Chapter Text
Castiel was napping when he smelled it, head cradled awkwardly on his arm, fingers numb under the pages of the book that hadn't kept him awake. He blinked a few times, not sure at first what had woken him, and then -
Well, by then Dean had already kicked down the door. He stood, shaking the numbness out of his arm.
"Dean -" he got out, but that was it before Dean was on him. And a good thing, too, because it was only a few breaths before Castiel was feverish too, caught on Dean's scent, pawing at Dean's clothes just as clumsily as Dean was biting his mouth. It was always the purest like this, right when it started, crystalline undiluted bliss rolling right off Dean's skin. Dean was shaking and flushed and he pulled Cas's hips tight against his and his scent screamed I need you, and Castiel was lost.
Dean shoved him down onto the bed and he landed diagonally, one foot braced on the floor, but he didn't have time to rearrange himself before Dean landed on him. Dean's clothes were - ridiculous, infuriating, Castiel tried to drag them off but Dean beat him to it, their arms tangling as Dean stripped his shirt off then pushed Cas's out of the way so he could get to his belt. The bed scraped across the floor as they fumbled against each other, Castiel panting loudly, or maybe chanting to himself, under his breath, "dean dean dean dean dean."
Dean held him down as he rode him, arms trembling with the effort of holding himself up and Cas in place. Cas wanted nothing more than to roll them, pin Dean down and try his damndest to get to that place inside Dean that was crying out for him, but he let Dean stay in control, working himself on Castiel's cock with shivery single-mindedness. And because Dean was in heat, he didn't even try to last - as soon as his knot swelled up he tied them, and let that (and the sound Dean made, even swallowed away) tip him over the edge. He would've been embarrassed if it weren't utterly perfect.
Dean grunted when he felt Cas's nails dig into his hips - Castiel wondered if he could feel him coming, inside - and pulled his own cock roughly, breathing harsh until he groaned and came all over Castiel's chest. He slumped in place, exhausted, and Castiel tried to keep quiet as the little shifts of Dean's body pulled successive orgasms from him. In heat, it seemed like Castiel could come never-endingly if that was what Dean's body demanded of him. Dean was fidgeting impatiently as he sought a better resting spot against the headboard behind him - but as the pleasure slowly ebbed away, it wasn't enough to keep Castiel awake.
It was morning when he came to, body aching in the well-used way it always did after Dean's heat. Dean, of course, was long-gone, what with breakfast sizzling below, the smell of which had finally woken Castiel.
But it was just Charlie when he arrived downstairs, the thin morning light making her hair glow as she cursed at the waffle iron that somehow only Bobby could get to work. There were some rashers of bacon and pastries already on the table. "Morning, Cas!" She chirped as he approached.
"Good morning," he said. "Dean's already come and gone?"
She pursed her lips. "I haven't seen him."
"Hm," he said. He loaded a plate with what food was available, crossed the kitchen, and climbed the stairs to the other side of the house. The cabin was mostly chunky wood beams and smooth once-white plastic now yellowed with age, and precious few windows to let in the bleak winter sunlight. Castiel still occasionally uncovered an undisturbed pocket that made his nose itch with accumulated dust. Dean's room was on the second floor, in a corner. He knocked twice.
"Breakfast," he offered, voice husking slightly as it woke up.
There was a long silence. The food wafted up fragrantly under his nose, making his stomach growl and reminding him how worn-out he felt. Underneath it, just barely, was the faint scent of Dean's heat, weaker now that the first initial rush had passed but still mouthwatering.
There was some clanging, some clambering, and then the door cracked open.
Dean glared out through the tiny sliver of space. There were dark blue half-moons under his eyes, and pillow creases along one cheek. He opened the door just wide enough to grab the plate from Cas's hands, then slammed it in his face.
Cas opened his mouth to shout something, but Metallica came on full-blast before he could.
He retreated downstairs and sat at the breakfast table. Charlie didn't say anything as he pulled apart one of her waffles, searching for the least-burnt bits.
