Below the Salt, Pt. 2

[wanderamaranth]

Title: Below the Salt
Author: wanderamaranth 
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Castiel
Word Count: ~11,500
Spoilers: none
Beta: quantum_witch 
Warnings: sexual content, language, permanent injury (minor character), dub-con, appropriation and modernization of various fairy tale elements, mentions of murder and suicide, kidnapping

Summary: AU. Written fordc_everafter  Prompt story: Fairy Ointment. Original version can be found here.

Detective Dean Winchester and his partner Castiel Aulneau are called to investigate what appears to be a basic traffic accident. Dean is irritated to have been given such an assignment until it becomes apparent that one of his close friends was involved. Moreover, that the cause appears to be anything but careless driving. Plus, there is something about the investigation that is making Dean's normally dedicated partner suggest they drop it altogether, which only serves to make Dean all the more determined to find out what happened, and why it's making Castiel so nervous.

Continued from here.

---

The Goodfellow's sitting room was neat, tidy, and sparsely furnished. Dean sank onto the plastic slip- covered loveseat wishing he had a coffee to occupy his hands. It wasn't that one wasn't offered after they introduced themselves and entered the home, but rather, when Robert (call me Rob, please) said, "Allow me to get you fine gentlemen some coffee," Castiel had, rather rudely and abruptly said, "No. My partner and I refuse to partake of your refreshments."

"Come now, Detective...Aulneau, was it? Surely one cup of coffee is the least I can do for one of our city's finest."

Dean had been about to pipe up and accept when Castiel shook his head firmly. "I said no, Goodfellow. Offer a third time and I shall answer the same. Do not press."

"Ah, but you know I must. It's only polite, after all, and your...partner...has not given his own refusal, let alone twice over."

The entire exchange had been like watching a ping-pong match of words. Dean didn't know what the big deal was about coffee; maybe Cas had gotten a bad vibe walking in and he didn't want to accept anything from a suspect. He wasn't sure what about the man set Cas off, though, because all Dean saw was a slight, jittery man with square wire-rimmed glasses, short wavy brown hair who was rocking a beard and dressed like a yuppie. Yeah, he smelt a bit of booze, too, but Dean believed that if he'd been in a freeway pileup then he'd want to indulge, too, middle of the day or not. Hoping to calm the charged atmosphere, Dean prepared to say, Really, no big, thanks but no thanks when Castiel snapped, "Thrice offered, thrice refused. I speak for us both."

O-kay then, Dean had thought. Castiel was at times unintentionally rude, and came out with some bizarre phrasing, but he had only ever that brusque with their more twisted perps: the men who stole children to sell or abuse, a woman who had dropped her dementia-suffering father off on a street corner in the middle of winter because she wanted more time to gamble, the husband who murdered his pregnant wife, not knowing that she'd still been in contact with her sister despite attempting to force her to cut off all contact with her family.

Goodfellow hadn't seemed offended; if anything, his bloodshot eyes looked amused. "Ah," he smirked, and Dean had a feeling he was going to learn to hate that little quirk of speech very, very quickly, "So that's how it is. Interesting." Then he'd just spun on his heel and waved them further into the house. "Business it is then. Come with me, gentlemen, and we'll get down to it."

"What can you tell us about the accident this morning, Rob?" Dean said, pulling out his small flip-top notebook and a ballpoint. The loveseat squeaked as he shifted his weight to prop the notebook on his knee, and he fought making a face. What sort of douche covered their furniture in plastic? It sure as hell wasn't comfortable, and he couldn't imagine raising a kid in such a sterile environment.

"I already gave Officer Harvelle my statement right after it happened," Goodfellow said, and his eyebrows tilted and mouth pulled down in a perfect expression of concern tinged with annoyance which sent all of Dean's warning bells ringing. People only ever reacted that way to more questioning on television, in Dean's experience. In real life, they either made a whining fuss about it, talking about time wasted, or flew into a near rage, yelling about time wasted.

