Dean walked next to Cas, following the influx of angels filing into a large room in a section of Heaven he had never seen before.
"This is your place," Cas said with a catch in his voice, and the two of them sat down with the Ten, as they were now, the Five Nephilim who had lived at Bobby's and their partners. Balthazar directed a sardonic grin at them both and took the last of the seats facing the rest of the crowd.
Dean could pick out some of the angels in the audience as having souls in various levels of development, but there were no other humans besides the five he was sitting with. Then there were many, many other ordinary angels, if he could say hanging around with freaking angels was old hat at this point. They seemed to have no problem with facing an ex-hunter who still hadn't found his sea legs after completely falling apart. For the first time since maybe he began to capture snippets of Enochian floating through the night skies, Dean was awed at what he'd been let into.
"Let the Council come to order," Ambriel said.
"Session number 102 in the New Era," his mate, Rosa, continued.
Wonder soon gave way to boredom -probably two of the most boring hours of Dean's life.
He didn't know what he expected was actually behind the curtain in Heaven, but the workings of power were mostly a lot of back and forth about details he couldn't follow. Hr knew it was important, but the brain fog that used to fall on him while in school kept him wishing he had a knife and a desk he could carve AC/DC logos into, always a good way to pass the time.
Dean did get the gist of the proceedings, which was that the Nephilim were trying to figure out ways to create more symbiotic relationships between angels and people, whether they eventually bonded or not. Their argument for the old guard was that attracting more souls would enrich Heaven if people weren't left so desperately alone for much of their lives.
Most of the peanut gallery didn't seem so much opposed as flummoxed—how to switch the whole mechanism from infighting between brothers to enlightened administration? The old laissez-faire attitude didn't require much manpower, or understanding of the human condition.
The participants discussed various concrete proposals as well as the new principles that should govern the angelic mission. Up until that moment, Dean had been grateful for Cas' presence, but now he thought to his companion, "Do you ever think that we got together just so that the Ten could become what they are? They're pretty awesome—like a Congress that actually does stuff."
"It has crossed my mind," Cas thought back. "They are quite splendid, aren't they?"
Dean detected a note of sadness. "Has it held you back, my not being here?" The five couples each functioned as a unit. Why wasn't Etienne there?
"No," Cas said with a mental chuckle. "For some reason my soul has taken me on another path than theirs. Nothing seems simple to me anymore, there is no certitude, but you see how they are."
They watched the earnest faces conferring about the best ways to create a better age.
As if sensing they were being watched, Lester suddenly turned to them. "Do you have any ideas, Dean? We've been looking forward to your wisdom."
All eyes were on Dean and he wished he could drop out of Heaven in an instant.
"Thanks, man, I'll let you know." Cas squeezed his hand. The other couples sat very close and occasionally touched each other as well.
Soon the moment was over, but he struggled to understand why it felt so wrong being at the council.
The Nephilim were all trying to simultaneously observe him without seeming like they were watching.
The others were afraid that whatever had happened to him, at the vanguard of the transformation process, would eventually happen to them. Falling in love with another, becoming a plaything of Hell—each of them either feared such a terrible fate, or feared his partner undergoing it.
"I also feel that way sometimes, but there is no way to compare one path with another, my love," Castiel thought at him.
They both started at the first endearment between them since their reunion, and a slight ripple went through the crowd as well. Dean wasn't used to being around a bunch of beings that vibrated at a similar frequency.
The couple smoothed over the moment and sat through the rest of the meeting in silence.
"Thank God it's over," Dean whispered to Cas when everyone got up.
"This is the last part and then we can leave," Castiel whispered back, getting to his feet as Remiel entered and took the floor.
Within a few minutes the brusque angel had discarded all but a few of the ideas that had taken the group hours to formulate and assigned tasks to most of those present.
"He's quite something, isn't he?" Castiel thought at him. "You really should thank him for intervening on your behalf—Remiel went to great lengths." The fact that the pacifist had taken a life for his lover's sake was not lost on Cas.
Remiel nodded stiffly at the angels who were exiting the room and then looked at Dean calmly. "There is a matter I wish to discuss with you-cousin."
Cas looked stricken for some reason and scanned both their visages before leaving with the rest.
"Yes sir, I wanted to thank you for helping me," Dean stammered, not sure how to relate to a head of state who wasn't a total dick, like Raphael was.
