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Chapter Text

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[Hello! If you are seeing this work anywhere but on Archive Of Our Own, it has been scraped without my knowledge or consent. Please report it as stolen to the website from where you got it, if you’re able, and find me @incandescentumbrage on AO3 to read my works ethically and for free!]

xxxxx

“Heyyy, Banes! Mondays, am I right?”

Castiel clenched his teeth as he heard the grating voice of Ash, SucroCorp’s Senior IT Technician, approaching. Within moments, the disgustingly familiar blond mullet poked around the opening of his cubicle.

“Novak, my man! Workin’ hard or hardly workin’?” Ash grinned, shooting a twin set of finger guns his way.

Castiel worked to swallow the urge to break those fingers off and bury them in Ash’s eye sockets. Play nice, Castiel. His time will come. All their time will come. He forced a smile onto his face, hoping it looked more genuine than it felt. “Oh, you know me, Ash. Just putting in my time.” In this fucking hellhole prison with all you hapless meatsacks.

Ash threw his head back, cackling loudly. The sound washed over Castiel like a wave of acid and fire ants, making him shift in his chair. He couldn’t help but let his eyes drop to the gangly column of Ash’s exposed neck, clocking the faint beat of his pulse just beneath the skin. You would look so much better in red. In red, and in pieces.

“I know it, Cas, I know it. Well, don’t work too hard now. Smell ya later!”

As Ash walked away, Castiel let the smile drop from his face like a stone through the still waters of a lake. He glared after Ash’s weed-scented wake, his jaw working as he tamped down the desire to chase after the man with a pair of dull office scissors.

“It’s Castiel, you fucking shitstain,” he muttered to himself, picking his pencil back up and restarting work on his latest equipment design with short, angry strokes. If he couldn’t slash the deadbeat’s neck, then he’d damn well slash some paper, at least. A pale imitation of the real thing, but the real thing would just have to wait until later.

*

“Castiel! I beg your pardon, but do you have a moment?”

Castiel looked up as the nasal voice of Zachariah Adler barged across his desk at him. CEO Dick Roman’s right-hand man had never truly begged a day in his life, and Castiel constantly itched to change that. Instead, he placed a polite expression on his face. “Of course, Mr Adler. What can I help you with?”

“Oh, nothing like that!” Adler waved away Castiel’s politesse in the manner of a man very comfortable with taking advantage of others’ obligatory offers of assistance. “I just want to introduce you to the new guy!”

With that, Zachariah reached back and ushered forward the most breathtaking man Castiel had ever seen in his life.

The first thing Castiel saw was bowed legs. Even in slightly too-large slacks, held up by striped suspenders of all things, their outward curve was pronounced. Castiel swallowed, silently remarking to himself how accessible the femoral arteries would be with that anatomy. As his eyes traveled upward, he noted slim hips that broadened into muscular shoulders, shown to advantage in a periwinkle blue button-down with contrasting white collar. The collar highlighted the smattering of freckles across the man’s nose and cheekbones, which in turn brought out the golden flecks in his pale green eyes.

Castiel’s mouth went dry, and his heart began to race. He carefully set down his pencil, lest either of the men saw how it wavered between his trembling fingers.

“Heya,” the new guy said, grinning crookedly as he extended a hand. “Dean Winchester, Quality Control.”

Castiel’s body worked on autopilot as his brain fell into a red-tinged haze. He reached across his desk, catching the other man’s—Dean’s—hand in his own and giving it a firm shake. “Castiel Novak, Lead Engineer.”

Dean’s grin grew bright with excited recognition. “Oh, you’re the engineering guy! Awesome! Sounds like we’ll be working pretty closely together. Lookin’ forward to it, man.”

Dean leaned in close to clap a friendly hand on Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel was frozen again, staring up at Dean’s long neck and chiseled jaw. My god, this man would be gorgeous even dead. Especially dead.

“Well, it’s getting late, and we’ve still got quite a few people to introduce you to, Dean. Shall we get moving?” Zachariah’s voice cut in, jolting Castiel out of his daze.

“Sure thing. Great to meet you, Cas!”

As quickly as they arrived, the two men were gone again, leaving Castiel reeling at his desk. A flurry of thoughts whirled through his mind, each as intangibly fleeting as a snowflake in the air.

Dean was beautiful.

My work needs no one’s quality control.

He hadn’t even minded when Dean had called him ‘Cas.’ It was a jarring contrast to the murderous rage that rose within him every time Ash did the same.

He’s a distraction. Don’t let a pretty face pull your focus.

But, god, what a face. And shoulders… chest… legs. He could wrap those legs around himself and take his pleasure from Dean’s writhing body, just before picking up his knife and—

Castiel huffed out a breath, raking a hand through his already-wild hair as the inevitable conclusion crept into his consciousness. Yes, his day job was boring as shit, simply a means to an end. His real work, the calling he fulfilled on his own time, that was the mission he’d always felt was worth his devotion. A beautiful man shouldn’t—couldn’t—change that. It was settled, then.

Dean Winchester had to die.

*****

It was almost too easy to find out where Dean lived. The very first time Castiel had casually wandered through the IT department after meeting Dean, purportedly on his way to the break room for more jet fuel coffee, he had found the area fortuitously empty. Taking advantage of what must be a department meeting or similar, Castiel had allowed himself to linger, pacing the rows of cubicles until… there. One of Ash’s underlings had left their terminal unlocked. From there, it was only a matter of pulling up the confidential employee database and memorizing Dean’s address. In an extra stroke of luck, it turned out that Dean didn’t live very far from Castiel at all.

It took a little more time to figure out Dean’s routines. Castiel began leaving his house a little earlier in the morning and parking on a corner of Dean’s street, far away enough to not be noticed, but close enough to see when Dean left his house. The man did not appear to be an early morning runner or exerciser, unless he did it inside, where Castiel could not (yet) see. He left his house on weekdays with just enough time to make it to work, carrying nothing but a beat-up messenger bag and a travel mug.

His car was a beauty, though. Classic American muscle, all sleek lines, highly polished black paint, and shining chrome encasing a purring beast of an engine. It was a pity Castiel wouldn’t be able to keep it for himself once he’d disposed of Dean, but alas, a car like that was simply too recognizable.

Castiel had also begun leaving work a little earlier in the afternoons, claiming a litany of excuses that ran the gamut from medical appointments to volunteer shifts at some shelter or soup kitchen or other. Adler looked a little dubious at his recent absences, but at the end of the day, Castiel was their best (and only) equipment designer. He was largely left to his own devices, provided he made his deadlines. Not that it mattered. If Adler got too nosy, or too demanding, Castiel already had a plan in place for him that involved the blind corner of SucroCorp’s parking garage, and his favorite hunting knife. All he needed was the excuse.

Dean came home shortly after quitting time, most days. He parked his car under its carport, headed inside, and rarely came back out except on the evenings before garbage day, to drag his bins to the curb. Castiel had gone so far as to sift through the bins on a couple of occasions, but even they didn’t give up much. Beer bottles, takeout containers, the usual detritus of bachelor life. Spotting the empty packaging of a prostate massager made Castiel’s eyebrows raise—and his loins stir, curiously enough—but otherwise, by all accounts Dean’s life seemed… well, pretty boring.

But Castiel knew better. He just knew.

The one place he didn’t have to stalk Dean was at work, because Adler had seen fit to place Dean in the cubicle directly across from Castiel’s. Now his workdays were filled with Dean’s visage, perfectly framed in the opening of Castiel’s cubicle. At least, when the man was actually at his desk.

Castiel watched as Dean worked himself into the very fabric of SucroCorp, one colleague at a time. He won over Ash by actually being decently competent with computers, and soon they were exchanging loudly whispered, deeply immature jokes on their lunch breaks. Conversely, with SucroCorp’s Lead Accountant, Missouri Mosely, Dean was soft-spoken and courteous. He traded recipes with the woman first, quickly progressing to foil-wrapped plates of baked goods slipped onto the corners of each other’s desks.

Even Adler seemed to genuinely like him, although Castiel caught Dean rolling his eyes after nearly every conversation with their boss. Once, Dean caught Castiel catching him, and gave him a conspiratorial wink. Castiel had buried his head back behind his computer monitor in lieu of a response, silently berating himself until the flush faded from his cheeks.

With Castiel, Dean didn’t visit so much, simply because he was always there in Castiel’s cubicle as often as not. True to his word, they did end up working together a lot, going over designs both new and old to find areas of improvement. Castiel was brusque, bordering on rude, at first, still hung up on the fact that his designs didn’t have quality flaws, damn it. As the work sessions with Dean continued, however, he found himself surprised by Dean’s keen eye. The man had a knack for pointing out areas where the machinery, while not unsafe or really even significantly lacking in performance, could be optimized, much as Castiel hated to admit it. But Dean did it in such a way that Castiel felt complimented, not criticized, and it felt… nice. Dean made him feel nice, and he had no clue how to deal with that.

So Castiel made a plan. Late one spring night, he enacted it.

Dean lived in a smallish, but well-kept, ranch-style house just a couple neighborhoods over from Castiel’s; maybe a five minute drive, at most. Castiel had long since mapped the layout of it. He knew that the unoccupied guest room lay at the back of the house, and that the windows were older, single-pane. Extremely easy to tape off and smash with the hilt of his knife, the duct tape serving both to muffle the noise and to contain the broken glass as it was peeled away. The latch was flipped, the window eased open, and Castiel was inside without so much as breaking a sweat.

He made his way to Dean’s bedroom on light feet, following the warm glow emanating from the partially-open door. With his hunting knife already gripped in his fist, he eased the door wider with his shoulder and sidled his way in.

