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Life was good.
Not perfect - was it ever? - but it was good. His marriage, his job, it was all…good.
Lisa would probably disagree. Not to his face, God no, but quietly, in that way her mouth thinned and the corners of her eyes tensed. The latent, lurking concern that never left her lips, never took shape aside from a comforting hand on his arm.
He didn’t deserve her.
They’d been working on that, though, and yeah, he’d backslid after his dad passed - he’d backslid on a lot of things - but grief took its toll on everyone. Sometimes he needed to be away from her. She’d been his rock, his anchor, but it could be…smothering. And she wanted to talk about it. Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - he just wanted to be quiet with someone. He’d drive over to the family house, sit with his mom, at the kitchen table or on the porch, with her hand lightly laid over his, and just…sit. Just sit there. Most days, she ended up crying, silent tears tracking down her cheeks. But it was quiet , and she got it .
And Lisa - God, Lisa - she didn’t get it. She knew he was hurting - it didn’t take a genius to figure that out - but she hadn’t lost anyone. And as much as he’d relied on her, taken comfort in her arms and her words, he could’ve…he could’ve gotten through it without her. Fuck, it hurt to think like that, but he could. Hell, he had . On his worst days, he was still there, up and about enough to see Ben off to school, because that wasn’t an excuse , being there for his kid wasn’t a choice -
His breaths were shallow, ragged, wheezing. A saw blade in his lungs. The whole place looked like soup , murky and indecipherable, greys and browns and…
…and three Sam Winchesters staring intently at him.
“Dean? Can you hear me?”
He was a body, he knew that, he could feel the scrape of metal on his wrists, feel the press of clammy fingers against his face and neck. His head bobbled a bit as Sam shook him, gaze unable to latch onto any one thing.
“ Dean! ” Damn, he could be loud . “You’ve lost a lot of blood. The djinn’s dead, I took care of it, so I just need you to do something! ”
Oh, right, he was a hunter, here in the real world…and Lisa and Ben - a Ben that was his, anyway, and a Lisa that still loved him - were fake, and Dad had been dead for years, and certainly not from a beer-and-bacon-induced heart-attack at the ripe old age of 58.
Mulishly, he cracked his lips open and attempted to mutter “I hate djinns,” but it probably came out as a bunch of mush. Sam laughed a little hysterically, as if he’d actually thought Dean was dead or near to it, which was honestly a little offensive at this point. After facing down Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer for fuck’s sake, did he honestly think a milk run would take him out?
A milk run where he’d gotten kidnapped…and drugged…and snacked on…
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t quite a milk run.
Sam got him down, bundled into the car, and sipping on- apple juice? Sure, fine, water made sense, Johnny W probably wasn’t the brightest choice after nigh-lethal blood loss, but he wasn’t a kid, he didn’t need a fucking juice box.
“Shut the fuck up and drink, you need vitamins,” Sam snapped, catching the dizzy grimace on his face. “And you are going to eat , too, something that isn’t 90% grease.”
“I am a warrior .” His lips felt numb, like they wouldn’t obey him. He worked his jaw while Sam fumed, putting a lid on all the frantic desperation that boiled into fury.
“I don’t give a damn what you think you are, you are missing vital nutrients and you will replenish them , so help me God! ”
“ Rabbit. Food. ”
The only reason Sam didn’t hit him was because he was injured, he knew that, but it wasn’t going to stop him from being a little shit.
The next few weeks went by as usual. Locate SOB, drive to SOB, gank SOB, return to Bunker. Rinse and repeat. The only difference was that Dean now had that djinn dream slithering around in the back of his head, popping up at inopportune times. A case involving a young family made his heart ache with the memory of Lisa and Ben. A newly widowed woman had his mother’s eyes. He couldn’t go a damn day without thinking of it.
Had it been that bad? No. Fuck no. Not when compared with the shit he went through daily. He was a predator, wasn’t he? Monsters knew him now, knew the Winchesters , relished the thought of being the one to finally snuff him out. And they’d fixed as much as they could, they’d put Lucifer back in his cage and healed Sam and everything was done , it was fine , he didn’t need to do this anymore. If they wanted to, Sam could settle down, go finish his studies, get a job and a wife and the life he’d always wanted but could never have. And Dean…
Dean didn’t know, actually.
His whole life had been on the road, with a gun in his hand and the Impala beneath his boots. Could he actually…
He’d done fine, hadn’t he? With Lisa, with Ben. He’d done fine. And in that damn dream , he’d been more than fine, he’d been happy . He’d been stable and he hadn’t even had that itch, the one that craved the open road and a machete in hand. No, even with the sorrow of his grief far too fresh and blood-warm at the back of his throat, it had been perfect .
The next time they were in the area, Dean managed to convince Sam to swing by Garth’s place. They hadn’t been by in a while, which wasn’t a lie, and it was always nice to see the fruits of their efforts. To be reassured that what they did mattered . That all the people they spared really were innocent.
“Plus,” he added with a strained grin, “Garth cooks a mean steak.”
It was nice, really, to see Garth and Bess and the kids - pups , she called them - five of them, now, and Garth had never seemed so aglow with joy. It was one evening, after dinner, that Dean sprung the question. Garth had honest-to-God rocking chairs on the porch, and Sam was chasing the little ones around the yard and hoisting them up on his shoulders and there was so much laughter , wheeling through the air in that half-shrieking way kids always were, and Dean had a glass of whiskey and Garth just had iced tea and it was all just-
“I need you to find me a djinn,” he croaked, the ice shifting with a small clink .
Garth hummed, quiet and thoughtful, his eyes never leaving little Gracia, her hands locked around Sam’s bicep, little legs picked up to hang a foot off the ground. “Everything alright, Dean?”
He swallowed hard. Here it was, here the shoe was going to drop, and everything would- “No.”
His nod was slow, as was his sip from his iced tea, but he turned a sweet, understanding smile his way a moment later. “I can’t convince you to talk about it, can I? Mr. Fizzles can be very convincing.”
