A/N - Just a little 2-chapter fic that's been sitting on my hard drive for a while. I thought I would pull it out during my holiday break. Set in mid S9 after the Gas-n-Sip episode, when Cas is still human and on his own. (I just can't get enough of human-Cas!) Winter's Tale readers: this was originally an alternate take on Winter's Tale, a much darker version of it, that I eventually excised from that fic and turned into its own little short story here.

Warning: definite dub-con and some sex-work scenes that are not all that positive. The dub-con is not between Cas and Dean but between Cas and other guys (mostly-nameless OCs). NO SLASH between Cas and Dean, not in these 2 chapters anyway, but there is romance, and there may be epilogues.

The first time, Castiel had entered the Red House Bar & Grill only for shelter from a sudden rainstorm. He'd only just arrived in the city a few days earlier, still reeling from the loss of the precious job at the Gas-n-Sip. (Apparently, battling a Rit Zien in your boss's living room while caring for her young daughter, and then inviting your strange hunter friend into the house as well, was not the best path for career advancement.) Cas had left Idaho almost immediately after the Rit Zien incident, and had ended up on the outskirts of Denver just a few days later.

Where it hadn't been any easier to find work. Especially not with a broken wrist (one last gift from the Rit Zien) — and no papers, no references, and, apparently, no useful skills.

Cold, hungry, and tired, Cas wasn't at his most alert as he wandered into the Red House. He made his way out of the rain, shivering from the cold, and stood gazing around dully at the aggressively red-and-black decor. Scarlet drapes hung from the walls, blood-red barstools stood in a row at the bar, and all the bartenders even wore smart red bowties. He took a seat at the bar, waving off the bartender (he didn't have any money for drinks) and sat for a while. When a man by his side said, "So, whatcha here for?" Cas said, "I'm just trying to warm up."

"Wanna see something fun back in the bathroom, then? It'll definitely warm you up."

Cas didn't understand at all, and he trailed his new friend "Taylor" into the Red House men's room under the vague impression that Taylor wanted to show Cas some sort of a game.

Taylor led Cas into the handicapped stall and then stuck his hand right down Cas's pants, while nimbly unzipping his own pants with his other hand and pulling out his penis. Cas, totally startled, jumped back so fast he hit the back of his head on the coat hook of the little door. The coat hook gave him quite a hard blow, hard enough to draw blood. But he was so surprised and confused that he barely felt the trickle of warmth down his neck.

Taylor only sighed, saying, "All right. All right. I know I've put on weight, okay? Thought for once I got lucky, sue me. Twenty do it?" And he pulled out his wallet and held out a twenty-dollar bill.

Cas stared at the twenty-dollar bill in Taylor's hand, his thoughts moving as slowly as molasses.

It took several long seconds for the correct word to float up in Cas's mind.

Prostitution, Castiel thought at last. This is a proposition for paid sex. This is prostitution.

It was one of the most ancient of prohibitions, and one of the worst of sins.

Though, those prohibitions had always applied only to humans, not really to angels. Angels had a whole separate list of prohibitions, and their own unique types of sins. Like disobedience. And killing fellow angels. (Well, it used to be against the rules.) And... well, yes, sleeping with humans was on the list... did this count? Would a quick tryst in a bathroom count?

The twenty-dollar bill seemed to gleam in the dim bathroom stall, promising all sorts of riches. It could buy meals, multiple meals even; it could buy a warm sweater, or a real bed for the night. Twenty dollars. Right now Cas had zero dollars.

But what about that prohibition against consorting with humans?

Wait. I'm not an angel. It was embarrassing how often he forgot this simple fact. Castiel wasn't an angel anymore. So that old rule didn't really apply, did it? Cas was human. So... would this still be a sin? What rules applied to Castiel now? Could he lie with a man, now? Or... was he now subject to that finicky Old Testament rule about men not lying with men?

Do any rules at all apply? he thought, still gazing at Taylor's twenty-dollar bill.

And... do I even care, if they do?

The confusion was overwhelming. Cas finally fumbled the little swinging door open behind him (knocking his head into the coat hook again in the process), and he turned on his heel and left without a word. He barely even heard Taylor's half-angry, half-embarrassed apologies behind him.

Three days later, colder and hungrier and more tired than ever, Castiel returned to the Red House.

The puzzle of which "ancient prohibitions" applied seemed to be evaporating rapidly under the weight of hunger. Those archaic rules had not been enforced for millennia. Certainly nobody seemed to pay any attention any more to the other rules of the old eras (rules such as not wearing mixed fabrics, and making sure to have tassels at the corners of one's clothing, and putting parapets on all the roofs). Besides, Castiel had reason to know that many of the odder rules (including, he'd long suspected, the one about not lying with other men) had not been God's word at all, but had been added by various opinionated scribes who'd insisted on squeezing their own private opinions into the grand story.

Cas had long since committed all the worst sins anyway. He'd disobeyed, he'd murdered angels, he'd tried to be God himself. Plus he was wearing mixed fabrics right now. (As was everybody else in the entire city as far he'd been able to tell, and there wasn't a tassel or a parapet for miles.) What was one more tiny sin to add to the pile?

So he came back, visions of the twenty-dollar bill dancing in his head.

But Taylor, and his twenty-dollar bill, were gone.

