Warnings/Kinks: Dubcon, mpreg, feminisation, Dom/sub, knotting, self-lubrication, a/b/o dynamics, heat, body modification, transformation, impregnation, bondage, animalistic, dirty talk, humiliation, praise kink, violence.
A/N: The Purgatory in this verse was created prior to s8, so it's a bit different from the show. Also, you'll probably need to read the first fic to fully understand what's going on in this one.

...

Dean had stopped counting the days.

When your life was collared and forced into an ouroboros of drugging and fucking and breeding only to wake up in the bloodied afterbirth to repeat the cycle again, time lost its tangibility, lost its worth.

There was no point in trying to measure something endless, not when you knew it was all you had, sprawled out, cruel and limitless in front of you.

It took too much energy, too much sanity and Dean had more important things to focus on in those precious few minutes he could focus.

The demons never once stopped pumping the miasma of their potions into his lungs and the madness of purgatory was a ruthless hunter; this cave provided no shelter from it.

Here, focus was a commodity Dean couldn't afford to take for granted, a luxury too rare to waste on tallying hours.

The clear moments, the ebb in the fervour came after each… session, but Dean knew it wasn't a mercy that left him able to think and breathe and see.

There was no kindness in allowing him these seconds of respite because blinking into cognizance meant he had to open his eyes every time only to discover the shivering, wrecked form of the man he'd just raped trapped under him and shackled to his body.

Dean almost had to hand it to these bastards. All those years he'd spent in hell on the other side of the rack and he'd never once thought to bind people together using their own flesh.

A bondage made of skin and, my, wouldn't Alastair have been impressed?

They'd mostly healed from the wounds carved into them that first time, the sigils and marks fading, only a few leaving little silvery scars that wound and meandered proudly around the curves of their chests, not seeming to want to disappear.

The rest healed up, scabbed over, and left them baby-soft and shiny new.

Dean saw it for what it was, could all but smell the falsehood, rancid in the torrid air.

Just another deception.

This wouldn't get any easier as time, vague as it was, trudged on. No matter how many scars faded, or how many marks and brands they lost, their bodies were not their own.

There was no choice here, no reprieve.

Before, touch between them had been fleeting, rationed; a well placed hand cupped on a shoulder, solidarity found in a gentle punch to the arm. Carefully calculated to be on the right side of friendly.

Now, their bodies had been ravaged and left caustic and gaping, made to violate each other, made to claw and gnarl and rip their way closer like fucking puppets with all too-tangled strings.

Nothing about this was easy.

But, after a while, it became expected—the norm. It was perverse just how quotidian it was for Dean to stumble into consciousness and find his balls emptying another inhuman batch of come into Castiel's body, to hear the resigned little gasps coming from beneath him.

He could only wind himself around Castiel, shelter him with skin and pray someone would come for them soon, but when had praying ever worked out?

They weren't strapped to the bench that often anymore, at least. A part of Dean wanted to sneer and scoff at that, to take this opportunity and run with it because these dumb sons of bitches had left a Winchester unbound and expected him to just sit and play nice 'til the masters returned.

He wanted to find his feet, blanket Cas' bare skin in the nearest rag and bust them the hell out of there—to tear his way through the wall of flesh that lay between him and his freedom and come out the other end red, wet and new.

He wanted to lay this place to the fucking ashes and write his name in the remains.

He wanted to, but it had been weeks since they were first moved into the little alcove behind these flimsy, makeshift bars, weeks since they'd last been bound together with the itchy rope and they were still here. Free to move, free to get up, free to escape.

Free, but freedom tasted nothing like this.

Their addled minds could only find strength enough to scramble for a single clear thought as their bodies became frantic and thrashed for release, coaxed into starved maws swallowing each other whole and once they finally resurfaced, exhaustion crippled them.

There was no time tracked in Dean's mind, and yet there was not enough; not a minute he could grapple for to plan the escape both he and Castiel were determined to get to.

Even when they could manage to form words and thread thoughts together, there was no saying who was listening. The walls seemed to breathe sometimes.

It was no accident they were left like this, no one was forgetting to pick their toys back up and put them away again once they were done playing.

It was a statement—we don't have to tie you down; even free, you're powerless.

It might have been terrifying, might have been enraging at one time. Now, it was maddening, and Dean half suspected that was the point. These things liked to taunt, liked to poke and pick and unravel you thread by thread and they weren't coy about it.

He supposed forcing him and Cas to fuck each other was pretty much all that served for entertainment around here, if the crowds they still garnered even now were anything to go by.

Cas said that it was their nature—the Lilu fed off sexual energy, off humiliation, that these "couplings" served to sustain the demons as much as they did to fulfil their plans.

Somehow knowing he was a fucking buffet to his captors didn't ease Dean's tensions any.

The only thing he took comfort in was the simple, leather cuff Castiel still wore around his wrist, embellished with carved sigils and Enochian markings.

It was all kinds of fucked up that this was a place where being marked like fucking livestock could be a source of hope, could be the only lead you had to go on but that unassuming, deceptive little band meant something incredible.

It meant that Castiel was still a threat.

It meant that drugged or not, caged or not, they were still going to get out of here.

It was just a matter of when.

...

"Dean."

He moaned, the first pulse of consciousness flitting over his skin in sharp prickles, familiar nausea greeting him as his eyes opened and the world pounded in his skull.

Hangovers had nothing on purgatory.

Castiel shuffled in front of him, pulling awkwardly at his cock and Dean had to bite back a groan.

He was on his side, curled up around Castiel's sodden, sore body and from the way Cas was squirming to unlatch himself, they'd been like this for a while.

"Dean," Castiel said again, his hands pushing back at Dean's thighs, damp and tacky with sweat and indistinguishable fluids.

"Fuck, hold on."

Dean hefted himself up to his shoulder and reached down to gingerly ease his deflated cock out of Cas' stretched hole, hissing as the curve of his softening knot caught and snagged for a moment at Castiel's rim before slipping free.

Castiel sighed, a soft, relieved sound as a batch of come flooded out of him, coating his legs and pooling around the swell of his ass, a sleazy reminder of what they'd done.

Dean winced, tearing his eyes away from the sight of Castiel's sloppy, puffy opening, so red and open with abuse, with Dean's abuse.

They spent hours like this, ruined by sex they'd never asked for and laid their barest for prying eyes.

They were used to it.

Seeing Cas like this was so commonplace it was heartbreaking, but that didn't mean Dean had to look, had to subject them both to reality and it didn't stop the wave of disgust that coiled in his stomach when he did catch sight of the evidence.

Looking meant seeing and that meant wrestling the tug of war between mottled revulsion and the visceral primitive satisfaction, the animal arousal that had invaded his body and woven into his core, naturalised and made his own.

That wasn't something Dean needed. There was enough confusion, enough conflict in the swollen haze pumping like narcotics in his mind already; he didn't need to add to it with a goddamn sexuality crisis.

Castiel huffed softly and pushed himself up on weakened, quivering limbs, looking so thin and fragile it was a wonder he didn't break under the brutality that Dean's body became each night.

Dean could see him peripherally, those age-old, young bones cracking as Castiel sat with his legs arched out in front of him, a curious hand slipping between his thighs.

Dean swallowed hard and thick, resolutely ignoring the interested twitch his groin gave as Castiel explored the mess left behind at his entrance, filing it away as a product of his environment.

Seemingly growing bored with his explorations, Castiel got up again, moving around like a restless bird, a trapped animal.

Dean remembered an angel sat still and stationary for hours, content with his thoughts, unburdened with the turmoil of the human body—too mighty to hear the call of his flesh.

Now, he fidgeted.

It was a sign of the times, Dean supposed.

His eyes were stinging, two itchy holes in his head scratched raw with grit, but Dean kept them open, peering through narrow slits to track Castiel around the cave.

He found himself doing this more often lately; keeping watch.

It was as though not even a distant relative of peace could find him until Cas was settled down and calm, a deep rooted protectiveness chaining Dean to the filthy ground, always alert and ready with his futile resistance.

The danger was quiet for the moment though, and Castiel only crawled over to the balled-up furs that had been tossed to them a while back with another generic, derisive comment, something about not wanting their pretty little saviours to freeze to death.

Assholes.

Dean didn't even want to think about where the hide came from. There weren't exactly many mammals running around purgatory.

Pulling the shabby blanket along with him, Castiel returned to Dean's side, always coming back to him.

His murky gaze was indecipherable but softened at the edges as he pulled the fur over Dean's body, making sure to cover him whole before slipping under himself. Dean's eyes crinkled up at the side, a small smile playing on cracked lips.

So much about Castiel had changed, but not this. He still took care of Dean first.

Rolling over, Dean extended his arm, allowing Cas to pillow into the muscle of his bicep. It was nothing new, laying like this.

Waking up entwined closer than should be physically possible left very little room for modesty and Dean had soon realised that in the red times when Castiel became ensnared by restlessness and too-human panic, he was most easily soothed by touch, by the simple comfort of a hand pressed to his side or an arm wrapped around his waist.

Castiel would nestle eagerly into Dean's body heat like a greedy house cat and something brittle and frayed in Dean's chest tore a little more every time, his throat raw with spiteful emotion.

Seeing how desperate Cas was for the reassurance of another person's presence, the warmth that told him he wasn't alone broke Dean from the inside out and when he couldn't stand to look any longer, his eyes would close, tight and wilfully ignorant.

Behind them, a phantom Castiel was left to face an Archangel's tempest, left walking into a dead, toxic lake, left empty and sacrificial in a sterile white room.

Alone.

Dean's hand tightened around Castiel's shoulder as he tucked him in against his chest, something bitter and viscous balling in his gullet but Dean swallowed it down, willing to be as tactile, as present as Castiel needed.

He wouldn't leave him like that again.

Castiel twisted his head up to look at Dean, those bright blue eyes strangely clear for once as they searched his face, studying hard, roughened features for something unknown. After a few seconds, they softened, gentling Castiel's expression.

He leaned forward then, pressing a quiet, simple kiss to Dean's slack lips, just a quick brush of soft skin before he snuggled back in, apparently content with whatever he'd found in Dean's gaze

That was new, the kissing.

It wasn't sexual—at least Dean didn't think it was—just a way of showing affection.

He knew he should have been freaking out. This went one step further than sharing body heat, necessary on a cold, stone floor, but he couldn't bring himself to put a stop to it.

It was nice, and he wasn't in any position to pass up small, innocent pleasures in a place where happiness had never touched.

Besides, Cas liked it, and that was justification enough.

The first time it happened was during what Dean had decided was a kind of panic attack—Castiel panting and shaking, looking at the walls like they were about to close in and crush him to a fine powder, scratching at his own chest like it was too close to breathe.

Dean hadn't known what to do, the usual tricks of touch and soft words weren't working and Castiel's voice had only grew louder, shriller, and the demons would be snaking along to taste his misery any second, ecstatic to add to it.

Dean had to do something.

Castiel had stiffened, pulled taut and frozen when Dean's mouth had crashed into his, effectively silencing his tirade and rendering him stone.

Dean had been ready to pull back, apologetic and desperate, but Cas—surprising, perceptive Cas—had melted and come to life under Dean's lips, calm and clumsy and exploratory as he'd kissed back with a childlike innocence that broke Dean's heart.

He couldn't say no when Castiel kissed him again some time later, his face expectant and hopeful as he'd reached for Dean's cheek, hadn't been able to say no since and apparently it was a thing now.

"You okay?" Dean said eventually, his voice a whisper shared between them, warm words close enough to taste.

Castiel snorted, a crooked sound. His sense of humour had taken on quite the self-aware edge these past few months. Dean wasn't sure he liked it.

It dredged up too many false, maybe-memories of a hollowed man with a hollow laugh and equally empty eyes—left, again. Dead in a future that had long since sucked him dry.

There was no further elaboration, just soft, steady breaths and the scratch of perpetual stubble rasping at Dean's sternum, drumming fingers tiptoeing along the valleys of his torso, the silence loud with thought.

When Castiel spoke again, Dean's stomach was knotted, tense. They'd walked this road before.

"Dean… what if." Castiel already sounded so reasonable, so mild against the careening, yowling fear, the cacophony ringing in Dean's ears, making prey of him.

"What if they get what they want?"

"They won't."

Castiel huffed at the hollow of his throat, unimpressed with Dean's gruffness, with the tension in his muscles. Undeterred by the usual warning sides.

He moved to sit up, his voice shaped around a hiss, stressed and tined to a point Dean felt at his neck.

"But what if they do, Dean. What if I'm already—"

"They won't Cas!" Dean shouted, growled, all teeth and finality bit out like the words were serrated and shred his throat to ribbons to speak.

"I won't let them, I won't let them win, not this time."

Dean's chest heaved, distorted anger stealing away his breath, leaving him erratic and burning with foolishness that his eyes closed to hide from.

Castiel went quite again, his head tilting down in a way that was almost placating, more like he was humouring Dean than submitting to him.

Weirdly, that did something to calm Dean, balmed his rage, his terror, if only for a moment.

"And if there's a child?" Castiel said, slow and careful after long seconds of nothing.

Dean's eyes scrunched up tighter, his grip on Castiel's supple skin leaving little white dents, claw marks, pleas.

He could hear his own heart throbbing, ringing in his ears, the false siren song of life tricking him into believing it was his own and when the world whirred, tilted on its side, Dean could almost tell himself this was a lie.

Another hallucination, another ghost conjured by the acidic, liquid hoodoo forced into his throat like bile, carving and whittling his body into a cleaving tool they could use to break, to hurt—but Castiel wasn't hurt now.

He was warm, alive, real against Dean's side, held safe in his arms, just as scared as he was and looking to Dean for the answer to the million dollar question.

This was virulent and swollen, had the capacity to consume them both and leave them shells if that was what the demons wanted.

He'd been a wall to it, steel, frantically avoiding talking about it, avoiding thinking about it for every leaden, desultory second since it had been a possibility.

It was too violent, too animal. Too devastating to imagine.

But Cas needed him.

He tried to swallow, unsuccessfully—his mouth too dry, too barbed with clashing sentiments and sharp, foreign impulses, the talons of the avalanche scraping at his temples, held just barely back.

His breath stuttered, rattled out of him.

"If… there's a kid," Dean said, his voice dragging like petulant sandpaper, itchy razors on his tongue. He decided, realised. "Then… I'll take care of it. Of you both."

His lips pursed, tried not to tremble, the dizzy heat of chemicals swarming his brain drawing emotion out of him, pink and raw, embryonic. He gasped, drew in close, limbs winding, breaking.

"I won't let them get their hands on…on," Dean's voice crackled, quivered, too thick with phlegm, with horror, "Fuck, Cas this is so messed up!"

