Fic: Ann a bhios mo dhòchas (where my hope lies), Dean/Castiel
Title: Ann a bhios mo dhòchas (where my hope lies)
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~7,000
Disclaimer: This is 100% made of lies.
Summary: AU. It's a dark and stormy night - no, really. It's a dark and stormy night in the highlands of Scotland, and university linguist Castiel is gathering material for his newest work when he gets caught out by the rain. Of all the isolated hilltop inns in the country, he has to stumble into Dean's.
NB: I am fully aware that the premise for this is probably entirely unattractive to most people, and also, insane. Insane. I have no excuses to offer. FWIW, this is intended to take place in around 1870, but could conceivably fit anywhere within a timeframe of about 1850 - 1900.
~ ( far am bi mi fhìn is) ann a bhios mo dhòchas ~
( where I will be is) where my hope lies
The gorse splinters, slippery-slick, under Castiel’s boots, in angered defiance of his hob-nails. On a dry day, the staggered highland-sides are nigh unnavigable, but like this, under cover of darkness and deluge, they are nothing short of murderous. Castiel’s fingers fumble for purchase only fruitlessly, wet grass tearing free at its roots from the muddied hill-face at the subtlest urging. The rain intensifies on his bared nape, soaking his hair, and the hills seem to roll on forever, uninterrupted.
Altogether, Castiel’s situation is disastrous.
Ordinarily, he is not a careless man. On the contrary, Cas is a man of caution and reserve, of tobacco and tweed, yellowed vellum and pencilled notes, lest ink should end up where it oughtn’t. Castiel is, for goodness’ sake, a historian, and he is nothing if not meticulous.
The problem is that highland winters do not look too kindly upon meticulousness. The newspapers may well say that darkness is due to fall no earlier than half past three, but the newspapers take their measurements from Inverness, where words like ‘due’ are understood. Out here, amidst these miles and miles of heathered hills and empty sky, the whims of the land obey neither man nor god. If the light decides to begin fading at three, then fade it swiftly will, and by quarter past the hour, the world will be nothing but lowered clouds and blind, midwinter darkness.
It wouldn’t have been so impossible without the rain, but then, Castiel is a fool for failing to anticipate that.
On the outward leg, this morning, his journey took him perhaps two hours’ walking, at no point terribly strenuous. The sky was clear then, if washed white with winter, the grass damp only with dew. From time to time, Castiel came across tiny clusters of houses too small to be called hamlets, and the folk he found there, albeit wary at first, proved surprisingly obliging once Castiel had explained himself in halting Gaelic. By early afternoon, he had a notebook full of useful suggestions for the Gaelic grammar he means to spend Lent term writing, and the drizzling rain that picked up around noon time was no obstacle to his satisfaction. He wasn’t to know that ‘early afternoon’ was all the warning he would have before sunset.
The stormfront came down only shortly after the darkness, heralded by a low grumble of thunder. At first, Castiel shouldered his difficulties manfully, lowering his head against the sheeting rain, pressing on back towards the whitewashed two-room cottage let for the duration. But then an hour went by, spun out on the disorienting threads of water and shadows, and after it, another, and now Castiel no longer has the capacity to be manful. Frankly, he thinks, as clumps of grass fall apart like false hope in his hands, it has reached the point where any sign of civilisation will be greeted with voluble celebration and thanksgiving.
The road swims into view unexpectedly, its secret sinews given away only by the lighted windows of a building that stands with its face to the hills. The moment Castiel sees it, and recognises it as something other than a mirage, he can barely contain his relief. The rain has soaked him down through the thick wool of his overcoat, through the bulky sweater beneath, right through his shirt to the skin. His boots are a muddle of mud and grass and dead flowers, caked between the hobnails. He has no idea, from this distance, what the building is, but precisely no part of him cares. He makes towards it hastily, with no thought but to throw himself upon the mercy of the inhabitants, whoever they may be, and God save him from highland murderers.
Much as he has cursed the powers that be in his hours of aimless wandering over the hills, Castiel cannot but offer up a fervent prayer of gratitude when the building resolves itself, finally, into an inn, its crooked sign proclaiming its name to be Alltshillach. In Scots Gaelic, this approximates to ‘dripping stream’. It’s horribly appropriate.
