Pillars of Salt

by endvverse

Summary:

Dean is an exorcist following a series of ritual murders that lead him to a cursed town. People in Mount Chase doesn't trust anyone but how could they when every once in a while someone appear murdered like a martyr from the Bible? And there is an abandoned church where few dare to approach...

Notes:

I wrote this fic following a prompt from tumblr and it ended being something else entirely. For that, I'm sorry. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Mind that english is not my first language and this is an unbetaed story. All mistakes and inconsistencies are mine.

Enjoy the reading.

“Have you read the news?”

“For fucks sake, Sam, didn't they teach in that school of yours not to call people so early?”

“It’s 9 am in Kansas, don’t be so dramatic, Dean.”

“And that makes…what…7 in California?”

“Perfect time to go for a run.”

“You’re sick.”

“I know you are but what am I?”

His brother's ragged breath came through the phone clearly despite all the miles between them. He was talking to him while exercising. Dean was tired just thinking about it.

“Ok, let’s not start discussing your obsessive healthy life that early in the morning. What news?”

“Another body has been found.”

That made Dean sit up with a jolt, dizziness be damned.

“But what the hell? It hasn't even been a week since the last one."

“I've sent you the link.”

Fortunately the laptop was still in the kitchen, Dean was sure he’d need a big cup of coffee to prepare for what he was about to read. He opened one of the multiple tabs he always had on his browser and typed the link of the Mount Chase Herald, the local newspaper of the tiny town of Mount Chase, Maine. He was welcomed by a headline in full big black letters:

 

“Another martyr found”

 

The article was accompanied by a somewhat blurred picture of a man tied to a column. He was semi naked, long pieces of iron piercing his torso and a big puddle of blood at his feet.

“He was attacked with his own fireplace pokers.I think he was left to bleed to death and he was alive for a while”, Sam supplied.

“Gross”.

“Indeed.”

Dean scrolled down. The article didn’t say much else. The man has been found in his own closed room, the morning after, by the housemaid. He lived alone and there were no signs of a forced entry, no broken windows, nothing.

“Any witnesses?”

“I don’t think so” answered Sam. “I’ve been looking at other newspapers but there is no information. Nobody saw or heard anything”.

“Just like with Saint Lucy”.

“Just like with Saint Lucy”.

Saint Lucy was the name given by a very tired journalist to the woman who had been murdered less than a week ago.. She had been found lying in his bed, with her hands crossed over her chest holding a plate. Blood teared face, her own eyes rested on the plate. And before her, Saint Bartholomeus, a man who was found skinned alive and then decapitated. 

Apparently, there were no discernible patterns. The local police were unable to create a profile or even bring something in common between the victims. The man had lived alone, but the woman had a wife who was traveling abroad,and the other man lived with his family that were in the same house at the time of the murder, albeit in different rooms since his body was found in his own garage. They were alone and the killer was fluent in methods of martyrdom and that was all. 

“I’m thinking…”

Dean took a long gulp of coffee and pinched his nose.

“I know what you are thinking, Sam. I’m not gonna do it”.

“But why?”

“You know why”.

“Dean, a note from the Pope…”

“A note from the Pope is a fucking note from the fucking Pope from the fucking Vatican, Sam!” he all but shouted into the speaker.

“And you have it hanging proudly on a wall in your living room, anyway”.

“That…”

That was true, after all. He had been a devoted kid, going to the church every Sunday. He was able to recite all the hymns with his eyes closed by the age of eight, and he served as an altar boy for a couple of years. He was proud to know the sermons better than the parish. The church was his spiritual home and sometimes he found himself going there after strenuous classes at school just to feel the calmness that accompanied such a sacred place. The birth of his little brother Sam was just another miracle. Their parents had been very religious as well, so they’d been overjoyed when Dean announced he’d join the seminary after finishing high school and he did just that. Years later, he still remembered those days fondly, how he had enjoyed his classes along with his peers, all young men studying theology and discussing philosophy authors during their lunch breaks.

Some of his friends wanted to teach in private universities, others wanted the modest life of a priest in a small parish, but Dean wanted big. He wanted to join the ranks of the Vatican Exorcist Army. Ok, they weren’t called like that but in his young and tender mind they were soldiers, armed with blinding white collars and bibles under his arms, the power of Latin and the Voice of God in their mouths. So he studied harder than everyone else and graduated with honors, the first of his promotion. He had a quick mind and a sharp tongue and something inside him he couldn’t describe that made him get a letter signed by the Pope himself asking him to join his army. He traveled to Rome and learned from the best and then he became the youngest exorcist in the history of the holy city. 

And then everything went downward from there.

It started with a little girl. She was five and she was possessed, according to her parents. Under the influence of the Devil she’d have killed livestock, and all the dogs warding them and she was threatening to kill everyone living in their community. So a quick trip to Warsaw was in order. Dean accompanied a bunch of exorcists, all of them older than him. It wasn’t his first day in the field, so to speak, but it was the first time he traveled outside The Vatican to assist during an exorcism. Most of the time he was in the city, exorcisms were performed in the basement of Saint Peter, to people selected by cardinals and archbishops, in rooms cleaner than some hospitals Dean’s seen. Everyone was treated with utmost care, like they were sacred beings, and despite being a hard job that usually took almost a week, the demons inside vanished like a fleeting thought. And that’s why Dean almost vomited when he saw a group of men well over their fifties, tying a little kid to an old bed, pouring holy water in her eyes and mouth, making her choke in the process and almost strangling her with a thick rope that was firmly tied around her neck to prevent her from moving. The image of the girl crying desperately for her parents, the father holding a mother in the verge of passing out, and his mates simply discussing the weather and how Warsaw was so unbearably humid in that time of the year appeared in Dean’s nightmares for a long time afterwards. And they hadn’t even made the demon inside here disappear, they'd just put a container around the girl’s mind, a wall that’d wear out over time, letting her in an almost catatonic state, until she died, claiming that with that, the demon would disappear forever once the victim died. She wouldn’t kill anything anymore. But she wouldn’t live a proper life anymore, either.

And Dean would see the same treatment being performed on other people. Nevermind the age. Women and men and children alike where left bedridden and unable to speak in France, Ireland, Belgium, with demons inside their minds fighting for their freedom, filling their victims minds with horrors until they consumed themselves or mercifully died. And because they were poor they didn’t matter. They weren’t worth a week’s effort of a high class army trained by the Vatican itself.

So Dean started to work behind their backs. He befriended a young apprentice that let him know beforehand everytime a low-class possession appeared in the system and since he wasn’t always required in the basements, he took care of those cases himself. And sometimes it  took him days, and sometimes only hours because he had something inside that made his prayers more powerful, the power of his touch more holy. And the demons disappeared one after another, and yes, some of the victims died because some of those demons were powerful, but they died in that moment, and they died in peace. And most of them get to live a fruitful life.

 And no one was left to suffer. And no one was left behind.

Until one day he was discovered and he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, forbidden to perform exorcisms under the protection of the Vatican, and had to go back to Kansas with a letter with the papal tiara above a pair of crossed keys, his personal bible and nothing else.

The good thing about being fired from your line of job forever at 26 it’s that it gives you plenty of time to catch up with the real world in your hometown. His parents had been so understanding, fortunately, they had encouraged him to cultivate his second great passion: design. And there’s where he was now, a barely past thirty freelance designer with a past as an exorcist talking to his little brother on the phone about a serial killer with religious tendencies. So much for a resume.

“Dean?” his brother's voice sounded distant in the depths of his mind.

“Yeah, sorry, I just…”

“Zoned out”.

“Yeah”.

He was sure that the letter from the Vatican was mocking him from the top of the fireplace. The thing…the thing was that he really missed the time he spent performing exorcisms, he loved the feeling of setting the people free of their burdens sometimes with a simple touch, sometimes after a few day’s work. There wasn’t such a thing as a freelance exorcist but there wasn’t any danger in doing a little research either, right? And Dean was, after all, a professional in working undercover and a master at flipping his middle finger at everyone. 

“You know what, Sam? I think I’m gonna do it”.

 

*

 

Maine was humid, even at that time of the year. He adjusted the collar of his leather jacket and closed Baby’s door with a soft bump. After spending almost three days on the road he was dead tired and the idea of a warm bed and more than four or five hours of sleep sounded like a blessing. The smile of the old woman who greeted him at the front desk of the Witch’s Lodge (unfortunate name, in Dean’s opinion) looked tired and sad but also sincere and welcoming enough. Curious too. Maybe a little suspicious? Dean couldn’t blame her for it. A sudden stranger visiting a remote place after a series of murders? Suspicious enough. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility of the local police interviewing him at some point and that’s why he had carefully planned a cover.

He was just a freelance designer (which was true) on a road trip to a Corporate Design Convention in Montreal (which was conveniently true, too, he just wasn’t planning on getting there, in addition to the fact that he wasn’t really into corporate design, he felt more inclined towards literary design) stopping in Mount Chase for a couple of nights maximum (maybe three if it was allowed) to get inspiration from the magnificent forests around him, maybe to go hiking too. Secretly Dean hoped his looks were enough for those people to mistake him for one of those pro-gentrification-gonna-pay-five-dollars-for-a-coffee hipster guys who wanted the town only for the experience of being near raw nature for the first time in his life and then coming back to the big city they were from with stories about their interactions with the rednecks. He had even bought fake thick-rimmed glasses, for god’s sake. 

The woman handed him the keys without any questions and kindly informed him breakfast would be served at 7 a.m. sharp and if he was interested in having dinner or lunch he’d have to go to the small restaurant at the end of the main street. 

Dean thanked her and with a last remorseful look towards Baby (she was about to spend at least three days outdoors under the inclement weather of Main) he went to his room. It was small but well maintained with a distinctive homey look that made him feel like he was being hugged. The bed looked big and comfortable and he experienced the compelling urge to throw himself at it like he was a child instead of a grown man, which he did. The fluffy covers and pillow welcomed his body and Dean felt the tiredness of the trip slowly fading away from him but the need to unpack was more pressing. He plugged the laptop and checked if any of his tool had been damaged but everything was fine because yes, he had brought with him a notebook with some art supplies he was planning to put inside the backpack he’d wear around during his daily walks in case he had to pretend he was sketching but only to cover his real worktools that hide in a private pocket underneath: a bible,  a small knife, a rosary and a bottle of holy water. The good thing about being a (forcefully) retired exorcist was that the secrecy about that part of his life would prevent him from appearing in any police file. To everyone else, after some years in theological school Dean simply acted as a priest and that was it, so even in case someone wanted to inspect his backpack no one would look for a secret pocket and would only find pens and brushes.