Castiel nodded, his blunt nails digging into Dean's side, clinging, the swelter rising in them both, and Dean didn't want to look down, didn't want to see his face reflected in those honest eyes, the ruins of who they were. The wreckage they couldn't rebuild.

He thought he felt something wet at his collar bone and his eyebrows drew in, pained and broken, but the world began to shift and throb again, the sordid heavy pull of the rut creeping around his legs and dragging him under.

Holding him hostage in his too-waxen skin, a stranger to his own body.

Before he was devoured, Dean opened his mouth, tried to struggle. An admirable effort.

The apologies he wanted to give were too clunky, too out of place to smuggle past this narcosis and when Dean finally dredged through the silt of his mind enough to speak, it was a slurred, echo of a promise that came.

Fragmented, but resolute.

"We're… going to get out here, you know."

He felt a smile at his neck, loud and shining despite the clamour, a burst of a heartbeat.

"I know," Castiel said.

The fever came for them then, and lucidity scattered.

...

Something was wrong.

Changes, not the first or last, crept up on them, quiet and biding for so long before they finally pounced and sank their jaws deep.

Dean hadn't noticed at first, too swept up in the manufactured normalcy, the carefully crafted urges designed to feel instinctive, natural.

Biological drives he was never meant for taking precedence and taking over, made him animal, feral—bared teeth, body vicious, hungry, his thoughts swollen and occupied with the need to protect, provide, possess.

The space between him and Castiel shriveled, became impotent and unnecessary, those awful inch-miles easily replaced with tiny creases made of flesh, with bodies moulding tight, even when they didn't have to.

Dean spent hours mindlessly mapping the geography of Castiel's body, reading its language, learning where the edges softened to curves, where the knobs of his spine tapered off into the bowl of his back, where he was softest and where roughness lingered.

Hours.

Undisturbed by awkwardness, left alone by guilt and shame. Too numbed to be safe.

Castiel would stretch and purr, utterly pleased to be pawed at like this, happily nuzzling into Dean's neck, nose pressed to his jaw and smiling when Dean's chest rumbled a sound of approval as he pressed closer still.

Scents were stronger now even outside of the heats, away from the cloying, saccharine aromas that sliced through Dean, burrowed under his skin and collapsed his mind.

Dean could press his nose against the nape of Castiel's neck, the scruffy mound of thick hair and inhale, taking in the sweet and earthy scents, just as demanding, just as intoxicating, but so gentle Dean never thought to be worried.

It didn't even occur to him to freak out when he discovered he could identify Castiel's moods just by burying his face deep into Castiel's collar and breathing in, too delighted to have found a new pastime.

The embrace of Castiel's scent was calming, damn near the only thing that could coax Dean to willingly sleep in this Hell-hole, and he couldn't summon sense enough to be bothered by it. Caring took too much energy.

It got worse, though.

They'd taken Castiel away once, a few days ago at his best estimate, and the air instantly became stale, putrid and whirring with constant red noise and screeching sounds—torturous and wrong.

Dean had almost chewed through his own arm to get to him, clawing desperately at the bars of the cage, hissing and snarling like a rabid animal at the mocking, gnarled faces that observed him from the outside.

He'd been frantic for a wide, cold time that had been more real and tangible than any other day he'd known since being sucked into this bitter, rejected land.

When they'd finally brought Castiel back to him, Dean had curved around him possessively, growling at anything that even came near their cell, not allowing himself to be soft, to be worried until the demons had gotten bored and left.

Castiel hadn't seem harmed—Dean couldn't see or smell any blood—but he was unconscious and still, so small in Dean's arms.

Dean soon found himself licking Castiel's face, a grieving whine in his throat as he dragged his tongue gently over the line of Cas' jaw, lapped at the roundness of his cheeks, soothing the wrongs that had been done to him.

He'd paled in horror when he realised what he was doing, a chill in his spine at the foreignness of it, but that didn't stop the barrage of impulse assaulting his system and it didn't quiet the need to tuck Castiel into the net of his arms and hide him from the world, safe for as long as Dean had him.

It felt like that first day, the changing—agonising reformation from the inside out.

Only this was slow and quiet, a soft cancer taking its sweet time to do its damage, unseen and unstoppable, going unnoticed until death lingered in the doorway.

Unnoticed, normally; but something was wrong.

The ground was cold against Dean's skin but the fever was returning.

The pulsating, dizzying clutch of the heat, of the rut coiling around him, snaking along his spine and squeezing.

He could feel it in his bones, his veins, his chest. Churning and broiling, savage desire brutalising his body, robbing him of breath and stripping him of his mind.

So typical, normal—showing up like clockwork to ravage them raw at this bloodied altar.

Except today he could think.

Except today the glass shard-swelling in his blood didn't erode away his reason, didn't drown his thoughts in the usual tattoo, the constant mantra of breedmatebitchclaim.

Except today the demons hadn't drugged them.

Panicking, Dean snapped his head up to look at Castiel, slouched against the wall and peering back at him with lidded eyes and red cheeks, his breathing rough and shallow.

There'd never been time to see before, but now Dean could track the systematic defeat of every inch of flesh conquered by heat.

He watched Castiel shutting down—sinewy limbs stiffening in pairs, his torso rattling with jolting shivers, muscles and tendons tensing and jumping under taut skin coated in a sheen of dampness, spangles of sweat gathering at his pinked forehead.

He looked wrecked, ruined, and scared.

"D-Dean..!"

The fear in Castiel's voice chilled Dean's blood, flayed him down to exposed live-wires sparking at the urgency he heard in the way Cas called for him.

They'd never had the presence of mind to be scared in a heat before, too busy being crushed, pummelled by this whiplash lust, too busy thrashing about, trying to shred, rip themselves free of their skin, just to get at each other, to get closer.

There was no time to even contemplate the wrongness of the collision, rationality suffocated by vertigo, by frenzied fucking and perverse violence, nothing human left in them at all.

It was supposed to be impossible to feel fear—the only thing that mattered was that it felt good—and yet Castiel was staring at him with wide, glossy eyes, visibly pallid under the plastic flush, his chest expanding so fast Dean almost thought he could hear the rabbit thudding of his heart.

Castiel was scared and just as alert as Dean.

Dean scrambled back, his shoulders slamming hard against the merciless metal bars, fingers scraping at the floor like he was willing the stone to break and give under his fingernails, to burrow himself deep under and never resurface.

They hadn't been drugged.

They were being made to go through Castiel's heat aware.

Aware of every callous second, every warped compulsion, every bite of pain and the deluge of mangled pleasure.

A burst of starvation scraped his stomach, his mouth filling with moisture at the sweet call of slickness in the air, luring him to the rocks, liquid flames charring him to the marrow and Dean realised that being robbed of your mind could be a mercy after all.

He slapped a hand over his face, squeezing his nose shut, desperate to block the scent rolling through the air like a predator.

Castiel whined, his hips bucking up aimlessly, thin, wiry legs opening wide in a fun house-mirror invitation, all sweet promises and deceptive pleas, like he could give Dean the world.

He was whimpering, sobbing like he was in pain, like Dean was a cruel, heartless bastard for denying him, for not crawling between those milky thighs and pounding into that tight, wet little hole when they both knew it felt so good, felt so perfect and all Dean had to go was give in and—

He snarled, ripping his gaze away.

The slime they were fed kept them complacent, too addled to fight and without it they had a say in this, but too much damage had already been done, too much of them altered at a fundamental level.

The battle was still raging in their blood. Their bodies still made them soldiers, but Dean was war-hardened and roughened by conflict, a native to it. This was even footing, the enemy a familiar foe; he'd fought himself and won before, he could do it again.

They were not mindless things here and this was not a clash of claws, this was not destruction.

This would not be another rape.

He glanced frantically around the dark room for the Lilu, almost willing them to be lurking around and ready to gloat so he could demand some fucking answers but even in the crevices of the cave where the low, orange flames fell away and the darkness felt too thick, too unnatural, Dean could tell there was no-one there, no-one hiding in the shadows like some creepy voyeur.

They were alone.

He heard Castiel whisper his name again, a croaky sound from the opposite side of the cell that was too wide, too narrow, too claustrophobic all at once.

Dean wet his lips, swallowed, not daring to breathe. He didn't want to test his limits.

"Cas… Cas, listen to me," he said, voice gravelly, gruff with the thickness crowding his throat.

It was hard to speak, even if it was easier to think because Dean could still feel every inch of the basal part of himself that wanted nothing more than to make this dripping bitch hang limp and used off his knot, could still hear the muffled, growled encouragements telling him to take the slut while he was still ripe.

It wasn't him, this wasn't him.

His fists balled at his sides, trembling, a dam to the alluvion.

"You can hear me, right? You understand?" Dean bit out, his insides white-hot with brute desire peeling humanity from his flesh.

No response came and when Dean opened his eyes, a last resort, Castiel was goldfishing at him—mouth opening and closing around a vicious grimace, a wound spread over a sinister mass.

He was panting wildly, knees held together, hands fisted on the floor. Struggling.

Dean watched Castiel bite his lip, eyes shutting as though it could help him focus and after a few failed attempts, he gave a drowsy half-nod.

That would have to do.

"R-right, so," Dean said, pausing as a gasp sliced him open, strangling his words. "For some reason those sons of bitches didn't roofie us today."

Sweat broke on his back, the dark spaces between his legs flushed, filled with blood. Castiel was everywhere, his scent, his sounds, surrounding, swallowing, decimating.

Dean's muscles twitched and trembled, demanded he take what was his.

Demanded he own.

He wanted to prowl, to strike, to climb the ladder of Castiel's spine, the staircase of his ribs, a pinnacle—standing mighty at the peak.

He wanted to dig in deep and tear him open, wanted in, wanted to cleave Castiel in two and settle down content in the open wound, anchored in stringy tendons. Rooted in far enough to germinate.

He shook his head and cursed, his cheek pressing to the bars, needing to be as far away as possible, no inch disposable.

The ground here was slippery and Dean's footing was unsure.

One wrong step and he was fucked.

"Fuck, we gotta fight this," Dean said, cried, compelled Castiel to understand.

"You hear me, Cas? We c-can't, can't let this happen when we got brains enough to stop it."

He spat the words out, fingers raking desperately at the ground, ready to cling onto anything that could save him from this.

He wouldn't let himself hurt Castiel, not when they could help it.

It was one thing for this to happen when his mind had been stolen away and he couldn't stop himself anymore than he could sprout wings and fly, but today was something different.

Even if every cell in his body was seething, screeching sinister commands that he burrow deep into that scent, bury himself to the root in Castiel's tight, wet body; he had the final say.

He wouldn't let it happen.

"Y-yes, Dean."

The response was quiet and clear, as lucid as Dean could have asked for, but when he opened his eyes, Castiel looked like he was in agony.

His sallow skin was bright, blistering red and soaking, his lips mouthing at arid air like he was mid-fever and suffocating. His nails dug grooves in his skin, welts turning red and glinting, hanging on by a thread.

He cried out, sudden and sharp, like he'd been struck, his body twisting with unseen impact and everything that'd been swarming, shifting in Dean lately flared, roared to protect Castiel from this, to take away his pain.

To care for him, like he was supposed to.

Dean caught himself halfway across the cell, bare knees scraping raw on the ground, hardly able to see through the red mist, the spectres urging them together.

His jaw clenched, teeth grinding. Weak.

He tucked his legs back under himself, crouching low like a corned animal and swaying, dizzy, but present. That had to count for something, right?

"It's gonna be okay, Cas."

"Dean, it hurts," Castiel whispered, barely audible and cracking over a whimper.

He sounded helpless, terrified and Dean's heart panged, more painful than anything else going on in his body right now.

"I know, I know, honey, it's okay," Dean said, slurring. He wasn't even going to think about where that came from, they'd heard worse here than a term of endearment.

Instead, every rationed slither of strength not devoted to keeping him stationary was spent on trying to keep his hoarse, ragged voice as soothing as he could manage.

It didn't do much good though. Castiel shuddered, rutting the air while his fingers dug into his knees, trying to keep unruly legs from moving.

His spine snapped up then, and he was howling, stoicism scalped and maimed into anguish.

Dean couldn't look; a Hell behind him and no torture as vivid as this.

He swallowed, his eyes closing again. He was racking his brain for a solution, for anything that could help, that might ease the urgency.

A distraction.

His body had been made savage around him, a wild thing Dean could barely keep collared. Even now seconds passed in slews and Dean could feel the rebellion within him, the ticking over of his impatient pulse, jackhammering, infecting, waking up miles of skin with promises of pleasure.

It was unbearable and utterly consuming.

Dean was sure he'd never seen himself so hard, his cock a rigid, angry thing, curving up towards his stomach with length he was certain he'd never possessed before being made a fucking breeding stud for these sick fucks.

He knew what his dick was supposed to look like, he'd spent a hell of a lot of time with it, and this wasn't it.

Letting out a growl, Dean gave in and cupped himself, curling his fingers around his too-wide girth and hissing at the momentary spate of pleasure that seared his nerves. It was good, pure, almost.

He hadn't touched himself since he'd been here, what would be the point? Sex, desire had been twisted into a weapon and Dean hadn't wanted any part of it in the scarce moments he'd stumbled upon sanity, where he was back in the driver's seat.

Now, against the assault of warped arousal, it was a godsend.

Castiel let out another sob, sounding frantic and Dean swallowed heavily.

Feeling awkward and exposed, he let go of himself and opened his eyes, finding Castiel's squeezed tight. His cheeks burning with more than just the rut, he cleared his throat.

"Cas. Castiel, listen to my voice. Can you do that?"

Cas was feverous, unhinging but he managed to nod once more, his head inclining towards Dean's voice, gravitating to him like Dean was the answer to all of his problems.

"I know it's hard, trust me I know," Dean said, trying not to bite out the words when every breath felt like shale, "But you gotta take the edge off, buddy. You gotta try."

Castiel frowned, his eyebrows crawling together in confusion and the pained sound he made was almost a growl, obviously not understanding Dean's point and frustrated because of it.

The muscles in his thighs were spasming and Castiel mewled, his legs falling open as he squirmed.

Dean winced, catching sight of the clear slick pooled underneath Castiel's ass, the curved length of his little cock looking so red, so swollen and already twitching uselessly at the sharp V of his pelvis.

Castiel made another needy noise and Dean swore, out of options.

Rising up slightly, he spread his own legs and, hesitating for only a few beats, he wrapped calloused fingers back around his cock, groaning low and long at the little jolt of relief the friction gave him.

"Look at me, Cas, watch what I'm doing," Dean gasped.

The words were clumsy, awkward and so hoarse that Dean could barely recognise the voice speaking them as his own. He was exposed and embarrassed but desperate for this to work.

