Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful, and so are you
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?
(Look around, round, round)
Mary and Jimmy are crying in the next room, their voices an interrupting chorus through the baby monitor resting on the nightstand, but it doesn't cut the tension. It's no wonder they woke up, though, given they didn't get their volume from a stranger. Dean's voice is hoarse from yelling now, angry, arms folded across his chest as he glares at his husband as if he can get it through his thick skull that he's wrong just by drilling him with a scowl.
"You need to . . ." Dean knows that look, the shift of Cas's stance as he prepares a new tactic, and Dean slices him off dismissively.
"Don't tell me to fucking calm down, Castiel, and don't say shit about how I need to understand."
The profanity bunches Castiel's jaw, the interruption stiffens his back, the deliberate use of Cas's full first name shoves distance between them, and he returns the glare evenly. He doesn't raise his voice, though, and for some reason that pisses Dean off even more. It always has. The way Castiel shifts his carry-on bag on his shoulder grates Dean's frayed temper even more, a reminder of what they're arguing about. "I don't like this any more than you do, Dean. Which is why I have supported trying to change it. But until then. . ."
"Until then you're going to own your niece like she's fucking property. Because that's what you're going up there to sign, Cas. The title on Claire's life, at least until someone decides they want to buy her from you."
Claire Novak woke yesterday to her first heat, and now she's not a kid any more. She's property. Years ago, when Jimmy Novak was dying and young Claire's gender designation was tapped into some medical system, they didn't just put Amelia down as her mother, they listed her godfather as her responsible Alpha, the way John was for Dean. They listed Cas. Until now, it's just been a name on paper, nothing finalized. But now. . .
It always chafed, knowing that it was only a fake ID, scented soaps, John's indifference, Bobby's generosity, and cover stories that let Dean make his own decisions. It destroyed him, thinking that John had leased him to Alastair, by taking that check. It pissed him off, that his father willed him to Sam the same way he passed over the Impala and the garage. The automatic transference of his ownership to Cas once they got together pisses him off even more. It rankled that every OBGYN appointment during pregnancy, or the prescriptions for birth control, or any medical decision involving Dean's body takes Cas's approval. Even when they had Dean's emancipation on paper, even when Cas verbally deferred all decisions to Dean in appointments, Cas's signature still needed to be on the page. If they decided not to have more kids, Cas could walk out and get a vasectomy pretty much right away. But Dean would need Cas's say so, a couple appointments, and someone would probably suggest counseling and a waiting period if Dean wanted to get fixed.
It's asinine.
The government not giving Omegas the right to themselves is why Dean's even suing the government at all. That's the entire angle of his case against the US Department of Health and Human Services. The Alpha owns the Omega. And it all starts with this. The first Heat.
And Castiel, who has been with him at every trial, who knows that this means to him and what this has done to him, what these laws have excused and allowed in Dean's life, has his bag on his shoulder planning to fly over to Illinois and sign the paperwork taking responsibility for his Omega niece, to sign medical forms and waivers to let her start on birth control just in case, to find a doctor for her that he trusts, to settle her back in at home with Amelia and Chuck. Cas doubtless means well, he wants to protect Claire. . . he's always tried to provide for her. . . but now Dean's having to scrutinize that and see it as an Alpha providing for his Omega instead of just the caring uncle providing for his brother's daughter.
"Dean, I have to do this. Until the law changes, until we can fix this, I have to . . ." There's no sense arguing with Dean, and Castiel doesn't even want to. This isn't a debate, it's a fight based in emotions and passion and fury, not in logical reasoning. There is no perfect solution to this, no right answer, no way out. For the first time, they're at opposite ends of something that neither of them has any control of. Dean is flaying Castiel emotionally, exuding his disappointment and rejecting every explanation Castiel provides for why, until the system is changed, he's having to play into the system. Dean's hurting. So is Cas, now. ". . . I have to go, Dean."
"Yeah, whatever. Go." Dean stalks past Castiel out of the bedroom, shrugging off Cas's hand when he tries to still him with a touch, green eyes hard. "If I have your permission, I'm going to go take care of our children now. That's my job isn't it, Alpha?"
"Dean. . ."
The slam of the bedroom door feels like a fist to Cas's gut.
xXx
It's a short flight from Sioux Falls to Chicago, but Castiel spends all of it nauseous and tired, and he bites the head off of a well-intentioned flight attendant who checks on him and feels like even more of an asshole afterwards. He can't even blame Dean for this. For all of their many arguments, this is only the third time they've fought this way, and each time it was because Dean felt betrayed by Castiel. Both he and Dean are damaged in some ways, and they bolster each other past it. They make each other stronger. So much of that, though, is based on trust. Dean's trust is the most precious, rare thing Castiel has ever been given. He knows Dean doesn't hand that out freely. Even with the people he loves, Dean waits for the other shoe to drop, for them to leave or his 'issues' to become too much.
That's John, partly. Clinically, Castiel knows that's John, and he knows it's that cashed check from Alastair for Dean's 'services' and how his father cut him out of his life afterwards. Even now that Dean has moved on, has carefully pieced himself together and accepted John's unexplained reasoning, it left behind a scar. Castiel going and taking over his niece's life, at least on paper, picked at that scar enough to make him bleed. Assuring Dean that he'll leave Claire to her own decisions doesn't negate that, either, because John ignored Dean and left him to his own devices, too; it wasn't protection, though, it was neglect, and even that fell apart on Dean.
