Dean couldn't believe he was seeing his baby brother after all these years. He looked so healthy and big and – well, obviously he was loved, he had Gabriel who had risked life or death coming to save him from his own brother – and hurt. Raped and beaten and it was all Dean's fault.
Michael had done this. Him and his goons. Dean felt, for the first time in years, rage. It boiled up inside of him, dangerous and hot. He wanted to kill Michael, he wanted to burn the bed to ashes, he wanted to do so many things he had never dared to think of since he had lost his freedom!
But he had dropped his gun, so he couldn't kill Michael, at least from this distance, and they were hiding beneath the bed, so it wouldn't do any good to set it on fire. He couldn't scream because he just… couldn't. He couldn't say a thing, not around the lump in his throat.
He just looked Sam in the eyes and realized how much of a failure he was. His own choices in life had led Sam here, to suffer like this, and it wasn't fair! Sam didn't deserve this shit. But here he was, covered in cum, blood, cuts, and bruises. He had friction burns and tear stains, a hopeless-sort of light in his hazel eyes.
Dean cupped his face in both his hands and tried to say something, anything, but all that came out was his brother's name in broken syllables. He wasn't even sure what he said till Sam wrapped his arms around his shoulders and held on with all his considerable strength. "I-I'm here, Dean… I should have been h-here for you… so much sooner!" His voice was hoarse and Dean didn't have to wonder why. He didn't want to wonder.
Vaguely, he's aware of the fact that Michael and Gabriel were fighting. The guns went off a few times and he knew the exact moment they ran out of bullets because he heard the metal hit the ground and the scuffle of two bodies coming together.
He twisted his upper body around to see them. He was instantly happy that Sam, though taller than him, had his head level with Dean's chest and couldn't see around him unless he tried and he was too drained to do that.
Gabriel and Michael didn't fight like douchebags or drunks. They knew martial arts and they weren't afraid to use it. Michael cracked into the dresser and, in the next moment, Gabriel was two inches away from flying out the window. It went back and forth with Michael slowly but surely gaining the upper hand.
At one point, he had Gabriel on the ground. He was choking him with the calmness of one not killing his younger brother and Gabriel was trying to buck him off and twist his wrists at the same time. He was doing everything right to get free, but… Michael was doing everything right to keep him down at the same time.
Sam must have heard Gabriel wheezing for air because he pushed away from Dean's chest to look. "G-Gabe!" His eyes were wide with love and pain and fear and – Dean wouldn't be able to live with himself if Gabriel died. He couldn't imagine looking into those eyes if Gabriel wasn't there. He already had a hard enough time, seeing as how he had gotten his little brother raped, but this would be the end, he just knew it.
What he did, it made him the person he had once been. Strong. He rolled away from Sam, torpedoed across the floor, and grabbed the gun he had dropped by the doorway. He coiled around and – Michael was staring at him.
Dean looked into those eyes and was cowed. He couldn't do it, he couldn't pull the trigger. Michael had been so much a part of his life, his life line basically, and it was impossible! Gabriel was still there, struggles dying down, and Sam was crawling out of the safe zone with a single-minded resolve in his agonized eyes.
"Little one…" Michael whispered.
"Dean." That wasn't Michael. That was Cas. A hand settled on Dean's shoulder, wet and warm and Dean assumed it to be blood. He was shaking hard now too. "Shoot."
Michael ducked and rolled too late, though he did give it a valiant attempt.
A hole bloomed in the center of his forehead. Dean would have been a little proud of his marksmanship except Michael was dead.
All he had known for the past two years, the only thing keeping him sane. It had been dirty and demeaning and unhappy, but it had been all Dean had had. Now it was gone and Michael was still staring at him with those calm eyes, even with the light gone from them.
Gabriel gasped and panted, getting air back. Sam shoved Michael's body off of him and grabbed hold of his lover, putting his face in the junction of his head and shoulder. Gabriel turned towards him and held him, like he was everything precious in the world, and that did something to heal the gaping hole in Dean's chest.
