Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, nor am I making any sort of profit from writing this.
Full Summary: As usual, an apparently simple hunt goes tits up when the boys wind up on the wrong side of a 'witch'. Since she's just a misguided teenager, Sam and Dean decide to let her live – in spite of the fact that she claimed to have cast a spell to bind Dean to his soulmate and slowly kill them both. Of course, Dean thinks the joke's on her. Really? Soulmates? It's hilarious, until it's not, and he wakes up the next morning with a really pissed off angel perched on the end of his bed.
They soon find out that the spell really, really sucks. Not only is it physically painful for Dean and Cas to be too far apart, but they can hear eachother's thoughts and feel eachother's emotions. The hardest part, for Dean at least, is having to learn to control Castiel's grace, which apparently is now a part of him and somehow fully restored. It would be awesome, if it didn't feel like he was caught in the middle of a tempest all the time. How did Jimmy describe being possessed by Cas? Like riding a comet? He wasn't wrong.
Notes: Set around the middle of season 12, but not really part of the canon storyline. I like to think this happens sometime after Season 12, episode 12. But again, it has nothing to do with the main story.
Please comment/review! I want to know how I'm doing! :3
Warnings: Internalized homophobia, PTSD symptoms, canon-typical violence, swearing, very mild dubious consent (which is really more like emotional constipation and denial), graphic sexual content (Ao3 version only), possible spoilers for anything before season 12.
Dean knocks back a shot of whiskey, and watches Sam desperately try to avoid a woman old enough to be their grandmother, who's trying to hang off his arm as he pays the barkeeper for their next round. Sam looks at Dean pleadingly as the woman keeps following him, and Dean just gives him his best shit eating grin. What is it with Sam and cougars, though? They always seem to go right for him – like flies on crap. Not that he means to think Sam is crap, because he absolutely isn't, but still. He looks like he wants to kill something when he makes it back to their table with a couple beers.
"What's the matter, Sammy? I think that's the best looking one yet," Dean says, using the edge of the table to pop the cap off his beer.
Sam rolls his eyes and downs half his beer in one gulp. "Dean, she has pink hair. And she's like seventy."
"You gotta admit she can pull it off," Dean counters with an obnoxious wink.
"No," Sam grumbles and pulls out his phone, probably to avoid talking to Dean. "Eileen texted me before. There's a hunt in Arkansas, signs all point to a werewolf pack and she wouldn't mind some back-up."
"All right then, we'll head out in the morning. At least this job wasn't too bad," Dean replies, watching the pink-haired cougar lady move on to easier prey – a stoned college jock who's barely holding his head up.
"Aren't you worried, though? I mean..." Sam's laughing so hard he can barely get the words out. "She 'bound you to your soulmate', and supposedly you're going to slowly wither away and die! I mean, that's horrible Dean."
"Shut up, Sam." Dean giggles like a girl as he balls up a paper napkin and throws it at Sam's head. "Freaking witches, man. Do I even have a soulmate? Is that even a thing? If I did, I'm sure she's either a demon or dead by now. She probably thought we were gay like everyone does, except your cougars."
"I'm not even sure she was really a witch," Sam replies with a shake of his head. "Dude, she had a fucking hello kitty poster behind her alter."
Dean is laughing so hard he can't breathe, which feels great considering how long it's been since he's laughed like this. He can't even be mad, really. The hunt was a bust. Their 'witch' turned out to be a teenage girl, and the person they thought she killed was actually a completely unrelated drug deal that went south. Regardless, it's been ages since he and Sam just sat in a bar having a good time. For a moment, at least, he can pretend that Lucifer isn't loose again and they haven't both been to Hell and back. Dean smiles wistfully and finishes his beer.
"Did you see the actual alter, though? She had a Thor action figure there, like Avengers Thor," Dean tells Sam as they head out for the night.
Sam is laughing so hard he chokes and there's tears in his eyes. "And the, oh my God, the cat was named Lestat!"
"At least it wasn't Edward!" Dean answers as he climbs into Baby and thinks that he probably shouldn't be driving, but the motel is literally five minutes down the road so it should be fine.
"Please, Dean, don't tell her parents about the spells and things!" Sam says, looking over at him with big puppy eyes.
It's all Dean can do to stay on the road as he nearly passes out from hysterics. By the time they turn in for the night, Sam already has all the info on the deaths associated with Eileen's werewolf pack. There's four dead, all of them with their hearts ripped out. The scenes were messy and the state of the victims bodies suggests that the wolves are probably newly turned, and not that good at their game yet. Dean doesn't really care. He's dead tired and they have a lot of driving ahead of them. He doesn't even bother to change out of his clothes as he curls up in bed.
