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Castiel had never liked prisons.
He’d broken into enough of them to know that cells were only ever built for the wrong people—and this one, the one Crowley had curated with such pride, was a chapel to everything Heaven claimed to hate and secretly used.
The monsters were gone now. Dust and ichor and a smear of darkness against the concrete where the Alpha Vampire had slipped through his fingers. The screaming had faded. The smell would linger.
Meg had not died here.
He knew the imprint of her presence the way soldiers knew the weight of an old wound: not by sight, but by the way the air shifted around the absence.
A demon shouldn’t matter this much, he thought.
He shouldn’t remember the way she’d dragged her mouth off his, eyes blown wide with surprise and something dangerously close to impressed, before she turned back to face the hellhounds. He shouldn’t remember the drag of her lipstick on his lips afterwards, or the line he’d thrown out in the aftermath, dazed and entirely too honest:
I learned that from the pizza man.
Later, there had been the flippant deflection for Dean and Sam—We’ve been reassessing our… relationship with the pizza man—a shield made of humor he barely understood.
Instead it had all felt like the truth.
Now he followed her like a bad prayer.
A burned-out car with sulfur fingerprints on the hood. A clerk at a gas station who remembered a dark-haired woman who laughed too loud and didn’t pay for her coffee. A flicker of demonic grace in the distance, pulling him across counties until night settled in and dragged neon up out of the ground.
The motel was the kind of place humans came to be lonely together.
The sign flickered in red and sickly yellow. The paint on the doors peeled in the same pattern on every room, like a litany someone had grown tired of finishing. He stood in front of 12B with his hands in the pockets of his coat, trench fluttering lightly in the cold wind.
He could hear her. Not words—just that specific, buzzing wrongness of a demon inside a human body, like static under skin.
He raised his hand to knock.
He didn’t.
Because this wasn’t a rescue mission, or an interrogation, or an interrogation disguised as a rescue. It was something else, something he didn’t have doctrine for.
He let his grace flicker against the lock instead. The door gave way with a soft click.
Castiel pushed it open and stepped inside.
Meg was already looking at him when the door shut.
Bare feet on the carpet, one shoulder against the chipped window frame, bottle in her hand. Her vessel wore an oversized T-shirt and nothing else, and she made the cheap fabric look like a deliberate sin.
“You know,” she drawled, tilting her head, “normal people knock.”
“I am not—”
“Normal, yeah, we’ve covered that.” She took a swallow from the bottle, lips wrapping around the neck like she was doing it on purpose. Knowing her, she was. “So. Did the heavenly clean-up crew lose a memo, or did you just miss me?”
Castiel looked around the room, because it was easier than looking directly at her. One bed, sagging in the middle. A plastic table with a half-open pizza box on it. Grease, cheap beer, bad lighting. It smelled like humanity’s attempts at forgetting itself.
His attention snagged on the pizza box.
Meg noticed. Of course she did.
“Relax, soldier boy. No one’s getting eaten in quite that way. Yet.” She flashed him a grin full of teeth. “Though that brings us nicely to the topic I assume you came here for.”
He frowned. “Crowley—”
“Is a rat with a crown on, I’m bored of him.” She waved the bottle dismissively. “You, on the other hand, left me with a very interesting parting gift. A kiss”—her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth—“and a reference.”
He swallowed. “Reference.”
“The pizza man, Cas.” She pushed off the window and sauntered closer, bare legs silent on the carpet. “You really think a demon who spent decades watching humans destroy themselves for fun doesn’t know what late-night cable is?”
She stopped in front of him, close enough that he could smell the cheap beer mixing with sulfur and something softer underneath, something human like cheap soap and skin gone warm from the room.
“I want to hear you say it,” she said softly. “What did you mean?”
His grace fluttered, unsettled. “I… watched a film.”
“A porn,” she corrected, eyes glittering. “Say it.”
“A pornographic film,” he amended, jaw tight. “Accidentally.”
Meg’s laugh curled through his spine like smoke.
“Baby, nothing about you is accidental right now.”