The circuit court decision hurt Dean more than he lets on (Dean never lets on how much he's hurt). There is a standing legal decision that calls people like him things, that referred to him as it, and that made him Castiel's legally against both of their wishes. Sure the Omegas may be able to go to school, or get a job, or go out and about, but all of that is with the implied permission of their Alphas and that permission can be yanked away. In the eyes of the law, Dean belongs to Castiel now and maybe forever, if the Supreme Court doesn't decide in their favor. Dean has fought that law tooth and nail, trusting Castiel to stand beside him as he does, through trials and protests. Dean handed his trust to Castiel in marrying him, having children with him, and it's trust and mutual respect alone that ensures they stay a partnership. Claire, however. . . what he is doing is exactly what Dean fights, letting the law sign her over. Dean feels betrayed. Castiel is betraying Dean's trust.
Until things change, he doesn't have a choice.
He thinks he might feel this sick even if it weren't for the rejection coursing through him, sapping him, hurting him, because he doesn't want to let Dean down. But he's a mated Alpha, tethered physiologically and emotionally to someone who can't always help unintentionally hurting him, because it's Dean's nature to push people away and to shut down emotionally when he feels threatened. Castiel knows that Dean loves him, no matter how rarely they say it, but like this he feels cast out, adrift, ill and shaken. Cas is pretty sure the law says Omegas are property, without will of their own and belonging to their Alpha, because some idiot Alphas hated how much power their relationship to an Omega gave their mates. Stripping away their right to leave makes sure this never happens. Reducing them to property with one purpose, to serve their Alpha, keeps them in their place and maintains the illusions that Alphas are in the control. Reducing them further to cattle, like the farms and crèches, may be on paper to help the population, but Castiel thinks there's a more sinister motive to it: you can't exactly bond with someone strapped to a table and drugged out of their mind, after all.
He doesn't want this kind of world for Dean, or their children, or Claire. This is the only way he knows to keep her safe until they can fix that. Steeling himself, he buys an orange juice and a few tabs of over-the-counter medications in overly expensive two-packs on his way out of the airport, self-medicating to get through this and back to Dean afterwards, to fix this.
He hops onto a bus from Chicago to Pontiac, temple pressed to the glass as he stares at the slow drizzle of ash-laden rain down the window and waits for them to pull out of the bus depot, but at least no one speaks to him there. He doesn't know what else he could have done. He turns the cell phone in his pocket over and over again against his palm, a nervous habit, trying to think of what he could even say to Dean to fix this, and he can't come up with anything.
When the phone buzzes against his fingertips, hope leaps in him that maybe Dean has extended the olive branch. But when he fumbles the phone out of his trench coat and checks the screen, it's Amelia's words that chill him.
Lucifer took Claire. He had the papers and an officer with him. I don't know what to do.
xXx
It's been over a year now since Castiel first laid eyes on his Omega father. When they met Chuck was a nervous wreck; drinking, hiding in his room, really only making an effort for his granddaughter. Even in that first meeting it was clear how much Chuck loved Claire. No matter how much the crèche damaged him in giving him children, he held his granddaughter entirely blameless in it, and he tried his best to be a mentor and friend.
It's probably what made Castiel come to love the skittish, nervous writer as his father, giving him a connection he never knew how deeply he'd craved. The year since showed Chuck forcing himself to confront his fear without ever being able to fully defeat it, and every step he took behind Dean into courthouses and across the country was proof of his own peculiar sort of bravery. He's not determined the way that Dean is—he completely lacks Dean's conviction—but he's won over Dean's little band of Omegas and sympathizers with his anxious acts of rebellion. When Chuck nervously refused to hold the twins but settled down on the floor between them, watching them like he was trying to memorize them, trying to see in them what he never got to see from the triplets though he was in the same compound, something clicked in Cas, and Chuck neatly worked himself into the ranks of the most important people in Castiel's life.
So when Castiel storms into Amelia's home, he draws up short quickly. Outside of Dean, Castiel has never had an Omega's emotions hit him as hard as Chuck's do right this moment—not even the dozens of heat-drugged Omegas they've taken out of farms, too drugged to control their emotions. Chuck is devastated. The door banging open leaves him terrified. It's sharp claws and a tight grip, and if Castiel's only getting a reflection of this, he's not sure how Chuck is even functioning. Of course, then he realizes that Chuck isn't functioning. Right now he's folded into the corner of Amelia's living room, head in his hands and a bottle of scotch at his side, staring blankly at the space on the carpet between his feet.
Chuck is paralyzed, nearly catatonic. Amelia is pacing, a phone in her hands as she desperately attempts to explain to someone who clearly isn't listening to the fact that, regardless of being her uncle and her father's family's legal representative, Lucifer was never supposed to have custody of Claire. The look Amelia shoots Cas is desperate, fearful, and she gestures at the phone in apology, promising to be right with him. Cas strides across the room towards his father, and Chuck. . .
His father cringes from him.
Castiel is not blameless in life. He has blood on his hands, and no matter how righteous that felt and how much he cannot apologize for his soldiers' lives, he regrets what he did to save them. Killing those enemy soldiers was calculated, strategized to free his people. The white hot anger he felt at Jimmy's funeral was fueled by grief as much as fury. What he feels as Chuck looks up at him, eyes blank and a spreading bloom of a bruise across his cheek beneath the sparse cover of his beard, is rage.
"Tell me what happened."
Chuck-frightened, terrified Chuck-tried to save Claire. As far as he knew, Claire was being dragged into the same fate that broke him in the first place, snatched away by a police officer, by the law, and by one of the eldest sons of a man who paid to rape and impregnate him. By the man who sued for Jimmy being 'defective,' who got Chuck thrown out of the crèche damaged, penniless, without even the money insultingly owed to him for his 'service.' Chuck took a stand, by himself and by the looks of him, he was casually backhanded for the trouble. If Castiel knows his brother, what Lucifer said was probably even worse.
