Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dean slammed the last book onto the motel room table and ran his hands through his hair. In order, the books he'd borrowed from Bobby had yielded nothing, nothing, a powerful need for brain bleach and nothing. He checked his phone. One text from Sammy, who was having no better luck in the library. The phone pinged in his hand with a second text. “Ask Cas?”. Dean sighed.

“Cas?” He said to thin air. “Cas, if you could get your feathery ass down here I'd really appreciate it.”

He felt the change in the air behind him and turned. He stared. Instead of the dishevelled form of the late Jimmy Novak, a tall blonde woman stared amiably back at him.

“Cas?”

“Hello, Dean.”

He stared some more. It clearly was Cas, because only Cas would manage to find a black skirt and a white shirt and pair them with a badly tied blue tie and a battered trench coat which didn't fit.

“New vessel?”

“New vessel.”

“Huh.”

Dean considered this, glancing over the new vessel. Tall, blonde, big boobs, blue eyes. What, had the Angel gone out and found a living Barbie doll? He looked again at Castiel's new face. It was much younger than the last one. He decided to just ask all three of his questions at once.

“A, why are you not a dude? B, why are you a chick? And C, Cas, how old is that vessel?”

“Is that relevant?” She asked, brow creasing at the last question.

There were two reasons Dean wanted to know. One of them was so he knew whether to start a row about Cas vacating a girl’s body so she could have her life back, permission or not. He decided to test the waters with the less depressing reason.

“I need to know so I can decide if she's hot.”

“She's twenty four.”

Well, fair enough then, thought Dean.

“Yeah, she's hot.”

“She's also dead,” Cas informed him bluntly. At the entirely grossed out look on Dean's face, she continued. “Consenting to be my vessel was her last act before brain death. Bethan Thomas is gone. This is….me now.”

Dean processed this.

“Well….it's good…that no one is riding the comet with you, I guess.”

Cas stared at him for a moment before answering.

“I don't know what that means, so I'm going to take the ‘good’ at face value.”

Dean decided against explaining.

“So what's new in Angel Town?”

Cas frowned again.

“There is no such place, Dean.”

“I mean Heaven, Cas,” he clarified, rolling his eyes.

“Nothing that will affect Earth. Although I will happily share minutiae and gossip if you would like it.”

“Is it gossip I'll enjoy?” Dean asked, idly wondering if angels ever had sex. Well, it would be sex while in a vessel. Did their celestial forms have an equivalent? Where did baby angels come from?

“It's mostly political,” she replied, much to his disappointment.

“I'll pass,” he shrugged. “So, pull up a pew, sit your feathery butt down.”

She glanced over her shoulder to the mirror.

“Right, so you left all understanding of figures of speech in the old vessel, huh?” He said, half amused, half frustrated. She looked back at him.

“I'm just trying to work out why you're so focused on my rear end.”

Dean blinked, taken by surprise and with a nasty feeling he was edging towards a trap.

“Focused?” He enquired, warily.

“ ‘Get your feathery ass down here.’ ‘Sit your feathery butt down.’” She quoted.

“It's just the way I talk, Cas,” he sighed.

“And there I was thinking we had something special,” she said, completely straight faced. Dean stared at her.

“I honestly can't tell if you're screwing with me right now,”

She took the seat next to his, face not even flickering. He pointed.

“Because of that,” he admonished.

Clearly not intending on elaborating any further, Cas changed the subject.

“Was your prayer in regards to anything specific, or is my presence necessary in a more general capacity?”

As good as it was to see Cas again, and also kinda for the first time, Dean didn't really have time to go with anything other than the specific.

“Something weird is going on and Bobby’s got nothing.”

“’Something weird is going on.’ Is that not the Winchester family motto?”

She had a point.

“By this point I think its more like 'Death is only the beginning’.”

“That is....surprisingly optimistic.”

Dean shrugged.

“I saw it in a movie once.”

“And what is the nature of the most recent "weirdness"?”

With a final glance at the unhelpful books, Dean pushed his chair back so he could face her and started to explain.

