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Dean’s coming off a vamp nest in Boise when he gets the call on his Other Other Cell; though he normally wouldn’t bother answering until his next pit stop—he’s sore and tired and covered in vamp guts—Dean’s still riding the all time low of his drunk-dial with Sam yesterday, and Dad is supposed to call any day now. So, steadying Baby’s steering wheel with his knees, he contorts himself to reach into the glove compartment with minor swerving.
“Hello?”
It’s not Dad.
Whatever, John’ll call later. He said he would, so he will. He has to. In the mean time, Dean turns towards Cannon Beach, Oregon, where, apparently, two people have been exsanguinated.
Rubbing at a spot of dried, flaking vamp blood on his neck, Dean throws his phone onto Baby’s bench seat with a growl. He puts on the nearest tape and turns the volume up as he guns it onto the I-84 West.
“Fuckin’ vamps.”
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Dean’s first impression of the town is that it’s quaint. Pretty little cookie-cutter businesses line the main street, and there’s an old-looking post office in its center. There’s a diner, too, which he makes note of before pulling into the Starlight Motel’s gravel parking lot.
The kid at the front desk is too high at 2 AM to actually give a fuck checking him in, so for once he doesn’t have to turn on the charm because he’s covered in innards. Instead, he hands over his card, swipes the key off the desk, and takes a long lukewarm shower, because apparently Cannon Beach has no goddamn hot water. Despite the fact that Dean’s stomach growls, he’s honestly too tired to do anything about it, and so collapses in bed without a second thought.
As he has every single night since Sam left for Stanford, Dean dreams of him pinned to the ceiling in a ball of fire.
He doesn’t sleep very well.
But that’s what coffee’s for. The sky is grey when Dean rolls out of bed the next morning and pours himself into his slightly ill-fitting monkey suit. He grabs a notebook and a pen, stuffs his fake badge into his pocket, and drives onto the main street in search of food.
Dean’s second impression of the town is that it’s definitely one of those places resistant to outsiders.
The second he enters the diner, people stare at him: some scoff, some glare, some stare with open curiosity. The server is rude. The coffee is weak. And Dean is glad to pay his damn bill and get the hell out of there. Normally, he’d put on his best smile, maybe try and charm the locals a little… but today? Today, his Dad still hasn’t called and his brother abandoned him for law school, so. That’s that. Dean scarfs down his bacon and eggs, chugs his coffee, and throws a couple of bills on the table. He almost runs into a guy on his way in—dark hair, big sweater, stubble. He doesn’t say sorry.
It’s a goddamn miserable day, something Dean let’s himself mutter into the emptiness of Baby’s interior before he turns her engine and is on his way. Next stop: the Sheriff’s office.
It takes a couple of hours to make nice with the local law enforcement—
“I didn’t figure the Bureau’d be interested in this sorta thing.”
“Well, Sheriff, you know how it is; they sent me to dot our ‘i’s and cross our ‘t’s.”
—But after that it’s smooth sailing. They take him to the crime scene: an empty storefront on North Hemlock Street that looks like it’s seen better days. The windows have been boarded up and there’s police tape everywhere, but that doesn’t stop a gaggle of townspeople from gossiping and speculating as Dean slips inside the building.
It doesn’t look like a vamp nest.
Things are too… ruined. There’s no space for new vamps to turn without being overwhelmed by debris, no evidence of people bunking down and living here. It might have been a solo vamp, but the medical supplies for exsanguination are still kinda weird in that context. And hey, in all his years—and there have been a lot of years—he’s never come across a vamp that didn’t drink and run, but maybe this one is more of a drive through kinda guy; grab the juice and drink it later.
Dean asks a couple of questions before deciding his best bet on this one is the coroner’s office. On his way back to the car, he sees the same guy he almost ran into from the diner, this time he’s standing on the other side of a barrier of yellow police tape. While people are huddled together on either side of him, any space within three feet of his person is left purposefully empty. He looks out of place in this town—a tan trenchcoat hangs limply off his shoulders and a heavy, knitted orange sweater peeks from between its unbuttoned sides. Jeans that have seen better days can be seen from the knee down, ending in scuffed, muddy work boots. He’s got what looks to be a couple days of stubble dusting his jaw, and his hair is totally windswept in the chilly October air. He has a straight nose and high cheekbones. His hands are stuffed into his pockets. His lips are chapped. And his eyes are ridiculously blue.
He’s staring. It’s a heavy kind of stare, the type of look that goes right through you—the kind that follows you out of a crime scene and into your car. Dean shivers as he shuts the door, frowning as he pulls onto the street towards the coroner’s office. He makes a mental note to find out who the guy in the flasher coat is.
The coroner’s office doesn’t tell him anything new: the bodies were exsanguinated by way of phlebotomy, and they probably died about a month ago. Victims were strung up from the ceiling, their toes barely touching the ground. No poison or drugs in their system, no sign of any sort of violent struggle. For all anybody knows, Lauren Danchivek and Mark Bower walked into an abandoned, empty building for lease, set themselves up, and happily bled out.
Something doesn’t add up.
Dean has his phone in his hand before he realizes what he’s doing, thumb hovering over the little green phone icon as he stares at his brother’s name. But Sam is at Stanford and got royally pissed the last time he called him—though, admittedly, Dean was angry and sloshed at the time. Still, he’s pretty sure that “go fuck yourself, Dean” applies to any and all situations… especially those having to do with hunting.
So, Dean flips his phone closed and stuffs the thing into his slacks, heading towards the Impala. Hopefully, the victims’ families will give him more to work with.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Dean is sitting on a plastic-covered floral monstrosity of a couch, sipping what tastes like wet gym socks, when little old Violet Danchivek finally seems ready to get down to business: no, her granddaughter had no enemies. No, she was not acting strangely. No, she didn’t notice any funny smells in the days leading up to her death.
They’re sitting close together—Dean on the extreme right of the couch and Mrs. Danchivek sitting in the armchair perpendicular to him, when the elderly lady puts a frail, wrinkled little hand on his knee and gives a watery smile. Dean isn’t sure whether or not this is for comfort or a come on, but he decides to leave it there. For now.
“Your questions don’t matter anyway, Agent,” Mrs. Danchivek says. “I know who did it.”
Huh. Okay, he’ll bite: “And who’s that?”
Violet Danchivek’s face contorts into a disturbing thing of pure hatred and rage. She squeezes Dean’s knee so hard he starts worrying she’ll leave behind a bruise, and he moves carefully, reaching into his jacket for the small silver knife he keeps there. If she’s a monster and is thinking she’ll add his juice to her cocktail menu, she has another thing coming.
But instead of trying to kill him, little old Mrs. Danchivek only looks up at him with a sneer and says, simply: “The witch.”
Dean frowns. Not what he was expecting, but… sure. Violet releases his knee with a delicate blush, as if embarrassed that she let her emotions get the better of her. She sips her tea and smoothes out her skirt and clears her throat delicately. “The… witch?” Dean asks, confused. There’s a witch in this town?
“He calls himself Miracle Max—”
Dean can’t stop himself from snorting in disbelief. Mrs. Danchivek glares at him. “What… really?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says primly. “He lives on the North side of town, right by Ecola State Park. You keep driving up Hemlock Street, all the way to the top of the cliff and you can’t miss it. He’s the only house out that way.” She shivers. “He’s a witch. Everybody knows it.”
Dean nods, leaning towards her. “Why do you say that?”
She scoffs. “You mean other than the black cat that follows him around? He’s odd, Agent. He keeps to himself, he never talks to anyone. Takes long walks in the forest and along the beach to collect ingredients for his spells and potions. And he can… do things.”
“Like what?”
She looks nervously down at her clasped hands.
“Mrs. Danchivek, I promise you that whatever you tell me, I’ve heard weirder.”
“He can close his door without touching it. He predicts the future with those funny cards of his. And people come from all around to see him, Agent. He charges a fifty-dollar consultation fee and they drive up to his house and ask for things, and when they get them, they leave… or they don’t. Sometimes people go into that house and don’t come out, because he needs skin or hair or eyeballs for a spell, or because he needs another human heart. He eats them to stay young. Been here for five years and has barely aged a day.”
“Have there ever been any missing persons reports for the people who disappear?”
Mrs. Danchivek’s grey eyes get big and round as she emphatically shakes her head. “He does a spell to make people forget about them. Not me, though.” She reaches into her blouse and takes out a pendant of black tourmaline. “This protects me from all his magic, so I remember. You know, he dances in the woods too, on the solstices. Naked as the day he was born. He’s evil, Agent. I swear he is. You can feel it the second you go up to that house of his.”
Dean puts ‘Miracle Max’ on his mental checklist, right beside ‘Flasher Coat Dude’, and thanks Violet Danchivek for her time. Totally unsurprisingly, when he interviews Mark Bower’s brother, Ron, and his parents, all three tell him the same thing: Miracle Max, the recluse witch, is responsible.
