Hello there, this is my first fictional story. So, if your kind enough to review, remember this is my first time. Be gentle. Lol
MOMENTS OF VULNERABILITY
Castiel found the demon, body shattered, in a dirty alley dumped in a dumpster. How she had arrived here, Castiel wondered. Perhaps, Meg had been hiding there. He doubted it. Meg wouldn't have lowered herself to that unless desperate, but then again by the looks of her she might have been that desperate. When he had opened the lid, the smell was the first thing he noticed. It would have been hard to get past, because it wasn't just from the dumpster. The demon stank of sulfur and of rot like that on a corpse. Castiel couldn't help the anger flaring up inside him.
"Meg, I'm going to get you out of here," He said softly. How she had escape from Crowley and ended here was a mystery that could wait. Meg moved her mouth in an attempt to answer the angel. She couldn't; her voice box had been crushed. She had mouthed his name in prayer so that he could found her. As gently as possible, he lifted Meg from the dumpster. Even with all his care, he knew that paralyzing pain still ripped through her body. It only served to fuel his anger. In an instant, he transported her to the nearest motel.
After their arrival, Meg lay on the single queen bed that occupied the motel room. She would have writhed in pain if she could have moved. Her body was covered in bruises; no, her whole body was a bruise. Some of her body was actually rotting too, turning gangrene. No bone had been left unbroken, and most were just shattered into hundreds of pieces. It was unfathomable of how she had been able to move let alone escape from Hell. This hadn't been the worse of condition most likely. Her demon body was healing her injuries, had been before the angel arrived, but it was proceeding at a sluggish rate. Castiel didn't understand that, because demons should have healed quickly. There was hardly any thought on what the angel's next course of action would be.
"Meg, I'm going to heal you," he told her. Standing over her, he had a gentle hand on her forehead, thumb stroking matted hair out of the demon's eyes. She couldn't speak, but those same eyes told him that she did not like the idea, at all. The power of his Grace didn't tend to act well with her demonic powers. "The faster you heal, the faster you can get back in the fight." Castiel was going to heal her no matter, but he would like her consent. Appealing to her thirst for revenge seemed best route to get that.
He lowered his mouth next to her ear, speaking in a low tone. "The Winchesters and I are going to hit one of Crowley's warehouses tonight. He might be there." It was a white lie. The boys and the angel were going after a warehouse, but it was an intelligence gathering mission. They didn't really expect Crowley to actually be there, but it wasn't impossible. As soon as he finished that last sentence, her eyes snapped to his, burning with unbridled rage. She nodded to him signifying that she would acquiesce to his healing.
Castiel nodded back in return, and took off his trench coat, throwing it to a chair in the room. This would get messy.
When Castiel had completed his task, he felt tired, tired and angry. He closed his eyes to remember what it had taken to heal the demon's wounds. He remembered the sound of bones snapping back in place, correcting themselves from the mangled positions they had been. Most of all, he remembered the screams from Meg. Although he had tried to muffle those screams, he had been astonished that no one had come by to investigate what was transpiring in the room. Advantages of a cheap motel, he assumed. Each one of those screams was another reason he would kill Crowley.
He had made his finish, though. No one could have guessed how badly the demon's body had been destroyed just moments ago. She was even stretching and jumping around the room now obviously testing and enjoying her freshly healed vessel. She even had an energy that seems to defy the situation from which she just recovered. Currently, Meg had moved to the opposite side of the room near the door where an emergency escape route had been posted. That sign seem ridiculous to Castiel. All the rooms of the motel were faced out toward the parking lot. In case of emergency, you open the door and walk outside. Why did humans need directions for that?
"Wow Feathers, I feel great. I should let you heal me more often." She told Castiel. The angel just grunted in a reply back. He felt too fatigued to say anything else, and he just watched the demon move around.
Facing the one window in the room, Meg went to an orthodox boxer's stance, her right shoulder slightly behind her left, and like a boxer she was shifting, dancing really, from one foot to the other. Meg threw a few jabs into the air, two quick lefts then a hard right. Her punches were inhumanly quick, and if Castiel hadn't been an angel, he wouldn't have been able to seen them. Meg was pleased, and she let out a short dry laugh. With a wicked grin on her face, Meg continued her air boxing cycling through new combos. She acted gleeful, a word Castiel never thought he would ever associate with the demon.
Theorizing, Castiel thought the excess energy used to heal her was the source of her renewed vigor. On the other hand, the angel was left exhausted after the exertion. In fact, he found that his right arm was resting on the motel's mattress, supporting his weight. Now that he had discovered this, he felt his exhaustion growing. He sat himself on the bed and turned, pulling his legs on the bed as he did so, to rest his back against the backboard. Although the angel had been around before time and the universe began, he had very little familiarity with beds. This one felt uncomfortable, and he briefly wondered how humans could tolerate sleeping on such. Perhaps, the quality of this mattress was poor, he thought.
