The floor is warm, bathed by a ray of sun reaching through the window, under Dean's feet. He perches there, still, with the note clenched between his fingers. The ink used to spell out the single sentence isn't from a ballpoint pen; it's thick, weaving the shape of each letter into a delicate thing of beauty, so unlike the scratched-out scrawl of his own handwriting. He would touch it, trace the words but the fear of smudging the ink holds him back. And...there's something else, something twisting inside that sets him on edge. It's in the corner of his eye, flitting out of his periphery as he searches for it, but the unmistakable aftertaste of wrongness sits oily on his skin, spreading with every second that ticks on, punctuated by his heart.
Reluctant steps bring him downstairs after he's struggled into a pair of jeans and the crumpled shirt Castiel had left on the floor last night, evidence of their tryst. His cologne has settled into the collar of the button-down, a warm mix of star anise and leather, the softness of citrus barely detectable but there every time Dean breathes in. The stairs creak under him, announcing his path to the house at large, so he half-expects to find the dining room empty when he walks into it, bare feet just peeping past the door frame. Castiel sits at the table, a piece of pear crossing his lips, its juice folding into the lines of the blushed skin, still bruised-dark from their not-so-gentle kisses. His eyes are on a newspaper laid flat on the polished cherry wood, scanning the lines of text, swarming ants marching in straight armies through sand.
"Hey," Dean says, the wrongness spiking again, though it doesn't leak into his voice, the sleep-deepened vocal chords that stay surprisingly strong under his concern. Castiel should have heard him come in, should be looking at him, not avoiding his gaze to read news he's not a part of.
A beat passes and Dean is acknowledged, brushed over by shuttered eyes, their depths muted, too still, to passionless to belong to Castiel.
"Come in, Dean," he says, but it's not inviting, isn't anything but strange and Dean thinks, maybe, if he just stays there, remains on the outside, that they can go back to yesterday.
"I have a feeling you don't actually want me to," he murmurs, sliding his fingers into his pockets, the facade of nonchalance easy enough to slip into. Cas' lips tighten, but his face remains passive, slightly questioning.
"Why wouldn't I want you to?"
"I don't know, Cas, but averted eyes and waking up to ominous notes in bed? You sure know how to make a girl feel special."
"Dean, I—"
"Save it." Dean squares his shoulders, leans into the door frame. "Tell me exactly what you want, Cas. I'm not up for deciphering mixed messages. I know how to take a fucking hint. But under the circumstances, if I'm going to be living here,"
"You're not," Cas interrupts, sharp enough to cut Dean's words as they filtered out. "I trust you, I said. You can go now."
"I can go now." Dean nods, presses his lips together. "What, now that we've fucked, you've lost interest? Off to catch a new, feistier victim?"
"Did you want to stay, Dean? Just a few days ago, I was a monster."
Dean can't argue. But things change, and the names that had been launched so carelessly from his lips were outrage and fear embodied, a cat hissing at a threat, puffing its fur out to seem bigger, stronger.
"Aw, what's wrong, Dean?" Castiel stands, brushing off his pants. "Don't tell me the big bad vampire hurt your feelings."
"Fuck you," he says before he can stop himself. "You're baiting me on purpose. You're trying to provoke me." One step in and his heart is racing, banging against his ribs as he moves closer. "Don't forget that I've seen you, Castiel. I've seen the worst in you and I've felt it and you know what? I want you. I fucking want you. So look at me. Look at me and tell me to go." He's panting, holding back the urge to just give in, to run away while he has the chance. This is different, this thing with Castiel, and he has to try, has to keep the wispy smoke of their connection from slipping through his fingers.
"Tell me," he says, hating the note of desperation, the sound of need so obvious.
"Dean," Cas is looking at him, hands darting forward before he pulls them back to his sides, lacing shards of hope through Dean. This is an act. It's to drive him away.
"You want me, Dean?" Cas lifts a hand, though this time it settles firmly under Dean's chin, forcing their gazes to lock before the vampire speaks again and his attention is called to those opened lips.
"This is what you want?" His fangs extend, and Dean isn't just staring into the man's facade anymore; this is the real Castiel, the man, the creature, a terrifying mix of the two. Dean shapes a word, a single syllable, though it comes out a choked half-whisper.
"Yes," he tries again, fingers rising to the soft strands of Cas' hair, a touch the vampire tilts into, though his eyes never leave Dean's, their depths heavy with expectation, waiting for rejection, for the moment to splinter and crack.
"One more drop of my blood, Dean. That's all it will take."
"Take—what are you talking about, Cas?"
"If I bite myself when we kiss, if I ever want to heal you, god, Dean, I'm so stupid."