He didn’t sit. She didn’t offer. It turned the conversation into an interrogation, even though he was the one being asked questions.
“Let me guess,” Meg mused. “Knock at the door, bored girl in a too-short skirt, zero actual pizza protocol, and suddenly we’re in anatomy class.”
Castiel shifted his weight. “The scenario was… implausible.”
“That didn’t answer my question.” She prowled around him in a slow circle, the way a cat measured a piece of furniture it fully intended to claim. “You watched it.”
His fingers twitched. He thought about lying and discarded the idea. She would taste the falsehood on him the way she tasted blood.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
He hesitated.
Her grin sharpened. “All of it.”
“I was… curious,” he admitted quietly. “Humans attach a great deal of significance to sexual acts. They are willing to betray, to lie, to… risk Heaven and hell for them. I wanted to understand why.”
Meg stopped behind him. He felt her breath near his neck, hot and amused.
“So you picked a porn with a guy who can’t even deliver a pizza on time and thought: yes, this is where we keep the secrets of the human soul.”
“It was available,” he replied, a little too stiffly.
“And yet,” she murmured, now at his side again, “something in it stuck with you. Enough that, when you were saying goodbye to the demon you’d just kissed, you reached for that reference. That feeling.”
His gaze dropped to his hands. They did not shake. He did not allow them to.
“It was…” He searched for the word. “Blunt.”
“Honest,” she corrected. “No choir, no hymns, no stained glass. Just bodies and wanting. That what you liked?”
He looked up sharply. “I didn’t say I liked it.”
“You didn’t stop watching, either.”
Silence stretched between them, thin and humming. Outside, a truck went past on the highway, tires hissing on the asphalt. The world kept moving. In here, time folded in on itself.
“I wanted to see,” he said finally, voice low. “What a human man might do when he desired someone and wasn’t… afraid to show it.”
Her eyes softened for half a second. Then her smile came back, wicked and slow.
“And here I thought you just wanted tips.”
She plucked the bottle from her own hand and pressed it lightly against his chest, right over his borrowed heart.
“You know, you’re in luck, trenchcoat. I happen to be an excellent teacher.”
Meg turned away from him and surveyed the room like a director eyeing a stage.
“This place is a dump,” she said. “Which is perfect, honestly. Porn never happens in well-lit, emotionally stable environments.”
She kicked the pizza box closed, then opened it again so that the sad, congealed slices inside were at least visible.
“Okay. Props: check. Bed: terrible, but beggars and choosers and all that. Angel with poor life choices…” She flicked a glance at him over her shoulder. “Check.”
“What are you doing?” Castiel asked warily.
“I told you. Lesson time.” She sauntered to the door, then stopped with her hand on the handle. “You wanted to understand what it feels like when someone wants you and doesn’t hide it. When wanting is the whole point, not the sin at the end. That’s the pizza man, sweetheart.”
“There was very little… plot,” he said.
“Exactly.” She opened the door a crack, the hallway’s dim light bleeding in. “We’re stripping you down to the basics.”
He frowned. “Meg—”
“Here’s how this is gonna work.” Her voice dropped, suddenly firm in a way that reminded him she had survived hellhounds and Crowley and decades in the Pit. “If you stay, you stay because you want to. Not because you think you’re saving me, or interrogating me, or whatever noble story you tell yourself when you make bad decisions.”
She stepped closer, fingers catching on his lapel. “You stay because you want me to touch you. Because you want to touch back.”
His grace recoiled and reached for her at the same time.
“And if I don’t?” he asked.
“Door’s right here.” She tapped it with two fingers. “You flutter off, go scowl at Heaven, pretend this never crawled under your skin. I’ll be fine.”
He believed her. That was the problem.
Meg held his gaze a heartbeat longer. Then she smiled, slow and anticipatory.
“But if you do stay,” she said, “we do this my way. You knock. I answer. You deliver. And when I tell you what I want, you don’t lie to me with your body.”
The phrasing struck something in him. Angels were not supposed to lie, and yet he had done little else lately—with silence, with omission, with half-truths wrapped in orders.
