Chapter Text
Dean flips another page of thick, tiny text, scanning to find the dotted line. Nope, not on this one. Just more hefty paragraphs only broken up by numbers, that stupid 1.1, 1.2 etc formatting that always pisses him off. What’s wrong with counting normally? He throws that one onto the growing stack next to him, relieved to find another blank space for his John Hancock. He twirls the pen over the paper, adding his no-nonsense signature in blue ink.
Halfway through. Thank Christ. You could get several novels out of the piles of paper next to him. And Dean’s talking War and Peace length books too. This has taken hours, probably, but there’s no clock to check. Who knew the mafia were so litigious? Well, if it even is legalese. For all he knows, Cas is making him sign a bunch of gibberish for his own amusement.
The man himself is watching him. Not that Dean’s looked. Cas’s gaze is like a physical touch, despite him being halfway across the room, leaned elegantly against the wall opposite with his arms folded. Dean fidgets in the ridiculously large leather desk chair, clicks the button on the glossy silver pen that he’s pretty sure is engraved. Clicks it again as he turns the page.
There’s a heat next to and behind him suddenly, a hand perching on the desk, Cas’s arm inches away as he leans over Dean’s shoulder. He can feel hot breath on his ear, making him swallow. Dean’s gotta ask about his cologne at some point because damn, he smells fucking delicious.
Dean should be worried about the way Cas is scrutinising his current page, then reaching to flick through a few of the other completed ones, his chest just brushing against Dean’s shoulder. Instead he’s wishing Cas would step a little closer. Make the contact more solid.
“You used the blue pen,” Cas murmurs, and it vibrates against Dean’s ear in a way that makes him squirm.
“Uh, yeah?” Dean replies, not really thinking about anything except how it would feel if Cas pressed against his back without the chair in the way.
Cas slides down, enough to open a draw, and pulls out a bottle of white-out. Then another pen. He straightens again, leaning over to put both items in front of Dean, the air between them thick and sparking. Their fingers brush as he tugs the silver pen out of Dean’s hand.
“Start again,” Cas says, soft and hushed next to Dean’s head, lips almost touching the shell of Dean’s ear. “And this time, use the black one.”
Dean’s immediately half hard in his jeans, shifts to try and ease the pressure of the zipper against his dick. He’s not gonna get a boner over this, for fuck’s sake. This is some weird fucking power play and it is not arousing, it’s infuriating, he’s wasted hours.
He groans in frustration, telling himself it’s the regular kind and not sexual, then drags the pile of completed papers closer, flipping the first page. Again.
Castiel is an asshole.
An asshole that’s still hovering at his back, his hand coming to rest on the desk again, a presence that’s impossible to ignore even without him actually touching.
“Dude, personal space?” Dean snaps.
“Just making sure you sign properly,” Cas says, and Dean doesn’t have to look to know it’s said with a fucking smirk.
‘Sign properly’, what does that even mean?
Dean does it though, because it’s not like he has a choice in this. He’s keeping Sammy safe, he tells himself for the millionth time. Keeping himself alive too, for what it’s worth.
So he dutifully whites out every last speck of blue, signs again in black, Cas’s breath streaming hot over his ear and neck the entire time.
He wonders if Cas is getting off on this, or if this is just standard treatment for new recruits. Then again, Cas probably doesn’t facefuck every new recruit the night before getting them in this office.
Hopefully.
Finally, with a heaving sigh of utter relief, Dean signs the final page, laying it neatly on the completed tower.
“Good boy,” Cas says smugly, and Dean grinds his teeth. “Get up.”
“Say please,” Dean snips, not looking at him, because no way is Cas barking orders at him after Dean spent hours doing goddamn paperwork for the dick.
Dean yelps as a fist scrunches the back of his shirt collar, pulling it tight around his throat, and he’s wrenched upward, forced to stand if he doesn’t want to strangle.
Cas lets go when Dean is on his feet, then pushes him gently but firmly to the side of the desk. Cas maintains eye contact, his brows lowered, as he sinks into his chair.
“I also need to sign these,” Cas says. “When I tell you to do something, you assume I have a good reason, and you do it.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, already looking away to pick up the pen, laying down papers, all business.
Dean scoffs, but in a rare moment of awareness, figures he’d be better off keeping his trap shut. If he starts arguing, who knows how much longer this’ll take.
Instead he wanders, taking in the office he’d been too distracted to examine when they first got here.
It’s as swanky as the rest of this place, the goddamn mansion they operate out of. All tasteful mahogany and brass knick knacks, mildly disturbing artwork on the walls, the massive desk taking up half the space. Dark wooden laminate planks make up the flooring in almost every room, including this one, which seems an odd choice. If you’d asked him, Dean would have expected plush carpets, fluffy rugs, something luxurious and opulent.
