Archive of Our Own

(Spring)

Sam shifts in the driver’s seat. “You sure about this?”

Dean taps the glass jar with a fingertip, staring out the Impala’s window at the trailhead. His nail makes a soft ‘pik pik pik’ sound.

“Yep,” he says, and shoves the jar into his backpack. “Definitely.”

(Autumn)

Never would have expected a firebird to make his nest on water, but that’s irony for you. It’s been a bitch of a hunt with too much research, but now that they’re on the barge, Dean’s in his element. He’s armed with silver and has his molotov ready to go. Sam’s in the hold setting up spellwork. They’re gonna herd this bad mother into the trap and find those kidnapped kids. Alive.

Movement at the corner of his eye snags his attention. It’s not Sam; the spell’s complicated, so he’ll be busy for a while. The hairs on the back of his neck tingle. 

On silent feet—which is not easy on the gritty, filthy floor—Dean slides against the wall toward the end of the corridor where it branches left and right. Whatever it was, it was moving fast. He’s gonna have to be careful— 

But the second he has more than an inch of sightline, the creature’s on him. Man-shaped, dressed in heavy black, he’s strong, but Dean is faster. They grapple; Dean gets his shoulder banged into a bulkhead, then he has his knife out of his belt and slices the phoenix across the chest. The knife mostly gets cloth but snags enough skin to send him scrambling back.

“Well, well, well,” Dean taunts, feeling the upper hand. “And here I thought we were gonna have to come looking for you.”

The man—the phoenix—snarls at Dean. He’s youngish, with a square jaw and dark hair, eyes flashing ice blue in the gloom. Are they glowing? Yep, definitely glowing. “Hunter,” he growls.

“Give the guy a cigar,” Dean confirms, and takes a guarding stance with the knife clutched in his fist, ready to sink into flesh. He wonders how long he’s going to have to stall before Sam’s ready with that spell.

“You should leave,” the phoenix says, standing up from his crouch against the wall. “It’s not safe.”

“Oh, yeah, I bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you? Where are you hiding those kids?” Dean barks.

The phoenix’s head tilts, birdlike, and his expression goes wide with shock. The gleam in his eyes blinks out, leaving a startlingly human gaze. “You think I did this?”

For just a second, Dean doubts. The one witness who’d actually seen the kidnapper had said it was an older guy, but it had been the middle of the night. Maybe—

Nah. This guy’s messin’. “Funny,” Dean says, and lunges.

The phoenix dodges. His eyes spark from the shadows again, but there’s something different to his movements now. He’s on the defensive—it almost feels like he’s toying with Dean. Which is more than a little enraging. Dean goes harder with his knife and his fists, dancing the guy around the door where Sam’s still setting up. If he can just keep him interested—

A stupid slip, an overzealous reach, and Dean finds himself pinned against the bulkhead, six inches off the floor, by the inhuman strength of this—this monster whose eyes glow like cold stars and who stinks like burning cedar. He tries one more blow with his knife, but the phoenix grabs his wrist and pins that to the wall, too, twisting so that the knife falls to the floor with a clang.

Dammit.

“I am not who you think I am,” the phoenix says, voice low. It should be threatening, but it hits Dean below the gut instead, and that’s not something he wants to analyze right now. “We have a common purpose, I suspect.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it,” Dean snaps. Come on, Sam, hurry it up—

But the phoenix, suddenly, is not looking at Dean. Or rather, not at his face. His gaze has shifted to Dean’s right, toward the hand that held the knife.

Or, rather, to its exposed wrist.

To the incomprehensible scribble that has marked his skin since his fourteenth birthday.

In the next instant, the bodily pressure that held him up is gone, and Dean staggers at the impact of his feet hitting the ground. The phoenix keeps his iron-tight grip on Dean’s wrist, pulling him even further off-balance. 

“Hey, what—”

The glow is gone from his eyes again, though they are still blue, blue, blue beyond comparison, gone round with wonder.

Dean licks his lips. Whatever this is, it wasn’t in the script.

“Forgive me,” the phoenix says. “Is your name Dean?”

(Spring)

It’s a long fucking hike, even after driving further off the beaten paths through the Rocky Mountains than he’s ever gone before. He’s never been what you’d call outdoorsy.

The map had said three miles. Three miles, Dean’s pasty white ass. He knows, objectively, that three miles carrying a backpack over rocks and rooty hills is way different than three miles on pavement, but this is just exhausting.

He’s only half sure where he’s going, anyway. It’s not like Cas’s instructions had been exactly clear. 

By the time he spies a glint of sunlight on water through the trees, his pack seems to have doubled in weight, sweat is sticking his shirt to his back, and there’s a blister on his left heel. When he reaches the campsite—such as it is—it’s a goddamn relief. He plonks his backpack down next to the ring of rocks and digs out a bottle of water for his pounding head. He drains it, then goes for the jerky.

Once restored, he leans back against a handy bench-log. It’s a pretty spot. The wind sighs in the tall pine trees overlooking the glass-smooth lake. Otherwise, it’s completely silent. He could hear a pebble break the surface all the way from the other shore.

Pulling his gaze down from the sky, he reaches into the backpack for the glass jar, the entire reason he’s here. It’s sealed up tighter than Fort Knox, because he has no idea what will happen if any of the ashes go missing. The sunlight glints off the glass, the ash inside shifting and falling as he rolls it between his palms. It looks so soft, like new snow or feathery down. 

“Alright, you cryptic son of a bitch,” Dean murmurs. “Time to build a fire.”

(Autumn)

“Dean?”

