The horse and the baobab

Dean expected many things from Cas after the last fall out, but calling himself God was not one of those things. Stupidly, he thought their contempt for the person and position was shared, but now it turned out to be simply a matter of substitution. And Dean doesn't like where this is going even though he's got no idea where that is. It just feels a whole new level of wrong. It's been three days since he left off and nothing has happened yet, not that he knows of. Somehow, it's even more terrifying.

He dreams of Sam. Sam, who stabbed God in a valiant attempt of last minute heroism and hasn't been vertical in three days. Of both of them when they were children, playing cards on a motel bed, of him preparing Sam cereal and Sam bitching about the milk being just this side of foul, of them building castles of wet sand, of Sammy making baby steps towards him, with blood running out of his little mouth when he tries to call his name. Dean wakes up crying. Furthermore, he doesn't wake up alone. Next to him, lying on the bed on his side, there's Cas. Or God. Or something.

"Hello, Dean."

God damn it. Okay, he'll definitely need a new saying. Marking that up for later.

"What happened to me being an unimportant ant? What did I do that the ultra Pope comes to bid me a visit in the middle of the… well, if it's night." He checks the alarm clock. It's actually near morning.

"You're suffering," Castiel comments softly. "You don't have to be."

Dean sighs very loudly and sits up rapidly. He doesn't want to lie next to this thing, whether it has any connotations or not. "What do you want?" he asks, voice too fucking tired to even sound properly angry.

"Not much," Cas answers conversationally. "Mostly talk," he shrugs innocently, suddenly so goddamn fluent in small talk and this, of all things, tells Dean this isn't Cas.

"Do I look like doctor Phil to you?" he groans.

Cas's expression doesn't change a bit.

"You were always my confidant," he smiles. "You're special, Dean."

"Have the souls wiped your goddamn memory stick? Don't you remember I'm done with being special for whatever holy party currently at large? You forgot I've never been a fan of that position?" Shit, that came out wrong. Then again, nothing can be right in this asshat conversation that shouldn't even be taking place. "You did your shit so leave us alone and let us rot," Dean snarls.

"You know I'd never do that," Castiel murmurs. "There are greater things in store for you than that. It's not about heaven or hell. You don't have to be afraid. It's between me and you. Personal," he smiles and idly, Dean wonders how many and how sharp teeth he'd see if Cas shown any. He shudders both at the words and at the thought itself.

"Yeah?" he prompts, throat sore. Like it or not, he needs to figure out what the fuck does this thing want first. Number one rule of know your monster is… know your monster (and don't talk about loving the monster club).

"I want to talk about your future, Dean. Yours and your brother's."

"Speaking of the future," he says, attempting to wipe tiredness off of his face (no effect), "remind me not to drink so much before I go to bed. Or scratch that. Remind me to drink more."

"Your brain is trying to cope with your situation," Castiel explains, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean decides there is no point in shrugging that off. You probably can't shrug God off, anyway. "But it doesn't have to be like this."

"What do you mean?"

"I can fix Sam. No wall, no nothing. He will be good as new, no memories of the cage to eat at him."

"But there's a but," Dean states, goddamn knowing there is, because there is a difference between I can and I'm gonna.

"We need to set new terms to the… agreement," and Dean thinks deal, you son of a bitch you wanted to say deal like a black eyed bitch, you did.

"Agreement," Dean huffs in contempt and Castiel seems to let that note of hatred slide.

"Yes. You've failed to meet the old condition. Perhaps you'll meet the new one." And Dean thinks, does he want to even know? He lets him talk. "You didn't stand down, as you recall," Castiel continues. "All I ask of you is to stand up and come with me."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because you're my friend. Because you're precious and special to me."

"And?"

"Because I need you by my side," he explains.

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

Jesus fucking Christ. And what the hell does he say to that?

"Leave." For now he says that, at loss of other words.

"I understand your fear, my friend," Castiel says softly. "I'll let you think about it. I will return," he squeezes his shoulder lightly and after a moment the weight is gone, followed by a rustle of wings. From what he hears, much bigger ones.