When he stumbles into the front room, Castiel’s sodden clothing begins immediately approximating its own alltshillach onto the floor, in a way that transgresses all language barriers. There’s a hatstand by the door, and he sheds his overcoat hastily, relishing the strange sense of weightlessness as its wet, uncomfortable mass peels away from his shoulders. It’s warm in the inn, the atmosphere thick with the scent of water steaming up out of wool, and Castiel takes a moment to breathe deep of it, taking account. His hair is plastered flat across his forehead, little rivulets coursing down his face from the ends of it. Castiel pushes at it helplessly, sluicing rain from his cheeks two-handed and then shoving wet handfuls of hair up onto the top of his head, but it doesn’t do terribly much for his comfort.
“You got caught out good and proper, I see.”
Castiel pauses in the act of wringing out the sleeve of his sweater; squints into the room through eyelashes spiked with damp. As far as he can gauge, the place is fairly typical of the sort of country pub one might find anywhere in the British Isles - a dark-panelled room fitted out with bar, fireplace, and a number of low tables strategically arranged; but - not surprisingly, given the inclemency of the weather - it is largely empty. By the fireplace, a couple of dark shapes are huddled in close conversation; by the window, another man sits alone, cradling a beer. And, immediately opposite the door, the man who spoke leans languidly against the edge of the bar, stance dripping scorn.
Castiel clears his throat. “Yes, you could - you could say that.” He closes cold fingers around the sodden mass of his sleeve; watches the water puddle on the floorboards.
“Just did,” the man points out, dryly. “You might do better, you know, if you just took the damn thing off.” He inclines his head slightly, indicating Castiel’s sweater. “‘stead of flooding my floor right in the doorway where folk’ll have to swim through the lake.”
Castiel colours. “I was - trying to, um - to contain the mess, I suppose.”
“Well,” says the man, “contain it somewhere else, can you? Get on in here, if you’re getting.”
There’s something so quietly authoritative about the low, sceptical voice with its heavy Highland drawl that Castiel’s already moved shamefacedly into the indicated place by the bar before the obvious occurs to him. “How did you know I'd speak English?”
The man laughs. “Some poor soul stumbles in in a thunderstorm, lookin’ like a drowned rat, and starts trying to wring the water out of his ganzie ‘stead of just taking the damn’ thing off like a normal person?” He snorts. “How could I not?”
Castiel can’t help but laugh a little at that, and something in the other man seems to soften when he does, mouth turning up a little at the corners. Seeing him now properly, in the light of the fire, Castiel judges him to be about his own age, or perhaps a little younger - early thirties, nicely put together. The eyes that meet Castiel’s are remarkably green, and the features of his face are noticeably finely-cut, even beneath a layer of sandy scruff. When the man actually begins to smile a little - still a cynical quirk of a smile only, but not unkind - Castiel tears his eyes away. Castiel knows well enough to keep his proclivities concealed even in Cambridge, even in London, and he isn’t anything like so stupid as to allow himself to let his guard down in a highland backwater.
“It’s good,” he says hurriedly, for the sake of something to say as he tugs at the lower hem of his sweater. “I, uh, your English. Aren’t you local?”
“Born and bred,” says the man, with a shrug. “But I was ten years in the Dragoon Guards. Nobody else speaks God’s tongue any more, ‘cept us up here.” He lets his own tongue roll over the words, God’s tongue, in self-deprecation or regret, Castiel can’t be sure. A lot of this man’s expressions seem to come out as something that sounds like plain cynicism, but there’s something about his face that belies it, some lingering good naturedness in his eyes.
“I do,” Castiel says, in Gaelic. The man laughs, genuinely surprised, and Castiel can’t help but congratulate himself a little.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, in the same language. “What, three words?”
“More than that,” Castiel contends. “I’m writing a grammar. That’s what I’m doing out here.”
“Huh.” The man eyes him for a moment, looking, Castiel thinks, reluctantly impressed. “Well, your accent sounds like it crawled out of a bull’s backside, but other than that, you do seem to have the hang of it.”
Castiel translates and retranslates the words, just to be sure of them, and then laughs. “Is that an idiom I can put in my book?”
“Sure,” the man says, airily. “S’long as you credit it to me.” He shifts his hips; crosses one leg over the other and scrubs the toe of his boot idly against the wooden floor. His legs curve interestingly, bowing outward to the knee, and Castiel idly wonders why; whether he was born like that, or if the blame could be placed upon horse-riding, or mild rickets.
