Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The only way romantic could be used when talking about Castiel was if one added “not at all, really,” or “strewth, quite the reverse,” immediately afterwards. Dull, dutiful and devoid of humor, prince consort Castiel could accidentally kill romance just by glancing in its direction.

This made him the odd man out, unfortunately. The rest of the known world was enjoying a post-war renaissance full of romanticism. Growing numbers were entering the ranks of the literate, sole domain of scholars and clergymen not that long ago. That newfangled printing press invention disseminated all kinds of books far and wide, and many of them were romances. People loved them, they shaped the way the kingdom of Lawrence remembered its very own tragic romance: the story of King Dean and Lisa Braeden.

Though the real events were less than a decade old, there were already many versions of the story running around like mice in the cellar. Castiel was pretty sure he’d heard them all by now.

Lisa Braeden was born into a family of well-to-do merchants. At seventeen, her father’s affairs having thrived, she’d been introduced at the small court, a knockoff version of the grand court where the royal ladies were introduced with more pomp and prestige. There she’d come into contact with prince Dean, and the rest was the stuff of fairy tales.

Lisa had been one of this new wave of literate young women who, rather than mastering etiquette and household management, studied the philosophies, poetry, and read books from abroad detailing strange and almost certainly immoral ways of bending your body to achieve inner peace. It had made her different than court-bred ladies, interesting, and Prince Dean… well, the Winchesters were odd ducks as far as royalty went, their line only half a century old - rank novices, as king Michael had it - and Dean had his own particularities. A soldier-prince of nineteen, he’d been hardened in years of battle against their northern foe, and he knew what he wanted. Lisa had been very beautiful, vivacious, a free spirit. Dean was smitten and they were betrothed that very night, having fallen in love at first sight (Castiel could not conceive of this happening in real life, but then, as has been cited, he was not a romantic.)

What happened next depended on who was telling the story, there were a lot of different interpretations.

Though he welcomed her to the castle on his son’s behalf, some said king John had disapproved of a commoner aspiring to be queen. Once Dean was off to war again, John had made her life miserable by demanding impossible feats: hosting a dinner without a purse, weaving gold from straw and such. Tasks that a spirited but relatively inexperienced lass couldn’t possibly master, not without the benefit of dancing singing magical mice or some other sort of phenomena that Dame Ellen’s meticulous housekeeping forbade. More rational storytellers painted the tale with a darker gloss. By her very existence, Lisa was robbing Dean and their war-torn kingdom of a marriage alliance with another country when they needed it most. Even with John’s support, her reception amongst the nobility would have been chilly, and perhaps even dangerous. It wouldn’t be the first time in history that an inconvenient fiancée had been removed from the political chessboard through calumny, hostility or a drop of poison. Whatever the reason, Lisa abruptly renounced the betrothal and disappeared into the night.

The story’s hundred variations meant nobody actually knew the truth. Dean might, but he never talked about it. Given free reign, speculation went off in all directions, each more fantastical, dramatic or romantic than the next. Castiel - who, it bears repeating, wasn’t a romantic - suspected that John had merely tried to prepare the young and inexperienced woman to the task that being the liege consort of a large realm entailed, and yes, managing the responsibilities of a castle, overseeing the finances, navigating the dangerous viper pit of politics, keeping up appearances, supporting the future king while not taking up more of his time than he could spare, yes, all that could feel crushing to a young woman and ‘lively spirit’. God’s tears, even Castiel, born and raised to it, found it tiresome at times, and he was about as lively as limestone. It was easy to imagine how Lisa had chafed under the charge.

His Majesty King John the First of Lawrence fell in the war against Prince Azazel that following year. Dean was crowned on the battlefield, and then the warrior king, assisted by his brother, gathered his armies. A year of staggered campaigns brought Dean’s long-term strategies to fruition, positioning the two Winchesters to where they could finally crush the invaders and execute Azazel, avenging their father. But when Dean returned to his kingdom, ragged after years of war, he found plenty of problems waiting but no signs of Lisa. Dean searched high and low. Insert romantic machinations imagined by scullery maids and dowager duchesses alike. Where the silly legend of the lost slipper came from, Castiel had no clue; he’d found some of Lisa’s footwear in an out-of-the-way closet in the Consort wing one day, her shoe size was perfectly normal and could fit three quarters of the female population of the kingdom, so surely- oh, right, not a romantic.

It took Dean a year to find her living in poverty and seclusion. Lisa… and her child. Dean had married her the next week, declared Benjamin to be his blood and heir, and they lived happily for six months. But then Queen Lisa passed, one of the last victims of the plague that was burning out at the time, a final brutal bequest of the war.

Her picture hung in the portrait room alongside other kings, queens and consorts. She’d been a beautiful woman with a strong light in her eyes and an intriguing smile.

Castiel’s portrait was commissioned by the court on his first year anniversary, the day he’d been married to Dean twice as long as Lisa had, as it were. It hung alongside Dean’s over the mantle in the main hall, as was proper for reigning sovereigns. Dean told him the painting was ‘real good, Cas, an awesome likeness’. Castiel thought the man in the portrait looked dull, dowdy and tired, so Dean was probably right.

Ah yes, Castiel, Dean’s second marriage after five years as a widower. Castiel was so much the opposite of Lisa Braeden that in his darker moments, he suspected some evil art was at work.

To his advantage, Castiel was not an obscure commoner unprepared for the task. He was the third son of the late King Charles of Eden, and he’d been raised for this kind of duty all his life. In marrying him, Dean had built a strong backing for his reign. Castiel’s older brother Michael had worked hard at this alliance between their kingdoms, Castiel was only part and parcel of it. Not the best part, as Michael occasionally reminded him.

Castiel was not in line for the throne himself due to Eden’s Salic Laws of succession; they not only barred women from reigning, but also the few men in each generation who turned out to be angels; with a soul born for purity and chastity… or in some cases such as Castiel, a temperament that simply did not, shall we say, cleave to the female of the species. It was a delicate matter that noble families shrouded in silence once upon a time, but this had led to that messy incident back in the Carolinian era when a royal marriage went spectacularly awry because of it, and a century of warfare ensued. Since then it was openly admitted, if somewhat grudgingly at times, and angels were still used in political marriages; to a man in rare cases, but more particularly to princesses of a certain type themselves. Once the requisite heirs were dutifully, if reluctantly, produced, the blessed spouses could live on in harmony and chastity. Publicly, that is. In private, it was understood they could follow whatever proclivities they aspired to, if any, as long as they kept it discreet. It was considered political and polite, a mark of the civility and stellar blood of the royal lines of the continents (detractors and anti-monarchists declared that, angel or otherwise, the whole lot of them were sodomites and eunuchs after generations of inbreeding, but Michael’s guards soon found them and ended their calumnies.)

But to differ again from the fertile, fair and female Lisa, Castiel had suffered a severe swelling disease right after his turn into manhood that, despite copious bleeding, had burned out the fire in his seed. A great physicker of repute had demonstrated this to Charles and Michael by showing how the excess of cold black bile in Castiel’s blood could extinguish a large yellow candle, so it was obviously true. His predominant humor now beholden to cold, dark earth rather than manly fire, he would never be able to father children on an otherwise disinterested princess, which was just about the only thing a prince of his sort could be said to be good at, as Michael so aptly put it, and Castiel had failed even at that.

Everyone, including Castiel, had been surprised when Dean suggested the marriage. But it was more grist for the romance mill. Ben’s legitimacy was never all that certain, born out of wedlock as he was. In fact it was quite likely he was not the king's child, Dean himself had confided to Castiel after their marriage. But it didn’t matter, he loved the boy as much as any man ever loved his son. Though he’d been persuaded to marry for political reasons, he'd gone to such lengths as wedding a man to ensure no further heirs would ever contest the throne. Lisa's rights as queen mother would forever be respected in his bloodline and in his heart.

So be it.

The ways Castiel differed from Lisa went on and on. She was petite and loved to dance and play the angélique; he was tall and had no sense of rhythm. She was fiery; he was cold and composed. She loved to ride and hunt; Castiel was too busy with his duties. She had been heartrendingly young; Castiel was older than Dean by five years. She’d been honest, brave and bright, while Castiel was way too at home with petty politics. Somebody had to be, it wasn’t Dean’s forte.

Lisa had been so free and proud, she’d left Dean during the war, whether due to John’s interference or other reasons. Whereas if it’d been Castiel in her place all those years ago, there was nothing King John or anyone could have said or done or threatened him with - nothing! - that would have made him leave Dean. Ever.

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it. The final way he and Lisa diverged. Dean had loved Lisa Braeden passionately, even though to Castiel’s eyes her love didn’t seem to be that steady in return. Whereas Castiel, despite knowing full well what a political marriage entailed, had let himself fall in love with his husband like an idiot.

At least he wasn’t so much of a ninnyhammer as to expect his feelings to be returned, not when he had to stand next to queen Lisa in everyone’s memories. He still had his duties, they kept him busy enough most days to bury the unwelcome ache in his heart. As Dean’s royal consort and seneschal, he managed the crown’s lands and castles, making them comfortable for their liege. After one year, Dean had declared himself positively floored by how much Castiel had turned the wartime fortress around and made it feel like a home, an ‘awesome place to live’. Dean’s vocabulary had been cultivated on a battlefield, not by tutors. Castiel didn’t mind, and it was a king’s privilege to talk any way he wanted to.

Dean's down-to-earth style, his bravery, his easy smile, it all made him very popular in castle, court and countryside. As consort, Castiel’s role was to be decorative rather than popular, and that, unfortunately, was quite beyond his abilities. Being a man was a further black mark against him in many eyes, whatever political games the noble houses chose to play with their ‘angels’. So Castiel stayed far back in Dean’s shadow, a discrete power behind the throne. Dean led, Castiel quietly made sure everything followed. His duties were all over the place, from managing the revenue and expenses of the royal lands and household, to appeasing the temperamental cook, Crowley, the best chef on the continent despite his foibles. Castiel had been lucky to snatch him from the elderly duchess of Keys and keep him, even though every crowned head on the continent would cheerfully poison Castiel to obtain him. Some said Crowley had made a deal with Ol’ Nick for his talents, but if his temperament and diva extravagances were anything to go by, Castiel considered Crowley himself to be the devil, no deals needed or wanted.

But it was worth any and all efforts to make Dean’s life and rule easier; to make him truly shine amongst his peers.

That would have to be Castiel’s pride and fulfilment. When the burden chafed, he’d remind himself he could be a peasant living at a feudal lord’s mercy, half starved when winter raged. He’d kept up his habit, adopted years ago in Michael’s court, of going out into the town and beyond the capital to help out in various charitable endeavors. Generosity was the duty of princes, and on his bad days, when his health or spirits were poor, it reminded him of all he had to be thankful for if the only thing he had to lament in his life was that he was in love with a man who didn’t love him.

And if that failed to temper his dark moods, he’d reread all the letters exchanged with his brother Gabriel, exiled for twenty years now in a far northern country where they worshipped pagan gods, and where the rest of the family pretended he was dead. Reminiscing about his life in Michael’s court did wonders for Castiel’s disposition.

~~~ * ~~~

The less said about Castiel’s time in Eden, the better. It wasn’t too bad while his father was alive. Charles - or Chuck as his family affectionately knew him - was decent enough, if somewhat vague and prone to letting his cabinet rule while he piddled with attempts at writing. Life didn’t get truly tiresome until Charles was gone and his eldest son Michael ascended the throne.

Castiel did what he could, but Michael had no need for a well-meaning but ultimately useless brother. At first Castiel had earned his keep, so to speak, by managing the castle and lands, freeing Michael’s time and making himself more valuable in a potential match. Surely no self-respecting woman would wish for such a non-man as spouse (as his brother put it) but that left the other avenue. An old, widowed nobleman from some backwards province with the right inclination and a ton of sons to spare might be kind enough to take Castiel off Michael’s hands, for the sake of the prince’s connections, dowry and the comfort he could bring. It hadn’t been that attractive a prospect (though Castiel kept that thought behind his teeth rather than hear another diatribe on his failures), but even that paltry offer never materialized. Michael married, had children, and his ever-efficient queen Naomi took over many of Castiel’s duties. As the years went by, Castiel became older, more useless, more redundant. Other pointless princes before him had found occupation in the army or the church, but men of his inclination were not welcome there. The army only wanted real men, the church had no need for deviants (so they said, though Gabriel had written some very scurrilous things about both assertions in his letters.) The royal family could have forced the issue and made him a place in either institution, but if Castiel was going to spend his life being shunned and despised anyway, he might as well do it at home.

There were times he thought his best bet would be to leave in the dead of night, sail to the far, far north and make some kind of living with Gabriel. But ultimately Castiel's sense of duty forbade it. Maybe his kingdom didn’t need him, and his family certainly didn’t, but Castiel was born a prince, it was his duty to stand by his land and liege until his death.

Then like lightning out of a clear sky: a marriage proposal. And not by some minor lordling with a plethora of sons, no, a wedding between Castiel and one of the most powerful men on the continent.

A scant three weeks passed between Michael summoning Castiel to his office with a ‘you won’t believe this’, to standing in front of the head of Eden’s church, hand in hand with a virtual stranger. Three weeks would be fast for any wedding not involving a pregnancy and pitchfork-wielding parents; for a royal wedding, it was ludicrous. But king Dean, Castiel would learn, was not the kind to waste time once a decision was made, especially not on ‘fol-de-rol crap’, and Michael had obliged his soon-to-be brother by marriage. Maybe he was afraid Dean might change his mind if given time to think about it.

Castiel and Dean met once during those three weeks for the obligatory bethrothement ceremony where both parties were allowed to look each other over and converse for awhile. It was a time-honored sham to pretend the feelings of those involved mattered in any way. The meeting was so chaperoned by a complement of councilmen and diplomats, it hadn’t given the two much leisure to talk. King Dean looked both grumpy and uncomfortable, Castiel had been his usual dull self; thirty years and numerous tutors couldn’t teach him the art of small talk, and romance, as mentioned, was a closed book to him. His preferred reading materials, political, philosophical and religious treatises, would bore even a scholar to tears.

… Besides, he’d spent the entire hour of the betrothment with his head spinning, unable to believe this wasn’t some fever dream. There was no way a dull, cold fish like himself could be looking at a marriage with this… this young, splendid, powerful king. Had he unwittingly walked into a ring of toadstools and found himself in some fairytale romance by mistake? One of those stories where the suffering princess or angelic prince labored under a dismal disguise, some dirty animal skin maybe, but the monarch from a wonderful far-off land could magically see past this unprepossessing exterior and still fall in love…? It wasn’t as if Castiel had nothing to offer, after all. Sure, he was uninteresting, but he was noble, well-educated, with a strong heart beneath the princely clothes that never seemed to fit quite right. He was serious, steady and true, and he was sure he could somehow make this amazing man happy if he was given the chance...

Whatever romantic fiber tried to take root in Castiel’s being shrivelled up and died on his wedding night.

He’d been tense enough during the send-off. Fortunately Michael’s stiff and proper royal court forbade the bedding ceremony, and even discouraged rowdy advice shouted at the departing newlyweds, but Castiel could still feel every eye on him, particularly his brother’s. The foreboding way Michael said ‘Good night’ almost sounded like ‘Don’t ballock this up.’

The heavy oak door closed behind them, and for the first time Castiel found himself alone with his husband of a few hours. Just him, and Dean, and an ornate white-sheeted wedding bed that, in Castiel’s nervous and exhausted mind, seemed to take up all of the room to the point it must be spilling out over the balcony.

Dean slipped off his crown like one doffed a hat, rubbing at a pressure mark on his brow. “Man, finally. Are your brother’s parties always this boring?”

“Uh...” For thirty years, Michael had been Castiel’s better, his future ruler, his king and his terror. Dean was now Castiel’s new liege, but it would surely take a long time to forget the rigid rules bounding his childhood, or else his honest answer would have been: Oh goodness, yes, I once nearly hung myself with the suet pudding strings just to get the banquet over with faster.

“It’s been a long day, I’m sure that made it feel more tedious,” Castiel said instead, diplomatically. His voice came out more gravely than usual as he fought to keep tension and uncertainty out of it.

“Our procession leaves tomorrow, we’ll be back in Lawrence within the fortnight. We’re less formal over there, hope you won’t mind.” Dean tossed his crown onto a velvet cushioned chair and rubbed the back of his neck, stretched his shoulder. “Deal’s done at least, and a good one for both our kingdoms. Yeah. ‘S a good treaty. You know, solid. We both want it that way.”

“Of course,” Castiel said, while he seriously began to worry about what Dean was going to ask him to do if he thought fit to remind them of their alliance in such a stressed manner. Castiel was an entire novice in the department of what came after weddings, naturally, but he’d heard rumors of the sort of things required of angels like himself that-

“This is going to work whatever you and I do, it’s all in the paperwork, not-... What I’m saying, Cas - do you mind if I call you Cas? Less of a mouthful.”

“That is fine, my liege.”

“Shit, we’re bloody married, call me Dean. What I’m saying, Cas, is that your duties don’t extend to the mattress.”

Castiel required a few moments to figure out what that was supposed to mean. Surely even in the land of Lawrence, it was the chambermaids who tidied and turned down the beds-... oh.

“It’s not like we can have kids, and you’re no maiden that I need to stake a claim to,” added Dean with the diplomacy that Castiel would learn characterized him, and insured that his prince consort would forevermore be the one meeting with the more prickly visiting dignitaries first to smooth the way. “This is just a political thing, so don’t feel like you have to put out just because we’re married.”

There were undoubtedly many women and men out there, married off for political reasons, who would have blessed the idea that their husbands wouldn’t want to touch them. But in the two short meetings they’d had, one being before the altar, Castiel had already been intrigued, even drawn to Dean’s raw vitality, his forthrightness, so different from Michael’s cold disposition and cruel tongue. Castiel hadn’t quite known what to expect from his wedding night, but Dean’s declaration made his heart tumble down into his boots. It was known in certain circles that Dean Winchester favored both women and men… as long as the men in question were not Castiel, it seemed. Castiel kept his expression undisturbed, though; Michael’s court at least had taught him how to hide his feelings well.

“As you wish, my liege.”

“Dean.”

“My apologies. Dean.”

“Right. Maybe when we know each other better, who knows, but right now, I’ll just sleep in this here chair.”

“Please don’t say that.” Castiel gave the chair a scandalized look. “You will sleep in the bed.”

"Don't need a bed, I’ve bivouacked outside plenty of times without even a tent, I’m-”

“Please sleep in the bed.”

Too irritated to argue after a long day and a tedious banquet, Dean fixed Castiel with the glare of a king who’d battled for years, commanded armies and made seasoned soldiers quail with one sharp look if they failed to obey his orders.

Castiel, head held at a dutiful tilt, looked back with the steadfastness of a proper well-educated prince who knew full well that kings did not sleep in chairs.

In a move that would presage a lot about their marriage, they ended up in the same bed that night, though when Castiel awoke - early as always, ready for his day’s duties - it was to find Dean squeezed on the outer edge of the mattress, face turned away and one arm trailing on the floor.

Looking at his slumbering spouse’s back, Castiel felt an odd lump form in his throat. It’d have been hard to be married off to a repulsive older man. But neither was it easy, Castiel found, to be the repulsive older man.

True, Dean hadn’t actually said that. But it seemed he was-... not polite, no, but he wouldn’t try to hurt someone’s feelings for all that. A small mercy; Castiel's feelings were not often spared. Michael and Naomi castigated him freely, the courtiers had followed their lead, albeit more subtly and behind his back. Even Chuck, when he lived, had wondered aloud and in Castiel's presence what could possibly be done with someone so lacking in interest that, if he were in one of the king's tales, the author would have killed the angel off promptly at the end of the third stanza. In contrast, ‘this is a political marriage so there’s no need to actually lay together’ was almost refreshing in its honesty and lack of immediate insult, while the tacked on suggestion that Dean might one day change his mind, though unlikely, was at least a palliative to the idea that Dean didn’t want to touch him at all.

There could be no cause for complaints. Castiel had gotten away from Michael and Naomi, and had his own castle to manage, somewhere to fully dedicate his time. And Dean had done him the kindness of letting him know where things stood, so Castiel could fully focus on that.

So he told himself. Thus it was quite beyond him why his feelings refused to take heed of the obvious warning, and instead of hardening to Dean over the first months of their marriage, rushed towards him like a moth to a flame.

Foolish beggarly feelings. But it was hard to care for a man’s every comfort day and night and not feel anything towards him, especially when Castiel’s assistance allowed Dean to flourish into the king he was meant to be, powerful, just and generous. It was easy to admire him, the whole kingdom did. It was easy to love him, quietly, hopelessly, from a distance.