Sam’s voice from down the corridor snaps Dean out of this stunned tableau. 

“What’s going on?” he asks, wary, eyes darting to Dean but mostly stuck on the phoenix. 

The phoenix who has Dean’s name etched in black on his right wrist.

“This is impossible,” Dean says, ignoring Sam, staring down at the cold proof of exactly how possible it is. 

“It’s not,” the phoenix says. “Merely improbable.”

“No, you don’t—” Dean’s throat closes up on the words.

He doesn’t have a soulmate. That’s what everyone always said that scribble meant, that he was alone and always would be. It means that he’s so broken, no other soul in the world will ever fit with his jagged edges.

The phoenix’s hand closes over the scratched scrawl, huge and solid.

“Castiel,” he says. “That’s my name. It’s written in our language, so of course you couldn’t read it.”

Dean snatches his arm out of that branding grip. 

“Wait—” Sam’s catching up now. “You have a—you’re his soulmate?”

Hoping he doesn’t sound like his whole world is crumbling and rearranging around him, Dean asks, “Why should I believe you?”

The phoenix— Castiel —arches a dark brow and holds out his open palm, brandishing his wrist with DEAN in bold letters like an accusation. “So this is just a coincidence?”

Sam opens his mouth, undoubtedly to spout some nerdy bullshit, but a rusty clang sounds out from overhead. Right. The case. Whether Castiel is involved or not, they need to find the kids.

“Come on,” Dean says, grabbing Castiel by the wrist and dragging him into the hold full of Sam’s half-finished spellwork. Sam follows them in, closing the door with a heavy thunk.

“Alright,” Dean says once they’re safely barricaded in. “Talk.”

“Have you accepted that I had nothing to do with the kidnappings?” Castiel asks.

“Maybe.” Dean’s not about to let down his guard just because of a few letters on flesh. “Depends on what you say next.”

Castiel’s nostrils flare, and he clenches his jaw. Dean tries not to notice the wild fray of his hair, like he stuck his tongue in a power socket. Or the clean lines and angles of his face in profile. The way his black shirt fills out with muscle. That’s not what this is about.

But damn, if this guy really is his soulmate? Jackpot. 

Dammit, Winchester, keep your head in the game.

“Like I said, we share a common purpose,” Castiel says. “Zachariah is—”

“Zachariah?”

“The other phoenix. The one we’re both hunting.” He glares like he’s trying to will the words into Dean’s brain. “Zachariah is an extremist. A zealot. He wants to restore the old order, when humans were subjugant before my kind.”

Dean bristles. “Subjugant?”

Castiel nods. “You called us angels, once. Now you hunt us.”

“Sounds like you got some sympathies.”

“Not with Zachariah and his group. We just want to live in peace.”

Dean snorts. “Fuckin’ hippies.”

Before he can take his next breath, Castiel is two inches from his nose. “Do you know how many of my kind have died by human hunters’ hands? You should be grateful that I am not on Zachariah’s side.”

“We don’t kill monsters who don’t deserve it,” Dean says, pushing back into his space. “If you come after humans, if you start stealing kids , that’s a target on your back.”

“Then we are in agreement.”

Dean stares him down; Castiel holds his gaze like few people dare to do, all stubborn ferocity. Dean honestly can’t tell if his eyes are starting to glow again or if they’re really just that blue.

Dean steps back first, swiping a hand over his mouth. This is ridiculous. It’s true, they don’t kill monsters without a motive, but they don’t usually work with them either.

Then again, they aren’t usually his frickin’ soulmate.

“This is so messed up,” he mutters.

“Dean,” comes Castiel’s voice again, softer. “I can help you. And while we weigh each other’s merits, those children are sitting in a cage somewhere on this boat, away from their families, terrified.”

Dean catches Sam’s eye where he’s leaning against the door, pointedly not getting involved. “He’s right,” Sam says. “Whatever we’re gonna do, we should do it soon.”

Breathing deep and deliberate, Dean turns back to Castiel. “And how exactly are we supposed to trust you?” he asks.

Slowly, Castiel steps forward. Takes Dean’s right hand in his—no, not his hand. He reaches further, fingertips slipping under Dean’s sleeve to clasp around his wrist. On reflex, Dean clasps his wrist right back, palms fitting neatly over the marks in both their skin.

He’s probably imagining the shiver of heat that races up his spine, the gooseflesh that prickles up his arms to his scalp. Or maybe that’s the air crackling in their shared gaze. 

When Dean speaks, his voice is firm. “Sam. Finish the spellwork. You, come with me.”

(Spring)

The warmth of the day fades as the sun westers behind the mountaintops, and Dean is glad for the heat of the fire. Sunset’s getting close. The butterflies in his belly are winging up a frenzy.

He’s not even sure what he’s doing here. This probably won’t even work. And if it does, what the hell does he hope to get from it? He barely even knew the guy. Soulmarks alone don’t guarantee shit.

So what if he’s been dreaming of fire and blue eyes for the last six months? So what if his old, old habit of tracing the lines on his wrist has felt more like longing than loathing lately? And so what if he’s been reading up on interspecies soulmate bonds, and found that they aren’t unheard of, just have a much lower chance of actually connecting, for obvious reasons. Not to mention diving into everything he can find on phoenixes—not just how to trap and kill them, but their culture, their history, the different clans and factions. Their mating rites . Not easy info to find, but there if you’re motivated enough. And he’s had what you might call incentive.

The fire is still a tiny, guttering thing, feeding more on the newspaper than the logs. He hopes they catch soon; it’s getting chilly out here. The sooner he can get this done, the better.