Suddenly, as soon as Castiel had settled somewhere near the middle of the bed, Meg executed a quarter turn to face the wall opposite of the bed. The hair on the angel's neck began to rise and realized that Meg was gathering demonic energy. Before he could speak to stop her, Meg threw a strong right jab toward the wall and released her power at the end of the punch. Although the energy was invisible, Castiel could see its distortion on the fabric of reality. Not unlike a cannonball, the unseen force zoomed toward the wall. With a loud crack and crash, dry wall and the sparse insulation held inside splintered and flew outward into the adjoining room. An almost perfect circular hole, about the size of a basketball, was left in the wall.
Castiel would never admit it, but he was impressed at the precision of the strike. Also, to his surprise, Meg hadn't used Hellfire, something that many demons use to augment their own strength. That ball of energy was from Meg alone, and he knew it had been a fraction of her total power. The demon had gotten strong during her stint in Hell.
When the noise of Meg's blast had subsided, the angel heard yelling originating from the other room. Most of the words were incomprehensible and non-sensible, but he could tell there were at least a man and woman in the next room. Castiel's naivety stopped him from connecting the dots on those two's activities. Meg, more worldly, bent a little to see through the hole that she created. Whatever she saw made her grin grow larger.
"Oh my," Meg feigned at being aghast. "Get a room you two!" She yelled in a mocking manner.
"WE ARE IN A ROOM!" an irate man's replied came back.
"Well, then lose some weight." Meg blurted back, and then she stood fully upright, leaned her head back and laughed. It was a rich, true laugh full of mirth. Castiel couldn't remember if she had ever done that before, and he couldn't help but smile himself.
"I'm glad to see your sense of humor hasn't changed," Castiel said. He couldn't help keep some of his own humor out of his voice. Meg turned towards Castiel and regarded him, still retaining that wicked smile. Something flashed across her face, some emotion that quickly came to the surface of her face and then submerged again just as quickly. Castiel thought it might have been concern, but dismissed that notion quickly as Meg's smile turned from wicked to absolutely evil.
"What's the matter with you?" She asked the angel with a nod. Apparently, he hadn't been able to keep the fatigue out of his voice either.
"I'm weary from healing you." He thought telling her the simple truth was the best strategy. Many times he had been told he was a terrible liar from multiple sources. Meg would have recognized a lie immediately.
Castiel was becoming concerned, even fearful, of how Meg was observing him. The angel was beginning to understand the term 'sitting duck'. He should have thought about this possibility, instead of letting his emotions allow him to get carried away. He should have healed her in stages over a number of days, instead of in one setting allowing him to become so exhausted, to become so vulnerable. Even with her new powers, Castiel could have defeated Meg in any other circumstance. Foolishly, arrogantly, he had never considered the chance that she would gain the upper hand.
The demon was many things, but above all she was a predator. Predators didn't like a fair fight when they could avoid it. The preferred to prey on the weak, sickly, or elderly of the ones they hunted. Currently, that was what Castiel was right now, weak. Wrongly, he had thought that the nature of their relationship had moved them past from being enemies. Suddenly, he remembered the parable of the scorpion and the frog. It was in her nature to hunt and kill. He was admonishing himself; that would have been obvious to him had he not been so emotionally invested. You don't give a lamb to a tiger and expect the tiger not to eat it, he thought.
Castiel shifted in an attempt to look more opposing. He failed. Without warning, Meg jumped across the bed landing on top of him. Her knees straddled his hips, and her arms kept his pinned to the bed's headboard. He attempted to struggle against her, but as he feared was way too weak.
"What's wrong, angel? You look afraid," She had bent her head to place it inches away from Castiel's and she spoke in low almost seductive manner. She sniffed him. "You smell afraid." She licked the side of his face. "You taste afraid. Are you afraid of me right now, Clarence?" She tilted her head blinked deliberately once, and when she opened her eyes, her pupils had changed. However, they were not the encompassing black he had known. Her irises were now a bright shining yellow. The demon had grown strong indeed. Only a few times had Castiel ever been so alarmed.
"Your eyes have changed." Castiel tried to switch tactics, stall if he could, in little hope he could quickly gain some of his strength back. Also, even in the face of this danger, he was actually genuinely curious.
Meg's face dropped to a serious concentration with hate, fear, and pain blending into her expression. "Yeah, I guess they have. The more torture a soul bears and survives it, the stronger the soul gets, right? Very Highlander, I know," the reference of course was lost on the angel, "Well, when I was downstairs, Crowley pulled out all the stops on me. I guess it's not that surprising. Alistair was my father after all. I guess the eyes run in the family."
Her evil predatory smile came back to her face in force. "I hope you like them," she continued, "it will be the last thing you'll see." The demon had thought about adding probably to the end of that sentence. Castiel had come back from the dead so many times now; it wouldn't surprise her if he did so again. That would of have been too confusing, she had decided. When you're going to kill someone at the end of a one-liner, it needs to be clean and simple, avoid being too convoluted. She preferred evil clichéd lines just like the one she just used.
