The Key

Chapter 43

“Come in!” Sam calls, the asshole, grinning at the looks the maid gives them. Except, no, she’s not a maid. She’s a runner. The general lack of trays and food is the first hint.

She bows deeply before relaying the news. “Your Highness, two angels have landed by the hedge maze. They come with tidings of victory and request the presence of their brother, Seraph Casper.”

Cas immediately turns to Sam. His wings withdraw from Dan, but he only drops one of Dan’s hands. The hand that holds, holds tight. Victory . “Am I permitted to bring them to the courtyard?”

“They have to report in somewhere,” Sam replies.

“Then I humbly request your presence there as well,” Cas says. His thumb sweeps over Dan’s. “All of you. We…” His eyes flick to the balcony doors and back to Sam. “We have a gift.”

“Tell the king I’m receiving the angels in the courtyard,” Sam instructs the runner. “That will be all.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” she says, and departs after another deep bow.

“It’s done?” Dan asks Cas. “Just like that?”

“Even if Lucifer had awoken before our forces arrived, his condition compared to Raphael’s would be extremely poor,” Cas answers, releasing Dan’s hand to take up the angel blade he’d left on the table. He tucks it back through his belt instead of absorbing it into his arm. The motion is overly careful, foreign and somehow sad. “I imagine the rest of our forces are taking care of the demons that were protecting him.”

“That was the battle plan,” Dan agrees, because it’s not like Cas is saying anything Dan doesn’t already know. It still feels wrong, unreal. Is this why all the pomp and circumstance after a war? To convince the generals away from the battlefields that the fight really had happened? With no bruises on his skin or blood on his sword, Dan’s body is still waiting for the fight to begin. “But that’s... that’s it?”

“Pretty much,” Sam answers for Cas. “You send your people out, they succeed or fail, and you decide how much of their report to believe when they get back.” And he shrugs, like that’s just a fact of life. “Cas, we’ll meet you outside. I look forward to meeting your siblings.”

Cas pauses beside the balcony doors, beside Jo who holds them open wide for him. “Please forgive any... culture clash,” he says in the voice of a man doomed to embarrassment. “Balthazar still favors the old style of pronunciation and-”

“Just go get ’em, Cas,” Dan says.

Cas nods and ducks out. He hops the balcony railing like a fence in a field before taking to the air. Jo closes the doors behind him and they all head down, Sam with an almost obnoxious spring in his repaired step as he leaves his cane behind. Somehow, Bobby’s already present downstairs, a placeholder for King John until he can disentangle himself from the state dinner. When they enter the courtyard, they keep close to the doors, large and warded and shut behind them. No one’s actually sure how much space three angels need in order to land. They turn all the magelights on, illuminating the outer square and inner flower-framed circle of the courtyard.

They don’t have long to wait. Cas comes down first in a swoop that has Dan fearing for his head, but Cas pulls up so sharply, both his belt and toes must skim the ground. He comes back down on his feet in a little wing-assisted hop. Another angelic man—presumably Balthazar—arrives much the same way, but Hannah comes down feet first in a manner reminiscent of Raphael. She shoots her brothers a look that wouldn’t be much on a human, but in Cas speak, it translates to Stop showing off, you two .

The resemblance between Cas and Hannah is clear in their hair and features. The resemblance between Hannah and Balthazar is clear in their wings. Between Cas and Balthazar, it’s just the eyes. Even their postures are entirely different. They all have a smudge of gray across their shirts, larger and darker on Balthazar’s than on Cas’. On Hannah, the smudge has a repeating pattern, and that shape is the shape of feathers. With a sickening lurch, Dan remembers the contents of their letters, their request to leave the ashes of Cas’ wings where they fell. It seems impossible that the ash wouldn’t have blown away by now, but then again, what does Dan know about magical angel death ash?

Sam steps forward, Jess at his right hand, Dan at his left. They meet in this formation, Cas in the center, his siblings flanking him. Despite being slightly shorter, Balthazar stares Dan down with an unimpressed look. Then his eyes flick down to Cas’ sword at Dan’s waist, and his feathers move in a way that definitely doesn’t mean joy.