For all his observation of Dean in the previous weeks, Castiel was not prepared for the scene that awaited him within. For starters, the source of the reddish-orange glow he had seen from outside the room was, of all things, a lava lamp burbling ponderously away on the nightstand. It cast an otherworldly, infernal light over the length of Dean’s body.

The exposed length of his body.

Instead of being bundled tidily under covers, Dean had kicked his blankets down around his ankles, spreading his prone body over the mattress as though trying to catch as much of the cool spring air on his skin as possible. He was dressed for sleep in a t-shirt and boxers, covering the eye-catching curves of his shoulders and buttocks, but the freckles on his arms and legs stood out starkly in the bloody light. The barest hint of belly skin peeking out from between shirt and shorts made Castiel’s grip on his knife loosen dangerously. His mouth watered.

Dean was stunning, and it caught Castiel off guard in a way he had not been since he’d first started killing regularly. He’d long seen his victims as sacrifices, not to some bloodthirsty god or altruistic (if twisted) mission, but to his own rage, which lay constantly simmering under his skin. He killed to satiate it, to keep it from boiling over the bounds of his sanity and taking possession of him. As much as Dean looked like that quintessential sacrificial lamb stretched out on the altar, though, just waiting for the fatal kiss of his knife, Castiel found that his hand no longer craved the weight of honed steel and the soft, wet resistance of flesh parting around it.

Castiel shook his head, stubbornly taking a step closer to the bed and the man sleeping in it. He raised his knife high over his head, tensing the muscles in his arm and shoulder in preparation for plunging it down into Dean’s back. Between the shoulderblades and slightly to the left of the spine ought to do it, so long as he angled the blade to slip neatly between the ribs.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

His muscles clenched until they trembled, and his knees went weak as the realization washed ferociously over him. He looked around wildly, nearly gasping with relief when he found a chair shoved into the nearest corner of the bedroom. He staggered over to it, sinking down into its cushion, heedless of the small pile of laundry pressing into his lower back. He shoved his knife back into its sheath on his belt and pressed his hand to his chest instead, feeling his heart thump erratically beneath his breastbone. His breath came quick and shaky as he stared at Dean, still sleeping peacefully on his bed.

Slowly, as if in a dream, Castiel reached into a hidden pocket in his trenchcoat, and pulled out the small sketchbook and charcoal pencil he always kept there. He hadn’t used either in a while—he’d loved to draw, but inspiration had been slow to come of late; at least, inspiration that didn’t involve his knife and someone else’s blood—but the pencil felt like an old friend in his hand.

Balancing the sketchbook on his thigh, Castiel took another long look at the entrancing curvature of Dean’s sleeping form, and got to work.

Chapter Text

It was as though the floodgates inside Castiel’s mind had burst. More specifically, Dean had kicked them open so hard that they’d been knocked right off their hinges, unleashing a torrent of artistic inspiration that threatened to swamp Castiel’s ability to keep up. He was elated.

He hadn’t gone straight home that night, after trying and (thankfully, blessedly, serendipitously) failing to kill Dean. He had instead driven over to the University District and trawled the bars just off campus, quietly prowling until he found what he’d been looking for. The tall, lean, leggy, blond undergrad had been just drunk enough to not think twice about accepting Castiel’s murmured proposition, eagerly following him out the back door of the bar into the fetid alley. He’d allowed Castiel to push him up against the damp brick wall there, gasping and groaning when their hips made contact. He’d gasped again when Castiel’s knife slid between his ribs and into his heart, his last breath gurgling wetly out of his mouth as he slid down to the ground.

After a quick detour to a pig farm not too far outside of town to dispose of the body, Castiel had finally returned home, but not to rest. He had immediately gone to his closet to dig out the oil pastels that languished there, resurrecting the deepest, bloodiest red crayon to add a few accents to his sketch of Dean’s sleeping body. The final effect was mouthwatering; Castiel could almost taste the iron tang of it. While his chest ached to see Dean covered in blood, he wasn’t sure anymore if the blood needed to be Dean’s. Castiel hardly dared to entertain a dream as foolhardy as that, tempting though the image was. If only…

Nevertheless, Castiel was a man reborn, fuelled by a singular, newfound purpose. At work, Dean made that purpose easy to fulfill, simply by continuing to be everywhere. Castiel would enter the break room at lunch to find Dean already there, chatting and laughing with Ash. As Castiel sat down to eat his sandwich—peanut butter and jelly, grape, seedless and smooth on the tongue—he would feel Dean’s eyes shift to him, the weight of his gaze as heavy as a statue of jade.

It lit a fire in him. He’d pulled out his sketchbook right there at the break room table, his pencil lancing over the surface of the paper as he recreated the shape of Dean’s eyes smiling a little hidden smile at him.

Then there was the time Castiel had been about to take the elevator down to the garage at the end of a long day, well after everyone else had gone home. He was weary to the bone after hours of re-reviewing his newer machine designs with Dean, and beyond aggravated with Adler for insisting they look at them again. Adler had accompanied his request with the barest of apologies for the extremely last-minute inconvenience, muttering something about a stakeholders' meeting before swanning off back to his cushy, corner office.

Castiel was distracted, to say the least, by daydreams of sinking a stiletto into Adler’s eye to pay him back for the trouble. So distracted, apparently, that he hadn’t heard the running footsteps approaching, or the voice calling out to hold the elevator. Suddenly, the closing doors were halted by a hand curling around the edge of one panel, and there was Dean again, his face transforming from harried and annoyed to… delighted?... when he saw who hadn’t held the elevator for him.

That had been the longest, most tense elevator ride of Castiel’s life, not least of all because Dean had stood just a little closer than was strictly necessary. The warmth of his shoulder seeped into Castiel’s, and Castiel’s fingers had twitched with conflicting needs. He’d wanted to shove Dean up against the frosted-mirror walls of the elevator car and wrap his hand around Dean’s throat, but the initial urge to feel Dean’s windpipe crushing in his grip had faded away almost immediately. What rose in its place was the desire to press his fingertips ever so slightly in on the soft give of Dean’s arteries beneath his skin, tracking his pulse as it began to race. He wanted to lean in and trace the ridges of Dean’s Adam’s apple with his tongue, tasting sweat born not of fear, but of lust.

Those surprising new urges had just hit an irresistible fever pitch when the elevator car had juddered to a stop, the doors sliding open with a self-satisfied ding. Dean had shot him a crooked grin and a roguish salute before sauntering off into the parking garage, leaving Castiel a discombobulated, overwhelmed husk, standing there alone in the corporate sarcophagus of the elevator car. It had taken him a good few minutes to get his breathing back under control and, once inside his own car, several more to vomit out the ghost of Dean’s gripping hand onto a blank page in his sketchbook before he could drive home.

Castiel hadn’t the first clue how to deal with his body’s reaction to Dean. He had long ago accepted himself as asexual, preferring to use his objectively attractive features only as a means to a bloody end. He derived pleasure from sliding his knife, not his cock, into a body, and it had been that way for as long as he cared to remember.

Of course Dean would change that, just as he seemed to have unwittingly rearranged every other aspect of Castiel’s life. Castiel had no idea what to do with that change, so he poured it all out onto blank paper instead. Charcoal first, then later, at home, alone in the sanctuary of his study, he perfected his works with his red oil pastels. A conviction grew, deep within his brain, seeping out to permeate his very bones with the knowledge that the only possible way for Dean to be more beautiful would be to paint the man in blood. Castiel could practically see him dripping with it. If only.

[Hello! If you are seeing this work anywhere but on Archive Of Our Own, it has been scraped without my knowledge or consent. Please report it as stolen to the website from where you got it, if you’re able, and find me @incandescentumbrage on AO3 to read my works ethically and for free!]

One Thursday afternoon, he and Dean were holed up in one of SucroCorp’s many meeting rooms, poring over Castiel’s latest design. His sketches and blueprints were spread out over the surface of the conference table, but as usual, Dean was sitting right beside him. He was practically using the armrest of Castiel’s chair as he leaned in to peer at one particular corner of the proposed machine. The entirety of Castiel’s focus had been reallocated to keeping his breathing even, every inhale filling his nostrils with the scent of Dean’s shampoo and soap and skin, so he wasn’t surprised when he glanced up at Dean to find the man looking back at him expectantly.

“Hmm?” Castiel hummed distractedly, distantly realizing he’d missed a question directed his way.

Dean huffed a laugh, glancing away as his cheeks tinged pink. Castiel tilted his head to one side, peering at Dean as though the reason for his blush might be etched into his skin. It wasn’t, but oh, Castiel wished it were. For so many reasons.

“Yeah, my brain’s kinda fried, too,” Dean said, still not quite meeting Castiel’s eyes. “I could really go for a drink, if I’m honest.”

Castiel blinked, unsure what he was supposed to say to that. “Well… you could probably sneak out without anyone noticing, if you’re careful,” he said, after an increasingly awkward pause.

Dean’s face fell, his eyes dropping to the tabletop. Castiel frowned. What had he missed? His mind raced as he watched Dean toy with the corner of one of the sketches, his thumb rubbing absently at a stray smudge of graphite. After a moment, it dawned on him with the force of an oncoming train: Dean was asking Castiel to sneak out with him. He took a deep breath in through his nose, steeling his resolve.

“Come on, Dean. Let’s sneak out for a drink.”

Dean’s head popped up, a smile spreading across his face like the sun breaking through clouds. It even seemed to spark a glow deep within his eyes. Castiel was captivated, pulled into those verdant depths as though he were sinking to the bottom of a mountain lake. It wasn’t until Dean stood up from his chair, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, that Castiel was able to shake himself free. He stood as well, and began gathering his blueprints and papers, efficiently rolling them into their storage tube.