Cas never saw him again, and sometimes wished he could have apologized for his hasty exit.

Another man did approach Castiel that night, and invited him to the alleyway. This time Cas was a little more mentally prepared, but the man got offended when Cas asked for twenty dollars. "I never pay!" the man said, zipping up his pants and stomping off in a huff, leaving Cas bewildered all over again.

Castiel wandered slowly back to the Red House's side door. Once back inside, sitting at the bar till he recovered from his confusion, he began to wonder why "I never pay" had sounded familiar. After a moment he remembered: It was a joke that Sam and Dean had both used on occasion. "I don't pay," Dean would say, or "You shouldn't ever pay, Sam," and other such cryptic jokes. Castiel had never been able to follow that particular line of joking and had loftily ignored it all.

But now, thinking back on it, he developed a theory.

Cas shifted to a corner table that had a good view of the entire bar, and he spent the rest of the evening watching. After some hours of observing various couples form up and drift away, and after some not-very-subtle snooping in the bathrooms, the alley, and even all the way out in the park, trying to figure out if money was changing hands, he thought he had figured it out:

The attractive ones don't pay. The unattractive ones do. That was the pattern.

Cas had also had to field some offers himself. But the offers were often exceedingly vague ("Want to head out back?" "Want any action tonight?"), and Cas was quite unsure about whether he was expected to pay or not. It had never been clear to him whether his vessel — now his permanent home — was attractive or not. Rather than risk promising money he didn't have, he turned all the offers down.

He wasn't really interested in any of them anyway.

None of them were like...

Well. No need to think about that. Cas didn't really want any of them, was all. So he turned them all down.

But a few days later Cas was invited "out back" by a man who clearly was prepared to pay. And this man, at last, agreed to the twenty dollars.

They went to the alley out back, where (Cas now knew) there was a handy spot between a scrawny tree and a dumpster where two men could get somewhat out of view.

The man asked for a "hand job." Cas was pretty sure what this meant (he'd seen the act often enough during past millennia, but of course the act had then had other names, in other languages). He fumbled through it as best he could. But he wasn't sure what sort of pressure to use, or how to coax the man's penis to maximum firmness. And he was standing on the wrong side as well, so that he had to use his half-healed wrist, the one that had been broken by the Rit Zien just three weeks ago. It immediately got very sore.

He knew he did a poor job of it, that first time. The pain from his wrist kept distracting him, and he could sense, from his customer's reactions, that his pressure and speed and tempo were not ideal. Though the man did orgasm eventually, a few spurts of semen shooting out onto the damp pavement of the filthy alley. Cas eyed the spurting with a vague sense of curiosity, and even a stirring of interest, but the man seemed displeased, saying afterwards as he buckled his pants and tucked his shirt back in, "Coulda done better on my own. You new at this or something?"

Cas could only nod.

At which the man rolled his eyes and said, "Jesus Christ, just my luck. Well, for twenty bucks you really better develop some better technique, bucko."

But he did pay nonetheless.

He paid the full twenty dollars.

Back at the bar later, Cas purchased the cheapest beer available, a three-dollar beer. Despite his customer's disappointed reaction, Castiel nonetheless felt inordinately proud as he handed over the twenty-dollar bill, and received seventeen dollars back in change, along with the beer.

My first purchase with my ill-gotten gains, he thought, taking his first sip of the beer. I'm purchasing alcohol with my prostitution earnings. The idea didn't sting as much as he'd thought it might, especially when the bartender pushed over a bowl of free pretzels as well.

I'm probably defiled now, thought Castiel, munching down a handful of pretzels. I'm probably an abomination. But it was hard to worry about that too much when he finally had something to put in his stomach. He soon had downed another handful of pretzels. And another.

But then he spent a long time sitting on the blood-red stool, nursing the three-dollar beer, thinking. Something else was bothering him now.

The act itself had not been that bad. Not bad at all. In fact there were elements of it that were a little bit appealing, elements that even made him curious. And the "prohibition" aspect, the question of whether he was defiled, had faded into relative unimportance for the moment.

What was bothering him now was simply that he'd turned out to be bad at it.

I'm bad at sex, Cas thought. It was a disquieting thought. He'd always assumed that instinct would kick in, when the need arose.

During all the eons of observing humans he'd seen countless sexual acts, of course. (He hadn't been trying to. But inevitably, whenever one had any sort of assignment that involved clandestine observation of humans, one happened across humans having sex.) He'd seen quite a few things, in fact, quite a lot of times, and not a few acts between men.

But seeing and doing were quite different things. What had he actually done? What were his actual skills?

With Daphne, in the brief weeks that he'd been married, he'd never really done all that much — well, not in terms of penises, anyway. The memories were a little hazy now, as was everything from those months of amnesia, but he was certain they'd never consummated the marriage. He'd still been too much an angel for the urge to take him in that way. He had managed, though, to learn how to bring some pleasure to Daphne. It had been a task he'd performed willingly but dutifully, and not with any great sense of desire.

Those skills, of course, would not be very useful with the Red House clientele.

Then there'd been that one night not long ago with April, the reaper. He'd been fully human, and had definitely felt more curiosity. Certainly there'd been more sense of desire, more of a specific interest in the nature of physical touch, and in the sensation of the kissing, and of course the feel of the orgasm itself had been quite wonderful. It had all been pleasant enough. Though the memory had been darkened quite a bit by what had happened next (the next morning had been truly horrible). But he'd always assumed he'd done all right during the night before.

