The tenth night is different than the first eight, different from the last one even more. Dean believes he should never have learned what comes after he loved you. Dean is holding tight to this particular belief as he sits on the motel bed with crossed legs, uncovered back stiff and straightened out unnaturally in a false sign of pride, his head hanging lowly, a thick crack on the supposed show of presented willpower.
He's staring at the dark comforter between his legs and as far as this day goes, he hasn't said a word. It doesn't help or matter. The weight of the stare his back is being all enveloped in, makes it impossible to pretend he's alone here. His back is being consumed, his spine is being sucked in, licked dry, the recently scarred bruises from the still not forgotten wall encounter are being classified into constellations, maybe marveled at. Undoubtedly getting fucked as they don'tspeak. Blue glare in, blue glare out, working the marks open slowly and painfully. And Dean thinks, maybe it's the artist jacking off to the genius of his own masterpiece kind of thing. But he well knows it's not. He doesn't know what it is, he only feels what it isn't. He hears footsteps on the ground and he feels the gaze shift. He's being circled, orbited, in a yet another way limited and surrounded. Trapped in a ring of unholy eye fire. The mattress sinks and creaks in a dangerous proximity of his skin. Of course. The only purpose of the other bed he fought for so long to acquire, is to not being taken, ever.
Pondering on the intricacies of the comforter is at this point pathetic and futile – this is yet another thing that Dean knows. In regards to that, he would love to say something along the lines of get off the fucking bed, but it is as pointless as his current stubborn play, for there's nothing within his power to make the Leviathan get off the fucking bed if he doesn't want to. Sometimes Dean doesn't have to say anything twice, sometimes he doesn't have to say anything at all. There are times when he can just as well repeat himself ad nauseam and it doesn't make a difference.
It's one of these days. One of those where the monster feels more entitled to closure than the others. Dean knows because there are at least four tentacles sliding around his neck lazily, trying to lift his stubborn chin upwards so Dean would look back into that false prophecy pair of eyes. Dean has no intention to do that. Dean has no intentions at all, tonight. Dean doesn't intent things when there isn't Sam, when there isn't a job, when there isn't something to love because this lie obviously doesn't count.
"He doesn't understand you" he hears a soft voice speaking, comforting him. He remembers that note from Cas's voice, he remembers how rare it was to hear hidden below his somber earthquake power, he remembers it was for him only, and that it always offered him redemption, salvation and compassion. Now it's a duplicate intended to make him either tick or play along. A good one. If the chomper keeps talking, Dean figures, it's going to work at some not entirely sober point of the evening. Dean thinks it's almost Odyssey-like siren alluring.
"Who" he offers a hollow question, not even bothering to modulate his voice to make it sound like he's asking.
This is the first thing Dean says today and, while he can't see it, he knows the Leviathan is smiling at him. He feels the smile through the caress of his boneless limbs. The way they softly curl and uncurl, giving him soothing, featherlike touch tingling on his neck in warmth he doesn't think he should accept, it makes him understand – his decision to speak is being praised.
"Your brother" the monster explains and Dean huffs at this, clearly not pleased to have the subject brought up, but that doesn't make the flow of poisoned, sweetly faked words stop. "Doesn't understand you would've done it over and over again and wouldn't regret even if you tried. It's not in the nature of a predator to shed tears over his prey. It's in his nature to hunt."
"I'm not a predator" Dean points out in a dull voice.
"Yes, you are. You're the one smart and skilled enough to bring all the other monsters to their knees and their deaths. Doesn't it make you the greatest of them all?" the Leviathan ponders in what sounds like awe, Dean finally looks up at him, considering it a mockery not truth, his stare stuck between offended and perplexed and he sees the chomper's eyes gleaming with pride and praise, a corrupt version of Cas's eyes smiling at his soul. Like it's honest. This is idiocy.
"This is bullshit, I'm doing this to save people" Dean snaps.
"You certainly are a noble case, Dean" the monster agrees and leans in dangerously. "But every kind acts for the good of their own kin" he says through this mouth reeking of cadavers, tainting the fragile air inches away from Dean's lips. "But of them all, you are the best adjusted, the toughest and as ruthless to others as you are merciful to your own."