“I bid you welcome to our home and castle,” Sam greets with formality that would do Mary proud. He does a round of introductions, a special relish in his voice when he introduces Jess as “my wife, Princess Jessica.”

As stiff as the night they first met, Cas introduces his siblings in turn. There’s a slight moment of awkwardness—increased awkwardness—when Cas should be finished but adds “And…” while looking back over his shoulder at someone who isn’t there.

“And I see you’ve warded the door,” Balthazar says, expression bland, voice falsely bright. At least, this is what Dan assumes he says. His pronunciation is bizarre.

“A wise precaution against Lucifer,” Hannah allows with a nod, speaking normally. “One I am glad to say is no longer called for, Your Highness.”

“It’s no insult against you,” Sam promises. “The attack led to some alarm. I’m sure we’ll be able to take the warding down as we better establish trust between our peoples.”

As falsely casual as Dan’s ever seen anyone, Balthazar asks, “And the warding on yourself, Vessel Prince?”

Sam doesn’t tense. Jess does. Cas does. Hannah looks at Balthazar sharply, more accusation than surprise. Dan’s more or less constantly tense, but he counts too. Even without turning around, he can feel Bobby and Jo stand straighter, perhaps readying themselves for a cut palm and a quickly drawn banishing sigil.

Sam, though.

Sam f*****g smiles.

“A piece of caution your brother advised,” Sam replies. “His concern for my well-being is a deeply appreciated kindness.”

“One he’d merely forgotten to mention, I’m sure,” Balthazar says, giving Cas a look. “Too busy telling us how handsome your brother is, isn’t that right? I’m certain Raphael will believe that.”

“Maybe he will,” Dan says, speaking for the first time. He draws Cas’ sword and wraps his other hand around the blade itself. He squeezes hard and pulls, then shows his bloodless palm.

Hannah and Balthazar stare. Their wings, previously swaying with their breath and the air, go still, as motionless as Cas’ wings are naturally. The tilt of his head shy, Cas looks back to Hannah first and steadfastly refuses to look at Balthazar.

Slowly, Balthazar thumps his left wing against Cas’ back. “How silly of me,” Balthazar says. “Clearly, Casper had no reason to know Your Highness is a vessel until Lucifer attacked you.”

“That’s right,” Sam agrees. “In fact, you’re the first angel who’s openly acknowledged my talent. Isn’t that right, Dan?”

“I’ll be sure to tell Dad,” Dan says. “He does like to be told when other people discover state secrets.”

“That would be best,” Hannah says. “If Raphael thought Casper had hidden something of that nature from him, Casper might face something worse than six and a half centuries of exile.”

“Exile?” Dan repeats, and it’s fitting there’s already a blade in his hand.

“An example,” Hannah says with a quick look to Cas. “Clearly, it is our honor to serve as emissaries, and no punishment to be kept from our home.”

Cas pushes his wings against theirs. “I would remain in any case,” he says, and he says this to Dan.

“I know,” Dan says, knowing otherwise, and he sheathes Cas’ blade.

They look at each other. He can feel everyone watching them look at each other, and he still doesn’t look away.

He can’t.

Cas’ eyes won’t let him.

“I would,” Cas repeats.

Balthazar thumps him on the back again, breaking the moment. “The pining was getting ridiculous,” he says, clearly intending to embarrass. “Can’t say how glad I am you finally took the hint.”

“I liked the ribbons so much, I had to propose,” Dan says. Cas glances to the side, to the spot they’d stood with the music playing and the world about to fall apart, and yet when Cas looks back to Dan, Dan finds himself smiling.

Hannah nudges Cas with both hand and wing, stopping the resulting staring contest. She asks Cas something in a language Dan doesn’t understand, and then they both look to Balthazar. Balthazar responds with a shrug, one that continues all the way down his wings. There’s an exchange of small nods.

“Sam,” Cas says, and he pulls the blade from his belt. He holds it with both hands, blade and hilt across each of his palms. He cups it like a precious thing even as Balthazar looks away from it entirely. “You told me that, by human tradition, you and I will become brothers after I marry Dan. Is that correct?”

