Chapter Text
"This is bullshit," Dean mutters.
"At least it's only a handfasting," Sam says, shifting uncomfortably. "It's not—"
"Not what? Not my choice? Not fucking humane? Not—"
"Not permanent," Sam answers, giving Dean that quiet, almost sympathetic look from under his long bangs that Dean hates, just hates. "You know I'd do this in your place if I could…"
"No!" Dean bites out. That would be the one thing that would make this worse: if this horseshit got shoveled on Sam instead. "No, that ain’t what I’m saying. Look, we all know why the angels are doing this."
Sam looks downright wary when he says, "Well, yes, of course," like he isn't sure that agreeing with Dean about any of this situation can be wise.
Dean’s pretty sure it’s a fact that him being saddled with a winged ball and chain is a downright stupid way to prevent a war, and he doesn't know whose fucking idea it was.
Oh, wait. Nope. That's not true. He knows exactly whose idea it was, and Dean’s looking at him.
To be fair, an alliance with the angels against the demons would be a good thing for everyone—well, except for the demons.
The kingdom of Campbell is in a much better position now than it was, say, ten years ago, but that doesn’t make the demons any less scary. They are and always will be mean fuckers who’d wipe them all off the face of the world if they had the chance—humans and angels alike. So when Sam broached the idea of reaching out to Eden, Dean and all the advisors agreed. It was unanimous.
Then.
Well, it was unanimous after, too, when the angels put forth their conditions for an alliance. The fact that they had conditions rather than just saying “fuck no,” when they’ve always made it pretty clear that humans are beneath them and not worth an alliance in the first place, was a big surprise to everyone. For the first time in forever, they’ve all got a chance to band together and put down the demons that have been nibbling at everyone’s borders like angry fungus for longer than Dean’s been alive, so of course everyone in Campbell was gonna agree.
Dean just ain’t happy about it.
Sam looks down at his hands and ruffles the edges of the message scroll in his permanently ink-stained fingers, like a baby chewing on the corner of his swaddling blanket for comfort, as if he thinks that's going to end the conversation. Oh no, Dean isn't going to be pacified that easily.
"You know they proposed this 'cause they don't think we’ll hold up our end of the bargain, right?" Dean announces, and Sam looks back up at him, eyes widening. “So if we turn them down, it ain’t their fault the alliance didn’t work out—it’s ours.”
What? Dean ain't the bright one in the family, but he's no dummy either: he's lived through more assassination attempts than anyone should, and it was instinct as much as body armor that saved him. And as far as the angels are concerned, he’s much too young and too common to be king, even for a barbarian human.
Look, they might not be wrong about some of it: Dean Winchester didn’t intend to be sitting on the throne at any age, much less the age that he is. But for cryin’ out loud, Dean isn't even that young to come to the crown; they can't all live hundreds and thousands of years on their magic alone. The fact that Dean hasn’t even got a wisp of Sam’s magical power is, for the angels, just the crust on a shitty alliance sandwich.
Didn’t need any of that magery to fight in the Demon Wars, though, did he?
"What? No. That's not..." Sam begins, but yeah, no, nope. At least Sam doesn't try to finish whatever thought just came to mind as Dean glares at him.
'Cause Sam might lie to everyone, and he’s scarily good at it… but about this, he won't lie to Dean.
"It might not be so bad," Sam finishes weakly.
"I'm gonna be married to a dude I've never met, Sammy. Okay, yeah, yeah, fuck, handfasted. Fake married. Temporarily married," he bites off, when Sam opens his mouth. "But again. A dude."
Yeah, that one caused a minor ruckus and a lot of hand-waving and everyone making big eyes when they read out the scroll in council.
“This some kind of a bullshit test?” Bobby barked.
“Do they think we’re deviants? That Dean’s a deviant?” Walker sneered.
“Och, but the deviants are the most fun!” That was Lady Rowena, helpful as always.
Except it wasn’t a test. Dean even had Sam check on the legality of all of it, just in case the angels were trying to pull one over them.
They weren’t. That’s the weirdest part of all of this. Apparently angels really don't care what someone's got in their pants: a marriage is a marriage, and the parts don’t matter—it’s the real deal either way.
