Characters not mine.

(Originally written for a "conciets" challenge on comment_fic.)

It was a small, slightly worn-in basement bar in New York City called the Vines, and Castiel was certain there was some kind of occult significance to the twelve carefully arranged tables and columns in twelve different varieties of wood. The columns were also elaborately carved with vines and satyrs and mythical scenes. Castiel did not recognize all of them.

Nor did he recognize the incredible array of bottles and glasses behind the bar, crammed into almost overflowing shelving. The barman knew them all by name and method of distillation, however, and was happy to share if Castiel asked.

There was something that was bothering Castiel slightly about that barman, even so. He was tallish and thinnish and had curly dark hair, with incredibly green eyes and an easy smile, and he appeared to know all of his customers by name. Castiel was also fairly certain that the gorgeous blonde at the end of the bar was only ordering mixed drinks to watch him make them, because he tossed bottles around as though it were a paid performance. Castiel did not know as much about human interaction as he would like, but he would have thought they were flirting if she were not addressing him as a brother. Everyone else called him Danny.

None of that bothered Castiel, however. There was just something about the man that the angel couldn't quite place. He hadn't come in sober, however, and apparently it was interfering with his senses.

But Danny was also pouring whiskey shots with no showmanship to speak of while he chatted with his sister and asked the people coming in how business was going, so Castiel made himself quite comfortable before the crowds started to part and the barman's gorgeous sister stopped laughing at her brother's antics and departed.

By now, the bar was mostly empty. It occurred to Castiel dimly that the barman might like him to leave as well. So he wasn't terribly surprised when Danny hung a few newly cleaned glasses overhead and leaned across the bar. "Are you just going to keep shooting back whiskey until you keel over on my floor?" he asked.

Castiel considered it. "I will not keel over."

Danny snorted. "If you say so. Still, are you planning on doing it with whiskey or can I interest you in something else?"

This got a surprised blink out of the angel. "I beg your pardon?"

The barman shrugged. "I can respect it if you know what you like, but I know one drink can get boring after awhile, especially when you've run up a tab of. . . ." He checked one of the sheets of paper by the cash register. "Seventeen of them."

"Oh." Castiel glanced at the line of bottles, wondering if he should humor the man or not. "What is in the turquoise bottle?" he asked finally.

"That?" Danny flipped a glass up from under the bar and reached for it. "That was a favorite drink in Atlantis, once upon a time. Haven't had anyone order it in nearly a hundred years. My uncle was rather fond of it once, though." He measured it into the glass and pushed it across the bar. "I always thought it was a bit seaweedy."

Castiel lifted it to his lips. It did have an unusually salty flavor.

"So tell me," Danny added, tapping the table lightly. "Is this a getting smashed in celebration, or is this sticking one's head in a barrel of wine to drown your troubles?"

Castiel stared into the drink from Atlantis and moistened his lips. It was slightly sticky. "I am . . . undecided."

"Ah. One of those." He shrugged and picked up a rag to wipe down the bar. "Well, I'm not going anywhere."

After Castiel was finished with the turquoise drink, Danny told him he wouldn't like a red bottle because it was intended for the Kindly Ones and got him something luridly purple instead. Then he pulled up the stool behind the bar and poured himself a glass of wine. "So does this have anything to do with the Christian apocaylpse, angel boy?"

Castiel blinked.

Danny threw his hands up, palms out in surrender. "Hey, my nose is clean. Not all of us are Hermes." He ran a hand along the lip of his glass and added quietly, "I'm the most mortal of the gods, anyway, so I didn't stand a chance against the likes of Lucifer."

"It's over," Castiel answered. "Lucifer and Michael are trapped in Lucifer's cage."

Danny - or rather Dionysus, Castiel recognized the feel of him now, even surrounded by the buzz of drunkenness that would have otherwise disguised such a similar aura - picked up the glass, regarded the wine within for a moment, and then tossed the entire thing back. "So who did you loose?" he asked.

"How is that your conclusion?" Castiel said.

"You said you were undecided. If you didn't loose someone important to you, then I can't fathom how tonight could be anything but a getting smashed in celebration."