The leader cut him off. "That's not what I wished to discuss. Ask me your question."
"My—" Dean's brain was paralyzed for a moment and then he remembered that this was the angel who was bonded to his counterpart in the other dimension. The worry that had been consuming him came tumbling out. "How is he?" He realized it might get back to Cas that he was asking about Adonis, so he amended, "I mean, how did their apocalypse work out—did they rescue their Sam?"
"They performed their parts as required. Sam is out of Hell, but he has suffered a great deal," Remiel said in his usual bored tone. "And the Other Dean is currently not with his partner. It seems they decided upon some time apart."
Dean had no idea how he was supposed to feel about that, and it was even more confusing to have his emotions pulled in a hundred directions under the cold gaze of the new head angel. He also couldn't help but feel that this conversation was exactly what Cas had been afraid would go on between them.
"I really hear very little," Remiel said softly. "The door is meant to stay closed between dimensions for reasons I believe you now understand very well."
"Fate," Dean spat. "We're just supposed to take our lot and go through the required motions. Haven't all of you been paying attention? I screw everything up, so can't Fate and the rest of you leave me be?"
Suddenly realizing he was talking to someone who could smite him multiple times over, and had reason to, Dean stopped short.
"We are not just our fates, Dean," the other said with a peculiarly calming intonation. "Everyone has a few occasions upon which he can choose something for his own reasons. The important thing is to recognize those instances as what makes a person what he is."
For a moment Dean felt as though he'd met his first real angel—like the kind you hear about when you're a child. The sort that look right through you and don't hate what they see. He had the sudden urge to hold on to Remiel's robe and follow him around for a long while, trying to understand what he was doing right.
"Well, I don't have time to stand around chatting," Remiel said in an abrupt change of tone. "You saw the sort of nonsense the others come up with, those 'Ten.' Truly Dean, I would value some of your common sense to counteract the rest of the council." The human thought he saw a glimmer of humor. "I recommend listening to the psalms being sung around the planet if you have an unquiet heart."
Dean was left all alone in the huge chamber, and he crumpled into the nearest seat.
"Are you ill?" Castiel was there in a moment, accompanied by Balthazar.
"I think rather Dean got an overdose of policy discussion," the latter said knowingly. "I know exactly the antidote: Paris, good wine, and perhaps some dancing."
"You didn't look like you were hating the meeting," Dean observed as he followed the other two out, leaning a little on Cas.
The two angels laughed. "My brother Balthazar has a legendary dislike of meetings. Have you ever seen him enjoy sitting still? There was one time he was particularly bored during one of Raphael's long speeches—"
Dean listened to the two angels he knew best reminisce about Balthazar's pranks as they made way to one of the portals.
"There are two vessels that look likely for me in Europe," Cas said shyly. "I've talked to them both in their dreams, and they're willing. Which would you prefer to negotiate the entry for me?"
This was their first trip out, and Dean had forgotten how much trouble it would be for him to help Cas into every vessel. Or maybe kind if interesting…
Dean looked at one who was a big, dark haired man, possibly Italian, who made his stomach knot up because of a few features in common with Adonis. The other was an Englishman or maybe a Scot, with a frank, friendly smile and a simple comfort about him. He was aware this was some kind of test but it was no contest: "The Brit. We can be two redheads, how's that?"
They went down, Dean basically said "yes" and Castiel slipped into the man's body, who was pleasingly barrel-chested and had strong hands Cas used on him at once.
The three zapped themselves to Paris and he dared to feel a little happy. He was part of the gang now, sort of. These two ridiculously old beings were letting him in on their in-jokes.
"Where are we going? Where's Etienne?" Dean asked.
"Oh that's right, let me tell him what bar to meet us at. He's writing back in our room." Batlhazar paused for a second. "All right, one of our favorites from the 19th century it is."
Both Cas and Dean hesitated a moment, unable to keep from sharing a thought: they were almost completely unable to transmit to each other from long distances anymore. But this other couple, whose bond was intact, obviously could.
"I can tell some serious drinking is In order," Balthazar said in his usual casual manner, and then they were at the bar.
"Dean, what have they done to you?" Etienne embraced him warmly in the middle of a bar, and he flinched at the idea that his marks from Hell were obvious. "You made him stay for an entire council meeting?" he reproached Cas and Dean relaxed. "That wasn't very nice."