Of course, the angels can afford to think that, ‘cause they bind their marriages with magic rather than with rings and vows and fancy pieces of paper. They’ve got enough power to throw around that they can waste it on little everyday things like that.
They all know that pretty much the only reason the angels are agreeing to consider a human alliance in the first place is that they might have their perfect little society and all their magic and shit… but the demons are wearing even them down: now they’re having trouble maintaining their own borders.
Sure, Campbell could use some of the power that angels have to spare; if they got that out of the deal, that’d help everyone, and Campbell has manpower to offer in exchange. People. Soldiers. The best-trained army this side of the mountains, if Dean says so himself.
As for the angels? These days, every angel soldier that falls to demon attacks is someone who might not have someone else behind him to hold the line after.
Besides. Killing a human gives a demon enough power to start a fire, topple a wall, raise a fallen soldier. Taking down an angel? Forests burn. Mountains fall. Graveyards crawl to the surface one bony, rotten limb at a time.
Yeah, this alliance is for everyone’s good.
Doesn’t mean that the angels are happy about the deal, though. Zachariah and Raphael didn’t put it in so many words, but Dean figures that the angels don't want to take the chance of Dean knocking up one of their lady-angels in this whole pseudo-marriage situation, since that would invalidate the handfasting and make it a real bonded schtick, forever and ever. No one actually knows if that’s possible, because it’s never happened, but they’re just not gonna take the chance of getting one of their pretty, precious, magical ladies stuck permanently with a human.
So… they’re sending over a prince. Not a princess.
Way to make sure no one is happy about the deal.
Sam sighs again, but he raises his gaze. "Yes, I get that the angel being male is a little… different. Not what we normally do.” He ignores Dean’s No shit, really? look. There’s a reason only the council knows about the details. “But, Dean… at least you like dudes."
What? What the fuck?
A terrible, dizzy heat swims over Dean's vision, like the way his eyes wobble and play tricks on a desert ride when he hasn't had enough water to drink but hasn't realized yet he's about to fall off his horse.
"What?" Dean hisses.
But Sam only blinks at him like he didn't just say that Dean's an invert. "I mean, yeah, it's not in the, um, way you like girls. You really like girls. But you’re good with people, you’ve always been good with people. And the men love you, always have. The soldiers, the guards. Benny and Victor and them. Right?" He jounces a shoulder up a little. “Sure, it won’t be the same, but you hang out with guys all the time.”
The too-hot, slippery feeling recedes. Or maybe breaks, like a fever breaking. Shit, Dean had better not be getting sick. He can't afford that. "Not with nobles, Sammy,” he points out. “Not unless someone’s holding a wand to my head.” Or unless Dean needs to make nice with some ducal asshole to keep him from kicking his vassals off land they’ve farmed for generations.
Sure, Dean tolerates his noble advisors—he doesn't talk pretty or do diplomacy for shit, so someone's gotta do it, and Sam can’t shoulder all of it. It doesn't mean he'd ever go out and grab a tankard of ale or a mug of smallbeers with any of the froofs, though.
Much less share his fucking bedchamber with one.
And what's Dean gonna do when they have to... to bind the handfasting spell that the angels are insisting on to make this legal, to make the magic take root?
He read the scrolls, all right. Pretty fucking sure that “spilling and taking in of seed” ain't talking about planting wheat. There's a reason binding the magical handfasting is called consummation.
Yeah.
But Dean's not thinking about that right now. Nope. No way. He's gonna jump off that cliff once there's nowhere else for him to run, and not a second before.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with some fancy-pants for a whole damned year, anyway? Ain't like he'll wanna go out to a tavern and take down an ale, go hunting for rogue griffins in the forest. I don't know how to play pinochle. Or croquet." Dean sneers to himself. He could probably figure those games out, but why would he want to? A game of poker in the barracks or pool at a tavern just sounds like much more fun; running the kingdom is too much work to be bored in what little free time he has. "And I'm shit at chess."
Now he sounds like he’s whining. Which he is, but if he can’t whine about the fucking awfulness of getting magically glued to the side of someone who’s gonna look down his nose at Dean for a whole damned year, then what can he whine about?
Sam blinks, like what Dean just said is surprising somehow. "Huh.”
Dean knows that smart, throaty little Huh. He also hates it just as much as he hates the puppy face.
