11. Maize Stalk Drinking Blood

The next few days run together.

Dean wakes up far too early every morning. Sometimes so early that it’s really the middle of the night, if his anxiety makes him, and he tends not to be able to fall back asleep once he’s up. He’ll get up, shower in mercifully hot water till he’s too nervous to stay under the spray anymore, and make his way downstairs once he’s sure he hears Castiel moving around. Since that’s not until around eight, most mornings, he usually has a lot of time to kill. Lots of time alone with himself. 

He kneels in the kitchen for breakfast, kneels in the office for lunch if he doesn’t sleep right through it. Kneels in the living room for dinner. He carries around the green pillow his master had given him everywhere he goes and tries not to think about how much he must look like a toddler with a security blanket.

It does make him feel secure, though. Solid and warm and comfortable, so different from everything in Hell. When he starts to slip off into thoughts of his old life and his old master, he can run his palm across the soft velvet and breathe in Castiel’s scent and relax. He sleeps with it every night, curled around it like it’s going to protect him. And he feels like a child when he does so, but the first and only time he’d intentionally tried to leave it downstairs, he’d had to sneak back down in the middle of the night to get it before he could manage to fall asleep. 

These days, he’s doing a lot of things he doesn’t understand. 

Yesterday night he’d found himself tugging the sheets and the blankets and the pillows off of the bed on something like autopilot, arranging them on the floor between the mattress and the wall like some kind of crazy person before he’d realized what he was doing. He’d stopped, shaken himself, and put all but one quilt and Castiel’s pillow back. He hadn’t wanted to, though, and he doesn’t get why. 

The rest of his life here is equally confusing. He’s never had this much of a lull between horrors. Never had this much food, either, to the point where he hasn’t been hungry at all in a few days. Castiel seems intent on giving him enough to feed an army. It’s bizarre. As is going so long without being hurt, or even threatened.

It still surprises him when he finds he can crouch or bend down without a grimace, when his knees no longer ache since most of his time is spent on soft carpet rather than dirty wooden or concrete floors, when he stops bleeding entirely from below his waist. He can’t even remember the last time he’s been so… whole.

And the more comfortable he gets, the more afraid he is of the moment where it will be taken away. 

He’s anxious, to say the least, waiting for whatever Castiel has planned for him. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. The alpha hasn’t shown any indication of what he wants, though. In fact, Dean doesn’t seem to be much of a factor in his life at all, other than that he’s cooking twice as much. He doesn’t initiate conversations often, probably because all of Dean’s answers are stilted and tense and take too long to come, because he has to figure out what the right thing is to say before he speaks. 

But his master never pushes him. Never tells him to do a single damn thing.

This morning when he wakes up, it’s no different than it’s been for the last three days. It’s still dark outside when his eyes open with what has become a usual rush of fear – fear that he’s slept through the warning footfalls of his master, that he’s going to be whipped for failing to be awake and in position when Alastair opens the door. Fear that fades only when he takes in the faint scent of the soft pillow under him and registers the lack of a chain on his neck. 

He wonders if that will ever go away, or if it has been beaten into him too thoroughly. 

At this point, he’s honestly getting more sleep on the floor of Castiel’s office than he is in the bedroom. He doesn’t have the energy or the will to pick apart how fucked up that is, but it’s the truth – he isn’t afraid when he wakes up as long as he can scent the alpha right away, can hear his gentle breathing and the tip-tap of the keyboard. Different enough from Hell that he can immediately recognize he isn’t there, he guesses. And the alpha’s bizarre reassurance that he can sleep whenever he wants like his time actually belongs to him doesn’t hurt anything, either.

Instead of getting up right away, as he has been for the last few mornings, he stays curled on the floor and goes over his thoughts again and again like a hamster on a wheel. Frantic, going nowhere. The downside of being fed and well-rested is that he has a lot of energy, almost all of which gets fed straight into his anxiety. It tangles his stomach into little knots, claws into his gut whenever it gets the chance. He hates it. 

He clutches the pillow to his chest and doesn’t look at his trembling hands. 

All he can keep thinking is that, if he doesn’t get his ass in gear, Castiel is going to realize he’s just taking up space and sell him back. He’s got this sick feeling that he’s just an experiment to the man, that Castiel was simply bored when he decided to buy him. Considering how empty the house is, he thinks that the alpha isn’t really the type to keep things with no use around. 

If that’s the case, he needs to prove himself to be useful real fast. He’s pretty sure the novelty of having a slave at beck and call is wearing off with every day he does nothing but sleep and eat. He wishes that the man would just tell him to do something, if only so that he can prove he can. Dean has told himself that he will be good, and he’s going to try, even if he’s bound to fuck it up somehow. He’s useless to his master in all the ways that matter but maybe he can find other ways to be helpful, to show Castiel that he didn’t make a mistake in buying him. 

