In the faint light which preceded the rising of the sun, Castiel's eyes caressed the splatter of freckles on Dean's face, playing connect the dots and tracing a crooked "C" across the curve of one cheek.
Mine, he thought contentedly. I placed those freckles there, one by one. Long before I knew he was truly mine, I marked him as such in oh-so-many ways...
Dean's eyelashes fluttered slightly, as if sensing his bedmate's intense scrutiny, but the hunter did not wake. He just nestled further into the shelter of his pillow, as if trying to hide his face.
You can't hide from me, Dean. Castiel smiled fondly. I will always find you.
Gravity pulled a tiny bead of drool down the human's chin, and Castiel licked his own lips thoughtfully, fighting the urge to capture the drop, to savour the raw taste of Dean, to follow a path up to the parted lips of his sleeping lover... Dean's eyes would flutter open, their usual green glow hazy with sleep, and his lips would curve into a smile as Castiel pressed closer, nibbling and licking his way into the deep recesses of Dean's mouth.
It came as no surprise to the angel when his body began to respond to the fantasy he was building in his mind. He felt the weight of his erection grow, flesh swelling and nudging at the thin fabric of the pyjama bottoms he wore. Dean's pyjamas. His cock twitched happily, hot and heavy and insistent, as if knowing it was mere inches from the source of its desire. In an attempt to alleviate the delicious sense of want-need-now! which was burning its way through his veins, Castiel inched closer and began to rock himself against Dean's thigh, trying to be discreet and failing utterly.
"Morning wood," Dean murmured sleepily, cracking open a single eye.
"My name is not Wood," Castiel deadpanned.
"Huh," Dean chuckled. "Well, whoever you are, I think you want to get into my pants."
"I am already in your pants," Castiel said smugly.
"Oh ha-ha, funny man." Dean trailed a finger up and down the tented fabric of the borrowed clothing. "Who the hell taught you to be such a wise ass?"
"You did."
"I'm a good teacher."
"You are good at many things."
"Flattery will get you – Oh, yeah! Like that, Cas! Just like that!" Dean thrust eagerly into Castiel's determined hand, playful banter forgotten as their clothing magically vanished and their bodies slid together.
"There is something I must tell you," Castiel confessed hesitantly, later, much later, long after fantasy had become reality, and Dean's racing heart had slowed to its usual steady beat.
"Mmm?" The response was more contended purr than it was question.
Castiel swallowed nervously, and lifted his head from the comfortable cushion of Dean's chest. "I have been recalled to Heaven," he stated bluntly, in the manner of a man ripping off a band-aid to have it over and done with.
"You've been what?" The arm which had been loosely draped around Castiel fell away and Dean stared at his lover in disbelief. "When did this happen?"
"Several days ago. I've been waiting for a propitious time to tell you. I've been stalling, using the hunt for Crowley's would-be successors as an excuse to remain on earth. But I have completed that task. Bobby's house is secure." Castiel met Dean's eyes squarely. "You know that as long as I am an angel, Heaven has a claim upon me. My Father told you as much. It is by your choice that I cannot stay here with you. Say the words, and I will never again leave your side."
Dean's gaze turned to the ceiling as he contemplated this. "How long will you be gone?" he said quietly.
"I don't know." Castiel's heavy sigh betrayed his disappointment in Dean's reply. "As long as my Father requires my presence. A month... a year... Time moves differently in Heaven, and I am uncertain what my duties will be." A gentle hand guided Dean's head until their eyes once again met and held. "I will return as quickly as I can. I will miss you, and think of you, every second of every day."
"I'll miss you too, Cas. I love you."
"I love you too, Dean." A soul-deep kiss sealed the truth of Castiel's devotion on Dean's lips. And though the angel tasted tears as he continued to bid his husband a passionate farewell, he did not pick up on the fact that equal portions of sorrow and relief lay behind those tears.
Without the threat of Castiel popping in at any moment and catching him red-handed, Dean stepped up his plans, working day and night to ready himself to confront the Gorgon. The ingredients for a summoning potion were easy enough to assemble: calamus, bindweed, cayenne and oil of Abramelin – all of which had successfully been used to summon Crowley, though they had failed to bind him. To this end, Dean added anise, thyme and amaranth to strengthen the binding aspect and even threw in a little dried seaweed for good measure, recalling that the Gorgons were considered sea deities because they were the offspring of Phorcides and Keto, a primordial sea god and goddess.