“Do you understand?” she asked softly.
Castiel felt the war in Heaven, the souls in Purgatory, the weight of every choice he’d made pressing at the edges of the room. Underneath it all, there was something else: a sharp, insistent hunger he had been pretending belonged only to other creatures.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good.” She opened the door fully and stepped aside. The hallway yawned, empty.
“Out you go, pizza man.”
He found himself obeying. He stepped into the corridor. The door shut in his face with a definite click.
For a moment he stood there, staring at the faded numbers on the wood.
Then he lifted his hand and knocked.
The knock sounded too polite for this hallway.
Meg let it hang for a beat, just to watch the tension wind tighter on his borrowed face through the peephole. Then she undid the chain and yanked the door open.
She leaned against the frame, one hand above her head. It pushed the T-shirt just far enough up her thigh to be distracting.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a syrupy voice that was pure mockery of innocence.
Castiel looked at her as if she were a brand-new problem on a battlefield. “You ordered… pizza.”
She blinked. Slowly. “Did I?”
He held her gaze. “You implied… an interest in the pizza man.”
Her laugh burst out, delighted. “You are unbelievably bad at this.”
“You insisted on authenticity,” he pointed out.
“True.” She hooked two fingers in his coat where a tie should be. “Lucky for you, I’m into awkward boys with apocalyptic baggage.”
She stepped back, pulling him inside by his lapel. The door swung shut behind him with a soft thud. This time, the room felt different. Like a stage, like a pressure chamber, like the small, quiet corner of a battlefield where the real decisions were made.
“Last chance, angel,” she murmured, still not letting go of his coat. “Are you here because you think I’m useful, or because you can’t stop thinking about what my mouth felt like on yours?”
He didn’t look away.
“Both,” he said.
Heat flashed across her expression, quickly reined in. “Honest. Look at that.” She tugged him closer, until they were almost chest to chest. “And when you watched your little instructional film…”
His breath touched her cheek now. “Yes.”
“Did you think about me?”
He hesitated then, and she felt his whole body tense like a wire about to snap. For a second she thought he’d retreat into doctrine and denial.
His fingers flexed at his sides.
“Yes,” he said again, more quietly. “I thought of you.”
Her satisfaction tasted like victory and something almost softer.
“There we go,” she whispered. “That’s my good boy.”
She kissed him, and this time there was no confusion, no surprise, no hellhounds waiting. His mouth met hers with a rough kind of eagerness that said he had replayed that first kiss too many times in the dark.
Meg smiled against his lips, then deepened the contact, one hand sliding up to the back of his neck, the other flattening against his chest. His grace flared against her palm, hot and wild.
He pressed her back a step, then another, until her spine met the wall. She felt the hesitation in him when he realized he was the one doing the pushing, and she broke the kiss long enough to murmur:
“Good. Don’t pretend you don’t want this.”
His reply was a low, frayed sound that might once have been a prayer.
Meg didn’t give him time to think.
The second his mouth opened on her name, she slammed him back against the wall—hard enough that the picture frame above his shoulder rattled and hung crooked. The sound he made wasn’t pain. It was something lower, darker, pulled straight out of whatever corner of himself he’d kept locked up since Heaven fell apart.
“Good,” she growled, hand fisted in his shirt. “Finally stopped pretending you’re here on a charity mission.”
Castiel’s breath tangled. He had enough strength to break the wall behind him. He didn’t use a drop of it. His hands hovered uselessly at his sides, fingers twitching with the urge to touch.
Meg leaned in, lips brushing his ear. “Put those hands anywhere without permission,” she whispered, “and I’ll pin you harder than Crowley’s dogs ever tried.”
His exhale hit her throat hot and uneven.
Perfect.
She dragged her mouth down his jaw, slow enough to mock him for how badly he wanted more. Her free hand slid along his ribs, not gentle—testing pressure, testing control. Every place she touched seemed to short out his ability to speak.
“Look at you,” she murmured, pulling back just far enough to catch his eyes. “Angel of the Lord, pinned like a misbehaving altar boy.”
His jaw tightened. A spark of defiance lit his expression.