Dean sees no shame in agreeing with the last part of the last part, he knows it's true. He lets out a chuckle full of contempt, still. There objectively are better things to be proud at than being an efficient death-bringer. Dean wishes there were other things he could be good at, so far he doesn't think there are.
The Leviathan frowns at that displeased and decides to push Dean down on the mattress. Dean isn't sure whether it happened so impossibly slowly, slow enough for him to have a chance to counteract, or if it only felt like slow motion. Either way, the result is that Dean finds himself in both ways neither cooperative nor troublemaking as his mouth is being, again, haunted by another. It rests against his own lightly, covers it thoroughly like a veil.
"You are a miracle, Dean" the Leviathan murmurs against Dean's desecrated lips as he breaks the rather pathetic one-sided attempt at a kiss. "The alpha among the kind that was never intended to have one" he declares and kisses Dean again, maybe hoping that enough insistence grants him a feast for the hunger.
It has to be hunger, Dean thinks, the only thing monsters can genuinely feel and he keeps his mouth closed. He doesn't want to be devoured neither by that mouth nor by his own temptation. It emerges from his insides when he's drunk, a wordless accusation, a drown man washed onto the shore by some far, dark waters.
"What a peculiar million-legged fish you are" the chomper marvels, voice soft as silk, deep as an ocean, old, above ancient old. Like Cas. The kisses continue, a gold thread sewn into the impossible words and Dean thinks, he tries to think, that however alluring the thread is, it has to be a garrote in disguise that shall slice his mouth and tongue into a bloody mess if he lets his guard down. Dean already knows he will, his wild, animal hands, between one halted breath and another, maneuvered their way to grip fistfuls of dark hair and the only thing he doesn't know, is whether he's about to pull that monster head deeper in, or pull it away. His joints remain stagnant, undecided. A moment of nothing before the tempest.
"I think it is you we've been waiting for through all this time" the Leviathan whispers. "I think that when we were created and given the universe as a gift, we began to eat it whole angrily because we couldn't find you. We just didn't know you weren't there yet. But now I know the only reason this world exist is for you to walk on it, Dean" he says with reverence and taken aback by that, Dean breaks and opens in a half gasp. This is enough for the beast to make its way inside, its mouth calling. Dean answers the call before he knows it. Old scotch blends with old corpses as the warm moist of their tongues and breaths flow one into another like waves of an enraged sea, every touch, every gasp, hungry, thirsty and frenetic.
Below, he cradles Dean's skin as it were porcelain and his hands caress an apology to the marks on the back he so thoughtlessly made. He wants to undo, wants to have, wants to sink whole into Dean's shoulder blades and linger, he desperately wants to become one with something again – Dean feels it through the language of that touch, through how he's being held, nails mindlessly digging themselves into his skin once more, tentacles clinging to him like poison ivy. Dean remembers himself and remembers that this the wrong mouth he's kissing, that this is a siren singing not his own heart calling. He breaks the contact, turns his head away.
"Okay, that's above enough" he mutters, staring blankly at a wall.
The Leviathan lays himself down next to Dean, places his head on his chest, currently rising and falling raw with rage.
"For how long?" he asks, his voice suddenly something different. Sad, tired, worn.
Dean doesn't answer. He wants to say "forever" but he knows that's one of the shittiest words, in any context a lie built into its very construction. "I'll give you time" he hears the monster assure.
"Time won't help neither of us" he decides to clarify.
"It's because we are the same thing, you and I. One."
"We're not" Dean groans.
"We will be" the Leviathan says with unsettling conviction. "I'll give you time" he repeats, and the second time it sounds even more terrifying. Like a prophecy. Like a law of physics. Some kind of undisputable absolute.
Dean wants to speak, to ask, to inquire and at the same time he doesn't, afraid that the answer might overgrow him. This is how they both fall asleep, then: in silence. Dean's lips still glimmering with the dew of the Leviathan's mouth, making him think of Cas again, right before drifing away to meet his nightmares. Making him hope and pray Cas can kill him in his dream.