Chapter Text

The afternoon

“Uh, good news and bad news,” said Sam, scrolling a little further down the page. “Good news is I found the Gem and we won't have to break in to get it because the museum’s having a party tonight.”

“What's the bad news?” Asked Dean.

“It's black tie. And our tuxes are in storage at Bobbie’s.”

Dean groaned. The only thing worse than wearing a tux was renting one.

“My tie is blue, is that acceptable?”

And then there was the other thing. Castiel’s new vessel. Female vessel. Castiel's new frickin blonde haired, blue eyed, barbie looking female frickin vessel. Dean sighed, heavily. The hair brush incident had been bad enough. The conversation about the inconvenience and difficulty of what Cas insisted on calling a brassiere had been worse. And now he,
Dean Winchester, was being forced to offer fashion advice.

“No, Cas. You need a dress. And some shoes. We’ll drop you off at the store, go ask one of the girls to help you. Just remember, this is a party. You're supposed to, y’know, dress for fun. No tie, and no loafers.”

“Noted. Is blue still acceptable?”

“Blue’s fine. Just…dress down a little.”

The Party

Uncomfortable in his rented jacket, Dean scanned the large room wishing for a beer instead of champagne. He glanced at Sammy a few yards away who shrugged. Security was tight tonight and neither one of them had been able to see a clear way to get behind the scenes. Nor could they work out how to find the Gem when they did. Cas would be able to sense it, but Cas was late.

Casually, he strolled towards Sam, taking a handful of canapés off a passing tray. Stuffing two in his mouth, he managed to mumble

“What?”

As Sam nearly spat out his drink.

“Dean, when you told Cas to dress down, we did tell her that doesn't mean ‘naked under her coat’, right?”

Frowning in puzzlement as he inhaled another vol au vent, Dean turned to see what Sam was staring at, and nearly choked. Walking unconcernedly through the crowd at the doors was Cas, nearly as tall as Sam in a pair shiny black heels, hair unleashed and falling straight to her waist and wearing a completely buttoned trench coat.

Trying like hell not to expire by pastry crumbs (he'd never live it down if he died like that), the thought that prevailed was 'what have you done?!'. Finally able to breathe again, he edged further to panic as the coat attendant approached her. And as she started to undo the buttons. Then she took the coat off completely and his jaw hit the floor.

“Buy a dress,” is what he’d said, and he hadn't thought any further as to what he may have expected. What he definitely had not expected was a bright blue, skin tight velvet mini dress that was just long enough to not be completely obscene, but pretty much short enough to be worn as a top.

As she approached, Sam nudged him hard in the ribs, and he felt the clack of teeth as his mouth slammed shut.

“What's wrong?” She demanded, reaching them. “The woman said this dress was both stylish and flattering.”

Vaguely aware that Sam had placated her with a harmless complement, Dean was absolutely frozen. He couldn't even blink, which is why he saw what happened next. A younger man who had been watching her lose the coat and walk over decided to try his luck and pinch her ass. Cas half turned and lightly pushed him away with one hand. Everyone saw the result of this, which was the young man flying backwards through two buffet tables and a champagne fountain.

Sam cringed, well aware that they were now the centre of a commotion and that Cas had accepted a glass of champagne and was sipping away entirely oblivious and Dean, moron, was basically doubled in half with laughter.

“Cas, for God’s sake, try not to get us kicked out of here!”

“He won't molest anyone else,” she said, not bothering to modulate her volume and making Dean laugh harder. She frowned at him. “I don't understand what's funny,” she said. “The man who gave me the champagne didn't think I'm funny. He gave me a hotel room key. I don't know why, but he did,” she said, displaying it as proof.

Confiscating the key and grabbing the suddenly grim faced Dean before he could commit a felony, Sam steered them away from the carnage, praying they could find the Gem before being arrested.

Chapter Text

“Are you quite sure you're not dying?”

If it were possible to cough angrily, Dean managed it.

“We're not dying, Cas!” He rasped. “It's just the damn ‘flu!”

She looked at Sam, who sneezed in confirmation.