"Just our job to follow up," Dean smiled. He watched as Rob glanced from his smile to Castiel's single nod and saw as he relaxed, the small line of tension that had been making him sit upright in his wingback chair easing.

"Alright then," Rob smiled back, and Dean began questioning him in earnest. Where were you headed when the accident occurred? What lane were you in? How fast were you going? As he spoke, he snuck occasional peeks at Castiel, who was sitting stiffly forward, blue eyes narrowed at Goodfellow as if he expected the man to jump up and flee in the middle of some rather admittedly tame questions. It was erasing what ease Dean had been able to procure, and he unsubtly poked Cas in the side, hard. He jerked before turning that narrow-eyed focus on him, lips clamped tightly shut. Not the most appropriate moment to notice how attractive his partner looked while visibly irritated, Dean knew, but it was what it was. He was so lost in staring at Castiel and Castiel staring at him that it took Rob clearing his throat, loudly, to pull his attention away, and that was just embarrassing.

"Is that all, gentlemen?" he asked. Dean coughed.

"Yeah," he said roughly. "I believe that's everything." No matter what questions he'd asked, Goodfellow's story was convincingly told and logical to boot. It was all so normal that Dean had felt himself relaxing, wondering if fear and his own paranoia had been looking for reasons to push Cas away, to create a conspiracy where there was none. Yes, Rob had said, he was in the accident. No, he hadn't realized Ms. Barnes was as well, was she alright? Dean wasn't sure what he was expecting. It wasn't like Rob was going to jump out of his chair and announce, Oh, you're right, my bad, I forgot to mention that the accident happened because I turned into a goblin and ripped Pam's eyes out because she stole some of my freaky magic eye cream.

He needed to go home, take a nap, and start this day over again. Or better yet, go to sleep and wake up tomorrow. It was his day off, and there was DeeDee's party...he could call Cas in the morning and he could come over early, get in some one-on-one playing time with her before all the guests arrived. Dean stood. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Goodfellow."

"Of course," he replied. "Allow me to escort you to the door." Dean moved to follow Rob, pausing when he saw Castiel fishing a card out of one of the myriad pockets that dotted his trench coat. He flicked it casually onto the boxy Ikea end table. "In case you think of anything else you'd like to say on your behalf," he said, making it sound like a threat.

Rob must have thought it sounded that way, too, because he made a low noise in his throat, eyes going wide. "You said this was just a follow up, you said-" The dude began vibrating—there was really no other word for it—which kinda freaked Dean out a bit.

"Hey, man, it is," he reassured him. Clamping his hand on his shoulder in a hail-fellow-well-met manner, he tried to distract him by saying, "Where's your wife and kid at, anyways? Pam said she just gave birth like two days ago."

"I don't see where that's any of your concern," Rob snapped, his demeanor totally the reverse of the calm, affable guy Dean had been talking to for the better part of an hour. Dean took a step back, hands held in the air. Castiel growled—actually fucking growled—and took three steps forward.

"It really wasn't," Dean said, "but now with the way you're acting I'm starting to think maybe it should be."

"Starting? Starting? Oh, Castiel, you've hooked yourself a real bright one here," Rob mocked.

"Wait...do you two know each other?" It would make a lot of sense—a terrible amount of sense. Rob's unease, Castiel's attitude, the tension zinging between them...

"No," Castiel said at the same time Goodfellow said "Yes."

Dean wanted to move away from both of them, to just run away to sort out this latest development, preferably someplace with beer and nachos, but couldn't bring himself to move his feet. Instead he settled for rumbling, "Okay, Goodfellow, you're going to stop hiding things right now and tell me what the hell's going on." Out of the two lying liars in the room with him, he felt more confident in extracting the truth from Rob than Castiel. Castiel, who Dean had thought had never lied to him, but now he wasn't sure about.

"Dean-" Castiel began, but Dean cut him off. "You shut up," he said. "I'm mad at you right now." Rob snorted.

"Yeah, you're worried about me hiding things from you?" He shook his head and seemed to come to some sort of internal decision.