He knew his answering smile was tremulous, ready to shatter at any second. If he thought talking would work, he wouldn’t be turning to poison, would he? “Maybe next time, Garth.”
A week later, he had the contact information of one Castiel Novak, Djinn for Hire.
*****
He wasn’t an idiot, he had a backup plan. There was an automated message set and ready to send Sam his location and the same contact information if he didn’t deactivate it by two hours after he was supposed to be home. Other than that…he was essentially trusting Garth with his life (easy) through this Castiel bozo (not easy).
They agreed to meet at a coffee shop first, discuss the terms of what Dean wanted and what he could pay - and what would happen to Castiel if he did not return unharmed, in excruciating detail - and go from there. So here he was, sat with an unobstructed view of the entrance, looking for a man matching the description provided. Garth had called him “tall, dark hair, blue eyes,” and Castiel had promised to wear a blue tie to aid in this, as he could hide his tattoos if he so wished. It still made Dean’s skin crawl to remember that ambush, the woman he couldn’t identify until the world was corrupted by djinn poison and he thought he was going mad, but he could also see how some people might react unfavorably to a man covered head to toe in blue-black whirls of ink.
So while he was expecting the man, he was not expecting everything that came with him. When what appeared to be Castiel Novak entered the coffee shop, he took a searching glance around the room, and Dean lifted a hand in acknowledgement. He received a brusque nod in return, and his wait in line allowed Dean to take in everything else he hadn’t been informed of.
Boxy suit, too-big coat, hair that either hadn’t been brushed in days or had just had someone’s hands messing it up, and “blue eyes” was a disservice to the nearly glowing gaze that had landed on him with such an intensity that he still felt it a minute later. Unsettled, he shifted minutely, taking another drink from his own - approaching lukewarm - coffee.
By the time Castiel took his seat in front of him, looking for all the world like Dean’s tax accountant here to talk shop, he was so unnerved that he was debating asking Garth for a different not-going-to-drain-him-dry, on-call djinn.
“Hello, Dean,” the man in front of him greeted, an awkward smile - almost as if he was thinking “ This is what they do for introductions, now drop the smile, ” - flitting over his lips. “Garth said you were looking for a djinn, but didn’t specify why.” Luckily, he kept his voice down, or else Dean may have spat his coffee on their table.
As it was, he mentally shook himself and figured, well, in for a penny. “Yeah, I, uh, didn’t tell him. Kind of personal.”
Castiel’s head cocked, birdlike, and he blinked. “It will not be personal for me, don’t worry. If I provide you with any service that necessitates my being djinni, I will require access to your mind regardless.”
Christ, who talks like this?! Dean half-marveled, half-gawked at him.
“I can attempt to distance myself,” he continued, seemingly taking his not-response as meaning Dean was not on board with that plan. “But the illusion will be limited, then. Taken from things I know, things I have experienced, rather than being properly tailored to you.”
The way he was talking, bordering on clinical, it almost seemed… “Cas, is this your job? ”
Another blink, this one a little more taken aback, and oh, oops, only call him “Castiel” then, until he answered, “Yes, of a sort. It’s not an officially licensed business. I advertise myself as a prostitute-” That nearly did have Dean splattering the table with coffee. “-which is not entirely inaccurate. My clients fall asleep, experience their greatest fantasy as though it were happening to their waking body, and pay me for it.”
“In money?”
“Partially.” This smile was wan, wary. “I take less than a blood donation would, and my prices are very reasonable. They also receive a complimentary cookie, to help with the blood loss.”
Dean stared. Castiel stared back.
“I bake them myself,” he added helpfully.
Dean’s chuckle may have been a bit deranged.
*****
Explaining to a supernatural prostitute - good God what is my life - that his wish, as determined by the last djinn dream he’d experienced, was simply to live a normal life, well, it’s a lot more difficult and depressing than one would think. Credit where it’s due, Castiel took it all in stride, but it did prompt more questions.
“Or,” he offered, clipboard and pen in inked hand, as he’d explained he would take notes to ‘ensure high customer satisfaction and retention rate,’ “I could pull your desires directly from your mind. It would-”
“No,” Dean said firmly. Not rudely, he hoped, because Castiel was technically a service worker and he did want to be nice to those, but he definitely wanted it clear that Castiel did not have permission to poke around in there. “I’ll tell you the script, you don’t have to write it yourself.”
Castiel’s brows pinched even as he nodded, eyes only on his clipboard, pen scribbling and scratching down the request. “Noted. Lie back, and spare no details.”
It was almost uncanny how similar Castiel’s home office was to a therapist’s office. Not from any personal experience - fuck if Dean could afford a therapist , with or without blue-black tattoos - but from any example of one on TV. The only difference was that he didn’t have one of those lounging, lay-back-and-bare-your-soul chairs, he had a bed. It was a damn nice one, too, creamy white sheets and a plush, ocean blue comforter. Dean had been asked to kindly remove his shoes and leave them by the door, and the thought of his first clients having just gotten on a bed this nice with their shoes on had him angry on Cas’ behalf.
“How does this work with your normal clients?” he wondered aloud, watching as Cas opened a tall door and wheeled out an IV stand.
“They’re asleep by this point.” His hands were steady and sure with the empty blood bag and tube and needle. “I instruct them to lie back and relax, and administer my venom then. They slip into sleep as I leave the room, wait a moment, and come back in to do all of this. By the time I have them hooked up, they think they’re engaging in raucous intercourse with their ideal partner, who just so happens to be wildly interested in their deepest, most repressed desires,” he finished drily. “Sometimes they detail the kind of person they want, sometimes they don’t.” He paused, his head lifting to stare past the stand at nothing. “I assume they believe me to be a ‘pimp,’ running an escort service out of my home.” That said, he went right back to work.
Dean watched him for a second, simultaneously impressed and somewhat revolted. Then, a thought occurred to him. “Wait, they pay sight unseen?”