He knows that there are slaves that are not for pleasure, that are just for labor or housekeeping. The idea that he might be able to become one of those is too much hope to bear, so he shoves the thought to the side with a huff. He knows what he’s good for, and it’s not that. 

Only problem is that his master doesn’t seem interested in what he is skilled in. He hasn’t looked at Dean in that way even once, from what he can tell. Hasn’t touched him other than the one time, hasn’t groped or grabbed or slapped. Hasn’t ordered him to his knees or pointed to his own zipper with a smirk or held him down with careless, heavy hands. Hasn’t even touched himself while looking, something lots of alphas that hadn’t even owned him had done in the past. 

And he’s grateful. 

Sort of. 

The truth is, he’s scared. If Castiel doesn’t want him for that, Dean isn’t sure what the hell he’s going to be able to do instead to earn his keep. But he’s resourceful – always has been – and he’ll be damned if he continues to act like a beat dog rather than a productive asset to his master. Damned if he can’t find some way to make Castiel want to have him around. 

The clock on the oven reads 6:04 when he creeps downstairs and looks around for something to do. Castiel is not awake yet. The tile is cool under his bare feet, and outside the large kitchen window he can see the sky just beginning to lose the darkness of night, the clouds gray and heavy and low, full of snow. He shivers a little, but the house is warm enough that he doesn’t think too much about what the snow might feel like on him instead.

There are dishes in the sink, the same ones they’d eaten off of days ago, and every other one used since then. Apparently, the alpha isn’t real good at keeping up with the housework. Bitter thoughts start to form in him (of course he isn’t, the bastard probably hasn’t had to lift a finger since he presented, the rich asshole) but they die out like sparks on wet wood. He doesn’t give a shit if his master is a silver-spoon baby. All he cares about is that Castiel has not used that power to hurt him. Not yet. 

He stares at the mess for a while, debating with himself, but in the end, logic convinces him to move forward. He won’t be a burden – he’s got to show he can be of use, even if it’s just for little things like this. 

Dean hasn’t washed dishes in a very long time, but it’s not like he’s forgotten how to do it. In no time at all he’s scrubbing away, hot water steaming around him, suds on his shirt. He’s making a lot of noise, but Castiel’s bedroom is far enough away from the kitchen that he’s not worried about waking the alpha up. The soap stings his wrists a little, but he ignores it, thankful for the small pain in a way. It makes him feel more… normal, as fucked up as that sounds.  

Watching the dishes pile up into the drain pan feels… good. It feels like he’s accomplishing something real. For a half-second, he allows himself to feel confident, allows himself to remember what it’s like to be worth something. 

“You don’t have to do that.”

The plate he was scrubbing shatters when he drops it into the sink. 

Cold enough that he can feel it through his pajamas, the tile is hard as a tombstone under him, and, distantly, he thinks that his knees hurt from cracking down on it so fast. He’s aware that he’s crammed up against the cabinet doors under the sink and just as aware that it isn’t going to protect him from what’s coming.

He expects a hand to grab his collar, for his face to be shoved to the floor, for a kick in the ribs. He expects to be hauled outside and tied to the porch railing or a tree and whipped for his insolence, expects a hand in his hair and the zip of a fly and to choke when he’s shoved down. He expects something, because he fucked up. He did something without permission, a thing his master didn’t want him to do, and on top of that he just broke a dish that probably cost more than he did. 

What he doesn’t expect is for the alpha to sit down on the floor in front of him, hands in his lap. He doesn’t expect the wash of calm in his scent, or the wretched look on his master’s face when he dares to look up. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, and Dean can only stare stupidly at him, his heart in his throat. The alpha rubs a hand across his mouth, grimacing. “I keep screwing up, don’t I?”

The words make a hysterical laugh lurch out of him. “You’re screwing up? You?"

Castiel frowns at him. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Dean.”

And something inside of him snaps at that, because for the millionth time since he got here Castiel is not doing what Dean fully expected him to. He’s exhausted and he’s bewildered and he’s terrified, and now he’s angry. 

“Yes I have!” He’s yelling, but his voice is hoarse and broken, so he doesn’t know why he’s bothering. Castiel jerks back anyway, his face wary and confused, and Dean is so bewildered that he doesn’t have time to be surprised that an alpha flinched away from him. “I have! I don’t understand why you keep telling me I haven’t – that’s all I’ve done since I got here. I haven’t done anything right! I don’t fucking get why you aren’t punishing me, because–”

His voice cracks. He takes in a ragged breath. “I broke your plate,” he finishes lamely. “I broke your plate. And I’m yours, and I’m broken, too.”