~~~ * ~~~

The first few months of marriage had involved a lot of adjustments, naturally.

Dean didn’t speak much. Well, no, that wasn’t true, Dean talked a lot, rambling anecdotes about harecoped things he’d seen soldiers do, war stories, or the ways he’d prank his brother on the campaign trail years back. But he rarely said anything meaningful, and he didn’t give Castiel any directives or precise ideas of what he expected from his spouse. It left Castiel frantically guessing how to fulfil the duties and desires Dean was not clearly laying out for him.

Their marriage having taken place at the dying end of summer, the first two months of their shared reign had been spent touring the kingdom for the chasse royale: visiting each noble province in turn, meeting with Dean’s vassals to hunt together on their lands. It reinforced the bonds between king and lords, it filled the winter larders of the various fiefdoms, and Dean’s as well when the chasse took them to the king’s woods. Dean was resplendent on a hunt, it was where he poured all the excess energy that had once been brought to bear on war. He went at it for weeks on end, and took Castiel with him.

Castiel would cheerfully opt for a nice, quiet stint in the dungeon rather than spend days on horseback badgering poor animals in the rain, but he stepped up to meet his liege’s expectations as well as he could. Dean was not only a king but a powerful, physical man; he must prefer his spouse and companion a bit more manly as well. Castiel bolstered himself through the worst of it, feeling rewarded those times Dean dropped a kind word or approving look his way. He hunted tenaciously at Dean’s side throughout the day, and snatched whatever time he could out of the cold early mornings and the humid nights in order to do his other duty, which consisted of setting an entire kingdom to rights in the finer details. Even six years of peace couldn't undo the harm and habits of decades of war; the courtiers of Lawrence were dangerously ambitious, the feudal lords ran slipshod over the bylaws, the army still drained a lot of income and the chancellory was a mess.

Inevitably all that work caught up with him and he fell ill. The court physicker sniffed his urine, held both his hands, bled him, and finally declared that hunting season was over for the prince. Castiel, mortified, spat out the clove and garlic the man had placed in his mouth and dragged himself out of bed, shaking and sweating, to prove the whoreson barber wrong until Dean himself ordered him back to rest.

“But- but I can-” Castiel’s traitorous chest cut him off before Dean could do the honors, wracking him with a paroxysm of coughing.

“Give it a rest, Cas, you can’t go hunting when you’re this sick. You’re nothing but a babe in a surcoat like this, you’ll fall off the horse and break your crown.”

Castiel sunk back down into the bed, shame and failure nipping at him like the hunting hounds waiting outside for their royal master. Dean turned and left without another word, back to his chase with whatever companion could actually keep up with him. Castiel sunk into a deep, sticky, fevered sleep like the useless lump he was.

… In his delirium, he thought he awakened a short time later to find Dean sitting by the side of the bed, sharpening some arrowheads. Which was the gamekeeper's job, so obviously it was a dream. So were the soft words spoken near him a little later… Sir Robert, Dean’s oldest, most loyal knight, marshal of his household retinue, was cursing out the king in the most unlikely of manners for being ‘an idjit’ who’d dragged a prince all over the countryside, to which Dean muttered, “Wasn’t thinking, Bobby. He looked good on horseback. I forgot he’s not a brute like me…”

Winter set in, and Castiel found more ways to fall short of the expectations of what Dean’s consort should be, expectations set by the better, more beloved Lisa, no doubt. Dean loved to tell jokes; Castiel didn’t get them. The few jests Castiel knew also fell flat, either because they were based on some cunning use of a long-dead language or because he always blew the delivery. Dean loved weapons and horses; Castiel could fence and ride quite well but didn’t actually care about the subjects that much, seeing them as merely a means to an end. Dean loved to eat, particularly sweet crust pastries; Castiel had Crowley up his sleeve, he was confident he could provide his husband with such pleasures, but he himself didn’t share them. He was a bit of an ascete, and when he ate complicated dishes, he found his mind chasing down and identifying the various flavors (and accounting for the cost of the ingredients) rather than actually enjoying them.

For his part, Castiel briefly contemplated sharing some of his own few leisure activities with his spouse, but the way Dean looked at the book in Castiel’s hands - as if the tome of poetry in an ancient language was a dead rodent Castiel had found in a trap - discouraged him before he could even open his mouth.

Dean often caroused with his knights and soldiers, drinking until the small hours, always more jovial after a few cups. Castiel recalled one instance in particular; Dean took him aside and started a long rambling speech with a lot of ‘Um’s and ‘Ah’s and ‘Say, Cas, I wonder-’... Whatever he’d been trying to say, Castiel would never know, because he rarely drank, but when he did, he tended to go abruptly to sleep after only a few glasses. He found himself tucked into his bed fully dressed the next day, undoubtedly by a servant, and since then he’d assiduously avoided that kind of revelry out of sheer embarrassment.

Back in Eden, all these failures would have made Castiel’s life untenable, but Lawrence was very different from his homeland, and Dean was chalk and cheese to Michael. He showed amazing patience with Castiel’s shortcomings; in fact he seemed rather puzzled when Castiel termed them such, as if he couldn’t see any shortcomings at all. Though occasionally irritated, more often Dean seemed to be wryly amused by their misunderstandings, much to Castiel’s surprise and faint suspicion. He didn’t think he was being mocked… but something about him seem to entertain Dean anyway. Maybe if Dean tired of him, Castiel could look into nabbing the position of court jester, he thought morosely.

The business of running the kingdom took up many hours of their lives, they didn’t share their leisures, their pleasures or their beds… It was a sad state of affairs when Castiel took the time to contemplate it, and there was no reason to believe their marriage would ever change.

Yet seven months after they stood together before the altar, it did. Rather significantly.

Castiel had just finished balancing the last of the ledgers. They had a coinmaster in the kingdom, but he dealt with the entire country’s income, while the crown’s petty purse was Castiel’s purview. He would not shirk it, and fortunately he was very good with numbers, even at the end of an exhausting day at the setting of the sun.

Double-checked and signed, he moved the ledger out of the way and fished out the small leather case from its drawer. He would put it on his dressing table as a reminder to wear its contents tomorrow, the day after Bright Day.

Bright Day was a celebration of love and the new spring bursting out beyond the castle walls. Peasants would give bright yellow flowers to their sweethearts, mothers gave their children hard-boiled egg yolks, landowners would give a shiny gold coin or ring to their inamoratas while royalty outdid themselves with the fanciest of lavish gifts. Jewelers made a quarter of their yearly coin on that day alone.

Dean had been embroiled in issues concerning the border these past few weeks, and… well, by that time Castiel had heard every single one of the Lisa Braeden Romantic Stories, and knew he was nothing but a pale replacement, a political pawn, a seneschal Dean had married rather than employed. There was no reason Dean would give him some fancy trinket on Bright Day, and that was fine, they were hardly that kind of couple. But the kingdom could not know that. When marriage between royalty soured, whole nations were at risk, as the Carolinian wars had shown. So Castiel had secretly ordered, two weeks in advance, a solid gold chain of gemmed medallions, the kind of clunky ostentatious piece that Dean would never give him even if he did remember the date. Castiel didn’t like it much himself, but it would certainly draw all eyes on the day after Bright Day; Castiel wouldn’t even have to say anything or lie, everyone would assume it was Dean’s gift, and admire the wealth and generosity of their king. It was a petty matter of appearances, but in Castiel’s experience, the power and prestige of a king and consort revolved around this sort of thing.

He was about to blow out the desk’s candelabra and take his taper to bed when a knock at the door interrupted him. Biting back a weary sigh, he got out of his chair and approached the door with a mask of efficiency covering his tiredness, because Noblesse Oblige, as the folks in the southern kingdom of Louisiane would say.

He expected a servant with a last-minute problem, not his husband. Dean hardly ever visited Castiel’s rooms. When he did, he came through the private rooms that connected their two suites, hammering on the door like he was trying to break it down, yelling something like “Cas? You decent in there?” (Michael would be ten manners of horrified at the carriage of this warrior-king, but Castiel, damn his stupid heart, found it strangely endearing.)

But it was indeed Dean at the door, looking a little out of breath and also somewhat drunk.

“Has the day fully passed?” he snapped.

Castiel stood there blinking like a duncecap before recalling that he’d only heard complines rung on the bells of nearby St Bibiana a short while ago. There was still a dash of light beyond the fortifications so- “No, I suppose not.”

“Blow me down, I actually made it.” Dean came through the door and leaned against it like he was expecting a phalanx of soldiers to burst through behind him. He didn’t look directly at Castiel, just thrust out his hand. “Here, for you.”

“Uh-”

“Just take it.”

After a few moments of inspection, Castiel determined that the object was a ring, though a far cry from the jewelry that qualified as such in court. A thin band of burnished copper snaked up into crude daisy petals around a stone that Castiel thought was a yellow tiger’s eye. It was the ring a poor young gallant would give his intended in the hopes she’d remain faithful while he went off to find his fortune. Castiel could not begin to understand how a king could have this in his possession and his expression must have said as much, because Dean started to rub the back of his neck and mutter.

“Um, had it lying around. It was… uh, it’s just an old thing from, from somewhere. Dad made it one day on a whim, something like that. You don’t have to actually wear it, but I thought you might like something for Bright Day. Thanks for all the care you take of, well, of the castle, place runs like the bloody army. Hell, I’d be happy if the army was half as efficient. I’ve never eaten so good and yet Ellen tells me the finance for petty expenses is halved and she swears you’re an actual angel, producing bread out of rain and sunshine like in the good book, and- oh damn me, Cas, you don’t actually have to wear it,” he burst out as Castiel, numb, slipped the ring on; it was small but still fit over his smallest finger, and could probably be enlarged. “It was a stupid thought, it’s not even a guy’s ring, I just- I didn’t just want to give you one of my hand-me-downs, but I didn’t have time to get anything made, the day snuck up on me.”

Castiel looked up from the simple ring. His throat was closed tight with too many emotions, and this- this unsure, somewhat intoxicated and rambling man was so different from the usual hard, assured leader he dealt with.

He would never afterwards know what came over him, because he was used to what Dean Winchester did to him, that fond warmth that burned deep inside, he was used to ignoring it. He had all the intentions of ignoring it then too. Sure, Dean had remembered him on Bright Day, but with such a- a ridiculous paltry thing-

Michael would have remembered to give his queen a gift, shiny, excessive and meaningless. Dean, meanwhile, had grabbed Castiel’s hand as if he intended to take the poor present off, but was instead rubbing his spouse’s inkstained knuckles.

“Ledgers fighting back? Don’t know how you spend all your time working on that shit. I’m serious, Cas, you really don’t have to wear that if you don’t-”

Castiel had every intention of once more ignoring the feelings inside… and instead he pinned Dean back against the door and was kissing him deeply before he could even realize how badly his control had slipped.

Dean was only still for one heartbeat, two at most, then he indicated that he did not mind. Or to be more exact, he grabbed Castiel by the waist, spun him around and up against the door, kissed him like a soldier plundering a church, before hauling him up bodily and carrying him off to the canopied bed in the next room.

The king did not return to the drinking party downstairs, or to his own chambers either, not until dawn.

Castiel had worn the ostentatious chain the next day, because appearances still mattered. But Dean’s gift, poor afterthought that it was, had never left his finger since.

That night, and the many, many nights that followed, clarified a few things. Yes, Dean did indeed have an appetite for men, even, it seemed, for Castiel. And the chaste prince who’d once wondered, as he grew older, if the illness in his youth hadn’t put out all his fire and truly turned him into a sinless angel, found that no, an angel he definitely was not, and he was quite happy in this discovery. His heart was still pining, lonely and confused, but at least he was enjoying the pleasures of the flesh to counter his emotional pain. Enjoying them rather a lot.

What wasn’t quite so clear was how Dean felt about it. But the king was a virile man, and he’d been faithful to his spouse for the months of their marriage so far, despite rumors that he’d been as sanguine and ready for the chase as any hound before their betrothal, so maybe it was a relief that he could find a bed without violating his vows. Castiel almost asked him a few times, but he had his control fully back. And he didn’t need to hear one more paen about Lisa, or anything else that’d break his heart. If this change to their relationship signified anything more, if it was something kind and meaningful, then Dean would surely have told him by now.

~~~ * ~~~

Their portraits hung above the mantel side by side. Sitting by the fire with a blanket over his lap - it was his second winter in Lawrence - Castiel worked through a book when Dean was silent, and listened contentedly when Dean waxed on about a new bow he’d try out next season, or something Sam had written in one of his letters. Castiel still didn’t like hunting and he’d never met Samuel, but it didn’t matter; if it interested his spouse then it interested him, and he could listen to Dean forever.

“S’nice.” Dean stared at the fire. Ben was in bed, the knights were carousing elsewhere for once, everything was quiet. “S’nice to be here, right?”

“Yes.”

“You and I… well, we know what’s what. Get along and all that.” Dean suddenly cleared his throat and shot back his fifth goblet of fortified wine.

Castiel’s gaze dropped to the small ring that was always on his finger. In Lisa’s portrait, the hand ostensibly posed at her brocaded bodice bore a large ruby rose inset in gold, also a gift of Dean’s. Castiel, for his part, wore a prosaic and crude copper daisy, and he would be the first to say it suited him better. A simple daisy and ‘getting along’ were a lot to be thankful for, even if it wasn’t anything like the rose that had come before, nothing like the mighty love described in ringing romances. But Castiel didn’t read those. Despised them. So all he said was “Yes,” and Dean nodded with a hand over his mouth obscuring his expression, eyes fixed on the far side of the hall.

“S’good… S’all good then… Time for bed?” the king added with a side-eye and a hint of a hopeful grin.

Yes…

It was better than nothing, so much more than an unfruitful prince of an eccentric disposition might have expected out of a political marriage, that Castiel at times found himself to be almost, if not quite, content. Buried in duty, invisible when the castle ran well, at the center of the problem when it ran poorly, tired, worn and his heart, foolish thing, still yearning for the unattainable, but yes, overall, he could lay down at the end of most days and call himself content. And he would be so until the end, when he would lay down his duties for good and go to his eternal rest.

Or so he thought until queen Eileen came into his life.

Chapter Text

The rooster in the stables crowed and spontaneously generated a knock on Castiel’s door, same as every morning...

“One moment.” Castiel did not need anyone to dress him, and he’d seen the barber yesterday. The staff knew to wait for him at his door rather than enter without an invitation.

Three quick tugs on the covers rumpled up his pristine bed. It bothered him to let the servants know he'd shared Dean’s bed last night. The drudges in this castle gossiped enough already. He shared Dean's bed most nights, as it were, to have Dean use him delightfully before they slept, or sometimes just to go straight to sleep together after a busy day. Creeping quietly through their connecting rooms back to his own suite by candlelight had become part of the pre-dawn ritual that preceded the rooster and the knock on the door. Dean had told him several times to stay where he was, the staff's chitchatting be damned, but Castiel didn't want the servants waking the king when they came looking for the prince consort to sort out the inevitable problems that came with running a castle. Speaking of which… Castiel adjusted his surcoat and went to see what fresh flavor of worriment the new day had thought fit to bring.

“Your highness!” the head chambermaid announced dramatically, “that useless skivvy you insisted we keep-”

“She has a name.” The halt-gaited child was one of Castiel’s special hires, she’d been begging for bread outside the castle when he'd taken her in last month.

The skivvy’s name was to be found up the head chambermaid’s nostril if the way she lifted and flared her nose was to be any indication. “She swears there’s hardly any more coal to be found!” There was a strong suggestion in her words that Edna, the girl in question, had somehow stolen twenty bushels of culm bricks and was concealing them beneath her petticoat.

“Edna is not entirely wrong, the entire supply was moved to the east wing’s cellar yesterday afternoon.”

“What?! But that will mean my girls will have to haul it through the courtyard! What simpleton-”

The head chambermaid caught Castiel’s steady look, lost two inches of height and found something very interesting to contemplate in the flagstones.

“The coal chute is too close to the guest quarters, I don’t want clattering to disturb them." Castiel had never mastered the proper way of addressing servants. When he tried to talk the way a prince should, remind them of the utmost respect he was owed, Michael’s voice came out of his mouth... The words would stutter to a stop and half the time he’d end up apologizing to the confused staff member he was addressing. So now he just talked to them as he would anyone. The few who’d taken this as permission to find leeway in his requests had then been summoned and given the logic, reason and rationale behind his orders until the sun set, which turned out to be just as effective as the whip in getting his point across. As a whole now they obeyed him, if not always respectfully.

"The supply was moved yesterday at my orders. Now go quickly, I want all the rooms to be warm and dry by end of day.”

“Yes, your highness,” was the sulky answer as the head chambermaid flounced off.