Gritting his teeth, forcing himself to calm enough not to worsen this for Chuck, Castiel drops to a crouch, rests a hand on his father's shoulder, and doesn't recoil at Chuck's tension. He waits until the initial flinch subsides, waits until Chuck recognizes nonthreatening comfort for what it is, and blinks slowly as if pulling himself back. Dean taught him this, showed him to wait, to let them set boundaries, but not treat them as damaged. Dean taught him when to hold on, and when to give space. He needs Chuck with him now and he holds on, giving Chuck something to anchor himself in return.
"I need to know what you know, so I can find Claire. Please."
And maybe that's all Chuck really needed, all any of them need: a reminder that he still has a cause to fight for, even once he's been hurt and once he's scared. Chuck's intelligent blue eyes (Cas's eyes, his twins' eyes, Claire's eyes) focus as his father takes a trembling breath and nods a few times too many, pulling himself together but still shaking, still shaken. "Yeah. Of course. Yeah."
xXx
For once, no one mistakes Castiel for Emmanuel as he stalks past the doorman into the family estate, shoes squelching on the tile and his palpable fury making the staff stare. He sincerely couldn't care less about mud, about the ash and rain sodden slap of Jimmy's coat against his calves as he walks, or generally his appearance on a Sunday afternoon when he slanted his rental in blocking the cars parked in the drive. He can hear the light strains of music somewhere within, a murmur of conversation down the hall.
Lucifer is here.
More than that, Claire is here. Castiel doubts there's another Omega in heat anywhere near this place. At least, not in the public areas. His brothers keep Omegas, he knows: he's always seen the unobtrusive collars on some of the staff, black bands to match their dour attire. Lucifer's doing, so they know where they 'belong.' Oh, they're all paid, Castiel has no doubt. But they're no more free than Alastair let Dean be, no matter how different their methods. They're the nameless, faceless 'help' to his brothers, and when they're in heat they're put to use.
Not Claire, though. Claire is Lucifer's own flesh and blood, if only distantly as his half-brother's daughter. That wouldn't suit Lucifer's ego appropriately, it wouldn't reflect the family properly.
Cas feels the sting of Lucifer's manipulation from the moment he pushes past, as the 'help' announces Father Castiel Allen, a name he hasn't used since he reached adulthood and a title he gave up years before. Cas grits his teeth at this proof that this is expected: Lucifer knows Castiel's anger as well as Castiel knows Lucifer's ego. He knew his brother would come, and he got a jab in at him before he ever got in the door.
Dean would point out that this is a trap, then walk into it side by side with him, but Dean is not here and not speaking to him anyway. He didn't answer his phone, letting it go straight to voicemail, and Castiel didn't leave a message. Would he think this is more ridiculous Alpha posturing? Would he scorn this, too?
Cas doesn't want to know.
The ballroom with its framed paintings of angelic might has been cleared of furniture save for chairs around the walls, to make room for the function within. The last time Castiel was here, Lucifer and Michael had conspired among themselves, pulling his brothers in with him, to convince Castiel to waive his right to their inheritance before he could have children with Dean. Too late, now.
Is this Lucifer's revenge for that?
The ballroom isn't full yet, but there are men in formal attire that Castiel doesn't recognize, Omega help moving among them with trays, more than Castiel has ever seen before. Lilith stands out within like a flame among coals, golden hair elegantly piled atop her head, the white band of her choker emphasizing the long, delicate line of her neck. She is the opposite of the help, and for the first time Castiel entertains the notion that there is something deliberate to that. The smile that shapes her lips when she spies Castiel is so strikingly reminiscent of Lucifer that Castiel freezes in place, meeting her eyes across the room, before he stalks in her direction.
Whatever is happening here, she is part of it, and he's learned not to assume subservience as an Omega trait: Lilith is a partner in whatever is happening, not a pawn.
"Where is my niece?" The words are hoarse, unapologetically growled into her conversation as she stands among the guests with a hand casually resting on the arm of an Alpha male, who Castiel only notices as a police officer once he turns and the black jacket reveals the badge.
"Good evening, Castiel. We're so glad you could make it." Castiel never really has had the opportunity to speak to Lilith. She was only briefly present at the funeral, and the event had not been conducive to introductions, even discounting the brawl between brothers in the middle of it. Gabriel spoke casually enough to her that it's clear she's been part of his brother's life for a long while, but Cas has never heard her speak. Her voice purrs, faintly mocking, the perfect match to Lucifer's. "Have you met Commissioner Kubrick? Dr. Cuthbert Sinclair, Mr. Victor Rogers. . ." She is going to introduce each of them in turn, infuriatingly polite, as if Castiel gives a damn about any of them.
"Where is Claire."Sinclair's eyebrow arches curiously at the interruption and Kubrick tenses, apparently attuned enough to violence to understand how close Castiel is to it.
"I would assume she's still getting ready." Fetching a glass of champagne off of a passing tray, Lilith raises it to blood red lips that curl against the lip of the crystal. "It's her cotillion after all. She'll want to make a good impression for her future Alpha."
All of these men, this entire charade, it's to use the veneer of high-society to practically sell Claire for his brother's gain, They're going to trot a teenaged girl out among well-off Alphas in the middle of her first Heat. All of the other Omegas everywhere in the room, the help. . . are they the consolation prize for any sexually frustrated Alphas, after? Is this what his brothers' life is like, commodifying Omega sex, even outside of arrangements like Alastair's? Lilith is watching him, waiting with an air of expectancy, and she's kept herself near the commissioner, her proof that it's entirely legal and sanctioned. He can see his brother's mind at work in all of that, plans within plans.
Castiel has seen so much progress in the world, since Dean began fighting. But here, in his own family home, it's practically medieval, tradition as closely guarded as their money and their status. Fighting with Lilith and these cronies of his brother's won't save Claire. He pushes through them. He has to stop this before it starts.