“I don’t know your name,” Castiel tells him, before his mind can derail itself further on the subject of this man’s thighs.
The man swings himself up off the bar, his movements leisurely, as if he has all the time in the world to move in and an endlessly fascinated audience to watch him do it. There’s something of a swagger to the way he walks, three or four steps to the edge of the puddle Castiel has been dripping on the floor all the time they’ve been talking. His hands fist in the fabric of Castiel’s sweater, low at his waist, and Castiel’s heart seizes up breathlessly in his throat.
“I’m Dean,” says the man, smirking at the look on Castiel’s face as he braces his muscles and lifts. Castiel’s sweater lifts with him, the water weighting it down until it feels like a mailshirt hanging on Castiel’s shoulders, draping in leaden swathes over the man’s - Dean’s - hands. “You looked like you needed a little help,” he explains, and Castiel laughs shortly.
“It’s heavy,” he allows.
“Not kidding.” Dean grunts with exertion as he heaves the wet mass up towards Castiel’s shoulders. “What the hell is this thing made of?”
“I got it on Arran,” Castiel mumbles, raising his arms so Dean can work the sweater off over his head. “It’s just wool.”
“Crazy sons of bitches on Arran,” Dean remarks cryptically, as he heaves the sodden wool up and off. It falls to the floor with all the grace and impact of a ton of bricks, and makes almost as much noise as it collides with the floorboards, spraying both their shins with water. Dean curses, and takes a quick step back.
“Sorry,” Castiel says, hastily, pointlessly. “I, um - I can -”
“Dean?”
The interruption makes them both glance over as one, Dean still shaking stray droplets from the legs of his trousers. The door behind the bar, Castiel sees, is standing open, and next to it, hand on hip, stands the hulking, dimly-lit shape of undoubtedly the largest person Castiel has ever seen. For a moment, Castiel entertains brief wild thoughts of Dean as some highland secret-keeper, making his inn a refuge for various beasts of myth and legend. Then the shape moves forward into the light, and Castiel sees that it’s only a man, looking bemused and a little irritated in an off-white linen shirt that just barely contains his massive shoulders.
“What’s going on?” the man asks dubiously, in Gaelic.
Dean notes the expression on Castiel’s face and grins. “Nothing to worry about, Sammy. Night like this, we have to expect a few stranded travellers, huh?” He throws Castiel an apologetic smile, nodding his head in the direction of the man behind the bar. “This is Sam, my brother. We run the place together, since Dad died. Sam, this is...?”
Castiel supplies his own name hurriedly, feeling abruptly foolish at not having offered it before. “I got lost,” he explains, feeling more than a little embarrassed and belittled between these two strapping young men, as if they must be thinking him an idiot, some silly city mouse.
Sam raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement, but says nothing, which doesn’t do much for Castiel’s self-confidence. Beside him, though, Dean’s smile has turned curious. “That a Bible name - Castiel?”
“Sort of,” Castiel allows, not wanting to go into it, and Dean seems satisfied enough.
“Well,” he says, “there’s no way you’re leaving here again in the state you’re in. Lucky for you, we have a room upstairs, so you won’t have to, provided you’re not broke as well as daft.”
Castiel blinks stupidly for a minute. “No, I, uh. I left my wallet in my coat pocket.” He gestures in the general direction of the door, sending a stream of water coursing out of the cuff of his shirt. Outside, the rain is still buffeting furiously against the windows, rattling the door on its hinges. Dean is, Castiel is forced to admit, entirely correct in his assessment of the situation.
“Good,” Dean says smartly, with a little nod of his head. “You want to go get it? - the wallet, I mean. Coat’ll dry faster down here. We can throw this thing -” stooping, he gathers up Castiel’s sweater - “over a chair or something to air out, although I’m not making any promises.” Suiting action to word, he arranges the garment over the wooden skeleton of a nearby chair, and, straightening, rubs his hands together, dusting off the dampness. “And I’ll show you up, help you get sorted. All right?”
Castiel nods. “Yes - thank you.”
“All right, then.”
