The next morning, Zoey went to where Pestilence was to retrieve his ring. It was ridiculously easy, and she very much enjoyed causing him extensive pain before she killed him.
xxxxx
Zoey approached a small bakery in Kansas City, Missouri. The Winchesters and Bobby had been worried about how to find him, but as soon as she opened her senses to it, she had located him immediately.
Castiel had wanted to go with her, but she had gently suggested that he stay with the humans to protect them. She'd figured that it probably wouldn't be prudent to say, "Death can probably squish you like a bug, darling, and I don't know if I will be able to stop him."
So now she stood in front of the brightly colored bakery which Death currently occupied, mostly confident in her mission, partially worried she was minutes away from being smote.
Well, here goes nothing.
A happy little bell sounded when she opened the door. It was the only cheerful thing about the place. There was a dead girl behind the counter, and a dead couple in the corner. They didn't bother her. Casualties happened in war.
What bothered her was the man in the second booth to the right. He was tall, with slicked back dark hair. His features were sharp, avian, and he had dark, terrible eyes.
Zoey took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. If he was going to kill her, he would kill her. She would join the casualties of this war without flinching. She had too much pride to flinch.
"Join me, Ms. Crane," his dry voice intoned. "I have no desire to end your life."
She walked quickly to the booth and slid into the opposite side. "Do you know what I'm here for?"
Death was eating what looked like a huge slice of blueberry pie, and didn't look up. "I do." A beat of silence. "What I don't know, however, is why."
Zoey frowned. "Do you care why?"
He wiped his mouth with a napkin fastidiously. "Not particularly. I'm inclined to give you what you want anyway. But I find myself very curious as to why." He looked at her evenly. "Why do you want to save the world, Zoey Crane?"
"Because I live in it," she said simply. It was the same answer she gave the Winchesters, and it was mostly true.
Death, however, cocked an eyebrow at her. Apparently, he wasn't buying it.
She decided, again, to be more honest than she had in a very long time. "Because the man who raised me believed that, when it came down to it, I would choose the side of right. I don't know if this is what he meant, but…" She took a deep breath. "I can't let his belief be in vain. He's gone, but… He knew I could be good, despite my origin. So I can't let him down."
He stared at her for a long time before he took his ring off and slid it across the table to her.
xxxxx
"All right," Dean said slowly, wiping a hand down his mouth. "We've got all four."
Zoey nodded. "Almost showtime, gentlemen."
"When?" Sam asked, arms crossed.
"Tomorrow," Zoey said softly, working hard to make sure she wasn't fidgeting. Showing her nerves now would do no good, it would only serve to make the Winchesters nervous. And if they were nervous, they would fuck up the next day, and she couldn't have that.
The morons could get me killed.
"So," Dean said with a clap of his hands. "Who needs a drink?"
Bobby nodded. "Wouldn't say no."
But Sam was shaking his head. "Dean, we should go over the plan again. We need to make sure we've got it down. If we fuck this up-"
"Oh, come on Sam," Dean snapped. "We've been over it a hundred times. We're not gonna get better than we are now."
"Dean, we can't be sloppy about this!"
Zoey listened idly as they argued, mostly just tuning them out to watch Castiel.
He was standing at the other end of the room, arms at his sides, watching the argument. She let her eyes linger on his strong jaw, his broad shoulders, his lean body. I want him.
The thought struck her. I want him. The next day she was going to fight Lucifer. A fight that may very well kill her.
But for tonight, she wanted the angel.
Remembering his reaction to the way she killed the Whore, she transported herself across to the room to be standing next to him, letting her power brush lovingly at his face and neck as she did so.
She reached forward and took his cold hand in hers. She smirked when his blue eyes darkened as he looked down at her. "I have something to discuss with you, Castiel."
Without another word to the humans in the room, she transported to herself and Castiel to her flat in London.
xxxxx
Dean blinked as the Cambion and the angel disappeared, then grinned. "Our little boy is growing up." Then he frowned. "Although, you know, what the hell? Inopportune moment, anyone?"
Sam, however, was chuckling. "Good for Cass. He's done a lot for us. He deserves some… Uh, time off."
Dean snorted, then crossed his arms. "Now? Is now really the time?"
"It is for Zoey," Bobby said dryly. "Tomorrow may very well be her last day on Earth."