He still knows the layout of the house, even if hasn't been his residence since he was sixteen. He stalks towards the door nearly hidden in the back wall of the room behind what looks like a raised stage (like an auction block, his mind unhelpfully supplies). Daphne readied herself for the wedding in the small servant's rooms off of the ballroom, and he assumes he'll find his niece there.
He doesn't expect to nearly run into Lucifer as he rounds the first corner of the narrow hall, the door swinging shut behind him with a solid clunk.
"Hello, brother."
Castiel hasn't always been a fighter. He remembers his early years at the crèche, growing up alongside Emmanuel and Jimmy: they were well behaved children, quiet and withdrawn by necessity and lack of socialization. Castiel didn't learn to fight until he was growing up alongside nine brothers, and until the triplets were being bullied for their lack of social skills. Castiel was their primary target: he was different, even from his own brothers, and isolated outside of his connection to Jimmy and Emmanuel, and he never adapted as well as Jimmy, or became as unobtrusive as Emmanuel. He was the easy target.
Michael and Lucifer taught him how to make that stop, how to fight back, how to make a stand. After all, it wouldn't do to have any timid Alphas in their family—just as long as he knew his place at home.
It's been decades since then, but he still shouldn't be surprised that when he instinctively swings, Lucifer snatches his arm out of the air and he's left smashing face-first into the wall, his brother's weight driving him into the wood panels. He can taste blood in his mouth, the quick pain of his tooth cutting open his lip, but he ignores it, driving his free elbow back into Lucifer.
Castiel is fast, arguably just as intelligent, strategic and a competent fighter. But Lucifer is viciousand unpredictable, and he's already rattled Castiel. He has the greater reach, no reservations, and he's not driven by emotion the way Castiel is now. He holds the upper hand, and wants Castiel to see that. He deflects the blow, and is out of reach before Castiel can regroup. His point made, Lucifer watches him almost sadly from just out of swinging range, shaking his head in disappointment. "You don't look well, brother. Trouble in paradise, finally? There is only so long a whore can act against their nature."
This time he hits the floor, his brother not managing to entirely deflect, but the fist to Lucifer's stomach and then jaw doesn't equal to Castiel's head bouncing off of the tiles when Lucifer takes his momentum and uses it to flip him, leaving him dazed. His head is splitting, and it was already pained before.
Lucifer is goading him, and the trouble is it works. He's livid, emotionally compromised, not thinking straight. He aches, the bone-deep sense of loss that comes with being rejected, and he's beside himself in worry for Claire whose distress he can feel at this range, and even for his family back in South Dakota, and his brother is capitalizing on that.
Words feel thick in his mouth, his head stuffed with wool from the blow to his skull. Moving makes his stomach revolt. Potential concussion. He used to be better at this. "They're not whores."
"I know for a fact that your 'husband' is, I assure you." Lucifer's words aren't mocking, and it's not the only time he's implied that he has first-hand knowledge of Dean's 'experience.' Even Dean doesn't know for sure, can't remember every 'client' of Alastair's while he was being abused. Dean was locked into the rack, left there for hours, and raped repeatedly every day for four months. Even if he had been able to see every one of his rapists, the brain has ways of protecting itself, making memories unreliable, and the drugs given to Dean made the experience blur together, a single unending Heat without relief. Since he found out about Lucifer's involvement with Dean's tormentor, it's been a factor in Castiel's nightmares: in Dean's, as well, he's sure.
It's the perfect button to jab if Lucifer wants to destroy Castiel's self-control. Which is perhaps precisely why it doesn't work: he can see the point, now, of Lucifer meeting him here instead of out in the party. He can see the strings Lucifer is tugging to make Cas his puppet. He's been making Castiel dance for a while now, throwing up obstacles in his relationship, harrowing his mate, undermining their work, harming his father, abducting his niece, and now implying he had raped Dean. He wants to murder Lucifer, to add fratricide to his sins, to slam Lucifer's face into the tile until his smug face is unrecognizable. He hates himself for that, he thinks: for how easy it would be to become that. How had he ever claimed to be a man of God? It's a sad state of affairs when guilt, loss of faith and self-loathing are what he relies on to snap him back from the brink.
Cas sucks in a breath and forces himself to think, to see this as what it is, to regroup. He's smarter than this, and as much as he loves Dean, as much as he wants to protect Dean and the twins and Claire and Chuck, if he gives in to this he's not helping any of them. Hauling himself carefully back to his feet, Castiel spits the blood in his mouth onto the floor as Lucifer watches him-cunning, manipulative.
"I am taking Claire out of here." It's not a threat, or an empty promise, but Lucifer regards him as if he's amusing. He is two parts confidence to one part ego, hands loose at his sides, placed between Castiel and the doors down the narrow hall.
"Why?" Spreading his hands as if to show he's unarmed, or to indicate the house around them, Lucifer cocks an eyebrow. "What exactly do you think is going to happen here, Castiel? You, the Omega you've let lead you around by the knot, you have decided I am the villain of this piece, but are you really so blind that you'll ignore that this is better than she could have hoped for? One way or another the Omega will play her part: we need Omegas to have children, to further the population. Better we choose a fitting mate for her, than let her be tried out and used until one manages to breed her."
This is bait, too. Invitation to speak, to let the party get underway around them, making it harder for him to get Claire back out before the other Alphas outside can become involved. Castiel bites back the urge to respond, to sneeringly note that he's about to hand a barely post-pubescent virgin girl to a middle aged Alpha stranger as his personal and permanent sex toy. Instead, he takes an unsteady step forward, and finds himself blocked by Lucifer.
