Sunshine on Pale Skin - Supernatural - Castiel/John
Title: Sunshine on Pale Skin
Pairing: Castiel/John
Word Count: 3670
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Dead man sexing.
A/N: Written for the "temperature play" square of my kink bingo card. Ever had the feeling that you know that you have to warn for something but you have no idea what to label it as? John's body is dead through this, but he is still conscious/consenting. AU from S2.
Summary: Castiel brings John back from hell. Unfortunately, he brings him back wrong.
John's skin is still cold against his fingers, like dry ice. Castiel stares down at John's arm, at the scars and battle-won muscles as he touches his skin. John doesn't flinch away from him, not any more, but he won't look at him either. He stares ahead at their hotel wall, his expression slack and distant. If he cared to, Castiel could dip inside of John's mind and see what lingers there.
He doesn't try. John didn't appreciate it much, last time.
"Your skin's hot," John says, eventually.
"You are room temperature," Castiel observes. "Your body refuses to retain heat since the resurrection."
John grunts at him. Castiel still finds it difficult to decode his non-verbal communications, although he thinks that he has improved at this skill in the months that he has been visiting John, flitting in and out as John hunts.
"You're irritated by your condition," he concludes; John doesn't answer him, this time without even a grunt. Castiel is perplexed but unbothered. "I apologise for my part in this. My powers grew weak by the time I found you."
John stands up from his hotel bed and paces towards the window, as if the dark night outside might be able to provide answers to his troubled thoughts. "Fix it," he says. It is an order, the kind that Castiel has been trained to follow.
In this case, he can't.
"I've tried," he admits reluctantly. When John sleeps, he lays hands upon him and tries to bring him to life once more, to bring heat into his heart and warmth into his veins. Nothing works, and he will be left exhausted before he leaves as the sun begins to rise. "The Lord has other plans for you."
John snorts, and Castiel knows how to read that sound. It is the scoff of condescension. "'The Lord's a goddamn asshole," John says.
Castiel's mouth twitches in annoyance, but he holds back on the desire to scold John for his language and sentiments. With John, there are greater battles to fight than the small ones like this. "I'm sorry," he says. He means it, to his own surprise.
Before John, before this mission, before this world, he had never known guilt before. There had been no need.
With a frown on his face, he takes one last look at John before he vanishes from the room, leaving an empty space on the bed where he once sat.
*
When he checks in again, John is with his sons: this is a disconcerting experience, and after thirty seconds Castiel chooses to leave again. Such a messily emotional reunion was far from his ideal place. His news can wait.
He sits in a train station with his hands on his lap, communing with heaven as time passes. A great peace spreads throughout his body; he feels as if he surpasses the human flesh in which he is captured. He is so much more than this body wants him to be. A train rushes past the platform on which he rests, sending an angry blast of wind whipping throughout the station. It plays with Castiel's coat and tugs heavily on his tie, but it dies quickly.
He directs his thoughts away from heaven, seeking out the one that he was sent here to set on the right path: John Winchester, newly rescued from hell. He still doesn't know what went wrong, doesn't know why John's skin is cold to the touch or why he has no need for air. He is back, but he is not alive. At least his body doesn't rot, although John had glared at Castiel when he had pointed out that upside.
John, however, glares a great deal. Castiel is unsure whether he ought to take such an expression seriously.
He finds this man perplexing at the best of times: he is a righteous man, certainly, and he has been rescued from hell before he could break down and, in doing so, break the first seal. Trapped in that place for far too long, torture piled upon torture, it has left further scars upon the already existing ones. Castiel can heal physical wounds, but with mental ones he has little power.
He wants to help. He wants to fix. Yet the more that he sees John, the more he feels that this case might be far beyond his abilities.
*
"Your children seem to have found your resurrection disturbing," Castiel notes when he next visits. John is alone once more; he says that he left the kids behind, that he works better by himself.
"I taught them well. They thought I was a zombie." John grunts. Castiel thinks that this particular grunt is proud - but that doesn't sound quite right. He has just healed bruises on his chest caused by rock salt. Being shot by your own flesh and blood hurts more than mere cuts and bruises. Castiel still remembers the war that had torn himself and his brothers apart. There is nothing as painful as that.
"They attempted to kill you," Castiel says.
"I would've done the same."
Castiel isn't sure if he believes him - yet the Winchesters are strange examples of humankind. They are difficult to understand: complex and fascinating in a way that only his Father's greatest works could be.