Technically, it was leaving him to marinate in alcohol and plenty, plenty of Sam themed nightmares, including: Sam in hell - tortured, Sam dying - stabbed, Sam lying on Bobby's bed just like he does currently (all the time now), but dead. In this aspect, they're pretty monothematic, but combined with the fact that Sam is getting worse and he doesn't wake up anymore, it works. When Castiel comes the second time four nights later, Dean already knows he's going to say yes and regret it. Not like he's got any other options. He'll figure this out when Sam's back to normal. Without him, he somehow can't even think straight. He's still pissed his weakness is again used against him by someone who claims to love him. The pain from Cas breaking Sam's wall is still livid and bright and it hurts even more because it was Cas, not this, who did this.

Perhaps knowing what's on Dean's mind, Cas starts with, "I know you don't trust me." Dean nods. "I regret the action I have taken against your brother. I don't want him to suffer."

"Then why haven't you fixed him yet?"

"I know you need an incentive. And trust me, I'm doing this for your own good," Castiel declares. And yea, right.

"Is that so?"

"Think about it, Dean. Wouldn't Sam dying be a good option to have you out of my way? Wouldn't it let you have other things to focus on rather than stopping me? And before you say anything, I know you're inclined to." Of course. "And yet, here I am, willing to help you. To help your brother."

"Then go and heal him. Then we'll talk."

"Come with me and we can have all the talk in the world," he counters, firm. "And Sam," he adds.

"Why do you want me to go with you? What do you need me for? It doesn't make any sense."

"I've already told you."

"Yeah and what you told me was," disturbing, "crap," now there's a better word.

"I need you to understand that I'm not the evil you paint me as. My intentions are nothing but benevolent."

"Benevolent," Dean echoes flatly. "Do you sometimes listen to yourself speak? Come on, man. This isn't you."

"Oh, but it is."

"Guess I never even knew you then," he says through gritted teeth and watches hurt flash briefly through Castiel's too composed face.

"Dean, how can you say this. After all we've been through together-"

"After you breaking Sam like he's nothing, after you gutting Visyak, after you coming here to mend fences, but stealing Bobby's shit instead, after you having Lisa almost die because you sided with English garbage," he cuts in, vicious. "Yeah, I think I can, buddy. So save it."

Castiel's expression hardens. "You save it. We're both soldiers and I know you know means to an end when you see one. You too have worked with Crowley. Stop painting yourself pristine."

Dean huffs. This was different. This is insane. But Castiel goes on, relentless. "I've only temporarily incapacitated your brother. For you I've killed thousands of mine. If you think I didn't know them or their names, you're wrong. I've sacrificed for you more than you can fathom and I only ask you to come."

"Come and do what, exactly." One, he's starting to feel mildly guilty here and that's shit. Two, he already knows he's coming. "Just fucking explain."

"You're the true embodiment of Humanity, Dean. It's only fair I reigned with the Righteous Man by my side. You can help me make the right decisions. You can be my inspiration."

"Like what? Your muse?"

"If you put it that way," Castiel smiles. Dean shakes his head in disbelief.

"And that's it?" He raises his eyebrow.

"That's a lot, Dean."

Doesn't seem like a lot. There has to be some crap woven into this, he's certain. "So what's the small font here."

"There isn't any."

"So what? Is this some kind of deal? Do I need to…" kiss you?

"No," Castiel cuts and thank God. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, A handshake would suffice," he says, extending a hand. Warily, Dean grabs it. Castiel holds it warm and firm. He squeezes lightly. "I'm so glad you made the right choice."

Dean squishes his fear and tries to think of Sam.

"I'll just go and tell Bobby, first."

Castiel nods. "It's okay to bid your farewells."

His what?

"My farewells?"

"The position you're about to take is pretty permanent."

Like your reign, supposedly. But we'll see about that, Dean thinks.

To say the very least, Bobby wasn't exactly thrilled, but Dean had his mind already made up. Castiel plants him and Sam in a house somewhere in Illinois. It looks boring, bland and too spacious. It lacks a white picket fence. Dean doesn't need to see all the wards to feel them. Pretty powerful shit. He feels naked without his weapons and, to him, the wards don't make much of a difference. He wants his stuff.

"You don't need that here," Castiel explains. "I am the safest place on Earth. And I am your home now," he tries to comfort and for a brief moment, his hand lands on Dean's back, a wee bit too low for him to maintain inner peace, if there ever was any.

"Let's go fix Sam," he croaks, deeply disturbed.