The shower also looked promising but he needed to call Sam first. The interaction was brief, just to let him know that he’d arrived safely. The real deal was if he should call Charlie too. Charlie was his best friend in the whole wide world. She had all but adopted him when they met for the first time during the design course and she had known about his story. Okay, not the whole story but the most important parts at least, that he was a very religious man and he wanted to be a priest of sorts. Charlie had helped him to get back on his feet in the modern world after so many years working for people still decades behind. Besides, the good thing about his bestie being a lesbian is that she also helped him to meet people from the whole spectrum. 27yo bisexual Dean was exilarated. He had a lot of time to catch up, after all. So, yeah, he owed Charlie a big one for all of it but he still doubted if he should tell her the truth about what was happening. They had spent so many drunken nights cursing everything that’ve been done under God’s name that just thinking about going back to his past habits (albeit partially and only in this particular case) almost felt like treason. So he decided to text her, letting her know that he was out of town to relax and to seek inspiration for a new project. It would be a short trip anyway and God helped him ( heh! ) Charlie witnessed  the debacle with his last unsatisfied client (it wasn’t as if Dean was to blame, the man didn’t know what he wanted but nothing seemed to be enough and Dean had ended tired and drained and cursing his whole existence). So a text it was.

The hot water from the shower was a liquid blessing and Dean let it clean the dried sweat and general tiredness stored in his muscles and body. He was hungry enough to check the restaurant Linda (the woman at the front desk) had recommended him, and it also would serve him as a perfect opportunity to study his surroundings and the people there without looking suspicious. He waved his goodbye to Linda, who waved him back with a less tense smile and he started walking in the general direction of the restaurant.

It wasn’t a long walk by any means, the town was small enough, but everything looked nice and well maintained and Dean felt really sorry that such a wonderful place was the object of such horrid events. A young boy, no more than sixteen of seventeen he calculated, with long hair that reminded Dean of his friend Ash’s, greeted him at the door of the Loyal Swan and shepherded him to a table neatly decorated with a checkered tablecloth, a small glass with a single flower and a tiny candle next to it. In any other place, Dean thought, the set’d have looked out of place, too romantic, bordering on corny, even for a couple (let alone a single person) but in that place it made everything look softer, more welcoming and homey. He noticed that the boy’s smile was big and candid while he took his order (a burger with a side of fries and a beer), like he was really happy to see him there. Dean supposed that a new client was always good for the business but there were a real effort there, in a place where everyone looked a mix of sadness and wariness the undiluted happiness of the young man was refreshing

If it hadn't been for the fact that he was already sure that he wanted to help them in any way possible, he would have been convinced of it when he took the first bite of the hamburger, Mount Chase was a place that had to be protected. He made a valiant effort to repress a totally unholy moan. He ordered a second beer but this time was served by a girl, approximately the same age the boy was but with short green hair. Her smile was more warded, though, but Dean thanked her all the same.

“What are you doing here?”

The question was so straightforward that it made Dean stop, two fries still hanging mid-air towards his open mouth.

“What do you mean?”, he had probably an idea but he decided to play dumb for a while. She didn’t need to know.

“Haven’t you seen the newspapers?” Her tone was clipped, but she didn’t look angry, not exactly, more like she was honestly baffled by the presence of a stranger in his hometown.

“Yes, I have”. Dean decided to answer, simply. The girl wasn’t upset or anything but he didn’t want to risk it. He wondered how her character would have been if everyone there wasn’t in constant danger of being heavily mutilated.

His answer was short and clipped, too, and that made the girl duck her head in embarrassment. 

So, yes, that wasn’t her normal behavior towards new patrons.

“Oh, I’m…sorry, I…”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Dean assured her with a smile. “I know this isn’t a common place to visit but I was just passing through. I’m heading to a convention in Montreal”. Maybe it was a good idea to start giving pieces of his cover story in case someone started asking.

That seemed to catch the girl’s attention.

“The Corporate Design convention?”she asked cheerfully, like he had just announced he was heading to Disneyland.

Ok, he wasn’t expecting that reaction.

“Um, yeah?”

“Oh my god! Are you an artist?”. The girl was practically bouncing on her feets from sheer excitement. 

“Well, not exactly…”

But the girl had just spotted the sketchbook he brought with him because even though he hadn’t traveled there looking for inspiration, the muses could strike him at any moment and it could be useful for his work.

“Is that a Moleskine?” she asked but before he had the chance to answer the girl bolted out with a distant “hold on!” and was back at the table barely a second later.

“I’ve always wanted to go to the Fine Arts College”. The girl was clutching her own sketchbook to her chest, as if it was a precious treasure. Dean supposed it was. “But I’m not good enough. My girlfriend doesn't think so but she’s my girlfriend you know? What is she supposed to say?”

“Can I have a look?”. A polite question, he knew from experience that many artists didn’t like to share their personal artwork with just anyone.

But the girl wasn’t one of those.

“Yes, please!”.

Dean looked at the sketches. There were the much-needed basic anatomy drawings: hands in different poses, torsos and heads. There were detailed small animals (mostly birds) and plants but also the front of the Witch’s Lodge where Dean was staying and the restaurant itself. There were sketches of the houses along the main street, of the forest surrounding the town and the church and the mountain. 

“Hey, this is good…” Dean paused for a moment, realizing that he didn’t know the girl’s name.

The girl noticed, too.

“Oh my god! sorry! I’m Jenna”.

“I’m Dean, by the way. And this” he pointed at the sketch of what he recognised was the interior of the Loyal Swan. “This is very good. They’d be assholes if they didn’t accept you”.

Jenna’s eyes were glossy.

“Thank you so so much, Dean”.

Dean kept turning pages, more and more sketches of some parts of Mount Chase and suddenly stopped at one of the pages. In shadows and complex lines there was the sketch of a church, made of stone and covered with vines that climbed up the facade. The building stood up quite a bit among the rest of the sketches.

“What's this?”

Jenna looked over.

“Oh, the ancient church in the woods you mean? It used to be the only church in this town, I dunno, centuries ago maybe. But it’s abandoned now and nobody goes there anymore”.

“But you went”. That level of detail was impossible to achieve otherwise.

Jenna shrugged.

“Yeah, but only once and I didn't get inside. That place just gives me the creeps, man”.

So, an abandoned church in a town subjected to a series of ritualistic murders? It sounded like a good place to start.

A shout from the kitchen startled both of them.

“Shit, I have to get back to work” Jenna took the sketchbook from his hands. “Nice to meet you, Dean!”. And she disappeared behind the kitchen’s doors.

Dean paid for his dinner and started walking back to the motel. He wanted to talk to Sam and maybe do some research before going to sleep. Charlie had texted back a couple of hours ago wishing him a nice trip and posing next to some medieval attire that Dean was sure he’d have to wear sooner than later. He really liked LARPing but sometimes his best friend went a bit over the top with the costumes. He texted a defeated emoji and opened his laptop.

“Hey, Samsquatch. In the middle of your afternoon run?”

Sam’s groan at the nickname was audible.

“No, Dean. I just finished working”. Dean knew that it only meant he had to get back home first. “Have you discovered anything?”

Dean started typing one handed in the search bar.

“Not exactly, I went to grab a bite from the local restaurant and talked to the waitress”.

“To stop flirting with any human alive for one day won’t kill you, you know?”

“She was only seventeen, Sam, jeez. What kind of monster do you think I am?!”.

“Ok, sorry, go on”.

There wasn’t much about the old church in the newspaper’s website. Just a few lines from an article about remodeling the new church’s left side aisle and that was it. 

“She told me about an abandoned abbey in the woods”.

“An abandoned abbey?”

“Yeah. Apparently no one has gone there over a century or maybe more. The town has a new church now”.

“And you think…” Sam paused, “that maybe there’s something hiding inside?”

“Honestly, Sam, I dunno”. Dean sighed. “I’m still not sure if this isn’t just one of those normal serial killer cases that should be taken care of by the FBI but there’s something that just doesn’t feel right”.

“You should be careful, Dean”.

“With what?” The distant sound of keys told him that his brother had already arrived home.

“With everything, in general. Because you’re planning to go visit that place, right?”

Sometimes he hated how well his brother knew him.

“Yeah”

“That’s why I’m asking you to be careful, Dean, because you don’t know what you are up against. You have fought regular demons but what if it’s just a maniac with a big knife? What then?”

“I could use my Bible as a shield” Dean joked, but the silence at the other side of the line indicated that it had fell flat. 

“Not funny, Dean”.

“Okay, okay, I’ll be careful”.

“And if you find something that might indicate that this is just a regular human being you will report it to the local authorities and go on your merry way?”

“Yes, mom”.

“God, I hate you”.

“You can’t hate me, Sammy, I’m your big brother. Nobody hates their big brother”.

“Okay, bye, jerk”.

“Bitch”.

Dean hung up with a barely repressed smile. His backpack was opened on top of the covers and he made sure that everything was in place for his short trip the following morning. Having done it, he put on his pj and brushed his teeth and fell asleep soon after.

*

Linda greeted him with a big smile the following morning, maybe as a way of congratulating him for surviving a night in Mount Chase.

Breakfast was served in a small and quiet room full of neatly decorated tables, but Dean wasn’t surprised to see that they were all empty. The coffee was good though, and so was the pie that was carefully placed in front of him, a generous portion of pecan pie, because if there was anything that Dean was an expert at, it was dealing with demons and recognising a pie filling just by looking.

“I hope you like it”, Linda said. “It’s homemade”.

Dean was in heaven, he was sure of it. 

“That’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” he said, still mid-chewing. He knew how he looked, mouth full like a chipmunk and maybe Linda whas a mother too, or a grandma, because she was looking at him the same way his mother usually did: like a mixture of exasperation and fondness and “I can’t believe this is a grown up man I’m watching”.

“I wanted to apologize properly,” the woman said, crumpling a napkin between her hands. “Normally I’d have given you a complete tour of the town. Everyone here is very friendly and welcoming but we weren't expecting any visitors. Not since… ” she interrupted herself for a moment. Dean tried his best to give her his most encourageous smile. 

“We were all questioned by the police, you know?” she continued. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Who could have done it but someone from here? It’s not like we’re a famous tourist destination or anything. Oh, I’m sorry”.

Dean noticed that the poor woman was crying now. Dean covered her hand with his, trying to comfort her the best he could.

“Nothing to be sorry for” he said. “I knew what had happened when I came here. But I came nonetheless”.

Linda gave him a watery smile. “I’m happy my poor Grady didn’t have to watch this. We used to be a close-knit community, now no one seems to trust anyone anymore”.

“I’m sorry for your loss”.

“Thank you”. The woman wiped away a tear. “But he’s in a better place now. I know. He was a very devoted man. He kept going to the old church to pray.”

Interesting. 

“Jenna told me about that church in the woods” Dean said as a passing thought, trying not to sound very interested. 

“Oh, that Hainier girl” Linda laughed. “Her father almost went mad when he discovered she had been in the church”

“But what about that building?” 