"Hob, you will not speak a word!" Castiel spat. The name sparked a memory in Dean, of the picture of a woodcutting in one of Sam's college-level Mythology coursebooks of a small hunched figure with a wild cat's tail and matching feline claws. There was no possible way, Dean wanted to shout, but like Sherlock said, Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Goodfellow gave him a shark-like grin, and his eyes were sharp, pinched.

"Why not? What have I to lose now? You've already marked me. The Herlaþing will be at my door within the hour. If I do not flee, I will die. My life, my wife's life, everything we've built here, the stable nest for our child, is ruined!"

"Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on," Dean warned. Rob (or Hob, or whatever this man—he suspected, this thing—was called) bowed to him, and all Dean could think was that it was an old-fashioned, courtly gesture, like something straight out of a...a fairy tale, or something, and holy shit he wasn't actually thinking what he was thinking, was he?

"You should question your partner, if you're the sort that cares about things unspoken and hidden." Straightening, he continued, "I can tell you're a man who seeks the justice and truth. It is the ultimate irony that someone like Castiel should have insinuated himself into your life then, isn't it? Someone who has lied to you from the very beginning of your acquaintance, I'd wager. Tell me, has he ever shown you what he really looks like?"

Dean whipped his head around to stare at Cas, mouth hanging slightly open. Castiel's face seemed to fold in upon itself, and Dean saw the confirmation of the betrayal reflected in lightening blue eyes, the color leaching from them in something akin to panic.

"What about Jimmy Novak? Has our princeling ever told you about him?"

Cas seemed to stumble on his feet, swaying like he'd been socked in the stomach. "Yes, I recognized you as soon as you walked through my door, your Highness," Rob sneered. "You really should have invested in a quality glamour if you didn't want to be recognized."

"Please stop talking," Castiel said.

"Why? So you can explain all this away later as the ramblings of a mad man? So you can cling to your pathetic little life with your pathetic little human a bit longer? No, I don't think so."

With a voice like rolling thunder, as if it was wrenched from the earth itself, Castiel said, "I command you to stop."

"Hmm. No," Rob said. "You lost the right to command when you were banished from the knowe. We're all just sinners here, Castiel, on equal footing." Dean felt that the conversation had moved beyond him, running along currents he no longer even peripherally understood. "I want your dear Detective Winchester to know just what he considered bringing into his bed, his home, his family." Castiel made a noise—not a whimper or a groan but somewhere in between—and directed his stare at Dean once more. His mouth opened and closed, and then an expression of so much yearning it almost undid him right there slipped across his features as he whispered, "Dean?"

"Oh, yes, Castiel," Goodfellow said, tone smug as any Bond villain about to embark on a truly epic monologue. "Because of you and your meddling my family has to leave our home or forfeit our lives, and I will be damned to the detective's Christian Hell before I'm the only one that loses here. I want you to know the pain of opportunity lost, want you to taste it every night when you wake up in your bed, alone. Do you know, I believe that if you had just been honest with the detective from the beginning, he would have accepted you?" Rob laughed. "I was wrong before—that is the ultimate irony of this! He hungers for you even now, suspecting that you've played him false. I can see into the hearts of men, see their wishes and desires," he said, his voice dropping into a sibilant hush. "All he ever wanted was for you to be open with him, and he would have allowed you any liberty in return."

It was all too much. Dean didn't know how Goodfellow was able to tell how he felt about Castiel, if it was a lucky guess or something more, and he really didn't know what to make of all the accusations flying. Chest constricting, he croaked, "Cas, c'mon, we're leaving." He made the mistake of turning his back on Rob and heading towards the door.

"Oh no you don't," he heard behind him, and then he was on the floor. He heard something that may have been Castiel shouting from above him, but he was too busy wrestling the oily, sinuous body atop his own to pay too much attention. Dean was flopped over onto his back, and Rob's face hung close to his, mania flushing him. "If you leave now you won't really believe. You'll rationalize, you'll tuck it away, and I can't have that." Dean bucked but Goodfellow simply slid his legs on either side of him, effectively trapping him with his thighs. He pulled out a small bottle, popped the top, and squirted the stuff inside all over Dean's eyes. He was just able to make out Rob being ripped away forcibly by the hair on his head. Dean heard a thud as his body connected with the room's farthest wall, but it was too late.

