I got this idea from a dream I had. I have strange dreams.

And I haven't watched Episode 17 yet, I'm watching it tonight (03/26/2012) so NO ONE SAY A WORD. Not that I'm expecting much from it. I haven't expected much from the series since season 7 began. Whatever happened to decent writing...?


Tangled Together


Dean Winchester died.

It was afterwards that things got complicated.

His younger brother Sam couldn't let it happen, couldn't let him be. And Sam, genius yet stupid Sam, had performed an ancient ritual that kept Dean's soul in his body, bound to earth, kept him alive. But it required something from Dean as well. To keep his soul strong and bound to Earth, Dean's soul was entertained the gears of a pocketwatch, weaving between himself and the tiny mechanical object. And if he wanted to live, he had to wind it every twenty-four hours to keep the hands turning and the gears running, powering his soul.

He never let it out of his sight and wore it on a tight chain around his neck, tucked under his shirt, ticking against his heart.

They still hunted, they couldn't afford not to and even after the Apocalypse began with Sam to blame, Dean still kept the watch close around his neck. He'd had it engraved, at some point, bored of the flat silver surface. On the flip-open top were his and Sam's initials and on the bottom was a demon warding sigil with an incantation for protection carved around it. Sam had teased Dean for the longest time about what the engraver had said when Dean had showed him what he wanted.

And then Castiel had entered the picture.

Sam had seen it long before Dean—clueless Dean—had and had let out an exasperated "Finally!" when the two had eventually hooked up.

That had taken almost a year.

By that time, the Apocalypse had been stopped, Lucifer had never left his cage, and Castiel had stayed with the Winchesters as their 'guardian angel' of sorts. At least, that's what was officially said out loud, that was what was on all the paperwork. But everyone knew it was simply because Cas wanted to stay with Dean. And really, nobody minded.


It was a standard issue hunt. Ghost taking people' eyeballs, dark history of some kind, a haunting we will go. Except it turned out a demon was behind the raising of the ghost and things got a little more complicated after that.

Having Castiel helped but dealing with an eye-stealing ghost that was currently pinning Sam to the wall, struggling to pluck out his peepers, and a furious demon who was trying to bite Cas' face off made things difficult for everyone. Dean fired a round of a rock salt filled bullet into the ghost, sending it screaming off his brother, and rounded on the demon only to find that it had managed to throw Castiel to the floor and was launching across the room at Dean. The eldest Winchester knew he didn't have time to dodge, all he could do was lessen the blow. So he spun on his heel, turning himself to the side to create a smaller target. The demon slammed into him and they both fell to the floor, tussling with one another.

Sam suddenly loomed over them and grabbed the demon possessed man by the scruff of his neck and hauled him backward, fury written across every line of his face. But the demon had one last game to play. His hands scrambled across Dean's neck, searching for a purchase, found the silver chain, and grabbed it.

Dean let out a strangled cry as the metal jerked against his skin and then snapped when Sam yanked the demon off and threw him to the floor. Dean lept to his feet at the same time as the demon, sweeping up his shotgun as he did so. The demon growled to find himself surrounded on all sides by two hunters, an angel, and a very solid wall.

"Give me back the watch." Dean demanded, cocking his shotgun, fury burning hotly through him.

"This piece of junk?" The demon raised his hand and shook the chain, jostling the well cared for and brightly polished disc of silver, "What, it's sentimental?"

"Put it down." Castiel said.

"Let me go." The demon responded sharply.

"No can do." Sam leveled his own gun.

"Too bad then." There was a shriek and the ghost latched onto Sam's back, fingers digging into the youngest Winchester's stupid long hair. Sam jerked backwards and attempted to knock the ghost off by ramming into the back of the couch.

Castiel ran at the demon, hand outstretched to banish it from the man it was possessing. The demon, realizing it wasn't going to dodge this one, hurled the pocket watch into the air and then turned on Cas, hissing and preparing to fight back.

Dean leapt for the watch, tripped over the rug and slammed to the floor with a gasp. The watch sailed through the air and vanished behind the chair in the corner. Dean didn't hear it hit the floor but he felt the jolt deep inside him and knew, just knew, that something was not right.

A flash of light to his left told him that Castiel had managed to deal with the demon and, with it gone, the ghost screeched out of existence with a flare of fire and ash. Dean was already scrambling across the room and shoving the chair aside, tipping it over with a loud thump.

"Dean." Cas was suddenly as his side, his shadow arching over the wall.