“There are very superstitious people here. They think we shouldn’t have an abandoned sacred place still standing, that it could host evil beings if no one closes it properly”.

That was definitely interesting. Maybe the killer was not of the mortal plane after all.

“And you don’t believe it?”

The woman shook her head.

“I have never been a very pious woman. My Grady always preferred the old church and I respected that. He used to say that there was a protective aura surrounding that place and that it made him feel safe. This is what I choose to believe”.

So there was definitely something, that much was true. Evil or not evil, but something was living out there in the deep of the forest. Dean needed to investigate it asap .

“Thank you so much, Linda, for everything”. Dean got up from the table with a smile, playing every bit of the religious man he wasn’t anymore. “I’m a very devoted man too, and I’d love to visit that place”.

The woman’s face lit up. 

“Of course, it’s not very far from here. Take the main road and then follow the stone path. I used to accompany my Grady when he went there but I preferred to wait in the clearing”.

The memory was clearly making her feel nostalgic and Dean didn’t want to interrupt anymore so he thanked her again and left the room.

The path to the church was easy to follow and soon he found himself in the clearing Linda had told him about. The ancient building was almost in ruins, a huge vine climbed up the walls and slipped through holes that maybe once framed a stained glass window or maybe not and they just were holes in the wall, a primitive form of ventilation.  All in all, it wasn’t a big church, only a small nave made of stone and nothing else. It was understandable that they had built a bigger church. Perhaps centuries ago, the population of Mount Chase was enough to fill the insides of the place, but not anymore. Still, Dean felt some pity for the abandoned building. And he had brought his backpack with some pencils and his sketchbook and yes, he was there to investigate but there was something deeply inspiring about that place he needed to put on paper. 

Line after line, the outlines of the church gradually appeared under Dean’s hands: the facade, the door, the windows and the vines. It was a very simple sketch, not one of his best, not by a long shot, but he was strangely proud of it. Maybe Grady was right. The clean air, the solitude and the calmness of the clearing would help anyone devoted enough to feel themselves more connected to God. He closed the sketchbook and decided to take a quick look at the insides.

 

*

 

The main door gave way smoothly with a light push. Dean clutched the knife in his left hand when a mouthful of dust greeted him, covering his mouth and nose with his free arm. Just as he expected, the church barely had room for three rows of pews plus the altar. No painting of any saint, not a single statue, not even a cross, just vines and decorative leafs carved everywhere in the stone. The place was absolutely devoid of anything holy and yet Dean felt something floating around like an immaterial presence, not exactly a spirit but something that was clearly not human. An old energy, perhaps, of someone who passed away but loved the place enough to remain imbued in the stones. He wasn’t even sure if that was possible, an act like that required much more strength than a simple parishioner could possess, no matter how much they loved that place. But it was protected and cherished, that much was obvious.

Dean barely detected any movement, any change in the vibration of the air around him before being violently thrown against a wall. 

“Fuck”. His eyes couldn’t perceive anything but there was clearly something trying to choke him. He didn’t see but he could feel invisible fingers around his throat, holding him several inches above the ground.  Maybe the presence wasn’t a good one. Black dots started dancing before his eyes but luckily he hadn’t dropped the knife. With a sudden twist of his arm Dean stabbed whatever was holding him and he was released immediately. Dean collapsed against the floor with an ‘oof’ . He was going to be heavily bruised after that.

In front of him there was a man in a suit and a trenchcoat with his heart pierced by Dean’s knife. And the man looked unimpressed by the blade currently buried in his chest.

Dean was breathing heavily.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dean asked.

Without breaking eye contact, the man simply pulled the knife out of his chest and threw it to the floor.

There was no blood. Nothing.

The main entrance was close enough. Dean assessed how long it’d take to get his ass up and run the hell out of there. The man, or more exactly whatever was posing as a man, looked in the same direction. Bye bye to his plan. His backpack was out of reach and maybe if he was quick enough…the holy water was still there, if the thing was evil Dean could burn his eyes at least, get some time to escape…

There was a hand in front of his eyes. Dean looked at it suspiciously. 

“I’m Castiel.”

Dean blinked. He knew a Castiel. Well, he had read about a Castiel. Some years ago when he was still in the seminary every new student got a copy of the bible but not your typical edition. Dean liked to call it the “extended version” and it had an appendix that explained events in more detail. Castiel was mentioned there. A fallen angel, too, banished from Heaven for being too rebellious, Dean didn’t remember the specifics. If this…man…was really Castiel…what was he doing there? Was he…the serial killer? Was Dean in danger? The hand in front of his face was still open and waiting. Dean hesitated but finally he gave up. The first contact was…weird. Electric. The hand was solid and a bit cold, like Dean was touching snowflakes. Castiel’s eyes were blue and unnervingly fixated on their contact point, like he was feeling it too, that spark. Were angels really capable of feeling? Was he just plotting Dean’s demise? Dean didn’t know and honestly? He didn’t want to. So he did the only thing that he could think of at that moment, with his last ounce of strength he shoved Castiel away, took his backpack from the ground and started to run.

He didn’t stop until he was practically at the door of the Witch’s Lodge. His legs and lungs were on fire, fuck, he hadn’t run so much since he was in high school. He closed his eyes for a bit. Hell, what had happened in that church? Dean checked his backpack but nothing was amiss except…

“Fuck”.

His fucking knife. The one that he had stabbed Castiel with. Fuck. Fuuuuck. In his rush to get the hell out of there he had forgotten his damn knife. Should he come back to retrieve it under the risk of being skewered? He couldn’t leave without it, that was for sure. It was a very valuable tool, blessed by the Pope himself under Saint Peter’s dome. He needed time to plan something. And, honestly, he should look a little bit more into the church incident. If Castiel was the serial killer Dean could expel him from the place? He knew how to deal with demons but not with frigging angels. Holy water obviously didn’t work with them. A sigil, maybe? God, he had so much work to do and so little time. He needed at least a couple more days there. 

Asking for a couple more nights in the town was an easy task. Linda was delighted and her eyes a little bit misty when Dean showed her his sketch and told her it was a gift and he was sent back to his room with a hug and more pie for dinner (Sam would have a stroke if he knew). He sent a quick message to his brother letting him know he would need a couple of days more in Mount Chase to investigate the church more thoroughly and opened his bible while chewing a forkful of pie.

“So, Castiel”.

He found him soon using the index. Castiel. One of the most powerful angels, only slightly below archangels, he was in charge of watching over the Earth. Castiel was described as a monstrous entity that saw everything; from the biggest animal to the smallest reptile, nothing escaped the vigilance of his thousand eyes that shone bright like destruction, like the end of everything. The power of his black wings could destroy the surface of an entire land like it was a hurricane. Like most of the celestial entities, his voice wasn’t meant to be heard. His true form wasn’t meant to be seen. He was something to fear and he was banished from Heaven to Earth for rebelling against higher powers, reasons unmentioned. He was created by God himself, during Genesis, along with other of His most cherished children, so whatever he did to get kicked out from the Celestial Kingdom was something incredibly serious.

Was he really the same Castiel as the man he found in the old church? What was he doing there? There was no more information in the bible but the texts clearly specified that he was expelled, not obliterated. If he had been on Earth all along, in all those centuries someone should have noticed something. Anything. He closed the bible and booted his laptop. What should he look for? Miracles? Apparitions in caves? He had found him (if that man was really the embodiment of a powerful celestial being) in a church in the forest after all. Dean slowly typed “forest entity” in the browser and almost every result pointed him to a name “The Green Man”. He was more legendary than real but was closely connected to earth and life. A vegetation deity. A symbol of rebirth. Dean could see some weak similarities. Castiel was in charge of the Earth, could he be a protector of the forests? Could his thousand eyes hidden among leaves be mistaken for the face of an ancient deity? If so, if he was here to protect, why was he allowing these people to be killed? Dean had so many questions and he wasn’t even sure he wasn’t wrong. Maybe he should try to talk to him first and if he deemed him dangerous, he could always try to banish him from the place. He knew a couple of sigils that always came in hand when dealing with demons, he should investigate if there were sigils for angels too. He looked sadly at his empty plate of pie with a silent plea for all of this not turning to be a one fucking mistake.

 

*

 

The next morning greeted him with fresh air and a clean sky that helped to clear his head. He’d spent part of the night practicing sigils in his sketchbook and thanks to a big cup of coffee he wasn’t falling asleep on his feet. Thankfully, the road to the church was easy to follow and soon Dean found himself at the main door. He sighed and pushed the door while his mind went over the order in which the lines of the sigil should be drawn. The church was empty, Dean expected that much.

“Castiel?” he asked.

No answer.

He walked down the main aisle heading to the altar, looking both ways and hoping to feel a presence somewhere.

Nothing.

“Castiel, are you still here?” Dean repeated, now a little worried. Was this some kind a trap? Was he going to be ambushed? He forced himself to keep talking. “I’m Dean, by the way. I…I just wanted to talk to you”.

“Hello, Dean”. The voice was gravelly and sounded so close to his ear that Dean almost jumped out of his skin.

“Shit!”

Castiel was there but he looked…different. He had lost most of his solidity. He still had the shape of a man but the edges of his features were blurred and his skin was almost translucent, like a ghost or a spirit.

“Hell, what happened to you?” Dean couldn’t help but ask. He remembered Castiel’s strong fingers holding his weight against the wall. He doubted he could even caress him now if he tried and what the hell was that?

Castiel looked at his own hands, like he hadn’t noticed he was on the verge of fading out.

“I wasted so much energy yesterday”, he answered simply. “I haven’t had enough time to recover”.

Dean didn’t know what to say to that.

“Your knife is still here, by the way. I wanted to give it back to you but you were already too far away”. 

He followed the ghost of Castiel’s hand to where he was pointing at and yes, his knife was there, in the same place Castiel had thrown it the day before. He bent down to pick it up and put it securely inside his backpack.

He could feel Castiel’s gaze following his every movement. Again, unnerving.

“Why didn’t you just follow me?” he knew the question was stupid, if Castiel was indeed the murderer he wouldn’t want to be discovered.

Castiel tilted his head like he honestly couldn’t understand the question and for a moment Dean thought it was a rather cute gesture for a powerful eldritch’s entity in a mansuit.

“I can’t leave this place”.

Dean hummed noncommittally, still thinking. If he wasn’t able to leave the place, if the simple effort to face a poorly armed human rendered him useless to the point of disappearing he couldn’t simply kill a person, much less a bunch of them. If that was true, that ruled Castiel out of his embarrassingly short list of suspects.

“What are you, Dean?”

The question caught him unwarded. Castiel was looking at his chest still frowning but Dean wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

“What?”

“You…” Castiel walked (more like floated) toward him, outstretching his hand like he wanted to touch. Dean flinched without thinking. “Oh…I’m sorry”. Castiel dropped his hand.