So, after picking up a late afternoon/early evening sandwich—people are more receptive to his presence, now that word’s gotten out that he’s a Fed—he drives up Hemlock to the cliff right before Ecola State Park, where Miracle Max’s house sits at the end of a dirt road.
It’s a small, whitewashed, two-floor cabin with a wrap-around porch. It looks like it belongs to a witch, not because it’s particularly dark and gloomy, but because there’s an element of neglect that fits into the aesthetic of most occult-practicing weirdos: paint peels from the side of the house, the garden is overgrown and half-dead, and the Continental in the driveway looks like its seen better days. The whole area feels funky, too: charged, like the land should be respected. Like something great and old lives here.
Dean’s just about to get out of the car when his phone rings. Fumbling for it, he answers with a gruff: “Yeah?” distracted by the large black cat who comes around the side of the house to sit beside the door.
“Dean? Where the hell are you?!”
Fuck.
Dean’s blood freezes in his veins as adrenaline forces his body towards fight or flight. He breaks out into a cold sweat and squeezes his eyes shut, licking his lips and praying his voice doesn’t crack when he answers. “On a hunt, sir. Someone called and I hadn’t heard from you—”
“So, what, you just decided to fuck my orders and go traipsing off to bumfuck nowhere?! I need you here. Or are you done trying to avenge your mother?” There’s a pause, and Dean grits his teeth. His knuckles turn white where he grips Baby’s steering wheel. “Hello?” John asks into the receiver. “I asked you a question, Dean. Are you done trying to avenge your mother?
Dean glares. “No, sir.”
“I swear to God, you’re useless. Where are you?”
“Cannon Beach, Oregon, sir.”
“Fine. Finish up there and head over to Sioux Falls ASAP. I have a lead on Yellow Eyes.”
John Winchester hangs up, and Dean almost throws his phone through the windshield. Instead, he pounds his fists into the Impala’s bench seat and explodes out the driver’s side door, stomping his way up to Miracle Max’s front door. The cat seems to glare at him and Dean clenches his teeth so hard his jaw hurts. It’s a damn fat cat, too. Not something you’d picture a witch having. Still, whatever, it’s black—and Dean’s seen Bewitched.
Taking a deep, calming, breath, he let’s all his frustration loose on Miracle Max’s fugly teal door. “FBI, OPEN UP!”
The witch takes his sweet time answering, but when he does Dean’s brows almost reach his hairline. The trenchcoat is gone and fuzzy socks adorn his feet but surprise—turns out that Miracle Max is Flasher Coat Dude, which is great for Dean’s to-do list but not-so great for the over-all case… because if his gut is telling him there’s something off about this guy, and he’s a known occultist, this case goes from vamps to witches.
And Dean fucking hates witches.
He gives Novak a cursory view of his badge before tucking it back into his coat. “Miracle, uh, Max? Agent Bannon. I’ve got some questions about—”
The witch, who up until this time has been looking at him with an arched, unimpressed brow, now slams the door in his face.
Son of a bitch.
Really going to town on the door, Dean slams his fist into it until his knuckles are red and bloody, yelling: “FBI, ASSHOLE! OPEN UP OR I’M COMING IN!” He sneezes and glares at the cat by his feet, who now looks like it’s fucking laughing at him. Ready to go another round with the peeling slab of wood before him, Dean almost falls on his ass when the door swings open totally unexpectedly, revealing a super pissed off witch.
Dean smirks. “I have questions about the murders in town. Let me in.”
“I don’t fraternize with hunters.”
In the split second where Dean is totally shocked by the deep-ass voice that comes out of such a kitsch-looking witch, the asshole slams the door closed again.
Dean is going to fucking scream. He growls, rubbing a hand down his face while the other, curled in a tight, white fist, presses painfully into the splintery wood of the door. He only barely refrains from punching a hole through the thing, instead stepping away from the surface in an overly-controlled manner. His eyes are starting to itch because of the cat. He drove eight hours for this bullshit. “I’m an FBI Agent, sir.” His voice is tight and brittle. “If you don’t open up right now—”
“No, you’re not.” Max’s voice is slightly muffled from behind the door. “Your name is Dean Winchester and you’re a hunter.”
Green eyes narrow dangerously. “You mind tellin’ me exactly how—”
“You’re a Winchester, everyone knows you. Now, get off my property before I curse you to Hell and back.”
“Well that’s a great way to run a business. No wonder people are such big fans.”
Dean thinks he hears a scoff. “You’re not a customer, you’re a murderous psychopath, and I reserve the right to turn away as many of those as I please.”
“Hey!”
“—That being said, I invite you to file a formal complaint with Templeton on the way to your car.”
“Who the hell’s that?”
“The cat.”
Dean sneezes again, and does not look at the cat. “I’m not leaving. Where were you yesterday night?”
“I don’t understand why you’re asking me that. You’ve already decided I did it.”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“Did I string up a couple of teenagers and bleed them out? I am not a blood drinker, Dean Winchester. I am a witch.”
“And? For all I know, you drained them and set things up like that to throw me off the scent. Your kind use blood and… fluids for all sorts of creeptastic shit.”
“I’m still having a hard time thinking of something that would require such a large quantity of anything, let alone lifeblood.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Look, it’s either a vamp, or, since you’re apparently an established spook in this neck of the woods—you. And according to the people in town, you eat human hearts, so.”
“Please,” Max says. “I’m doing you the courtesy of not judging you by your reputation, don’t insult me by judging me by mine.”
“What, so murderous psychopath isn’t a snap judgement?”
“No, that’s a cultivated fact from years of experience. A snap judgement would be that you have daddy issues.”
“Fuck you,” Dean sneers.
“Not even in your dreams, Cowboy.”
Dean does not shiver when Max says that. He doesn’t shiver, and he sure as hell doesn’t blush. He does, however, kick the door in a fit of frustration. “Fine,” he eventually bites. “If you didn’t do it, where’s the vamp?”
It’s dark now, and Dean is fucking cold and tired. He just wants to grab some pizza, head back to the Motel, and treat himself to Magic Fingers while catching up on Dr. Sexy. So, imagine his surprise when Miracle Max’s front door swings open for a third time. Arms crossed over his chest, blue eyes narrowed in a squint, Max says with literal airquotes: “There is no ‘vamp’, you sad, pathetic assbutt. You’re looking for a djinn.” And disappears inside his house.
Dean stares, only spurred into following at Max’s annoyed: “Well? Are you coming?” As soon as he steps inside the darkened house, he hears the other yell: “Shoes off!”
Dean kicks off his boots.
“A… djinn?”
The door closes by itself.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Max’s house doesn’t use regular lighting. Instead, there are a handful of small lamps in each room, tucked in among his stuff and in strategic locations. The witch doesn’t turn them on, either—they light up as he moves through the house, extinguishing themselves once he’s left the room.
As for the décor itself, there are plants, like, everywhere: they hang off high shelves and crowd around windows and occupy almost every inch of free space not stacked with books. All kinds of books: compendiums and anthologies, encyclopedias, first novels, last novels, fiction, non-fiction, romancehorrorsci-fifantasypoetry. Bestiaries. Cookbooks.
And it’s organized. Despite the sheer volume of crap Miracle Max owns, he’s clearly taken a lot of time maximizing his space, because even though it feels like Dean should be lost and cramped in the sea of stuff, there’s enough room for the place to feel… nice. Open and breezy.
Not modern by any stretch—all the furniture looks squeaky—and everything is made of wood. Like the kind of thing you might find in your grandma’s kitchen.
Which is where Miracle Max leads him: the kitchen.
It’s relatively bright in the room considering there are about four lamps to cover the space, not counting the candles on the table. Light spills across the stove and drips onto the floor, covering everything but one of the white cupboards sitting in its own shadow. With a quirk of his lips, Dean notices curry-red spice stains on the little white door above the stove.
A set of shelves line one section of the wall from top to bottom, each one swollen with clear jars upon which names like ‘Aconite’ and ‘Knotweed’ are written in chicken scratch on cheap white labels. There are pots of paint on a windowsill by the sink, the only one in probably the whole house not occupied by plants, along with a mason jar stuffed with paintbrushes. A makeshift bookcase made of orange crates is crammed tight with cookbooks, a plethora of which is strewn across the paint-stained table. Overhead, an overabundance of dried herbs hang from the rafters.
Max makes a beeline for the stove, muttering to himself—“Christ’s sake, a hunter in my house”. He turns the temperature on low and stirs it, clearly disturbed by whatever acrid thing is basically bubbling over.
Dean's nose itches and his eyes feel puffy. He stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets, clearing his throat. “So, a djinn?”
Max ignores him, turning off the stove and raising a brow at Templeton. He offers his wooden spoon, and the cat seems to scoff and turns away. Max slumps. “You’re right,” he mumbles, throwing the thing back into the pot. It splatters red sauce all over the stovetop. Taking what appears to be a calming breath, he finally turns to Dean, leaning on the counter and crossing his arms.