"I am taking my niece out of here." Castiel repeats, slowly and clearly as he can.
"My niece, Castiel. And as the legal representative of our family, I assure you the paperwork is in order to make her my ward." For now, at least. . . and after tonight, it won't matter. That tickles at Castiel's consciousness, a puzzle to be worked out later. "Jimmy was my brother too, and this is the best our family can do for her . . ." No, Lucifer doesn't care about Jimmy. It's not in his nature to legitimately care about anyone other than himself. "If your mate or your father had this opportunity, would you have begrudged them it? Are you so selfish that you'd have sent them back in to be used by a mob?"
Castiel almost wants to wave his brother to silence, so he can think. Claire is in the next room, and. . .
And Lucifer, portrait of an Alpha, isn't affected at all. He walked into Amelia's house with an Omega in heat, was composed enough to coldly sneer at Chuck after he interfered, made a two hour drive with Claire, and is standing in front of her door without any visible effects. Lucifer knew instinctively what had Castiel looking so drained, or he was experienced enough that he recognized the effects of rejection by an Omega mate.
The laugh that tears out of Castiel when the pieces click isn't remotely humorous. Hand braced to the wall, he lets himself slump against the wooden panels for a moment, mind reeling. He stops himself abruptly when he realizes how half-mad he must seem, though there's no one in the hall who could judge him. Lucifer's expression has closed off, though he watches his brother as if he's a bomb that may need defusing.
"I suppose congratulations are in order." Raising his head, Castiel looks at his brother with bloodshot eyes. "Ten years overdue? Maybe longer. Long enough." Long enough that he knows, now. One less question on the table, one less nightmare for both he and Dean. "When we were growing up, you had a new 'pet' a week, it seemed. Can you even get aroused around other Omegas now?" He considers a memory of her smile, blood red lips and her look. "Not without her there, as well. Does she let you share them, or are all the Omega help here to remind you that you can't have them?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about." But he does. Castiel knows he's right, and the clipped words from Lucifer can't convince him otherwise.
Lilith is Lucifer's true mate. He may have her collared, but she holds his leash as well. She waltzes into family events at his side, lives the life of a rich woman, entertains the guests, oversees a staff of Omegas. It's not what Lucifer ever would have intended for an Omega, he is not inclined to be indulgent. His brother must have been furious, to be caught that way, but just as Dean's mood affects Castiel's, Lilith has influence over Lucifer. Lilith is his brother's match in every way, as he ascertained: she is just as culpable in tonight as Lucifer, and like Lucifer she probably sees this as some sort of favor to Claire.
But Lucifer didn't rape Dean. Not if he was a mated Alpha. He may have known about Dean from Alastair, he most certainly enabled Dean's assault, and that is bad enough. But he never brought his elitist Omega mate near that kind of place, never let others know she was any more than a pet to him, and so he never laid a hand on Castiel's mate.
He'll pay for what he allowed, what he helped to happen, but Dean will help make sure of that, not just Castiel. It's why Lucifer hates them so much.
Inside of the room behind Lucifer, there is the sound of breaking glass and a soft cry that pulls Lucifer's attention, and Castiel feels a sudden, savage pride in his clever, independent, quiet niece. Lucifer has always underestimated Omegas, but Claire is Jimmy's daughter. Jimmy, who was unquestionably the best of them, brave and loyal and just headstrong enough to leave their family behind without the safety net of the church that Castiel had to fall into to replace it. Jimmy, who never once asked permission to live his life the way he wanted, and never sought orders the way Castiel did, to ground himself. Castiel's voice is toneless, deadpan as Lucifer turns away. "I believe Claire must have found a window."
Castiel is unsteady on his feet, concussed, his nose either badly bruised or broken, and facing the exhaustion of withdrawal. He's little enough threat to Lucifer now in a fair fight, and it's clear that Lucifer has determined that for himself as he flings open the door. Lucifer has time enough to step in and note the cloyingly sweet scent of an upended bottle of perfume dropped at the foot of the powder room table and the wet slap of the curtains in the storm, before Castiel clubs his brother upside the back of the head with the marble statue of an angel beside the door.
Everyone still expects him to fight fairly, just because he was a priest. They clearly haven't spent as much time around Dean Winchester as he has.
He drops the statue at his brother's side as he crouches to check Lucifer's pulse and tilt his head for a clear airway and in case he wakes up nauseous, before he steps over him to the window. In trial they pointed out to Castiel that he's repeatedly failed at 'first, do no harm' but he can at least keep himself from crossing 'thou shalt not kill' again. He hates his brother, but he won't let Lucifer define him that way, make him a murderer again. There's a chance he will pay for the violence, later, but he'll leave it to his lawyer to figure out for him if it comes to it. He personally doubts tonight's drama will leave the confines of this house, any more than the brawl beside Jimmy's grave did. Lucifer still wants to preserve the family name, after all, and his own ego won't allow him to admit he was blindsided. Lucifer won't undercut his own image like that, and he never goes for the straight attack when he can act underhandedly and keep the blame off of himself and the spotlight off of the family.
Cas cuts his hands leveraging himself out of the window after his niece, and he feels the tug and tear of the glass on the inner lining of his coat before his feet squelch down into the mud outside, the branches of the hedge smacking at him, snapping under the impact as he topples forward in the landing. Claire presses herself back against the bricks not far away, eyes too wide in the light from the windows, breathing ragged, her leg twisted awkwardly beneath her and mud clinging to her slip, rain ruining hair carefully coiffed like Lilith's and marring makeup that somehow makes her look even younger than she is. She reeks of the perfume she used to deliberately disrupt the Heat scent, but it will wash away soon enough in the rain.
". . . Dad?"