He gave himself a firm stroke, cursing the position he'd been forced into for the millionth time, but Castiel's eyes opened obediently and his gaze quickly fell on Dean's hand.

Dean heard him suck in a breath, his hazy blue eyes glued to what Dean was doing to himself, very wide and very surprised, darkening, slicing to black.

"Dean," he breathed, shock and interest flickering alternately on his face.

Dean moaned a nasty, ruined sound, beginning to pump his cock in earnest, determined not think too hard, to just do. To get them both through this okay.

"Just like this, Cas" Dean said softly, a growled, simmering undercurrent to his voice.

He thumbed the damp head of his dick, feeling himself pulse in his palm and fighting not to fuck up, to let aggressiveness whisk away his restraint.

Fuck, if he didn't get into Heaven for this shit. Or Hell, depending on your perspective.

"I need you to try for me okay? C-copy what I'm doing." Castiel's expression was unsure, but after a second of looking down at his groin, he complied, shifting his hand between his legs and taking his cock between his fingers.

Dean had to bite back a snarl of pleasure at the sight, that muffled, primordial part of himself preening about how pretty his mate looked like this, how well he followed orders.

Castiel moaned, sounding surprised, his narrow hips snapping up into his hand and Dean could see he was able to fit his whole cock snugly in his fist.

His eyes flicked up to meet Dean's, questioning, burning, somehow managing to look like the ancient immense being that had lugged him screaming from the pit, all while jerking off.

Dean's heart thundered in his chest, his breath snared, hampered by arousal, by more awareness than he could stand.

It wasn't that he was embarrassed by Castiel's nakedness or his own—they'd been kept like this since they got here and sex between them was so common it was almost boring—but seeing Cas watching him, those blue eyes honed in on his own, staring right back at him it felt so much more intimate than Dean was used to.

Fucking the way they usually did, Dean could sometimes trick himself into believing it was someone else under him, some other body he'd just forced his way into, anyone other than his best friend.

It seemed more impersonal that way, more routine—something he could separate himself from, separate him and Cas from.

There was no room for that here.

Castiel's gaze was blistering, polarising and it had him pinned.

Dean wasn't sure he wanted it to stop.

"That's it" he whispered, watching Cas' hand move unsteadily on his dick, "Do what feels good."

Something in Dean got greedy then, taking the opportunity of having Castiel's body so open and vulnerable to actually look.

He'd seen it so often, slips of sun-starved pale flesh moving beneath him, the mottled, purple bruises speckling his chest as he tucked himself in at Dean's side but his eyes never lingered, never stared too long.

Now he had the chance to study him, to watch the beautiful way Castiel responded to touch, so sensitive and eager for it.

Dean could trace his eyes over the slopes and plains of his arms, his abs and match the visuals to the mental picture he'd learned over hours of mapping Castiel's body with curious fingers.

He hadn't touched everywhere though and he had no point of reference to pin to the image of Castiel's hard, wet cock, rosy and engorged in his hand. Dean's eyebrows tightened at the sight of him, confusion welding with arousal.

He couldn't be sure—he never let his eyes stray that far south for too long—but Castiel's junk seemed smaller, softer almost.

It suited him, weirdly, pretty and delicate nestled between his thighs in a way that made Dean want to duck down and taste it and then adamantly deny that thought had ever even crossed his mind.

Maybe it was another side effect of the rituals, or maybe he just wasn't fully hard yet but from the look of him that seemed kind of ridiculous.

Lust was lying heady and hair-trigger in Dean's stomach as he matched Cas' pace with his own hand and he was so fascinated, so captivated by Castiel's fingers on his cock that he was caught completely off-guard when Cas leaned back, exposing his furled, wet hole.

Dean gnawed at his lip, pursing his mouth to stifle the moan on his tongue, his heart beating in his throat, quickening as Castiel's free hand slipped down between his legs.

He almost choked, snatched from the ground and knocked silent with fermenting need as Castiel slipped a finger inside of himself, mewling instantly with pleasure.

"Fuck, Cas" Dean gasped, snapping his hips up deliriously.

Castiel's teeth bit down on the pink slip of his lip, his eyes flicking up to peer at Dean from beneath his thick lashes, the most sincere, honest picture of accidental seduction Dean had ever stumbled upon.

He was quick to slide another finger in, his thumb working against his rim as he fucked into himself, opening and spreading his fingers wide like he needed the stretch, needed the burn to feel good.

"Dean, I—oh!"

Another finger and Dean was barely hanging on but he had to, fuck he had to.

He wasn't letting Cas down, wasn't letting these bastards get the better of him, not when he had a say in it.

Castiel was still moving his hand on his length, gasping as he twisted up into it and moaning when the fourth finger eased in gently, his hole straining around the invasion, visibly clenching and contracting like Castiel was trying to milk himself dry.

He groaned, the cadence of his voice pitching upwards as he spread himself wide, long fingers plowing into him and curling up.

For a second Dean thought this might work, despite the grating feeling of rough dissatisfaction he felt at fucking into his own fist—too dry, too loose, not enough, not enough—but then Castiel's hips stuttered and his face drew tight, lips parting to let out a strained whined, his ass slamming down onto his hand so hard Dean thought he might break it.

Soon he was shaking again, his eyes clenched to slits as he sobbed plaintively, thrusting restlessly, chasing emptiness.

"Dean, it's not—I can't!"

"Shh, it's okay baby, you got it," Dean murmured, trying to calm them both down, his body screaming at him, bereft and bitter.

He swiped a thumb over the head of his cock and he should have been close to coming, should have been about to spill all over himself, as abnormally aroused as he was, but nothing was happening.

His muscles shuddered, resisted, tried to force him to stop, barrelling Dean over with the sheer wrongness of taking his own dick in hand.

He felt wrong to touch himself, like it wasn't for him to do, like his cock was only allowed to be hard and pleasured if it was buried balls deep in Castiel's ass.

The pressure kept building and building but every time he was sure he'd reached the apex, it would stammer, wane and retreat. It felt like he was going insane.

"No, no! Dean's it's not enough…I—I need…" Castiel whined, a snarl in there somewhere.

He looked lost, like he was tumbling down a wonderfall, searching for the way out, for what it was he needed when the whole time he knew Dean had the key.

Whiplash-fast, Castiel locked eyes with Dean, looking furious, looking divine.

His pelvis tilted up and his legs fell further apart, sliding into an appealing V-shape that Dean could happily crawl into, as though he was presenting, and fuck what was Dean supposed to do with that?

"Dean, please."

Dean could have sobbed, but the noise came out like a death rattle, his thighs quivering, so ready to give in and so completely unwilling.

"Cas, I can't, you know that—"

"Please, I need it." Castiel looked like he was about to cry, fucking lip tremble and all.

"I need you to fuck my p-pussy."

Arousal flared like a spitfire at those words, unsure filth falling too obscene from that pink mouth, bursting, igniting.

Castiel couldn't possibly know what he was saying, didn't know how to roll words into effective attempts at seduction, but still Dean couldn't help the growl of pleasure from rumbling in his chest, made weak by lewd words tumbling from pure lips.

"You don't know what you're saying, Cas."

Cas snarled, livid, arching his spine and fucking down, gyrating, impaling.

His glare seared into Dean, dark and frigid and genuinely frightening.

"Don't presume to tell me what I know, Dean Winchester," Castiel growled, sounding for all the world like the angel who'd threatened to throw Dean back into hell.

Somehow that made Dean feel better than he had in months.

Castiel's face seemed to soften slightly, his eyes reading something unknown in Dean's and when he spoke again, his voice was just as insistent, just as authoritative, but gentled.

"My mind is as clear as yours. Please. I want this."

Dean's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat, a hand rubbing his slick forehead.

He was stifling, the molecules in the air too hot and too close, Castiel's pleas knocking him into a daze, spinning knots of pheromones into his veins and leaving the needle behind for him to prick himself on.

His mind was twisting, oscillating, off-course, but he was still in control, still rational, still had a choi—

"Dean, fuck me!"

He broke.

Growling like a mad thing, Dean all but charged at Castiel, pouncing on him before he even had time to think.

Dean's body became a cage, locking Castiel into place underneath his heaving chest, limbs holding him stationary, captive, but Castiel wasn't squirming, didn't want to get away.

A galvanised sense of power shocked through Dean, his eyes glaring down at the angel trapped under him for no other reason than he wanted it, wanted to feel Dean's heat, Dean's weight, Dean's strength. To feign and feel vulnerable, to allow himself to submit.

He pushed forward and clamped his teeth hard onto Castiel's neck—a warning bite—the action feeling too natural in a way he'd worry about later.

"Don't tell me what to do, Cas."

Castiel moaned, going all soft and slack and submissive under Dean. He still jolted and rocked with the force of his heat, but there was a placidness in his face that wasn't there five minutes ago.

"Please," he said simply and Dean didn't know how to refuse him again.

He slipped a leg between Castiel's and spread him open, wider, thrilled to be able to touch and Castiel just let him.

This close, Dean could see every detail, every strand of DNA that made Castiel's body beautiful. It was easy to inspect and see the parts of him that had changed, easy to tell that his dick had grown smaller, another notch in the demons' bedpost.

Taking a second look, Dean decided that so had his balls, looking softer and hanging closer to the crease of his pelvis than they did at the start, like his body was still changing, still transforming to the Lilu's whims, even now.

Dean let out a gruff sound, suddenly angry, furious.

He felt Castiel stiffen beneath him, his head tipping up slightly in question.

Dean cupped his face in his palm, stroking a cheek with his thumb, careful and reassuring, letting him know his rage wasn't directed at Castiel, probably never could be, not now.

Everything that had happened before seemed so distant, so small. Dean wondered how he'd ever thought forgiving Castiel would be an obstacle.

It seemed so trivial here. Forgiveness didn't even enter the equation; they needed each other to survive, and beyond that, they simply needed each other.

Dean was wavering for too long and Castiel, for all of his angelic stoicism and supposed otherworldly restraint, was proving himself to be an impatient, demanding son of a bitch, knocking Dean out of his thoughts with a frustrated cry and a resumed rhythm of his fingers thrusting into his clenching, greedy hole.

Well, Dean could be demanding too.

He slapped the hand Castiel had working on his cock out of the way and caught Castiel's eyes, holding it and sifting through the murky silt in the blue for permission.

When he found it, Dean gingerly took Castiel by the wrist and eased his fingers out of his ass, drinking in the quiet, sad sounds of loss Cas gave as each one slipped out, leaving him empty and wanting, but Dean wasn't in the mood for teasing. He was already teetering too close to madness, concaving under the hurricane, the carnivore gnashing at his resolve.

Castiel arced upwards and Dean bent down, hovering reverently over the altar of flesh laid out before him, wandering hands sweeping over pebbled, impossibly chilled-fever skin.

His fingers slipped to the cleft of Castiel's thighs, catching on the swollen slick rim of his hole.

He watched with wide, devout eyes as Castiel jerked, wheeled his hips to grind against Dean's hand, his lips parting and breathy, silk sounds became wails, choked red noises falling inelegantly from a blood-bitten mouth.

Encouraged, Dean pushed in, one finger, two, Castiel accepting him in easily, jolting with voltaic sensitivity, his altered body responding in ways it shouldn't. Dean couldn't deny how good Castiel looked like this though, like every cry, every twitch was crafted expertly, deliberately to draw Dean closer to the precipice.

He'd never noticed just how hot Castiel was inside before, always too fuck-drunk to really appreciate it but now, coaxing him open, slower, brighter, Dean could feel every contraction blistering and molten around him. No wonder Castiel looked in pain.

"Dean!"

Castiel was moaning and panting and writhing, scratching himself on the jagged floor and not pausing to care about the pain, about appearances.

He looked like sin and Dean had never been a Holy man to begin with but he'd never known lust like this.

It was rambling, weeping on like a bank had broken in his core and he was drenched in sensation without even being touched. It was shatteringly more potent than he'd known on earth but clearer, louder and more vivid without the filter of the demons' concoction polluting his mind.

This was not the despair of the rut.

"Shh, baby," Dean said, pumping his fingers in deep, coaxing high pitched moans out of Cas.

He didn't even need the preparation, already so wet and open, but Dean couldn't help touching, couldn't help exploring.

"Dean, please. I need it."

Castiel's head tossed to the side, his nails raking at the floor, like Dean's touch had stopped being comforting and had turned torturous.

The sorrowful, distressed cries Castiel let out yanked at his instincts, swarmed him with feral need and the opportunity to delay was fading fast.

"I know, sweetheart," Dean said, his whispers dry, asphyxiated noises straining from his chest, teetering at his lips.

"I got you."

Begrudgingly, Dean pulled out his fingers but he wasn't going to leave either himself or Castiel wanting too long.

He was too far gone for that, too aching and sodden with outrage that their bodies hadn't found their way together yet, dragged back into the feverish animal snapping in his rib cage, into the hurricane.

He lined himself up with Castiel's slick hole and searched for breath. His head was pulsing, full of fumes, demanding he take.

Then Castiel's eyes found Dean's, his body held open like a sacrifice, ready to receive and Dean had no more resistance left in him.

He took hold of Castiel's hips, bruised and flecked with purple from the past times and slammed in, sheathing himself fluidly to the root in a single thrust.

Castiel mewled and Dean grunted, dark, dark eyes locked on the snap, the pop of Castiel's limbs, the violent, beautiful arc he became beneath him—arms winding around Dean's rippling back, sharp nails digging in grooves, little rivulets drawing blood.

He was so hot, tight and sogoodsogood Dean could hardly breathe, could hardly think to do anything but shove his hips forward uncoordinated and graceless, propelled by pure, gritty human pleasure seeking.

Castiel wound his legs up to bracket Dean's waist, indelicate, desperate, yanking him into his body, welcoming him closer, clenching around him to keep him exactly there.

He was debasing but his eyes didn't look away, didn't move from Dean's face, his expression so awed it was devastating.

Dean gasped, shoved up and fucked down, made mindless by his own biology, no spell possessing him this time.

He was building, climbing, moving with Castiel, rocking together as they stumbled into an offset rhythm, nerves and endorphins aggregating at the base of spine, rattling with thrills of sensation.

So much was different, new and amazing.

Castiel wasn't laying motionless and vulnerable beneath him; he was gripping back, pulling Dean into him and angling his head up to press sloppy, open-mouthed, goalless kisses to Dean's jaw, Dean's cheeks, moaning when Dean nipped and bit back at him.

They were hungry but not devoured, altered but made whole in the movements of their bodies, stitched together, numbed and alive in each others thread.

This was not savage, not the caustic riotous mess of writhing bodies or the vicious wrangle of teeth and nails they were used to.