She slapped it away with a single, brutal kiss—teeth, breath, her body pressed into his with purpose.
He broke. Not visibly, not loudly.
But she felt it: the moment he stopped resisting the gravity between them.
“Yeah,” she breathed against his lips, “that’s the part I want.”
She grabbed his wrist and yanked him away from the wall, dragging him two steps to the cheap dresser mirror. The glass was cracked in the corner. It only made the whole thing better.
“Look.” She shoved him in front of it.
His reflection stared back—hair a mess, lips swollen, pupils blown wide with something he’d never admit to out loud.
Meg came up behind him, her hands sliding down his arms, pinning his wrists lightly against the dresser. Her chin rested on his shoulder, their eyes meeting in the mirror.
“That’s what you look like when you want something,” she said. “Not righteous. Not holy. Just hungry.”
He swallowed hard.
“Meg,” he started, voice rough.
“Save it.” Her grip tightened. “This part isn’t about talking. It’s about you finally seeing what I see.”
Their bodies were flush; she felt every stutter of his breath through his back against her chest.
He looked wrecked by the simplest contact, and it set something viciously pleased alight in her.
“You know what the pizza man had?” she whispered directly into his ear. “Nerve. He didn’t ask permission to want the girl. He just wanted.”
She moved her hand to his jaw, forcing him to keep his eyes on the mirror.
“Tell me you want this.”
His voice failed him. His throat worked, but no sound came.
Meg smiled like a blade. “Then show me.”
She pushed him forward—hard enough that he grabbed the dresser for balance. Hard enough that his breath caught.
Then she shoved him backward again, guiding him toward the bed with sharp, exact pressure on his chest. He stumbled once, recovered, and followed her pull like gravity was wearing her face.
He hit the mattress with a low grunt, elbows bracing behind him. Meg climbed after him without hesitation, knees on either side of his hips, hands braced beside his head.
The light from the window cut across them, catching the wild edges in his expression. He didn’t look like Heaven anymore. He looked like someone who’d chosen the fall.
“Here’s the deal, angel,” she said, lowering herself until her mouth hovered a breath away from his. “You follow my lead. You don’t touch unless I want it. And you don’t look away from me.”
His eyes locked on hers instantly.
She smirked. “Good boy.”
Her fingers slid into his hair, gripping tight enough to make his breath jump.
“And before the night’s over,” she promised, voice dropping to something molten and dangerous, “you’re going to stop pretending you don’t love how much darker you are with me.”
Then she kissed him again—nothing soft, nothing sweet—just hunger and heat and the kind of claim that didn’t need permission.
The rest dissolved into shadows and motion, the kind of rhythm that left the lamp flickering and the mattress protesting under them, until the details blurred into nothing but breath and want and the sharp, unwavering dominance of a bad girl who knew exactly how to handle an angel losing control.
The room was darker when she dragged him back upright.
Somewhere between the bed and the carpet, the lamp had finally given up, leaving only the sickly yellow glow from the parking lot outside. It cut their silhouettes into sharp, fractured shapes on the wallpaper—two creatures made of hunger and bad decisions.
Perfect.
Meg grabbed the front of Castiel’s shirt and hauled him up with a force that shouldn’t have been possible for a human vessel. He stumbled, caught himself, and looked at her like she’d just torn open the sky.
“Don’t get comfortable,” she said. “We’re not done.”
His breathing was already uneven. His eyes still blown wide, dark enough to match the night.
“Meg—”
She shoved him backward before he could finish.
He hit the wall with a heavy thud, palms flattening against the plaster as if he needed it to stay upright.
Yes.
That’s what she wanted.
“You think I’m done teaching you?” Her voice was low, dangerous, close to his ear. “You barely passed the first lesson.”
He swallowed. His grace flickered under his skin like a warning light.
Meg smirked. “Relax. I’m not here for your soul. I’m here for that look on your face.”
She hooked two fingers under his chin and forced him to meet her eyes. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away.
“Good,” she murmured. “Hold that.”
Her other hand slid up his chest—slow, steady, claiming space inch by inch.