There's a quaver to his niece's voice that focuses Cas, a feverish vulnerability coupled with the same childlike hope and stabbing reminder of her confusion when her father died. He shakes his head and spits again, blood and bile, hands slipping in the mud as he tries to push himself to his feet. "Your father. . . was far more adept at sneaking out the windows than I ever was." Claire blinks slowly at him, refocusing on him past the blood on his face, and tries to get her legs under her again.
"Uncle Castiel." If anything, she sounds relieved rather than disappointed as she did when Castiel ruined that illusion for her as a child, but she's breathing too quickly, pained, and Cas grabs ahold of the sill behind him to pull himself to his feet, shrugging out of the coat as he goes, wrapping it around her shoulders. As long as he has a mission, he can focus. He's done this before. Claire is hurt now, not just caught in her first heat. She's been abducted, dressed for auction and easy access by whatever Alpha claimed her, and she's terrified but she asks anyway: "… Are you okay?"
"I look worse than I feel." Castiel has no idea how he looks so there is the possibility that isn't even entirely a lie, but Claire buys it, trusting him. "Can you walk?"
Claire bites her lip, huddled into her father's old coat, and tries to stand again on what seems to be a sprained or broken ankle from slipping on the mud in her landing. In the end, they balance each other upright, her fingers pressed tightly into Cas's arm as he shuffles them towards the rental car. They need to get out of here before Lucifer rouses, or Lilith sends the staff looking for him.
He gets her into the back seat of the rental before settling into the driver's seat, weaving them out through the parked cars. The gate opens smoothly when they approach, and his final worry in their escape is gone. His final worry until Claire whimpers softly, curling into herself in the back, and he has years before he may need to have this discussion with his children. He has no idea how to approach it. Dean should be here. Dean is good with children, and he knows Omegas, and...
Castiel cracks the window to bring cold air in, to disperse the cloying scent of perfume and growing heat scent, and clears his throat as he tries to find a delicate way to approach this.
"Claire, you're in Heat. Whatever you're feeling is perfectly normal, and..."
"Oh god." Claire waves her hands, cutting him off. "No. No don't talk. I've known I was an Omega for years, and I have the Internet. I know, okay? Grandpa Chuck already gave me a really bad speech last night and it'd be..." She curls into herself again with a whimper, trying to breathe through it. "Uncle Castiel I love you but you are the last person in the world I want to hear talking about..." This time she trails off again in embarrassment.
Oh thank God. Cas rests his forehead against the steering wheel at a red light, and admits to himself that he really needs those few years to figure out how to approach this with a child. He doesn't talk about this. He can barely even talk about sex with Dean, let alone broach the topic of Heat with a teenaged girl.
His head hurts, his entire body aches from the beating, and he would really like to rest now. A car horn sounds behind him, startling him, and he puts them back into drive. "I need my phone from the pocket of the coat, please."
It hits the seat beside him, flung there by Claire, and he fumbles it up to his ear. Dean's number goes straight to voicemail again, and that hurts. Charlie, though, answers on the second ring and her cheerful greeting is too loud, too enthusiastic. "You don't call, you don't write. I was starting to feel like..."
"Do we have a safe house in the Chicago area, yet?"
Charlie's words cut off immediately as she sucks in a breath, and Cas can faintly make out the sounds of her fingers flying across the keys. "You sound like shit. Are you okay? What happened? Who needs a safe house? You can't..." He's Alpha. Even if they have a safe house it won't let him in.
"My niece. She needs medical care, and she's in her first Heat. I need... Can you give me directions? I'm driving and need to stay alert." Charlie, bless her, doesn't ask more questions—she apparently gets the GPS coordinates from his phone, and uses that to direct him step by step towards a battered Omegas sheltered in North Chicago, part of their growing network of safe houses as they free them from the farms and let them work the Heat drugs out of their systems. Dean paid for this, took the money John shoved into savings and let Ellen and Jo dump it into buying abandoned houses and apartment buildings, remnants of an era when there were more people in the world.
The blonde girl who takes Claire in, Kate, seems too young to be running a shelter like this, but Cas knows now that they all have their stories, their reasons. He can't follow Claire in, but he leaves her with Jimmy's coat, mud splattered and rain soaked as it is. He'll figure out how to take her out of Lucifer's custody, and come back to her, or he'll have Amelia pick her up once her Heat is over. For now and through the rest of her Heat, though, she's safe and hidden. He did his job.
Castiel self-diagnoses his own concussion so they won't have to, though he's not sure they appreciate the gesture. He was told once that doctors make the worst patients, and that's a truism that he's fairly certain they'd support, especially when he refuses a trip to the hospital. He doesn't argue when one of the care workers takes his keys and pushes him into the passenger seat instead, though. He registers the cheap motel he's driven to only for the possibility of a soft bed and a moment's rest. It's growing dark outside when he opens his eyes again. Someone is unlacing his shoes and easing them off, muttering under their breath the entire time, and Castiel feels relief unfurl in him. ". . . the hell I managed to marry a stubborn fucking. . ."
"You didn't answer your phone."
It's an absurd greeting, and he knows it, but Dean looks up from unclasping his belt and meets his eyes. The fluorescent glow from the open bathroom door shouldn't hurt his eyes like it does but Dean is beautiful in any light, and he can't look away. Dean is here with him and everything is on its way to being right again.
"Yeah, because I was on a plane. They tell me to turn off the phone or it could crash the damn thing, I'm turning off my phone." That makes sense. Dean hates to fly. Worse, he's terrified of flying. Dean flew from Sioux Falls to Chicago for him, and he was probably already on his way by the time Castiel was driving up to Lucifer's. Amelia doubtless contacted Dean, too. He feels like he should apologize for that. "What's your name, what year is it, and what's the last thing you remember."
