Chapter Text

“Alright, boys,” Rowena announces, emerging from the abandoned chapel, daylight breaking around her silhouette, “I’ve got good news and bad news, so what’s it going to be first?”

Sat on the ground, both exhausted and defeated, covered in soot, gunpowder, blood, bruises, and dirt, they glance at each other to try to shift responsibility for answering that question on to the other.

Dean’s pretty sure that all Rowena is seeing is two idiots ping-ponging pathetic looks at each other.

Well, Dean thinks, she wouldn’t be wrong exactly.

Sam and Dean had been following leads for weeks about missing people, and missing people cases aren’t usually what they’re in for, but these had been unique. Swathes of folks across the states from Washington to South Carolina were just up and vanishing, but not before leaving similarly worded, cryptic messages for their loved ones.

Their trails weren’t cold — there were no trails. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t coincidental.

Garth called them for it, and the last six weeks has seen them guzzling gas and spinning their figurative and literal wheels across the country.

Eventually, all their hard work had uncovered a deeply underground cult run by very, very powerful witches. Like most cults, it was very end-of-days, and God-specifically-called-upon-me pyramid scheming, and that’s typically a walk in the park to break up, but they underestimated this particular cult’s sense of purpose.

When Sam and Dean found this makeshift ‘chapel,’ in the McIntyre Wild of Pennsylvania, they happened upon a bloodbath. A lot of those missing folks — tens of them — were dead by the time Dean and Sam arrived, brutally tortured and killed upon altar tables, disemboweled, their body parts repurposed for spell work and, most upsetting, food.

Sam and Dean stopped asking questions at that point and started putting witches down, freeing folks in captivity, fending off anyone who tried to kill them in defense of their leaders, but the oddest thing of all was that there was an Angel being kept prisoner there.

They said their name was Armisael, and that they were there for a divine purpose, they were there willingly, despite Dean finding them in Angel cuffs. Even bound like that, they kept saying that Dean and Sam were interrupting something they knew too little about, and to turn and leave. They told Dean to forget what he’d seen, and go enjoy his Earthly life while it lasted.

Thinking the Angel was very possibly experiencing something akin to Stolkhom’s Syndrome, Dean didn’t mind the rambling and freed them from the cuffs without question.

Dean doesn’t love thinking he’s stupid for that, that he’s actually pretty normal as far as humans who experience compassion go when they see anyone chained and bound, but, of course, shortly after freeing them, he was forced to kill Armisael.

Armisael went to kill him, and with Angels, Dean has found, one kills or dies fast, and he chose to kill.

In the melee, he managed to swipe one of Armisael’s Angel blades, and it burned Dean’s palm as he turned it against its owner, but soon Armisael was burnt out and gone, and Dean dropped the blade and returned to his work.

Too many people wanted to stay, too many people that weren’t under spells, that were willing to kill and die to protect these witches, and Sam and Dean had to stop disabling people and move onto killing them, because they kept coming back in waves.

All things told, there are three survivors.

Forty-seven casualties.

Dean is not happy.

They showed up late, they wasted time on red herrings, they hesitated before shooting and slashing, they didn’t know for certain who the enemy was or why they were enemies, they’re still not sure what they’re dealing with, so many civilians just died at their hands, and it’s all such a clusterfuck of failings.

Dean hates failing civilians, but he usually doesn’t fail them in such spectacular numbers, and he’s so rarely the person that has to put them down for anything.

He called on Cas to take the survivors home, because Sam and he had a lot of work to do there, and Dean couldn’t stand to look at them or hear them thank him any longer.

Cas, without hesitation, herded them away, told Dean he would return when he knew them to be safe and reunited with family, and he didn’t offer Dean any empty platitudes.

Dean still isn’t sure how to thank him yet, but he’ll give it thought eventually; he’s currently got bigger fish to fry.

He took what he needed from Baby and told Cas to drive the survivors to where they needed to go, because exposing that he was an Angel might be particularly upsetting to them; Cas received the orders and he’s out doing the only good work left to be done in this case.

Once they started cleaning up bodies in the chapel, Dean took Sam to where he’d met Armisael because he was wondering what in the Hell an Angel was doing wrapped up in all this, that maybe Sam could make sense of something he couldn’t.

Never one to disappoint, Sam noticed very fine writing carved into the floorboards, walls, and the enormous stone platform at the far end of the room.

The circular, slightly elevated platform would have allowed for an audience to sit in a comfortable semi-circle around it. The platform is surrounded by nine stone basins meant to be filled (likely with blood), and nine torches meant to be lit. There are hooks bolted down on the outer edge of the platform which might have been used to attach chains. Then the center of the giant platform was probably meant to hold down a human sacrifice.

The whole thing bode ill, and Sam insisted on calling Rowena after examining it himself. He said he wasn’t sure what he was reading, what it meant — Dean suggested they wait for Cas to come back and translate, but Sam told him that witchcraft is too full of nuance. That Rowena will know what’s going on here better than Cas, especially if an Angel could’ve been fooled into participating in something so vile.

They slaved away for hours as Rowena walked around what they keep referring to as ‘the dungeon.’ They took care of the bodies, and in wilderness like this, it wasn’t something they needed to be sneaky about.

It took all night.

Now the Sun is breaking over the trees, though this place is still eerily blanketed in shadow, and Rowena is saying she’s got answers.

Dean, sitting pretzeled in the grass, stares up at her with bloodshot, heavy-hooded eyes and chooses in a rough, sleep-deprived voice, “good news.”

“The cult was very thorough, organized, and wildly dramatic. They practically left a manifesto in the walls. I know what they were doing, why they were doing it, I’ve got answers about why the Angel was there, and I’ve got answers for you about what to do next.”

Too tired to experience fear yet, Dean relaxes some at the sound of that news and tells her, “... that’s a lot of fuckin’ work to get done, Rowena. Thank you.”

She seems shocked to be thanked.

She looks to Sam as if for an explanation, and Sam tells her, “we’re not doing great. This… wasn’t a win. We’re just grateful for the help.”

She gives them both a sort of sympathetic half-smile, and then she deigns to kneel down, hands primly cupping her knees as her dress pools around her feet.

“I am sorry,” she tells Dean, “there was no way for either of you to know what you were dealing with. Had you known the gravity of the situation, I think you would’ve called me sooner, and even then, I don’t know how much bloodshed could have been avoided.”

Dean and Sam watch her face as she glances between them evenly, and then she settles down in the grass across from them, looking weirdly pristine in comparison to the two of them.

They all listen to the wind softly rustling the trees for a while; Sam anxiously rubs his thighs, Dean picks at his cuticles and Rowena waits for a cue.

“We’re gonna need the bad news eventually,” Sam announces.

Tucking her chin, Rowena nods, takes a deep breath, then looks at them again, “spell work like this is… powerful. And by the time you both arrived, the spell was already underway. In truth, they only needed thirteen human sacrifices, and that seems to have been done before you arrived — the extras, it was just to boost the potency of their blood magick. And blood magick is my concern here.”

“Blood magick is a wild kind of magick, incredibly hard to control, and intentions mean absolutely everything. Their spell was cast, but it’s not totally complete — the issue is that the blood has been spilled already, and in great quantities, so it’s quite likely there will be a nuclear plant meltdown equivalent happening soon, if the spell isn’t completed.”

Dean and Sam frown at each other, then back to Rowena.

“Think of the power of blood magick as a wild horse; not an easy task to break that, to control it, to get reins on it, to force it to go at a designated speed, or in some one direction. That’s what must be done, though, or the energy conjured with blood magick will just — run amok, spread out in all directions and create absolute mayhem.”

“... so the spell was cast,” Sam tries to understand, leaning further with his elbows on his knees, crouched uncomfortably, “the blood magick is already… activated?”

“In a sense, yes,” Rowena answers, “there’s no way to stop what’s been put into motion, you can only redirect the now-existing energy with a new intention. The initial intention was for… catastrophic destruction. World-ending type destruction. That’s the bit the Angel was useful for. Scorched-Earth, new-world spellwork; ushering in a new age and the type of deluded self-importance you can only find in witches like these, where they planned to be mothers and shepherds of the new world.”

“How do we give the magick a new intention?” Dean asks.

“Well, this here is the bad news; you need to complete the spell.”

“No,” they both answer simultaneously.

“It won’t involve killing anyone,” Rowena shows her palms defensively, “... else. Listen, the spell work written into the platform you boys found — it isn’t for a human sacrifice. The human sacrifice was going on in the open, where you all saw it happening. The basins are for holy water, the torches are for holy fire, and that platform is for sex magick, which keeps blood magick a very close friend.”

“We gotta fuck someone?” Dean inquires, cocking a disbelieving brow at Rowena.

“I’d love for it to be so simple!” she chirps sarcastically, smacking at her knees, “no, you’ll be needing a virgin and a hefty dose of magickal orchestration. One of those survivors you sent home was a likely candidate. The coupling is purpose-driven, it requires intent, it’s not just ‘fucking,’ — sex magick is like any other magick. Energy, and intent. That’s the blood and bone in all witchcraft. They’ve done the scorching of the planet part — the killing of innocents, the bloodletting, feeding on them — the worst of it is done. The second half of the spell is quite a ride, I’d imagine, as it requires an Angel.”

“... so, Cas needs to fuck a virgin on that platform?” Sam finally verbalizes in so many words.

Rowena looks at him, turns her lips into a thin line and nods, “I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dean complains, putting his head in his hands, his grave-dirt caked palms pressing against his sooty, blood splattered face, “how much time do we have? When do we need to complete the spell by?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?” Sam’s brows spring up.

“In my defense, I did warn you it was bad news.”

Dean lets out a heartfelt, “fuck,” sighs, runs his dirty hands down his filthy face, then asks the world at large, “what the fuck are we going to do?”

“Wait,” Sam starts, sitting up straighter, “Dean — spell work is super malleable. Words like ‘virgin,’ can be substituted a lot, it’s not so cut and dry. Like, if you need ingredients for a potion or something, and you don’t have the specific flower or herb it cites, it can usually be substituted for something like the original ingredient, so long as the person adds the ingredient with a lot of intention. Like… I mean, it’s oversimplifying the matter, but it’s like pretending really, really hard that a basil leaf is a mint leaf, or that the hibiscus is a rose, because they’re similar, and with the right intention, believing they can be a suitable substitute makes it so that they can be substituted.”

Dean doesn’t look hopeful, “... we’re banking on the power of imagination, here?”

With a disgruntled “ugh,” Sam turns away from Dean to look at Rowena again and asks, “can Cas count as the virgin too? Can he fill both roles?”

“Afraid not,” Rowena tells him, “but everything else you said is spot-on. No, the Angel is separate altogether from the virgin. There are some hard rules for the virgin, like that the virgin must be a human, can not have partaken in the consumption of the human sacrifices - that sort of stuff. But because the idea of virginity is somewhat vague and varies in definition across cultures, as you know, these sorts of spells always have to specify what they mean by ‘virgin,’ and what this spell means by ‘virgin,’ is someone who hasn’t had another person inside them.”

“So, for the purposes of the spell, a virgin is someone who hasn’t been penetrated before?” Sam clarifies.

“That’s correct.”

Apologetically, Sam mentions, “well, I’m out.”

Dean’s head snaps to him, “what? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Sam tries giving Dean his most innocent eyes, the ones that usually get Dean off his back, but Dean continues to stare at him bug-eyed and horrified.

“Fine, just — people experiment in college, Dean,” Sam shrugs, “I dunno, I was drunk and wanted to see how the other half lived? It’s whatever — the point is, I can’t be the sacrificial virgin.”

Rowena and Sam are both staring expectantly at Dean now, and Dean feels his face flush and his shoulders hitch up by his ears.

“What!?” he demands defensively, “what, so I’m the only person fuckin’ available that hasn’t been butt-fucked!?”

“Well, you certainly can’t fuck a hole that clenched, darling,” Rowena scolds, making Sam snort out a laugh.

“... you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Dean tells her, body deflating, heart sinking in anxiety, “... this is a joke. Tell me you’re joking.”

“Look, I’m not about to force anyone to do anything, but we’re very short on time here. I’m going to have to prepare the room and the Angel without the help of a team of witches, which is what the cult had going for it — I’ve got my work cut out for me, doing the work of six witches, alone. I will likely be in that dungeon the rest of the day, and then I’m gonna need Tweety-bird to volunteer himself for some light torture.”

“No — what? No!” Dean exclaims, sitting up straighter, face burning, “no one is torturing Cas!”