He jolted when she pressed harder, not enough to hurt, but enough to make him gasp. Enough to remind him that she was the one controlling the rhythm, not him, not Heaven, not whatever divine rules he’d been built to obey.
“You have no idea,” she said softly, “how much power you give away when you let someone else set the pace.”
His fingers curled reflexively against the wall. “Meg… I don’t—”
“You do.”
She cut him off with a push of her hand.
Not violent. Intentional.
His breath stuttered. The wall behind him groaned.
“You want this,” she said. Not a question. A diagnosis. “You want someone to take the reins out of your hands for once. You want someone who doesn’t care that you’re divine or righteous or catastrophic.”
He closed his eyes for half a second, just long enough to betray himself.
She laughed softly. “There it is.”
Her hand moved from his chin to his throat, not squeezing, just resting—a promise, a threat, a boundary he didn’t dare cross unless she let him.
“Open your eyes.”
He obeyed.
“Good boy,” she whispered, and felt the reaction ripple down his body in a way he probably thought he hid.
Meg leaned in, her lips brushing the corner of his mouth without touching fully. His breath caught.
“You want dark?” she asked. “You want the part of yourself you keep buried under robes and guilt and holy orders?”
His fingers dug into the wall.
“I see it, Cas. I see all of it. The anger. The hunger. The way you came here because you couldn’t stop thinking about what you said to me.”
He trembled—barely, but enough.
She pressed her forehead to his, their breaths mingling, tension thrumming like a live wire between them.
“That porno you watched? It’s cute. But that’s not what you want.”
He exhaled shakily. “Then what—”
“This.”
She flattened her palm over his heart.
A firm, claiming touch.
“You want someone who isn’t afraid of how dangerous you are. Someone who pushes back. Someone who drags the truth out of you fingernail by fingernail.”
His grace flared, bright and broken.
She smiled, lips ghosting along his jaw. “I’m not scared of you. I like your darkness.”
His breath hitched so sharply she felt it.
“You’re not broken,” she whispered. “You’re just not finished.”
Then she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down into a kiss that wasn’t a kiss at all—it was a challenge, a dare, a strike.
Castiel shattered under it.
His hands slammed against the wall, knuckles white, whole body leaning into hers like gravity itself had turned traitor.
Meg dragged her teeth across his lower lip, laughing when he made a sound that definitely wasn’t holy.
“Good,” she purred, pulling back enough to see his face. “Lose control. Let it happen.”
He looked at her like falling and flying had suddenly become the same thing.
She stepped away—just enough to make him chase the contact—then grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the bed again. He followed without a second thought.
“Lesson two,” she said, pushing him down onto the mattress with a force that made the springs groan. “You don’t get to decide when this ends. I do.”
He stared up at her, chest rising and falling too fast, eyes dark and wild.
Meg climbed over him slowly, like a predator settling over prey that wanted to be caught.
“Good boy,” she whispered, bending down until her lips brushed his ear.
“Let the bad girl finish her work.”
The air in the motel room felt different now.
Heavier.
Thicker.
Charged like the seconds before a storm breaks.
Castiel was still catching his breath on the mattress when Meg stepped away from him—not to give him space, but to make him feel the absence. She stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed loosely, head tipped in a mocking angle as she studied him like a puzzle she intended to break apart piece by piece.
“On your knees.”
The words were soft.
Not shouted.
Not demanded.
Just delivered like inevitable truth.
Castiel froze.
Meg arched a brow.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, angel. You’re smart enough to obey the first time.”
Her tone wasn’t playful anymore.
It wasn’t teasing.
This was command—pure and cold and razor-sharp.
Castiel pushed himself upright slowly, moving like someone crossing a battlefield after the smoke cleared. His knees hit the carpet with a dull whisper. His hands settled at his sides, trembling slightly.
Meg circled him once.
Predatory.
Slow.
Enjoying every second of his stillness.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to see this,” she said, voice dropping to a low, dangerous purr. “The big, terrifying Angel of the Lord brought down to something real.”