"What? What, ‘huh?’” he growls. “You know I am. Lost every game I’ve ever played with you."
"Yeah, I know you have," Sam says with a casualness that's pretty insulting, actually. "I mean, you know I've never met Castiel. None of us have. But... I dunno. The descriptions I was getting of him were... how to put it, kind of too..." He hesitates, then sighs. "Too carefully worded, if that makes sense? Things like 'responsible' and 'serious.'”
“So you're telling me he's not just some fancy noble, he's a boring fancy noble.” This is getting better and better. Maybe Dean can just leave him in the library while he’s taking care of shit.
But Dean, for once, actually shuts up when Sam gives him Bitchface 12.5, which means Sammy has something important to say.
“That’s not what I'm saying. I went looking. Did some research.”
By which Sam means spying. He just calls it research, because then everyone just smiles at the tall, gangly young prince who likes his books and his scrolls better than he likes going to war. Aw, so cute, right?
No one ever asks what's on the scrolls. No one wonders who those bards are that Sam listens to so keenly, ‘cause who ever looks twice at a bard busking for a place by the fire?
Yeah, Campbell didn't get to where it is today on Dean's force of personality alone, that's for sure. Everyone thinks he's the one who hauled their land back up by the frayed bootstraps after Grandpa Samuel and the rest of the Campbell family were wiped out or ran for the hills.
Dean isn't the one who made things happen, though. Dean's just the older brother; he’s the face that made enough of a fuss that no one looked at what Sammy's hands—and brain—were up to. And he’s the one who stood in the way and bled when demons came after his brother, too.
Which is what he’s doing now, in a way, isn’t it? That’s what the whole stupid alliance is about. Making sure Sam’s safe. Making sure Campbell is safe.
But none of that explains why Sam’s bringing up his research now.
"Okay?" Dean prompts warily. “What kind of research?”
Sam fiddles with the edge of the scroll in his hands again. The edges are starting to look frayed with how much he’s been worrying at them. The seal on it, broken, shows it’s from some library on the coast. "Castiel's not exactly... I mean, he is noble born, for sure,” he adds hastily, like he thinks this is important to Dean. “Noble-blooded, I guess? He's the youngest son of the King of the Angels. That's the only reason the whole deal works. So... there's that,” Sam says. “But, Dean, from the reports I've gotten, I don't think croquet is exactly what interests him. He doesn't even live at court. Hasn’t in a long while."
And considering angels, a long while could be a few years, or it could be a hundred. Dean frowns. "What, he lives in a hut in the Rexford Mountains, drinking nectar poured over mountain ice?"
Sam blinks at him. Okay, maybe that was a weirdly specific example. But Sam clearly decides to ignore Dean being even stranger than usual when he says, "He's definitely responsible and serious. Because he's the garrison commander for Eden’s southern border."
Not for the first time since Dean caught wind of what the angels were proposing, he has to swallow a truly unkingly noise.
"He's..." he starts, then trails off, staring off into the distance. "So basically they're sending an assassin to kill me?!"
Sam blinks, like this never even occurred to him. Which is impossible, because he's Sam fucking Winchester, and he plays chess really damned well.
"Nooooo, Dean," he says slowly. "Now you're just being dramatic." Which Dean is. Not that he's admitting it. Look, this sucks, okay? "I’m just saying that maybe, I don't know. You two might have a thing or two in common. Something that's not chess,” he says, rolling his eyes, when Dean opens his mouth. “From everything that my people have found, Castiel's not a fop or a courtier. He's a soldier."
Dean snorts. "So you're telling me he knows how to toss back a tankard and ride a horse? Awesome."
He makes it sound sarcastic, but maybe he does mean it. Just a little.
The fact is: being out at a tavern in a ratty tunic and breeches with the knees and thighs worn thin, getting his side jostled as he makes his way towards the bar, feels like shedding some kind of a shell, like all the silks and the velvets and the stupid fucking crown weigh more than they do.
And sometimes, getting on Baby and letting her have her head feels like the only time Dean can breathe, with everything that everyone wants from him, everything that he needs to do, everything the kingdom needs, crushing down on him.
He wasn’t born to this. It’s been two years, and it still doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t think it ever will.
But Dean doesn’t expect anyone else to understand that. He sure as shit never expected anyone else to share any of that.