Standing while John sits on the edge of his bed, Castiel moves forward so that he can place his hand on John's jaw, running his fingers over grizzled stubble. It feels rough and ragged against the pads of Castiel's fingers, when Castiel is still getting used to feeling anything at all: he needs to focus in order to allow small sensations to enter his consciousness. He is focused on John's jaw, on sandpaper stubble and cold skin, so it takes a moment before he registers the way that John's gaze has rested upon him, tired and slow and weary.
"If I could fix you, I would," Castiel tells him. He will repeat it a thousand times if that might give him the ability to piece John's broken life together.
"You can't," John says, ever the realist.
Castiel's hand drops from John's jaw, but he doesn't step back. He stays close to him, standing between John's half-parted legs. "I didn't come here to talk about your sons," he says, reminding himself as much as John Winchester. "There is a clan of demons north of Chicago who are investigating new ways of breaking the first seal."
"And you want me to head up there and stop them?"
Castiel shakes his head. "I want you and your kin to stay as far from this area as possible. Be alert. If your blood is the key, you and your sons may be in danger."
It is the mention of his sons that is enough to make John's jaw clench, a sure sign that he is finally listening. Invoking his children seems to be the one sure-fire way to capture John's attention when it comes to warnings. Castiel decides to bear that in mind in the future: it will no doubt be useful information. "They'd better stay away from my boys."
"I will be handling the situation personally," Castiel assures him. "No harm will come to any of you."
It has been a re-education, having to make his own choices independently since Uriel has been dealt with. Now, only his own thoughts on the matter count - and he has only recently become used to having 'thoughts' at all.
With one last touch, his fingers over John's forehead, he decides to leave: there is no need to attend to John now that his message has been delivered, although he longs to stay for reasons that he finds confusing. There are no easy explanations, here.
Sometimes, the best course of action is to run away. Castiel is slowly beginning to learn this lesson.
*
John doesn't listen to his advice, of course. Castiel should've seen it coming.
He sends his sons on a wild goose chase to the other side of the country, but he goes up past Chicago himself: gets caught and tortured and nearly killed before Castiel is able to intervene. He takes him to an abandoned house in a rush of power that leaves him light-headed, and he tries to fiddle with the confusing shower so that he can help to clean off the worst of the blood. John groans and grunts, half-conscious and loose-limbed.
Pushing him under the warm water, he succeeds in waking him up and warming him at once. John's eyes groggily open and look towards him in blind, open question. Castiel offers no answer; he places a hand upon him and wills away his wounds as the water washes the blood away. It is barely a second before the wounds are gone and John is as new, but for soaked clothes and dried blood. "What's going on?" John asks, groggy and angry.
He tries to break out of the shower, but out of a newly discovered sense of spite Castiel holds him in place, not budging an inch even as John struggles. "You disobeyed my orders."
"I don't take orders from you," John answers, snapping like a teenager instead of the experienced hunter that he is.
"Maybe it's time you start," Castiel replies, staring at him with a gaze that doesn't waver. The shower patters down upon their clothed bodies and the water drips from their clogged hair. Castiel doesn't budge. Out of stubbornness, John doesn't either.
Yet Castiel is the one with an eternity of practice on his side, so John breaks first. He looks away and brushes his hand over his face, wiping away droplets of water. "The shower's warm," he says, as if he has no intention of getting out of it any time soon.
"Shall we stay here?" Castiel suggests. When John nods, Castiel folds his legs and sits down comfortably in front of John, his face impassive. "You will be pleased to know that the first seal has not been broken."
John grumbles at him. "No thanks to me, right?"
"It would have been best if you had kept your distance, yes," Castiel confirms. "Perhaps I shouldn't have informed you of events. I'm still learning how to handle you."
John is a horse that hasn't been broken yet. He makes everything far more difficult than it ought to be.
"Don't need handling," John answers. He sounds like a sullen teenager and Castiel is loath to humour him. "I'm no child."
"I was born before the stars existed," Castiel says. "You are a pinprick in time."
Human lives are so fleeting - the mortal, flesh-bound side of life. What comes next is bigger and higher, yet these fragile days are the most important: the most defining.
Castiel reaches out until his hand encircles John's wet wrist. He doesn't ask if it is alright to do so, but John doesn't ask him to stop. "I will live long after you are gone," Castiel observes.
