![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spn fic: blood on my name
Title: blood on my name
Pairing: Castiel/Dean
Rating: NC17
Words: ~3,200
Summary: Dean is already drowning.
Notes: Beware Cain/Demon Dean speculation.
[AO3]
blood on my name
Pain flares in Dean's arm, hot and bright, searing like a brand, but below that he feels something darker, something liquid, a needful pull that twists beneath his skin, winds into his gut, sinks into him with teeth and claws. He shakes with it, a sullen tremor that starts behind his knees, his hands clenching and his mouth dry, his pulse roaring in his ears, turbulent and sharp. He wants to feel bones splintering under his fist, watch blood spurt between his fingers, pool dark and thick at his feet.
Sam's voice cuts through the haze, concern bending it enough that Dean tries to hold on to it, driven by old instinct to cradle it in his hands, but he's already drowning, punched full of holes, sulfur pouring in from anywhere, everywhere.
+
"What's up with you?"
Dean pauses, hands shaking as he reaches for a book on demon physiology. "Nothing."
"Yeah? See, because ever since you killed Magnus, you've been acting sort of obsessed."
"Well, maybe because I want an end to all this. Maybe because if we find Abaddon, and Crowley ponies up the First Blade -- we kill her, and him. Both. What you call being obsessed, I call doing my job."
Sam hesitates for a moment, shifts his weight from foot to foot in a way that puts Dean's teeth on edge. "Okay. I get it, Dean. I'm just checking in."
Dean doesn't look up. "I'm fine."
+
Sam returns from his solo hunt quiet, brimming with a stony anger Dean would've asked about a month ago.
"You were right," he says, his chair creaking as he settles in.
"About what?"
"Finding Abaddon, ASAP. She's mining souls."
Dean closes his eyes, feels the Mark twinge like a sore muscle. "Why?"
"To create an army."
Sam lapses into silence, hunching over a ledger so old the pages are ready to crumble into dust, but Dean's next stolen drink tastes like ash, like the ten years he spent with a razor in his hand.
"An army of what?" he asks, even though he's afraid he knows the answer. "A bunch of soulless sons of bitches who murder at random and end up in the crowbar hotel before she can do anything useful with them?"
"Demons. An army of living, human demons."
The Mark throbs again, and Dean grits out a sigh, rubs at the back of his neck. "That's not -- is that even possible?"
Sam just looks at him, eyes narrowed, and turns back to his research without a word.
+
Sam nods off about an hour after midnight, books stacked all around him, his head pillowed on his arm and his hand cradling a half-empty beer.
Once his breathing evens out, Dean retreats into one of the sub-basement storage rooms with a twenty-sixer of Jim Beam, punching the cement walls until his knuckles bleed, screaming until his voice is raw and hoarse, feels like an open wound.
+
The demons come for them while they're filling up the Impala, four of them at once, the sodium lights flickering as they smoke into the other customers on the tarmac. It's an ugly Kansas afternoon, the sky the color of an old bruise and strewn with hazy clouds; Sam exorcises one of them, grating out the Latin in handfuls as he darts around the pumps, and Dean kills the other three, snarling, lunging at them with his teeth bared, plunging Ruby's knife into the first one's chest, stabbing the second one under the ribs, slicing the third one's neck from ear to ear, laughing when the meatsuit collapses like a puppet without its strings. It would feel better with the First Blade, purer, would ease the way his arm is burning, desperate for completion.
"Dean."
Sam's hand catches Dean's arm just above the Mark, his fingers digging into the crease of Dean's elbow, and Dean whirls on him, half-hard and still laughing, his vision gray around the edges. The knife is a bloody mess in Dean's fist, and he gets it up underneath Sam's jaw before Sam can back away.
"Dean, it's okay. It's just me. You have to -- it's just me. Put it down. We have to go now."
The need surges up, livid and thick, has him snarling again, white-knuckling the knife, then ebbs away like the tide, leaves him floundering, stranded, empty.
+
"Dean."