*
Three Months Ago
There was a long time that Castiel couldn't account for. It was filled with the bile-churning thump of helicopter blades, endless jostling, the sensation of being lifted and slid, IVs, needles, and the smack of tape being unspooled. After that were hazy memories of somewhere soft and warm and comfortable, but for the hard plastic in his nose and mouth. At times he thought he heard someone talking to him.
It was chilly the day he first truly woke up. He blinked crusted, heavy eyelids, taking in the many tubes hooked into him and the handcuffs keeping him chained to the hospice bed.
A man in a trucker hat was sitting a few feet to the right, in a wooden chair with a heavy blanket thrown over it. Dean was either nowhere nearby, or he'd been injured so badly it had affected his sense of smell, because all he could detect was a stringent, clean-medicine scent. The man was looking at Castiel as if they'd been chatting for a long time, and picked up seemingly mid-sentence.
"Lemme get this straight," he said. "Mike and Lucy are brothers, and were in charge of y'all's, uh," he paused, a slight smile tugging at his beard, "infamous... extralegal family business, until Lucy broke worse and got kicked to the curb. Now Mike's dying and wants Lucy dead before he is so your people don't go over to him next; Lucy wants to stay in hiding so that's exactly what'll happen."
Castiel tried to blink at him to convey his lack of ability to reply, but trucker hat appeared unbothered by the unilateral nature of the conversation. "Mike tried to kill Sam to lure Lucy out," he continued, "on account of their, uh, technical... blood relation. Yeah, be glad you missed that one," he said darkly. "They did a DNA test, hoping it was a bluff. Boy drama out the wazoo. Anyway, Lucy tried to protect Sam in his tender-hearted psycho way, but we put a stop to that, and now both Mike and Lucy want some combination or all of us dead."
Castiel tried to talk, found that his throat felt as if it had been resurfaced with sandpaper, and started to cough incessantly. There was a glass of water on the table next to his bed, but trucker hat let him grab for it and just kept talking.
"Now, when Dean figured out y'all weren't entirely on the up-and-up - big shocker there," he said, "he got word to Charlie and she high-tailed it outta there, but not without siphoning off a big chunk of your data. Looks like the whole mission you were on was a ruse - this Zeke guy, or Gadreel or something, he's alive and well. We think he was part of the first wave Mike sent looking for Luke. When Zeke started getting hints in the area but still couldn't close, they figured claiming he'd vanished was a convenient way to get Dean there, Dean being their ace in the hole to find Sam," he said, waving a hand as if to illustrate some elaborate chart, "and thus Lucy. You," he said, pointing at Castiel, "were the ace in the hole when it came to 'managing Dean'."
Cas coughed, struggling to speak. "I didn't -"
"Some of what Charlie found on Naomi's files paints you as a patsy," trucker hat said, "not knowing anything about this whole mess. And then there's this," he said, fishing something out of his pocket and dropping it on the table - a tiny nest of metal and wires, smaller than his thumbnail. Castiel tried to frown at it, but he couldn't really feel his face. Trucker hat nodded helpfully, and said, "We found it in your molar."
Castiel flinched, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. A bug? It sat on the tabletop, winking and innocuous, as a dozen brief snatches of conversation, empty moments of just the whistle of sand or the rustle of sheets, passed through Castiel's memory. The handcuffs bit into his wrists, and his head roared so loud he almost thought he could hear a whining, like a shrill throb -
It was a heart monitor, connected to him and currently twittering out a furious beat. Trucker hat's eyebrow was up, though it wasn't unkind. Castiel yanked the meter off his finger. "By the time we found it it was defunct," trucker hat said slowly. "Probably all the gifts Charlie left for y'all on Naomi's server. So," he concluded, "we think we can trust you. But some of us ain't convinced."
Castiel looked down at his fist. "Dean?"
"Also," trucker hat said, ignoring him, "there's this." He waved a hand at Castiel's bed.
"What?"
"You. You're doin' remarkably well for someone who got gut-shot."
