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“You do realize that if this doesn’t work, it’ll probably kill me, right?” Dean checks.
Going over the translation yet again, Sam shakes his head. “If it doesn’t work, nothing will show up.”
“Or,” Dean says, and it’s a very big or. “Or, a big honking monster thing pops out of its burial ground and kills me.”
Though he’s still bent over the papers on the Impala’s hood, Sam’s eyes aren’t moving across the pages anymore. Neither is his flashlight.
The silence weighs heavy in the night.
“Let’s give it a shot,” Dean says.
“I translated it right,” Sam promises. “The scroll explicitly stated three separate times that the spirit won’t harm the one who seeks to bind it.”
“What about you?” Dean asks. “You off to the side in a little salt circle gonna be good enough for this?”
Sam looks back at him helplessly and shrugs. “If we want to get Yellow Eyes out of Dad without killing him...”
It’s a long shot. It’s a fucking crazy, absurd long shot, one that Bobby’s already yelled at them for even considering. They lied, obviously, and here they are.
“Look, the moon’s up, we’re pretty sure this is the right spot, let’s give it a go,” Dean says with far more confidence than he feels. His dad needs him. His little brother needs him. Dean can read out a little incantation to raise and bind a spirit, no big deal. They don’t even need to sacrifice a goat or spill blood or burn incense or whatever: all this thing calls for is an adequate challenge for its skills, apparently, and they got that aplenty.
“If I could,” Sam starts to say.
Dean shrugs him off. “But you can’t. Honestly, that this thing can’t bind to anyone with even a trace of demon blood in them? Kinda the best sign we could’ve hoped for.”
“Just make sure it knows I’m not a demon before it starts demon-slaying, okay?” Sam asks.
“Yeah, ‘course,” Dean says.
They surround Sam with three rings of salt, just to be overly cautious about the wind, and then Dean stands between Sam and what seems to be the correct grave in this old churchyard. Why an ancient demon-hunting spirit would be buried in the grave of a Puritan spinster, Dean has no idea, but multiple leads agreed, and at least Dean doesn’t have to dig anything up to give this a shot.
Flashlight in hand, Dean reads out the incantation as clearly and steadily as he can. Muddying his efforts, this entire passage that Sam’s written out phonetically is from a language older than Latin, one Dean’s never even heard of before. Dean probably gets the basic sounds right, if maybe not the emphasis. The final part is the easiest. Sam’s English translation beneath reads, “This is I who seeks to bind you, [insert speaker’s name here]” so Dean recites the syllables before concluding with a strong, “Dean Winchester.”
Nothing happens.
Oh, Dean’s heart pounds and Sam audibly shifts behind him, but nothing worth mentioning happens. Maybe a bit more wind through the trees beyond the crumbling stone wall of the graveyard, maybe a prickle of anticipation, but just that.
Dean’s been around enough ghosts to know the difference.
He looks back at Sam.
Not leaving the salt circle, Sam shrugs, the motion bouncing the beam of his flashlight across tilting headstones.
Dean clears his throat and turns back to the alleged target of this endeavor. “Call me ‘Dean,’” he adds, throwing in a nervous wink at the darkness.
“Hello, Dean,” the wind answers, right up against his left ear.
Slapping a hand over his ear, Dean jerks away from the voice that isn’t a voice. “Hello?” he shouts at the space he’d just occupied himself.
“Hello,” the wind repeats, now in both his ears, even beneath his protective palm.
“You’re here?” Dean asks, not feeling so much as a hint of a ghastly chill in the air.
“I am,” the wind answers, or maybe the air itself.
“Dean, are you hearing something?” Sam asks.
“You aren’t?” Dean counters, glancing to Sam while continuing to quest with his flashlight.
“The boy is demon-touched, but no demon,” the wind tells Dean. “He is no adequate challenge to lay before me.”
“Yeah, no, he’s my brother,” Dean explains, turning around, continuing to shine his light fruitlessly into the dark, sending shadows dancing across sinking stone slabs. “He’s good, we like him. That’s Sam, don’t hurt him.”