“It is,” Sam confirms, voice soft, eyes on the blade. “Is that...?”

“This is our brother’s blade,” Cas tells him. “Among angels, there is no tradition of bonding families through marriage. A sibling’s spouse does not share our light, and thus is not a sibling. So we’re... making it up as we go.” He steps forward, Hannah watching intently, Balthazar looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else. It’s in his eyes, the shift of his wings, the hand pressed to the smudge of ashes across his chest.

“This is our brother’s blade,” Cas repeats. He holds it out, hilt-first—not to Sam, not with the warding, but to Dan. “Through Dan, you are our brother.”

Understanding, Dan takes the blade and hands it in turn to Sam. Eyes wide and abruptly young, Sam accepts it with gloved hands. He holds the hilt and looks down at the blade, blinking strongly.

“This doesn’t have any legal standing, right?” Dan has to ask. “Raphael isn’t suddenly going to claim this makes Sam qualify as his subject.”

“No,” Cas tells him. “Like you, it is informal but heartfelt.”

“Thank you,” Sam says. “Thank all of you.”

“Perhaps after you pass, it will be a better memento,” Hannah says. “We do expect it back.”

“Of course,” Sam says, and he slides the blade though his belt with the utmost of care. He looks at Cas as if he might hug him, and so Jess steps forward to do it on his behalf.

“I don’t have one for you,” Cas tells her, hugging her back with just his arms. “I need to carry Anna’s while Dan has mine.”

“I wouldn’t know how to use it anyway,” Jess assures him. She kisses his cheek before pulling back. “Besides, two people marrying into the same family don’t count as siblings.”

“This seems overly complicated,” Cas says, and both Sam and Jess laugh. Hannah and Balthazar simply seem to be in agreement.

It’s a good note, a safe place for King John to enter with Mary and various heads of state in tow. For once, the timing actually works out, and this is what happens. Charlie stares at all three angels with barely contained glee, to the point where Dan nearly tells her these aren’t the three she’ll get to take back to Moondoor. King John notices Sam’s new sword right away but seems to wordlessly accept it as Sam’s due. Cas reaches over with his wing, and this is how Dan winds up against his side, not quite holding hands.

It all turns very formal, very fast. Hannah goes stiff, like Cas, but Balthazar turns on the charm. Which is to say, the smarm. With the out-of-date pronunciation, it weirdly works. All Dan can do is stand there and listen to speeches of victory with Cas’ wing draped around his shoulders.

What feels like a very long time later, Dan finally gets dinner, eating standing in the courtyard, while Charlie interrogates Cas about his relationship with Dan. Cas fumbles his way through it, but most of the awkwardness can thankfully be blamed on Balthazar’s continued needling. It’s a weird night. Almost a nice night. A prelude to the rest of his life.

That little meet and greet lasts much too long, turning into an impromptu celebration over their victory over Lucifer. It still doesn’t seem real. Then someone asks Cas, with a pointed look at the ashes smeared across his shirt, if he wouldn’t want to freshen up. When Cas answers that it’s out of respect for the dead, everything becomes abruptly too real.

The clock tower tolls eleven, and people start to turn in for the night. Hannah and Balthazar take their leave, planning to fly all the way back to the Kingdom of Heaven to assemble with the other angels who are to be assigned to human nations. Cas hugs them tightly and seems surprised when Dan tells him he can fly back with them. Then Cas hugs Dan as well, a full hug with arms and wings and the firm line of his body. When they pull back, there’s traces of ash on Dan’s jacket, too, but he doesn’t brush it away. Instead, he covers it with his hand, and Cas ducks in to kiss him in front of an entire courtyard of politicians and diplomats. And Sam. And Balthazar. Who should probably never be allowed to be alone together, ever.

When Dan goes up to bed, Sam and Jess say goodnight to him at his door. Jess drags Sam away by the hand, saying something that sounds suspiciously like “Your turn to be on top,” and Sam follows her toward their marriage suite with a laugh and a grin.