Dean looks up at the sound of that voice, sets his book aside when he finds Cas standing at the foot of his bed. His white shirt is open at the neck and his coat is rumpled like he drove through the night, and Dean just stares at him for a moment, his mouth dry, unable to speak. He has missed Cas these last few weeks, but he doesn't want Cas to see him like this -- thin and hungry and inhuman, dark shadows under his eyes and sulfur gritty between his teeth, sour on the back of his tongue.
"Cas, I'm -- what are you doing here?"
"Your brother called me. He is concerned about you."
Dean bristles, overcome by a crushing mix of anger and shame. "Did he tell you I nearly killed him?"
"He mentioned it, yes."
"So, what? Now you're gonna fix me?"
"Dean." Cas shrugs out of his coat and tosses over the back of the chair, then sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that his hip bumps against Dean's thigh. "You don't need fixing."
"I'm practically a demon."
"A little," Cas admits quietly, "but not as much as you think." He lays his hand on Dean's arm, stroking his fingers over the skin just beside the Mark, where the tail of it tapers into a point. "Your soul still shines brightly, in spite of the burden you carry."
"It'll happen, though. Just a matter of time."
"No. I won't allow it."
Cas brushes his fingers through Dean's hair, then curves his hand over Dean's cheek, rubbing his thumb at the corner of Dean's mouth as he dips his head. The kiss is light, just an easy press of lips, but Dean can feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he leans into it, fisting his hand in the front of Cas' shirt. He has wanted this for years, but there has always been something in the way, something else that needed doing first; he's never been willing to let himself hope for it, probably shouldn't start hoping for it now.
"Cas, we can't."
"Why not?" Cas slides his mouth down Dean's jaw, sucks at the skin below Dean's ear until Dean closes his eyes and lets a soft noise rumble in the back of his throat. "I'm tired of waiting. I believe you are as well."
"But I'm -- you're an angel again."
"Currently, yes."
"What?"
Cas mouths at Dean's neck, just under the bolt of Dean's jaw, and Dean can't stop himself for pushing his hand into Cas' hair. "I stole this grace, which is against more of God's laws than you can possibly imagine. It will leave me eventually. I believe some of it has left me already."
He kisses Dean again, a little harder this time, a little wetter, his tongue peeking out to tease at Dean's lips, and Dean lets himself relax into it, feeling calmer than he has in weeks, the pain in his arm dulling into a slow, restless ache.
+
Abaddon slips the ambush they set up with ease, disappearing into the night with a cold tinkle of laughter, but she leaves behind a double handful of stunt demons -- two old guys and two soccer moms, a couple of drifters in their thirties and five or six more college kids, all of them wholly human, beyond the reach of a regular exorcism. Cas handles most of them himself, still bursting with holy light even though his grace is slowly failing him, and Dean and Sam deal with the rest, pinned down in a narrow circle of empty space near the door of the abandoned warehouse.
Dean takes the first one in the throat, laying her open just below the jaw, the first blade slicing through her flesh like a hot knife through butter. One of the old guys rears up as she hits the floor, and Dean sidesteps him, grunting when he slams into the solid wall of Sam's back. The demon sneers at him, all white hair and wrinkled cheeks and wide, black eyes, and Dean lunges straight at him, plunging the First Blade into his chest again and again and again, pain flaring in his arm, his dick aching against the fly of his jeans and his breath whistling hard and fast through his nose. He can taste the blood in the air, old pennies and raw meat, and his hands are covered in it, red and sticky and bright.
The next demon crashes into him, stumbling over the other bodies as he spins away from Sam; Dean stabs him in the back, then turns him and jabs the First Blade between his ribs, then whips it up and presses it to the dead hollow of his throat.
"Dean, enough."
Dean jerks around with a snarl, his gut churning, everything seething with hatred, with white-hot anger, with an endless, furious need; he barrels into Cas, growling deep in the back of his throat as he shoves Cas back against the wall. He gets his hand around Cas' throat, smiling as those muscles flutter and shift under his palm, and he swings the First Blade up, but Cas catches his wrist in a ruthless, crushing grip, squeezing until Dean is forced to let go.