John is watching him. His gaze isn't at all obscured by the falling of the warm shower water around them, the cascade of a lazy waterfall. "You think you'll be sad?" John asks. "When I'm gone for good?"
They don't call it 'dying'. Castiel thinks that this is significant.
He doesn't know how to answer that, and he says as much. "Emotions for me are not how they are for you."
John's frown says that he doesn't understand, and doesn't like that. That is to be expected. It is difficult, being human. Castiel is glad that he will never have to try it. Yet John's displeasure becomes something else, something altogether more dangerous, when he pulls Castiel forward by the soaked lapels of his coat. Castiel only moves because he allows it to happen: without focus, he would be as immovable as the mountains outside their window, far in the distance. John could push and shove and pull and nothing would happen. He wouldn't even blink.
He blinks now.
He blinks and he closes his eyes because he knows what is coming, because he can see John descending and doesn't want to make it stop.
Their first kiss is surrounded by the rain of the shower, with John's hands big like paws against the sides of Castiel's head. Their first kiss together; Castiel's first kiss in all his existence. It is slow and John makes it easy. He does the hard work himself, so that all Castiel has to do is relax and react - and open up, curiously, to what there is to feel.
He places his hand on John's bicep and finds it firm and water-warm. It's a small slip from there into John's lap, landing solidly with a squelch of wet clothes. If Castiel knew fear, he thinks he would be feeling that now.
He thinks he might be feeling it anyway.
"You don't got to hurry things along," John says, breathing the words against Castiel's chin and jaw. "We've got all the time in the world."
"That isn't at all accurate," Castiel tells him, but he discovers that it is difficult to sound stern when a stubbled man is sucking promises against your neck.
It is something, he thinks, that he will bear in mind for future reference.
*
They don't have sex, that night, sitting in the bottom of the shower.
That does not, however, mean that they do not ever have sex.
*
They trade kisses from time to time, stolen from stunned lips after a hunt or taken from John while he sleeps. The fascination grows, and Castiel knows that he is falling far from what is required of him. To be so in awe means that he cannot do his job as he should; he cannot be clear-minded.
He thinks, perhaps, he cannot be obedient.
"You're not gonna hurt me," John assures him, the pair of them nestled together on a cheap motel bed, the bed covers cupped around them like a warm pair of hands. Nude already, John is masculine and glorious, the very pinnacle of his Father's creation even if his blood runs cold. It still runs; he still lives.
He is slick and prepared already, doing most of it himself while giving Castiel the instructions he needs. Castiel's body is as pliant as he can make it, a moment's focus making it soft like flesh instead of hard like diamonds. "I could kill you with a sneeze," he tells John, as earnest as he knows how to be.
It makes John's lip quirk. He hadn't been trying to make a joke.
"Try not to sneeze, big guy," John says, clapping his hand against Castiel's bare arm.
"Your human body is larger than my vessel," Castiel responds, frowning.
"You want me to call you 'little guy'?" John offers. Somehow, that doesn't seem quite right either. Castiel tries to puzzle it out, but he finds that John uses his distraction to kiss the lines of his frown away and chase all worries from his mind. He's got a terrible habit of doing that. "Go on and fuck me, Cas."
It's the only encouragement that he offers, other than his thumb stroking soft lines against Castiel's neck, before he turns over onto his front, propped up on all fours. He is open and accepting, and it makes Castiel pleased to see him in such a way: with his head bowed, he looks penitent. He is as one ready to accept the Lord's love.
"Hurry the fuck up," John growls.
Perhaps not.
Castiel licks his lips and finds them dry, and his eyes are wide like coins. This is a sign of nervousness, he believes. The Holy are not supposed to indulge in these desires - they are not supposed to have these feelings at all - and yet he must believe that this is part of a plan. If Their Father did not want him to feel this way, he would not. He is obedient in all things.
"Castiel," John checks, looking over his shoulder.
For a time-travelling moment, Castiel sees a young man looking back at him, clean-shaven and neat, with first-time jitters in his eyes. The moment passes when he blinks, and he is faced with John Winchester once more, a man who does not know how to feel fear. John guides him with shakes of his head and unimpressed grunt until Castiel is close, until he grasps the fullness of his vessel and pushes, uncertainly, against the give of John's body. John's jaw clenches and he breathes out in one long whistle of air.