This was them; and they were mighty.

Mightily raw. Mightily delicate and so wonderfully human, so wonderfully real Dean couldn't bear to take his fingers away from where they fluttered like scrambling birds over Castiel's pattering pulse, couldn't bear to worry or doubt or fight, just for this moment.

Couldn't bear to let this go, never. Never.

Castiel whined, his head flying back as he bowed beneath Dean, his ass clamping down around the weight inside of him, milking it for all he was worth.

He raked the skin from Dean's shoulders, shackled by pleasure, hungry, hurricane.

Dean hissed, little shocks of pain blurring his vision, kissing him with another bright flare of sensation, digging into his empty places.

"Shit, Cas."

Dean cursed, his hips stuttering, pleasure exploding behind his eyes, sizzling and stinging like sharp static over new skin.

"Faster, please, Dean, I need you to," Castiel said, keened, impaling himself at an angle, so hard he had to be bruising something.

Dean snarled, responding to the pleas like it was programmed into his system, pounding cruelly into Castiel, hips snapping with a deranged vigour, complete abandon fuelling him.

He pitched forward, seizing the sharp, slender points of Castiel's hips and yanking him onto his dick, moving him bodily to meet each thrust and watching as he reverberated with them, jolting, vibrating in Dean's lap.

Castiel's whole body whirred and throbbed, yowling in pleasure, a fresh wave of slick bursting over Dean's cock.

He was obscene, undulating and gyrating his pelvis, cheeks flushed a pretty pink, his red mouth pulled into a lewd 'O' as he worked Dean with an expertise he should never have had, knowing just when to tighten, just how to shift and roll his muscles to coax the roughest sounds from Dean.

How to make him lose all sense of rhythm, to make him forget the niceties and just claim.

Dean knew he was experiencing the spliced, charred remains of innocence, the after-taste of purity robbed from a borrowed body and dented grace, but he couldn't feel bad about that now.

Not with Castiel willing beneath him, not with him twisting on Dean's cock like that.

Instead he groaned, marvelling at the slickness, the warmth, the velvety grip of Castiel's ass sucking him down and claiming him right back, prey and predator, lover.

Dean was euphoric, soaring, warped with sensation and determined to deliver it in kind, angling his thrusts and letting them become brutal, letting himself own Castiel's body without edging, decimating into something barbarous, something Purgatory sought to make him.

In this canopy of skin and sweat and swelter, Dean was made Castiel's, remade a man.

Tonight, he was no-one's puppet and Purgatory jailed its breath.

Castiel made a trembling, quailing noise at this shift of pressure, his head thrashing backwards, panting rapidly through a lax, pleasure-stricken mouth.

The beast gnashing to break free in Dean's chest preened, smug at reducing his pretty, proud bitch to such a mess of strung-out vulgarity.

"That good, Cas?" Dean asked, just as choked of air, just as victimised by kind ecstasy, "S'feel good?"

Castiel nodded deliriously, babbling out guttural words into his own shoulder, slurred and distorted into jagged colours and if they were at all English it would have been a valiant effort, but Dean couldn't decipher the slew.

He didn't really need to, Castiel's whole body was answering for him, tightening and buckling, alive with everything he was feeling.

There was no deception, no artifice about him, open and ethereal, his silhouette a pale will-o'-the-wisp Dean would happily follow against the pitch black of the cave.

His skin was slippery where Dean tried to grab it, grappled for purchase at sweat-spangled limbs wriggling and erratic, arching and flexing, none of that angelic stillness anywhere to be found.

Dean grunted, folding forward to nip and kiss blindly at Castiel's jaw, stealing his air, finding a smile on Cas' mouth and feeling helpless but to kiss it as well.

Castiel mewed, winding up in the air, his body a curve, a bow, a tightly drawn string waiting for Dean to pluck and when he dropped back to the floor, his ankles crossed tight around Dean's ass, dragging him deeper, pulling him in.

"Fuck, Cas, that's it," Dean said, mouthing at Castiel's neck, his vision speckled with white noise, "Such a good boy."

He had no idea where that came from but Castiel seemed to like it—howling and canting his hips, shivering like the praise had made him hyper-aware, stripped to the wires and burned by his own current.

Dean was already spiralling, the world vacillating, wishing he could shed himself if only he could be reborn in Castiel, submerged and baptised in this body.

Beyond them the silence of the cave was deafening, unsettling and Dean didn't want to listen to it, happy to flood it with obscene sounds of flesh slapping wetly, of breath pushing out in dusty rasps, of contorted moans and high, bleating pleas.

Castiel seemed to be on board. He was jabbering, chanting, voice wavering around a single syllable and it was only by repetition that Dean finally understood the word.

"Dean!"

He moaned, arced, crippled by the weight of his name said like that, rapturous and needful in a way he would never deserve, could never hope to live up to.

Everything boiled down to molecules, sense and logic emancipated, leaving behind an unfiltered, primal thirst that belonged to them.

Maybe the only way to quench it, to sooth the dull ache it opened like sores and blisters in their stomachs was to completely submerge themselves in each other, for him to breathe Castiel as the man gasped out in Dean's name. To drown.

To belong.

"You close, baby?" Dean said, unravelling, extricating fast.

His muscles burned, moisture beading at his brow, hips aching with exertion but he couldn't stop, couldn't even slow down.

Dean slammed in harder, air smothered as he felt that unnatural part of himself tug and grow, swelling to lock him deep inside Cas.

"You gonna come all over yourself?" he asked, desperate for Castiel to be as close as he was, needing to make him come.

"Jerk your pretty cock for me, sweetheart, come on, I wanna see again."

Castiel whined, his eyes blinking open to half mast, bleary things squinting up at Dean as he obeyed, slipping a shaking hand between their bodies and gripping himself with a hitch of air bleeding into a sob, obviously not prepared for the assault of pleasure all at once.

Dean threw blasphemies into the scorching air, dazed as Castiel began to jerk himself, messy, with no finesse and brutally arousing.

He looked filthy, like something drudged from the depths of Dean's mind, like fantasies he'd never own up to.

"Yeah, fuck, darlin'," Dean said, stammering as Castiel's ass clenched in time with his strokes, his slick walls convulsing onto the thick stretch of Dean's cock. "Just like that, look so pretty for me."

"Dean," Castiel said again, his voice as insistent as the constant thrash of his body, demanding Dean's attention.

"Please, I want… I want!"

Nothing about them was leisurely now, their movements, their words shamelessly frantic, driven by nothing more than arrant animal instinct and the hardwired impulse to mate.

Dean could still hear those baleful songs hissing at him to breed, to bury himself bruisingly deep and leave his seed to swell Castiel's body.

It was his right, the voices whispered, his duty as the bitch's Alpha to prove his virility.

As far as Dean was concerned, those voices could go fuck themselves. Castiel's was the only one that counted.

"What, Cas?" Dean managed to croak out, temporarily emboldened by Castiel's need, but already clamouring, slipping, splitting.

Castiel's plump ass tilted up, an offering, and Dean became bestial all at once, teeth bared and the whites of his eyes stark and dangerous in the shadows, snarling and foaming to answer the blood-call.

"K-knot. I need your knot."

A rumble, then chaos.

"Please, please knot my pussy."

The hurricane took him.

Sharp teeth clamped down on Castiel's neck, salty blood exploding across Dean's tongue and he roared, rearing back with red staining his chin, his hips driving in with purpose, knocking right against Castiel's empty, waiting cervix, catching his prostate relentlessly, a trip-wire chord that raised Cas' lower body inches of the ground, screaming, surging.

Castiel abandoned his dick, hands flying like flustered hummingbirds to cling to Dean's shoulders holding on tight as his back scraped along the grit with every thrust, moaning and hissing out the sweetest sounds.

The grief Dean had heard in Castiel's voice as he'd begged for him, the doubt like he thought Dean would deny him, leave him empty and used on the cold floor turned Dean savage, painting his vision red and making him want to hunt down the world and leave it leaking and slaughtered at Castiel's feet.

He would never deny Castiel anything, could never disappoint his mate.

Words quickly interlaced with time and became meaningless after that—fleeing and leaving behind only breath and flesh and starvation. A single need.

They were stripped down to instinct; human, animal. Raw.

Dean pounded into Castiel, growling, biting, owning his territory, filling his mate and keeping him satisfied and wailing in pleasure, crying out Dean's name in unholy praise as his knot filled with blood, slowly expanding him and trapping him captive.

"Fuck."

Dean seized; his hips pumping, pushing forward once more with inhuman ferocity, greedy hands grabbing and tearing, delicate skin coaxed open, hurtling quiet hisses and loud cries, bucking, dissolving, desperate until feral red haemorrhaged into whiteness, into emptiness.

Proudly, eagerly dismantling.

He came with a snarl, emptying his heavy balls into Castiel's furnace-heat, batch after batch of come dousing that fertile, greedy cunt.

His orgasm wrenched through his body, hewing him apart and drawing them together in sunder, one body made whole.

Castiel trembled, his hole spasming around Dean, shifting to accommodate the new intrusion and clamping down on it, locking Dean in place.

Castiel's body stiffened then shattered and Dean knew he was coming too, a wet pool on his belly and a gushing, leaking wreckage around Dean's knot, tension sloughing off him in torrents.

The sound Castiel let out as he came was surprisingly gentle—a soft cry, a wavering, anguished note Dean ached to follow but his own pulse was a cacophony in his head, a deafening din that confused his ears and blinded his eyes, tangling into intricate, bright patterns.

It was like being high without the drugs, another hit to a desperate addict.

He shivered, his skin feeling magnetic, electric, exposed and spitting sparks, his whole body a benign ulcer to the wrong-world around him, senses hacked to the nerve.

Dean panted, collapsing, still releasing a steady, thick flow of come into Castiel's exhausted, limp body.

It was a struggle of two unsuccessful attempts before Dean managed to roll them to their sides, grimacing at their mess, sticky and damp and creeping around their slowly-cooling, spent forms.

Castiel moaned and shuffled against him, unwinding into something soft and spent, as relaxed as he could manage against the hard ground.

Sighing, Dean nuzzled Castiel's throat, saturated his lungs with sated scents.

It was peaceful for a moment, cold quietness meandering into a lulled calmness that slowed Dean's heart, eased his migraine, made a home for itself in his chest.

They breathed together, and Castiel's lips were cracked and perfect against Dean's cheek, anchoring him to reality.

His fingers trailed idle patterns over the pebbles of Dean's skin, pirouetting over the peaks of his shoulder blades and swaying languidly down his spine.

The air was soft, their bodies silted by the silence, neither willing to break it

Eventually, Dean pulled back slightly, stretching a crick from his neck.

Castiel was still contracting around him beautifully, a lovely cluster of after-shocks that tempted Dean to sleep but those blue eyes were slit open and watching him with an unreadable expression and Dean was suddenly very much awake.

They were stuck like this, he realised, facing each other and embracing until the knot deflated enough for Dean to slip free and retreat to the far corner of the cell.

The familiar self-recriminations crept in like prowling vultures and snaked into his lungs, pushing out air and replacing it with shame and spiteful guilt.

Castiel was still looking at him, knowing him to his bones.

Dean wanted to close his eyes, wanted to look away in denial, in contempt of himself but what would be the point?

He knew, Castiel knew and the knot still holding them solid damn well couldn't be passed off as anything else, anything innocent.

They didn't have to do it this time, he didn't have to force his way inside Castiel like he was entitled to fuck him raw, to bounce him like a fucking sex toy on his cock, like this wasn't his friend, a fucking angel for Christ's sake.

He bristled with himself, hideous and bruised and unwilling to lick his wounds clean.

The Lilu must have been drooling at his defects, his fragility; they must have been ecstatic to have picked such a flawed specimen.

This was his choice, his weakness and now they knew as well, knew they didn't even have to lift a goddamn finger to warp him and Castiel into beasts, didn't have to taunt and trick them into tearing each other to rabid ribbons—they'd happily do it themselves.

Such obedient fucking dogs. Animals.

Wordlessly, like he could read his mind as clear as the written word, Castiel cupped a gentle hand over Dean's cheek, his thumb brushing carefully over the split, wet flesh of his bottom lip.

Dean flinched at the bright spark of pain but didn't turn away and Castiel caressed his sweat-sodden hair, wonderful hands soothing, healing without grace.

"I wanted this, Dean," Castiel said plainly, his voice fucked-out, sluggish but soft.

Dean snorted, incredulity arching his brow.

Castiel ignored him.

"Granted, the circumstances are somewhat different than I'd imagined," he continued and, whoa okay, Dean was filing that comment away for further analysis once he had the rest of his body back.

"But I've… wanted this, something like this, for a long time."

Nothing about Castiel was shy—he didn't know how to be—he just blinked up at Dean like he was explaining gravity, a fact of life.

No room in it to argue.

Maybe Dean was a coward or maybe he just didn't have the will to fight him on this but he let Castiel soften him, let him block out the wail of guilt if only just for now.

He sighed, ducked his face comfortably back into the crevice of Castiel's neck and inhaled, taking comfort in the quiet scent of wet earth and sweet mangos.

"I just wish it was different," he said after a while, the words muffled against dewy skin.

The air grew swollen with the unspoken. Deflated and sagged when it was forgotten.

Cas didn't reply, but his fingers tightened on Dean's arm and he tucked himself an inch closer. Dean knew he understood.

It was never supposed to go like this.

...

Castiel's scent changed the next day.

They knew it meant they were fucked. They also knew it meant that not escaping was no longer an option.

Every second, every discarded scrap of energy not spent on fucking or fighting or sleeping had to go on planning for a way out of here, on picking up where they'd tapered off and attacking it with a new vigour.

The demons barely drugged them anymore, only forcing the putrid liquids down Dean's gullet if they were going to take Castiel anywhere and they wanted him sedate.

Apparently he'd managed to do some damage that first time at least.

Castiel still had his heats, though, and they still lead Dean soundly into his ruts.

It made no sense; the Lilu had clearly already gotten what they wanted. Making their little dolls fuck some more wasn't going to get them anything else.

Dean decided they were just trying to keep them busy, distracted, or hell, maybe they'd just been altered so far past human that there was no stopping the freight trains of their biology anymore.

Maybe this was something they'd have to deal with for good.

For a little while, they managed to work around it, managed to settle into a routine, a rhythm, and when the cave darkened and stilled at what must have passed for night around here, Dean and Castiel would sneak from under their furs and sift through the sludge of their minds for a strategy, for options.

Dean would have taken anything at this point.

Time grew heavier when he started watching it again, languid and wounded at his back while tension coiled in his bones, made him impatient. They had a deadline now and it got closer every minute.