The First Blade clatters to the floor, and Dean claws his way back to the surface, is left cold and shivering and horrified, trying to choke out an apology with his fingers still twisted in the collar of Cas' shirt, but Cas just pulls him into a hug, his hand warm at the back of Dean's neck and his mouth soft against Dean's cheek.
"I love you."
"Cas, I -- "
"I love you," he says again, holding Dean closer, tighter, his other hand fisted in the back of Dean's shirt.
+
It's well past midnight by the time they get back to the car; the moon is half-full and high in the sky, washing everything in weak light, glinting off the Impala's chrome and fading Cas' coat to a drab, muddy yellow. Shame still burns in Dean's gut, a sickly ache that wants to spread up into his chest, dig into the empty spaces behind his ribs, and when Cas reaches for his swollen hand he jerks away so quickly he stumbles over his feet.
"Let me heal it," Cas says quietly.
"No, I'm -- it's fine."
"Dean." Cas sighs, tilting his head to the side. "I shattered every bone in your wrist and most of the bones in your hand. Let me heal it."
"I almost killed you."
"But you didn't."
"Yeah, but I tried."
Cas crowds Dean back against the car, holding one hand at Dean's hip and sliding the other over Dean's jaw, and Dean gasps at the sudden burst of grace, hot and cold at once. Pain flashes through his hand as the bones reset, then fades into nothing. He flexes it a few times, wincing as his knuckles crack, then flattens it against Cas' chest, ready to push him away, but Cas just leans in closer, pinning Dean to the Impala's passenger door.
"You couldn't have hurt me."
"But I tried," Dean argues, guilt welling in his chest, clutching at his throat. "I wanted to."
"That wasn't you."
"Bullshit."
"Dean," Cas says, his voice dangerously sharp. "Do you blame Sam for Kevin's death? For the things he did when he had no soul?"
"No, I -- no."
"Then why do you blame yourself for this?"
Dean closes his eyes, unable to deal with Cas' open stare, with having Cas so close. "It's different."
"God intended for Cain's Mark to be a punishment. Paired with the First Blade, it creates a bloodlust that cannot be sated. When you're holding it, you are not yourself. You could kill a hundred people and want more. A thousand. It's not your fault."
+
"I meant it," Cas tells him later, when he has Dean spread out on the bed, when he's working a third finger into Dean's ass, steady and slow, teasing his prostate in a way that makes him gasp and twist and scrabble at the sheets. "What I said before. I -- I love you."
Dean tries to say that he knows, that he feels the same way, but the words won't come out, his mouth opening around a moan, rough and throaty and low. He's too caught up in what Cas is doing to him -- Cas nudging him up onto his knees, lube-sticky fingers digging into his hip; Cas running his hand up the length of Dean's spine, pressing his palm to the sweaty stretch between Dean's shoulders; the head of Cas' dick tagging against him, once, twice, then inching inside, slow and wet and easy. He makes a breathless noise once he's all the way in, pausing, his knee slipping on the sheets, his fingernails digging into Dean's skin, holds there until Dean is restless and shifting, pushing back against him, begging Cas to move.
He can just hear himself over the thud of his blood pounding in his ears, the desperate thread in his voice, and he'll probably be embarrassed about it tomorrow, red-faced over breakfast when he remembers everything he said -- oh and Cas and please, please -- but right now he doesn't care, has wanted this for too long, Cas fucking into him, hard, the bed creaking and the headboard rattling against the wall, and Cas sliding a hand up his chest, thumbing at a nipple until he's choking on another moan, and Cas stretching over him, his chest a warm weight against Dean's back, his mouth open and wet at the curve of Dean's neck.
Cas sits back on his knees, bringing Dean with him, dragging Dean into his lap. He spreads Dean's thighs over his, open and wide, and Dean can't move as well like this, can't do much besides let Cas fuck him, let Cas wrap a warm, sweat-slick hand around his dick and stroke, but it feels so good, impossibly good, heat curling into his gut, welling at the base of his spine, everything rushing under his skin, pulling tight, ready to snap. Cas slides his other hand down Dean's side, tracing the arch of his ribs and squeezing the jut of his hip, then tucks it down between Dean's legs. He teases his fingertips over the place where he's buried inside Dean's body, and Dean comes, his breath hitching as he spurts over Cas' fist, his thighs shaking as Cas thrusts into him a few more times, artless, close to the edge, his teeth catching the skin behind Dean's ear.
