Archive of Our Own ^beta

The body is on a stainless steel table covered with a sheet. It had been taken out of the body bag upon arrival by the paramedics and delivered to me post-mortem, a terribly cold and clinical word to describe the last place I will lay my hands on your flesh. Your outline beneath the white cloth could be anyone. It could be a mother, a father, a brother, a lover.

I clench my fists to hide how I despise their presence until they leave. You shouldn’t be seen like this, so perfect and exposed, by anyone but me. I suppress any reaction until the paramedics, muttering about the suicide they’d left in my care, leave for their next disaster. Why would someone so young do this? Why would he leave so much behind? 

I know why.

Alone with your body, I can’t bring myself to uncover you, to expose what you’ve done to the world, to allow anyone to see. Your disaster is mine alone. Your pain slides down my throat, paralyzing me as if I’m the one with rigor mortis. With an ache that stops my heart, I crawl up next to you and stroke your face, basking in the beauty before me. I gingerly wrap my arms around your now limp form I’ve loved for so long.

“What have you done?” I whisper, resting my head on your shoulder. “How could you leave me here alone?” My tears soak into the white sheet covering you from my eyes, and I clutch you close to me, yearning to feel the smallest movement, the faintest breath.

It doesn’t come.

When Castiel was 18, Dean Winchester moved down to Kansas from Indiana. He walked with the kind of confidence only the beautiful possessed, legs kicking out with casual charm, green eyes sparkling even in the high school’s fluorescent light. He arrived halfway through their senior year, and no one had ever seen anything as golden as Dean Winchester. Usually, perfect things fade with time, like butterfly wings once they’ve been touched, but not Dean.

Castiel watched from the shadows, from around corners, and down long stretches of hallway. His eyes rarely strayed if they were in the same room, his longing so deep it ripped his insides out from between his ribs. Dean was tall and captivating, and just thinking about the way his mouth parted and his tongue slid across his lips made Castiel’s pulse jump. People said kids their age couldn’t know love, but Castiel did, and he loved Dean Winchester.

Girls flocked to Dean, one after the next. Lydia, Anna, Cassie. Each one more beautiful than the last. And Castiel watched, seething from the shadows. He felt feverish. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as the infection of desire coursed through his veins. Just being himself was enough to draw everyone to him. 

He was the sun, the rest merely gravity.

Dean had never even talked to him before, barely acknowledged he existed. All Cas had was the hope Dean didn’t actively hate him. Unlike most popular boys, Dean had never slammed a shoulder into him in the hallways or kicked him in the stomach after punching him on the walk home from school. He’d also never called Castiel a faggot the way his friends did.  

Now, Castiel knew why.

Halfway through the second semester, Dean grabbed Castiel’s arm after school and pulled him into an empty classroom. He stared, mouth dry, heart pounding. Confusion silenced him as his eyes locked onto Dean’s, desperate to decipher the mystery before him.

“Don’t ever fucking tell anyone about this,” Dean hissed and then kissed him, pressing him hard against the wall like an assault.

The kiss was sloppy and frantic, Dean’s tongue pushing into Castiel’s mouth before they’d found a rhythm. He was absolutely okay with that. Dean slammed him against the wall when he tried to lean forward, take more, his hands gripping Castiel’s hips like he was holding on to a cliff face, trying not to fall. Never letting their bodies touch.

Castiel scrambled to find his footing, reaching for Dean’s shoulders only to have him pull away, taking his down-turned lips with him, darkness in his eyes. The muscles in his jaw tensed, and fingers dug painfully into Cas’ hips. 

“I… I’m sorry, I won’t…”

Soon, Dean had Cas’ hands pinned above his head and a scowl on his face. Then he slowly leaned in and took Cas’ bottom lip in his mouth and bit down—hard.  Hard enough to make tears come to Castiel’s eyes, but he didn’t move or make a sound. He didn’t struggle against Dean’s hands and just let him draw blood. It was his first communion.

Dean let go slowly with an approving smirk on his face and licked the blood off Castiel’s lip before releasing his arms. He turned them so he leaned against the wall instead. He sneered with narrowed eyes and pressed down on Cas’ shoulders.

Heat flushed through his body as Castiel fell to his knees. He looked up, knowing perfectly well what Dean wanted, and he was willing to give it. He was happy to worship at the altar of Dean Winchester’s cock.

“Take it out,” Dean said, nonchalant as if he didn’t care either way, feet planted wide and sure.

Castiel scrambled, reaching forward with shaking hands to undo Dean’s jeans and pull his cock out through the opening in his boxers. His mouth watered. Dean was unsurprisingly beautiful, just like the rest of him, smooth, cut, and long. Precome gathered at the tip, and Castiel leaned forward to lick it away, moaning at the flavor of Dean’s desire. Desire for him.

“Come on.  I know you want it.” Dean’s voice came out low and pained as he placed a hand on the side of Castiel’s head and pulled him in with strong fingers. 

Dean was right. Castiel wanted it. Desperately. He wanted it so much it hurt.  

When he wrapped his lips around the head, his lip stung, and he felt lightheaded. Dean Winchester was inside his mouth. 

He sucked and licked and stroked the base with his hand, spit running down his chin as he lathered Dean’s cock, easing the way so he could go deeper and deeper. He lapped at it like a porn star. He’d never done this before, but needed Dean to know how much he wanted to make it good.

“You fucking love this, don’t you?” Dean stared down at him in ecstasy.

Their eyes locked, and Castiel moaned, sucking harder at the sound of Dean’s voice.  He’d never spoken to him, and that alone was enough to make him crazy. He was the focus of Dean’s attention. His cock was lodged deep in Castiel’s throat, as far as he could take.

As it was, he was painfully hard and reached down with his free hand to release his erection.

Dean kicked him in the knee, almost jostling Castiel’s hold on his cock.

“Don’t touch. If you come, it’s gonna be from my cock in your mouth. This is about me, about showing me you want this, and maybe I’ll let you do it again.” Dean growled the words, eyes dark.