If Sam is right though? Maybe this angel prince could.
Not the drinking or the riding. Not really. But…
Shit, Dean doesn’t even know what he’s thinking. Of course an angel prince can’t possibly understand what it was like spending his life thinking he’s ordinary, only to find one day every eye turned on him like he matters. Even when he doesn’t.
Sam, to his credit (or not), answers Dean’s mostly-sarcasm like it was a genuine question.. "Er... Probably?" he says. The wax of the seal flakes off the scroll in his hands from the way he’s got his thumbnail dug into it.
Dean sighs. “Yeah,” he says tonelessly. “So any idea why this serious, responsible freakin’ garrison commander is gonna leave his post to come be shackled to a filthy human?”
“If I had to guess… Eden’s southern border is the one that abuts Perdition,” Sam says quietly. “So maybe the same reason you’re agreeing to be handfasted at all.”
Dean shuts his trap so hard, his teeth almost catch on his own lip.
Huh.
"I'll put down a summary for you about him. If you want to read it. It’s not much, but it’s something. I know this isn't fair. It isn't, Dean.” There goes Sam’s absolutely lethal earnestness, and Dean just can't deal with that right now. “But... a handfasting is temporary. Just a year."
Just a whole fucking year.
Sam doesn't bother to say “It won't be so bad” again. Wishful thinking never got either of them anything, and Dean wouldn’t be above socking his brother in the nose for condescending to him like that. Sam doesn’t know it won’t be so bad. Neither of them can know that.
But Dean can’t forget what Sam said, either.
So the guy who’s coming to be shackled to Dean might not just be some prissy, pretty noble. Maybe. Oh, Dean knows all about people who lead from the back of the line, and who knows, maybe this Castiel’s that sort. Throwing spells with a flick of his fingers while his men die in front of him, as small and far away as ants.
But maybe he isn't.
"A soldier," Sam said. Something in common.
Doubtful.
But maybe.
So. Castiel is a soldier. Like, an actual soldier.
That was what Sam called him, but Sam’s also never had to go out and fight, so he hasn’t seen firsthand that there’s a difference between an armchair general and… yeah.
But Eden’s southern border is in the thick of it, and the garrison’s held off more demon attacks than almost any other unit Eden’s got. Combined.
Now that he’s looking at the roughly sketched map, Dean realizes that he’s actually been near there, fought on the very edges of it—seen the angels flashing through the sky in the distance, the firework crack of their magic lighting up the horizon.
Yeah, Dean fucking read the scroll Sammy left tucked for him in the desk where Dean keeps a bottle of whiskey spirits—because yes, sometimes Dean feels the need for a tipple when he's sitting trapped behind this particular desk, looking helplessly at a pile of missives that he has to read and that never seems to get any smaller.
This time, he needed a big gulp just to break the seal on the parchment.
And then another one when he got to the end of the battles this guy has been in.
And then the list of the ones he's known to have led, all in Sam’s neat, tight scrawl.
So, yeah. Sam could be right. Here, right here, is maybe why Castiel of Eden—because he's royal, he's really named Castiel of Eden, no last name, like belonging is all he needs to identify him—has agreed to be the symbol of an alliance that his people aren’t even all that sure they want.
Dean's been to war. Come back from it, too. Threw up after his first battle, and then never again. He'll do it a million times more if it means Sam won't have to stand there and watch the dead rise, eyes flashing black before their knife goes into the flesh of someone he cares about.
Dean can spend a year being play-married to a guy he's never met if it means that.
He can even do whatever it’s gonna take to make the handfasting magic catch. He can.
“Well now,” Benny says, in that low, knowing drawl that Dean sort of hates. Then, like the ass he is, he raises his tankard to his lips and takes a deep gulp without any more explanation than that. No one around here even looks twice at them, King Dean and General Lafitte themselves, crammed at the staff table in the back of the kitchen.
But Dean's known Benny since before Dean was even crown prince, much less king. They've been friends since Mom sent Dean to Benny’s family inn to get bread and Dean realized when he got there that, with the recent tax hikes, he didn’t have enough coin for the loaf.
But Mrs. Lafitte set him to kneading, and Benny to mixing, and sent him home with the loaf that Dean couldn’t have paid for anyway. And that was the beginning of that.