(Autumn)

Castiel squints at the molotov. “This is your plan?”

“Hey, it’s what we got,” Dean says, spreading his hands.

“It won’t work.”

“Well, you got a better idea, Poindexter?”

“My name is Castiel.”

“Close enough.”

Castiel regards him, not offended, just… curious. Like Dean’s a puzzle to be solved or a mathematical equation. That quizzical stare goes straight down to Dean’s—well, you know. 

“Why do you wish to antagonize me?” he asks.

“I don’t, I just—” Dean plants his hands on his hips, then feels like a petulant child, so he drops them, which just feels awkward, so he finally crosses them over his chest. 

“Is this because we’re—”

“We’re not.”

Castiel—actually looks hurt at that. His blinking gaze drops, and Dean sighs.

“I never—” On reflex, Dean rubs his thumb over his wrist. “I thought it meant I didn’t have one. You know. A soulmate.”

“If you didn’t have one, it would be blank.”

“Yeah, I know—But. But my mom and dad, they had each other’s names. Real simple-like, y’know? John, Mary. Can’t get more traditional than that. Everyone I met growing up, they all had somebody’s name, whether they’d found ‘em or not. And then mine shows up and, well.” He traces the swoops and swirls, lines he could find half-blind in the dark. “I tried to laugh it off. ‘Who needs a soulmate? I’m not lookin’ for Mrs. Right, I’m lookin’ for Mrs. Right Now,’ you know?”

For a second, Castiel’s head tilts, and Dean is reminded that this guy’s probably got wings hidden on him somewhere. Then his confusion clears, and he nods. “Wordplay. I understand.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, well. Anyway. When Sam got his—” he swallows. “Look, we grew up hunters, right? Family business. But the first time he saw ‘Jessica’ on his wrist, he was halfway out the door already.”

That had been the worst time. After Sam’s soulmark, before he left for Stanford. The worst of the fighting, the worst of Sam trying to leave him alone with their dad and this bullshit life. Dean had wanted more than anything to follow him, but he couldn’t. He had to be the good son. Not like there was anybody else waiting for him.

Castiel’s voice cuts across his thoughts. “What happened to her?”

Dean’s head pops up. “How’d you know?”

“Well, he’s here. Following the family business, as you say.”

“That’s a long story.”

Castiel doesn’t stop looking at him. What does he think he’ll see? “But you lost the faith,” he says. 

“In what?”

“In soulmates.”

Dean scoffs. “Yeah. If I ever had any.”

Finally, Castiel looks away, and Dean breathes a little easier. “I always knew my soulmate would be human,” Castiel says, staring down at his own hands. “I suppose that’s why I’m more sympathetic to your kind than most of my brethren.”

Dean’s teeth grind together. “So, what, you just saw a human name pop up on your wrist, and suddenly you think we’re all that and a bag o’ chips? You ready to leave the mothership for good?”

Castiel levels a look at him. “Don’t misunderstand me. I am what I am,” he says. “But if our souls can bond, then are we really so different? Don’t you think we could coexist? I have to think that we could. Because otherwise…” 

He trails off, then stands and makes his way over to where Dean is leaning against a railing. With an expression so earnest, Dean kind of can’t believe he’s looking at it, Castiel holds out his hand, expectant. “May I show you?”

Wordlessly, Dean bares his wrist.

Castiel has to stand just a little too close, and Dean can feel him pressing into his space, a psychic force. He’s so very aware of the thin gap between their bodies, like they’re the same end of two magnets, pushing invisibly against each other. He wants to find the point where they snap together.

The fingertip tracing his wrist shivers him back to the present. “Shield,” he says, tracing one whorl. “Of,” two jagged lines. “God,” a swirling line around the whole circumference, goosebumps up Dean's arm to his elbow and beyond. “Castiel,” he finishes with half a smile. 

Dean has no idea where his breath went, because it’s certainly not in his lungs. The railing presses hard against his thighs, taking all of his weight, but there’s only so far he can lean. Sure, he could slide sideways, stumble out of Castiel’s direct gaze and feverish presence. But he doesn’t.

“Kind of a mouthful.”

Castiel raises his eyebrow, and Dean swears he spies a dirty smirk at the corner of his lips, a glint in his eye. Son of a bitch.

Before Dean can do something stupid like kiss his stupid monster face, the drumming of Sam’s footsteps has him breaking back, sliding out from under Cas. 

“Still clear,” Sam says. “Sigils are finished, bowl’s mixed, we just gotta—”

“Feathers McGraw here says it won’t work,” Dean cuts across him.

Sam’s face wrinkles up in concerned confusion. “But we—”

“Your spellwork is solid,” Castiel reassures him. “I’m impressed that you uncovered this spell; it’s very old. But that—” he points to the rag soaked in kerosene stuffed in a dead 40. “Is child’s play.”

“You got a better plan?” Dean asks.

Castiel nods, chin ducking low. 

“No way. Not gonna happen.”

“Dean, it’s the only way—”

“Nuh-uh.”

“How else do you expect to get phoenix fire?”

“Yeah, but I just—”

“Just what?”

“Just. No.”

“Dean.” Castiel pulls on Dean’s arm; Dean refuses to look him in the eye. “I will return.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

“I’m a phoenix, Dean . Did you think that was in name only? Your spell will work on Zachariah, and with my fire, he will be gone forever. I will not.”

Dean looks up at him, arms still tight across his chest. 

“But I just found you.” It comes out small, barely words at all. Plausibly deniable.