When Dean wakes up the next morning, Sam is in the shower. He can hear the water running through the motel's flimsy plaster walls. He rolls over without bothering to open his eyes. As he slowly starts to come awake, he notices something seems... Different. He can't just hear the water running, he can sense Sam's presence – not in the normal way, though. He can hear his heartbeat, can feel a bit of apprehension.
Dean sits upright, and almost vomits as it seems like the whole room is spinning as he moves. Wait. Why could he feel Sam's emotions? Slowly, he opens his eyes.
"Woah!" Dean almost falls out of bed. "Personal space," He wheezes, as he realizes Cas is sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed, staring at him like a lion with a juicy steak in front of his nose. Except... He looks pissed – is pissed. How does he know that, though? He can sort of feel it in the air between them. Cas is furious, and a little... Scared? Dean blinks, and does a double take. He can see Castiel's wings. They're dense shadows, like the way they looked when he saw him for the first time in that barn with Bobby, but somehow more corporeal. They're huge, and barely fit in the room, though that doesn't seem to matter since they just pass through solid objects, clipping through them like a bad video game render. Unable to stop himself, Dean reaches forward to feel them. His fingers just pass though, but something like an electric shock dances across his skin. Cas snatches his hand and pushes it away.
"Dean..." Cas says, more growls like a feral animal, "What have you done now?"
"I don't know? What are you talking about? Sam and I went on a hunt for a witch that turned out to be some stupid teenage girl, and then we had a few beers and I crashed," Dean explains. "Seriously, Cas, that's it."
He can see my wings? How can that be? Dean meets Castiel's eyes with a mixture of horror and awe. Did he say that out loud? Dean doesn't think so.
"No," Cas says, shaking his head. "I did not."
"Well, shit." Dean gets up, slowly because if he moves too fast everything seems to move with him. "This is the worst hangover ever. I wasn't even really drunk, though. Cas, what's wrong with me?"
"It would appear that some of sort spell is binding us together. A permanent one," Castiel explains, some of the obvious anger seeming to subside. "So... I can hear your thoughts, you can see my wings... That doesn't explain how my grace was restored, unless..."
"Wait. A permanent bond?" He's starting to freak out, honestly. All he can think of is the soulmate nonsense, and how out of nowhere Cas is sitting in his bed demanding to know what stupid mistake he made this time. Dean chokes on a breath he doesn't know he's holding. Does that mean that Cas is his...? There's nothing he can do to stop the panic that wells up inside him. He's vaguely aware of Cas telling him to breathe, that he needs to 'maintain control', but he doesn't really know what that means. It's the sound of shattering glass, and the sudden darkness that engulfs the room that pulls Dean back to his senses. He's sitting on the bed, panting like he ran a marathon, covered in bits of broken glass from the fluorescent lights above him.
"Dean, calm down. Breathe." Cas has his hands on Dean's shoulders, holding him tightly.
"What the fuck?" Sam mumbles as he ventures out of the bathroom in his boxers, careful not to step in any broken glass. "Cas? When did you get here? What's going on?"
"Did... Did I do that?" Dean asks, shakily brushing shards of glass off his clothes.
"Yes," Castiel says flatly. "It would seem that this spell bound our souls together, except that I don't actually have a soul. I suppose the best way to explain it, is that my grace is intertwined with your soul and you now have access to it."
"Wait, what?! So, my soul is like super-glued to your angel mojo?" Dean says, his voice a little too high pitched.
"Not exactly, it's more like a chemical bond of two unlike elements that come to together to form a new substance that is indistinguishable from its original components, no longer able to be returned to its original separate state of matter," Castiel looks angry, but Dean can tell that he's actually terrified. "Human souls are powerful, though. When yours touched my grace it restored it. ...Even my wings. I can fly again!"
"What the fuck?" Sam repeats, sitting down on the edge of his bed.
"Sammy, I think our fake witch had some real magic." Dean stares at his hands, anything to avoid looking up at Cas.
"You mean..." He glances first at Dean, then to Cas and Dean can feel the moment it clicks in Sam's head. "Well, shit."
"That's what I said," Dean comments, shaking his head.
"Well, I can't say I'm surprised. You two act like an old married couple anyway. Whatever, we gotta figure out how to reverse this." Sam gets up and pulls on a pair of pants, as Cas snaps his fingers and the broken lights repair themselves instantly.