“Just sick, Cas. Promise.”

Her chin tilted suddenly to the side, considering this.

“This is a common human illness?”

There were affirmative grunts among the sniffing and coughing.

“Then there must be a cure. I will return shortly.”

There was a swish of a trench coat and the door slammed behind her. Sam and Dean relaxed, as much as they could, into their pillows. Sam half laughed, half coughed.

“A cure? That should keep her busy a while.”

Chapter Text

Tracey didn't mind working the night shift at the supermarket. It was quieter, and she quite enjoyed straightening the shelves. She was a naturally cheery person, so when she turned around to find herself face to face with someone she hadn't heard approach, she jumped but didn't drop her smile. Well, face to face was a stretch. Tracey was “fun sized”, as she liked to call it, and the other woman would have been tall without the heels, so she was face to chest. She debated whether to point out that the tie was on inside out. Instead she opted for the ever faithful cheery:

“May I help you?”

“My friends suffer from a disease called 'flu'.” The customer informed her, not moving out of her personal space. “I want to purchase the cure.”

This struck Tracey as an odd way to phrase it, but she didn't seem as “out there” as some of the customers who stumbled in during the night shift, especially on a wet night like this. She hitched her smile up to maximum wattage.

“Well aren't you a sweetie for looking after them so? Follow me, honey, I'll find you everything you need!”

Chapter Text

The motel room door banged open and slammed shut, admitting a small amount of rain, a few leaves, and a bag laden Angel. Sam and Dean glanced at each other across the gap between the beds, wondering if there was still time to pretend to be asleep. On the bedside table between them two steaming styrofoam cups banged down. Dean cautiously tried interest.

“Is that soup?”

“It is.” Two bottles of drinking water came down beside them, then two packs of over the counter cold drugs. “If you can each stomach the soup, the water and two of the pills, I have been authorised to make you a soothing beverage of honey, lemon and rum.”

“Sounds like a sweet enough deal to me,” said Dean, easing himself into a sitting position and reaching for the cup. He stopped moving abruptly when Cas’ hand suddenly touched his forehead. He closed his eyes. Her hand was cool and this fever really was a bitch.

“Drugs first, Dean. I'm told they'll reduce the fever.”

He nearly protested when the hand went away, but decided aspirin and soup was the safer bet. Cas turned to Sam.

“Im not hungry,” he said, coughing. “But seriously, thanks for bringing this stuff.”

He'd forgotten that Cas could loom when required, and now she loomed over him, leaning down towards him like wrath as he cringed back into his pillow.

“Drink. Your. Soup.” They didn't sound like words but more like the the wind at the beginning of a hurricane, the surf ahead of the tsunami.

“Yes, ma’am,” he croaked. She smiled like light caught in cobwebs.

“Good! Now…what else?”

Amused as he was while loaded Cas was pointed at Sammy, Dean didn't like the idea of being the target, so he picked a task more suited to Cas than nursemaid.

“There's a ghoul out in the woods somewhere,” he offered, making a show out of swallowing the tablets and drinking his soup. “We were gonna go gank it, but in this condition…with this weather…”

“You're right,” she said. “Stay in bed. I'll deal with it.”

She took a knife from Dean’s bag and was gone again into the night. Sam reached uneasily for his soup.

“Momma Cas is scary,” he said.

“Aww, c'mon, it's kinda sweet,” Dean grinned into his soup.

“Sweet? As in Dean is sweet on Cas sweet?”

Dean’s grin disappeared, but he was spared blushing by being already flushed with fever.

“Drink your soup, Sammy.”

Chapter Text

Cas returned triumphant in ripped clothes and and a lot of blood about half an hour later. Dean jumped as she slammed the door.

“Jesus, Cas, that's a lot of blood!”

“Oh, don't worry,” she said. “It isn't mine.”

“No kidding, Cas, you're an angel. Did you use your powers? Did anyone see you like that?”

“If they did,” said Sam, “I bet they weren't looking at the blood.”