“Sneaking out” ended up being more along the lines of just walking out of the building, much like any employee would for lunch, an offsite meeting, or a doctor’s appointment. The receptionists were certainly far too busy to care. Castiel found himself almost let down, after he’d braced for a much more clandestine experience. It was as though he’d laid out a whole plan for acquiring his next victim, only to have that victim knock on his door and ask to be murdered. Disappointing.

Dean led them away from the trendy gastropubs lining the blocks adjacent to SucroCorp, taking them a bit further out and down a dingy side street. Tucked away between a couple of questionable looking shops sat a bar so small it barely deserved the name. Dean shouldered his way inside, loping up to the bar counter with the ease of long practice. A regular, then, Castiel thought to himself as he followed.

After Castiel’s noncommittal shrug at the bar’s drink options, Dean ordered them two beers, then led them to a tiny table set in the corner furthest from the door. Castiel sat in his preferred position, facing the door with his back to the wall, and looked around the venue as Dean situated himself at the opposite side of the table. The bar was not one of those “bigger inside than it looks from the outside” establishments; it truly was a hole in the wall kind of place, with only a few other tables lining the perimeter, and a narrow aisle separating them from the bar counter. Despite its size, or maybe because of it, the meager space was comfortingly dark, and quiet, with only a couple other patrons sitting at the bar—older, grizzled-looking men hunched over their glasses as though drawing their life force from the liquor inside.

Castiel looked back at Dean to find the other man watching him, nibbling slightly at his lower lip. Castiel’s eyes dropped to follow the movement of Dean’s teeth. He wondered how Dean would taste if Castiel took over the nibbling. If Dean would mind if he nipped hard enough to draw blood. He licked his lips, imagining it.

“Man, it feels good to be outta there,” Dean remarked after taking a long pull from his beer. He wiped at his upper lip with the back of his hand, then darted his tongue out, pink and shining, to lick away the foam smeared there. “How can you stand it after all these years, Cas?”

Castiel blinked rapidly, tearing his focus away from Dean’s mouth. “Habit, mostly,” he replied. “Adler’s a power-hungry sycophant, but he more or less leaves me alone. I’m pretty sure Roman doesn’t even know I exist, which is perfectly fine with me.”

Dean nodded, looking a little rueful. “I’m just waiting for the day when Adler starts to leave me alone. I swear sometimes that guy makes me wanna… wanna…” Dean trailed off, looking down, but Castiel noticed his fist clenching where it lay next to his pint glass.

“Makes you want to what?” he prompted, curiosity popping one of his eyebrows up toward his hairline.

Dean took another swig of his beer, nearly draining it. His eyes were guarded when he looked back at Castiel. “I guess I just… I mean… have you never felt like you wanted to just wrap your hands around somebody’s neck? Throttle ‘em until they either come to their senses, or… don’t?”

Castiel smiled crookedly as his mind’s eye flashed back to the first time he’d strangled someone to death. Knives through flesh were his favored method, but every now and then he itched to feel someone’s life ebbing away beneath his bare hands. As beautiful as knifework could be, there was something deeply, primally satisfying about the dying drumbeat of a person’s pulse beneath his fingers as he pressed down, bearing his whole weight into his braced arms until their body went limp.

But he couldn’t tell Dean that, sadly. “You have no idea,” he said instead, trying his best to ignore the gaping maw of despondency growing in his gut.

“I dunno, Cas, I might,” Dean replied with a considering tilt of his jaw. For all his casual slouching over the bar table, his face was deadly serious as he regarded Castiel. There was something dark and intimately familiar writhing in the depths of his eyes.

Castiel didn’t know what to say. His heart started thumping a little harder in his chest as he weighed the possibility of Dean truly meaning his violent words. To give himself something to do while his mind raced, he lifted his still-full pint glass and took a sip. The beer was watery and tepid, but still better than the dry throat he’d been cultivating.

They ended up staying at the bar for the rest of the workday and then some, although their conversation returned to safer topics after Castiel’s one brush with confession. He honestly wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that Dean never again brought up his seemingly more private inclinations.

The urge to share in his particular lifestyle had never arisen in Castiel before. He’d always believed himself a solo creature, and had never been especially discontented by that. Now that the hints of Dean’s darker nature had been revealed to him, though, he couldn’t get the thought of it out of his mind. Sharing his kills, tracing the flawless lines of Dean’s face with bloodied fingers… it made him shudder to consider it. He was both mystified and entranced by his cock plumping along his thigh as he did.

Those thoughts followed him into his dreams that night. Castiel found himself sinking through a seemingly endless ocean, drifting along the ocean floor as it angled unerringly away from the sun at the surface. He floated past a brain coral, glistening crimson, and did a double take when Dean’s face slid out from behind its grooved surface. Castiel gasped, choking a little before he realized that, here, he could breathe underwater.

“Dean…” he whispered, reaching out to man gazing steadily up at him from the rippling sand. The current carried him away into a deeper part of the ocean before Dean could respond.

As the light withdrew from the waters carrying his subconscious body, a shape began to loom in Castiel’s vision. He squinted, peering into the growing darkness, but the object remained far away, fuzzy. Then, suddenly, without having quite noticed the passage of time and distance, he was directly in front of the shape, floating in the near-blackness as it coalesced into clarity.

It was a giant clam, its shell a pale, gleaming gold. Castiel was no marine biologist, but he was pretty sure that even giant clams didn’t get quite this big. Nor were they meant to live this deep, in barren, shifting sands, where no light could reach them. The lips of the thing glowed an iridescent green. As Castiel watched, they opened slightly, like the mouth of a man unsure if he should speak.

Slowly, inch by incremental inch, the clamshell hinged open. Castiel saw a shape inside and squinted to see better, but it wasn’t until the shell was almost all the way open that his eyes widened with recognition.

It was Dean, again. Like before, only his head was visible. He was laid like a pearl among the soft innards of the clam, smiling up at Castiel in a way that promised he knew all of Castiel’s secrets—and loved them. As Castiel watched, Dean mouthed the words “I might,” just before dark blood began pouring out of his mouth. Instead of dissipating into the water, the blood flowed down Dean’s chin, spreading over the inside of the clam shell as if it were flowing across a tabletop. In defiance of any natural law of physics, the blood flowed up the interior of the upper shell before seeping out to cover the bumps and ridges of each outer shell, finally coming to a stop in a perfectly contained pool in the sand beneath the clam. Dean, now also covered in blood, grinned at him, his eyes and teeth glowing almost ethereally against the backdrop of red.

“I might.”

Castiel sat upright in his bed with a choked gasp. His chest heaved with rapid breaths as the blackness of the ocean depths reverted back to the more mundane darkness of his nighttime bedroom. He discovered that he was painfully hard within the boxers he wore to sleep, and he palmed himself, groaning when his cock twitched beneath his hand. He circled his fingers around his clothed erection, squeezing tightly to stave off his body’s excitement.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like to jerk off. He did it, sometimes, when the demands of his body became too loud to ignore. It often helped clear his mind, or send him to sleep when insomnia threatened. He couldn’t deny that orgasms felt good. But now… well, now was not the time. He could already feel his dream fading from his memory, and the pull to immortalize it on paper was too great to ignore.

Levering himself out of bed, Castiel donned his robe and padded out of his bedroom, resolutely ignoring the tent in his boxers that proudly led the way. Without needing to turn on any lights, he made his way to the spare bedroom he’d converted into a work room, and sat down at his drafting table. He flipped open his sketchbook, grabbed his charcoal pencil and red oil pastels, and began to draw.

Chapter Text

Dean came and found Castiel at work the next day. Dean always found him at work, so that wasn’t necessarily anything new (although it still made Castiel’s heart race). This time, though, Dean had a proposition for him.

“Come take a drive with me this weekend,” Dean entreated. He was leaned over Castiel’s desk, toying with one of the oil pastels Castiel had taken to carrying with him everywhere. (One never knew when inspiration might strike.) “It’s been a while since I let Baby stretch her legs, and she’s itchin’.”

Dean grinned at him, all easy charm. Castiel flashed back to his dream from the night before, when Dean’s grin was surrounded, highlighted by blood. He swallowed, his fingers twitching toward the sketchbook on the corner of his desk. “I… suppose I don’t have anything that can’t be pushed back a day,” he carefully replied. His mind was awhirl with the possibilities that a drive alone with Dean could provide. What Castiel found most striking was that killing him was not foremost among them.

Dean huffed a self-conscious laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You suppose? Damn, Cas, you really know how to make a guy feel special,” he muttered, a flush tingeing his cheeks.

Castiel’s eyes widened as he realized what he'd said, and his breath seized in his chest so quickly that he nearly choked on it. “I-I mean—” he stuttered, then stopped. He forced himself to breathe deeply and calm the hell down. He was a killer, for god’s sake. He should be able to handle an invitation to a weekend activity, even if that invitation did come from someone as compelling as Dean Winchester. He straightened, looking Dean dead in the eyes. “I would like very much to join you on a drive this weekend, Dean. I admit I have been interested to see your car up close.”

Castiel froze, immediately realizing that he’d just tacitly admitted to seeing Dean’s car from afar. But Dean only grinned at him again, his face lighting up with pride and joy.

“Oh, yeah, you’ve probably only seen her parked here! Even better, then. I can introduce y’all proper, tomorrow. Is 11am too early? I know this great diner a little ways out of town, we could stop there for lunch,” Dean rambled, clearly caught up in the excitement of his plans.

“Eleven is fine,” Castiel replied, working to keep his relief from being too obvious. He had been sure he’d just given up all his secrets in one unfortunate slip of the tongue. Internally, he berated himself for his lack of caution. A quiet voice beneath the loudly scolding one wished he didn’t have to be cautious around Dean. What a gift that would be. “Should I meet you somewhere?”