Casiel whimpered. Again? If doing it once was this good, this all-consuming, the idea of getting to do it again made him frantic with want, with need, with love. He reveled in the ripping of his lip and the lack of air as he took more of Dean into his mouth. His lungs burned, and his heart burst at the seams.

Dean grabbed his hair and thrust slowly, pushing himself deeper into Castiel’s mouth, seeking out the depth that made him choke and tears run down his cheeks. “Fuck that’s so good. Look at you. You’re a fucking mess. Ahhh.”

This was revelation, this was reverence, this was rapture.

Faster and faster, Dean thrust, pulling Castiel’s hair so hard it burned and threatened to rip out of his skull. He grunted and swore, and heat shattered through Castiel. Euphoria shrouded over him as Dean pitched forward, bent over Castiel’s head with a deep groan, and filled his mouth with come.

He swallowed to keep from choking but held some back, savoring the taste. He rubbed it against his teeth with his tongue.

Dean straightened up, panting. He watched, slackjawed as Castiel swallowed the last of his spend and tucked his cock away like the precious thing it was.

“Fuck, you really do like it.” Dean tapped Castiel’s crotch with the toe of his boot. Pressing the cooling come against Castiel’s leg.

“Yes.” His voice was ripped rough. He stood up from battered knees and wiped the blood running down his chin, and knew he was already lost. 

“Freak,” Dean said before sweeping out of the room, leaving Castiel alone with the taste of his release lingering on his tongue.

The Y-cut begins just below the tip of your collarbone. I have forgone the required gloves so I can feel the smoothness of your skin, the pleasure of touching you. I etch my love into the flesh of your chest. My hands are steady as the scalpel slices through your outer layers, treating your flesh with the obeisance it deserves. I cut two smooth lines that meet at the sternum. No blood wells up in the cuts or bubbles over onto your flesh. Your heart no longer pumps.

I've never seen somebody so perfectly still as you. I’ve worked with the dead long enough to appreciate the differences, but I remained indifferent, unaffected. But you’ve always been beautiful to me, striking. I could always find you in any crowd. Like this, you are an ethereal creature. 

I cut a path down the center of your chest, past where your ribs used to rise and fall. They are motionless now, statuesque like a marble figure. I press deeper, purposeful, as I reach the soft rise of your stomach. 

My incision reveals your raw beauty. 

I reach within to hold your secrets in my hands, to know you as completely as one soul can know another.

After the first time Dean shoved his cock into Castiel’s mouth, it became a regular thing. A threat from Dean not to tell, Castiel on his knees, Dean coming and leaving without a word, leaving Cas spent and drowning in bliss. Dean would grab Castiel after school when no one was looking, during free periods, and would even pick him up in his car when Castiel walked home.

Sometimes, Dean would be sweet, kissing Castiel gently, telling him he was beautiful, begging him to make him feel good. They would rut together in the back of Dean’s car, breath hot on each other’s necks. Sometimes Dean would let him come, but usually, he couldn’t wait, sitting up and pulling his cock out only to explode in Cas’ mouth as soon as he was wrapped around it, swallowing and swallowing and swallowing.

Now and then, Dean would hold Castiel’s head still and fuck into it, not letting him move. This was Castiel’s favorite, letting Dean own him completely, letting his world narrow down to the thrust of Dean’s hips, the burn of his throat, the release of control. He gave without hesitation. And Dean delivered.  

By the next month, it was nearly every day. He still didn’t speak to Castiel outside of whatever broom closet he’d shoved him into, but he kept coming back. He watched as Dean dated, but Castiel never worried about the girls hanging on his shoulder or kissing him in the hall because later, Dean’s cock would be safely lodged in Castiel’s mouth, right where it belonged.

When they graduated, Castiel got a small studio apartment not too far from Dean’s parents, dreaming of nights together and maybe building a life even if it was in the shadows. He waited, longing for the days when Dean would let him kneel before him again.  

In return for paying his rent, his parents insisted he come home each Sunday to endure their enthusiastic support and indulgent love. He turned away from it, happier in the dark and dirty places with Dean.

“Castiel, I saw this sweater the other day and picked it up for you.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

She frowned even as he pulled the deep blue sweater on, studying him and biting back all the questions he knew she wanted to ask. Why don’t you bring home a girl or boy? (His parents were annoyingly progressive.) Why don’t you tell us anything? Why aren’t you happy?

How could he tell them that he waited all summer for Dean, that classes were starting at the community college they would both attend (much to his parents' dismay, he had gotten into Ivy League schools and refused to leave in hopes of seeing Dean even one more time), that he began to believe he might never see Dean again, never kiss him or touch him or be used by him in ways that filled him with euphoric joy.

At night, he would walk in front of Dean’s house, listening to the sound of laughter, sometimes catching sight of Dean’s silhouette from his window. It was so little, but it sustained him enough to get through another day. He slowly starved as his love ate him away from the inside.

It was months before Dean returned. Months of waiting outside of Dean’s classes in the shadows with his nails digging into his palms, watching him make friends so easily, smiling in the sun. Had he been replaced? Did one of them hold Dean’s cock in worship with the devotion Castiel had bestowed upon it?  

Months of longing and inaction as he slumped through his classes, half asleep all day and painfully awake each night. He stumbled forward, striving for a degree he wasn’t sure he even wanted.

Nothing filled the void.

Dean’s absence hollowed out every corner of his life. Every day, blackness reached for him, threatening to pull him in and leave him with nothing. He drank to sleep, and to dull the pain of being awake, and he closed himself off.

One night, a knock on his door pulled Castiel from the stupor he was in as he ate tasteless oatmeal for dinner again, knowing he needed to feed his body but having no desire to do so, he ate only enough to stave off the dizziness these days. He had no interest in opening the door for his parents, the landlord, or a neighbor. They would serve him best by leaving him alone.

Another knock, louder, more insistent.

It continued until finally, Castiel stood, lightheaded and still slightly drunk from earlier in the day.  When he opened the door, a whirlwind pushed him back, slamming the door shut with a foot, lips already taking ownership of Castiel’s mouth, hands gripping his neck like a vice, thigh shoved between his.