Yeah, that was the kind of family Dean grew up in: the kind of family that worked themselves to exhaustion every day, bought their own damned bread and sometimes, what with war taxes and conscription and supply issues from demon attacks, didn’t have enough to keep from going hungry.
Back then, they knew they were some kind of distant cousins to the Campbell family on the throne, but what folk in the castle did had nothing to do with them. Dean had no idea that there was nothing distant about it at all—that Mom had gotten herself disowned when she chose Dad over some kind of political marriage.
“What?” Dean asks irritably, even though he knows that being asked is just what Benny’s waiting for. At least Dean waits until Benny's put down his tankard and used his wrist to wipe the froth off his beard. He's not giving him the satisfaction of doing it while he's still drinking, just so Benny can make him wait even longer before he answers.
“Nothing,” Benny drawls. “Just, you know. You were thinkin’ about this princeling being someone who knows more ‘bout cravat cuts and court manners than troop maneuvers, right? And if he’s not like that, all the better. Easier to live with.”
“Maybe,” Dean admits grudgingly. It's not like he wasn't thinking the same himself.
“Could turn out to be a shield-brother situation almost, couldn't it? If you’re lucky,” Benny adds thoughtfully, reaching for a piece of Ellen's cheese toast and nodding his thanks when Jo whisks away the tankard and replaces it without so much as wobbling the head on the fresh pour.
Dean doesn't jerk, but he does put his own glass back down almost too quickly. “How's that?” he says a little too sharply, harshly enough that even Benny gives him an odd look. What the fuck?
“Well, you meet on the battlefield, get to know each other on it, watch each other's backs,” Benny says slowly. “You've said more'n once you'd rather be stuck behind enemy lines again than havin’ to hold court, ‘cause at least out there you know who your enemies are, and you can shoot ‘em. Don’t envy you any of that, brother, but… sounds like this Castiel might get it?”
Oh. Yeah. Dean does say exactly that about being at court.
He wasn't raised to any of the tra-la-la. Yeah, King Samuel was his granddad—not that he knew that until a lot later than he ought to have; thanks, Mom and Dad—but Mom wasn’t an only child to begin with, and there were a whole bunch of royal cousins down the branches of that particular family tree.
Were being the operative term there.
They’re dead now, or in hiding. Demons got ‘em. Tried to get Dean and Sam, too, to everyone’s shock. ‘Specially Dean’s, ‘cause Sam was at least showing the first few sparks of magic by then. Dean shouldn’t have had any defenses other than his blade and his blunderbuss. Should have burned, like Mom did on the ceiling.
But it turns out that Grandpa Henry, mage that he was, passed down more than just the Winchester name to the two of ‘em.
So, yeah. Apparently Benny’s talking about Dean having backup against the pit vipers at court, and not the fact that there are sometimes whispers about some shield-brothers being real close, and things going on in shared tents that ain’t exactly brotherly.
Dean really needs to get the fuck out of his own head about that. No one except Sam knows about the consummation part of the voodoo-hoodoo magical handfasting ritual that the angels are insisting on.
“Yeah, maybe,” Dean says gruffly. The fancy-pants put up with a lot from him whenever he’s forced to attend their parties, and they make excuses for his manners because he’s a war hero or some shit, but he doesn’t pretend he’s good at it, or comfortable with it. “Guess we’ll see.”
“Guess we will,” Benny agrees, and raises his tankard. “To peacetime,” he says, serious, because Benny gets it. He does.
“To peacetime,” Dean agrees, and drains his drink.
Dean knows that getting his hopes up is fucking stupid. If there's anything that ending up accidental king of a nation has taught him, it's that.
But Benny’s got a point. So does Sam, for that matter.
Sure, Dean might not like the ridiculous terms of the treaty, but he agreed to it all anyway. ‘Cause yeah, keeping his people safe matters to him, and if he's gotta sell himself to do it, so be it.
So why did Castiel—garrison commander, soldier, sure, but still an angel—agree to do this?
There really is only one good answer to that, and it’s the same one as Dean’s.
So if him and Dean have got that in common? Who knows, it really could be that they have other things in common as well. Sure, for all Dean knows Castiel is just coming to spy on them… but as Zachariah, the angels’ envoy, has pointed out repeatedly: it's not like humans have any secrets worth ferreting out. What little magic they have doesn’t hold a match to what even the least of the angels can call up with just a flick of their feathers.