Cas turned back with a small frown, as though Dean was the one being unreasonable here. “No, of course not.” He leaned down, tying a tourniquet on his arm and tapping at his elbow. “They pay after. I would not expect them to trust in my abilities enough to pay upfront. Besides, it means they’ll often tip. ‘For the lovely lady,’ one of my regulars likes to say, as if I wouldn’t give the nonexistent woman he just had sex with her fair wage.” He almost seemed insulted . “Now close your eyes, I’m sending you under.”
“Forty-five minutes,” Dean reminded him, expression set in steel.
Castiel met his gaze easily, his irises starting to glow and…swirl with the same kind of inky magic as his tattoos. Distantly, Dean noticed there was a little starburst of dewdrops right between his eyebrows as his vision started to blur. “And not a second longer, Dean.”
The next time his eyes opened, he was looking at a living room. It’s less disorienting that time, and he knew it wasn’t reality, but memories of the real world were just out of reach, almost like grasping at the last threads of last night’s dream. Strange, that; did Cas choose to let him remember, or is it that he’s been under djinn poison enough to acclimate?
He stood, turning in a full circle to take in the sights. It’s not very modern, all natural woods and rich earth tones, a soft, cream blanket folded over the top of the couch. It looks like a hunting lodge , Dean thought for a second, and then immediately decided Cas must have the driest humor on Earth or was playing a prank on him. Maybe both.
A sweet, amused voice called his name, then, and he turned to see a woman - not anyone he knew, actually, he’d deliberately shied away from using Lisa to get his apple-pie-life rocks off - leaning around a wall, smiling at him in that way someone does when they love you but you’re being fucking weird. She was wiping her hands on a little blue terrycloth. “Are you getting any lunch or not?”
“Sure thing, sweetheart. Was just…lost in thought.” With a last glance around the room, curious whether it was just ripped from a magazine Cas had seen or an actual room he’d been in, he followed the redhead around the corner. Something niggling in the back of his mind informed him her name is Anna .
He wasn’t sure what he was going to find, and was almost obscenely delighted to see homemade bacon cheeseburgers . “This is amazing, babe,” he said, utterly genuine, as he took a seat at the already set table. She dropped a kiss on his temple, her hand sliding over his shoulders, before she sat next to him and they tucked in.
He spends roughly three days there, in Castiel’s conjured dream world. He worked at an auto shop, run by forgettable faces with forgettable vehicles, except for a Lincoln Continental he snorted at when he first saw it. He could see why it stood out to Cas, among all the other cars on the road, but, damn , what a pimpmobile.
He doesn’t fuck Anna. She offered, that first night, but he just fitted himself against her back and mumbled something about a tiring day at work. Cas’ world seemed to get it, then, and Anna didn’t try again. She still kissed him before work, hummed and swayed while they made dinner together, rubbed her thumb over his knuckles during breakfast. But that was all she did.
When his eyes opened to the ceiling of Cas’ home office, something ached, deep down, a needle in his sternum with the weight of the world on it, pinning his weightless soul back into his body.
“Deep breaths,” Cas murmured, helping him sit up and fluffing some pillows behind him to rest against. “Your illusion is more condensed than I’m used to, more complex. You may feel lightheaded.” They sat there quietly for a moment, broken only by Cas handing him a cookie - heh, homemade - and him muttering a thanks. “It will get easier. I’ll adapt to your variety with practice.”
More quiet. Not uncomfortable, not like it gets in the Bunker, when Sammy will get antsy and clear his throat and try to spark conversation. Cas sat in his armchair - knit back and forth with white and navy to make the illusion of a cloudy blue to match the rich bedspread - and checked on the blood bag, now full of Dean, or tapped lightly at Dean’s arm to check how the puncture wound was healing up, or got up to refill his water glass. All without a word.
After some time, Dean cleared his throat. “Who’s Anna?”
Castiel grimaced slightly, turning his face more fully away. “My half-sister.”
Dean damn near choked on his cookie, which would really be a shame, because it was delicious. “ What?! You used your half-sister as a sex doll -”
“You did not have intercourse with her, did you?” he snapped, cheeks flushed. “So it’s a moot point.”
“The hell it is!” Dean spluttered, making to stand up from the bed. Cas didn’t bother to stop him, nor did he make eye contact with him. “Fuck, Cas, you can’t use her again! I’m not gonna be able to unthink that!”
“I don’t usually use Anna, never for normal clients!” he admitted, face now nearly the color of Anna’s - fucking hell - hair. “She matched your specifications, and I would’ve had to rewrite April’s personality otherwise, which might have cheapened-”
“You chose her because it was convenient?! ” Somehow, this just kept getting better and better .
Cas stood from his chair in a jerky movement, still not looking at him. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Winchester,” he said, voice wooden. “Please put your shoes on and meet me at the front door.”
Dean’s heart sank. “No, wait, Cas-”
“I will send you my invoice,” he continued, striding out into the hall, and Dean scrambled after him, shoes abandoned in the dimly lit office, the calm ambience splintered and scattered on the warm hardwood. “You will have three business days-”
“Dammit, Cas, look at me! ”
Lake-blue eyes met his, wary and guarded, his hand on the doorknob of the front door, fuck, abort abort abort . “What is it?”
“I’m sorry, ok?” he blurted. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called your fictional half-sister a sex doll, and I shouldn’t have been a dick about your method, and I can pay right now so you don’t have to send the invoice. I’m sorry, Cas, I need this .”
The ice chips in his eyes melted, just a bit, as Castiel’s expression softened. The dewdrop starburst smoothed out between his brows. He sighed. “Fine. Notify me of your new preferences before next week’s meeting, then. And any imperfections, inconsistencies, anything that felt out of place.”
Relief poured through him, sweet spring water over a smarting burn. “Yeah, absolutely, man. No problem.”
*****
Seven days of hunting never seemed to drag on for so long. Two days in Milwaukee, taking out vampires; three in the Bakken oil fields, ferreting out a ghost; one to visit Bobby, since they were so nearby.
