A/N: My name is King, mashed potatoes are gorss, and I don't own Supernatural.


MUCH TOO SOON

Ch4: A Hate Story

Dean had his fair share of run-ins with the feathery winged dick kind.

The run-ins almost always had to do with runaways; Sam and Dean would occasionally run into some poor bastard with Trinity tattoos, and the poor bastard would be very different from the IDs they'd find in his pockets, physically irreparable or emotionally void, and they'd try to help, but it would always end the same way. One day they'd be trying to nurse an empty thing that was a human being once, the next day the thing would evaporate into thin air.

They knew exactly to what kind of personal hell it was forced to return, and there was never a damn thing they could do about it.

Dean always wondered why the angels hated the humans they were volunteering to save.

That was the thing, though. Castiel didn't really hate Dean excessively. That much was obvious from the fact that he didn't carry on with Zach's brand of redemption, but there were times Dean attributed his little miracle to the fact that Castiel didn't feel feelings, so he didn't really hate because he didn't care enough to hate.

Castiel, who couldn't give two shits about Dean, was the sort of blessing Dean didn't much care to appreciate.

Not Castiel, and definitely not the view his pretty underwear model face provided.

Dean wasn't sure how the whole male underwear model thing actually worked, but he had the suspicion Castiel's face wasn't the thing he was supposed to be not-appreciating.

His eyes lazily traced the angel on the opposite side of the breakfast counter. Castiel's hair had apparently survived a miniature tornado and his stubble was shorter than the night before but still not clean-shaven.

At some point, Dean couldn't figure out when, he realized Castiel shaved before he went to bed, so the coarse hairs grew back just in time for him to make a public appearance in the morning.

Dean had no idea if Castiel shaved at night on purpose, or just because he didn't know any better.

And it was gross that he was beginning to notice details about stupid shit. He was going insane in boredom. A bit more, and he'd be so trapped in his mind that he'd actually start reminiscing and having coherent and deep thoughts about the meaning of life.

Castiel had an air of razor-thin serenity around him, and when Dean sometimes stood too close, this weird bubble of hyper alert calmness would envelop him, and he would feel like a dickwad afterwards because the peace around Castiel would make him forget that he was trapped here and that he had to find Sammy and that he had to carry the world on his shoulders.

A dungeon of domesticity wasn't the place nor time to feel calm.

But, resist the good things as he might because it was a Winchester Thing To Do, Dean could sort of appreciate the waste of time that was this crap because it was free time with free food. It was time he could use to think. It was the kind of time he'd usually spend on the hood of the impala with a beer in his hand and the sky up above him, with Sammy snoring a room away. It was the sort of peaceful time in-between hunts, and Dean knew how to appreciate it because it could always be his last time having a beer or seeing those stars.

Peaceful time was also the time right before shit usually hit the fan in a peculiarly epic way Dean could never come up with on his own unless he was on drugs. A whole nest of vampires with flamethrowers. The ghost of Michael Jackson. The ghost of Elvis. Fighting a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle that turned out to be a shapeshifer. Fighting a real Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Finding a literal goldmine in Washington. Finding honest-to-God Neverland. Finding out Dean was severely allergic to the thing he was supposed to be hunting and using his sinuses to track it.

That kind of thing.

So he caught himself staring at Castiel's short fingernails and appreciating how there was nothing particularly menacing about them. Cas was considerably better than killer sharks with legs and Zachariah, he decided.

"Yes, Dean?"

Castiel looked up from the paperwork he brought to breakfast, because apparently Dean was just short of hanging up posters about how he was checking him out.

Castiel's eyes were bluer than the day before.

"Nothing," Dean chewed on his toast and kept staring because it would look conspicuous if he suddenly looked away. What came from his staring was perhaps the most meaningful conversation Dean had the capacity to process without throwing a fit.

"Why do angels hate us?"

Castiel took his time, of course. His eyes focused on the page he was reading for another minute, and his calloused fingers were about to flip it over when he seemed to remember Dean's lame pick-me-up and decided to return the attention.