But then, April had been trying to ensnare and kill Castiel. What if she'd lied about Castiel's performance the night before?

Cas sighed, taking another sip of beer. It was oddly depressing to think that he might have performed poorly with April. Had she been laughing at him all along?

There was no way to know.

And, anyway, those skills of his, as limited as they probably were, wouldn't be that relevant with the Red House men anyway.

The men here at the Red House were turning out to be more interesting still, much more interesting than April. That man out in the alley... maybe he wasn't exactly Castiel's choice of partner, but... those spurts! And the sounds he had made, when the orgasm had swept over him... Quite interesting. Really quite interesting.

But apparently Castiel was bad at it.

I should be able to practice on myself, Cas realized. He glanced down at his own body, thinking, I've got a male body right here. With a penis. I can practice with it. But individual bodies, and presumably individual penises, probably reacted differently. What worked on this body might not work on all the men here at the Red House. (Nor, perhaps, on... other people. Elsewhere. Other people who would remain nameless.) And besides, Cas hadn't even felt much desire to do any "practicing." None at all in the last couple months, in fact. His recent months of being fully human had been much more exhausting than arousing.

In fact, human life so far had been nothing but a constant struggle of hunger, fear, pain, and exhaustion. Maybe such sensations interfered with sexual desire?

Would it ever get any better?

Not to mention that sleeping on the creaky bunk-beds in the homeless shelter wasn't really conducive to pursuing any sort of physical pleasure anyway. Even just getting to sleep was difficult enough.

Am I going to be bad at this? Cas thought, tracing one finger through the condensation on his beer bottle. If I ever got the chance with a partner I chose myself... would I be bad at it?

He swiveled on the blood-red barstool and glanced around at the other men at the bar.

It occurred to Castiel, then, that the Red House could be a good opportunity to practice.

I could practice and perfect my skills here, he thought. I could learn to be good at sex. So that, if...

Just in case I ever...

Just in case.

It wouldn't do to think too hard about why, exactly, it seemed like a good idea to practice with other men, rather than with women. Or who exactly he was practicing for.

Over the next weeks, Castiel learned quite a few things.

He learned to keep his head up, to make eye contact across the room with likely potentials. He learned to smile more. He learned who to approach; to pick out the the ones who sat by themselves, the ones who hadn't come with friends, the ones who weren't dancing.

He learned quite a few things about more effective technique: he soon had a better idea of the pressure to use, the variations in tempo and touch that could be added, things he could do with his other hand, and how to fine-tune his approach according to how the man reacted. He even began to get a few repeat customers.

But he also learned that they were customers, only, and not friends. He learned not to ask their names if they didn't offer them, and not to ask anything about their lives. And he learned it could be a dangerous trade. He had to always be ready to defend himself. Fortunately he still had his angel-blade, and his old skills at hand-to-hand combat were, it turned out, rather helpful at times.

He learned there was competition. A surprising amount of competition, actually. And some of them didn't like having Castiel there on their preferred nights (Friday and Saturday, mostly). After one fight too many, one accusation too many of having "stolen" a job from somebody else, Cas switched, for the most part, to a Sunday-through-Thursday schedule.

He also learned there were many diseases to be concerned about. He'd only been doing hand jobs so far anyway, with meticulous handwashing afterwards, but just to be on the safe side he spent an entire week saving up enough money to get an additional anti-possession tattoo, one that had some extra wards of protection against infectious disease. Infectious diseases, Castiel knew, were actually the most ancient form of possession (they were caused by very tiny demons — so tiny they were microscopic). The right sigil, in tattoo form, would be extremely effective.

And he confirmed that sex was easily available for the attractive men. The less attractive ones, though, would routinely pay twenty dollars for quite a minimal act, just the use of one's hands to bring them to orgasm. It usually only took ten minutes or so, sometimes less.

Dean would never pay, Castiel thought one day, as he washed his hands in the men's room after his third hand-job of the night. Dean would never have to pay.

Dean would never stoop this low at all.

Cas soon discovered that fellatio would pay more, and sodomy more still. Thirty dollars and fifty dollars seemed to be the going rates for those two acts, respectively. Apparently female prostitutes could command much higher prices, but in bars like the Red House, sex seemed to be so plentiful anyway that thirty and fifty seemed the norm — and then only with the unattractive clients. (Or, occasionally, an attractive one who just couldn't be bothered with the ins and outs of cruising, as it seemed to be called, who just wanted a quick and reliable fix.) It wasn't long before some of Cas's regular customers began suggesting some of these other acts, the fellatio or the sodomy (or both). But rather to his surprise, he found himself reluctant to try either of those options. This was not out of any sense of squeamishness, for everything about human bodies still seemed approximately equally strange — hiccups and sneezes still seemed every bit as peculiar and noteworthy as orgasms. Nor was his reluctance out of prudity — Cas was, if anything, getting more curious than ever, about all possible acts. It was, rather, more out of the lingering worry that he might in some way be permanently defiled if he performed all the possible acts of prostitution.

Where was the line between "clean" and "defiled"? Between "holy" and "abomination"? Had he already crossed it?