Tentatively, slowly, as if unsure of his welcome—justifiably—Castiel brings his fingertips up to brush Dean’s jaw. Dean’s close enough to watch his throat bob in a swallow.

“If you like,” Cas says, “you can help me return.”

Dean resists the urge to lean his cheek into Castiel’s palm. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Dean repeats Cas’s words at the back of his mind. Wait til spring, he’d said. A place of wind, earth, and water , Dean remembers.

Castiel restrains Zachariah in his arms, indifferent to his howl of rage. Dean breaks the vial of blood into the bowl and Sam chants the Latin, and Dean keeps his eyes fucking locked on Cas as he ignites, blazing from his collar to his hair and up the length of invisible wings. Dean watches Zachariah realize what’s happening, his rage transmuting to terror. 

The cold-star glow of Castiel’s eyes pierces straight through Dean.

Burn the ash, his words echo. Bring me home.

And then, in a cacophony of flame and the swoosh of his great burning wings, Castiel is gone, and Zachariah with him.

In their place stands what looks like a statue of the phoenix Castiel. It pings as wrong to Dean that the first time he sees Cas’s wings is in death. His wings and arms curl around an empty space. 

There is no effigy of Zachariah.

“Is that it?” Sam asks. “Is he gone?”

Dean exhales. “I guess.”

Slowly, carefully, he makes his way toward the statue. What’s he supposed to do with this? Carry it?

But even as he approaches, the details start to blur. Castiel’s feathers, fingers, eyes, nose, they all shift and drift. When Dean foolishly reaches out a hand to try and touch the statue’s wrist, the whole thing crumbles away to dust before him.

Not dust. Ash.

“Shit,” he spits, panic spiking under his ribs. “Sam, jar—”

Sam’s already tossing him an empty mason jar; Dean only catches it thanks to a lifetime of combined reflexes. Hardly daring to breathe, he unscrews the cap and stoops over the pile.

He hopes he gets it all. He hopes he doesn’t get anything gross from the floor along with it. The idea of Castiel’s ashes mixing with barge scum makes him want to laugh hysterically and be sick at the same time.

Finally, fingers dry and dusty, he screws the lid down as tight as possible. Even then, he keeps twisting. 

“Did you get him?” Sam asks.

“I hope so.”

For a moment, they just stand there, sharing a weird silent reverence for a guy they barely knew.

He barely knew him.

This is crazy.

“Come on,” Sam says, thumping  Dean’s shoulder. “Let’s go find those kids.”

(Winter)

“So you gonna do it?”

Dean startles so badly that the jar almost slips from his hands. “Shit, shit, shit—” He fumbles, saving it at the last second from smashing to the asphalt.

“Jesus, Sam,” he mutters.

Sam’s grimacing, fluorescent rest-stop lights making weird shadows on his face. Dean pulls his weight off the Impala’s bumper and shoves the jar back into its secret fold in his duffle. “I dunno yet,” he says.

“Seriously?”

The slam of the trunk is loud and satisfying in the night. “Yeah. You ready?” Dean doesn’t wait for an answer as he rounds to the driver’s side.

“You can’t just leave him like that,” Sam says over the roof. “He’s your—”

“Save it.”

“Look, Dean.” God, he’s going for the lecture. Dean closes his eyes and sags against the door. Better to let Sam get it out now than have him chew on it for the whole drive. “I know you don’t put much stock in this whole soulmate thing, but—”

“Then why are you yammering?”

“Because. I mean. We’d have been toast without him.”

Guilt surges up hot from Dean’s gut, like a four-alarm chili burger coming back to haunt him. He smudges a fingertip through the grime on the Impala’s roof. Needs to wash her properly.

“I saw the book,” Sam says.

He forgets the grime. Busted. “What book?”

“The one you swiped from Bobby’s? A Layman’s Guide to Phoenixes, Harpies, and Rocs?”

“Doesn’t prove anything,” Dean says, wiping his hands on his flannel. “Just tryin’ to get a better handle on ‘em. You’re right, we woulda been toast, so next time we gotta know better. Just in case we don’t have a feathered friend on deck.”

“Yeah, except I read that book last summer,” Sam counters. “And there’s a lot more about mating dances than there is about how to take ‘em out.”

Well, now the burn is in his cheeks instead of his gut. “Shut up,” Dean says, and pulls open the door.

“I’m just sayin’—”

“Well, don’t.”

Sam just grins like he thinks he’s won a prize. 

(Spring)

The fire is as hot and bright as it’s going to get, and dusk has fallen in earnest. The sky is a dark, velvety blue pricked with stars, lighter cerulean over the hilltops in the west. Dean keeps thinking he hears footsteps in the brush around him, but he’s pretty sure he’s just not used to this kind of silence.

He’s gotta stop dicking around.

Shaking the nerves out of his fingers, Dean picks up the jar and stands over the flame. Rubs his thumb over the raised logo on the glass, smearing his own fingerprints.

“Well,” he clears his throat. “Here goes nothin’.”

And he spikes the jar into the heart of the flames. It shatters with a tremendous crash.

For a heartstopping moment, there’s nothing. Only the flicker of the fire and the wind in the evergreen boughs. Dean’s pulse steadily thumps out his fears: He’s too late. He’s too early. He picked the wrong place. He shouldn’t have broken the glass. He didn’t get all the ashes, or they were too contaminated to be any good.

He—

The fire starts to gutter and die. 

Shit.