They stare at each other.
“A djinn?” Max repeats finally, expectantly. “A wish granter? Featured in the Qur’an?”
Dean narrows his eyes. “What, like a genie? Buddy, hate to break it to you—”
“Stop,” Max says, raising a hand. “Save yourself the embarrassment of continuing whatever ignorant thought has graced your under-developed brain. A djinn, otherwise known as djinni or genie, poisons its victims through touch—like a wraith, they cause hallucinations. Unlike a wraith, djinni trap their victims in a mental wish-world that they’ve managed to glean through their telepathic abilities. Djinni then consume the blood of their victims over a long period of time.”
Dean scoffs. “So, what, I’m just supposed to trust the word of a witch?”
“No,” Max says, walking over to the bookshelf in the corner of the room. Grabbing a thick, creepy-looking book, he slams the thing down on the table, flipping to a page that clearly says djinn. “Please, enjoy.”
Dean runs a finger down the aged vellum of the page, brows furrowing. “This doesn’t prove anything.”
“What are you talking about?” Max asks.
“I’m talking about that fact that I ain’t gonna trust some witch and his witchy book!” Dean explodes. “Look, man, the fact that you haven’t killed me—that you’re so set on this djinn thing? How the hell’m I supposed to know that’s not a ruse, huh?”
Max narrows his eyes. “Because I haven’t killed you. Or tricked you. Every moment we waste here is another that the djinn has with whichever victim it’s claimed next!”
“How do you know there’ll be another victim? The coroner said the two found in town had been dead for a month—”
“Please. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think a monster was still in this town. Besides,” Max says, moving to rifle through a basket on one of the rickety kitchen chairs. It’s filled with knitting, and Dean frowns when the witch produces a water-stained paper. “Jamie MacNeill has been missing for three weeks.”
Dean looks down at the poster on the table, biting his lip at the face smiling up at him from the wrinkled page. Still, he narrows his eyes suspiciously—how the fuck is he supposed to trust a witch?
“What now?” Max asks impatiently. “I am literally handing this case to you!”
Dean raises a brow. “Yeah, you are… and if you’re not the asshole ganking people, why the hell haven’t you caught the monster who is?”
“I’ve been trying.” Max goes for a drawer in his kitchen then, grabbing a map and spreading it out over the table. “This is Ecola Park. Ignore the areas in purple—those are for herb and mushroom collecting—but the stickers in yellow, those denote old prospector cabins; they were originally set up during the 19th Century gold rush, but quickly fell to ruin. And as djinni tend to seek out isolated ruins for their own nests…”
“You think that’s where the djinn’s chowing down.”
Max nods. “I’ve already looked at the three closest to my property because they’re relatively close, but it’s been taking weeks because I have to hike there from my backyard. I was planning on looking at the others soon, but—”
“You have a car,” Dean points out. “Why aren’t you using the pimpmobile in the driveway?”
Anger and embarrassment play across Max’s face, settling in a clenched jaw despite the fact that the tips of his ears turning pink. “My car is, um… out of commission, as they say. I tried to—you know what, it doesn’t matter. It’s not working.”
“Convenient. Magic can’t get ‘er up and running?”
The witch rolls his eyes. “You know, contrary to popular belief, magic can’t just fix everything. It’s a give and take agreement of entropic forces and energies between the Universe and—”
“You mean a demon—”
“No, I mean the Universe. Not all witches get their powers from Hell, and to assume so is grossly ignorant and—and offensive—”
“Cry me a river, Sabrina.”
“—Haven’t you heard of white witches? Practitioners of the occult who take their energies from the Earth or within themselves instead of using a demonic force to do it?”
Dean rolls his eyes.
“My abilities do not hail from Hell. And clearly, nothing I say or do will convince you I’m not behind this, so. Give me your hand.”
“What?! No way!” Dean brings his hands to his chest defensively.
“Look,” Max says reasonably. Condescendingly. Dean grits his teeth. “I’ll make you a deal: I will help you solve this case—even if I’m the monster who committed the crime—and as payment, after we’re through, you’ll drive out of town and never come back. Do you understand me?”
“What, you’re gonna help me kill you?”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Yeah yeah, we’ll see about that.” Chewing his lip, Dean does a quick weighing of his pros and cons. The worst that can happen is the witch screws him… which, no problem, as long as Dean keeps up his guard he’ll be ready to gank him at a moment’s notice. He’ll keep hex bags on himself for extra protection and… and everything’ll be fine. Besides, this is the easiest way of keeping tabs on Max while still working the case—and John would beat him black and blue if he discovered Dean was in a town with a witch and didn’t kill it. Plus, it’d be nice to go back to his dad with a win on this one. It can’t reverse the mistake he made of starting this case in the first place, but the Max never specified whether or not killing was off the table after the hunt was over, so if he’s innocent of this particular crime, Dean can just end him for one of the others he’s definitely committed. Two birds with one stone.
“Fine,” Dean eventually says. “You help me end this thing, I leave after we’re done.” Max nods. “But,” the hunter continues. “No blood magic. No blood pact to seal this deal.”
“Fine,” Max says defiantly. Colour rises in his cheeks until it reaches the tips of his ears, and Dean raises a brow. What the hell’s he embarrassed about? “No blood pact means you’ll have to kiss me. With tongue.”
Dean twists his face into something ugly. “Yeah, no. Pass.”
Miracle Max looks like he’s about to blow his top. “If you won’t partake in a blood pact, there is no other choice.”
They stare at each for a long moment, at an impasse, before Dean sneezes and inadvertently breaks the tension. He glares at the cat, now sitting at the corner of the kitchen table. “Whatever,” he grumbles. “One kiss with tongue. And if I feel you getting handsy, I’m out.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
The silence between them shifts into something thick with nervousness and anxiety that feels suspiciously like anticipation. Which is totally and completely fucked, because this isn’t a romantic candlelit dinner. This is a contract. This transaction is the same as every time Dean’s gotten to his knees in a truck stop bathroom to keep Sam’s belly full, and every time he’s winked at a cute boy over the pool table. This kiss is small potatoes to getting fucked for money in a back alley; there’s no reason for it to make him nervous, and there sure as hell isn’t a reason to make him excited. They’re not gonna make-out on the couch all night. This isn’t Dean kissing Castiel after walking him to his door. This is business. And thank god for that: Miracle Max is like the opposite of his type. He’s too… quirky. And striking. His profile is too sharp. He’s not the type of guy Dean could see himself cuddling with until all hours the morning, mostly notably because he’s a goddamn witch.
“So,” Max says, stepping towards him. As they had been standing, weirdly, unnecessarily close, this singular step practically brings them chest-to-chest. “Before we begin, you should know that my name is not Miracle Max.”
He says it with such seriousness that at first Dean thinks he’s joking, but as time wears on, the hunter realizes that, no, this socially awkward asswipe is being totally straight with him. Brows raised incredulously, Dean nods. “Yeah… I figured your name wasn’t Miracle Max.”
“Yes, it’s Castiel.”
“Wait, what?”
“Cas-TI-el. Novak. Novak is my surname.”
“Yeah, no, I got that—”
“Good. So the terms of the contract are as stated—”
“Wait wait. Your name is Casteel Novak.”
“Cas-TI-el.”
“Fine. Cas-TI-el. And you, what, just decided to use a pseudonym for shits and giggles? I mean, I love the Princess Bride much as the next guy, but your name seems plenty witchy—”
He stops at Cas’s blank look.
“You… haven’t seen the Princess Bride, have you?”
Castiel squints.
“Then why…?”
“I like alliteration,” the witch says easily. “And true names have power.” He turns away, nervously shuffling a stack of random papers on the table before clearing his throat. “Can we continue? I’d prefer to get this over with as soon as possible.”
“Fine,” Dean spits. His palms are sweating. Blood is rushing in his ears as he licks his lips, and Castiel follows the movement. Dean’s stomach drops in response. Immediately, his heart drops with it. Because it’s one thing to kiss a witch under duress… it’s another to-to want to.
Which he doesn't. Really. He really doesn't want to.
Castiel’s eyes, wide now, are almost ethereally blue in contrast to the red blush dusting his skin. He swallows audibly. Dean, of his part, wholeheartedly ignores any and every part of him that is in the least bit excited to kiss this man—witch or otherwise.
Setting his shoulders in determination, Castiel quickly goes over the terms of their contract aloud: they’ll help each other solve this case to completion, even if the perpetrator is Castiel himself; no party will perform magic on the other; after solving the case, Dean will leave this town and never return. He waits for Dean’s verbal confirmation, for his consent, before fitting a hand on the nape of his freckled neck and tugging.
It’s not at all what Dean had been expecting.