"Etienne went once, stood up in the middle of the session saying in his impeccable manners, 'Pardon me, sirs, but I have an urgent engagement,' and has refused to go near the council since."
"Intellectuals and politics don't mix," Etienne said primly. "I have my own ways of helping, and most of them involve being on Earth. Drinking, writing , or preferably, both."
The natural affectionate gestures between the couple seared Dean with an unexpected sense of loss, and when he hid behind his virtues he felt Cas' hurt at being cut off. Being in a relationship was hard work, and he still had so little experience.
"What's good for drinking?" Dean asked. "I need to take a load off."
They led him to a table and plied him with wine and stories about the bar that shared a few bits and boards from when Etienne and Balthazar were in Paris so long ago. Warmed by the drink and their amusing hosts, Cas and Dean found themselves with their arms around each other and laughing loudly above the spirited crowd.
"So back then, guys were, I mean, there were places," Dean began tentatively, still not used to having changed social statuses with his new preference.
Even Cas burst out laughing. "Men have always had their ways," Castiel said with a formal understatement that suddenly reminded Dean of when they were first getting together.
They stared at each other with real smiles mixed with shyness, each expecting the other to make the first move with the desire that was suddenly smoldering between them.
A trio of musicians had been setting up in one corner: an accordionist, a flute player and someone with a small guitar. They began their first song.
"That sounds like, really French," Dean said of the mournful yet cheerful jig.
"That, my good sir, is gypsy music," Etienne said professorially. He shouted out something in an odd language and the men picked up the pace to a danceable tune.
"Come now, Castiel, if you are such an angel of the world, you must be a good dancer," the Spaniard said, holding out his hand.
"Oh, no, not that," the angel said, shrinking into himself with more terror than Dean had ever seen in him.
"You dance, Cas?" There was still so much for them to discover about each other.
Castiel's old scowl was back and Dean wanted to kiss him for it. He hadn't known how much he missed teasing Cas.
"Everyone can dance if they have a soul," Etienne said primly and had the angel on the floor in no time.
"Actually, dancing is more catching, like a cold," Balthazar said to Dean, refilling his glass. "My beloved is a marvelous dancer in more styles than you've ever heard of. Cas can't help but look good alongside him. I'm convinced that Etienne learned his angelic flying skills so quickly because he was already comfortable floating above ground."
They watched the two put on a show for the rest of the guests, the patrons shouting out encouragement to Cas that seemed to both please and unnerve him.
"It's not just you, Dean Winchester," Balthazar said suddenly. "Etienne has a very hard time as well. He can scarcely stand to look at me sometimes because of the part I played—unwillingly—in his long period of suffering. He pours something into notebook after notebook, is all I know."
"I brought it on myself," Dean muttered. "Your guy didn't go to Hell on purpose. And you two led the third front of the apocalypse together. You were awesome."
Balthazar made an impatient gesture. "We've always gotten along, Dean—both irreverent bastards, perhaps-and I'd hate for you to let one day ruin our friendship," the libertine angel said. "You want to know why I endure those insufferable council gatherings? Because I don't trust anyone, not even the best-intentioned attempts to impose order. Neither I nor my partner do. Free spirits think alike, I suppose—"
"Wait, how did you know Etienne was such a good dancer?" Dean asked, as the crowd laughed at the Spaniard's arabesques around the blushing Cas. "The whole time you knew him you were inside him."
"Yes, I experienced his dancing from inside. It was one of those wonderful things we shared—him opening me to something I never would have understood otherwise."
"Do you miss it?" Dean whispered as their companions began weaving their way through the appreciative crowd.
"No, not at all," Balthazar said, surprised. "We're closer now as two than as one."
Dean nodded as Castiel sat down heavily in the seat beside him. "I'm sure I looked as foolish as I felt, but this dancing pastime does make one forget oneself for a moment."
"That's a good thing," Dean said, rubbing Cas' back. "I wouldn't mind trying that sometime."
Their hands laced together, they were shooting back and forth images of the night to come with that new body, when they realized Etienne was raising his voice.
"I don't care how lovely that district is these days—in my day something rather awful happened on the Boulevard Arago!" The Spaniard flounced out and Balthazar shrugged.
"I was suggesting moving to another bar. Something bad happened to him almost everywhere in Paris—only sometimes does he remember."