Dean felt wrong and he didn’t know why.

“Okay, no, listen…I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting that” he said. “What’s wrong with me?”

Castiel was looking at him.

“There is something inside you…”

“There is something inside me?!” Dean almost shouted, practically ripping his own shirt and looking at his own bare chest expecting to see a monster pressing from inside like in the Alien movie but there was nothing. He looked back at Castiel and he was… blushing ? Was it even possible? 

“I’m sorry” Castiel lowered his gaze. So yes, he looked embarrassed even in his current ethereal state. Dean stupidly counted it like a win.  “I didn’t mean it in the literal sense of the word. It’s your soul”.

“You can see my soul?”

Castiel nodded.

“I haven’t had the opportunity to see a soul so bright as yours. It’s…fascinating”.

It was Dean’s turn to blush at the weird compliment like a fucking teenager. He hated the feeling.

“I’m a human. You know” he didn’t like the effect Castiel’s glare was having on him. “I was an exorcist back in my days”. Not as he was eighty now or something, but that life seemed far away.

Castiel's face was suddenly full of understanding.

“You have God’s power inside you”.

“I have?” 

“Dean, have you ever banished a demon from a host’s body without causing pain? Or have you performed a complex exorcism on your own knowing that, logically, it was an impossible task?”

Dean was silent.

“There you have”.

“But what does it mean? I don’t feel different”.

“It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have to use it,” Castiel explained. “It’s something you have inside that makes you stronger in the face of evil than any other human”.

“There is no other human like me?” He cringed at how flirting the question sounded. Fortunately Castiel was oblivious to the human idiosyncrasy.

“No, as far as I know”.

There was a timid smile, dancing in the corner of Castiel’s mouth. It was a nice smile, Dean thought. He wasn’t sure if Castiel was who he thought he was, but all in all, he seemed nice enough to share a little bit of personal information with the intention of prompting him to talk too.

“I was excommunicated,” he said. “By the Pope himself”.

That picked Castiel’s curiosity.

“You were?”

“Yep”, Dean said, popping out the “p”. “I was too…self-sufficient, for putting out nicely. Didn’t want to play by his rules, you know?” Memories flooded him, and they weren’t nice so he continued. “I was too eager to save people and you know what? This is what this type of work was supposed to be about. To save people from evil. To save people from demons that only wanted to break their fucking bones in half. But I didn’t know that when they said ‘save people’ they meant the rich ones and when I realized that, I was kicked out from the Vatican”.

Well, he had gotten carried away a bit but there was that.

Castiel’s eyes were soft when he spoke to him.

“We are not so different from each other”.

“Yeah, I suppose”.

They were silent for a while after that, assessing each other. Dean decided to break it with a question he partially knew the answer of.

“What about your story?”

Castiel strolled along the aisle turning away from him.

“I thought you knew that already”.

Dean followed him, watching the vines as he spoke.

“Not really. The Bible tells only so much”.

Castiel stopped a few steps from the front door, his frame more like a shadow, hardly obscuring the view of the clear in front of the church. Dean wondered if he’d be visible for anyone passing by or just to him. He didn’t ask.

“I was…as you said…kicked out from Heaven. I was assigned to watch over the Earth and you could say I grew overly attached to every living thing in there.” he sighed “One day they called me up. They wanted me to fight in a war against Hell, a war they wanted to start using the Earth as their playground and I couldn’t let them. I couldn’t, Dean”.

His shoulders were shaking with anger. Dean didn’t dare to approach him but he positioned himself at a safe distance, making his presence known but unobtrusive.

“And you didn’t and I thank you for that”, Dean said, “What happened then?”

“God stripped me of my grace and I was sent to Earth to die”.

Dean blinked.

“Your grace?”

“God’s will. When he created us, he imbued us with a fraction of his power. When Lucifer fell, he got the same treatment but he was sent to Hell instead.”

Dean studied his profile as he spoke. Castiel was very very pleasant to look at, bright blue eyes, a mop of unruly hair and sharp jawline. Maybe in any other circumstance, if they were in a bar, and Dean would have spotted a man like him, he would’ve made a move, that’s for sure. But they were here, a human and a celestial being, and some things weren’t meant to happen. That thought stung a bit. Dean didn’t want to analyze why.

“That’s why you’re trapped here?"

“Not exactly. I’ve been here for centuries, even without my grace I was able to survive for a while, mainly in the forests, because I had nowhere to go and I took care of them. And then word spread that there was something living in the woods, a man with a face made of tree leaves, with thousand eyes.”

“That was you”.

Castiel nodded.

“That was me. I could have died centuries ago but people kept me alive”.

“Are you a vampire, Cas?” Dean chuckled.

“Cas?” 

Dean paled. He could feel Castiel’s gaze fixated on him. He wasn’t thinking when he had sorted his name. Maybe he had offended him.

“Shit, sorry”.

“Don’t be” he said, smiling. “I like it. But no, I’m not a vampire, Dean. Do you know what keeps a saint alive?”

“The tithe?” he joked.

Cas rolled his eyes.

“Faith, Dean”.

“You feed on faith?”

“Yes”.

“If people stop believing in you, you disappear, like Tinkerbell?”

The angel frowned.

“What is a Tinkerbell?”

Dean opened his eyes comically wide. 

“Man, you don’t…you don’t know…”

“I’ve been trapped here for a while”, he made an encompassing gesture with his hand.”This place was erected in my honor. That’s why it lacks any christian symbols. It’s a pagan church. And people used to come here to pray to me, to a nature deity, they celebrated rituals in my name and not just here but anywhere I’ve been long enough but that was centuries ago and people stopped coming, new communities settled here and they brought their own gods, their own beliefs and I started getting weaker every year. The last remnants of faith are still trapped between these stones and that’s why I can’t leave this place. I can barely support my vessel form anymore after a big effort, as you can see. I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to keep myself updated with any change that has happened lately.”

Cas’s voice was tainted with resignation, the kind of sentiment that came with the certainty of your impending death. Dean felt sick. He had come armed and ready to put on a fight and he was met with so much kindness for humanity instead. 

“I came here ready to kill you, at first” he blurted.

Cas didn’t spoke. He kept watching life blossoming in the clearing in front of the church. Maybe that was what defeat looked like.

“But not anymore, Cas, look at me”. He needed Cas to believe him and only when he saw those blue eyes fixed on him he continued. “There is someone, or something, murdering people in this town. When I discovered this place I thought you were him, you know? And then I read more about you and learned a couple of things in case you were dangerous but now I know you ain’t like that”

“Why?” Cas asked, genuinely curious, and Dean was amazed that he hadn’t been offended by what was basically confirmation that Dean was there to destroy him.

“For once, I don’t think you’d kill someone you needed to stay alive. I don’t think you’d kill anyone, period. Besides, the murders were ritualistic, people were killed in a way that resembled martyrs and even in the case you needed to kill someone I doubt you’d take any pleasure from it and clearly whoever did this, they clearly had fun doing it”.

“Thank you, Dean” Cas said in a soft voice and…wait..since when were Cas’s features sharper? 

“Cas, give me your hand”. Dean was surprised when Cas obeyed him without thinking. The fingers he took on his own hand were light as leaves but definitely more solid than they were before.

Cas looked at them in awe.

“That was…”

“Faith”, he completed. “I swear that wasn’t my idea when I started talking to you but suddenly I saw you getting, dunno, brighter like you’d been outlined or some shit. But that’s true, I believe that you aren’t a killer”.

Cas seemed enthralled by the contour of his own fingers. He never stopped touching Dean’s and the feel still was electric but soft like the sting of water from a cold river against skin and when he arrived at his wrist he kept going, moving up the sleeve of his jacket, apparently amazed at the texture of the leather. It was a strange feeling, to be there and to be touched by someone else, and not anyone, but a former angel of the Lord, but Dean didn’t mind at the least, at least until Cas’s finger reached the base of his neck. That was too much and Dean took a step away.

Cas noticed, visibly embarrassed.

“Oh, I’m sorry”.

The spot where Cas’s fingers touched his bare skin felt like a burning brand. Dean fought the instinct to touch it himself.

“It’s fine Cas, really. I…” That was the moment his stomach chose to grumble. “Shit”.

Cas laughed softly.

“I’m glad to see that the basic human needs haven’t changed, at least”.

Dean chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah, not all of us feed on emotions” his tone was clearly light and playful, like the joke it was supposed to be.

Cas’s smile was even bigger, a true sight to behold.

“I think your faith added at least two months to my lifespan, Dean. I’m so grateful for it”.

That erased the smile on his face.

“What? Only two?”

“That’s fine, Dean”, his voice was kind when he saw his stunned face. “It’s more than I was expecting, honestly. I’ve resigned myself to leaving this place soon”.

“I guess it won’t be of any use if I say many times that I believe in you, because I could”.

“I don’t think it works like that”.

“Oh, okay”. Dean wished he could do something. Anything. Honestly, he didn’t even know what he was doing there, in Mount Chase. If he was being really really honest with himself, Sam was not to blame. He could have very well said no and he knew Sam wouldn’t have insisted. He accepted it because of his ego. He had traveled many miles, under the false assumption that it was something easy to solve, something that he could handle no problem but the truth was that he was coming to a standstill. Deep down he wasn’t well prepared, his cover story was stupid, he couldn’t very well go around the town asking about the murders, he wasn’t a journalist or a investigator for fuck’s sake, and the only lead he had to something that resembled a suspect was the fallen angel in front of him who, by the way, was going to die sooner than later. He felt useless and a piece of entitled shit who thought he could save everyone.

The soft touch of Cas’s hand startled him.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just zoned out for a bit”. Dean looked at his backpack, still in the ground, with his stupid sketchbook and stupid brushes and stupid sigils poorly traced in its pages. He thought about his laptop secured in his room. An idea occurred to him. Maybe he couldn’t save anyone but he could make one life easier.

“You know what, Cas? I’m gonna grab a bite somewhere and I’ll be back”.

Cas blinked, confused.

“Why?”

“You will see”.

And with a plan in mind he started walking towards the main road.

 

*

Retrieving his laptop from his room was an easy task. Linda greeted him with a smile, his sketch proudly hanging behind her, and didn’t ask a question. Buying two sandwiches from the only store was an even easier one, so in no time he was back at the old pagan church. Cas was still standing in the entrance. Dean waved at him stupidly, trying to turn down the weird feeling that was starting to bloosom in his chest at the sight of such a powerful entity waiting for him like he was someone important.

“Hello, Dean”.

“Heya, Cas. I brought something for you”.

Dean turned his back to him while opening his backpack. He could feel Cas barely containing the urge to peek over his shoulder and laughed to himself. What a curious little angel he had found.

When he turned to him he was holding his laptop and presented it to Cas who frowned.

“What’s it?” he asked.

Dean smiled satisfied.