~~~ * ~~~

St Bibiana was ringing Lauds when...

“I don’t care how bad the ventilation is, Crowley, we are not tearing down part of the kitchen wall just to make your breakfast soufflés a little lighter.”

“They’ll be as joyless and dense as you are then, your highness.”

“That’s quite enough. Get back to work, the king will be up soon.”

“Blind me, but he better have a strong stomach when he does.”

~~~ * ~~~

Dawn flooded through the cracks in the window boards, the nearby bells rang prime...

“Dean,” Castiel said softly.

Dean started awake, hand convulsing beneath his pillow to the dagger he kept there, before he let his breath out in a loud whew.

“Cas, how many times-” the end of the sentence was a rude mumble buried in the pillow.

“Get up,” Castiel prompted, glad once more that he’d arrogated this duty to himself alone. Servants should not see their liege in this manner, and Castiel was quite happy to be the only one to watch a bed-headed king roll over to give him a sleep-besmirched stink eye.

“There’s no hunting today, why’d I have to get up so early?”

“You have duties before the noon.”

“I do?” Dean’s eyes slid shut. “It’s just that thing with the thing. I can do that another day.”

“Adjudicating in court- no, Dean, you don’t want to have to waste time doing it later this week. Come on, breakfast will be ready by the time you’re dressed and gone to chapel.” Dean didn’t like servants dressing him either, and the simplicity of the royal vestments he preferred meant he only really needed one extra pair of hands at most. Helping him when called for was another duty Castiel jealously guarded to himself.

“‘S your fault I’m this tired, y’know,” Dean grumbled, face back in the pillow.

The truth in that accusation made the prince wince. Between preparing for this day and dreading it, he had slept poorly for weeks now and he’d been particularly restless last night. He should have stayed in his own bed, but it’d been so comforting letting Dean take him, take them both to the kind of heaven no true angel would know-...

Dean was fast asleep again, and he must be dreaming of something other than Castiel’s tossing and turning last night from the contented way he was smirking into his pillow… Castiel decided to let the king sleep in for as long as he could afford to. He’d brave Crowley’s ire about the soufflés being ruined as well as heavy, and then he’d have the guilty pleasure of waking his husband a second time.

~~~ * ~~~

Terce rolled through the city, the chant of the monks of St Bibiana rose in the air, weaving in and out of the smoke of a thousand chimney stacks...

“Yer Highness,” Ellen rapped out, spelling the next step in Castiel’s path of thorns. She’d emerged from the west wing, her coiffe askew as usual. Dame Ellen had been the housekeeper for twenty years, but before that she’d worked an inn in which king John had planned one of the key battles in the war, and she had, said the rumor, given him some pretty good advice along with a goblet of strong homemade brew and lamb stew. Castiel dismissed most of the fantasies swirling around Lawrence, but he found himself believing that one without any problems. It would explain why the housekeeper of a large castle could master many of her assigned tasks, yet lacked a certain je ne sais quoi-

“Have you lost your senses, young man?”

- such as respect, for instance.

“What is it, Ellen.”

Speaking tonelessly never impressed the good dame. “Do you know how much this fête is going to cost us if we light the rooms with pure beeswax candles every night? At twenty candles a room?! What do they need so much light for anyway?”

“It’s a courtesy.”

“It’s a hag-ridden nightmare! I’ll have to send my lads out over half the city to find that many candles by St Phillip’s day next week - and you want them all to match?!”

“...Preferably, please, Ellen.” In the two years he’d been here, Castiel had learned to never ever start a sentence with “Back in Eden,” or “In a proper court.”

“And I suppose you want me to fill in your precious account books with all the details afterwards.” Ellen was an odd mix of frugal and yet also reticent to properly track expenses, saying she’d been just fine ‘doing it all in her head’ for years.

Ellen wasn’t this abrupt with other nobles, a chagrined Castiel had noticed. But she’d been the housekeeper through decades of war, she’d raised Ben after Queen Lisa’s passing, she’d cared for princes Dean and Samuel as well… and he was nothing but an interloper, a queer man who’d married her precious king and ensured she’d never have any more royal babies to fuss over. Her impatience with him was justified in his mind. And at least she did what he asked. The highest tier of servants back in Eden, though polite enough to his face, had curried favor with Naomi by subtly disobeying him and showing him up. Held up to that standard, Ellen’s sharpness was tolerable. He was not going to upbraid her for it, he was not so petty. Also, she scared him quite a lot; the way she raised her eyebrows like that made her the spitting image of one of his stricter nannies, and only his bravery as a prince of the blood kept him from bolting away like a hare.

~~~ * ~~~

It was still short of the midday meal, and Castiel was already exhausted, but he was on track for his duties and all the extras involved in welcoming their guests this afternoon. As long as there were no sudden catastrophe-

“Your highness! It’s a scandal- a menace- a catastrophe!”

Right.

The tutor was more agitated than Castiel had ever seen him, flouncing from one foot to the other like a heron. He was the latest tutor in a long line; all the others had been either useless and ended up dismissed, or they quit to go teach elsewhere as soon as the prestige of ‘tutor to the crown prince of Lawrence’ had gotten them another position in some distant school or court. Though one had given up teaching young boys altogether and joined the army, while another had taken orders and a vow of silence in a distant monastery.

“What’s he done this time?” Castiel asked tiredly.

The tutor - Castiel barely bothered memorizing their names anymore, the turnover was so bad - looked shifty. “Ah, it is not prince Benjamin himself who is at fault, naturally, it is the- the roustabouts, the rapscallions who you insist should share his school time.”

“Of course it is,” said Castiel, his tone as heavy as Crowley’s soufflées. “What have they done, then?”

“A badger! They released a badger in the classroom!”

Oh, good one, thought Castiel in the privacy of his own mind. “I presume it was the baby badger that the gamekeeper took home to his son? Not a full grown animal?”

The tutor gave him the look of a man who failed to see the difference. City-born as he was, he’d have never witnessed the kind of damage an adult badger could do when riled.

Castiel thought briefly of placating the man, but this tutor had already been here three months and was just about due to move on - and he was so useless as to still get upset over children’s pranks and crying foul to Castiel, so really, the sooner he left the better. Besides, Castiel’s schedule was more than full enough already.

“I’ll deal with it, you’re excused for the day,” he said shortly and made his way to the classroom.

The badger was no longer there when he arrived, naturally. Prince Ben was too canny for that, he’d had his friend catch and vanish the little beast as soon as their tutor ran off for help. Castiel entered the classroom to be faced with a dozen childish grins of anticipation and a distinct musky odor floating in the air, presumably from the badger.

“Joanna Beth, please open the far door, let the room air. Then you and the others are excused. Return to your duties.”

Faces fell as they realized they weren’t getting a magnificent argument to spectate.

“Come now, it is about the hour your studies were done anyway.” The badger had been well-timed. Ben and the others might dislike their ever-changing tutors as a whole, but they enjoyed the studies, particularly the mathematics and the literature. Since noble scions had their own tutors at home, the other children present were those of the castle staff. In Eden they’d have been hard at work all day, but Dean hadn’t liked the idea of Ben growing up without any friends his own age, while Castiel believed in literacy and education for all children as much as could be afforded, yes, even girls. But now was the time when the working class children went about their chores after a morning of studies, and Ben would have been alone with the tutor for what was his own duty: the apprenticeship of monarchy. The rest of the morning would have been dedicated to etiquette, followed by courtly dancing this afternoon. No wonder the badger had come out today; yesterday Ben’s princely ‘education’ had been learning dueling techniques from his father and then horsing around with the latter in the stables, and that never got derailed, unlike Castiel’s carefully planned curriculum.

Ah yes, Prince Ben. The eight year old boy was the apple of Dean’s eye and the bane of Castiel’s existence, which surely balanced itself out in a way...

It was the other part of Castiel’s duty to his liege: ensuring Ben picked up the kind of education his father could not give him. Dean could teach him all about fighting and warfare; Castiel took it upon himself to make sure the crown prince would know how to play the political game so that fighting and warfare could hopefully be avoided. Heraldry, history, the arts of speech, laws and bylaws, mathematics as applied to the rules of taxation and the basics of coin mastery, everything he would need. With Dean’s blessing (“Yeah, s’about time someone takes that kid in hand, good luck, Cas,”) Castiel had set about making the young child into a prince. The boy was six at the time of their marriage, surely a malleable age, so how hard could it be? a younger, more innocent Castiel had thought at the time.

Indeed, how hard could it be to pry a young boy away from the father he adored, riding, hunting and learning to fence before running wild with all the other children, their leader in most of their juvenile mischief… and instead dedicate himself to history and heraldry in order to master the most important position in the kingdom that would be his one day? Right. Castiel was not, as a whole, a naive man, but he’d not had any exposure to children before, certainly none like Prince Benjamin.

In short order, battle lines were drawn, troops massed at the border, hostile forays took place, and the castle became a battlefield before Michaelmas. Everyone from the stablemaster’s apprentice to Dame Ellen were aware of it (and amused, to Castiel’s resigned irritation), the exception being Dean. It was understood by both princes, in this otherwise no-holds-barred war of theirs, that Dean was not to be disturbed. They didn’t want to add to a king’s burden. Besides, the one who roped in Dean would be conceding he couldn’t manage the other one alone, and neither of the combatants’ pride could abide the thought.

But as soon as Dean left the room or the castle, all hell would break loose once more. At first glance, the odds would seem to favor Ben. Castiel was not in a position to punish the boy; Ben, the crown prince, was his superior in rank in the prince consort’s strict view of the world. Ben had figured that out in no time at all - clever little brat - and though he seemed reluctant to abuse this by ordering Castiel around, he certainly took advantage of the fact that Castiel could not have him caned. But if he thought that would give him the winning hand, then that just showed how badly the boy needed the education Castiel had to give him. Castiel might be an angelic prince, a consort, a jumped-up scheneshal, but he’d been born and raised in the harshest of schools. ‘Might makes right’ in the world, and a king’s might was absolute under God, but that power could be circumvented by lesser people using subtler means of pressure. Ben needed to learn this.

Their war started off, as had many other conflicts throughout this last century, with a cannon barrage. A month into his married life and two weeks after starting their lessons, Castiel was looking around the stabling area for an elusive Benjamin overdue for his grammar, when he was pelted out of nowhere with a horse’s leavings.

Castiel retaliated by ordering one of Ben’s young servant friends to do the hours-long duty of cleaning up the mess it’d made of his clothes, which had put an end to that, and cut off other avenues of showing displeasure that would damage the linens or the furniture, giving the staff more work.

Instead, Ben left a frog in Castiel’s water pitcher. Knowing the prankster and his acolytes would be nearby to hear him scream, Castiel walked out of his room with the frog still in its pottery prison, loudly asking the first passing servant he found if Crowley had started that evening’s stew yet, and if he might need more bones for the bouillon. It had forced the young prince to come out of hiding and stiffly apologize in order to secure the release of his frog. Castiel had been relieved to see the young boy wasn’t cruel to animals, however poorly he treated encroaching prince consorts.

The note written in a childish hand saying ‘yur mean! eat shit!’ had been taken to the schoolroom and analyzed in regards to its lack of grammar and penmanship in front of the others. Castiel had also invaded the schoolroom when one of his ledgers had gone missing. A giggling gaggle of schoolchildren denied their involvement in the petty theft, so Castiel loudly declared that the maid must be at fault and would be punished. Arrested. Convicted. Sent to the dungeon to subsist on bread and water - if she were lucky. Castiel hadn’t even gotten as far as considering the use of stocks out loud before a furious and shamed prince Ben stepped forward and confessed, returning the book. Castiel had found it very promising that the young boy would not let a false accusation stand even to protect himself, he really was his father’s son.

The sparrow loosed in Castiel's closet was unceremoniously shooed out. When his quill vanished, he ordered Jo to chase down a goose and cut him another (which turned out to be so much fun that the castle geese were tailless in short order and Castiel had two dozen roughly cut quills by nightfall). Castiel found he didn't mind sugar on his meat when the salt cellar’s contents were switched. Stealing his bed warming pan was a little less acceptable as it might have compromised Castiel's health during a cold winter night, but by then Castiel was already spending most of his nights in Dean's large bed where he was quite warm enough, he hadn't even noticed the theft until dawn the next morning.

In sum, the badger was just the last of a long line of japes, intercut with more vocal arguments in which Benjamin showed he’d inherited his father’s peculiar grasp of the grammar.

The perpetrator was standing in front of Castiel now like a miniature of the man Castiel loved, with the same glower, the same pout, the same fierce eyes full of pride and combativeness. Jo paused in the doorway; at twelve, she was Ben’s faithful squire (self-proclaimed) and wanted to show solidarity. But one stern look from Castiel sent her trudging out. Unlike Ben, it was his royal prerogative to order her around, even punish her severely if he wanted to. Not that he would ever dream of it. No, he’d just hint to Dame Ellen that Jo was getting out of hand and then the castle would shake to its foundations as mother and daughter had a row that put Ben and Castiel's to shame...

Castiel went to shut both doors, then fastidiously straightened some of the scriptoriums that had been jarred out of line in the furry furor a short while back. “The tutor was very upset by the badger,” he said without looking around.

“What badger?” Ben asked innocently.

“Right. Be it as it may, I don’t think he wishes to pursue etiquette lessons with you, and I am way too busy to take over today.”

In the reflection of a copper astrolabe, he caught Ben doing a victorious jig.

“So instead, you will follow me about this afternoon. It will be a good education-”

“What?!”

“-as to the requirements of running a castle. You will help me arrange the guest quarters-”

“But-”

“- finalize the table settings according to rank of upper and minor nobility, organize the rotation for the maids to assist with the guests’ toilette during their stay-”

“That’s Ellen’s work!”

“But ultimately my responsibility, and today it is yours as well. Don’t worry, I expect we’ll be done by dinnertime.”

“My school day normally ends well before that!”

“Is that so? I was not aware,” Castiel lied. “Maybe I should have a word with your tutor to give you longer hours. The devil’s work finds its way into idle hands. So do badgers, it seems.”

Ben made a very unprincely gargle.

“A prince should familiarize himself with these matters anyway.” The child’s face darkened as he looked away. “You’ll have your own consort or scheneshal to manage your affairs one day, but it is still important to know these things, if only to keep them honest. It is also a good introduction to the similar duties of running a kingdom. Now go get out of your school clothes and into-”

Ben spun around, rebellious. “No! I want to go play with my friends!”

“Your friends will be busy too,” Castiel pointed out, “they have their duties same as you. Be glad you only have to manage a castle and not clean it.” Which was true, but there was also an implicit threat in those words. If prince Ben put his foot down and completely refused to follow Castiel on his duties, one of his friends would find themselves roped in to ‘assist’ on top of their own daily work, and would go to bed exhausted and quite late.

Ben knew he was checkmated. He cared for his little crew the way any good king cared for his loyal knights, he would not add to their work. And he knew that if he forced the issue, Castiel would retaliate as silently promised; he might not like it, but this was one lesson that was crucial. Castiel knew the power of princes, how to use it and how to keep it. A rule to do so was: never make a threat or a pledge that you cannot uphold. While Ben had to learn his own lesson: that even for kings, actions had consequences. The greater the man, the greater the consequence, for him or for his people...

“I’m glad you agree,” said Castiel. A muscle in Ben’s jaw jumped. “Now, while we are working on our tasks, I will give you more information about your royal peers who will be visiting-”

“Just leave me alone!”

The explosion was large, loud and quite out of proportion. It even took Castiel a little aback.

“Royal this and royal that- that’s all you care about! Dean doesn’t care! He- he’s better than ten of you! We were just fine before you showed up! It was just the two of us- I HATE YOU! Dean only married you because he had to! Because it was the only way he’d get an alliance! You’re mean and- and boring - and they all say you’re a AB- ABRATION - if Dean could do without you, he would! We’re not family! We’re not! We’re never!”

The words washed over Castiel. Like Dean, Ben sometimes let anger carry him too far, say too much; more than he probably intended, as he was not a cruel child by nature. At the heart of it, he resented Castiel and didn’t want him in his family. Castiel was too hardened by years of disparagments in Eden to be upset by a child’s temper, and though the words stung deep inside, it also came with a wash of pity for the child who’d lost his mother so young, and had nothing but a loving yet busy father for only family. A family Ben felt obscurely threatened. Though Ben had often been resentful and rude to him in the past, this was the first time he’d expressed his dislike quite so clearly. Castiel wondered briefly why this outburst was coming on now and not at any other time in the past two years, but guessed that, with Castiel and Dean getting along better these days, and the encroachment of a lot of royalty taking up most of his father’s attention this past month, the neglect had added fuel to the boy’s fire.

“Most impolite, your highness,” said Castiel, cold and composed. “But better than dung, frogs and sand in the bed. Words should always be a prince’s first weapon-”

Ben burst out into an incoherent noise of fury. “I’m not- Agh! Just go back to your stuffy old kingdom and DIE ALREADY!”

“But you’ll need to learn that some words can start a war when you’re king,” Castiel continued relentlessly. “Now you will get ready and you will meet me in the great hall promptly.”

There was no need to add an Or Else. Ben’s glare faltered and melted into red-faced tearfulness as he met the eyes of the implacable prince consort. Then he spun around and ran away.

Now alone, Castiel let his shoulders slump, rubbed his forehead, sighed as he looked at the still vibrating door. He dumped fairy tales on the same cinderheap as romances, so he was quite bewildered to have wandered into one. His role: being the evil stepmother.

It pained Castiel deep down inside. Not the pranks or the childish venom, no, he’d survived worse. But he would never have children of his own, and the fact that Dean had a son already, a young son, should have been a wonderful gift. Truth be told… Castiel would have loved, truth be told, to find some small place or other in Ben’s family, whatever place an unnatural man like himself, married to the boy’s father, could find. But he understood, really. That he was the wrong sex wasn’t even the only issue here. In the same way he could not supplant Lisa in the romanticized view of the kingdom and in Dean’s heart, he couldn’t replace her in Ben’s life either, he would be a churl to even try.

It wasn’t always this fraught between them. There were times they even got along. There were still pranks on one side and deliberately cool and unruffled comments on the other, but it had taken on the form of, well, almost a game, a challenge of sorts, one through which Castiel might even be allowed to prove himself one day, hypothetically. In those moments Castiel glimpsed something wonderful, shining just out of reach… but all too soon he’d make some reasonable demand of Ben and the boy would erupt at him. Taking away the childishness and also the parts that were just the same high spirits as his mother. the takeaway message was that Castiel was not Ben’s stepfather in any way, he wasn’t even an uncle, a godfather or a friend, he was merely one more tutor, barely tolerated. Castiel could still have forced the boy to show him the respect due his rank, but… but he remembered king John ‘crushing’ Lisa’s spirit, he remembered how he himself had never had the chance of rebelion back in Eden. Even at its worst, even as it wore at him, he found he couldn’t shut Ben up the way Michael would have… Instead of appreciating this forebearance, Ben seemed strangely provoked by it, but Castiel, inexperienced with children, didn’t know how to get out of this situation. At least Ben had Dean to love, and Castiel to turn him into a prince, and so this situation was acceptable, he supposed.

Now to get on with the rest of his duties which, as it turned out, also revolved around family. And since one of the visitors this day was king Michael, domestic love and cheer would not be flowing from that quarter either. But after almost two years of married life, Castiel was finally going to meet his brother in marriage, Samuel Winchester. He’d never even seen the man outside of a portrait, and the fear that Samuel would disapprove of him, of his inclinations and his marriage to Dean were some of the concerns that had kept Castiel awake at night. But from what Dean had told him - proudly and at length - of his brother, Samuel was a kind and tolerant man, and Castiel hoped they’d get along.

“Or at least, better than this,” Castiel sighed, straightening the astrolabe that had fallen over when Ben slammed the door.