"Do you mean me, Dean? I don't hate you."

He looked confused.

"Don't mean you. Like, in general. Angels. Zachariah. Uriel."

"You think we hate you?"

"Well," Dean was a bit taken aback, but really, this kind of response wasn't all that new. He once met a demon that made it its life mission to shove people inside metal barrels full of water, and boil them just hot enough to keep them awake and alive for weeks of being boiled. Dean stabbed it in the middle of a rant about how it was actually doing God's work to earn itself a passage out of hell. Angels weren't like that, but then again, what did he know. "You do. Not you. But you, generally. Hate us, I mean. Obviously."

Castiel's brow frowned like he was computing something new and complicated.

"What?" Dean grumbled around his weird breakfast soup.

Castiel looked down and his lips folded.

"I think I understand you better, Dean."

Dean, whom Castiel apparently understood better now, shuffled in his seat.

"Ahuh," he managed without being snarky.

"Angels don't hate you, Dean. I know you don't understand this, but most angels actually love God's creation. All of God's creation."

"Then why—"

"That's for you to understand."

Dean threw his spoon and it left a trail of red mush on the counter. He'd have to clean that.

"Bullshit."

"I disagree."

Castiel had obviously seen only a fraction of what Dean had seen.

"You've been here for how long? Yeah. I'd say you're about to be hit by a learning curve of why you should go back to your cloud and hate us from afar."

Castiel looked at Dean in his alien sort of look, the way Klaatu looked at Helen, stood and collected his papers.

"No creature hates humans quite as much as humans hate themselves, Dean."

"Except Lucifer. He really hates you lot."

The stranger caught Dean in the middle of slurping down his soup because his temper left him spoonless and he didn't feel like getting any closer to Castiel to retrieve his way of eating with dignity.

Other that the spoon thing, he was quite comfortable.

He was in a reasonably firm chair a safe distance away from dick angels, Castiel was about to leave, which would put him a comfortably out of any dick angels' presence. Castiel wasn't in Napoleon mood so he wasn't invading Dean's personal space, so dick angels? Yeah. Far fucking away with a chance of fog in the afternoon.

And so the soup went straight up his nose and he sort of jumped out of his chair in a manly way when a third wheel materialized right up his personal space.

"I need to ward this apartment," Castiel said and actually – actually really really really – rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

"Sorry mate," the new arrival slurred at Castiel in snarky British. "You supposed to be hiding?"

"I am not hiding."

"Right. You're just concealing the fact that you're at this place."

Dean was discovering all sorts of expressions he never knew Cas had, or at the very least had never shown towards Dean, like various degrees of annoyance, and he kind of expected Castiel's unshaved face to crack from the emotional overload.

"Is there anything you want, Balthazar?"

"World peace," the overly cheerful asshole beamed.

"I am working on it."

Balthazar was a short thing. Not really short, considering he was about as tall as Cas, but a lot less intimidating because he was nothing short of a sparkly, bouncy fairy that had to get on his knees to count salt and liked it that way. His hair was sort of Ken to Sam's Barbie, the v-neck in his shirt was so low Dean could see his kidneys, and he gave the general impression of something you would take home from a gay bar if you were into that sort of thing.

Dean felt like he was third-wheeling Castiel's party time with a hooker in a hooker alley behind a hooker club full of gay hookers.

Balthazar was all smiles, and it made Dean even less comfortable with the whole scene, forget not one man and one dick angel, but one and a half dick angel, because if Castiel was one, Balthazar kind of looked like the half.

Meanwhile, the testosterone-challenged angel up Dean's personal space jacked his thumb at Dean and raised an eyebrow.

Castiel seemed completely unaffected by the whole thing. It was like a piece of lint sat on his coat and he was regarding it with entertainment.

"That's how you got sanction to stay down here."

"That," Castiel looked faintly amused at both of their offended reactions, "is Dean."

