Nothing Left To Fear

3

Greta always makes the same appreciative noise when Dean pulls his shirt over his head. She's been around and she's seen her fair share of male chests but it's the ink that catches her every time. She's his tattooist and she swears it moves on it's own and forms it's own designs.

Dean wouldn't be surprised if it did- there's power in the ink after all.

Both arms are complete sleeves right down to the wrists. There are different colours of ink, protective symbols and writings in fifteen languages that coil around each other like brambles, other words erupting like thorns.

There are prayers down his back in Hebrew, the words from Ofuda in Kanji, Cyrillic mantras, that curl up under his arms. There are pentacles, pentagrams, crucifixes: Coptic; Maltese; Domic crosses.

There are glyphs, hieroglyphs and other lettering, latin, Greek, Arabic, and a hundred other things. Greta, who has done most of it, calls Dean her masterpiece, and with reason.

None of them are decorative.

He is having an Enochian banishing sigil re-inked. She has done the design but wanted the swelling to fade a little before she touched it up, filling in the places where it has flaked away.

Cas is at the counter, lifting the antiseptics and smelling each of them in turn, before squeezing a blob of moisturiser unto his finger and then bringing it to his tongue and deciding he doesn't like the taste as he pulls a face. "Hey," she says, "there's coffee in the pot," she used to flirt with him, but doesn't any more. She thinks he's "special," Dean doesn't correct her. Castiel is something alright, special could be used to describe it.

On the wall is an old sepia photograph of a carnival diver caught in midflight. It dates back to the twenties and has a lady in a cloche hat and Esther Williams swim suit. She is caught in a perfect arch halfway between the high board and the water. Cas can stare at her for hours, tilting his head to better appreciate the details. Greta's cat ingratiates himself to Cas' presence with her toys before the angel bends and lifts her up to his chest, scratching her between the ears, but his eyes are on the photo. The first time he saw it, he asked Greta if it was her. "Where did you find him?" Greta asked with a laugh, wiping away the blood and ink with a sterile cloth.

"Carthage." Dean answered, and Greta mentioned her parents were from near there, but Dean meant the ancient city of Dido, and she means Missouri. He doesn't talk about his travels. He doesn't talk about the past. He doesn't talk much at all any more, and Greta knows that, she just chatters away whilst she works, stopping occasionally to wipe away the blood and ink, telling him about the small details in her life.

Part of her thinks that if Dean wasn't so damaged he'd be a great boyfriend- he's gorgeous, she loves his ink, he's a great listener and a fantastic fuck, but Dean is broken, and it's clear that he put the pieces back together wrong to make himself stronger, sharper, fiercer.

She figured that out the one and only time they fucked, they were both drunk and a little lost in each other, when he strained above her, hands on her hips to guide her and hot wet splashes fell on her face and neck from where he was crying.