Dean's mouth opened and closed wordlessly, his breath caught in his throat, hands trembling as he scooped up the silver watch. The pieces of the silver chain dangled through his fingers, the cover had popped open and the glass over the face had cracked with the impact but the thin, black, delicate hands were still ticking over the roman numerals around the edges. It looked as though the watch was fine.

Sam's electric wristwatch beeped the time and he glanced down at it, "Dean, it's midnight!"

"Right." Dean's shaking fingers scrambled over the knob on the top of the pocket watch, grasped it, and gave it a twist.

It wouldn't budge.

"Shit." He gasped between clenched teeth, "No, shit, no! Sammy, it won't move! I can't wind it! No, no—aahhggk!" Dean doubled over, one hand fisting over his chest, clenched into his t-shirt, the other still clasped onto the watch.

He felt like someone was driving a hot iron poker into his heart and twisting slowly, taking their time. And the feeling sent ice through his veins. He was dying. Slowly. Again.

"No! Dean!" Sam knelt beside, hands hovering, unsure what to do.

"Sam…" Dean gasped, looking helplessly at his little brother as that deadly piece of molten steel dug itself even deeper into his heart.

Familiar hands closed around his, obscuring the flashing silver pocket watch, and Dean turned to meet Castiel's impossibly blue eyes. He opened his mouth to apologize, to say he was sorry for leaving Cas after Cas had left everything for him, to say he was sorry for never taking the angel dancing, for never making him breakfast in bed, for never doing any of those little things that would, in seventyor something years, mean more to them than anything else. But his breath caught in his lungs, hooked on the rusty nails digging into his every organ, and all he managed was a whimpering, strangled noise of regret.

"Shhhh, Dean," Cas said softly and pressed his forehead against the Winchester's, "You're not going anywhere, you're going to live, and you have nothing to apologize for." Their lips met, light, brushing, "It is not yet your time, Dean Winchester."

Castiel sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled Dean's hand, still clenched tight around the watch, to his chest. There was a whisper in the air and then a pair of wings unfolded from the angel's back. Dean had seen them before but they always amazed him. Feathers made of color and light, filling a space with power, somehow feeling much bigger than they actually were. The gray-blue of a sky promising rain swept over the ceiling, speckling stars of pure gold and silver in its wake, a wave of lover's pink rolled across the ceiling, followed by strands of rich topaz, bruise purple, and globules of white-gold-blue light like drips of melting stardust. A tangle of rich crimson and ivory white met flickers of the deepest ocean blue on the walls, Sam's worried face was tinted with a wash of firelight orange and sparkles of strawberry and emerald, and a soft brush of yellow-green danced across Dean and Castiel's clasped hands.

"They call me mellow yellow…" Dean rasped, sagging to the floor. Sam grabbed his shoulders and held him up, muttering empty condolences in his older brother's ear.

"I do not know if this will hurt or not," Castiel said smoothly, curling his wings around all three of them in a protective shell of color and light and intense, concentrated power, "But if it does then I deeply apologize, Dean. And know that I mean none of it."

And then Dean felt as though someone had yanked the iron poker out too fast and he cried out, bucking against the touch of his angel and his brother. Sam's strong hands tightened on his shoulders and held him still and Cas didn't even flinch at the movement, just focused his attention completely on the silver pocket watch that could barely be glimpsed between their fingers. Dean groaned and his voice shook and Sam's mutterings increased to promises of safety because Cas was there and everything would be all right.

"Shut the…fuck up Sammy," Dean ground out between clenched teeth, agony rattling his mind, "You're such a girl."

Hands made of sunlight and a mother's touch and the soft safety of a bed caressed his heart—no, not his heart, his soul—and the moaning sigh that escaped Dean's lips was something close to ecstasy. His eyes rolled back as that feeling swept through the entirety of his being. It was like being wrapped in a rainbow that was hurtling through space on the tail of the brightest more beautiful comet in existence and goddamn if that wasn't the gayest thought Dean had ever had (aside for ones he occasionally had about Cas) but it felt good.

It felt right.

He let himself sink into the feeling and a veil of warm darkness curled over his mind and pulled him gratefully under.


Dean awoke with a gasp and a panicked flail.

His mind told him he was dead but his heart thudded stubbornly in his chest and told him otherwise.

The hunter drew in a shaky breath and glanced around. It was a crappy motel room, not one he recognized but familiar in the cheap state of it. There was Sam sitting at the tiny table with his laptop out and his wide eyes staring at Dean with a worried look that Dean recognized as 'I'm-so-fucking-glad-you're-alive-you-scared-me-don't-ever-do-that-again' with maybe just a hint of 'if-you-act-traumatized-enough-I-might-buy-you-pie.' Dean licked his lips and turned to look for the other occupant he expected to see, that he knew was there because he could feel their presence like sunshine across his bare skin.