~~~ * ~~~

Dragging a surly Ben behind him, Castiel made sure the castle was ready to receive two sets of very distinguished guests and the rulers of large and powerful kingdoms, Eden to the south, and Gehenna to the north.

Gehenna had once been Azazel’s principality, and since he’d thoroughly murdered off anybody who might have the faintest whiff of claim to his throne ages ago, his death had left a mighty hole. Once the murderous royal had been executed, prince Sam of Lawrence became King Samuel Winchester, the ruler of the Gehenna by right of conquest. Another brilliant political coup for the Winchesters, it widened their sphere of influence to rival Eden's. The problem was, the kingdom of Gehenna fought Sam tooth and nail. The common people, beaten down by decades of Azazel’s wars, didn’t have much fire left in them, but they got pressed into service by the minor lords that Azazel had raised or spared, and a new war, or at least resistance, always seemed to be fomenting. Dean had spent a lot of time there helping his brother put down widespread banditry and unrest.

Then two years ago, shortly before Castiel’s wedding to Dean, Sam married the lady Eilen, a noble scion of a neighboring kingdom who had something of a claim to Gehenna via a side branch. She was, it was unfortunate to say, deaf and mute (so sad! said the courtiers around Castiel with a faint eye roll of contempt, as if this was something she or her parents had actively courted.) But as sole daughter and heir to the sizeable Leahy dukedom, she was still a prize.

To the court’s surprise, rumors were that Sam was madly in love with her. The third floor chambermaid and the second butler had both assured Castiel that she was a witch, her deafness a curse from God for bespelling the poor king. Castiel had put them in their place, angry that they could malign this woman they’d never met and who was in a similar position to his own in a foreign land. For his part, he rather hoped Sam did love her and that she loved him. Not all noble marriages could be rife with heartbreak after all.

Love or not, it was a brilliant political move. The alliance quelled any hope of rebellion amongst the nobles, the troops that were Eileen’s dowry bolstered Samuel’s control. The country calmed down, and the castle Dante, once as dangerous as a battlefield, prone to stabbings and poisonings, became a much happier place. Probably not Eileen’s influence directly. Dean had met her during his brother’s nuptials and affirmed that she was not simple, unlike others similarly afflicted from birth; ‘pretty damn sharp, actually,’ was what Dean said. Eileen could even read and write, but that would not let her communicate with a largely illiterate servant force, many of whom would be wrung by the widespread superstition that people like her could not even have a soul, being as mute as a fish in Lent. Someone in her family must have had the acumen to hire a good seneschal and housekeeper to manage the castle in her stead.

The situation had so improved that the royal couple was free to make their first visit abroad without worrying that a revolt would occur the minute they crossed the border. Michael had taken the occasion for a state visit, making this a tripartite meeting of the powers of the region, and Castiel’s cup runneth over, because having to manage the pomp and ceremony of two royal visits on top of having to deal with his brother might just push him past the point of sanity.

~~~ * ~~~

As the sun rolled past its zenith and tumbled back down towards the castle’s western fortification, two sets of brothers met again after two years apart. Night and day could not have been more different than those two sets of greetings.

“Sam!”

“Dean!”

Cue much hugging and thumping of backs and commenting on Samuel’s hair.

“Castiel.”

“Your majesty.”

Michael turned away without another word and went to talk to Dean.

Castiel didn’t follow, he knew his place; behind the three royals entering the grand hall and side by side with queen consort Eileen (Michael had opted to leave Naomi at home, a small but much appreciated blessing as far as his brother was concerned.) Ben should also have been with Castiel, but he'd escaped his warden and was currently riding atop Samuel's tall shoulders, telling him all about the puppy he was raising to be a hunter. Micheal, striding stiffly at their side, did not look impressed.

The formal greetings took their usual small eternity, then the royals dispersed to refresh themselves in their rooms, and Castiel ran around (in a princely, stately manner, naturally) ensuring that everything would be ready to receive them when they came back down.

Samuel returned almost immediately; he apparently favored the ‘head in a bucket of water’ approach to cleaning up, same as his brother. Castiel ran into him in the corridor outside the great hall.

“Ah, prince Castiel - can I call you Cas?”

“Of course, your maj-”

“Egads, Sam! Call me Sam, we’re brothers by marriage now.”

“Of course, Sam.”

“I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

“Likewise.” Each kind word loosened the bands of steel that'd been caging Castiel's chest these past few weeks.

“I declare, what you have done with this castle? Amazing. Simply amazing. You should have seen it near the end of the war, for all of Ellen’s travails it was worse than a henhouse with a fox in it. Now it’s running like a prized hunter. But that’s nothing compared to the real renovation.”

“The… renovation? I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.” Was Sam thinking about the changes made to the west wing? That had only required a new set of draperies and some expensive glazed panes for the windows of the guest rooms-

“I’m talking about the boneheaded brute I call a brother,” said Sam with a wickedly amused grin. “His welcome just now almost knocked me on my fundament. The way he took control of the reception? So polite. Practically looked regal. However did you do it?”

He laughed, not as loud as his brother but just as warmly as he watched Castiel fumble around for an appropriate answer. “Ah, don’t bother, I’ll just appreciate the results. C’mon, brother, you and I need to find some wine and have a long talk. I already feel like I know a lot about you, but I’m sure there’s much Dean forgot to mention. For instance, his letters say you read ‘books’, but he can’t for the life of him tell me which kind. Do you like these new science treatises by the Luminaries? Did you hear they claim we are turning around the sun, rather than the contrary? Some eastern scholar is said to have proven it years ago, but the church prosecuted him and burned his texts. Incredible idea, though, isn’t it? What do you think?”

Castiel thought that here at least was a member of his family in law which whom he’d get along, and who knew that books could be used for something other than propping up a table. He wasn’t able to talk with Sam as long as he wanted to, but they made plans to meet again often in the lectern room during Sam’s month-long sojourn.

Eventually all the royal heads were gathered, drinks were poured, toasts exchanged, and Castiel eclipsed himself. His next hourly argument with Crowley was due.

The door behind him closed with a sharp click. Castiel glanced around, and decades of instilled reflexes froze him to the spot.

In a room alone with Michael. What joy.

Michael looked over his shoulder as if he could make sure through the closed door that the Winchesters were busy talking in the other room, then he stalked towards Castiel.

“Are you keeping him happy?” he asked shortly and without preamble.

“Yes your majesty.” Castiel’s answer was immediate, a soldier scrambling to obey his superior’s barked order without question.

“Are you certain? This marriage needs to-”

The next word was bitten off as the door opened behind them.

Queen Eileen walked in and seemed startled to find them there, examining them with wide, innocent eyes. She nodded and sat down near the fire with her embroidery. Castiel had taken a shortcut through the parlor when his brother ambushed him. Eileen must have followed, assuming everyone was leaving Sam and Dean alone to catch up in peace.

“I’m sorry, my lady, we were having a private conversation- damnation, I forgot the bint can’t hear a thing,” Michael growled when Eileen continued to embroider.

As if feeling his irritation, she glanced up and smiled.

“Vacant cow,” said Michael loudly and with a polite smile in return. “You too are lucky the Winchester men like their goods thoroughly defective.”

“Brother!” Castiel gasped, glancing horrified at Eileen, who still smiled politely, head tilted to one side as if she had a feeling they were discussing her and was vaguely wondering what they were saying

“What, she can’t hear us. I bribed their court’s chirurgeon, and the physicker as well. An aigue when she was a babe. Made her as deaf and dumb as stone, and just about as useful. Sounds familiar to you, I’m sure.”

Castiel flinched, a distant memory coming back to him, raging fever, endless bleedings, pain crushing his head, neck and groin...

Michael visibly dismissed the woman and continued as if she wasn’t in the room. “I don’t need to tell you this, Castiel, but you and this marriage of yours are on thin ice.”

Castiel went cold to his boots.

“I know for a fact that the duchess of Kendricks is maneuvering to present her daughter to Dean in the hopes of a marriage alliance, and she’ll throw her angel son into the bargain if she thinks that might entice him further. There are councillors in Lawrence who’d prefer there to be an heir and a spare. They would love nothing more than to have the king set you aside. Don't give Dean a reason to agree with them. I’ve heard conflicting information on whether you even share his bed. Couldn't you even do that right?"

Castiel stared at him, old fears warring with the new liberties he’d picked up with Dean and his less formal court. He’d been keeping an eye on the situation as a matter of course, since ambitious forces would find it awfully easy to dispose of a deviant male spouse barely recognized by the church. Dean had absolutely no desire for further heirs, though, and Castiel knew every single court intrigue in existence, had even fomented a couple himself to draw out his enemies amongst the cabinet and fiefs, and did Michael think he was a child-

But it was a child’s fears that kept him silent, a vicious old noose of deference and dread that kept him submitted.

“I suppose the reports of Dean’s proclivities were exaggerated, and he mainly agreed to this marriage for the alliance. He was too canny to go for our cousin Hannah, he knew we don’t get along well with that branch.” Michael glared at the floor-to-ceiling drapery illustrating a boar hunt as if that could illuminate the Winchester mindset for him. “But it’s your duty and your best interest to make sure he’s as satisfied as possible. If he’s not interested in that useless rear of yours, then at least make sure you employ that bloody mouth to best effect. We’ll talk more before I leave. I need to get a better feel for this bedlam Winchester calls a court, see what plots may be brewing.” With that he turned on his heels and walked out back towards the main hall.

Castiel could feel himself shaking slightly as he sat down near Eileen. The words had plunged daggers of ice into his chest, old memories resurfacing. He’d buried them deep these past two years, he’d forgotten these feelings… He should have said something. He wished he’d said something. He wished a little part of himself didn’t believe he still deserved to feel this way… He was mortified at his own cowardice, and on Eileen’s behalf as well even if she hadn’t heard a word. So cruel, to belittle someone for what couldn't be helped. But maybe she was fortunate in her misfortune. Unlike Castiel, she couldn't hear them. All those little whispers. The oblique references. And Crowley who had the gall to yell, “Get me bloody better beef, my liege! You may fancy the bull, but I can only cook with the heifer!” (Crowley, it was worth repeating, was a godsend in the kitchen and Castiel was constantly having to fight off poaching attempts by other castles. And… truth be told, he preferred the chef’s brass to the fake solicitude when someone mentioned Lisa, or made an oblique reference to his unnatural preferences.)

Eileen beamed at him. She swapped her embroidery for the small wax tablet she kept in her girdle. It was the same trick they used in some monasteries enforcing the vow of silence, a brilliant way to get around her shortcomings. Eileen bent her elegant head and scribbled with the attached stylus: Your brother is charming. So royal.

“Ye-.. um.” Castiel nodded instead, and then wrote on the tablet which she’d proffered: You are of great lineage too. I admire your work in castle Dante. And you’re a hundred times better than my brother, he wanted to add, but he wouldn’t commit those dangerous words even to such impermanent material as wax.

You’re sweet! Eileen wrote, then went back to her embroidery.

~~~ * ~~~

Royal banquets followed the first two evenings of the visit. Crowley tortured Castiel and culinarily exceeded himself at the same time; even Michael pronounced the meals ‘almost as good as in Eden, quite decent.’ The first day was spent in talks, the second and third days in a hunt. Castiel stayed behind (and flinched at Michael’s look of disapproval), but he had too much to do: his regular duties, and entertaining her highness, his fellow royal consort who also did not care for bloodsport. Or that was the plan. It was perplexing that Eileen never called for him, did not join him in any of the parlors, and in fact wasn’t seen all day outside of church in the morning and lunch at midday.

“She’s a queer duck,” said one of the maids, not realizing she was within earshot of Castiel (whose ability to move about very quietly had become the bane of everyone in the castle, from the boot boy to Dean himself.) “Margret says the lady showed up in the guest rooms out of nowhere, her robe covered in dust and a spider in her coiffe."

“What on earth was she doing?”

“Margret has no idea! Have you heard she’s a witch? She has a whole valise of potions, Ignatio swears to it, and they say she can fly! She was spotted on the tower last evening, the north one that’s blocked off, and- eek! Um, sorry, y- your highness- um-”

A long lecture sent the chastened servants on their way. Castiel continued up the stairs to the guest wing, deciding to fetch Eileen himself rather than depend on those chittering merry-andrews. He would die if they somehow managed to convey their disrespect to a queen of a powerful foreign land, much less to a woman with a warm easy smile and kind eyes who, it was obvious to anyone, made Castiel’s brother-in-law very happy.

The loud noise of the rap on her door underlined how useless a gesture it was in the circumstances. Sam was already downstairs with Dean, and Castiel had seen Eileen's lady in waiting gossiping downstairs in the servant's dining hall earlier. How was he to get her attention? He dithered awhile, but finally cracked open the door.

