250 word fanfic palette ficlet: dean/gadreel, circus, epistolary story
There's a new tamer working with them. They say his name’s Dean, and he's the best. Gadreel holds his head high and growls his hatred.
The lights are so bright when he’s out on the wire, he can hardly see where he’s supposed to step. So he jumps, and waits.
A broken wing. It’s the worst injury he’s ever sustained, and he knows it will keep him from performing. Will they put him down? Probably.
Dean smiles cautiously and talks to him. No one ever talks to him. They lock him up, they poke. They don’t talk. But Dean does.
Gadreel doesn’t understand Dean’s kindness. He soothes the pain in the broken wing, sets the bone, and keeps talking. Why is he being so kind?
When Dean opens the door to his enclosure, Gadreel finds himself sitting straighter. For once, though, it isn’t meant to intimidate. He’s happy Dean’s here.
After several months Gadreel finally pieces it together. Dean and Sam are related. Sam used to work here, then he set half the circus free.
Dean knows when Gadreel has figured it out, and all he does is smile. His secret is safe. Gadreel can’t talk, and he never would.
The shouts of the workers is nothing compared to the screams of the “monsters” as they flee. Gadreel remains and risks recapture. He needs Dean.
They find one another by the woods, but they’ve been surrounded. Gadreel relaxes for the first time in years, grabs Dean, and takes perfect flight.
Ezekiel knew Dean through other people for years, but had only befriended him personally somewhat recently. He didn't know why it had taken so long. Dean was kind, dependable and genuinely fun.
The moment Dean grabbed him at Balthazar's party, though, all that good sense went out the window. The music wasn't anything he truly cared for and from what he knew of Dean he knew the other man felt the same. Apparently that didn't matter tonight.
Dean grinned filthy pleased and ground their hips together, both of their cocks hard enough that it wasn't an accident. It only made Dean grin wider. Ezekiel's hands secured themselves to Dean's hips, pulling him back in to the rhythm of the bass pouring through the speakers. The pleasure spread through him heavily, warmth making his limbs a bit looser. He hadn't been drinking tonight, so he didn't have an excuse to grab Dean's ass and dig in, bucking forward like he was totally willing to come right there.
Maybe he should have felt embarrassed, but it was difficult to care when a couple was less than twenty feet away literally fucking against the wall. He figured he and Dean could get away with some grinding.
Then Dean bit his neck and he knew it wasn't going to be just grinding. Dean's words didn't slur, despite how much alcohol was on his breath.
"C'mon, let's go back to my place." Ezekiel nodded, taking his chance to steal a kiss while Dean's mouth was close.
The song changed, something slower and more fit for couples lulling out of the system. Dean broke the kiss and smiled to him. Ezekiel smiled in return and let Dean drag him out of the party.
A human in love with humanity, just as angels should be. Dean Winchester is made of love. Ezekiel knows this is why he has always made Heaven nervous. Heaven was crafted of love and faith, the same as things Dean has used to rebuild himself in the least few years. A human with a soul such as Dean's, so large and kind despite the pain he has known, is bound to tear angels from the sky.
Dean knew it was dumb, really. Half the time the shit written in the Bible was badly translated, badly worded and badly received. This, though, this he just couldn't let go.
"Hey, Zeke, can I talk to you about something?" Sam was sleeping in his room, still a little out of it since Zeke vacated and got his old vessel back.
Ezekiel looked up from the text he was reading. The pages were thin and frail, but none of them broke under the angel's touch. Dean remembered when Cas could do the same thing.
He sat down across the table from Ezekiel and licked his lips, trying to buy himself another second before having a really awkward conversation.
"So, uh, I was reading the Bible earlier." Ezekiel smiled, making Dean falter for a moment. "And uh, there's a couple translations that mention you in specific, actually."
Something in Ezekiel's face changed, his expression falling. It wasn't dark, though, or angry. It looked... regretful.
"I see." Ezekiel sat back in his chair and look off to another point in the room. The gesture was so much like Cas that it took Dean a moment to reign his mouth into saying the right name.
"You fought for Lucifer, Zeke?" He couldn't understand it. The whole time they'd worked together Ezekiel talked about how much he loved humanity. His words, his voice, when he spoke Dean could tell Zeke and Cas had been friends.
Dean could still remember Uriel, throwing out mud monkey like it was a reason to be killed. To him it probably was. Ezekiel didn't fit in with any of that. Not the resentment or anger that Dean had come to expect from someone palling around with the Devil.
Ezekiel cleared his throat and looked back at Dean as he began to speak. "Every archangel commanded a garrison, the lower orders of angels were created within each garrison. Just like a human is born of a certain bloodline."
He paused for a moment, eyes flicking across Dean's face like he was searching for condemnation in the freckles slathered across the hunter's skin. "It wasn't my choice to be born where I was. Lucifer's garrison was prestigious, respected. Then humanity was created and the command was given out by God to love you. Three garrisons complied. A fourth was split."
Dean listened to the words and tried to imagine it for himself, the masses of Heaven throwing themselves down to worship humanity and protect them all because their Father said. He could see Michael, Gabriel and Raphael all tripping over their own wings and swords to follow orders. Even more clearly, though, he could see an image of Lucifer standing completely upright, wearing refusal like a crown.