And then his appointment with Cas rolled back around, and he made his excuses and dashed over. Frankly, he was lucky Cas had chosen to set up shop in Kansas City and not literally anywhere else , because the proximity was likely the only reason Garth was able to refer him at all.
This time, though, Cas didn’t bring out the IV. “You not hungry?” he asked, gesturing to the closet it was kept in.
Cas shot him a slightly concerned look. “Dean, you gave over half of a whole blood donation. The Red Cross mandates an eight week break between donations. You need to recover .”
“Oh. I thought-”
“I won’t bleed you dry,” he said firmly, pinning Dean with a stern glare that quickly became sheepish as he dropped his gaze. “Besides, you’re right, I’m not hungry.”
Ok, that was interesting, and might even be relevant to his hunts. “How long do you go between, uh…Meals? Drinks?” That first djinn had been feeding on both him and another girl, so it couldn’t be long, right? A few days at most. Wait, how many regulars did he have, anyway?
“A week, a week and a half,” Cas answered, and Dean’s eyes bugged out of his head. “Don’t misunderstand, I’m not fasting. We feed less on the blood itself and more on…anima. Mana. Emotion, perhaps. I’m not fully sure.” He shifted, deliberately not looking at Dean. “Blood traded, a dream for a feast, is all well and good, but taken…I don’t know how that fear-mongering subspecies survives at all.”
“But that’s not how most djinn feed,” Dean countered. “You are the first djinn I’ve seen that honestly trades for it. Most just take, fear or not.”
Now Cas was grimacing; whether it was at Dean or at his monstrous brethren was unclear. “We used to be sought out. We still tell tales of it, of when we were gods. People chased us down to have their wishes granted, and we fed…once or twice a year, maybe. Now, we feed more often, on less nutritious blood. But-” He snapped his mouth shut, turning sharply to stare out the window of the office, cheeks pinked underneath curving lines of shimmery blue.
Dean waited. Patiently . Still… “But?” he prompted.
Castiel huffed a sigh, as if he knew he’d ask but wished he wouldn’t. “But yours is very filling,” he muttered. “You know what I am, you watch me set up your blood draw, and you still give. For what you consider very little in return. It is…very rich, evidently.”
“I… what? You’re telling me I’m giving you, what, a filet mignon in blood form?”
Castiel looked at him balefully. “Dean, I’ve yet to finish the last bag, it’s hard to drink too much at once.”
Ok, apparently he was, like, triple-layer chocolate silk pie, noted.
Castiel clicked his pen, clearing his throat. “Now. Everything to be improved upon. List them.”
After Dean scraped his memory of the last dream and offered every possible thing that struck him as out-of-place, he was instructed again to lie back and shut his eyes. He drifted off with the memory of how Cas had shot him a sour look at the mention of the Lincoln Continental at the forefront of his mind.
The room before him was different. Still nowhere near that minimalist, grey-and-beige-are-the-only-colors-in-existence hellscape he’d seen had become remarkably popular, but a little more modern. The coffee table was speckled white marble set on a circling honeycomb pattern of golden metal, the couch plush black leather. Again, a throw blanket tossed artfully over the back, this time faux white fur, and a decorative pillow in white-and-gold houndstooth.
The man that stepped into the room, knotting a pale pink tie at his throat, had Dean stepping back (and nearly falling onto the couch).
“I’m sorry, darling, I have to get to work,” he said regretfully, blue eyes - blue - wide and pleading. “I’ll make breakfast tomorrow, eggs benedict and pancakes and bacon, promise , but I’ve gotta run.” He tucked a hand behind his head, pecked a kiss on his cheek, and swept out the door while Dean gaped.
Michael , that same strange sense told him, and he surreptitiously glanced down at his hands, his legs giving out when he spotted the neat silver band around his ring finger. He hadn’t been married to Anna, but they’d been together for a while; what made Michael different?
Michael’s not related to Cas , he thought, and let himself laugh where Cas couldn’t immediately give him shit for it.
This time, Baby was waiting for him in the garage, and the calendar in his kitchen - Christ, who was he? - noted that he had some days off while the bar he worked at in town was due for remodeling. It looked like Michael was the one to fill in the calendar, each event color-coded by some mystical system unbeknownst to Dean.
That night, Michael plastered himself to Dean’s back, a hand low and possessive on his stomach. It had him tensing up, debating rolling away or sleeping on the couch entirely, but a sweet, chaste kiss pressed to the top of his spine and a sleepy “Good night, Dean,” had him gradually relaxing.
Two more days of marital bliss, and he blinked awake to the soft, warm lighting of Cas’ office.
“Easy now,” he said, voice low and rumbling, again helping him sit up and get settled. After ensuring he was of sound mind again, his lips quirked, and he asked, “Do you still want a cookie?”
Dean barked a laugh and shook his head. He twisted his fingers in the comforter for a moment before blurting, “Don’t use Michael again.”
Castiel stiffened. “My apologies, I- You didn’t specify male or female-”
“Oh, no, that’s not the problem,” he rushed to correct. “Michael just looks way too much like my dad and it creeps me out a little.”
Immediately, Castiel relaxed, and he frowned, though the twinkle in his eye belied his mock-irritation. “You know, many studies have shown people are often attracted to-”
“Nope! No , Cas, I am not -”
Castiel shrugged smoothly. “Should have specified, then: ‘Must not bear a resemblance to client’s father.’ How was I to know?”
“I’m not blaming you, Cas, I’m just saying-”
“It’s a grave oversight on your part, Dean.”
*****
“Lydia’s creepy.”
Castiel paused, tilted his head, and said: “I thought you might like how forthright she is.”
Ok, well, he had a point, but Dean did have standards . And one of those standards was that he had different standards between one-night stands and long-term partners. Lydia cleared the former by a long shot, but fell short of the latter. He explained this to Cas, who hummed thoughtfully.
“We’ll skip trying Bella, then,” he said, as though that made any sense at all to Dean, but it did spark a thought.
“Hey, if Anna’s real, are all of these people, too?”