"Keep going," he wheezes, when Castiel is pushed inside only to the head.
The sensation is a strange one that he is unable to process. The cool temperature of John's body is contrasted against the tight circle wrapped around him. Castiel thinks that he feels light-headed. There are spots of white within his vision. Hands on John's hips, he pulls John back onto him while he pushes forward and presses as deep as he can manage. He forgets to breathe, to see, to listen. All that exists is the clench of John's body around him, welcoming, absorbing. Leaning down, his mouth scratches against the nape of John's neck in a messy show of appreciation.
"I didn't know it would be like this," he admits. He releases his grip on John's hips but doesn't move himself, allowing John to work himself back and forth, fucking himself at a slow pace on Castiel's member. The muscles in his shoulders ripple and release with every movement, sliding beneath his skin, and Castiel watches in open entrancement.
"You're hot," John gasps, words shivering. "So hot."
"You're cold," Castiel says - but he's heating up by the moment, leeching the heat from Castiel's body as they fuck.
When he is moving too slow and Castiel feels a tingle in his toes that tells him that he wants more, needs it even, he takes over again, holding John still with no great strain and pushing him down against the mattress. John folds like paper beneath him, arms unable to hold himself up, so that only his legs remain upright, hoisting his buttocks in the air for Castiel to worship. He pushes firmly, and feels John shiver and break beneath him. Their bodies were made to join like this, Castiel realises. There is something sharp and beautiful about it.
John is cursing beneath him, swearing and moaning, and it is all because of him.
Castiel has the ability to move through space and time with an eyeblink, to carry mountains and crush demons - but he has never felt so powerful in all of his existence. He has never felt more important than when he feels John pull on his own cock and come, clenching and shaking, around him. He tenses so much that it would hurt anyone else, anyone normal, and Castiel buries his face beneath John's shoulder blades, hacks and fucks until he is able to follow him over that black, forbidden ledge. White light floods the room and blinds the couple next door: they can't see for three days afterwards, but their vision returns, eventually. They are lucky.
We deserve this, he thinks.
He's an angel.
He shouldn't be thinking at all.
*
John doesn't touch him for a few days after that, and Castiel stays away as often as he can: he is pleased to discover, when he returns, that John is visiting his children once more. "Just passing through," John says. "They don't need me around all the time."
Castiel thinks of his Father, absent and impossible to find. He holds his tongue.
"They grew up when I wasn't looking," John says. His head is hanging as they sit outside in the sunshine. "Kids do that."
"I wouldn't know," Castiel responds. John doesn't apologise - Castiel wouldn't expect him to.
They sit silently for a while and listen to the wind whistling through the trees. John won't sit still. He fiddles with his gun instead, checking that it is still as perfectly maintained as it had been five minutes ago, and when he clips the edge of his finger he swears beneath his breath. It makes Castiel thinks of bare skin and salty sweat.
He reaches across to cup his hand over the tiny wound, and a moment later it has vanished.
"That isn't abusing God's power?" John asks, snorting.
"If the Lord did not wish it to be done, it would not be," Castiel says. It isn't an answer. He's trying not to think about the repercussions of what he is doing and how he is feeling. It's a technique that has been working splendidly for him so far.
John nods, before he says: "I'm warm, again."
Castiel frowns at him, and presses his fingers against the skin of his arm. It is the same temperature as all other humans, warm to the touch because of more than just the sun. "You've been healed," he concludes, puzzled.
John shrugs. "Happened right after we, ah..." He's a grown man who has been to hell and back, yet he won't say it. Castiel doesn't smile, but he thinks about doing it. "That glowing thing you did at the end. Might've been that."
"I lost control of my Grace," Castiel says. "The full power of the Lord burst forth from me. If you were alive, you might have been killed."
"And 'cause I was dead I was made alive?" John asks. He doesn't sound too happy with that explanation, but it's the best that Castiel has for him. "Suppose it's better than figuring you've got a magic cock."
Castiel looks down. "I don't believe it possesses any supernatural qualities," he assures him, and John snorts at him in disbelief, as if he's just said something funny.
Castiel finds that people are often laughing in his direction when he hasn't made a joke. It is frustrating, but understandable. He is quite a strange figure to mortal men, and their ways are very obscure to him.
"I'm glad you're living again," he says, sitting beside him. It seems an appropriate thing to say.
"Thanks for saving me," John says. "Both times."