She was sitting down at the large desk in the solar, fully dressed and decent fortunately, tinkering with something. A wooden case full of glass vials nestled in straw was at her elbow, and Eileen was swirling the contents of one over the flame of a candle while pouring in drops from another. The sight, the silence other than the crackle of the candle and the tink of one vial touching the other was… perturbing. Castiel stood frozen to the spot, wondering how to announce himself and also what she was doing… He wasn’t a superstitious jackass, of course; he read treatises on philosophy regularly. Why, he had a very clever one on his desk right now, regarding the spontaneous generation of salamanders from ditch water and burned wood which he intended to re-read in peace once he had the time. But there was something about Eileen… the way her eyes followed one, the steady way she gazed at people’s features, the wit she showed on her tablet that was so strange coming from this otherwise silent and isolated woman- now she was boiling the liquid, what in heaven’s name was she doing…?

In the crude reflection in the leaded glass window, Eileen’s eyes leapt up and spotted him. She turned and fortunately smiled, not insulted by his intrusion. She put down her small beaker and gestured him towards a chair at her side.

“I’m-” damnation, where was her tablet? Had Sam told her it would be a small supper tonight, just the four of them? Michael had been tired out by two days of hunting (he wasn’t all that young anymore), he had supped early and retired, and the other nobles and the large royal retinues were being fed in the feasting hall with Sir Robert presiding tonight.

Despite his best intentions, his gaze drifted towards the beaker. It fled guiltily when Eileen reached past the glass and grabbed a velum letter, turning it over and picking up the pen from an open inkwell. She wrote quickly and held up the paper so he could read the result. Without the constraint of the wax tablet and stylus, her penmanship was flowing, elegant and very beautiful. Castiel found himself admiring the words before the content leapt out at him.

Do you believe in magic?

“Uh…”

The paper went back on the desk, the pen flicked in and out of the inkwell. Eileen wrote quickly and held up the paper once again.

You should! I can turn you invisible! Cast a spell that reveals hidden truths! I can snatch words out of thin air from twenty yards and steal away a man's thoughts!

Castiel could do nothing more than stare, speechless...

Eileen suddenly burst out into something like breathy laughter, and made a gesture that Castiel interpreted as ‘you should see your face!’ Then she turned the lid of the wooden container around and pointed out the engraved word ‘Medicinae’ on it.

Castiel forced out a polite laugh. He didn’t have much of a sense of humor at the best of times.

Making a tonic for the morn, was scritched on the bottom of the paper once she’d retrieved it. Sam said he’ll need one after a night drinking with Dean. Time to sup?

Castiel gratefully nodded. On his way down the stairs, holding her arm, he sternly gave himself the same lecture he’d given that saddle-goose of a maid earlier. Witchcraft indeed, how utterly preposterous. The wise Edward of Ced Moor and Sieur Henry Spangler had written very intelligently about witches, saying they lost all their teeth when they made their pact and kissed the devil, which made eminent sense. Eileen, beyond being a very kind, pure and witty lady, had a perfectly good set in her mouth, so that proved that.

~~~ * ~~~

Supper was pleasant, all the more so for Michael's absence. The brothers drank heavily and reminisced about the war while Castiel tried to entertain Eileen.

Well after nearby St Bibiana rang for complines, Eileen wandered off to examine the royal portraits hanging around the room. Castiel perforce accompanied her with a candelabra, leaving the two kings drinking by the fire behind them.

Those are strong eyes! Eileen wrote enthusiastically on her tablet before thrusting it at him.

Castiel nodded, and, as Eileen held the candles for him, wrote, “Queen consort Mary, King John’s wife,” in the wax. He jotted down a few salient points about the Lady Mary Campbell, year of birth, marriage, her lineage… Eileen however countered with details about Sam’s upbringing in the few years a living Mary had raised him, information Castiel had never even heard. Yet this was the first time Eileen had set foot in this castle. Sam must have told her all about his mother, sharing with the spouse he loved intimate details about his upbringing, his childhood. Dean had never bothered.

Their exchange being via the medium of the wax, the other conversation across the hall intruded at times. The two sovereigns were inebriated and not keeping their voices down.

“Can you really say that?” Sam asked, speaking with the concentration of a very crocked scholar. “Can you really say fire won’t spring twice from a dead hearth?”

“Don’t get trite, man. I’m just saying, dad loved mom. You saw him after she passed.” Oh, they’d seen their spouses’ object of attention and had started discussing its subject as well.

“He could have loved Lady Kate too, if she hadn’t died…” Sam’s voice was softer, Castiel could barely make out what he was saying. “Maybe we’d have had another brother.”

“Bullshit,” said Dean, thumping down his goblet viciously. “You don’t love like that again. It’s a once in a lifetime thing. Chance. Chance-thing, y'know what I mean. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and nothing can replace it.”

Sam’s response was inaudible.

“A toast, then!” Dean declared. “To love and all that, the real kind that comes along only once. However you cut it, whatever the pain and shit we’ve been through, Sammy, you and I are lucky men to have known it at all. Think pitig- pinting- pintigly - feel sorry for the poor bastards who never find it. A toast! To the ones who made us feel that way at least once 'n our lives! C’mon, Sham, raise your glass and shay- say, to the ones-”

“Strewth, Dean, how drunk are you?”

...Love that comes along only once...

Eileen was looking at him keenly, eyes flashing between his expression and the two kings sitting back near the fire. Fortunately she couldn’t hear what they were talking about, or she might wonder at the way Castiel’s face had fallen. He knew what Dean thought of him, but it was still hard to hear him toast a dead woman when his husband was in the room… His fingers were white around the column of the candelabra, the light of the candles shook over Queen Mary’s portrait.

Dean was drunk, he hadn’t meant to hurt Castiel’s feelings. It was just the way it was… Castiel quickly reassembled the mask he reserved for royalty and hiding his true feelings. He began to talk softly about the artist who’d painted the portrait, then cursed himself and gestured helplessly with his free hand, showing off some of the finer details of the ermine lining of the gown. Eileen, poor thing, didn’t even look where he was pointing, she was staring fixedly at his fingers instead. Oh dear, so hard not to be able to communicate.

“Cross’s nails, Dean, why do you have to be cup-shot before we can talk about this stuff?” Sam giggled.

“What-what d’you mean? M’not drunk. You’re drunk. Got wine all over your- your chest-bit there. Now, now, now you know what’s weird? It’s the quiet times. The silence. S’different silence when they’re here and quiet, and when they’re gone, you notice that? That’s what I’m talkin’ about. That’s, y’know, the feeling.”

“Love, you mean?”

“Shut up.”

Castiel decided to go and check on the fruit in hippocras that Crowley should have sent up by now. Anything to leave the room for a few minutes… Courtesy pulled him up short, needing to explain himself to Eileen, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was examining the portrait. Instead of standing at a distance to appreciate the regality of the royal features like a proper connoisseur should, her nose practically touched the paint as she examined closely the fold of crimson cloth, the royal hands folded on Mary’s lap. What on earth was she doing?

Sam hiccuped. “Hmm. That’s… I must be equally ebrious because what you said actually made sense.”

“Yeah, y’know, back when it was Lisa sitting here-”

Castiel decided then and there that he was going to be a trifle rude and go after the fruit and more beverages. Eileen could look after herself.

~~~ * ~~~

Castiel sent the drinks and sweet dish up with a servant and an excuse: he was retiring early, he had the head ache. He doubted anybody noticed. He stared at the ledgers for awhile, but his heart wasn’t in it, and the flickering light of the taper threatened to give him the head ache in truth (Ellen’s revenge against the expenditure of beeswax candles had been perpetrated against his innocent candelabra which had been ‘taken away to be cleaned’ along with the rest of the silverware a confounding number of days ago.) Resignedly, Castiel prepared himself to go to bed. Dean, it was certain, would not require him further tonight, the king would stay up talking with his family. After sorting out a few last details with the staff and ignoring a threatening message from Crowley about what to expect for dinner tomorrow if the cook's demands were not fully met, he prepared for bed.

He had barely started to unlace his surcoat when a knock at the door interrupted him. And here he thought he’d sorted out all the issues that could possibly crop up.

Eileen stood there, surprisingly, holding a candelabra and her tablet onto which she had already written: I’m glad you’re not yet in bed, I have something to show you.

“What?” Castiel asked stupidly, but she’d already spun around, light as a sparrow. She took three quick steps away and gestured back at him to follow.

She hadn’t even mentioned the pretext he’d used to excuse himself; as far as she knew, he should be suffering right now… But any guest in his castle was as unto a king, Castiel reminded himself, and followed resignedly, if a little ungraciously, to see what the explanation to this mystery was.

To his confusion, Eileen avoided the direction of the guest wing and also the consort’s parlor, and instead popped into a small sideroom in the servant’s access for storing laundry, candle boxes and other sundries.

“Uh- your highness, that’s-” He kept forgetting that she couldn’t hear him.

Eileen walked past chests of furs, blankets, old clothes feasted on by moths beneath their dustsheets, and stopped, of all places, in front of a tiny stretch of paneled wall.

Then, to Castiel’s utter amazement, she kicked the moulding sharply with her foot, and the wooden panel swung open.

Castiel gaped.

“A- a spy’s way? Here?! I-” damn, she couldn’t hear him.

From the twinkly smile she directed at his stunned face, she didn’t need to hear him to guess his reaction. She handed him the candles and started jotting on her tablet.

I found it yesterday. Forgive me but I do love to explore.

“That’s quite alright- er-” she wasn’t handing him the tablet. “I didn’t even know this was here,” Castiel muttered entirely for his own benefit. It wasn’t just a hole, it was a narrow passageway. He’d heard of these: gaps in the walls through which to spy unseen, for assassins to get around, or escapeways if the castle was taken. There was an old section of the winter residence back in Eden that had once had similar passages, carefully filled in by one of Castiel’s more cautious ancestors who had decided that the chance to escape an enemy didn’t outweigh the possibility that the spies or assassins freely moving about might not be his own. But how had Eileen found this?

The wax was thrust at him again. Recognized the signs pointing to them. Have them in Dante too. Same. From Men of Letters.

The name plucked at his memory, one of the old cabals that had flourished last century during the times of strife: the Men of Letters, the Princes of Hell, the Hunters, the Alpha Conspiracy-

K. Henry’s father was a MOL, I heard. So was K. Henry I think. But he died when K. John was young. Must not have told him about these.

“Oh, that makes sense- no- no Eileen - wait! That could be dangerous!”

But to his horror, the queen had whisked away her tablet, spun around and vanished into the passageway, plunging the sideroom into darkness bar the twinkle of her candles, growing ever smaller until it was abruptly cut off by the spring door swinging shut. Castiel gasped, horrified, and kicked frantically in the dark until he hit the hidden release that swung the door open again.

“Queen Eileen! Drat it, she can’t- Wait!” Castiel perforce followed her, praying to god and all the saints that these antiquated passageways weren’t prone to collapse. He further got the cold sweats when he realized the door had sprung shut behind him again. Could it even be opened from this side?! He should be able to break it- but first to catch Eileen!

She was fast! She didn’t seem to worry about the state of the architecture. Then again, she said she’d been exploring. Was that what she’d been doing during her days? Castiel tried to catch up with her, but his height and size were a hindrance here, and she was considerably faster and more agile than he’d given her credit for, always ten steps ahead. He followed her blindly for a considerable time, occasionally tripping over something - rubble, or old bones or who knew what in this darkness barely lit by the candles up ahead. God spare him from breaking a leg in here-

The candlelight darted sideways and then up, and up and up and vanished. Only a faint outline of light remained to guide a panicking Castiel forward, where he found an archway breaking up the small narrow passageway. An archway leading to corkscrew stairs so narrow and tight he had to move his shoulders sideways and lean down to worm his way up. It went up two turns and then opened onto a landing. Another spring door had once concealed it, but it’d fallen off its hinges ages ago, almost invisible beneath a layer of dust. It creaked under his feet as he stepped on it.

Another corkscrew stairway, normal in size this time, snaked up from the landing. The place was dusty and felt unused. Eileen was half a turn up, waiting for him, but she ignored his frantic gestures to come back and walked up the stairs instead. There was a lot of debris strewn about, old bricks, wreaths of cobwebs so thick they were almost solid, and a lot of bits of old tapestries that had been nibbled away and carried here to make nests for an entire kingdom of mice. Castiel coughed, covering his mouth and nose with his hanging sleeve, and promised himself to come back here with a cat. Eileen had slowed down up ahead so he could see where he put his feet by her candlelight. If he lunged he could catch her trailing skirt, but he risked plunging them both down the stairs if he did so. And she just wasn’t stopping. Helpless, he followed until a second landing. An old oak door opened with a thunderous creak of its rusted hinges just as Castiel reached the queen, she slipped outside before he could quite catch her. Stepping out into the cold night air, Eileen made a wide enthusiastic gesture as if she was handing him the whole castle around them on a platter.

Confusion gave way to understanding. He did know where they were, he’d seen this very spot from his window every day for the past two years, he’d just never been up here before. The old north tower had been barred at the base by king John when he’d built further fortifications with bartizans, making this edifice redundant as a watchtower and too costly to maintain during the war. It hadn’t been used in ages.

In the cold air, a startling sight: a sky both above and below. Clouds drifted over stars, smoke drifted over a few lights from the castle and the town at their feet, the lamplighter’s tireless work dotting the important streets here and there… The moon floated above, round and full, the river beyond the town echoed its pearly shine. The enchanting view held Castiel for all of three heartbeats but then he was examining the solidity of the tower (not abysmal) and the height of the battlements protecting them from a deadly plunge (satisfactory.) Neither was the tower’s guette likely to drop a tile on their heads, though the wooden beams holding up the open construct’s roof looked fairly rotten. He’d have to tell Dean to get this taken down before it tumbled into the courtyard and onto someone’s head. Wait… was this place truly abandoned? The guette didn’t look used, but it protected a servant’s tick mattress covered in an old blanket, and one of the battlement crenelations sported a corked jug and two goblets.

Eileen waved her tablet at him, she’d been writing while he looked around. The candlelight dancing in the faint breeze made it hard to read. Castiel squinted.

I found this place yesterday. Came up earlier. Have some wine to celebrate our adventure!

“Uh… not too much wine.” Thinking of the stairs, Castiel wrote the same message on the wax, but Eileen had no interest in picking up the tablet again, she had uncorked the jug and poured. The scent of mulled wine wafted out, the neck of the jug steamed. It had been cold and damp in the passageway and it was brisk up here. Castiel found himself reaching for the goblet with more enthusiasm than he normally would. Just one cup for courtesy, then they had to negotiate those stairs down, make their way back to the sideroom and go to bed. He had an early day tomorrow, same as usual.

Part exasperated at the thought, part entertained at the crazy little adventure his guest had dragged him on, he toasted Eileen and took a long draught. Then he leaned against the battlement and looked around. The warmth of the goblet warmed his fingers and he took another sip.

“It is nice up here, thank you for thinking to take me.” Castiel knew she couldn’t hear him. It didn’t matter. “Thank you for being… for being kind.”

Then something very strange happened.

The moon fell out of the sky like a snowberry off a bush. The rooster soared out of the stables to catch it. Oh no! Who would crow up the sun tomorrow? A passing owl promised to do it. Castiel tried to thank the bird but his tongue had turned to cloth. An odd, slightly nasal voice said strange words next to his ear, a spell in a foreign tongue. Or maybe just one word: “Magic…” A hand as large as a breadboard caught his goblet, another pushed gently at his shoulder, making him giggle as he slowly, slow as a feather, floated back and down to the tick mattress sprouting a field of daisies, and then Castiel was out like the sun at mid night.

Chapter Text

Castiel came awake with an indelicate snort and pawed off the fold of cloth that’d fallen over his face. His mouth tasted like the bottom of the moat, but he felt remarkably rested. Good, because the owl was going to crow any minute now and his duties- wait what?

Two homespun blankets went flying as Castiel catapulted into a seating position.

It- Last night- He was up in a tower!!

Eileen was leaning against a crenelation nearby, staring rapturously out at the horizon. The day was clear, the angle of the sun suggested it was way, way, way too late to be getting out of bed- or rather a nest of blankets on a tick mattress atop the north tower with the wife of a foreign ruler standing nearby.

“What-”

Eileen didn’t hear his croak of sheer bewilderment. Dressed in different clothes than her gown last night, shoulders wrapped in a shawl and hair up in a simple way, she followed a flight of sparrows with her eyes. Then she caught sight of Castiel struggling to get untangled from the blankets. She gave him a smile of such inappropriate cheer that he wondered if he hadn’t succumbed to his childhood aigue once again, and was lying delirious in bed.

“What- what- what-...”

Eileen bent forward and held up her wax tablet. It had clumps of words inscribed already. Her stylus was pointing at the first line.

I’m sorry the wine was so strong. But I do believe you needed a good long rest. You look so tired since we arrived.

Castiel’s mouth opened around an objection so large it wouldn't even get out.

With a flourish of the stylus Eileen drew his attention to the next clump of text. Castiel’s eyes flitted over the words and then the paragraphs.

Do be quiet. So embarrassing if we were found here together.

Oh god!

Think what your brother would say.

Oh GOD!!!

It’s late, you know. Everyone’s looking for you.

Castiel clutched at his hair. But the stylus brought him back from the edge of panic with a smart rap at the final words, a lengthy paragraph.

So I will take you back to your rooms in secret. Your garderobe has a hidden door. You will call for help, someone is sure to come. Say you heard mice, and when you looked, you fell through the hidden door and struck your head. I studied the apothecary arts. I’ll examine your humors and say it is so. It will all pass just fine. Nod if you agree.