All things considered, maybe Dean's not as angry about all this as he was a few months ago.
Doesn’t mean he exactly feels calm about it, though. Not today.
“Stop fidgeting,” Sam hisses.
“You're fidgeting,” Dean hisses back. (Sam’s not.)
“If you boys don't shut your traps, so help me,” Bobby tells them, and they shut their traps.
The advisory council wanted to do some kind of hullaballoo, a big fuckin’ ceremony with a parade or some shit, to welcome the angel prince. Said it’d help with morale.
They might not be wrong, but hell no, the western countryside's already strapped out because of the demon raids six months ago; the fields got wiped out by blood rain, and the shoots are only just starting to regrow. They don't need to waste funds on bunting or a fancy new costume for Dean when it could be going to grain coffers.
But also, Dean just ain't meeting Castiel that way, in front of all those strangers’ eyes. He had to admit he was a little surprised that the angels agreed to his request for a private first meeting, since they're real big on ritual and magery and intent and all that posturing shit. But they did agree, so small blessings, right?
As a result, it's him and Sam, and Bobby as Captain of the Guard, waiting on the arrival of Dean’s… well, whatever Castiel is. Him and Sam needing security and protection is also a joke— Dean was a fucking demonkiller before he ever became king, and Sam ain't half bad either, even by their own standards, and has his own little magery besides. But good luck telling Bobby no when he’s got his mind set.
The waiting might kill Dean even if an assassin doesn't, though. The sentries on the gates spotted the angels’ horseless carriages rolling their way down the main road towards the city a few hours ago, and sent back a runner saying they’d entered the city not too long ago. But it still feels like it takes an age before there's the cry, and then the harsh jangle of the portcullis coming open, the low rumble on the cobblestones—fuck, fuck. He’s here. This is happening.
Maybe Bobby's got more magery to him than he likes to pretend, ‘cause as the crunch of wheels starts to approach and turn the corner, he mutters, “You gonna be okay to do this, son?”
Son, not “boy.”
“I know my duty, Bobby,” Dean says, and it even comes out sounding pretty calm.
That's the thing. He's always known his duty. Whether that meant mucking out the stables, or joining the fight against demons, just like his dad, or making sure that he brought home enough that Sam always had his academy tuition—Dean's always known what he had to do, and being king, well, that just gave him more he had to be responsible for, more he had to step up to. Not less.
“Ain't what I'm askin’,” Bobby says, because he's a stubborn old warthog.
“Kind of is.”
Dean hears the idjit Bobby mutters into his beard, but it doesn’t deserve an answer anyway.
The horseless carriage rolls its way up to and through the little gate leading to the private back courtyard, and Dean feels his eyes widen a little.
Well. Huh. That's… different.
The carriages that Zachariah, the angels’ emissary, always came in for negotiations looked a lot like, well, curricles without a hitch. Or a home-built wagon, honestly. Sure, they glowed a little whenever they arrived at night, the magic keeping them running so thick that Dean could practically feel it in his teeth, but they just don’t look like much. Dean pointed this out to Sam, and Sam rolled his eyes so hard his hair almost levitated with them, but just ‘cause Sam’s all impressed by the sparkly finger-wavey stuff, doesn’t mean that Dean is. The angels’ carriages were still just ugly boxes on wheels, whether they were moving by themselves or not.
This, though?
This is a carriage.
It still looks weirdly incomplete, without a hitch or horses in front of it. But it’s longer than the ugly boxes, with a shallow curve on top, windows on the four doors that are strangely opaque, so Dean can’t see through the glass. The body is black as obsidian out of the mountains, and shiny like it, too, edged with a simple, elegant trim at the windows and doors that Dean would bet is real silver. The wheels are thick-bodied and large, and it rides high off the ground, built heavy in a way that means it won’t jump or bounce over ruts in a road.
No insignia or crest. It doesn’t need it. No one would doubt that this thing is carrying a royal.