Burning unlike anything he'd ever felt before assailed Dean, and he cried out unashamedly. He could feel himself thrashing but couldn't seem to stop. Hands reached for him and pinned him to the ground, and Castiel's voice called his name, over and over.

"Dean, Dean," he said, and how had he ever thought his partner hid his emotions before? Castiel sounded perfectly broken now. "Please, please, God, don't allow it to have been too much." Warm thumbs swept the wetness from Dean's closed eyes, tears mixed with the ointment he'd been assaulted with. "Don't say anything, Dean, it'll be alright. No matter what you hear, no matter what is offered, just please...Just be quiet and keep your eyes closed."

I was curious, Pam had said. I wanted to see things as they truly are.

The truth. A question pressed on his brain, and perhaps this was all a dream, and he'd gone crazy, because it sounded as if the ointment was speaking to him as he heard, Do you want to see things as they truly are? His curiosity overwhelmed Castiel's frantic warnings.

"Yes," he gasped, and opened his eyes.

Colors, textures, and Castiel exploded into his vision. Peripherally Dean could see that the room beyond was completely different—walls that had been gray were now a rich burgundy, the ugly plastic-covered loveseat was now an ornate fainting couch—but it was Castiel who held his attention.

"Dean," he was still saying, with an added "Why did you say it?" followed swiftly with, "Look away, please."

There was no way that Dean was going to be able to do that. He stared. His partner looked exactly the same as he had before—same blue eyes, same floppy hair, same ridiculous trench coat—only now two large, dark wings protruded from his back and fanned out wide on other side. They shone in the afternoon sunlight like motor oil pooled on still water. Individual feathers twitched and quivered along the top ridges as Castiel stood and moved away.

Raising those dark wings high on either side, Castiel flexed them, allowing them to stretch until they were full extended. The posture was aggressive but his face impassive; Dean couldn't begin to guess what he was feeling.

"Are you an angel?" Dean asked.

"No," Castiel replied. "My people have not been called angels for a very long time."

Rushing white noise filled his ears followed by a high pitched squeal. Dean blinked one more time, lower lip trembling, before the rushing swallowed him and he tumbled into unconsciousness.

---

"Hush," a voice said as a hand skimmed across his brow. Dean leaned into the touch, and the voice said again, "It's all a bad dream." It was reassured and serene, making Dean feel as if he could curl those words around him and be safe. Warm breath ghosted through the short hairs at the nape of his neck before a soft, moist press of lips touched his temple. Smooth hands skimmed across his bare shoulders, and Dean made a noise of contentment low in his throat as he allowed himself to relax into cotton sheets, cool against the skin of his back.

"Open for me," the voice said, gently. Dean felt his legs glide across the sheets, heard a low thrum come from the body that pressed itself all too briefly against his own. It was one slippery, long slide followed by a gasp, and a low, intimate rumble that might have been laughter. "Your mind," he was told.

Oh. That brought forth a swell of something, but before it could overpower him or buffet him out of the peaceful place he was in, he was told, "Don't be frightened."

And that easy, Dean wasn't. The panic subsided. Drowsing still, he opened his eyes a crack, and there above him, silhouetted in the darkness and surrounding him with thick feathers and warm, pliant skin was Castiel. "It's you," he murmured as he sank into the pillows, allowing his eyes to slip shut once more.