“Fuck,” Dean said when he finally pulled away, resting his forehead against Castiel’s in a rarely shown moment of vulnerability. “What are you thinking, walking down my street. You think I don’t know you’re there? What are you doing? Anyone could look out and see you there. You can’t… I’m not yours.” Dean leaned in and kissed him again, this time soft and sweet, licking at his lips before tasting him with a groan.

Castiel mewled, stroking his hands up and down Dean’s sides. He breathed into Dean’s mouth as he begged. “Don’t do it again. You staying away almost killed me. That would be better. It would be better to die than not have you. I love you.”

Dean pulled back, his hold on Castiel still tight and demanding. “I tried to let you go, I tried, but I couldn’t. I don’t want you. I hate you for making me need you.”

Castiel blinked, tears in his eyes, until Dean’s grip on his neck relaxed and he stepped away.  Castiel backed further into the room. His eyes brimmed with veneration. They were finally completely alone for the first time. Dean said he wasn’t Castiel, and yet he was here. Love didn’t need to be spoken to be true.

He removed his clothes and knelt on the hard parquet floor, shoulders rolled back and hands open and relaxed, offering himself up for use.

And Dean used him well.

You are laid bare before me. My breath catches with reverence for the secrets entrusted to me. You are mine to savor. Slowly, I reveal the raw components of your existence.

Your skin lifts away from muscles and bone, parting like a whisper. Under the halogen lamp, the trembling fat glistens, protecting the inner sanctum of your flesh. Your scent is warm, life clinging to your reliquary.

I reach the sternum and pause. With a deep breath, I savor this moment, the buildup, the crescendo. It cannot be rushed. Revelation must be cherished. This bone cage protects your heart. And like the rest of you, it is destined to be mine. I slice you open, the crack of bone a lover’s gasp. Elation fills me as your interior is exposed like an ancient artifact, hidden away for so long it's only real when I set my eyes upon it.

Your lungs greet me with the final exhale of your life’s breath, like an echo. The spongy tissue gives as I cut them free. They are fragile, so vulnerable when outside of your body’s protection. I hold them and savor each breath, each word, each sob you ever breathed. 

I tremble as I reach for your heart, the epicenter of all you were, all that you gave. It held the weight of your existence and powered every beat, pulse, every moment of you, and carried the sacrifice of your life. 

When I cradle it, my hands are full. How many times did it race when we were pressed together? How many times did it slow, sated, and content for just one moment before fear and doubt filled it anew? Will it beat again if I hold it tightly enough, if I pour all of my devotion into it? Thick blood bubbles through the walls, smearing my skin with one last gift.

I pull it closer, unable to resist. My lips brush the smooth surface, cool now but still so full of love. The thin layer of tissue surrounding your heart is tacky against my lips. I open my mouth to taste the essence of you, filling my senses with what you gave. I nuzzle your heart, spreading you across my mouth and cheeks. You are tangy and thick against my lips, my teeth. When I bite down, I gently rip a small piece of your heart away, licking and sucking on the darkened blood before swallowing. The taste of your flesh fills me slowly.  Each bitter bite eases my agony.

For at least this one moment, I am sanctified.

The next time Dean arrived at Castiel’s apartment, it was again without warning.

He stepped past Castiel, clomping snow on the floor without a word, and stripped out of his overshirt, then his T-shirt. Revealing a firm, freckled chest, more muscular than Castiel remembered from touching him in the shadows of their high school. Pink nipples pebbled in the cold of Castiel’s apartment. It was the first snowfall, and his apartment was partially underground, trapping the cold.

Off came his belt, the jeans. His cock jutted forward in the cotton of his underwear.  Dean stood in the middle of the room and palmed himself, throwing his head back with carefree abandon, knowing precisely how he destroyed Castiel. He put himself on display, performing in a new way, soaking in Cas’ rapt attention. Submerging his body with the depth of Castiel’s love.

He dropped his Boxers, and Castiel could see his painfully hard cock. It was just as exquisite as always, pink at the swelling base and red at the tip, desperate for release. Dean’s large hand wrapped around it, and Castiel moaned, wishing it were his mouth, stroking and squeezing Dean in the way only Castiel could do.

“I’ve never seen you naked before,” Castiel whispered, vibrating with need.

“Mmm, I guess not. Seems unfair.” Dean said, staring into Castiel’s eyes, green overtaken by black, showing just how feral he was with lust. Castiel preened. Dean looked at him like this.  Dean came back to him. “You gotta eat more, don’t wanna break you.”

Castiel nodded, unwilling to admit how much he wanted to be broken.

“Strip and get on the bed, hands and knees.”

Castiel did so with no hesitation, giving Dean everything without reservation.

The mattress dipped behind him, and a hand rested on his ass, pulling it to the side, giving Dean a view of his hole, twitching and opening under Dean’s gaze.

“Start douching before I get here,” Dean commanded, running a dry finger over his puckered hole.

“When will you come?”

“Whenever I fucking want.”

Castiel nodded, happily taking whatever specks of attention Dean deemed to give him. He’d douche every day if it meant keeping Dean happy.

“You got lube?” Dean’s voice shook as he pressed the tip of his cock against Cas’ opening. He was sure that if Cas said no, Dean would fuck him dry.

“Yeah, yes.” Cas pointed to his crappy secondhand bedside table. Dean took it out, slathered his cock, and shoved two generously lubed fingers into Cas with no warning. He cried out at the shocking burn but didn’t move away. This wasn’t prep, there was no easy stretch. This was damage control and slickness that would increase Dean’s pleasure, but that’s what Cas existed for: Dean’s pleasure. And if this was how he got Dean inside him, it was worth every ounce of pain that came with it.

He felt the tip of Dean’s cock at his opening again an instant before Dean thrust hard, breaching Castiel with a moan that sounded like it rose from his toes, deep and low, filling the air almost enough to drown out Castiel’s scream. He was entirely Dean’s as he yelled and writhed, he was possessed. Dean had come back, had returned to his body, his adoration. Dean couldn’t stay away. Castiel was special, needed.