Castiel nods and they rest in easy silence, legs brushing, as the sun shines on.
Pairing: Castiel/John
Word Count: 3670
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Dead man sexing.
A/N: Written for the "temperature play" square of my kink bingo card. Ever had the feeling that you know that you have to warn for something but you have no idea what to label it as? John's body is dead through this, but he is still conscious/consenting. AU from S2.
Summary: Castiel brings John back from hell. Unfortunately, he brings him back wrong.
John's skin is still cold against his fingers, like dry ice. Castiel stares down at John's arm, at the scars and battle-won muscles as he touches his skin. John doesn't flinch away from him, not any more, but he won't look at him either. He stares ahead at their hotel wall, his expression slack and distant. If he cared to, Castiel could dip inside of John's mind and see what lingers there.
He doesn't try. John didn't appreciate it much, last time.
"Your skin's hot," John says, eventually.
"You are room temperature," Castiel observes. "Your body refuses to retain heat since the resurrection."
John grunts at him. Castiel still finds it difficult to decode his non-verbal communications, although he thinks that he has improved at this skill in the months that he has been visiting John, flitting in and out as John hunts.
"You're irritated by your condition," he concludes; John doesn't answer him, this time without even a grunt. Castiel is perplexed but unbothered. "I apologise for my part in this. My powers grew weak by the time I found you."
John stands up from his hotel bed and paces towards the window, as if the dark night outside might be able to provide answers to his troubled thoughts. "Fix it," he says. It is an order, the kind that Castiel has been trained to follow.
In this case, he can't.
"I've tried," he admits reluctantly. When John sleeps, he lays hands upon him and tries to bring him to life once more, to bring heat into his heart and warmth into his veins. Nothing works, and he will be left exhausted before he leaves as the sun begins to rise. "The Lord has other plans for you."
John snorts, and Castiel knows how to read that sound. It is the scoff of condescension. "'The Lord's a goddamn asshole," John says.
Castiel's mouth twitches in annoyance, but he holds back on the desire to scold John for his language and sentiments. With John, there are greater battles to fight than the small ones like this. "I'm sorry," he says. He means it, to his own surprise.
Before John, before this mission, before this world, he had never known guilt before. There had been no need.
With a frown on his face, he takes one last look at John before he vanishes from the room, leaving an empty space on the bed where he once sat.
*
When he checks in again, John is with his sons: this is a disconcerting experience, and after thirty seconds Castiel chooses to leave again. Such a messily emotional reunion was far from his ideal place. His news can wait.
He sits in a train station with his hands on his lap, communing with heaven as time passes. A great peace spreads throughout his body; he feels as if he surpasses the human flesh in which he is captured. He is so much more than this body wants him to be. A train rushes past the platform on which he rests, sending an angry blast of wind whipping throughout the station. It plays with Castiel's coat and tugs heavily on his tie, but it dies quickly.
He directs his thoughts away from heaven, seeking out the one that he was sent here to set on the right path: John Winchester, newly rescued from hell. He still doesn't know what went wrong, doesn't know why John's skin is cold to the touch or why he has no need for air. He is back, but he is not alive. At least his body doesn't rot, although John had glared at Castiel when he had pointed out that upside.
John, however, glares a great deal. Castiel is unsure whether he ought to take such an expression seriously.
He finds this man perplexing at the best of times: he is a righteous man, certainly, and he has been rescued from hell before he could break down and, in doing so, break the first seal. Trapped in that place for far too long, torture piled upon torture, it has left further scars upon the already existing ones. Castiel can heal physical wounds, but with mental ones he has little power.
He wants to help. He wants to fix. Yet the more that he sees John, the more he feels that this case might be far beyond his abilities.
*
"Your children seem to have found your resurrection disturbing," Castiel notes when he next visits. John is alone once more; he says that he left the kids behind, that he works better by himself.
"I taught them well. They thought I was a zombie." John grunts. Castiel thinks that this particular grunt is proud - but that doesn't sound quite right. He has just healed bruises on his chest caused by rock salt. Being shot by your own flesh and blood hurts more than mere cuts and bruises. Castiel still remembers the war that had torn himself and his brothers apart. There is nothing as painful as that.
"They attempted to kill you," Castiel says.
"I would've done the same."
Castiel isn't sure if he believes him - yet the Winchesters are strange examples of humankind. They are difficult to understand: complex and fascinating in a way that only his Father's greatest works could be.
