Chapter Text
Castiel has him pinned against the kitchen wall before he can even blink.
“Please,” the angel begs. “It’s so beautiful. Just a little touch? It won’t even hurt.”
Apparently taunting the guy who wants to bathe in the light of your aura and suck the emotions out of your supposedly irresistible soul was a bad plan. Dean isn’t exactly known for making good decisions, but this one is going to rip both he and Castiel apart if the angel loses control.
Castiel’s eyes have lost all trace of color, glowing a bright white as his angelic instincts start to take over.
Dean struggles, failing to move a fully empowered angel even an inch away from him. A deep fear wells its way up into his chest; Castiel has never been this desperate, this uncontrolled around him before. Usually he keeps his instinctual need to claim and feed from Dean’s soul tightly under control, but all that has vanished in a haze of need and want. A haze of instinct Dean triggered deliberately.
“Castiel, stop. You don’t want to do this.” He freezes as Castiel slides a hand up under his shirt, palm settling skin to skin over his heart. Oh god. This was it. He was going to end up bound to Castiel, free will lost to the angel. What was worse was the sensation of his soul reacting, reaching out to Castiel’s grace longingly. As they meet, there a little flashes of bliss. It’s a double betrayal: his best friend-slash-love-of-his-life and his own subconscious.
Dean snaps out of his terror-fueled haze, lashing out in a futile attempt to stop Castiel. There’s a sickening crack as the bones in his hand give way before the immovable angelic flesh before him. The pain vanishes before he can even really feel it, angelically healed, but he can no longer move, Castiel obviously using his grace to keep him still.
“It is not my intent to see you hurt,” Castiel says, head tilting with confusion. Usually it’s adorable. Not so much now.
“C’mon Cas. I don’t know what’s got you all worked up like this, but you’re gonna hate yourself later.”
“You’ll enjoy it. I know you will. If you’d just stop fighting,” Castiel says, voice low and hints of his true-voice leaking through.
Bile rises in Dean’s throat. He’d been such an idiot to think living together could ever work. He knows Castiel finds his soul the most beautiful and irresistible one he’s ever seen. He knows that Castiel wants to move their relationship beyond platonic, but is happy to keep their friendship if Dean wants nothing more. That’s what he’s said. This is on Dean. He’s the one who made such a stupid, naïve decision to try and confess his love to Castiel. He should have kept things platonic. Even though his own soul disagrees with him, sensations of pleasure and even love rising up to mix with those of agony.
“Please Cas. I don't want this.”
Castiel falters, the glow receding a little from his eyes.
“Dean, I-” he stutters, withdrawing a little.
Hope rises in his chest. Castiel will fight this, and things will go back to normal. They’ll both apologize and go back to repressing whatever emotions they have for each other. Then Castiel shakes his head and pushes Dean against the wall with renewed force.
Castiel kisses him.
There’s no doubt he’s a skilled kisser. It’s nice, but Dean doesn’t kiss back. How can he? Deep down, buried in amongst the repression of his own reciprocal love for Castiel, he’s imagined this so many times. They’ll have quietly acknowledged their love, as Dean tried to do. Castiel would take him out to dinner in the fancy place down the road that they both pretend to hate. They’d stumble home, blushing and reveling in the freedom to touch, and then when they reached Dean’s room, Castiel would ask him for a kiss.
Dean will agree and their lips will touch gently, lighting fireworks under his skin. He’s a fucking romantic at heart and what Castiel is doing hurts like nothing else can.
It’s not meant to be taken from him unwillingly. It’s not meant to be forceful, Castiel dominating utterly.
His eyes start to sting with unshed tears and Castiel notices. He cups Dean’s face gently with his free hand, wiping away the tears with his thumb before they can fall. His face drops when Dean flinches, rather than leaning in as he normally does, and he looks so completely hurt for a split second that Dean’s heart aches in sympathy. It vanishes into a mask of indifference in the next breath.
“It’s not like you can stop me. Your own soul rejoices.”
The air fills with static and the scent of ozone as Castiel starts to draw power into himself. A significant amount needed to bind grace and soul.
Dean renews his hopeless resistance as Castiel starts chanting in guttural Enochian. Dean's charms are across the room and he can’t tap directly into the power of the earth unprotected with so much energy rippling through the air. He’d blow out half the street. He can only watch as his best friend, and possibly something more, continues, ears deaf to Dean’s pleas.
He closes his eyes fighting to the end, but not wanting to see the look on Castiel’s face as he drains Dean’s soul.
The air is pierced by a sudden ring of the landline. Castiel’s head snaps around to the source, distracting him enough for Dean to pull free of the sticky strands of grace.
With only Castiel’s hand holding him against the wall and the angel distracted, Dean slides sideways as he draws his will to himself feeling the subtle tingle of magic on his skin.