“I’m not looking forward to it,” Rowena tells him, as though that will absolve her of anything, “he may have a better solution for this, but the spell requires a smidge of spilled Grace. He’ll need to be hurt for this to work, and — Dean, all joking aside, you may be the only person fit to do this.”

“Oh, this’ll be great — go ahead, tell me why I’m the only one that can get butt-fucked to save the world.”

Rowena frowns at him with pursed lips, disapproving, and she tells him sternly, “that spell work, carved into the stone platform? It’s Enochian. It’s going to do something to Castiel, something potentially very dangerous. He won’t be in his right mind for this coupling — the coupling needs power, and that power is going to come from forcing an Angel into a very base, animal state of being. The type of state they are usually in when in cosmic battle. The virgin sacrifice would have needed to be Samuel or you, not only because we’re this isolated and low on options and time, but because I fear he could accidentally kill someone else — I seriously doubt he’ll have his mind enough to even recognize anyone else.”

A solemn, heavy quiet settles over them all.

Dean’s brow scrunches, the reality of the situation closing in on him, “... is that a risk here? That he might not recognize one or both of us?”

Rowena doesn’t look pleased to tell him, “I won’t lie to you; it is. I don’t think the human is meant to survive the coupling, or if their survival is secondary — wouldn’t be necessary. The life of the virgin, for this spell, is described as expendable. The Angel will be driven into a very dangerous state, and likelihood of survival of anyone coming into contact with the Angel is slim. I think, because it’d be Samuel or you, there’s at least a good chance that will keep him from burning out any eyes, or turning anyone into pillars of salt. I’m hoping that his senses will still be intact enough to recognize you, and that will… keep him grounded, hopefully.”

“... this — there has to be another way,” Sam begs, “right? Rowena, if Dean could realistically be killed by Cas because Cas is gonna go all Lord-crafted-killer-machine mode, this is too dangerous. What’s to say Cas won’t just kill Dean before anything like a ‘coupling,’ can even happen?”

“That’s what the Angel cuffs are for, darling,” Rowena tells them both, “that’s what the hooks on the platform are for as well. It’s all for binding and holding down the Angel, not the human.”

“... and what?” Dean prompts, “I just — what am I supposed to do? Climb on up like a fuckin’ mechanical bull, hold on for dear life, and hope he doesn’t kill me?”

“... well, yes.”

Dean doubles over, scrubs the back of his head with both hands, and keeps his head down.

Rowena lets a few moments pass before she stands and announces, “I’ve only got so much use left to you boys, so I’m going to go get started on preparations. I’m going to prepare the room, and when Castiel is back, send him straight to me. If you find someone else you think is suited to this in that time, just arrive back here around eight p.m with them, and… we’ll take the risk, I suppose. If my opinion on the matter is something you’d like, though, professionally speaking here, I think you both ought to get yourselves to a motel, clean up, rest, eat, hydrate, and come back in the evening for the ritual.”

“What security measures can we take?” Sam asks her.

“I’m going to put what protective wards I can into the floors and walls, but I have to be careful not to counteract anything already written, or negate some other part of the spell with an addition. And all else I can promise is that I won’t leave for the ritual. I’ll be close by, and I know you won’t like hearing this, but I will check in periodically to make sure Castiel and — well, whoever you see fit — are as safe as I can make them.”

“Hypothetically speaking,” Sam starts worriedly, “let’s say you and I are standing guard nearby, and you go in to check that everyone is okay, and you think Cas is on the verge of killing Dean — or whoever else we call in for this… what do you do?”

The air gets so stiff, and the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand at attention.

He glowers at Rowena from near her knees, and all she actually gets out is a sigh before Dean loses his temper.

“No!” Dean shouts, sitting up again, glaring wildly up at her, “no! What the fuck, Rowena!? No! No one is killing Cas! You can’t —”

“If he is in danger of killing you —”

“No one is killing Cas!” Dean demands furiously, “I …he won’t kill me. If it’s me, I won’t be in danger that way, Cas wouldn’t — he can’t. He won’t. So. I’ll do it, just — Cas’ll be cuffed, right?”

“He will.”

“... then whatever, I’ll — he won’t hurt me. It’s me. I mean, he could hear me even when Naomi was controlling him — if it’s me, I can get through to him. We won’t get anyone else involved in this. I get that this’ll be dangerous, but clearly it’s gonna be way more dangerous if it’s someone Cas doesn’t know as well.”

“I agree,” Rowena says approvingly.

“He won’t kill me,” Dean stresses, “Rowena, you can’t use his Angel blade to — this is the trade-off, okay? I’m doing it, I’ll be the fuckin’ sacrifice, but under no circumstances is anyone killing Cas, no matter how— feral he gets.”

It’s right at this moment that they all hear a flutter of wings.

Cas stands before them, next to Rowena, and tells Dean specifically, “hello, Dean. Baby is parked outside the treeline, and invisible to any onlookers. The survivors have been delivered to their respective homes and are with their families. I erased the worst of their memories. Their disappearances will likely be blamed on dissociative fugues. They are in good care now.”

There shouldn’t be anything inherently terrifying about Cas just standing there, but Dean finds he can’t speak.

When Dean fails to make any noise, Sam clears his throat loudly to draw attention, and says in Dean’s place, “good work, Cas. That’s great. Thanks for the hustle.”

Cas nods in acknowledgment to Sam, then looks back to Dean with some degree of worry.

“Dean, are you alright?”

“I…uh…”

Cas walks up to where he’s sat on the ground, crouches and takes Dean’s face in his hands to examine him more fully.

Dean is much too tired and nervous to fight him.

Cas turns his head this way and that way, sniffs him — which Dean combats with a weak, “come on, dude, seriously,” and then Cas just looks him over, hands still framing Dean’s face.

He frowns very seriously.

“You are exhausted, and very bruised.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a rough night.”

“You need rest. There is a suitable motel —”

“Tweety-bird,” Rowena interrupts, leaning over his shoulder from behind, bent at the waist in a way that Dean notices Sam noticing, “I actually require some audience with you.”

Glancing between Dean and Rowena, Cas visibly worries.

Dean nods and struggles to say, “you should go into the chapel with her, Cas. There’s, uh… there’s some stuff you gotta see.”

Always impossibly receptive to taking a directive from Dean, Cas nods dutifully and follows Rowena inside.

Sam and Dean sit in some silence for a while, both too tired to move.

“So, Rowena…” Dean intones.

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam retorts quickly, cheeks getting pink, “just — shut up. Anyway, that’s so not the point of today — are you sure about this? I know we don’t exactly have a call sheet ready for this sort of thing, but —”

“Hey, I’m Dean fuckin’ Winchester,” Dean announces with false bravado, “I ain’t scared’uh nothin’.”

“... right. And, being somewhat familiar with Dean-fuckin’-Winchester, I’m assuming he doesn’t wanna potentially talk about or process any emotions he might be experiencing in regard to the impending night?”

“Nope!”

“Right,” Sam sighs, “that sounds about right.”

It goes quiet again, they both stare ahead at the old chapel building, with its chipped paint and rotting wood, and Dean eventually mutters more gravely, “I’m not gonna put anyone else in that kind of danger, Sam. Anyone who might be able to help isn’t close to Cas like we are. No one’s family to him like we are. It’s our best bet at keeping him from turning into a blind soldier. And too many people died yesterday because of me. I’m not putting anyone else in the line of fire.”

“They didn’t die because of you —”

“I’m not up for talkin’ about it, Sam. All I’m saying is that this is my responsibility now. You know witchcraft gives me the fuckin’ heebie jeebies, but obviously, this is the price I gotta pay for fucking up as badly as I have. I gotta do fuckin’ spell work tonight, and set intentions or whatever and like, be a fuckin’ witch for a night under the worst possible circumstances the universe could conjure. I fucked up, and I’m paying for it. And frankly, Cas is paying for my fuck up too, which is… so fucked up. Being bound and tortured? I’m — this is a fucking nightmare, Sam.”

There’s not much to say to that, so Sam only nods and picks at some grass.

“I don’t get why the fucking is so important, though,” Dean mumbles grumpily into his palm as he shoves his overheated face there, putting his elbow on his knee, “seems sorta thematically outta place with the whole killing and eating people shit.”

“It’s the life-giving part of the spell,” Sam explains, “the first half of the spell is a symbolic destruction of ‘undeserving,’ people, destroying what’s here, like a cleansing fire. Then the sex — it’s not necessarily about love or sexiness, Dean. It’s about the kind of kinetic energy being formed, and it’s the symbolic healing of the scorched Earth, which is represented by the ‘virgin.’ Their whole cult was very into the apocalypse, and Armisael was definitely on-board with it. The Angel part is what made this magick so out of reach to humans until recently. It’s not like it’s easy to get your hands on one, but now with the unrest in Heaven… I bet it was pretty easy to tempt a lower class Angel with less power over the goings-on of Earth with this spell that would usher in the apocalypse they want so bad.”

Dean moves his eyes across the face of the chapel, over to Sam, takes in Sam’s worried profile and listens.

“The apocalypse they wanted to bring about is supposed to be Biblical, so the literal Angel ‘fertilizing,’ a symbolic, virgin Earth with the intention that it will first be destroyed, so it can be like… re-hymenated… yeah, if we don’t redirect this energy, Dean, I’m thinking some horrendously bad shit is gonna happen.”

Dean agrees, but he can’t bear to voice that.

They both finally get to their feet as Rowena and Cas walk back out of the chapel roughly fifteen minutes later; Rowena stays a few paces back, and Cas comes to stand in front of Dean again.

Dean’s feeling uncharacteristically wrong-footed.

“I will be staying here to help Rowena prepare,” Cas tells him, all business, “you need to go get food and water, enough for yourself now and to have on-hand here later. When you arrive at your motel, shower, eat, hydrate, and sleep.”

“Uhm… okay,” Dean answers, “are you —”

Cas takes hold of his face again, effectively silencing him, and Dean is scared for a second – though he’s not sure of what – but then the familiar sensation of Cas’ Grace pools across his face like cool water.

The Grace heals the slight fracture on the upper arch of Dean’s left eye-socket, it makes his tinnitus dissipate, it unclenches his jaw, heals the cuts and bruises on his face, neck, and all the way down his arms and legs. A bruised rib is healed, a spot on his sternum that was smarting goes back to feeling comfortable and normal, and the full body ache that had set in after a night of such violence and then taking care of all the bodies — it all goes away.

Once Dean is feeling the relief even in the arches of his feet, he lets out a blissful sigh, unconsciously leaning into Cas’ left hand, eyes fluttering shut.

“All that is left now to do is go wash, eat, drink water, and sleep,” Cas tells him, withdrawing his hands, “okay, Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean nearly whispers, coming to his senses, blinking his eyes a few times, “uh — yeah. Th-thanks, Cas.”

“Of course, Dean.”

Cas turns to Sam and Sam waves him off, seeming almost nervous that Cas will heal him without asking first.

Sam gets ahead of that by announcing, “nah, I’m good, I’m good, Cas — frankly, I don’t need it as bad. Dean took the worst of it last night. I’m just sore. Nothing some Tylonol and sleep won’t fix.”

Cas nods, takes another look at Dean and reminds him, “please use this time to rest.”

“Yeah.”

With that, Cas turns, his trench coat billowing dramatically behind him as he walks back into the chapel.

Rowena approaches them then, hands a grocery list to Sam, and tells him to be ‘a good lad,’ and to shower and eat, but to then get those items while Dean catches some shut-eye at the motel.

She then goes up to Dean, puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “I’m going to do what I can to make this as safe as possible for you, Dean. It won’t be fun, or comfortable, I imagine, but I won’t let the night kill you. My advice, though, is to make sure you’ve at least emptied your bowels an hour or so beforehand —”

“Good, great, thanks, Rowena,” Dean interrupts rudely, turning away from her and walking into the treeline towards where Cas indicated Baby will be.

“Dean, you’ll thank me later! Get one of those colon-cleansers! The, uh – oh, what are they called — an enema may be excessive. And stretch! Do some yoga!”

“Goodbye, Rowena!” Dean shouts over his shoulder, scowling with a hot, red face as he hears Sam catching up to him, laughing like the traitor he is.

Chapter Text

In their chosen diner, Dean stares longingly at his breakfast burger.

He gazes lovingly at the melted cheese and dripping yolk, admires the perfect roundness of the brioche bun while the smell of greasy bacon floats cartoonishly to his nostrils, making his mouth water.

But he hesitates.

And Sam notices.

Chewing on an omelet piece, Sam slows down, and covers his still-full mouth to politely tell him, “hey – you’ve got like, a lot of hours between eating this, and uh – doing anything. You can eat that.”