“Of course, Dean,” he said amicably, pen still scratching at the actual customer complaint form he had designed and printed out . “The human mind cannot invent faces. Every face in your dreams - your natural ones, anyway - is one you have seen before. In this case, they’re all ones I have seen.”
“And…who are they?”
“Hm?” Castiel looked up at that, blinked, and then seemed to realize what he meant. “Oh. Michael’s visage is a particularly infuriating former coworker of mine, back before I monetized my- my condition. Lydia was a…perfume model? I saw her on a billboard, once, while driving, and found her quite lovely. Bella is a high-profile thief I saw on the news. None of them are their real names, of course.”
That made…some sense, yeah, but- “So you just…use their faces? Usually in a sexual way?”
“Who is it hurting?” he countered, not unkindly. “My coworker, that model, that thief, they will never know. And if one of my regulars were to see the woman he had known as Lydia on a billboard, enticing him to buy Chanel’s new eau de parfum-” Dean did not know he had a language kink, thank you, but here they were. “-what would his first thought be? That I had somehow drugged him and convinced him he slept with a model? No, he would think: ‘Hey, Lydia looks a lot like that model,’ and it would slip from his mind.” He passed him a cookie on a plate, chocolate chips still soft and melty from the oven. “Careful, it’s hot.”
*****
Four weeks, four dreams - two featuring the same man, a Louisianan bear called Benny , and hell if Dean didn’t want to know where Cas found him - and two movies at Cas’ house passed in relative ease, broken only by Sam’s continued, half-suspicious comments that he was doing a lot better, tackling hunts with more vigor. Finally, it snapped, and it did so (as was only right) in the Impala.
Sam blew a hard, fast breath out before turning towards him. “Alright, spill, what’s her name?”
For a split second, Dean’s pulse skittered, and then he burst out laughing. “Sammy, this may come as a surprise to you, but sex is not the only thing that keeps me going.”
“Dean, I didn’t-” Oh, shit, now he looked all chastised and self-reflective.
“Hey, no, I get it, but seriously, there’s no girl.” There’s been four, and they’re all fake, with a couple guys thrown in. Still no sex, though. “I just…I dunno, we’ve had a break, you know? Everything’s fixed - everything that can be, anyway. And we have a home, and we have people we care about who aren’t dead - and who aren’t at imminent risk of death or maiming!” This he punctuated with a hit to Sam’s arm. “How great is that?!”
“Dean, that is so fucked up, that that is ‘great’-”
“Oh, shut up, appreciate what you have!” He sobered, though, his mind on all the venom-induced - Cas had been very stern in his explanation over pizza that it was venom , not poison - dreams he’d been partaking in. “If there was a girl, though…that’d be ok,” he added, shooting Sam a look . “Things are good. They’ve been good for a while. And, y’know, maybe we can take less jobs. Hunt less often. Settle down some.”
Sam was silent for a few minutes, mulling it over or pondering committing Dean to an institution, he couldn’t say. “So…there’s not a girl now , but there might be one soon? ”
“It’s not like I’ve got ‘find a girlfriend’ on a calendar , Sam-”
“No, I know, I’m just…” Another blustery breath. “You’d consider it. Leaving this behind.”
Leaving it behind? Jeez, that sounded final . He’d kind of imagined more like…he’d find a nice little place, a nice person, and make the surrounding 5-hour radius his territory. Take jobs there, leave the rest to the other very capable hunters stateside. And when he was old and crotchety - when , wow, look at Mr. Optimism go - maybe he’d take over from Bobby, get some phones and a label maker, print some business cards, make a life out of it.
He was so caught up in the nice, buoyant idea of that future that the case they were driving to almost snuck up on him. Talking to the families, triangulating the hideout from where the victims had gone missing and where their desiccated bodies were found, that was all - depressingly - normal and easy to breeze through. It was the next day, when they went traipsing into the creature’s lair with the usual suspects (silver, holy water, trusty machete) in hand that he had his breath knocked out of him.
Murphy’s Law, right? If something could entirely fuck up Dean Winchester’s happy be-bopping through life, something would.
In this case, it was a djinn. Shock-horror from the peanut gallery.
The second he saw the IV stands, he froze. There wasn’t any other word for it. The logical part of his brain reminded him to turn around and get the lamb’s blood in the car, but everything else was just…stuck.
The skinny guy hooked up was newly added, he could tell; his skin still had a healthy pallor to it, warm and pink. They needed to turn around , to go and get the blood .
He stared. Watched, more accurately. Wondered what he was dreaming of. He looked young; maybe his dream-self had gotten into his top college. Maybe he was happily dating the person he’d crushed on since middle school. Maybe-
“Dean!” Sam hissed, and he jolted. Damn near jumped out of his own skin. “We have to go back.”
He nodded, mute, the words all lodged up in his throat. There was so much, too much, and none of it would change a damn thing. Sam was silent, efficient, a true predator as he got his knives ready and stalked back towards the ramshackle building, but Dean was just going through the motions. Wasn’t that how it always was? Everyone always said Sam took after their father. Even Bobby had called Sam the better hunter. It was just how things went; Sam was the brain, the rebel, the leader of their stupid little pair. And Dean went plodding after him.
In the end, to only Sam’s surprise, he did not kill the djinn. On the walk back, hitching foot over foot up the little hill, Sam bumped his ribs with his elbow and joked, “I thought you hated djinns.”
Dean shoved him. Both hands, quick as a snake, so that he went tumbling backwards and damn near rolled down the whole hill again before he caught himself, looking up at him with dazed shock. As it turned out, that was enough to free up his throat for a second. “I’ll mix up the Campbell tonic,” he muttered, continuing on to the Impala as if he hadn’t just lashed out at Sam for the first time in…months, maybe years. “Grab the kid, meet me at Baby.”
*****
He showed up a day early to meet Cas. It was almost strange to see him without his tattoos now. Those blue, blue eyes stared at him for a moment - he sort of missed the starburst - before just…letting him in.
“I’m baking,” he said simply, the door swinging shut with a small click . “You can sit at the counter and help.”