Had he crossed it long ago?

But the thirty dollars and fifty dollars were incredibly tempting. Cas had found a decent place to sleep now, in a downtown hostel not far off. It was better than the homeless shelter; there was less violence, less theft, and fewer of the sad unfortunates, the drug addicts and the mental patients. (Cas always felt driven to try to help those lost souls, but he'd found he could never help at all.) But the hostel cost eighteen dollars a night. That meant six or seven hand jobs a week just to cover his bed alone, not even counting food.

Thirty dollars for fellatio, he thought one night, walking home at two in the morning with his shoulders hunched against a thin drizzly fog. Thirty dollars for fellatio, fifty for sodomy... He had almost decided on it when a thought popped into his head:

What if...

What if someday I...

What if someday I might have a partner of my own? One I choose myself? Not for pay?

If I am an abomination, if I am defiled, would he still want me?

This was silly to think about, foolish really, so Castiel put it out of his mind.

But nonetheless he continued with only the hand jobs, and not the other two acts.

By six weeks in, everything was going quite well. He had a way to earn money, he had a bed in a hostel and could afford a meal almost every day. Things were going very well, in fact. So Castiel was dismayed to discover that a creeping sense of discomfort and sorrow had somehow begun to seep into his life.

Many of the customers were kind, but some were cruel, and a few took a strangely sadistic pleasure in berating him, or even in beating him. Cas was nimble enough, and a good fighter, so only a few blows ever landed. But sometimes the first blow or two took him by surprise, and did land, and left bruises. Pain as a human always seemed to leave much deeper emotional wounds than pain ever had as an angel. Afterwards it sometimes took days to stop flinching whenever somebody raised a hand. And it was harder to get customers when he had bruises on his face.

Those episodes were, thankfully, relatively rare. But as day succeeded day, even the acts with the gentler customers began to feel somewhat draining. Increasingly Castiel woke late in the night, after just a few hours of sleep, to lie awake staring at the dark ceiling of the hostel dormitory room, listening to the snores of the men around him.

The world often seemed infinitely empty, the night almost hollow, in those deep hours of the night. Sometimes he lay watching the night sky through the dormitory's little window, occasionally catching sight of one or two stars as they slowly wheeled into view and then away again. The glimpse of the distant stars always made him think of the days when he could fly, of the night flights he had taken sometimes, soaring through the darkened sky above the moonlit clouds. Nothing but the stars and moon overhead, nothing but clouds and sea below. No pain, no hunger. He'd known where he was going; he'd known what his purpose was. Even now he could remember, quite clearly, the sound the wind had made as it whistled in his wings...

He lay for hours sometimes, aching to have his wings back, wishing for things he knew he could never have, till the window began to lighten. Sometimes Cas was nearly brought to tears by that sight of that flat gray light, just from the knowledge that soon he would have to rise and face yet another day.

Once he finally got moving, the bleak sense of oppression usually eased a little. He spent the mornings in the big central library downtown, reading old plays or leafing through old National Geographics, looking at pictures of the Himalayas, or the South American savanna, and or of deep-sea creatures. (Everything but birds. He read every article except for the ones that had pictures of wings.) At noon sometimes there were free concerts in the park; sometimes there were street performers to sit and watch. His favorite street performers were the musicians. There was a very old man with a strange Tibetan version of a violin; once, a girl with a guitar; once, a young man playing the cello, so beautifully it made Cas's eyes prick with tears.

The afternoons were spent back in the library, or sometimes at the job-placement office, filling out pointless forms. But when at last the library closed and he had to walk to work, to the Red House, he felt his steps begin to drag. It felt almost as if he were wearing some sort of heavy gray cape, something that almost weighed him down physically, exuding bits of sorrow into the air as he walked.

After each job, Cas had to wash his hands longer and longer before he felt clean.

Not that these physical interactions really mean anything to me, he thought, late one Wednesday evening, as he scrubbed his hands yet again in the Red House's bathroom sink. He'd taken to bringing his own bar of soap, which he kept in a ziploc bag in the pocket of his jacket. He went through a bar of soap every week.

It's not even my body, really, he thought, inspecting his fingernails carefully. Well... maybe it IS my body now. But it's not my true form, not the form I grew up in. None of this really means anything to me. This is a means of earning food and shelter to keep the vessel alive. That's all.

It means nothing.

It means nothing.

Sometimes the men wanted to kiss him. Castiel found he hated this.

One Sunday just past the two-month mark, Castiel was again seated at the Red House bar, staring at a text alert on his phone. The noise in the background — the chattering of the men at the bar, the thumping of music from the tiny dance floor — seemed to fade around him as he read it. And reread it.

The phone had buzzed in his pocket just moments ago and he'd snatched it up, fumbling it out of the pocket of his jacket so fast he'd nearly dropped it. He'd actually imagined for a moment that it might have been Dean calling. That had been a silly thought, hadn't it. Now that Cas realized he'd been wrong, he sat chastising himself for even thinking it. Don't be foolish, he thought sternly. Don't be foolish. Of course Dean won't call. Don't be an idiot.

For when had Dean ever called him, since Cas had lost his powers?

As soon as Cas had really needed help, as soon as he'd had nothing to offer, Dean had simply asked him to leave. "You can't stay here, Cas," Dean had said, and that had been that.