Dean moves to the bookcase, is unsurprised but a little disappointed not to see any works of fiction. Not even any non-fiction meant for entertainment. It’s all just law books and, in a weird throwback, encyclopedias. Does Cas know wikipedia exists? There’s also some books with cyrillic titles, clearly written in Russian, and Dean can’t guess at the contents.
Bending, he does finally spot some less dry works on the bottom shelf. Biographies and textbooks on famous gangsters, gang crime in general. Dean snorts, picturing Cas using them for tips and tricks rather than the intended educational purpose.
“I’m done,” Cas says from just behind, scaring the absolute shit out of him. Dude moves like a cat.
Dean straightens up as he turns to him, then balks.
He’s never met someone he finds so insanely, wildly attractive. Like, balls to the wall, twitching in his boxers, swan-dive-into-organised-crime-to-maybe-get-another-sniff-of-this-guy’s-dick attractive.
So when he says he can’t even look at Cas right now, it’s a real testament to how much he fucking hates Crocs.
“What the fuck is on your feet?” Dean asks, calmly and reasonably, and doesn’t yell, because he has decorum and poise.
“Why are you yelling about my feet?” Cas asks with a cocked eyebrow. He pauses on his path around the cluttered desk, leans back on the edge to peer down at the offending plastic.
“You’re wearing Crocs!”
“Yes. We’ve been in here a while, and I wanted to be comfortable.”
Which means two things. One, at some point in this bureaucratic nightmare titled ‘Dean Winchester joins the mafia’, Cas changed his shoes and Dean didn’t even notice, so he’s definitely been in here way too long. Two, Cas actually keeps a pair of Crocs in his office for that exact purpose. Dean still wants to jump his bones, but it’s a near thing. He can’t believe there was a pair of those things just lurking in the midst of all this.
Dean grimaces. “There’s comfortable and then there’s too comfortable, you know what I’m sayin’, Cas?”
“No, I don’t,” Cas says bluntly. “What are you saying?”
And because Dean is only a few feet away, trying not to look at his feet but unable to look at his face right now either, gaze trapped in a midway limbo, he catches it when Cas’s fingers twitch towards his hip.
“Oh, really, I question your fashion choices and you go for your gun?” Dean says, gesturing wildly and okay, yeah, now he’s yelling.
“Thought about it,” Cas shrugs. “You’ll note that I didn’t.” Then his arms fold and his eyes narrow. He straightens from the desk, all poise and tautness and promised violence, like he’s sculpted from barbed wire. It’s seriously undercut by the shoes. “For the record, I don’t make fashion choices.”
“Oh, buddy, when you wear Crocs, that’s sure as hell a choice.”
Cas, for one brief, shining moment, looks like he might tackle Dean to the floor. His torso leans forward minutely, and that one small movement is like seeing a wildcat hunkered down with its ass wiggling. Which, quite frankly, now Cas has made him sign about a gajillion forms and waivers and who-the-fuck-knows (not Dean, because Sammy’s the lawyer, not him, and he’s not reading that shit when he’d have to sign it anyway), Dean could use a little floor tackling.
But Cas doesn’t make a move on him, infuriatingly. His stance suddenly relaxes, and one side of his mouth picks up in a barely-there smirk. “Tell me, why so fixated on my shoes? Was that what the sock for a blindfold business was? Do you have a foot fetish, Dean?”
“What?! No I don’t have a fuckin’ foot fetish! Crocs’re just the worst. Do you have a goddamn black biro fetish?”
“It’s the industry standard,” Cas says smugly, and Dean nearly hits him in the arm before his pitiful self preservation instincts kick in. Cas is still the head of the goddamn Bratva, Dean, jesus.
“Your face is an industry standard,” he spits instead, and takes deep pleasure in the full body eye roll it earns him.
Cas seems more at ease than he has in their entire acquaintance, limbs loose as he settles back to leaning against the desk. His collar’s unbuttoned, pulling to the left a little, so the sunset tattoo on his pec is visible. Admittedly, their ‘acquaintance’ has been like one night and two days, and one of those days Cas was tied up in Dean’s living room, but still. He no longer seems quite as terrifying, and it’s getting hard to remember that Cas could still change his mind and kill him.
Maybe there’s something to be said for the power of Crocs.
Wait, no, no there isn’t, fuck Crocs and fuck Cas and his stupid pens.
A knock at the door interrupts whatever pithy response Cas was brewing, and he turns it into an invitation to come in.
The door swings open, or more accurately crashes open, a thickset blonde man with thinning hair falling against it, making Dean startle and take a step back. The guy’s stammering and yelping, something about mercy, and his collar’s fisted by another man, this one dragging him inside. The one doing the dragging is wiry, has short, sandy hair and a snub nose, attractive in an unconventional kind of way. He also has a tonne of laugh lines, suggesting that the smirk he’s wearing is a frequent thing.
