Chapter Text
The lowest floor of the bunker was reserved for the weird stuff. Cursed objects. Jars of eyes. Dusty beakers full of liquids that didn't always behave like dusty beakers full of liquids. It was Castiel's job to sift through it. He had a slightly better chance of survival thanks to his grace, though that hadn't stopped his arm from turning bright blue last week for no adequately explained reason.
So here he was on a Tuesday afternoon, sifting through piles of ancient debris that had been set aside by generations of hunters. Some of the artefacts may have been lethal last century, but had long since worn down to nothing more powerful than feeble gusts of wind. He picked up a brooch that had once been cursed to destroy the wearer. It half-heartedly attempted to persuade him to call his step mother. He briefly considered hiding it in Dean's pocket as a joke, but in the end he just incinerated it with a sigh and a puff of grace.
Dean was too stressed for practical jokes, anyway. The world was still falling apart and there was never enough time or money or laughter. Castiel fervently fervently wished for some way to offer hope, or solace, or maybe something more, but neither Dean nor his brother were interested in the kind of companionship he could offer. He wasn't even sure what kind of companionship he could offer, but he was willing to be whatever the brothers needed. Unfortunately, it always felt like they needed a talisman-destroying angel, rather than a friend.
I am an angel, he wanted to say. I could make you so happy, if you'd only let me. But he knew the response already. Dean would shutter, baulking from his open arms. Sam would smile sadly and pat him on the shoulder, play-acting sympathy when what Castiel really wanted was acceptance. Trust.
He gently disentangled himself from a shoelace that was valiantly trying to throttle him, incinerating it sadly. The pile of debris was endless, and his melancholy grew at the sight of it. In a fit of disgust he shoved at the closest pile and it toppled noisily. A pair of disco-ball earrings stabbed a screeching basketball until both lay exhausted on the ground.
A pair of pinkish dolls had wound up next to his foot. He bent to retrieve them. They were plastic, about a foot tall, with no clothing or facial features. They reminded him of the mannequins at the mall, except smaller and naked. He held one in each hand, trying to determine their level of malevolence. He couldn't pinpoint their exact function. His grace slipped off them like oil. He scrutinised them closer. They had no features at all. Plain, pink, plastic puppets.
Sam might have an idea of their purpose. Or maybe even Dean.
He felt a slight twitch in each hand, as though in response to his thoughts, but when he looked back at the dolls they were still limp and featureless. Although, now that he was looking, one of them did look slightly bigger. And the other one... why were its legs like that? He put them both on the ground, side by side, but couldn't determine the difference.
His head throbbed. He was overusing his grace and he needed a cup of the molecules that Dean called coffee. He imagined that the second doll twitched at the thought, and he decided to take them with him. He would ask the boys for an opinion.
"Dean," he called as he entered the kitchen.
"In here," came a voice from the other room. Castiel turned the corner and found both Sam and Dean hunched over separate computers, backs curving over the table as though their spines were too heavy. Facing away from each other.
"I have a question for you," he said on the back of a sigh.
"Yeah and I have one for you," Dean replied without looking up. "Ever heard of a Bloomatrix?"
"A what?"
"Being of darkness. Half plant. Eats human flesh?"
"The description is unfamiliar."
He went to Dean's side and read over his shoulder. They discussed the possible merits of a silver bullet over a silver stake. Sam piped in to remind them that it was easier to sigil a stake. Dean told him to butt out. Sam huffed loudly. Castiel reminded everyone to calm down. Dean made unflattering conjectures about Sam's brain. Sam threw a balled up piece of paper at Dean's head. Castiel swatted it away before impact. Dean kicked at Sam under the table and Castiel finally admitted defeat and left them to their squabbles. The dolls remained forgotten in his pockets.
The problem was that Sam and Dean had forgotten to talk. They still spoke to each other, but the recent years of fighting and dying had whittled down their communication tools. They both had too many barriers.