Cas flexed his wrist gently while he studied the phone. (The wrist was mostly healed now, but still sometimes a little stiff.) Of course the text message was not from Dean. Of course it wasn't. It was just an automatic alert telling him that the phone's minutes had expired. In fact it seemed the whole phone number had expired somehow. It was a cheap pre-paid Tracfone that had come pre-loaded with thirty minutes — it was one of Dean's burner phones, one he had given to Cas when Cas had left the bunker — and there had been twenty-six precious minutes saved up still to use, minutes that Cas had been hoarding in case he needed to call Sam or Dean. But he hadn't realized, not till right now, that he needed to use the phone at least once every sixty days to keep his minutes from expiring and to keep the phone number active.

Twenty dollars, the text said. "Your account has been automatically de-activated due to lack of account activity in past 60 days. The account can be re-activated for only $20 (plus cost of new minutes). Just visit your neighborhood X-Mobile store for details!"

"Only" twenty dollars, the text said, as if twenty dollars were a trivial amount. That was an entire hand job! A whole customer! Plus the new minutes would cost more, too. And there'd have to be a trip to the telephone store, which Castiel knew meant a two-mile walk tomorrow morning (he couldn't afford the bus fare).

He sighed, glancing around at the bar as he took a sip of water. His eyes landed on his own reflection, in the red-framed mirror opposite the bar. He looked thin, and he knew he could use a shave. His shirt needed cleaning, as well (he'd never quite gotten the bloodstains out, actually, from that first incident with Taylor and the coat hook.) Food cost money; razors and soap cost money; laundry and clothes cost money... Everything cost money.

I can do this, he thought, trying to cheer himself up. Twenty's not impossible. Not at all. Just one little hand job. I can do this. It just meant he'd have to work at least two jobs tonight, when he'd been hoping to get away with just one job — one job being just enough to pay for his bed tonight at the hostel.

Two jobs wouldn't take much time, of course. In fact Cas could have been taking many more jobs, and earning much more money. But he had found he preferred to work the bare minimum necessary.

Do I even really need the phone? he thought, turning it around in his hand. The phone had only ever been dead weight in Cas's pocket. He charged it dutifully every night, and carried it with him every day, but the truth was that somehow two months had slid by without him ever placing, nor receiving, a call.

Cas thumbed through a few of the menu options to re-assess the phone's capabilities. It did tell the time; that was slightly useful. It even had an alarm. It had a contacts list... containing exactly two phone numbers, Sam's and Dean's, neither of which Cas had ever used. (He'd been tempted. Many times. But then he'd remembered that he'd have to tell them how poorly he was doing. He'd have to tell them how he was making a living. And then there would probably be one of those scornful laughs from Dean... It made Castiel tired just to picture it.) There was some sort of email-reading service but it had always seemed to be nonfunctional, perhaps since Cas had never been able to afford a "data plan." (Well, he could have afforded it, but that would have meant doing more jobs.) There were a few pre-installed games that he'd never played, and some sort of an electronic mapping feature that also required extra money for a data plan. Nothing much else.

He never used the phone at all, really. He'd been filling in the number on every job application he filled out at the work-placement office, but — as was clear from the fact that the number had just been deactivated — nobody had ever called. As he'd already suspected, there wasn't much need for middle-aged men with no papers, no references, no formal education, and no skills. (Well, no marketable skills. There wasn't much market, it seemed, for hand-to-hand combat, nor angelic battle strategy.) "Worst job market in years," everybody told him, everywhere he'd asked.

Cas swiveled slightly around on the blood-red barstool, glancing over his shoulder for a quick assessment of tonight's crowd. Just a thin scattering of men at the tables tonight. Two guys were at the pool table (Cas was not good at this game) and one of the dartboards was in use. (Cas, much to his surprise, had turned out to excel at darts. So much so that nobody would play against him anymore.) There were four other men seated right near him, along the other barstools at the bar, but it looked like they'd all already paired up. The dance floor was nearly empty.

It was Sunday night, late, and people had started to go home. The phone had died at a bad time; it would have been much easier to find jobs on a Friday or Saturday. Sunday was always bad, Monday worse. Still, though, Cas could usually find a few jobs here even on a Sunday. I just have to remember to keep my head up, he reminded himself. Keep my head up and smile. Make eye contact and smile. Don't forget to smile. Castiel often forgot the smiling part.

He didn't really need the phone, in fact. Many people in similar lines of work found their jobs via the phone, he knew, but Cas had always found jobs in person, here at the bar. He could just ditch the phone.

He didn't need the phone.

But this is the phone number that Dean has.

Twenty dollars.

"Drink?" said the bartender, interrupting Cas's thoughts. Castiel looked up; the bartender tonight was Joe, a burly bearded guy who Cas had spoken to a few times. In fact Joe was the bartender that Cas had bought his first beer from.

Joe added, looking a bit uncomfortable, "You know you gotta order something. House rules."

Cas sighed internally — this would be another couple dollars at least — but he nodded. The staff here weren't unkind, but they'd made it clear that Cas couldn't take up a seat at the bar every night for hours on end without ever buying anything. So Cas tried to buy at least one drink here per evening. But it had to be cheap. Tonight it had to be very cheap

"A seltzer, please?" Cas asked.