“I will not,” the wind answers.
Turning to Sam, Dean points at his own ear with the hand not holding the flashlight and mouths You can’t hear this?
Eyes wide, Sam frantically shakes his head.
“Okay,” Dean says aloud. “Cool. So, uh. Getting a yellow-eyed demon out of a human host without killing the human, would that be challenge enough for you?”
The wind blows hard against Dean, in two directions at once.
Dean holds very still as the heavy leather of his jacket flaps and flares.
“A suitable challenge,” the wind tells him. “Who are you that offers this challenge?”
“Dean Winchester,” Dean repeats.
“And who is Dean Winchester?”
Dean swallows. He stops himself from pointlessly shining the light back and forth. Instead, he says, “A hunter. A guy who wants to save people. A... a son looking to save his father. I’m... Honestly?” Dean spreads his arms and lets them fall. “I’m a guy who needs someone like you.”
A wind blows, possibly a normal one.
Dean waits, all with the sense that someone else is waiting on him.
“Please,” Dean adds. “Demons fucked up my entire family. They took my mom, poisoned my brother here, and possessed my dad. There’s only so much we can do ourselves, but we’re trying. Please.”
“You love your family,” the wind says.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, the word softer, grateful that Sam can’t hear the voice in the wind.
“Do you know commitment and loyalty?”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yes. I do.”
The wind blows around him impossibly slowly, as if the air itself has stopped to circle close and inspect him.
“If you want to hunt demons and help people, I swear we’re on the same page,” Dean adds. “Demons are a lot bigger than I usually hunt, but I’m willing. I need your help, but boy, am I willing.”
“Then let us be bound,” the wind decides.
The air in front of Dean crackles with abrupt light. Dean lifts one arm, shielding his eyes with his sleeve, the page with the incantation still clutched in his hand. Sam gasps behind him.
When Dean lowers his arm, he squints into a hanging oval of blue-white lightning.
“What form shall I take?” asks the lightning-that-was-wind.
“What, uh. What form do you want?” Dean asks right back, erring on the side of manners with something that can definitely kill him with a touch.
“I have no preference. What form shall I take?”
“Human?” Dean asks. “Coming along with us, human would be good. Easier to talk to in public.”
The oval stretches and splits. The androgynous outline of a human hangs in the air before him.
"Seriously, man, whatever kind of human you want,” Dean says.
And then, before Dean, there is a human man.
In the dark, lit by only a pair of flashlights and his own white-blue eyes, there stands a man nearly of a height with Dean, his hair dark, his skin a light tan.
He is also entirely naked.
The light fades from the man’s eyes, changing the geography of his face with the depth of shadows. With a new, much deeper voice, the man-who-was-lightning-that-was-wind states, “I, Castiel, shall be bound to you, Dean Winchester.”
Before Dean can do more than blink, the very naked, abruptly solid, sort of a man creature spirit thing, before Dean can do more than blink, this Castiel leans up and forward to press his dry lips against Dean’s.
Sam’s choked noise has nothing on the buzz inside Dean’s brain.
Castiel looks up at him, standing nearly against him, and says, “I will fulfill your challenge, and then we shall be wed.”
Dean says, “What.”
A jacket, a spare pair of jeans, and one agonizing conversation later, Dean collapses into his motel bed, his back turned to his brother and his, apparently, fiance.
At the crappy desk, Castiel walks Sam through the translation, pointing out Sam’s errors. Sam bursts with a combination of wariness and curiosity, but Dean is already beyond that point.
Because Dean’s life is just that absurd, he actually manages to drop off to sleep with the lights on and the pair of them still chatting away.
He wakes up to find their freshly humanoid demon hunter spirit thing sitting at the foot of his bed, watching infomercials. Still fully clothed from the night before, Dean sits up.
Castiel looks back at him. “Made knowingly or not, your proposal is binding.”
“Okay, apparently waiting for coffee isn’t a thing you do,” Dean says, rubbing at his eyes.
“It isn’t.”
Dean takes a minute, idly glancing over at a dozing Sam. That’s an absurd level of trust, Sam heading off to sleep without waking up Dean to stand watch over this thing.