Castiel shifted on the bed. "I don't -"
"You shouldn't have healed so fast," the man said, eyes narrow and dark. "Especially with us carting you halfway 'round the world, especially with how few real drugs we can get out here - we can't even get Dean's -"
Feet clattering down nearby stairs cut him off, and Sam Winchester ducked down through a low door across the room. Castiel jerked in surprise - he looked gaunt and pale, and his scent was faint, almost a ghost of Dean's, though with the same skunky, alpha tone to it he associated with himself. He ignored Castiel to ask trucker hat, "He's awake?"
"We were just chatting," trucker hat replied easily.
"I'll tell Dean," Sam said, and left again.
Castiel's heartbeat picked up, as piercing as the monitor had been. Trucker hat smirked at him. "Nervous?"
Come to think of it, Castiel could smell his own anxiety, drifting above his stale, infirm base scent. Was he merely slowly re-adapting to consciousness, or was Dean approaching? He shuffled in the bed, the sheets damp against his skin.
A moment later Sam reentered, this time with Charlie - though not with Dean, and with no explanation. Castiel certainly wasn't going to ask. Charlie sat with her legs straddling a backwards chair, and waved at trucker hat. "Hey, Bobby."
Bobby nodded at her. Sam leaned against a wall, and Bobby settled more comfortably into his chair. All three pairs of eyes turned on him.
"So," Sam said.
Castiel cleared his throat. "I take it I owe you my thanks. For not letting me bleed out."
"Don't thank us yet," Sam said. "You're here as something between a rescue and a source of intel."
"I gathered," Castiel said. He glanced between them, but they were all equally guarded, carefully neutral. "I was telling the truth - I had no idea what was going on."
"But you were keeping things from us," Sam said. "My being targeted."
"I had no idea why," Castiel said. "I didn't think it mattered. All I knew was that it would have made working with Dean more difficult, and that was my mission."
Sam shrugged. "Maybe."
"Did you," Castiel swallowed. "Did you find the recordings that took?" He indicated the bug. "In Naomi's files?"
"No," Charlie said.
"Why?" Bobby asked. "You say somethin' on it you don't want us to hear?"
"No," Cas snapped. "I was doing my job, just like the rest of you."
"And now?"
Castiel breathed in, forcing himself not to flinch at the assault of scents, and breathed out slowly. "They were spying on me," he said. "They used me."
"Like you used us," Bobby said.
"I didn't know." Castiel hissed.
"What would you have done if they'd told you?" Sam asked.
"I wouldn't have been able to lie to Dean."
"You did lie to Dean," Charlie said.
He glared at her. "Barely."
"But you're on our side?" Sam pressed. He was a skilled interrogator, simultaneously sympathetic and ominously blank.
"Yes," Castiel answered. "What... how long has it been?"
"A few weeks," Charlie said. "Maybe a month and change."
"Where are we?"
They sat in silence, not even attempting a veiled reply. He bit back a sigh, and asked, "What do you want from me? How can I help?"
"Tell us what you know," Sam said.
Castiel started to reply, and Dean came in. He didn't look at Castiel, or any of them, just leaned against the wall behind Bobby, crossed his arms, and stared at the ground. Castiel wasn't sure what was more alarming, Dean himself or the way his accumulated aches and pains immediately dimmed in relief as Dean's scent flooded the room. Dean's forearms were taut where his flannel was rolled back. There was tension in the curve of his neck.
He was staring at Dean. Dean was staring at the floor. He looked away.
Sam and Charlie were sharing a conspiratorial look, and Bobby's expression was like he'd just scented something severely past-due. Castiel coughed, struggling his way back to his answer. "No more than you," he said. "I was sent after Sam -" he glanced at Dean; still nothing - "no background, just a kill order. When I... failed to complete it, it wasn't mentioned again - I assumed it had been given to someone else. I wasn't told anything about this mission beyond the briefing Naomi gave all of us. That's all I know."
"What will Naomi's next move be?" Sam asked.
Castiel grasped for a moment. "We have hundreds of agents, we're tapped into everything... I assume we're off the grid?"
"About as off as you can get," Bobby said.
