Chapter 14: The Monster at the End of This Book

Carver Edlund.

Dean hadn't even heard the name until that morning, and now he hated the man with every fiber of his being, and then some.

"This is freakin' insane," Dean grumbled from the bed, throwing a book down only to pick it back up again, his fingers skimming through the pages. He had been reading all morning and he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that some guy out there was writing books about their lives. Books that other people read. Books about him having sex that other people read. "How's this guy know all this stuff?"

"You got me," Sam said, studying his laptop.

"Everything is in here," Dean continued to grouse, sitting up to toss the book onto the messy pile in the middle of the bed. "I mean everything. From the racist truck to me having sex. I'm full-frontal in here, dude."

Eli suddenly began giggling hysterically. Dean glowered at her.

"Something funny, anime girl?'"

She glanced at him from where she was sprawled on the couch with a lopsided grin that showed too many teeth. She was still wearing the ridiculous getup she had put on for the initial trip to the comic-book store: a pink, slightly low-cut Hello Kitty sweater, orange Chucks, and blue ribbons in her high buns. Her fake square-cut glasses now lay on the floor next to her, but when on she painted quite the picture of a nerd's wet dream.

"You have your methods, I have mine," she had simply when Dean asked about her wardrobe. He had wanted to laugh at the time, but it had worked. It had really worked. Getting answers from the Star Wars t-shirt-wearing man-child behind the cash register had been almost too easy with her leaning innocently over the counter and putting on a perfect, pouting, I'm so enthralled by what you're saying face. It was a little disturbing, how easily she could wind people around her finger when she really wanted to.

Now the polish was gone, and Eli was back to her old self—rough around the edges with the mentality of a dirty-minded five-year-old. She snorted, kicking her feet into the air and holding the book above her head. "This is enthralling. I mean, really great stuff. Listen to this." She cleared her throat and began to read. "Dean allowed himself to be roughly pushed to the bed, her fingernails running across his bare chest, the devilish smile on her face like a cat playing with its food…" She trailed off, laughing hysterically. Dean stood and snatched the book from her hands.

"All right, that's enough reading for you."

"No, no wait, it gets better," Eli gasped, grabbing his pant leg. "Then, she asks you to call her 'Mistress,' and you…"

"That's enough!" He jerked his pants out of her grasp and walked over to Sam, tossing the book on the bed before he did so. "How come we haven't heard of them before?" he asked, leaning over Sam's shoulder. Behind him, Eli was still in the throes of mirth, barely able to breathe.

"They're pretty obscure," Sam said, typing quickly. "I mean, almost zero circulation. It started in '05. The publisher put out a couple dozen before going bankrupt. And the last one –" He spun his laptop to the side so that Dean could read the list of books on the page—"No Rest For The Wicked, ends with you going to hell."

"I reiterate: Fucking insane." He clicked a link on the web page, his face relaxing a little. "Check it out. There's actually fans. There's not many of them, but still. Did you read this?"

"Yeah…" Sam said, a little nervously.

Dean scrolled through the information, grumbling over how the much the fans complained. Then he paused, a grin lighting up his face. "Hey, check it out! There are 'Sam girls' and 'Dean girls' and …" He trailed off, his brow wrinkling in confusion. "What's a 'slash' fan?"

Behind them, Eli's laughter reached new levels. The brothers turned to her, Dean with an eyebrow quirked, Sam with a despairing look on his face. She held up a finger, trying to slow her breathing.

"I know… what slash… means," she managed to get out.

"Yeah, you would, nerd," Dean said. "What does it mean?"

"It means…" She couldn't get the words out. "It means…you…and…." She collapsed in laughter again, holding her sides. "Oh, god, it hurts," she giggled. "Can't breathe…."

Dean turned to Sam. "What does it mean?"

"Slash…" Sam started hesitantly. "As in… Sam-Slash-Dean. Together."

"Like, together together?" Dean asked, horrified. Sam nodded grimly.

"Yeah."

Behind them, Eli let up another howl of laughter.

"They do know we're brothers, right?" Dean asked, trying to ignore her. Sam shrugged.

"Doesn't seem to matter."

"Oh, come on," Dean said with disgust in his voice, his face puckered up as if he had swallowed something sour. "That's just sick." He spun around, glaring at the other side of the motel room. "And will you shut up already!"

Eli fell off the couch.

Dean turned back to the computer, his mouth set in a harsh line. "We got to find this Carver Edlund."

"That might not be so easy," Sam said apologetically. His fingers flew over the keyboard, bringing up minimized windows and tabs, long lists of names and numbers in type so small Dean could barely read it. "He has no tax records, no known address. Looks like 'Carver Edlund' is a pen name."

Dean cracked his knuckles, just aching to punch someone in the face. Or gank something. Preferably the author. "Somebody's gotta know who he is."

Eli's phone rang. She picked it up quickly, as if she had been waiting for a call, took a moment to steady her breathing, and then asked in a mostly composed voice: "Hello?"

She paused for a moment as someone spoke on the other end, then nodded. "Okay, okay, I understand. Be there soon. Bye." She snapped the phone shut.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked, staring at her. "You never get phone calls."