Balthazar winked a greeting at him, all predatorily-like, and Dean hardened his face and stood his ground.

"A more appropriate question is why you are down here."

"Oh, you know," Balthazar steadied himself, "stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Business stuff I told everyone was doing. Don't remember what, though."

"You are not a good liar," Castiel noted.

"Yeah. But the blokes upstairs can't tell. So here I am," he took a bow and swayed a little."Tada."

Castiel regarded him evenly, and for a minute Dean actually thought Castiel would let the British faggot crash with them or something. Until, "be somewhere else, Balthazar."

"Oh, come on, you love me!"

"I do. And I will love you elsewhere. Go home, Balthazar. You're drunk."

It wasn't even the drunk part and angel part in the same sentence that made Dean snort at Balthazar's expense. It wasn't even the fact that he smelled like he took a bath and confused water with vodka and soap with cum. It was the seven year-old "am not" response he gave, like Castiel had asked him if he ate all the sprinkles from the sprinkle jar. Cas was right. This asshole was a hilariously terrible liar.

Dean leaned into his heels and readied himself for a fight when Balthazar snared at him.

"Oi, shut it, you sea-monkey."

He leaned against the counter and pouched Dean's half-finished cup of coffee. "And 'm not drunk. Hung over. Got any Tylenol? Or cable? It's Shark Week."

"I don't have television."

"Oh."

This was the sort of thing you'd ask. At least on Dean's behalf, because Dean was losing his mind in boredom to even tolerate this very pale version of Journey Shore. But Balthazar didn't ask, he just sort of accepted the lack of Shark Week as something that couldn't be challenged, and that was it.

"And you can't stay not because I'm inhospitable to you. It's because of Dean."

Balthazar snared at Dean again.

"You will be a bad influence. You lie and you drink excessively. Dean thinks I think he is a liar and an alcoholic. Your presence will be counter-productive for him."

The two angels bickered a bit more after Dean told Castiel to go and fuck himself.


"Dean."

"Busy."

"You don't appear busy," Castiel noted without a shred of empathy.

"Just get out," Dean grumbled.

He didn't mean to sound annoyed. He actually felt bad, for himself and his pathetic situation, of course, but also for Castiel. It was nice and all that Castiel had a giving-a-shit capacity of a dirty cat and the patience of a conservative housewife; Dean had the general sense that if sweet Cas would have a sudden change of heart about him, Dean would piss his pants the very second, because Castiel had an air of something quiet, vengeful and lethal about him. And it was nice that he felt none of these things towards Dean, but tolerance was tolerance.

So it was nice and all, but really, Dean could count his blessings on one hand.

With one finger.

The middle one.

Zach and Uri had a very good point. A Winchester wasn't exactly something you could babysit without losing a few IQ points and a chunk of your sanity. Castiel would've been better off with someone easier.

"You are conflicted."

"You're on my bed."

"You are on your own bed with shoes on, Dean."

"So?"

Castiel sighed and shuffled to the very edge of the mattress, and Dean judged his personal space bubble and concluded there was enough of it for him to sit up and cross his legs. His boots stayed on like a bad fashion statement. Castiel acknowledged them with a nod.

"Don't plan on sticking around for long," Dean explained his boots, "your party sucks."

There was a nod, and Castiel chewed his lower lip for a good, long while. Well, no shit his lips would be chapped if this was a habit.

Dean didn't tell him this.

"If I were to speak to you seriously, Dean, would you entertain a brief conversation with me?"

The angel sat up straighter when Dean told him yes, but his shoulders slumped just an inch when Dean asked for the clown suit so he could 'entertain' him better.

"Alright," Castiel cut him off, and Dean didn't have the luxury of slumping. He didn't move, but every muscle in his back tensed and he would fight Cas with his fucking teeth if that new edge to his voice turned into hostility. "I will talk and you will listen. I have never been impolite to you, but I can see I can't expect the same from you. Do you understand, Dean?"