Dean lurches forward on his knees, ready to blow, or—or something, feed it wood maybe? But then with a pop like a firecracker, the little fire explodes skyward, a billowing, swirling inferno, only now it is blue, blue, ice-blue. Cold-star blue. Dean jerks back. Heat singes his eyebrows. His friendly little campfire is now a tornado throwing sparks into the canopy, and yep, that’s fear wedging itself sideways in Dean’s chest.

In the heart of that unnatural blaze, a shape unfurls like clouds in a high wind.

Two shapes.

Wings.

Wings stretching wide, wreathed in flame—no, the feathers are flame . As Dean watches, unable to breathe, the wings curl in on themselves, swallowing their own blaze and shedding white ash like rolls of spent paper. They enclose the blinding heart of the inferno into a shape like an egg, and the conflagration fades from blue to pink and finally back to golden-red. Soon it’s sighed back down to just an ordinary campfire, crackling merrily as if nothing had changed.

Except there’s pair of big fuck-off bird wings sitting in the middle of it. 

The wings cool and darken, smoldering down to coals, with the snap and spark of contained fire still on their edges. Dean picks out the pattern of feathers outlined by the embers’ pulsing glow.

Dean raises a hand.

He can feel the heat of those wings on his palm.

Before Dean can touch, they shake off their stillness, feathers fanning out. Dean snatches his hand back as the wings throw off a thin coating of ash and a glittering shower.

By the light of the flames at his feet, Dean watches as Castiel unfolds. Draws a deep breath. Opens his eyes, instantly the brightest thing in the night.

They find Dean.

And he smiles. Smiles like the sun coming up, blinking the glow from his eyes and leaving true blue, sunshine blue, and a smile like he’s actually just happy to see him. 

“Hello, Dean.”

The relief that floods through Dean’s body—he feels his knees dip.

“Hi,” his idiot tongue says. He’s staring like his eyes are about to fall out of his head, but he can’t help it. There is so much, so much to look at, from the singed wings arching over his shoulders to the fire still licking around his feet—he’s apparently impervious—to the fact that he is completely stark naked and, well. They’re soulmates, right? Dean can look.

He does look.

“Here, let’s get you out of there,” he says, gruff, offering a hand to help Castiel step over the circle of rocks.

Cas’s hand is hot like the barrel of a gun just fired. He leans heavily on Dean as he steps out of the fire, and he doesn’t let go once he’s standing on dry ground. The pine needles scorch a little under the soles of his feet.

Dean lets go of his hand.

“You, uh,” he starts. Goddamn distracting. “Here, I brought some extra—” He gestures vaguely in the direction of his backpack. “Uh. I dunno how we’re gonna manage your wings, but you can at least borrow some pants.”

“Thank you,” Castiel says, still piercing through Dean with the blue of his gaze. 

Neither of them make any move toward the clothes.

“Thank you,” Cas says again, and it’s clear that he’s not talking about the clothes this time. “I obviously hoped that you would bring me here, but you were under no obligation.”

“Dude, you’re my—” Dean bites his tongue. “Yeah, I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging. You literally put your life in my hands,” Dean throws that like a barb. “What kind of idiot even does that? You barely know me.”

An imposingly muscular naked man with a twelve-foot wingspan should not be able to look contrite. “My apologies. That was inconsiderate.”

Dean scoffs. “‘No, it was just risky as hell.”

“I had faith in you.” Castiel says. 

And that, more than anything, rattles Dean to the core. He ducks his chin and is suddenly very aware of his hands hanging at his sides. He shoves them in his pockets. “Yeah, well. Anyway. What now?”

At the question, Cas’s wings do something—a reflexive little fluff, pale smoke tendriling out from under soot-dark feathers. It comes with a deep inhale and a flash of those eyes, and Dean doesn’t want to leap to any conclusions, but it looks like hope.

“That’s—that’s up to you,” Cas says, voice strained. 

Nodding his head like that isn’t terrifying, like he’s not fucking floored to have this creature’s life in his hands again —well. Dean didn’t read that whole damn book plus a half-dozen others for nothing.

Dean swallows hard. Wipes a hand over his face. Licks his lips. Cas watches all of it with an intensity that Dean really doesn’t feel like he’s deserved, but—  

Here goes nothing.

He takes a deliberate step closer, leaving a space between them that feels like no space at all. Close enough that he can hear when Castiel sucks in a gasp. Dean slides his eyes down off to the side, not really focusing, but somewhere in the direction of the fire. And he tilts his head as far to the right as he can, baring the skin of his neck, shrugging his left shoulder out of his jacket. That’s as bare as he can get it for now.

A handful of heartbeats, a paralyzing second of uncertainty, and then Cas is on him.

With a quickness and force that knocks Dean to his knees, Castiel swoops behind him and wraps him up in his arms, in his wings,  like a hot, feathery blanket. A brush of lips and the threat of teeth press against his exposed skin, Cas’s breathing labored. His right arm reaches like an iron bar across Dean’s chest, clasping tight to his opposite shoulder like it could burn a mark right through his clothing.

“Mine—” Cas growls against his skin. “You’re—are you mine?” 

Praying to all the gods he doesn’t believe in that the books were on the money, Dean gives a minute nod. “Yes, Castiel,” he sighs.

A palpable shiver goes through Castiel, and Dean sinks down, down under his weight, into the cradle of his arms. He can feel all of Castiel’s skin, even through his own layers, and all at once, his flannel and jacket are stifling, his jeans are restrictive, and god damn, he needs to be naked.