"Business thing," she said, standing and pulling her leather jacket over the pink sweater. "Very important. Gotta go. Call me if you get any leads on Carver Edlund, okay? I'm looking forward to meeting the man who has brought me so much happiness."

She beamed at them before running out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Dean narrowed his eyes, turning back to Sam.

"She's lucky she's cute. That girl keeps getting weirder and weirder."

Eli left the room and went directly to where he had told her to go: a scraggly copse of trees that lined a lonely road about five blocks away. She entered the small forest tentatively, jumping over thick patches of undergrowth and avoiding poison ivy. The sun streamed chill through the mostly-bare branches, a weak, watery light that bleached everything into a flat winter grey.

Suddenly a hand touched her on the arm. "Elijah."

Eli spun around. "Cas," she said, breathing deeply. "You startled me."

"My apologies," he said, tilting his head and staring hard at her with those wide-set blue eyes. She looked around at the spindly trees and brown grass, the air around them quiet and desolate. In the distance, a bird cried.

"Why did you want to meet here?" she asked, turning to face him. He was still staring at her with that inscrutable look on his face.

"I needed someplace close to your location that would be… unobserved," Castiel said, shifting on his feet and finally looking away, his shoulders tense. "I am supposed to stay near the Winchesters and could not risk simply…taking you somewhere."

"I see," she said, stepping closer to him and putting a hand flat on his chest. His shoulders immediately eased as he looked down at her with unmistakable fondness in his eyes. His hard mouth softened in something close to a smile. Tentatively he reached out, tracing her jawline with his thumb.

"You are dressed…oddly, today," he said, his hand moving up to touch the blue ribbons still in her buns. She flushed.

"I was working a case with Sam and Dean. I, ah, forgot to change."

He pulled a ribbon from her hair, feeling the softness of it between his fingers. "That is all right," he said. "It makes you look… innocent."

"Well that's something I don't usually he…" she started to joke, but was cut off when his mouth found hers. He pressed into her, harder this time, more sure of himself; she wrapped her arms around his neck, fingers in his hair, and opened her mouth, deepening the kiss.

Finally Castiel pulled away. "This is wrong," he rasped, as if it was difficult to say. Eli stepped back, her face flushed. She tugged at her shirt, looking anywhere but at him.

"Yeah, I … I guess it is."

He looked at her with huge, oddly pained eyes. "Do you wish to stop?"

She shook her head fiercely. "No. God no. Do… do you?"

As an answer he reached for her again.

Castiel knew, absolutely and unequivocally, that what he was doing was very, very wrong.

It wasn't that he didn't care. He cared. He felt eaten up by guilt and paranoia all of the time, especially around the other angels. He was terrified that one of them would look into his eyes and see the truth. Every time he was alone he vowed that he would not go back to her, that he would find a way to resume his detached contemplations and focus only on the job at hand. But then he would see her, and all of that horrible weight would melt off of his shoulders, and he would realize, with a pang of selfishness and weakness, that he couldn't stop. He could drag them both down into damnation, but God help him, he couldn't stop.

It was like he had been living in a cocoon for all of his long life, numbed to feeling and sensation, a perfect, emotionless soldier. Even inside of this body, even with his fondness for the Winchester brothers, everything was muffled, false, sterile. But touching her, the feeling that she woke within him, was so forcefully real that it was almost too much to stand, pleasure to the point of pain. Ever since that kiss on the bridge she had invaded his thoughts; he felt like his body was on fire, like she was a drug that heightened every sensation into near unbearable clarity.

Her phone rang, vibrating irritatingly in her pocket, and she tried to step away. He pulled her tighter.

"Ignore it," he growled against her lips. She rested her forehead on his and looked into his eyes, green meeting blue.

"I can't," she said regretfully as it continued to buzz. "It's gotta be Sam and Dean with a lead."

Slowly she untangled herself from his grasp and fished the phone out of her pocket, turning her back on him as she spoke. "Yeah, hello?"

Castiel wrapped his arms around her from behind, his fingers splayed out against her midsection. He nuzzled his nose to her neck, breathing in her scent. He had never done anything like this before – never even touched a woman unless it was to save her – and he didn't really know what he was doing, but he knew that being in her presence without touching her had become an almost physical pain. It scared him, how he couldn't seem to stop, how very badly he wanted to taste her, to glut his newly-sharpened senses on her skin.

"Mmhmmm," Eli said, trying very hard to concentrate on the conversation as Castiel pressed soft, almost invisible butterfly kisses along her jaw. "Yeah…okay." She bit her lip to stop from letting out a moan as his teeth lightly grazed the place where her neck met her shoulder. "What? No, I'm … I'm fine. Nothing's wrong. Where are you going? Okay, I'll be there soon. Okay, bye."

She hung up her phone with a sigh. "I have to go," she murmured, turning into him. "They found a lead on the case."

He pulled away from her, trying to mold his face back into something impassive. "Of course, you must perform your duties. I must go as well, before they realize that something is amiss."

"I'll see you soon?" she asked, brushing the dark hair from his eyes.

"I cannot stay away," he answered truthfully. He dipped his head, giving her one last sweet kiss, and then she was left holding nothing but air.