It was the cheapest possible order. Cas added, hoping to make clear that he wasn't trying to cause trouble, "My phone died." This shouldn't have made sense, really, but Joe nodded, and he grabbed a glass and turned to the seltzer spigot.

Joe had never inquired much about Cas's life. But ever since he'd seen how fast Cas had eaten all the pretzels, that first time Cas had ordered a beer, he'd always slid a bowl of pretzels in Cas's direction, whenever he'd gotten the chance.

Joe brought him the seltzer. It had two slices of lime in it — valuable vitamin C, Cas knew — and Joe slid over the usual bowl of free pretzels as well. "I gotta ask two bucks for the seltzer," Joe said. "Sorry. Boss is on me about it."

Cas nodded. It was good of Joe even to bring the pretzels, and the lime slices, and Cas understood that Joe couldn't give away everything for free. Castiel handed over two precious dollar bills.

Fortunately, it was only another fifteen minutes until a man tapped him on the shoulder. Castiel glanced up; it was David, an older customer who Cas had met several times before. David happened to be one of those who was cursed with a rather unattractive appearance: overweight and balding, with lumpy facial features, bad skin, poor teeth and a rather hunched-over posture. There was nothing wrong with any of that, of course. It was just the way some vessels were. Some vessels met the common standards of the day, with all the requisite indications of symmetry, health, youth, and vigor. The luckiest ones also had that pleasing balance of facial features that seemed to be an attractive quality for both sexes. Some vessels had those characteristics... and some did not.

If they did not, it did not mean the soul housed inside was any less worthy, of course. The souls that lived in the less desirable bodies were no less deserving, no less intelligent or sensitive, and certainly no less worthy of happiness. But it did mean, apparently, that they had more difficulty finding partners. And that meant they were willing to pay.

"You free?" said David.

Cas nodded, reminding himself to look friendly. A job was a job. Time to get to work.

"Park, alley or bathroom?" David asked.

Cas forced a smile. "Your choice."

"Park then," said David, grinning at him. "Under the moonlight. Romantic."

A few minutes later they were walking to the long, skinny riverside park a block away from the Red House. The park wasn't actually Cas's favorite option (it was cold, for one thing, and sometimes things got dangerous) but it did offer superior privacy compared to both the alley and the bathroom. Cas knew the way by now, and he led David into a maze of trampled trails in the tall reeds by the river.

Soon they came to a hidden spot by a weeping willow. The river reeds were quite high here, offering pretty good cover.

"Same deal, right?" said David, as he unzipped his pants. "A handy for twenty?"

Cas hesitated. "I was thinking thirty," he suggested. "I have some new bills I have to pay."

David laughed. "Your bills ain't my problem. Twenty's the going rate. For thirty I'd at least want a health cert. I can't even know for sure if you're clean, you know?"

Cas frowned at that, and almost opened his mouth to object. He had the additional anti-possession tattoo by now, and he knew he was well-guarded against infectious disease. But David would not understand that.

"I need more," Cas tried to explain. "I need money to re-activate my phone."

"Well... " David looked unconvinced. "It better be more than a handy, then. How about thirty for a b-j?"

A human might think this was degrading, Cas thought, a few minutes later, on his knees in the mud. It's fortunate I'm not truly human. It wouldn't have been bad, really, except that David was... well, not the person Castiel would have chosen. David had kind of an irritating laugh, and had already made a few crass comments about "back-alley whores" that had made Cas pretty annoyed. Also, David was not as clean as he could have been; his crotch, to be blunt, smelled bad. It seemed David's personal hygiene habits could use a refresher. No wonder he has to pay, thought Cas, but he kept his thoughts to himself. It wouldn't do to anger the customer.

David was also kind of rough. He wouldn't let go of Cas's hair, and kept jerking Cas's head around. It was difficult to breathe, and Cas's jaw was soon very sore. It wasn't coercion (not exactly... not precisely...) but it was certainly not pleasant, either. Cas kept at it, thinking, I need to practice this too. I should practice this too.

He tried not to allow himself the follow-up thought of "... and it would be much, much better to practice with someone I am actually interested in."

It's fortunate this isn't really my true form. It's lucky I don't mind about the pain or the discomfort. None of this matters, really. It's fine to do these acts for money. Also, I am not being defiled. I'm really not.

If anything, I should be proud, Cas thought later, as he rinsed his mouth out with water from the river after David had gone. (The river was filthy, and Cas knew he should wait till he could get some drinkable water from the bar at the Red House, but the urge to rinse out his mouth immediately had become overwhelming.) He should be proud, because he'd figured out a good way to make some money relatively quickly. It was fairly quick; he'd made thirty dollars for only ten minutes' work. Thirty.

He was taking care of himself. He was earning enough money to take care of himself. That was something to be proud of, wasn't it? And best of all, nobody got hurt. It involved no theft, no lying, and none of the Winchester-style petty crime.

I'm not like Dean, Cas thought, back at the Red House fifteen minutes later. He was in the Red House's back bathroom now with a precious glass of seltzer water, still rinsing his mouth repeatedly and spitting in the sink, thinking, I'm not like Dean. At least I make an honest living. So, yes, this whole method of earning money was requiring a certain mental adjustment. Yes, it was more unsettling than he'd imagined it would be. Yet even so, it still felt good to know he had not had to steal, or lie, or commit murder.