“Sekura Lokon!” he whispers.
A blossom of energy ripples out from his body, forming a large circle, bisected by the wall. He can’t form a circle separating him and Cas, but he can use his magic safely within it.
“Argento Snuro,” he yells, drawing power from the Earth. Silver strands of power wrap around Castiel, pulling him back and away from Dean before he can react to the suddenly altered conditions.
The angel turns, crackling with power, but stops when he takes in Dean. His clothes float in an unseen and unfelt breeze.
“I said stop, Castiel of the Seraphim.”
The angel’s eyes are still blazing white, a sure sign that he can’t be reasoned with.
“You have no power that can stop me, witch.” Castiel spits the words at him, venomous where he's usually kind.
Dean shrugs. He may not match the angel on pure, unadulterated power, but he has a better chance to snap Castiel out of it with his magic.
“Never stopped me before,” he smiles, throwing in a flirtatious wink for good measure.
Castiel scowls. The angel is still, staring transfixed at Dean with the gaze of a predator intent on their prey.
He lunges for Dean suddenly and Dean dives out the way, skidding on the wooden floor. Castiel appears on his back, smacking Dean’s head into the floor with his grace. Pain blooms, and the warm sensation of trickling blood down his scalp alerts him to the fact that Castiel has moved past annoyed and into angry. When Cas got angry, someone or something got broken.
Dean tries to push the angel off with a burst of energy, but his magic fizzles and flickers haphazardly, only dislodging Castiel a little. His vision blurs as Castiel flips him over, straddling him in a way that under different circumstances would be inherently sexual.
There’s no resistance on his arms, but he can’t move them. They’ve become heavy, and the world around him ripples like he’s underwater.
Castiel punches him and his vision completely blacks out to the crack of his cheekbone breaking.
If there’s one thing worse than being eternally bound to Castiel’s will, it’s dying. His connection to the protective circle wavers and breaks, unable to stand up to the strain of his physical beating.
Dean manages to get an arm moving striking out at Castiel again, but his arm is caught, and cleanly snapped in two before he gets close. All that escapes him is a moan of pain.
Castiel’s weight lifts off him and he instinctively curls in on himself, trying to protect his head and arm from more damage. His breath comes in pained pants and it’s all he can do to stop himself from crying out as Castiel kicks his back.
“Please Cas. I- I need you,” Dean gasps out. “Just stop.”
He's always needed Castiel far more than the angel needs him, and if he wanted proof then this is it. The next kick jostles his arm and a broken whimper escapes.
“I’m going to rip your soul from you. When you finish screaming I’ll consume it in front of you.”
At Castiel’s change of heart, Dean’s soul pulls away from where it was still desperately reaching for the angel’s grace. It curls into the smallest ball it can, settling in his rib-cage.
He struggles to pull himself away, drag himself across the room away from Castiel and the angel stops him before he can move more than a few inches. He pulls Dean up and into his arms with no more difficulty that if Dean was an infant. He cradles him preciously, and lowers him to the table in the kitchen with ease. It’s easier to pretend Cas cares when he touches him like this.
“Your soul sparks so much more brightly when you’re desperate. Perhaps I’ll keep you after all.”
With no more ceremony, he plunged his hand into Dean’s chest and grips his soul.
There are people who chose this voluntarily. Dean’s seen them. They walk around with dulled eyes and forced smiles, cruising like junkies until they can get their next hit. Those that don’t end up permanently bound to an angel don’t last long, the strain on their soul too much to live with. Those that do end up bound face a worse fate. It’s the eradication of self.
It’s said that to have the touch of an angel directly on your soul is to experience pure bliss. That’s not what Dean experiences.
The part about pure bliss is completely accurate, but nobody has ever mentioned the connection to the angel. It’s as if Castiel has crawled into his soul and made a home there. Even as Castiel starts draining his soul, he can feel the angel’s emotions. The anger, fear, and desperation are a heady taste, lingering on his tongue. But behind that is an overwhelming surge of love. Buried under the memories of Dean’s smile and the way he looks in the sunlight, and fuck Castiel’s angelic vision is awesome, is an all-encompassing adoration for one Dean Winchester.
They’re fully exposed to one another, no secrets and all emotion laid bare. And to think there was a serious debate into if angels could feel, let alone about the depths of their emotion.
It hurts, though. There are no words to describe the agony of being so close to someone who loves you, and yet would violate your very soul in order to reach that closeness. It’s as if he’s being flayed, his very being stripped by the same love that caused it joy.
Dean just wants Cas to stop, but he’s not sure why anymore. Everything has been left behind in their connection.