"It will take time, Dean," Castiel warns and Dean definitely doesn't like it. "But I promise it's going to work. Soon, you'll be together again." He smiles. "All three of us," he adds and guides Dean with his hand. "You're a fearful dove. Don't be. All is going to be well, you have my word."

His word is exactly what Dean is being afraid of. That and that hand and being lovingly called a pigeon. Especially the latter. Dean already had all the time in the world to notice that the new and improved Yahweh is pretty fixated on intimacy. Now, how that intimacy is understood exactly is yet to unravel, but Dean certainly can't say he's a big fan of finding out. It's just a hand on his back, he tells himself. It's just the two of them. And the world. While Castiel is the boa constrictor pretending to be a fucking hat.

As previously stated and later all too well confirmed by Dean, Castiel is the boa constrictor and the world is his elephant. It's all about slow digestion and baby steps. Minor miracles, major miracles… minor deaths, major deaths: people of hate speech die, KKK is dead, poachers also die, mass murderers die in their prisons, paedophile priests die in their rich comfy chairs. Cleansing, he calls it. People, Dean reminds him and Castiel says "you aren't born a monster, you become one" and Dean fails to find an argument other than but it's wrong and for Castiel that's not enough. "I want the world to be full of people like you," he tells Dean time after time and Dean chokes down a sob or two. Full of naive idiots, of fools, cause that's what he is for letting all of this keep on happening, not knowing how to put an end to any of this. So much for his guidance if his words don't mean shit. Days pass and on every single passing one Dean watches the sunset, praying to shit knows who for all of this to end. He wonders if Castiel listens. If he cares.

On a certain day he finds that Cas has opinions on his opinions. The fights consisting of it's not you/ it's me alright are something that occurs on somewhat daily basis and with each one Dean is more convinced that he's right. It reached a cartoony level of stubbornness and Dean is positive he saw something predatory flash in Castiel's face at least once when he said his usual line of "that's all there is to me." Dean might have shuddered, but if asked, he will deny. But what makes Dean convinced for sure that Cas isn't Cas and has him lose the very last remains of his hope happens more than a month after he and Cas began their tango of awkwardness. Cas explains he wants to restore the ecological balance on Earth. That there should be more wildernesses, that the Earth shouldn't be infested with humans to the extent it is now. His very vaguely explained plan involves wiping out an entire country and making it the land where lion can play with the lamb. Dean's furious.

"You son of a bitch, this is insane," he sneers and before he can think better of it, he throws a fist at Cas's jaw. This time Castiel doesn't turn away and the fist connects with solid stone. Dean hisses in pain, there are broken fingers involved. Castiel grabs him by the wrist and squeezes.

"You're blind," he states. Grip tightens. "And stubborn." He feels his wrist snap. "Do you need fractures and pain to see?" And it tightens more. He feels his feeble bones give in. He snarls in pain and anger. "You don't want to understand that I know what I'm doing with this planet. I will move all the faithful people, no harm will come to them."

"There's not much of them," he manages to say through gritted teeth.

"That's their problem. I don't need those who don't believe in me. The world doesn't need them either."

"So now what? Destroy the infidels?" Dean hisses.

"Why would good people reject my kindness and my plan?"

"Because they see your wrathful side and they don't like it."

"Justice is a hammer, Dean," he says and heals Dean's hand. "Remember that. Please, rethink this," he says, kissing the upper side of his palm lightly.

"You rethink it," he snarls, yanking his hand away in panic.

But Castiel doesn't relent.

New plan. It has a lot of to do with loving the monster club. Mostly though, this time it's about the monster loving him back. At this point Dean's done trying to pull out an entire fucking baobab of souls and madness with his bare hands. He only keeps getting splinters. He doesn't think there is a Cas to save anymore. There's just a Cas to deal with. The baobab's won and Dean wonders whether it's his fault. If he should have seen it coming when it was just an innocent seed. But no, he didn't see squat, too busy with Sam when clearly Cas needed his guidance. So maybe it is his fault and now he's paying the price of the consequences of being blind, deaf and not caring enough.

He puts on the white clothes he's found in his closet. He hates how he looks. He hates Cas in white and he hates fucking angels in white suits wearing the faces of people he once loved. He's already had that once. Maybe going through this again is another stage of his punishment. He wonders if there is yet another one in between having to look at this and getting fucked by the baobab white god (which is probably like getting fucked by Annie Wilkes; he feels like Sheldon already here).