“Cas—” he groans, pushing back against his bare chest. “Cas, come on—”

Except Cas lets go. Puts a bit of distance between them, even though his wings don’t seem to get the memo and he’s still petting his hands down Dean’s arms. Feathers crisscross in front of Dean’s vision, maroon-black except on the embered edges and still faintly smoking. Dean’s fingers curl against his own knees to keep from reaching out and touching.

“Why’d you stop?” he asks over his shoulder.

“I—” Cas’s voice is strange, tight. “If you let me, I will mark you, Dean. I will claim you. This isn’t—” Dean cranes his neck around to meet Cas’s eye. He looks nervous as hell. “This isn’t how human soulbonds work. Please don’t appease me out of a sense of duty.”

Jesus Christ. “Cas, buddy,” Dean says to his face. “I’ve had a lotta time to think about this. I know what I’m getting myself into, and—” And his throat clams up. He starts stripping off his shirts. “Help me outta this crap, will ya?”

It’s gratifying as hell, the way Cas’s jaw falls slack and his eyes flash as he watches Dean strip away his layers. By the time Dean’s tugging off his T-shirt, Cas’s hot palms are following the shirt’s progress up Dean’s waist, ribs, shoulders. His touch is incendiary. Even more so when his hands travel around to Dean’s chest, down his stomach to the fly of his jeans and Cas’s mouth takes its place again at the nape of his neck.

“Are you certain?” Cas asks, smoke in his voice.

A swallow, a nod, and Dean says, “If you are.”

Cas’s breathing is unsteady at Dean’s nape, but he feels his chin dip in answer.

“May I?” Cas asks, but now it sounds sultry and enticing as his nimble fingers play with the button on Dean’s jeans.

“Fuck yes,” Dean groans. Where the hell does he put his hands? In front of him is all wing, Cas frustratingly behind him. He settles for planting one on Cas’s wrist where he’s still teasing at denim, and stretching the other one up to lodge itself in Cas’s hair, holding him close to Dean’s neck. 

“Dean—” Cas sighs against his skin, open-mouthed. “I always hoped you would be like this.”

And then Dean’s fly is open, Cas’s fingers threading through the flap to tease at his groin. Dean’s gasp and curse are going to have to be his answer.

Cas doesn’t linger, using his hands to shoehorn Dean’s jeans down his legs, only for them to get caught on his fucking boots. “Hang on, I gotta—” Dean spends an embarrassing moment undoing laces and losing his balance. Cas catches him, palms like brands on his flanks.

“Shut up,” Dean grumbles.

“I said nothing,” Cas replies. Fucker’s grinning, Dean can tell.

“I know you’re laughing back there.” Stupid knots and clumsy fingers. Dean is half a second away from grabbing his goddamn knife, when—“There. Finally.” His bare knees hit the forest floor. Cas’s wings fold tighter around him, warm and strong and prickly as they lift him, pull him off-balance and back to sit on Cas’s thighs. Dean’s about to protest the indignity, but then Cas hums into his neck and it’s fine. Dean can live with it.

Skin feels good. Feels right. So much skin all along his back and ass and the backs of his legs, and the strange embrace of pinions along his front. The embers brush his skin and he jumps, but they don’t burn. They’re just warm.

The thing is, Dean kind of hates fire. It stinks and it’s loud; it smells like his earliest nightmares. It reminds him of charred bones and ghosts and grave dirt under his fingernails. 

But this—this is fire in a hearth, or the glow of a candle. This is golden windows on a cold night and smoke curling from a chimney, the kind of safety Dean has had precious little of in his life. He wants to cling to it, hold on tight.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spies his soulmark pressed right up against Cas’s arm, and his own name in stark black on Cas’s. The thrill that arcs through him—

Slowly, seeking just the right spot, Cas nuzzles against the tender skin of Dean’s shoulder. When he finds it, he opens his mouth and sets the edge of his teeth against Dean’s skin. At the same time, his right hand slides across Dean’s chest to his opposite shoulder, holding him tight, fitting around his muscle like it was tailor-made.

Dean’s heart pounds against his own name.

“Dean?”

God, the vibrations of that cavern-deep voice against his spine— “Yeah?”

“Last chance.”

A swallow, a shiver. “Do it.” Please.

Castiel bites down. He bites hard.

And his handprint sears into the flesh of Dean’s shoulder.

Dean cries out into the night.

It’s a rush like no other, endorphins and adrenaline, cheating death again. Dean feels his blood surge into those two points, his pulse quick and hard, riding too high to really hurt. His mouth fills with the taste of woodsmoke and wax; his ears ring. He feels more than hears Castiel’s groan, broken and aching.

He’s being lifted, he’s being turned. Cas’s teeth leave a dull, throbbing pain and a smear of blood. When his hand peels off Dean’s shoulder, that hurts worse.

There’s an impact when Dean’s back hits the ground, but instead of cold, hard dirt under him, it’s the softness of wings. Before Dean can ask, Cas is kissing him—holy hell, kissing him, with the copper tang of blood on his teeth, deep and open.

Fuck.

Before Dean can even think about catching his breath, Cas’s hips are bearing down on him, pressing their cocks together—hard, Jesus, both of them. Bright, sudden pleasure lances up Dean’s belly; he groans into Cas’s mouth. He tightens his thighs around Cas’s hips and pushes back, because he wants, he wants.

He breaks the kiss, though Cas chases his lips. In the glow of his eyes, Dean can see the swirling iris within the starlight. “Cas,” Dean whines. 

“Yes,” Cas answers, and there’s another hard grind. Dean is pinned, entirely engulfed.

