Title: Into the Grey
Author: Airmid
Rating: Teen and up
Pairing: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Word Count: 4,159
Warnings: None
Summary: There’s something wrong with this whole thing. Of course, it doesn’t help that Dean can’t remember how they got to this hinky town in the first place.
SPN Rare Ship CC: Round 8 | airmid79 vs @inkbleeder
Prompt: Straight Face
Ship: Michael/Dean
Word Count: ~ 2.2k
Rating: T for language, no other warnings
Summary: Don’t play drinking games with people who know you uncomfortably well. Set in the bunker in a nebulous future.
AO3
See Notes at the end for information on the game itself.
There was a wary look in those eyes, like Dean was plotting terrible things towards his friend and he wanted to point out that he was innocent on that front. Totally innocent.
Now, the terrible, not so nice things that he planned to do to a certain stuck up ex-archangel that was still sort of an angel? Yeah, he could be accused of those things.
“Yes.” Cas’ voice was like gravel on his nerves. Everything seemed overly bright even in the dim garage of the bunker and he tried an innocent look. Cas didn’t look like he was buying at this point as he went on. “This is very powerful. What are your intentions for it?”
“Can’t you just trust me for once, Cas? Huh?” Dean tried for his sheepish grin that used to work on Sam until Sam wised up and realized Dean was at his least trustworthy when it came out to play. It looked like Cas felt that way to as the angel took a step closer, those eyes becoming little judgmental slits.
“Whatever you have planned is a bad idea.”
“Look, man, thanks for the advice,” Dean started, managing to grab the bottle in his friend’s arms, “but I’m a big boy.”
Cas looked less than convinced. Seeing that the angel wasn’t trying to take it back, Dean made himself scarce, climbing up the stairs into the bunker proper. At the very least maybe he could figure out if the quasi-archangel free loading with them actually felt anything. Push a few buttons, have a little fun along with getting that stick that was lodged up Michael’s ass loosened a bit.
At least if he got an angel hammered and not a total bastard for a while in the process it had to be worth doing, right?
There was a little pile of paper sitting in front of Michael as he sat all straight laced at the table in the war room. Dean was fairly certain given the perfect edges and corner that the angel had taken a pair of scissors and painstakingly cut each little strip to the same size before folding it.
Because Michael was an over acting ass apparently.
“I see you are serious about my participation in your insisted upon proceeding,” the archangel said, tilting his head slightly. Unlike Cas there wasn’t any emotion in those eyes, just cold authority as he waited. It was already unnerving that he was like the ghost of dad’s long lost brother, that God hadn’t really done a lot when popping him into the vessel.
In fact, Dean wanted to argue, the close but not quite resemblance made things all the more worse. His life had enough sketchy corners as it was, he didn’t need tall, dark haired, blue eyed with a more severe face glowering at him in constant judgement. No, no Mikey’s face was often unhelpful and the dick knew it.
“Just for you, buttercup,” he said, pushing the bottle in front of the angel. “Get it done?”
“Yes, as per your instructions though I fail to see what you get out of this.”
“Can you just not have a massive cosmic point to everything? Just think of it as the price of getting to stay here.”
Even with his back towards Michael he could feel the angel seething and he smiled, picking up a whisky bottle that was mostly full and two shot glasses before returning to the table. He scooped up the little pile of perfect paper and inwardly sighed. This, this was what he wanted to not have for a while, as he fished his own out of his pocket. There was nothing wrong with a few crinkles, a little smudge of dirt. Gave them a personality.
“You remember the rules?”
“Yes Dean, despite what you feel I am not senile due to my age.” Those eyes focused on him again as he stood his ground. “Read what’s on the paper with no reaction. If there is a reaction of any kind, drink.”
“Good, Sparky.”
He kicked back in the chair opposite the archangel and passed over the first paper. Those slender fingers unfolded it, and Michael sat quietly. If he was honest, and he wasn’t a lot of the time, he would be worried since the silence dragged on. So he tried to distract himself by working off a smudge with his shirt cuff and wondering what Sam was using to give the table this high velocity gloss.
