A Brand on the Soul, Chapter 4

By CastielLovesDean

I'm hoping to complete this fic soon so that I can give you guys closure and focus more on Cas's Logical Sequel at the same time. Sorry it's shorter than I'd prefer.

WARNING: Um... alcoholism? Standard warning for blasphemy applies as well. Also, it's shorter than I care for.


Dean wasn't always as smooth and cool as a polished river stone. Once upon a time, he was a perfectly normal(ish) teenager with anxieties about drinking beer and losing his virginity. Dean remembers that he was pretty drunk when he first had sex at fifteen with that surprisingly busty, surprisingly slutty exchange student from Japan. It wasn't her first time by a long shot, and Dean was glad he wasn't too drunk to remember it. After that, most of his fears about sex were a distant memory, and he never needed to resort to alcohol to do it again.

He hoped it would work with Castiel. It wasn't his plan to 'go all the way' or anything, but a push in the right direction to help him overcome the whole 'he's not gay' thing couldn't possibly have gone wrong, right? He had it all planned out. Cas got to design their first failed date, so Dean got to design what would turn out to be their second failed date.

His first mistake of the night was buying two cases of beer. In his defense, he remembered that Cas needed to drink an entire liquor store to get drunk, and he wrongly assumed that Cas would have more than one beer and Dean wouldn't mindlessly reach for can after can after can.

His second mistake was underestimating how nervous he was. After he popped in the movie, he opened his first can and chugged it to calm his nerves. He had five beers before the main character even appeared on screen. Eventually, the pop-chug-crush-repeat cycle involved in drinking canned beverages then tossing them to the floor became routine, and by the final scene, he was wasted.

On the screen, two men and a woman faced a cheering crowd as the symphonic, inspiring music rose to a crescendo. The film's end credits rose against the speckled backdrop of deep space, and Dean turned off the TV, the only light left coming from the window through the cheap polyester curtains. He chugged from his beer can, crushed it in his hand, and threw it to the floor. "Any questions?" he slurred in the dark.

"Yes," Castiel answered. "Why did they wait so long to attack?"

Dean drunkenly rolled his heavy-lidded eyes. "Well, it took, like, half an hour fer th' moon to rotate the plan't."

"I understand that," Cas insisted, not bothering to correct Dean. (Moons don't rotate planets; they revolve around them.) "But why did they wait? Couldn't they just blow up the planet, then immediately blow up the moon? Or just allow the force of the planet's destruction to destroy the moon, or allow the moon to go hurtling off its orbit, destroying all life on the moon? Furthermore, couldn't they have just moved the Death Star closer to the rebel base to blow it up, rather than giving the rebels time to escape or launch a counter attack? I don't understand how the person in charge could have seized control of an empire with his apparent lack of strategy."

Dean frowned, confused in his drunken stupor. "I don' think I'm 'splaining this right. Aks Sammy, he'll know. Sam!" He turned toward the other bed in the room. "Sam?"

"Dean, Sam isn't here, remember? He wanted to give us time alone?"

"Oh. Right." Dean giggled. "That w's silly 'f me."

Castiel frowned at Dean's speech disruption and took inventory of the empty beer cans littering the bed and floor, none of which were his. (He disposed of his own can properly.) Since being reconnected to the power of Heaven, his appetite for liquor had diminished significantly. Perhaps he only drank in the first place because he was sad about losing his Grace, or maybe he barely saw the point in drinking alcohol when he required an entire liquor store to get soused. Dean didn't have that problem. "Dean? Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah, 'm pfine." Dean gulped audibly, swaying on the motel bed. "I c'n hold my liquor wit th' best of 'em."

"Far be it for me to suggest otherwise, but you've had a lot to drink."

"Shh. 'ts okay. I do this allllll – hic – the time." Dean was slouching closer and closer to Castiel. "Y'know, Cas..." he started.

"Yes, Dean?"

Dean blinked, then hiccuped. "Huh?"

Cas cocked his head. "What?"

"What what?" Hiccup.

"You were going to say something to me."

"Oh? Wha' waz – hic – that?"

"I don't know, Dean; I try to respect your privacy by not invading your thoughts. Besides, the last time I did... well, you think about sex a lot. I was a bit perturbed."

Dean burst into hiccupy laughter.

Castiel smiled cautiously. "What's so funny?"

"'Perturbed' 's a – hic – f'nny word," Dean laughed.

Cas frowned to himself. Perturbed wasn't a funny word. It was actually a bit disconcerting.

"Aww. Hic – Anyone e'er tell you you're – hic – cute when yer con – hic – fuzzled?"

Cas shook his head. "No."

"Well, you are." Dean hiccuped, then leaned in and kissed Cas on the lips. His plan had sorta worked: all hangups about having sex with Castiel were gone. He pushed Cas down onto the comforter and climbed atop him with more speed and grace than a drunken man should have been able to muster.

Cas protested weakly, explaining, "Dean, it would be misguided of us to have intercourse while you're intoxicated. I suspect you'll regret it tomorrow."

"Shhh-hhhh-hh!" Hiccup. Dean sloppily shushed Castiel with a finger on the Angel's lips. "We wouldn't wan – hic – wanna wake Sam. Now jus' hold still so I c'n – hic – ruffle yer feathers." Dean kissed Cas once more, then went completely slack as he passed out on top of his date.

"Dean?" Cas asked, giving the hunter's shoulder a light shake. No response. "Dean?" He tried a little harder, and Dean started making an unpleasant gurgling sound. It took a moment for Cas to realize what was going on, but he soon realized that Dean's body had tried and failed to expel the last of the alcohol he'd consumed to prevent further deterioration, and that his stomach contents had gotten backed up into his airway. Despite the fact that Castiel could heal pretty much any injury and even revive people who'd been dead for months, his vessel's heart skipped a beat at the knowledge that Dean was in danger. He swiftly removed the blockage – and the alcohol for good measure. Dean coughed and gasped. "Dean?" Cas repeated worriedly.

Dean winced at the steel-chains-in-a-garbage-disposal sound of Castiel's voice. "Yeah, Cas?" he whispered, wishing the pounding in his head would stop and somebody would turn off the damn sun.

Good. He was okay. Not that he was in any real danger of suffocating with an Angel in the room. Oh crap... Dean expected him to say something. The first thing he thought of was, "Do you still plan to 'ruffle my feathers?'"

Dean groaned. "What does that even mean?"

"I was hoping you knew."

"Well, maybe later, then. Now I just wanna sleep."

"Very well." Cas sent Dean into a peaceful, hangover-free sleep with two strategically-placed fingers, then carelessly rolled the unconscious hunter to the other side of the bed. He stood from the bed and called Sam on his cell phone. "Sam?"

"Hey, Cas. How's your date with Dean going?"

"Dean imbibed too much alcohol and fell asleep."

"Ah. Did you like the movie at least?"

"I did, but I have some questions Dean was unable to answer."

Historians would one day trace World War III back to this moment.


A/N: So when Dean finally ruffles Cas's feathers, how graphic do you want it? Because I'm both lazy and anxious to wrap this up, I'm tempted to just say, "They did it. The end." The problem is, that feels... "anticlimactic," if you will. Hehehehe. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks to cracked-dot-com for the plot holes in Star Wars. If you didn't realize that was Star Wars... seriously, no one could possibly not have gotten that. Never mind.

Also, "hiccupy" isn't a real word. I used it anyway. Deal with it.

I'm not going anywhere with the WWIII comment, just so you know. This fic will end in one or two more chapters.