Dean feels slightly awkward, stumbling back against a bookcase and very obviously not doing anything useful. Even though Cas has insisted he spend most of the day here, he still feels like a kid caught in the teachers’ lounge.
The balding guy’s begging again, and smirky kicks him in the back of the knees, bringing him down onto them, a few feet from where Cas is perched.
Cas is fixed on the kneeling man like a pointer dog with a rat, but when he speaks he’s obviously addressing the one still standing. “Since when do you bring the trash to my door, instead of leaving it at the kerb?”
Dean’s awkwardness intensifies. Okay, in theory he knew he was quite literally signing up to a life in the Bratva, organised crime, etc. But this sudden entrance, the way Cas has gone all stiff and icy, boss mode activated, it’s all a lot more organised-crime-y than he was expecting. Or prepared for.
Smirky actually laughs. “Oh, you’re gonna love this.” Cas’s face suggests that he very much won’t. “He wanted to see the boss. Said the Angel would understand.” Dean’s head whips to Castiel, who ignores him. The Angel? “We still doing that thing where whoever wants a personal audience gets it? ‘Cause I figured, even if we’d dropped that little policy, you’d wanna see someone talking all pretty about you like that.”
Dean gets the impression this guy really likes the sound of his own voice.
Cas’s head cocks, and his tone softens. “You were correct, Lucifer.” Dean has to swallow down the snort that threatens to burst free. This guy’s name is Lucifer? That’s gotta be some weird mafia moniker, but who the hell would choose that? “On your feet,” Cas continues, brisk but not angry.
The blonde guy struggles to standing, eyes wild and darting between ‘Lucifer’ and Cas. He skates right over Dean, which is a bit insulting. “Thank you, Vor, thank you, I sw-”
“‘On your feet’ does not mean talk,” Cas says, ever so soft, and the guy shuts up like Cas screamed it in his ear. “Come closer.” The guy swallows, and Dean can actually see the sweat that’s beading on his face, all shiny under the expensive lighting. He doesn’t move, and Cas tsks. “You can steal from me, but you can’t stand eye to eye with me?”
The poor guy mops at his forehead with the back of his hand, but does stumble closer, so that they’re both stood in front of the desk. He has to brace himself with a hand on the wood, clearly weak with terror. Cas doesn’t straighten, so the man is forced to look down at him. It doesn’t make the power dynamic any less obvious.
Lucifer’s watching avidly, Dean notes, arms folded but it’s more like he’s hugging himself with glee. What the fuck is happening?
“Why don’t you tell me, in your own words, what your thought process was?” Cas asks. “Help me understand.”
“I swear, Vor, I wasn’t thinking, I just, I fucked up, okay? I got weak, I needed the money, didn’t think anyone would miss a few grams, I-”
One moment Cas is nodding sympathetically.
The next, Cas’s arm is moving, there’s a crunch, wood and bone splintering, a spray of blood, and the man is screaming.
Cas impaled his hand to the desk with a pen.
A blue one.
The man drops to his knees again, keening madly, hand alternating between clutching his own wrist and hovering over the pen, like he wants to pull it out but can’t bring himself to.
“Dude,” Dean yelps. “What the fuck, in the hand?!”
Luckily, it’s drowned out by the squeals of distress from the guy that just got an impromptu piercing.
Cas doesn’t hear Dean at least, all his attention on his victim. “Hey now, hey, what’s wrong?” Cas asks, head tilted, actually putting a hand on the man’s shoulder.
The guy chokes off his screams and looks at Dean with obvious confusion, like he can explain why Cas is asking that, behaving like this. Dean can’t help him, he’s just as gobsmacked. Even spreads his hands in a little helpless gesture.
Cas drifts his other hand onto the top of the pen, palm rolling, rocking it this way and that, the cyrillic symbols on Cas’s knuckles peeking in and out. The man’s howls begin anew.
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Cas says, just loud enough to be heard over his cries, squinting his eyes in bewilderment. “You stole from me, you just told me.” Cas lifts his head, directs his next words at Lucifer, and they actually sound sincere. “Did you hear him? Did I misunderstand?”
“No, you understood fine, boss,” Lucifer says cheerfully.
Cas nods. “You stole from me, why are the consequences so surprising to you?” His voice is earnest, a little childlike despite the gravelly tones, genuinely curious.
There’s blood starting to pool and drip from the edge of the desk. It’s pattering onto one of Cas’s Crocs. Dean notes faintly it has some of those stupid rubber picture things in the holes. A bee, a rainbow, a goddamn peace symbol. The peace symbol’s getting the worst of it, the lines obscured with red.
The rest trickles to the floor. The shiny, easily mopped, laminate floor. Dean understands now why there’s no carpet. Then he remembers that basically every room here has laminate, and his head swims.
“You should probably put your other hand on the desk,” says Cas, and he says it gently.
The man’s almost incoherent now, sobbing, rocking back and forth, but he shakes his head in a clear ‘no’.