“Obviously,” Dean scoffs, still not moving for his burger.

Sam swallows his mouthful and then mentions, “just eat some fiber today. Make sure you clear out like, two hours beforehand. It’ll be fine.”

“Fiber,” Dean grumbles.

“Actually, I’ve got these really gentle fiber pills you can use —” Sam goes digging in his travel canvas bag and Dean’s brows crease together.

“Why do you have ‘gentle fiber pills?’” Dean worriedly follows up.

“I get backed up when we’re on the road for more than a week,” Sam explains nonchalantly, rattling a green plastic bottle at him, “take two of these and like, I dunno — you’ll get good movement in something like six hours. I’m telling you, they’re really gentle, you won’t even notice.”

Taking the bottle from Sam’s hand, Dean still sort of scowls at him when he parrots, “‘good movement.’”

“You’re an actual, literal infant, you know that, right?” Sam asks with a sigh, going back to his omelet, “you’ll thank me later.”

Staring down at the bottle in his hand, Dean wants to ask, but what if something embarrassing happens? What if this winds up being disgusting and unspeakable and there’s shit and viscera? What if I bleed? What if I die by Cas’ hands in the most humiliating, degrading way possible?

Rather than voicing his fears, Dean swallows them down with two (reportedly) very gentle fiber pills, takes a swig of orange juice, and mentions, “it’s weird, not knowing something like that about you.”

“... what, that I get constipated on the road? The goings-on in my GI haven’t exactly been information you need since I could start reaching the bottles of TUMS at CVS.”

“No, idiot,” Dean rolls his eyes, finally reaching for his food with both hands despite how bloodless they feel, “that you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Oh,” Sam says softly, putting his fork down, “if it’s any consolation, I wasn’t like… hiding it from you. It’s just not the sort of thing you bring up unprompted, y’know?”

Nodding, Dean hesitates to bite into his burger to ask, “... you said you experimented?”

“Yeah,” Sam answers, face a little rosy, obviously placating Dean, trying to ease Dean’s nerves by sharing more than he might on any other given day, “I’m not — I dunno. He was a little bit older than me, and way, way smarter. He was studying Environmental Law, and I got a little bit starry-eyed, talking to an upperclassman I admired that much. And he was into me, and it felt nice to be, like — special. Singled out. It made me feel smart and important, y’know? That he was into me that way. Even if I wasn’t really into him that way back.”

“We were at his dorm, there was a party, and I was drunk and didn’t wanna reject him. It’s weird, I know, to be honest, it was almost like I was feeling too lazy and relaxed to bother rejecting him. He was tipsy too, by the way — he wasn’t like… predating on me. We were both just kinda buzzed, toeing a weird line of like, academic admiration and flirtation, and I thought — maybe I could be into it, y’know? Maybe I don’t feel attraction right now, but I’ve got no idea what I’m missing out on, and I’ll discover I really like it, and I’ll be a cool upperclassman’s boyfriend or something. That’d show dad.”

Dean sputters and snorts crassly, then puts his burger down and grabs at his juice again to keep from choking, which makes Sam smile.

Shrugging, Sam cuts into his omelet, staring down at it again as he finishes, “it was fine. I get why people are into it, and it’s not like I hated it. I still… I mean, I still finished. He was gentlemanly and everything, he didn’t hurt me or anything like that, but I just wasn’t attracted to him like that. It wasn’t something I wanted to try again with a dude. After that, I knew I wasn’t super into guys, but it definitely opened my mind to other stuff with women, and you’d be amazed at how excited some girls get when they know you’re open to flipping the script.”

“That so?” Dean rasps with a smirk, throat scratched up from very nearly choking on his food.

Sam smiles more widely and answers, “yeah. So, if you’re worried that it’s emasculating or whatever, it’s not. If anything, it’ll give you lots’uh points with ladies down the road.”

There’s so much more Dean wants to ask, but he hates looking or sounding helpless, or half-witted with Sam. 

Sam is supposed to go to Dean when he’s feeling scared, not the other way around.

He decides to deflect with a sarcastic, muttered, “great,” and otherwise eat in silence.

Chapter Text

At their motel, Sam begs to shower first so he can go grocery shopping, then nap, and so that Dean can take a spa day for all he has pending. 

Dean’s actually so freaked out about the upcoming night that he doesn’t even make a joke or act like a dick with Sam about it — he lets Sam hog the bathroom first, and then takes his time in there once Sam is out with Rowena’s list.

He runs a bath for himself and then steals and uses Sam’s fancy shampoo for bubble bath.

There’s a rough, sort of scratchy complementary loofah there that Dean uses to scrub all the dirt and soot off him. He clears out the blood and skin still under his nails, he uses his own shampoo and conditioner for his hair, and he lies and soaks for a while. 

He doesn’t fit well in these small motel tubs, his knees bend out of the water, but it’s still mostly blanketed; he inwardly acknowledges that he’d be markedly more miserable if Cas hadn’t healed him of all his aches and pains.

His inner mantra is becoming a little desperate in tone while it repeats endlessly, ‘Cas won’t hurt me and I won’t die horribly, Cas won’t hurt me and I won’t die horribly, Cas won’t hurt me and I won’t die horribly.’

Wanting to stay ahead in any kind of way, Dean slides down in the water and spreads his legs wider, snaking his hand down between his thighs.

His middle finger applies pressure right outside his rim and then he instantly worries about whether or not doing it to himself might nullify his virginal status.

Sighing with defeat and percolating nerves, he just lets his hand fall lazily against his inner thigh, and reaches for his phone with the one still dry.

His phone is playing soft rock from the lip of the tub, and after confirming for maybe the tenth time in the hour that he has no messages or missed calls, Dean stares at his app menu and hesitantly touches at his photos.

He took photos at the scene, particularly in the dungeon; the platform, which Dean keeps thinking of as a stage, is really immense. 

The lengths of chain for the Angel bindings are really long — Dean figures the extra room on the platform will have been for… participants? 

Sighing, he puts his phone back down and relaxes under the suds as much as he can.

He’s exhausted, but he’s also wired as fuck, taut with anxiety.

He resolutely does not think of his father, of his identity, his orientations, or past sexual experiences— he can’t.

His mind is precisely tuned to static and white noise, because anything else might have him getting into Baby and just driving as far away from all of this as possible.

Dean would never — he’d never abandon hunters on a case like this, he’d never really run for it, but fear is a Hell of a drug.

He soaks until the water turns cold and then he gets out, gets dry enough to put on boxers and then throws himself into the nearest bed.

When he blearily comes to, it’s only because his bladder is full, and he needs the bathroom; he sits on the toilet with his elbow on his thigh, his chin in his hand and his eyes still shut because he’s that exhausted.

However, when he does have one of the most remarkably comfortable BM’s of his adult life, he’s forced to remember why he’s having that, and his eyes shoot open — he washes up, and steps back out into the motel room to see Sam sleeping in his bed, and the digital clock tells Dean he’s slept for nine hours.

He must have really needed it.

He’s got more time to rest if he wants to — they’re expected back at the abandoned chapel in roughly three hours, he could try to sleep more, but he decides to drink a lot of water instead. Over the course of the next hour and a half, he gets the better part of a gallon in him, which sends him back to the bathroom, and then into the shower to feel cleaner.

When Dean emerges from his very hot, very thorough shower, he finds Sam sitting up and looking toward him.

“Hey,” Sam greets him groggily, “you ready?”

No, no, I am fucking not.

“Yeah.”

Chapter Text

Sam offers to drive, which is weird and fucked up, so Dean gives him a dirty look and tells him to get in the car and shut up, which Sam very graciously does.

Still sort of sleepy, Sam stares down at his phone from the passenger’s seat and tells Dean, “Rowena texted me earlier. Nothing shocking or anything, just that Cas was integral to this. She says she couldn’t have gotten this amount of spell work done without his help.”

“Mm,” Dean grunts back, unseeing eyes fixed on the road.

“I really think this is gonna be okay, Dean,” Sam tells him, “it’s not like—”

A crashing boom of thunder shocks them both rigidly upright; looking through the windshield, they both see a severe looking storm is accumulating overhead where it had only been partly cloudy a minute ago.

Hurriedly, Sam goes back to his phone, and Dean asks him, “are we too late or something?”

“I just asked her —” his phone buzzes as he’s responding to Dean, and he sheepishly finishes, “... oh. So. Uh — everything is under control still, just… that’s Cas, I guess.”

Dean swallows roughly and tries to quell the hammering in his chest.

“... is he okay?”

“Yeah, just… not totally in control of himself.”

“She’s got the Angel cuffs on him, right?”

Sam texts her to confirm that, and as rain and lightning descend on them, Sam mutters back, “... yeah, he’s chained down.”

From his scalp to the soles of his feet, Dean’s body keeps violently oscillating between hot and cold. He feels sick with nerves.

He parks outside the decrepit chapel and Sam brings the groceries from the backseat with him; there’s an overstuffed travel bag with folded things — probably blankets, towels, clothes — there’s a sort of advanced looking first aid kit, one of the ones that a person carries like a suitcase, and there’s a packed cooler.

There’s nothing more to say or do, and so they enter the chapel and descend to the dungeon again.

The basins are full of water that Cas must have blessed, and the platform is surrounded by holy fire, giving everything an eerie, flickering, dim glow.

“Oh,” Sam utters reverently.

Rowena is looking as flawlessly beautiful as she always does, but that’s not what Sam is reacting to.

Rowena is sitting, perched prettily on the edge of the platform, a wide, leather bound book laid out on her lap, and then there is what is on the platform.

There is a bare body on the platform, but it almost doesn’t register to Dean as Cas for a few beats; he’s got a pulsating light emanating from him, implying more than what can be seen, like a snowflake landing right on one’s eyelash. Dean is pretty sure that that’s Cas’ halo, but it’s registering to his eyes a sort of aura.

There is this appendage on Cas’ back, a hunch that makes a bell curve type shape, running the length of his spine, up his neck and into his unruly hair, down past his tail bone, and from that hunch come six, black-feathered wings.

The wings are all acting independently of one another, flapping out of sync on the platform while Cas struggles with his restraints that bind his wrists and ankles.

There are embers rising from Cas, these blue and gold orbs that twinkle like stars, dissipate in the air, but never seem to lessen in number.

These are most certainly eyes.

“... sorry if this is weird, but that’s incredible,” Sam whispers, staring in awe at Cas’ feral form.

As they get closer to the platform, it’s easy to see that Rowena has bled Grace from him; strange as it is, the Grace is sitting on him like pools of mercury, everything about him is glowing brightly, even his eyes from under their shut lids.

The eyes Dean knows are gone; from pupil to sclera, all of Cas’ eyes are all a piercing, flame-blue luminescence, and there are more round, pulsating spots of blue glowing under his skin, all eyes trapped beneath, sometimes seeming to blink.

Dean gets nearer to Rowena for a briefing, but Sam ventures closer to the closest tip of one of Cas’ wings.

As Sam bends down to observe it, he mutters to mostly to himself, “God, that’s gotta be… what, almost a fifty foot wing-span? How can any of his forms host so many wings without a tail? How is he supposed to steer, even if he could fly?”

“He’s not a bird. He’s not of Earth or its physics, Samuel. His wings aren’t even hollow,” Rowena informs him.

As if to prove this point, Cas slams down one of the joints of his wings, and they all hear dense bone like a titanium beam make contact with the platform ground. The entire dungeon shakes.

Sam steps back, slowly follows Dean to where he stands, but is transfixed with Cas like a bug pinned to a slide that he’d like to study more closely.

Dean doesn’t like that, but he can’t place why, and there’s too much more to worry about right now. He doesn’t say anything about it.

“Samuel and I are going to be upstairs,” she tells him, shutting her tome, “I’m going to check in periodically — don’t make that face, I need to keep you alive through this — you need to stay on task. This is important, Dean. Even a novice like you will feel the magick when it’s at its most powerful, and when you do, you will need to wield it.”

“How do we know Cas won’t try to set intentions on it?”

“I think he’ll be rather otherwise preoccupied.”

Sam snorts, but is wise enough to flatten his expression by the time Dean glares at him from over his shoulder.

Rowena rolls her eyes at both of them.

“Truly, though. He won’t have the mindfulness for it. He’s not even been verbal for at least an hour now. You’ll be the only one that can keep a train of thought here. There’s a vial over there, already magicked for your convenience — a handful will be enough. It will do whatever it needs to, to sustain you.”

“And why do you have that spell handy?” Dean half-jokes.