“Nah, man, I’ll come to you! Where d’you live?”

Castiel provided his address, and pretended to mirror Dean’s surprise that they lived so close to one another. Shortly after, Ash came by to steal Dean away for lunch. Castiel sat alone in his cubicle, staring off into the distance, seeing nothing outside of his own writhing mind. A long moment later, he shook himself, reaching for the graphite pencil he used when drafting equipment designs. His hand paused, hovering over the pencil before it swung wide, landing instead on his sketchbook. The designs could wait. He had more important work to do.

*

Castiel spent most of Saturday morning cleaning his house, or the next closest thing to it. There wasn’t much to actually clean, really, because he already kept a very tidy house. Clutter made him twitchy, unsettled in his skin. But he did walk the front rooms, making sure nothing was lying around that might seem odd to an outsider.

There wasn’t anything, of course. He knew the risks involved in his after-hours line of work, and he was fastidious about keeping everything in its place. His knives were always cleaned in the kitchen sink, then stored in his work room. The kitchen sink was bleached, after. The large black yard waste bags—a different brand than what he used for his own garbage—and duct tape he used for transporting bodies were kept in the garage, where they blended in with all the other items required for the upkeep of a house. Hell, even the towels he used for this work were all a deep, earthy brown, to better hide any old bloodstains that might linger after washing.

Still, though. Much as Castiel might hope that Dean would understand, would see the darkness in him and reach out to touch it instead of running away, one could never be too sure. It was better to err on the side of caution.

Castiel looked up in surprise when his doorbell rang at eleven on the dot. Dean wasn’t exactly chronically late to work, but neither was he as perfectly punctual as he appeared to be today. For a moment, a wild thought occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t Dean at his door. But no, when he opened it, there stood the man in question, dressed for the day in jeans and a flannel with the sleeves rolled back to expose freckled forearms roped with lean muscle. Dean smiled at him like they hadn’t just seen each other less than twenty-four hours earlier.

After exchanging greetings, Castiel turned to his entry table to grab his wallet and house keys before stepping outside. Dean stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

“Hey, man, do you mind if I use your restroom? I might’ve, uh, been in a little bit of a rush to leave today,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.

Castiel bit his lip, his mind racing through one last circuit of the house to ensure everything was in its place. It was. Of course it was. After a second, he nodded. “First door on your left,” he said, gesturing back toward the hallway leading away from his living room.

Dean headed that way immediately. Castiel, not knowing what else to do with himself, wandered into the kitchen. He decided to pass the time by washing his coffee mug from earlier, so it wouldn’t seem like he was just hovering awkwardly while Dean attended to his business. Then he noticed a stray coffee stain on his counter, so he took care of that, too. Before he quite knew it, he was idly wiping down his entire countertop, eyes scanning for any more missed spots as he went.

“Cas? What’s this?”

When Dean’s voice sounded from behind him, Castiel jumped. As he turned, his awareness of the passage of time plummeted back into his mind, and he dimly realized that it had been several minutes since Dean had gone back to the bathroom. Far more time than the average person needed to relieve oneself, barring underlying issues.

Because of this, Castiel’s lungs were already trembling inside his chest by the time Dean came into view. Then his eyes dropped to the framed corkboard Dean was holding in front of himself, and his lungs juddered to a halt entirely.

The corkboard was covered in his sketches of Dean, each one arranged with precise and tender care. Red pastel glowed vividly from creamy white paper, depicting a myriad of moments Castiel shouldn’t ever have seen, or noticed, or remembered. The most damning of all of them was nestled in pride of place at the top center of the board—Dean, fast asleep in his own bed, lit by the hellfire glow of his lava lamp, blissfully unaware of how close he had come to death that night. The very first sketch of him Castiel had ever done.

Slowly, painfully, Castiel dragged his eyes from the corkboard to Dean’s face. Those luminous green eyes, normally so expressive, were unreadable, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. Only the part of his lips and the raised set of his eyebrows spoke to Dean’s expectancy; he was clearly waiting for Castiel to explain himself.

How does one explain obsession?

Silence dragged out between them, becoming more tense with each passing second. Castiel’s mind was a blur of paper white, oily smears of blood red, gold-flecked green, and the absolute blackness of death. None of it could be formed into words that would make sense to anyone but… but…

But himself.

Clarity settled over Castiel as sharply as shattered glass, peppering his psyche with an endless succession of excruciating, microscopic cuts. The pain only hardened his resolve. He’d been soft, weak, ever since Dean was unceremoniously shoved into his life. Now, the time had come to excise that weakness.

Without a word, Castiel flung himself at Dean, across the scant few feet separating them. His hand connected first with Dean’s left shoulder, turning the man and shoving him back until he hit the wall just inside the kitchen doorway. A small corner of Castiel's brain remained aware enough to register the sound of the corkboard clattering to the floor between them. He quickly nudged it out of the way with his foot, unwilling even now to damage those precious images of Dean. Then he crowded close, one forearm braced across Dean’s chest while the other hand closed around his throat.

Castiel’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head, so exhilarating was the hammering of Dean’s pulse under his fingers. It quickened as he pressed still further, and Castiel inhaled deeply, as though he might be able to smell the blood racing in Dean’s veins. He couldn’t, of course he couldn’t, but he did get a good lungful of Dean’s scent. Soap and shampoo, cheap and serviceable, but then something else sparking at the periphery. Citrus-bright, with a hint of grassy greenness, and spicy sandalwood underlying it all.

Was Dean wearing… cologne? For a drive to the countryside with his coworker?

Castiel couldn’t help himself. He leaned in, his fingers tightening on Dean’s throat in warning. His nose skimmed up the length of Dean’s neck, inhaling deeply. Castiel hummed softly, almost a growl for how deep it originated in his throat, as his senses were overwhelmed by Dean.

“Do it.”

Castiel blinked, his nose still firmly stationed in the juncture of Dean’s jaw and neck. Had he heard right?

Then Dean pressed back. Not with his hands—no, those were still laid almost gently on Castiel’s upper arms, exerting no resistance at all. But his head craned forward, forcing his neck more into the arc of Castiel’s hand. Castiel was so startled by this unexpected turn of events that he pulled back, searching Dean’s face for answers.

What he found there was unlike anything he’d ever anticipated. Dean looked steadily back at him, utterly unafraid. His eyes were heavy-lidded and dark, irises almost entirely overtaken by blown pupils. As Castiel looked on, Dean lowered his chin, all but cradling Castiel’s hand between soft under-chin flesh and the firm protrusion of his Adam’s apple.

“Do it,” Dean urged him again. His voice, soft though it was, rumbled through Castiel’s palm, an earthquake crumbling the last of his defenses to dust.

Castiel squeezed his hand around the giving flesh of Dean’s throat and leaned up and in, reducing the bare inches between their height to nothing.

[Hello! If you are seeing this work anywhere but on Archive Of Our Own, it has been scraped without my knowledge or consent. Please report it as stolen to the website from where you got it, if you’re able, and find me @incandescentumbrage on AO3 to read my works ethically and for free!]

The kiss was not so much a meeting of lips as it was a battle of tongues and teeth. Castiel licked into Dean’s mouth, finding it already open and wanting. Dean’s tongue curled around Castiel’s, practically pulling it into his mouth. He closed his lips around it and sucked before biting down on the very tip, hard enough that Castiel was sure Dean tasted blood.

The pain only made Castiel groan and shudder. He pressed himself closer into Dean’s body, chasing the sensation. Dean widened his stance, letting Castiel sidle into the cradle of his thighs, their hips welcoming each other with a stuttering roll. Castiel withdrew his tongue from Dean’s mouth—yes, that was blood—and nipped at Dean’s lower lip in reply, tugging it sharply between his teeth.

Dean’s head fell back against the wall with a broken cry, his hips bucking forward into Castiel’s. They were both more than half-hard now, straining against their respective zippers as they rolled and ground into each other.

“C-Cas...” Dean panted, his voice rasping past the ligature of Castiel’s hand where it still gripped his neck. His hands slid from Castiel’s arms down his sides, hooking two fingers into Castiel’s belt loops and tugging him in until no air remained between their bodies.

Castiel’s eyelashes fluttered when he felt Dean’s breath whisper over his lips in the utterance of his name. He hadn’t been this turned on by another person in… he honestly couldn’t even remember the last time, if it even existed. Almost reluctantly, he released Dean’s lip from his teeth, nipping and nibbling his way along Dean’s stubbled jaw.

“Do you enjoy the feeling of impending death?” he murmured once his mouth reached the torturously delicate skin just below Dean’s ear. His voice was already wrecked, grating from his throat like demons had possessed him. “Does it make you hard, knowing all I need to do is…” He paused, squeezing his fingers tightly on either side of Dean’s throat until he felt the intensifying thud-slam of Dean’s protesting pulse. It thrilled him, how Dean’s eyes were blown out black, even as his face started purpling. His freckles stood out like blood spatter, in contrast. “...for only a few short minutes, and you would never wake up?”

He got his answer when the bulge in Dean’s jeans grew even more prominent, pushing insistently into the crook of Castiel’s thigh. He chuckled darkly before placing a hard, sucking kiss on the delectably thin skin just behind the bolt of Dean’s jaw. “I’ve done it before, you know. More than once. Do you want me to kill you, Dean? Is that what you want?”

Dean’s chest heaved against Castiel’s as he attempted to combat the lack of oxygen flowing to his brain. “I w- I want…” he gasped, his eyes locked on Castiel’s when Castiel drew back to watch his face.