Cas sighs, and it’s mildly exasperated. In one swift, lithe movement, he pins the free wrist to the desk with one hand, and slams another pen into the back of the palm with his other one. He needed to bend a little to make it work, and the spray of blood catches him in the face.
This time, Dean manages to bite his tongue, if only out of sheer disbelief that this is happening right in front of him.
Cas stands up straight, a diagonal line of red flecks across his nose and one angular cheekbone. He’s got a little stubble, actual 5 o’ clock shadow after being here all day. His face is composed but his eyes are burning, the blue like the flames of a blowtorch.
Dean feels a flicker of excitement, all of his ‘crime, we’re doing crime’ buttons have been mashed at the same time on the switchboard in his brain. The excitement travels across his gut like a meteor, and his groin pulls tight, and-
Oh. Oh god.
This isn’t hitting any of those other buttons, right? Definitely not. That’s someone else’s semi forming in his pants, because Dean’s definitely not so irreparably fucked up that this is turning him on, watching Cas torture someone.
Though it might explain a few things. Like how Cas said he would ‘maybe’ kill him, and Dean ended up moaning around his dick instead of running screaming.
Cas cocks his head again, admiring his own work like he’s at an art exhibit, slowly rolling his shirt cuffs up to reveal inked forearms. Dean’s semi no longer has anything ‘semi’ about it.
It’s fine, he tells himself desperately. He’s not actually looking at the guy who’s writhing in agony, is actively blocking out his whimpers and cries in fact. The whole boner situation is all for Cas, and how powerfully in control he is, how his body is an outline for all that danger and violence, like a perfectly coloured in picture.
“Lucifer, could you get me my camera, please?” Cas asks, and Dean is relieved that his first reaction is disgust.
“You’re gonna take pictures of the poor bastard?” Dean spits, ignoring Lucifer as he moves around Dean to get at the desk. “What the fuck for?”
Lucifer snorts as he rummages around in Cas’s drawers. Cas looks at Dean in a way that suggests he has plenty more pens and the will to use them. Neither of them answer.
“Catch,” sings Lucifer, and tosses Cas an old polaroid camera.
It just gets weirder. “Seriously, polaroids, too?” Dean asks, ignoring the screeching siren in his brain telling him to shut the fuck up. “What, you got a wall of crazy somewhere that you stick ‘em up on?”
Cas’s murderous look grows, but Lucifer outright cackles, idling round the desk to throw an arm over Cas’s shoulders. One that gets promptly shrugged off. “Ya know, I wouldn’t actually put it past you. Who is this, anyway? One of the Italians? Got a set of balls on him.” He throws a wink at Dean, which is exactly as reassuring as it was probably meant to be.
“Formal introductions can wait until after business, don’t you think?” Cas growls, but his eyes are like frozen glass, still fixed on Dean.
They’re all collectively ignoring the man who’s slumping against the desk with bloodloss and shock. It’s easier now his screams have dwindled into tiny, panted mewls.
“You’re the boss, boss,” Lucifer shrugs, then goes to lean against the doorframe, still eyeing Dean curiously.
Dean looks away quickly, only to see Cas is crouched down, his strong thighs straining against his dress pants. Dean swallows. Maybe he can convince Cas to throttle him with those instead of his hands when they’re alone again. If he’s gonna get ganked on his first day, he knows that’s how he’d rather go out.
The polaroid camera is clicking in steady intervals, Cas tugging out the photos as they print and tossing them up on the desk. He seems to want multiple angles, as long as they include the man’s pale, half conscious face and the damage to his hands.
Cas starts to speak softly to the trapped man as he works. “Have you heard the phrase ‘object lesson’ before?”
Unsurprisingly, the only answer he gets is a weak moan.
“It’s interesting to me. So many wonderful teachers and philosophers throughout history, all of them imparting wisdom to their students over months and years. But we still have that phrase, an ‘object lesson’, suggesting that in some cases, you can learn all you need to from a singular item or event.” Cas leans in close, so Dean has to strain to hear the next words. “What do you think these photos are going to teach?”
The man moans again, a weak gurgle. The injuries aren’t bad enough to have him actually incapacitated, Dean knows. This is all emotional shock, something he can be snapped out of. Seems Cas knows that too.
“You can do it,” Cas says encouragingly. “I might even let you live.”
The guy’s eyes had been sliding shut, but they snap open at that. “Wh- what?”
“What ‘object lesson’ am I teaching with these photographs?” Cas asks patiently, snapping another.
Cas is a total goddamn psychopath and somehow, Dean’s only just realising it. The kidnapping, the impulse agreement to join Cas’s little band of merry men, it all suddenly seems like a much worse idea.
“D- don’t steal from you,” the man gasps, tears streaming down his face, staring at his impaled hands.
“Very good,” Cas purrs. “But that’s only half of the lesson.” He reaches to roll one of the pens around again, making the poor guy howl for a fresh photo. “What else?”