“Witches of a darker sort spend a lot of time harvesting organs, you know,” she answers, cocking a manicured brow at him, “then, sometimes there are witches that are kind enough to use those sorts of spells to help perform emergency surgeries, particularly on hunters like yourself, that get hurt in the field.”

Properly shamed now, Dean nods and mumbles, “right — sorry, I’m… deflecting, I guess.”

“It’s alright, dear. There’s a six-winged beast chained to the floor that you’re meant to take for a ride, I’d be more concerned if you weren’t nervous.”

Dean’s avoiding looking at Cas, and Rowena can tell.

Her brow knits, and she steps closer to him, planting a gentle hand on his arm.

“I’ve taken every measure I can with magick, and Samuel and I will do anything to keep you and Castiel safe. Okay?”

That does nothing to quell the fear in Dean, but it’s kind of her to say, so he tries to smile at her.

“I’ll be down to check on you in thirty minutes if you’ve not called for me before then.”

“Wait — thirty minutes?” Dean asks, anxiety spiking, “it’s — how long is this supposed to go on for?”

“I’ve no idea,” she admits, “blood and sex magick are unpredictable. I don’t know how long it will take for you to get your bearings, for the kinetic energy to gather enough proverbial steam to be felt by you, and I don’t know how long it will take for the magick to leave your body once it’s run through you. At the very least, I imagine an hour.”

“... and at the most?”

“Let’s not play that game quite yet, dear,” she tells him, which of course sends his thoughts spiraling towards days or weeks and death by shock.

She wishes him luck, reminds him to holler if he feels he’s in danger, and then she starts toward the door; Sam sticks around for a little longer, waffling a bit.

“I’m not gettin’ naked with you standing there, dude.”

“I’m not —ugh,” Sam starts, shoving his hands into his jean pockets, the way he does when he’s nervous or uncomfortable (or both), “... I’m just worried about you. I’m anxious about leaving. This is… scarier than I thought it’d be? I sort of thought it’d be funny once I saw it, or I’d feel more reassured, or… I don’t know. Just… not this. Cas really isn’t himself. I’m just… worried.”

In a show of compassion, Dean takes Sam more seriously, and nods.

“Yeah. I’m kinda worried too. But Rowena and you are on the case, and that’s — that’s a big comfort. Just… listen. If I die horribly tonight, covered in shit and blood, I need you to come up with a way different story about how I met a much cooler, more dignified end.”

Sam takes that as the joke Dean wants him to believe it is and laughs.

After a beat more of worrying stares, Sam hugs him tightly, wishes him luck, spares a last glance toward Cas’ writhing, preternatural form, and then leaves the same way Rowena did.

Dean doesn’t budge until he hears the door at the top of the stairs shut.

Chapter Text

It’s an odd, contradictory sort of feeling, but Dean doesn’t bother speaking at first, because looking at Cas makes it feel as if Cas isn’t there to speak to.

Looking at Cas as he is makes him feel so far away that he might as well be someone — something — else. 

He looks sort of like a bundle of feathered creatures all trying to escape from under a fallen star that’s still twinkling.

It’s a deceptively pretty sight for something God Himself designed for the sole purpose of smiting demons, decimating unworthy humans, and leveling sinful cities. 

Dean takes off his outer most layers, folds them, and leaves them with his boots, on one of the lower most seats of the semi-circle audience seating.

Between one of the roaring torches and one of the sparkling water basins, Dean approaches the platform in his boxer briefs and t-shirt, and steps up onto it with one naked foot against the prorous stone.

Immediately, he feels something shift and change. 

First, he feels it in the air, a sort of plummet in barometric pressure, and then he feels it in his body. 

His bones are moving inside him, seeming to draw inward in some areas and spread outward in others, then something under his sternum is flipping over, but quickly settling. He feels as if his organs and skeleton have rearranged.

He’s not sure if that’s possible.

He doesn’t know what’s just happened, but he can feel the magick on him and in him. He wonders if it’s one of Rowena’s protective spells, changing him anatomically so as to better his chances of not getting fucking killed, but he doesn’t give it much more thought once the sensations have calmed.

Cas is still writhing around, his wings are stupendous, and sound dense, and powerful where they move. 

Dean approaches very cautiously, taking note of the vial maybe a foot away from the left side of Cas’ head.

Once he’s at Cas’ feet, it seems that Cas finally notices him — Dean’s body freezes up in terror, thinking Cas might let out his true voice or turn into a holy blaze of light to smite him, but instead, Cas’ efforts to escape triple.

It occurs to Dean that Cas is frightened.

Of course he is, Dean realizes, he’s in cosmic-battle-mode, thinks there’s imminent attack coming, and he’s been tied down and tortured…

For the first time all day, Dean feels like he’s got his feet beneath him, because comforting scared people? — Dean can do that. Dean can’t calm his own nerves, not really, but calming someone else’s does wonders for him, and he sets out to do just that.

He strides up to Cas’ side, between two of his left side wings and kneels.

He doesn’t know if it’s safe to touch Cas as he is, so he brackets Cas’ head with his hands and hovers above him so Cas can see his face clearly.

“Hey — Cas. Cas, buddy, it’s me.”

Cas won’t open his eye lids, and the twinkling embers coming off him in clusters scatter off into the air in greater numbers, and in even more disorganization. 

“Look at me, Cas,” Dean urges, frowning down at his friend, “hey, look — look, it’s me. It’s Dean. You’re safe, Cas.”

Words don’t appear to be making it through to Cas, and Dean isn’t sure how else to comfort him. He still can’t tell if touching Cas like this is advisable.

Call him by his name, an instinct tells Dean, call him by his battle name. His Heavenly name. He’ll recognize it, like this. Invoke him.

“... Castiel,” Dean murmurs, earnest, and pleading.

Cas’ chest is rising and falling hard, but he stops fighting his bindings so much. He even opens his beaming eyes, but because they’re all light, Dean can’t tell if Cas sees him or not.

Compelled by a need to help Cas, to soothe him, Dean brings a shaking hand down to gently touch Cas’ temple, but snaps his hand back when Cas jolts away from him.

His heart is thundering away, but nothing bad actually happened. Cas is just scared.

That in mind, Dean tries again and gentles his hand against Cas’ face, even when Cas cringes.

He leans in close, and repeats more firmly, “Castiel.”

Some of the mercury-like Grace still on Cas’ abdomen takes loose form, moving up his body, and then reaching up toward Dean’s chest, searching for something.

Thinking Cas’ Grace might be looking for evidence of his heartbeat or something similar, Dean quickly strips his shirt off, throwing it aside, and he leans back in, pleased that this time, when he touches Cas’ face, Cas doesn’t flinch.

The Grace makes contact with the center of his chest, and Dean thinks Cas’ glow is spreading to him at first, but what he comes to realize quickly is that it’s the glow of his own soul, nearing the surface of his body, raising itself to meet its most beloved hero.

Dean’s human eyes don’t recognize Cas the way he is, but his soul must recognize its rescuer instantly, because there is an undeniable wave of comfort that washes over Dean, right from the crown of his head all the way to the soles of his feet.

“Dean.”

Beyond his control, a smile breaks out across Dean’s face — his relief is instantaneous.

“Cas, yeah — yes! Yeah, dude, it’s me,” he laughs, petting Cas’ cheek with his thumb, “hey there. Hey, buddy. You’re okay.”

“Dean,” he says again, his mouth barely moving to make the sound.

There’s light even behind Cas’ teeth, like he’s got a star held in his throat.

He probably can’t manage more than that, Dean surmises, recalling that Rowena described him as nonverbal earlier, amazing he got my name out at all, actually.

Feeling much better now, much more assured that Cas recognizes him and won’t be so careless with his very fragile, very breakable human body, Dean peels away to get his underwear off.

Making a flurry of lights, and hard, heavy thumps with his wings, Cas makes it very evident, very quickly, that he does not like Dean pulling away now.

“Dean!”

“Nope, nope — right here, bud, right here, not goin’ anywhere,” Dean reassures him quickly, cupping his face again, startled by Cas’ fear, “just gotta get that vial behind you — you’re okay. It’s me. It’s me. You know me. Right? It’s Dean. You know Dean. You know me. I’m not gonna hurt you. You know that.”

“Dean…”

Somehow, Dean knows what Cas means, just by the intonation in his voice and the particular lines his mouth makes.

Dean’s brows curve in, and he frowns down at Cas, “... I’m sorry we’ve got you strung up like this, Cas. I’m not gonna hurt you, and I’m not gonna leave you. Okay? I’m not leavin’ you.”

Even having said that, Dean doesn’t break their contact again, he’s pretty sure Cas doesn’t understand him, and saying these things out loud is more for his benefit than Cas’. 

Keeping his palm on Cas’ cheek, he reaches for the vial with his free hand, and then stares down at Cas’ body.

Momentarily panicked that Cas isn’t hard, and that will be up to him to make happen, Dean admonishes himself — of course he isn’t hard, you idiot, he’s been chained to a stone platform, tortured and magicked into a feral battle state and doesn’t understand what’s happening to him, just thinks danger is imminent — on the heels of that thought comes a humbling realization, though.

He understands it’s you, though. He’s not trying to escape anymore, because he knows it’s you. If you’re his captor, he doesn’t seem to mind so much.

Dean’s face flushes, but he ignores how heady that is, how much power that is to have, and instead he tries to focus on what he’s meant to do next.

He figures he’s got to do something that will calm Cas down, but excite him too, and — Dean’s actually pretty good at that stuff, too.

He’s never kissed a man, or a man-shaped supernatural, but — it’s not like Cas is a monster.

Cas isn’t a monster.

He sorta looks like a monster right now, but Dean knows it’s his friend in there. And his savior. 

Gazing down at Cas, Dean wonders how heartless this ceremony was meant to be; it was meant to be Armisael and some randomly assigned virgin, but it’s Dean Winchester, and the Seraph that gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. It’s Dean, and the Angel that forfeit Heaven and its ancient armies — for the good of Dean, for the good of the world, of the universe.

“I'm hunted, I rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you.”

Mostly for Dean, though.

His heart thumps hard, and he wonders how many people he’s saved in all his years of hunting that might have liked to give him a kiss, but didn’t. 

He remembers well the ones that did — he’s always enjoyed the attentions of such bold women, so full of happiness and gratitude that they don’t even mind that he stinks and is covered in blood. It’s a good ego boost — makes a man feel special.

He wonders if Cas thought he’d be grateful when they met.

He didn’t kiss Cas. 

He doesn’t think he did, anyway. He wasn’t corporeal at the time they met, and he doesn’t have actual memories of that meeting, so he doesn’t know what the equivalent of a kiss would be like that, and he can’t say for sure whether he did or didn’t, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t. 

Then again, Cas never thinks to bring up that sort of thing.

As far as his memories serve, Dean didn’t kiss Cas for saving him.

Dean stabbed him in the heart.

“I’m sorry about that,” Dean mutters, as if Cas has been on this train of thought with him, as if Cas can understand a word he’s saying; he thumbs back and forth on Cas’ high cheekbone, specks of light brushing away like Dean is thumbing away embers, “some hero’s welcome, huh? You rescue me from Hell, and I stab you… I wasn’t grateful then. I’m — I am. Now. If it makes a difference. I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad you’re here too. And I’m sorry about stabbing you.”

Cas doesn’t appear to understand him, but keeps his search-light eyes on Dean’s face anyway.

“Here — a little delayed, but… a thank you. A real one.” — the kind you deserve.

With great trepidation and no small measure of embarrassment, Dean leans down, shuts his eyes, and presses his lips against Cas’.

Cas’ lips are wide, pillowy, and not so dry as they look.

The scruff will be something to acclimate to, but otherwise Cas smells nice, and feels nice. Dean supposes that a kiss, is a kiss, is a kiss.

Kisses are nice.

Kissing Cas is nice.

He curls his torso more over Cas, tilts his head and runs his tongue over Cas’ bottom lip, urging him to open his mouth; he does.

There’s a flavor profile to Cas like this, in this form, but not anything like Dean’s tasted before. In fact, the only way Dean knows how to catalogue the flavor to himself is to think of it as a deep purple. Otherwise, Cas feels like a human — a human running a high fever, but nonetheless, made of flesh, and bone, muscle that gives way for him. 

It takes a while for Dean to realize Cas is kissing him back. In fact, he only makes this realization once a wing touches his back.

He gives a small jump, but doesn’t actually stop kissing Cas. 

The soft hairs of his lengthy flight feathers brush his bare back, give him pleasant chills, and he clocks all that his skin is feeling, which includes Cas’ mouth moving against his.