The rage was gone now. Michael was gone with it. What was he supposed to feel? He had been repressed for so long, he wasn't even sure…
Castiel reached out and gently plucked the gun from him. It was only then that he realized his hands were shaking. "Dean…" That's all he said. But Dean heard everything in that single word, every concern and praise and tear.
"I-I – Cas, I don't know… Michael…" He looked desperately up at him and he wasn't strong anymore. He was lost and unsure. He was most likely alone again.
Sam would be stupid to hang out with him after this. He had suffered so much because of Dean. He imagined Gabriel would be following Sam and Castiel wouldn't always be there, no matter what he had promised. No one was always there for Dean, Dean was always, always alone… Except when Michael had been there.
Castiel's face was bruised and there was a cut above his one eyebrow. Dean could only guess that the guns they had been fighting with in the other room had somehow gotten misplaced and a blade had gotten involved because there were slices showing through the man's trench coat. The source of blood on his hand was a slash along his forearm.
He held his other hand out and Dean took it, using it to get to his feet.
Castiel held his gaze and Dean wasn't strong enough to look away. "Look after your brother while I check on Gabriel."
Dean could follow orders. Michael had taught him that, so, if nothing else, that was something he could do. It wasn't something he wanted to do – now, without the weight of Michael on their shoulders, what would Sam think of him?
He was going to let Dean have it now, Dean just knew it. And it wouldn't be any less than he deserved.
He thought it would take a full-force attack to separate Sam and Gabriel. It only took a hand on his brother's shoulder to get him to move, that and a grin from his lover.
They relocated (slowly and painfully) to the bathroom and Dean helped Sam clean up. He took a long shower and Dean helped with that too, because – aside from the fact that Sam couldn't hold himself up on one leg – he remembered the first time Michael had smooth talked him into an orgy with his boys. It hadn't been a happy time. Dean had had just enough rebellion left in him that night to fight halfway through and that had made the experience feel like he was being ripped to shreds.
He knew enough to know that the water wasn't going to clean Sam – not in the way he was trying to be clean, anyway. They turned it on searing hot first and when that failed to burn the taint away, he went on freezing cold as if he could just numb his body and all the messages it was sending him.
Dean was still dressed, but that didn't stop him from stepping into the shower when Sam sobbed – just a small sound, not even a full cry – and holding him. It reminded him painfully of their childhood, after mom had died and some time after dad had started drinking. The nights where he would turn to the brothers and blame them for his problems, how Sam would cry afterwards because he had only been a little boy who had wanted a family more than anything else in the world.
"Dean… I'm so sorry, I abandoned you, I left you alone – I-I was being so selfish…"
"Sammy, stop…"
"No, Dean! I'm not going to stop!" Sam ripped himself out of his arms and stared down at Dean.
It made him feel so small to have to look up to his little brother. He felt like Sam had become a giant in the time they were apart, but Sam hadn't even grown that much since the last time they saw each other. An eternity, but it hadn't been that long, actually.
"I should have come back, I should have talked to you – I shouldn't have just left like that and I'm, I'm so sorry… He got to you because I left you –"
"Hey now, don't take all the credit."
"Dean." God, he had never guessed he would miss Sam's bitchfaces. The joy he felt just by seeing it made him smile despite everything.
Michael was dead in the next room.
His smile died quickly. Okay, not despite everything.
"I'm being serious! I can't… I'm not going to leave you like this again, okay? I'm going to get you help – get us both help, and we're going to get through this together…"
"… Get through what together?"
"Dean, do you know what 'Stockholm syndrome' is?"
He frowned. "Uhh… Sure… it's whatever you say it is."
"It's when a victim becomes dependent on his or her – in your case, his – tormentor."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Dean…" Sam sighed and a tear rolled down his face, mixing with the water droplets. "It has everything to do… with you."
~::~
Gabriel had some friends still in the business. Dean didn't personally care for their pantheon-related cover names or even for them themselves. He was just happy that they knew how to do a good cleanup and that, by the time they left, all traces of Michael and his goons was gone from his house.
A part of him still wanted to get rid of it, though. Michael had been here, and Dean would always remember that, no matter if there was no proof to show it. Michael and his people. Dean hadn't lived here for years, it had been "little one". Dean the human had been long gone from this house.