“I’m not saying this.”
Michael’s face was slightly pinched, looking as though he longed to incinerate the paper in his hand as Sam of course chose that moment to flounce in. Probably meddling Cas had sent him, hoping Sam could be the voice of reason.
Dean snorted.
“Say what? What are you two doing?”
The paper exchanged hands, Sam’s face getting that same dark look to it as he slowly turned his eyes on Dean. There was a reason Dean had started off with that one, stack the deck in his favor. Michael’s pride, well it could be something sharpened to push right back the other way. Which was awesome in a game like this, especially when your opponent had an ‘at will’ poker face pre-programmed in.
“Jesus, Dean.”
“He doesn’t have to say it but he reacted so down the hatch it goes.”
“Dean, dude, I don’t think you’d even say this out loud.”
“Them’s the breaks, Sammy. He can either wimp out or grow a pair.”
The cute little helpless look that Sam had almost withered when Michael realized he was losing and they had just barely started. No words, not even an angry comment as he poured out the shot of that liquor that smelled faintly of flowers before he downed it. A wince, tightening of the jaw as the glass was placed back down, eyes calm.
“Fine, Dean. Go ahead.”
Somehow he managed to do it. Somehow he managed to say “I am in love with Sam’s hair and ache to run my fingers through it” with a flat voice. Which he was fairly sure just pissed off the angel more.
“I don’t even want to –“ Sam raised up his hands and backed away from them. “Just don’t burn anything down.”
“You can see all those years of lying paying off,” he yelled after his brother who just shuddered.
“Do you even pay attention to what comes out of your mouth?”
Then Sam was gone, Michael was smirking and he had no one to really protest that he meant scamming people, not that he secretly loved his kid brother’s hair. Christ.
“I like to –“ Michael squinted at the paper, his posture more slack, head almost lulling to the side. “No Dean, it was Gabriel who liked to rub himself on everything in creation.”
“I’m gonna give it to you because you managed that somehow,” Dean mumbled as he felt deliciously warm. Something like a haphazard smirk was on the angel’s face now and Dean got a finger to respond in order to point. “Never mind, drink.”
“I was reacting to you after you told me I passed,” came the words, Michael’s head tilting like a lazy bob. “I don’t believe that counts.”
Dean grunted as his own fingers fumbled with the next little perfectly folded card that showed the habits of anal retentive angels. Or sort of angel. He was fairly certain Michael might have a spot of spittle on his lip and that didn’t seem highly angelic.
“I like the thrill of having semi-public sex in closets.” All he could do was just blink a few moments, feeling some hot sensation flash through his face. “Just, dude, I don’t want to know how you think you know that.”
A slight curve of Michael’s mouth, something strangely triumphant, like the archangel had guessed the world’s most important secret. Dean took another shot, not even feeling the burn at this point.
Well cared hands reached for the next little slip and Dean wondered that if Mike ever became fully human if he would get manicures. And…he needed to have stopped thinking about five minutes ago.
“This isn’t true,” came the soft response to whatever happened to be up. “I’ll take the drink, I won’t say this to you.”
Damn, his brain was a fuzzy, buzzy, lacking logic place right now. What had he written that wouldn’t be true enough to make Michael that vehement over the whole thing? Usually he could do better than this, maybe sitting next to that pagan sacred crap was making it harder as he pressed his face against the cool surface of the table. It did have that heady hippie smell of honeyed flowers that was rather nauseating.
He decided to blame his sudden inability to not handle his liquor nearly as well on that.
A click of a glass being set down and then fingers were rubbing his head. He’d jump if it wouldn’t make the sensation that he was going to puke more pronounced. He didn’t need to see the last couple hours in reverse.
“You’re making this weird,” he complained and got a happy noise. He didn’t have to look up to know that the angel’s eyes were all shiny and bright and like two deep pools that caught all the light.
Jesus, he was getting bad.
“I’ve never thought that about you,” Mike continued, voice all hazy like some luxurious blanket and he wanted to wrap himself in it. “I think the smell is getting to you.”