"Castiel Winchester." Dean usually looks so proud when he calls himself a Winchester, but he's staring at him worriedly right now, and Cas wants permission to kiss Dean now. "2015. And arguing with a college nursing student that waking a concussed patient every hour is an outdated practice and I wanted to sleep. Mild concussion with no lack of consciousness after, a few cuts and some deep bruises, maybe a broken nose, but my memory is fine. You found me and broke into the hotel room?" A frown creases Castiel's face as he continues without a break or pause. "Where are the twins?"
"Charlie GPS tracked the car, your phone narrowed down the room, and Jody still owed us a favor for the raid so she and Bobby are going to keep an eye on them until I get you home. We've got a flight in the afternoon." He wants to get back to the twins quickly, and Cas doesn't blame him. But he came here to take care of Cas, even though they were fighting. Even though...
"I didn't sign the paperwork. Claire's in a safe house. I need. . ." Cas goes to sit up, and finds himself held down by Dean's hand pressing into his chest, keeping him down among the pillows.
"Shh. Cas, shut up and stay down. The point of a safe house is that it's safe. Claire's safe. You, though, look like shit. And if this is where you tell me I should see the other guy, save it."
"I did club Lucifer upside the head with his own pretentious artwork. . ." Dean looks up from unclasping Cas's belt, both eyebrows raised at the surprise of that. ". . . but I'm still fairly certain I took the brunt of it. You called me Cas. Are we. . .?" Are they okay? Cas doesn't know how to act, if he is allowed to touch Dean, if he can drag him into the bed and hold him, just to feel whole again. Dean looks away from him, annoyed at something and frustrated and sad, but he tugs Cas's pants off as the thick layer of mud over them cracks and flakes. Cas is getting mixed messages here, and it's leaving him more confused than before.
"Dude, you're covered in mud and blood, you look like an extra in a zombie flick, and you're jumping all around the conversation. We'll talk later. C'mon. Shower, lemme see how bad off you are, then we can switch to the bed you didn't cover in mud. Where I promise I won't wake you every hour, doctor."
There's a teasing undertone there, faintly mocking without being cruel, and that's reassuring. That's a great deal more like them. Cas lets himself be leveraged to his feet, Dean pressed close to Cas's side, tucked beneath his arm as he leads him to the shower, and he may lean on Dean more than necessary just to get close to him but Dean doesn't call him on it. He commands Cas to brush his teeth while he gets the water to the right temperature, and Cas gets his first look at himself as he mechanically follows Dean's orders, hand pushed away from his face when he goes to poke at his swollen nose. Just badly bruised and a cut across it, not broken. That's reassuring. It's slightly less reassuring that his hair is matted to his head with blood, sweat and rain, and he has mud and dried blood streaking his face from his nose and mouth. He takes the pain medications offered him, downing them dry.
Dean's lips are pressed into a stern and displeased line as he finally gets Cas under the shower spray and braces one knee on the edge of the tub, but his hands are gentle, carefully wiping his face clean with a washcloth and following the line of his neck, coming back up to slide fingers gently into his hair and check the lump on the back of his skull as he lets the water run over Cas until it's clear again. "Dinged yourself pretty hard. You should've gotten someone else to come with you, dumbass."
Castiel closes his eyes, resting his shoulder against the tile, and puts up a token argument. "Gabriel is in New York, Balthazar is in London, Emmanuel is useless in a fight and doesn't want to be involved in the family disputes, Amelia needed to fight the custody aspect, and Lucifer had already hurt Chuck." But the truth is he didn't consider any of that, not consciously. Claire was in trouble, so he went to show up for her. It's not the right answer, but at least it's not a wrong one. He hisses in pain when Dean's soapy fingers press into the lump on the back of his skull, but feels a sense of loss when Dean's hands move away from him.
Right up until he hears the rustle of fabric, and finds himself tugged back against Dean's bare chest, his husband stripped naked and joining him in the shower, cupping water in his hands to rinse Cas's hair clean as he braces him upright. "You're an idiot, you know that?"
"So you've mentioned. Frequently." Cas mutters, finally stealing the washcloth from Dean and making himself do more than stand uselessly beneath the spray. "I'm sorry, Dean, I. . ."
"I wasn't done yet." Dean catches Cas's hand, stopping him from scrubbing so that all he can do is listen and feel. They're pressed together closely, Dean half-hard against his back, but this isn't about sex it's about touch, and after a few beats of silence and a shaking breath from Dean that Cas doesn't understand, Cas hooks an arm back around his mate and closes his eyes. He makes himself listen, makes himself trust in Dean's strength to keep them both steady as the water and Dean's embrace work magic. "I mean it, you're an idiot, but I'm pretty sure this is my fault. Look, I get pissed, but I got no clue when it pushes far enough that you're feeling like I kicked you to the curb. Only way I know is if you tell me, you fucking. . ."
"I can't tell if you're apologizing or chastising me right now." Castiel interjects blearily, and he's bitten lightly below the ear for the trouble, Dean following it up with a tender kiss to the curve of his neck. Dean ducks his head and breathes slowly, eyes closed and face tucked into Cas's skin as his hands move, warm palms pressing to Cas's stomach, tugging him more firmly into Dean's arms. Dean's upset, only relaxing now that he's got Cas back, but that doesn't make sense. Dean was the angry one, the one who shut him out.
"Kinda both, I guess." Dean sighs, stubbled chin dragging over Cas's skin and closing his eyes, confession spilling out of him. "You scare the shit out of me, Cas. I mean, you pissed me off too, but..."
Cas twists in Dean's arms, both eyebrows raised, voice dismayed and feet unsteady on the tub floor. "I scare you?"
