Author's Note: Hello, hello. Sorry this took so very long. It's been an incredibly stressful week. Thank you for your kind words.. it makes everything a little better.
They're moving so fast, Dean's not able to catch a breath. Gabriel has him in kind of a bear hug and it feels like they're a bullet, shooting through the sky. What he assumes is the sky. He can't open his eyes to see. All he can do is hold on, grit his teeth and hope it ends soon. There's no gliding or swooping or anything that resembles what he knows of flying like with Cas. Just speed. Violent and terrifying.
After what seems like only a minute or two, it's over. Gabriel abruptly just stops and the inertia keeps him going so he loses his grip for a second. To Dean's horror, he drops several feet.
"Woops."
The angel catches him by the wrist and lowers him the last fifteen feet or so. "No harm, no foul, right Dean-o?"
Dean focuses on sucking in deep lungfuls of air and when his feet hit the ground, he falls to his knees, then forward so his palms smack asphalt. They're on an empty street. Anything more he can't tell or care about at the moment.
Gabriel shakes his head in false sympathy. "You don't get flight sickness do you? Probably shoulda asked that first."
"What-" Dean gasps. "What the hell was that?"
"Warp speed. Cool, huh?"
"You Sonofabitch! I'm going to-" he gets to his knees only to fall back again, lightheaded.
"Why don't you take a minute there, big guy. No rush. I'll be here to "gank" whenever you're ready." He pulls out a tootsie pop and tosses the wrapper behind him.
Dean nods and clutches his heart until it steadies. He's gonna shove that damn tootsie pop up his ass as soon as he could stand.
After a moment of sucking lewdly on his candy, Gabriel pulls it out to say, "Just so you know.. you and me got a convo comin'."
"What?"
"Not now. Castiel will be along any minute and you could always die in the next hour and then the point would be moot."
Dean pushes to a knee, then finds he's able to stand. "Oh I'd love to talk right now."
Gabriel smiles patronizingly with an arched eyebrow just as there's a rush of air behind him. Castiel does something too quick to follow and Gabriel is suddenly on his ass. Not breaking stride, he walks to Dean and after looking him over once, asks, "Are you alright, Dean?"
Smirking down at Gabriel, he says, "I think I left my stomach back at your treehouse but yeah. Can you do that shit?"
"No." He glares at his brother whose back on his feet grinning around the candy bulging in his cheek. "Gabriel has an extra set of wings that gives him the ability to reach speeds most of us cannot."
"It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, Baby Bro. Besides, I think you were emasculating your hunter."
Balthazar drops out of nowhere next to Gabriel, huffing and braces a hand on his shoulder.
"Cassie must have broken the sound barrier getting here," he pants inbetween chuckling.
Said angel angrily turns to them now, squaring his shoulders and Dean gets a brush of feather that jolts him. Makes him instantly remember burying his hands in their softness while he writhed. Fuck.. focus. Literally, worst timing ever.
"He can't be here," Castiel says as if it's a fact.
Gabriel points at him with the tootsie pop. "But he is here."
"Cas, whatever the hell we're doing here, trust me. I can handle it."
Gabriel raises his eyebrows in a "there you go" expression.
Frowning, Castiel gives his brothers one last hard glance before he turns his back on them, giving Dean his full attention. Speaking lower and with a small note of apprehension, he says, "Dean, I do not doubt your abilities as a hunter, but in the event that we are over-whelmed, I can't protect you."
And fuck if that isn't it right there. Cas still thinks he's the same shell-shocked, bloody kid.
"No one's asking you to."
Dean pushes past him to face the two other angels. Balthazar is leaning against a Dead End road sign with his arms folded and whispering something under his breath to Gabriel.
"Alright, God Squad. Lead on."
They both look back to Castiel who, jaw clenched, walks past all of them down the street.
After a few minutes, of nothing but empty lots and abandoned buildings, a monstrosity of a house appears with a 15ft wrought iron fence surrounding it.. making it look like a luxury compound.
"Allow me," Gabriel vanishes in a swirl of leaves. By the time they reach the gate, he appears on the other side and swings it open.