In his bedroom, Dan yanks off his boots and shrugs out of his light jacket. He hangs it up carefully, making sure the ash doesn’t touch anything else. Then he shucks out of nearly everything else, stripping down to his underclothes. As he crosses to the window, the carpet feels strange beneath his bare feet, a luxury his body stopped anticipating years ago.

His desk is no longer in place, so he drags his chair over. He opens the window and looks out, feeling the air on his face and arms, feeling something more. For a time, he waits and tries not to think. Before he can second-guess the impulse, he grabs his masquerade mask from his closet, the one from the final night, and he ties the band to the window’s lower hinge.

He sits a bit longer, taking in the warm night air, before he dims the lights. He goes to bed, pulling the curtains against the light despite the approaching summer heat.

Before he can drift off to even a shallow doze, there’s a knock at his window. He pulls back the bed curtains and swings his legs out, returning his feet to the carpet. Arms folded on the windowsill, Cas follows each motion with wide blue eyes, somehow darker than the night sky behind him.

“Hey,” Dan says.

“Hello, Dan.” Cas looks away, shifting his weight to fumble one-handed with the mask’s band. He reaches in to set the mask down on Dan’s chair. “Was this an invitation?”

“You’re not flying back to Heaven,” Dan says.

“Not tonight,” Cas answers after a pause.

Dan lifts the mask from his seat before taking its place. “Because you’re exiled.”

“Yes,” Cas says, and he rests his chin atop his folded arms on the windowsill. His right wing is wedged in there between his back and the glass of the window. “Though my goals were accomplished, it would be incorrect to say my mission itself succeeded,” he adds, voice soft, eyes low. He looks up at Dan and Dan drags his chair closer.

“All that, and you still can’t go home,” Dan says. “I’m sorry, man.”

Cas shakes his head. “It was never home after Anna... After Michael killed Anna. Without Uriel... I don’t know.” He’s silent for a moment before asking, “Is that normal? For a home to stop being a home?”

“Yeah,” Dan answers, no hesitation. “The roadhouses feel more like home than this place.”

“I’d like to go to one, then,” Cas says, and Dan chokes on a laugh.

“You’ve been to a couple, buddy,” Dan tells him. “Tried out the beds and everything.”

“Oh,” Cas says. He watches Dan fiddle with the band of his mask, just like old times. A month ago, when Cas was human, and not an angel effortlessly holding to the side of a castle for a chat. It’s starting to be a strange thought, the idea of Cas as human, and Dan’s not sure what to do with that realization.

“We’ll check out a bunch more,” Dan promises, “once we’re out hunting together. If we time it right, you can even meet Jo’s mom, Ellen. She manages the whole network.”

“I think I’d like that,” Cas says. “Dame Joanna—Jo—she said…” He lifts his gaze from Dan’s hands, and it’s incredible, how Cas looking into his eyes makes him more naked than Cas checking out his bare legs or arms. “Did you really hold me the entire way back?”

Dan looks down at the mask. He digs his thumb into the base of a silver horn. “Someone had to.”

“No,” Cas says. Simply. With conviction. Implacable.

“Come inside,” Dan says, and Cas hesitates.

“I shouldn’t,” he decides. “You’re supposed to have this window warded still. Someone could hear us.”

“I didn’t tell you come to bed, Cas,” Dan says.

“But I would take you there,” Cas tells him immediately. “So I’ll stay outside. And when we do go to bed, it will be in a home for both of us.”

Dan sets the mask aside. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, until his face is level with Cas’. “You really gotta stop saying s**t like this,” Dan replies instead of kissing him.

Cas lifts his head from his folded arms. He nudges his chin forward. “No, I don’t. It’s not specified in the treaty.”

A puff of laughter pops out of Dan, and Cas’ eyes crinkle.

“It’s not specified in the treaty either,” Cas adds. “Where we’re going to live.”

“Tired of rooming over the Mews already?” Dan asks.

“We should live somewhere with a balcony,” Cas says, as if Dan hadn’t spoken. “I want at least one room large enough for me to stretch my wings, preferably the bedroom. I think Balthazar will want to live separately. I’m not sure about Hannah. What do you want?”

“You want to live outside the palatial compound?” Dan asks.