"I'm going to help you through this, beloved," Cas said, the whispered promise of a lover. Dean felt his hands reach up and tangle in his hair, felt them pull him closer until their lips met and began dancing in a slow-burning, spit-slick kiss. Dean reveled in the renewed press of Cas against him and the easy roll of their hips. Even the knowledge that they were both nude and he didn't remember how they got that way didn't perturb him. The sheets were no longer cool; they'd heated with their languid movements, with the way that Dean's temperature spiked at the calm, careful manner in which Cas slotted them against one another. Dean's fingers dug into the bedding, making a faint scritch-scratching sound that was barely audible over his own breathing. Cas' hot length smeared pre-come on Dean's belly, evidence that this was not just a fever-dream.

"Want," Dean managed to say, shifting just right, and there was a soft noise from above him, then perfect pressure wrapping around him in a fist, and oh...

"Oh," he may have moaned aloud as he came in thick, lazy ropes. Kisses pressed along his jawline and what could have been sweat but Dean simply knew were tears collected in the hollow of his throat. He wanted to open his eyes again, to see Cas, but lassitude stole him completely, and he drifted away.

---

Dean woke to the first wisps of dawn through a low window, the smell of sweat, and Castiel sitting on the edge of an expansive mattress. He was naked, but Cas was fully dressed, shirt sleeves buttoned and tie snug.

"Hello, Dean," he said, as if he hadn't had his fist wrapped around his cock just a few hours earlier, as if Dean still couldn't see the large wings that were tucked close to his body.

"You-" Dean croaked out, his hand flopping in the general direction of Castiel's body. He seemed to understand.

"Yes."

"And then you and I-"

A trace of shame tightened the corners of Cas' eyes. "Yes," he said again, simply. Turning so that he faced Dean, Castiel reached a hand out.

"I don't think I want you to touch me right now," Dean said, now fully awake and suddenly, blisteringly angry. "No, check that. I know I don't want you to touch me."

This assertion seemed to stun the...hell, Dean didn't even know what he was supposed to refer to Cas as now...man seemed to be out, but Dean was having difficulty labeling the male next to him as "fairy". Either way, Castiel appeared distraught by Dean's rejection.

"From what the Hob said, I did not think you'd be adverse to..."

"That was before I knew you were a lying liar from Neverland or where the fuck ever!"

They both sat frozen after Dean's outburst, Cas with his hand still outstretched, Dean naked and feeling it acutely under what he assumed were Castiel's thin sheets. Cas finally lowered his hand and Dean scooted upwards in the bed. He pulled the sheet up with him, tucking it to just under his chin. A part of him felt ridiculous for doing so—what was he, some virginal maiden protecting her virtue?-but a larger part of him wanting the imagined safety of a layer between Dean's bare skin and Cas.

"I am not from..." Cas started, then shook his head. "You know that, of course. You were being sarcastic." Heaving a sigh, Castiel pulled his legs up onto the bed, crossing them Indian style. The fact that he was wearing battered black dress boots while doing so didn't seem to bother him in the least. "I come from a regional knowe, or as it is referred to in your culture sometimes, a fairy hill."

Head spinning, Dean asked, "This knowe have a name?"

Castiel nodded. He lifted his gaze to look at Dean, their eyes locking. "We generally call it Leinster, if we have need to give a name for our home to outsiders. Otherwise, it is simply the knowe, or seldomly the sídhe, but only the oldest still refer to it as that."

"Leinster," Dean repeated. "Where your file says you were born. Lienster, NY. I did wonder about that, when I googled it and nothing came up. Thought it was a typo."

A frown tugged down the corners of Cas' mouth. "You went through my file?"

"Dude, seriously?" Dean scoffed. "You're not really going to try for some sort of moral indignation, are you?"

Deflating, Castiel looked away. "I suppose not."

Licking his lips, Dean shifted, wincing at his body's all-over soreness. He had no idea where the pervasive ache had come from; he'd gotten into worse fights than the brief struggle with Goodfellow, and it wasn't as if the sex was all that athletic, from what he could remember of it. Dean shied away from that particular line of thought. He'd have to face it soon enough, if in no other capacity than washing away the traces of dried semen in the shower.

"So...what exactly are you?"

Not exactly tactful, but Dean really wasn't able to think of another way of phrasing that particular question. Castiel didn't seem offended. If anything, he seemed eager to answer Dean's question.