Dean’s breaths are harsh, his cheeks flushed, but the rage that had just tumbled out of him blows away like dust as Castiel stares at him. In its place, Dean pales, and he swallows, and he turns so that his neck is exposed and vulnerable. His scent is horrible – confused and scared and sorry, and Castiel can’t deal with it for one moment longer. 

“You don’t have to believe me, right now,” Castiel starts, careful to keep his voice quiet. Dean flinches back anyway at the sound, his hands clenched around him. “But I bought you so that I could help you.”

“Help me?” Dean’s voice is strangled. He doesn’t understand, clearly, and Castiel swallows. 

“I work for a group that… that assists slaves,” he adds, wondering how much of this is getting through to Dean. “We take them away from bad places, like Hell, and help them get… better.”

He doesn’t mention that the goal is for Dean to be freed, one day. That he’s already helped nearly a hundred slaves leave their shackles, if only indirectly through his money. The omega isn’t ready for that yet. He isn’t even ready for this – Dean is frozen like a deer on a highway, his eyes wide and blank, staring at him like he’s sure Castiel will be his death. 

“You – but –” Dean’s voice shakes. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me?”

“No, Dean. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

Dean’s jaw flexes. He’s steeling himself for something; Castiel can tell. The walls that had slowly started to come down are being built back up right before his eyes. “But you want to… fix me.”

He says it tonelessly, and Castiel senses danger in the question. But he doesn’t know how else to answer, so cautiously, he agrees. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

The omega deflates into himself, the fight that Castiel briefly saw spark in him doused completely. “Oh.” When Castiel looks at him with his head cocked to the side, Dean doesn’t meet his eyes. “I understand.”

Castiel frowns. “I’m not sure you do, actually,” he hedges, and Dean flinches. 

“No, I get it,” he insists, and his voice is meek, the ardent frustration he’d let loose a moment ago a distant memory. “Will you… will you do it?”

The question is faint, almost hopeful, but there’s an edge of misery to it. “Will I do what?” Castiel asks cautiously. 

“Fix me. I don’t –” he takes a breath, shudders again. “I’ll be good for you, alpha. I know you said you don’t want to… to punish me, but you can. You don’t have to send me away to someone else. I’ll listen, I swear.”

When he finally understands, Castiel feels sick. 

Dean thinks he’s going to be retrained.

He has no idea how to tackle that – his instinct is to over-explain, to tell Dean that he wants to free him, but he feels like it will not go over well. Dean will not believe him. He can’t even trust that Castiel doesn’t want to hurt him – there’s no way he’ll be taken at his word for something even more unbelievable than that.

The omega, quite understandably, expects one thing and one thing only from him. 

“If you’re asking if you’re going to stay here with me, the answer is yes,” he finally says, and Dean’s eyes fill with water that he hastily blinks away, hiding his face. And it sickens Castiel that there’s suddenly relief in his scent – even though Dean thinks that Castiel wants to hurt him, to shape him, he’s still relieved to be with him. Castiel had known that the training centers were bad, but it’s never sunk in just how bad they must be. 

“Just tell me what you want, alpha, and I’ll do it. I swear to God I will,” Dean chokes. “I – I know I’ve been a shit slave in the past, but – but I swear. I want to be good. I want to stay here.”

Castiel’s heart is so far up his throat he thinks it might be stuck there. A thousand and one reassurances want to pour out of him and a thousand of them are the wrong thing to say, will just be something that could very well make Dean panic even more. He inches forward, reaches out tentatively and puts a hand on the younger man’s back, just as he did before. Dean flinches, and Castiel tries to combat his fear please sorry no scent with calm reassurance and gentle security.

This time, though Dean has even fewer reasons to trust his intentions than before, the omega is much quicker to relax. He lets loose a long breath and slumps bonelessly into the cabinet doors beside him, his scent flattening out and losing its sharp edges almost immediately. 

“Dean,” he says eventually, and the omega looks over at him with a glazed expression, eyes red-rimmed. “I am not going to be like your previous masters. Do you understand that?”

The scent of desperate relief floods the kitchen, immediately combated by a wave of almost aggressive denial. Dean looks dazed, a little out of it, clearly battling between his biology and his brain, caught between wanting to believe Castiel and his conviction that he shouldn’t. 

Castiel doesn’t want him to feel trapped, so he asks, “Is it okay that I’m touching you right now?”

