dean," Cas says, and wraps his long fingers around Dean's wrist. His breath catches. Cas's skin is cool against his forearm. Cas looks down at him, devastated. "Stop."
Dean recoils. He snatches his hand away, pushing himself off the floor and staggering back a step.
"Yeah, that's, that'd be weird, huh. Sorry." He huffs a laugh, running his hands through his hair, looking anywhere but at the shuttered, broken look Cas is aiming at him. "Some other time, once I'm back to, y'know, normal, we'll take you out again, get you to meet some, some real women. I can give you a play by play. You'll do fine."
"Dean," Cas says again. He stands, gathering his coat up, draped over one arm.
"Do you, uh. It's cool if you stick around for a while, man. Like, I'm wide awake. Probably nothing but crap on TV, but I think they're running a slasher movie marathon. Might be fun."
"Dean." Dean can't look at Cas straight on, not while he's looking at Dean like he's the saddest thing on the planet. Maybe he is. "I should go."
"Right. Course." He turns his back, waves his hand. "Important shit to do. Message received."
The room is quiet for a long moment. Then a flutter disturbs the air behind him, and Dean is alone again.
He feels a hard lump rising in his throat. His arms feel cold and stiff, like rusted out metal. He tries to unclench his fists. He feels like if he does there won't be anything left holding the structure of his body together. His fist lashes out, knocking the bedside lamp to the ground. The wires are tangled up with the alarm clock, and it goes flying across the carpet, landing on its back, the numbers reversed. He stomps away from the wreckage and takes another dose of NyQuil like a shot. When Sam comes to wake him later in the morning, he pretends not to remember what happened.
—
They're in Illinois checking out a rash of suicides when the clock finally runs out. Dean's been checking out the tattoo on his back every night, watching it wane and wax, watching the little mark grow wider and wider. Any day now, Dean's gonna wake up, and everything's gonna change.
Good, he tells himself. Back to normal. Back to myself. Back to watching his back around his came-back-wrong brother, back to Cas screening his calls, back to nobody waiting for him at a home he doesn't have. Back to business as usual.
There's something forcing people in this town to tell the truth. Dean doesn't know what he did to trigger it, but people are just spewing their life stories at him like he's Jenny goddamn Jones. The bartender's on oxy, some lady is jealous of his tits, and when he dials up Bobby, Bobby tells him he loves mani-pedis, Tori Spelling, and Dean more than Sam, shortly before telling him he's a shit hunter in comparison. He is officially cursed, twice over. He says so.
"That other spell's just about up, huh?"
"Yeah," Dean says, tapping his finger on the back of his phone, pacing on the sidewalk, unable to stop himself. "Yeah. Finally."
"You know," Bobby says. "My first girlfriend turned out to be a man."
Dean freezes mid-step. He leans over on Baby's frame. "Uh. Okay."
"Ran into 'im at the store a couple years ago. Didn't recognize him, on account of he has a beard now. Got a new name and everything. Like Sonny and Cher's kid, I guess. I had to google some shit after. Dunno why I'm telling you alla this," Bobby adds, an afterthought.
"Yeah, me neither." Dean says, frowning at his own reflection and picturing it on the cover of a tabloid.
"Just seemed like I oughta. Cause he was real happy, you know? After I said hey, Hank, that's his name now, Hank. Good to see you. You look good. He did, too. Old as shit, cause we're all old as shit now. But he looked happy. Happier'n my dumb ass ever made him when we were kids."
"Well, uh. Good for him," Dean says. His voice sounds high and distant to his own ears. "Uh, Bobby, I gotta go."
He ends the call. He doesn't give himself enough time to think about what the fuck that was before he dials up Sam. He's hoping Sam'll let something slip, like that he's a demon wearing a Sam suit, or that the cage fucked his head up so bad he might as well be, but he just gets his voicemail.
And when he does finally manage to get a hold of Sam at the apartments where he's just finished digging through one of the vics' bedrooms, it's not the ripped-off band-aid he was bracing for. Dean confronts him about it all, the weird behavior, the letting him get got by vamps thing, and Sam just says that he froze, that he's been in shock, that Dean's his brother (Dean smothers a nervous laugh at that) and that he'll always have his back.
Dean doesn't know if he's convinced, or if he just wants to be. The last time he felt this alone, he was 26 and Sam was in California and their dad was missing. So he nods, lets it go. Says, "Thanks, Sammy," and loosens the fist clenched at his side. They've got evidence of a summoning spell to investigate.