...not that there’s anything they could really do to Castiel, come to think of it. At least, not that they know of.
“What kind of binding do you mean?” Dean asks when he’s as close to ready as he’ll ever be. “Like, we’re engaged forever even if we’re never married? Or...?” He can’t even think of an or.
“If I fulfill your challenge, we shall be wed,” Castiel replies. “Do you still wish for me to free your father?”
“Uh. No offense or anything, but is this one of those no divorce scenarios?”
“It is.”
“Monogamous relationship, I’m assuming.”
“Yes.”
Dean rubs at his temples. “Okay. Right. Got it.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, almost snippy about it. “Do you want me to free your father or not?”
“Do you want to be married to me?” Dean counters, because this is absurd. This is weird on a scale that they’ve never reached before, and that is saying a shitload. “I mean, I get I’m a hot piece of ass and all, but, uh.”
“Together, we would slay demons and protect the innocent,” Castiel answers, like he escaped from some medieval film involving ghosts and shit. “I don’t see the issue.”
“But do you want to marry me?” Dean asks.
Castiel seems to consider it, but it’s hard to tell what goes on behind those eyes. The longer Dean stares into that blue, the more clear it becomes that it’s a creature behind them, not a human.
“I’ve waited for a partner,” Castiel says. “You’re a good fit. Yes.”
“Oh,” Dean says, full of heat and panic. It’s not his fault Castiel went with the appearance of a really hot guy instead of an average Joe. Thinking of freeing his father, thinking of what could come after, Dean clears his throat.
“Could you maybe...” Dean licks his lips. Just in a dry way, not in a nervous way. He’s making requests from a thing that he doesn’t actually have control over, as it turns out, and it—he—could definitely do some shit to him. Sam had said that wasn’t the deal, but then, Sam had messed up the entire bit about fucking marriage, so maybe Dean won’t trust his word on that right now.
“Could I...?” Castiel prompts, frowning with his forehead.
“It’s just, on second thought, would you mind taking the form of a woman?” Dean asks. “It’s, uh. Easier to get that recognized as marriage. If you look like a woman.”
Castiel cocks his head to the side. “You should have specified.”
“Well, I’m specifying now.”
Castiel gives him a look to end all looks. “You awoke me. You gave me choice of any human form, said man, and I took this one. This is my form.”
“Until?” Dean can’t help but ask.
“Until you die,” Castiel answers.
“What if, uh.” Dean glances to Sam’s hopefully still sleeping form. “What if that’s an issue?”
Castiel frowns deeper. “You dying?”
“You being my, uh. Man husband.”
Looking into Dean very deeply indeed, Castiel leans closer. Ample distance remains between them and yet, at the same time, there is absolutely none. “I don’t see the issue. You would appreciate a husband as well as you would a wife.”
“I- Shh.” Another hard glance to Sam, making sure he doesn’t hear. “I’m, uh. I’m an appreciative guy, that’s all. My dad, though. Not so much.”
“If you father does not appreciate being freed from a demon, he is broken as a human,” Castiel states flatly.
Dean winces. “That’s, um.”
“I can save your father,” Castiel tells him. “Then, we will hunt together until your dying day. To keep that day far, I will protect you from harm, recover you from illness and hurt, and guide you in battle.
“Or,” Castiel continues, “we can part ways here. You will find another solution for your father’s plight, and I will hunt alone until you die and my physical form is cast into the ground upon which I stand.
“Which will it be?”
Dean works his dry mouth. “Can I have a couple days to think it over?”
“You’re meant to think it over before you propose,” Castiel counters coldly.
Another wince. “Okay, yeah, my bad. But Sammy’s the one who translated you as a hunting partner, not a life partner, so. And honestly, we thought you’d stick around until you saved our dad, not be bound to me because you saved our dad.”
Castiel grudgingly nods. “He explained this.”
“And you two,” Dean checks. “You’re good with each other?”
Castiel’s frown enters the land of confusion instead of dismay. “He is to be my brother as well.”