In the end Castiel put the dolls on his bedside table. "Why don't you just talk," he implored the taller one, picturing himself saying it to Sam. The doll didn't respond.
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In the end they used silver bullets. The Bloomatrix gargled nastily as it regurgitated its last meal, and Mrs. Stevenson's left hand oozed out of its petalled mouth before it finally collapsed in a gooey pile. Dean raised his gun pointedly in a shrug, as if to say I told you so. Sam ignored him.
The ride home was strained, but unusually so. Usually Sam and Dean were silent as Dean pumped music into the awkward confines of the car, but for some reason this week's hunt had them bickering the whole way. Castiel stayed with them for a full hour before growing tired and simply flying away from their ridiculous cyclic arguments.
Back in his own room he stared at the two dolls, sitting side by side. He must have been tired when he first picked them up because features were easily distinguishable on them now. The taller one was a shade darker. The smaller one had the faint outline of a stubbled jaw. If he tilted his head just right he could have almost passed them off as Sam and Dean, but incomplete versions. As though the artist had gotten bored halfway through and forgotten to finish.
The dolls were sitting side by side but facing away from each other, just like the real Sam and Dean. Castiel turned their faces the other way. He knew they were only dolls but he got an odd sort of satisfaction at forcing these replicas to look at each other.
"Be nice," he warned them.
He climbed into his bed. He didn't sleep—didn’t have to—but lying on the mattress at night was an easy way to stay calm and think. He rolled over and stared at the dolls. They were facing away from each other again. He forced them back.
They were limp and kept falling sideways, and their heads would loll away from each other. Castiel spent the entire night watching them, and every time they lolled sideways he would prop them back up. By the morning they seemed to have settled in a good position, and had stopped rolling apart. He felt silly but he gave them both a pat on the head.
He was surprised to find both Sam and Dean at home and awake when he went to the kitchen. They would have driven all night to get back but neither of them had gone to bed yet. They were huddled at the table, drinking coffee and yawning, heads close.
"Morning," Castiel said apprehensively. "You're back early."
"We would've been back even sooner if Dean could keep his damn eyes on the road," Sam replied, but he was laughing as he said it, eyes twinkling at Dean who was grinning ruefully back.
"Late night jitters, what can I say? That'll happen when an angel up and vanishes out of the backseat."
"My apologies." Castiel turned the kettle on.
"Don't blame ya. Sam was kicking up a fuss all the way home. Twitchy bastard." Dean ruffled Sam's hair as he got up, smiling sleepily. "Gonna hit the hay. See you two in the afternoon."
Sam got up too. He came around the kitchen table and stole the water that Castiel had just boiled, filling his coffee mug. "I'm gonna finish up in here then I'll be asleep too," he yawned.
As Sam left the kitchen Castiel realised it had been the first conversation in a year that hadn't ended in a fight. The Bloomatrix must have had some relationship-healing spores or something. He refilled the kettle.
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A week later and the goodwill still hadn't worn off. Sam would make two cups of coffee and take one up to Dean in the garage. Dean would shuffle his chair over at night so Sam could sit next to him instead of across the table. Castiel continued to watch them both in silent fear, waiting for the shoe to drop.
He was still aching, but seeing the brothers smile at each other was filling a void that he hadn't even known existed. He wanted them to be happy. He wanted them both to be so full of happiness that it overflowed from their hearts and minds. He was unselfconsciously aware that he wanted a tiny piece of that overflow. He wanted their happiness to touch him, too, even if only in a secondary manner. Their joy was paramount to his own.
He stared at the dolls, trying to decide on a course of action. Over the last few days he had dressed them up a bit. A scrap of fabric from one of Sam's ripped shirts. The dirty cloth that Dean sometimes used in the garage, smelling of oil and dust and something like home. He stared at them as though they could give him the answer to a question he didn't even know.