The process of picking his way across the damp floor to the hatstand, retrieving his wallet from amidst wet folds of wool, and returning to the bar occupies mere seconds, but it does not escape Castiel that an entire silent conversation has passed between the brothers in the time he’s been gone. Sam, now leaning heavily on the top of the bar, is fixing Dean with a look of unrelenting scepticism that shows no signs of fading when Dean says, “Keys, Sam.” He lifts the little hinged section of the bar so that Castiel can come through, gesturing him towards the back door with an arm outstretched. “I’ll sort you out.”
“Sure you will,” Sam mutters, with a glance at Castiel. Dean shrugs him off with a laugh, taking the keys roughly from Sam as he guides Castiel ahead of him with a hand at the small of his back.
“Don’t mind him,” he says, his palm bleeding warmth through the clinging chill of Castiel’s wet shirt. “He’s grumpy because now he has to mind bar.”
“Not for long, surely?” Castiel says mildly, picking his way up a flight of narrow stairs. Dean smiles so Castiel can feel it, the warmth of it tickling the nape of his neck, but he doesn’t say anything. It seems to Castiel that these people are over fond of getting by on as few words as possible.
At the top of the stairs, Dean stops him, knuckling gently at the small of his back. “Second door,” he says, briefly. “Here.” He reaches a long arm around Castiel’s body, shifting Castiel gently to one side as he fumbles with the lock. The warmth of him is a welcome blanket of heat all down Castiel’s side, a shield against the chill that’s been deep in his bones for hours now, and when Dean shoves open the door and moves away, Castiel instantly misses the contact.
“Stupid,” he mutters under his breath, closing his eyes firmly. The cordial reception that has been offered him around these parts is something many travellers before have certainly not experienced, and Castiel will not ruin it with misinterpretation and stupidity. He follows Dean into the room, arms crossed over his chest as if to hold in what little body heat remains to him.
“What was that?” Dean asks, off-handedly. There’s a fire burning low in the little grate, and Dean leans down over it, taking firewood from a little stack by the hearth and throwing it into the flames. He stamps his feet, making the floorboards shift and the flames leap in protest, curling over the new wood until Dean is satisfied; straightens up and churns at the embers a little with the poker.
“Nothing,” Castiel assures him. Dean is still turned away from him, bent at the waist as he turns the coals, and Castiel takes the opportunity to run an approving eye over the curve of his backside; the long stretch of his legs. Castiel is cautious - careful - but there’s still no harm in looking, especially when one is perfectly sure the look can pass unremarked.
Dean shrugs his shoulders in a slow roll that moves up his spine from the dip of his waist to the bared nape of his neck. “All right, then,” he says, stepping past Castiel to close the door to the little room. “C’mere; you’re going to catch your death.”
Then his fingers are working at the buttons of Castiel’s shirt, thumbing them speedily through the eyes from the throat on downward. Castiel is so surprised that, for a moment, he merely stands there in silence, but then Dean’s nearing his navel and Castiel’s hands fly up to grip his wrists in protest. “What are you doing?”
“Sorting you out,” Dean says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Said I would, didn’t I?” He gives Castiel a moment, and then nods at Castiel’s fingers on his wrists. “Think you could unbutton anything with those hands?”
Castiel looks down as directed, at his red, shivering fingers. They are, indeed, still more than a little numb, strangely rubbery, and he has to concede that Dean does have a point. “Well -”
“Yeah,” Dean interrupts, and resumes unbuttoning. Castiel, no argument left to make, subsides and lets him do it.
It takes both of them to wrench the shirt off his arms where it’s tangled itself, serpentine. Dean, having evidently decided that this show is his to run, decides that boots must come next, and Castiel takes a moment to wish he hadn’t pulled his laces quite so tightly. He moves to sit down, at least, to make proceedings a little more straightforward, but Dean dismisses that idea with a snort. “And soak the sheets as well? I don’t think so.”
“You really don’t need to do this,” Castiel says. “I can - wait until I’ve warmed up a little and then do it myself, or -”
“You’ll never warm up in these clothes,” Dean tells him, dropping into a crouch. One hand comes up to curve around the outside of Castiel’s thigh, just above the knee, steadying. “Come on, lift your foot.”