As Dean steps through it, he sees two men in suits with black charred eyesockets. They approach a wide driveway with lush, manicured scrubs. Hand on the hilt of his knife, they walk purposefully up a few steps towards an arched doorway. Without pausing, Balthazar twists the knob hard and with a crack, it dislodges from the door in his hand.
"How thoughtful. They left it open."
The rest of the slow track through the house is uneventful, but not boring. It's decked out with hardwood floors, heavy expensive-looking furnishings and rich colors throughout. There's even a huge piano in one room they pass through.
"Seriously? A demon is holed up in this freakin' mansion?"
"Well I do enjoy my creature comforts," a cultured voice lazes behind him and Dean whirls with his knife in a reverse grip, edge against his neck.
It was in a male. Short and in an all black suit. He manages to look cocky, despite the blade pressing his skin. "This him? King of the wheelin' and dealin' demons?"
"I prefer King of the Crossroads and easy, pup. It's impolite to slit the throat of your host." He flicks his eyes casually to the angels. "Not to mention killing the help."
Dean doesn't take his eyes off the demon but hears Gabriel behind him say, "Did you a favor, Crowley my man. They weren't very good at their job. Let us walk right in." Balthazar snickers.
"Hilarious, I'm sure." Crowley slowly steps backwards away from Dean and towards a small table holding a silver ornate tray with a large thick-glassed bottle and pours an inch of amber liquid into a glass. "To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from Dean Winchester and Charlie's Angels?"
"You know me?"
Taking a measured sip, he furrows his forehead and appraises him. "Dean Winchester. Hunter of Monsters, Killer of Demons, Lover of Angels." He slants his gaze to a stone-faced Castiel.
Feeling his face heat, Dean steps forward to bring the knife just under his chin and says, "Yeah and you're a demon. So why shouldn't I just kill you right now?"
"Because your angelic entourage here wouldn't have brought you without a reason."He waits as Dean just stares hard, not lowering the knife. "Oh and the other twenty or so demons waiting to dismember you on my word."
There's a sharp tingy noise to his right and he sees Cas with a silvery blade out of the corner of his eye.
"See, rude threats like that make Cassie a bit smite-happy," Balthazar says.
Crowley fixes his eyes on Cas with a twist of lips. "If it comes to that.. do you really think you could fight allll my pets at once and still save him?"
Castiel takes a step forward. "You won't live to know."
Gabriel cuts the tension with, "Alright, can we quit the dick measuring and get down to business?" He yanks Dean back by the collar and Crowley nonchalantly walks to stand behind his wide polished desk.
"I am nothing if not a business man. So please, illuminate me as to what business I have with angels."
"Our boy Dean here needs a few questions answered." Gabriel throws an arm over his shoulder, which he immediately shoves off.
"And pray tell, what do I get in return?"
"Same as always," Balthazar says cheerily. "We don't incinerate you right out of that awful suit of yours."
"You're one to criticize." Crowley gives him a snide look while gesturing a 'V' in front of himself.
"Stop wasting time," Cas says, sounding on edge. "Dean, ask him-"
"I am sorry to disappoint darlings but I won't be able to answer anything tonight. How's three days from now sound?"
Balthazar makes a disbelieving laugh.
"Say around midnight in the cemetery at the edge of town? Just for the sake of ambiance."
"Have you forgotten your place on the foodchain, Dickbag?" Gabriel's voice is slightly lower now.
"Colorful as always. And as much as I'd love to sit and chat about all the nasty things you'll do to me, your attention will be elsewhere in about 2 minutes."
"What?" Dean asks in confusion.
"I'm a survivor first, an informer second, my dear. Alastair wants you and that is not a dog I want hounding me. If you're still alive with all your bits intact, meet me in three days and we'll talk."
Cas is already at the window. "More than ten," he says looking back grimly at his brothers. Two more blades are drawn.
"None of you have any idea what's going on, do you?" He laughs to himself. "Well soon enough.."
Dean is starting to catch on that even with all the calm banter, they're in a lot of fucking trouble. "You sonofa-"
The doors burst inward and a flood of men and women with dark eyes pour in.
"Chao, darlings."