"I do, too," Dean says quietly, when they're both spread out on the bed, Dean's heart still hammering in his chest. "I -- I know you know. You have to know."
Cas makes a pleased noise, wraps his arm around Dean's waist. "Yes. I know."
+
"You don't want to do this, lover."
Dean circles her carefully; the Devil's Trap bullet in her brain keeps her pinned in one place, but she can still move her arms, could sink her blood-red claws into his throat if he gets too close. "No, I really think I do."
"They'll make you put old donkey teeth down once I'm gone."
Dean hesitates, tightens his grip around the First Blade's handle.
"I know you don't want that. You love using it. You love the way it makes you feel."
"No," Dean says, his tongue too thick for his mouth. "No, I don't."
"We could have fun together, you and I. I'd never make you put it down."
He lingers in front of her a little too long, and she reaches for him, her fingers brushing the collar of his shirt.
"We could bring the world to its knees." She smiles at him, all red lips and white teeth. "We could conquer Hell and rule it together."
Dean cannot breathe. The need swells up inside him, cresting like a wave, shivering over his skin and pulsing out through the Mark. She reaches for him again, laughing as her fingers stroke down the side of his face, and he leans into her a little, feels bones snapping beneath his boots and blood running over his hands, hears people begging, screaming, but then a voice rumbles out his name -- Dean, Dean -- a voice that sounds like blue eyes and a burned-red handprint, like a trenchcoat floating into the banks of a river and wings flashing in the shadows of an old barn, and then a warm, solid weight presses against his back, and a hand slides down to cradle his elbow.
"Do it, Dean."
Dean swings in and plants the First Blade in the center of Abaddon's chest.
+
His eyes burn black as Abaddon's collapses to the floor; he watches her die in shades of gray, blood pooling in a dark stain underneath her body, but it isn't enough, only fans the heat flaring in his arm, the need sparking in his gut. He tightens his grip on the First Blade, turns toward the heartbeats behind him, one louder and faster than the other. He recognizes their faces, dimly, his brother and his angel, knows one of them is talking, but all he can hear is the rapid, glorious thrum of their pulses, the blood --
+
"Cas, you can't," Sam says.
They are standing in the doorway to the dungeon, backlit by the floodlights in the hall, Sam a taller, darker silhouette, Cas further inside the room, his coat muddied to brown. Dean leans forward, squinting as he tries to get a better look, jerking when the cuffs on his chair bite into his wrists. He closes his eyes then, remembering how close he came to killing both of them. He half hopes they'll just kill him, put him down like the rabid dog he is. Sam barely speaks to him anyway, and Cas, Cas --
"Yes, Sam," Cas replies, his voice a low rumble, dark and full of brimstone. "I can."
"What about your grace?"
Cas sighs under his breath. "It was never really mine."
"Whoever it belongs to, you said the other day that it's nearly gone."
"It is. And since I will lose it eventually, I would choose to prefer the time and place and reason."
They are silent for a long moment, then Sam makes a quiet, frustrated noise, tipping his head back against the door-frame.
"Do you prefer him like this?" Cas asks, taking another step inside the room. "Half a demon?"
"No. I -- of course not."
Cas comes around the side of the table, his hip bumping against it as he leans into Dean's space. He rolls Dean's sleeve up over the Mark, then presses his hand over it, his grip just this side of bruising. White light flashes between them, too bright, too bright, and pain sears through Dean's arm, rough and sudden and sharp, and Dean screams, loud enough that it almost drowns out Cas saying he's sorry.
+
Dean wakes to a dull headache and a dry mouth and the soft sound of someone else breathing. He rolls over, blinking when he finds Cas curled up beside him on the bed, a book open in the narrow space between them. He's wearing jeans and an old hoodie; his hair is a mess and he needs a shave.
"Cas?"