"Good. That's good."
"What can you tell us about Caroline?" Sam asked.
"Or should we say Hannah?" Dean said.
The low curl of Dean's voice simultaneously startled and soothed Castiel. He regretted it when their eyes caught, Dean's impenetrable and flat. "I... I worked with her. Often. We were close."
Dean looked away again, and the answer curdled, awkward. "How close?" Charlie asked.
"We were friends," Castiel admitted. "Are friends. I still won't help Naomi find you - I want Lucifer and Michael dead for what they've done. ...But I'd prefer not to have to work directly against Hannah."
"That may be a problem," Sam said.
"Why?"
"Garth didn't get out," Dean said.
"What?" Castiel asked. "Is he... ?"
"We don't know," Sam said, eyebrows raised. "But the last thing we do know is he was paired off with Hannah."
"And he didn't - reunite with you?"
"Never checked in after I lit up the batsignal," Dean said.
"You want in on our team..." Sam said, "you get us Garth."
"Okay," Castiel said, nodding. "Okay. ...I need a phone."
"Yeah, okay," Dean snorted.
"How do you suggest I do this?" Castiel snapped at him. "Magic?"
"How about intel?" Dean said. "Where would Hannah be? What would she do?"
"I'm far worse at tracking people than Charlie," Castiel said, "and if she hasn't found Hannah yet I certainly won't be able to without contacting her. She's either off the grid or back at base, and either way, we won't learn anything unless I reach out to her. She won't reveal herself unless she wants to."
"And you can give her a reason?" Sam said.
"I can try."
They mulled this for a moment. Rubbing his chin, Sam asked Charlie, "How long can you bounce a secure call?"
"Thirty seconds, tops."
"I'll need an incoming line too," Castiel added.
Dean scoffed, but Sam said, "We could drive him somewhere. A payphone. Scramble it."
"Maybe," Charlie said thoughtfully. "But it'd have to be far. Can he travel?"
"We'll rig something up," Bobby said.
The silence dragged. Castiel said, "...so?"
*
He left a message on one of Hannah's secure dropboxes with a number and date and time to call back, Team Winchester watching like hawks. By the time he was done Castiel was exhausted even though he'd barely been awake an hour, and slipped easily back into sleep - though he was unnerved by quite how easy it was, Dean's scent all around him like a soothing chamomile.
He tried to relax over the next few days - ate his meals without protest, ignored the cuffs, submitted to Bobby's check-ins. It wasn't the first time he'd been under medical care for someone else's interests instead of his own, but the odd mix of motives was disconcerting. He didn't see Dean again, though every once in a while his scent crept into the room, keeping Cas from sleeping and making his skin itch.
After a few days, Bobby and Charlie uncuffed Castiel from his bed, helped him to a stand, threw a coat over his gown, handcuffed him again, and blindfolded him. "Really?" He asked, as Charlie helped him walk, then take a flight of stairs slowly.
"Really," she confirmed. A minute later a door opened, letting in a crisp bite of air, and they walked across loose, crunchy pebbles for a dozen feet before reaching a car.
It was a long drive to their destination, with lots of twists and turns. When they finally pulled the blindfold off, he had to admit they'd chosen well - in the event he did betray them, all he'd be able to report to Hannah was that he was in a small parking lot, hemmed in by a dilapidated bar on one side and a hill on the other. It was still cool, perhaps a hint of salt in the air, and the sky overhead was low and steely gray.
He and Charlie wedged themselves into the phone booth, Bobby leaning against the door to keep it open. They'd taken the cuffs off, but still, if anyone walked by they would surely take notice. For now that was his captors' problem. Charlie discreetly attached something to the phone mechanism, a little metallic disc that looked like a coin, and started fiddling on her tablet.
He actually jumped a little when the phone rang, and his palms were sweaty when he picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"...Castiel?"
A wave of homesickness, foreign and absurd, went through him at the sound of her voice. "Hannah?"
"It really is you," she said, and he could be forgiven for thinking she sounded wondering. "Castiel, I thought -"
"I'm alive," he said. "I was wounded, but I'm okay."