He’d been thinking they’d meet in an argument—a charged, intense, aggressive push and pull, looking for whatever they can take from the other before parting with a glare. But that’s not what it is at all. Castiel’s mouth is hesitant; soft and pliant against his own, the witch’s feet shuffle closer until their chest are pressed against each other. His blunt nails drag over the small brown hairs at the nape of Dean’s neck and Dean feels himself shiver. Which is ridiculous, because this is… this is a close-mouthed, chaste, Nothing. There’s no need behind this. No urgency. It’s hesitant, a-and sweet, in a way Dean hasn’t felt since Robin all those years ago.
It feels like Castiel is almost commiserating with him and their unfortunate need for this. That he’s doing his darndest to make them both more comfortable with the invasiveness of the contract’s needs. Cas sighs and tilts his chin, and Dean wraps tentative arms around his waist. They’ve moved onto kiss two—now three—and their rhythm builds in time with their ability to lose themselves in each other. Castiel is solid and warm, and when Dean finally swipes his tongue along the other’s bottom lip, he has no ulterior motive than to know what he tastes like.
He tastes like pumpkin-spiced something.
Castiel puffs out his chest, stepping forward as Dean stumbles back into the table. He hums, the sound turning to a huff of amusement when Cas helps him jump up to sit on the table. Their new angle is perfect for Dean to slide his hands up and under that hideous knitted orange sweater to splay across Castiel’s ribs, fingertips brushing his nipples.
“Ah, cold!”
“Sorry,” Dean breathes. Cas has cupped his face by this point—his long, graceful fingers thumbing at the other’s freckled jaw. He nips at Dean’s bottom lip between kisses, dragging his teeth along it and gently tugging.
Dean’s right hand abandons its exploration beneath the orange sweater and pulls the witch in further by the back of his neck. “Cas.”
“Dean,” Castiel murmurs, squirming in response to the fingertips flirting with his nipple. “Fuck.”
“Mm.”
Dean is horizontal on the table. His legs are wrapped around Castiel’s waist, the other’s sweater now rucked up to his armpits as they move together, gasping and groaning and Dean’ll probably remember to be embarrassed about how turned on he is later but right now they’re both hot for each other, hard and Cas is moving in these little teasing motions fuck—
It’s around this point that Dean realizes they’ve probably swapped enough spit to seal ten contracts.
He immediately tenses, frozen on Castiel’s goddamn kitchen table as the other instantly responds in kind. As Cas pulls away from him, Dean utters an inarticulate “bluh”. What the fuck? He’s so consumed by his own confusion and embarrassment that he doesn’t realize Castiel has retreated to the other side of the room until the other is pacing. He’s got his arms crossed, bottom lip held captive between his teeth and… and he looks…
Dean clears his throat and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. So what if Cas looks like he just went ten rounds with an incubus?
The only thing that makes this clusterfuck even slightly more bearable is that Castiel seems to be just as embarrassed by it. Of course, the clueless idiot then goes and makes everything ten times worse by awkwardly shuffling closer and saying: “Yes, well, that was—excessive.” He then nods and pats Dean’s shoulder as if to congratulate him for a job well-done, before walking out of the room.
Dean doesn’t move for a long time.
He’s not really sure why—standard procedure calls for getting the fuck out ASAP, but this is… not that. There’s this weird sticky feeling in his chest gumming up the space all around his heart, and his fingers are curled around the table top so tightly they’re completely white. He just sealed a contract with a witch. Granted, from the gentle, considerate way Cas handled him, this witch wouldn’t hurt a soul, probably—but it’s the probably that’s the clincher, here. If Dad found out? Dean would be toast.
And that’s not even touching the shameful fact that Dean—that he liked it. A lot. That he wants to do it again. John doesn’t know about Dean’s interest in men, and for good reason: he’s a raging homophobe. If he were to find out that his hunter son made out with a male witch? That his fingers are twitching to swipe across Cas’s hipbones again?
Dean may as well shoot himself right now.
It’s this thought that spurs him into action. With one last sneeze, Dean makes a beeline for his Baby, peeling out of the driveway and putting the pedal to the metal until Castiel Novak’s dumb little cottage is totally invisible in his rearview mirror.
He gets as far as Astoria before forcing himself to turn back—mostly because there are still people to save. So he got spooked by a kiss with a witch, so what? He just won’t work with Castiel. After all, that was the original plan. And the contract didn’t specify that they had to work together. The plan’s just changed: Cas is no longer an option. He’ll pretend like he doesn’t exist. They won’t work together, and Dean won’t be morally obligated to kill him. It’s actually for the better.
Dean gets exactly twenty-three minutes of sleep that night.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
The case is slow-going without any of Cas’s insider knowledge of djinni, so Dean spends a couple of hours in the library trying to come up with something useful. Thankfully, there don’t seem to have been any missing persons reports other than Jamie MacNeill after those of Lauren and Mark. It then takes a while to figure out the most widely accepted method of ganking the monster he's after, but eventually, Dean exits the building trying to remember where he last left his silver knife and if he has any lamb’s blood left.
He finds both with no issue, and then goes to buy himself a map of Ecola State Park.
He does not think of Castiel at any point during the day.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Though Castiel apparently already checked the cabins nearest to his house, they’re pretty close together so it’s nothing to go and give ‘em a second look. Dean does this only in the name of caution; he knows, of course, that there is no possible way for him to see Cas, and he’s not worried about him or anything.
Besides, it’d be ridiculous if he was worried: he knew the guy for all of like two hours and thought he was a pain the ass for most of that.
There is nothing out of the ordinary in the cabins. He moves on.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
All told, and with the car, it takes about another week and a half the take care of five out of the six cabins, because the last three are so spread out and far from the road. Still, all his physical exertion during the day means Dean starts to sleep pretty well, which is something he can’t fault.
He’s planning his route to the final cabin, praying that the djinn will be there—otherwise he’s up shit's creek without a fucking paddle—when he hears a weird scratching sound over and above the tinny Dr. Sexy re-run he’s watching. Turning off the TV, he frowns, staring curiously at the door when the sound persists.
Dean reaches for his knife and dips its edge in lamb’s blood, and he creeps towards the door before throwing the thing open… to reveal a very over-weight black cat.
“Templeton?”
The cat meows and bolts into the room, somehow jumping up onto his bed.
“Nonono! Hey, get offa there! You’re gonna fuck up my entire bed—”
But Templeton clearly doesn’t give a fuck. Instead, the animal plants itself directly on top of Dean’s map, staring up at him with big yellow eyes. Dean sneezes.
“What the hell, Templeton? I left Cas alone. I won’t bother him anymore. Get out.”
Dean takes a step towards the cat and it freaking hisses at him.
“Then what, huh?” he says. “What do you want? You here to kill me? Because mission accomplished, all your goddamn dander will probably do the trick tonight.”
The cat seems to scoff, and looks slowly—deliberately—at its own paw before staring Dean in the face like he’s an idiot. This time, when the hunter steps forward, Templeton allows it.
And the son of a bitch is pointing to the last cabin.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”
Dean tears through his room, stuffing his arsenal of silver knives and lambs blood into a duffle along with a couple of flashlights. His nose has started to itch, and he can feel the telltale tingling sensation around his eyes, but despite that fact he herds the dumb cat into his car and takes off. Templeton, not being an ordinary fucking cat, has decided to worriedly pace the length of the bench seat, including Dean’s lap, and it’s only when he has stern words with the animal that he sticks to his side.
Which, in hindsight, is probably the most ridiculous thing to happen on a hunt to date.
The Impala gets tucked into some random copse of trees on the side of the road, and Dean hides three knives with lamb’s blood on himself and carries a fourth. It should take about twenty minutes to hike to the cabin. Probably’d take longer if he had to worry about navigating in the dark.
But he has Templeton.
The cat is like a fucking speeding bullet, and the minute the cabin is finally in sight, Dean stops to catch his breath. He feels light-headed with adrenaline and his heart is pounding, and this is ridiculous, it’s totally ridiculous that he’s this invested he doesn’t even really know the guy.
Biting his lip, Dean carefully does a sweep of the perimeter before heading up the rotting stairs towards the cabin door.
This one is by far the biggest cabin, and also the one in the most disrepair. Every step creaks to high heaven, and half Dean’s concentration is on where he puts his feet, because the last thing he needs is to fall through the wooden floor.
Of course, this makes it way easier for the spook to get the jump on him.
The djinn slams Dean into a nearby wall without any sort of warning, pushing the hunter up against the wall and smashing his head against it. Dean’s vision swims for half a second too long and the thing has him pinned, and his hand begins to glow blue, and it takes literally every ounce of strength Dean possesses but he manages to grab the djinn’s arm and push, giving him enough time and space to slip out from beneath him and bring his blade down.
The djinn is shirtless and covered in tattoos, with eerie, glowing blue eyes, and crazy fast reflexes. It dodges easily, and comes at him again.