He should hate this. There’s a snarl in his hindbrain that mocks him for going down without a fight, for letting some creature take him because of a scribble on his wrist. Dean squashes it with vigor. He surrenders himself to the inferno, spreading his knees higher, worming one hand between their bodies wrap around them both. The dragging pressure is like a lightning bolt. Dean doesn’t even have to move his hand, just lets Cas fuck his fist, fuck against his cock, winding him tighter and tighter until—

He bursts. With a trembling clap of thunder, he cracks in half, spilling wetness between them in pulse after pulse. His toes curl and his fingers clutch. He only knows that he screams by the rawness of his throat at the end. 

The shuffling of the wings under his back knocks Dean out of his tingling reverie. He pops open heavy eyelids and stares down at Cas nosing at his stomach and chest. A thrill zings through him all anew when he feels Cas’s tongue on his skin, lapping up the mess he’s made in long, wet stripes.

“Jesus, Cas,” he groans.

There’s banked heat in Cas’s gaze, mouth open to Dean’s skin. Dean has absolutely no idea what to say, his mind a fizzy mess. So he laughs instead, giggles bubbling up from his toes, uncontrollable, and getting worse when Cas tilts his head like a curious bluejay.

“C’mere,” Dean says. Cas shuffles, following Dean’s pulling hands until they’re kissing again. It’s lazy and slow on Dean’s part, but Cas still needs, sucking on Dean’s tongue and roving with his touch. Dean’s hands explore as far as they can over the dips and rises of his muscles, skin dry like river stones in the sun.

Then Cas shifts again, his wings moving under Dean’s back, and Dean pulls away. “This can’t be comfy for you.”

This, of all things, is what makes Cas blush. “I am sort of stuck,” he says, and Dean laughs again.

“You dork,” he says. “C’mon—”

With difficulty, they get Dean up so that they’re sitting knee-to-knee. Cas stretches his wings like a man waking up from a long nap, and Dean can’t help but get caught staring.

“They’re awesome,” Dean says. “Really.”

Cas’s wings winch down. Like they’re shy. “Thank you,” he says. Dean scoots forward, partly because it’s cold outside his personal phoenix wing cloak, and partly because Cas is too damned adorable not to touch.

He ends up climbing into Cas’s lap, legs around his middle with his ass in the bowl of Cas’s crossed legs. This sits Dean’s weight right down on Cas’s mostly hard dick, and Cas bites his lip, breathing hard. Dean grins and settles in with a lot more wiggling than necessary.

“How do you want me?” he asks, aiming for sultry, landing on the far side of awkward.

Cas just pulls him in, fitting his nose and lips against the tender skin of Dean’s neck, just above where he’s sore and marked. “I don’t care,” Cas says. “So long as I have you.”

Dean nods, clutches with his arms and legs. Circles his hips. Feels Cas’s body waking up under him. Cas hisses and gasps, clutching him by the hips, and Dean wishes he were still twenty-five with refractory time like a boomerang. Or that he’d brought lube.

The visual is sudden and stark, clear as daylight, of himself riding Cas’s dick. Damn, he can’t wait for that.

Apparently, Cas agrees, because he tugs at Dean’s waist, shifts him up and in, and then his cock is sliding up and down the crack of Dean’s ass. The hot, wet tip catches on Dean’s hole,  and he gasps all the way down.

“Fuck, I’m an idiot,” he pants. 

“Why?” Cas grumbles under his ear.

“I want—uh.” Dean grinds again, right on top of Cas’s dick, hoping he gets the picture.

By his heaving breaths and the clutch of his hands, he does.

“Dean—” he groans. “Touch—touch my wings.”

“Your wings?”

Cas nods, a shaking thing against Dean’s neck. 

It takes some maneuvering to get his hands on them, especially since Cas doesn’t give Dean one inch of breathing space. But Dean manages to pet down the high, solid arch of the wing above Cas’s head. The feathers are like velvet, smooth one way and coarse the other. Under the down, it’s oven-warm.

“Lower,” Cas murmurs.

“This would be easier if I weren’t in your lap,” Dean says, but Cas just tightens his arms. It’s stupid, the way it makes affection bloom in Dean’s chest, but he smiles anyway. There’s no one to see.

With some shifting—better if his arm goes under —Dean gets his hand on the back of Cas’s wing, caressing across broad flight feathers, brushing their curling edges. His fingers come away soft with soot.

“In—” Cas sucks in air. “Toward the center.”

He reaches, squirms, and Cas grinds his still-hard cock up against Dean’s ass, more cheek than cleft. He’s leaking; Dean can feel the wetness where he’s poking him at the top of his thigh, and his own cock tries real hard to rejoin the party.

Then his hand slips sideways, finding the point where feathers sprout from skin, and—

“Dude.”

Cas buries his face deeper into Dean’s neck.

“Are you—” Dean swallows a rush of saliva. “Is this you getting wet?”

“It’s meant for grooming,” Cas says, quiet about it. “Mostly.”

It clicks.

“You’re a goddamn genius,” Dean says, and gets his fingers in the mess of oil. It has the added benefit that Cas, apparently, really likes this , from the way he’s panting against Dean’s chest, tight and squirming. Dean plays a little longer than he might otherwise, stroking the tender skin at the base of the feathers until it’s dripping down his palms and making its way toward his elbows.

Then Cas growls “stop teasing,” and pulls up to claim Dean’s lips in a hard, commanding kiss, and wow. Okay. Yeah. Dean’s done waiting, too.

Dean brings his hand back behind himself, slip-sliding down his cleft. Cas enfolds him with his wings again, and they hold him steady, keep him warm. 

His fingers find his hole.