Dean pushed in again and jerked back as the tight muscles clutching Dean’s cock left him unable to move. Soon, the slide of Dean’s cock smoothed, and Castiel knew blood had joined the lube. He burned and cried in pain and joy. His heart was full with being Dean’s. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you!” 

Dean thrust hard, pounding into Castiel and grounding his cock deep inside him. He ripped at Cas’ shoulder with his teeth, wrapped his forearm around his neck like an iron vise, licked the sweat from his spine. It was possessive and commanding as he ripped Castiel apart.

“Fuck, Cas! You feel so fucking good. Unnh. Yeah! Open up, let me inside, let me devour you.” Dean pulled almost all the way out before slamming into Castiel again and again. His hips pounded, forcing Castiel up the bed, faster and harder, until he sobbed, tears running down his face. The pain was like nothing else. He was being torn asunder and transformed into something new. He placed his hands against the wall, pushing back against Dean’s assault, taking everything that was offered as ecstasy filled him, as Dean filled him.

Castiel collapsed, his cock only half hard. The pain of Dean’s rough, rushed fuck made it impossible for him to come. But that didn’t matter. His own pleasure never mattered. His body was the sacrifice, and Dean his God.

When Dean pulled out, come and blood trickled from his hole, sliding down the inside of his thighs.

“You’re a fucking mess,” Dean said, slapping Castiel on the ass and climbing out of the bed. “I can’t stay long.”

Dean wandered into the bathroom and cleaned himself up. When he returned with a wet hand towel for Castiel, he could have cried. Dean cared, he noticed, and Castiel was like a cat in the sun, soaking it up.

“That’s okay. I get it,” Castiel said as he ran the warm cloth against his thighs, not wanting to clean his ass while Dean was still there. “I’ll see you again?”

Dean nodded with a frown. “Yeah, Cas. Good or bad, you’re mine.”

“Yes. I am. I love you,” Castiel was breathless. That was the closest Dean ever came to admitting to caring for him. His lungs tightened, and tears welled in his eyes, this time from happiness instead of pain. “I’ve always been yours.”

Dean pulled on his clothes and left without another word, leaving Cas soaking in the remains of their sex, the happiest he’d ever been.

Your liver is heavy and dense, with an oil-slick texture that glides against my fingers, its surface beautiful despite its managed and misshapen appearance. The smell is sharper, a bitter mix of bile and blood that lingers in the air like a confession. Its shape is silent evidence of every drink, every toxin you forced it to endure.

I remove the stomach next, cradled delicately against the curve of your diaphragm. Its rounded, organic shape sits there in a state of nearly peaceful stillness. I carefully lift it free, it holds the memory of the raw hunger that drove you to this act. 

Your intestines unfurl, serpentine in their grace. They rest coiled and endless, drawing me infinitely closer. As I free them, I am struck by their elegance, the delicate loops and curves slide across my palm, through my fist, supple and tumescent. I revel in the feeling of your blood gathering thick and congealed between my fingers as I pull each section through my hold. 

Even like this, you are exquisite. There is beauty in this hidden world, a beauty no one else will ever see. But I hold you now, reverently, guarding a secret meant only for me. Your body, now quiet, is no less magnificent than it was in life.

My hands are sticky with your blood, my skin marked by your essence in ways that will never wash clean. No mikvah, no ritual cleansing will ever remove the stain of my love for you. I lick them clean, savoring the taste.

In the Spring, Castiel got Dean a key so he could come and go as he pleased. Dean never asked for one, but Cas handed it over one night, his fingers brushing Dean’s palm, his expression unreadable except for the faintest flicker of longing in his eyes. “In case you need it,” he’d said, voice soft, almost hesitant.

Dean, as usual, didn’t respond much beyond a smirk and a quick “Thanks, man” before pocketing it.

He kept lube close to the bed and didn't stretch himself because Castiel wanted to be a vice that Dean forced open, thrusting his way into all of him, between his muscles and flesh.

Now, months later, Dean used that key to let himself in. He didn’t knock. Didn’t text ahead. He just showed up, heavy boots echoing on the hardwood floor as he stepped inside, dripping rain onto the rug.

Castiel was in the small apartment, a mug of tea cradled in his hands. He turned at the sound of the door, and a small, involuntary smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before he masked it. “Dean,” he said, his voice careful, measured. Dean’s responses to Castiel’s emotions were sporadic, sometimes cruel. But Cas didn’t mind as long as he was here.

Dean didn’t bother with pleasantries. He had already shrugged off his jacket, eyes scanning Castiel as though sizing him up. “Got caught in the storm,” he said casually, like his being there was no big deal. As if it didn’t matter that he hadn’t been by in weeks or that he now acted like this was his space.

Castiel nodded, setting his tea down. “I’ll get you a towel,” he offered, already moving toward the bathroom.

Dean caught his arm before he could pass. “Nah,” he said, his tone low, an edge to it. “I’m good.”

The look in his eyes made Castiel’s breath hitch. As always, Dean wanting him was all he wanted, and it heated him up to a roaring fever. He paused just long enough for Dean to pull him closer. “Been thinkin’ about you,” Dean murmured, his lips curving into a mocking smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He moved his hand to Castiel’s waist, tugging him closer, his grip firm. “Missed this.”

Castiel wanted to ask if Dean meant it the way he was desperate for him to mean it. Wanted to believe that the flicker of tenderness in Dean’s voice wasn’t just part of the game. But he didn’t ask, never dared to ask for fear it would evaporate if he did. Instead, he leaned into the touch, his body responding instinctively, happy to be offered the artifice if that’s all he was going to get.

Dean kissed him hard, like he always did—demanding, insistent. His hands were everywhere at once, rough and impatient as if Castiel was something to be taken apart and claimed. Castiel let him. He always let him.

“I love you.” 

Dean ignored him, like he always did.

When Dean guided him back toward the bed, Castiel lay back without protest, his breath catching as Dean pushed him down. Dean climbed on top of him, already unbuttoning his shirt, his movements frantic. If Castiel closed his eyes, he could almost pretend Dean’s passion was his.

“God, you’re so good,” Dean muttered, his voice thick, his lips brushing against Castiel’s neck. “Always ready for me, huh?”