They end up moving their fight into the tiny bedroom, which, in addition to a solid floor, has two human bodies hanging from its rafters. Unfortunately, Dean doesn’t have time to properly look at them, because he’s being back into a corner.
It’s sheer dumb luck that Dean manages to plunge his knife up under the monster’s ribs.
He almost cries out in relief as he watches the light leave the djinn’s eyes, immediately shifting his focus once it drops. Jamie MacNeill has nothing filling the blood bag, so Dean’s not totally shocked when he doesn’t have a pulse. He mutters an expletive, biting his lip because the kid was so goddamn young, before turning his attention to the body right beside it.
Pulling the metal needle from carefully from Cas’s skin, Dean throws the offending piece onto the floor, disgusted with it. With a loud riiip, he tears a ribbon of fabric from his flannel, pressing its clean underside to Cas’s neck in a makeshift bandage. “Okay, you’re okay, Cas,” he murmurs, fingers tripping over his rubbery, filth-smudged skin for a pulse. His heart, tight in his chest, only barely eases at the faint thing that eventually flutters against his fingers. “Wakey wakey, Castiel.” Grunting, Dean manages to lift the witch from where he’s hanging from what appears to be a meat hook, all but falling onto the floor under his weight. “Jesus Cas, what the hell d’you eat, huh?” Quickly untying his wrists, Dean massages the bruised, red flesh in an attempt to get blood back into his grey-tinted hands.
“Any time now, Castiel. Wake up.” Nothing. Not when Dean jostles him, or pours water on him, or slaps him. Nothing. “Wake up, Cas! Fucking pain in my ass—WAKE UP, YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
Templeton, running into the cabin from God-knows-where, meows at him urgently. “Yeah, I know, okay?!” Dean shoots back. “Fuck. Okay, how do you wake someone from an eternal sleep—oh.”
Blushing to the tips of his hair, Dean clears his throat, looking down at the sleeping figure in his arms with a bitten lip. “Don’t kill me for this, okay?”
Swallowing thickly, Dean carefully leans down, brushing his mouth against Castiel’s before pressing them together in a soft, chaste kiss. His brows furrow with the effort of putting all of himself into the action, but when he pulls away…
Nothing.
Dean isn’t sure why he expected anything different.
“Okay,” he says, verging on hysteria. “Okay, it’s fine. I’m not in love with you. I knew that. Fine. Okay. Cas, I gotta get you into the car. We’re going back home, and I’m gonna fix you right up. You don’t got anything to worry about. Okay. C’mon.”
Dean carefully lays Castiel in the back seat, and guns it back to Cannon Beach.
He arrives in record time, all but breaking down the door in an effort to get inside. He’s got Cas slung over his shoulder, and has steadily been murmuring a mantra of “fuck fuck fuck fuck” ever since he pulled onto the main road. The entire drive consisted of looking into the rearview mirror and pressing more heavily on the gas.
Templeton explodes through the door the second Dean manages to get it open, disappearing upstairs as Dean moves to carefully deposit Cas on the couch. The second he’s certain Castiel is laying in a comfortable position, he makes a beeline back to the car. The house is totally and completely dark without Cas to light all the lamps, and none of them seem to actually work when Dean tries them, so he’s forced to run back to the Impala and get a flashlight. Checking in on the prone witch when he re-enters gives Dean a fantastic view of his almost blue lips.
“TEMPLETON!”
There’s banging upstairs and Dean sneezes, but he honestly couldn’t care less about his itching eyes as he tears his way through the house, opening cupboards and sorting through shelves and grabbing at books.
Castiel has remedies for everything: allergies, rashes, acne, eczema, yeast infections, cold sores, herpes, the common cold, a sore throat. (“No wonder you look like you haven’t aged a day in five goddamn years,” Dean mutters, pushing through the myriad of bottles and jars. “You have a friggin’ magic beauty regimen.”) And it’s not only that: Dean finds spells to prevent dust from collecting and sway fate in your favour during a test—but nothing, nothing, about djinni. Nothing about waking a person from eternal sleep.
He reads the page on djinn at least six times, flipping through the beastiary in some misguided hope of finding some other thing to help them when—Angels. Angels.
“Dear God and uh, Angels,” Dean mutters. “Please save this dumbass witch from…” He trails off, then, eyes wide as he stares at the ancient, delicate page. “What…?”
An urgent meow sounds from his left.
Tearing his gaze from the list of angels on the page, he finds Templeton nudging open the cover of an embossed black book. “His Grimoire,” he mutters. “Genius cat. What’re we lookin’ for?” Scanning the table of contents, he looks for anything having to do with sleep, barely noticing when the cat moves to hop onto one of the mounted shelves.
A crash sounds and Dean looks up, startled. Templeton merely hops down and begins nosing at the dark brown stick-like things now strewn across the floor.
Frowning, Dean carefully picks up one of the larger pieces of glass, squinting at the label still stuck onto it: African Dream-Root.
“Dream-Root. Okay, let’s see… Gotcha!” Spreading the book out on the floor and flashlight in hand, Dean carefully reads Castiel’s instructions for how to brew dream-root tea. As he does, Templeton runs around the house, tapping lamps to turn them on in a magical feat Dean currently has no ability to even begin processing.
Dean’s eyes are on fire at this point and his skin is so itchy it’d probably be easier to rip it all off. Careful with the tea, he strides into the living room and takes the knife from his boot, carefully cutting off a few strands of Cas’s hair. He stirs the concoction twice clockwise and once counter-clockwise, seats himself comfortably (as per Castiel’s directions), and swallows the whole thing in two huge, fucking disgusting gulps. Templeton, who is currently sitting on Castiel’s chest meows in what might be approval, but might also be Dean hallucinating because he is damn tired.
“Ugh, Cas, you taste nasty, man.”
That’s the last thing Dean remembers saying.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
The world is… bright. Not bright like daytime—though it is that, too. Bright like the hours of sunset and sunrise during the fall, when all colours are rich and tinged with gold.
Dean is in bed.
At least, he thinks he’s in bed. Groaning, he stretches languidly, humming into his pillow and rolling over to a nice cool patch of the sheets before his eyes drift shut again. Ugh. It’s too early. It’s—holy fuck.
This is not his bed.
Carefully, Dean sits up, green eyes suddenly wide and alert as he scans the room. It looks like any other bedroom: white walls, a bookshelf, a dresser. A pile of clothes decorating the chair in the corner. A closet. A window, with the curtains drawn. The bed he’s in.
It’s a damn comfy bed, too, and the sheets are—
Oh Jesus.
Swallowing thickly, Dean manages to peek under the covers—miraculously without having a heart attack—because yup: he is not wearing any clothes. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Taking deep, calming breaths, he cautiously looks at the fingers of his left hand, eyeing the band there with a bitten lip. Okay, so he’s naked, and married, and he can’t remember everything. And he’s not in Vegas. He’s—where is he? Looking down at the sheets once more, it comes to him all at once: djinn. Cas. Cannon Beach.
He’s inside Cas’s head.
And… apparently they’re married? Dean allows himself a brief moment of panic before forcing himself to keep it together. Okay. They’re married. They had sex and they’re married and that—that’s fine. Good, even. According to the lore, and the djinn's victim, the people that populate a wishscape aren't necessarily meaningful. So there's nothing to freak out about: Dean was just the closest warm body, as it were. Which is awesome. Makes things way less complicated. Yeah. And hey, maybe the fact that they’re spouses or partners or husbands or whatever-the-fuck will help convince Castiel that this isn’t real.
“Dean? I’m heading to work soon, are you still okay with taking Ellie to daycare?”
Ellie…? Green eyes widen. Holy shit, they have a—
Someone is coming up the stairs.
Dean almost kills himself in his effort to throws himself from the bed, scrambling for any sort of clothing he can find. He’s only just managed to throw on a t-shirt and some pj pants when Castiel himself strolls into the room, toddler balanced on his hip. Dean isn’t sure exactly what he looks like, but he feels flushed and so nervous he’s ready to puke, so it can’t be anything good.
“Are you okay?” Castiel asks, concerned.
“Uh, yep. Yeah, I’m good.” Which is not true: Dean is freaking out and doesn’t actually know how to tell this guy he’s dreaming everything up.
Cas looks… different. Not in the way he dresses: once again, he’s in jeans and a sweater, but in his face. He looks happier, here. Like maybe he smiles more. Which is a nice thought to have but also a seriously dumb one, because of course he smiles more here, this place isn’t real. Also, Dean has known the dude for less than a day; how the hell does he know how much he smiles?
But none of that matters anyway, because the minute the kid—Ellie—sets her brown eyes on him she’s yelling “Daddy!” and reaching for him like they haven’t seen each other in years. Dean takes her with all the grace of someone who’s raised a kid himself, hoping his smile is passable.
It’s not passable.
Castiel frowns, raising a brow in a way that makes Dean’s heart race. “Are you sick?"