"We can't," Cas mumbles dejectedly. "If we did, it would destroy Dean's soul. It's taking up most of my focus to keep my grace from destroying him. He will need to learn to contain it himself, but that will take time and discipline."
"If you got your mojo back, can't you just send us back in time and we can stop this from happening?" Dean asks, managing to get his shit together enough to think straight.
"No," Castiel says sadly. "To do that I would have to go with you, otherwise the bond will fail and we'll both die. If I go with you, I won't be able to pull you back. Even then, I don't know if it will have adverse effects on you, as time travel requires a considerable amount of power. It isn't worth the risk. I suppose sending Sam is possible, but I doubt he could prevent it without giving himself away and casing a paradox."
"So now what?" Sam asks, looking at Castiel. "And... What does this all actually mean? That girl said she cast a spell to bind Dean to his soulmate and slowly kill both of them."
Castiel rolls his eyes and sighs. "Well, it might kill us if Dean can't control my grace, but otherwise we aren't in any danger," Cas explains irritably. "As for the concept of soulmates... I don't know. I'm not a cupid. True love in that sense does exist, but I've never heard of an angel and a human being marked as a pair. It could simply work that way because I have touched Dean's soul in the past. Either way, it's ridiculous and should be impossible."
"Ouch," Dean says, "Don't sugarcoat it, Cas."
The look that Cas gives him says it all, really. Dean can't deny that the comment stung. He can still hear Cas saying 'I love you', when he was dying after getting stabbed with Michael's spear. He wanted it to be true, tried to bring it up in conversation a few times after, but somehow they never actually talked about it. ...Not that Dean really tried. He would rather go for another stint in hell than own up to the conflicted morass of feelings he has where Cas was concerned. He definitely feels something for Cas, with all they've been through. It's just... not that. Maybe it could have been, if he wasn't a dude. He realizes a bit too late that Cas can hear his thoughts. Shit.
"I'm not technically -" Cas catches himself and shakes his head. "I'll be outside."
"Maybe we should call Rowena?" Sam suggests as Cas shuts the door behind him.
"Sure," Dean agrees, but can't really seem to focus. He's torn between some sort of primal need to follow Cas out that door, and the more rational part of himself telling him to stay put. It's like an itch nagging him to be closer to his angel. The itch turns into a sort of ache, a dull pain deep in his chest. Maybe he's just having a heart attack. He doesn't even care anymore. It takes Dean about two minutes to snap. As he gets up to head for the door, Cas comes back in and slumps against it as he closes it behind him.
"Alright, what just happened?" Sam asks.
"Apparently, we need to remain near eachother." Cas looks like he might explode from anger, but Dean can feel what's really going on in his head, and he's scared shitless.
"Ok, Sam, you go help Eileen. Cas, can you zap us to the bunker? We'll dig into the library and see if we can find something to lessen some of the effects of this, even if we can't actually remove it," Dean says, deciding that he isn't going to sit on his ass feeling sorry for himself. He's going to fight this thing with everything he's got. It might not be evil, but sure as hell is inconvenient.
"That should be fine," Cas tells him.
"Hey..." Dean asks awkwardly. "Can you feel it when your wings touch things like that?"
Cas turns his head to look at where the tip of his left wing is sticking through the edge of the bed. "No, but I did feel it when you tried to touch them."
"Have they always been there? Just, like, invisible?" Dean presses, ignoring the gagging noise Sam makes as he tells them to go get a room.
Castiel nods stiffly and holds his hand out to Dean. "Let's go to the bunker," He says, giving Sam an apologetic smile.
It feels different this time, when Cas flies them to the bunker. It's not instantaneous, and like being sucked through a vacuum. It feels like, well, flying. Dean catches glimpses of places as they flash by them. He can feel the wind tug at his clothes, and the dampness of clouds as they pass through them. He's breathless when they land outside the bunker. All he can think of is that flying is awesome, and he can't begin to imagine how much Cas must have missed it.
"It was the hardest part of losing my grace," Cas admits as they head inside. "I always loved flying, but... It's even better while I can feel how much you enjoy it."
"This shared emotion thing is weird, man." Dean smiles in spite of himself and leads the way inside the bunker.
"I imagine it's weirder for you since I don't really have emotions in the sense that you do," Cas replies, following him down the stairs.
"Actually, you do. Or, at least it seems that way on my end. Whatever you have translates the same way? I don't know. Like, right now you're sort happy because you can fly again, but this whole thing has you pissed off and terrified at the same time," Dean explains.