“Help” was apparently used very loosely in Cas’ dictionary. He carried on as he was, quiet music - alternative , but Dean wasn’t going to bitch about another man’s music on his own territory - playing from a speaker on a windowsill, perched over the sink. Cas would hum along, sway to the beat, silently pass Dean one of the whisks he’d used on the batter to lick clean. The room was still and soft, a gentle masculine voice offering “I have no enemies, I have no enemies,” as if it was benediction.
“We killed a djinn,” Dean managed, squeezed through the choking point of his throat and the things he’d kept inside since he was four years old.
Castiel nodded just a bit, pink tongue curled around one of the whisk’s wires. “I figured that might have been it. You have a very strong moral code, Dean.”
The zip tie around his vocal cords loosened, just a bit. “You’re not mad?”
Cas blinked at him. Slowly, deliberately, he set his whisk aside and let his tattoos bleed back into view. “Dean Winchester. We are not our families.” His hand landed on top of Dean’s, too heavy to unsettle, too gentle to startle. “I have been hunted for existing, even as I feed on the willing and never to harm. And I have become a hunter in return. Do you begrudge me this, my self-preservation?”
“No, Cas.” The words were easy. Too easy, too honest. “Never.”
“Why should I begrudge you your heroism?” Cas asked, and Dean shrank from the word. “ No , Dean, you will not shrug this off, you protect people . I cannot pass judgement on whether every hunt has been necessary, but I can see how this one weighs on you. This one, I can safely say for certain, was deserved .”
The sound caught in Dean’s throat then was most certainly not a whimper, and the proverbial lightbulb went off right as a knock sounded at the door.
Cas’ head turned even as his tattoos seamlessly melted into his skin, seeming for all the world like puddles and rivers seeping into soil. “That’d be Hester. Come, Dean, you can wait in my room while I get her set up.” He was ushered gently from the bar stool, coaxed to sit in a reading nook in Cas’ bedroom, and left there with a friendly touch to the shoulder.
And, there, Dean had a mild mental reorganization of every single interaction with Cas and his dream conjurations.
By the time Cas came back, he had his head in his hands.
“Not everything we killed deserved it,” he said, voice flat and eyes unseeing. It wasn’t a new realization, but it still felt weighty in the air.
“No,” Cas said gently.
“Garth and Bess and the pups are an example of that. You’re an example of that.”
“I am,” he agreed slowly, coming to kneel in front of Dean. He reached for his knee gingerly, placing it there as a comfort when he received no protest. “But not everyone is worthy of forgiveness.”
“‘Forgiveness’ and ‘mercy’ are not the same fuckin’ thing, Cas.”
“And we agree on that. But in a world where it truly is to kill or be killed in most scenarios, where even my father went mad from starvation and I was the one who put him down, sometimes mercy is the opposite of forgiveness.”
Something like ice filled his veins. “You…Cas, what?”
“Anna and I share a mother. We do not share a father.” He spoke with little obvious feeling, but Dean could hear the tremor in his voice, see the deep-set sorrow in his eyes. Crazy to think he’d once considered him stoic. “She left him soon after she realized what he was, and was remarried to a very nice man. For many years, I was fully convinced he was my father, too. It was only when I became too old to live as a human that Ishim sought me out.” Gone was the pain, then, only bitter anger. “He did not want a son. Only a hunting partner.”
Oh, Jesus, warn me next time you plan on being relatable, buddy.
“I was…not what he wanted. Far too kind for his tastes. But I could only see my mother, and Anna, and the man who had raised me and called me his son and never once made me question that he loved me. And Ishim wanted to turn me into him .” He took a slow, steady breath, and it shook when it came back out. “I discovered even another djinn cannot survive a high enough dosage of venom.”
“What did you do with him?”
“He rots in an unmarked grave north of Sacramento.”
“Good riddance.”
That, at least, caused one corner of Cas’ lips to turn up. “I like to think so.”
Silences between them never felt expectant. They were beautifully easy, as if five minutes without speaking was the same as taking a breath. This time, though, Cas started his next thought in the tentative way someone suggested a terrible idea.
“You could show it to me. Dreams pull from memories, after all, I could…recreate it. If you want me to know.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. If djinns could just replay your best memories, rather than create a whole new world, why wouldn’t they just do that? No one would ever notice anything was amiss. “Really?”
“Hypothetically,” he conceded. “I’ve never done it before. I’m not sure of anyone who has. But you seem like you want me to know.” More hesitation, and, wow, this was really starting to worry Dean if Cas was losing all of his blunt tendencies. “If you’d like, I could join you this time. Manifesting myself is fairly easy.”
Sometimes, after a particularly bad hunt, when Dean wouldn’t talk for days at a time and he relied a little too heavily on liquid courage, Sam hinted that they might look into…meditation. Therapy. Some shit about mindfulness and ‘talking it out.’
He probably hadn’t been picturing a djinn, and especially not homebrewed fantasy therapy, but he could damn well take what he could get.
“Yeah, alright, Cas.”
He smiled, gentle and sad, and stood back up. “Hester will be done in approximately twenty-three minutes. I recognize your usual appointment is tomorrow, but I honestly don’t feel comfortable with you driving home in this state. You made me worried enough over what could have happened even after arriving safely.”
It sent a pang through Dean, but also a strange kind of warmth. It had been a long damn time since someone had so openly said they cared about what happened to him, much less put active effort into ensuring he was ok. Outside of stuff like Sam stitching him up after hunts, it was incredibly rare to see such blatant sentimentality in a business where people regularly dropped dead.
No IV again. Cas had taken his half-bag a week or two prior, even though he assured Dean he was doing fine. If Dean took a perverse kind of pleasure in knowing that Cas saved his ‘donations’ for special treats and rough days, well, no one needed to know but him. It was kind of hard to admit, especially since he was usually less gullible than this, but he’d come to trust Cas.
If he was really honest with himself, Cas had slipped past all of his mental blocks quicker than almost anyone.