It's a blur. Every time Castiel gets up, another body barrels into him. He loses track of Dean for a moment and panics, allowing one an opening to gouge his side. He counters the next lunge and buries his blade so deep, his fist hits its chest. Yanking it out, he turns back to see Dean is proving adept enough with his knife to hold his own. Or at least against the ones Castiel's unable to keep focused on him. Surprisingly, he's been able to fend off several demons, despite their superior strength.
Gabriel and Balthazar each have several bodies surrounding them on the floor. Gabriel leaps up and flies at a group of four approaching and pushes them back. Balthazar stabs ones, just to flip his angelblade and stab another behind him. Sulfur is cloying and hangs heavy in the air.
After several more minutes of grunts and gore and flashes of light, Castiel kills one and finally another does not wait to replace it.
Spinning, he finds Dean, trading punches with one while distracting another by knocking it on its back with a kick. He kills the one running at him with an uppercut stab as it misses connecting its fist and then turns to deal with the one scrambling to its feet from the floor.
Castiel can't help thinking he's graceful in this. His moves aren't wasted, each having a precision and purpose. He gets caught in just watching him move. Ruthless and fluid, he grabs the demon close to ram his blade under its chin.
"Not bad, eh Cassie?"
Balthazar puts an arm over his shoulders and chuckles watching Dean push the body off his weapon with disgust.
"No.." he says distractedly as he watches Dean wipe the blood off on one of the dead human's shirts. Odd that this should make his body heat all of the sudden. They're surrounded by carnage but seeing Dean as confident.. powerful.. in his element.. it almost made him forget his brother was even there next to him until he says, "Your brawny manboy has some skills. I wonder how that translates during more enjoyable pursuits."
Castiel doesn't acknowledge him but feels his face flush slightly at the thought.
"What the hell was that?" Dean says walking over to them, blood covering his arms and shirt.
"That is what you get when you deal with demons," Gabriel kicks an arm in his path.
Castiel makes himself pull his eyes away from Dean to face him. "Do you believe him?"
Gabriel looks up. "What, that he was saving his skin?" Absolutely positively. That he's gonna bare all three days from now in some dank graveyard.."
"It's very melodramatic of him. A cemetery. Why can't these things ever be at a Starbucks?" Balthazar sighs and rolls his shoulders. "And what was that part at the end there? 'What's really going on'.. Uhh the pompous pricktease."
Once again, Castiel gets drawn in by watching Dean's mouth as he speaks. "I don't know but we need answers. If meeting with this douche can get 'em, then I've gotta chance it."
Gabriel looks between him and Dean or more likely at him watching Dean.
"Alright, Dean-o. Demon pow wow take 2 in three days."
Dean breathes out a little easier and begrudgingly says, "Thanks for your help, guys."
Balthazar pulls his shirt away from his chest in distaste at the stains making it sticky.
"I preferred when he was someone to hate abstractly. Well, it's been.. bloody."
Castel barely notices when Balthazar leaves.
"Don't stay out past curfew," Gabriel jokes close to his ear but gives him a hard look. Louder he calls, "Barbie, always a pleasure!" He bows extravagantly and is gone in a blink.
Dean sighs heavily. "So your brothers… not exactly what I pictured as-"
Castiel doesn't think about it, just grabs Dean's face and roughly pulls his mouth against his. He swallows whatever word Dean was about to say and steals his next breath, gripping his face tighter because of how good it feels.
This. Just this. With Dean slowly responding as he realizes what's happening, grabbing his arms just as tight and opening his mouth to meet Castiel's aggressive tongue. It's fierce and over-whelming, like the battle they just survived. Both of them press just as hard like they're still fighting. There's no gentle giving in this like he'd often imagined their kisses would be. They're each taking from the other.
Too quickly, Dean is shoving him away. Castiel releases him and steps back to get some distance so he doesn't reach for him again. There's only the sound of their unsteady breathing, Castiel looking at the ground while Dean stares at him.
"Why.. what was that?"
Taking a breath, he looks up. There are streaks through the thin layer of blood and sweat on Dean's face from his fingers. His green eyes are bright and he's licking his lips in a way that is distracting so soon after kissing him. "I don't know."
Dean's slightly shocked expression turns hard. "You don't know? What the fuck does that mean?"