“No, but…” Looking at the smiling, happy child in his arms, Dean clears his throat puts her down. “Hey, um. Ellie. You wanna go and start choosing what you’re gonna wear to daycare today?”
“Yeah!” She scurries out of the room, humming as she does, and Cas turns to him with a frown.
“Dean—”
“It’s not real.”
Castiel frowns even more deeply.
“This,” Dean says, motioning to the room around them. “All of this. This house, our—daughter. Us. It’s not real.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look.” Dean rubs a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re sleeping right now. You got knocked out by a djinn, and this is what your… your perfect world is. A kid and a house and a job and—me, I guess. But Cas. It ain’t real. We gotta wake you up before you fall into a coma, or die—” Dean squeaks when Castiel cuts him of with a sweet, familiar kind of kiss.
“You know,” Cas says, coyly running fingers down the hunter’s chest. Dean cheeks explode in a hot blush. “If you’re trying to get me to tell you that I love you again, you don’t have to make up a whole story to do it.”
Oh, God.
Dean is having an out-of-body experience without a body. Which is fucked in and of itself, but the crazy thing about this entire situation is that he… he wants someone to want him like that. To cherish him. And because he’s asleep—because all his defenses are down, John and the job and everything seems like a distant memory. So when Castiel kisses him again, witch or no, Dean kisses back. He kisses back like his life depends on it, because Cas is nice and warm and he apparently loves him.
Of course, the moment is cut short when Dean remembers that spending all their time kissing could result in Castiel’s death.
“Cas,” he mumbles, trying to pull away.
Castiel makes a disgruntled, annoyed sound in the back of his throat and follows his mouth. Dean grins. He puts a hand to the other’s chest. He allows himself to run a hand through Cas’s dark hair and kiss his cheek, just because he can. Because he wants to, and this isn’t real. Castiel moves to hug him, and holds him until Dean finally gathers the courage to speak again.
“I was serious, y’know. Still am. This shit ain’t real.”
Pulling back, Cas looks him in the eye. “This is something you truly believe.”
“Yeah, Cas. Jesus, of course—”
“Then—” Castiel chews his lip, cuts himself off. He sets his shoulders. “Then what do you propose we do?”
That’s a damn good question.
Dean has an idea.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Baby doesn’t exist in this place—because Cas doesn’t really know him, and ain’t that a reality check—so they drive the Continental into town with Ellie in her car seat. It’s weird that people wave at them as they pass, that they smile and wish them a good morning when they drop Ellie off at daycare.
It’s weird but it’s not surprising—living as an outcast is not as romantic as books make it out to be.
They get back into the car and Cas directs him to the correct cabin using a map in the glove compartment. As soon as they’re on Hemlock, Dean chances a look at Cas out of the corner of his eye. He’s looking back. Tentatively, he reaches across the seat to hold Dean’s free hand.
The drive is spent in complete silence.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
The cabin looks even more dilapidated in the daylight, but true to how elastic the human mind is, as soon as they enter inside it’s like night has fallen. Castiel, who Dean is pretty sure had been humoring him the whole time, now holds tightly to his hand.
They’re nearing the bedroom with the bodies when Cas plants his feet and refuses to go any further. “Wait,” he says. “Dean, let’s—let’s go back.”
“What?”
“I’ve been here before,” Castiel says faintly. His palms start to sweat and his voice turns thin and panicked. “I can’t, um. I can’t go in there. Let’s just go back. We’re happy here, we can be happy—”
“Cas, it’s not real.”
“But what if I want it to be!” Chest heaving, Cas’s other arm moves up to grip Dean’s freckled forearm. “My entire life, all I wanted was to be accepted… and now I am! I have the town and you and Ellie and we’re—we’re happy. I don’t have any of this if I go back, do I? The way you looked at us, at the way people were looking at us—none of this exists if I go back.”
Dean swallows thickly. “No,” he affirms. “But Cas—”
“How do you even know me?” Castiel asks. Tears are collecting at the corner of his eyes. “Are we friends? How did you even get here? Please, Dean, let’s go—”
Dean hugs him. Tightly. Because... well, because.
Cas’s blue eyes are big and wide when he pulls away.
“Listen to me,” Dean says. “My name is Dean Winchester. I was born in Lawrence, Kansas on January 24th 1979 to John and Mary Winchester. My mom died in a fire. I’m a hunter.” In an effort to prevent him from hyperventilating, Dean cups Castiel’s face, thumbing gently at his cheeks. “Cas, I met you because I was working this case, and whatever I thought when you opened your front door honestly doesn’t matter, because I’m trying to save you, now.” A beat. “Whatever reality is waiting for you when you wake up is always gonna be better than something that’s not real. You know that… And besides, you can’t stay here; if you do, how’re we ever gonna really be friends?”
When they walk into the room, Dean isn’t sure what he’s expecting… but it’s definitely not what they find. The bedroom is bare: no bed, no dresser, and definitely no djinn nest. But despite the fact that Dean can’t see anything, Cas seems to know exactly what happened to him, here. Swallowing thickly, the witch turns with a determined expression. He holds onto the edge of his shirt when he realizes his hands are shaking.
“Did you kill the djinn?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Jesus, man, yeah I’m sure. It dropped in the corner over there.”
“Then… I should already be awake.” Blue eyes squint in confusion. “Why am I not awake?”
Dean chews his lip. “I think it took too much. You could have only been there for like a week and a half, max, but your lips were already blue and your pulse is... well, it’s not good. I feel like the djinn was drinking you like an alcoholic in a liquor store, y’know? Too much, too fast. I just don’t get why.”
Cas’s brow’s furrow for a second, his forehead smoothing when he suddenly looks up: “The Grace.”
“The… Grace?”
Castiel nods. “There must still be trace amounts in me from when I Fell. That’s what must have called the djinn to the area in the first place, and why it took so few victims. It wanted me—”
“Because you’re an Angel.”
“Not anymore. But I was.” Tilting his head to the side, Cas raises a brow. “If you are who you say you are, how do you know that?”
“I found a list of angels in your bestiary and you were in it. Castiel: angel of solitary and tears, associated with the planet Jupiter, presiding over Thursday. That’s some demotion, Cas.”
“Mm.” He smirks, looking Dean up and down in a way that makes him flush. “Well, it’s not so bad, here.” Blue eyes widen. “Shit. Sorry, I just—it’s a habit.”
“Y-Yeah,” Dean shrugs, totally nonchalant. “No problem.”
Except big problem. Big fucking problem, because Dean has no idea what to do now that they’re here, in this empty room, and the more it goes the more he’s thinking they’re both gonna die anyway, so they may as well just spend what time they have left living the fantasy. Hell, Dean would love to live in a place where he could put down roots; where he has someone who loves him and who he could probably learn to love in return. The kid thing is a little more complicated, because after Sammy Dean’s never felt the need to be a parent again, but that can be worked around. Besides, his family clearly doesn’t give a shit about him, so what’s the harm in just… staying here? He’ll die quietly in reality, and no one’ll care anyway. Here, at least, people care. Cas cares.
And that whole speech about wanting to be friends was nice—and Dean’s pretty sure he does want that—but he has no idea how Cas is gonna feel when he wakes up. If he wakes up.
“Dean, do you have a knife?”
“Um. Yeah, I think.” Reaching into his boot, Dean pulls out his silver dagger, its point still covered in flaking lamb’s blood. “Yep. Here—WAIT NO!"
Plunging the knife in his own chest, Castiel Novak explodes in a burst of golden light.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
“CAS!”
Dean’s heart is pounding as he’s jarred back into consciousness. His entire body itches like he’s got chicken pox on top of chicken pox on top of chicken pox, and his eyes are swollen to puffy slits. His entire body, tensed almost to breaking, is ready to fight or flee at a moment’s notice while his mind struggles to catch up.
Castiel coughs and gags from his place on the couch, and Dean remembers. “Cas,” he breathes, his mouth twisting into a smile. “Oh my god, Cas.”
Dean doesn’t think, merely pulls himself, exhausted and sore and totally thrilled, up to the couch to touch him. To make sure, despite everything, that he’s awake. That he’s alive. Which he is, Dean determines after holding his face in his hands. He’s looking a little worse for the wear, but he’s living.
He’s also coughing so much he might throw up a lung.
Quickly pulling himself to his feet—thankfully with minor wobbling—Dean hurls himself into the kitchen, uncaring of the mess as he kicks through it. It takes a few minutes of rushed banging around the kitchen before he manages to find a glass and fills it with water, and then in his haste to return the couch, about a quarter of the stuff spills all over him, but Cas seems grateful regardless. The poor guy is weak as a kitten and he uselessly raises his hand to brush his fingertips against the glass raised to his lips. He drinks deeply and quickly, and Dean has to pull the thing away before he chokes. “Dude,” he says, smiling. “We got plenty of water. Go slow.”