“Tell me,” Castiel demanded when Dean took just a hair too long to say anything else. His face was deep purple now, his eyes starting to bug out, the blood-shot whites a stark contrast to the hue of his skin. Castiel saw when those eyes took on a pleading gleam, and his eyes narrowed in thought. “Show me,” he amended finally, when it dawned on him that Dean had, thus far in their acquaintance, been far more physically than verbally demonstrative.

Immediately, Dean’s knees buckled, and he began to sink to the floor. Castiel released his throat when Dean descended past his ability to keep a comfortable grip, but Dean didn’t pause to massage the contused skin, or otherwise comfort himself. He only took a single, deep, lung-filling breath, holding it as he flicked his eyes up to Castiel’s face and laid tentative fingertips on Castiel’s belt buckle.

Castiel’s own breath juddered nearly to a halt in his chest when he realized what Dean wanted. He nodded his consent, stunned beyond words that Dean not only appeared unperturbed by the truth of Castiel, but that he seemed to live, to thrive, in the same darkness.

At the very least, he certainly seemed to get off on it. At Castiel’s permission, Dean made impressively quick work of undoing his pants. When Castiel’s tented boxers emerged between the loose panels, Dean leaned forward, bracing his hands on Castiel’s hips to nuzzle up one side of the clothed shaft, then down the other. One hand lifted from Castiel’s hip to slip into the boxers’ slit, working his cock out through the opening. Once freed, Dean wasted no time in diving down onto the length of it, fitting as much as he could into his mouth before his throat constricted in protest.

Castiel’s knees nearly buckled from the sensation. He flung out a hand to brace himself against the kitchen wall while his other hand buried itself in the short spikes of hair at Dean’s crown. This earned him a groan from deep in Dean’s throat, and Castiel’s eyes rolled back as the sound reverberated down his length.

Dean sucked cock like a man starving, if a starving man could only be sustained in such a way. His eyes sank shut in apparent bliss, lashes fanning delicately out over his cheekbones. He bobbed his head on Castiel’s cock with an enthusiasm Castiel had never even dreamed of, his cheeks hollowing as he pulled back to the very tip. The sounds that emitted from around the seal of his spit-slick lips were obscenely wet, and they lit a fire deep in Castiel’s core.

Then Dean reached back to place a hand on top of Castiel’s where it still rested in his hair, pushing lightly in encouragement and stoking the fire into a blazing inferno. Castiel fisted his hand into the blond strands, tugging none too lightly. He delighted in the long groan it pulled from the other man, so he did it again, harder. Dean swayed with it, submitting himself to be pulled back and forth on Castiel’s cock.

Within moments, Dean was hanging onto Castiel’s thighs for dear life. He could take it nearly to the base now, his eyes watering profusely as he looked worshipfully up at Castiel. Castiel was sure his expression wasn’t much different as he gazed down at Dean in return, trying to commit every detail of Dean’s tear-streaked face to memory. He had no doubt he would be sketching this, later. Much later.

The first time Castiel pulled Dean onto his cock a little too hard, Dean gagged, his throat pulsing and constricting around the head. Castiel let out a choked cry at the sudden, gripping pressure, grateful for the hand he still had on the kitchen wall helping to keep him upright. He let Dean pull back just enough to catch his breath—barely—then did it again, holding Dean in place for a second longer than before.

Again, Dean’s throat struggled to accommodate the intrusion, but Dean himself didn’t. He only clutched harder at the meat of Castiel’s thighs, his fingertips digging into the cotton twill of Castiel’s pants as his throat spasmed around the head of Castiel’s cock. Fresh tears spilled from the puffy rims of his eyes, but he nodded encouragement into Castiel’s grip on his hair. When he got his gag reflex under control, a high whine eked up his throat as he wordlessly pleaded for more.

It became almost a game between them. How far down on Castiel’s cock could Dean go, and how long could he hold him there? His lips were puffy now, a mixture of saliva and precome leaking freely from the corners of his stretched-out mouth. A succession of low, half-drunken sounding moans poured from him as he allowed his mouth to be impaled over and over again.

The cumulative effect of it all had Castiel barreling toward orgasm at a breakneck pace. He sped up his manipulation of Dean’s head, savoring how the increase in speed seemed to drive Dean’s moans in a more desperate direction.

Then Dean slid one of his hands up from Castiel’s thigh, easing it through the slit of Castiel’s boxers just beneath his cock. It was a snug fit, but Dean worked steadily until he could twist his wrist and palm Castiel’s balls. That alone was enough to have Castiel’s eyes rolling back in his head, but then Dean cupped his hand, squeezing gently and rolling the sensitive flesh in his palm.

Castiel saw stars. With one final yank of Dean’s hair, dragging him down to the root of his cock, he came.

If Castiel were a more poetic man, he would swear that his soul itself, black and jagged as it was, flowed from him to be poured down Dean’s throat. He felt as though his feet had lifted clear off the ground, that he was levitating from the sheer force of the sparking pulses shooting up from his toes into his groin. Dimly, he was aware that he was grunting raggedly into the quiet of his kitchen, but he couldn’t spare a single thought for the potential embarrassment as he focused solely on keeping himself from collapsing atop Dean’s kneeling body.

When the last of the aftershocks faded, Castiel found himself slumping bonelessly to the floor. He leaned back against the wall, still catching his breath as he watched Dean flop onto his butt, then scoot back to sit against the wall beside him. They looked at each other silently for a moment before breaking out into mirrored grins, wicked and sated.

“Well, you didn’t kill me, Cas,” Dean started, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper, “but I wouldn’t say it was for lack of tryin’.”

Castiel chuckled a bit before his face fell into more solemn lines. “You’re serious, then? You don’t care?” His heart pounded as he waited for Dean’s answer. It would be nearly impossible to kill him now, but Castiel would do it if he had to.

“Care about what?” Dean replied. His brows lifted, but his eyes were entirely too knowing for Castiel to believe his ruse of ignorance.

He shot Dean a dark look. “That I’m a killer. That I intended to kill you, at first. Or did you think that sketch came entirely from my imagination?” he prodded, nudging his chin at the corkboard now lying on the floor next to them. Miraculously, none of Castiel’s sketches had dislodged when Dean dropped it earlier.

Dean looked over and down at the corkboard for a moment, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Honestly, man? No. Should it? Yeah, probably. Most folks don’t take kindly to being stalked in their own homes. I just… I dunno. Something about knowing you did that is weirdly… well, kinda flattering. Kinda hot. And hey, I’m still alive, so something must’ve stopped you from killing me. Who knows,” he finished with a cheeky eyebrow waggle at Castiel, “maybe you’re not a killer after all, just a soft-hearted stalker.”

With an unexpected burst of energy, Castiel propelled himself out of his floor seat, swinging his knee over Dean’s sprawled legs to straddle him high on his thighs. He leaned in close to Dean’s chest, nosing along the column of his throat before biting sharply on the cord of muscle there. He relished Dean’s resulting yelp.

“Do you want to find out?” he murmured close to Dean’s ear, nipping at his earlobe.

Dean’s shuddering exhale was a flitting breeze across Castiel’s neck, making him shiver. “Yeah, Cas,” Dean breathed. “I really do.”

Chapter Text

It was another night at another wobbly table in the corner of another dimly lit dive bar. The energy between Castiel and Dean, however, could not be more different from the first time they found themselves in this setting. They leaned their heads together over the sticky surface of the table, whispering to one another as their eyes flitted over the crowd gathered inside the squat brick building.

“What about her?” Dean asked, giving a slight nod toward a woman laughing loudly at the bar. She was a dark-haired, sharp-edged femme fatale in a low-cut tank top, and the way she looked at the man sitting next to her suggested she saw far more than she let on.

Castiel tilted his head, considering. “Maybe…” he replied, unconvinced. She was pretty enough to be noticed. Not good for their needs. His eyes kept roaming until they stopped on a man across the bar.

The man was of unremarkable height and build, dressed not unlike Dean was now, in jeans and checked flannel. The man had torn the sleeves off his, though, and topped the ensemble with a sweat-stained trucker’s cap emblazoned with the busty silhouette of a reclining woman. He was currently standing far too close to a real-life woman, ignoring her look of discomfort to stroke a rough hand over her hair and down her arm.

“Him,” Castiel said decisively.

Dean followed Castiel’s gaze until he alighted on the object of interest. Castiel watched as Dean’s eyes narrowed in consideration before he glanced back at Castiel and nodded. His eyes were glinting already, and a dark little smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Let’s do it,” he said with barely contained excitement. “In fact, I think I know just how to get him out of here.”

Dean went on to surprise Castiel with his impeccable instinct, explaining that he would approach the man, pretending to intervene on the woman’s behalf. Castiel could tell that part wasn’t even entirely a lie. Dean would goad the man into “taking it outside” for a manly exchange of fists. Once he got the man distracted and well away from witnesses, Castiel could come up behind him to knock him out.

It was a solid plan. Castiel was impressed. (And a little turned on.)

The plan began smoothly enough. Their target fell for Dean’s feigned chivalry exactly as predicted, practically submitting himself to be shoved outside by Dean’s righteous fury. Castiel slipped out the back a minute later, circling around the building to avoid any bar-goers witnessing him leaving with Dean and the soon to be dead man.

When he reached the front of the building, however, he found that the woman being subjected to the brute’s attention had actually followed them out of the bar, for reasons Castiel couldn’t fathom. She was now standing a few feet away from where Dean was in a shoving match with the man, biting her nails in between sporadic cries of, “Leave him alone!” and, “Don’t hurt him!” It was unclear which ‘him’ she really meant, but regardless, Castiel knew he had to get rid of her.