He does know. But it's more like he doesn't know how to put it into words. It's that Castiel has barely been able to make himself watch Dean fight before.. and it's glorious. It's that he could easily have died if they were too quickly overtaken but he didn't. It's that he wanted to feel his rough cheeks under his palms and compare them to his memories of when they were smooth. It's that just now it really sinks in that Dean is here and they're together. Fighting together. Talking together. And alone together where he couldn't stop the impulse urging him to reach out and take something that he has been aching for. Has been imagining over and over since the moment he left Dean alone in a blood splattered bedroom over 6 years ago. But now Dean is angry with him, possibly at himself because he doesn't have the words to express or name all the feelings that are running through him.
"Goddammit," Dean shakes his head at the ground.
"Dean.."
"No. You don't get to do that and say you don't know. Not after you don't think twice about me in however freakin' long-"
"I never said I didn't think about you. Of course, I - "
"Yeah whatever, Cas. Just don't let yourself get 'distracted' again, kay? Eye on the prize so you can go back to your fucking duty and all that."
Dean makes his way over several bodies to the door and stomps down the hallway.
In a moment of weakness, he almost follows. He almost tells him how often he stood outside the window of a hundred different motelrooms and watched over him. Hurt with him while he cried for his broken family and turned away when he needed to find solace in another. How he would have done anything to be the one to give him comfort.
Instead he stops and stands there and waits to remember why he doesn't go after him.. never goes to him. Because there is no place for him in Dean's life. It's something that Dean forgets in moments of loneliness. If he had gone to him, it would only have made it worse for them both. It was hard enough to linger on the outskirts of his life, haunting him. And now again when Dean leaves it will be unbearable still but made even worse if he were to show such weakness as he just did.
Castiel touches his lips for the briefest of moments, then closes his eyes and fists his hands at his sides. He stays there for several more minutes until he has the control to go find Dean and apologize.
He carries Dean back to his motel, slower than Gabriel's speed-crazed dash. To be honest, the muscles in his back and wing joints still ache from pushing them to follow his brother earlier. Carrying another person isn't doing them any favors but holding Dean like this, like he's allowed to.. it's worth it.
Dean had let him apologize and agreed to be taken back to the motel. He hasn't spoken to him since they left the ground and it bothers him. He knows Dean is frightened of heights now but he doesn't give any indication that he is tense or anxious as before. Castiel tries to make each movement smooth and in control as possible.
Too soon they're in the wooded area behind the collection of rooms and he has to let go and step away. When Dean turns to look at him, it's difficult to meet his eyes. Already with just that kiss between them, it's hard to walk away. Only a few more traded words and they can part.
"So despite everything, thanks for today," Dean says.
"We were ambushed by demons and my brothers took turns trying to provoke you into confrontation," Castiel states, not understanding why Dean would feel the need to thank him.
Dean smiles down as if at a memory. "Let me ask you something. You ever tell them about..ya know.. us?"
"Yes."
Dean purses his lips and nods. "Yeah then that kinda explains it. They were being obnoxious big brothers. Not that I appreciated being shot through the air like a torpedo but I'll give 'em this one."
As Castiel watches Dean's smile fall, he thinks he knows where his thoughts went. "Have you been able to see Sam often?"
Sighing, he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Not as much as I'd like. He lives with a family friend. More.. ya know, stable for him and all."
"I'm sorry, Dean."
"Me too." Dean rubs a thumb over a round piece of wood with '12' carved into it and a key hooked from the end. "You know, I always thought.. when it was all said and done, we'd have time."
Castiel pinched his brow as he glances up. "Me and Sammy," he clarifies quickly. "When they were dead.. " He smiles down at the key in his hand, "My dad would be a little less batshit crazy, I'd actually get to know my brother, I'd stop needing to drink to sleep.. everything would magically get fixed."
He raises his gaze again, "I'd make up for lost time."
For a brief moment, it felt like he was talking about something more than his brother. They stand there, neither talking just watching the others face until tension starts to leak back in.
"I would like that for you," Castiel says, slowly.
Dean laughs but without humor. "Yeah but there ain't no magic fix, Cas. My dad won't be able to give up this fight, even if the ones we want are dead. Sammy's gonna be grown with an apple pie life and I'm hardly gonna recognize him. And that's even if I make it on the other side of a showdown with-
"I won't let you die," he says more fiercely than he meant to.