Just then, Castiel noticed the feel of a blade on his neck. Meg was holding his sword to the side of his neck. When and how she had lifted it off him had escaped his attention. That's how tired Castiel was. His last ditch efforts to struggle were of no use. He stopped, put his eyes on hers, and readied himself to his fate. It seemed strange that this was how he was going to die. What a foolish mistake he had made this time, helping a demon. Meg raised the blade a few inches, and her muscles went rigid ready to plunge the sword into the angel. Castiel tensed. Then Meg began to chuckle until it became another hearty laugh full of her twisted sense of humor. Castiel looked at her quizzically.
"The look on your face was priceless," Meg chortled lowering the blade from Castiel's throat.
Horrible abomination! Castiel thought. It had been a joke; the demon had been teasing him. "I stand corrected, Meg. Your humor has grown even more warped. I hadn't thought it possible," Castiel said dryly with a grimace. It irritated him to be the butt of the demon's joke.
"Oh, come on, fly boy. Did you really think I was going to do it?" Meg moved her arms to wrap them around the angel's neck. She was still very close to Castiel's face and spoke in her usual sultry manner.
"I wouldn't have put it past you." Castiel was still not amused at her antics, but his hands had moved to hold her hips. Without either one realizing it, they had framed a very intimate pose together. They hadn't noticed because of how natural and comfortable their proximity was. "Why didn't you kill me?"
The mirth from her face died a little as she considered her answer, and her eyes reverted to the normal brown of her vessel's. "Well, you're one of most powerful beings on this planet. A real asset in a fight." She shrugged her shoulders. "I figure waste not, want not." As if that explained everything, she began to move away from him, pushing her arms off his chest.
Castiel wasn't satisfied with the answer, and he kept his grip on her firm to stop her from leaving. "Is that the only reason?" He searched her eyes, but she looked away before he could find any truth there. It took her sometime before she spoke again.
"Trust doesn't exist for a demon." She spoke and her stare was far away now as she was reliving old memories. Castiel was perplexed at the reply, but he didn't interrupt. "You always have to watch your back. Even with your allies, you constantly have to watch for the backstab." She jabbed a finger several times down on his chest to emphasize her point, and her voice sounded as if she was barely containing anger. When Meg continued, her voice went soft and she turned to look at her angel again. "I never had the option to trust anyone. Except you. You're the closest thing I've had to a friend … ever."
They continued to stare at each for a few tense seconds. Castiel recognized what the confession had cost Meg. She had allowed him to see a moment of vulnerability in her. For that matter, she had allowed herself that moment. Demons just didn't do that, especially not Meg, unless they were trying to pull a con on someone. However, Castiel didn't sense any deception from the thorny demon. He didn't understand why she had confessed to him the way she did. Maybe she had recognized his moment of vulnerability, and she saw this as a fair exchange. That might be giving the demon too much credit, although. Perhaps, it was due to the haunted look that she possessed back from her trip to Hell. No, Castiel just could not discern the demon's motivation, and so he gave up trying. What did it matter? It would take an eternity to understand Meg, and since he had that, he still didn't know if that would be long enough. Instead, he did the only thing he thought sensible at the moment.
Meg was looking like see was waiting for a reply or some kind of response to her uncharacteristic revelation. Well, she got one. Castiel leaned up, hugged Meg tightly, and kissed her with the passion of a dying man. The demon was at first taken aback, but soon enough was kissing the angel right back. Her arms wrapped back around his neck, and one hand ended tugging his hair. Both forced each of their own unique feelings into that kiss. Neither knew how long the kiss actually last. A few seconds or minutes, who knew? When they parted, their lips were swollen and hearts were pounding.
Meg pulled back with eyelids half open and a salacious grin wide on her face. She knew that Castiel was still exhausted, but she had been full of energy before the kiss. After that kiss, she was getting hot and bothered to boot. "Angel, you better have not gotten me revved up and be too tired to take a ride." Castiel just gave her an innocent stare and shrug.
"I got an itch and you –," Meg tried to continue before an unexpected yawn came out. Her eyes went wide with surprise as though she didn't understand what a yawn was. "What the hell –," another yawn interrupted her. Demon just like angels didn't need sleep. She looked to Castiel for answers.
"It seems the energy that I used to heal you has worn off. Since your wounds were so extensive, your body expended its own energy to facilitate the healing." Cas told her in a matter of fact manner.
Meg just nodded, yawning while she did so, and twisted off of Castiel to sit next to him. She promised herself that once she was able she would resume what that kiss started. For now, it was all she could do to lean her head on the angel's shoulder, his arm wrapped her waist. They both would have to sit there until their strength returned. Maybe it should have bothered them both more that they were defenseless, but it didn't. Alone, each were in a moment of vulnerability, but being close together neither felt like so.
Yes, I know I used a line from Futurama, but hell Meg reminds me of Bender.