Of course, long story short, they end up tied to the floor in a Truth Goddess's own personal slaughterhouse. Just their fucking luck.
Veritas, draped in finery and with a little blood still glistening on her pretty mouth, lowers herself to Dean's level, taking his chin in her fingers and turning him this way and that. He's starting to get why a cat skull summoned this bitch.
"Hey, Dean, I'm curious," she says, like they're old friends and she's not two minutes away from slicing out his tongue and chowing down on it. "What do you really feel about your brother?"
"Better now," Dean says, the words sticking in his throat like he just swallowed a mouthful of cold oatmeal. The longer her magic works, though, the more easily the words start to spill out. He doesn't even know what he's going to say until it's out there in the air, and he knows it's all true. "As of yesterday, I wanted to kill him in his sleep."
He catches Sam's eye. He can't read his expression, but he doesn't feel great about it.
"I thought he was a monster. But now I think…" His throat closes around it again. He struggles against the ties on his wrists, and to keep from talking.
"Now you think what?"
Her voice is irrepressible. The truth is pouring out of him, unstoppered.
"He's just acting like me."
"What do you mean?"
"It's Hell. We both went to Hell, and we both came back wrong. I mean, look at me. I tried doin' what he told me. I tried gettin' out. I tried being a family man on for size. Told myself that was the life I wanted."
"But you were lying," Veritas says, seizing on the idea like it's a delicious treat.
"No," Dean admits. Because he did. He did want it. He wished so hard he could be Lisa's perfect boyfriend and Ben's perfect dad. And every time he went to bed drunk or woke up haunted or raised his voice when he should have been someone better, someone gentler, he felt it slipping further out of reach. "I couldn't cut it. 'Cause I ain't that guy. Not really. And now look at me." Dean huffs, his eyes burning. Sam is watching him, and he can't face that. It's easier to let Veritas peer inside him and scrape all his insides out like jelly out of a jar. "I got less than a day left in this body and I—I don't wanna go back. I'm so—I'm so goddamn sick of being—"
"What?"
"My father's son," Dean chokes. "And there's no changing that. I know that now."
Veritas turns her attention onto Sam next. Dean feels like throwing up. She coos and coaxes him into telling her how he feels about getting back together with Dean, and Sam… he lies.
"We watch out for each other," Sam says. "And that's the truth."
"No, it's not," Veritas says, agog. "How are you doing that? That's not possible. You're lying to me!"
"No, I'm not," Sam lies again.
"What are you? What is he?"
—
Sam's human, whatever Veritas might think, but only by the strictest scientific definition. He bleeds like a human, bruises like a human. Sam takes out Veritas first, but then Dean's on him with a swiftness John Winchester would have been proud of. Dean beats the thing calling itself his brother senseless, hauls the bloodied body back to his motel in the dead of night, and ties it to a chair. When he risks leaving it alone for a moment to wash his bloody knuckles off in the sink, he sees the shape of his battered hands and realizes the change already happened. He hadn't been paying attention. He washes down with a washcloth and changes his clothes. He sits. He waits. Eventually, he calls Cas.
And after that, Dean doesn't have time to worry about where Cas's head is at, or what he admitted in front of Sam, or the spell, because within an hour all of that takes a backseat to the fact that Sam doesn't have a fucking soul.
Then that takes a backseat to his mother's family being in league with Crowley.
Then there's Death, and getting Sam's soul back in his body without him tearing Sam's mind to shreds, and there's the fact that Sam doesn't remember anything his body did while it was running around without a pilot. Dean's not about to be the one to remind him what he missed. If anything, he's grateful. To Sam, it's like none of this shit ever happened. What a fucking relief, right? He packs all his girl shit up in a bag, and he buries it in the trunk, and he tells Bobby to keep his trap shut.
They lose Rufus, they lose Ellen all over again. Cas erases the lives of fifty thousand people but still won't look Dean in the eye. Dean thinks that's his fault too, until it comes clear that Superman went darkside. The year in retrospect starts to look like a paperback with half the words blocked out.
Cas dies. Bobby dies. Cas comes back. Bobby doesn't. The compartment where Dean hid Cas's trenchcoat smells of mildew, but he doesn't bother to clean it out, because there's something else tucked away in there, and he knows what happens when you scratch the wall.
Purgatory is unleashed on Earth, and then Dean's unleashed on Purgatory.
It's a very eventful couple of years, after Dean's little brush with witchcraft gone wrong. He could be forgiven for not allowing himself to think about it much. He makes a point of not thinking about it at all, until he meets Charlie Bradbury for the second time.