Dean gives him a level look. "I'm gonna die, Cas. Here and now or twenty years down the road, but if I can take out at least one of them first.. it'll mean something. I could be happy with that."
Castiel finds himself suddenly enraged that Dean could so easily accept that his life would be given to the very demons that first destroyed it. He sounds resigned. Waiting for the inevitable.
Stepping close until Dean's only an inch or two away, he growls out, "I said I won't let you die. You will trust me in this."
For some reason, Dean is grinning at him and that makes him begin to stare at his lips all over again. As soon as he realizes how close they've become, he says, "I'll come for you in three days," and turns to leave.
He only gets a step when he hears, "Hey, Cas."
Castiel pauses but doesn't turn back.
"I'm gonna check out a lead tomorrow. See if I can get a demon or two to cough up some info."
He does turn back now. With Crowley's betrayal, it was evident the demons were already looking for Dean and instructed to capture him.
"By yourself?" he frowns in disapproval.
Dean smiles. That smile. The one he's seen him give away carelessly to countless females and he's angry that it makes his heart beat just a little faster.
"Well not if you come with me."
Castiel's eyebrows smooth and after fighting with his better judgment and losing he says, "When?"
By the time his feet touch grass, he's has to admit that he's already excited to see Dean again tomorrow. Despite the many times he attempted to dismiss it as foolish, he felt his lips pulling upwards of their own volition as he steps over the threshold.
Thankfully, Uriel had not returned yet. When he did, Michael would tell him of the human he'd brought there and he didn't want to hear about his very loud views on "hairless apes" again. Michael stands now across the room, waiting for Castiel to come to him, but he doesn't want the scolding just yet.. not with Dean's lips still weighing on his thoughts. Instead he flies upwards to his resting place and tucks his wings around him, lying back with an arm propped behind his head and swaying slightly.
For so long, he'd turned this part of himself off. He let province and single-minded purpose fill him until there was no room for anything softer or weak like longing and want. It'd numbed it but now that he was giving into those type of thoughts again, it was not so easily talked away with stern words. He knew it would make being around Dean all the harder. Even now, he imagined scenarios where he would only kiss him. Nothing more. Or Dean would kiss him. Just one more time. They flitted through his mind like beautiful dreams. Or what he thought dreams would be. Kissing him had been like.. waking up after believing he was dead. Like tasting life on his lips. How funny that only 13 seconds could have tilted his world so much.
He reaches out to his ledge and takes the superman toy to run his fingers over like he used to. Smiling, he rolls it over in his palm and remembers a time when he'd sat with Dean, reading a comic about this character.
"Dammit." Castiel closes his eyes at the sound of Balthazar's voice far below him.
"Ha! Told you." Gabriel sing songs.
"Cassie, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be working out your unresolved sexual tension with a certain scruffy hunter.
Placing the figure carefully back in its place, he rolls to his side and drops to his feet thirty feet down.
"You good?" Gabriel raises his eyebrows and he simply nods.
"Castiel." Michael appears in front of him, diverting his attention. His face is set and Balthazar makes a motion as if he was shivering behind his back. "He does not come here again."
Gabriel rolls his eyes and steps up to perch on a nearby chair. Bowing his head, Castiel looks away.
Once Michael puts a hand on his shoulder, he has to meet his eyes. It's what he expects.
Lifting his chin in attempt to show he has nothing to feel ashamed for, Castiel says, "He needs my help."
"You are above their many needs. Leave him be, Brother. You've outgrown childish infatuations."
A small spark of defiance burns in him at Michael's easy dismissal. Michael, who has always been a faultless example of a true warrior of Heaven. Forsaking the lure of the human world and showing nothing but disdain for Gabriel and Balthazar's many short comings. But just now, Castiel feels as though his exemplary older brother knows nothing of what is in him. Because he has faults and wants and short comings and cannot leave Dean be.
"Of course. You are right."
Even as he says the words, exhilaration runs through him, making his feathers shift restlessly.. because he knows with certainty now he will go to Dean tomorrow.