Castiel swallowed hard, nodding, his hands resting on Dean’s shoulders, unsure yet if this was a night he was permitted to touch. He wanted to pull Dean closer, to feel something real, but his faith was enough for both of them. That was what Dean wanted: to be worshiped. This was what kept him coming back.

As Dean moved inside him, taking what he wanted, Castiel stayed silent. He wordlessly cried as Dean stared into his eyes, his depths unfathomable. Castiel gripped Dean’s back, his fingers memorizing the contours of the man he could never possess but still loved, even when it hurt.

And it did hurt—the emptiness that lingered afterward. The knowledge that this was all it would ever be. Dean’s pleasure. Dean’s need.

When it’s over, Dean collapsed onto the bed beside him, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair with a satisfied moan. 

Castiel’s chest felt hollow, knowing the usual gruff excuse and exodus would soon take place, and he’d be alone again. No matter how much of Dean he had, he selfishly wanted more. He wanted to hold him until they became one. He wanted to consume him.

Dean looked over, his expression unexpectedly softening when he saw the look on Castiel’s face. “What?”

“Nothing,” Castiel said quickly, shaking his head. But now, he couldn’t hide the faint, hopeful smile tugging at his lips.

Dean rolled his eyes but smiled back, rolling on his side to look Cas in the eyes. “How about I stay?”

“The night?” Castiel asked softly, his voice hopeful despite himself.

“Yeah, that okay this time?”

“Yeah… I mean, yes.” Cas bit his lip, fighting back the urge to tell Dean he could always stay. He could have anything he wanted if only he’d ask.

Before Castiel could process what was happening, Dean pulled him close until Cas was tucked against his side, his head resting on Dean’s shoulder.

“Dean?” Castiel asked, his voice tentative, disbelieving.

“Relax,” Dean said, draping an arm over Castiel’s waist. “I’m staying.”

The words were casual, but they hit Castiel like a freight train. Dean never stayed. He’d passed out once or twice, only to disappear in the middle of the night without a word, but not like this. Castiel’s pulse raced as he shifted slightly, trying to make himself comfortable without disturbing Dean’s rare display of affection.

“You don’t have to,” Castiel murmured, though his body betrayed him, wrapping an arm around him and gripping Dean’s middle like he was afraid he’d vanish.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean replied, his voice quieter now, more introspective. His arm tightened around Castiel, and for a moment, he just lay there, his thumb brushing idly over Castiel’s hip. “But… I kinda want to.”

Castiel’s heart soared at the admission, his mind racing with what it might mean. He knew better than to press Dean for answers, to demand clarity. But this? This was more than enough.

“You’re warm,” Dean muttered, almost to himself, his head tilting so it rested against Castiel’s. “Don’t get used to this, though.”

Castiel chuckled softly, though the sound was thick with emotion. “I won’t,” he lied, already memorizing the weight of Dean’s arm around him, the rare vulnerability in his touch.

Minutes passed in silence, broken only by the soft sound of Dean’s breathing. Castiel let his eyes drift closed, savoring every second, his fingers tracing light patterns against Dean’s chest. He felt Dean relax beneath his touch, tension melting away like he’d found some semblance of peace.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice broke the quiet, hesitant but not unkind.

“Yes?”

Dean was quiet for a moment as if he was wrestling with the words. “Get some sleep,” he murmured, pulling him closer.

Castiel nodded, settling back against him, his heart swelling with a love so fierce it threatened to engulf him. Dean’s walls were still there, still solid and unyielding, but tonight, for the first time, Castiel felt like he’d been allowed a glimpse inside.

And that kept him hoping.

At the end, I reach for your brain—the center of your soul. Slowly, I remove the armor of your skull, each motion profound, as if unwrapping the most cherished of gifts.

The bone yields, revealing the delicate wonder it protected within the cranial sack. I slice through the membrane, spilling cerebrospinal fluid to splash on the floor, then reach to lift your brain free. I am struck by its softness. I caress your true self, and I am awed.

Its intricate folds reveal an endless map of your memories, your fears, your desires, your love. I trace those folds with my fingertips and am mesmerized. Each ridge and groove feels alive, sparking with things you never said. 

“Here you are,” I whisper, my voice shaking. My lips brush against its surface as I make a silent promise to cherish even this fragile piece of you.

I cling to this moment, holding you in the crook of my neck, letting the connection settle deep within me. I cannot bear to lose this final piece of you. I slide the brain across my jaw and press it more firmly to my cheek, the folds yielding under the pressure in an embrace.

Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t wipe them away. Salt blurred with your blood and slid into my mouth.

I hold you longer than I should, unable to let you go, reluctant to set this final piece aside and place you in formalin, never to return to your body again. 

I have revealed your essence, like a priest offering a ritual sacrifice. You are my obsession and my adoration, revealed in every beautiful part. You are no longer just a body.

The door opened like a storm, the gale winds of Dean tearing through the quiet of Castiel’s apartment. He looked up from his books. He hadn’t really been studying, the courses weren’t hard, and graduation was only a semester away. He’d have his associate's degree and a certificate that said he could move on to the next thing. It didn’t mean anything to him. It was just the track he’d picked when he found out Dean would also be finished in two years. That way, he could follow Dean anywhere.

Dean stepped inside and shrugged off his jacket like he hadn’t left Castiel drowning in silence, curled around the absence of him every night. The ebb and flow of Dean coming daily to his long absences were taking their toll.

He was frenetic and gorgeous, the collar of his flannel curling against his throat. His eyes, green and distant, swept over the room without landing on him.

Castiel stood slowly, his knees unsteady. Something was wrong.

“Dean.” His voice was soft, reverent. An invocation of the man he’d made his God. “You came back.”

Dean didn’t respond. He didn’t smile, didn’t touch, didn’t say he missed him. Instead, he stood there and delivered one devastating sentence. “I’m marrying Lisa.”

The words hit like a gut punch. Like a shotgun blast. 

Castiel blinked, numb. He had to have misunderstood. “What?”