Dean looked at her again and suddenly blushed. Her shirt was missing several buttons and sporting a rip that left no guesses as to the colour of her bra. Her skirt was completely done for with most of the front completely gone, leaving her stocking tops bare to the elements.

“What?” She asked. Sam gestured towards the mirror with his empty soup cup. She examined herself. “I'll go and change.”

Sam glanced slyly at Dean.

“How's the fever?” He enquired.

“You shut up or I will tell her you didn't drink your soup!”

Not willing to risk it while still ill, Sam decided to leave it for now and wondered instead if Bobby would let him change his bet in what Crowley called the “Destiel” book.

Chapter Text

Everything had been fine. They'd found the crypt and burned the bones. Cas had preceded them back into the dying daylight as they'd bickered over whether Star Trek was better than Star Wars. Dean had been about to play the “golden bikini” card and the world had gone wrong.

There was the bang of a shotgun and while both Winchesters had been rearmed in moments, they were too late to stop Cas flying backwards, curved, head slumped forwards, into the wall of the mausoleum and ragdolling to the floor.

Keeping the barrel of his pistol parallel to the floor and without turning his head Dean made a one word enquiry.

“Cas?”

She moaned and coughed. Later, Dean would panic a little, and spend longer than necessary fussing over the buckshot graze, but right now his instinct shut that down. She was alive. She would heal. So he kept his gaze on the men in front of him, knowing Sam was doing the same.

There were five of them. He'd met them all at one point or another, although he didn't think that Sam had met one or two of them. Hunters, all of them. Various firearms pointed back at him, black holes in the sunset.

“Hey, there, fellas,” he kept his voice casual although his gut knew that there would be no diffusing this.

“Y’all done started the apocalypse,” said the eldest and best dressed of the five, calmly.

“We’d better get on with fixing that, then,” he replied coolly.

“Caint trust y’all with that, Dean. Lord knows I hate to do this, yer Daddy was a fine man, but..” He trailed off and shrugged, his mare's leg hardly moving.

The upside to fighting alongside your brother is always knowing what he'll do. Sam and Dean were thinking the same thing. They wouldn't survive a firefight.

“Sammy?” He murmured. Sam nodded.

They charged forwards, ducking low to avoid any bullets fired by instinct and each hitting an attacker square in the waist. The melee was short and brutal. They were strong, and they'd learned to fight young, but five against two, especially five hunters, was too much.

Bruised, bleeding and disarmed, they knelt in the encroaching twilight. Five firearms pointed at their heads. Behind them there was a rustle, then two quiet clicks. Five guns moved to the source of the noise but Dean already knew what they'd heard. He prayed it didn't end badly.

“Put your weapons down.”

Five guns clattered to the floor. Even Dean and Sam had to fight the urge to find boot knives and lay them on the alabaster stones. The words had come from a low quiet voice, but at the same time didn't. At the same time, the words were the rumble of the fault lines and the rattle of the desert wind. They carried with them the scream of the tornado and the sizzle of burning sand. The full stop had been the falling of cliffs into the sea and the overall effect was the brain seizing up in fear and pleading “please, whatever you want, don't hurt me, don't kill me,”.

Dean managed to look up at their assailants through a rapidly swelling eye. They were frozen, gaping. He wondered if they'd seen her wings and then realised they must have done as the one who'd spoken fell to his knees, averting his eyes and reaching out to her.

“Get up.” Her voice was a lightning strike.

The man lurched to his feet. So did the Winchesters.

“I know you now,” came the snake’s rattle. “All of you. And if I see you again, I will kill you.”

Still low, still quiet, still the rise of flood waters and the whoosh of the brush fire.

“Leave.”

They fled, and Dean let himself breathe again. He looked at Sammy, who looked no less relieved. Cas scared Sam sometimes, Dean knew. And, yeah, she'd proves on more than one occasion that even keeping her real power out of it, she was a terrifying Angel of the Lord but on the other hand… He looked at her. One time she'd called a man who'd skipped a red light a dickbag and then double checked it was an appropriate curse word. He respected her, yes, but she didn't scare him. She looked back at him and he hastily looked at the floor, noticing a definite upside to this little snafu.