“I don’t know,” wails the guy that Dean’s treacherous, horrible brain is attempting to dub ‘Hands.’
“Really?” Cas asks, head tilted. “Your life on the line, and you still haven’t learned what you need to?”
“Vor, please,” weeps Hands.
Lucifer chirps up from the doorway. “You know, stealing and all, isn’t it traditional to cut one of the hands off entirely? Maybe then he’ll get it.” There’s a panting, greedy quality to his voice that makes Dean’s guts twist.
Cas just rolls his eyes though. “Enough, Luc. It was only an ounce.”
Jesus christ, this is the mild punishment?
“Don’t- don’t disrespect you?” Hands tries, sweat and tears now pouring in rivulets down his face.
Cas places the camera on the desk next to the scattered photos, then perches his ass on the edge, tapping a finger on his chin. “Hmm. Close. But I’m afraid that wasn’t what I was looking for.” He gathers up the pictures, slides off the desk to hand them off to Lucifer, now ignoring Hands entirely. “When you distribute these, ensure it comes with a message. That I won’t tolerate that name from my own men.”
“You got it,” Lucifer says, eagerly accepting the bundle and saluting with his free hand.
“That’s what I meant,” says Hands desperately. “Don’t disrespect you, don’t call you that, I knew that.”
Cas smiles kindly. “No, you didn’t.”
He grabs fistfuls of the suit jacket at the guy’s shoulders and yanks, hands sliding up and off the pens with a strangled scream, flicking blood in all directions. Including across Dean’s favourite Zep shirt. Not that he’s complaining about that, no sir. Cas turns, hands still fisted in the guy’s jacket, and shoves him to the floor at Lucifer’s feet.
“Dispose of this,” Cas says, almost sounding bored. “And Lucifer? Quickly, this time. No undue suffering. I administer the punishments, not you, unless specifically instructed otherwise.”
Lucifer straight up pouts, but gets his hands under the guy’s armpits, starts to drag him out the door, ignoring his thrashing and pleading.
“Wait, wait,” Dean says, already knowing it’s a bad idea before the words are fully out of his mouth. “You’re still gonna kill him? You said it was only an ounce!” He never got into the whole drug trade thing, but even he knows that’s pocket change in the grand scheme.
“Yeah, yeah, what he said,” Hands is yelling. “Vor, please, I’ll do anything, anythi-”
Cas slashes his hand through the air, and silence falls. “Not that I owe you an explanation,” he says to Dean, tone now at subzero and spreading frost through Dean’s veins. “But he didn’t learn his lesson.” He turns to Lucifer. “Get him out of here, and shut him up while you do it.”
For a heartstopping second, Dean thinks Cas means him, but Lucifer’s already punching Hands full force across the jaw, turning his pleas into whimpers. Cas is watching Dean, and the hard lines of his face have Dean wondering what lesson he’s about to get taught. He takes an unconscious step backwards and his ass hits the bookcase.
Lucifer starts to haul Hands out the door again but stops to point accusingly at Cas. “Hey! You didn’t tell me who clownboy over there is!”
If Dean wasn’t currently pissing his pants in fear, he’d object to the clownboy thing.
Cas’s only answer is to tilt in Lucifer’s direction with a disbelieving eyebrow raised, face still taut with anger.
“Alright, alright, fine,” Lucifer drawls. “Have it your way, baby bro.”
With that he’s gone, door swinging shut, the heavy thumpslide of Hands being dragged away still audible through the wood.
Cas turns slowly back to Dean. Takes a step forward, face white and still under the sticky splashes of red.
“So, uh, that’s one of your broth-?”
Dean doesn’t get to finish the question. Cas’s hands fist in his t-shirt, and for a second he’s airborne, spinning, before slamming heavily onto the desk, back first. The air is blasted forcibly from his chest and he chokes and spasms, head curling upwards, trying to suck in oxygen with lungs that are currently out of action. He scrabbles at the hands still wrapped in his shirt, eyes wide, legs kicking out uselessly.
Cas crowds close, between Dean’s spread, flailing legs, leaning in tight like he’s drinking in every straining twitch of Dean’s face.
“At what point,” Cas begins, and it’s impressive how soft it is, considering Dean can feel the way he’s shaking with rage. “At what point, did I give the impression that you were free to speak as you please? To question me?”
Dean writhes, gripping the edge of the desk, torso twisting against Cas’s hold as he struggles fruitlessly to get some air.
“Well?” Cas says patiently, like he’s oblivious to Dean’s predicament. “I’m waiting. Please, feel free to go into detail, so I can thoroughly correct this misunderstanding.”
Finally, finally, Dean catches a thin whistle of breath. “This would-” he wheezes, has to stop to cough and splutter, heave in some more air. “This would be… a lot scarier… if you weren’t still… wearing the Crocs.”