Their bodies and minds were still shifting too, contorting them into puppets, little more than pets, a crooked metamorphosis that showed no signs of stopping.

The donkey-boy scene in Pinocchio always scared the shit out of Dean as a kid too; living through its cousin in slow motion wasn't exactly a picnic.

Somehow it almost got harder to focus once the Lilu stopped drugging them, a struggle to grasp each second of lucidity where it dangled in front of them and hell, those bastards were probably banking on it.

All Dean had left to focus on was Cas and that was just as consuming, just as addictive as any narcotic they could pump into his system and it only got worse when they started noticing the signs, a handful of weeks after the time they chose.

The sickness came first.

Castiel spent hours caught in a cycle of nausea and vomiting, unaccustomed to illness and completely toppled over by it.

It only took a few days of this and Dean was soon reduced to a growling mess of teeth and claws, snapping at invisible assailants, watching vigilant at the mouth of their cell, daring anyone to approach him and his mate.

The rest of the time was spent softened and scared, cradling Castiel's weak form as he dry heaved, retching up whatever fluids he'd been allowed to drink.

Inflated protectiveness hunted Dean, smacking its chops, ready to devour him at any second.

He desperately hated that his mate was sick and he couldn't even break free of his cage to provide for him, to bring him the nutrients he needed to get better.

Irrational and instinctive, but at least it had him centring on getting out of there even if it was just to drag bloodied carcases back for Cas to eat.

The Lilu started bringing him morsels of what passed for food after that, apparently deciding Castiel's diet was a priority in his "delicate state".

Dean didn't know whether to be relieved or furious. Jealous that someone else was taking care of his mate, and that should have sent alarm bells ringing in and of itself.

By the time Castiel's belly started to swell, Dean barely remembered there even was a plan most of the time—one half of him stricken by terror, the other caught in awe whenever he caught sight of the softened curve of Cas' stomach, undeniable evidence of what they'd done.

An unmistakable truth

It sent him reeling, stark colours flooding his vision and striking him with polarising sentiments—horrified and guilty in the parts of his soul he knew were his own, predatory and proud of his prowess where he'd devolved.

The lines blurred and bled into each other where warmth and wonder curled pleasantly in his chest, blossoming into something possessive, able to watch Castiel grow round and plump and lovely with his child.

It was the "child" part that had the lid cracking open on his sanity, crumbling into the murky, roily waters of panicked confusion.

Castiel though, strong, durable Castiel, brought him back with his soft words and softer kisses, whispered promises of safety and vows of blood kissed into Dean's temple.

He'd draw Dean close into the cradle of deceptively fragile arms and show him the secret carvings they'd etched onto errant rocks—Enochian markings and Sumerian warding spells hidden under the straw, reminding Dean that they had purpose.

That they had a chance.

It was strange how things worked, that in the belly of this madness, Castiel seemed to have regained some of his mind, some of the stability he'd lost to the wreckage of Sam's wall.

He wasn't the boundless, indomitable creature Dean had first met a century ago in a ramshackle barn just outside of Pontiac, Illinois or the calculating soldier struggling and ruthless to win his war, but he wasn't completely cuckoo for cocoa puffs anymore either.

That was something, but still there was no immunity from the viper-fangs of their shiny-new biology.

Castiel was as much a victim as Dean, but where Dean had become more aggressive, territorial, Castiel became mellow, eased into the gentleness that had always illuminated him, submissive and willing to let Dean protect and lead him as he saw fit.

He had moments where he zoned out completely, went slack and needy, whined to get Dean's attention and only settled down once Dean was curled around him and nuzzling his face.

They didn't speak in those times.

With the skins of men discarded on the pale earth, they became simple creatures with simple needs and no use for words.

Castiel only seemed to care that Dean was warm and strong and smelled nice in a way that appealed to his baser faculties, that his body could shield him from the cold and that he had a useful knot to keep him full and happy when his hormones made him crave it.

He'd practically purr over Dean's thoughtless, impulsive displays of virility too, responding by sliding to his front and splaying his legs, his spine curving in clear invitation, a pretty arc of deliberate seduction.

Making himself desirable and presenting for Dean; a reward for his Alpha.

It was all kinds of embarrassing when they remembered it later.

Awareness still came in stints like it had at the start, but Dean knew how better to wield it now, knew to not waste his energy grappling for control when the wired rush of pheromones was running riot, knew to bide his time and wait it out so there was nothing steering away his focus when he needed to think.

Without the poison and the violence warping them, Dean could even spend the time where his grip faltered caring for Cas, which in all honesty was just as important as getting out of here, more important than ever now.

It was hard to fully admit what their reality had become, but now as Dean watched Castiel amble around the cave, a mindful hand splayed gently over the subtle swell of his middle, furs draped precariously around his waist, he couldn't pretend there wasn't a part of him that wanted it.

It was easy to chalk it up to the primal man, the animal that owned most of his days, the beast those bastards had sculpted him into but in all honesty Dean knew this was him, knew that somewhere along the winding path, he'd fallen in love with the idea.

A baby.

Impossible and unnatural and potentially grotesque, made amidst carnage and bloodshed, a rampage of flesh and primitive desires. On paper, nothing good could come of this.

If it made it through the pregnancy, his child would either be born in violence, ripped from its mother's bloody womb and whisked away into clawed paws that wanted to use it to cripple the Earth.

Or, best case scenario, it would end up the lose thread snagging its traumatised, dysfunctional parents together, the inhuman offspring of a psychotic hunter and a mangled angel.

Its life was destined to be tragic either way but…

Their baby.

How could Dean not fall in love with that?

Castiel bent down gingerly and brushed the swath on the floor aside to retrieve his stones, precious and painstakingly cultivated with the patience only an angel could muster, now that he had something to occupy himself with.

Dean himself had spent most of the time Castiel devoted to collecting and carving rocks warning shadows off his bitch, such were the pleasures of having your mind altered down to the barest neurons.

He sat up, peering over at his mate as Castiel navigated his way to Dean's side, his cheeks and eyes bright, already glowing and radiant with fertility, made even more apparent by the contrast of filthy corruption around them.

Since Dean had known him Castiel had always looked slightly awkward, his posture wound too stiff in his clunky, over-sized clothes, but somehow his body carried its new shape beautifully, filling out and gentling to swells and curves where there should have been sharp angles and jutting bones.

His skin was rosy and healthy, an odd sort of femininity about him that made too much sense and not enough at all.

Castiel crouched down, a pink slip of tongue curving over his lips in a gesture of concentration as he struggled for balance minutely, still learning how to move with the extra weight, still a little clumsy.

Dean reached out to steady him and Castiel gave him a small, almost bashful smile before his clever hands released their wealth, carefully laying out the stones on the ground.

They were quiet for a time, just taking in the fruits of their labour.

There was no way to know for sure if this would work, if they were even on the right track.

They were free wheeling, but it was better than resigning themselves to a future as damn breeding slaves for a bunch of bottom-feeder nasties long forgotten from the dusty, moth-ridden pages of ancient lore books.

Castiel was frowning, brows knitted in contemplation, observation. He glanced up at Dean.

"We're almost done," he said, whispering, idle fingers tracing the grooves of the markings.

"The wards are finished and, once activated with grace, these sigils will be strong enough to immobilise the demons for a significant period, I'm confident of that."

Dean smiled tiredly, lopsided, his head resting against the cool shale.

"Well that sounds like there's a 'but' coming," Dean said, voice thick and groggy, having recently resurfaced from one of his episodes.

Castiel's frown deepened.

"But," he relented, cautious, "I tried a spell to break the cuff sigil while you were… incapacitated."

He let out a ragged sigh, looking down at the leather band, twisting it uselessly on his wrist.

"It didn't work."

Dean's eyes fluttered closed and he reached out, resting a hand on Castiel's arm, rubbing comforting circles into smooth skin.

Quietly, disappointment and frustration eroded at his bones, his strength fraying.

Another brick wall, another trip wire.

They couldn't activate the sigils without Castiel's grace and they couldn't access Castiel's grace without deactivating a sigil.

Awesome.

"Well, did you say it right?"

Dean swore he actually felt Castiel's glare slice into him this time, a menacing glint illuminating his eyes. He huffed, pursing his lips.

"There's gotta be something we're missing," Dean said, irritation edging and tugging at his tone.

He surveyed the rocks, scrutinising the depressions and trenches on their faces like he might just stumble on the answer, but they gave nothing away.

He growled in annoyance, fingers clenching, turning his knuckles pale.

"There's no way these sons of whores have the smarts to trap us in this kind of catch-22, Cas."

Castiel nodded. He didn't even pause to question Dean's pop culture references anymore, finding them pointless and annoying to try and decipher, occasionally declaring this to Dean.

"Maybe blood," Castiel said, wondering aloud.

Dean hissed viciously, the wrong-protectiveness surging in him in white flares, filing him instantly away into caveman mode where he was allowed to beat his chest and roar like a wild thing at the idea of any of Castiel's blood being spilt.

Cas all but rolled his eyes.

"Just a small amount," he said.

Reassuring, calm. He knew all the tricks now.

"They had to have sealed the sigil with something. Human blood is one of the most powerful substances, more so when infused with grace. It could work."

Dean sighed, his eyes flicking downwards, tracing the cracks on the brittle ground.

Castiel reached out, threading his fingers through Dean's, weaving them just right and squeezing.

He missed the sun, Dean realised, the lazy kiss of yellow heat sprawling across the sky, fragrant air coaxing him out of his hiding holes, dusty beaded dew lapping at his bare ankles.

He'd do anything to see Castiel's face haloed in daylight again.

"We have to try," Castiel said, shattering the silence.

His thumb swept over the knob of Dean's wrist, a gentle, needful gesture.

These fingers could crush Dean's bones to dust but instead they cradled him, curled loose and vulnerable, resting over Dean's pulse like they were afraid they might lose it if they strayed too far.

These fingers told their stories, made their pleas in every touch, every compulsive brush of skin; I need you.

Dean exhaled and nodded, his lips pressed into a thin seam to quieten the little dolent sounds spieling in his chest.

He looked up eventually, finding wet blue eyes blinking at him, pleading.

"I know," Dean said, shuffling closer to Castiel, seeking his heat.

Castiel came easy, sinking back into the web of Dean's arms, sheltered and safe under their weight.

Dean's lips brushed over the bumps of Castiel's ropey spine, the long, sweeping column of his neck as he buried his nose into the thick dark hair thatching a graceful nape.

He flooded his lungs, saturating himself comfortably in the familiar scent, happy when it inspired welcome security to settle in his chest instead of snatching him with unwanted, crippling arousal.

You could never be sure which way it was going to go.

Castiel's head tilted backwards, the cold tip of his nose pressed to the hollow of Dean's throat and Dean felt compelled to draw him tighter, warm him up.

His arms wove around Castiel's waist and then, after a beat of hesitation, his hand wandered curiously over the swelling mound of his belly, matching its curve with his palm and stroking gently, in wonder.

Castiel sighed, a small, pleased puff of air as his hand laced around Dean's, resting naturally atop his gravid stomach.

It felt right to hold Castiel like this, to replace the empty spaces between them with skin and warmth, to render them a cluster of easy limbs and unhurried, unheated touches.

To be able to slip his arms around Castiel and feel where the jutting architecture of sharp bones and lean muscles became plump and round, sweeping into the softness where Dean's child was nestled.

To be able to close his eyes and imagine that little, impossible life growing, kicking under his hand.

To breathe in and smell home.

His throat tightened, emotion roughening, seasoning his voice. Lost in the space between heartbeats.

"Our baby won't be born in Purgatory," Dean said, asserted, feeling it to the marrow.

He'd twisted so many truths over the years, worn confidence like a mask when the world was crumbling around him and his brother needed a pep talk to make it to the next morning, but this wasn't the same.

There was no bravado here, nothing tinted a rose colour. There was no choice.

Their baby would not be born in Purgatory.

Air caught in Castiel's throat loudly, an audible hitch snagged on a wet sound and it plucked a dull panging from Dean's chest.

He nodded, a wispy mound of unruly hair tickling against Dean's cheek and then he was turning in Dean's arms, finding his eyes.

Wordlessly, Castiel's head pitched backwards in supple trust, extending the smooth length of his neck in a deliberate display of needy submission, laying himself bare at Dean's feet.

It was a helpless, polluted pantomime—mutated instincts that were never natural but felt natural now, felt like the obvious thing to do, just as it felt like the most normal thing in the world for Dean to bend forward, to nuzzle the wise, iron column of Castiel's throat and take his teeth to it, to bite and clamp down, to mark Castiel as his.

Claimed—both of them—just as they needed.

They stayed like that for a while, wrapped up in each other and unwilling to move, an indistinguishable helix of skin, but the shadows rarely left them alone for long.

Soon the foul, putrid stench of the rot, of burnt sulphur slithered and wriggled through the cell, as though it could smell the tenuous peace on them and wanted it gone, replaced by the cancer of fear.

Rusty orange flame quavered at the maw of the cave, gutting the passing sanctuary of their embrace and yanking them apart, bisected and tense on bare feet as disjointed, hissing voices flooded the air, made it electric, the taste of the storm.

They were coming.

Castiel scrambled for his stones, his heart thundering so loud Dean swore he could hear it as he whipped around, already hurtling to the bars and getting in between Cas and the incoming threat, ready to throw himself down if necessary.

His knees and feet were grazed and dashed, the uneven, coarse ground not meant for quick, jolting movements but it was secondary, easily ignored, and instead he gripped the metal bars, steeling himself for attack.

The scaled, grey faces rounded the corner with their mangled grins and serpentine tongues and headed right towards them, the walls crawling with their arrival, sharpened to a point.

Dean's eyes narrowed and Purgatory turned over in its sleep.

His chest was aching with the pounding of his heart but Dean was ready to fight, ready to tear tendons and sinews from meat to stop them getting to his family.

Castiel didn't have to be told to get back, finishing hiding his stones and tucking himself in against the fur blankets, curling up as small and unassuming as Dean had made him promise he would.

It wasn't that Dean didn't think Castiel could defend himself; he was a warrior, an ancient force of nature bound to a simple human shell.

He could fight as much as Dean could and then some, but "bound" wasn't a misnomer.

Right now, he was graceless and vulnerable, weakened and carrying another life inside his too fragile body; it wasn't just Castiel they had to protect anymore.

Dean was glad Cas hadn't argued about it and the protests he'd had at first were quietened when Dean pointed out he was their kid's only hope of survival in the long run.

They needed to keep him safe.

Castiel was a stubborn, reckless of a bitch when it came to his own safety—too hell-bent on penance and self-flagellation for his sins—so the trick was to convince him it was a sacrifice, atonement found in sheltering himself for another.