Her fingers slid into his hair, tightening in a hard grip. His breath stuttered but he didn’t flinch away.
“Look at you,” she murmured. “You pretend to be above all this—above wanting, above choosing, above falling. But here you are. Kneeling for a demon.”
He closed his eyes, jaw flexing.
She yanked his head back sharply.
“Uh-uh. Eyes open. I want you to see exactly who you belong to in this moment.”
His eyes opened, blue blown out with darkness, something almost violent simmering beneath the surface of his restraint.
“Good boy,” she whispered, leaning close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath without getting the relief of her mouth. “Now hold still.”
She let go of his hair and stepped back, just out of his reach.
Castiel’s fingers curled against his thighs. The instinct to rise—to fight, to reclaim control—flickered in him like a strike of lightning. But he held position. He stayed on his knees for her.
It thrilled her in a place no demon should admit exists.
Meg crouched in front of him, their faces level now. She let her thumb drag along his cheekbone, slow and deliberate, as though claiming territory.
“You feel that?” she asked. “That little war in your chest? That pull between divinity and desire?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“You know what that is?” Her smile sharpened into something almost cruel. “That’s the sound of your halo cracking.”
His breath hitched. His grace flared dangerously under his skin—bright, unstable, like a star trying not to collapse.
“Meg,” he whispered. “This is—”
“Exactly what you came for.”
Her hand slid down his jaw, thumb brushing his lower lip with sinful precision.
“Stop lying to yourself, Cas. You want darkness. You want choice. You want someone who doesn’t flinch at the monster in you.”
He shuddered, something raw flickering across his face.
Meg leaned in until her lips barely grazed his ear.
“And I’m the only one in this whole godforsaken universe who’s not afraid to touch it.”
His exhale shook.
She pulled back just far enough to look him dead in the eyes.
“Now get up,” she said, voice low and lethal. “Slowly. I want to watch you rise.”
Castiel obeyed—not like an angel, not like a soldier, but like a creature caught in orbit around something darker than the Pit and more irresistible than Heaven.
He stood in front of her, waiting, breathing hard, every muscle taut with anticipation and restraint.
Meg stepped in close, chest brushing his, her smile pure sin.
“Lesson three,” she whispered.
“You’re not falling, Castiel.”
She lifted his chin with a single finger.
“You’re choosing.”
He made a sound—low, quiet, broken in half—as she pushed him backward onto the bed again, harder this time, claiming the space above him like a queen settling onto her throne.
Everything after dissolved into heat and shadow and the sharp, breathless rhythm of power shifting exactly the way she wanted it to.
The room had gone almost silent.
Not peaceful—
never peaceful—
but thick, like the air itself was waiting to see which one of them would move first.
Castiel lay half-upright on the bed, breathing hard, grace still shimmering under his skin like a storm he hadn’t learned to control. Meg stood at the side of the mattress, one hand braced on the headboard, the other on her hip, studying him with an intensity that made the shadows seem deeper.
“Good,” she said softly. “You’re starting to understand what it feels like to come apart.”
He dragged in a breath that didn’t steady him.
Meg climbed onto the bed, knees sinking into the mattress near his hips. She didn’t touch him immediately. She just hovered, close enough that the heat of her body scraped across his nerves like a blade.
“Tell me something, Cas.”
Her tone was low, precise—the voice she used when she was deciding whether to kill someone or keep them.
“When you were in Heaven… did pain exist at all?”
His throat tightened. “Not like this.”
“No,” she agreed. “Not like this.”
Her fingers trailed up his chest, slow, deliberate.
Then she gripped his shirt—right over his sternum—and pulled hard.
Not enough to hurt the vessel.
Enough to make him gasp.
“Pain down here is different,” she murmured. “It’s honest.”
She dragged her thumb along the line of his collarbone, feather-light.
Then pressed down just enough to force a soft, startled sound from him.
“There,” she said, satisfied. “That’s real.”
He swallowed hard. “Meg—”
She pressed harder.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
“Tell me what that feels like.”
“It—” His breath stuttered. “It demands attention.”