Dean glanced down at his boots, a display of vulnerability Castiel had rarely seen. “After graduation. She said yes. We’re… gonna move. Her parents are setting us up out their way.”

The only sound that followed was the muted roar of blood pounding in Castiel’s ears. Of his heart breaking so loud it might rupture his chest. He screamed and railed and begged, but only he could hear, his body paralyzed by what Dean had said. 

“No,” Castiel said, not as a plea but as a statement of fact. Because Dean was wrong, this was a joke, a cruel test of his devotion. “You said… you told me I was yours.” 

“You were,” Dean said, his jaw tight. “That’s over.”

Castiel stumbled backward like the words were shrapnel tearing through his flesh. “You were just here two weeks ago,” he whispered, voice cracking like old wood. “You were… different…” A horrible realization swept over him. “You knew, you knew then.”

Dean’s voice was flat, but his eyes darted away only for a second. A crack in the chassis. “This was always coming.”

“Why are you doing this?” Castiel asked, each word dragged from a throat closing with panic. “Is it because I love you? I’ll stop. I won’t say it. I know you don’t feel it, that’s okay. I never asked you for that. Please, we can do anything you want, just… just don’t leave me.”

Dean closed his eyes. Exhaled.

“Cas, fuck. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Castiel reached for him. Touched the sleeve of his flannel like a penitent reaching out to a saint. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

Dean flinched like the words stung. “Jesus.”

“You’ve always known how I feel. I would carve your name into my bones,” Castiel said, desperate now. Tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t notice. Didn’t care. “You said I was yours.”

Dean’s eyes finally met his, and for one brief second, Castiel saw it, a flicker of pain. Of want. A second where Dean’s mouth opened like he might say You are, like he might fall apart too.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Dean looked away and sighed. “That’s not enough anymore.” Then he turned and left. The door clicked shut. Not a slam or a bang like his usual swift departure. Just the softness of a final goodbye.

The days that followed didn’t exist.

Time didn’t pass, but collapsed. It caved in on itself, nothing but a great, empty void. Castiel was absent from his life, his mind. He wallowed in the apartment, refusing to leave or answer his phone. His body thinned, and his skin paled. He forgot to eat, to sleep. He screamed in the shower when he bothered to take one and then forgot the sound of his own voice.

Dean was gone, and Castiel had nothing left but the memory of Dean saying mine, but he’d never meant forever.

A knock startled him. It was sharp, certain. Not like Dean’s. Dean never knocked.

Castiel sat up slowly from the place he’d collapsed. His stomach growled, then whimpered, then gave up. His hunger nothing in the face of his grief.

Another knock. This time, followed by a voice. “Castiel? It’s me. It’s your mother.”

He froze. The apartment reeked of sweat and silence and rotting food. 

His mother knocked again. “I’m coming in.”

He barely had time to scramble to his knees, pushing dirty laundry under the bed, pulling a hoodie over his too-thin frame. How dare she invade his mausoleum of grief?

The door opened, and there she was. Her eyes found him instantly. Wide. Worried. Her mouth parted slightly at the sight of him—sunken cheeks, pale skin, trembling hands tucked into the sleeves of his sweatshirt like a child caught stealing.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

Castiel looked away. Shame burned down his spine, hot and aching. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.

“I should have been here weeks ago.” She stepped inside and shut the door behind her. Her eyes scanned the apartment. She saw his shame in the disarray: mold, spilled tea turned black in the cup. “God, Castiel, what happened?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” Her voice cracked. “Look at you. You haven’t been home. You don’t answer calls. You’ve lost so much weight. What’s going on?”

He wanted to scream. To tear open his chest and show her the gaping hole Dean had left, the only thing that remained of the small bit of him Castiel had left. He wanted to hold out his bloodstained grief so someone could witness the remains of his sacrifice. 

Instead, he whispered through his choked throat, “I’m tired.”

“Sit,” she ushered him to the couch and sat beside him, perched on the edge like she was tending a wounded animal. Her hand touched oily hair without hesitation. Gentle. Cool. Kind. He hated it. “Tell me.”

And God, he almost did. He almost opened his mouth and spilled it all. The backseats and the broom closets. The way Dean’s come tasted like communion. The wedding ring meant for someone else.

Instead, he said, “I fell in love with someone.”

Silence. His mother’s hand stilled in his hair.

“And they didn’t love me back.”

Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him in against her chest like she used to when he was small and feverish. He let her. He was too tired to fight it. “Love isn’t always what they tell us it will be.”

“I want to die,” he said softly, face pressed against her collarbone.

She didn’t say anything after that. She just held him tighter.

And for the first time since Dean left, Castiel cried.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t rend his clothes. He just let the tears come, hot and fast and endless, soaking into the fabric of his mother’s sweater as she rocked him slowly, murmuring nothing into his hair.

The air is still, holding its breath with me as I savor the last moments of holding each piece of you in my hands. You are open beneath me, an altar of flesh, and I am not worthy to stand in your sanctuary. But I kneel here anyway.

The organs rest beside you, husks wrapped in gauze and reverence, and I am the haruspex of your final revelation. I return them to their homes within you. Your liver, deep maroon and distorted. Your stomach, flat and quiet, no longer hungry. Your intestines slip into place like a rosary through prayer-worn palms. Your lungs are light and fragile. Was your last breath a gasp or a prayer? I don’t know. I only know the hollow space they left behind. 

And then, your heart. It rests in my hands like an ember. The muscle is slack, but its weight still commands reverence. I lower it into your chest, and it slides into place between the lungs as though it remembers the shape of you. I press two fingers against it, foolishly testing for a pulse that will never return.

Still, I whisper to it. I whisper to you.

You were loved. You were adored.

You were mine. And I was yours.

I thread the needle with shaking fingers and lean over you. Your skin gives too easily as I push through the muscle beneath, ensuring the sutures won’t rip free. The thread bites into you, drawing the wound closed one kiss at a time. I sew slowly. Carefully. Each pull of the needle a litany. I count the stitches in my head like penance.

When I finish, I press my lips to the final knot. A lover’s seal. A benediction.

The house was beige.

