𝐼𝑛 𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝐼'𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑦 ( open )

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Open.
When: April 1 - early May.
Where: Aquila; Cadens; The Horizon;
What: Demon shenanigans part 1 — featuring hobo'ing through the Horizon, hiding out in Aquila, and then returning to the Free Cities.
Warnings: Rated R for sexual content, demonic violence, psychological abuse, and suicidal ideation.

𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙'𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠, 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠-𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠, 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑠
𝐼𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑑𝑛'𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡, 𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑟𝑡, 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑠𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑡, 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑡, ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑒
𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐼 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠, 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝐼'𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑦
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝑔𝑜 𝑛𝑜 𝑓𝑢𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟
𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑑 𝑜𝑓, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑔𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑟
𝑃𝑢𝑠ℎ, 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑
𝑂ℎ 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑, 𝐼 𝑎𝑖𝑛'𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢
𝑀𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒'𝑠 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟
𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑘𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟
𝑂ℎ 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑒, 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼'𝑚 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑑𝑜

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ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 ( 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛 )

[righteously]

( If you ask him, Aquila isn't anything to write home about. It ain't bad, it definitely has a few perks up over Cadens — namely, not a goddamn single soul he knows is in Aquila. It gives him some breathing room to find his bearings, to establish himself, without having to worry about annoying familiar faces or hunters with too much time on their hands stumbling across him too soon.

He doesn't give a crap about them. He doesn't actually give a crap about much of anything, actually.

There are exactly two things on his radar right now: sex & alcohol, mostly in that order. Things that get in the way, people that seem to annoyingly impede his access to these two things? Well, they get taken out of the equation.

He does not leave a trail of bodies, exactly. That would imply he's going on some kind of serial spree, which ain't the case. It just... happens to be that a small handful of ne'er-do-wells never make it home after they pick the wrong fight with the wrong obnoxious drunk. He's careful enough that there are no witnesses. He bounces around between enough pubs and taverns that it's hard to connect him to them.

It's not so much that he has a newfound hard-on for homicide. Rather, it's that he simply has no regard for the sanctity of human life, or for anything other than fulfilling whatever whims motivate him in the moment.

Sometimes that means contentedly getting belligerently shit-faced in a pub, sometimes that means being charming enough to hit on whoever happens to be nearby regardless of gender or station. Sometimes that means stalking some asshole home and killing them in their sleep. A lucky or particularly sleuthy individual can find him at any stop along this path. )

[unwings]

[ tracking dean's path through one violent tavern altercation to the next, cas catches up to him in aquila. jo's left behind, knowing how poorly this interaction could go. if dean puts a fist through castiel's chest, he doesn't want her living with that image in her head, and cas couldn't bear getting her hurt again. at full power, a fight with a knight of hell would be trying. as he is, there'd be no way for him to protect a human from the demon.

it's a long shot, a last ditch effort. at best, it's the most ill-advise attempt at trial and error. castiel has to try, he owes him that much. whatever else dean means to him, he's his family first. as the frequently preached saying goes - we don't leave family behind.

for several nights, cas keeps tabs on the few seedier taverns he knows of in the city, once he learns dean's in the area. the majority of his last paycheck from the clinic goes towards greasing palms, but once he knows dean's entered one, cas has to work fast. the alleys and side streets in Aquila are a mix of cobblestone and dirt. it's easy enough to paint the devil's trap across the width of the stone alley behind the bar, then bring some buckets of dirt to scatter across the length of the visible street from the back door. He had to create his own rosary, stringing together beads, reciting prayers as he hammered the cross out, but it was enough to bless several flasks and a full bucket of holy water.

knowing the first sight of him would send dean on an escape path, cas takes a new angle with what he learned from his last encounter. far from the most morally sound of strategies, using some unfortunate innocent as bait, neither sam or jo are here to object. his partner in scheming is a male prostitute, approximately the age, height, and build of kyle. that appeared to be this hedonistic dean's type, and it's become clear what his current appetite for sin includes. castiel pays the man to linger in the club, drink, flirt and distract dean long enough for Cas to finish the trap. dean's easy enough to play out a non-commercial attraction to, and his cohort doesn't have to fake interest when he lures dean towards the back alley with the promise of quick, emotionless, non-strings attached sex.