“Exactly.” Her lips curved into a blade-thin smile. “Pleasure lies. Pain doesn’t. Pain tells you where you’re breaking… and where you’re still alive.”
She lifted her hand from his chest and slid it to his jaw, fingers firm, claiming his face between her palms. The pressure wasn’t cruel—but it wasn’t gentle, either. It was deliberate. Controlled. Intimate in a way that felt far too dangerous.
“You trust me not to break you,” she said.
His answer came without hesitation.
“Yes.”
She blinked once. Slowly.
For a moment the demon mask slipped, revealing something sharper, older, far more complicated than malice.
“Good,” she said quietly. “Because I’m going to push you.”
Her thumb stroked his cheekbone once—almost tender—and then she snapped her fingers lightly against his skin.
He flinched.
Barely.
But she caught it.
“You can feel that,” she murmured. “More than you admit.”
Her hand slid down to the side of his neck, grip firm with intention.
Her thumb pressed into a sensitive place beneath his jaw.
Castiel’s breath broke in his chest.
Meg leaned in, lips just brushing the corner of his mouth but not giving him a kiss—withholding, controlling the space between them.
“That’s your problem,” she whispered. “You confuse pain with failure. But sometimes pain is just the body opening a door.”
Her thumb pressed harder.
Not dangerous.
Not unsafe.
But demanding.
His breath trembled.
She watched his face, every flicker of emotion, every shift in his eyes, studying him like scripture.
“There it is,” she said. “That edge you’re terrified to cross.”
He shook his head once, barely. “I’m not terrified.”
“Liar,” she whispered, leaning closer, her nose brushing his. “You’re terrified it might feel good.”
His entire body went still.
Meg smiled, slow and devastating.
“Lesson four,” she murmured. “Pain isn’t the opposite of pleasure. It’s the doorway to it. And you—”
her grip tightened, just enough to force a sharp inhale from him
“—are standing right in the threshold.”
She eased her hand, letting the pressure fade, her thumb smoothing the skin she had just pressed.
“Good,” she said softly, satisfied with the shiver that went through him. “You took it. You didn’t run.”
Castiel finally lifted his hands—slowly, carefully—until his fingertips hovered near her sides, asking without touching.
Meg laughed under her breath. “Sweetheart, you don’t get permission yet.”
His hands dropped instantly.
Her smile sharpened.
She pushed him back into the pillows, palm flat against his chest.
“And the next lesson,” she said, settling over him like a shadow with purpose,
“is learning how to want the pressure just as much as the relief.”
The rest dissolved into dark rhythm, gasping breath, and the quiet, razor-edged dance of power shifting exactly where she guided it—pain and pleasure indistinguishable except for the way they made him tremble under her command.
The world was quieter when the storm burned itself out.
The room wasn’t.
The sheets were tangled, half on the bed, half on the floor.
A lamp lay on its side like a casualty. The mirror in the corner held fogged, smeared ghosts of movement.
Castiel lay on his back, chest rising in slow, unsteady pulls. His hair was a wreck. His shirt was missing, somewhere. He looked like a weapon someone had used too hard and hadn’t bothered to put away properly.
Meg sat beside him, knees drawn up, arms resting loosely on them. Bare legs, bitten lip, eyes lined with exhaustion she’d never admit to. She watched him the way a predator watched an animal after the kill—not hungry, not finished, just thoughtful.
“You’re still here,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Castiel replied.
His voice sounded raw. Human.
It didn’t fit him—and yet it did.
She studied him for a moment, head tilting slightly.
“You could’ve bolted the second you could stand.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
Meg’s eyes narrowed, trying to read him.
This part—the quiet—was trickier than the violence.
Violence was simple.
The aftermath was where truth crept in.
“You feeling guilty yet?” she asked, offhand, like she was asking about the weather.
He turned his head to look at her. His eyes weren’t the blue of Heaven anymore. They were darker. And tired. And frighteningly open.
“No.”
Meg blinked. “Wow. That’s a first.”
“I feel…” He stopped. Searched for a word that didn’t exist in Heaven’s dictionary.