Aren’t you frightened? Dean wonders, kissing and kissing him, you’re hurt, you’re chained down, you think you’re in battle — am I just not a threat to you? Or is it that you sense me, you know it’s me, and you just trust me that much?

Dean struggles with how mighty a compliment it is, but he already knows the answer.

There’s little that thrills Dean more than having that sort of implicit trust. He always ruins it, he always finds a way to lose it, but he fucking loves having it, feeling someone’s very life in his palm, having their faith, getting a chance to prove he can be good, and to have Cas’ unyielding loyalty, blind fidelity like this, at his most vulnerable — Dean’s face burns up, his heart stutters, but it feels good. 

Cursed, doomed, and delicious to the last bite.

He tastes Cas’ soft palate, and Cas tongues behind his teeth; Dean sweeps his tongue broadly across Cas’ and Cas moans for him, breathes hard, and bites into Dean’s lower lip.

Dean pulls back to catch his breath and stares down at Cas while they pant into each other’s gasping mouths; Cas’ skin is flushed, the colors of the lights he’s emitting and shedding are richer — maybe dimmer, but more vivid now.

Dean’s not sure what that means, but he thinks it’s probably good.

Cas’ two middle most wings are curled around Dean, cocooning the two of them, protective almost.

Embarrassingly, Dean’s immediate thought is that that’s very sweet of Cas.

What? Dean thinks, a sly, familiar laugh sitting somewhere in his chest, but unable to show on his face — that’s a face, a stage persona for other people. People not as important as Cas. It’s an act, a knee jerk reaction, a false bravado, but still, the playful thoughts come — you wanna keep me? You like kisses, Cas? You oughta get more. You oughta get as many as you want, whenever you want ‘em. 

There’s a hitherto unknown pleasure in the whisper of Cas’ feathers against Dean’s exposed skin. Dean didn’t think of himself as much of a texture-oriented person that way, but it may do more for him than he readily was aware of before.

Cas strains his neck to reach for another kiss. The effort is so endearing of him, Dean gives him what he’s seeking for no other reason than that he’s seeking it— Dean gives him another, and another, and another, feels Cas gasp beneath him, feels the way his chest moves with his hard breaths, the way he writhes, trying to get closer, trying to get more.

When Dean breaks another kiss, it’s to lick a broad line along Cas’ satisfyingly scratchy mandible until he can curl his tongue against the bolt of his jaw; he nips at Cas’ ear the way he likes to have done to him, then bites into and sucks on the front tendon of Cas’ neck which elicits this deeply guttural moan from Cas, sends his wings twitching and thumping.

Without thinking of much at all, Dean makes his way down Cas’ body the way he usually would on a woman. He mouths at what he knows will be sensitive, untouched parts of Cas’ clavicle, he drags his nose between Cas’ pecs and is both startled and sort of humored by the sparse chest hair there. 

The sensation of body hair like that against his nose and lips is unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. In fact, because it’s Cas, it feels almost comforting, as much as it does foreign. 

While he suckles on Cas’ closest nipple and listens to him keen and whine, getting hard just hearing how desperate Cas sounds, he runs a hand down Cas’ flank, and across his quivering abdominal muscles, taking note of the dew drops of sweat just beginning to bead across him.

The width of his palm spreads over spilled Grace, and it travels up his arm, curling like a vine and applying pressure, but nothing abrasive. More like a hard kiss than a violent grip.

He traces the trail of hair descending from the base of his belly button with his fingertips, and is properly shocked when his Grace-vined forearm makes contact with Cas’ very hard, bobbing cock.

Breaking away from Cas, Dean finally takes stock of him again and feels a bubble of pride in his chest — he’s turned Cas on. 

He knows it’s probably fucked up of him to think of that as some kind of award, but Cas is usually so stoic, so unmoved, it feels like a particularly impressive feat to have him whimpering and gasping, wriggling around, hard as a rock from just some deep kissing and light petting.

It’s gotta be the magick, Dean admits to himself, though his heart isn’t in it, he’s feral right now. Not totally himself. That’s all.

He looks back at Cas’ face and tells him stiltedly, “I’m — I gotta, uh… get… on … you— now…”

His face is so hot, he thinks his freckles will singe off.

Cas’s hundreds of eyes blink lazily up at him, uncomprehending.

“Right,” Dean mutters to himself, embarrassed that he’s essentially talking to himself.

The vial that’s been in his hand all this time is warm from the anxious grip of his palm, and it’s a troublingly small thing, but as soon as Dean opens it, the flowery oil spills and spills unendingly.

Neat trick.

He puts his slippery hand around Cas’ dick, watches his body go taut, watches his toes fucking curl and tries to take some pleasure in that. 

Dean has always liked giving pleasure to others — he excels at that, he always has. 

And Dean does take pleasure in seeing Cas’ evident pleasure, but that pleasure is a little outweighed by the mounting terror in his chest as he feels for himself really how thick, long, and hard Cas’ cock is.

Dean thinks it’s going to have to hurt. 

He keeps telling himself that surely — surely — he’s expelled things bigger than this. He doesn’t mean for his mind to be so crass, even in the privacy of itself, but he’s a grown man, and frankly, he puts away a lot of carbs and coffee. He’s a comfortable, regular person, but he’s no rabbit.

That he’s having to convince himself of that is the problem. The truth is, he’s not sure. And no matter what, this will be a different sensation — this is something he’s never done before.

And Cas is big.

And fucking glowing.

You’re Dean fuckin’ Winchester, he tells himself, you can do this. You fight demons on the regular, you can fucking manage this. It’s a dick, not a nuclear missile.

His blood pressure doesn’t see much of a difference.

There isn’t much he can do here other than oil everything all to Hell and hope for the best.

Instructions were to climb on up and hold on for dear life like a mechanical bull.

There’s really no point in putting it off any further.

For good measure, Dean spreads the oil between his own cheeks, and tries desperately to not think about how small his asshole feels in comparison to the width of Cas’ dick.

He’s worried he won’t recognize the magick when it — crescendos, or whatever. He wasn’t told what to set his intentions to either, so he’s a little worried that he won’t know what to do when the time comes either, if he can recognize it when it does.

Everything feels like too much to even begin thinking about.

He’s winging this — that’s how it always is with him. 

Cas doesn’t mind making it up as we go, though. 

Dean shakes the sentimentality out of his skull like it might fall out of his ears as loose change, and then he throws his leg over Cas’ waist.

Cas goes very still under him.

He puts his slippery hands over Cas’ rib cage that swells and falls with his labored breathing, and he can feel Cas’ heartbeat — he can feel it everywhere. In fact, it feels like several hearts beating, like hundreds or a thousand of them.

It occurs to Dean that it may not be hearts at all, but the beating of wings somewhere inside Cas’ vessel.

All of the hearts that might be wings are thumping so hard and fast, condensed lightning and thunder rumbling and striking just under Cas’ skin — Dean can feel the palpitations in the vine of Grace around his arm too.

He stares down at Cas, but Cas’ eyes are still gone, in that they are all light, and everywhere across his body and rising from him like stardust. 

“I need you,” Dean admits softly, earnestly praying this gets through to Cas somehow, “I need you right now. I fucked up. I fucked up this whole case, and so — so many people died. I didn’t get here in time, I didn’t figure out what was going on fast enough… this is all that’s left to do that means anything at fucking all, and I really, really don’t wanna die like this, okay? Cas, I trust you. I need you to know it’s me. To remember me, even if your instincts are telling you to tear me apart or something… I… don’t really get what’s about to happen, but I need you to recognize me. I just… I need you to st-stay with me here. Just… stay with me.”

Cas makes no verbal reply, but the Grace around Dean’s arm tightens.

Maybe Cas can sense his distress, regardless of whether he understands the words being spoken to him.

“Okay,” Dean breathes out, taking one hand behind him to grab at Cas’ dick and line himself up; he rubs the length of Cas’ cock between his cheeks to acclimate himself to the feeling of it, to try to give himself an idea of how much this might hurt, but it’s nothing but pleasant pressure.

The blunt head of Cas’ cock catches on his rim, makes him gasp, makes Cas groan and strain against his cuffs, and despite the way his stomach flips and his heart hammers, Dean lets it stay where it’s caught, and he presses down.

The stretch doesn’t burn, his skin doesn’t tear, but it’s pressure. 

It’s a lot of pressure.

He descends so slowly, thinking to himself over and over, I can’t do it, I can’t do it, oh my God, I can’t do it, I can’t fit all of this in me — and his whole body tightens up, cuts off progress, and when admonishing himself doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t make his body obey, he tries something else.

Let him in.

Dean’s eyes are screwed up shut, there’s idiotic tears building behind his lids and between his lashes.

Let him in. It’s Cas. Let him in.

Loosening just enough, Dean descends further, his body not quite relaxing, but allowing that narrative to sustain movement — it’s not that something is going into Dean, it’s Cas. This is Cas, and if there’s anyone he trusts with his body and soul, it’s Cas.

If there’s anyone he wants to let inside him, it’s Cas.

Let him in.

When he’s fully seated, Dean can’t breathe, he feels every unforgiving, rigid inch of Cas, but — it fits.

Chapter Text

Sweat accumulates across Dean’s back and chest, he’s a little dewy, just like Cas — the dungeon is warm, nearly humid, and Cas is feverish beneath him.

Cas’ many eyes are open, wide awake it seems, maybe staring at Dean beyond their searing light, and his heavy, kiss-swollen lips are hanging open on an audible breath, the kind that nearly sounds like a gasp being exhaled as much as it does when it’s inhaled.

Cas’ chest and shoulders are broad, he’s arched in this really beautiful way, though the pose is forced by that new muscle group on his back that allows his wings to materialize. His nipples are pebbled, one of them has little hickey freckles all over it, and his chest is stuttering with his intakes.

With his hands to press and center his weight on Cas’ sternum, Dean raises himself up and instantly comes down again; this punches the air out of both of them, and Dean’s relieved to find that there’s no pain besides the inevitable kind growing in his thighs.

Dean’s not hard — he can’t be. There’s too much stress pressing out from under his skin trying to escape, and pressing in from the outside, trying to coalesce with the stress already inside him.

There isn’t pleasure, but there isn’t massive discomfort or pain either, and he’ll take his wins where he can get them right now.

He wonders what Cas might say, if he were in his right mind.

Dean shuts his eyes against the memory of Cas’ knowing gaze, the way he looks at Dean, and through Dean, and into Dean, always having some understanding that Dean doesn’t have of himself. 

He supposes Cas wouldn’t have gotten hard enough for this sort of thing in the first place, if he were in his right mind.

That thought — hurts. It’s more than an ego wound, it’s something deeper. That thought… bizarrely, it hurts Dean’s fucking feelings. Which is insane of him, and he refuses to think more about it.

“Okay,” he says mostly to himself, raising himself up again, “okay—”

Cas’ wings come up under his arms, taking his weight, and when he drops Dean down again, he drives his hips up to meet him.

“Whoa!” Dean startles, more fear setting in as he realizes Cas has decided he wants to set a faster, harder pace and his wings make for strong enough limbs to do that, “wait — wait, wait, wait—”

Cas does it again, and all Dean can do is hold onto the ridge of his wings as he’s brought up and down, over and over; it’s intense, enough that Dean shuts his eyes through most of it, because the sensory information is almost too much as it is without all the visual oddities of Cas in this state.

He opens them, though, when he hears Cas make a sort of miserable noise.

He cracks his eyes open to look at Cas, watches him struggle with the cuffs around his wrists, sees the dried blood splatter on him, the Grace sitting in pools of mercury on his skin, the hundreds of eyes in and around him, the stardust coming off him, the aura that might be a halo surrounding him.

There’s been a lot of literal torture for Cas tonight. Dean figures he may as well try to lessen that where he can — he takes his arms back, and has to fight Cas’ wings off when they try hurriedly to get back under them. 

“Hey — stop. Stop that,” Dean orders softly, uselessly; his hands hold Cas’ flanks, and he nods, talking aloud mostly for his own benefit, knowing Cas very barely understands anything happening to him, “I’ll relieve you. Okay? It’s me. I’m not gonna let you— languish. It’s like you’re in Pon Farr or something. But I’ve got you, okay? It’s me. You know I’ll take care of you.”

The Grace twined around his arm has no reaction this time, and Dean wonders if it means Cas is understanding him even less.

His right hand slides up around the curvature of Cas’ ribcage, until his palm is settled where a human heart is thudding so hard, it’s visible beneath the skin like a hammer on a war drum.

“Castiel.”

Stars and eyes swivel to him, focused.

Dean says it because to remember Dean, Cas needs to remember himself, and Cas is a good— thing. He can’t rightly say Cas is a person, he’s not entirely sure that’s categorically correct, but besides that, Cas is something different altogether to him.