“...Right. Cool.” Dean clears his throat. Then he coughs for good measure.
Castiel keeps staring at him.
“Do you... have any questions for me?” Dean asks.
“Yes. Why don’t you want to marry me?”
It’s Dean’s turn to stare, his brain endlessly playing a record scratch on repeat.
Castiel waits.
“I’m... a young guy, okay? Not even thirty yet. I don’t plan on settling down anytime soon.”
“I require no changes to your lifestyle,” Castiel says. “You hunt. I hunt. We will hunt together.”
“It’s, well, y’know. More of the... husband-y stuff,” Dean finishes lamely.
“Husband-y,” Castiel repeats.
“Look, it’s just, I like... flirting. Going out, grabbing some drinks, having a little nookie. Flirting and fucking, I’m into both.”
Frown mercifully clearing, Castiel nods. “You are welcome to engage in both with me.”
A snicker comes from Sam’s bed.
“Fuck you!” Dean shouts reflexively, grabbing a pillow and whipping it at Sam’s dumb head. “I knew you were awake.”
Thus struck, Sam fully breaks into choked laughter.
“Screw this, I’m taking a shower,” Dean decides, getting up and brushing past Castiel.
Part of Dean’s braced for it, for a hand to reach out and grab him. For a deep, masculine voice to tell him they’re not done and to get his pretty little face back here. He gets a phantom scent of alleyway garbage, sweat, and beer, but then, it’s not the cleanest motel in the first place.
Dean brushes past Castiel, the most powerful dude-shaped thing he could possibly blow off instead of blow, but Castiel is looking at Sam instead.
“What part of that was funny?” Castiel asks, only looking back at Dean when Sam, the laughing asshole, fails to answer.
Without a word, Dean closes the bathroom door behind him. Absolutely no footsteps follow, but voices do start up again. Dean still locks the door before stripping down and showering quickly. He comes back out in yesterday’s clothes.
“We’ve sorted something out,” Sam tells him immediately, sitting on the side of his bed, facing Castiel.
Castiel twists around and nods. “I didn’t intend to frighten you.”
Dean blinks at them both. “Okay...?”
“Castiel fulfilling the challenge is what consummates the marriage,” Sam explains. “You don’t have to actually fuck him. Ever.”
“Oh,” Dean says. “What about...?”
“You will not cuckold me,” Castiel instructs Dean. He doesn’t mention the consequences, but his voice sure as hell implies some.
Dean’s dick weeps, and not in that weird paperback romance novel way. Not that he’s read any. Just, uh. Heard about it.
Then he has a thought.
“Sammy, cover your ears.”
Frowning, Sam immediately complies, sticking his fingers on in.
Dean turns to Castiel. “What’s your opinion on threesomes?”
Head tilted to the side, Castiel visibly considers it.
Eyes wide and horrified, Sam obviously heard it anyway.
“That could be enjoyable,” Castiel concedes. “We would have to agree on the third together.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s fine.” His mind tries to fall directly into the gutter, picturing his last bedtime partner and his extremely accurate recollection of what Castiel looks like naked. Putting the two together. Even soft, Castiel’s dick had been a hell of a thing, swinging between his legs, and in the context of Castiel sticking it in a woman, it is abruptly safe to consider. To picture.
Fingers still in his ears, Sam loudly clears his throat.
Dean holds up one finger and lowers his voice. “And, just to be clear. ‘Cause, y’know. Honestly. I’m not exactly in love with you here.”
Castiel nods like he’d expected nothing else. “That only comes with time,” he says in the disconcerting tones of someone who knows from experience.
“Just, uh. So long as we’re clear.”
“We’re clear,” Castiel confirms.
Dean gestures, and Sam takes his fingers out of his ears.
“So...” Dean says, really not sure where to go from here. “Breakfast?”
Over breakfast, they talk out the game plan. Finding Yellow Eyes, trapping him.
Borrowing Sam’s pen, Castiel sketches out runes and sigils and a battle plan across an increasing number of napkins. He speaks like a military library come to life, like his parents were a hunting lodge and the Pentagon.
