1) In this fictional universe, Dean (he has no last name in this short chapter) is a god. He's sort of a Greek-style god, a male version of Artemis, only not so much with the chastity. But he's the god of wild things, with a large collection of hunters who serve him. He has sons; their number is not specified.
2) To appease him, his mortals have to offer him an annual human sacrifice, who is supposed to be a willing volunteer. This volunteer is taken to Dean's temple, where the god appears bodily to claim his sacrifice, in front of the entire congregation.
And get this: the high priest's name is Azazel. Apparently Azazel appears as a character on Supernatural? But Caroline describes him as a "mean old drunk," so I doubt he's the dazzling beauty of a fallen angel* we explored in Cover Him With Darkness.
3) A boy named Castiel - for the sake of not being creepy and gross, let us assume "boy" here refers to a man between the ages of 18 and 21 - is most emphatically NOT a volunteer. He's being sold by his parents to pay their rather hefty bar tab!
4) But do not worry, because Dean has no intention of killing his not-so-willing sacrifice. He has another kind of claiming in mind. Ancient Greek-style sex ensues. Yes, in front of everyone.
This is supposedly only the first chapter. Castiel now has the honor of being promoted from "temple boy" (I'm imagining something like a Roman Catholic church's altar server) to god's consort.
Some thoughts:
It's a nice twist to have Cas be the bewildered mortal and Dean the powerful supernatural being. It's the opposite of both the TV show and what I tried to do in the Cupid & Psyche fic.
Despite the title, it doesn't seem that Cas is actually gagged. He keeps screaming, so I'm imagining he's just tied up and allowed to scream at will.
Dean threatens to eat Cas, causing Cas to flinch away from his beautiful but intimidating god. However, Dean means this in a sexual rather than carnivorous way, and that is an adorable little detail.
Personally, I can't imagine young!Castiel being as attractive as present Castiel. This is Misha Collins in his early 20s.
He's skinny, his hair is a lighter color, and it looks as if he borrowed that suit from a larger person - Jared Padalecki, perhaps. Like Laura Prepon, Misha Collins gets better with age and with darker hair. He is much prettier at age 40 than he was at 24-ish.
So if I were writing this story, I would have a much older Castiel tied to the altar. And gagged. I mean, if we're going to play around with a light bondage paradigm, then let's do the thing.
Also, I would have played up the "I'm going to eat you"/oral angle A LOT more before getting to the actual intercourse. That's more of a personal preference than a literary criticism, of course.
The writer is very young (14, if her Tumblr page is accurate) and I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from writing, ever, but this is a literary criticism: This fic commits the big guy-guy erotica sin of omitting lube. Kids, when we write anal, we write in some lube, k? It's true that ancient cultures didn't have AstroGlide, but they at least had olive oil, which was better than nothing.
I think I would have made the setting private, too. I think in the fic, god!Dean likes the naughtiness of scandalizing his mortals by "consuming" his sacrifice in front of their eyes. But if Castiel and god!Dean are going to end up having actual feelings for each other - and it's not guaranteed that they are - their first time together would be much more romantic in private. Maybe Dean appears to Azazel to accept the sacrifice, but then tells the priest to leave the temple. Azazel leaves the temple thinking Castiel is going to be literally eaten as a snack, clueless that god!Dean is much more horny than hungry. But again, that's more of a stylistic preference than a literary criticism.
I look forward to a second chapter.
*Speaking of fallen angels, I forgot to mention in my Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire review that Lucifer is described in that book as being indescribably, almost painfully beautiful, but with utterly dead eyes.
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| Mark Pellegrino is Supernatural's Lucifer. I added his monologue from John Milton's Paradise Lost, because literary. |
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