Grey

Chapter 11

Raphael explodes. Red. Bloody.

Just like Cas did in the cemetery what feels like a lifetime ago.

Dean stares at Castiel in a mix of horror and well, maybe a tiny part of him is impressed. Cas did it. Beat Raphael. Beat Crowley. And... he doesn't seem mad with power or anything...

So maybe, maybe if Dean can get him to put back the 'millions upon millions of souls' before the eclipse ends then...

"Cas, listen to me," he says, low and desperate. "We were family once. I'd have died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you..." Castiel's face is blank. Dean ignores the hopelessness he feels and keeps going. "Please. I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben..." He feels small. A tiny thing crawling at Cas's feet. "Don't make me lose you too."

"You're just saying that because I won," Cas tells him. "Because you are afraid." His eyes narrow and for a moment he doesn't look like Cas at all because he looks cruel. "You're not my family, Dean. I have no family."

Dean's breath catches and for a second he feels a phantom pain from the long vanished handprint on his arm, a burn that seems bone deep.

It's the closest Cas has ever come to speaking about it and it's cold denial and flat-out rejection, like standing in that dirty motel bathroom and finding Cas's mark gone all over again. Dean's eyes are burning and he can't breathe. He's a worm, a maggot, an animal. Cas won't even let him claim him as a brother, let alone a mate.

Then Sam buries an angel blade in Castiel's back.

The souls are back in purgatory, but Cas is still wrong.

Dean remembers sitting across a table from Jimmy Novak and watching him eat a burger. He'd smelt like alpha, but not Dean's alpha and it'd made his skin crawl.

The thing standing in front of him now isn't his mate. His sort-of-mate. Whatever Cas is to him.

But it certainly isn't Jimmy Novak either.

Something black and foul seeps out of his ears, coats his teeth, blackens his veins, clouds across his right eye like oil.

It crowds in close to Dean, digs into him with fingers like claws.

The voice is wrong too. "You're different," it says, scenting him. "Special."

Dean tries to break away but the hold it has on him is like steel. "Get off me!" he hisses.

"No." It smiles with Cas's face. "You're ours," it purrs. "Aren't you Dean?"

"No," Dean tells it, because he's not. If he's anyone's - and he's not - he's Cas's.

"You're the angel's. His special one. His favourite." The smile widens and it tilts its head like it's listening to something Dean can't hear, a hilarious joke. "Oh, he's so scared for you Dean! He's screaming!"

Dean finally understands exactly what's going on. Cas is alive in there somewhere. Possessed by something worse than any demon. "You let him go you sonofabitch!"

It jerks Dean closer, damp breath like decay on his face. "Tsk tsk little omega. That's no way to talk to your alpha." A tongue rasps along Dean's jaw and he shudders. "He didn't know how to treat you right did he Dean? Didn't know how to put you in your place. Give you what you need." Dean fights, but it pushes, pulls, trips him down onto the floor, crushing him into the concrete.

Dean can tell where this trainwreck is headed. He remembers that alpha in the bathroom years and years ago, when he was 17, before his shots, the one that had pinned him against the wall and tried too - Pretty little bitch. He thrashes wildly, bucks and struggles to get free. The thing wearing Cas isn't some drunk biker though, it's a monster and he can't get it off and there's no Sam to come save him this time.