Beige walls, beige shutters, beige flower boxes just beginning to sprout cheerful little tulips. Sweet, spring colors, like the insipid wedding favors brides spend so much time choosing. Even the car in the driveway was beige. Castiel stared for a long time, fingers flexing at his sides.

He hadn’t seen Lisa in months. Only knew her from stolen glances on campus. He barely attended classes, instead slinking between buildings, watching as Dean kissed her and held her hand. Her hair cascaded down her long neck, model-perfect as she looked at Dean with the love she was permitted to show. 

She looked nice enough, normal. She would give Dean a nice, normal life. A future someone picked off a shelf at Pottery Barn.

The wind moved through the crisp green leaves, just bursting to life, rustling his trench coat and whipping his hair into more of a mess than usual. Spring brought new life, potential. But everything for Cas was dead and rotting.

The door opened a few seconds after he rang the bell. He heard footsteps, soft and casual, her bare feet on hardwood, and then her face appeared, open and friendly. She smiled.

Lisa Braeden was pretty. Happy. And Cas wanted to desecrate everything she loved. 

“Yes?” Her voice was unbothered. Then her brows drew together as her eyes landed on him. “Oh. Castiel, right? From school?”

Castiel nodded, tilting his head, surprised she knew who he was.

“I wasn’t expecting—uh, what can I do for you?”

She leaned on the doorframe like she was deciding whether to be polite or lock herself safely inside. Her nails were painted soft pink, another pastel color that screamed of soft femininity. She wore a thin white shirt, something trendy and loose, comfortable jeans. Bare feet on wood floor. She was the scent of cleanliness on the breeze, she was fun and sweet, and even her voice made him want to like her.

“I’m here to see Dean,” Castiel said, his voice low and flat. “Is he home?”

She laughed, light and breezy, brushing her hair behind her ear. “He’s not home,” she said finally. “Studying for finals. Or maybe getting fitted for his suit. I don’t know.” A short, strained laugh. “It’s terrible timing to be graduating and planning a wedding at the same time! Are you friends? I don’t remember seeing you around.”

“We knew each other in high school.”

She raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips just a little. “Huh. He never mentioned you.”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed, but he forced a smile. “Dean doesn’t talk about much.”

Lisa gave a little shrug. “That’s true. He can be kind of… closed off. But he’s really opened up lately. The wedding’s been good for him.”

Castiel’s stomach churned.

“Dean always kept things close to the chest,” he said carefully. “Some things he didn’t want anyone to know.”

Lisa’s eyes narrowed just slightly, a flicker of concern shadowed her expression. She stepped halfway back into the house, leaving the door open.

“Oh. Right. Well, I don’t know how long he’ll be, but did you want to come in? You can wait a little while, see if he gets home soon. Can I get you some water or something?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Well, come on in,” she said with an unfairly lovely smile, stepping aside. Another pause. Her eyes studied him now. Not hostile, just wary. Something about his stillness, maybe. Or the way his clothes hung off him. 

He followed her inside. The house was warm and bright, smelling faintly of vanilla and spring air. Family photos lined the hallway. One of them showed Dean and Lisa with their arms wrapped around each other. Dean looked so easy in it, like Castiel had never existed.

The kitchen was bright and open, all white tile and clean lines. A knife block on the counter. A wine glass drying on the rack. She moved with practiced ease, casual in her space, like this life belonged to her, like she was entitled to it.

He wanted to lunge and stab her in the eye, wrap his hands around her throat until she fell to the ground, still and cold.

“So, you and Dean,” she said over her shoulder as she reached for a glass from the cabinet. “Did you guys have classes together or something?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

She filled the glass at the sink. “Did you do sports? Or—what was your thing?”

“Dean was my thing.” The words came out low, reverent, like a sin whispered at confession. They hung in the air between them, heavy and wet. He’d never said it out loud before. It felt strange, like a transgression.

Lisa blinked. Her smile faltered. “I’m sorry?”

“I said,” Castiel repeated, slower this time, letting the syllables settle into the walls of this perfect home.  He would contaminate it with his pain. “Dean was my thing.”

She stared at him.

Her fingers tightened slightly around the glass in her hand, knuckles going pale. “Okay. I think… maybe you should go.”

He took a step forward. Filling the space in the kitchen until his presence bore down on her, impossible to ignore. “I waited for him, but he never came back.”

Lisa shook her head, voice shaking. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but if this is a joke or some kind of messed-up prank, it’s really not funny.”

“The first time I sucked his cock was after school in the chemistry lab,” Castiel whispered. “He grabbed my hair and told me how good it was.”

“Get out.”

“He kissed me so hard I bled, and then he found so many other ways to make me bleed,” he went on, unblinking. “Two months ago, he fucked me til I cried and slept with his arms wrapped around me. He told me I was his. And then you… and he hasn’t come back.”

Lisa stood frozen for a long moment. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She looked at him like he was a fish gasping on the beach, pitiful. “Two months ago?” She shook her head, dislodging the thought. “You need to leave. I’m calling Dean.”

Castiel smiled, sad and hollow. “Call him. He won’t answer.”

Her jaw clenched. “You’re lying. You’re sick.”

“I know.”

He sat down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Quietly. Like he’d been invited. His hands folded neatly in his lap. His voice dropped again to something gentler, almost kind. “He doesn’t love you.”

That struck something. Her mouth twitched, the first crack in her perfect, beige composure. Castiel looked at her then and recognized himself. “I know,” she said, her voice quiet, barely a breath.

Silence stretched between them.

Lisa exhaled and rubbed her hand over her face. “Jesus Christ…”

Castiel stood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For showing up. For everything. I had hoped… I wanted to hate you.”

“And?”

“How can I hate you when we’re the same?” He turned toward the door.

“Is it true?” Lisa asked suddenly, her voice cracking. “What you said? What he did with you?”

Castiel didn’t look back. “I didn’t lie,” he said. “Not once.”

He slipped out into the crisp spring air, pulling the door closed gently behind him, and felt nothing.

The room is quiet, sacred in its stillness. You lay before me, closed and clean, the threads of my devotion binding you together again. There is nothing more to cut. Nothing more to take. But it’s not enough.