But it was Bobby's too, Sammy's and his. They had had good memories here and the salvage yard was still in the back. His Impala was up front and he could repair that, given time and supplies. He could start up the family business again and put up regular hours at the bar.
The thoughts swirled around in his head till it occurred to him that he was actually free to do all of this.
Castiel found him two hours later, hiding among the metal skeletons in the yard. "Dean?" The man sat down next to him on the hood of a rusty Ford.
He jerked and shifted closer instantly, almost to the point of being on Cas. He needed the contact. "I don't know what the fuck to do, Cas, I'm – I'm…"
"Free?"
Dean gulped. "Yeah. Free. I don't know what to do."
Castiel wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled his head down to his chest. "Neither do I. I've been shaking this whole time. My head, it's… Nothing is clear to me right now. I want to escape with everything in me, in any form I can find escape, and the only thing keeping me from raiding your medical cabinet is you. Use me like I use you, Dean."
"… That sounded dirty, Cas." But in a good way, he thought. So he grinned and winked. He hadn't winked in so long, it almost felt foreign. "I like it."
Castiel took a moment to think that over, staring into the distance. Then his eyes slid to Dean's and there was just a speck of humor to be found, though his lips spread more easily into a small grin. "Dean, get your head out of the gutter."
He laughed. He couldn't help it, really. When was the last time he had been able to make a sex joke? But then his laughter died quickly as he thought of the situation. This was the end of the weak Dean, wasn't it? How could he know for sure, though? "Cas… Tell me to do something."
"Like what?"
"Something… something degrading. Something just fucked up."
"Dean, I don't want to –"
"You said to use you like you use me, now damn it, help me!"
Castiel stared at him for a very long moment. "Kiss me."
Dean groaned. "Not good enough, Cas, It's not degrading! Say something really bad, something you'd never say in a thousand years."
"Then why would I say it now?"
"Cas – "
"Dean."
There was a static moment where Dean glared at him and Cas glared back.
He finally gave. "Dean," he said with so much damn authority that Dean shivered and ducked his head. He had that low, gravelly voice – like Michael's and yet so not like Michael's because everything about Michael had been smooth and now he was dead. "Come with me to the house and then… and then suck me off in front of your brother."
That was good for a first time. Dean's stomach dropped just at the idea of it and yet something hot curled in his nether regions at the thought of having Cas in his mouth. He imagined that Castiel would be a gentle lover and wouldn't fuck the back of his throat like Michael's goons.
He swallowed and pushed the thoughts away. "… No."
His entire world ended with a burst of black and blue and red and he felt as if every bone in his body had been yanked free, but there was no pain. There was fear and uncertainty, but there was something good too. Like he could finally breathe.
When had been the last time he had said no? And not because Michael had wanted him to, but because he had wanted to? The weak Dean really seemed to be gone, he might actually be able to be have his own mind again.
He waited anxiously for Cas's reply. Michael had beaten the no out of him early on and now he just needed to know that Cas wouldn't do the same. He doubted it, but… he hadn't been hanging out with the best of people lately, had he? Trust wasn't that easy to come by.
Castiel brought him into the circle of his arms and kissed the corner of his lips. "Thank you."
The fear was swept away with the contact and Dean managed a small, small smile. "Jeez, Cas, you might just be after my heart."
Neither of them replied to that. They were a little too torn and tattered to be considering love and they needed to heal a little.
Besides, Dean still had to look after his baby brother. He needed to make sure that Sammy was okay and that they were okay. Castiel needed to make sure that his boss wasn't going stir-crazy, having had his lover raped by his own brother and his goons as well as his near-death experience.
They would talk about emotions eventually… for now, there was just so much more they had to do.
They had to hold each other together.
Author's Note: Still testing out drama, so, yes, two out of three people lost their gun in this chapter and fought hand-to-hand combat. One out of three got their gun back and just blasted the motherfucker.
Drama on a level of 1-10, 1 being too little, 10 being too much, and 5 being just right, what do you think?