Oh crap! I'm becoming as big a nerd as Sam is if I know that! Dean shook his head self-depreciatingly. Cramming the various ingredients into a duffle already filled to overflowing with other paraphernalia for a summoning ritual, the hunter shoved the bag under his bed, ready to grab at a moment's notice. This accomplished, he turned his mind to selecting the proper target.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other, a casual observer might say: two immortal, vicious sisters with brass claws, sharp fangs, and hair of living, venomous snakes. But, armed with as thorough a knowledge of the terrible creatures as he could garner from his readings, he decided to summon Euryale, given Stheno's reputation of being more ferocious and having killed more men than both of her sisters combined. It didn't sound like she'd be the open-minded type, and if at all possible Dean wanted to avoid a battle. He'd choose diplomacy over duking it out with a god any day. Not that he had any intention of backing down if it came to a fight!
As for devising an incantation, he didn't have Castiel's knowledge of languages or his brother's clever way with words, so he'd settle for something plain and simple, in good old fashioned English, thank you very much. Hey, get your ass over here! probably wasn't a good opening line, but that was the core intent of any invocation. He could easily gussy it up a bit. Maybe try some flattery, or have a gift on hand to sweeten the deal? That always went over well with the ladies. Yeah, summoning Euryale would be a breeze...
What to do with her once he had her was the tricky part.
All the ancient texts agreed on one important tenet: don't look directly at a Gorgon or you'll turn to stone. They also all agreed that Perseus had help. Dean pulled a worn copy of Hesiod's Shield of Hercules from a teetering stack and the book fell open in his hand to an oft perused passage:
"Perseus slung the kibisis about him, fitted the winged sandals to his ankles, and put the Helmet of Hades on his head, because wearing it he saw everyone, but himself was invisible. And having received from Hermes an adamantine sickle, he flew to the ocean and caught the Gorgons asleep. With Athena guiding his hand and himself looking on a brazen shield, where he could see the image of Medusa, he beheaded her, and put the head in the kibisis."
All well and good for Perseus, but Dean was on his own here. Not a kibisis in sight – and he wouldn't carry a purse even if he had one! No winged sandals, no helmet of invisibility, and hell if he knew exactly what an adamantine sickle was – but he had an angel blade, and that should do the trick if push came to shove. As for the brazen shield... well, brazen was just another word for brass wasn't it? At least that was Hollywood's take on the story. Both Harry Hamlin and Sam Worthington made being Perseus look easy: keep your eyes on the shield, track the Gorgon, lop off her head.
Yeah! Clash of the Titans! Now that's the kind of research I can sink my teeth into! Bet I could get a shit-load of pointers from re-watching that. Dean made a mental note to check out a few YouTube clips later that evening. Or, better still, he'd download the whole damned movie – hell, he'd get both of them, the original and the 2010 remake. It's not like Sam would launch into his usual song and dance about Dean cluttering up his precious laptop with 'pointless junk'.
In the meantime, working solely from his memory of the movies, Dean really had to question if curved, polished brass was necessarily the best reflective surface. One, it was expensive. Two, it would probably be like looking down a trumpet's bell, the reflected image all wavering and distorted. It made him feel woozy just thinking about trying to navigate using a shield like that. Nope, he needed to modernize the 'brazen' concept. Move away from the Fun House mirror approach...
Huh, Dean thought. A mirror. You can't ask for a better reflective surface than that. Plus mirrors are cheaper than brass, more plentiful and readily available.
It sounded like the beginnings of a beautiful plan.
So... all I have to do is figure out how to attach a mirror to a shield. How hard can that be? Piece of cake... right?
Something was up with Dean.
Sam didn't need eyes to know this for a fact. At first he put it down to Dean desperately missing Castiel and covering his girly feelings with his usual short-tempered refusal to talk about it. But, as the weeks went by, Sam began to question this theory. For one thing, Dean wasn't drinking himself into a stupor or smashing car bodies out in the yard. He was... focused. Sam could almost hear the gears turning in his brother's head as they sat across from each other at mealtimes.