It's laid bare, a confession he's reluctant to put together but the pieces are already starting to fit themselves, blooming into a picture like an exposed photograph dipped into developer.
"One more drop,"
"And you turn," Cas finishes. "I didn't—I didn't think it would happen like this, Dean. But the blood's there and it's just waiting, waiting to take over. And I can't risk it. I won't make you like me."
"Like you," Dean parrots, seeing himself, but changed, a feral layer hiding just underneath earnest humanity.
"So you'd let me die, knowing how I feel?"
"What?" The vampire blinks at him, jerking out of his light grasp. "Dean, no. You can't want this. I won't let you—"
"I don't want this." Dean's hands draw his focus, their limp-muscled vulnerability. They're a safe haven, a place he can look so he doesn't have to see Castiel's revulsion. "I want you. And I'm ready to take what comes with that."
The response is silence, a pillow that chokes him of air, pushes it back into his throat until he's choking on it, gasping around its weight.
"Your keys are on the table by the front door. Your car is in the driveway. Please just go."
Dean doesn't turn back as he leaves, but he does stop.
"If you let me go," he shakes his head, burying the press of tears trying to build, "Then you deserve to be alone."
There are 60 messages on Dean's voice mail. At first, they're good-natured shaky, the sort of false cheer injected into voices to cover up the worry and concern actually felt. Friends and acquaintances ask how he is, how he's doing, what he's doing and invite him to dinners and social outings he knows he wouldn't have attended. The hidden concern becomes a little more tangible as the messages continue on, before anger and fear settles, demanding voices asking where the fuck he is, what he could possibly be doing. He sighs, erasing them all. A mass emailed apology will have to suffice, as he really doesn't have it in him to talk to anyone and pretend like he cares.
His lawn is overgrown and there's mail piled at the door, the receipts of bills he's thankful are just proofs of what's been deducted automatically, a process that would have continued had he died by Castiel's hand—or, teeth, for that matter, until his account dwindled to nothing. And maybe then people would have actively tried to seek him out instead of leaving halfhearted messages after being prompted by a robotic voice to start talking after the beep, thanks.
The only call he makes is to his editor, who picks up the phone with the seething tone that he knows is a mask for actual concern, genuine caring that has her swearing up a blue streak before demanding an explanation.
"I—Sammy," he chokes, pressing a hand to his face so more aching words can't tumble free, so he can press back on the prick of tears that fall as he hears a muffled gasp from the other side of the line. But it isn't just Sam's face that flits through his mind's eye as he tries to collect what dignity he has left. The shards of it are sharp, shriveling, and each piece cuts him as he swallows the hurt down.
"Dean, hon." Elaine is the only person who gets away with using pet names, who's earned the right to pull a parent card. And it's Sam's fault, really, Sam who had sent her (and every other publishing company in the tri-state area) copies of scrawled poems he'd written, slips of his sanity and all he couldn't keep on the inside as he worked full time and raised his younger brother.
"I know. Believe me, I know. But you can't disappear on people. You've got to stay with the living."
Don't I know it.
"I'm back now," his voice is gruff as the receiver catches it, transmitting all the pain he won't name over telephone lines. "I'm gonna start working tomorrow."
"You take your time, honey," Elaine's words are wet, and she hangs up quickly. Dean's sure he have an email in an hour with the parameters of his new project, what she can begin to expect and how he wants it to be pitched. It's nothing he cares about, but it's enough of a distraction to keep him busy. For now.
The weight loss is just a side effect of Dean's whirring mind. It's an excuse, comfortable as a childhood blanket that still carries the scent of his parents; he can believe in his own song and dance, can push reality far away with a single thought. He has a downpour of words flowing over him at all times, one that trickles out through his fingers, the cursor on his laptop a blur from trying to keep up. It's the coffee and the cigarettes and the sleep he's not getting that's cutting him down to core muscle and protruding veins, stomach straddling the line between flat and concave. His face is leaner, eyes bigger and stark with the lines he's weaving internally, dialogue and characterization and the details that make humans tick, all while forgetting his own.
He doesn't think about the dreams. He doesn't dwell on the phantom touches, the sweep of fingernails down his skin, curling in patterns that make breath come fast; teeth against his neck, his own name gasped into the shell of his ear. No, he doesn't think about them or dwell on them or think it strange that every time he wakes up from one the taste of the vampire finds its way to his tongue, that the other man's scent is almost tangible. He just breathes it in and rolls over, sometimes lazily rutting against the bed and his hand until he finds a moment of suspension where time stops and just lets his mind go long enough to drift blearily back to unfulfilling sleep. Thinking about it takes too much energy, steals his appetite, greedy bite by bite until he's left with nothing, just the constant pour of his newest book.