I remove my lab coat, then the scrubs. I undress without hurry. You aren’t going anywhere. Each layer peeled away feels like baring myself to you in reverence, like giving myself over to something beyond flesh. I want no barriers. I want nothing between us. Not cotton, not air, not shame.

When I am bare, I climb carefully onto the table, pulling my weight on the cold steel with knees that burn against the chill. I ache with want. Regret has resided within my body like breath in my lungs for so long. Slowly, I lower myself beside you, curling around your body.

You are cold. Not the jarring cold of something left out in the snow but the purity of marble. Your skin does not give beneath my touch, but I hold you anyway. My leg drapes over yours. My chest tight against your shoulder. My cock soft against your thigh. 

I nestle into the crook of your neck, where the skin still holds the faintest echo of scent. I press my lips to the place where your pulse used to be and let them linger as if I could give you my own warmth and have you turn and kiss me. I kiss your skin, licking and sucking. Blood would pull to the surface if yours still ran in your veins, instead, my mouth is filled with something salty and sterile.

I wrap my arm around your torso and sigh into your skin. I whisper your name over and over. Tears rise in my chest, but not in grief, in joy to hold you again. It feels right. This is how I remember us. Body to body, breath from one filling the other’s lungs, though only one of us still breathes. Stillness can be a form of worship.

I tuck my face beneath your chin, where the skin has stiffened, and feel the thick thread that seals you closed against my cheek. I do not cry. There are no tears left. Only the rhythmic thud of my own heart, the lone echo in this temple of loss.

“I’m here,” I whisper, lips barely moving against your flesh. “I found you.”

The cold of your skin no longer startles me. I have grown used to the stillness, the way your body holds no tension, no anticipation. 

I explore you slowly, reverently, my hands mapping the topography of your form. Tracing the bruising around your neck, the stubble on your jaw, the line of my scalpel’s cut. There is no urgency here, only adoration. 

I kiss the hollow beneath your throat. Your skin tastes sweet, a unique something that is yours. Chemicals could not scrub it away. I press my lips to your sternum, to the knot of thread that closes you up, and feel the faintest pull against my mouth. Your body does not respond, but I believe that it remembers.

I close my eyes as I breathe you in. The weight of your silence fills me up. I speak nothing aloud. Words feel crude here. Everything I feel is housed in the trembling of my limbs, in the ache at the center of my being.

There is a purity in the wrongness of this. The way your presence persists, stubborn, even in death. You are not warm, but you are here. That’s all I have ever asked of you. And it is enough.

I press my body tighter to yours, flesh meeting flesh. The coolness of your skin leeches into mine, and I shiver. As I roll on top of you, your stitches scratch against my chest and belly, but the scrape only makes you more real. 

My teeth drag against your skin, not to wound, but to mark—one last time. The skin of your shoulder gives and breaks beneath my bite. Transubstantiation—raw and unholy. A form of worship no church would allow.

I want to consume you. I want to know what it feels like to lose myself inside you, to sink into your stillness until I no longer remember which one of us stopped breathing first.

Your body doesn’t respond to my gentle touch or to my rougher kiss, biting at your lips, desperate to draw blood that will never come. I kiss your closed eyelids as I rock my hips against your hip. I kiss you until my lips go numb. Until your name echoes through my body like a fever.  

Your legs fall open easily, welcoming me between them, but your cock remains soft. There’s a sweetness to it, an innocence in your lack of arousal that I am drawn to. I slide down the metal slab and take you in my mouth gently. I roll my tongue around you, suck you down as far as you will stretch. You don’t fill my mouth, but I am filled with wonder. 

My hands caress your thighs, pushing them further apart, angling your hips up. If I press inside you hard enough, will you wake? Will you gasp and shudder and look at me again? Or will I find only madness?

Your body is cold and dry, the muscles stiffening. Looking down at you gives me the courage I need. Your face is restful, at peace in a way I’ve never seen before. You are right with the world. You need this as much as I do.

Quickly and with a hard thrust, I bury myself inside you. I’m finally able to cry now that I’m in your embrace. Your lips meet mine, already ripped from my biting kisses, and I lick the exposed tissue with a sob. 

You are tight and dry, but the further I push, the easier it becomes, the thin walls of your hole separate to welcome me. I force myself deeper, burying every inch of me into the hollow of your body.

My thrusts are slow and long, finally warm within the last bastion of your life. I keep my eyes open despite the temptation to let them gaze heavenward. No paradise exists for me except with you. I grind deep within you, swirling my hips to feel every part of you I can reach. Toughened flesh envelops me, and in your serenity, you welcome me.

I lower myself against you fully, pulling your legs up around my hips, stiff and poseable. You are everything I always wanted you to be. You are mine, and I am yours. I press kisses and bites into your face and ear, pulling your flesh from your body into my own so it can fill me, it can purify me. We can finally be together. We are finally one.

I stave off the ecstasy as long as I can, but you shift beneath me, moving up the slab with each thrust. The chase is a game that invigorates me, calls to me. I rush forward, pounding into your tearing flesh, feeling the cool fluids of putrescine and cadaverine cover my cock and thighs. I bite your neck as I come, hard and desperate, devouring every part of you I can reach, gorging myself on your love.

Covered in blood, and my own come, I swallow your flesh and rest my head on your chest. Your legs drop easily, but I remain ensconced within you, savoring every moment we have.

My fingers work under the stitches I just put in to feel you again, hold your heart in my hand, and I drift off in your embrace, bodies connected inside and out, only to wake and do it again and again. But I will never have my fill of you, no matter how many times you open to my cock or how much of your body I take into my mouth and swallow. I chew and consume the body you’ve loved me with, but there is never enough.

Lisa Braeden dropped her phone after reading the local news. One of them was dead and had been defiled in ways even the sensational news cycle wouldn’t describe except in the broadest of strokes, and the other was in jail awaiting trial for the most inhumane of crimes.  She didn’t imagine he would ever see a courtroom if the inmates or even most of the guards had their way when they discovered what he had done. God, what had he done…

She laid a hand on her bulging belly and cried.