He’s clearly frustrated, but Castiel makes a concerted effort to drink more carefully, pulling back only after the glass is totally empty. He stares at Dean, then, unblinkingly. He reaches out and his fingertips flutter against the swollen skin of his cheek. “Oh yeah,” Dean says in response to his unspoken question. “I’m like super allergic to your cat.”
Templeton, now tucked into Cas’s side, meows.
And Castiel begins to hyperventilate.
“Cas. Hey, Cas. Cas, breathe, okay? Everything’s fine. We’re okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. We’re both safe, Cas, breathe… That’s it,” he murmurs, pulling himself up onto the couch and rearranging them until they’re propped up against one another as Castiel take a big, deep breath. “There you go.” Dean’s fingers push through dark hair. “Good.” His words are spoken against Castiel’s temple. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
By the time Castiel has calmed down, he and Dean are a tangle of limbs and bodies, both parties clutching to the other tightly as the latter rocks the former in his arms, humming and murmuring softness into his skin. Tears continue to squeeze out from the corner of Cas’s eyes, and he buries his face, ashamedly, in Dean’s chest. “Dean,” he rasps eventually.
“Yeah, buddy?”
Castiel’s shoulders shake with fresh sobs.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
They somehow manage to make it up the stairs, and once Dean deposits Castiel in his bed (the bedroom is exactly the same as in Cas's wish-world, which throws him for a second), the other refuses to let him leave. Dean isn’t sure if it’s because of the near-death experience or the wish-world—maybe it’s a little of both—but he happily slips between the sheets and doesn’t examine his feelings too closely. Cas reaches for him and Dean tucks him up against his side.
They sleep.
The next time Dean wakes, it looks like dawn and Castiel is snoring quietly. It’s… kinda cute, and Dean finds himself grinning before he realizes what he’s doing and wipes the expression from his face. Stumbling from bed, he manages to find the bathroom and quickly washes up before heading downstairs in search of food. He makes two PB&J sandwiches, fills two glasses with water, and does a balancing act all the way up the stairs.
When he enters the room again, Castiel is trying and failing to get up.
“Woah, hey, what’re you doing?”
Cas’s swallowing of his own sob is crystal clear in the brightness of the room, and the witch shakes his head. “You—you were gone. I thought…” His bottom lip quivers.
“I went to get us some food,” Dean says, pulling up the corner of his mouth in a smile. “Figured you’d be hungry.”
Castiel’s stomach growls so loudly the sound seems to echo in the room, and he delicately clears his throat, looking anywhere but at Dean as his cheeks take on a pink tinge. “Yes, um. Thank you.”
“No biggie. You like PB&J? All the good stuff’s in your pantry so I figured you must.”
“I do.”
“Great.”
Carefully putting his spoils onto the floor, Dean helps Castiel back into bed, raising a brow when the other stares continuously at him. “What?” He grins. And sneezes.
Dean flinches when Cas outstretches a trembling, weak hand towards him. The coldness of his fingertips is like manna against his heated skin. “You’re allergic to my cat,” Castiel says.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Go downstairs and find the vial labeled ‘allergies – pets’. The liquid inside should be purple. It’ll work as an antihistamine for about twenty-four hours. Could you please come closer?”
“Um.” Dean sits on the bed, leaning towards Cas’s face as the other close his eyes and breathes deep. Running two fingers over his forehead and cheeks and nose, Dean feels a blessed coolness seep into his flesh before Castiel pulls his hand back, pale and exhausted. Looking at Dean with a smile, Cas sighs: “I’m going to faint”, before falling back onto the bed, unconsciousness.
“What the fuck,” Dean says.
And that’s about all the processing that gets done with regards to that.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Dean is sitting against Castiel’s headboard, reading a book on angels, when Cas starts to stir. Curled between them, Templeton raises his head to ensure all is well before bunking down again and purring. Cas, meanwhile, wakes with all the grace of a baby giraffe. He snuffles and coughs and runs a hand through the rat’s nest that is his hair before snuggling down again, wriggling his butt as he does.
It’s almost obscene in its cuteness and while Dean wants to look away, he physically can’t bring himself to. Especially when one of Cas’s blue eyes peeks open before squeezing shut again, and his fingers move to inadvertently brush against Dean’s thigh. “My head hurts,” he mumbles pitifully.
“Yeah, well, maybe you shoulda thought of that before you tried to kill yourself.”
Shooting him a squinty glare, Castiel scoots over until he manages to pull himself up into a seated position. “You’re awfully dramatic. Did you find it?” he grumps, making himself comfortable as he rests his head on the other’s shoulder.
Dean rolls his eyes. “The allergy stuff? Yeah, I did. Thanks. You gonna try pull a stunt like that again? Just so I know to prepare myself for the next time you swoon like a damsel.”
They’re so close Dean can feel Cas smile against his skin. “Mm, my hero.” Dean suppresses a shiver. “Did you destroy the house looking for it?”
“Uh…” Thinking of the knocked over piles of books and the mess in the kitchen still left from his original mad dash through the house, Dean clears his throat. “Um. Yeah. You should probably yell at me.”
“Okay,” he yawns. “ll’do it later.”
“Sure thing,” Dean smiles. “Whenever’s good for you.”
Castiel hums something in response, weakly nuzzling into the warmth at the juncture between Dean’s neck and shoulder before placing a light kiss to the skin there. He’s clearly half-asleep, a fact that is further proven by the way he tenses about thirty seconds later in response to Dean basically turning to stone.
“Um.”
Castiel quickly sits up, eyes wide. He groans and holds his head for a moment, shaking off his discomfort as he practically crawls to the edge of the mattress, stuttering and blushing profusely. “Dean, I am—I apologize, that was—I must have, um—I forgot, I think—that this isn’t—but of course that doesn’t excuse—um.”
Dean waits for him to get it all out, raising an amused brow as Castiel finally trails off in a series of embarrassed, distressed noises. He knows he’s also probably beet red, but whatever. It’s fine. He’s fine.
Everything’s fine.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s cool. Cas, seriously, it’s fine.”
But it’s not fine, because apparently, over the course of a couple weeks—during which they were mostly apart or unconscious—Dean has managed to develop a feelings for a quirky, grumpy witch. Who is also a dude.
Motherfucker.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
There are two ways to go about having an inconvenient feelings: either you ignore them, or you don’t. Dean, who has plenty of experience ignoring most of the shit that doesn’t fit into his father’s idea of what his life should be, figures it’ll be a cakewalk: he’s acknowledged the problem, now he just has to deal with it.
Unfortunately, ignoring it is impossible because Castiel is fucking impossible: sure, he was all cute and cuddly when barely conscious, but it turns out that the grumpy asshole who answered the door? That’s who Cas is when he’s laid up in bed.
“Look, I’m not letting you take a shower by yourself, okay? You could barely make it to the bathroom this morning.”
“But I did it.”
“It took you half an hour.”
“So? I’m not in a rush.”
Getting Castiel to agree to help him wash is a friggin’ nightmare. Which like, fine, Dean gets it: it’s been pretty close quarters for the past couple days, and there’s this weird blurred line delineating their physical and emotional boundaries, so it’s messy. Whatever.
But the dude was kidnapped (because surprise, Castiel was kind enough to eventually inform him that the fucking djinn plucked him from his own backyard), two weeks ago, now. He has not washed in two weeks. And no, Dean does not trust the weak-as-a-kitten trauma patient to not slip and die in the shower.
So it is that Castiel defiantly shuffles to the bathroom, and strips with the door open while Dean faces away. He accepts Dean’s hand in getting into the shower, closes the curtain, and only then does the hunter allow himself to look, frowning at Cas’s shadow as he leans against the sink.
“Stop glaring at me.”
“Shut up, Cas.”
He absently wonders if Castiel has a fuzzy butt.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
They’re laying in bed, showered and fed two days later, when it all goes to shit. Dean has basically been living at Cas’s place for a week now, and now that both parties have healed, Castiel’s started to become antsy. Dean knows this because the guy won’t stop fidgeting. Sure, they cleaned the house today and that took care of his anxiety for about four hours, but the rest of the day he was a fucking wreck. And Dean doesn’t say anything—mostly because he has no idea what to say—but it all comes to a head on the night of October 29th, when Castiel turns to him and blurts out, frustrated: “What do you want from me?”
“Uh.” Dean frowns. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Come on, Dean,” Cas scoffs. “You may play at stupidity but we both know that’s fiction. I don’t like being indebted. What do you want?”
“Indebted?” Dean snorts. “What, like a life debt?”
Castiel stares at him unflinchingly.
“Oh my god, are you fucking serious?”
But yeah, looking into Cas’s dumb, stupid face, Dean can tell he’s pretty goddamn serious. Scoffing to cover his hurt, Dean rolls his eyes. “Jesus, Castiel, you’re really something else.”
“I don’t associate myself with hunters.”