Dean clicked his tongue. "You do… realize I don't wanna be here at all, right?"

"Yes, Dean. You made this very clear," Castiel furrowed his brows, but at least his eyes were honest. "I'm sorry that I can't let you leave. This is not your only problem, however."

Dean snorted, but something in the very core of those blue irises told him he should really not follow up on that in snort with some ugly words.

"So what's my other problem, Dr. Sexy?" he said instead. Castiel leveled him with a glare.

"That is."

Dean realized there would be no clarification unless he asked when they sank into a silence for two full minutes. He rotated his wrist in mid-air and encouraged: "that is what?"

"That is the problem," Castiel clarified helpfully.

Conversing with Castiel was kind of like walking into a streetlight pole for fun. He streetlight was this tall, shiny and unmovable thing of brightness and enlightenment, and no matter how many times Dean would beat his head against it, he could not understand a fucking thing that went on in its head. Because it was a fucking streetlight pole.

There was a fundamental problem of communication between the two of them.

It was frustrating.

To Castiel, Dean guessed, Dean was probably this tiny, short and dull human that would go up to him and bang his head against his tall pole-ness. Castiel couldn't understand Dean either, and Dean couldn't understand him, so if he couldn't understand, he could at least relate.

"We are so on different wavelengths here," Dean grumbled and pressed his fingers against his temple, and just stared at the man-shaped being that seemed to be born in a wrinkled, cheap suit.

"Oh," Castiel finally got it, "you don't understand. Forgive me. The problem is that you like me."

After a while, he added: "why are you laughing?"

"Dr. Sexy's a TV show, you doofus," Dean managed between semi-neurotic chuckles.

"I am aware that was a pop culture reference."

"Oh, did you really?"

"Yes, you make a lot of them. At me. I am a stranger to you, a kidnapper, if you will. I sense resentment, and I have a general idea of what you generally feel towards strangers, and this is not it. You cannot stand me, you are afraid of me, you know you should feel indifference and distrust, yet you like me. You are conflicted."

"Oh, come on," Dean rolled his eyes.

"I am right," Castiel insisted, and Dean couldn't really argue against it.

"So you're saying I developed Stockholm Syndrome over five days?"

"I don't think so. You would still kill me and run if I ever gave you a chance."

"Kill you?"

Castiel gave him a look.

"No, really. How do I kill you? Please tell me more."

His best Gene Wilder from Charlie's Chocolate Factory impression went on completely ignored. "It isn't good that you are conflicted."

"'Cause your boyfriend told you, yeah?"

"You heard us," Castiel realized.

"I got ears," he shrugged. "Apparently, so does Bal… Bel… Bellazilla."

"Balthazar will not be doing that again," was Castiel's stern reply.

"'Cause you told him?"

"Because I warded against him. Excessively."

Dean snorted.

"Balthazar is my closest brother. I will acquaint the two of you when you decide to cease your hostility. I think you will like him."

"So you want me to share my special deep like with other people?"

"I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like Balthazar."

"I don't like him," Dean droned.

"Anyone who doesn't learn to like Balthazar," Dean stared at him, and Castiel shuffled as if he had told a lie. "I admit he has his… moments."

"Oh yeah?"

"Numerous… moments."

"Buddy, sorry to break this to you, but your friend's a dickbag."

Castiel chewed his lips for a while, then finally sighed in defeat.

"I know," he told Dean.

"Yeah," Dean clicked his tongue again.

"Still. Bellazilla. I think I like that," Castiel considered aloud, and his slumped frame straightened as he relaxed. The frown lines on his face relaxed, and Dean watched him for a moment. There was a smile on his face, but his lips were a straight line and Castiel wasn't really physically smiling. But it felt like he was. It were the eyes, Dean decided. Castiel was smiling with his eyes.

"You gonna call him Bellazilla?" Dean's own voice sounded cold to his ears.

"Oh, no," Castiel assured him. "I'll tell someone else, and they will do it for me."