"I'll go after him," Dean said to the others' surprise. "He doesn't have any reason to be mad at me yet."
He easily traced Etienne to a few streets over. "Hey man, I was hoping you could do me a favor," he said with a sly smile. Seeing the other man look doubtful, he continued, "I know how French people pretend they don't know English when they do. There's something I want to get Cas." He whispered it in the other's ear.
"Mon dieu! I would not know where to find such a thing! In my day everything was accomplished under layers and layers of euphemism. In one of my few encounters with a man before Balthazar, I was always waiting until long after we had our clothes off for the other fellow to sit up and say, 'Romantic encounter? I thought you were trying to sell me something on the black market!'"
They laughed and developed an immediate complicity. "Seeing as I do speak the language, let's find out."
In no time at all the two men had located a place and Dean had chosen the gift.
"There's more to you than meets the eye, Monsieur Winchester," Etienne said, looking Dean up and down with a penetrating gaze.
Dean didn't mind being looked at. "And I'll deny all of it if you tell anyone," he said with a half-smile. "I need to get good and drunk before I have the courage to give Cas this."
"Oh I would pay to see the look on his face," the other man giggled. And then they rejoined their mates in another bar, this with an obviously gay clientele.
They drank and they laughed. The two men made sure they had liquids with some nutrition in them. Dean easily bested everyone else with drinking stories. He was sad to see the evening end, and not just because the couple hosting them in Europe was so much fun.
It was easier to be in a group than alone with Cas.
"Would you, I mean, are you planning on reestablishing yourself in New York?" Castiel asked in a small voice. "Heaven will give you more suitable lodgings should you choose to stay, I hope you know."
"I miss your room," Dean said, suddenly aware of the truth of the statement. Nothing bad had ever happened to him there.
Cas held out a hand, adding some solemnity to the moment as they prepared to go to the room for the first time without Cas beaming him up or carrying him.
Dean had actually been looking forward to being scooped up in those powerful arms.
"You know, humans have a ritual when they're, like, bonded with someone and going home together for the first time," he said slyly.
Cas put on his best "taking notes" face while Dean explained the "carrying over the threshold idea."
"Like this?" The angel held him like before.
"That's pretty close," Dean said, no longer feeling quite the effect now that he was a lot closer to being able to kick Cas' ass, but he still felt very excited about the prospect of being alone with him in that strong new body.
"You don't have to put me down," he whispered when they were in the interdimensional room.
It was awkward having to explain sexual possibilities to the earnest, note-taking face Cas assumed once more, but the wonder that took over his face was priceless.
Making love while being held in the air by Cas' arms was pretty great too.
Risking a few naughty phrases he was careful to make come out in English, not Greek, Dean basked in the feeling of being taken until there was nothing left of him.
Cas was surprised and relieved to feel Dean cooing in his arms, trying to get closer, closer, the way he did the first time they bonded. This was the Winchester man he remembered—opinionated even in bed, willful, creative—that tender-strong creature he had once thought was a soul, but Cas now knew to be specifically Dean.
His lover seemed to like this vessel. Hopefully Morris would let them use him as many times as he wanted. The finance man from the City of London was a perfect candidate: recently divorced and haunted by the idea that he had never really lived. He had been shocked about the idea of a homosexual tryst with angels but not unpleasantly so.
Cas' awareness was so large it was easy for him to worry about the types of needs a man might have that would never occur to him, even as an angel with a soul. Should he find a book somewhere that would school him in these matters? The angel would never have considered this particular position—most of his fantasies degenerated into a tangle of limbs and longing without stopping at foreplay. All he knew was he wanted to please his lover in the way his simple, angelic being was being pleased—it was practically speaking in tongues he was so happy to be soul-to-soul with his beloved.
At last. That's all that mattered. He probably could be content touching Dean's elbow, but right now Cas' borrowed hands were plucking Enochian syllables from his lover that were unlike any he had ever heard before.
"I'll have him any which way, any which way he wants me," was the thought rebounding in Castiel's mind before he exploded twice, once on each plane, both times with joy.
They lay contentedly together for a long time before Dean finally asked, "What was that you were saying? Any what way?"
Castiel nervously scanned his partner's face for evidence that he had overheard all the rest of his thoughts while they were together, but Dean simply looked irresistible and Cas kissed him for a long while before remembering the question.