"You're okay? Where are you?"
He hesitated. "I don't know."
Her voice was guarded. "What do you mean?"
"Hannah, I'm with - I'm with Dean, and his associates."
"I see."
"Things are... complicated," he said. "They're unsure if they can trust me."
"I understand the feeling," she drawled.
"Hannah, you were working with their colleague," he said. "Garth."
"Yes."
He glanced at Charlie and Bobby, their gazes pinned on him. "... Is he - ?"
"He's alive."
Charlie and Bobby jerked, sharing a quick look. "He's unhurt?" Castiel asked.
"For the most part."
Bobby glared at him, as if Hannah could see it through the phone. "Do you have proof?" Castiel asked.
She sighed, and there was nothing but rustling for a moment. Then - "Hey y'all," Garth said, sounding a bit beleaguered but cheerful. Charlie and Bobby slumped in relief at the sound of his voice. "According to my watch it's the 15th of August, and, ah, I think that's all I'm gonna -"
There was more rustling, then Hannah again. "There. Is that sufficient?"
"Hannah -"
"They want to trade," she surmised.
He avoided the question. "Where is he being held?"
"...with me."
"With you?"
"I haven't, ah," she said. "Checked in."
He frowned. "Hannah, it's been weeks -"
"It was chaos in Baja Sur," she told him. "I caught Garth trying to abscond with the case file, then I got a message from Naomi that we were under attack and you may have been compromised. The next thing I heard was that you were missing, presumed dead."
"So you - ?"
"So I told Naomi that my position was insecure and I would touch base when it was safe," she said. "We've been on the move since."
Something flickered in his chest. "You didn't believe her?"
"I wanted to keep my options open," she said briskly.
"Hannah," he choked out.
Bobby made an impatient motion, and Hannah unconsciously echoed his terseness. "This works perfectly," she said. "Put me on with Dean, we'll arrange the trade."
"Hannah, no, I -" He looked down, away from the others. "Just give them Garth."
There was a long pause. "...what?"
He swallowed. "I can't go back."
"What are you talking about?"
"Naomi's been telling people I've been compromised," he said. "I've been away for weeks."
There was a garbled noise on the other end, like a sigh. "You'll tell them -"
"What? That I'm not a liability? That my insubordination on two missions, with the same targets, isn't cause for concern?" He shook his head. Hannah said nothing. "I'm... I'm broken, Hannah. I'm not an asset anymore."
They both knew what Naomi made of defects.
"I can help you," Hannah said lowly. "Get you out."
"That's too risky," he said. "For both of us. The entire agency will be looking, and splitting up just widens Naomi's data set. And if she finds me it could lead back to them." Bobby and Charlie's faces were inscrutable.
"Them," Hannah scoffed.
"I have to stay. Besides," he added, and smiled, just a little. "I want to see this through."
Hannah growled. "Dean," she said flatly, "if you think this is going to work, you -"
"Hannah," he said. "Torricelli."
She gasped. Charlie frowned in confusion, and Bobby just scowled more deeply. "Castiel," she said.
"Truly, Hannah," he said. "It's okay."
"You - you just want me to let him go?"
"Yes."
Bobby leaned over to speak into the receiver. "Preferably not in the middle of a busy street. Kid's still about ninety percent puppy."
"I'll make sure he has adequate provisions," she snapped. "Castiel... "
"I have your number, Hannah," he said, trying to keep his voice clear. "I'll try to stay in touch."
"Be safe," she told him. He wasn't sure she'd ever said that to him before.
"You too," he said.
The line went dead. Charlie tapped on her device some more, and Bobby sighed. Castiel hung up and shoved his hands in his pockets, fingers starting to tingle in the cold.
"Now we wait," Bobby said.
*
At the end of the first day when there still hadn't been any news on Garth, Bobby awkwardly showed him to a bedroom upstairs, shoving a handful of pain meds at him as he left. It would seem that until they heard one way or another, he was somewhere between a prisoner and a member of the team - but there was no doubt in his mind they'd subdue him if need be, and once deposited in his new room he was conspicuously avoided. He hadn't seen Dean once.