Munching his way through bacon, Dean can think of only questions, no criticisms. When he pokes at what he’d thought a weak point in the plan, Castiel merely blinks at him, pulls another napkin out of the dispenser, and draws out something he’d clearly assumed could go without saying.
Dean’s maybe a little in awe.
Sam maybe totally geeks out completely.
Castiel is maybe kind of amazing.
“What do you think?” Castiel asks once he’s gone over every contingency, from the summoning, to the freeing, to the execution of the demon.
“I think that’ll work, Cas,” Dean answers, his voice saying a lot more than just that.
Castiel smiles, and all of Dean warms up.
They really gotta line up a victory threesome.
“You agree, then,” Castiel says as they spray paint the sigils into the concrete walls and floors of the warehouse. Sam’s out getting the ingredients for the summoning, so it’s just the two of them.
Without Sam present, Dean doesn’t bother playing dumb. He still mumbles into his mask a little. “You’re our best bet. And, uh. Having a hunting partner sounds good. Sammy doesn’t exactly want to stick around his whole life and Dad...” Dean shrugs.
Dad’s not gonna like Castiel.
But then, Dad doesn’t like sticking around either, and Castiel says that’s basically his whole thing. Sticking around, having Dean’s back, and never, ever wandering off as long as Dean wants him near.
Between that attitude and his looks, Castiel is a wet-dream come true.
Castiel drops the empty spray paint back into their bag. He motions Dean forward, and Dean completes the sigil.
“Nicely done,” Castiel says, the weight of experience turning the light praise into something significant.
Dean drops his mask around his neck, tells himself he’s dizzy from fumes. “Practice.”
“It shows.”
Castiel inspects the warehouse, their battleground for tomorrow. He stalks across his hunting ground in Dean’s old boots, Dean’s jeans, and Sam’s too-large shirts. The shirttails sway around his hips as he turns, the rolled up sleeves hanging in wide cloth bracelets around his thick forearms.
Dean is very dizzy, and putting the mask back on doesn’t help.
“This will work,” Castiel says, returning to him. Castiel strides up to Dean directly, faces him full-on, and for one breathless moment, Dean thinks Castiel is about to take Dean by the hips and pull him in.
“Good,” Dean chokes out. “That’s, uh. Yeah.”
Castiel nods.
Dean tries to look away. There should be plenty else to look at. Namely, every painted line that his father’s life and freedom depends on.
But then again, Dean’s looking at the creature that’s about to become his lifelong husband.
Unnervingly close to reading Dean’s mind, Castiel gestures at his own face. At what he’s made his own face. “Is this wrong?” Castiel asks.
“Uh,” Dean says, because if Castiel really does mean his face, the guy’s nuts. Deep blue eyes, plush pink lips, a strong nose and a stronger jaw. High cheekbones and a proud forehead. Not to mention the hair.
Fucking hell, the hair.
“You’re attracted to men and women,” Castiel continues, seeing through Dean at a level that has Dean reflexively flinching. Castiel pauses, then, head tilting. “You are. I see it in you.”
Hands defensively in his pockets, Dean finally looks away. “It’s not the kind of thing you advertise, all right?”
Frowning, Castiel says, “I would let none harm you.”
“Look, it’s not the handling myself in a fight part that I’m worried about.”
Castiel nods slowly, his confusion still clear even in Dean’s periphery. “Is that the cause of your rejection, then?”
“I’m saying yes, aren’t I?”
“With your father’s life at stake,” Castiel points out. “With duress, there is no true consent.“
Dean looks at him.
Castiel looks back, confused at Dean’s confusion. “I am bound to follow my invocation. Wittingly or not, you resurrected me as a hunting husband, and I cannot be otherwise. But you, Dean, you can be.”
“I mean, maybe...” Dean takes a breath, breathes more fumes even through the mask. “If we pulled this thing off without you delivering the final blow, would you still stick around?”
Castiel cocks his head. “To what end?”
“We could still hunt together, but as, uh. Friends?”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and there is hurt in the word, “I arose to marry you, not to be rejected piecemeal. If you don’t want me, I will leave you to your hunt. If you want me, I will kill this demon and we will be wed. Do not toy with me simply for the sake of your own sexual gratification.”