As soon as Dean steps down from the back door's stoop, he's entered the devil's trap, and Cas announces himself via a bucket of holy water splashed directly into his face. his paid accomplice seems less than willing to split, but after a barked go, while dean's skin is sizzling, he's flustered enough to make his escape.

not knowing how long the trap will hold him, cas starts into the exorcism immediately. ] Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus.

[righteously]

( What Dean was expecting when he walked out into this alley: A blowjob, maybe.
What Dean got when he walked into this alley: a face full of what feels like fucking acid burning his flesh off.

He hisses and recoils, snarling at the blurry figure he can't quite focus on until he raises his forearm up over his eyes, shielding them from more backsplash. Slowly but surely his retina knits itself back together, and he can see — right on time for a familiar voice to start grating out words that make his god damn bones itch.

Slowly, he lowers the arm and glares daggers at the tweedly little douchebag reciting poetry at him. )

What, is it your holy mission to cockblock me now?! What the hell are you doing here, you sad clueless jackass? ( The words, the voice, are like nails at a chalkboard. They're like painful, stinging horseflies biting at his ears, and he swats absently at nothing. ) You can't exorcise me, you idiot, I'm not possessed.

( For the love of not-god, he's gonna spitroast this motherfucker.

)

[unwings]

[ cas can't lie, it does give him a little joy to kill demon-dean's boner so efficiently, for the second time. if he has no other superpowers left, cockblocking this asshat isn't a bad one. ]

Consider it a public health service. Adiuramus te, cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae perditionis venenum propinare—

[ something should've been happening by now if this were going to work, but so far, it's just dean being super pissed. gulp.

plan b. plan a was already scraping the bottom of the tactical barrel, plan b is a hail mary - attempt to capture. his new angel blades, courtesy of jayce talis, sit holstered on his belt, but he reaches for something that looks like a 3 foot long, lead pipe instead, sigils engraved down the side courtesy of castiel's recently excess of down time. he's not looking for injury - just a knock out.

that means entering the trap.

it's the flask of holy water first, splashed towards dean's eyes, and cas lurches in behind it. the pipe swings like a baseball bat towards dean's head, hoping to knock him out cold, or throw himself back outside devil's trap quickly.

hail mary, full of grace, please preserve my stupid, desperate ass ]

[righteously]

( In a way, this sort of feels like Karma. He has a pretty distinct memory of somebody taking a tire iron to Cas's head, only to accomplish jack about squat. It's a similar situation here — Cas raises the pipe, swings at his head, and the pipe...

Was not really made to handle a Knight of Hell. Maybe if he were a regular demon, those fancy sigils would've helped things along. As it stands, the pipe bends around his thick skull, and Dean stands staring Cas dead in the eyes, deadpan.

For a second, that's all there is. Cas staring at Dean, both hands wrapped around this pipe, pipe wrapped around Dean's head as he stands, unimpressed, blinking like he's done with this whole thing.

At length: )

...So this must be pretty embarrassing for you, huh?

( At which point, viper-quick, he reaches out to snatch Cas by the throat and body-slam his ass into the cobblestone ground. )

[unwings]

[ yeah, it's a little embarrassing. he was half sure it would end this way regardless. Standing by, allowing Dean to be lost alone inside this chaos, wasn't an option. Cas has been at his side for nearly every trial and tribulation since dragging him back into this cruel, violent, lonely life. He accepted the charge of guiding this man free from the underworld. As long as Dean still carries hell around inside him, his mission isn't finished yet. Whether it's plaguing his mind, or corrupting his soul. So here he is and here he'll remain, no matter what Dean does to him, what he says, until that mission's either complete, or he's run out of forms and dimensional planes to pursue it through.