After a few days Charlie and Bobby started harassing him again for intel, though at least with a less interrogatory tone. He ended up spending most of his time in the dining room with them, panting his way through basic exercises in an attempt to get his mobility back - walking slowly around the dining table, grasping it for support, or just practicing being able to sit upright without getting dizzy - while they showed him everything they'd managed to collect on his family so far and he corrected them and filled in the blanks.
"No, he doesn't answer to her," Castiel said, nodding at the giant, string-covered board they'd made of one of the walls. He pulled his arm tight across his chest, hissing as his joints slowly, painfully opened up. "Put him near Rachel."
Bobby scowled at the board even as Charlie swapped the pictures into the correct order. "It's not enough," he said. "We're not getting past middle management."
"I'm sorry," Castiel said shortly. "I didn't even know Michael existed."
Bobby stared at him, hard. "Ain't he your father?"
Castiel looked away. "I never met him." They said nothing, and he cleared his throat. "And I didn't know he was - I wasn't aware that he was... significant."
Charlie sighed. "Seems like that was the point," she said. "That's how everything was structured, it all just feeds into this... black hole." Indeed, their chart was a topless pyramid, all the major players they or Castiel knew about feeding into an empty peak where, presumably, Michael's face would go. Charlie paced in front of it, then suddenly came to a halt. "Huh."
"What?" Bobby asked.
She'd approached the board, tapping her lip with her marker and giving herself a dusty black pout. "Just because you didn't know Michael existed doesn't mean you don't know anything," she said. "It just means we have to focus on what you don't know."
"I don't understand," Castiel said grumpily.
Bobby got it, though. "Negative space," he murmured, and Charlie grinned at him. "The breeze in the closed room."
Castiel frowned. "What does that -"
They were all struck silent as a thick, heady scent suffused the room. Castiel blinked, nearly paralyzed with it, as a delicious wave of excitement started in the soles of his feet and swept through him to his fingernails. It was like Dean's scent - which he'd barely caught at all in the last few days - but better, deeper, wetter. Each breath scattered sparks through his mind, smoldering and bright. He had the stomach-dropping sensation of falling, and he knew he needed to find Dean right away.
"Dammit," Bobby growled. He and Charlie were sharing a pained, faintly disgusted look. Castiel breathed out, shaking his head, but there was no escaping the scent - it was everywhere.
He must have been going mad. How could Dean be in heat? It wasn't possible - and yet the others didn't seem shocked. They were staring at him, though, probably debating whether he was a risk, if it would be safer to quarantine him. He wouldn't blame them.
"Guys," Sam said, taking the basement stairs two at a time. "Garth just called." He was smiling until he breathed in, and immediately wrinkled his noise, adopting the same awkward expression as Charlie and Bobby. They all looked at him again, then back to Sam.
"That's great," Charlie said. She picked up a napkin from the table and held it to the lower half of her face. "He's safe?"
"Uh, yeah," Sam said. "C'mere, I want to make sure we can get him to one of our safehouses."
They basically ran back downstairs together, and Bobby shoved himself up from the table as well. "Well. Welcome to the team, kid," he said.
Castiel nodded, dazed. "I'll be in my room."
"Uh huh," Bobby said, and left.
Castiel locked the door behind him, then tried to bury his head under a pillow. He eventually fell asleep, though it was fitful - the smell saturated his room in swells, unpredictable and drugging. It got worst right after nightfall, when it grew so sharp it was as if Dean was just outside Castiel's room, touching the door - though that had to have been in Castiel's head, atrophying under the assault of frustrated longing. He didn't even know which room was Dean's, though he had his suspicions from late nights pacing the hallways, telling himself it was part of his healing.
Lying in bed with the smell practically sticking to his skin was torture. He leapt up, planning to shove the dresser in his room against the door, or perhaps ask Bobby to chain him up again. He braced a palm against the doorframe, shaking.
And then there was a single knock.