“Unburdened.”
She snorted. “You just let a demon break your carefully repressed divine control issues. That’s not unburdening, sweetie, that’s a mental health episode.”
He didn’t smile.
But the line of his mouth softened.
She leaned back against the headboard, stretching out her legs.
“Well? Was it worth the identity crisis?”
Castiel inhaled, slow and deep, eyes drifting to the ceiling.
“You knew what you were doing,” he said. Not accusation. Just fact.
“Damn right I did.”
“You pushed me.”
“I shoved you, angel. Don’t downgrade my work.”
He turned his face toward her again. There was something in his gaze that Meg didn’t like.
Too honest.
Too gentle.
Too knowing.
“Why?” he asked softly.
Meg shrugged, refusing to look at him directly.
“Because you needed it.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you get.”
He watched her for a long moment, the silence not uncomfortable—just heavy, like the air after thunder.
“You could have hurt me,” he said.
She laughed—sharp, surprised. “Honey, that was the point.”
“No.”
His voice cut through the air like a knife dipped in sorrow.
“You could have hurt me,” he repeated, quieter.
“And you didn’t.”
Meg froze.
That wasn’t praise.
It was realization.
She stood up too fast, brushing her hair back, needing movement to shake off the weight of his stare.
“Don’t get poetic on me, Castiel. It’s creepy.”
“You held back,” he said, sitting up with surprising steadiness. “You controlled yourself more than I did.”
“Yeah, well—”
She scoffed, waving a hand like she could shoo away the truth.
“Can’t break the merchandise. I might want a round two someday.”
“That is not why.”
She hated how quiet he was.
How calm.
How thoroughly he’d seen her.
“Meg,” he said gently, “you cared.”
She spun on him, eyes flaring with something too sharp to be vulnerability. “Don’t. Don’t you dare put that word on me. I don’t care. I use. I play. I survive.”
He looked at her like he pitied her.
It made her furious.
“You don’t care,” he echoed softly.
“But you didn’t want to hurt me.”
She stepped closer, until she stood over him, power humming in her veins again—not sexual, not violent. Something older.
“You listen to me, angel. I don’t care about you. I like how you fall. I like how you unravel. I like the look on your face when you hand me the reins because you don’t know what else to do. That’s it.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t argue.
Just waited.
“And if you think there’s anything else going on here,” she said, voice cracking around the edges she tried to hide, “then you’re even dumber than your trenchcoat.”
Castiel’s expression softened in a way that made her want to hit him.
“Meg,” he said quietly, “I am not looking for affection.”
“Good,” she snapped. “Because you won’t get it.”
“But you offered something else.”
She clenched her fists.
“What?” she spat. “What did I offer, Cas?”
“Honesty.”
Meg’s breath caught.
Sharp.
Silent.
Unexpected.
He reached out—slowly, carefully—and stopped just before touching her hand.
“I am… tired,” he said. “Of lies. Of Heaven. Of pretending I do not feel what I feel.”
His fingers hovered millimeters from hers.
“And you,” he added softly, “do not lie to me.”
Meg’s heart slammed once against her ribs like it was trying to break free.
She stepped back so fast the bed shook.
“We’re done,” she said.
He nodded—not offended, not wounded—just accepting.
“Yes.”
She expected him to vanish in a flutter of wings or light.
Instead, he simply stood up, picked up his shirt from the floor, and slipped it on with quiet, human movements.
“No lecture?” she asked, arms crossed tightly.
“No.”
“No guilt trip?”
“I said no.”
She scoffed. “So what, you’re just… leaving?”
Castiel paused at the door.
“I am leaving,” he said.
“But I am not running.”
That distinction hit her harder than she wanted to admit.
He opened the door.
“Meg,” he said without turning, “if you ever want to finish what we started—”
She cut him off sharply. “Get the hell out, pizza man.”
He obeyed.
The door clicked shut.
Meg sank onto the edge of the bed, heart still pounding in a body that shouldn’t feel this much, staring at the spot where he had stood.
“Damn it,” she whispered to nobody.
“Damn it.”