It always had to be for someone else in Castiel's book, and Dean wasn't above pandering to its pages when he had to.

Sketchy and a little manipulative at best, sure, but Castiel was too important to risk losing on the snare of his own defective guilt.

"Ah, awake I see," the demon Dean knew to be the leader said, slicing through the stand-off.

It leered at them with that mock-fondness that had anger lurching white-hot in Dean's blood, made him want to bend the bars in front of him and wrap them around its neck.

"And ready to greet us, how sweet."

It smiled, sneered at him. Dean could picture himself holding its tongue, still warm and wriggling and bloodied in his hand.

"Yeah, sorry, chuckles," Dean said, sharpening his gaze, as impenetrable as his daddy had taught him to be, "We don't feel like playing today."

The demon's face twisted into an expression like if it had eyebrows they'd be arching to humour him, its deformed mouth coiled into a slack shape of faux-surprise.

"Oh?" it said, a laugh needled into the note, a tsk slashing from its tongue. "A shame, really. I'd so love to see how well you could cooperate."

They crept closer, loomed towards the cage and Dean tensed, locked and became granite. A man preparing for a melee with the Tempest.

"No matter," it continued, circling and stalking the cell, unhurried in its leisure to strike its prey. It wasn't going anywhere after all.

"Soon enough you'll be completely docile. Another few months and you won't even flinch." Dean growled, his lips curling and baring his teeth, shoulders squaring, ready to show them how docile he was.

It snorted, shaking its head with a familiarity that had nausea roiling in Dean's gut, the stench of its breath hot and repugnant, decaying the air.

"But we're not here for you," it said plainly, its slitted eyes fixing on Castiel like the fatal crunch of a twig before the predator attacked.

Dean was suddenly very aware of the harrowed gulf between him and his mate, feeling every inch of it like a knife to his spine, wanting desperately to close the distance.

"We want to see how our pretty breeder's doing."

"Don't you even fucking look at him," Dean said, a vivid red snarl heralding his intent, clawed fists held like weapons at his sides.

"I swear to God, I will rip your heart out."

The demon looked distinctly unimpressed, almost bored as it glanced back at its pals, flicking a long claw in Cas' general direction.

"I have no doubt you'll try," it said, its tone hollowed, apparently done humouring Dean, "But we have no use for hearts."

The other demons stepped forward, and the bars were gone.

There was barely enough time for Dean to react to Castiel shouting his name before they were barrelling into him, seizing him with razor talons and filthy hands, uncompromising strength keeping him aloft like a rag doll held in their jaw.

He wasn't as slow at the first time though, having purchase of his faculties now, his feet steady on the ground and the advantage of shock and surprise stripped from them.

He managed to get a few decent punches in before they grabbed hold of his wrists but he didn't make it easy after that either, thrashing and kicking, snapping out viscerally, no drugs or bonds to make him the limp, tame thing they wanted.

Their grip on the upper hand was unwavering though and Dean's mindless will to win, to protect was easily overcome by the brutal force of sheer strength and quickly Dean found himself bound like a hog and squirming against scaly manacles, adamantine hands fish-hooking him still.

Apparently confident that Dean's hissing and spitting and cursing meant he was sufficiently subdued, the other demon backed off and strolled over to Castiel who was already on his feet, furious and about to pounce.

"Get away from him!" Dean snarled, writhing like a mad man, the flesh chains locking him down tight.

Castiel fought just as hard, just as futility as Dean, but he was grabbed and whisked out of the cell so quick it left Dean reeling with rage and the gravel-over-glass pull of debilitating fear.

The demons were gentler with Cas though, careful in that detached, clinical way that had his blood freezing over and fragmenting.

Dean was expecting Castiel to be hauled kicking and screaming out of the alcove, to that secret place he came back forgetting each time, but the demons veered to the left, taking Castiel over to the leather bench in the eye of the cave and Dean's heart was collared in his chest.

His breath stuttered, arrested and snagged like a stray wire in his throat, his eyes wide and feral with the nightmare-memories of that first day, a stampede of dread and spitting horror turning him to stone.

Castiel cried out, an outraged, panicked sound ringing in Dean's ears as they ripped the furs from his body and pushed him to all fours over the bench.

Dean ignited, adrenaline rioting in his veins as he jammed the point of his elbow into the demon's rib cage, jerking and contorting in a frenzy, lightheaded with the rapidity of his pulse.

It went all but unnoticed and Dean wanted to scream, to froth and foam because this was not happening again, itwasn'titwasn't.

He watched with terror etched bright over his pupils as Castiel crumpled to the leather, the pressure at his back too much where the demons held him down, positioned and twisted him as they pleased, so easy, so fucking effortless.

Castiel squirmed and wriggled as they strapped him in, his muscles jumping and straining against his bonds.

Dean felt it like acid to the flesh, could smell it like a livid, open wound in the air.

The salty, coppery scent of fear.

The leader lurked, delighted at the sidelines, peering down at Castiel like you would a pet.

Castiel snarled, the submissive, placid creature Dean had nuzzled into earlier nowhere to be found.

This was the blood lust of the heats distorted, repackaged and made corrosive, the righteous fury of an Angel of the Lord held barely shackled to a leather band.

The creature smiled at him. Dean wondered if it knew it had signed its own death certificate.

"Hormones?" it asked, jeering and provoking like this was the funniest thing in the world.

Its frigid, hawkish eyes skimmed over the new curves of Castiel's body, ignoring the glare boring into its skull.

"You're getting big. I knew the hunter had it in him." It turned its head, winked at Dean.

"I bet it feels good doesn't it? Being so swollen, bred so full?"

Castiel's face turned against the bench, flushed, cheeks aflame, but Dean knew it wasn't humiliation that had him colouring, knew he wasn't a native to embarrassment.

This was anger and it was boiling over.

"We picked you out specially, you know. We knew you'd be the perfect bitch."

The demon slithered around Castiel, its finger trailing noxious, unwelcome paths up the steps of Castiel's spine and every part of Dean recoiled because it had no right.

"This is your destiny, little breeder," it bleated on, as relentless and taunting as usual, "You're going to be making nephilim for us for a long time."

It skulked behind Castiel's body, crouched and spread his legs dispassionately, undeterred by Castiel's jerking, the way his legs strained together, his knees bending and straightening to dislodge the offending hands.

Dean felt blistering hatred prickle behind his eyes. He felt murderous.

"Get off of him! Don't you touch him!"

His voice was hardly human anymore, a shrill, guttural clamour stretched tight around the gravelly cadence of a growl.

It hurt to speak, his throat stringing as though he'd dry swallowed a handful of needles and it wasn't as though the demons were listening to him but he couldn't just check out, he couldn't just do nothing.

Dean was frantic, red staining his vision, winding through his arteries and bleeding him dry with the crippling need to protect his mate from this assault, rage stabbing him in hot pokers, a rampage of bright pain shaving at his heart.

Everything about this was wrong, monstrous. Something only this cesspit could have puked out.

Filthy, jagged claws parted Castiel's cheeks, spreading him wide and vulnerable, and despair clawed at Dean's chest.

Castiel trembled, fear shading his face, making him look gaunt and sallow.

It was wrong, the emotion still so foreign and clumsy to see on his face, an aberration.

Oh, he'd seen Castiel scared plenty but never for his life, even if it was there only to protect their unborn child.

The demon made a sharp sound of intrigue, studying the crevices and seams of Castiel's body, inspecting the effects of the potions and rituals.

It was frowning, concentrating, observing its lab rat.

Dean was certain he'd never hated with this much intensity in his life and he'd done his fair share of hating.

A long nail dragged its way down over Castiel's balls, over the furled, pink skin where his sac had withered and shrunk slightly, the flesh puckering in a way that had worried Dean when he'd first spotted it.

Any new signs of further modification sprouting over their bodies were never good and Dean had learned to dread them.

Castiel shuddered and let out a quiet sob, so broken and small.

Dean all but dismantled, something hot and itchy and wet peppering his eyes.

"Your birthing hole's coming along well," the demon commented absently, too engrossed in poking and prodding at Castiel's junk.

It lifted its lizard-eyes, grinning in a crescent-moon show of yellowed fangs at the back of Castiel's head.

"You'll be a true bitch, soon. Able to whelp as much as you're able to be bred."

Dean's fingers clenched, shred his palms slick, nails piercing the flesh.

The demon snapped up to look at him, as though he could smell the blood. A leech.

A fucking parasite.

It chuckled.

"I bet you can't wait for her to open up, can you Dean?" It flashed its teeth at him, hungry, spiteful. Loving every second of this.

Castiel's muscles spasmed and quailed as the creature fingered over the cleft of his body, a membrane that would eventually welt and part.

Some hacked imitation of a vagina, Dean realised, feeling queasy.

"Maybe she'll get wide enough that you can fuck her in her new hole next time. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Dean seethed, chest heaving, teeth grinding but he could do little more than scowl and fester in rancour. Wait it out.

The demon's face quirked at his silence, its head tilting curiously to the left and staring at Dean as though he was some fascinating anomaly. Good. More attention on him meant less on Cas.

"No?" it said, like Dean had an option in any of this. "But our little breeding slut here would love a nice big cock splitting open her new virgin cunt, I'm sure."

Dean drew blood from his lip, sprayed like viscera with a low growl. Castiel had been a virgin and now that word lay defiled and pillaged in the mud, spoils of a war waged in flesh and sweat.

The demon knew that, chose its language like weapons that could cut the deepest wounds, deliberate and pitiless, spineless.

It patted Cas once, twice—a palm slapped on the swell of his ass the way you might with a horse, a cow. Cattle.

It huffed.

"But there's time for that, yet."

It got to its feet again, wreathing its fingers around a crank mechanism and winding it, elevating the bench a few inches.

"We need to check the rest of her progress."

Ducking down slightly, its eyes crawled over Castiel's exposed, shivering body, ignoring the Hellfire flaring in his gaze.

It snaked its hands around Castiel's torso grabbing his chest and cupping the swells of his tender breasts, pinching and squeezing at the reddened peaks of his nipples, drawing out a pained scrape of air from Castiel's lips.

They were sore, Dean knew, sensitive and new and heavy with the changes switching the wires in his body.

In a quieter moment, Castiel had admitted they ached almost shyly and he'd allowed it when Dean moved to take them in his palms to work the tissue, arching pleasantly into the dish of Dean's wide hands and the relief they gave.

Now Castiel's spine was drawn in, arcing away, gasping to avoid the torture biting at his chest, his breath strangled around collapsed, formless whines.

He was hurt, in danger and Dean had to watch it happen, a demented voyeur pinned to the sidelines like a mounted butterfly, frantic in a killing jar.

Dean saw the deranged line of the Lilu's lips skewer themselves into another grin as he swore and spat, his bones cracking and creaking where he writhed, willing to snap himself in two to get to Castiel.

"Look how soft and pretty you've gotten already," it said, swiping and pulling at the pebbled, achy buds, culling garbled noises in bright, livid colours from Castiel's lips, bursting like blisters in the bloated air.

"Such a lovely little mother you are, growing so big for us."

Its fingers kept kneading, jostling the bulk of Castiel's chest, pale skin peeling away in shavings where its uncaring claws caught and snagged.

The red that speckled Castiel's breasts became the only thing Dean could see, his vision a deluge.

"You'll be in milk soon," the demon said, proud, jiggling the swollen flesh like a prize in its paws.

"It will be wonderful; laden tits heavy and aching, desperate for mouths to attach and relieve the pressure."

It pinched Castiel's red nipple, just to hear him cry out in agony, to hear Dean seethe in rage.

"And when your womb finally opens and you nurse, you'll be captive to your vessel, a slave to your young, desperate to be bred again."

"I am going to kill you, do you hear me?" Dean said, voice ragged but the room started to spin and his stomach dropped.

His insides roiled with the first sleazy prickles of rut, logging his senses with the bold, bellowing vapour of aborted arousal, an ugly string of notnownotnow knotting his thoughts.

He didn't know if his mindless body was just reacting robotically to the sight of Cas bent over and presenting like this, but the pheromones were already setting in fast, already preparing to warp him into some Freudian nightmare and Castiel was relying on him.

"We're gonna get out of here and when we do, you're all going to die bloody," Dean gasped, stammering, but his words were stern. He wouldn't be defeated by this, not again.

His eyes, foggy things, locked onto the demon's, a promise lighting the muggy green.

"You last."

It snorted, but something in its wan gaze flickered, a shadow just there briefly but there and Dean felt adrenaline flood his veins, uncorking the satisfying taste of accomplishment, loud and vivid on his tongue.

That's right you son of a bitch; I'm coming for you.

"Your persistence is somewhat admirable," it said, glancing away, a cowl of disinterest veiling its face but Dean already knew what it looked like.

"But your aggression is pointless. Months have slipped by you and yet you're still in chains."

It looked up at him then, the crackle of ozone before a downpour, two carnivores circling each other around a mauled corpse.

"We've been wondering where this mighty hunter we've heard so much about is." Its head cocked to the side, still abusing Castiel's breasts.

"Perhaps we neutered you along with giving you a big boy cock."

The other demons hissed a laugh, mocking, but Dean's eyes were all on Cas, the scent of daily heat already throbbing in his skull.

Focus.

Castiel's lips parted wide and wet around a stuttered wail, an anguished noise rattling out of him like a buzzsaw through bone.

His head reared back in rusty agony, all eyes on him and Dean wanted to slither out of his skin, to rive open his rib cage for Castiel to climb inside, cradled safe next to his heart.

His stomach flipped and his mind raced, dredged for reason in the swamp of hormones, sinking like quicksand and spinning.

What was wrong? Why was Castiel hurt? Was it the baby?

He was ready to call out to him but then the demon was pulling its hand back from Castiel's chest and spreading its fingers open, observing.

Its frown quickly parted into a wide grin that looked too much like triumph.

Dean's eyes rounded in shock, taking in the slickness glinting over its claws, his first instinct howling wildly that it was blood but when he looked back to Castiel, Dean could see small, white droplets leaking at his heaving chest, foreign shame staining his cheeks.

The demon all but preened. It was practically giddy.

"What a good little breeder we have!" It announced, scuffing up Castiel's hair and laughing its hollow laugh.

"Look at you, milking so soon, so desperate to be a good bitch for us, aren't you?"

Castiel's glare was a beautiful thing, his neck craning up in a long, lovely stretch of defiance.

He panted, so close to his heat, twisted with hurt—tormented, pained but never beaten.

"Go… fuck… yourself," Castiel said, hissing through ragged breaths.

Dean's heart swelled, pride bursting in him because that was his Cas.

The demon tsked, its eyes slitting to Dean.