“That, my friend, is your window to pop culture”.

Explaining the nuances of the internet, mobile phones, wifi and technology in general to an angel of the Lord was something that would never have occurred to him but was surprisingly easy. Cas throwed some questions there and there and seemed in general delighted with everything. Dean felt a pang to his chest when he thought how much Cas would like the 21st century. Maybe he should look for something to prolong his life if it was possible. He had a few books back at home he could sneak a peek at.

They sat on the floor by the entrance, the afternoon sun painting the nature visible through the open doors in beautiful summer colors. They agreed that Cas should start with animation so Peter Pan it was since he wanted to know what a Tinkerbell was. Dean knew the movie by heart, so he busied himself with his sketchbook. He wasn’t sure what he should draw so he simply looked at Cas, who was totally immersed in the story and his hands made the decision for him.

Line after line, Cas profile appeared on the page. And then a quick study of his hands. Of his eyes. And then flowers and trees.. A mix of everything that was there with them in black rough sketches everywhere on the page. Maybe Dean lost track of time, but when he finished the movie credits were rolling on the screen and Cas's eyes were focused on him.

“Like what you see?” he flirted on automatic and cringed not a second later.

“Yes, very much”.

Oh. Oh, okay, that was pretty unexpected. Cas raw honesty was baffling, sometimes. 

“May I see?” he pointed at Dean’s sketchbook.

Dean turned the page for him to see, trying to hide the pink on his cheek. He had flirted with plenty of men after he left his “old” job and was flirted back by most of them. So what made Cas different? Maybe because he’s not human , his traitorous mind supplied. Deep inside, he was something insanely powerful that could obliterate him without even trying and shows of brute force always made Dean a bit weak on the knees. Excuse him if being flirted back by a terrifying cosmic entity shaped like an incredibly hot man -even when said cosmic entity was completely oblivious at how his own words could be interpreted- was a big deal.

Cas, meanwhile, oblivious to Dean’s existential crisis, was caressing his own silhouette with a long finger.

“I barely remember the features of my vessel”.

“Your vessel?” Dean questioned, mortification aside. That was a question that had passed through his mind a couple of times, but he did find it a little bit personal.

“As you well know, this is not my true form. This body belonged to James Novak, one of my most devoted faithful”.

“What happened to him?”

“He died centuries ago,” he answered, simply. “He prayed for me to take his body and I must admit that it made traveling easier. It may sound a bit ridiculous but I haven’t had the opportunity to see myself in a while. There are no reflective surfaces here and I’m not strong enough to go outside. I can’t remember anything, I don’t know how things look anymore except for the trees that I’m still able to see from the windows. You are the first living thing I’ve seen in a long time”.

He sounded so fucking sad that Dean felt physically ill but for once he had the perfect solution. He was a genius.

“Hold on!” he said, aiming for the door.

“What? What’s going on, Dean?”

“Just wait!” Dean shouted already outside. Dean ran as fast as he could and when he was satisfied with the result he returned to the church.

“Here, look” and showed Cas his phone.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Just look” and Dean couldn’t fight back his pleased smile when Cas’s eyes went big as saucers.

“Dean, this is…”

“The clearing and the facade of the church. I must admit the vines look awesome. Did you make them?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. I like vines. Dean, this is…”

“Oh, and wait, there is one thing more”

He snatched his phone from Cas's hands and put the camera on selfie mode. He leaned a bit to his left and shot. 

“Here, this is how you look in full HD”.

The picture was sharp and Dean internally thanked the money spent of that fucking device.

“Honestly, I wasn’t actually expecting you to appear in the photo”.

“I’m not a vamp…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Dean laughed. “How do you know what a vampire is, anyway?”.

“Legends of vampires were actually very very old. Some of the people I met along my trips told me about the undead, beings that walked at night, fed on blood and didn’t reflect on mirrors and other surfaces”.

“Are they real, though?”

“You’ve faced demons but you are not sure vampires exist?” Cas teased.

“Man, don’t mock me,” Dean said, pretending to be offended. “Demons and vampires are two very different things”.

“Do you want the truth, then?”

“You know what? I don’t want to know. I don’t want you to ruin Halloween for me.”

“Halloween?”

“A really adulterated version of your Samhain. I’ll explain later”.

Cas looked appeased with his promise for later and turned back his attention to the picture in Dean’s phone.

“I wish I could convey properly how deeply grateful I am”.

“Hey” he shoved Cas’s shoulder playfully. “It’s the least I could do after trying to kill you”.

Cas straightened.

“I hope you are not still plotting my demise”.

Dean stiffened. Shit.

“Cas, damn, no, I don’t…”

And with that the fucker started laughing.

“I was joking, Dean”.

Dean partially wanted to strangle him for playing him like that and partially wanted to let him laugh forever, even at his expense, just because of the way he scrunched up his nose and hundreds of wrinkles appeared around his eyes.

Outside, darkness started to creep into the sky and Dean sighed.

“I think it’s time to go. I’ll be back tomorrow”.

“I’ll be here”.

Dean smiled.

“You better be”.

He felt strangely weird having dinner all alone that night in the restaurant and wasn’t that a silly feeling? Only had a fucking sandwich in Cas’s company and all of the sudden he was missing the guy? His burger was juicy and tasty and Dean wondered how it would taste to Cas. Would he be able to separate each flavor? That James Novak was a human with taste buds and all, maybe Cas hadn’t had the opportunity to try human food? Dean was going to ask him the next day.

A very cheerful Jenna informed him that he wouldn’t need to pay for his meal since they were celebrating a week without murders. In a place like that it made sense, Dean supposed, so he made his way back to the motel with his stomach full and in high spirits.

That night, when he fell asleep he dreamed of a green forest and he was running, young and carefree, thousand eyes watching him among the trees, protecting him.

 

*

  

“C’mon, Cas, try this too”.

“Dean, everything tastes the same to me” .

Cas exasperated tone couldn’t deter him.

“Please?” He tried to emulate Sam’s puppy eyes with moderate level of success but it worked on Cas all the same.

Dean followed, totally enraptured, Cas’s process to taste a chocolate cookie for the first time. His pink tongue slowly licking a chocolate dot, leaving it wet and glistening in its wake, so he produces saliva, his mind supplied, his white and perfect teeth taking a bite, his mesmerizing plush lips closing around it, chewing, tasting until he swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Dean’s suddenly dry mouth tasted like desert and his jeans felt tighter than before.

“And?” he croaked.

“Molecules”.

“Okay, I get it” Dean stole the cookie from Cas’s hands and took a bite with more force that was necessary while he repositioned himself on his back on the floor next to Cas. “Your taste buds are superior and you only can taste the colors of the wind or some shit”.

Cas, clearly accustomed to Dean’s brand of humor by now, took no offense at it and wasn’t that a very dangerous thing?

“What’s your lesson for today?” he asked.

But Dean had come prepared for this question and he took the laptop that lied there next to them with the screen paused in the rolling credits of ‘Dirty Dancing’.

“Today you’ll get a crash course on rock music, Cas. Take this” he said, handing him the headphones.

They spent the rest of the day like that and soon, night found them in the middle of Stairway to Heaven. Cas handed his headphones back with a smile clearly dancing in his eyes.

“Movies, music, food, I wonder what the next lesson is going to be about?”

Suddenly, reality fell over Dean like a punch to the stomach and something must have shown on his face because Cas sat up suddenly.

“What’s wrong, Dean?”

He couldn’t find his voice to say it. But he had to. He had to.

“Cas…I’m…I’m leaving tomorrow”.

Cas' whole face changed slowly. The smile that graced his features not a second before started to disappear, first from his eyes and then it left the corners of his mouth and his lips to die in the center of Dean’s chest. It was a painful process to watch and even worse to feel.

“Oh” he said. “I thought you were from town”.

Dean sighed.

“I’m from Kansas, actually. I came here because I thought I could solve the crimes”.

“Oh”.

After that, neither of them said anything for a while. The silence around Dean felt oppressive and constricting, and it hurted ten times more than when Cas actually had tried to kill him.

It was Dean the one who broke it.

“Cas…”

“It’s okay, Dean. I understand you have a life to come back to”. Cas’s voice was so impersonal, devoid of any emotion, he probably sounded like that back when he was still an angel full of God’s grace. The tone was a slap to the face and he was getting up from his spot on the floor probably to put some distance between them.

“Cas, wait, please” Dean pleaded, getting up as well. He tried to reach for his hand but found the sleeve of his trenchcoat instead. It was enough. “Please”.

Cas turned around to face him and his eyes were so full of sadness that Dean wanted to cry for the first time in years.

“Cas, please, I’ll come back, I promise”. He wasn’t making an empty promise. From the moment he put a foot on Mount Chase he knew he could come back eventually but since he met Castiel, properly met him, he knew that this moment would come back sooner than later. Maybe the killer was gone for good. Maybe he’d come back to stay with Cas for as long as he had time in this plane of reality because he had too much to teach to him, he had too much to relearn through Cas’s eyes. He needed Cas to understand that. “I swear to God I’ll come back to you, ok?”.

That triggered a tiny smile from Cas.

“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Dean”.

“Fuck him, fuck all of this. I’m with you, Cas”. In what he didn’t know he wasn’t even making sense but he wouldn’t leave without Castiel truly believing he wasn’t leaving him alone.

He counted Cas’s hand covering his as his greatest victory. Those big blue eyes on his own greens, evaluating, judging and finally deeming him worthy all in the fraction of a second.

“I believe you”.

Dean let out a long sigh of relief.

Saying goodbye that night was the most difficult thing he had experienced in many years. 

Cas was hesitant, unsure of himself for the first time, like he didn’t know what to do. Neither of them spoke. Dean feared that if he hugged him he wouldn’t be able to let go and maybe not doing it was for the best but he felt empty when he started walking toward the motel. The vision of Cas’s sad wave of goodbye haunted him all the way back to Kansas.

 

*

 

The inside of his home felt hollow. Or maybe it was him. It didn’t matter.

 

*

 

Clubbing with Charlie helped a bit. Her enthusiasm was contagious and her inability to stop talking about the next LARP event made him forget his worries for a moment because the truth was that he was worried. Logically he knew Cas was safe there, but what if someone proposed to tear the place down? What if someone decided to cross the threshold and befriended Cas? And the most important question, what if they miscalculated the time Cas had and when he came back - because he definitely would, he knew that even before he left Mount Chase  - he was gone forever? Those questions plagued his sleeping hours and made for unpleasant dreams. He still wanted to talk to Sam about it but going out with his best friend seemed enough for now. Even if he wanted to have a fun night with someone it wasn’t for the lack of opportunities. Some women approached him, even a couple of men then and there but all of them were dismissed with a polite smile in front of the disbelieving expression painted on Charlie’s face. He claimed to be tired and wanted to just have fun but the reality of it was that the hairs the wrong shade of brown, their eyes the wrong shade of blue.