It was…a little sobering.
When he got comfy for his dream this time, Cas insisted he borrow his own bed, since Hester had just been in the office. It was almost strange, then, to think about the other people who had been where he had, had dreamt like he had, all by Cas’ hand.
Cas’ room was different. Tidy, but not stuffy. A fluffy mauve comforter, which nearly made Dean snicker, but it also filled him with such fondness for how unapologetically himself Cas always was. The pillow under his head was soft, almost silky against his neck, and he wanted nothing more than to burrow under those cream sheets and fall asleep like that, but that was crossing way too many lines.
“Now just relax,” Cas soothed, as if he hadn’t been doing this for weeks.
It was different, though, wasn’t it? This was new territory, he could see why Cas would assume he might be uncomfortable. He gave a small nod, his eyes shut tight, faking the discomfort Cas was expecting and secretly thrilling at the hand that then rested on his shoulder.
“It’s no different, Dean, it’s alright. I’ll do my best to not see any more than you allow me.”
Oh, right, he’d been worried about Cas seeing his real fantasies.
But didn’t he know? Hadn’t he said it, that day they’d first met? Nothing was personal, because everything was personal, because it was his job to get personal. Dean’s dream of Lisa and Ben, of real people, was no different at this point. Anna, Michael, Benny - they’d all been real, too, and Cas had seen every second of his fantasies with them. What was left? What corner of his heart hadn’t Cas held in his very hands, cradled and tender and broken? And he was still there , he trusted Dean enough to shed his own mask, and when Dean had been upset and nonverbal and even Sam was pissing him off-
He’d run to Cas.
His eyes opened to yet another living room, and he frowned. A glance around showed Cas standing nearby, looking at a photograph framed on a decorative cabinet. “Cas, man, I think your radar’s off.”
Cas turned, the starburst between his brows already wrinkled. “My ‘radar?’”
“Yeah. This isn’t what I wanted to show you,” he explained, gesturing around the room. “This just looks like all the other ones.”
Strangely enough, he seemed insulted. “It’s stylish , Dean, and I thought you liked it.” This was admitted with very real hurt behind his eyes, and now Dean was getting a little confused himself.
He looked around, same as always. Two armchairs - different, but matching in an ‘eclectic weirdo’ way - sat by the window, facing a cloudy blue couch in the same style as Cas’ office chair. There were bookshelves framing a TV stand, all built into the wall, painted white and covered in books from all ages and - Dean whistled, low and impressed - a very nice record player. Lovingly placed beneath it was a collection of vinyls; ACDC, Led Zeppelin, a couple oddballs that Dean had seen on Cas’ phone when-
Cas stepped out of a nearby hallway - hadn’t he been behind him, by the cabinet? - and did a double-take. “Dean, what…”
He turned, saw the other Cas - just as shocked to see a doppelganger - and dread sank fast and cold into his stomach, heavy as a stone.
He didn’t know anything about that world, where Cas’ home was his own. He never would, because he woke up so suddenly - Cas must have simply yanked him out, where he’d usually gradually pulled him back - that he was dizzy and disoriented, shooting to sit up like he’d just escaped a nightmare. He half-expected to be doused in cold sweat. For the first time since he’d met Cas, he woke up with a sharp ache, pierced right to his heart.
And Cas was staring at him, blue eyes wide and glowing.
*****
Dean dove into his work, to the point they didn’t see the Bunker at all between three different cases, and Sam noticed . He’d tried to brush off any questions, no matter how vague, about how he was doing - he was averse to it on good days, at this point it was like pressing on a fresh bruise - but Sam was so fucking stubborn .
Eventually, he pounced during a thirteen-hour drive to their next case.
“Dean, what happened?” he prodded, and as much as Dean would’ve liked to physically shut the conversation down, he was going 80 on a highway and he did, in fact, value his brother’s life.
But Sam was not the only stubborn Winchester in that damn car. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Sammy.”
Clear as day, the gears in Sam’s head whirred as he decided between A) fighting the nickname and potentially inflaming the situation, and B) letting it slide and potentially making some headway on why his older brother was moping like he got dumped via text.
He let it slide.
“We haven’t been back to the Bunker in days,” he continued, and Dean ground his teeth. “Something-”
“Fine, yes, something happened, now fuck off,” Dean snapped, then turned the radio on loud .
Sam turned it off.
Dean turned it on.
Sam huffed and turned it off again. “Stop being a child.”
“Sam if I do not listen to my music right now I will punch you.”
They sat for a second, staring at the road together.
“You get ten minutes of Led Zeppelin, then we talk.”
“ Deal .”
Predictably, he tried to weasel out of it again, so Sam snatched the tape out of the deck and rolled down his window halfway, holding it up next to the glass. “Dean, I swear to God , if you do not tell me what the fuck has fucked with you so bad, I will throw Zepp out the window right now .”
Yeah, that was effective. “So…remember how I said there wasn’t a girl?”
“Jesus fucking Christ are you telling me-”
“There still wasn’t a girl!” he insisted.
“Dean…”
“But uh…hypothetically, if there was a girl…”
“ Dean -”
“ Hypothetically! Let’s say I made a friend, and- and she was nice, and made me feel normal, and we were just friends but then I realized that she was kinda really awesome, and I trusted her like I don’t really trust anybody, and when I imagined a normal life and a white picket fence, I imagined her in that house, and then she found out that I was thinking about that-”
“Wait, does she-”
“Yes, Sam, she knows I’m a hunter, keep up. So she - as an example - found out, and wanted to talk about it, and I freaked and ran away, and I might be hiding from her now and she’s texted a couple times but this is just safer.”
The car was silent for a moment as Sam ruminated on the ‘purely hypothetical’ situation. Rationally and calmly, he said, “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?! Are you an idiot?! I think you might be a literal moron!”
“Gee, Sam, tell me how you really feel,” Dean muttered, white-knuckling the steering wheel of the Impala so as not to start repeatedly hitting his baby brother who he loves very much and does not want to cause bodily harm to.