"My people are called leanan sídhe. They are...we are," he corrected himself, "also sometimes called a muse. It is common and virtually expected in my family to give artists inspiration or to visit them in dreams, imparting ideas and expressing admiration."

Something about the term nibbled at the edge of Dean's mind, probably another tid-bit from helping Sam study for one of his classes. It flirted with the edge of his awareness, but he wasn't able to exactly recall what was so familiar about it.

"Goodfellow said that you'd been banished. What'd he mean by that?"

"That is no longer an issue," Castiel replied, surprising Dean with his evasion when just moments before he'd seemed to relish telling Dean whatever he'd wanted to hear. "I received a call this morning inviting me home."

This made Dean distinctly nervous, especially with the way Cas was decidedly not looking at him.

"What, just out of the blue?"

Castiel simply shrugged.

"Okay, fine," Dean decided to change tacks. " Why were you banished, then?"

"I...was asked to leave because I had no wish to be like my family and claim a human under false or misleading circumstances. Binding a human can be detrimental to their mental health, and I had no desire to do such a thing to a living being."

Pieces clicked into place, forming a picture Dean really didn't want to see. "And now?" he asked anyways, wanting confirmation for his suspicions before he completely lost it.

Instead of answering, dark eyes briefly touched Dean's undoubtedly scraggly bed-head and the stubble on his chin. "You should shower," he declared. "We need to leave soon if we're to arrive at the knowe before nightfall."

"Whoa—what's with this 'we', kimosabe? The only place I'm going today is home."

"Do you know why Pamela Barnes' eyes were taken?" Castiel asked him, seemingly apropos of nothing. "Because the use of the ointment she stole is stridently monitored, to prevent average humans from seeing that which they should not. It's dangerous to our community. If humanity discovered our presence, we would be hunted and slaughtered wholesale."

"Okay," Dean said cautiously. "What's this got to do with me and going home?"

Castiel stood and began pacing, making Dean feel he was at a distinct disadvantage. No one, he thought, should have to have such a serious conversation while completely naked with the...person, individual?...they'd gotten naked for the night previously fully dressed and towering over them.

"With the amount of ointment Pam took and her...reputation for occult leanings already, taking her vision would be considered by our community to be enough. With you, though..." Castiel finally decided on a direction for his nervous energy and went over to one of the low dressers along the far wall, opening drawers and pulling out a few basics: underwear, socks, t-shirt. "Dean, with the amount of ointment the Hob subjected you to, the way he made sure it was spread to your third eye as well...the only options my brothers and sisters would accept would be binding you to one of us or death."

"Bind." Dean watched the line of Castiel's back as he bent to pull a pair of jeans out of the bottom drawer. "Bind as in what you left your home because you refused to do? That kind of binding?"

To his credit, Castiel didn't shy away or hide from Dean's low-voiced accusation. Instead, he turned around and placed the small pile of clothes at Dean's feet.

"Yes."

A long silence followed Castiel's admission, then Cas said, softly, "It was either I bind you or someone would be sent to kill you. Dean, I couldn't bear the thought. Normally my family will let their humans live out their lives in their natural realm, but doing so reduces their life spans considerably. Muses have a tendency to drive their partners mad. The only way to prevent this is for the human to reside within the knowe."

"Reside. As in live there?"

Swallowing, Castiel agreed, "As in live there. And..." Reluctantly, he added, "Residents of the knowe are forbidden from contact with humans in the outside world."

Anger buffeted Dean. He slammed his fists against the mattress, hard. "Gee, Cas, were you at least going to let me say goodbye to DeeDee and Sammy before you whisked me off to fulfill your...Persephone fantasy?"

Licking his lips, Castiel nudged the clothes a bit closer to Dean and said, "That would be inadvisable. The...appearance of our deaths has already been crafted. To the world outside, Detective Dean Winchester and his partner Castiel Aulneau were killed late last night by the deranged Robert Goodfellow, who then proceeded to kill his family before finally killing himself."