"Hello, Dean," Cas says, and smiles.
Pairing: Castiel/Dean
Rating: NC17
Words: ~3,200
Summary: Dean is already drowning.
Notes: Beware Cain/Demon Dean speculation.
[AO3]
Pain flares in Dean's arm, hot and bright, searing like a brand, but below that he feels something darker, something liquid, a needful pull that twists beneath his skin, winds into his gut, sinks into him with teeth and claws. He shakes with it, a sullen tremor that starts behind his knees, his hands clenching and his mouth dry, his pulse roaring in his ears, turbulent and sharp. He wants to feel bones splintering under his fist, watch blood spurt between his fingers, pool dark and thick at his feet.
Sam's voice cuts through the haze, concern bending it enough that Dean tries to hold on to it, driven by old instinct to cradle it in his hands, but he's already drowning, punched full of holes, sulfur pouring in from anywhere, everywhere.
+
"What's up with you?"
Dean pauses, hands shaking as he reaches for a book on demon physiology. "Nothing."
"Yeah? See, because ever since you killed Magnus, you've been acting sort of obsessed."
"Well, maybe because I want an end to all this. Maybe because if we find Abaddon, and Crowley ponies up the First Blade -- we kill her, and him. Both. What you call being obsessed, I call doing my job."
Sam hesitates for a moment, shifts his weight from foot to foot in a way that puts Dean's teeth on edge. "Okay. I get it, Dean. I'm just checking in."
Dean doesn't look up. "I'm fine."
+
Sam returns from his solo hunt quiet, brimming with a stony anger Dean would've asked about a month ago.
"You were right," he says, his chair creaking as he settles in.
"About what?"
"Finding Abaddon, ASAP. She's mining souls."
Dean closes his eyes, feels the Mark twinge like a sore muscle. "Why?"
"To create an army."
Sam lapses into silence, hunching over a ledger so old the pages are ready to crumble into dust, but Dean's next stolen drink tastes like ash, like the ten years he spent with a razor in his hand.
"An army of what?" he asks, even though he's afraid he knows the answer. "A bunch of soulless sons of bitches who murder at random and end up in the crowbar hotel before she can do anything useful with them?"
"Demons. An army of living, human demons."
The Mark throbs again, and Dean grits out a sigh, rubs at the back of his neck. "That's not -- is that even possible?"
Sam just looks at him, eyes narrowed, and turns back to his research without a word.
+
Sam nods off about an hour after midnight, books stacked all around him, his head pillowed on his arm and his hand cradling a half-empty beer.
Once his breathing evens out, Dean retreats into one of the sub-basement storage rooms with a twenty-sixer of Jim Beam, punching the cement walls until his knuckles bleed, screaming until his voice is raw and hoarse, feels like an open wound.
+
The demons come for them while they're filling up the Impala, four of them at once, the sodium lights flickering as they smoke into the other customers on the tarmac. It's an ugly Kansas afternoon, the sky the color of an old bruise and strewn with hazy clouds; Sam exorcises one of them, grating out the Latin in handfuls as he darts around the pumps, and Dean kills the other three, snarling, lunging at them with his teeth bared, plunging Ruby's knife into the first one's chest, stabbing the second one under the ribs, slicing the third one's neck from ear to ear, laughing when the meatsuit collapses like a puppet without its strings. It would feel better with the First Blade, purer, would ease the way his arm is burning, desperate for completion.
"Dean."
Sam's hand catches Dean's arm just above the Mark, his fingers digging into the crease of Dean's elbow, and Dean whirls on him, half-hard and still laughing, his vision gray around the edges. The knife is a bloody mess in Dean's fist, and he gets it up underneath Sam's jaw before Sam can back away.
"Dean, it's okay. It's just me. You have to -- it's just me. Put it down. We have to go now."
The need surges up, livid and thick, has him snarling again, white-knuckling the knife, then ebbs away like the tide, leaves him floundering, stranded, empty.
+
"Dean."