Standing while John sits on the edge of his bed, Castiel moves forward so that he can place his hand on John's jaw, running his fingers over grizzled stubble. It feels rough and ragged against the pads of Castiel's fingers, when Castiel is still getting used to feeling anything at all: he needs to focus in order to allow small sensations to enter his consciousness. He is focused on John's jaw, on sandpaper stubble and cold skin, so it takes a moment before he registers the way that John's gaze has rested upon him, tired and slow and weary.
"If I could fix you, I would," Castiel tells him. He will repeat it a thousand times if that might give him the ability to piece John's broken life together.
"You can't," John says, ever the realist.
Castiel's hand drops from John's jaw, but he doesn't step back. He stays close to him, standing between John's half-parted legs. "I didn't come here to talk about your sons," he says, reminding himself as much as John Winchester. "There is a clan of demons north of Chicago who are investigating new ways of breaking the first seal."
"And you want me to head up there and stop them?"
Castiel shakes his head. "I want you and your kin to stay as far from this area as possible. Be alert. If your blood is the key, you and your sons may be in danger."
It is the mention of his sons that is enough to make John's jaw clench, a sure sign that he is finally listening. Invoking his children seems to be the one sure-fire way to capture John's attention when it comes to warnings. Castiel decides to bear that in mind in the future: it will no doubt be useful information. "They'd better stay away from my boys."
"I will be handling the situation personally," Castiel assures him. "No harm will come to any of you."
It has been a re-education, having to make his own choices independently since Uriel has been dealt with. Now, only his own thoughts on the matter count - and he has only recently become used to having 'thoughts' at all.
With one last touch, his fingers over John's forehead, he decides to leave: there is no need to attend to John now that his message has been delivered, although he longs to stay for reasons that he finds confusing. There are no easy explanations, here.
Sometimes, the best course of action is to run away. Castiel is slowly beginning to learn this lesson.
*
John doesn't listen to his advice, of course. Castiel should've seen it coming.
He sends his sons on a wild goose chase to the other side of the country, but he goes up past Chicago himself: gets caught and tortured and nearly killed before Castiel is able to intervene. He takes him to an abandoned house in a rush of power that leaves him light-headed, and he tries to fiddle with the confusing shower so that he can help to clean off the worst of the blood. John groans and grunts, half-conscious and loose-limbed.
Pushing him under the warm water, he succeeds in waking him up and warming him at once. John's eyes groggily open and look towards him in blind, open question. Castiel offers no answer; he places a hand upon him and wills away his wounds as the water washes the blood away. It is barely a second before the wounds are gone and John is as new, but for soaked clothes and dried blood. "What's going on?" John asks, groggy and angry.
He tries to break out of the shower, but out of a newly discovered sense of spite Castiel holds him in place, not budging an inch even as John struggles. "You disobeyed my orders."
"I don't take orders from you," John answers, snapping like a teenager instead of the experienced hunter that he is.
"Maybe it's time you start," Castiel replies, staring at him with a gaze that doesn't waver. The shower patters down upon their clothed bodies and the water drips from their clogged hair. Castiel doesn't budge. Out of stubbornness, John doesn't either.
Yet Castiel is the one with an eternity of practice on his side, so John breaks first. He looks away and brushes his hand over his face, wiping away droplets of water. "The shower's warm," he says, as if he has no intention of getting out of it any time soon.
"Shall we stay here?" Castiel suggests. When John nods, Castiel folds his legs and sits down comfortably in front of John, his face impassive. "You will be pleased to know that the first seal has not been broken."
John grumbles at him. "No thanks to me, right?"
"It would have been best if you had kept your distance, yes," Castiel confirms. "Perhaps I shouldn't have informed you of events. I'm still learning how to handle you."
John is a horse that hasn't been broken yet. He makes everything far more difficult than it ought to be.
"Don't need handling," John answers. He sounds like a sullen teenager and Castiel is loath to humour him. "I'm no child."
"I was born before the stars existed," Castiel says. "You are a pinprick in time."
Human lives are so fleeting - the mortal, flesh-bound side of life. What comes next is bigger and higher, yet these fragile days are the most important: the most defining.
Castiel reaches out until his hand encircles John's wet wrist. He doesn't ask if it is alright to do so, but John doesn't ask him to stop. "I will live long after you are gone," Castiel observes.