Nod?! The devil take nodding! Castiel snatched up the tablet and wrote WHY???? in the small space at the bottom, the tip of the tool scoring the final question mark into the wood of the frame. He wasn’t even sure himself if he was asking ‘why was the wine so strong?’, ‘why didn’t you fetch someone when I collapsed?’ or ‘why don’t I believe for a single heartbeat that any of this is an accident?! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!!!’

Eileen took back the stylus and, face as innocent as an angel’s, underscored the first sentence of But I do believe you needed a good long rest. You look so tired since we arrived.

“That doesn’t make sense!!!” Castiel hissed, resisting the urge to wring her neck. Then he reached for the tablet, intending to write it with just as much punctuation, but Eileen stood lively and kept it out of reach, smoothing over some lines with a thumb and then scritching away quickly.

When he finally got the tablet away from her, she’d written: Or mayhaps I am a witch and this is my magic spell. Your people believe this.

The fact that it was scribbled above the sentence Think what your brother would say froze Castiel to the bone.

Shit. Shit!

… With a stiff gesture he held out the tablet without adding anything, and indicated she should take the lead. Eileen grinned impishly and held a finger to her lips. Castiel rolled his eyes and imitated her. Yes, he knew he had to be quiet. It would be disastrous if they were found now. It didn’t even matter what kind of scandal people could weave out of this, none of it could be good. Her plan, crazed as it was, was probably the soundest.

From her change of clothes and her reposed air, it was obvious Eileen had spent the night comfortably in her bed, so at least there would be no sordid rumors that he had absconded with her, thank the lord for small mercies. She must have broken her fast and then come back up the tower a short while ago, well prepared. Her candelabra stood ready with new candles, flint and iron at hand, and she unwrapped from a kerchief a trencher of bread, some cheese and a jug of watered down wine. Castiel sniffed the latter suspiciously, and got a light smack on the head for his efforts, followed by an imperious, sisterly gesture to stop being a doddypoll and get his strength back. Left with little choice, Castiel sipped gingerly at the fluid. When nothing untoward happened, he quickly drank the whole jug down, chasing away the horrible tang on his tongue. He was still working at the bread and cheese when Eileen shooed him towards the egress.

The dancing flames of the candles led him down the stairs to the broken spring door, and then to the narrow corkscrew, which was harder to descend safely than it was to ascend… Down and then further down, past their original route. Castiel frowned and caught up with her when the stairs evened out into a narrow corridor; this time she wasn’t trying to outpace him. Eileen watched him point upwards, then shook her head and gestured on. He followed her slowly. Come to think of it, last night’s hidden panel in the sideroom was the only exit that way. If he came out there, he’d have to walk through half the consort wing to get back to his room, and the place would be bustling at this time of the mid-morning. The passage in his garderobe must be accessible through another path. Sweet lord’s grace, he had a secret passageway into his garderobe twenty steps away from his bed. It was fortunate no assassin had known of this. First thing tomorrow, Castiel was calling for a stonemason...

The clammy cold and the sod walls suggested this new corridor was underground, mayhaps deeper even than the cellars. On and on the passage went with only one opening he could see, closed with rubble in Eileen’s candlelight. The queen marched on confidently, which gave Castiel some courage.

Four shallow steps up led to a passage sloped and cobbled for drainage, though the smell was mainly old grease, smoke and dirty water rather than anything fouler. Castiel found the combination of odors strangely familiar. A shard of light up ahead caught his attention, a tiny slit visible at shoulder height. Eileen stopped to peek through it, and then let Castiel take her place… to see an unexpected sight. His gaze was near floor level of a room that was overly familiar.

“The kitchen?" he whispered. "How can we be here if we’re heading towards my room?” The kitchen was not even part of the castle proper, it was a separate structure on one side of the courtyard joined to the feast hall by an arcade to reduce the risk of fires taking the whole place down. Castiel stared into the large stone room, the site of many of his trials and tribulations. Various trade aprons ran around, all skirting at a prudent distance the large table near the hearth where the master of this domain stood, glaring around him.

Eileen shook her head. Detour she wrote in wax, he read it over her shoulder by the light from the gap into the kitchen. I know where I’m going.

Some inconsistency in that exchange just now knocked at the door of Castiel’s thoughts, trying to garner his attention, but it was interrupted.

"Sir Bobby!" Crowley bellowed, louder than a hunting horn.

The kitchen was chock full of sous-chefs, pantlers, bakers, waferers, sauciers, larderers, butchers, carvers and scullions boiling around the smoke-wreathed kitchen like little devils toiling down in hell. At that single shout they flinched to a man and fell silent all at once.

"What the dickens do you want?" Sir Robert paused, he’d been hurrying up the stairs from the large underground cellar and larder where the palace cats led their nightly charge against the forces of the mice.

"Have you found our vagrant prince?" Crowley barked.

Oh, so Eileen wouldn’t have to pretend he had a head injury, surely Castiel’s brain ventricles were severely out of balance if he thought he’d heard Crowley actually inquire about his absence.

"Why do you care?" Robert snarled venomously. Goodness, the man was normally phlegmatic and calm to a fault, what could possibly have happened- oh, of course.

Robert took a sharp turn in his hurried course to stride towards Crowley. Poulterers, confectioners, milkmaids and basters leapt out of his way left and right, a sea parting before him like Moses, but the pharaoh was already on the other side, waiting for him with a provocative sneer on his face.

“You don’t think I’m affected by his vanishing? I have three kings and all their retinue to feed, and Castiel is the only one who knows a good ham from a wooden peg in this primitive dungheap of a kingdom. If he’s not around to approvision me-”

"First," said Robert, grabbing the head chef by the apron flap, "do not insult my country. Second, I don’t have our prince’s saintly patience, so your lunatic demands are not my concern.”

“Ooh, keep going, can you count up to three?”

A look of fury and a clenched fist suggested the old knight was contemplating a more physical repartee, but then he released the apron. “I got no time for this. I’m turning this castle upside down if I have to, but I’ll find our prince.”

“You better, or I’ll hand in my hat!” Crowley waved the flat black cap of his trade at Robert’s back.

“Tempting, but I am unbribable,” sneered Robert without turning, “so I will keep on looking for him regardless.”

“I’m serious, Sir Bobby! No way am I staying in this so-called castle if the only person who knows fish from fowl has gone and gotten himself stolen away! But if you find him promptly - say, before supper - I’ll be grateful!”

“Stop talking!” shouted the knight from near the door.

“I’ll ply you with a passionate embrace!” Crowley suggested at the top of his lungs.

“I’ll ply you right into your own sarding oven!” Robert retorted just as loudly, already out in the hallway.

“Ahh, so much affection in this castle, I will miss it if I have to leave,” declared Crowley, turning back to his breadboard. Castiel got a shot of his face and it was not, for a fleeting moment, Crowley’s perpetual highbrowed sneer, it was a frown of-... concern…? But it cleared almost immediately. “Now, I am going to use what those old Athenians buggers called democracy here, which means that we will all be equally miserable making purses out of the sow’s ears in the larder for luncheon, but just to invigorate you lot, I swear on my soul that tomorrow’s potage will be based on the bones of the one I find most useless today. Now GET!”

The kitchen’s unnatural stillness shattered and cooks started running hither and thither like a warren with a hawk overhead. Eileen plucked at Castiel’s sleeve, reminding him with a start that he had urgent business further on. Giving his ringing head a shake, the prince followed the candlelight once more.

~~~ * ~~~

The passageway eventually climbed. The kitchen behind them allowed Castiel a sense of orientation, they were in the royal wing now. Oh, another spyhole.

The semi-basement hall of the servant’s quarters was an ant’s nest. People ran around, stopped to whisper in tight knots of twos and threes, then a burst of activity would carry them away again. Ellen was a lighthouse in the turmoil, standing tall above a huddle of maids. The women were half prostrate, aprons over their heads as they quivered and cried; though not to be outdone, one of the footmen was nearby bawling his head off.

“Pull yourself together, you lot,” Ellen snapped, though she didn’t look in their direction to see if they complied. In the dim light, her expression was stiff and severe. Castiel paused, feeling a little uncomfortable for putting the spy's way to its intended use, but he needed to get a lay of the land, find out what the current scurrilous rumor about his disappearance was and how he should combat it.

“Oh, oh, oh!” wailed one of the maids, getting a distracted glare from Ellen. “He was always so polite, our good prince! So good to us, so proper! Never yelled, never beat us- oh!” Her wails were picked up by the others. Through the theatrics and adder’s tears, some of the worry and regret seemed surprisingly genuine...

Edna flew by the huddle, quick despite her uneven gait, with the grimly determined look of one following in St Anthony’s footsteps until she found what she sought.

“There!” exclaimed Ellen. “There’s someone trying to do something about the problem rather than caterwaul. Why don’t you help her search? C’mon, you useless- what is it?!”

The young guard leapt back as if he’d been bitten. “I- I’m sorry, Dame Ellen, we tried, we really did, but word got out.”

Ellen’s face fell. “Tarnation,” she said quietly. Fortunately the maids had decided to take their wailing elsewhere before Ellen remembered where she’d left her birch switch, or else Castiel would not have heard her. He was amazed he could hear her anyway, she was a good nine yards from him. He glanced up and noted little holes near the top of the spy way leading to the arched ceiling of the servant quarters. Some very clever architect must have designed this for the best sound possible. The Men of Letters had had a number of exceedingly astute souls in their ranks.

“People have started to gather at the gate, they’re asking questions. Um, one of the early-morning tradesmen must have spread the word before you could bind them to silence- it was not one of us guards, I swear!”

Ellen looked unconvinced, while her hands twisted in her apron. “Castiel won’t like this, he so hates a fuss, especially on his behalf…”

She was right, of course. He hadn’t realized she knew him so well. With the maids gone and her back to the young soldier, her unguarded expression in the dim light of the servant’s quarters was careworn and grey.

Like a picture forming in the clouds, all of Ellen’s nagging and tartness took on another aspect in his mind. He’d been so worried that it came from a place of disrespect, of loathing for him and his inclinations; it had been that way back in Eden. But now that he saw it from the outside, as it were, witnessing the honest worry in her face, he saw that she’d only treated him the same way she treated Jo and Ben. And, wait, hadn’t he heard her hector Dean like that a few times too? How had he never made the connection before? Ellen had known Dean a long time, and the king was informal with his oldest friends like her and Bobby, it’d never stood out to Castiel before... But seen in that light, her brusqueness was the tone of a good acquaintance who had too much sense and respect to needlessly fawn. It could almost be seen as motherly...

She’d turned her back now to the guard, the eavesdropper and everybody else that might come by, blindly rearranging silverware on the sideboard as if to get their alignment exactly right. “Is Lord Robert handling the questioners?”

“No, ma’am, he’s busy searching for the prince. The gate officer is dealing with them, it’s the others he doesn’t know what to do with.”

“Others?”

“Yes ma’am. There’s a baker’s dozen of mendicants out there, leading a group of poor folk, paupers and ragmen and beggarboys and, um, ladies. Ah, not ladies as such, but-”

“What on God’s green earth are they all doing here?”

“Prayin’ for our prince’s safe return. Say they’re all the ones he fed last winter when even the crows were dropping dead out of the sky. St Bibiana turned them out of the chapel so they’re gathering here. The gate officer wants to know what we should do with them. Lord Robert told me he’d clip my ears if I asked him anything not related to the prince vanishing, so, um, shall we… chase them away…?”

“Absolutely not,” Ellen rapped out, coming back to her larger-than-life self with a jolt. “Here, I’m sending you to the kitchens. We have some old bread, cheese and watered beer set aside for the teamsters, take it out to them and tell them they can pray peacefully in the farrier’s yard in the bailey. It’s what our prince would want. Tell Crowley to give you what you need or I will paste him upside the head. I-”

Her voice faded as Castiel quickly moved on. He couldn’t believe his disappearance had caused this much consternation. He had to reverse it quickly.

~~~ * ~~~

Another corkscrew stairwell, so tight Castiel got stuck, his surcoat losing two drawstrings before he could disengage it. Then they were in the royal wing proper. The spyway this time was high in the wall like a concealed minstrel’s gallery. This put the spyholes right up where walls met rafters in the rooms beyond, where sounds carried best and where the view would not be obstructed by hanging tapestries. Every section of the spy way sported a manhole where walls met. There was a spring door visible at the bottom of one of those holes that had partially collapsed, half blocked with rubble. Eileen skirted the crumbling area carefully, and held the candle up behind her so Castiel could step over it. Each room in the wing must have a secret means of getting in and out of this assassin’s bluff, it was really quite alarming to have this in his castle…

Past that area, the passage extended a long way without interruption and the small spy holes were legion, steady pricks of light every three feet. And no wonder: this was it, the heart of the castle - of the entire kingdom. The large wooden coronation chair stood at Lawrence’s political epicenter, inlaid with copper sides, gold and ivory decorations at the top, rugs of ermine and fox spilling all around its pedestal. Gold-embroidered tapestries hung from every wall around it, the chairs for the other nobles crouched low before it paying homage to the throne. The long room was empty except for one person: the sole master after God of this entire kingdom, the anointed man who had the right and duty to sit on the high chair. Except he wasn’t, he was pacing around in front of it like a bear in a cage.

Castiel’s heart stopped. Oh sweet lord, what must Dean be thinking…? Castiel couldn't see his expression but he could imagine it. Eyes green and hard as malachite, face like thunder. Dean could get truly furious, though never with his dutiful spouse before. Until now. Dean’s strong stride looked like it would plough him straight through the walls encaging him. Oh mercy - he must believe his consort was malingering - or worse, that Castiel was dishonoring him in some way, had fled with- with-

A door opened and Dean spun around.

“Well?!”

Castiel was now staring straight at his husband’s face and his jaw dropped. No ire in that expression, no bared lip or hard eyes. Nothing but worry bordering on panic.

“Sorry.” Heavy footsteps brought Lord Robert into view, his back to Castiel. “No luck so far.”

“But how could he have gone missing?!” Dean spun around, gesturing harshly as if he was rending the air with a sword. “God’s nails, I’m going to go right now and-”

“No, Dean, we talked about this,” Robert affirmed. “You need to stay here. You don’t want your people to see you like this.”

“You think I fucking care?!”

“No, but Castiel would.”

That pulled Dean up with a snarl and he went back to his bear-baited pacing.

“God damn it! If only I’d noticed last night! But he sent down that he felt ill - Christ! - and I didn’t want to bother him so I didn’t check if he was in his room - bed not even slept in-”

Crash! went the scribe’s scriptorium, sent flying with a savage kick. Vellum rollers clattered to the floor, quills, a box of seals, an inkwell spun like a weathervane and splattered its storm-black content onto the throne’s ermine. The mess garnered Robert’s heavy look that suggested that this right here was why he didn’t want Dean tearing through the castle.

“Did you send everybody?!”

“Yes, I’ve been searching as well between organizing-”

“We have to find him! Bobby - he gets sick! This blighted meeting has run him ragged. What if he fell ill in some dark passage and we can’t find him?!'

“We’ll find him.”

Castiel stood rooted to the spot, eyes riveted to the spy hole, breath in his throat. The better angels of his nature prompted him to run to his room as fast as he could, end this charade, or maybe even bang on the wall right now and give Dean an idea that he was at least alive…

...but chains sunk into the deepest part of his heart bound him there, staring at the depth of Dean’s revealed feelings, the honest worry without a hint of anger or disappointment or suspicion… This is unworthy of you, sermoned his conscience, but Castiel just couldn't stop.

“Are we even sure he’s still in the castle?!”

“He’d already vanished by the time the gate was opened, and I tracked down the few people who went out after -”

“What if someone harmed him?!” Dean shouted, not having paid the answer any real heed.

“Who?” Robert asked bluntly, finally stepping in front of the king to force him to stop pacing. “They'd have to be the devil himself to get a jump on your prince. He’s had the courtiers whipped since Michaelmas the year he came. It was nice to no longer have to worry about it myself,” the old man grumbled, eyes dark with worry belying his tone. “He dealt just fine with those venomous toads, their little plots and power-plays. I was beginning to think I could finally retire without seeing you murdered immediately. No, I’m not sure what happened, but I don’t think-”

They both turned quickly as the far door opened. “Did you find him?!” they barked as one.

Samuel approached with a contingent of four guards. “No, I’m sorry. We, uh, we have men dragging the moat- but the greenery atop it has not been disturbed other than by the rubbish being dumped there this morning and the scullions assure me-”

Dean had almost leapt on him and had him by the shoulders. “Don’t say that! I can’t- I can’t lose him, Sam. I can’t. I just can’t.”

“You won’t, I’m sure of it.” Sam awkwardly patted his brother’s back. “Keep in mind there’s no signs of struggle anywhere, and we all ate of the same dish last night. I think… Um, I know this is strange, but I think it’s going to be alright. Ah, there’s something else, you see, Eileen, she’s... “

The pacing had resumed, but his brother’s hesitant words made Dean stop hard and spin around. “What?! I saw her this morning! Is she okay?!”

“Oh, almost certainly-... you know what, never mind, let’s just go find your husband. If you see Eileen, though, tell her to come see me now, I think I need to have a conversation with her,” Sam ground out, glaring at nothing much in particular. Castiel glanced at Eileen, who’d stood forgotten at his side. She was looking through the next spy hole over, grinning impishly as if she’d actually heard that. Not that she could. The light from the spy hole glinted in her eyes, she looked a far cry from the benign woman pottering around the castle in her own world of silence the last three days.