Dean’s throat sticks as he swallows. There’s a soft click he hears from his tongue releasing from the roof of his own mouth as Zachariah gets out of the front—because unlike the little messenger carriages, this one’s big enough to have front and back seats, plus a roof rising so high that even Sam would be able to sit in it comfortably—and saunters over to them, smirking smug as anything. He’s even dressed himself up for the occasion, too, in jet-black breeches and a jacket of the same, with the same silver trim as the doors and windows. A younger man—slender, big-eyed, with the look of a teenager, also in all black, but with the practical boots and gloves of a man who works for a living—peels out of the other front seat and bows quickly to them before scampering over to the back door and opening it, reaching in to help someone out.
The third guy comes out of the back of his royal carriage slowly. Stiffly. He stumbles a little on the exit, like they’ve been riding a long time and his legs have gotten stiff, and the footman catches him carefully under the shoulders, setting him back on his balance until he’s got his feet underneath him. The footman says something in a ripple of Enochian, his eyebrows rising in his skinny face with worry, but the prince—Castiel—just shakes his head, straightens and raises his chin.
The first thing that Dean thinks is, whoa, damn. They're not pawning Castiel off on him because they can't give him away elsewhere. Because Dean’s got eyeballs, he knows a good-looking man when he sees one, and, well, fuck.
Dean knows reports of the angels all being beautiful and ethereal are bunk, because he’s seen enough of them in the distance on the battlefield to know they’re just people, and they bleed just as red as anyone else. Zachariah is irritating and maybe more than a little intimidating, and sure as hell he ain’t pretty. The guy helping his prince out of the back of his carriage is petite and big-eyed and kind of cute, but he’s just… ordinary. People. They’re people, like anyone else.
The angel getting handfasted to Dean isn’t pretty either. Not exactly. And he definitely ain’t ethereal. He’s solid-built. But there's just… there's something about him that's hard to look away from.
It's not just the faint shine of the halo that's barely visible in the late afternoon sunlight. Castiel’s all windblown, messy hair and impossible cheekbones, sharp chin and sharper blue eyes. The way his face is lifted proudly upwards as he looks straight at Dean shows off a perfect, perfect pout of a pink mouth. Lean neck, cut jawline. Something about the way it all comes together, lines that could have been too harsh softening where they meet.
Not that the way Castiel looks would, or should, matter to Dean. It doesn't, it really doesn't, just… anyway.
The second thing he thinks is, yup, he’s definitely a soldier, because below the good-looking face, well, he ain't no courtier. Castiel's arms and shoulders are thick with muscle and dark-tanned with the sun, nothing pasty or powdered about him at all: sweat-slicked, the full curve of them bare and straining as he moves, and—
Wait.
Bare.
Why the fuck–
Only then does Dean realize that he can see all that because Castiel isn't wearing a shirt.
And he's not wearing a shirt because… he's…
The ropes.
The angel in front of Dean has coppery ropes crossing his wrists in thick loops, binding his hands together in front of him in a tight X across his belly. And like someone wanted to be really sure he wasn't gonna slip ‘em, the ropes continue in knotted loops over his shoulders, over his back. They wrap around his waist in a band, knotted in weirdly pretty, intricate binds of cording, as delicate as a court lady's girdle.
Prince Castiel’s hands are in fists in front of him, white-knuckled. Muscle twists on his forearms as he shifts around. For a second, his wings flicker darkly behind him like the aftershock shadow of lightning, but then they're gone.
Castiel's gaze flicks across all of them until it settles right on Dean. His halo pulses—beat, beat, beat. Then he grits out something in a voice that sounds like he hasn't gotten anything to drink the whole damned ride over from Eden.
The words are definitely not in Common. But Dean's been a soldier a long time. He knows when someone’s swearing at him.
Castiel of Eden, the guy that Dean’s supposed to be cementing an alliance with, is fucking trussed up like a game turkey, and he’s staring at Dean—staring at all of them—with angry blue eyes so sharp that Dean should already be threshed down at the knees like harvest wheat; like they’d better be ready to run when he gets out of the ropes.
Of all the scenarios that Dean could have imagined—of anything he could have thought when it came to this stupid handfasting contract—it never once occurred to him that Castiel might be dragged into this so unwilling that his brethren had to fucking tie him up to get him here.
“What…?!” says Sam, his mouth hanging open.
“Balls,” mutters Bobby.
Dean? Dean doesn't say anything at all.
He just draws his sword.
~to be continued~