"Oh." Castiel regarded the lurid purple drink. It was entirely too sweet, and he was trying not to think about Gabriel because of it. "They weren't . . . lost," he said finally.

He expected Dionysus to clarify what he meant - at any rate that was Dean or Sam's usual reaction to Castiel taking a metaphor too literally - but the old god just cocked his head slightly, staring at Castiel as though those green eyes could bore through vessels and stare straight into souls. "Oh," he said. "Oooh."

Then he pulled two wine glasses out and reached under the bar for a bottle of what looked like liquid gold.

"What is that?" Castiel asked.

"Fremented ambrosia," Dionysus answered as he poured it. "Basically a liquor store in a glass, to be honest, but Zeus won't drink anything else." He corked the bottle again, picked up the glasses, and made his way around the bar. "You know, in case you weren't smashed already."

When Castiel reached for the glass, their fingers touched. Dionysus's were unnaturally warm. "So who were they?" he asked, sliding onto the bar stool beside him. "These people you didn't exactly loose?"

Dionysus didn't ask that many more questions, but the silence that filled the bar was one of cavernous inquiry and not comfortable drinking, and Castiel found himself filling it in little spurts. He didn't say very much, but it was clearly enough for someone like Dionysus to put things together.

"You are drunk," Dionysus said finally. "None of you godly buggers ever tell me that much." He rested his cheek on the heel of his palm and regarded Castiel for a moment. "So the one that's still on earth, you leave in the grips of normality while you work out what's what for in Heaven?"

There didn't seem to be any good response to that. "Yes," Castiel answered.

"Hmm."

At some point, Dionysus had moved so close that the two sat elbow to elbow. Castiel couldn't find it in himself to object. Dionysus was solid, warm, real, even if he was a pagan god.

"But not because you particularly wanted to," the god added. He cupped his hand over Castiel's.

"What is right can outweigh what I want," Castiel said.

"So I've been told."

Castiel sighed. He was tired. Not the sort of bone-deep exhaustion he had felt as he lost his grace; that was an exhaustion that would go away if he allowed himself to sleep. This was a kind of exhaustion that started in the angel and not in the vessel. He could barely believe it was over, and he was still almost expecting to have to either kill something or bring something else back to life. The anticipation was like a wire stretched too taught and ready to snap.

As though he knew what Castiel was thinking, which was entirely possible, Dionysus edged a little bit closer, shoulder to shoulder now instead of simply elbow to elbow. "Believing that doesn't make the world a simpler place."

Castiel shook him off and lifted the ambrosia to his lips again. "Nor should it."

Dionysus chuckled at his sudden stiffness. "Would your boyfriend object to me?" he asked.

"Boyfriend?" Castiel repeated.

"The older of the two mortals you spoke of," Dionysus explained. "The one you nearly fell for. It was clear you were very much in love."

"Oh." Dean would, in fact, likely disapprove of Dionysus, but mostly as a blanket objection to pagan gods. "We are not lovers."

Dionysus gave him another sideways glance. "Unrequited or because your father would disapprove?"

Castiel glared. "That is an oversimplification of Scripture and you know it."

"I didn't mean two men. I meant the Watchers. Or was that an oversimplification, too?"

"Oh."

"You don't know what's wrong or right, what's up or down, but I think you do know what you want."

Castiel looked at his glass and considered whether or not to reach for the bottle again. It had been rather interesting. But he was distracted by a passing thought. "People do not usually . . . care this much about a stranger's thoughts."

"I don't like unhappy people." Dionysus smiled slightly. "I like uptight excuses even less." He put the glass down and leaned in a little. "I'm the god of lightening or loosening up, of drunken confessions, of stopping worrying long enough to have a little fun. I like people, I like this world, and over the course of the night I've decided you're a good guy even if you're an egregiously dense one as well. So make yourself happy."

He moved quickly, almost snakelike, and kissed Castiel against the jawline. Castiel stiffened a little, but it was a quick, chaste kiss, and then the god stood up. "For luck," he said. "Sometimes you have to get a little drunk to admit what you want."