“I will! I am! Jesus, Dean, you found a girl-” “Hypothetical!” “-who knows what we do and is fine with it , evidently, and you can imagine a life with her and everything and you just ditched her?!”
“No, I-” He stopped, mid-thought, and remembered the look on Cas’ face as he grabbed his shit and sprinted for the door. “...maybe, yeah.” The way Cas had said his name, stern and strained and still so… “I’m sorry I gave you shit about Madison.”
Sam turned so fast he briefly worried about whiplash. “Dean, is she a monster?”
“We’re going home.”
“ Dean .”
“What? You miss the Bunker, I miss the Bunker, we’re going back to the Bunker.”
“Is she a monster, Dean?”
“If Cas hears you call him a monster, he’s going to bring out his philosophy books. Careful, the man’s got citations.”
“Wait, I’m sorry, ‘he’? ”
“I wasn’t lying when I told you there wasn’t a girl.”
*****
When Cas opened the door, he just stared at him. His skin was blank, which was, again, kind of disconcerting. And, yeah, Dean knew he’d fucked up, but he didn’t just have to stand there, silent, waiting for him to say something.
Ok, maybe he didn’t have to, but he did deserve it.
“I fucked up,” he blurted. Cas simply nodded, patient and apathetic and wow, ok, Dean was suddenly really grateful he wasn’t getting yelled at. “I, uh, I assumed the worst and panicked and ran, and I’m- I’m sorry, Cas.”
For a moment, they just watched each other. Did they do that often? Dean was only noticing now. Then Cas stepped back, swinging the door further open, and walked back towards the kitchen. Dean followed, toeing off his shoes just inside.
Without a word, Cas poured them both glasses of water, set them at the small breakfast nook - he didn’t have a proper dining table, he said he’d “never had need of one,” which was really sad and lonely in Dean’s book - and waited for Dean to sit across from him.
“When Garth contacted me, I expected you to be grieving,” he told him frankly, and Dean blinked. “I’ve worked with a supernatural creature before. Just one. He’d lost his mate to a hunter, one with far less scruples than you and your brother. I saw him three times, but it was no help. He’d been overcome by his grief. He killed just one person, reckless and hoping to be caught, before he joined his mate. I initially turned Garth down, fearing a repeat of this tragedy.”
Dean gaped, but Castiel wasn’t looking at him, his eyes on the glass in his hands. His tattoos were slowly pooling onto his skin, as if he was so enveloped in the guilt he clearly felt that he couldn’t keep them hidden anymore. Dean watched, fascinated, as two tendrils of inky blue curled over the backs of his hands, edged with tiny dots that appeared like plinking raindrops.
“He assured me it was not the same. You were a hunter, he said, and sadly accustomed to loss. He did not know what you would dream of, but he believed to turn you down would be far more harmful. That I would be offering a haven, not a tantilizing hell. I’m still not sure I agree.”
“No, Cas-”
“Dean, let me finish. Please.”
He quieted down, his knee bouncing under the table with the urge to fix this . But he’d done enough shit to Cas, he could hear him out.
“And then I met you.” His finger stroked against the cool glass, collecting condensation on painted fingers. “And all you dreamed of was a normal life. You were so convinced it was utterly impossible, that even if you could manage it, you didn’t deserve it. And you were so gentle , so happy, so content to simply go to work and have someone to hold. It was so easy, so heartbreaking to see, that all you wanted was to be wanted.”
His eyes burned, his hands shook, his throat closed. Nothing personal, my lily white ass. But Cas wasn’t looking at him, either, so now they were just two idiots staring at water, watching ice melt.
“Dean…did you not notice how much I made them act like me?”
His eyes snapped to Cas’, clicked in place so naturally. “What?” he croaked.
Castiel shuffled awkwardly, the pads of his fingers turning white against the glass. “You’ve spoken with me. You’ve eaten with me, seen my home; did you really never see the similarities?”
Ah, here was the whiplash. In the span of a few seconds, images of his dreamed partners - Anna dancing while she cooked, Michael reading books with striking covers, Lydia’s blunt seduction - overlaid with Cas. Hell, even the houses he’d dreamt all had the same comfortable, homey, weird-as-hell style (seriously, who has a buttercup yellow armchair? ) as Cas’.
“I’m a dumbass,” Dean mumbled, and Cas laughed, the kind of relieved laugh that boils in your lungs when the tension all drains away. It tugged at Dean, too, until he was grinning, wide and guileless. “Cas, you’re in love with a dumbass.”
That only made him laugh harder, and suddenly they were both laughing, stupid and happy, and Cas managed to smother his into a smile before offering, “In your defence, I didn’t want you to know.”
“Oh, so you’re saying I’m just oblivious?” he shot back.
“Hmm, I do like that better. Less dumb, less ass.”
“And here I thought you liked my ass.”
Cas snorted. “It is a nice ass.”
“Damn straight.”
His smile softened, and he offered a hand palm-up on the table. Dean took it, calloused fingers curling into yielding palm. “I want to meet Sam. I want to take a ride in Baby. I want to see this ‘Bunker’ and watch more ridiculous movies with you.”
“ Die Hard is not ridiculous -”
“I want to treasure you,” he continued, speaking louder over his protests, and Dean’s mouth clicked shut. “And, if I’m honest, I’ve been trying to for weeks.”
“Not trying, Cas,” he mumbled, glancing away from the radiant smile in the corner of his vision. “I…I don’t think I would’ve come back if it wasn’t you I was coming back to.”
Castiel hummed, thoughtful and possibly just enjoying the heat Dean could feel in his face. “That being said, I should probably close up shop, shouldn’t I?”
A jealousy he didn’t know he possessed shot through him. “ Yes ,” he said emphatically, and then shrank back at Cas’ smirk. “Shut up, let’s go, I’m gonna be hungry soon and I was planning on making red beans and rice tonight.”
“Yes, dear,” Cas snarked back, undercut by the fondness in his eyes. “And text your brother before he stabs me.”