The woman was so distracted by the spectacle in front of her, it was almost too easy for Castiel to slip through the shadows and get his arm around her throat. He hooked his elbow around her neck and staggered backward, dragging the woman around the side of the building before anyone else could come out and see them. There, he flexed his arm against the sides of her throat until she went limp, then let her unconscious body slide down his to the ground. He spared her no further thoughts, immediately making his way back to the front of the bar.

Thankfully, this appeared to be exactly the kind of dive bar on the outskirts of town that was so accustomed to bar fights as to be uninterested in them, as long as property damage didn’t seem imminent. There were no windows, and no one else had come outside to check on the brawling men, which meant no one but Castiel got to witness the glorious sight that was playing out before him. The dirtbag was sprawled out on the gravel of the parking lot with Dean straddling his torso, sinking punch after heavy punch into the man’s face. Castiel bit his lip as he approached, arousal surging low in his gut as he came close enough to see the blood coating both the man’s face and Dean’s knuckles.

“Dean,” he called softly once he was within earshot.

Dean paused with a fist still cocked, looking expectantly up at Castiel. His chest was heaving, his lips parted, and his hair was mussed out of its usual artfully careless style. Blood trickled from his nose and from a split on his bottom lip, and there was a smudge of it beneath one eye—whose, it was impossible to tell. Castiel had to fight back the urge to drop to his knees and lick it off Dean’s skin.

“We should leave now,” he continued, nodding toward Dean’s car. It was, thankfully, parked only a few feet from where Dean was kneeling atop the man’s unconscious body.

Together, they got the man hoisted up off the ground and stowed on his side in Dean’s trunk. Dean held the man’s wrists together first, then his ankles, allowing Castiel to wrap the limbs in duct tape with quick, efficient movements. Then, the trunk lid was lowered, closing the man into plastic-lined darkness.

As soon as the trunk clicked shut, Castiel lunged for Dean. He clutched Dean’s head between hungry hands, licking into his mouth with an avid growl. Dean made a sound low in his throat that could have been pain at first, but he was soon kissing Castiel back just as eagerly, pressing their bodies together from chest to hip. The taste of iron spread over Castiel’s tongue until he was half-drunk with it, his tongue delving into every corner of Dean’s mouth to seek out more.

They were both panting by the time they pulled apart. They stared at each other for a long moment, and vaguely Castiel wondered if Dean was thinking the same thing he was: that he almost, almost wanted to call off the hunt altogether so they could instead go back home and devour each other. Their quarry was already caught, though, and it would be a shame to waste all that effort.

When Dean’s eyes slid down to the closed lid of the Impala’s trunk, their shared wavelength was confirmed. A grin spread across Castiel’s face, mirrored a second later by Dean’s. As one, they turned and entered their respective sides of the car. With a rev of her engine, they pulled out of the bar’s parking lot and into the night.

*

[Hello! If you are seeing this work anywhere but on Archive Of Our Own, it has been scraped without my knowledge or consent. Please report it as stolen to the website from where you got it, if you’re able, and find me @incandescentumbrage on AO3 to read my works ethically and for free!]

When they’d first been planning this excursion, Dean had originally thought that they’d bring their victim back to Castiel’s place to finish what they started. Castiel quickly explained, however, that his garage was just that—a garage—and that it was far safer to separate his play space from his living space. There were fewer nosy neighbors at the abandoned warehouse he’d found sitting outside the opposite end of town, anyway. And if anyone did call in a complaint, the place had been purchased in cash by a ‘Jimmy Smith,’ so nothing could lead back to Castiel.

It was there that Castiel directed Dean. When they parked around the back of the building and opened the trunk, they found the man from the bar just beginning to struggle back to consciousness. He had barely achieved the awareness that his hands and feet were bound when Castiel and Dean scooped him up under his arms and dragged him into the decrepit building.

When Castiel had first scoped out this place several months ago, after his last impromptu workspace had been taken over by a biker gang to build a meth lab, he had found it ideal for his work. The warehouse had been largely gutted, its furnishings likely repurposed or sold, but several anchor points still remained along the walls, perfect for the restraining of his victims. Best of all, inside the break room lay an old, metal twin bed, complete with mattress—clearly the former resting place of a night watchman who was not, in fact, interested in watching throughout the night.

The bed, moved to the center of the room, served a different purpose now.

Their victim was heaved up onto it, and his wrists bound to the metal bars of the headboard with more duct tape. He was actively struggling now, but his shouts were muffled, thanks to Dean’s quick thinking. The man had found his voice again outside, just before they got him inside the warehouse. Dean had encouraged Castiel to join him in dropping the man to the ground, quickly shrugging out of his flannel overshirt once his hands were free. He’d wadded it up and shoved it mercilessly between the man’s teeth the next time he’d opened his mouth to scream. Dean had smiled a little ruefully at Cas then, saying, “Shit, I liked that shirt, but I guess that’s why you don’t wear your favorite clothes out hunting, huh?”

Castiel had smiled back, although he couldn’t quite relate to Dean’s lamentation. Clothing had always been just a utility for him. Something with which to protect his body and help him blend in with the masses. He supposed that mindset only helped him, given this particular pastime of his. He had to dispose of clothing fairly regularly due to blood and other evidence, but it didn’t bother him in the slightest, aside from the necessary annoyance of acquiring replacements.

Still, though. He appreciated Dean’s resourcefulness. And the stretch of his tight black tee over his chest.

The tired metal of the bed frame squeaked loudly, drawing Castiel’s attention back to the man attached to it. He had begun kicking his legs now, frantically bucking his whole body in an attempt to break out of his predicament.

“You know,” Castiel commented thoughtfully, “it’d be an awful lot harder for him to kick out like that if his kneecaps were shattered.”

Dean’s eyes widened, though Castiel didn’t detect more than the smallest flicker of fear in them. If anything, his expression seemed more… anticipatory. “I think I have a crescent wrench in my car,” he said, darting off through the door.

Without Dean’s presence to distract him, Castiel was able to take a moment to look over their victim. The man was fully conscious by now, trying his best to glare hatefully back at Castiel. Unfortunately for him, his eyes were wide to nearly bulging with panic, and had been ever since Castiel made mention of his kneecaps. Between that and the swelling that was blowing his face out of shape, he was far less than a vision to strike fear into the hearts of men. When the man tried to shout at him through the flannel gag, Castiel only smiled slightly, unperturbed.

A moment later, Castiel heard Dean’s footsteps returning. He looked over just as Dean re-entered the room, proudly holding aloft a large, heavy crescent wrench longer than his forearm. “Knew I had one in there somewhere,” he remarked with a grin. “So, kneecaps, huh?”

Castiel shrugged, playing along with the casual air Dean had affected. “It seems the best way to keep him from kicking us, since the bed doesn’t have much of a footboard,” he replied. Certainly, something could have been worked out to bind the man’s ankles to the legs of the bed, but where was the fun in that?

The corners of Dean’s mouth tugged down in nonchalant agreement. “Yeah, I s’pose you’re right. Well, here goes nothin’!”

Without even a split second’s hesitation, Dean raised the wrench high and brought the heavy, blunt head of it down onto the man’s left kneecap.

The man’s screams echoed in the small room, even through his gag. His arms went taut as his back bowed off the bed in agony, his body writhing in pain as much as it could within the confines of the duct tape binding him.

Normally, Castiel’s attention was fixed on his victim, enjoying the play of pain and fear over their face. This time, though, it was Dean who captivated him. He watched as Dean’s eyes traveled the length of their victim’s body, taking in the odd crater beneath his pant leg where his kneecap should be, and tracking the slide of tears over the bruised, misshapen flesh of his face. Dean sucked his lower lip into his mouth and nibbled on it, appearing deep in thought. Eventually, his eyes slid back to Castiel’s. “Other one?”

Castiel looked steadily back at him, trying to school his hunger from appearing too baldly on his face. “Do you want to do the other one?” He would take over if necessary, but he was getting too much pleasure watching this to actively want to step in.

A grin spread slowly across Dean’s face. In the shadows, broken only by what moonglow could leak in through the grime-caked windows, it turned him into something otherworldly, all gleaming teeth and bloody appetite. He looked as though he belonged to another realm altogether; one criss-crossed by rusted chains and razor wire, echoing with the screams of the damned.

Castiel had never found him more beautiful.

The man taped to the bed did not scream so much as he wailed when Dean’s wrench came down on his right kneecap. It was a ragged, broken sound, full of the blubbering regret that comes from a misspent life flashing before petty eyes. Dean closed his own and breathed deep, as though he could savor the scent of the man’s anguish. Castiel slipped his hand into his coat pocket as he looked on, stroking the hilt of his knife with the tips of two fingers.

“Guess he won’t be kickin’ now,” Dean murmured, barely loud enough for Castiel to hear over their victim’s cries. His voice sounded nearly reverent with awe.

“No,” Castiel agreed, slowly withdrawing the knife from his pocket. “Dean? You’re not squeamish about blood, are you?”

Dean huffed a laugh, and held up his hand to showcase his knuckles, still bloody from whaling on the guy earlier. “This look squeamish to you?”

“Not exactly, but this is a somewhat… different level of blood I’m referring to.”

Dean’s eyes sharpened like a falcon zeroing in on its prey. “Show me,” he demanded.

The fierce look of determination on Dean's face had Castiel biting back the urge to drive him up against the wall and take his pleasure from Dean's body. It was only the knowledge that time was of the essence that helped him rein in the impulse. It wouldn't be long until shock caused the man's blood pressure to plummet, and that was less than ideal for what they were about to do.

Caressing Dean with only a lingering, heated look for now, Castiel walked to the head of the bed, placed the point of the knife on the inside of the man’s wrist just below the duct tape, and pressed a red line down the length of his forearm. The cut was just deep enough to nick the artery running between the two long bones, and blood welled up immediately. It pulsed from the incision, running down the man’s arm and into his cut-off shirt sleeve, as well as dripping down onto the dirty mattress beneath him. Soon, his arm was soaked with it, glistening red in the hazy moonlight.