Cas’s mouth actually falls open with shock.
Dean would laugh if it wouldn’t get in the way of breathing. He doesn’t have a death wish, honest, but he’s also not about to roll over and offer up his belly for the lethal injection.
If he can’t die on his feet, then he’ll do it on his toes.
Cas’s mouth snaps shut, and his eyebrows drop into something determined. One hand leaves his chest and Cas bends to grope at Dean’s boot, until he finds the knife that’s still tucked away there.
There’s a sudden sting as the point of the blade is pressed against his soft underjaw. Cas is still hanging onto the front of Dean’s shirt with his other hand, but it’s pushing slowly down now, holding him firmly against the desk.
“I think we need to clear something up,” Cas says coldly, knife pressing just a little further, the sting deepening. “I believe that I told you, quite emphatically, that my position is one that is respected. You will show me respect, or there will be no place for you here.”
Dean lifts a hand to curl it round Cas’s elbow, on the arm that’s holding the knife. Very deliberately, he meets Cas’s eyes and he grins. “Cool. Then stab me or let me go.”
For the most part, this is the scariest bluff Dean’s ever pulled. Cas told him literally last night that he wasn’t gonna kill him, but also, psychopath. Not to mention, Cas just spent 48 hours in Dean’s company. That would change anyone’s mind.
If Cas does kill him, right here and right now, then Sammy’s gonna be devastated, he knows that. Charlie too. Bobby. But even for them, Dean refuses to lick any man’s boots. He hasn’t lived the life he has, fighting tooth and nail not to answer to any authority, to give in here and now. Like the great Meatloaf said, he’ll do a lot for love, but he won’t do that.
Also.
It’s kinda hard to bow down to someone when you know what their O face looks like.
Cas’s narrowed eyes search Dean’s. Something, something, flickers in the depths before they harden again. “You really mean that, don’t you? You’d rather leave?”
Dean shrugs, as much as he can with how he’s pinned. “Your little picture show kinda gave me second thoughts anyhow.”
For the first time, there’s a crack in Cas’s cool demeanour, as he hisses, “There’s no second thoughts here, Dean. This isn’t waiting tables at Biggerson’s. You’re in this now, and there’s only one way out.” For emphasis, he puts more pressure on the knife, until Dean’s head is forced back to lie flat against the desk. Cas follows him, almost nose to nose.
“Oh, really?” Dean says, unhesitating, straight into Cas’s face. “All that fuckin’ paperwork and you don’t have a notice of resignation? They have websites to help with that, ya know.”
Cas returns his stare, and his voice is iron when he answers. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Hmm. Best hurry up and shove the knife in then,” Dean says cheerily.
Cas squints, his head tilts and he shakes it a little in obvious confusion. “What are you doing? Do you want to die?”
“You ain’t gonna kill me, Cas.”
“What makes you so sure?” Cas growls, and Dean can feel the sting turn sharp and bright, like the blade is just starting to pierce flesh.
Dean’s grin widens, and he murmurs his answer between their lips, like he’s sharing a secret.
“‘Cause your boner’s diggin’ into my hip.”
Cas blinks at him.
Looks down, though it’s not like he could see anything at that angle.
Looks back up.
Cas almost visibly shakes off the surprise, his expression cooling, turning calculated. “Okay,” he says calmly, pulling back so they’re not quite so squished together. “I enjoyed fucking you and I’d like to do so again. That’s not exactly an ace in your hand, Dean, we both knew that already. You seem to be forgetting that I’m holding all the other cards.”
Dean snorts, and finally knocks the knife away from his jaw. He feels a bolt of unease when Cas actually lets him, without even a ripple in his expression. "Yeah? Like what, Cool Hand Luke?”
“Like even if I let you live, I still know where to find your brother.”
Dean’s not just seeing red, he’s straight up fucking submerged in it.
Iron chains couldn’t have kept him held to the desk.
It’s the sheer element of surprise that lets him surge up against Cas like a tidal wave, sending both of them flying back. The bookcase rattles as Cas crashes against it, Dean with handfuls of his shirt this time. A button comes loose and clinks to the floor nearby.
“You’re threatenin’ my brother? To get my obedience?” he spits, unable to stop himself shoving Cas with his fists still clenched, knocking him against the bookshelves again. Cas doesn’t seem to be trying to stop him either, just holds eye contact, brows lowered.
A small smile tugs Cas’s lips up, cold with triumph. “Whatever works.” He brings up the knife, taps Dean on the nose with the flat of the blade. “So I ask again, are you going to show me respect? Or am I making a phonecall?”
Dean punches him in the face.
Or tries to.
Cas catches his fist before it can land, and twists it. At the same time, he angles his body to the side, sliding a leg behind Dean’s ankle. He shoves suddenly at Dean’s trapped fist, and his wrist twinges with pain as he’s forced backwards, his whole centre of balance shifting so that he falls backwards over Cas’s leg, hitting the ground hard, onto his back.