Cas is an event. Cas is something that has happened to him, and continues to happen to him. 

Good things do happen.

In retrospect, that was more telling about Cas than anything else said that night; good things do happen, Cas is a good thing that happens, whether Dean deserves it or not.

And, God, Dean has tried since that day to be something good that happens to Cas. It doesn’t come as naturally to him, he fails a lot, but at times like these, he knows he can shine. He knows he can take care of Cas, and he has to, because it’s what Cas would do for him.

“Dean,” Dean says, taking his hand back to indicate at his own chest.

‘Castiel,’ — that means you, and you mean good things happen — you are good things happening. ‘Dean,’ means me, and that means that Hell or high water, you’re never gonna be alone. ‘Dean,’ means that I’m gonna protect you, Castiel, and take care of you, whatever that means. If you know who you are by your name, and you know that I belong to mine, those are the only words you gotta know to get through.

I’m Dean, and you’re Castiel, and we’re here together, and that means the rest is dressings. That means you ‘n me are gonna be alright.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs back, reverent.

Dean smiles despite himself.

“That’s Dean fuckin’ Winchester, actually,” Dean jokes to himself, putting his weight back on Cas’ torso, “and he ain’t scared’uh nothin’.”

The technique is unpracticed, and so it can’t be particularly good, but Dean rides Cas for all he’s worth, and it must be good enough, because Dean’s able to watch as Cas’ eyelids slam shut, as he throws his head back and bares his neck, lightning striking through the tendons at the front, straining hard against his holy restraints and muscles quivering where he shoves his hips up in time to try for more than he can get, tied up like he is.

“Dean,” Cas pants out, “Dean,” through gritted teeth, “Dean,” he whines.

Dean thinks it’s a good sign, he thinks it’s nice, almost, that Cas keeps saying his name. He feels safer, at least.

That feeling doesn’t last long, however.

Dean’s legs are burning, he’s getting properly sweaty now, he’s taking perverse pleasure in Cas calling his name like it’s sanctuary, wondering to himself when he might ‘feel,’ the magick, if Cas will remember any of this, what he’s meant to do if and/or when he ‘feels,’ the magick, and then there’s a loud crack.

Landing and stopping firmly on Cas, Dean can’t place the sound at first.

Looking around, panting, Dean hears it again, and, to his horror, beneath him, Cas’ blue Grace is making these lightning vein crevasses in the Angel cuffs, threatening to break their hold.

There’s magick on them — Cas shouldn’t be able to break out of those, they’re strong enough to hold down an Archangel, there is no Earthly way Cas should be able to break them, but if he does, if he can somehow, Dean can feel that the magick in them is keeping a lid on Cas, and if he breaks out, Dean will lose any semblance of control.

Dean’s stomach flips nervously; the cracks in those cuffs are like seeing a countdown start on a time bomb. 

He worries that with his tangential, distracting thoughts, he’s missed Cas’ growing fear, so he stops moving, and he cups Cas’ neck, bending to try to get Cas to look directly at him, despite the realization that move might be seriously dangerous.

“Hey, hey,” Dean tries and fails to sound composed, “it’s okay — it’s me? Remember? You don’t have to be scared, you—”

The Grace around his forearm slithers up past his shoulder, wraps like a boa around his neck, and makes something kind of like a hand around his mandible, tugging Dean by the jaw closer down to Cas’ face.

Cas already has way more control over his own powers than just a few minutes ago.

“Dean,” Cas says with certainty; he definitely isn’t scared.

Cas is panting too, looking at him now, and his Grace shoves Dean’s lips to his; Dean’s eyes shut automatically, but he’s fucking confused, and it’s while his eyes are shut and while Cas is snaking his tongue into his mouth that he’s blindsided by what must be close to a sonic boom.

Dean loses time, all he knows next is that his back is on the ground of the platform, and Cas is above him, stretching his wings out in terrifying glory.

His ankles are still cuffed, but that does Dean no good at all.

Castiel is free, and under the influence of this magick, he’s going to either half destroy Dean fucking him like an animal in a rut, or he’s going to fully destroy Dean by tearing him limb from limb in a berserker type fugue.

The tinnitus Dean deals with regularly is rendering him deaf in the wake of that quake; the Grace Hand around his jaw splits into two hands, each one smoothing down the sides of his face, cupping his ears, and healing the ringing.

The hands pet his hair gently.

Dean is petrified.

Cas’ flesh and blood hands take hold of Dean’s hips, hoisting them onto his thighs so he can bend in closer, the enormous weight of him and his wings, and the heft of his power coming down on Dean like sheets of rain.

“Dean,” he says; his Grace Hands move to the back of Dean’s head, grip his hair and tug, making Dean gasp, forcing Dean to bare his neck where his carotid is fluttering anxiously.

“Dean,” he says again, the only thing he appears to think is worth knowing; he bends Dean further and kisses his neck, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, breathes out again, “Dean,” and by his position alone, innocently slides further into Dean than he was a second ago.

They both groan, and Cas materializes another set of Grace Hands, which hold Dean to the platform by his wrists. He uses his middle most set of wings to force Dean’s knees and thighs apart, and drives into him.

Gasping, Dean feels every single nerve ending in his body light up, and he wriggles, possibly trying to escape, though he’s not having any clear thoughts, exactly.

His dick is swelling between their sweaty bodies, and Dean hates admitting it even in the privacy of his own mind, but he likes Cas’ musk, he likes the smell of him, how he can somehow taste Cas’ sweat on his lips; the Grace in his hair is holding on just tight enough to thrill him, just enough to send tingles down his spine, and frankly, Dean’s just never been manhandled like this before.

Even if he rationally knows he ought to be terrified for his life, his dick is extremely interested in this development.

So long as Cas still remembers his name, his face, he figures he should be okay, but this doesn’t bode well.

Why are you always breaking rules? Dean thinks ridiculously as Cas pounds into him, relieved to be free to move as he pleases, licking and sucking at whatever skin his mouth can reach on Dean, how did you do that? You weren’t supposed to be able to do that!

Over the roaring of blood in his skull, Dean is not able to hear the door to the dungeon open and close, but it stands to reason that the sonic boom that nearly blew out his eardrums clued his guards onto something.

Dean’s so embarrassed he thinks he could puke from it, and his only consolation is that it’s Rowena and not his brother.

That she’s relatively uninterested in his degradation is a cold comfort. She’s mostly staring in awe at Cas.

“... so that’d be the noise.”

“Rowena, what the fffff—uck am I supposed to— ah!”

One Grace Hand leaves his scalp to grip his jaw again and keep Dean looking his way.

Upon meeting Cas’ glowing eyes, Dean understands instantly.

Cas does not like him thinking about, talking to, or looking at anyone else right now.

Dean keeps his eyes on Cas, muttering breathlessly, “okay, okay, alright, it’s alright—”

“Do you need me to intervene?” Rowena asks, the sound of a blade making Dean wince.

He fully shuts his eyes when he realizes that Cas sees whatever Rowena has with her; he thinks Cas might just tear him apart through the middle, send serpents of Grace at her before doing something horrific, like stomping up to her on his feet and breaking her neck— but he doesn’t do any of that.

He stops moving and crouches over Dean, wings puffing up, flashing iridescence like an oil spill; Dean tries to look at Rowena again, but the Grace in his hair tugs his head back into place.

“Don’t leave the chapel, but for the love of God, stop making him angry,” Dean pleads.

Cas doesn’t move again until they both hear footsteps on the stairs, and the door to the dungeon shut.

Dean gazes up at Cas, wondering what is going on in his head.

“Dean,” he says, and it sounds a lot like he’s actually saying, ‘mine.’

“Are they okay?” Sam asks as soon as she’s in view again.

Rowena tells him, “Tweety-bird broke free.”

“... of what?”

“Of the cuffs, dear.”

“... that’s not possible,” Sam insists, shaking his head, trying very hard not to imagine in high definition what’s going on below his feet, “that isn’t possible, right?”

“Well, it happened,” Rowena tells him simply, taking a seat in a rotted pew.

“You have to go back down there,” Sam tells her, looking at the dungeon entry door, considering the risks of taking the Angel blade Rowena has and getting Cas’ mutated attentions off Dean himself.

“I will,” she promises.

When they meet eyes, Rowena looks serious, and that quells some of Sam’s concerns — it’s comforting to know that he’s not alone in treating this with severity.

“I’m not saying Dean’s not in danger — it’d be foolish to suggest that. You should know, though, that I don’t believe Castiel broke free of the chains out of rage or fear.”

“How else could he have managed that?”

Breathing in deeply, Rowena purses her lips curiously, then replies, “... he guarded Dean from me. I think this is… a territorial issue.”

“... he wanted Dean so badly, it overpowered chains designed to hold down Archangels?”

“I’m not claiming I’ve got the answers, I’m just letting you know what I think!” Rowena exclaims, showing her hands.

"... did he seem to recognize Dean?"

"I don't know," she admits, "but he did seem to recognize me as some kind of threat. Angels don't usually... well, they don't usually protect one another. They are much more likely to martyr themselves than throw themselves across someone else."

"... so you think this isn't about him feeling like he's under the threat of battle," Sam surmises, "... you think this is Cas... showing feral mating behaviors?"

"Well, you said it, not me."

And Sam really wishes he hadn't said it, because now it's a thought that's occurred to him, and several relevant thoughts will likely follow.

Chapter Text

There are hands in his hair, keeping his neck arched and throat exposed, there are hands on his wrists keeping his arms pinned, hands around his waist making him feel small, and wings shoving under his knees, spreading them and pressing enough to fold him in half.

He’s spread wide for Cas, flayed.

It’s more exposure than he’s ever felt before, particularly under the eyes of someone whose opinion he actually cares about.

Dean’s had a lot of hook-up’s before, but those, by and large, were pretty vanilla — very dim-lighting-mostly-under-the-covers-wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type stuff. Not that he picked up shy women or he, himself, ever had anything he was particularly embarrassed about, and there might have been a memorable, playfully dominant woman or two on the road before, but he never stuck around long enough anywhere to build trust with a partner.

Or at least, the trust necessary to delve into the kinkier stuff.

Dean’s a frequent flier, but the truth is, there are many lands still unknown to him, and this is the farthest from his figurative home base he’s ever been.

Cas leans in close to him, not kissing him, but breathing against him; dimly glowing lights roll off his tongue, down the slopes of his lips and break across Dean’s face like soft caresses. He very accidentally gasps a few into himself, and this— excites Cas. 

Dean shouts as Cas drives into him, slamming into him hard and fast, all his many hands groping, scratching, and pulling enough to make Dean lose his breath. 

Another two pairs of Grace Hands materialize, which Dean opens his eyes again to see.

One pair busies itself with both of his nipples, rubbing and lightly pinching them into oversensitive nubs, and then the other pair — the other pair moves down him, massaging his balls and fisting his cock.

With so much working in tandem, Dean knows he can’t last long, and he doesn’t. 

The Grace around his cock and balls changes form after a few beats, becomes more indistinct in shape, and winds up feeling more like several mouths sucking and tonguing at him; his toes spread and nearly cramp at how they’re curling, every muscle in his abdomen tightens up, the hot coil at the base of his spine goes taut — Cas’ Grace Hands holding down his wrists move to be palm-to-palm with him, interlocking their fingers to give Dean something to clamp down on with white-knuckled force.

His body quakes when he orgasms, every inch of him flushed, overly warm, beaded with sweat, and he cums so hard his hearing goes out, he cries out, cums in thick, long ropes, but Cas doesn’t let up even a little. 

Cas fucks him through it, and, dazed from the intensity of his orgasm, Dean momentarily forgets what’s happening, or that he’s meant to be doing something; he opens his hazy, misty eyes and watches Cas, all lightning, eyes, wings, and holy lights, shoving into him, chasing his own pleasure, and when it happens, when Cas finally cums, Dean feels every pulse of it.

Cas lets out this guttural moan when he cums, burying himself deeper and deeper into Dean, and Dean feels him cumming for at least half a minute straight— the orgasm itself is long, and intense, but more than that, Dean feels cum building in him, and then he feels Cas’ cock thicken, he feels his body stretch just a fraction of an inch more to accommodate more girth.

To Dean, it feels sort of like a plug.

And it feels intentional.

It feelings like... knotting.

Mind clearing, Dean worries now that he missed the magick, he’s unsure of what to do next, but as soon as he makes a motion as though he might dislodge Cas, Cas presses him back down, kissing his mouth roughly, kissing light into him.

Dean feels like a gong that’s been rung.