Castiel looked up at Dean, and found his partner watching the blood avidly, his lips parted. When Dean caught Castiel looking at him, his tongue darted out, wetting his lips. He grimaced only slightly when the motion pulled at the split on his bottom lip, already clotted over but still tender.

“You gonna do the other one?” Dean asked, his voice deep and rough.

Castiel shrugged as he circled the bed, approaching the man’s other outstretched arm. His path took him directly past where Dean stood, and Castiel couldn’t resist the temptation to reach out. He trailed his fingers across Dean’s lower back as he passed him, smiling to himself when he caught Dean’s shoulders quaking in a shiver.

“I could,” Castiel replied as he trailed the tip of the knife down the inside of the man’s other forearm. He wasn’t pressing hard enough to cut, but the sharp point still left a distinct mark traversing the man’s skin. The man was nearly deathly still under the threat of the blade, watching the knife as best he could from his disadvantageous angle. “The symmetry of it is very tempting. However, if I open his other artery, there is a chance he may bleed out before we're done.” Castiel stopped there, watching Dean intently to see how he would respond.

“Don’t gotta nick an artery to make him bleed, though, right?” Dean replied, his eagerness evident in his voice.

Castiel smiled as twin flames of pride and relief ignited in his chest, quickly spreading under his skin to suffuse him with an inferno's worth of heat. More and more it seemed that Dean’s perversion ran as deep as his own, and that it had only needed the right catalyst to convert urge into action. It was deeply gratifying, and more than a little arousing, to know that he, Castiel, had been able to provide Dean with that catharsis.

“Would you like to find out?” Castiel asked, flipping the knife in his grip so he could offer it hilt-first to Dean.

Dean watched Castiel wordlessly for a moment before a wicked grin split his face. Slowly, he walked to Castiel, but he didn’t immediately take the knife. Instead, Dean’s hand covered Castiel’s on the handle, using their shared grip to pull him in.

The kiss turned scorching the instant their lips met. Castiel groaned into it, his lips parting, and Dean used the opportunity to lick deep into his mouth. Dean’s free hand went to the collar of Castiel’s coat, fisting into the fabric to yank him even closer. Castiel felt his weight shifting onto his toes to close the slight gap in their height, pressing into the hungry cavern of Dean’s open mouth as though he were offering himself to be eaten, a willing sacrifice.

What a heady role reversal it was. It was usually he who was the taker, the sacrificer. The consumer, like an insatiable, demanding god. Dean’s appearance in his life had turned everything on its head, and now Castiel wanted nothing more than to offer the world up on the altar of Dean’s shrine, watching proudly as Dean devoured every morsel before turning that voracious gaze onto him.

Finally, Dean pulled away with a low, throaty sound that smacked of a little regret. He smiled into Castiel’s eyes, his own dark and glittering, as he tugged the knife from Castiel’s hand. He made his way around Castiel to stand by their victim’s as-yet-intact arm, and gestured to it with the blade.

“So, cutting ‘down the road’ will get me an early bleedout, but what if I…?” He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, Dean leaned in close over the man and laddered a series of short cuts down his forearm, shallow enough to avoid the arteries but deep enough to open multitudes of veins and capillaries.

Blood welled forth in an instant. Castiel watched as Dean drew his finger down the man’s arm, pulling each cut open, one after the other, and leaving a smeared trail through the blood already beginning to coat the man’s skin. The man had stopped screaming now, lapsing into shaky whimpers as his eyelids drooped woozily from shock and blood loss.

“Hey, Cas?”

Castiel blinked as his attention refocused on Dean, who was half-turned to look questioningly at him. “Hmm?”

“Alright if I keep going?”

Castiel’s lips curled into an indulgent smile as he sauntered over to the counter lining the far wall of the break room, just beneath the windows, and leaned against the edge of it, making himself as comfortable as possible. “By all means, enjoy yourself. Just keep an eye on his breathing. It’d be a shame if he died before you’re ready for him to.”

Dean’s responding grin was all teeth and devilish delight. He raised the knife at Castiel in a jaunty little salute, then turned and got back to work.

Chapter Text

Before long, the man laid out on the abandoned bed was riddled with cuts and covered from head to foot in his own blood. His clothing lay in tatters where the blade had sliced through fabric in its quest for flesh, and was stained red like the rest of him. There was even a single, long cut following the edge of the man’s hairline, still sluggishly oozing blood to clot in his eyebrows and the corners of his eyes. Tear tracks had long since dried on his cheeks and down the sides of his nose, bisecting the sea of red that his face had become. He stared dully up at the shadows collected on the ceiling, still breathing but deep into the unresponsive stage of shock.

Dean looked magnificent. His hands were red to the wrist with blood, and there was a streak of it across his forehead, as though he’d been painting and had brushed his hair away without thinking. The rest of his skin gleamed with sweat, and his chest heaved as his breathing evened out from the excited gasps and laughter he’d been emitting. His hair was mussed from when he’d briefly worn the man’s skeezy trucker’s cap after plucking it from his head, with a rakish forelock flopping over his stained brow.

Castiel had never been more turned on in his life, watching Dean dive so gleefully into the deep end of homicide. He was achingly hard in his pants, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the countertop in an effort to hold himself back. Every instinct in him shouted for him to launch himself at Dean, pin him against a wall, and claim. He yearned to taste the salt and blood coating Dean’s skin, to lick it off him and then offer it up for Dean to sample from his tongue.

“Dean,” he said in lieu of submitting to his urges, “it’s time.”

Dean looked up as Castiel approached, his eyes widening when he parsed Castiel’s meaning. “How do we do it?”

Castiel did his best not to let his elation show on his face at Dean’s use of “we.” Judging by the uptick of Dean’s lips, he wasn’t very successful in his attempt to stay straightfaced. “I suppose that depends. Would you rather see him bleed out, or feel him die beneath your hands?”

Dean looked down at the man as he pondered his options, idly tracing a fingertip through the blood pooled, half-clotted, in one particularly long cut down the man’s chest. The man’s muffled groan eked out from beneath the flannel gag at the contact.

“Both,” Dean finally said with a rueful smile. “But I guess, if I gotta pick… I want to see him bleed,” he decided, his voice going a little breathy.

Castiel nodded slowly, his heart fluttering in his chest at Dean’s choice. It was exactly what he would have chosen, and it only fanned the black flames of his hunger to know that Dean apparently shared his predilection for blood. “The neck is best for that,” he advised, his arousal almost embarrassingly evident in the guttural quality of his voice. “Although if you want to be very thorough, you could also cut the femoral arteries.”

The shadow of Dean’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “That’s the one in the leg, yeah?”

“Yes.” Castiel stepped in close to Dean, brushing two fingers up the crease between his thigh and groin. He nearly groaned aloud when he felt Dean’s denim-clothed hardness against the backs of his fingers. “Here. Just over an inch beneath the skin.”

A ragged breath shuddered past Dean’s parted lips, and Castiel was gratified that he clearly wasn't the only one affected just then. “R-right. Thanks, Cas.”

Dean made to turn back to their victim, but Castiel moved quickly, curling his fingers around the back of Dean’s neck. He hauled Dean back to him, invading his mouth in a kiss that was all teeth, tongue, and ravenous appetite. Dean’s lips were swollen and shining when Castiel finally pulled back, both of them breathing hard.

“You can thank me properly when you’re done,” Castiel growled. “Now bleed him.”

Dean’s responding grin was wolfishly sharp. He turned back to the man, who had renewed his struggle as soon as he had heard them planning their final cuts. His efforts were feeble from blood loss, and the duct tape bonds held firm against the screeching metal bed frame.

Dean leaned in low over the man’s legs, first cutting through the thick denim of his jeans, just over the crease Castiel had indicated at each side of his groin. Then, with one last, playful look at Castiel, Dean pressed down and sliced into skin once, then twice, dodging deftly as blood began spurting out.

The man’s scream was thin and weak, barely audible through the gag. Castiel kept watching, his heart hammering excitedly, as Dean moved up to the man’s head, looking the man right in his bleary eyes. “Thanks for being my first, asshole,” he said as he rested the edge of the knife against the man’s neck.

With one savage swipe, Dean cut clean through skin, cartilage, veins, and arteries alike. He stood, watching raptly, as dark blood bubbled out, while bright red surged from just beneath. The burst of it was weak compared to the last two cuts, but it still splashed down on the man’s face and chest, coating him in the life force that was rapidly departing his body.

Slowly, as though in a trance, Dean lifted his free hand to trail his fingertips through the blood pooling in the hollow of the man’s collarbone. He brought his fingers to his face, studying the glistening drip down his skin. “Huh. That was… that was…” he murmured, pausing as he raised his eyes to meet Castiel’s.

Castiel swallowed as he braced himself for the “this is too much,” the “you’re sick” rejection that he was sure was coming. At the very least, he expected Dean to turn and vomit, shocked by the lengths to which even his depraved mind was willing to go. Regret welled up in Castiel as his mind skidded through the possible ways by which he could take Dean out in one last, heartbreaking act of self-preservation. His knife was still in Dean’s hand—stupid!—but the wrench had landed back on the countertop when Dean had finished with it. He should be able to reach that in time. His thighs tensed as he prepared to make the leap.

“...That was awesome!” Dean finished, a wide, delighted grin splitting his face.

Relief surged up inside Castiel, so powerful that his knees nearly buckled from the force of it. He had no words adequate enough to express the emotion. Instead, he used the tension built up in his legs to close the short distance between him and Dean, gripping the man by his shirt and pushing him into the wall by the head of the bed.