John is watching him. His gaze isn't at all obscured by the falling of the warm shower water around them, the cascade of a lazy waterfall. "You think you'll be sad?" John asks. "When I'm gone for good?"
They don't call it 'dying'. Castiel thinks that this is significant.
He doesn't know how to answer that, and he says as much. "Emotions for me are not how they are for you."
John's frown says that he doesn't understand, and doesn't like that. That is to be expected. It is difficult, being human. Castiel is glad that he will never have to try it. Yet John's displeasure becomes something else, something altogether more dangerous, when he pulls Castiel forward by the soaked lapels of his coat. Castiel only moves because he allows it to happen: without focus, he would be as immovable as the mountains outside their window, far in the distance. John could push and shove and pull and nothing would happen. He wouldn't even blink.
He blinks now.
He blinks and he closes his eyes because he knows what is coming, because he can see John descending and doesn't want to make it stop.
Their first kiss is surrounded by the rain of the shower, with John's hands big like paws against the sides of Castiel's head. Their first kiss together; Castiel's first kiss in all his existence. It is slow and John makes it easy. He does the hard work himself, so that all Castiel has to do is relax and react - and open up, curiously, to what there is to feel.
He places his hand on John's bicep and finds it firm and water-warm. It's a small slip from there into John's lap, landing solidly with a squelch of wet clothes. If Castiel knew fear, he thinks he would be feeling that now.
He thinks he might be feeling it anyway.
"You don't got to hurry things along," John says, breathing the words against Castiel's chin and jaw. "We've got all the time in the world."
"That isn't at all accurate," Castiel tells him, but he discovers that it is difficult to sound stern when a stubbled man is sucking promises against your neck.
It is something, he thinks, that he will bear in mind for future reference.
*
They don't have sex, that night, sitting in the bottom of the shower.
That does not, however, mean that they do not ever have sex.
*
They trade kisses from time to time, stolen from stunned lips after a hunt or taken from John while he sleeps. The fascination grows, and Castiel knows that he is falling far from what is required of him. To be so in awe means that he cannot do his job as he should; he cannot be clear-minded.
He thinks, perhaps, he cannot be obedient.
"You're not gonna hurt me," John assures him, the pair of them nestled together on a cheap motel bed, the bed covers cupped around them like a warm pair of hands. Nude already, John is masculine and glorious, the very pinnacle of his Father's creation even if his blood runs cold. It still runs; he still lives.
He is slick and prepared already, doing most of it himself while giving Castiel the instructions he needs. Castiel's body is as pliant as he can make it, a moment's focus making it soft like flesh instead of hard like diamonds. "I could kill you with a sneeze," he tells John, as earnest as he knows how to be.
It makes John's lip quirk. He hadn't been trying to make a joke.
"Try not to sneeze, big guy," John says, clapping his hand against Castiel's bare arm.
"Your human body is larger than my vessel," Castiel responds, frowning.
"You want me to call you 'little guy'?" John offers. Somehow, that doesn't seem quite right either. Castiel tries to puzzle it out, but he finds that John uses his distraction to kiss the lines of his frown away and chase all worries from his mind. He's got a terrible habit of doing that. "Go on and fuck me, Cas."
It's the only encouragement that he offers, other than his thumb stroking soft lines against Castiel's neck, before he turns over onto his front, propped up on all fours. He is open and accepting, and it makes Castiel pleased to see him in such a way: with his head bowed, he looks penitent. He is as one ready to accept the Lord's love.
"Hurry the fuck up," John growls.
Perhaps not.
Castiel licks his lips and finds them dry, and his eyes are wide like coins. This is a sign of nervousness, he believes. The Holy are not supposed to indulge in these desires - they are not supposed to have these feelings at all - and yet he must believe that this is part of a plan. If Their Father did not want him to feel this way, he would not. He is obedient in all things.
"Castiel," John checks, looking over his shoulder.
For a time-travelling moment, Castiel sees a young man looking back at him, clean-shaven and neat, with first-time jitters in his eyes. The moment passes when he blinks, and he is faced with John Winchester once more, a man who does not know how to feel fear. John guides him with shakes of his head and unimpressed grunt until Castiel is close, until he grasps the fullness of his vessel and pushes, uncertainly, against the give of John's body. John's jaw clenches and he breathes out in one long whistle of air.
"Keep going," he wheezes, when Castiel is pushed inside only to the head.