Dean groans painfully at the impact, his wind knocked out for the second time in a short space of time.
This one isn’t as bad, but by the time he recovers, Cas has already straddled his waist, knife back at Dean’s throat.
The feel of expensive cotton clenched in Dean’s fists is starting to get all too familiar.
“Gerroff me,” Dean growls, rocking at Cas’s solid weight. His hands push and pull and yank, only managing to succeed in ripping every button at the same time, the tear of the shirt coming open loud over their panting breaths.
Cas raises an eyebrow, his body and the knife in his hand rolling and following Dean’s movements, impossible to escape. “That was a 200 dollar shirt.” His tone is completely unreadable.
“Yeah? Stab me about it,” Dean spits, pushing the remnants off of Cas’s shoulders, watching as he rolls his biceps to slide them the rest of the way to the floor. “Maybe take some polaroids after, like the world’s most fucked up art student.”
Metal brushes cold over Dean’s torso and he gasps. Looks down to see Cas has sliced his shirt in half. “You dick, that was my favourite!”
Cas shrugs. “You got blood on it anyway.” He rolls his hips and Dean wants to be pissed about how hard Cas still is, but that might be a little hypocritical, seeing as it’s rubbing against Dean’s own throbbing situation.
“I got-?!”
His angry retort is abruptly cut off, as Cas drops and shoves his tongue into Dean’s open mouth. The knife clatters to the floor at the edge of Dean’s awareness and hands are twisting and tightening in his hair, yanking at the short strands. Cas is heavy, their bare chests warm where they’re pressed together, the spiced, sweet cologne draping over Dean’s senses like a haze. It’s not a kiss, you have to have two equal participants for that, this is just Cas tonguefucking him into silence, it feels like.
There’s a particularly violent clench at the back of his head, Cas dragging Dean’s face closer by his hair, and the painedpleased noise it drags out of him gets lost in Dean’s throat, swallowed and muffled by the assault on his mouth.
Dean gets both hands on Cas’s back, drags his nails down hard enough to be felt but not to draw blood, his lips moving as he finally starts to try and match Cas’s motions. The asshole. I’m still mad, Dean thinks, trying to taste all the way to Cas’s tonsils.
Cold air hits his face as Cas sits up again. Pressure grips and slides around his throat and he realises Cas’s hand is wrapping around his airway. It’s more massaging than tightening, fingers and thumb groping for those two little spots on the sides that cut off the bloodflow, palm pushing lightly against his Adam’s apple.
Dean’s into being roughed up a bit in bed, he’s long come to terms with that. But he’s never done this before, and he should be fucking terrified, but there’s pulses of dizzy euphoria beginning to travel on dark waves, bubbling all the way up into his skull.
Cas’s other hand falls to the floor, to the side of Dean’s head.
He’s never felt more at another person’s mercy.
He’s also never been harder, and fuck his stupid broken brain.
“Polaroids,” Cas says from where he’s hovering above him, casually, like he’s shaking Dean’s hand instead of fucking choking him. “Do not have a digital signature. They can’t be traced back to me. Do you know how many gangs, how many branches of organised crime have been taken down because of photos, shared online?”
“No,” Dean rasps. “Do tell.”
Cas smiles. “Too many.”
Dean wraps his hands around Cas’s forearm, less to pull him off, more a non-verbal, ‘stop pretending this is a normal conversation, you fuck, we’re both aware you’re a shift of the hand away from literally strangling me’. Dean tries to swallow, feels every bob and flex of his throat against Cas’s hand. “Smart. All reputation buildin’, no risk.”
“I’m glad you approve,” Cas says on a half lidded smirk, starts a slow grind without moving his hand an inch.
Their dicks are both trapped between their bodies, Dean pushing rigidly against denim, and he hates how electric every tiny drag of friction feels. With how his brain is starting to fog over, it’s like a canvas for Cas to splash pleasure over, every tingle and burst of sensation heightened.
Cas groans languidly, his hips starting to move faster, rutting hard. “Undo your jeans, and my slacks,” he demands roughly.
“You could do that yourself,” Dean says, voice hoarse and strained as Cas’s fingers tighten minutely.
“I could, if I was a reasonable man,” Cas agrees amiably. “But I’m not, and I’m enjoying that pretty flush in your cheeks too much to let go yet.”
Grumbling half heartedly about the ‘pretty’, Dean gets a hand in between them, wiggling through what little space there is. It takes some effort, but eventually they’re both free and suddenly all he knows is hot and hard and silky and good.
Dean moans from deep in his chest, guttural, arms sliding out and around Cas. He splays a hand over Cas’s lower back, presses firmly, urging his movements down as Dean thrusts up. He’ll go back to giving Cas a piece of his mind. Right after he comes, because right now that’s the number one priority.