"I just want you to be happy," he told them, but they didn't respond. It was night, and the bunker was quiet. The Sam doll was listing to the side as though it was too tired to stay upright.
Castiel thought for a moment and put the dolls back against the wall, sitting next to each other. He decided that they did in fact look happy like that, but not overjoyed. Just content. He tried another pose, sitting them back-to-back, but it looked... odd. He turned one of them around and that looked a bit better, the two dolls nestled into each other like they had always meant to fit that way. The dirty clothes of the smaller doll didn't look so dirty anymore. Castiel moved some plastic limbs so the taller doll was wrapped more securely around the back of the smaller.
He stepped back to examine this new pose. It looked a little uncomfortable at first but then both of the dolls fell backwards without Castiel's supporting hand, landing clumsily on the wall. The smaller doll slipped a little, and then its head fit perfectly under the chin of the taller doll, which almost seemed to respond by holding it more firmly.
If dolls could look happy then these two would be the happiest. Everything about the pose radiated peace and calm. Castiel decided that he would talk to Sam about it the next day, and try and convince him to try it with Dean. It seemed like the perfect way to give them both joy.
But the next day broke cold and clear, and Castiel didn't find an opportunity to talk to Sam. The two brothers were moving around each other as though frightened. They were like magnets, irresistibly drawn but impossibly far apart. They circled in the kitchen without realising it, constantly aware of the other's location. He noticed that they were both wearing the same clothes as the day before, as though they had slept in them. Something had happened. Something had changed. The Winchesters had always been a universal constant for him and now they were acting... inconsistent.
Castiel, terrified of a renewed animosity between them, didn't attempt to break the silent, calculating truce.
That night he again turned to the dolls, which were ever-more frequently becoming aides in his ongoing attempts to help the brothers find happiness. He used them as props to fantasise about ways to help them communicate. A part of him was constantly aware that his obsession was useless, that the dolls would never be the real Sam and Dean, but another part of him couldn't help it... couldn't stop trying to find a way.
"Why won't you find comfort in each other," he agonised at them, and his heart was breaking because he knew it would help them, but he would never be able to tell them in person.
He collapsed on the bed, holding one doll in each fist. They hung limply from his grasp. He was suddenly, desperately sad. He dropped the dolls on the bed beside him in a tangled heap. The smaller one, the one that looked increasingly like a miniature Dean, was on top. The dolls were chest to chest, limbs awkwardly outstretched on all sides. Castiel left them and went to fetch a cup of tea. A sure-fire cure for his melancholy (he hoped).
On the way back he heard muffled voices from Sam's room. Dean must have woken his brother up to discuss a case. He contemplated joining them but figured that they would call him if they needed his opinion.
In his own room he pottered around, realigning things that weren't out of place. It took him a full five minutes to look at the dolls on his bed, and when he did he had to double take. The larger doll, the one wearing Sam's shirt, was now on top. He cast his mind back and he was sure, sure, that it hadn't been like that when he left. He touched the dolls, casting his grace out, but he still couldn't find a trace of malevolence or purpose. The dolls were just... dolls. Albeit disconcertingly familiar dolls.
He pressed at them more firmly with his grace, and they jerked at the pressure but didn't exhibit any other tell-tale signs of a cursed object. He studied them closer. The Sam doll had a thigh in between the Dean doll's legs. Castiel felt a sharp twist, low in his gut. Looking at the two dolls was making him feel, well, dirty. An unwelcome voyeur. That didn't stop him from running a finger down the length of doll-Sam's spine, pushing him down just a little harder. The smaller doll's head dropped back as though in pleasure, and Castiel felt the same dirtywrong twist in his gut at the idea of Dean doing just that with Sam above him. It was terrible. A betrayal, somehow, as though even picturing them like this was a misplacement of trust. But doll-Sam had its arms around doll-Dean's head, framing him, and Castiel couldn't look away, couldn't stop himself from the shuddering desire for it to be true. He wanted. Wanted both Sam and Dean to feel like this. To be warm and safe with each other. His heart punched silly sinful patterns in his ribcage but he did the same move again, rocking the taller doll down, and he imagined that it was Sam and it was wrong, but he couldn't stop, didn't want to. The image was so clear in his mind and he felt a reaction in his own pants, the terrible hardening of himself that happened so infrequently. Instead of the usual embarrassment he felt something else, something good and simultaneously bad. He rocked the dolls again, and doll-Dean had its head thrown to the side so doll-Sam could fit against its neck, and Castiel imagined them speaking.