I just have to find two more customers tonight, thought Cas. I could do fellatio on each one. That'll be sixty dollars. Enough for tonight's bed, tomorrow's too, dinner, the phone and the new minutes. Castiel rinsed his mouth again.

And again.

And again.

Eventually he had to go look for a drugstore, to buy some toothpaste. (He had some toothpaste back at the hostel, but he needed some now, immediately.) He had to walk quite a few blocks to find a drugstore that was still open, and found himself spitting the whole way, still trying to get David's funky taste out of his mouth. It wouldn't have been such a bad taste if David had just smelled better. It wouldn't have been so bad, it was just that...

It was just that... David wasn't the partner he would have chosen.

It was just that... Cas wanted to keep his own vessel clean, and in good condition, and... undefiled... for... well, just in case... In case someday, someone might want to...

Cas shoved his hands in his pockets, walking very briskly into the chilly night air, resolutely turning his mind toward thoughts of toothpaste. Eventually he found a little corner market that had a small personal-hygiene section, where Cas used several of his precious remaining dollars to buy toothpaste (travel-size, mint-flavored), a tiny fold-up travel toothbrush that he was quite pleased with, a little three-ounce bottle of mouthwash, and some breath mints. He bought a bottle of water too, to rinse his mouth with, and he went outside and brushed his teeth three times, just to be on the safe side.

Thirty dollars, it turned out, hadn't lasted all that long. The seltzer, toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, water and breath mints had used up over half of it. Cas sighed to realize he had only fourteen dollars left. It's all just start-up costs, thought Cas. I'll get used to it. At least now I'm ready for...

For who?

Who, exactly, was he brushing his teeth for?

Cas pushed that thought aside, focusing on the money. He counted and re-counted his change, concluding he still didn't have enough to reactivate the phone, and knowing that he still had to pay for the hostel bed tonight. He knew he should return to the Red House bar immediately to get right back to work. But by now an air of extreme fatigue had settled over him — it seemed almost impossible even to walk and he was soon having to fight an intense desire to sit down on the nearest curb and put his head in his hands. Castiel did manage to force himself to keep moving, and he didn't let himself sit down on the curb, but he found himself turning right instead of left when he left the corner market, and walking all the way to the hostel, instead of back to the Red House Bar & Grill. It was a stupid choice; he hadn't made enough yet tonight to even pay for tonight's bed, let alone dinner. Tomorrow he'd have to make enough to pay the overdue bill for tonight's bed, and tomorrow's bed too, and the phone reactivation besides.

The entire next day Castiel felt hyperconscious of the dead phone in his pocket. He felt at it constantly, holding it in his hand sometimes and looking at its "No Service" message. He spent much of the day in a fruitless journey to several different cell-phone stores, seeking some cheaper option, but with no success.

Another day had passed. He was losing time. He'd need to pay for a hostel bed again tonight. He either needed multiple customers tonight — a Monday night now, another bad night to find customers — or he needed to ask each customer for more money.

It was time to ask for fifty dollars.

This meant escalating to the sodomy. Cas had been especially reluctant to try this, unsure of the hygiene issues (which seemed like they might present considerable complications) and also a bit worried about the potential pain. He knew already that sodomy could be painful for inexperienced participants — for he'd seen, in past millennia, enough instances of male rape to be aware of the worst possibilities.

This wouldn't be rape, of course, but it was clear it would be best if he could buy some lubricant of some sort. But that would have to wait till later; the hostel bill had to be paid tonight, and Cas didn't have enough money for both. If it was painful he would just have to bear it.

It was, indeed, very painful. They were by the river again, under the willow tree, but even here it was important to be quiet. It took all Cas's control to not make a sound.

How can it be this painful? he thought, biting his lip. The pain was astonishing. Fifty dollars, he thought, over and over. Fifty dollars. I can re-activate the phone. I can even afford a burger.

But at the end the customer wouldn't pay the fifty, even though they'd agreed on fifty at the outset.

"You're lucky to even get thirty bucks, you worn-out sack a shit. You ain't no spring chicken, you know. How old are you anyway? Pushin' forty? You're lucky to get anyone to even let you near them, let alone paying. How many years you been doin' this? How many diseases you got? Thirty-five for your sweet ass and that's that. There is no way you are convincing me you ain't already positive, anyway."

They'd already agreed! But the customer got increasingly belligerent. Cas did still have his blade, and Cas knew he could have killed the customer. Easily. And taken his money, in fact. All his money.

It was tempting.

I'm not a killer, Cas thought, fingering the end of the haft of the blade.

I don't fight anymore.

But I need the money.

"Fifty," Cas insisted, shifting in front of the customer, who was trying to walk away. "We agreed on fifty."

The man swung at him; Cas moved to dodge, but when he lunged to the side with one leg, a standard evasive move, a shocking flare of pain from his groin made him stumble. He took a ringing blow on the side of his jaw that made him see stars.

After that he fought better (the pain no longer caught him by surprise). He needed the money.

Cas had to pull his blade in the end, to get the fifty dollars. He didn't have to use it, but he had to show it. It worked, and Cas counted the bills carefully as the man stumbled away in a panic. Fifty dollars. At last. Enough for a burger, and enough to reactivate the phone. The phone with the phone number Dean had. At last.

