Title: Empire

Summary: Sequel to Deuteronomy. Dean's never had anything for himself before, and he's not entirely sure how this works. So he fumbles, he stumbles, and he tries to explain. Dean/Castiel.

Rating: Soft R

Warnings: It's slash, people. But there's nothing explicit this time, so yay. Oh, and blasphemy, but that's pretty much a given with these two, isn't it?

A/N: The events of the first story are touched upon in this one, but I'd suggest you read the first one… well, first. It's not terribly long, and definitely interesting. You can try to read this one without the first. Let me know how that works out

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except for the disturbing thoughts that plague my mind… about characters that I don't own. So, does that technically make them Kripke's thoughts? That pervert!

Empire

Dean would have been surprised that Sam hadn't called. Really. But he wasn't worried about Sam at the moment. There were a lot of other things to worry about. The fate of his immortal soul should have taken top priority, especially after the night before, but he wasn't concerned. He wasn't worried. He'd been assured that he was fine.

Sam was fine, too. He could take care of himself. And if he tried to call and realized that Dean had turned his phone off, well, too bad for Sammy. Dean was still a little pissed. Making him sleep in the car.

Well, not sleep so much as-

"You haven't touched your breakfast."

Dean jumped, scolding himself for letting his mind wander. He turned his eyes from the run-down little diner he'd found near the park to the angel sitting across from him. "Neither have you."

"I was waiting for you."

"To eat? Go right ahead."

"I was being polite." Castiel said.

Dean laughed. "Right. Because after last night, I'd totally expect that." He regretted the words as soon as they'd left his mouth, and cast his eyes away from his companion again. "Sorry."

The angel leaned forward slightly, haphazardly knotted tie getting dangerously close to his syrup-drenched plate. "You have nothing to be sorry for. It was God's Will."

"Just… eat your breakfast," Dean mumbled, entirely too uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. As if his life hadn't been messed up enough before, as if he hadn't already screwed himself to Hell once, he'd had to go and do it all again and take someone else with him this time, even though that someone said that neither of them were going.

He glanced up to see the angel starting to eat, cutting up the two burnt waffles he'd ordered and carefully chewing, swallowing. He'd never seen the other man eat before, he realized.

He hadn't realized a lot of things. Like just how screwed up he really was. Like just how far he was willing to go to get a sense of belonging, of happiness, of love. "Does this mean you're gonna stay with me now?"

He clamped his teeth down as soon as the question had left his mouth. Stupid. What was it about silence that always made him want to fill the void, that made him say stupid things, ask stupid questions, do stupid things?

"Do you want me to stay?" Castiel asked.

"Maybe."

He shrugged. "Then I'll stay." And just like that, it was settled.

Dean blinked. "Really?"

"If that is what you want."

"I…" He didn't have a response to that one. "Well, don't you have other, I dunno, Heaven stuff to do?"

"Not anymore."

Dean let out a hiss of air. "Right. Sor-"

"Don't apologize."

"Well, what about that guy?"

Castiel looked over his shoulder, as if searching for the person Dean was referring to. "What guy?"

"The one you're in," Dean clarified. "How's he feel about this?" Because, honestly, when he got to thinking about it, it was rape on two levels. And he just wasn't cool with that.

"Thomas feels nothing." Castiel said, and that hadn't exactly been the reply that Dean had expected, but he went with it, nonetheless.

"You really need subtitles, you know that? Angel to English. We should write a dictionary."

The angel cocked his head to one side, inspecting the hunter. "What I said is simple and straightforward, Dean. He feels nothing but Heavenly bliss. He has moved on to his reward."

"Are you trying to tell me he's dead? You killed him? I thought you said he prayed for this."

"He did. He prayed for a release from the pain of his life. He prayed that he could do good in his final moments."

"So you possessed him and you killed him." He didn't know why, but he was strangely hurt. The idea of necrophilia-

"This body is alive as long as I inhabit it. You've felt its warmth. You know that I'm telling you the truth."

"You killed a man."

"He was already dying."

Dean shook his head. "What?"

"This man," Castiel said, gesturing toward the body he was inhabiting, "he was dying. He had been diagnosed with a type of cancer. There was a tumor in his brain, and the doctors could not operate. It was slowly killing him. He prayed that the pain would be taken away, that he could be used for Good."

"So you hopped in, sent him off to Heaven, or wherever, and started walking around in his meat suit?" Dean asked.

"Basically, but with a little more finesse."

"So, you healed him."

"I sent him off to his reward. I answered his prayers."

"And you cured him."

Castiel frowned. "I do not understand."

"You said he had cancer. There was a tumor. It was gonna kill him. It's gone now, right?"

"This body cannot die as long as I am here."