Dean answers quickly, almost robotically. “Yes, alpha.”

It’s not really what he’s looking for, because it sounds like Dean is just giving him the answer he thinks Castiel expects to hear. “Tell the truth,” he says gently. He doesn’t want to give Dean any orders, but he’s also aware that he won’t tell him what he actually thinks otherwise.

Dean’s scent sharpens a little, and he stiffens minutely under Castiel’s hand. After a moment, he swallows, cheeks reddening as his shoulders relax again. “You… it doesn’t hurt when you do it,” he says finally, and it’s clear that he’s comparing Castiel to the multitude of alphas that have hurt him. 

He sounds surprised by his own words. Castiel nods. “That’s good. But that still doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

Dean frowns, looks down at his lap. His cheeks are fever bright, eyes a little unfocused, and Castiel wonders exactly how much Dean’s long term sleep deprivation and malnutrition are still increasing the potency of his pheromones. He starts to move his hand away, but Dean’s next words stop him. “It’s… nice. I like being calm.” 

He closes his eyes. “I’m never calm.” The words are whispered, more than a little ashamed.

Giving the omega a comforting rub, he can’t help but notice that Dean leans into it, his eyes closing. He’s still not sure how much of this is Dean’s actual preference, and how much of this is his body asking for things that Dean himself does not understand. 

“Can you do something for me?” Dean nods immediately. “If you ever want me to stop touching you, you absolutely have to say so.”

The omega’s face clouds with confusion. Probably to ask a question, he opens his mouth, but he just closes it again after a moment. “Yes, alpha,” he finally says, clearly lost.

“Are you confused?”

Dean sags. “Yes, alpha,” he repeats, and this time it’s much more honest. 

“That’s okay. Thank you for telling me,” he says, and Dean relaxes a little more. “One of my goals is to help you be less afraid.” He’s hoping this is the right direction to take, hoping that he can frame the truth inside of a context that Dean can understand. “So if I’m scaring you, I need to know. I’m not very good at avoiding that,” he admits, and Dean confirms it, quivering under his hand but saying nothing at all to agree. 

“Is this… part of the training?” he asks tentatively, and because Dean isn’t looking at him, Castiel closes his eyes in frustration. 

“That’s not what I…” He takes a breath. Lets it out as slowly as he can. “You don’t need to be trained, Dean.”

But the omega just stares at him. So Castiel swallows, pats his back a little, and says, “It’s…  essential to you getting better. So, please. Tell me when you’re unsure or frightened, even if it seems insignificant to you.”

He’s just not sure how to convince Dean otherwise. And sure enough, his answer seems to relax the omega, and Balthazar’s reminders about giving Dean clear boundaries echo in his ears. 

Dean swallows audibly, and there’s a long beat of silence before he speaks. “I’m scared,” he admits like it’s a dirty secret, and with a start, Castiel realizes that he’s following an order, here, not confessing it because he wants comfort but because he thinks he has to. It makes him sick. “I don’t want to be,” he adds, voice breaking a little.

Castiel’s heart soars at that tiny glimmer of recognition that he isn’t something to fear. But it crashes back down to the ground just as quickly. Dean is still afraid, and now he’s desperate not to be because Castiel wishes for it. Too late, he realizes that voicing his desire for Dean to leave his fear behind might be considered cruel – the omega clearly wants nothing more than to follow his orders, but Castiel has asked him for something that is currently nigh on impossible.

Dean shakes his head. “I – normally I can control my scent better than this, I swear.” He sounds miserable. Embarrassed. That Dean is ashamed of his own justifiable terror is just another injustice piled on top of him. 

Castiel closes his eyes. “Hell was an awful place,” he says carefully. Dean tenses at the very mention of it. “Not everywhere is that way, for omegas. And not every alpha is… like that. But you’ve been there for a long time. I’m not expecting you to get better overnight.” And he’s certainly not expecting Dean to hide his fear. It takes a lot of discipline to control one’s scent, and it’s not exactly surprising that Dean is unable to under the circumstances. 

Dean bites his lip, and Castiel leans back a little. “Do you understand?”

He nods, because of course he would say yes whether or not he really does, and Castiel wishes he would look him in the eye, to see the sincerity of his next words. “Dean.”

He gets his wish, if only for a moment – Dean’s eyes, impossibly green and wide, meet his for a split second. “You are safe here. It’s okay if you don’t believe me yet, though I hope I can earn your trust eventually.”

Dean’s eyes catch his again for a beat, long enough for Castiel to see that they’re wet.  His words are soft when he replies. “I want to believe you.”

And even though his heart feels like it wants to rip in half, Castiel smiles.