Fortunately, work kept him occupied too. Another fucking client that wanted almost everything imagined under the sun but at half the price and in less than a month. Dealing with stupid people was slightly below dealing with demons in terms of mental challenge and normally Dean would have hate them but right now they were a welcomed change. However his gaze kept going back to that page of his sketchbook, Cas profile standing among the other sketches. The thing about faith as a source of energy, though, that had been on his mind lately. Cas wasn’t able to leave the place but if with a single sentence Dean had added two months to his lifespan, maybe he could find another method. While he wasn’t much inclined to talk to Sam about his feelings on the matter he needed his brother’s brains to deal with this. He had already read some books about angelology but they were too generic (there was surprisingly little information about how to deal with angels if you compared it with the high amount of info about demons, maybe because they were “the good ones”) and honestly he wasn’t that good with the internet, despite what he had told Cas. 

So yes, he needed Sam. He’d have preferred to meet him face to face but California was too far away, so Skype on friday night will have to do. He kept a tab on the Mount Chase’ Herald all the week while he worked on his new project, but not a single mention of anything important popped up. No killings. No mysterious entities living in an abandoned church. Nothing. Dean hoped it wasn’t the calm before the storm.

 

*

 

Sam’s eyes were comically big.

“Let me get this straight”, he repeated. “You have befriended an angel”.

“Really, Sam?”. Dean opened a beer and took a long gulp. “This is what you got from everything I’ve said?”.

“Yeah, sorry” Sam rubbed his face on the other side of the screen. Dean noticed he was trying to hide a smile. “It’s just that…it’s weird”

“What’s weird?”. He said, feeling a little offended on his and Cas’s behalf.

“Ya know, the whole being friends with an angel now that you are out of commission. It’s like bypassing a whole hierarchy of authority to go straight to talk with the CEO’s secretary”.

“Not funny, Sam, also you know that’d be Metatron, right? Not Cas”.

“So, Cas…” Sam ‘s suggestive look made Dean want to strangle him.

“Shut up, Sammy”.

“I won’t shut up. You called me”, his brother grinned. “I happen to have read a couple of things about him”

“You have read about Castiel?”

“From your bible?”

“You’ve touched my bible?” Dean mocked a gesture of trying to hide something private away.

“Weez, you make it sound like I’ve touched your porn magazines”.

At Sam’s affronted face Dean leaned back on the sofa with a wide smile.

“Okay, that was fair, I suppose,” Sam conceded. “But I know the same as you. Maybe less from what you’ve told me. I don’t know what I could do to help you guys”.

Dean chewed on his bottom lip.

“I’m not sure either, Sammy. I’ve tried to find methods to imitate what I did there but I don’t know and I wouldn’t want to come back empty handed”.

“So you’re gonna visit him?”

“Hum, yeah?” Dean rubbed his neck in a nervous gesture but stopped as soon as he saw his brother’s eyebrow disappear under his hairline. “What?”

“Nothing” Sam chuckled but the fondness in his voice was unmistakable. “I haven’t seen you so interested in anyone in years”.

“Shut up, I’m not interested in Cas like that ”

“So you say…”

He had entertained the idea sometimes, yeah, but not in depth. The problem was that he definitely was interested in Cas, at least a little, but with the deadline pending over his head if he couldn’t gain more time he didn’t want to settle himself up for a heartbreak. Nor Cas. In case he was interested in Dean, that is. And of that he wasn’t one hundred percent sure. He had caught him a couple of times looking at him but what if it was only because he hadn’t talked to anyone in centuries and was fascinated by all the changes in fashion or something like that? Were angels capable of feeling love that way , anyway? He couldn’t ask that to Cas. He’d cross that bridge if he ever got there.

“You know I’m with you in this, Dean. No matter what it is”. Sam said, bringing him back to their current conversation. He sounded sincere as always.

“I know”.

“I promise I will look at anything I can find. When are you planning to go back?”.

“In two or three weeks”. He had to wrap up the project first and then he will be free to go. “I was thinking of camping this time. They only had one motel and it’d be suspicious as fuck if I went there again. Mount Chase is not exactly a tourist trap”.

“And your car?”

“I saw in Google Maps that there is a spot behind the church, it will hide Baby…What?”.

“Nothing”. Sam was still looking at him with the same soft expression anyone would have if they were watching a puppy learning to walk on four wobbly legs. “It’s cute, that’s all”.

“It’s not”. Dean insisted. He wasn’t the main star in a romcom. Absolutely not.

“Whatever you say. I’m heading to bed, I’ll call if I find something”.

“Don’t forget your nightly skincare routine, princess”.

“You should try it. Your boyfriend will thank me later”.

“Shut up, bitch”

“Bye, jerk”. 

After ending the call Dean felt marginally better. The good thing about Sam being a nerd is that he knew he wasn’t gonna stop until he found something and with that positive feeling  warming him like a hug from the inside he went to bed happy for the first time in days. 

Sam’s call came surprisingly only a week later, while he was doing dishes.

“Shot”.

“Okay, I’m not sure if this’s gonna work but I was reading something about spiritual connections and I thought about what you told me, that Cas was able to see your soul or something”.

“Yeah, he told me he could see God’s power inside me”.

Sam was silent for a while but Dean could hear him furiously typing something somewhere, probably his keyboard.

“Dean, have you tried to share it?”

Dean stopped in his tracks. 

“Share what?”

“Your grace” Sam said using what Dean called ‘his pedagogical lawyer’s voice’. “For what you told me, I think that this is what you have inside. God’s grace. And it was what Cas had inside him once. Maybe if you find a way to share it you could save him”.

Dean touched his stomach like he was expecting to feel it moving in his guts but he felt nothing. Well, something, hope blossoming in his chest. He started making a mental list of the things he’d need for his trip.

“I’ll call you if I find anything else but I think your best chance is to talk to Cas”.

“Yeah, I will”.

“I only want one thing in return”.

“What?”

“I want to meet your boyfriend,” Sam shouted. The little bitch.

Dean hanged the phone, his brother’s laugh still ringing in his ears.

 

*

 

Packing for the trip this time was easy. Sam had called to wish him a safe trip but he hadn’t found more information on the grace sharing. He wasn’t sure if it was even possible but Dean knew he had to try.

Baby’s trunk was full to the brim with camping gear courtesy of Charlie. Now that he had a plan he told her about Cas and if Sam was happy, Charlie was practically over the moon. Thankfully she didn’t try to sign herself up for the trip too but that didn’t stop her from making him promise to bring Cas to a LARP event. As much as Dean agreed to do it he wasn’t sure Cas wouldn’t fly away the moment he got part of his grace back. That would be the normal thing to do, after being trapped inside the same place for centuries and Dean couldn’t blame him for it. But he promised Charlie anyway.

He made the trip with as few stops as possible, sometimes even sleeping in the Impala just so he wouldn’t have to pay for hours in motels he wasn’t going to use and that shortened the trip by a day. When the distant silhouette church appeared in his field of vision, Dean was tired to the bone but determined to make it.  The alternative route that didn’t pass through the town was an unpaved road that put Baby’s dampers to test and Dean silently thanked her everytime the pebbles made her vibrate until they reached the back of the building. He parked under a tree and promised her an oil change when they were back in Kansas but didn’t wait to put the camping gear out of the trunk before practically running to the main entrance. The church was eerily silent, the sun filtering through the windows and painting the walls and the moss that grew inside in vivid tones. It must have rained a lot. But the most worrying thing was that there was no sign of Cas. What if he had arrived too late?

“Cas?” he said in a quiet voice as he walked the aisle. “Cas, are you here?”

“Dean?” came a soft voice to his right.

And there he was. His shape was weaker than it was last time, slightly blurry edges around his features but he was Cas and he was there and Dean felt such relief that he threw himself at Cas’s arms, lack of solidity be damned. Hugging Cas was like nothing he had ever experienced, it was like breathing fresh air at the top of the highest mountain, like swimming in a cold river after a hot day.

“I’m here, Cas” he whispered in his ear.

“You came back earlier than expected”.

Finally Dean took a step back, still smiling.

“I did” he confirmed. “I’d have come back even sooner but I had some business to take care of and also there’s something I’d like to ask you, actually ”.

That gained him a frown from Cas.

“It’s everything alright?”

“Yeah” Dean reassured. “Hang on while I retrieve my camping gear”.

He took the sleeping bag and some snacks, leaving the tent inside Baby’s truck. If he was positive about this, maybe he would be able to spend some time outside with Cas.

“Are you planning to stay here?” Cas asked, confused.

“Umm, yeah?”. He said, suddenly self-aware. Was he intruding? Was Cas feeling pressured to share his space with him? Maybe he should’ve stayed outside. “I mean…I can’t sleep outside if you want me to, I just…”

But any words he was about to say were interrupted when Cas hugged him again, so tightly that Dean was grateful for a moment that he wasn’t at his full strength. 

“Cas, I wanted to ask you something”, he said and Cas released him solemnly. Dean cleared his throat. “I was talking to my brother about what you told me about my soul”.

Cas noded, prompting him to continue.

“What if…” he breathed once, twice. “What if I shared it with you?”

Cas blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if I have God’s grace inside me, I want to give it to you?”.

Cas’s expression was inescrutable.

“You don’t mean it,” he said gravely. “Dean, you don’t know what you are talking about”.

And okay, that hurt a bit but he wasn’t going to let Cas talk him out of it.

“No, Cas, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but from your reaction I get that you do, right?”

“Yes, Dean, I happen to know a little about grace sharing” Cas was starting to raise his voice. “And because of that I’m telling you you shouldn’t say something like this so lightly”.

“Lightly? Do you think I’m joking?”

“Dean you don’t know…”

Oh God, he was really furious now.

“Stop saying that I don’t know, Cas!” he shouted. “I just wanna help you”.

“Why?”

“Because I care about you, you fucking dumbass!”.

Dean was breathing heavily as if he had run a marathon. Cas was looking at him like he didn’t believe he was real so he did the unthinkable and raised his hand to cup Cas’s cold cheek. His heart skipped a beat when Cas simply closed his eyes and leaned into the touch before opening them again.

“Look, Cas, I care about you, a lot in fact” he emphasized. “And I’m telling the truth when I say I want to help you in whatever capacity. Since you know how this works I’m asking you to lead the way”.

Cas covered Dean’s hand with his.

“But I don’t want to hurt you”.

“And you won’t”, Dean said, firmly. “I trust you will stop if I said so, right?”

Cas noded silently.

“So, how do you want me? I mean…” he corrected himself, blushing. “What do you need me to do?”

“Just don’t move, please”.

“Okay, are you gonna feed from me vampire’ style?” he joked as a way to deflect that, yes, he was a little bit nervous about it. “I can lean my neck”.

Dean stiffened a bit when Cas tenderly held his face between his hands.