The sensation is a strange one that he is unable to process. The cool temperature of John's body is contrasted against the tight circle wrapped around him. Castiel thinks that he feels light-headed. There are spots of white within his vision. Hands on John's hips, he pulls John back onto him while he pushes forward and presses as deep as he can manage. He forgets to breathe, to see, to listen. All that exists is the clench of John's body around him, welcoming, absorbing. Leaning down, his mouth scratches against the nape of John's neck in a messy show of appreciation.
"I didn't know it would be like this," he admits. He releases his grip on John's hips but doesn't move himself, allowing John to work himself back and forth, fucking himself at a slow pace on Castiel's member. The muscles in his shoulders ripple and release with every movement, sliding beneath his skin, and Castiel watches in open entrancement.
"You're hot," John gasps, words shivering. "So hot."
"You're cold," Castiel says - but he's heating up by the moment, leeching the heat from Castiel's body as they fuck.
When he is moving too slow and Castiel feels a tingle in his toes that tells him that he wants more, needs it even, he takes over again, holding John still with no great strain and pushing him down against the mattress. John folds like paper beneath him, arms unable to hold himself up, so that only his legs remain upright, hoisting his buttocks in the air for Castiel to worship. He pushes firmly, and feels John shiver and break beneath him. Their bodies were made to join like this, Castiel realises. There is something sharp and beautiful about it.
John is cursing beneath him, swearing and moaning, and it is all because of him.
Castiel has the ability to move through space and time with an eyeblink, to carry mountains and crush demons - but he has never felt so powerful in all of his existence. He has never felt more important than when he feels John pull on his own cock and come, clenching and shaking, around him. He tenses so much that it would hurt anyone else, anyone normal, and Castiel buries his face beneath John's shoulder blades, hacks and fucks until he is able to follow him over that black, forbidden ledge. White light floods the room and blinds the couple next door: they can't see for three days afterwards, but their vision returns, eventually. They are lucky.
We deserve this, he thinks.
He's an angel.
He shouldn't be thinking at all.
*
John doesn't touch him for a few days after that, and Castiel stays away as often as he can: he is pleased to discover, when he returns, that John is visiting his children once more. "Just passing through," John says. "They don't need me around all the time."
Castiel thinks of his Father, absent and impossible to find. He holds his tongue.
"They grew up when I wasn't looking," John says. His head is hanging as they sit outside in the sunshine. "Kids do that."
"I wouldn't know," Castiel responds. John doesn't apologise - Castiel wouldn't expect him to.
They sit silently for a while and listen to the wind whistling through the trees. John won't sit still. He fiddles with his gun instead, checking that it is still as perfectly maintained as it had been five minutes ago, and when he clips the edge of his finger he swears beneath his breath. It makes Castiel thinks of bare skin and salty sweat.
He reaches across to cup his hand over the tiny wound, and a moment later it has vanished.
"That isn't abusing God's power?" John asks, snorting.
"If the Lord did not wish it to be done, it would not be," Castiel says. It isn't an answer. He's trying not to think about the repercussions of what he is doing and how he is feeling. It's a technique that has been working splendidly for him so far.
John nods, before he says: "I'm warm, again."
Castiel frowns at him, and presses his fingers against the skin of his arm. It is the same temperature as all other humans, warm to the touch because of more than just the sun. "You've been healed," he concludes, puzzled.
John shrugs. "Happened right after we, ah..." He's a grown man who has been to hell and back, yet he won't say it. Castiel doesn't smile, but he thinks about doing it. "That glowing thing you did at the end. Might've been that."
"I lost control of my Grace," Castiel says. "The full power of the Lord burst forth from me. If you were alive, you might have been killed."
"And 'cause I was dead I was made alive?" John asks. He doesn't sound too happy with that explanation, but it's the best that Castiel has for him. "Suppose it's better than figuring you've got a magic cock."
Castiel looks down. "I don't believe it possesses any supernatural qualities," he assures him, and John snorts at him in disbelief, as if he's just said something funny.
Castiel finds that people are often laughing in his direction when he hasn't made a joke. It is frustrating, but understandable. He is quite a strange figure to mortal men, and their ways are very obscure to him.
"I'm glad you're living again," he says, sitting beside him. It seems an appropriate thing to say.
"Thanks for saving me," John says. "Both times."
Castiel nods and they rest in easy silence, legs brushing, as the sun shines on.