He's in Starbucks, typing-deleting-typing and contemplating his fifth coffee when a hand comes down on his shoulder. He starts and turns from the screen, surprised to see a woman standing close, a plate in her hand. She sets it down, dark hair spilling over her shoulder as she does and looks at him with eyes that could stop his heart.
They're blue, a shade different that Ca—than the vampire's, but they're close. And then she speaks and he has to come back from the mental revery their depths spin him into.
"Whatever it is," she's saying, a faint blush coloring her cheeks as she twists the band on her left finger nervously, "I hope it gets better."
Me too, Dean thinks, mouth open, as she walks away, leaving the coffee shop. Me too.
The brownie tastes like dirt, crumbling into a gritty film as it touches his tongue.
He doesn't see anyone watching him. But whatever he's doing, wherever he is, it feels like the weight of a slitted gaze follows, a presence looking through blinds that slips around corners just as Dean looks up. The invisible scrutiny is tiring, though not as much as the constant barrage of calls from people, the dogged, determined ones who won't take a hint and leave him alone when he hems and haws and tells them he's busy every time they suggest dinner or lunch, a movie or a stroll through the nearby park. Sam had good friends, but Dean isn't looking to be adopted.
So life keeps moving, and he with it, until the morning it all comes crashing down. It's a nothing day, a false-start wake up call to an overcast sky, the grey kind of day that has him turning over, hiding from the weak light of the sunrise and falling back to sleep. A few hours later, to a steady torrent of rain, he wakes again, though this time he slides his feet from under the comforting weight of his blankets. Spots and tv-snow fuzz obscure his sight as he stands. A wave of dizziness settles and he's pitching and rolling, arms spread, trying not to hit anything as he falls. It's a slow-motion descent, one that takes long enough for him to feel the icy hitch that interrupts the steady beat of his heart, that spreads through his chest and down his arms and legs.
It's funny, though. He never seems to hit the floor.
When, for the third time, his eyes open and consciousness resumes, a voice stops him from the sitting position he tries to pull himself into.
"Don't," he hears, a soft little warning. "Just lay back."
His body reacts to the voice before his mind catches up. He's a thrumming pulse, adrenaline and the pitch of lust that darkens his eyes and sends his blood low.
"Cas," he scrubs a hand over his face, unsure if the voice is a trick of his own mind.
"What are you doing here?" the question is a growl in his throat, the sting of rejection still too close to let go. Castiel's proximity ignites a fight between his wounded pride and the small surge of hope that flutters in his stomach.
"I can't let it end like this."
Dean rolls his eyes, braces himself against the headboard and sits up. He's unprepared. Castiel remains the same as ever, beautiful, but the eyes that skim over Dean are haunted. They're deathbed eyes, fatigue so deep Dean wonders how the vampire's still standing.
"Melodramatic statements aside, Cas, I've got to wonder about your memory. Because it's already over. I got the hint the first time."
"Dean, something happened. I—I didn't intend—"
"To what, Castiel? You didn't intend to kill me. You didn't intend to hurt me. Well, you know what they say about intentions."
"I just wanted you, Dean. I wanted you. But if I had turned you then, if I'd let myself, I would be the monster you thought me to be." The vampire's hands open and close, eyes shifting and blinking too many times to be casual. There's something off there, something Dean's missing.
"So what changed?"
"I made a mistake." Head down, Castiel speaks to his shoes.
"You make a lot of those."
"I'm trying to fix this one." Castiel takes a step forward, and though Dean should tell him to back off, to stay away, he doesn't. He craves the vampire, the other man's touch, the feel of him, the electricity that jumps between them, sparking wildly. He's missed Castiel more than he can say.
"When I drank from you, and you from me, we started something," Cas, emboldened now, sits on the bed, though he doesn't touch. "I thought it would go away. I thought it would diminish when you left. But it didn't, Dean. It didn't and now it's killing us both."
"Your mistake wasn't whatever is between us," Dean murmurs, reaching a half-asleep hand out to grip Cas' wrist. The vampire is pliant, eyes widening when Dean takes hold. "It was when you thought you could make decisions for me. When you thought you could change how I felt because you knew what was best." His grip on the other man tightens, nails digging in. "But my mind hasn't changed, Cas. This whole time, I was waiting. Waiting for you to realize that."
"It took me awhile," Castiel admits, a flicker of longing pulling his voice down low. "But I think I get it now."
"Yeah?" Dean draws his hand back, aware of the warm wetness covering the tips of his fingers. Castiel has five half-moon shaped gashes on his skin, a neat little constellation spread out over his wrist. "Then you'll understand what I'm trying to say when I do this."
Slowly, deliberately, he licks Cas' blood, the taste of dark chocolate and exhilaration, off his fingers.