“Promise me you won’t panic” Cas said.

Dean swallowed.

“Okay”.

“And promise me that if you feel any discomfort you will tell me”.

“I promise. Go ahead”.

Cas held his face for a few moments and Dean closed his eyes, to make it clear that he trusted him completely.

He was expecting to feel something weird, hell, he was even expecting to feel some pain, like someone was pulling his strings, but what he felt instead was Cas’s soft pillowy lips over his.

He opened his eyes and saw Cas’s closed ones. Cas was kissing him. A timid caress of lips  mostly. Chaste, almost reverential. Cas was really really kissing him and honestly, the mechanics of it were simple, just two mouths touching each other, a movement Dean had learned, and perfected, over the years with women and men alike. A kiss can have many meanings, different goals, depending on the circumstances and the people involved. A kiss can be shared between friends. Between relatives. Between lovers. 

A kiss can mean ‘I’m happy to see you’. 

A kiss can mean ‘I don’t want to say goodbye’. 

A kiss can mean nothing. 

A kiss right there in an abandoned church, under a sky low and gray and threatening to rain, can mean everything.

And then, Dean felt Cas tongue, just the tip, and he was fucking lost.

He opened his mouth with an honestly shameful moan and Cas took it at the silent permission it was to ravish his mouth. The kiss turned frantic in a matter of seconds, too much tongue, too much saliva, and not enough at the same time. Dean threw his arms around Cas’s neck and he felt solid but there was literally no time to think about that. His back collided against a wall and the kiss turned desperate and all consuming. Cas’s hair was incredibly soft between his fingers and his mouth was hot, his tongue unforgiving and Dean gave as good as he got or at least he tried to with half his brain functions completely fried.

It could have been minutes, hours or even years, but in any case the kiss ended too soon in Dean’s opinion.

Cas was breathing heavily a few inches away from his mouth, his breathing making his lips tingle and since when could he feel him like that?

“Cas?”

 When Cas fixed his eyes on him, Dean gasped. They were blue but the blue had swallowed everything else giving, his features glowing unnaturally. His mouth was dripping a blue liquid too and Dean couldn’t help but touch it. It was cold and sticky to the fingers and Cas didn’t even react to the gesture. 

“Cas, are you with me?” he said, shaking him slowly and that put him out of his trance. Cas blinked once, twice, and his eyes were normal again.

“Dean?”

“Welcome back”, he said, smiling. “How do you feel?”

Cas looked at his still glistening finger and gave Dean a mini heart attack when he licked it without thinking. Feeling Cas’s tongue on his was one thing but feeling it in any other part of his body was a different matter altogether. He felt heat pooling in his guts and he had to think of very unpleasant things to avoid further embarrassment.

“Sorry” Cas said, voice hoarse, pupils dilated and cheeks crimson red too. “I wasn’t thinking”. He finally let go of his hand. “I feel…real”.

He took a step back and looked around, raising one hand. A trail of vines, green and brilliant and beautiful appeared in the ground, coiling around a column and disappearing through a hole in the ceiling.

“Like I haven’t felt in a very long time”.

“I’m that good kisser?” Dean joked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively but still feeling a little short of breath.

“About that”, Cas lowered his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. I should have thought about other methods”.

What? Was he regretting it? He was about to retort but Cas interrupted him before giving him the opportunity to open his mouth in protest.

“There are different ways to share grace,” he explained. “It’s a common practice between angels after a battle and since grace replenishes in Heaven it’s not a problem for us. We just need to touch a hand, a shoulder, to do it. But this” he pointed at Dean’s chest. “This is different. I need to touch your soul directly and doing so it’s an excruciatingly painful process. I could kill you, Dean, just to take a small part of it.”

That was unexpected. He hadn’t felt a single thing.

“But why a kiss, then?”

Cas sighed. 

“It’s not the kiss, exactly. It’s the act of drinking”.

Oh.

“Your grace it’s everywhere inside you. It’s a part of you. I could have drunk your blood with the same result”.

Dean repressed the urge to say the word starting with V.

“But…”

“There’s grace in your saliva, too”.

So that was it. Cas hadn’t kissed him because he wanted to do it this way. It was just the less painful method. It stung a bit but Dean had promised to do everything in his hand to help Cas so if a kiss was what he needed, he could kiss Dean to death if he wanted, his stupid feelings be damned.

“Don’t sweat it, Cas” his voice sounded a bit strangled despite his forced cockyness.”I’m glad you are better and it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant experience”, he throwed at wink to emphasize his words. “We can do this anytime”.

“I don’t think so” and honestly Cas was doing such a good job to squeeze Dean’s heart with each word. “Taking all of your grace could kill you too”.

“Oh, okay”. 

Dean couldn’t stand Cas’s gaze on him so he cleared his throat unnecessarily.

“Do you feel strong enough to go outside now?”

Cas looked at his own hands and then at the main door.

“Yes, I think I am”.

A slightly wet breeze welcomed him outside and Dean breathed it in happily. His mind was still full of kiss, kiss, kiss but the change of scenery was very much needed.

“Hey, Cas, have you seen…?”

But the words died in his mouth. Cas was right on the doorstep, looking intently at the ground, unsure. Dean took a couple of steps back raising his hand towards him.

“Here, let me help you”.

Cas looked at his open hand and then his face, smiling timidly, and joined their fingers. And just like that, Dean saw a real angel taking his first step outside after centuries.

Cas on the outside was a curious force of nature and Dean simply let him be. He was excited to see everything, the trees, the flowers that had grown, the rock in the clearing where Dean laid on his back with his eyes closed just enjoying the moment  while Cas was exploring their surroundings. 

It was a pity, honestly, when the first drop of rain started to fall.

“Cas, buddy, we should get inside”. The rain was pouring down by the minute and he turned up his jacket’s collar in a useless gesture. 

But Cas wasn’t listening to him. He had his eyes closed towards the sky, droplets falling down his face, his hair a wet mess and his trenchcoat getting darker and darker. Dean didn’t want to interrupt a moment like that, but he wasn’t a big fan of having soaked clothes sticking to his body so he walked towards Cas and took his hand gently. Cas didn’t resist, though, and Dean slowly led him back to the church.

Once they were safely inside, Dean took off his leather jacket that fell to the ground with a disgustingly wet sound. He was secretly glad that he had chosen to wear a black shirt underneath instead of a white one. It’s not that he wasn’t proud of his body but he felt strangely naked without his jacket in front of a very dry Cas. Cas, who, by the way, was ogling him intently and  Dean was blushing again and what the hell, he hadn't blushed a single day in his life, not even when he was a teenager.

“Let me”, Cas said, a few inches from him and raised two long fingers to his forehead and Dean was suddenly dry too. Not a single drop of water in his clothes or skin.

“Woah, Cas, are you a wizard now?” he laughed and the air around them felt charged.

Cas just rolled his eyes, but didn’t take a step back and they were so fucking close. Cas was looking at his lips and Dean felt the need to wet them, feeling the angel’s gaze following the movement of his tongue and he wanted to surrender so badly and someone took a step closer and Dean opened his mouth just a tiny bit…

Then, his phone started ringing and Cas disappeared so fast that the unexpected movement almost made him fall face first into the ground.

“Wha…what?” Dean stammered but he recovered quickly when Cas showed him his phone, -clearly retrieved from his jacket on the floor- with a name blinking on the screen. Sam.

“What happened, Sam?”

“Dean”, came his brother’s distorted voice. “There has been another murder”.

 

*

 

“Fuck”. Dean rubbed his face. “Fuuuuck”.

He had the laptop opened in his lap with a website opened in the browser. There were no pictures, fortunately, but the descriptions were awful enough. A family had been found murdered, mother, father and child, his bodies repositioned to mimic a painting of the Holy Family. Dean felt sick to the core and skipped the more gruesome details. 

“Dean…”

It was his fault. They had died because Dean had been overconfident. He had wanted to believe that a week without murders was a success but in realitly the killer was just preparing in the shadows for his big hit.

“Dean”.

He should have tried harder. He should have insisted…

“DEAN” Cas shouted and Dean turned his head, angrily.

“Cas, this is not the moment…” but the sentence died on his tongue.

Cas eyes were glowing again, bright blue, around him a sphere blue sphere, long tendrils floating.

“I feel something”, he said in a totally inhuman voice. He looked around, his eyes searching. “He's here”.

Dean couldn’t ask for clarification before being violently thrown against a wall, his back cracking horribly when he collapsed against the stone, held by an invisible force.

“Well, well, well” came a venomous voice to his right. “Look what the north winds have brought to me”.

In front of him there was a man dressed in a suit. He looked like a perfect average rich guy, short black hair and a proud stance like he was already at the top of the food chain and he knew it. He caressed Dean’s cheek with a well manicured finger and Dean felt automatically dirty.

“What do you want, Leviathan?” Cas asked with a cold voice.

The man, the leviathan, turned slowly on his heels to face Cas.

“Oh, my, how incredibly lucky I am today. It’s little Castiel we have here?” he said, poison tainting his every word. “And just when I was getting tired of this silly town…”.

“So you did it,you fucking piece of shit!” Dean exclaimed, angrily.

His attention was back to Dean, like he had dismissed Castiel already. With each step Dean felt the invisible force that held him against the wall growing stronger.

“My, my, what a mouthy thing you are”, he said, licking his lips, practically devouring him with his eyes.

“Don’t touch me”, Dean said through gritted teeth..

“Oh”, the man said, and his smile grew ten times bigger. “I think you’d make a beautiful piece of art”.

“Don’t even think about laying a finger on him,” Cas warned.

The leviathan simply ignored him.

“Mmmm”, he said, still looking at Dean. “Just like the rest of them. So beautiful and breakable”.

Like a stop-motion movie Dean watched horrified how Cas, trying to tackle the leviathan by surprise, was frozen mid-air with a simple flourish of the monster’s finger. The same invisible forces were holding him but in his case actively trying to strangle him. Cas was more powerful now but clearly not enough to fight the leviathan by himself. Dean needed to think and he needed to gain more time, so he smiled softly at the leviathan.

“Why did you do it?” he questioned. From the corner of his eyes he saw Cas’s wide open eyes. He needed to regain the monster's attention fully. “What did they do to you, those people?”

The monster shrugged with his human form.

“I wanted to see if I could attract God’s attention. Playing a little bit with his toys in the playground he created.” He tightened his hold on Dean. “I’m just bored, you see”.

Dean saw Cas kicking his feet in the air, uselessly.  

“Then why do you waste your effort on him?” he said, pointing his head at Cas’s still struggling form. “Heaven doesn’t want him anymore. You need humans to get their attention. Release him”.

The leviathan’s face contorted in a grimace.

“Oh, I see, the tiny useless human is in love with the tiny useless angel” he mocked a loving expression. “I wonder who will suffer more watching the other one die. Let’s see what I can do with this place”.