Dean flushes, embarrassment and anger more than negating the blanching of fear. “I’m just asking to go slow, that’s all.”
“If another slays this demon before me, we can never be wed,” Castiel tells him flatly. “Even if that other is you. That is rejection, Dean. Do you understand that?”
“If I kill him, you leave,” Dean unwillingly pieces together.
Castiel nods. “Now, will I stay or go?”
“I’ve only known you a day,” Dean says, begging him to see reason.
“If you wish to wait to finish this hunt...”
To leave their father ensnared by the demon that killed their mom, to let that thing torture their father at his own hands...
“We finish it tomorrow,” Dean says. “And I don’t wanna be alone, so, fuck it, you get the final blow.”
Castiel’s face falls.
“What?” Dean asks. “That’s what you want, right?”
Stepping back, Castiel says, “You asked unknowingly. You accept grudgingly. If you would not have me, I will not have you.”
And Castiel turns around and walks away.
“Hey!” Dean shouts, rooted to the spot. “Hey!” he shouts again, yanking his mask down and remembering his feet as well as his voice.
He catches up to Castiel quickly, grabs him by the arm.
“Cas, look at me.”
Castiel turns, his eyes cold.
“I’m a fuck-up,” Dean says. “I am so far in over my head here. And you’re right, I’m not good husband material, but I am a good hunting partner, so just...” Dean breathes out something too tense to be a sigh. “I don’t know, man. But don’t go.”
“You don’t want me,” Castiel states.
“You’re an awesome badass and stupid hot,” Dean says, Dean admits. “So if the options are You or Not You...” Dean slides his hand down Castiel’s arm. He holds Castiel’s hand. “My times with dudes have been pretty much shit, but you, you’ve been cool.”
Although Castiel doesn’t move, he is only motionless from indecision, visibly pulled in opposite directions.
Dean lifts his other hand. Touches Castiel’s shoulder. Leans in against the harsh blue force of Castiel’s stare.
The kiss starts soft.
It doesn’t remain so.
Cas kisses like an argument, intense and thought-out against Dean’s impulsive emotion. Dean presses close and Castiel pulls Dean closer, slipping his hands down against Dean’s ass, under Dean’s ass, hauling Dean up.
Dean shouts into Cas’ mouth, his arms reflexively wrapping around Cas’ neck, and Cas holds Dean aloft, neck craning to continue their kisses, Dean’s dick trapped against Cas’ stomach.
Dean wraps arms and legs around him, holding tight and breathless and somehow in no danger of falling. Cas grips Dean’s ass and helps Dean rut against him, pulls each thrust closer still. Even through Dean’s jeans, under the thick leather of Dean’s jacket, Cas’ fingertips dig deep into the meat of Dean’s ass, dig in hard the way they would if Dean fucked him.
They start to sink down to the warehouse floor, but it’s so smooth and controlled that Dean barely notices until there’s concrete beneath his shins. He readjusts, pressing up on Cas’ shoulders enough so they’re looking eye-to-eye. Flat on his back is a good look on Cas. So is flushed and horny.
“Are you a waiting until marriage kind of guy?” Dean half-jokes.
“After I save your father, I imagine we won’t have time to ourselves for a while,” Cas answers seriously.
“Good point.”
There’s nowhere really good in the warehouse to lie down, and Sam took the Impala on his grocery run. On the plus side, they’ll hear the engine, warning them of interruptions, but on the negative side, that’s one backseat out of the question.
They settle on the bottom of a staircase, taking turns with their pants down and knees spread wide, bare ass cushioned by one of Cas’ discarded shirts. The only light is from a single flashlight, aimed at a near wall to reflect the beam, but Dean doesn’t need to see to know what he’s doing. Dean sucks dick like a champ, has been repeatedly told that between comments about his cocksucking lips and pretty face, but none of those furtive men had ever praised him like Cas does.