There’s no rhythm to it, just wild, desperate grinding against each other. Cas remains a little above, the blue of his irises burning where they’re still visible, the rest all black, inky glaze. Whenever Dean tries to shut his eyes, the hand at his throat squeezes, and he takes it as the warning it is, forced back into the intense eye contact.
It’s enraging how much that isn’t a problem for his arousal. Every part of Dean’s body is lighting up, the pleasure building in rolls that just get bigger and bigger, like a sudden storm out at sea. When it hits the crescendo, he knows it’ll cause a wreck.
Cas is right there with him it seems, panting softly, every breath hitching on dark unh sounds that come from the back of his throat.
The skin between them is growing slick and slippery, and Dean thrusts harder, chasing that peak, his body already tensing and stiffening in anticipation. He’s fighting against the growing dizziness, another wave of deliciousness forms, the largest yet, surging through and down-
Cas lets go of his throat.
Dean explodes, no other word for it, head thrown back, crying out and clutching, scrabbling at Cas’s skin, pulse after pulse of cum and ecstasy bursting out in an all encompassing deluge. He’s pretty sure he leaves the planet for a moment or two.
When he comes back to earth, Cas is groaning into his neck, driving fiercely into the vee of muscle between Dean’s hips, hands twining into Dean’s hair and clenching again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Fresh warmth blooms between them, Cas still forcing hard against him as he rides out his climax. Finally he stills, chest rising and falling heavily. Dean’s hands fall to the floor and flex at his side, fighting the urge to wrap back around the warm, heavy weight that Cas has become, his head still tucked into Dean’s neck.
Slowly though, by inches, Cas rolls off of Dean, collapses next to him, a foot or so away, and Dean can hear his breathing steadily even out. The silence should be awkward and Dean’s pissed that it isn’t.
He stares at the ceiling. It has ornate designs carved into the plaster. Because of course it does.
Then Dean stands, tucks himself away, zips his jeans. Shrugs off the remains of his t-shirt, starts wiping off the worst of the mess.
“What, no snuggle?” Cas asks, still on the ground, sounding both sarcastic and amused.
Dean doesn’t look at him. “Anything happens to my brother, I’ll kill you myself.”
Dean jumps as a warmth envelops his ankle. Looks down to see Cas has wrapped a hand around it.
“I know,” Cas says, and it almost sounds sympathetic. “I see now, that isn’t an avenue that works. Noted. I won’t hold him over your head again.” Dean would feel a helluva lot better about that, if there wasn’t the distinct impression that Cas’ll just find something else that does work. Whatever, at least Sammy’s off the table, Dean’ll take that.
He looks at Cas then, and immediately regrets it. Big Bratva boss, one hand tucked behind his head, hair fucked five ways to Sunday, a little smile playing on his lips. Happily lying on the hard floor like it’s a four poster bed, shirtless but clothed in colour, slacks still undone and low on his hips. Treasure trail sticky with his release.
Fucking Crocs.
Cas’s fingers start to gingerly stroke where they’re on his ankle, soft and trailing.
“I can bite my tongue around your guys,” Dean grunts. “No promises when we’re alone.”
Cas blinks at him, then rolls to sitting, knees rising so he can drape his elbows over them. “Good,” is all he says, but his head is cocked, brow furrowed. Like he just realised his Sudoku was actually a Crossword.
“And I need a new fuckin’ shirt,” Dean grouches. “Unless you want every person workin’ here to get an eyeful.”
Cas snorts, his usual arrogance bleeding back into his expression. “I keep a few here, that’s not a problem.”
“A few? What, you don’t live here?” Dean’s honestly baffled, the place is big enough to house an army.
Cas looks at the ceiling like he’s praying for strength. Climbs swayingly to his feet. “No, Dean. This is our base of operations. Hardly a sanctuary.”
“Well then where the Hell do you live?”
“I’m sure you’ll find out,” Cas says, smirking, patting him condescendingly on the shoulder.
What the fuck is Dean meant to do with that?
Cas moves over to a large cabinet on the other side of the room, mahogany like everything else in here. Or Dean had thought it was a cabinet, but as the doors swing open, he sees it’s actually a mini closet of sorts, a handful of shirts and pants hanging up inside. Dean tries not to imagine why Cas might need easy access to clean, blood free clothes.
Cas pulls out one of a few identical shirts, the same white, glossy looking cotton as the one Dean destroyed. He doesn’t know shit about fabrics, but figures maybe it’s some kind of silk blend.
“I’m gonna look fuckin’ stupid in this,” he snorts, taking it from Cas’s hand and shrugging it on. “Can’t believe I gotta wear some of your clothes outta here.”
Cas’s eyes rake over him once the fabric falls straight, his gaze somewhere between dark and pleased. “Mmm. Yes. What a shame.” His fingers twitch in Dean’s direction before stilling.
And what the fuck is Dean meant to do with that?!