“Dean,” Cas mutters reverently, lovingly, little motes of light still spilling from him, falling into and onto Dean; he nuzzles their noses together sweetly, gazes at Dean with his ethereal eyes, the force of all the Heavens raining down on him, “Dean…”

The Grace Hands in his hair loosen — the extra hands everywhere loosen, actually, they gentle, and Dean is a little horrified when Cas starts thrusting into him again.

There’s no way, Dean thinks a hysterically, he just came fucking buckets, there’s no way—

There is a way, though.

Dean’s so wet now, every one of Cas’ movements makes for this embarrassing, slick noise; Dean’s body is sweaty, his chest and stomach have cum striped all over them, his cock is wet with cum, and now he’s wet enough to feel it between his thighs, under and a little around his balls— he and Cas are filthy.

He gasps as Cas starts up again, undulating in this thoughtful way, no longer in an animal rut, but moving with a mix of mechanic precision and artistic passion. 

He fucks Dean like he wants to, like he means, like he prefers their bodies be connected like this forever than ever be apart again. Like he’s trying to confess something.

The Grace Hands all over Dean’s body grope at him, pet him with care and tenderness, as if Cas is apologizing for his earlier roughness, and that makes Dean’s heart thud.

Cas’ flesh-and-blood hands grab him up around the most cinched part of his waist and pull while a pair of Grace Hands keep his head from hanging too uncomfortably limply as his body’s brought closer to Cas’ mouth so he can suckle at his pebbled nipple.

He mouths at Dean’s pec and fondles the other with a Grace Hand; two Grace Hands grab his ass cheeks, spreading them, allowing Cas deeper, forcing Dean to feel how thick Cas is inside him; he curses when his cock bobs with renewed interest.

Like a curious animal, Cas licks the sweat and cum from Dean’s heaving diaphragm, sucks a hickey along the curvature of his rib cage, and he noses his way up, licking and kissing into Dean’s underarm, biting into the meat of his shoulder, his clavicle, then his neck where he rubs beard burn into the kiss-bruised skin.

Dean’s newly freed hands grab at Cas’ strained arms, not precisely pushing at him, but holding on with such force that it looks the same.

Dean’s nails bite into Cas’ overheated skin, and Cas returns the gesture, nibbling on Dean’s ear just hard enough to give him pleasant chills.

A long time is spent like that, with Cas using a seemingly endless wealth of limbs to coax Dean’s body back into arousal, back into tension, and all the while he’s kissing Dean, murmuring his name, breathing and massaging light into him until Dean can’t tell if the ethereal glow is coming from him or Cas anymore.

As the time builds, as Dean’s body twitches, spasms, and shivers back into a state that every sense of the physical is heightened until it nearly doubles back on itself into sensory deprivation, he can feel a change in the air.

He can’t place when it happens, or what exactly is happening at all — the air is changing.

His heavy eyes open to take stock and he sees the flames of Holy fire blazing higher than he remembers, the basins of Holy water glittering more brightly, and he can feel how every humid, pleasured sigh he makes is met with something nearly solid all around him.

He feels as if there’s a mist building up around the two of them, but he can’t rightly see it, he only feels it. It’s as though they’re in a thundercloud together, lightning circling them, getting hotter, flashing brighter, faster.

Cas scoops Dean into his arms, wings curling in protectively, and Dean reflexively encircles Cas’ neck, his hands pushing into dense feathers, and unintentionally rousing Cas into a more excited state. 

Dean supposes Cas’ wings must be an erogenous zone, because when he grips at them, when he splays his fingers and palms across those shuddering feathers, Cas fucks him harder, grips him tighter, and emits this inhuman chittering noise, not unlike when an alligator growls and the water around it vibrates.

Dean can feel how the fog of magick ripples and jumps around them just the same as water would.

Cas’ Grace moves all around him again, worshipful, adoring, petting him with reverence; it feels as if there are mouths on his nipples, licking his balls, sucking his cock, kissing along his spine, and he’s helpless to do anything but cum again, and when he does, Cas follows him over, and the air changes more.

The air presses down and in on them, pressing them more together almost, and Cas cums longer this time — so does Dean.

Dean almost can’t tell Cas’ orgasm is lasting longer than the first because his takes him so high, for so long, he can very barely conceive of his surroundings at all.

Cas cums in him, and cums in him, and cums in him, and his cock thickens again, not allowing for any relief.

In fact, he doesn’t even wait for Dean to stop panting to catch his breath before laying Dean down, and using his Grace Hands to negotiate Dean onto his hands and knees without ever separating their bodies.

There are hands at Dean’s hips, keeping him steady, and Dean would try to crawl away if he could, but he can’t do much of anything at all— his muscles are so, so tired, and his bones feel like jelly.

He lets out a cry when Cas fucks into him again, but if there was room in him for despair, it’s quickly shoved aside to make room for the genuine alarm he feels at the foreign and sharply intense pleasure that lances through him, unforgiving as a blade.

“Oh, oh — oh my God,” he rasps, his voice crackling and rough; when his fingers claw for purchase on the stone, Grace Hands press down on them and twine their fingers together again.

Another pair of hands press down on Dean’s shoulders, bending him at such a severe angle, and Cas’ wings arch above him, casting a deep shadow. 

Besides feeling as if he’s being contorted and forced into pleasures no human body is meant to withstand, Cas must be slamming against his prostate upon every entry, and Dean’s crying on each thrust.

Every time Cas’ hips snap into him, he’s gasping, and cursing, his cock is wet — everything is wet — this angle has him seeing stars .

“Cas!” he cries out, sweat dripping down from his scalp, tears spilling over from his lashes; both his sweat and tears seem to glitter and glow now, “Cas! Christ, fuck — fuck — Cas! Castiel!”

He’s trying to get Cas’ attention, maybe to get him to slow down, or dial down the intensity just a little, but Cas is emboldened by his cries; Dean can feel the animal ferocity in every bunched up muscle around and inside and behind him, swelling up and straining for him, fucking into him with vicious desire and an aching need Dean’s never experienced before.

Dean throws his head down, forehead onto the stone, breathing in only humid fog, crying out in pleasure and fear, and here his body betrays him, hardening everywhere again, cock dribbling, stiffening, and all of his body locks up around Cas like a vise as he cums suddenly, unexpectedly.

His orgasm strikes him so quickly and with so little warning, all he can do is sob, and he feels the way his body milks Cas, the way it seems to pull on him, urge him into taking more, harder, faster — Cas feels him cum and Dean’s body seizing up around him pushes him over again, and again.

Dean’s orgasm is so intense it actually kind of hurts, and he’s sent into the fucking stratosphere all over again. 

He’s so high for so long, actually, that he begins to fear he won’t ever come down from it. 

He’s never had an orgasm last so long, and his body has never experienced anything like this before, this whipping tornado of shame, and trust, and pleasure, and pain, and vulnerability, and being at the absolute mercy of someone else.

There’s pleasure, but there’s fear too; Cas is fucking him with wild abandon, entirely unwilling or unable to stop, and each of his orgasms lasts longer than the one before, each one fills him further, and each one thickens Cas’ cock, like it’s trying to keep all that cum inside him.

Arms hook under Dean’s, pulling his torso up; he’s speared on Cas, his head hangs heavy, sweat and cum are dripping from all over him, oil and sweat are mingling and sliding under his balls, between his ass cheeks, and down his thighs.

He manages a pathetic, voice-like-broken-glass, “nnh,” sound as he’s jostled, but nothing else; Cas’ thick thighs spread from underneath his, Grace Hands swarm him like tentacles, cloying and demanding, and his breath is only just evening out when it starts up again.

“God, God, Cas, please,” Dean whines, brow furrowed tight as tears keep spilling over, “please, I can’t, I can’t—”

A hand grabs the back of his hair and gently pulls his head back enough that Cas can better look at him, and his eyes struggle to flutter open, his voice struggles to emerge, but he gets out, “please, please — I’m human. Cas, please. I’m human, I’m human—” Cas thrusts harder into him a few times, he doesn’t appear to understand or care, and on each thrust Dean cries out with more desperation as sparkling pleasure is shot through him, “I’m human— I’m human— I’m human!”

Cas slows down, pauses, and turns Dean’s swimming head to kiss him, and he kisses light into Dean, and that light is cool water, and that healing energy is so clearly Cas, Dean can hear Cas reverberating through his entire body as a thousand voices speaking at once.

Dean. My human.

Water illuminated like starlight slips from the corners of Dean’s mouth as he turns his lips away to breathe. There’s lightning on his tongue, pieces of Castiel down his throat, in his lungs, in his stomach, stretching out behind his eyes and making whirlpools in his blood.

Somehow, Dean knows this is not yet over, and he knows, somehow, that Cas is trying valiantly to not kill him in the process of whatever this is, but fully stopping is not something Cas can do right now.

His body needs relief, and Cas, somehow having gotten that message now, is able to grant him that for a few brief moments; Dean is a little past the point of shame, his bladder is full, and he’s cum several times now. Cas keeps him propped up as he relaxes his muscles and lets himself pee, and his body is wracked with post-coital shivers.

In this quiet intermission, Dean lolls his head back against Cas’ clavicle, it’s impossible to catch his breath, he’s only breathing in light, he’s wrung out, exhausted, drenched in sweat, and oil, and tears, and cum, and with shut eyes, he murmurs truthfully, unthinkingly, “you look beautiful like this. Your eyes, the lights, and — your wings. You’re really beautiful.”

Dean isn’t intentionally pushing any envelopes, he’s just too tired to consider that saying something like that might be something Cas even comprehends, and so he’s caught off-guard when Cas’ resolve is renewed, and he finds himself being speared again.

His distressed pleas of ‘I’m human,’ must have reached up the stairs, because the next Dean can manage to open his eyes, Rowena is back.

Dean sees her as if she’s walking through a purple, glittering mist, and he thinks he perceives her aura.

There is magick about and inside her, but it’s not the same as the magick building in the room, and Dean isn’t sure how he is seeing that or knowing that.

He lets out a particularly humiliating, throaty, “anh!” sound as Cas shifts their positions again, widening his stance, and spreading his wings out with a flourish.

Cas’ hands come up around his face, picking him up by the jaw and shutting it by just the way he’s taking hold of it, which is how Dean comes to realize he was open-mouthed drooling at all. His over-warm face is folded up in agonized pleasure, he’s drenched, his swollen cock is out and bobbing, pre-cum dribbling from it, and Cas is posturing with Dean’s face in his hands.

Dean’s arms are still draped over Cas’, so he’s helpless to defend any dignity he has left (which is a moot point), and he can feel how Cas is showing him off. How, to Cas, this is a display — he’s putting Dean on display like one puts a stuffed stag head over a mantle, and Rowena obviously receives the message.

Cas has his neck and back arched, all his many Grace limbs are apparent across Dean’s body, he’s slick all over, covered in hickeys, bruises in the shape of Cas’ hands, bite marks, every fluid but freshly drawn blood all over him, drool sliding down his chin, tear tracks on his face, cock unmistakably jutting out, jumping, and Rowena can only stare wide-eyed at him.

He shuts his eyes against the wave of humiliation and ignores how stiff it makes his dick.

He thinks she asks if he’s okay, but his hearing is muffled, and when he tries to reply, Cas pushes him back down to the floor, fucking into him harder, demanding his undivided attention, and he winds up only crying out and sobbing against the stone platform.

“Can’t — much longer,” he struggles to get out, feeling Cas’ cock all the way up in his fucking rib cage, every uptick brushing his prostate, “h-how much— longer?”

“I don’t know— the spell seems nearly ready, but, Dean, maybe I should—”

“Dean,” Cas hisses at her in his many, many voices, making that chittering noise again, all the feathers of his puffed up wings shuddering.

She retreats a few steps, gives Dean a look he knows to mean that she’ll be back, she’s not leaving him for good, but going back upstairs for his own safety.

Mortified, Dean cums again, sobbing and moaning in equal measure, face pressed hard against the platform, feeling Cas fill him up, and fill him up, and start all over again.

When Rowena returns from the dungeon, she leans her back against the door, drumming her nails rhythmically against it, and Sam stares worriedly at her, waiting.

“... well?” he asks, “... is Dean okay?”

“Ahhh… for our intentions? Yes.”

Frowning, Sam admits, “I don’t love the sound of that…”

“Well, are you gonna take my word for it, or go check for yourself?”

Contemplating that for a few beats, Sam answers, “... I’ll take your word for it.”

“That’s a good lad,” she sighs.

“... can you give me an idea of what’s happening?”