There was nothing left to be said after that, and Castiel lifted himself off Dean's bed and left only a warm imprint in the mattress.

"Balthazar is still in the living room, on the couch," he told Dean as he left. "He will leave once he wakes up. I don't think he should be returning to Heaven until he sobers up. Last time he flew like that he crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Japan experienced a tsunami. He was not sorry, and I have a suspicion he never learned his lesson."


Castiel had a point.

Dean was more okay with him than should be normal in his circumstances.

And Dean had a solution.

He should get the fuck out.

That would obviously solve everything.

He phased his room, ever so trapped in it and ever so annoyed with his predicament, annoyed, more than anything, at the brother thing being rammed down this throat. It reminded he had a little bitch of a brother of his own, one he needed to save, like, a month ago, and annoyed that Castiel was perfectly fine parading his family and ignoring the livelihood of Dean's.

Dean generally wasn't a hateful person.

There were times that he wished hell on whatever evil, wicked thing was killing the good people of the US of A, or, worse yet, messing with Sam, but he never explicitly wanted to do anything particularly terrible and over the line of necessity to anything what went bump in the night.

But it was all sort of technical. You couldn't put hatred in Castiel's tomato soup and measure it with a spoon.

He couldn't measure like, either. It was a tolerable kind of like, a familiar kind of like, a like that was intimate and old, so familiar to him that it was like he watched Castiel's entire life, knew it, sensed it, felt it like Castiel's essence sparked somewhere inside Dean's soul.

And he hated that, because it was some stupid angelic bullshit magic, because he didn't know shit about Castiel, because never met him before except once at a bar-

The night before-

The-

The…

Well, fuck.

That little son of a bitch stalker.

It was stupid to assume Castiel made the hell-brand Trinity appear on his wrist, no, that was Dean's own doing. But the fact that Castiel "didn't" seek him out and "randomly" took him in was suddenly looking as clear as bullshit.

There was a knock on his door.

A fucking knock.

Dean would very much like to knock, too, knock some teeth, out, and ask the bastard questions about what the fuck kind of stalkery was really going on.

Dean's first clue should've been that the knock on his door had a tune to it.

But he was Winchester. Dean Winchester. When his mind was on the right track, thoughts of bars derailed it, and when he was throwing a fit, he opened doors and thought about what would greet him on the other end only when it was too late.

And, sure enough, a smug face of Ken with the beginnings of a goatee greeted him with that sort of predatory leer from back in the kitchen.

The gentle slam of the door. The trench coat missing from its shelf. Fuck. Dean realized in a bone-chilling dismay that he and the gay angel asshole were alone.

Nothing for nothing, but Castiel probably couldn't spot a snake in the garden even if it was talking to him. Balthazar may have been a cool dude in the angelic circles, but Dean had no illusions about chargeless and orderless angels wondering the Earth aimlessly.

Dean was stupid, but he wasn't stupid when it came to basic life skills. As soon as he realized Castiel wouldn't notice anyway, he hoarded kitchen knives, totally conspicuously and giving zero shits about random knife handles sticking out of bad hiding spots.

There was one just in his reach.

He backed to it, watching Balthazar lean into his doorframe.

"Cassie said I could chill with you a bit. Though s'not much of a party here, innit?"

"Nope," said Dean evenly, sending off straight-and-not-into-this-shit-man vibe and get-the-fuck-away-from-me-pretty-boy vibe.

Balthazar stood there for a few minutes, staring at Dean and expecting to be serviced or something.

"Well," he concluded, "you're boring."

"Yeah, well, sorry 'bout that."

Balthazar couldn't take a hint. Just like Castiel couldn't take a hint, actually, Dean realized, though it kind of made him sick to draw a comparison between them because Castiel was a semi-permanent thing and Balthazar was just a passing trucker thing in the back of a pit stop.

So they stared at each other some more. Dean kept his face carefully neutral while Balthazar beamed rainbows and smiles at him.

"Want a beer or something?"

"There's no beer here."