Dean blows Cas first, like a gentleman, and he’s near to bursting when he takes his turn, sitting on folded flannel. Cas swallows him down and then fucking stays there, deepthroating Dean with his nose in Dean’s pubes, his bottom lip pressing half-kisses to Dean’s balls. Cas works his throat and strokes Dean’s thighs, and he neither chokes nor pulls off with Dean comes with a speed he swears he’d left behind in his teenage years.
Swallowing it all, or maybe taking it directly down his throat, Cas stays on. He lingers, petting Dean’s legs and looking up at him with eyes glowing a gentle blue. Panting, unable to do more than prop himself up against the stairs on his elbows, Dean stares down at Cas, all the while softening inside his mouth.
With one last, gentle kiss, Cas lets him fall out.
Dean tugs on him with one weak hand, and Cas comes up. The kisses mingle their tastes. Long, deep kisses, never mind how the stairs dig into Dean’s back, or how the night air cools his legs.
Cas pulls back with a disappointed groan, and Dean hears it too: the Impala’s engine. They pull each other to their feet, fasten their pants, and get their clothing sorted. Dean even snatches one final kiss before Sam enters, backpack over one shoulder, flashlight in his other hand.
“Got it all,” Sam reports cheerfully, aiming his flashlight toward their feet instead of blinding them as he approaches.
“Awesome,” Dean croaks. He clears his throat. “Awesome.”
“You two all done here?” Sam asks, shining his light around the main area. “Man, that’s a lot of paint fumes.”
“We finished,” Cas confirms.
Dean shoots him a glare.
Without moving his face at all, Cas smirks.
“Okay, good,” Sam says. “We head back, get some sleep, and get Dad back in the morning.”
“You said it,” Dean replies, clapping Sam on the shoulder as he passes, snagging the car keys with his other hand.
Walking out, he can hear the low murmur of Sam’s voice, followed by Cas’ louder reply that he and Dean have discussed it, and they will be getting married after all.
Dean dies a little inside, but it’s out of embarrassment, not shame.
That’ll have to be good enough.
The actual slaying is almost anti-climatic out of the sheer mismatch of badassery. Sam’s the one who summons Azazel, being better bait, and Azazel duly comes a’calling.
Eyes yellow in their father’s face, his form and power bulging from John Winchester’s body, Azazel smirks and grandstands for all of about, oh, three seconds.
And then he sees Castiel.
Pulling a friggin’ short sword out of nowhere, Cas chases Azazel into a devil’s trap. Azazel counters by tilting hard to the side while spewing his true smoke form out of John’s mouth, and as John crashes to the floor over the lines of the devil’s trap, the smoke bursts out over John’s prone body.
Cas reaches up, grabs the smoke out of the air by hand, and fucking crushes it between a pair of glowing palms.
“Holy shit,” Dean says, or maybe only thinks. He’s kneeling at his father’s side, Sam across from him, before he even realizes that this is it: he’s married.
Battered beyond belief, John groans against the concrete.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Sam promises, pushing up John’s sleeve to draw an anti-possession ward on him in sharpie. “We got you, you’re gonna be okay.”
Cas kneels beside Dean and touches John on the head.
John goes stiff in a way that has nothing to do with pain. He sits up, eyes wide, looking between the three of them. He yanks Sam into a hard hug with one arm, reaching out for Dean with the other, and Dean tumbles into it, throws himself into it. His head smacks against Sam’s, but he’s laughing, Sam’s laughing too.
“Boys,” John’s saying. “Boys.”
“Hey, Dad,” Dean answers weakly, definitely not fighting tears.
They all hold on tight in one tangled mess on the concrete floor. So tight. So hard. Dean can feel someone’s heartbeat pounding, but it’s not his own, doesn’t match the one in his ears, that’s how close they are.
With a shaking sigh, John relaxes his grip on them without truly letting them go. He looks up at Cas warily, and Dean preemptively panics.
“I don’t know what you are,” John says, “but I know that demon was terrified of you.”
Cas smiles politely. He leans down and offers his hand. “I’m your son-in-law.”
(To Dean’s amazed horror, bewilderment, and relief, John stares at Sam first.)