"Not like that." Dean rolls his eyes, leans past Cas and shuts the water off, grabbing them towels from the rack, but it does little to quell Cas's worry. Dean was being honest, there, even if he's trying to snatch it back now, bury it in humor. "Yeah, I'm terrified you're going to smother me in old lady blankets and throw pillows and frikkin' octopus style snuggling. I'm afraid of your cooking, too..."
Hooking his towel around Cas's waist, he uses it to pull his husband out after him, steadying him unnecessarily as he steps over the lip of the tub, still listing Castiel's most terrifying traits, which seem to involve stealing books, organized take-out menus, off-key lullabies, snoring like a buzzsaw, and watching Little Einstein more raptly than their infant children.
"The book said that music and patterns are useful for their cognitive development." Somehow, what he chooses to defend out of that tirade wins a laugh from Dean, and he sits Cas on the edge of the motel bed, standing between his knees and gentle in toweling Cas's hair dry.
Castiel has murdered two men. Assaulted more than that. He's been in brawls, hurt his own family, and he's struggled with morality and ethics and faith. The way Dean describes him doesn't mesh with that, doesn't soothe that worry that he is something to fear. He scares Dean. He knows that means more than Dean is letting on, and he can think of a hundred reasons for Dean to fear him, none of them good for their relationship.
Catching Dean's wrists he stills him, and then drops his grip, second guessing himself, not wanting to restrain Dean. "Please, I need to know what you meant."
Dean stares down at him, where Cas sits at the edge of the bed, chin up-tilted, blue eyes bloodshot and exhausted and pained and worried and afraid, fingers twisting together in the edge of the towel over his thighs, in the nervous habit Dean only sees in stressful situations. Dean steps back slowly, brushing mud aside and taking a seat on the opposite bed, facing his husband. Leaning forward he braces his elbows across his knees, unsurprised when Cas mirrors the posture.
"Cas, you got no idea how much trust I'm putting in you. I put my entire damn life in your hands, man. . ."
"I know..." Dean cuts Cas off, head shaking and a hand slicing the air.
"No, Cas, you really don't. Some of it goes both ways. Like, if we ever screw things up between us it's gonna be messy for both of us, with kids and a marriage and the whole mate thing, and I get that it's something we gotta work at. Marriage isn't meant to be easy." There's something about those words that sounds like he got that advice from someone else and accepted it, adopted it into his world view. Bobby, Cas would wager it. Maybe Ellen, too. Did he go to them for counsel, upset with Castiel in one of their arguments? Did they offer the advice to him as a warning before they married?
Dean narrows his eyes at Cas, as if he can see Cas's sluggish mental tangent and it worries him. That means it's probably the concussion and the exhaustion, then. "I'm listening." He knows that face: Dean is chastising himself for letting Cas drag them into this discussion right now, worried about Cas. "You are the most important thing in my life, Dean. I can't lose you. What doesn't go both ways?"
Dean sighs, pushing himself to his feet, and he manhandles Castiel into the bed too easily, tugging the towel away and dropping it on the floor as he tucks him into the blankets, sliding in behind him to curl around his back. It's nice being held, Castiel thinks: Dean is warm, solid, and he feels less adrift this way.
It also means he can't see Dean's face.
"Cas, the only thing. . . the only fucking thing. . . that makes us equals right now is that you let us be. If that's only something that applies to me, or to Chuck, or whatever… that's not you being equal, that's you playing favorites. Like we're pets, or kids, and you get to treat us differently because we belong to you."
Castiel's given water and fed, and his soldiers see him treated like a guest while they're starving in their cells. He can't force the food down, can't swallow, and he hates himself almost as much as he hates his captors.
Dean tightens his arms around Cas when he shivers, still talking, struggling to explain it, but Castiel understands suddenly. Dean is afraid of being dehumanized again. He fears being treated as a lap dog this time instead of a 'bitch' as Alastair used him, because it's the same principal, if flipped. He interrupts abruptly, arms wrapping over Dean's around him. "You fear that I am treating you differently than any others simply because of our relationship, rationalizing the abuses for anyone other than you, or those close to me. That would demean you, and cheapen what we have. That would mean I 'own' you, and can be indulgent."
Dean falls silent, still, and Castiel closes his eyes, shaking his head slightly, stopping quickly when it makes him woozy, spiking the pain of his headache. He's tired, voice thick and slow with it, and comfortable now enough to drift off. "Won't happen."
"Yeah, and how's that? You sure as hell blew me off and flew here." The burr of anger is back in Dean's voice, but he stays wrapped around Castiel for now. This isn't the first time Cas has shown a higher regard for Dean than anyone else—that's part of being in love, and he gets that. But it's a fine line, fighting for what's right versus fighting for Dean. Dean doesn't want to be the only thing tethering Cas to the moral cause of what they supposedly fight for together.
"That was a stopgap. Claire needed to be protected. But you did that already." He's figured it out, put together that final puzzle sometime between the fight with Lucifer, and waking up to Dean taking care of him. Lucifer acted hastily. He was trying to lure Castiel in, to rip apart his relationship with Dean, becoming vulgar, violent, even careless. He gave himself only a matter of hours to get Claire mated off. He failed to fully plan. . .
Letting himself melt into the mattress, letting Dean hold him together, Cas burrows into the pillows farther, certain of this now. He knows. Lucifer, with all of his connections in Washington, is worried. Something is happening.
He can't explain all of that, the threads he pulled together to reach that deduction, until morning. Dean, thoughtful, brave, caring Dean doesn't prod him once it's clear he's going to sleep. Dean brushes his hair back from his forehead, presses a kiss to his shoulder again, and holds him as he drifts off to sleep again, certain of his conclusion.
The world is going to change, and soon.