"You feel the same, but... Conflicted. You don't really want to remove this, but you feel that you are supposed to. Why?"
Dean doesn't answer, he just throws his jacket over the back of one of the chairs and heads to the kitchen to grab a beer out of the fridge. When he gets back, which doesn't take long because apparently even being a different room causes that annoying itch to be closer, Cas is already sitting at the table with a pile of books. Dean sighs and grabs his laptop. He'll leave the books to Cas; maybe he can find something in the database that Charlie set up for them. Charlie. Damn he misses Charlie. She would be beside herself with glee over this shit. He hates thinking about her, really. It always reminds him of how she could have had a perfectly happy, normal life if he hadn't dragged her in the leviathan mess. Well, maybe not. She was happy, until the end. She got to dick around in Oz with a hot girl, met an angel and got to actually live out some of her nerd fantasies with a fairy. Still, his heart hurts when he thinks of how they found her bloody and broken in a motel bathtub, of how she sacrificed everything to save his useless ass from the mark of Cain. Of all the friends and family he's lost, it's Charlie's death that fucked him up the most. Sure, losing Bobby hurt something awful, but Bobby was a hunter. Charlie was just a girl with a big heart and a wild imagination. She was like the little sister he never had, and he failed to keep her safe.
"I doubt she had any regrets," Cas says, placing his hand comfortingly on Dean's shoulder. "She got into an argument with Rowena when we were working on the codex. Afterwards, she told me that she would save you even if it killed her, however, she hoped it would kill Rowena."
"That's just a thing people say, Cas. They don't usually mean it. No one really wants to die for someone else," Dean replies, unconsciously leaning closer to Castiel.
"That's not true and you know it; you went to Hell for Sam," Castiel reminds him. "You didn't want that, Sam didn't want that, but you did it anyway and we both know you would do it all over again. I think it was the same for Charlie."
"You're probably right. Doesn't make it hurt any less," Dean tells him. "Thanks for trying, though."
"I think I found the spell your 'witch' cast on us," Cas tells him, letting go of Dean to walk over to the other side of the table to grab the book he had been reading.
"That was quick." Dean immediately misses the warmth of Castiel's touch, but that's just the spell, right? Cas hands him the book and stands beside him as he reads. It's some really old and obscure Irish Celtic witchcraft. It was meant to be a marriage bond used to strengthen a new union, but can be manipulated to draw two people together if fate dictated that they were soulmates. Apparently not all witches get their spells from books, some of them are born with powers like psychics, and use of this spell helped create couples likely to bear offspring with the desired attributes. The unsettling part, is that it isn't like the usual love hoodoo. It isn't black magic, and isn't meant to be harmful. It doesn't cause romantic feelings where there aren't any, like the potion Becky had drugged Sam with.
If the immediate targeted pair are incompatible, the magic follows the threads of fate and draws them to someone that is. It amplifies what is already there, and creates a telepathic bond as well as physical one. Thoughts, emotions and physical sensations are shared. Any biological psychic ability or power is passed on to the partner as well. There's notes in the margin about a witch who cast the spell on herself and her werewolf lover, and found that she contracted the lycanthropy on the next full moon. That would explain how Dean inherited Castiel's mojo. One thing worried Dean a bit more, though. If one of them died, so would the other. Their souls, in essence, were no longer separate entities. Of course, it got even better. The spell would draw them to eachother at all times, and the only thing that would lessen that need to be close was physical intimacy. Dean swallowed past a lump in his throat and handed the book back to Cas.
"So, we're actually soulmates then?"
"It would seem so, though as I said before it makes little sense with what I know of that system," Cas tells him, and picks up another book. "We can test that, though. This book has a spell that can reveal the threads of fate. Or, we can summon a cupid, but I'd rather avoid that. They're... Obnoxious."
"You mean like the gold threads we found when Atropos was ganking the people that survived because of you guys unsinking the titanic?" Dean asks curiously.
"Not exactly, those threads determine the course of the person's life. Cupids know when a pair belongs together, because the Fates are the one who sends them their jobs. Soulmates are bound together by an invisible red thread. Cupids can see it, of course," Cas checks over the list of ingredients for the spell, which strangely isn't very complicated. "This would make that thread temporarily visible."
"What are we? Twelve year old girls having a slumber party?" Dean cracks his knuckles and clears a spot on the table. "Let's get everything we need, then. We have all of it here in the bunker."