He's about to find out. Tonight he's not watching the sunset. He's too done for that. Also, a job awaits him. Just another job, he tells himself. All the monsters in hell probably laugh at him now but he tries to be above self-pity. It's his fault, he reminds himself. He earned this. God, the day he fell for Cas and his mind spat out his first "what if," he wasn't careful what he wished for. Now he has Cas without a war, without a stick in his ass, a Cas that wants to fuck him (obvious from how he touches him and how he looks at him when he thinks Dean doesn't see) and somehow it went wrong. This isn't what he wanted, but this is what he has and he'll have to deal with that.

He doesn't exactly have a plan, which is the worst thing about this whole idea. He's not sure how fucking Cas is supposed to make him not destroy a huge part of humanity, but it's the only thing he's got. He's done nothing yet and he's already tired. Cas will probably tire him more. He wonders how much hunger lies beneath Cas's seemingly innocent but still fucking predatory looks. Funny that of all the things in the world, it's something made of feathers and claws and teeth that continues to claim it loves him.

But if Cas loved him, he'd never agree on Dean's plan.

Cas takes him thrice that night; in fleur de lis sheets, in confessions of eternal and indestructible love and in begging Dean to look at him like he looked in the days before. All Dean looks back with is despair. So when Castiel takes him, thrice after the sunset, he fills Dean with need - it's thick like honey and it fills every fibre of his being, roots of baobab and its branches crushing his aching chest. It all is Cas and it all screams Cas, Cas, Castiel, Cas, and Dean shudders, needs to be taken, needs to be undone, needs to be fucked right there, right then, his body keening and crying for more, while he, apathetic, lets it wail. Lets Cas have whatever the fuck he wants this once.

As they lie together in the darkness, Cas kisses the nape of Dean's neck while Dean desperately wants to throw up the seed of the baobab he now feels he harbors. "You inspire me," he hums into his still heated skin. Dean swallows a sob which falls thickly on the baobab seed and feeds it. In the darkness of the now truly conjugal room, turned away from his probably now spouse, he stares at an outline of a white wedding dress, hanging on the wall. Somehow he knows it's for him but he is too resigned to indulge himself into wondering about the intricate mechanisms of how.

"What's the dress for?" He still, however, wants to know the why.

There's a beat of silence before he answers. Less than in Cage's 4'33, but still a lot of it. "I want to-"

"Marry me," Dean cuts in, sounding so flat it amazes even him. He's worn out. He feels baobab splinters all over himself, all of this the touch of Cas's hands and mouth (and many, many teeth). "I've figured it out from the TV."

"I didn't know how to tell you," Castiel confesses mournfully.

"No wonder," Dean huffs, eyes still fixed on the dress.

"How do you feel about this?"

"Does it matter? Do I have a choice?"

"Until you came here tonight, wearing my wedding gifts, you had."

"Figured," he sighs. "Why do you want me in a dress?"

"It's for the ceremony and for the wedding night."

"You want me to crossdress for the ceremony?"

"No," Castiel laughs lightly, like Dean's being particularly that funny, which, no, he isn't. "I'm going to grant you a female body."

"Jesus, Cas. This is fucking sick, you know that."

"The ceremony has to be traditional."

"I thought you don't give a fuck about sexual orientation," Dean sneers.

"Dean, you, as the bride represent the church. My followers need that kind of confirmation. Besides," he adds and kisses Dean's arm softly, "there's no other way to have offspring."

"You can't be serious."

"Why not? I could let you sleep through the whole nine months so you wouldn't be bothered by it."

"I don't fucking want to be pregnant, Cas. I don't wanna be a chick, end of goddamn story, you hear me?"

"What if I gave you an extra incentive?"

"You mean?"

"You can't save Russia anymore. But there are other countries I have plans for. You might want me to not have them," he says and Dean hears that predatory smile in his soft, soft voice. That son of a bitch.

"I won't forgive you this," he promises, venom dripping through his gritted teeth.

"Oh, Dean," Castiel fucking chirps, "you already have."

And then he touches his temple with his fingers and Dean suddenly can't help but wonder why the fiddly damn fuck he's staring at an empty wall and he can't figure out what was he thinking the second before.