Castiel was perched stiffly on the opposite bed, staring at Dean with those vibrant eyes. His hands folded on his lap but when their eyes met, his fingers twitched and he sat up a little straighter. It was the Castiel version of showing relief.

Dean ran a hand through his hair and then shifted forward on the bed, making to swing his legs over the edge so he could stand. Something bumped against his bare chest and he looked down to see his pocket watch resting in its usual place at the end of a silver chain. He raised a hand, hesitated, and then picked it up, flicking the catch and opening the cover.

The glass was still cracked but the hands still ticked and he could still hear the gears clicking and whirring away inside the silver casing. He closed the lid and paused when his fingers brushed the engravings on the outsides. The back was the same protection symbol but there were now Enochian sigils inscribed within in it and, when he turned it over, a symbol he did not recognize was delicately carved to intertwine with his and Sam's initials.

"It's my name." Cas said softly.

He looked up at Castiel with a questioning expression on his face,

"Cas…how am I…what did you do?"

Cas stood and moved across the small space to sit beside Dean on the bed, "I could not fix the watch, but I could keep its gears moving infinitely." He leaned in closer and Dean didn't move as a breath like fresh mountain air washed across his face, "I wove my Grace together with your soul. The watch will not wind down until you…well, until it is time."

"Is this gonna do something to me?" Dean asked and it was the same question he'd asked after he'd brought Castiel to his first climax, "Like, am I gonna be able to smite people with a touch and zap around and shit?"

"No." Castiel answered and his fingers brushed the back of Dean's hand. Sam made a noise as if to remind them he was still in the room as well but they ignored him, "You will remain human but your soul," The angel leaned in closer still and their noses were almost touching, "Will be forever intertwined with mine. From now and beyond time itself, we are one being, forever entangled together. I will always be aware of you and you will forever be aware of me."

"So we're angel married?" Dean breathed, lips brushing Castiel's.

"If you wish to look at that way, then yes. Though angels do not wed."

"So this awareness thing…can you tell what I'm feeling? Know my location, that kind of thing?"

"I always know where you are, Dean." Castiel tilted his head at just the right angle so that they could move even closer together, "But yes, I will be aware of your emotional state. And you will be aware of mine."

"Yeah, figured that out already," Dean murmured, "And right now you're horny as a fuck."

And then they were kissing in earnest, lips locked together, exploring one another's mouths, hands claiming each other's bodies. Fingers explored shoulders and elbows, traced hip bones beneath jeans and the space between thighs, pushed aside shirt and coat and the buttons on pants. They might have heard Sam make a noise that would accompany a 'I-can't-believe-you-two-sometimes' bitchface, they might have heard the door open and slam shut, and even if they did they would not have paid attention.

Colors and lights flooded the seedy motel room, painting the walls in burgundy and gold and silver-white and the ceiling in glorious cerulean and purple-black and burnished bronze. They coated Dean and Castiel in streams of emeralds and diamonds and rubies and their bodies sunk into melted pools of topaz and liquid opals and sapphires as they lay into ripples of rainbows and curls of crystal and glass.

Dean reached a hand up (or down, his sense of direction was lost in the swirl of lights and color) and wove his fingers into those wonderful feathers. They hummed with energy against his skin and sent a thrill through his entire body. Castiel sensed it and pressed his own hand between Dean's legs, wedging his fingers under the hem of Dean's jeans. Dean made a noise of desperation against Castiel's mouth and ruthlessly fought with the zipper and button on Cas' black dress pants.

They were lost, together, in a universe that was light and color and the touch of each other's skin.

Castiel's lips explored Dean's care chest, tracing the hunter's skin from his hips, up his stomach, around his heart, and then at his collarbone. The pocket watch ticked, hot and metallic, pressed between them, the engravings on its surfaces burning against their skin. Dean's fingers traced the angel-banishing scar that he had carved into Cas' stomach during the Apocalypse and then traveled up and around the angel's shoulders to weave into the delicate, smooth light-feathers at the angel's back. Castiel moaned and arched against Dean.

The two of them—angel and man—twined together in lights and colors and shadows. Their bodies pressed against one another's, mingling with skin and sweat and spit, and their souls weaved together inexplicably tighter.

They were bound together in word, in touch, in passion, in love, and in soul.

Dean and Castiel were one.

And the turning gears of the pocket watch around Dean's neck wound them even tighter together.