“Right, right, tell Eileen- something.” Dean looked too distracted to care, his feet once more treading flagstone.

“That goes for you men too,” Sam added over his shoulder.

Lord Robert looked from the king to his men and back to the king again. “Sam, my men can neither read nor write. How can they tell her anything?”

“She can-...” Sam bit off his next word and then rolled his eyes and seemed to be counting down Hail Marys in his head. “Just send someone to find me.”

“Come on,” Dean said, interrupting Robert’s uncertain acquiescence by striding towards the door like a man with a mission. “I don’t give a fuck if I don’t look regal right now. I want to search the cellars again. He’s always choosing the wines himself for the best occasions, why doesn't he send the goddamn steward? It’s the man’s job, but Cas always wants to-” his voice faded out along with the tromp of booted feet.

~~~ * ~~~

This castle, from the throne room to the bailey, had been his home and duty these past two years, Castiel no longer needed a guide to find his room through these spy-ways. He was running as fast as he could through the passage, turning sideways to squeeze through the narrower sections. Snatches of light and conversation spurred him on; someone shouting that ‘our prince’ hadn’t been found yet, another babbling that it was sure to be the work of the fair folk, a third blaspheming quietly-

“Don’t worry, Prince Benjamin, I will ensure nothing untoward happens to you.”

Castiel slammed into the wall in his haste to break his speed and find a viewpoint, heart freezing solid in his chest. That had been Michael’s voice.

The spyhole revealed the upper hall where consorts received their own court and visitors. Once more he was in the minstrel’s position, as if he was standing upon the shoulders of those in the room. His brother was pacing like Dean had, though without the furious energy. The look on his face was cold. His adviser, Zaccaria de Adler, kept pace, saturnine looks marred further by a frown. There were also four armed and armored guards in the room, two on each door. Lost in the middle of this large room full of grown men, Ben stood hunched, hands mauling each other, face pinched as he stared at the rug-covered flagstones.

“We have to assume it’s a coup. I am just not sure which group is moving against us.” Michael’s voice faded and grew as he paced by Castiel’s spyhole.

“I can’t believe his majesty king Dean still hasn’t thought to assure the safety of his heir.” Zaccaria’s tone was fastidious. “The only ones to check on Benjamin all morning were those little pests.”

“We will do his duty for him,” said Michael shortly. “In fact, we should call back all our guards to this wing now, protect them both. Castiel is most likely dead already, and if not, he is forever disgraced after this, but it is crucial that Winchester's heir be protected.”

The way he said heir, tone heavily ironic whilst only a few feet away from the precocious boy, made Castiel’s skin crawl.

“...my fault…”

“I knew I shouldn’t have left that useless brother of mine here without a firm - what was that?!” Michael rounded on the boy.

“My fault.”

“What are you saying?” The king towered over the child, looking ready to grab him and shake an answer out. “Is this a plot? Have you been contacted by someone?! Answer me, you little bastard!”

Castiel’s mind went red with fury and he hammered hard on the wall shouting “MICHAEL!” But the wall had some kind of soft cork wood inlaying it, his blow was muted and his exclamation didn’t seem to reach those below. He’d felt how light his footsteps sounded in the spyway since they’d passed the servant’s quarters. The Men of Letters had constructed it most cunningly to maximise the sound from one side and minimize any disturbance from the other. Castiel had his fist up and ready to hammer again regardless, an anger beyond any he’d ever felt before consuming all thought and reason, but Eileen caught his arm and held on tight.

“My fault.” The voice was light and fluty, the voice of a child. Ben normally stood tall and talked taller, imitating his dad…

Michael and Zaccaria leaned in to catch the words, the guards stopped shifting to avoid a creak of a binding or a stamp of sabaton that might distract their liege. In the strangling quiet, the child’s voice sounded louder than it was, for all it was as small and winding as a beggar’s lane.

“I - I was so mad at him. It was just me and Dean before he came, and I didn’t want-... Dean got so happy and I - I didn’t like that. Dean thinks he’s amazing and f-funny and brave. I thought maybe he’d… “ Words failed, a child’s fears gone unsaid of a father who was his only world remarrying and having to be shared, perhaps even lost to the intruder... “I made him sad all the time, and I insulted him and said he’d never be a part of our family. Not that he wants to be, not with me. He doesn’t like me.”

The rude snort indicated how much Michael cared for that. “Fine, but do you know what happened? You say you fought yesterday?”

Ben flinched and curled into himself a little more. “He just wants me to be a prince but I hate being a prince. I don’t want-... he knows-... everyone knows I’m not really a prince. I’m not really Dean’s-... I’m not really. They still all want me to take the throne after Dean and I don’t want to, I never want Dean to be gone and I don’t want to be a king. That’s like saying I’m supposed to forget my mom. She wasn’t royal. But Castiel… he just goes on and on about it, he wants to make me-... I mean, it’s like, I’m nothing but a prince to him, so if I’m not a prince then I’ll be nothing and then he really won’t care for me at all… and he’ll tell Dean to-... but I’m not. I’m not what he wants me to be. I’m not...”

“Trust me, if Dean had married our cousin Hannah as I’d have preferred, you wouldn’t be,” muttered Michael in what he might have thought was an aside, but since it carried up to the rafters, it rather failed to be. His footsteps as he stomped away buried the child’s words, they’d been increasingly faint and worn, a spooled thread of two years of uncertainty and fear unraveling.

The spyway was swaying, the little lights of the spyholes spun around him like tailed stars shattering the earth in their wake. Castiel had his hand pressed to his mouth, his mind a single stretch of cold white panic, a need to do- to say- to fix-

A rap on the door brought everyone’s attention there. A guard, one of Michael’s retinue, stuck his head in, gave it a shake and departed.

“Are you certain there are no rumors he was cleaving to anyone?” Michael asked Zaccaria as they started to pace together again. “That frigid caitif never looked all that happy with this marriage, but I thought he’d at least do his duty to the kingdom, as well as to Winchester. I swear on my bloodline, if he’s been catting around and gets caught, Dean had better not expect me to take him back. Castiel will long to be as lucky as Gabriel, exiled to the barbarian lands.”

“Of course, sire.”

“And you!” Michael’s pacing brought him back near Ben and he suddenly rounded on the boy. “Since my brother failed, I will have to take his place in some regards. I will ask Dean to send you to Eden for fostering and education. Until that can be arranged, I will ensure you have the appropriate mentors here as a last gesture of apology for my useless brother. They will turn you into a prince. It’s a good thing you know you’re not Dean’s, the whole world knows it too, trust me-”

A garbled sound of fury tried to echo around the passageway and was murdered by the lined walls. Castiel spun around and ran to the far end of the room where a hole led down to a lower level and, presumably, another hidden door. Eileen didn’t try to stop him, not that he’d have let her.

“- but you will be respected, even if they hate you for it. And I’m damned if anyone else will place a better spouse and heirs in Dean’s castle even if Castiel defaulted.” Michael’s tone was as harsh and cold as last year’s winter, trickling into the spy way like an ill wind. “Our alliance will not be supplanted! Put the bend sinister on your escutcheon if you must, but you will learn to hold your head up high enough for a crown, you misbegotten child, for the good of your kingdom and for the king that took you in instead of leaving you in the gutter.”

The hole was a straight drop down. It could have been straight down to the dungeons, but Castiel hadn’t thought of that until his feet hit stone at floor level. Another hidden spring door - but it was locked! Or stuck or-

“Bloodlines may be important, but the appearance of royalty itself is paramount, so a prince you will be! You will be useful! Or you will be the cause of much ruin and-”

Castiel threw himself hard against the door. The first time it jarred, the second time it let him out like a devil out of hell's trapdoor.

“Get away from him!”

Everyone spun around and stared.

Castiel was the only man moving in a gallery of statues, clouds of dust billowing behind him as he marched right past his brother and reached out for Ben, grasping the boy by the shoulders.

“Ben! I’m so sorry!”

Ben, tetanized with shock, stared at him with perfectly round eyes.

“I don’t want you to be a prince! Not just a prince. I didn’t want you to think I was usurping your mother’s place, but I never saw you as nothing but a political pawn. Dean loves you, and I- I think- I know we can be a family too if you want that. I do want that too. I want that so badly! I came from a place where royal duty is more important than anything, and I’m so sorry, I would never want you to grow up like that, yet for some reason, I - I just let it happen anyway. But that’s not what I want for us. I want you to be happy, I want you to feel loved. I never want you to forget your mother, but I do want to be- I do want us to be a family too, I want-”

Ben burst into tears. A lot of snot ended up on the embroidered coat of arms over Castiel's chest when he pulled Ben into a tight hug. Castiel didn’t care.

“I’m sorry I keep saying those things to you!” Ben wailed into Castiel’s surcoat. “I don’t know why I do it! I always do it and I don’t know why!”

“Trust me, I won’t let you say those things anymore.” Castiel patted the soft brown hair, a slow, deep smile dawning. “Because neither of us deserve it, right? I expect a prince… I expect my step-son to behave better and treat both his parents kindly, and to expect to be treated with love and devotion in return.”

“I won’t! Never again! I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be, my absence this morning was not your fault, I would never do something that cruel in response to mere words or a prank.” Castiel surreptitiously wiped his eyes and then went for a kerchief for Ben’s face. “I thought the badger was a wonderful jest, actually.”

“I don’t mean the pranks to be bad,” said Ben with a soggy sniff. His cheeks were like a chimney sweep's from the dust on Castiel’s clothes. “You’re just really funny sometimes, the way you react. I mainly prank the tutors, they're mean and boring…"

“Maybe I should take over for those tutors from time to time, and see if I can make those lessons a little more interesting…” Ellen and Robert and even Crowley… did they really need that much oversight? He hadn’t trusted them because of his experience with Eden’s court and staff, but that’d been his misunderstanding. If this morning's revelations had taught him anything, it was that he could rely on them and that he should rely on them. That would give him leisure for his greatest duty and pleasure, spending more time with his husband and step-son, and shaping the latter into the wonderful man he would become all too soon. With the willing help of all their friends and staff, he could do so without having the castle crumble around him… But if it crumbled, so be it, Dean and Ben took precedence over anything else. Family, true family, was surely more important. He’d forgotten it, or more likely, he’d never had cause to learn this until now.

He and Ben could have been alone in the land of Lawrence while they spoke; they’d been ignoring Michael’s increasingly angry demands for attention, Zaccaria's insidious questions about where Castiel had spent the night, a kerfuffle at the door and the sound of someone running away shouting: "He's been found!"

But finally, with an arm around Ben’s shoulders keeping him close, Castiel turned to face the room which was considerably more populated than when he last paid heed. There was Micheal and Zaccaria, of course, both furious and red in the face, but there was also Dean, Sam, Robert and a small pack of guards, all boggling at him. All of the latecomers looked mighty relieved; Dean was bent at the waist, hands propped on his thighs as if finally able to breathe after an entire morning spent fighting the tide to safety.

And Eileen was there too, a small smile on her face as she casually beat the dust off her dress. She had followed him - goodness, she must have scrambled down that hole like a boy despite her skirts, he’d not thought to offer assistance. Sam was at her side giving her a steely meaningful look. Eileen didn’t seem alarmed though, she patted him on the arm and then gazed back pointedly at Castiel.

At which point Castiel remembered that this situation right here? This had not been the plan...

“You!” It was fortunate Michael picked up the thread of the conversation as Castiel had no idea where to begin. “You dare- where the devil have you been?! The whole castle has been searching for you! It has been pandemonium! And you burst in here like- like-”

A small child flinched at the shout, the anger, the belittling sneer… but it wasn’t Castiel this time, it was Ben, and Castiel found within himself the strength of ten Samsons as he kept his arms protectively around the boy’s shoulder.

“Yes, I was nearby and heard how anxiously you were searching for me, brother.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed dangerously at the tone. “What is the meaning of this? You-”

He took one angry step towards Castiel, hand curling into a fist - but someone got unexpectedly in the way.

“Leave him alone!” Ben wiggled to place himself in front of Castiel. He was shaking beneath Castiel’s hands from exhausted nerves, a bit of fear… but also anger.

Michael opened his mouth- his gaze cut towards Dean nearby and his expression soured even as his voice came out considerably more even. “Run along, prince Benjamin, this sordid matter should not pollute you.”

“No! You're nasty to him!” said Ben, apparently not afraid of irony. Though his next words indicated that he was perhaps talking from a place of a child's clarity: “You don't just tease him or fight with him, you really hate him! I hear how you talk about him when Dean’s not around!”

“Sh! Silence, you little- I mean, you are mistaken. Your understanding of royal matters is still abysmal, which is entirely my brother’s fault, not at all yours, your highness, if you remember what we talked about a mere few minutes ago...”

Ben’s shoulders jumped with tension. That deliberate dangling sentence could be heading in any direction, many of them threatening, and for his part Castiel couldn't give a damn. “Michael! You will leave my step-son alone! You’re upsetting him."

Talking politely to Ben was politics, which Michael was good at, but dealing with the rarity of a rebellious Castiel was a matter of patience and his brother had none. “You can’t talk to me like that! After what you put me through?! Who do you think you are, you craven jennet?! You unnatural-”

“Hey!” Dean bellowed, but Castiel didn’t need his help.

“I AM THE PRINCE CONSORT OF THIS KINGDOM! And I am doing what you told me to do, brother, I’m using my bloody mouth to best effect to tell you to GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOME!”

Everyone stared with eyes like soup plates at the prince who never, ever raised his voice ordinarily. The exception was Robert, standing behind Dean, who rubbed his short beard beneath the crooked gash of a grin as he muttered, words loud in the gaping silence: “It’s always the quiet ones.”

Only a gargle emerged from Michael’s open mouth, but then he caught himself and spun around. “Dean!”

Dean twitched like a horse bitten by a fly and gave Michael a hard look. “Oh, now this is gonna be good.”

“Are you going to let this disrespect towards me stand?! Will you compromise the relations between our kingdoms-”

“Feh, our kingdoms will be fine, since once you’re out of here we’re going to forget what was said today for the good of the continent. By which I mean, the way you insulted my spouse right in front of me.”

This apparently did not make sense to Michael who went from entirely furious to furious and bewildered. “But- but he insulted you! He abandoned you!”

“No he didn’t, he’s right where he needs to be.” Dean looked at where Castiel stood behind Ben, hands laid protectively on the boy’s shoulders, and the king’s smile could have warmed a hundred hearths. “Just like he’s always been where I needed him these past two years without fail. Your brother is awesome and you just-... I won’t sully my mouth repeating what you said, but you will comply with his request to get out of this fucking castle now, sir, or my boot will help you out the door.”

“That would be a politically stupid thing to do, Dean," Sam said quietly. "He is a monarch, your brother by marriage and a guest in your home."

Two kings turned towards the third, Dean with a look of betrayal while Michael’s chin lifted in vindication.

Sam wasn’t looking at either of them, though. From his great height he was observing his wife. And Eileen-...

Eileen stood there, a dusty queen in a morning dress and a strand of dirty hair falling down her face, staring straight at Michael and nobody else. And as she stood there, queer sight, her fingers leapt and spasmed inchoate before her as if suffering from the St Vitus dance, a violent contrast to the calm of her demeanor and the very odd smile on her face.

“If you kick his majesty out of the castle, it will just be a big mess, so I'll be happy do it for you instead,” said Sam in a voice like steel caught in ice as he watched his wife’s fingers, yet not at all alarmed by what she was doing. "I have that right, as he's gone and insulted not just one but two people in this castle that I truly appreciate. My wife has a message for you, Michael. She says: Surprise, guess what, the vacant cow can talk.”

The room was utterly silent outside of Sam’s voice, Eileen’s strange movements the only motion, and it seemed to grow darker in the elegant draped room as the king’s voice continued, tone hard and flat.

“I can do more than talk, sir. I can also hear in my own way. Indeed I can catch your nasty little words from halfway across a room even when you whisper. But we’ll keep the rest of what you said three days ago between you, me and your brother as long as you leave now,” Sam concluded, finally looking away from his wife’s stilled fingers. His expression - oh dear. Apparently that look and that temper ran in the family...

Everyone stood thunderstruck, except for Dean who didn’t seem surprised by the display. Neither was Castiel at this point. He’d had a sampling of Eileen’s ‘magic’ by now… Though he had no idea how she’d seized their conversation, he now recognized her finger motions, a technique which, like her wax tablet, had arisen in monasteries under the vow of silence. But everybody else in the room was struck rigid by the strange sight like rabbits in a snare. In all the years Michael had been his terror, Castiel had never seen a look of superstitious fear like that on his brother’s face, battling the anger and confusion.

There was really only one way this could end. WIthout uttering the oath he obviously longed to, Michael spun around and marched towards the door. Zaccaria followed him like a bewildered greyhound who couldn’t understand how the hunt had gone so badly awry.

Michael gave Castiel one hard look in passing, a promise of retaliation. Castiel stared right back, unperturbed.

“Just get out, Michael, and we’ll let the diplomats sort it out on the back end. We’ll avoid court visits from now on and you will never address me or my family in private ever again. The door is that way.”

The room felt immediately lighter once the door slammed shut. Everybody breathed out.

Castiel closed his eyes a moment, trying to pick up the threads of the day and the situation in his mind, but Dean sidled up to him. He was staring fixedly at the door.

“Before your brother has a chance to weasel out of this castle, I gotta ask: is he the reason you vanished last night?”

