Disclaimer: ERIC KRIPKE's MIND-BABIES ARE NOT MINE!
Also, there's a little bit of implied slash/actual slash going on... fairly standard Future!Cas fare. Name for this fic taken from 3OH!3's song, "Love 2012".
The girl straddling his thighs is warm and soft, lips sweet with flavored gloss, rainbow leggings chafing against his palm with the irritating rasp of synthetic fabric; she's 18, 19 at most, with a whole family rotting away in some God-forsaken city. He's got six more like her splayed across various pieces of furniture, breath bitter with alcohol and drugs, faces slick and pale and unmemorable. They all grab at him the same way, unclipped nails digging into his shoulderblades, mouths hard and demanding and desperate; they fuck him like they're dying, and he can't even remember their names. He doesn't even need to, because as far as he can remember they've never called him out for slipping and saying You instead of Samantha or Victoria or Alex.
"Castiel," the Rainbow Girl (whose name might have something to do with flowers) gasps. She's new, just pushed off the trucks and hurled into the refugee swirl of Chitaqua; in 2014, no one has time to monitor the newcomers and help them fall in with the right people. There are no right people anymore, just Castiel's harem, Reesa's "Anti-Gun Control" exorcists, Jake's "The South Will Rise Again" lot, and Chuck. And if a new arrival happens to take a fancy to Castiel, well. Who is he to complain?
He hums absently when she slips away, tears streaming down her cheeks; she's so new, dirt and dried blood and bits of her dead parents still cling to her high, narrow forehead, the pinched curve of her cheeks.
"I...I've never..."
One of the other girls rolls to her feet and takes Rainbow Girl's place, all grace and long legs and damp, untrimmed hair. And if, when the newcomer finally forces her survival instincts and little Orphan Annie issues into one tight wad of self-loathing and regret, she slides into his bed with the others... that's just progress.
He might sleep with her; she might even have been a virgin.
"She's 18 years old, Cas. Eight-fucking-teen!"
Hard, callused hands close around the frayed collar of his t-shirt and hurl him into the nearest wall without pity. His foot, clumsy in its Ace bandage, nudges a pickle jar overflowing with sticks of burned incense; glass shatters between them, glistening razors that represent more than a slip of atrophied appendages. It's a metaphor for the silence between them, the gap they never filled after Sam, after Dean first pressed him into a faded mattress and stripped away the last thing that made him better, that made him an angel. It's silent kisses shared in the back of the Impala, the quick rush of shame when Castiel took what he'd learned from Dean and applied it to a young woman named Patsy, when Dean came home dripping with blood and sweat and tears and found the two of them in bed...
"Age of consent," he says coolly.
"Not. Here." Dean punctuates his sentences with blows, rough smacks of the former angel's head against the wall.
"Because you said so?"
"You need a better reason?"
"Yes."
"Fine," Dean presses his palms against Castiel's chest, eyes the color of St. Elmo's Fire fierce and glittering with something like pride and righteousness and anger. None of these things had done him any good during the Apocalypse; they'd only served to drive Sam away, to force him unprepared into the clever grasp of the Devil. "Because she's just a kid, Castiel. A kid who'd never had sex, drugs, or alcohol until she met you."
"Well, it's too little too late, Fearless Leader. And besides, I don't think she's really the issue here..."
"No?"
"You're jealous." Castiel's voice is slow, insincere, dripping with mockery and unheard laughter and he knows it's driving Dean crazy. "Just 'cause you haven't gotten laid since-"
"Shut up." The last Winchester recoils as if burned, as if Castiel is one of those tree frogs with poisonous skin and he's the unlucky man trapped in the rainforest with it.
"Why haven't you?" He curls his fingers around Dean's jacket collar, tugging sharply; it leaves a bright red streak against the pale vulnerability of Dean's neck. "I mean, it's not like half the women in camp haven't been throwing themselves at you..."
"You're high."
"Generally," he replies. "But you wouldn't care if I was or wasn't if we were still-"
"Never mind," Dean says sharply. There's a slight tremor in his voice, a shifting at the core of who Dean is, of the hard, inpenetrable mask he slips into for Chuck, for Reesa, for the refugees in Camp Chitaqua. "If she was stupid enough to come here in the first place, she deserves to get screwed."
He turns to go, but Castiel reels him in; it's less a kiss than an inhalation, a wordless transference of unsatisfied hunger and longing and pain. Dean curls into him, by far the more experienced lover though he's only had five years to find and teach and play, melting into Castiel's hands and heart and soul...
"This doesn't change anything," the former angel whispers, nudging his face into the soft tangle of Dean's hair.
"Yes it does," Dean replies.
He swallows Castiel's protests whole, and for the better part of the day, they both have faith again.
Author's Note:
So...yeah. This was just something I really wanted to write. Future!Cas is an asswipe, isn't he? Reviews are appreciated, not required. Many thanks to all who even READ this little thing. 3