The split in Dean’s lip broke open the moment their lips crashed together, filling Castiel’s mouth with the metallic tang of blood. He groaned, low and tortured, and immediately drew Dean’s lip into his mouth, nipping and sucking until his tongue was coated with iron-tinged ecstasy. One hand dropped from Dean’s shirt to fumble at the fly of his jeans. He finally got them open and dove his hand inside, circling his fingers without preamble around the hard length of Dean’s cock.

Dean gasped and moaned into Castiel’s mouth, his hips bucking frantically into Castiel’s stroking hand. His own dropped to the front of Castiel’s pants, squeezing his cock through the fabric before beginning to work on undoing the hook and zipper closure. Castiel ground his hips forward, increasingly impatient as a seemingly small eternity passed. At last, Dean had Castiel’s pants open and shoved just far enough down his hips that his cock bounced free of the fabric of his boxers, slapping against his belly.

Dean began to sink to his knees, his eyes downcast and focused on the swollen, purplish head of Castiel’s cock, but Castiel held Dean fast by his shirt.

“No,” he gritted out through a throat gone thick with want. Shoving at Dean’s shoulder, Castiel turned him around to face the wall, then gripped his hips to pull them back toward his own. “I want you like this.”

[Hello! If you are seeing this work anywhere but on Archive Of Our Own, it has been scraped without my knowledge or consent. Please report it as stolen to the website from where you got it, if you’re able, and find me @incandescentumbrage on AO3 to read my works ethically and for free!]

Dean gasped, pushing his ass shamelessly back toward Castiel. “Do it, fucking do it,” he panted, briefly removing one hand from the wall to yank the back of his jeans down below his ass.

Castiel had a thumb buried in Dean’s cleft, pulling his cheeks apart, and his hand circled around the base of his cock, guiding it to notch at Dean’s entrance, when an ice bucket of realization poured over him. “Shit, fuck. We don’t have lube,” he growled, releasing his cock to slap a frustrated palm against the wall by Dean’s head.

A noise that could only be described as a whine escaped Dean’s throat. “Don’t care!” he cried. “Need you, Cas, please—”

His cries were cut off by Castiel’s hand swiftly encircling his throat from behind, squeezing a warning. “Much as I love the sight of blood,” he whispered into Dean’s ear, “I don’t want to see it like that, from you.”

Castiel paused, casting his eyes around for any suitable alternative in this unlikeliest of settings. The fresh blood coating their victim’s body was sorely tempting. In another reality, the oily slick of it would be perfect for his needs, and hot as fuck to boot. That wasn’t enough, though, to override his bone-deep aversion to getting this man’s fluids anywhere near his—or Dean’s—more vulnerable parts. Sure, most blood borne infections could be successfully treated these days, but he wasn’t sure he could ever get over the unclean feeling of having this man’s… anything… inside him like that. He shuddered as he considered it, and Dean, mistaking the movement for arousal, moaned and pushed back more insistently against him.

In the end, there was nothing suitable in the warehouse’s break room, which came as a disappointment more than a surprise. With a frustrated growl, Castiel grabbed Dean by the hips and spun him, shoving him to bend over the bed and their victim's limp body still bound to it. “Stay,” he commanded as he stepped up to Dean’s doubled form and sank to his knees. “We’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Wha—?”

Dean’s questioning was cut off by a deep, gratified groan as Castiel’s mouth made contact with his hole. Castiel was insistent, bordering on needy, right from the start, first sealing his lips around the puckered flesh, then flicking and circling his tongue over the sensitive skin until he felt it pulse against him. His hands came up to grip Dean’s hips tight enough to bruise, fingertips digging into soft skin and the firm muscle beneath.

For his part, Dean did not seem to be disturbed at all by the fact that he was bent over a dead body made so by his own hands. He turned his head, pressing his cheek into the relatively unmarred clothing still covering the man’s gut—neither he nor Castiel had possessed the patience for the delicate slices required when one wants to spill blood but not eviscerate—so he could look back over his shoulder at Castiel. One hand fisted in the blood-spotted denim over the dead man’s shin, while the other reached back, scrabbling for any part of Castiel he could reach. He finally landed in Castiel’s hair, gripping just tight enough to hold him close.

Castiel moaned as sparks rippled under his skin, starting at the roots of the hair Dean was tugging and traveling down his spine to burst outward in a pyrotechnic display just behind the base of his cock. The swollen length of it twitched where it hung, still proudly exposed, dripping precome to the bare concrete floor between his knees.

Between Castiel’s voracious attention, and Dean’s rapidly climbing desperation, it didn’t take long before Dean’s hole was soaking wet and loose around Castiel’s probing tongue. Castiel pulled away slowly, rubbing each cheek against Dean’s skin to transfer his stray saliva back to where he wanted it most. He climbed to his feet, stepping in close and notching his almost angrily red cock against Dean’s hole.

Dean’s hand, now freed from Castiel’s hair, landed on his own ass cheek, pulling it apart to invite Castiel inside. Vaguely, Castiel noticed the faint red smear of a bloody handprint on the skin beneath Dean’s outstretched fingers. He smiled to himself when the thought registered that his hair must now be tacky with blood as well, transferred from Dean's gripping hand.

At the first nudge of Castiel’s cock, Dean’s hole gave easily, relaxing enough for the head to pop inside the first ring of muscle. Their combined groans echoed against mostly-bare drywall, Dean’s ending in a choked gasp when Castiel began to push deeper inside.

Castiel grit his teeth, his fingers digging into Dean’s flesh as he fought to keep from losing control so soon. His first instinct had always been to take, without regard for the other person’s comfort or pleasure. It was rare that he had these urges in the first place, and typically, the other person was only an orgasm (his own, generally speaking) away from dying in the first place, so what did their enjoyment really matter? Now, though, he wanted to savor. More than that, he wanted to share this pleasure with Dean—with the one person he’d ever been compelled to let in. The one person with whom he’d shared his darkness, who had seen it and run toward it, rather than away.

It seemed that, even now, Dean’s urges compelled him toward Castiel. He brazenly shoved his hips back to meet each of Castiel’s thrusts, not bothering to muffle the cries that emitted from high in his throat each time their bodies met. The room echoed with them, punctuated by the repeated slapping of skin on skin as Castiel bottomed out time and again.

Castiel shifted his angle, and Dean’s cries took on a frantic edge as his hole began to seize and flutter around Castiel’s cock. The overwhelming combination of it tore a growl from Castiel’s throat. He leaned in close over Dean’s body, reaching up to clamp a hand on Dean’s shoulder. His grip held Dean steady as Castiel delivered a series of brutal thrusts, pushing in slowly at first, only to snap his hips forward the last few inches to bury himself in Dean’s body.

Castiel was running on adrenaline and instinct more so than experience, in the moment, but they seemed to be leading him aptly. Dean’s cries grew to a fever pitch as his body clamped down around Castiel, holding him deep within as Dean fell apart around him.

“Fuuuck… Caaas…” Dean moaned brokenly, the hand that had been spreading himself now reaching out to grasp at the loose panels of Castiel’s pants, holding him flush as Dean clenched and shuddered through his orgasm.

It was all more than Castiel’s self-control could bear. With his own muttered curse, he gave himself over to the writhing pressure that had been building deep in his groin, spilling deep into Dean’s body.

The blood saturating their victim’s body had cooled and congealed by the time Dean and Castiel could right themselves and retrieve their disposal supplies from the trunk of Dean’s car. Castiel had never wrapped a body while in the rosy haze of post-coital afterglow before, but he was pleased to note that, despite frequent pauses to smile across the mattress at Dean while they worked, the routine and all its myriad details came as easily and automatically to him as ever. It was relieving to discover that Dean’s inclusion had not dulled his edge. If anything, Dean only made him sharper. Hungrier. Deadlier.

Castiel celebrated his relief by crowding Dean against the side of the Impala and making out with him, slow and luxurious, once they’d bundled the man’s body back into the trunk. The soft, eager noises Dean sighed into his mouth were nearly enough to get him going again, right then and there, but Castiel firmly gripped the reins of his self-control this time. They had a job to finish, first.

Later, on their way back to Dean’s house—where Castiel was consciously invited, this time—Dean paused in his idle singing along with the radio. He glanced over at Castiel with a glint in his eye and a crooked grin that Castiel was quickly becoming familiar with. “So how often do you do this, anyway?”

Castiel shrugged. “Not as often as I’d like, I suppose, but whenever the urge grows too much to bear. Or when someone comes along who really, really needs killing.” His eyes narrowed unconsciously as an image of Ash from work flashed into his mind. Someday. “Why do you ask?”

Dean nibbled on his lip for a moment, seemingly unsure, before steeling his resolve. “I guess maybe I already have somebody in mind. Someone who really, really needs killing.”

Castiel arched an eyebrow, avidly curious. “Who?”

“Zach fucking Adler,” Dean replied immediately, his lip curling derisively around the name.

Castiel couldn’t help it; he threw his head back and laughed, hard and long.

“What?!” Dean demanded, though he, too, was grinning. “Tell me I’m wrong, Cas. I ain’t wrong.”

“No, you definitely aren’t,” Castiel confirmed with a chuckle, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Alright, Dean. I have plans for you tonight, but tomorrow? Tomorrow we’ll start planning how we want to kill Zachariah.”

“Awesome! I, uh, might already have an idea or two,” Dean said, shifting excitedly in his seat.

A slow smile spread over Castiel’s face as he watched Dean, taking in his casual, assured grip of the steering wheel and the killer intent lighting his face from within. Dean was more beautiful than ever like this, and Castiel’s fingers itched for his charcoal and pastels, but he quieted the urge for now. There would be plenty of time for the muse to strike, and strike again.