All the air in his lungs pushes out as he pushes in.

Cas’s hand closes over his wrist, hot and broad, and Dean works deeper, twisting and curving to find the right angle. Cas presses on Dean’s hand, pushing him deeper, then gathers up some of the extra oil with his own fingers and joins Dean’s at his entrance.

“May I—?”

“Fuck yes, Cas, please, please—”

He’s in. They’re in. Their fingers side by side, lighting Dean up like a match. He throws his head back and swears into the night sky; Cas’s lips trace shivers down his throat.

“Get in me,” he groans. “Fuck, Cas, get in me—”

“Are you sure?”

“Jesus. Yes.” His patience is paper-thin right now. Dean pulls off their joined hands, reaches around real quick to swipe over Cas’s oil-spot again—the way he jumps , that’s gonna be fun—and then between them to slick over Cas’s iron-hard prick. 

Grinning, Dean positions himself over Cas’s cock, the head just barely pressing. Cas has his eyes closed and his lips open, a beatific expression of awe.

So of course, Dean has to ruin it.

“You gonna red-hot poker me, Cas?”

Cas’s eyes slit open.

“I don’t understand that reference,” he growls.

Dean just winks, smirks, and sinks his hips down.

He watches Cas’s face. He feels the stretch but leans into it, working himself further and further open on Cas’s cock. Jesus, he is not a small man.

Phoenix.

Whatever.

By the time Dean can settle all the way down in his lap again, speared through by the breadth and length of him, they’re both sweating. Shaking. It takes a long moment for Dean to remember how to breathe; when he does, it all gets easier.

“Shit,” he sighs.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, fine. Fuck. Just.” He deliberately squeezes just to feel Cas press up against all his sweetest spots. Cas jerks. “Intense.”

Cas’s hands soothe up and down his sides, and with each pass, Dean relaxes, incrementally melting. “M’good,” he says at last when he’s slumped against Cas’s shoulder.

“Hold on,” Cas says.

Dean thought he was going to have to do all the work in this position, but then Cas gets up onto his knees. Dean finds himself wrapped up, picked up, securely held in Cas’s arms and wings. Dean is solid and strong from years of running and fighting, and he enjoys his cheeseburgers and pie. He’s even got a little height on Cas. So if he gives a startled squawk at being manhandled, well. Sue him. It’s a surprise. And he’s still got Cas’s cock stuffed up his ass, so every move and jostle is a shiver-shock of pleasure.

But Cas just purrs against his chest, an engine-low hum that turns into a breathless groan when he starts to rock. 

“Fuck,” Dean gasps. “Oh, oh fuck—”

He moves quickly from rolling thrusts to sharp jabs that ricochet through Dean’s bones, but what’s really overwhelming is how safe he feels suspended in mid-air entirely by Cas. Dean’s got his ankles locked around Cas’s waist, and he’s clutching at his shoulders, but other than that, it’s Cas’s arms, Cas’s wings that are keeping him from falling to the dirt. It’s like his own personal feathery sex swing. He leans hard into them and lets Cas chase his pleasure in his body.

“Dean,” he growls, and Dean cracks his eyes open.

Cas’s are glowing again, and Jesus Christ, this is his soulmate . The mark on his shoulder, his neck, the name on his wrist, it feels like they all light up along with his gaze. There’s a thread that reaches from his heart to Cas’s, he’s felt it since he saw him turn to ash that day on the barge. Now that thread draws tight, a sweet pull of satisfaction that has nothing to do with where he’s being fucked or his cock against Cas’s body and everything to do with the thrum of their heartbeats.

Well, maybe it’s a little about his cock.

“Shit,” Dean bites out. “Shit, shit, shit ,” as Cas fucks. It’s perfect, it’s fucking perfect, and he’s leaking like a rainstorm against Cas’s belly, ready to come again, ready to come—

Cas’s thrusts quicken to a halt; he buries his cries in Dean’s neck; his cock pulses deep and hard inside Dean’s body. It punches him right over the edge again, a shivering thing, stealing his breath, sparking across his vision.

Fucking hell. He didn’t even know he could do that.

“Oh, fuck,” he sighs, wiping his eyes with his non-oily hand. “You’re somethin’ else, man. Fuck.”

“I should hope so,” Cas says.

Slowly, they disengage, clean up as best they can. They bow to the realities of the cold hard ground and put on some pants, Dean digging out some extra jeans for Cas and praying that they fit (they do, unfairly well). Then situate themselves chest-to-back against the log, facing the little campfire with Cas’s wings back around him. 

“S’nice,” Dean says, petting at his feathers. “You didn’t have wings before, though?” 

“I did,” Cas says, nosing through Dean’s hair and tracing nonsense patterns on the skin of his chest. “I just put them away.”

“Huh. So you’ll probably put them away again?”

Cas nods; Dean feels a pout coming on.

“But you can bring ‘em back, right?”

Cas nods again, more eagerly. He can hear the smile in Cas’s voice when he says, “I like having you in them.”

Dean can’t help what his face does, this stupid grin that stretches all the way up to his ears. “Um, good,” he says. “Cuz, yeah.”

Cas purrs. It’s the only word for that sound, that rumble. It’s addictive.

They lay there for a long time, Dean’s eyelids getting heavy. He nestles into Cas’s strong chest, his downy embrace, even though there’s at least one twig poking him in the hip. 

“Can’t wait to do this in a real bed,” he murmurs, half asleep.

Cas hums, and then a tension comes to his body, just enough to ping an alert in Dean’s brain.

“Dean,” he starts. “Did you bring a tent?”