"I see you haven't taught your bitch manners yet," it said, chiding. "We'll have to put her in training, teach her some respect."

It flicked Castiel's tit in punishment, just to watch him jerk and yowl out and then it was waving his hand forward, its minions flocking around like buzzards.

"Take her back to the cell. We have what we need."

Dean tensed again, straining against the demon binding his arms as the others removed Castiel from his restraints and hoisted him up.

He slumped in their grip, limp and brutalised, road kill, but he let his feet drag and kick against the sandy floor, stubborn spite telling him not to make it simple for them.

Dean heard a tutting sound.

"You should both show us some gratitude," the leader said tersely, straightening its grimy, fraying robes, "The bitch is already pregnant; it's not necessary for you to be together anymore."

Dean felt bile burn in the back of his throat, the suggestion of Castiel being taken away from him terrifying, infuriating.

The threat that boiled on his lips was lost to a slur of breath, the world around him slanting, tremoring, his groin responding to the call of Castiel's heady scent filling the air.

"Maybe we should keep her with us, keep us entertained until she's whelped and ready for breeding again."

It was ogling again, raking its eyes over Castiel's body, its words sodden and grotesque.

"It would certainly be interesting to make use of this pregnant slut of an angel. Pass her cunt around like a party favour."

Dean roared, slaughtering the sound of mocking laughter, tossing viciously in the demon's grasp, reduced to a mass of clashing teeth and whiplash fists.

The cell bars were yanked open again and Castiel was thrown in, his knees buckling to the floor immediately, gasping and crumpling at the waist.

"Cas!"

Dean launched himself at him again only this time, the creature let him go.

The hunter in Dean wanted to spin around and pounce with his teeth bared, wanted to attack, but Castiel was a trembling heap on the ground and there really was no choice at all.

The gate slammed shut as Dean leapt to Castiel's side, catching him when he wavered, toppled.

The demons were still gathered around, jeering and taunting but Dean wasn't even paying attention now, could blot out their bleating, shrill voices in the din of Castiel's heartbeat, the loud hammering against his fingertips; a hymnal.

Mate, safe.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Dean was frantic, the whispered cadence of his words harsh and rasped as he checked Castiel over, hissing at the welts on his chest and covering them with his palm.

Castiel whimpered, his hand clutching Dean's shoulder.

His skin was clammy and Dean could feel the heat radiating from him in droves.

"Dean."

Castiel's voice was quiet but urgent, his fingers clenching around Dean's arm. Dean shushed him, pushed damp curls from his forehead.

"I know."

He understood.

They didn't have long before their bodies would unlatch and shuttle them into little more than copulating snakes, and Dean wasn't prepared to do this with an audience.

Not again.

He whirled his head towards the Lilu, barbed and unraveling fast.

"Leave," Dean snarled.

They'd taken so much already, these parasites that wanted the world. They weren't allowed to steal this as well.

"Or," the leader said, a challenge tugging at its mouth, "We could stay for the show."

Dean wanted to get to his feet, wrench at the gate and wage a doomed war but the threadbare, rational part of him murmured that it was pointless, that they'd already lost.

Something was winding in him, a tension eager to reach its boiling point, and he couldn't tell if it was rage or rut, fear or lust but it was gutting him, a crude, useless ulcer that would infect his mind and spoil his blood. Something fanged and thirsty, ready to suck him dry.

It would overwhelm, ravage and when it was done, Castiel was next, ready to pass the torch.

And the demons were all gathered for the Donkey Show.

Fucking spectacular.

Castiel shivered, swayed and Dean didn't have enough hands to keep him upright, scuttling to take his bulk but he slipped, gasped and the force of his scent slammed into Dean like an eighteen-wheeler.

He choked, Castiel arching in his grip as the demons cheered, all but toasting each other outside the cell.

Castiel's nails gouged into Dean's arm, clinging on like he was the last hook grounding him to reality, but it was a losing game.

He shuddered again, his body rippling, lurching and Dean's hand, wet and bloodied, slapped to clutch his wrist, the last leg of support before they crumbled.

Dean barely had time to shut his eyes.

Whiteness swallowed the room.

A glare of bright light prickling at his eyelids, gauging the darkness, a cloud of debris.

Blinding. Immense.

At first Dean thought it was him, sure the pressure inside had finally burst him open, popped his skin and consumed him whole, but then there was screaming.

Howling.

Notes of agony, high-pitched violins wailing into the ether.

Then silence; long, long silence.

Dean blinked open prickly eyes, peering through the haze, dizzied and confused.

The leather band fell like a gavel to the ground.

Scattered like ash, and breath was squeezed out of the room

Dean stared, shocked at the pale, narrow, bare slip of Castiel's wrist, the empty hum of quietness announcing the demons—the ones who still had eyes left in their sockets—were doing the same.

Silence, stillness, walked a tightrope for a beat. Two.

Then it snapped.

Castiel erupted. A storm of righteous fury and brutal rage barrelling out of the cell, barely a blur of peachy skin as demons crumpled like paper dolls one by one, no time to flee.

Utter turmoil and absolute beauty.

Dean was frozen, watching the slaughter, the cull of filth, his heart pummeling his ribs and pumping satisfaction into his veins.

Castiel was the hurricane now.

He charged, a hand held out in front of him like a weapon, conducting a goddamn symphony of wavering death-cries and stuttered, aborted snarls.

Yanked out of his trance, Dean struggled to his feet, the haze in his mind billowing but ebbing as adrenaline pumped through him, took precedence.

He stumbled out of the cell, no thought given to freedom or rationed to relief. This wasn't over yet.

"Cas!"

Instinct took over, the kind that belonged to him, swam in his blood. These were monsters, and he was a Winchester.

A glint of silver sliced the air and Dean span around, catching the angel sword smoothly and embedding it in the soil of a demon's chest, scraping its lungs and twisting.

He watched surprise crawl across its marred face before it crackled and burned out, a charred shell skewered like old meat. Dean's mouth twitched.

"Thought you had no use for hearts?" he said, the weight of a weapon in his hand like coming home.

He wheeled around again, drowsy and heavy but poised to fight.

All he saw were bodies, blackened and empty and strewn over the cave floor trailing behind Castiel like the sweetest breadcrumb trail Dean had ever seen.

The warding stones they'd spent so long carving and perfecting lay forgotten under the straw, an unnecessary distraction, redundant. They only ever needed Cas.

Dean was panting, exhausted by months of inactivity and quickly siphoning into the flurry of pheromones but Castiel was static, iron-straight and immeasurable, holding the squalling, wriggling form of the Lilu's leader by its neck, pinning it to the wall with a shaded glare.

Dean's breath caught in his throat and he edged forward, anticipation a spring in his spine.

"You're too late," the demon sneered, but Dean saw the same shadow from before cowering in its eyes, a grey film fogging over the noxious green. Fear.

It knew it was dead before it had even hit the ground.

"You're already part of out plan. You're already a bitch."

Dean saw Castiel's eyes narrow to slits and he shivered, thorny chills winding through his vertebrae.

Castiel's hand snapped forward like a viper and latched onto the demon's skull.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, dangerous, lethal.

Light crept through the demon's skin, illuminating it like mesh, a membrane exposing black veins and burnt-orange electricity spitting in its head.

Taking its time, a sweet torture.

"Which of us is the bitch?"

Brightness forked the room and the demon slumped to the floor, empty. Dead.

Just like that.

Dean couldn't let himself breathe, couldn't let his shoulders slump. Over. It was over.

He was frigid, unmoving, eyes glued to the singed body at Castiel's feet.

Hormones still rumbled in him, blurring and distorting the edge of his vision but he couldn't even fold to them, couldn't shift a muscle

Over.

Distantly, Dean felt fingers, soft as his temple, stroking his hairline.

A pleasant, familiar warmth tingled through him and then the roar of chemicals searing his arteries was quiet, the dizziness lifted, the demons' spell in tatters around him.

He blinked at Castiel, finding wide, sage eyes peering patiently, almost apologetically back at him.

Dean couldn't stop staring.

He couldn't stop taking in the sight, the artistry of Castiel lit up in torch light: the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones, the lines and wrinkles scored over his skin, the pink slope of his bowed lips parted just barely.

The wise blue of his eyes, bright, so bright with grace.

"Dean."

That was it.

He strode forward in two long steps and wrenched Castiel into a hug, crushing him against his body.

Castiel sagged into it, his arms slipping around Dean and clinging onto him, cheek pressed firmly into the crook of his neck as he shook in his grip.

Dean's eyes stung, vision blurring with moisture and he couldn't stop the sob from bubbling past his lips, didn't want to.

He was as wet and raw as the day he was born, and he'd survived.

They both had, and Dean wept his relief into Castiel's shoulder, clutching the back of his head, the dip of his waist.

Over.

They didn't move for a long time, so much of the past few months a blur, a smeared cycle of the same dazed minutes repeated until their bodies were sore and wrung out.

Now, they just wanted to stop, to touch, to take their time.

To reassure themselves this was in fact real, that they'd won.

Castiel trembled in his hold and Dean couldn't stop his hand from gravitating to the curve of Cas' belly even if he'd wanted to, a mindless need to check it was still there, that they hadn't lost this, left it behind in the skirmish.

He couldn't know for sure until Castiel's fingers thread though his, resting atop his bump like a benediction, a truth. When he felt their weight, Dean let himself exhale.

He hadn't known he was holding his breath.

He kissed the crown of Castiel's head softly, very softly—like he was afraid to leave bruises—and just listened to him breathe for a moment.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Steady, constant and wonderful.

His fingers stroked over Castiel's neck, pattering to meet the tapping of his pulse, checking and rechecking, unable to stop touching.

It seemed to be the same for Castiel, though his hands were more clumsy, heavy, dragging over Dean's back and neck indelicately, greedily.

Dean didn't mind, not a lick, just pressed into him and let Castiel take his fill, let him reaffirm they'd made it.

"Let's get out of here," Dean whispered after a wide while, not trusting himself to say anything more. He didn't know if he'd start weeping again.

Castiel nodded a fraction against Dean's cheek and silently withdrew.

They gathered what little supplies they could find and wrapped their bared bodies in their furs and the demons' robes, eager to never see this prison again.

They found their clothes in an alcove, pinned up like trophies on sticks and as they left, Dean pushed over every torch they passed, flames unfurling on the ground.

When they stepped out into the bitter air and the thick forest, it was with entwined hands and silent minds.

The catacombs burned bright and unmistakable behind them—an Omen.

They were back.

...

They wandered for a long time, treading leaves and dirt for hours just because they could, because even the insipid, polluted air of Purgatory's forests was something new and glorious to their ashen lungs, the miles of thick foliage gleaming like freedom in front of their eyes.

It was still a cage—just a wider arena, but the muscles in Dean's legs were joyful, burning happily with the old-faithful stretch.

He lead them down ribbons of meandering, weathered tracks, pausing every so often to check on Castiel and to touch the soil.

When the dry earth grew wet, muddied at the edges, Dean veered them off into the trees and the quiet babbling of water trickled at his ears, the most amazing sound.

Castiel declared the water safe and they bathed themselves and their clothes quickly and efficiently, unwilling to be caught vulnerable again.

The river ran clear and silver around their hips, tears of the red earth, weeping, bleeding into bellows; loud, roily carols.

It spilled over Castiel's body, illuminating him in soft whites and pale blues, a canvas painted into a mirage of fragility, beautiful in the false-moonlight.

They stepped from the water when they were clean and wrinkly, baptised, and when Castiel suggested they make camp near the bank it didn't take much coaxing for Dean to agree.

Castiel needed to rest. His grace was weakened, depleted by the sudden discharge of stifled energy and never in the best state to begin with.

Neither of them wanted to push it—they had no idea how long his fragile reserves would last and the extra bulk Castiel carried with him wasn't helping any.

Dean wanted him settled and warm, recuperating.

He set a fire.

Castiel had frowned, disapproval knotting his brow, but he didn't say anything.

Smoke and light were beacons in this place, a shrill flare bursting into the onyx sky and screaming look, I'm here, come and eat me!

They'd adapted quickly when they'd first gotten here, establishing rules and sticking to them like marines—one of the most important of them being "no fires".

They'd gotten caught anyway.

This time Dean was vigilant, hyper-aware of every snap of a branch, every crick of a stumbling stone, every light piercing the thick fog, his hand coiled tight around the firm metal of an angel's blade.

All the fanged nasties with a meal ticket could try their luck at him for all the good it would do.

Nothing was getting to his mate.

Dean sighed, blinking dust from his eyes.

He shuffled his weight to the centre, casting a look back at where Castiel was curled up near the fire, wrapped up in the animal hides and watching the dark patches of moisture fade from his trench coat.

He had to stop thinking of Castiel like that.

Mate.

It was a word planted and birthed by an invasion of artificial chemicals and hormones, a word designed to make him something less than human, something hungry and vicious and animal.

A word he couldn't shake.

Castiel had assured him the Lilu's spell had been purged from their bodies, the corruption of the heat and the rut obliterated in a single touch of grace.

Their bodies, their minds were their own again and they didn't have to worry about a fever made of lust striking them down and making animals of them every few hours.

He shouldn't still have been having these thoughts, these rumbling basal urges that growled commands that he protect, provide, keep his mate safe at all costs.

Dean didn't know how to voice his worries but they weren't the only elephant in Purgatory anyway.

Dean had itched and ached to know about their bodies and the changes that had been stitched into their biology, to know if they were healing, if they'd go back to normal.

Castiel had cautiously admitted he wasn't sure what the effects of reversing the changes would be, if it could damage the baby or make it impossible to deliver safely without the necessary adjustments.

If his body would fight and struggle to expel the invader, a foreign parasite leeching off his being.

Dean's had stomach recoiled, twisting into foul clenches but it made sense; Castiel's vessel was never equipped to carry a kid and taking away what was enabling it to could be a disaster, but…

What did that have to do with Dean?

It felt selfish and ugly and Dean's cheeks had heated in shame at the thought.

He should have wanted to stick this out with Cas, to suffer right alongside him, but a quiet, ragged part of him wanted his body back, wanted these deformed, misshapen defects gone from his skin.

How could he be his own man again when a demon's brand was woven like a manacle into his flesh?

He'd opened his mouth to ask, but Castiel's down-turned eyes and flushed cheeks told Dean all he needed to know.

Castiel just didn't have the juice left in him to do it.

Dean had blinked at him for a moment, then he'd swallowed, flexed his jaw and moved on.

There was no sense in putting this on Cas and his willingness to accept the blame for anything that went wrong in the world, in making him think this was his fault as well.

He'd done what he could and Dean would deal with the rest.

He had no other choice.

Castiel looked up at him, his lips tugging up slightly, eyes clear for once. Dean smiled back.