Dean looks up at the sound of that voice, sets his book aside when he finds Cas standing at the foot of his bed. His white shirt is open at the neck and his coat is rumpled like he drove through the night, and Dean just stares at him for a moment, his mouth dry, unable to speak. He has missed Cas these last few weeks, but he doesn't want Cas to see him like this -- thin and hungry and inhuman, dark shadows under his eyes and sulfur gritty between his teeth, sour on the back of his tongue.
"Cas, I'm -- what are you doing here?"
"Your brother called me. He is concerned about you."
Dean bristles, overcome by a crushing mix of anger and shame. "Did he tell you I nearly killed him?"
"He mentioned it, yes."
"So, what? Now you're gonna fix me?"
"Dean." Cas shrugs out of his coat and tosses over the back of the chair, then sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that his hip bumps against Dean's thigh. "You don't need fixing."
"I'm practically a demon."
"A little," Cas admits quietly, "but not as much as you think." He lays his hand on Dean's arm, stroking his fingers over the skin just beside the Mark, where the tail of it tapers into a point. "Your soul still shines brightly, in spite of the burden you carry."
"It'll happen, though. Just a matter of time."
"No. I won't allow it."
Cas brushes his fingers through Dean's hair, then curves his hand over Dean's cheek, rubbing his thumb at the corner of Dean's mouth as he dips his head. The kiss is light, just an easy press of lips, but Dean can feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he leans into it, fisting his hand in the front of Cas' shirt. He has wanted this for years, but there has always been something in the way, something else that needed doing first; he's never been willing to let himself hope for it, probably shouldn't start hoping for it now.
"Cas, we can't."
"Why not?" Cas slides his mouth down Dean's jaw, sucks at the skin below Dean's ear until Dean closes his eyes and lets a soft noise rumble in the back of his throat. "I'm tired of waiting. I believe you are as well."
"But I'm -- you're an angel again."
"Currently, yes."
"What?"
Cas mouths at Dean's neck, just under the bolt of Dean's jaw, and Dean can't stop himself for pushing his hand into Cas' hair. "I stole this grace, which is against more of God's laws than you can possibly imagine. It will leave me eventually. I believe some of it has left me already."
He kisses Dean again, a little harder this time, a little wetter, his tongue peeking out to tease at Dean's lips, and Dean lets himself relax into it, feeling calmer than he has in weeks, the pain in his arm dulling into a slow, restless ache.
+
Abaddon slips the ambush they set up with ease, disappearing into the night with a cold tinkle of laughter, but she leaves behind a double handful of stunt demons -- two old guys and two soccer moms, a couple of drifters in their thirties and five or six more college kids, all of them wholly human, beyond the reach of a regular exorcism. Cas handles most of them himself, still bursting with holy light even though his grace is slowly failing him, and Dean and Sam deal with the rest, pinned down in a narrow circle of empty space near the door of the abandoned warehouse.
Dean takes the first one in the throat, laying her open just below the jaw, the first blade slicing through her flesh like a hot knife through butter. One of the old guys rears up as she hits the floor, and Dean sidesteps him, grunting when he slams into the solid wall of Sam's back. The demon sneers at him, all white hair and wrinkled cheeks and wide, black eyes, and Dean lunges straight at him, plunging the First Blade into his chest again and again and again, pain flaring in his arm, his dick aching against the fly of his jeans and his breath whistling hard and fast through his nose. He can taste the blood in the air, old pennies and raw meat, and his hands are covered in it, red and sticky and bright.
The next demon crashes into him, stumbling over the other bodies as he spins away from Sam; Dean stabs him in the back, then turns him and jabs the First Blade between his ribs, then whips it up and presses it to the dead hollow of his throat.
"Dean, enough."
Dean jerks around with a snarl, his gut churning, everything seething with hatred, with white-hot anger, with an endless, furious need; he barrels into Cas, growling deep in the back of his throat as he shoves Cas back against the wall. He gets his hand around Cas' throat, smiling as those muscles flutter and shift under his palm, and he swings the First Blade up, but Cas catches his wrist in a ruthless, crushing grip, squeezing until Dean is forced to let go.