"I was just thinking I'd stand on my head if you wanted me to, if it gave you pleasure." Cas' hesitant words halted when he saw Dean's scrutiny. "Is that possible?" the angel protested. "it doesn't seem like it would be very considerate of the vessel."
"No, Thursday, that's not what I had in mind." Dean saw that the old nickname had the desired effect and fetched his things from across the room. "I bought you a present."
"No one has ever given me a present," Castiel said, and Dean was distracted from his mission for a moment by the total purity of the angel in front of him. There was so much to show him…
"I think you're really going to enjoy this," he purred as his lover unwrapped-
"'Bondage 101 Set'?" Cas was turning over the leather whip and restraints in his hands. "Is this for cattle herding?"
"No!" Dean grabbed the articles from him and tried to demonstrate, acting out both parts—the whip-wielder and the avid lash recipient. "It's for role-playing. It's a couples thing. You know, couples do things together, they lie around naked together, they have nicknames and sometimes they play games."
"I don't know how to play games," Cas objected, obviously beginning to feel out of his element.
"Evidently one part of you does," Dean smirked, pointing at an obvious interest in Cas' borrowed lap.
Watching the perpetually earnest Cas peering at his own unexpected tumescence was too much for Dean, and he had to reward what he hoped would be a mutually enjoyable scratching of this S/M itch of his.
"There's a lot of things I want you to do," Dean said, enumerating them as he delivered a paralyzing amount of pleasure to the relevant spots. Pulling his lover back from the brink, he placed the whip in Cas' hand. "You know you want to," he whispered, stretching out his naked body for maximum effect.
Castiel looked at the implement as if he had no idea how it got there. He looked at his lover, whom he wanted to give any sort of pleasure he could ever want.
Except this.
The angel sat down heavily on one end of the couch he'd brought there for Dean. He'd been struggling with the awareness that he probably would have to do another "treatment." Just as last time, he would reproduce the complete isolation of Hell and then reassure Dean that he was there for him, that Castiel would always be there.
He just hadn't been planning on it running over into their romantic intimacy.
To Cas' mind, beginning the hated "role-playing" as Dean called it was about as sensual as giving him a blood transfusion.
Fatally, he told his lover so.
"I have needs!" Dean exclaimed bitterly. "You're supposed to share things with me, explore new things, get off on the same things as me! Would you rather I go somewhere else?"
The words were designed to wound, but not any farther than breaking the skin. Castiel was in a rage in a second, towering over Dean on the angelic plane as he seldom did.
"Is this how it's going to be? I changed everything that I am for you and you're going to be passing your ass around Heaven AND Earth to torment me for my fatal lack of perversity? Well, I'm here to tell you, Dean Winchester, that maybe I don't love you enough, if that's what passes for love among depraved sluts such as yourself—"
Castiel was so furious he wasn't aware of the whip being pressed into his hand.
"Maybe you'll think twice about giving it out to all and sundry if I make you feel who every inch of that body belongs to—I made you into a man-loving half-angel, all-whore and I want everyone to know—"
The lashes that had been crackling off the length of leather died away in that empty room, and the angel stared at it as if he were holding a snake. He threw the article far from him and did something Dean didn't even think he could do: he retched.
"Oh, don't stop, Cas, that was just right," Dean said, openly reflecting his enjoyment.
Until the sobs started.
"Wait a minute, baby, don't take it like that," Dean tried to soothe the angel. "This is the way it's supposed to be. You get into it, do things you wouldn't normally do in the heat of the moment. A lot of people find it therapeutic. Plenty of chicks I was with—"
"I am not a chick," Castiel replied coldly. "Nor a man. Perhaps you should find one who can understand this—interest—that is apparently peculiar to humans." He was pulling clothes on his vessel as if wanting to shield the stranger from this ugly end to the beautiful evening he'd promised the lonely man.
"That's not true," Dean objected, feeling unpleasant reminders of his one-sided frotteurism sessions with Cas early on. He got dressed as well. "At that club in New York I saw plenty of angels, and they were all-"
"Not me. They were all not me. I trust you can find your own way back to wherever it is you long to be-whether you prefer the brand of not-me that is an actual person or merely an imaginary friend, I care not."
The roleplaying kit shoved in his hands, Dean was shoved out the door.
Alone in their respective rooms, the two had more in common than they thought:
They wept.