Cas nods. “At least until the warding is removed. I understand it will take some time for that trust to build.”

“We could get a place in the city,” Dan realizes. If he’s really not tied to the castle, if it’s better he and Cas be elsewhere... “We could get a place in any city we want. And on nights we have to come back for political stuff, we can do this. Provided you can fit through the window.”

Cas’ wings fluff, a soft wave of ink against the scattered stars beyond. “I can fit.”

“Prove it,” Dan challenges, and Cas pushes up on his hands. He holds himself there, effortless, with a gentle bend in his elbows and no strain in his face. His wings flatten against his back in a way Dan thinks typically means discomfort. Cas doesn’t quite loom over Dan in his chair, and that’s a shame.

Dan rises, and Cas follows the motion with the tilt of his jaw. Cas strains higher, arms fully straightening. His eyes may trail after Dan, but his mouth tracks him. Dan leans down, just a little, not enough.

Cas glares at him through narrowed eyes.

“Is that an angel pout?” Dan teases.

Cas’ eyes narrow further.

It totally is.

Smirking, Dan leans down. He doesn’t just give Cas what he wants, he makes Cas take it . Cas may have to keep his weight on both hands, but Dan doesn’t have to. Oh, no. He can thread his fingers through Cas’ hair. He can palm Cas’ cheek, his neck, his shoulders. He can cover Cas’ hands with his own, all while kissing Cas deep and wet and filthy before breaking off with a nip to his lips. Cas chases his mouth, straining halfway through the window after him.

“Changed your mind about coming inside, huh?” Dan asks. He licks his lips just to watch Cas stare, and inadvertently rewards himself with another taste.

“Dan,” Cas says, and there is a threat in his eyes that Dan would eagerly see fulfilled.

“I mean, if you don’t want to kiss me,” Dan begins, only for his mouth to go dry as Cas reaches, but not for Dan.

Cas reaches up, fingertips just barely reaching the top of the window frame, and then Cas lifts himself. Without so much as glancing away from Dan, he holds himself aloft with just the one arm, elbow slowly bending to a right angle. The night breeze pulls at his hair, his clothes, his feathers, and Cas doesn’t waver.

That’s when Cas reaches for him, his free hand darting out to fist in Dan’s undershirt. He drags Dan against him, to the window, and Dan catches himself on this unshakeable piece of iron that is to be his husband.

“f**k,” Dan swears gently. Not breathlessly. Just quiet. He slides his hands higher, tracing the muscle, if not the impossible strength within it. The solidity of Cas’ chest. The angles of his raised arm. The complete lack of strain in the tendons of his neck.

“I do want to kiss you,” Cas says, as if Dan had needed the help guessing.

“I got that, thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.” And he pulls Dan closer. He binds Dan closer, with lips and breath and a single hand. He pins Dan against him, a hold Dan can’t hope to break, and it’s terrifying in the wrong way, or maybe the right one. If Cas released the window frame, he could drag Dan down to his death in an instant, a mermaid with a sailor. And yet.

And yet.

Dan bites at Cas’ mouth, and though Cas bites back, he’s gentle, so immensely careful. Dan pushes; Cas shifts. Dan pulls, and Cas surges into him, a wave breaking itself before it can reach the jetty. Dan draws Cas’ hand across his own body, under his shirt, and Cas presses warmth everywhere he is invited.

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss. Cas slides his hand around Dan’s back, to clutch at his shoulder blades, to trace the lines of them again and again. It’s a little bizarre, but then, Dan can’t leave Cas’ wings alone either.

From the other side of the castle, the sound easily carried through the night air, the clock tower begins to toll. Twelve long peals of the bell, and Cas pulls away, lifting himself inches higher.

“What?” Dan says, not letting him go. “You got somewhere else to be?”

Cas looks at him, and looks at him, and he smiles with wings and mouth both.

“No,” Cas says, and he comes back down for more.

The humans involved call the wedding a hurried arrangement, but that’s nothing compared to what the other angels think of the pace. Casper, on the other hand, has rapidly grown to envy Sam his single week of betrothal with Jessica. Dan thinks it’s hilarious, or at least claims to.