"You okay over there?"

Dean watched Castiel's gaze flicker to the starless sky, sweeping over the muggy hues and cording spirals of mist almost peacefully, like he could easily be counting clouds on a hot day.

"Yes."

Dean felt something in him soften, unwind.

Following suit, he tipped his head back slightly and filled his lungs with free air, blinking up at the night, but it wasn't the dense, pulsating black he remembered from before.

It was lighter, somehow, more of an early morning grey than anything else, a slate ceiling mottled with flecks of bruised purples and needling into a deep, deep blue.

Dean frowned.

He didn't know whether to be unsettled or not.

His eyes found Castiel's face again, watching a pink slip of tongue curling over his lips, wetting the cracks and the peace from a moment ago had been replaced by confusion etched in little lines between his eyebrows.

Dean wondered if he was noticing the sky as well.

He didn't have time to wonder too long though. There was a crunch of leaves, as loud as a gunshot and Dean was whirling around, his body steeled to fight.

A man stood under the shroud of trees opposite their camp, willowy and sharp, crouching himself into angles, a desperate animal.

His skin was rotten, hanging in decaying sags off his bones and as he neared, Dean could see long, bony needles protruding from its wrist. Wraith.

It growled, brown teeth bared and Dean tightened his grip on the blade, but before he could attack, it stilled. Silenced.

Its yellowed, anaemic eyes were round, huge, stricken things and they were looking right past Dean.

Honed in on Castiel.

"Matka," it whispered.

Dean saw its head roll to the floor before he even heard the crunch of bone.

Its body spasmed then collapsed, the gleam of some kind of axe embedded in a tree behind it the only clue of what just happened.

Dean's spun around, alarms ringing livid and coppery in his skull.

Another man, this time bulkier, stepped forward slowly, hands splayed out at his sides; placating.

His posture was tentative, guarded, as though he hadn't just decapitated a monster from fifteen feet away. Deceptive, then.

Dean straightened up.

"Who the hell are you?" His voice was low, dangerous, a sharp demand rumbling from his chest.

He held the angel blade out at an angle, hearing Castiel rustle to his feet behind him, a solid line of defence.

The guy held his hands up.

"Someone whose best interests happen to align with yours."

The stranger's eyes fell on Castiel, sloping into something indecipherable before he shook his head and whatever it was disappeared again, like it had never been there to begin with.

"That right?" Dean said, raising the sword a fraction, "Your interests happen to involve sitting on this?"

The man snorted, his head tilting forward in concession to something. Hopefully not assplay.

"Name's Benny," he said, his tone mollifying.

His gaze skipped to the left, going glassy for a beat as he tilted an ear to the air. He cleared his throat and tugged at the front of his jacket, standing straighter.

"And I'd love to stand around and chit chat, but it's not safe here. We have to leave."

Dean glanced at Castiel, feeling him step closer, a warmth at his back. He arched his brow, eyes dark with caution as they snapped back to Benny.

"Yeah, not gonna happen. How about you get on your way before you end up like your friend here." Dean said, clicking his tongue. "I hear karma's a bitch."

Benny huffed a laugh, shaking his head.

"I wouldn't trust me either, chief," he said. He stepped over the corpse to get to the tree and yanked his axe out of the bark in one swift pull.

Dean stiffened, tension creeping up his spine, waiting for this to go south.

Benny glanced back at him, tossing the weapon into his other hand smoothly and sheathing it in a MacGyvered holster.

"You can't trust nobody 'round here. And I ain't your kind," he said, his shoulders squaring as he surveyed the forest, an edge trickling into his voice.

"But we gotta go. They already sense you."

"The fuck are you talking abo—"

"The vampire is right," Castiel said gruffly, stepping forward.

Dean felt something icy spike through him for a startled second at the declaration, his eyes hardening as they skirted back to Benny.

Once upon a time, he'd been a vampire too and he knew how they thought, what drove them to act and it sure as Hell wasn't lurking around in the woods to help passing strangers out of the kindest of their cold, undead hearts.

Benny let out a puff of air that sounded all too exasperated and looked off to the side, his arms folding.

Dean's eyes narrowed but Castiel was twitching next to him, staring out at the India-ink of the forest with the same alertness in his eyes that Benny had, a hand splayed protectively over his belly in a spray of fingers.

"Something's coming," Castiel said, his eyes flicking to Dean's in confirmation. "A lot of somethings."

Dean swallowed against his heartbeat, blood rushing to his limbs in a dizzying torrent, ready to grab Cas and bolt.

Benny nodded once, cordially, and held out his arm towards the trees.

"I got a safe place," he said, pivoting on his foot impatiently, able to hear something Dean couldn't, "But we need to be quick about getting there. I'm not looking to get followed."

Dean straightened his back, his chin lifting slightly.

"How're we supposed to buy this isn't a trap?"

Benny groaned, giving Dean a look like he was the source of everything annoying in the world before he let out a long sigh.

"I suppose y'can't. But we all know a vampire can't put up much of a fight against what the little one here is." Benny said, pulling an invisible cap towards Castiel almost like a sign of respect, or a display of condescension.

Dean bristled; Castiel wasn't even little.

"More to the point, I'm not wasting my air debating it. It's not safe here." Benny said again, but this time he turned and started off towards the mossy trees, calling over his shoulder.

"Follow me if you want."

Dean locked eyes with Castiel, lifting a brow in silent question.

He wasn't about to trust some random vamp just because he'd woken up and decided he wanted to play Good Samaritan today but they couldn't stay here, that much was obvious.

Castiel glanced at Benny's retreating form and he nodded once before scurrying off to gather their clothes and the few trinkets they'd swiped from the cave.

Dean sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair before calling after Benny.

"You'll still be blinking when your head hits the ground if you're lying to me."

A loud, hearty laugh rumbled through the whirring quiet, an odd warmth to it.

"I don't doubt it."

Dean huffed and stalked over to help Castiel, yanking on half-damp clothes and kicking dirt over the fire.

He felt uneasy, tense, too-tightly stitched together.

He didn't like this one bit.

Castiel's hand caught his wrist and swept down to lace their fingers together, squeezing reassuringly.

Dean looked down at their locked hands, a small smile on his lips, wondering when Castiel got to be so good at comforting, so human, especially when they'd spent the past few, withered months as creatures not even close.

He tightened his fingers around Castiel's briefly before pressing a quick kiss to his forehead and taking the weight of the fur bundle Castiel had balled up all their things into.

"So," Dean said, tucking Cas close, "feel like an interview with a vampire?"

Castiel scowled at him in a way that meant he was entirely unimpressed with Dean making references he didn't understand, his lips down-turned.

Dean snickered, a smile coming easier to his mouth than it had in a long time, their banter warming his chest.

He squeezed Castiel's fingers once more and they stepped forward together, begrudgingly following Benny off up a hill and into the belly of the beast.

…

They walked hard, the terrain harsher in some parts than others.

Dean fretted his fair share of fretting over the strain on Castiel and dodged Benny's snarky comments, but the path didn't go on for too long.

Purgatory was a godless land and Dean was walking with living proof of the Heavenly Father's abandonment, so instead he thanked the ground, sang its praises for not taking them hours into the distance.

His amiability was naturally short lived.

They neared a building, a black silhouette in the fog and Benny its gatekeeper, looking over his shoulder for lurking nasties as they stepped toward the threshold.

Dean felt his insides churn.

A cabin, a twin of the shacks and houses Dean had avoided that first month, learning quickly about the salivating, hungry jaws that waited inside.

Spider webs eager for the fly, and Benny had brought them here.

"The hell are you doing?" Dean hissed, stretching an arm across Benny's broad chest, holding him back, wildfire in his glare.

"We are not going in there."

Benny sighed, long suffering, and shoved Dean's hand out of his way, shifting forward.

"It's safe," he said, rolling his eyes at the first stuttered sound of Dean's protests, cutting them off.

"Look, I'll go in first. Check for monsters. Maybe later I can check under your bed?"

Dean really wanted to decide whether he liked this guy or not.

For now he settled on fervently distrusting him, just so he could say 'I told you so' when this inevitably went belly up.

Benny dug something—a stone?—out of his jacket and pressed it carefully against the dried, flaking pattern of some kind of sigil painted on the wooden door.

It spat out a glare of light, brief and woeful, and then Benny was pushing it open.

The door groaned, a high-wire sound that had Dean's fingers itching for a shotgun and some salt rounds but when Benny stepped inside… nothing.

No gnashing walls or fanged, gaping maws yawning in the floorboards and waiting to swallow them down. Not even any blood.

Just a normal little hut with normal, if sparse, interior. Just a fireplace, some crooked chairs and a few wooden bowls.

Dean almost would have preferred a death trap. Normalcy in Purgatory was a hell of a lot creepier.

Looking over his shoulder, and no doubt seeing the screwed up look of incredulity on Dean's face, Benny snorted.

"See? No monsters," he said, leaving the door open as he shuffled further inside, "Things are different now."

Dean edged into the cabin, the tendons in his neck stiff and pulsing, Castiel falling into place behind him.

He glanced around, alert and cautious, expecting something to jump out at him or snap at his ankles, waiting for the floor to give way into a bottomless pit under his feet, something.

Benny watched Dean with mirth in his eyes as he swept the room, but he could smell no putrid sulphur and no rotting flesh, could find nothing that told him danger was skulking around.

Castiel found Dean's eyes and nodded at him, and Dean felt himself relax somewhat, his shoulders sloping into a softer arc as he put down the makeshift fur sack.

"Different how?" he asked eventually, hearing Castiel shut the door behind them.

Benny ambled around the room with a cultivated familiarity, pouring liquid from some kind of container into the pot above the fireplace and bending down to start a flame.

He glanced back at Dean, lifting an eyebrow.

"You not seen the sky out there?" he said, striking sticks in the hearth, pausing to shake his head.

"I've been here a long time, brother and I can tell you, never once have I seen a lick of light in them woods."

Dean frowned, a weight fraying on its strings in his chest. Change in Purgatory was nothing good, he'd learned that lesson hard and long, burned it into his skin.

Benny sawed away at his drill, letting out a deep rumble of satisfaction when it started to smoke.

He sighed, squinting up at the simple square window, watching grey fog tap at the frame and when he spoke again, his voice was slimmer, solemn.

"Something's changing out there. Purgatory's waking up, stirring to see the mother."

Dean felt confusion spiral in his skull, the hairs on the back of his neck peeking up as dread fiddled in his veins.

He turned his head towards Castiel, finding him staring at Benny with a blank expression, a pale white swallowing the colour from his cheeks. Benny blew and bated his coal until it spat out embers and when flame reached up for his tinder, he stood, triumphant, and span around to face Dean.

"Hope you boys like tea," he said, picking out dried leaves from his pockets and arranging them into the bowls, the most fucked up display of domesticity Dean had ever seen.

He was still half expecting him to vamp out and go for the jugular any second.

Not for the teapot.

"Had a feeling I'd have guests and tea's alls I can find these days." He snorted a laugh, amused by some private joke.

"Which is a hell of a lot more than I could find in the old days, let me tell you."

"Matka," Castiel said softly from somewhere next to Dean.

He snapped his head around towards his voice, the roundness in Castiel's tone too cottony, too haunting.

Dean's heart stumbled over a lead weight, thrummed under his shirt.

"Mother. That's what the wraith said."

Dean swallowed convulsively, his fingers twitching at his sides.

"What mother?" he asked slowly, cautious. Scared almost.

Benny raised his eyes up from his leaves, his pupils bouncing from Dean to Cas, Cas to Dean, startled.

"You don't know?" He sounded confused, which was good; it was nice to have company.

Dean felt frustration scratch at his rib cage, his hands spreading wide and slashing through the air, palms turned upwards to show he had nothing here. No fucking clue.

Benny exhaled stale air in a long, reluctant sigh. His eyes skittered to the left.

"It started with the two of you."

Any lingering calmness fled, chased away by icy-hot fear.

Benny's words were whip-crack loud and Dean felt them like a lash down his back, welting him to the bone.

"Word spreads fast round these parts," Benny said, looking decidedly uncomfortable, "Especially when it's related to the prophecy."

"What are you talking about, what prophecy?!"

Dean knew he was yelling, a desperation in his voice that had Castiel stiffening at his side but he couldn't keep his cool, couldn't stop the frantic tattoo of his heart.

They didn't need this now, they couldn't take any more of this destiny bullshit, of these pre-ordained fates, these long-foretold futures, these fucking prophecies.

Benny sighed again, a roughened sound, and he bent down to put his bowls back on the hearth.

When he stood again, he found Dean's eye, searching for a slender second before clearing his throat and opening his mouth to recite.

"And judgement will pass when the mother returns, bearing the fruit of a mortal, and all who witness her glory shall have passage to the next world."

Castiel was frozen next to him, silence collaring the room.

Dean's heart pounded against his sternum, an arrhythmia fluttering too hard in his throat. His mouth dried out.

"Now you listen to me, True Blood," Dean bit out, his voice silted by gravel, "You better quit fucking around or I swear to G—"

"This angel a'yours," Benny said sharply, his chin raising in bristly defiance.

Dean's hand snapped out, curling around Cas' arm instinctively, a warning growl pushing past his teeth.

Fear flared in his gut, prickled like static over his vision, the flood of his pulse a staccato in his ears.

"If the prophecy's to be believed," Benny said, continuing unfazed, "which every monster I've come across lately seems to think it is… The angel's destined to save the souls he consumed."

Dean's face screwed up, his fingers pressing tight to Castiel's pattering pulse, a shudder breaking free of his spine.

Confusion barrelled past him, yanking him right into anger, into fear, cramped in his chest and thick in the ether.

He turned to look at Castiel, wanting to find answers, to seek comfort but Castiel's eyes were turned down, dusky shades of shame tingeing his cheeks, as helpless and lost as he was.

Dean opened his lips, a threat on his tongue ready to spill with ransoms for truths, demands for answers but Benny stepped forward again, a look of apology scrawled over his face.

"They think he's the new mother."

He paused, eyes flitting between them again and Dean's heart stilled.

A pin drop, a bomb blast and the ringing silence afterwards.

Whiteness consuming sight, a hot knife twisting deep into his stomach.

Benny swallowed, his eyes settling on Dean's. He clarified; two words.

"Of all."

The world shattered.

fin

A/N: Okay, so over a year later the sequel is finally done! I hope you guys liked it, I know it kicked my ass to get it written. If you notice any mistakes/errors, please let me know as this was only proof read not beta read. I would love to hear your feedback as well. The third and last part to this series is currently in the works but I'm not 100% sure about whether people are still interested in seeing a continuation so if you would like to read what happens next, please let me know! c: Thanks guys!