But oddly, Cas could not eat the rest of that night. And he absolutely could not make himself try the sodomy again, even though another fifty dollars would have paid off his entire hostel bill and part of the next night too. It hurt to walk; he had to sit on a park bench for a while, over at the nice end of the park where there was a little fountain. It hurt, even, to sit. Cas found as comfortable a position as he could and watched the fountain for a while, feeling at his bruised jaw tentatively. The fountain was lit up for the approaching holidays, colored lights making all the water change color gradually. Cas watched the colors for a while: blue... green... yellow... and slowly Cas became aware that he was bleeding. His pants were damp, and though it was hard to make out the color of the stain in the multi-colored lights of the fountain, Cas knew it was red.

Add laundry to the list. Two dollars and fifty cents for a load of laundry, he thought, getting up slowly and limping away.

The bleeding stopped after only half an hour. It really wasn't too bad. In fact, he wondered if should have gone back to get another client, at least another hand job, but once again he hobbled slowly back to the hostel.

Sodomy was clearly out of the question, at least while he healed. Fellatio, or "blow jobs" as they were apparently known, became Castiel's favored method after that. These could be done relatively fast in the bathroom if the weather was bad, the back alley or sometimes the riverbank if the weather was good. Fellatio brought in a comfortable thirty dollars per client.

Thirty dollars per job was enough to afford burgers more often. Every other night, after the last client, Cas would get a burger to go, from the Red House kitchen (their bar food, surprisingly, was rather good), which he carried out to the bench by the fountain. There he ate in silence, savoring every bite and watching the colors change.

He had re-activated the phone two weeks ago. Whenever he ate the burger he brought it out and checked that it was still working. Sometimes he balanced it on his knee so that he could look at the little screen.

Nobody ever called.

A week later Cas realized he needed to send Dean a text, Just to keep the phone active. The X-Mobile salesperson had explained that Cas only needed to send a text once a month to keep the phone active. The text started out short (Hello, Dean. How are you? ) but grew increasingly longer, till it read:

Hello, Dean. How are you? I wanted to let you know that this phone number is still active. I am no longer at the Gas n Sip, if you've been looking for me there. After the Rit Zien tracked me down at Nora's house, Nora fired me. But I've found a new way to make money. Though it has taken some getting used to. I am not ashamed of it, but it is more painful than I expected. I wish sometimes that

Cas paused, reading back over what he'd written.

He deleted the entire thing, and composed a new, much shorter, text to Sam, who was the only other entry in the phone's contact list:

Hello, Sam. I hope you and Dean are well. I am fine.

Then he turned off the phone.

Cas powered up the phone the next morning, somewhat reluctantly, to read:

23 text messages

Message #1:

From SAM

"Cas! Where the fuck are you? You good?"

Cas studied Message #1 for some time, periodically attempting to compose short replies, none of which came out right.

Where the fuck are you, Sam had asked. Where the fuck are you? You good?

Where the fuck am I? thought Cas. Am I good?

Both of Sam's questions seemed unanswerable. I'm in a gay bar soliciting sex for money, thought Cas. I'm not good, I'm an abomination.

It had seemed, very briefly, last night, like a good idea to contact Sam or Dean, but reading Sam's text now it suddenly seemed very clear that it had been a mistake. If Cas answered at all, he would soon have to tell Sam and Dean that he'd been defiled. They would figure it out somehow. Dean, especially, would figure it out. Dean always figured those things out. Lying to him never went well (and Cas had had enough of lying anyway). Dean would figure it out, all about when and where and how Castiel had been defiled, and Dean would laugh.

And then Dean would just leave again anyway.

Castiel turned the phone off, and did not turn it on again.

One Thursday two weeks later, Cas was seated on the park bench watching the fountain change colors. Thursday was always a work night, the busiest night of Cas's work week in fact, and he really should have been in the Red House looking for customers. He'd had a light night last night — just two customers, each of which he'd taken through the reeds to the willow tree for a blow job. Two jobs wasn't really enough income given that the weekend was approaching, and he really should have been making up for it tonight. But the second job last night had been a bad one, one of those rather depressing encounters, and Cas had ended up shortchanged. He was having a little trouble motivating himself to get going tonight, so he'd decided to treat himself to his burger first, while he sat and watched the little color display at the fountain.

It was getting quite chilly, he realized, as he chewed the first bite of burger. He was shivering, in fact. Winter was right around the corner. His next purchase would have to be a better coat. And after that... and after that what would he do?

What came next?

What was he actually aiming for? What was his plan?

Was the pinnacle of his ambitions now, after all these years, simply to earn enough money to buy some AstroGlide so that he could tackle the sodomy challenge once again?

Cas managed to swallow the second bite of the burger, which had gone dry in his throat. His appetite seemed to have disappeared, all at once, so he set the burger down on his lap, and watched the water fountain change colors for a few minutes. Blue... green... yellow.

He watched the colors cycle through the whole rainbow, and had finally made himself lift the burger to at least take a third bite when an all-too-familiar voice said, "Back on the burger train, huh? How many are you up to now?"

It was Dean.

A/N - 2nd (and final) chapter will post on Saturday.

As always, if you liked anything in particular about this - an idea, an image, a plot point, a bit of dialogue - please let me know what it was! And thanks for reading my story.