"So he's still sick?"

"No harm will come to-"

"But that tumor's still growing?" Dean asked, suddenly scared. He swallowed hard, the quickly cooling food in front of him suddenly seeming less appetizing.

Wherever his fear had come from, it was ungrounded. The angel had a point. He couldn't die. Not of something as trivial as cancer. But, still, that fear was there, tickling the back of Dean's mind.

An inoperable brain tumor. Months to live. What made him so worthy of this, of anything, of being saved? What made him better than anyone else? Why did he get a reward for doing the unthinkable, the unspeakable? It was God's Will.

God had a twisted sense of humor, ripping him out of Hell and giving him a dying angel as a gift.

"Nothing bad is going to happen to me. Dean, are you all right?"

"Fix it."

"I'm sorry?"

"Fix it," Dean growled. "And that's an order."

Castiel sighed, nodded, and closed his eyes. He sat like that for a while, with Dean staring, nervous, waiting for signs of a trick, before his eyelids slid back open and that bright blue stare bored back into him. "He's better. Fine. Are you all right?"

"You're sure? Positive?"

"Completely healed. Are you-"

Dean forced a grin, stabbed his fork into his waffles. "Great. Never better."

"You were scared."

"Got a lot of shit happening at once. You'd be scared, too."

The angel nodded again before turning back to his breakfast. Dean watched him for a moment before deciding that he wasn't lying about healing the vessel, and turned to his own cold plate of food.

He was regretting insisting on getting breakfast after what had happened in the park. He was regretting a lot of things. Losing control, for one. Being so damned needy for another.

He shuddered. And since when was he was he always so cold? Seemed like a constant thing now. Probably all part of that big cosmic joke.

The silence droned on, hardly broken by the soft sound of chewing. "So, explain this to me again," Dean said, desperate for some kind of conversation, anything to distract from the whirlwind of thoughts racing through his mind. "I own you?"

Castiel looked up from his breakfast and smiled. Dean barely held back a gasp. It was instantaneous. He wasn't cold anymore. He wasn't scared. He wasn't confused. Wasn't lonely. Wasn't anything but loved and wanted and… it was odd. Something that had taken a kiss the night before took a smile now?

He smiled back, unable to help himself. "Well?"

The angel shrugged, an action that struck Dean as strangely human. "I suppose you could phrase it like that. Yes. I belong to you. Whatever you need, I will provide. Just say the word."

The smile faded from the hunter's lips. That sounded good. Way too good. And life had taught him that if something sounded too good to be true (one year, and Sam will live a full, healthy life), it usually was (but he'll grow distant. He'll grow desperate. He'll become a stranger).

"That's why you let me do what I did in the car?"

"God commanded that, just as He commanded that you be ripped from Hell."

"But you healed Thomas because I told you to?"

"Yes."

Dean leaned forward, pushing his plate out of his way with his forearms. He was quickly losing his appetite. "But you didn't want to. Not really."

"You wanted me to." Castiel stated it as if it were a simple fact, and it was. But something about the way he said it made Dean's skin crawl.

"You don't have free will, do you?"

"No. I don't."

"Everything you've ever done, someone told you to do. Either me or God."

"I am honored to be of service."

Dean narrowed his eyes, inspecting the other man. "You've never made your own decisions? You've never had any control?"

"No. It was never important to me. I never needed control. I was happy to do God's work, and I am happy to fulfill your wishes."

Damn, if his heart didn't flutter at that one. Sure, plenty of people had said that to him in his lifetime, but this was the first one that actually meant it, the first one he wasn't paying.

He shook his head. "You don't want free will?"

Castiel gave him that innocent look of his, blue eyes wide and questioning, head cocked to the side like a curious puppy. "Should I?"

Dean decided to let that one go unanswered.

-.-

"Just let me do all the talking." Dean slid the small, tarnished key to the motel room out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He really wasn't looking forward to explaining this situation to his brother, especially after he'd found all the frantic voicemail messages left on his phone that morning.

He walked into the room to find Sam standing by the television set, frantically messing with the old knobs in attempt to the clear the static that had burst into life as Dean and his companion had neared the door.

"Hey, Sammy."

Sam turned from the TV and glared at his brother. "Where the Hell have you been?" His eyes flicked to the angel. "And who the Hell is that?"

Dean managed a smirk. "Funny you should mention Hell."

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "Really not in the mood today, Dean."

"Yeah, well, neither am I." The older man sighed and flopped down on his bed, leaving Sam and the angel standing across form each other, staring. "Sam, Cass. Cass, Sam. Now that we all know each other-"

"That's not my name," Castiel argued.

"Well, it should be." Dean said. "Why should I be expected to waste my time on those two extra syllables when I don't have to?"