"Lucifer ordered us not to bow and many of our garrison followed him. More soldiers from the other garrisons flocked to him, the brightest. The Morning Star." Ezekiel was still looking at Dean, but his eyes were unfocused as he dredged up the old memories. "I was torn between the compulsion to follow the order of my General and the will of my Father. It was the first time Heaven ever knew chaos or change. That war was our bloodiest. Despite whatever Castiel did, he could never hurt us as badly as Lucifer."
"So what did you do?" Dean leaned forward as he sat, listening more closely. Cas had never really talked about Heaven, not like this.
"I followed another from our garrison on the path of faith and righteousness." A small smile lifted Ezekiel's expression, brightness coming back to his eyes as they focused once again on the man across the table. "Castiel has always loved you."
Dean's mouth fell open. "W-wait, Cas?"
Ezekiel nodded. "Castiel came to those of us who were unsure of how to proceed and helped us make the right choice." Another few beats of silence passed between them before Zeke sat up a bit more and continued on. "Part of the reason Castiel is so ruthless when he fights is because of where we are from. After the first civil war, the remnants of our garrison were looked down upon. We were seen, at best, as time bombs and at worst as spies and secret traitors. Castiel worked despite this and fought his way to captain's rank just in time to be assigned to delve into the Pit and find you."
Dean let his head fall forward, eyes tracing the paths of the grain in the wooden table. Some of what was going on years ago began to make more sense.
"We followed him against Raphael just as we followed him against Lucifer because he has always known what the true mission is, Dean. We are your shepherds and protectors, even if it must be against our own. You are our Father's greatest work and Castiel has always known this, always had faith in this." Ezekiel stood from the table and gently closed the book he'd been reading, picking it up with careful hands. "Defending you is likely to lead to my death, just as it has for Castiel. If it does, I would like you to know that it has been my choice, just as it has been Castiel's. We fight for humanity, which means we fight for you, Dean."
The angel walked out of the room, back toward the archives. It took Dean almost five minutes before he could stand again.
college au dezekiel just hanging out in their dorm drinking beers and they end up somehow having a really philosophical conversation at like two in the morning.
they don't even get to sleep until around dawn and they miss all their morning classes and cas comes in around one pm and finds them asleep all over each other in the living room and just sighs because he really should have expected this
There is constant aching in his back, his wings rotting and slowly falling off. No matter how much time or Grace he dedicates to them, they will not heal. It persists at all times, though he can ignore it more easily than he used to.
He expects it to hurt when Dean touches his back, but it doesn't. The hunter's lips brush across the tip of his shoulder blade, right on the base of his wings, and it does nothing. It doesn't miraculously end his pain, but other parts of him are soothed and the comfort spreads.
Dean keeps kissing as he slowly slides inside, both of them moaning through it. His hands rub the tense muscles of the angel's back, causing more relief to course through him.
The pleasure of Dean's touch and presence overwhelms and consumes him and he's more than happy to let it do so.
Ezekiel marvels how getting his old vessel back changes his perspective. The world sits inches lower than it did when he was in Sam. Dean can look him in the eye now.
There's also considerably less noise in his mind. When he sees Dean he doesn't have residual thoughts from Sam's consciousness floating around them. He's free to see Dean on his own once again. Before, injured and desperately trying to find a way to heal Sam from the task of serving God, he hadn't had time to appreciate Dean as a whole.
Free of Sam's thoughts also means free of the restraints therein. When he sees Dean he no longer thinks brother first. Instead, when Dean's fingers wrap around the hilt of an angelic weapon, Ezekiel finds himself swallowing on reflex. The gleaming of the metal against the hunter's skin inspires a certain darkness in him. Somewhere he recognizes it very clearly as lust. The rest of him is preoccupied.
Dean's fingers trace along the edge of tip and down with care. It shocks Ezekiel when he recognizes the name etched into the side of the blade (something invisible to humans).
"That belongs to Castiel?" Ezekiel sits up straighter in his chair and pays more attention to the weapon.
Dean nods, setting it down when he realizes Ezekiel's been watching him. "Yeah. He gave me one a while ago, said it was a spare."
Ezekiel nods and summons his own blade. "How well can you fight with it?"
"About as well as I fight with any other sword, I guess." Dean watches him turn his own blade end over end between his hands. "Why?"
"If you like, I could help you improve your form." Ezekiel remembers a gym within the depths of the compound. The floor there is wide and flat, perfect for training.
Dean looks at him for a few seconds before shrugging. "Why not? Not like it could hurt to fight better." Silence falls between them for a moment before Dean grabs Castiel's blade and stands. "So who taught you?"
Ezekiel smiles and stands as well. "Castiel."
The look on Dean's face is amusing, a combination of awe that shifts to slight trepidation when realization hits him. As often as he saw Dean making fun of Castiel in Sam's memories, they both know how skilled a fighter he is.
It may be an excuse to get Dean into less clothing and manhandle him, but he didn't simply learn how to fight from Castiel. He also learned tactics.
A soft smile pulls at Dean's lips, masking the apprehension from seconds before. "All right, let's see what Huggy Bear's got."