Dean would be quiet, he imagined wildly. Sam would love the aborted sounds he made. They would be breathing too hard to kiss but Sam would whisper into Dean's ear. Filthy things like the girls on Dean's computer but also sweet things, little nothings lost in sweat and skin.
"So beautiful," he said to the dolls, imagining that it was Sam's voice, not his. He rocked them together harder, repositioned doll-Dean's legs a little wider so doll-Sam fell between them even easier.
They would blaspheme a lot, too, he imagined. Dean in strings of swear words and Sam in punched out shouts. Castiel's Father would be named, right there next to curses, and the thought made him sick but also giddy. His erection was now painfully insistent against the inside of his pants, but he didn't want to move so he blinked, and with a puff of grace he was naked. He was kneeling on the bed, using one hand to push the dolls together, wrap them up tight, and with his other hand he searched down his chest, along the planes of his stomach to the hard length between his legs. Touching it was—oh—bliss incarnate. He realised why Dean had once tried to introduce him to Chastity. He wished more fiercely than ever that the real Dean and Sam could find this, could give this to each other.
He worked his hand up his own length, and with the other he rubbed at the dolls, increasingly hard but decreasingly skilled, running out of finesse as he approached a pinnacle in his own pleasure. He angled himself toward the dolls and wondered what would happen. He imagined himself releasing his pleasure on the intertwined figures. He imagined Sam and Dean reaching that unnamed height at the same time as he did. Sam would clench his teeth and Dean would go slack jawed, and right at the end Sam would say something. Something like, It’s okay to shout, words which Castiel now groaned at the dolls, stripping himself one-handed as he did.
He felt himself reach a crest, begin to ascend, to see the descent that awaited. His body tensed. Nearly.
Nearly…
Someone screamed.
Castiel lurched, jerking off the bed and tumbling to the floor in an undignified heap.
What?
He tried to look around, gain his bearings. He had been on the bed, close, so close, to something unnameable and pure. His brain struggled to change directions, to focus. He had been... had been touching himself while imagining Sam and Dean... his friends… he had been bringing himself pleasure while he imagined them.
He felt sick, and then remembered what had broken his concentration. A scream.
He ran out the bedroom door.
The scream had been short, cut off at the end. It had come from down the hall. Sam's room. He sprinted toward it.
"Sam!" he panted, banging on the door. He tried to push through but it was locked. He gathered some grace, which was still a little scattered from his sudden about-turn from pleasure into fear, and prepared to blast the door open.
"I'M FINE!" came a shout from the other side.
"Sam!" he said again, too relieved to say anything else.
"Nothing to... to worry about, Cas. Go back to bed."
"Are you sure? If you are injured I can heal you." He tried the door again.
"NO! Uh, no thanks, Cas. All good. See you in the morning."
Castiel sagged, and stepped back. He realised that he was still naked, still somewhat hard, and he felt weak when he realised that Sam would have seen him like that if he had gone into the room. Maybe that's why Sam hadn't let him in. Maybe he had known, somehow. Castiel cringed and couldn't get to his room fast enough. He locked the door behind him.
The dolls were still on the bed, lying side by side but still tangled together, limbs askew and heads close. Castiel felt sick just looking at them. He had almost betrayed his best friends. His only friends. He picked up the dolls and shoved them into a drawer and promised himself that he would never look at them again.