"Takes like a second to get beer. There's a liquor store downstairs. Well, what I left of it, so..."

"No thanks."

"No?"

"No," Dean hissed.

"What's your problem?"

And that's when Dean had an idea.

It wasn't his brightest idea because he wasn't exactly the sharpest crayon in the box or the brightest tool in the shed, but it was a hell of a lot more than he had before it, because all he had before was a rigid, limp dick of an angel, and now he had one that was clearly interested. Alone. With a bed behind them. It wasn't that hard to get from A to B. It wasn't like he didn't have experience.

It took some effort to let the knife be. He let his fingers gingerly slide down its shaft. He lingered at the tip and considered his predicament, then, just like that, Dean let go and let it all happen.

"You're bored?" he tried.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna have some fun?" Dean nearly gagged around his tongue.

It showed.

"You make fun sound bloody awful."

Dean opened his mouth to elaborate, but Balthazar interrupted him, and he was glad for it.

"I know 'xcatly what you mean. An' I'm not touching my brother's stuff," he said in thick British and then flinched, "an' don't tell him I called you his stuff stuff. An' turn 'round."

Dean kept his mind blank.

"Up to 'fun' after all?"

"Cassie said you were Zachie's before he got you. 'S that true?"

Blank.

"Up to another kind of fun, then?"

"No, an' I asked you if Zach made friends with you."

"Yes," Dean hissed. "Want a peak?"

"Gross. Not really," he raised his hand and opened his palm, "right hand to God, not gonna hurt you. Hand, back, two seconds, an' I get out of your space, yeah?"

"Why?"

"Because," Balthazar sang his vowels and swirled his finger for Dean to turn around. Reluctantly, so very reluctantly, Dean turned sideways without turning his back on him or letting him out of his sight. "Oi, suspicious, ain't we. Fine," Dean watched a hand hover over the back of his shirt and out of his line of sight. His muscles tensed once the fabric was pressed into them. "Because Zach was lookin' for something."

Dean snorted.

"Digging into me looking for gold?"

Balthazar leaned back into the wall. "Dunno. An' he was diggin' into your soul, dumbass. He digs into the soul of every charge he gets. It's kidna creepy and kinky in bad way. "

"Well," Dean came up short of anything clever to say, "what's he looking for?"

"Nobody upstairs knows. Didn't even know if Zach was actually doing it, T'was a rumor 'till now. Con-fir-med. Bavariel from accounting owes me a hundred quid now. Thanks."

"Um," Dean shifted in his spot. "You're welcome?"

Balthazar gave him thumbs up, was about to leave, and Dean was just beginning to learn how to breathe again when he changed his fucking mind half-way through the door.

"An' by the way, what you were offerin'. Not cool."

Dean snorted.

"You aren't the one looked up."

Balthazar gave him the stink eye.

"Mate, if they order me to stay in a cardboard box for a thousand years, I would. Everything's relative. On the other hand, I'm not the one with a soul. An' yours is kinda dirty, but I can see from here it's got a couple marbles missing."

Dean tried to stop him, but it was like he was vomiting words.

"I've seen this monkey at the zoo once. It was in a cage, all locked up, all lonely, kinda like a giant ship in the middle of the ocean. I'm not really sure, but I think it was trying to talk to me in monkey language. But I don't know monkey language, mate."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And it was a monkey, so it was sort of senile, but it was going even more crazy in there, locked up and all. Like Rose and her love thing with that idiot guy in that awful movie with Celine Dion. Anyway, I think you're the monkey. This can't be good for you, Cassie's not here, an' so I'll leave the door open for you, yeah?"

And just like that, Balthazar poofed out of existence, and Dean ran the fuck away.


Season gr8 will finish with Destiel becoming cannon. I have money riding on dis. Totally gonna happen. I'm a part of the tumblr army, wat.

Pls early bird reviews before shit starts going down and I start crossposing this with chapter arts.

Thank you shoutout to lljn105 for reviewing last chapter.

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