That's what finds him here, slammed against the cold cobblestone, air punched out of his lungs as his back hits the ground. Castiel's fragile, near-human head cracks against the rock, brain rattling around the inside of his skull, vision swimming and greying at the edges. Wheezing, Cas can't catch a breath, doesn’t even have the air to cough, much as his throat and lungs burn. Grit, determination and the inexplicably unended drive to fight for this man, the angel tries to push himself up, elbows digging into the dirt, fingertips clawing at stone, his legs scramble to find purchase. But, he may as well have been hit by a bullet train for as able as his body feels. He strains, groans, grinds his teeth, but he's weighed down, leaden.

Dean looms a foreboding shadow over him, his end circling. That’s it, all plans soundly extinguished, and what’s left is this - Castiel’s failing vessel, Dean’s ruthlessness set free on it, and his staunch refusal to leave Dean suspended in any kind of hell he can't follow him into. He’s not getting back up.

What aches in him most, sparks the fire to put up what last, futile effort he can, isn’t his own imminent demise. It’s the reality Dean, when Sam and Jo bring him back to himself, will wake to with Cas gone, his blood on the demon’s hands. Dean’s hands. He can’t leave him with that.

Beyond longing, duty or love, Dean Winchester was the first being to see him as he is, and hold faith in the goodness of him, in the soul he might have. Cas was a new, alien, threatening thing and Dean had no obligation to bring him in from the cold, but nonetheless, he found himself with a home, a family, as if he'd done anything to earn it. He found the piece of Cas that thought for himself, wanted to know freedom and life in color, and nurtured it. Even after lies, betrayal, all the stupid, disastrous, naïve mistakes he's made, after the abandonments and the hurt he saw so keenly reflected in purgatory. Dean's been next to him when Cas convinced himself he deserved purgatory, fought tooth and nail when he couldn't, wouldn't do it himself. It's the root of their bond - neither condemns himself to any manner of hell without the other stubbornly dragging him back out. Not purgatory, not grief, not brainwashing, not the Mark.

A painfully similar scene plays against the dizzying static clogging up his mind. Castiel stood over him with an angel blade, Dean beaten, bloody, on his knees: We're family. We need you. I need you. ]

Stop, Dean— [ he rasps, reaching up towards the shadow over him, fingers grasping at whatever he can - a shirt, an arm, a shoulder, digging in and too weak against the supernatural wall Dean makes. it's hard to tell if he's pushing him away or pulling him closer. ]

I know— I know you're there. [ he's speaking past the corruption, the cloud of torment and damnation slithered tight and strangling around his friend, lost somewhere deep inside. ] I'll find you. I'm not leaving without you.

[ leaving in every existential and metaphysical sense of the term. where else would he go? where else, in any dimension, any realm of this world and the next, does he belong as much as he does here, pulling defiantly at dean winchester's shoulder while the world goes to shit around them? ]

[righteously]

( He's been telling people Dean Winchester is dead. He's been telling people he's something else, something better, something worse. He's been disassociating from that name and that man in all ways. He is not Dean Winchester. He does not feel like that man.

Or maybe it's that man inside of him pushing the distance between them. Some small remnant of him clinging to a single vibrating brain cell, to a single remnant of soul. Maybe it's that small, strong, fierce piece buried underneath an ocean of anger and hate and corruption that steadfastly refuses the association. Maybe it still exists. Maybe it's in there. Maybe he's in there.

Maybe that's why Cas survives this encounter. Because that piece whispers the merciful suggestion that it would be more delicious to leave him alive, it implies that the suffering is sweeter than an end.

He stares down, this being of taint and anger and agony, watching a broken man plead, and agrees with the assessment. Dying is easy, son. Living is harder. He should know. He should know.

He rears back his fist, and he delivers one last strong, swift blow. Not enough to kill him. Just enough to knock him out.

And then he coldly walks away, leaving Castiel's broken, unconscious body crumpled in an alley for anyone to find. )