The First Blade clatters to the floor, and Dean claws his way back to the surface, is left cold and shivering and horrified, trying to choke out an apology with his fingers still twisted in the collar of Cas' shirt, but Cas just pulls him into a hug, his hand warm at the back of Dean's neck and his mouth soft against Dean's cheek.
"I love you."
"Cas, I -- "
"I love you," he says again, holding Dean closer, tighter, his other hand fisted in the back of Dean's shirt.
+
It's well past midnight by the time they get back to the car; the moon is half-full and high in the sky, washing everything in weak light, glinting off the Impala's chrome and fading Cas' coat to a drab, muddy yellow. Shame still burns in Dean's gut, a sickly ache that wants to spread up into his chest, dig into the empty spaces behind his ribs, and when Cas reaches for his swollen hand he jerks away so quickly he stumbles over his feet.
"Let me heal it," Cas says quietly.
"No, I'm -- it's fine."
"Dean." Cas sighs, tilting his head to the side. "I shattered every bone in your wrist and most of the bones in your hand. Let me heal it."
"I almost killed you."
"But you didn't."
"Yeah, but I tried."
Cas crowds Dean back against the car, holding one hand at Dean's hip and sliding the other over Dean's jaw, and Dean gasps at the sudden burst of grace, hot and cold at once. Pain flashes through his hand as the bones reset, then fades into nothing. He flexes it a few times, wincing as his knuckles crack, then flattens it against Cas' chest, ready to push him away, but Cas just leans in closer, pinning Dean to the Impala's passenger door.
"You couldn't have hurt me."
"But I tried," Dean argues, guilt welling in his chest, clutching at his throat. "I wanted to."
"That wasn't you."
"Bullshit."
"Dean," Cas says, his voice dangerously sharp. "Do you blame Sam for Kevin's death? For the things he did when he had no soul?"
"No, I -- no."
"Then why do you blame yourself for this?"
Dean closes his eyes, unable to deal with Cas' open stare, with having Cas so close. "It's different."
"God intended for Cain's Mark to be a punishment. Paired with the First Blade, it creates a bloodlust that cannot be sated. When you're holding it, you are not yourself. You could kill a hundred people and want more. A thousand. It's not your fault."
+
"I meant it," Cas tells him later, when he has Dean spread out on the bed, when he's working a third finger into Dean's ass, steady and slow, teasing his prostate in a way that makes him gasp and twist and scrabble at the sheets. "What I said before. I -- I love you."
Dean tries to say that he knows, that he feels the same way, but the words won't come out, his mouth opening around a moan, rough and throaty and low. He's too caught up in what Cas is doing to him -- Cas nudging him up onto his knees, lube-sticky fingers digging into his hip; Cas running his hand up the length of Dean's spine, pressing his palm to the sweaty stretch between Dean's shoulders; the head of Cas' dick tagging against him, once, twice, then inching inside, slow and wet and easy. He makes a breathless noise once he's all the way in, pausing, his knee slipping on the sheets, his fingernails digging into Dean's skin, holds there until Dean is restless and shifting, pushing back against him, begging Cas to move.
He can just hear himself over the thud of his blood pounding in his ears, the desperate thread in his voice, and he'll probably be embarrassed about it tomorrow, red-faced over breakfast when he remembers everything he said -- oh and Cas and please, please -- but right now he doesn't care, has wanted this for too long, Cas fucking into him, hard, the bed creaking and the headboard rattling against the wall, and Cas sliding a hand up his chest, thumbing at a nipple until he's choking on another moan, and Cas stretching over him, his chest a warm weight against Dean's back, his mouth open and wet at the curve of Dean's neck.
Cas sits back on his knees, bringing Dean with him, dragging Dean into his lap. He spreads Dean's thighs over his, open and wide, and Dean can't move as well like this, can't do much besides let Cas fuck him, let Cas wrap a warm, sweat-slick hand around his dick and stroke, but it feels so good, impossibly good, heat curling into his gut, welling at the base of his spine, everything rushing under his skin, pulling tight, ready to snap. Cas slides his other hand down Dean's side, tracing the arch of his ribs and squeezing the jut of his hip, then tucks it down between Dean's legs. He teases his fingertips over the place where he's buried inside Dean's body, and Dean comes, his breath hitching as he spurts over Cas' fist, his thighs shaking as Cas thrusts into him a few more times, artless, close to the edge, his teeth catching the skin behind Dean's ear.