“As long as we agree it’s your fault.”
He cracked his eyes open and saw that the angel was leaned back in his chair, fully relaxed, almost like he was actually smiling, something genuine for once. A hand wave and the cork was back in the bottle, a few blinks as if Mikey was surprised he managed to pull that off without blowing something up.
They were so done, and he closed his eyes again deciding that he would get up maybe when his body didn’t feel like it was full of sand.
“You’re a very sweet drunk,” Michael intoned as Dean pondered if he had enough left to throw something at him. “If I didn’t think just the residue in my mouth would kill you I’d like to see what is so alluring to you about closets.”
“Oh my God,” he got out, feeling his face flush all over again because that had been a stupid kid thing and why had Michael even felt the need to know about that?
“If He was here He’d probably watch.”
Because only Michael could find a way to make this totally worse and act completely normal about it.
“Please, just stop talking,” he whispered to the table.
Damn, did his head ache. Some sort of sour, stale taste all glopped in his mouth and he felt like he was laid out on something hard and very unforgiving. Wincing, snapping his eyes open and shut a few times against the glare off the white he found that was because he was on the floor. Shifting his eyes up without moving his head full of sea-sick feelings, it seemed he was also under the table.
This was about the time he became really more laser focused on the fact he was being cuddled by something very warm. His still not steady hands checked to ensure he had all his clothes on.
“What the hell?” he muttered and he was fairly certain it was Michael who was all tucked in like an overgrown cat behind him. Which was only a shred better then Sam on the floor with him in weird positions.
“You decided to lay down on the floor under the table as it provided good cover and complained to be cold. I, at the time, thought it would be good to help you.”
“Uh huh,” he said slowly realizing that the archangel was not impaired, or at least not by nearly as much and was still wrapped around him. “And now?”
“I’m enjoying your discomfort,” came the amused answer but the arm around him pulled him slightly closer and Dean wondered just how much of a half-truth that was.
Better to wig out over the whole thing later after he managed to get vertical without emptying his gut into the nearest trash bin. “I am so never going to live this down.”
“Nope,” came another voice and he groaned. Sammy. Sammy had walked in being all smug, putting stuff on the table loud enough that it sounded like he was re-enacting a buffalo migration up there. “Coffee and breakfast on the table, Dean.”
Goddamn, was Sam way too smug.
“Thank you, Samuel,” Michael was saying as his brother lumbered away and at least the archangel had stopped him from poking Sam to even more vindictiveness.
Though when he got himself free from the overly handsy angel and away from the dust bunnies down here, he decided no more drinking games. It wasn’t like any of this was enjoyable. Nope, it was just to keep his eyes from seeing the world in vomit inducing ways and giving Sam more ammo later to blackmail him with.
Laying his head back down, Michael a sun at his back, he decided getting up could wait just a few more minutes.
While I have played a few drinking games I ended up having to look up Straight Face and found a rather helpful video of three dudes demonstrating it. For humans playing, a lot of the fun comes from trying to say what's been written down without laughing. Due to the participants not all being human in this case the rules were much stricter - saying what was written without any reaction at all. Which of course was what Dean was going for by writing things that at first Michael would refuse and just play out of pride and later on getting him to say things that would cause most creatures discomfort.
What is it?
A creations challenge (which includes fics, art, vidding, giffing, and any other form of art used for fan creations) just for the Rare Ships (we consider “rare” anything that isn’t the two main ships Destiel and Wincest). So you Denny, Abadden, Sabriel, Samifer, Megstiel, DonnaJody, DeanMary, Deanmara, Gabifer, Wincestiel, SamClaire (or any of the hundreds of others) come and show your love for the ships that never get enough love!
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You can find me on AO3 under Airmid. Sometimes I do mirror posts to FF under the name Zagzagel. I primarily made this account to be able to do some of the prompt challenges I've seen but feel free to contact me. I'm not one to use social media in any form personally but I will respond to inquires and will post things I find of interest. For the prompt challenge I'm currently looking at #supernaturalpromptchallenge