“That’s bullshit. I’ve been living with you for a week and everything’s been fine.”
“But now I’m healed, and you’re still here. What do you want?”
“What the hell makes you think—” Green eyes narrow. “You’re scared I’ve figured out you’re an angel.”
Castiel’s breath hitches. He stares, unblinkingly, ahead. “No,” he says. “I know you’ve figured out that I used to be an angel. What I’m scared of is what you plan to do with that knowledge.”
“What—”
“You’ve seen me,” Cas continues. “You know who I am now. You know it was my presence that led the djinn to this town, and that my past life as an angel somehow makes me an especially powerful witch. For fuck’s sake, Dean, you know my true name! Do you really expect me to believe that you’re willing to let me go without issue? That you’ve been kind to me out of the goodness of your own heart? You’re a Winchester! Your father’s bloodlust for anything different than him is infamous! I know you,” he says. “As surely as I know every other hunter that has passed through these parts, and whether you plan to kill or enslave me I only ask that you don’t play with me first!”
Dean feels his heart sink. But hey, it makes sense: they’re too different. Hell, a hunter and witch? Even their friendship would be unnatural—forget about anything more (Dean is pointedly not thinking about the ‘anything more’). “And what if I decide to kill you?” he asks. “Then what?”
Castiel grits his teeth. “Make it quick.”
“Right,” Dean says, huffing a humourless breath. “You know, Cas, it, uh. It doesn’t actually matter what I think of you, ’cause we’re clearly not on the same page, so.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. Hey, can you pass me my pants? I’m leaving.”
Castiel stays put. “You’re… leaving?” he says, watching Dean reach over and grab his clothing anxiously. “Wait—”
“It’s cool. Look, this was great, but it was just another hunt. You’re right. The contract’s been followed, you didn’t hurt anyone, and I don’t know why I’m still here.” Jumping into his clothes, he turns his head to look out the window, swallowing thickly at the sight of the Impala. “Plus, my dad is probably gonna kill me for ignoring my phone for the past two weeks so. Yeah. Thanks.”
But when he makes for the half-open bedroom door, the thing slams shut on its own.
Whirling around, Dean plans to give Castiel a piece of his mind—if you want me gone let me go, asshole—but before anything comes out of his mouth, he’s being slammed against the door and kissed within an inch of his life.
It’s messy. Messy and violent and Dean has to struggle to keep up, gasping and moaning as Cas presses him into the door and plants his hands on his hips, nipping and sucking at his bottom lip like he was born to it.
When he pulls away, he doesn’t go far, merely allowing a couple of inches between their mouths as their chests brush with each heave of their breath. A string of spit breaks between them obscenely and Dean feels his knees grow weak. “Cas…”
Castiel pushes him further against the door. “Where are you going?” he growls.
“W-What?”
“Where,” Cas says, nipping at his bottom lip. “Are you going?”
“But you said—”
“No, you said. I didn’t say anything about asking you to leave.”
“Yeah, you only accused me of lying and using you!”
“And I only did that because you were sending me mixed signals when—when—” He narrows his eyes. “Why are you being so nice to me? Where are you going?”
They’re nose-to-nose now, and Dean almost goes cross-eyed trying to look at him. Letting their foreheads come together with a dull thud, he squeezes his eyes shut and grips Castiel’s hips, growling. “I—You know—”
“No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“I want to know you!” Dean blurts out. His face is on fire when he flings his head back. It bangs on the door painfully. “I don’t know why, just… I want to know you. In—In every way you’ll let me. Fuck.”
Cas eases up on him slightly, frowning like out of everything Dean could have said, this is was the last thins he was expecting. “That’s all?” he asks dubiously.
“Jesus Christ, Cas, what else is there?”
“No, that’s not—you’re right,” he says. Tentatively, he moves his fingers to brush along the edge of Dean’s now scruffy jaw. “I want to know you as well. Very much.”
“Oh,” Dean murmurs, swallowing thickly. “That’s. Yeah. Um, if I could just…” Leaning in, the hunter presses their mouths together sweetly.
Cas smiles through it.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Despite the fact that their argument ended in making out until all hours of the morning, Dean still wakes and packs his bag. It's not that he doesn't want to stay—he thinks that, given the opportunity, he could probably just fade into obscurity here, with Cas, and not regret a single thing... but there is no real opportunity for that. Because there will always be monsters to hunt, and Dad will probably end him for staying away from so long, and thoughts of Sam play in a constant loop at the back of his mind.
That doesn't mean he has to stay away forever; just that... he can't stay here right now.
It's something that Castiel understands, by the expression on his face when Dean tells him. He disappointed, definitely, but he nods and gives Dean a sandwich baggie filled with small vials of helpful potions. He smiles. He tells Dean not to be a stranger, but his eyes are dull in a way that speak to his belief that they'll never see each other again.
Which is, in Dean's humble opinion, bullshit.
Jesus Christ, it's not like he's dying.
“So listen,” Dean says, standing in front of the Impala. His shit has been throws into the trunk and he's ready to go. “Um, I’m gonna visit my brother in California. I haven’t seen him in a while, but, I managed to get in touch with him and he’s agreed to meet up with me. And he’s great, Cas, you'd love him. He’s at Stanford—got a full ride—and he’s dating this girl now, and…” Dean blushes and clears his throat. “Um. Anyway, I’m gonna come back this way, probably in about a month? I was wondering if you’d wanna see each other. I could come here no problem. Or, uh, we could meet in town?”
Castiel's mouth drops open. "You... want to come here? To see me?"
"Uh, yeah? What, you thought I was talking out of my ass yesterday? Don't answer that."
A smile—big and wide and gummy—blooms on Cas's face like some sort of froofy, gorgeous flower, and Dean feels his heart trip over itself and crash into his ribcage. "Ah..." the witch says, shaking himself despite the fact that he's apparently so giddy he's having trouble stringing together a sentence. "Yes! Yes, of course. I'd like that. For you to come here. To visit me."
Air whooshes out of Dean in a fast, relieved breath. “Great,” he smiles. “D'you have a phone or something?”
Cas, who has been staring at him like he's something new and precious—which is insane, they barely know each other, but damn does Dean know the feeling— starts at the question. “Oh! Yes, it’s inside.”
After exchanging numbers and Dean promising to call when he arrives safely, the hunter opens the door to the Impala and slides into the driver’s seat with a grin. No one has ever asked him to do that; to tell them when he gets in safe. It's kind of awesome. “So... I’ll see you in about a month?”
“I look forward to it.”
There is literally no way of hiding how happy that statement makes him, no matter how hard Dean tries not to beam. “Cool. See ya, Cas.”
“Bye, Dean.”
Dean is pulling out of the driveway, eyes pretty much glued to Castiel, who, wrapped in yet another large sweater, is waving goodbye to him, when the witch suddenly sprints up to the vehicle like his life depends on it. “Dean, wait!”
Dean rolls down the window. “What's up?”
“Just give me a minute.”
He disappears inside the house, re-emerging with Templeton following closely at his heels and a paper in his hands. “Here,” he says, handing what looks like a drawing to him. “I’m not sure if either you or your brother have these, but they’re anti-possession wards. Get them either made of silver and keep them on you, or tattoo them in a place that’s not easily removed. Mine is between my shoulder blades.”
Dean’s brows raise in surprise and he tries not to salivate over the fact that Cas is, in addition to being a badass witch and fallen angel, is also inked. “Okay. Thanks, Cas.”
“And if you’re coming back, does that mean you consent to the voiding the contract?”
Dean frowns. “Oh! Oh yeah, for sure.”
“Me too.” Leaning in over the window, Castiel slots their mouths together in a slow but thorough kiss. When he pulls away, Dean is dazed.
“Be safe,” Cas breathes, nudging his nose. “And, don’t forget to call me when you stop for the night.”
“Will do,” Dean says faintly. Throwing her in park and tilting his chin, he leans up to catch Castiel in another kiss, their mouths moving languidly as Dean releases the steering wheel and Cas leans his forearms on Baby’s window frame. “For luck,” the hunter murmurs as they drift apart. “And one more for the road.”
Grinning, Castiel obliges him.
These kisses are comfortable—familiar in a way their others had not been. They’re rife with anticipation, too, but not for anything immediate… they feel kind of like a slow burn. When they drift apart, Dean applies one last perfunctionary kiss to Cas’s mouth before winking at him. “Catch you on the flipside, Cas.”
Giving his own little awkward salute, Castiel steps away from the car. His red, swollen bottom lip is trapped between his teeth as he waves goodbye.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Six hours later, after he has eaten, showered, and been chewed out by his dad, Dean finally allows himself to press the little green button on his piece of shit cell. A deep voice picks up after two rings.
"Hello?"
"You been waiting by the phone, Cas?"
There's a pause, and Dean can practically see Castiel rolling those pretty blue eyes of his.
"Hello, Dean."