She comes to stand before where he’s sitting, which puts him at face-level with her breasts, and it takes concentrated effort not to let his eyes wander away from hers.

She smiles like she knows, because she probably does.

“The magick down there is sharpening. Dean’s not far off from needing emergency medical care, though. Thirty minutes more, and I’m gonna put an end to it, regardless of the outcome.”

Grimly, Sam nods in agreement and watches curiously as Rowena begins to smirk.

“He’s being quite a romantic down there, for a primordial force of divinity.”

“Is he?” Sam smirks back, allowing himself some levity in the absurdity of this all.

“The noises down there are pretty telling,” she explains, reaching forward to tuck the tag in on the back of Sam’s collar, “he’s using what you and I might call proto-Enochian.”

“What would that even be?”

“It’s the language used between star systems.”

“... it’s the language of stars?”

“Of light and creation, yes,” she replies.

“That… un-ironically sounds really romantic.”

“I’m sure it would be, if your brother wasn’t in the midst of being fucked within an inch of his life.”

“Jesus, Rowena,” Sam complains, half-laughing, “I didn’t need to know that.”

“All I’m saying is that I’m sure Castiel would’ve liked to say these sorts of things in say, marital vows, or have them be kept the secrets between stars, Sam, not coming from him out of possessive instinct when he’s mostly out of his mind on wayward magick and half a foot deep in Dean—”

“Rowena!”

“Such a prude.”

Chapter Text

On his face and knees, Dean loses consciousness for a time, though he can’t possibly know how long. 

He comes to because Cas seems to refuse to reach orgasm without him, and stirs Dean’s body into another one — it’s his fifth or sixth one, maybe, and his voice is decimated from his earlier cries and screams, so the vocalization he makes is pretty pitiful.

It hurts when he cums, but the pleasure is still there too, fervent, torrid, syrupy, and enough to melt down his bones.

His drool has made a wet spot on the stone where his face has been smushed.

Of course, Cas cums in him again, thickens again, and then he stays like that, Dean stuck on him.

Cas feels enormous inside him by now. 

Dean’s forgotten what it feels like not to have Cas’ cock in him, he’s almost worried about how alien it will feel to separate.

Cas moves back, kissing down the length of Dean’s back as far as he can, petting his flanks, and Dean’s leg twitches, he considers trying to crawl away, but his muscles aren’t taking commands like that anymore, and even if they were, Dean is horrified to feel just how stuck on Cas he is.

If Cas shuffled backwards, the base of his dick such a thick plug, Dean knows with certainty that he’d just be dragging Dean’s body with him like a new appendage. Dean's stuck on him like a tick.

Cas doesn’t do that, though.

Gradually, Cas turns Dean around, using his wings and many Grace limbs to maneuver Dean very gently into his lap, and Cas sits with him like that, supporting all his weight, curling his wings in to press Dean more against him— he hugs Dean, holds him like a lover does.

Dizzy and out of touch, Dean wraps his weak, shaking arms around Cas’ shoulders and tucks his face into the crook of Cas’ neck.

It feels as though Cas is partially possessing Dean, like he’s moved so much of himself into Dean’s body, but not taken it as a vessel, as much as declared it part of himself.

He feels Cas in his spinal fluid, feels Cas in every watery, arrhythmic stutter of his overworked heart, he feels Cas under his fingernails, between his eyelashes, inside his teeth— he’s everywhere.

He’s too exhausted to feel the fear as he ought to, but Dean is pretty sure his body is quitting on him in a major way.

“... think I’m dying,” Dean utters softly, almost inaudibly; lights that are just as much Cas as they are him float from his own mouth on his own breath.

There's no air to breathe, it's all just light, and mist, and magick, pressing in on all sides.

Cas’ arms are strong, his blade-calloused hands are broad, it’s as though he’s trying to hold Dean’s body together with just that physical strength.

Cupping the back of Dean’s head, Cas gathers him up enough to kiss him again, and Dean can feel so much— too much.

There’s this frightening comprehension of the infinite that is the undercurrent of what Cas is, which can’t be ignored, because Dean can feel and understand Cas in the everything of him, and in feeling and understanding Cas, he feels this obsessive, divine, unconditional love.

Cas is sorry he’s frightened. Cas doesn’t mean to hurt him. Cas is a slave to functions he didn’t know any one of his forms would be at such mercy to. 

It feels like Cas fucking adores him, but that’s— 

He wants Dean to cum again, needs him to, splits Dean on his cock, spreads his Grace over Dean’s nipples, neck, cock, balls, makes it lap at his abused rim like a loving tongue, and when Dean trembles, shakes and shivers all over, and fucking mewls, Cas catches it in his mouth.

Dean cums like that, cocooned in Cas’ wings, held up in his arms, every sense assaulted by his Grace as Cas cums inside him again, and then he feels the magick in the room hit a fever pitch, and it’s so strange— it’s all so strange, but Dean can feel the few seconds he has to redirect it.

Unfortunately, Dean’s mind is a foggy mess, his brain feels like pudding, and he’s feeling exsanguinated. 

He opens his eyes to Cas, sees the gold light of his soul taking up every square inch of his skin, crossbreeding with the blue light of Cas’ Grace rising off him like smoke, and he wants to thank Cas again.

He’s delirious.

He wants to thank Cas for saving him again, in the past and every day since, and he grabs weakly at the magick around them with his own limbs of light.

He doesn’t think wishes come true like this, and that if they did, they’d be cursed. He doesn’t think he can rewrite history, or obtain world peace through this magick without making everything exponentially worse, so he doesn’t think in that direction.

He thinks of Cas, stares into his handsome face, and he instills in the magick this sincere hope that he’s not the only one who ever knows salvation like that. He figures that the world is gonna stay dark and fucked up, full of evil and bad things, things he can’t control, but Cas made him feel like he might be worth saving, and the world is worth it. Lots of people in it are worth it, too.

He hopes someone in a bad way gets better, someone all alone figures out that they’re loved, and that someone like him gets saved, not by God, but by a friend who would do — quite literally — anything for them.

He hopes the magick building like a cyclone here hits maximum velocity, explodes and spreads across the entire Earth, making it slightly less shitty for everyone and everything that encounters it— and his time is up.

The magick, and Dean’s intentions, draw on Cas’ innate magick, pulling light from his halo and aura, sucking up stars rising as motes from his skin, and when the tornado of energy is done swirling around them, Cas’ human eyes are restored, even as the rest of him remains more true and exposed.

As Cas’ Grace is drawn back into his vessel, and the light of Dean’s soul dims down, the last bit of information Dean can gather is that Cas is sad about something. 

He thinks Cas wanted him to wish for something else.

He can’t imagine what.

Everything goes dark after that.

When Dean wakes again, he’s lying on top of Cas, whose true form has diminished to just two enormous wings that he's kept wrapped around Dean, and maybe tens of glowing eyes beneath his skin, but his human eyes are shut— he’s lost consciousness.

“Cas,” Dean whispers, clearing his throat and trying again, “Cas— Cas.”

Cas doesn’t rouse, though.

Just as Dean is about to panic, he hears the dungeon door open and close, and when he sees Rowena, she seems very relieved.

She calls up the stairs, “count to a hundred, Samuel, and then come down here!”

Rushing over to him, Rowena checks him for a fever, and frowns at him, muttering worriedly, “okay — okay, Dean, we’re gonna get you off the Angel now, okay?”

“Iz’ee okay?”

“I imagine so, but you—”

“Imagine?” Dean shakes his head, making himself nauseous, “not good ‘nough. Iz’ee—”

Rowena’s paying him no mind, though, pushing Cas’ dense wings off him, hugging his sweaty chest, and pulling his body weight back until he’s no longer fucking congealed to Cas.

Dean gasps when he’s fully separated, feeling a sudden dropping sensation in his lower abdomen, and looking down at himself only to realize that his belly was— inflated.

He feels like he’s losing blood.

He might be sick.

He’s so degraded and humiliated by this, he nearly cries, but Rowena simply stays on task, seeming not to care at all about his state beyond his immediate health.

He appreciates her so much in this moment, he can’t actually verbalize anything.

He can’t get his legs under him, so Rowena hauls him away from Cas’ prone form and goes for the big medical kit he and Sam brought; she gets him under a blanket, then starts digging in the cooler for ice water.

He asks if it’s okay to lie down, and she makes a makeshift nest of his and Cas’ clothing, so that he’s a little inclined, and just cushioned enough, and by then, Sam is quickly descending the stairs, and Dean is infinitely more grateful that Rowena kept him away long enough to allow Dean the dignity of being covered.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sam curses, looking around the dungeon at the Holy water still dripping from the ceiling and the small, scattered remnants of Holy fires, “... is Cas okay?”

“No idea yet, that’s task number two — right now we’ve got to get the human back to safe temperatures.”

“Dean?” Sam asks, looking at Dean as though Dean can provide any answers.

Dean can barely open his eyes.

“He’s in shock.”

“He’s in shock!?”

“His body is in shock,” she specifies, shoving a newly emptied cooler at him, “here — elevate his legs on this, tell me if he’s still shaking.”

Sam leans down beside Dean after hoisting his bruised knees over the lid of the cooler, and touches his shoulder.

Dean’s teeth are chattering.

“Yeah, he’s shaking — do we know what kind of shock? Is he bleeding internally?”

“I’ve no idea yet, but he’s slurring, he’s disoriented, his blood pressure is much too low, and he’s shaking like a leaf, so keep him warm, I’ve got something for emergencies in my bag upstairs, just hold tight.”

Loyal as ever, and visibly scared, Sam stays beside Dean on the platform, and presses a hand down on his chest, gently encouraging him to breathe deeply in a way he’s also demonstrating.

It doesn’t occur to Dean that he’s breathing too rapidly until he’s trying to appease Sam by taking a deep breath in; every movement minutely changes the weight distribution in his body enough to make him all too aware of the cum in his belly, or dizzy at the feeling of it gushing out of him upon an exhale.

A few tears slip from his eyes— he knows Sam can’t see anything from under the blanket, but he can’t imagine what state he’s looking like, and he’s physically and emotionally completely overwhelmed, which is also inexplicably embarrassing. 

“Hey, no crying, you gotta save that water,” Sam jokes, smiling encouragingly at him, “you’re pale as a fuckin’ ghost, dude, you’re dehydrated enough that I’m thinking it might be worth it to have you kick my ass later if it means getting you to a hospital right now.”

“No! No, no hospitals, no hospitals,” Dean pleads.

“I know, I know,” Sam acquiesces, frowning a little, “I’ll avoid it.”

Before Dean can make him swear not to take him to a hospital, Rowena returns with another small vial; she explains that it’s a basic healing potion, won’t do more for him than an I.V of saline would, but that’s helpful enough, and the exhaustion hits again so that once he’s drunk that down, he’s down and out for another while.

His eyes open blearily at some point, he sees Rowena and Sam sitting around Cas, who’s sitting up, covering himself with his wings and has his head in his hands, but he only hears soft muttering, and he falls back asleep.

When he comes to again, he’s starving, and feeling exhausted, but remarkably better.

Cas is gone, though.

When Dean looks at where Cas was sat last, and then to Sam, Sam frowns at him, shrugs, and tells him, “you know how Cas gets when he’s hurt you — even accidentally.”

Dean shouldn’t be surprised. This is what Cas does.

Still, he feels sort of... hollow.

“He, uh… he didn’t know how much control he’d lose,” Sam tells him, handing him a sleeve of saltine crackers, and a sports drink from the food earlier removed from the cooler, “... it sounds like maybe Rowena downplayed how insane it was gonna get, to get him to agree to the terms. It sounds to me like he... didn’t realize precisely what he was agreeing to.”

“Oh,” Dean utters, shoving crackers into his face.

Unexpectedly, his heart hurts for Cas.

Dean was frightened through all that, and he could’ve died from the shock of it alone, but Cas didn’t even know where or who he was. He must have been - beyond horrified, when he came back to his right mind.

There isn’t energy enough in Dean right now to be angry with Rowena, or go looking for Cas, though.

He busies himself with wiggling his toes back into mobility, stretching his aching legs, eating, and drinking enough so that he can get dressed, get back to their motel, and bathe for the next century.

It’s all he can do, to focus on the here-and-now, because considering anything else might make him burst into tears or projectile vomit out of anxiety and stress, so he talks to Sam, and he stuffs his face, and he very nearly misses the strange flipping sensation under his sternum.

It’s the same thing that happened to him when he first stepped on the platform, and he didn’t know what to make of it then, and he has no idea what to make of it still, and he doesn't say anything about it, but he notices it.

Absently, he wishes Cas were there to talk to about it.