That shut all of them up.
xxxxx
When they materialized, Castiel looked around her apartment curiously. Zoey smiled and let go of his hand, with a pang of regret, to strip her leather jacket off. "Home sweet home," she said softly.
He stayed where he was, and after a few moments, his gaze landed on her again. "I thought you had a cat?"
She shrugged and kicked her sneakers off. "Murph comes and goes as he pleases. He'll be back when he feels like it." She frowned. "I hope someone takes him in after tomorrow."
"I will take him to Bobby's. I am sure Bobby will take care of him."
The thought of the grumpy old man taking care of her grumpy old cat made Zoey smile. "Thank you. I like that idea quite a bit."
She approached him again, savoring the tingles of awareness shooting through her as he looked at her. "What are we doing here, Zoey?"
She smirked and came to stand in front of him. "You know exactly what we're doing here, Castiel."
His mouth twitched up in a smile. "I suppose I do."
She put a hand on his cool chest, relishing the strength there. Then she looked up at him again. "I want us to go into this with open eyes, Castiel," she said softly.
His eyes stayed on hers, and the blue there made her dizzy. "Open eyes?" he asked.
She nodded and took a deep breath. "Tonight, we are going to have mind-blowing, earth shattering sex." His pupils blew wide at her words, making her shiver, but she continued. "And tonight, it's okay if we love one another."
"But tomorrow, Castiel, tomorrow you must resist. Your greatest sin has always been that you love humanity too much. Tomorrow, you can't do that. You can't love me tomorrow."
"Why?" he asked hoarsely, the heat in his eyes faltering.
"Because tomorrow I go into the pit, and you're going to leave me there. You're not going to try to stop me, or save me, or rescue me once I'm in there. Tomorrow, Castiel, you're going to let me go, and you're going to walk away forever."
She searched his gaze urgently, looking for any hint of doubt or hesitation. It was imperative that he agreed. If she thought for a moment that what they were about to do would make it too hard for him to let her go, she would put a stop to it now and they would go back.
"On one condition."
She smiled. "What's your condition?"
"I want to see you."
She knew what he meant immediately, and blanched a little. "I… I don't know if I even know how to drop my glamours anymore," she admitted softly. She had been hiding since since she was thirteen.
"Try," he insisted gently.
She closed her eyes and started letting the magic she didn't even have to think about keeping up anymore fall. Layer by layer she peeled it away, until she was as she naturally looked.
She was a couple of inches taller than her glamour showed, so her head came to just below his chin. Her skin was a light brown, and her hair was a rich, dark chestnut color, that fell in thick waves down to just below her shoulders. All of those things were normal, and she could pass for human with those.
But her eyes. Her eyes were where she lacked humanity. Her irises were a deep, royal violet color, and her pupils were white. She met his lovely blue eyes nervously, anxiety thrumming through her. It had been almost a hundred years since someone had seen her eyes, and she was just hoping he didn't hate them.
He brought his big, cold hand up to cup her cheek gently, his thumb running along her cheekbone. "They're beautiful," he said softly. "Your eyes. They're lovely."
She smiled up at him. "So? What say you, Castiel? Would you like to know what it's like to lie with hell?"
Time gently slowed to a stop just as she asked the question, and the growing heat in his eyes made her heartbeat stutter. Suddenly, the two weeks of pressure and tension between the two of them made itself very known in the room. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting for Castiel's response.
Which came in the form of a smirk, then crashing his lips down onto hers.
She cried out and went up on tiptoe to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him back fiercely. His big hands landed on her hips and he lifted her effortlessly, letting her wrap her legs around his waist before he slammed her against the wall hard enough to drive the breath from her.
Hands were everywhere, tearing clothes off and exploring one another. They both could have made their clothing disappear with a thought, but this was better, more raw, more human. Tonight, they weren't an angel and a half demon. Tonight, they were two people who wanted each other.
When he bent to take a nipple into his mouth and suck hard, she cried out and arched her back. Her power mingled with his lazily, and when he bit down gently, it lashed out, sending a crack running through the ceiling. His power followed, fixing the damage and soothing her own wildly writhing energy.
As they made their way to the bed, finally naked, it went like that. Her power would destroy something, his power would fix it. Herr energy would flare out, his grace would catch and calm it.