The angel stops suddenly and Dean keens at the loss, crying out as they start to pull apart. Castiel’s emotions have turned sour, self-hatred and sorrow heavy in his thoughts. Dean tries to reach him, to sooth as he always does when his family are hurting, but Castiel brushes him off and vanishes from his thoughts and soul without even a goodbye.
Dean lets out a quiet sob as reality reforms. The aches and pains of his injuries remain, but they’re dull compared to the agony of Castiel forcibly touching his soul, and then ripping them apart. He can hear voices, a deep low one, Castiel’s, and a higher louder one.
“Don’t even think about going in there, Castiel. I’ll rip the wings from your back and cast you so deep into the Pit you’ll never escape if you dare think I’ll let you near him after what you did.”
Anna. Dean breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes Anna is here. Castiel’s sister is one of the two people the angel trusts, Dean being the other. She’s also the only angel on Earth to match Castiel in sheer power.
Since Castiel left his flock twenty years ago for freedom and choice, Anna has been his only angelic contact.
Castiel is speaking too quietly for him to hear his reply, but the heartbroken tone is clear.
“Love means nothing if you ignore his wishes, Castiel. And you are a fool if you think Dean will ever allow you to touch his soul after this, much less bind himself to your will.”
Love. Of course. That was why Castiel stayed with him when all he did was hurt the angel by keeping him at arm’s length. That was why Castiel suffered through the temptation of binding Dean’s soul to him to be close. Castiel had told him many times how much he wished for a deeper relationship, but Dean had convinced himself that all Castiel wanted was sex and the start of one. That’s why Castiel put up with all his crap.
And Dean has ruined it. He’s thrown everything they had and could have had away with flirting, teasing, and tempting, wanting a love match first, until Castiel had snapped.
He feels sick. He deserves this pain if he put his best friend through such a horrible existence. And Castiel had warned him. Time and time again he brought up the fact that his patience wasn't endless and Dean had laughed it off.
He loves Castiel the way the angel wants and hell, after that horrifying experience he knows Castiel feels the same way. Dean had convinced himself that he was just a pretty face and a passing fancy to the angel, the way most people saw him. It never seemed to matter that Dean had a personality underneath, it had been reinforced time and time again that all he was good for was a quick fuck or a relationship firmly rooted in the physical. There were exceptions, Benny and Lisa accepted him for who he was, but love with a vampire was never going to end well, and love with a human was always going to end up marred by death.
He has to stop Anna before she drives Castiel away. It’s going to be hard to pull themselves back from this, but he’s willing to work for it, the angel is worth it. Dean pulls himself into a sitting position with his good arm, gritting his teeth to ride out the pain of his broken one jostling. The world spins, but he drags himself out of bed and towards the blurred sounds of Anna and Castiel’s discussion.
They’re just outside his bedroom door and they both spin to face him the moment he crosses the threshold.
His eyes fall on Castiel and he can’t stop the soul-deep wave of terror that sweeps through him. His friend’s hands are coated with Dean’s blood. Castiel’s hair is matted with it. He’s run his hands through it in that way he does when he’s reached his limit of being able to deal with his feelings.
Dean tries to turn and get back into bed, away from the matching sets of worried blue eyes, but Castiel catches his good wrist at just the wrong angle and Dean lets off a powerful burst of energy before he can even think.
It hits Castiel and he swiftly removes his hand as if burned.
The movement has him off-balance and he stumbles, almost falling before Anna catches him. She lifts him in her arms, carrying him back to bed. The only thing to cause her to falter is Dean’s growled “Get the fuck off me.”
And she does. A fully-formed wavelength of celestial intent masquerading as human, with enough grace running through her veins to incinerate him where he stands, backs off simply because he asked. It’s the little bit of respect he needs.
“Dean-” she starts the moment he manages to get back into bed. He loves Castiel with every part of him and they both know it, but he can’t even look at him right now after what he did.
“I know,” Dean cuts her off. “I shouldn’t have pushed him. And now I’ve ruined everything and he’ll never touch me again. And fuck. Right now I don’t want him anywhere near me. But-”
His voice is getting more and more choked up as he speaks and he has to avoid blinking to stop the tears pooling in his eyes to leak out. Anna takes his hand in hers and that’s okay, he needs something to ground himself.
“You can’t blame yourself, Dean. I’ve heard Castiel talk about you. It wasn’t your fault. He is the one who chose to force the issue.”
“But I should never have pushed him. God, Anna. I’ve been flirting and teasing him because I like the fact that it riles him up.”
“No. I don’t care what you think you did to deserve Castiel beating you unconscious and ripping into your soul as if he had a right to it. I can’t believe he-” Anna cuts herself off, worried eyes settling on Dean. “I want you to know that I’ll support any action you want taken against him.”