It was disconcerting to say the least. And he was just about to call Dean on it, when his brother suddenly started pulling disappearing acts worthy of Castiel himself. Dean was gone with the rising sun and didn't return until long after Sam and Bobby had retired for the night. The one time they happened to pass each other in the hall, Sam en route to the bathroom and Dean bound for his lonely bed, Sam caught a potent whiff of crazy glue, and had the strangest dream that night that Dean was secretly building airplane models and using them to fly love letters up to Heaven.
Wrong.
It wasn't easy at all. Oh, Dean eventually got the mirror to stick to the inside of his shield, after dozens of failed attempts and a floor littered with glass shards and empty glue tubes. Turned out the secret was using a flat surface, not a curved one, and screwing the damned thing in place rather than gluing it there. This made for a rather ugly and strangely shaped shield, but he wasn't out to win any awards from Martha Stewart, so that was all right. And structural integrity, while a concern, wasn't the main issue either. Dean would lay odds that even a top quality brass shield wouldn't fend off an enraged Gorgon. No, the problem was that he couldn't see a damned thing in the mirror. He set up mannequins and practiced peering at their reflections, but the shield had such a narrow focus that he barely managed to keep stationary objects in view. He didn't stand a chance in hell of tracking a moving target.
Dean battled the childish urge to smash his shield into a thousand tiny bits, and sank down to sit on the floor instead: his arms wrapping around his legs, his forehead resting on his knees, and his eyes squeezed tightly closed.
Think, Dean, think, he told himself. You need a bigger mirror...
But a larger shield was out of the question; he could barely wield the ungainly one he had.
Who says I have to hold the mirror?
Dean's head lifted, and he slowly opened his eyes, taking in the derelict building he had appropriated for his workshop. Sunlight glinted through cracks in the weathered boards of the old barn which, technically, stood on a neighbour's property, but the access road had grown over with saplings years ago, effectively isolating the building on that side. A wall of car bodies concealed the approach to the barn on the Singer Salvage side. Dean had thought to only use the structure as a temporary workplace but, now that he thought about it, he couldn't ask for a more private spot in which to hold the ritual. Bobby never ventured out this way... nor would Sam. Not now, anyway.
As for the building itself... Large chunks of wood were missing, exposing the interior to the elements, but the framework was basically sound.
What if I covered the walls with mirrors? Hell, I could make myself a mirrored ceiling too, for that matter.
And if he knocked down a few stalls and cleared away decades worth of debris, he'd have plenty of room to maneuver if the situation called for it – and, given his luck, it probably would.
Dean smiled and pulled a tape measure from his toolbox.
Something was up with Dean. Bobby felt it in his bones, but he did what he always did when it came to poking his nose in where he knew it wasn't wanted. He kept his mouth shut, and his eyes and ears open. He put up with surly looks, slammed doors, and the dark thundercloud that always seemed to hover over Dean's head.
That boy is in a mood about something. Probably moping over that damned fool angel of his, what with him running off to Heaven like that. Guess the honeymoon's over.
His gaze turned to the younger Winchester brother, sitting at the kitchen table, his big hands folded loosely in front of him as he listened to an audio book, his fingers twitching now and then with suppressed emotion – or perhaps the familiar urge to turn a page.
And there's the other powder keg, Bobby thought sourly. Christ, wish I could light a firecracker under Dean's ass. Can't he see Sam needs him?
"Bobby!" Dean called, bursting into the kitchen with all the awkward enthusiasm of a Saint Bernard pup. "I need to borrow your truck."
Sam frowned and turned his face towards his brother. "What's wrong with the Impala?"
"Nothin'," Dean replied. "I need to haul some stuff, that's all."
"What kind of stuff?" Sam inquired.
"Just stuff," Dean said. "And I'm kinda in a hurry. I'll tell you all about it later."
Sure you will. Bobby snorted, but tossed the keys to Dean anyway. "Make sure you refill the gas tank this time," he ordered. "I'm headin' out to Grand Forks next week, and I don't want to get stranded on the I-29 halfway there."
Dean's reply was lost beneath the sound of yet another slamming door.
It was beautiful. Well worth every blister, every strained muscle, every long hour of physical labour with fingers so numb from the cold that he frequently dropped his tools. And then, of course, there was the late February storm that he almost got lost in on his way back to the house. That had been so terrifying that he'd half expected Castiel to sense his distress and swoop down to his rescue. But, apparently, reception was bad wherever the nerdy little angel was stationed. A fact which both comforted Dean and dismayed him. Obviously, he didn't want Castiel spying on his super secret project, but be damned if he didn't miss the feathery bastard. Especially on those long, cold South Dakota nights.