He laid her on the bed gently, then pressed a kiss to her stomach, moving slowly up between her breasts. She gasped and moaned, threading her fingers through his hair and arching up into him.
"This is a sin, you know," he murmured roughly, stopping to tug her nipple into his mouth again and sucking hard, briefly.
She cried out and struggled to process what he had said. "Is it?" she said breathily. "Well, what do you intend to do about it?" she asked as he made his way up to her neck, then pressed his lips against her ear.
"My duty," he said gravely. "Zoey Crane, I'm going to fuck the sin right out of you."
The filthy words coming from that perfect mouth, coming from an angel, sent Zoey into a spiral of heat. He pressed his cock against her soaking entrance, and she struggled to push herself down onto him. His grace held her firmly in place, and she moaned in frustration.
"Hush, Zoey," he said gently, in an echo of the first time he'd held her, and pressed his forehead to hers. "Let me take care of everything."
"Castiel," she whined, struggling against the hold he had on her. "Please," she whispered, moving to capture his mouth with hers, kissing him desperately.
He finally obliged, but sank into her slowly. He was big, and the stretch was just this side of painful. That was all right with Zoey, some little part of her craved the pain. She couldn't contain her moan when he bottomed out, and he gave her a deep growl that made her toes curl.
His pace was slow, loving, and he worshipped her with his hands and his mouth. She did the same for him, never able to settle on one place to lav with her tongue, or run her fingernails lightly across. Castiel was beautiful, and she wanted every little piece of him saved to her memory forever.
When she felt heat start to bloom in her middle, she gasped. "Castiel, I'm-"
He moved a hand down to start toying with her clit, making her writhe in earnest beneath him. "I know, Zoey, let go, I will take care of you," he growled in her ear.
When she came, she couldn't contain herself. She tilted her head back and screamed, bucking hard beneath him, letting her hand resting flat on his cold chest serve as a touchpoint through the pleasure shrieking through her veins.
As she came, he picked up the pace, and absolutely lost it above her. He drove into her hard and fast, the only thing keeping the bed from breaking was his grace holding her in one place. He came with a soft roar, then sealed his lips to hers as he shuddered into her.
She held him through the aftershocks, and then they lay like that for a long time, just wrapped up in one another.
xxxxx
Neither of them had any particular need to sleep, so they did not.
They spent the night memorizing one another. The spots that made the other moan, where each was sensitive to teeth and lips and tongue. What to do with their fingers to get the other to make that particular noise, between a grunt and a moan, in the back of their throat as their whole body convulsed.
Zoey's demonic energy destroyed the apartment. Castiel's angelic grace fixed it. (Around a century later, Castiel would discover that they had ripped open a part of the earth's crust, causing an earthquake. He would come and fix it, a fond smile on his face for his Cambion.) Her power flared out in throes of passion, his stopped it from hurting her or him. They were evenly matched all night, because Zoey held her power back, kept it locked in a part of herself.
Sometime near dawn, she realized that her handprint was burnt onto his chest. She frowned. "Castiel, what is this? Why didn't you tell me, or say something?"
"It was during your first orgasm," he said matter-of-factly, resting on his back, pulling her back down to lay her head on his chest. "And I like it, so I did not mention it."
She frowned and pressed a kiss to the spot, relishing the feel of his cool skin beneath her lips. "Sentimental idiot," she accused softly, smiling to take the bite from her words.
"As long as I am able to keep a piece of you."
xxxxx
The next morning, they dressed slowly, unable to keep their hands off of one another for very long. Once they were ready, he pulled her to him and kissed her hard, shuddering at the feeling of her heat pressed against him again. Castiel thought it would be a very, very long time before the previous night wasn't replaying itself in the back of his mind on a constant loop.
She sighed and leaned into him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to him for a long time before she pulled away and smiled up at him. Her glamours were firmly back in place, her hair a radiant violet that matched her real eyes.
"Let's go fight the devil, shall we?"
xxxxx
Hi, beautiful readers! Here are my notes:
I own only Zoey Crane, the original character. I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. (heartbroken)
Reviews, comments, and kudos give me life and keep me going.
And, as always, thank you for reading, you beautiful, beautiful people.
**Almost done with Zoey and Castiel's story. I'm a little heartbroken.