“Action. Wait, what? Anna, no!” Dean stutters. Anna is Castiel’s only family. She’d turn her back on Castiel because Dean made a mistake? He can’t let that happen.
“Imagine if it was a different angel. And another witch, how about Charlie? You’d bring the authorities in without a second thought,” Anna snaps. He recoils slightly and her gaze softens.
“It’s not that simple,” Dean explains. Charlie wouldn’t have brought this on herself. He’s just too stupid to know when to stop.
“It is. It really is, but you just can’t see it, Dean. You think your situation is different because you care about each other, but that just makes it worse,” she says. Her grip on his hand tightens and his heartrate doubles with a flash of fear.
“I love him,” Dean says, his voice barely a whisper. He hates the way it comes out croaky and weak, more like a plea than a confirmation. He knows things can’t go back to the way they were, but he wants it so desperately. Castiel made him feel like he was worth something and he doesn’t want to give that up.
Anna’s face twists into complete sorrow; it’s devastatingly beautiful.
“That’s why you can’t ignore this. You might think it’s love, to forgive and forget and move on as if nothing happened, but that’s not fair to you or Castiel.”
Dean moves to sit up, but Anna stops him with a slight pressure on his chest.
“Just hear me out. You’re allowed to be angry with him, Dean. You need to take the time to be hurt and upset and to run those emotions through their natural course, or you’ll never be able to fully regain your trust of him. It will fester. And Castiel needs to realize that he has some serious issues to work through. You can be good for each other, but only if you’re good to yourselves first. Be selfish for once in your life. Or if you can’t be selfish, do it for Castiel. Become his motivation to get better,” Anna gushes. “Look. How about you take a few days to make a decision?”
She’s right. He can’t face Castiel right now. Being around the angel will just make Dean more defensive, more angry, and deep down, he can admit that he’s terrified of being alone with him. Dean’s reaction will rip Castiel apart.
He closes his eyes and breathes deep. He doesn’t want to leave their home, their little church where they’ve lived for nearly fifteen years now. Dean has to.
“Keep an eye on him when I’m gone. He gets antsy when I miss dinner, never mind stay out all night. And don’t let him spend all day brooding, I know how he gets,” he says. It’s the closest he can get to admitting that he’s leaving. If Anna stays, then she can look after Cas.
Anna cups his face with one hand, but it’s too much like Castiel’s less than tender affections and he flinches back, shaking.
“Sorry. Where will you go?”
Dean smiles faintly. “Benny’s.”
The vampire won’t let Castiel anywhere near him.
Anna smirks back. “That’s sure to irritate Castiel. Good choice. He deserves to suffer. Let him.”
At the thought of Castiel suffering at all, Dean’s stomach turns, then clenches with worry.
“I want to speak to him before I go. Let him know it’s just for a few days.”
He doesn’t meet Anna’s eyes. She will definitely disapprove.
“Dean-”
“No. I don’t care what you think, I want to speak to him.” His eyes blaze in anger and he knows his irises will have taken on a silver, witches shine. Anna can’t keep Castiel from him. Not now. “Castiel,” he calls. “I have to speak to you.”
Anna purses her lips in annoyance, more than aware that Castiel is hardly going to ignore Dean’s request. Not when he wants exactly what he’s been offered. She leaves in a rush of air, not bothering to walk out.
When Dean looks up, he can see a movement by the door: Castiel.
“You can come in, you know. Don’t lurk.”
He looks wrecked. Cas has obviously cleaned up, all hint of blood vanished, but he’s moving slowly, hunched over on himself to look like less of a threat. Dean has to suppress a snort at that. A threat is exactly what Castiel is.
“Anna thinks it’s a good idea if I clear out for a few days, and I agree with her.”
Castiel’s head snaps up and his face telegraphs pure terror. Dean has to suppress the urge to lower his gaze as their eyes meet. Whatever Castiel has done, they are still equals, and Dean won’t be cowed because he got a shock.
“I understand,” Castiel rasps out. “I will have my things packed up and out as soon as possible.”
“Fuck that,” Dean snaps, finding courage in anger as he always does. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fucking difficult to even be in the same room as you alone right now, but I’m not leaving forever. I need a few days. You owe me that.”
“Oh.”
There’s an awkward silence before Castiel speaks again. “Dean I-. I’m sorry. I didn’t-. I couldn’t stop. And I-” The angel pales to a sickly shade of grey. His eyes grow distant and as full of horror as Dean is at Castiel’s actions.
“It was bad, Cas. It was really fucking bad. I don’t think I can just bounce back from this one. But we can fix this,” Dean says. He tries for a smile, but he knows it fails when Cas’ jaw clenches and he looks away.
“I’ll be here when you return,” Castiel says. Then turns and walks out the door, leaving Dean to his thoughts.