"Thank god for the warm spell this March," he muttered to himself. "Most years I'd still be trucking through blizzards to get here – or, worse, I'd be trapped at Bobby's, waiting 'em out. But this worked out great..."
Dean stood in the centre of the large, mirrored chamber he had created within the old barn and turned in a slow circle, taking in the myriad of Deans that stared back at him with appreciative grins on their faces. Closing off the hayloft had proven more of a challenge than he had anticipated, so he had settled for strategically placed mirrors at regular intervals. It wasn't quite the panoramic spectacle he had envisioned, but it would do. Aside from a few support beams, he had a clear view of every possible angle.
Experimentally, he tilted his shield, striking various heroic poses as he walked about the room, trying to keep his practice dummy in sight at all times. It was still harder than he had thought it would be. Adapting his sword thrusts to suit a looking glass world simply did not feel natural. And that would never do. His movements had to be precise. Clean and smooth and natural. Obviously, he needed a sparring partner.
Dean's grin returned, wider than before.
And I have just the man in mind for the job.
"Where are we going, Dean?" Sam's cane tip-tapped its way across the ground, seeking those dips and hollows which might be beneath his brother's notice, but could easily make a blind man stumble. He'd already had his fill of slipping on the ice that winter. Be damned if he was going to face-plant in a bunch of dandelion greens too.
Dean didn't answer, he just tightened his grip on Sam's forearm and tugged a little harder, urging haste.
"Dean?" Enough was enough. Sam dug in his heels and refused to budge. Short of dragging the big lummox the rest of the way, Dean had no choice except to come to a stop beside him. Sam could feel the burn of the exasperated stare Dean turned upon him.
"It's a surprise," Dean huffed eventually. "You'll like it."
"You know I hate your surprises."
"You'll like this one."
"How do you know?"
"I just know. Okay, Sam? Can you trust me on this? I spent a lot of time getting things ready for you."
"What things?"
"God, Sam! If you'd just move your ass, you'd find out in like thirty seconds. Can you wait that long? Huh? Can you?"
Sam was the perfect partner: his wild swings and unpredictable movements were exactly the kind of challenge Dean needed. For safety's sake, they started off with sawed off pool noodles, Dean assigning a hot pink one to Sam while keeping a manly blue one for himself, but rapidly progressed to battle gaming foam weapons. Sure, these 'swords' were also a far cry from the real thing, but a solid whack with a padded blade was nothing to sneeze at. Both men soon sported more than a few bruises, many of which decorated Dean's rear end, thanks to him having his back turned to Sam for most of their mock battles.
Despite it becoming increasingly painful for him to sit on a chair that didn't have a cushioned seat, Dean was having the time of his life. Sam enjoyed their workouts too. It was good to be spending time with his brother again, especially as Dean's black mood seemed to be a thing of the past. It was even better to be in motion, stretching muscles that were growing soft from disuse, and feeling his body turn trim again.
At first Sam accused Dean of letting him win, and more than once flung his garbage can lid shield to the floor in disgust. But once Dean got past the little problem of his own head blocking his view in the mirror, his fighting skills improved by leaps and bounds. Much to his delight, Sam soon found himself hard pressed to defend himself, Dean showing him no mercy and asking for none in return.
In anticipation of Sam becoming suspicious about engaging in nothing but endless sword fights, Dean also set up a small gym in a corner of his mirrored room: complete with weights, a treadmill, an exercise bike, a punching bag and whatever other secondhand equipment he could find. While Sam enjoyed the use of these distractions, Dean perfected his summoning spell or practiced drawing sigils until he could easily have performed the ritual in his sleep.
Oh yeah, Dean noted with great satisfaction, watching the sweat drip off his brother's brow as he happily pumped iron, this setup is pretty damned sweet. Who cares if it isn't some big budget Hollywood production with a flashy set and special effects up the wazoo. I've got everything I need. In fact, I think I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be. And, even if I'm not, I gotta set this plan in motion before Cas gets back home. He's already been gone well over a month. I could be running out of time...