"Holy shit, you're actually serious about all of this," Dean said. Much of the conversation that morning had seemed to Dean as if it was occurring between two other people, not Castiel and himself. The threat of never seeing his niece, never speaking to Sammy again, of making them think Dean was dead, jarred him out of his dissociative state. "I'll kill you before I let you do this, Cas," he spat.

With a sudden snarl and a smack to the mattress of his own, Castiel snapped, "There is nothing for you to let happen, Dean. It's already done. I tried to give you a better option last night, but you still said yes anyways, when I explicitly told you not to say a word!" Huffing, he continued, "Besides, you would be unable to kill me."

"Why?" Dean childishly sniped. "Because of our profound bond?"

"No," Castiel shot back. "Because I'm immortal. You can stab me, shoot me, burn me at the stake, and I will not die."

Taken aback, Dean pulled his legs up underneath him so that he was essentially kneeling on the mattress, the sheet held to his chest with one hand while he balanced with the other. He felt very small.

"Oh," he said, and yeah, not the most intelligent or blistering come-back. "How about this," Dean said, licking his lips and picking his words carefully. "I was pissed enough with you just being a douchebag liar. If you try to drag me away from my family, I will never forgive you. I will fight every step of the way, and every moment I'll be looking for an escape."

Castiel's eyes grew large, but he said evenly, "At least you'll be alive to do so." Then something in his expression hardened. "Like it or not, Dean, you said yes. You're mine now, and just a man. You will not be able to escape me." Jaw set, he tilted his head upwards just slightly and said, "Get dressed. We are leaving in an hour."

 

The End

---

 Extended Author's Notes:

Pamela's Pacer is vaguely based on this one. Although hers is a later model, a station wagon and defaced with decals and the such. Plus the name is different. But you get the general idea, yes? And yup, a Pacer is the same type of vehicle as the Garthmobile in “Wayne's World”. I have always secretly wanted that car. It may be the twizzler dispenser. Don't judge me. :P

The name Robert Goodfellow comes from an idea presented in Drayton's Nymphidia, saying that Hob is the diminutive of Robert and Robin, and Robin Goodfellow, of course, is another common name for a puck. Ariel was chosen as his wife's name due to it being the name of a Shakespearean fairy in The Tempest.

Castiel's last name--to my untrained in French eyes-- is a variation of the name d'Aulnoy. Baroness D'Aulnoy was a French writer whose most famous publications were fairy tales—in fact, she's who is created with creating the name “fairy tales” to begin with to describe a certain type of story. She was born over a hundred years before the Brothers Grimm.  Also, Aulneau is the last name of a Jesuit missionary who was martyred along the Canadian-Minnesota border during in 1736. I liked the similarities between d'Aulnoy and Aulneau, and enjoyed the irony of using “the Forgotten Martyr's” last name for Castiel in this story.

According to some cultures, fairies are actually fallen angels. So Castiel is referred to as a “princeling” for two reasons here. 1, because he's technically a prince of his knowe (I have the vague idea that he's the son of the unnamed fairy abductress and Sir Launfal of Arthurian legend) and because angels are sometimes referred to as 'princes of heaven'.

Herlaþing is another name for the Wild Hunt. In some versions, the Wild Hunt rides forth to hunt humans, and in others, they ride to gather up stray fae, which is the version I went for in this story.

The line “Once you eliminate...” is a quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

 Leinster, NY, is a fictional town, just as Dean says in the story. Castiel's people called their home "Leinster" in reference to the Book of Leinster, which states that the fae live in a parallel world to humans.

leanan sídhe are a sub-race of the Aos Sí.  The leanan sídhe were said to be a variation of a muse, who would pick humans to give ideas and inspiration to. This is one area where I stretched my artistic license to say that it is actually a necessity in their culture to do so. I have found no sources that say explicity that's the case.

"Kimosabe" is a nickname given to the Lone Ranger by Tonto in the popular radio and television programs of the 30s to 50s.