"Wait," Sam said, interrupting what might have been an argument. "This is your angel?"

Dean almost corrected him, almost told him that it wasn't like he'd gotten the damned thing chipped, but then thought better of it. He wasn't even sure how Sam would take to having a third body in the Impala with them, let to alone to finding out that Dean owned that third body. Because that proclamation was bound to come with some questions, and the older hunter just couldn't deal with those at the moment.

So he shrugged, hoping to take the easy way out. "Guess you could call him that."

"What's he doing here? Is something up?"

No, Dean thought automatically, his mind whirring to life before the rest of him could follow, but it was last night. He shook his head, hoping like hell that the angel hadn't chosen that moment to dig around in his thoughts. Not that it mattered anymore. All he had to do was say the word, and all threats of Hell would vanish forever. He hoped.

"No," he finally said, realizing that the pause between question and answer had grown a little too long for comfort. "Nothing's wrong. He just needs a place to crash for a while." Like, as long as I want him. He couldn't help but smile. That would take some explaining, too, when the time started to drag on, but he had a feeling he could handle it.

Sam shrugged. "Oh. All right, then." And for a moment, Dean was able to breathe easy. That hadn't been as hard as he'd thought. "So, where'd you go?"

"What?"

"I thought you were gonna sleep in the car last night," Sam said. "When I went out to find you this morning, the pillow and the sheet were out there and the windows were fogged over, but you were gone."

Dean heart stilled in his chest for half a second before he came up with a reasonable answer. "We went to get breakfast. There was a diner in town. I was hungry."

"Oh. Does he eat?"

"He's in some guy. Yeah." They both turned to look at the angel, who had barely said a word since entering the room.

"Oh." Sam was saying that at lot lately. "What did you bring me?"

Dean snorted. "Go get your own damn food."

The younger man rolled his eyes. "Thanks."

"Hey, you're not the one who had to sleep in the car last night." With another eye roll, Sam grabbed the keys and walked out of the room. Dean turned to Castiel and smiled. "That went better than I thought." He patted the space on the bed beside him. "Come here."

The angel shot him a questioning look, but obeyed, crossing the room and sitting down beside him on the bed. "Your brother doesn't know the whole story."

"And he won't. Like, ever. He'll come back with a crap-ton of questions about God and religion and Heaven or whatever, but he can't know about… that. Got it?"

"You want me to lie?"

Dean shrugged, kicked off his boots, and stretched out on the bed. "That gonna be a problem?"

"I've never done it before."

"Seriously? Oh, this is gonna be fun. Look, just don't say anything about what's really going on, ok?"

"You're really not going to tell him?"

"Give me one good reason-" Castiel opened his mouth. "-that doesn't involve the words 'honesty' or 'truth' or 'God.'"

The angel sighed. "He's bound to find out eventually."

"No. He's not. So just drop it." Den shrugged his shoulders, trying to relieve some tension. That was the one thing he was never going to explain, the one thing that he knew would make Sam walk away once and for all. It was unforgivable, God's Will or not, and he knew Sammy wouldn't be able to see past the rumpled sheets and fogged-up windows. Hell, he was still having trouble doing that.

So he was surprised when he suddenly wasn't the only one laying down on the bed, when another body was pressed up against his, a warm arm wrapped protectively around his shoulders.

He curled himself into the touch, wrapping his own arms around Castiel, rolling sideways and resting his head on the angel's chest. He wasn't gonna think about how weird it was. He wasn't going to wonder about how long Sam might be gone. He was only going to concentrate on the fact that he hadn't asked, had just received.

And he was so warm. Warm and wanted without a kiss, without a smile, with just a touch. With a presence. And it was nice.

"Do you love me?" It seemed a logical question to ask, if not a little early into whatever kind of odd relationship had been determined for them. It wasn't the kind of thing that he would usually ask, and he certainly wouldn't have a positive answer if the question was thrown back at him, but it didn't matter. Not this time. Maybe that had been what prompted it.

Castiel glanced over at him. "Do you want me to?"

Dean blinked. That hadn't been the response he'd been expecting. "I… think so. Yeah."

"Then, yes. I do."

The hunter shook his head. "It doesn't work like that, Cass."

"But, you want-"

"Can you fix the TV?" The silence that followed was heavy, awkward. Warm fingers traced the mark on Dean's arm, finding it even under the layers of clothing, lightly touching as the TV screen hissed in and out of static.

Dean barely noticed. He was too busy thinking. A catch. There was always a catch. Always something that made it too good to be true. And he'd found it. What good was love if it was forced, not mutual? Was it even really love? Or was it just slavery?

Part 2 should be up tomorrow. Thanks for reading.