“Ooh, free weapons!”

Chapter Text

“Well, how do I look?” Asked Sam, turning to show off his efforts. Under the suit pants and the white shirt, a distinctive red blue and yellow S could be seen.

“Those glasses make you look like a dork.” Replied Dean, sourly, as he laced his shoes.

“Oh, quit bitching. You're wearing a genuine suit from the forties, which you love…”

“And this stupid scar make up, which itches.”

Sam was up to his eyeballs with Dean’s mood, which had taken a sharp downturn at the words “costume party” and had stayed there despite assurances that the costume could be clothes he liked wearing.

“Well, Cas and I both offered to give you real scars. And thanks, these glasses are supposed to look dorky.”

“Whatever,” snapped Dean. “Let's just get this over with. Cas!” He yelled. “You ready yet?”

“Yes,” said a sulky voice reluctantly from the bathroom.

“Then get your ass out here!”

“I don't want to. This clothing is ridiculous.”

Dean snarled impatiently, so Sam stepped in.

“Cas?” He called. “I get that you're not entirely comfortable, but we really need to be at this party. I'm sure you look great. Could you just come on out so we can get this show on the road?”

“I don't care how I look, Sam, I care that I'm completely bound and taped into this stupid garment, have nowhere to stow weapons and constantly feel like I'm tightrope walking!” All of this was loud, irritated, commanding but Sam caught, just, in a much quieter tone as he exchanged trepidatious looks with Dean: “and also I look ridiculous.”

“Cas, c’mon!” Dean sounded almost sympathetic for Cas's costume hatred. “I swear if you come out we’ll find a way to arm you.”

There was a pause, and the door unlocked. Before it opened the petulant voice called.

“If either of you laugh I will smite you.”

They both promised not to. Slowly the door opened, revealing only a bathroom. Then, from around the door…

Two impossibly high red heels, and a swish of glittering red train. Then leg. And more leg. And slightly more leg before the dress rose in a heart shape leaving a very impressive cleavage. Two long purple gloves fiddled with the back waist line, which met long, straight shiny hair. Red lipstick pouted, expecting mockery.

Sam looked at Dean, who looked like he didn't know whether to avert his eyes or abandon hunting and do unspeakable things to Cas instead. He knew his brother and the words on Dean’s brain right now would be: The rabbit. Why did it have to be the rabbit?

Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably, not immune to the charms of a beautiful woman dressed as Jessica Rabbit.

“You, uh, look amazing, Cas. Right Dean?”

“Amazing,” managed Dean, dreamily. Sam knew Dean had always had a thing.

“I do?”

“Perfect.”

Mollified, Cas took Dean's arm, by the looks of things nearly blowing his mind, and allowed herself to be walked out the door unarmed.

Sam took a deep breath, bracing himself for a night of preventing Dean from shooting every straight man with a pair of eyes.

Chapter Text

Cas sat to attention in the padded seat and, as instructed, paid close attention.

“This is important, Cas,” she’d been told. “A milestone in human culture. A shining example of artwork. A personal favourite of mine and! Vital to your ability to be able to blend in with normal people.”

She'd nodded earnestly. She had, of course, been present for the bigger milestones of human culture, but Dean was familiar with more recent developments so if he said it was important, she was willing to trust him.

She could feel the excitement sparking off him. It had apparently been a long time since he'd seen this film and when they'd found a cinema showing it as part of a retro festival he'd reacted with so much enthusiasm his teeth had nearly vibrated out of his skull. He'd looked so sad when Sam hadn't wanted to go that she'd offered to. As the music blared, she could feel his eyes on her face, watching to see how she reacted. Her eyes flickered as she read the text rising up the screen.

Two hours or so later, Cas walked in silence as Dean happily explained the finer points.

“So?” He finally asked. “It's awesome, right? I tell you, there is nothing you can I ask I won't know. Go on, try me!” He grinned proudly at her.

“I enjoyed it,” she said, smiling back. “I had fun. But…what's a parsec?”

Dean’s face fell.