“Uh? No, no, Michael is not at all responsible for-”

“Fine. Stand down, Bobby.”

“You sure?” Sir Robert asked, also staring at the door that had shut behind an affronted royal rear. He had his hand on his sword’s pommel.

“Yeah, yeah, good of the kingdoms and all that. Just make sure his majesty is outside the city limits by nightfall, willya? We’ll send his baggage to follow.”

“With pleasure. Your highness,” Robert added with a deep bow at Castiel. “Good to have you returned to us. I didn't fancy going back to shepherding that realm of vipers you are polite enough to call nobility.” He left with the guards before Castiel could close his mouth or bumble out a word of gratitude.

“Ben, you good?” Dean asked briskly.

Ben rubbed his soggy nose on his sleeve and nodded; still upset but also triumphant as he stood on the field of battle, the vile dragon vanquished and chased off.

Dean gestured at the boy and when Ben approached, pulled him into a manly embrace, thumped him on the back, and said: "Good job, son. Now go with your aunt and uncle to tell Ellen about all this. Have her clean you up and feed you. I got something to address.”

With that he reached over, grabbed Castiel by the wrist and had him out the door before anybody had done so much as blink.

Castiel stumbled after his husband, heart in his throat. Oh dear. What was he going to say? Apologize a lot, obviously, throw himself on Dean’s mercy, accept any punishment, but he couldn't possibly cast any blame on Eileen. She'd meant no harm, he rather liked her in fact, and even if that weren’t the case, the political repercussions-

“Outta my way,” Dean snapped, sending a maid nearly pelting down the stairs to let the royal couple climb unimpeded towards their suites. Dean opened the door to his anteroom and slammed it behind them-

The next moment Castiel was caught in a bear hug that threatened to wring the life out of him.

“Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay.” The words were husky an inch from his ear.

“Yes, I’m fine-”

“Don’t ever disappear like that again. Ever. Ever, Cas. Lord, I nearly went out of my mind. Do less, take care of yourself. Please. For my sake.”

Unable to move, barely able to breathe, Castiel could do no more than gape at the door over his spouse’s shoulder.

“I- I’m so sorry, Dean,” he finally said. “I never imagined you’d be so worried, I’m sorry I caused you any anxiety.”

Something that sounded suspiciously like a muffled sniff sent Castiel into a paroxysm of confusion and panic. He squirmed a forearm free to awkwardly pat Dean on the waist.

But then he was thrust at arm's length.

Here it was coming, then, the blame, the shame, the-

"What do you mean, you never imagined I’d be worried!!"

“Uh-”

“God’s teeth, Cas, I was out of my bloody mind! I- I thought I lost you!”

“… I’m sorry.” Castiel’s voice sounded as weak as the creak of a door and just about as useless to stem the emotions flooding the room.

“I was so relieved to see you I didn’t even want to punch your brother too much. Fuck. Fuck it all, I thought you were gone and- and… and I’d be like Dad after he lost mom. That’s all I could think about, turning into- into goddamn stone inside, feeling my heart die.”

Dean rubbed his eyes savagely, glanced at Castiel as if ashamed… then gave the latter’s poleaxed expression a longer, harder look.

“Why you staring at me like that?”

“Uh...”

“...you sure you’re okay? Did you bang your head? Do you need some fortified wine? I have some in that firkin over there.”

“No, no, I’m fine, but-... “

“Yeah?”

“...You’re comparing losing me to your father losing Mary…? Sorry, you didn’t mean that, I’m sure.”

"The hell else do you think I meant?" Dean asked in irritation.

“But- but-... but Lisa.”

“You absolutely sure you didn’t bang your head? What about Lisa?”

“She’s the great love of your life!” Castiel blurted out on a wave of a hundred nights of heartache, a thousand hours of sadness.

Dean gaped. “Lisa? Lisa?! You think- you think- what the devil, Cas!”

“Uh-”

“I don’t- I never- I mean, I liked Lisa. A lot.” Dean started moving around the room in agitation, giving Castiel the occasional disbelieving stare. “But I was nineteen and really stupid. It wasn’t love, just an infatuation. I married her, of course I did, I was responsible for what happened to her, pulling her out of her world, thrusting her into this- this thorny bush of politics and stuff… I tried to be a better husband than I’d been a fiancé, but at the end of the day, our connection could only go so deep... What I shared with her, I mean, it wasn’t what I have with you.”

Two years ago, those words would have made Castiel the happiest prince in christendom, but now the only thing he felt was massively insulted. This couldn’t be happening, it was just too big a lie!

“What do you mean?! You married me out of political convenience! You never said anything to me about- about even liking me for myself! You never used the word love once in our entire bloody marriage!”

Dean snorted rudely, while his face went an odd shade of pewter. He was still pacing, mainly, it seemed, in an attempt to avoid his husband’s eye. “Of course not, I don’t say stuff like that. Not unless I’m drunk. I- I mean I’m-... it embarrasses me. But come on! You have to know how I feel! We’ve been together - one in the flesh and all that - for over a year now. And maybe I never used the word- um, you know, but I always told you, it’s nice being with you and we get along! Right?... Maybe you didn’t understand what I meant by that…”

“Really?! What illuminated you?!”

Dean stopped abruptly and appraised him, his mien of grumpy embarrassment breaking a little under a crooked smile. “I don’t quite know what happened last night or what’s come over you, but I think I kind of like it. You’re always very contained, I see you swallowing your anger way too much… bit like my mom that way, always calm and cheerful, but just occasionally she’d let loose at dad and let me tell you, it kept him honest…”

Castiel made the most unprincely noise of confused frustration in his throat, fists tight at his side and his whole frame quivering.

Dean had the decency to put away the smile and look repentant, as repentant as he ever did which was not all that much, rubbing the back of his neck and rolling his eyes so he could glare at the corner of the room. “Shit, I know… I’m sorry, Cas. I… I should have said something, but after Dad lost mom and Kate, Sam lost his first fiancée ages ago, and I lost Lisa… Even if I didn’t feel the same way towards her, it still seems the moment one of us Winchesters bares our hearts, some evil fate snatches away the person we care for. I thought… I thought you knew what I felt, how good and loved I feel around you… Er, you do… you do care for me, even if I’m a bonehead, right?”

“Yes,” Castiel said curtly, then realized he’d snapped out in one word the truth that had tortured him for the past two years and that he’d sworn to take to his grave. This irritated him past all rationality, as did the slow smile dawning on Dean’s face, and the way that smile made Castiel’s heart jump about. “I’m still mad at you,” he blurted out, the words ejected from his chest by all the feelings crashing and raging in there. “You really could have told me! Do you know what- what I’ve been through? What I thought?! I-”

“Well, why didn’t you say anything?” Dean interrupted.

Castiel’s righteous fury was brought up short like a dog on a leash. “What? Me? But- but- because-...”

“Yeees?”

“I- I didn’t want to burden you with my- with unwanted- I thought you were indifferent, so of course I didn’t say anything! But you knew! You knew I was- was- how I felt about you and you said nothing!”

Dean seemed taken aback for a few seconds, then he lifted a finger to make a point. Then he put it down again and scowled. Finally he brightened. “Yeah, but I didn’t know you didn’t know. I thought we were both reading from the same page here, and since you didn’t say anything either, I thought we were fine not talking about it.”

Castiel felt a head spasm coming on. It might be due to Eileen’s mulled wine last night… Dean looked so pleased with himself that Castiel wanted to punch him and kiss him. His heart, oh, his heart was soaring like an angel… an angel who’d seen its wings shackled for two long years, fluttering around in fits and starts, rising one moment then plummeting the next as he remembered months of heartache, and the fearful suspicion that somehow this couldn't be true, had to be some cruel misunderstanding.

“Look at it from my side,” Dean added. “The way you take care of me? I sure hope you wouldn’t cosset just anybody like that. And you welcomed me into your bed. I told you on our wedding night that we'd only lie together if we-… you know. Well anyway, I held back like a true christian, you notice, until you showed me you felt the same way I did. And you wore my ring every day since, just like mom. Of course I assumed we both knew we had feelings for each other.”

Castiel looked up from where he’d been rubbing the blossoming ache between his eyes. “Your mother? What do you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s mom’s ring,” said Dean, indicating Castiel’s hand with a movement of the chin.

“What?!” Castiel stared, mind flashing back to the night that ring had first slipped onto his finger. “You never said that!”

“I didn’t? I thought I did.” Dean scratched his cheek, looking vague. He’d been inebriated that night, Castiel recalled. “Didn’t I say dad made it for mom?”

“You said your father made it on a whim.”

“Well, that too.”

“A whim and a family heirloom are two very different things, Dean. Why didn’t you tell me?” But maybe Dean thought he had - and then seeing how Castiel had reacted-

“Blind me, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it an heirloom.” Dean crossed the small distance between them, picked up Castiel’s hand and looked at the subject of their conversation critically. “It really is puny, I should probably get you something better.”

Castiel snatched his hand away by reflex, and Dean smiled crookedly. “That’s what she’d have done too,” he said softly, recapturing Castiel’s fingers and brushing the dusty knuckles with his thumb as if to reassure him he had no evil intentions. His eyes dropped to the little copper daisy again. “Yeah, dad made it for her. Fought a day-long battle and then rode back the whole night and following day in order to give it to her for Bright day thirty years ago. He made it himself while he rested his horses. Bit of wire from a scabbard ornament, a gem pried from his dagger’s pommel… He said it was a shit present whenever he laid eyes on it, but she never let it leave her hand for all that.”

“It’s in her portrait,” said Castiel, thunderstruck. “I must have seen it twenty times before but it’s almost hidden by a fold of her cloak and the artist made it fancier than it is -... I saw it but I never truly noted the detail.” A flash of memory, Eileen staring at the details, at Mary’s hand, at his own...

“Yeah. She gave it to me on her deathbed. Um, said I’d know who to give it to one day. It… never occured to me to give it to Lisa.” His fingers still massaged Castiel’s hand while his gaze turned inward. “Lisa was a good woman, you know, she was so bright, but she was… she was free and independent like I thought I wanted to be back when I first met her. But the day I lit my father’s pyre on the battlefield, I found the truth deep inside myself. Free and independent sounds good, but that’s not who I am. I am a fighter and a king. I am responsible for all the lands around us at a month’s horseback ride on either side and I am the defender of every soul who lives here, and maybe I don’t always like it, but it’s who I am. And Lisa… It’s not because she was born a commoner. Hell, my great-grandfather was no better than a well-to-do highwayman and he became king by conquest, and a damn good one too. No. If Lisa could have lived with Ben off of nothing but sunshine, she would have, she was too free, too light, like air… I married her, called her my queen, decked her out in the greatest jewels I could find so that she would actually feel like it, but she never did. All it did was weigh her down. But you… you're like this land I love and stand on, solid and reliable, you don’t need massive gold chains to prove anything. I knew on that Bright day that there was only one ring I wanted to see on your finger, my troth, as it had been my father’s… But I’m sorry, I see it now, I should have said something sooner…"

“Yes. Or maybe no. Maybe you should have, but I think I should have also been listening more intently,” said Castiel numbly. Because in the same way the detail of the ring in the portrait had jumped out at him, a slurry of details from the past two years came back to him. The way Dean had shown him from time to time that he did care, deeply yet without words. “I didn’t-... I didn’t understand. A part of me refused to understand. Since my youth, I’ve been… I’ve never been anyone that could be loved.”

“You’ve been someone many people looked up to, just not your family who treated you like trash." Dean's tone was hard, his scrutiny astute. "Now I’m wishing I hadn’t let your brother squirm out of here because my gut is telling me this is in good part his fault."

“Oh Dean, it was hardly just my family. My brother’s entire court-”

“That pack of jealous rats? You’re far above them, they’d not be worth a ha’penny if you took the lot and ground them down for bread flour. I knew you were the best thing in Eden the moment I saw you.”

Castiel tilted his head to one side, examining his husband’s expression in confusion. “At our engagement? We hardly said a word.”

“Uh? Oh no, no. I saw you the first time I came to Eden for a diplomatic visit, a few years before our marriage. Got tired of Michael rabbiting on. I took a break and walked around the town. Wasn’t thinking much of your stuck-up brother, his queen or anybody else in your family. But then I spotted a gaggle of poor kids getting fed by a man and his servant with a large basket of bread. Everybody was watching with this- this quiet pride in their eyes. It’s our good prince Castiel, one of the market people told me. A queer 'un, priests don't approve, but he done right by us. Five minutes later I'm standing in a knot of townsfolk reminiscing about the good old days when you were in charge rather than queen Naomi. That there is a real prince, one of them concluded, and I couldn’t agree more. I wanted to talk to you in court, but you never showed up during my stay.”

Michael hadn’t bothered introducing his useless sibling for those intense diplomatic talks, which was the reason Castiel was out and about that day, he recalled.

“Some time later, Sammy and Eileen tied the knot, and I realized I didn’t want to be alone anymore. Council was harassing me to remarry anyway, preferably within Eden’s royal family, and... I thought of you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the main reason was to hammer out a good deal for both our countries, but some councillors were pushing for a cousin of yours, some chick. I said no. I knew what was the best thing out of that country of stuck up prigs. I didn’t really know you, of course, but I was damn sure you’d be good for my kingdom at least, and would have the kindness to put up with me and my manners. Once we got hitched, it didn’t take me long at all to figure out I’d gotten much, much more: a fellow sovereign, a friend, a lover, a spouse I’d trust with Ben if something or other gets me one day, and a man I’d happily spend the rest of my life with.”

“Dean,” Castiel declared after clearing his throat, “you really need to use your words more often.” Sure, Castiel was now determined to listen a whole lot better, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t very nice to hear. Very nice indeed.

“I can try.” Dean’s voice was a rumble Castiel could feel where their chests connected. At some point during Dean's description of a history that was theirs and yet entirely unknown to Castiel, he’d pulled the latter up against him and was holding him close. “I’m not very good at it. Using my words, I mean. Tried once or twice.”

“Did you?”

“But I always trip over my tongue. Might have to do with the fact that it seems easier to talk about this shit when I’m really drunk… I wanted to do it proper at one point so I read, um, well, I read one of those books. You know, one of those romances. Thought it’d give me an idea of what to say. But God blind me, I could never talk like that in a hundred years.”

Castiel’s head rested against his husband's shoulder, his fingers rubbing up and down the leather jerkin over Dean’s back. “Please don’t waste your time on romances. You’re doing just fine as you are.”

That got him a gruff sound. “Don’t let me off the hook so easy. Seems to me you’ve been feeling underappreciated, and that’s all our fault. You wear yourself out for all of us… did you faint in a passageway?”

Castiel’s eyes were closed, the steady rise and fall of Dean’s chest against his was the most wonderful thing in the world. “No, no. I fell under a magic spell, took a detour through a fairy tale and only came back at present. But I’m home now, and it’s wonderful to be back.”

Dean discreetly let his hand linger on Castiel’s forehead, then he shook his head. “It’s wonderful to have you back. The whole place will crumble without you, starting with me. Don’t ever leave again. And if you start to forget how much you’re loved, my heart, do remind me to show you. Now, how about you sit down, have some fortified wine. Or soup, I’m sure that fancy cook of yours can make some-”

“Hell, Crowley!” said Castiel, the two words coming out together with the ease of much practice, “And oh lord, it must be near luncheon! I need to-”

He was struggling to get out of Dean’s embrace, but the king was having none of it, he spun Castiel around and forced him down into the anteroom’s comfy settee. “Sit! That’s an order from your king. Sit down, the rest of the castle can manage for once.”

“But-”

A knock interrupted them. The door opened a small crack and Ben, cleaned up but still looking a little cowed after his busy morning, prudently looked in. “Um… sorry… is Castiel alright? Um, Ellen wants to know if he needs something, and the weird cook says he’s got something called conson - comsom- something that’s fortifying for him."

“I’m perfectly fine, Ben,” Castiel started to say, feeling guilty at the way the boy was hanging back in the doorway as if unsure of his welcome.

“Come in, son!” Dean declared in his commander-of-men voice, “You absolutely have to help me take care of this stubborn guy here!”

Dean’s voice had roused soldiers on the edge of exhaustion after a day’s march, it’d rallied troops from defeat to victory, and it certainly put some backbone into prince Ben who stepped forward, ramrod straight and ready to take on any orders eagerly.

Dean and Ben conspired to spoil him that afternoon, and Castiel let them. They dragged him, settee and all, to a spot by the fire with furs over his lap and a mantle around his shoulders, where they fed him beef tail consomé which was apparently good for the blood and fainting fits. Then Ben read to him from Guillaume de Dole, skipping the romantic bits to get to the parts about the knights, while Dean listened and held Castiel’s hand, and chased away anyone who had anything to ask for other than Ellen, who merely came in to wish him good health.

Castiel let all this happen until dinnertime, at which point he resumed his duties before the castle and the country could fall apart, but with a spring in his step he would not soon forget, nor would his family let him.

~~~ * ~~~

Years later, during the long reign of King Benjamin the First, strong, wise and proud, many years later, a certain story wove in and out of the stone castle’s halls. How their former king’s consort, the love of his life, vanished one night, stolen by a sorceress. She turned him invisible (or into a statue, or into a hound or a flower or a swan, the tales couldn’t agree). The king searched for two whole years with only his son prince Benjamin as squire, and they had many adventures before Dean’s true love broke the curse, and he could bring his angel back home to live happily ever after.

Prince Castiel still didn’t read romances or fairy tales, these days he preferred books on gardening and bees, but he overheard the maids in the dowager's manor house talking about the latest novel, and he and an elderly king, who’d abdicated a few years ago in favor of his son, laughed about it heartily before going to bed for their rest.