"I do, too," Dean says quietly, when they're both spread out on the bed, Dean's heart still hammering in his chest. "I -- I know you know. You have to know."
Cas makes a pleased noise, wraps his arm around Dean's waist. "Yes. I know."
+
"You don't want to do this, lover."
Dean circles her carefully; the Devil's Trap bullet in her brain keeps her pinned in one place, but she can still move her arms, could sink her blood-red claws into his throat if he gets too close. "No, I really think I do."
"They'll make you put old donkey teeth down once I'm gone."
Dean hesitates, tightens his grip around the First Blade's handle.
"I know you don't want that. You love using it. You love the way it makes you feel."
"No," Dean says, his tongue too thick for his mouth. "No, I don't."
"We could have fun together, you and I. I'd never make you put it down."
He lingers in front of her a little too long, and she reaches for him, her fingers brushing the collar of his shirt.
"We could bring the world to its knees." She smiles at him, all red lips and white teeth. "We could conquer Hell and rule it together."
Dean cannot breathe. The need swells up inside him, cresting like a wave, shivering over his skin and pulsing out through the Mark. She reaches for him again, laughing as her fingers stroke down the side of his face, and he leans into her a little, feels bones snapping beneath his boots and blood running over his hands, hears people begging, screaming, but then a voice rumbles out his name -- Dean, Dean -- a voice that sounds like blue eyes and a burned-red handprint, like a trenchcoat floating into the banks of a river and wings flashing in the shadows of an old barn, and then a warm, solid weight presses against his back, and a hand slides down to cradle his elbow.
"Do it, Dean."
Dean swings in and plants the First Blade in the center of Abaddon's chest.
+
His eyes burn black as Abaddon's collapses to the floor; he watches her die in shades of gray, blood pooling in a dark stain underneath her body, but it isn't enough, only fans the heat flaring in his arm, the need sparking in his gut. He tightens his grip on the First Blade, turns toward the heartbeats behind him, one louder and faster than the other. He recognizes their faces, dimly, his brother and his angel, knows one of them is talking, but all he can hear is the rapid, glorious thrum of their pulses, the blood --
+
"Cas, you can't," Sam says.
They are standing in the doorway to the dungeon, backlit by the floodlights in the hall, Sam a taller, darker silhouette, Cas further inside the room, his coat muddied to brown. Dean leans forward, squinting as he tries to get a better look, jerking when the cuffs on his chair bite into his wrists. He closes his eyes then, remembering how close he came to killing both of them. He half hopes they'll just kill him, put him down like the rabid dog he is. Sam barely speaks to him anyway, and Cas, Cas --
"Yes, Sam," Cas replies, his voice a low rumble, dark and full of brimstone. "I can."
"What about your grace?"
Cas sighs under his breath. "It was never really mine."
"Whoever it belongs to, you said the other day that it's nearly gone."
"It is. And since I will lose it eventually, I would choose to prefer the time and place and reason."
They are silent for a long moment, then Sam makes a quiet, frustrated noise, tipping his head back against the door-frame.
"Do you prefer him like this?" Cas asks, taking another step inside the room. "Half a demon?"
"No. I -- of course not."
Cas comes around the side of the table, his hip bumping against it as he leans into Dean's space. He rolls Dean's sleeve up over the Mark, then presses his hand over it, his grip just this side of bruising. White light flashes between them, too bright, too bright, and pain sears through Dean's arm, rough and sudden and sharp, and Dean screams, loud enough that it almost drowns out Cas saying he's sorry.
+
Dean wakes to a dull headache and a dry mouth and the soft sound of someone else breathing. He rolls over, blinking when he finds Cas curled up beside him on the bed, a book open in the narrow space between them. He's wearing jeans and an old hoodie; his hair is a mess and he needs a shave.
"Cas?"
"Hello, Dean," Cas says, and smiles.