With a fluid movement, Cas floated towards them and was repositioned next to Dean. The leviathan had released his tight hold on him apparently so he was breathing heavily when Dean touched his hand behind the leviathan’s back, still intrigued by his surroundings.

“Cas” Dean whispered and squeezed his hand. 

The angel looked at him. Dean saw his eyes so full of fear and worry and in that moment he knew that someone would have to die. 

The Leviathan kept moving benches around, totally unaware, or maybe didn’t deemed it worthy of his attention, of the conversation that was happening.

“Cas”, he repeated. Cas squeezed his hand back, a signal that he was listening. “You need to take all of it”.

Cas frowned for a moment until realization flooded him. 

“No”.

“Cas, please”. He wasn’t below begging him to do it if it was necessary.

“Dean, it will kill you”. He sounded distressed and Dean felt so much for him in that moment that he knew that he was doing the right thing.

“We don’t know, Cas” And that was the truth, right?. He had only shared a tiny part of his grace with Cas and it had made him powerful enough to walk outside his prison of stone. Maybe he didn’t even need it all. Maybe. “But we have to try, we have to kill him or he’s gonna kill us all”.

“But Dean…” Cas whispered in a defeated tone.

“I know you won’t hurt me,” he said, caressing his knuckles. 

“I will never hurt you”, Cas seemed on the verge of tears. “Never, Dean”.

“I know,” Dean breathed with a sad smile. “C’mon Cas, take it. I’m yours”.

Blue tendrils pierced his soul and Dean shouted. Pain was unbearable. Tears were openly falling down his face. And he shouted. It felt like he was being bent but without breaking, just stretching that pain more and more and more. He was conscious enough to watch the leviathan turning towards them, peeling off his human form, becoming something that he couldn’t have described even in normal conditions. There were so many teeths and the sounds it made, god, were inhuman enough to make his ears bleed. And there was so much blood, in fact. His blood. Falling from his eyes. From his nose and mouth making tiny puddles in the ground under him.

And with his last breath, before letting the darkness envelop him, Dean turned his face towards Cas. His angel, drinking from his body, getting bigger and bigger with each pull from the tendrils that were piercing his core, and maybe in his delirium he imagined it, but there was a massive pair of black wings, and the monster shouted and tried to escape and the walls, the whole building, trembled with ancient power.

And when the thing that was Cas looked at him, there were thousands of eyes covering his face.

 

*

 

Coming back from a dark pit wasn’t a pleasant act. Dean blinked into consciousness, feeling each part of his body screaming with the effort. He felt bedsheets and a fluffy pillow so he was in a room but it wasn’t until he was completely awake that he recognized that room as his own.

He was back in Kansas.

He sat up so fast he almost got dizzy but a firm hand in his bicep was holding him upright preventing him from falling. 

“Hello, Dean”.

It had to be a dream. It couldn’t be him. But the touch felt so real. Dean covered that hand expecting it to disappear into thin air, confirming his suspicions of it being a dream. But the hand below felt solid and real and so Dean looked at Cas’s face.

“Cas? Are you here for real?”

The angel smiled. His two eyes were the same blue as always.

“Yes”.

“But how…?” he pointed at his room, the question implicit in his gesture.

“I used some of your memories of this place to bring you back”.

“Oh”. It’s not that it made sense but given that both of them were there and alive it meant that Cas had enough power to get them out of that place. Speaking of…

“The church was destroyed”. Cas said, like he was reading his mind. Was he? . “And so did the Leviathan”.

“Oh”, Dean repeated and felt silly for it but what was he supposed to say? His head fucking hurt and he was about to complain about it when Cas took his right hand between his.

“Dean, you have to understand that what I had to do back in the church was extremely dangerous, for a moment I thought I had lost you. You were shouting and in so much pain, I…”

But Dean was having none of it. Cas had saved not only both of them but the whole town as well. Maybe the whole world for a while. He cupped his cheek with his left hand.

“Cas, you did what you had to. What I told you to. You saved both of us. We’re here and we’re fine”.

“Dean, you don’t have any grace in your body anymore”. 

“And?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not an exorcist anymore, Cas, I’m just a freelance artist, now. I’ve been for years. This grace inside me was useless and you look nice pumped full of it, by the way”. 

Cas chuckled softly.

“So” Dean continued, trying to disguise the tremor in his voice. “Now that you are nice to go, where are you planning to go?”

Cas tilted his head, confused. 

“What are you saying, Dean?”

Dean lowered his eyes.

“I dunno. Now that you are back full force you don’t have to stay with me anymore”.

“Dean” Cas sighed. “I will never leave you”.

And Cas kissed him. This time was even more unexpected than the first but this time Dean was ready for it. Cas was a force against him that made him fall on his back directly into the mattress. And it fucking hurt.

“Ouch”, he complained, breaking the kiss.

“I’m sorry, Dean” Cas said but before giving him the time to react he kissed his forehead and suddenly the pain was gone.

“Did you just heal me?”

“As you would say, ‘I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve’ ” Cas teased.

Oh my…

“Shut up and kiss me again, you dog”.

And Cas did. With the pain gone from his body, Dean could put everything into it. This time when Cas kissed him, he did it with his whole body. The hands that once were holding his face like he was a fragile thing started exploring his torso devoid of all shame. Cas' lips left Dean’s mouth to start a unholy path towards his collarbone. 

“Cas”, he moaned, and that seemed to turn him on even more.

Dean was unceremoniously manhandled until he was completely on his back.

“Woah, Cas, that was…” He was about to say hot but when he opened his eyes, the Cas that was on top of him was slightly different from the Cas of a few seconds ago. Each one of his multiple eyes were glowing and there were two pairs of black wings protruding from his back. Dean touched one of them in awe. Cas shuddered. 

“You will have to excuse me. I can’t control it”, he said, starting to crawl back towards the end of the bed, away from Dean.

“Hey” Dean protested, getting up in a quick move and holding him by the lapels of his trenchcoat. “Where do you think you are going?”

Cas looked like he didn’t understand.

“But Dean, look at me”, he said.

All of his eyes were overshadowed by blue. The ones in Cas’s face and the one’s in Cas’s neck and hands. All of them were beautiful.

“You are very wrong if you think I don’t want you in all of your shapes” and just to stress his words he took one of Cas’s hands and kissed it repeatedly from palm to finger, eyes included, without breaking eye contact with Cas’s astonished face. “I hope I made my point clear here”. He finished.

Cas was over him in an instant. There was no finesse in the way Cas ripped Dean’s tshirt with a growl, like the piece of fabric was offending him somehow. His lips and teeth connected with Dean’s nipples and he moaned unabashed. 

“Cas, your… ah …clothes” he managed to say and thanks God that Cas was capable of multitasking because with a twist of his fingers the rest of his clothes disappeared along with Cas and finally Dean’s eyes could feast on Cas’s body, magnificent, strong and powerful, eyes covering part of his chest and his arms, but nothing else below, in the path towards his beautiful cock that was standing proudly, the crown flushed angry red, framed by two massive thighs that Dean wanted them immediately around his hips or maybe his face, he couldn’t decide.

His own cock was hard enough to hammer nails but with the way Cas was looking at him, all eyes intent on his body or face, full of hunger despite the absence of pupils Dean feared he might come untouched just by being contemplated by such raw power. And maybe one day he would try just that, but right now he needed Cas’s hand on him.

“Dean” Cas moaned against his lips when he carded his fingers through his soft hair. His long fingers were everywhere again, thank god, and when Cas touched his cock for the first time Dean bit his lips with so much force that it almost drew blood. He wasn’t going to last, he knew that, but he wanted to stretch the moment as much as possible so maybe the clever thing to do was to focus on Cas’s cock instead of his. 

“Cas, wait” he said and Cas stopped instantly.

“What’s wrong, Dean?” and there was again so much softness in his voice, so much tenderness, that Dean knew, right in this moment, in his bed in Kansas, naked as the day he was born, that he loved Cas. That he loved him so much that he would bleed for him all over again if it was necessary. And that thought was liberating in itself.

“Nothing,” he said with the biggest smile. “But I wanted to try something”. He took Cas’s hands between his and got them both out of bed. Cas followed him obediently, until they were standing in the middle of the room. 

“Cas” Dean started. His cock was starting to deflate and so was Cas’s but Dean hoped that it’d be back to his previous state with what he was about to do. ”I know you’ve been here for a long time. Much more than my poor human brain can conceive”.  Cas remained silent, his big wings and eyes waiting for him to continue. “I know you have been presented with gifts, sacrifices and offerings by people along the centuries, just to gain your favor, to make you look at them and give your blessings” Dean breathed heavily before continuing. “I can’t give you gold  but I have something”.

And he fell on his knees in front of him and opened his arms in a cross, palms facing up. 

“I’m offering myself to you, Cas. I’m yours”.

The sound Cas made was entirely inhuman but incredibly hot to Dean’s ears. His lips were on him instantly, kissing him wet and messy, too much tongue and muffled moans. But Dean wasn’t done. He held his gaze intently and Cas broke the kiss, so Dean opened his mouth slowly and closed his eyes.

“Bless me, Cas”.

It was so dirty that Dean felt like he was floating when Cas’s hard cock rested softly in his mouth. Only the tip caressing his lips.

“Dean…” Cas warned. Giving him the option to back out.

Dean licked the tip, the otherworldly flavor of Cas delicious on his tongue, prompting him to move on. He was being careful, and Dean was glad for that but when Cas started a rocking movement in and out of his mouth, he wished he were a little rougher. His own cock was hard as fuck again but he didn’t plan to touch it yet, this was for Cas, to worship him like he fucking deserved so he remained in the same position, in front of a terrifiying angel, being facefucked within a inch of his life, observed by thousand eyes that witnessed the creation of galaxies that made his skin felt hot, his blood boil. This was Heaven. This was what it felt to be holy. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when he felt his cock spilling his own seed at the same time the taste of Cas’s cum flooded his senses. When he opened his eyes, Cas was looking at him with reverence, like Dean was the saint, not the other way around.

His arms fucking hurt when he lowered them but it was worthy. It was oh so fucking worthy.

Cas smiled timidly, his eyes blinked all at once when Dean raised up from the floor on wobbly legs and he was promptly laid back in bed, his face still sticky from Cas’s cum and his own saliva.

“Hey, Cas”, he said teasingly. “I hope you have another trick up your sleeve, because I don’t plan to move in the meantime and I don’t want to go to sleep still covered in this mess”.

Cas barely touched him and he was all clean. Dean smiled smugly.

“Oh, my love” Cas murmured, his voice was positively predatory.  “You have no idea the tricks I want to try on you”.

Dean shivered at the endearment and the promise his words held. He couldn’t wait. Honestly he couldn’t fucking wait.

End

Notes:

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