By the time the second boot has been tossed aside, to be swiftly followed by its sock, Castiel has never felt so grateful to be cold. Dean’s tongue pokes out a little when he’s concentrating, tugging at Castiel’s knots, its wet pink tip protruding between his teeth. From this angle, everything about him looks perfectly-crafted, softened by the glow of the firelight: his downcast, overlong eyelashes; the bow of his upper lip. The flames pick out the strawberry gold in his hair, the freckles on his cheekbones. When he looks up, Castiel feels the slow pooling of heat begin between his legs, even under the chill.
Dean stands like some beautiful thing unfolding, all long limbs and muscle and God, Castiel did not expect to find anybody like him in a place like the Alltshillach Inn. He turns his face to the side in a gesture of half conscious self-preservation. “Thank you. I really do appreciate your kindness.”
The words are a little stiff, but Dean doesn’t seem to take the tone amiss. “Welcome,” he says, and his fingers inch matter-of-factly beneath Castiel’s undershirt at the waist, green eyes still unwavering on Castiel’s own. “Close your eyes,” he says, and the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth has worlds in it that Castiel doesn’t dare to read.
The wet cotton peels away from his skin like it’s some unwanted, extraneous part of him; as if Dean were shelling him like a pea. When it’s gone, whipped over his head swiftly enough to leave his hair mostly standing on end, Castiel’s eyes remain closed. The sense of exposure, standing shirtless before Dean, is extreme, but with his eyes closed, it’s bearable, the room reduced to only soft sounds and the nearby heat of the fire. For a moment, Dean says nothing, and the lengthening silence tugs at the warmth in the pit of Castiel’s belly, making it shiver and spread.
“There,” Dean says, at length, and his voice is a little different, strangely breathless at the edges. Castiel presses his lips together, watching the blurred shapes of flames through his eyelids.
“Can I open my eyes?” he tries, after a minute, and Dean laughs softly, as if he’d forgotten.
“Wait,” he says. “Just a second.”
The second spins out like toffee, like honey stretching from a spoon, warmed by the fire and Dean’s shallow breaths. Castiel holds still; wills his mind to go blank of expectation, but the fine shivering in his spine is no longer from cold, as the warmth in his stomach only grows and grows. The first brush of Dean’s mouth against his, when it comes, is unexpectedly gentle, a butterfly touch to the bow of Castiel’s upper lip.
“Oh,” he says, involuntary, and Dean half-laughs again, almost nervously, but when Castiel doesn’t move, a hand drifts up to curl around the nape of his neck, as if buoyed by the wordless sound. Castiel lifts his face, unthinking, and then Dean’s warm mouth is on his, the press of it slow and firm, nudging at his lips. Dean’s broad palms bleed heat through the clammy skin at Castiel’s nape, at his waist, the dual points of warmth strangely anchoring, and Castiel leans upward, pressing into the contact in a way that is almost entirely instinctual. When Dean’s lips part, it’s only natural that Castiel should follow, flickering his tongue over the damp underside of Dean’s upper lip until it encounters the tip of Dean’s, stroking against it tentatively.
Dean makes a soft sound in his throat, fingers tightening on Castiel’s skin. The vibration of it shoots down Castiel’s spine like electricity, sparking between his legs, and Castiel pushes forward, mindless of his wet trousers, seeking more of Dean’s mouth. When Dean pulls away - gradually, but firmly - Castiel lets out what he is ashamed to hear is a whimper, his own hands clutching at Dean’s shoulders, at smooth skin under coarse cloth.
Dean laughs softly, but it’s breathless, unsteady with something that surely can only be arousal. Castiel feels lightheaded, swaying on his feet, and when Dean speaks, he hears the words distinctly, as the foreign things they are, his brain too addled to complete the translation automatically.
“Ceart gu leòr?” Dean prompts him, carefully, lifting Castiel’s face with a thumb under his jaw. Castiel takes a deep, slow breath; wills his mental faculties to recommence functioning. Is this all right?
“All right,” he tells Dean, quietly: ceart gu leòr. “Yes, I - it’s all right.”
As assurances go, it is brief, certainly, but clear enough, and Dean seems to find no fault with it. His smile, in response, is pleased, knowing, and his fingers are deft at Castiel’s waist, unbuckling his belt, unfastening his trouser buttons with a single flick of his wrist. Beneath the trousers, Castiel is wearing long underwear, and both garments are soaked to his skin, but Dean is undeterred, tugging it all together down over Castiel’s backside so violently that Castiel stumbles backward into a sitting position on the bed.
“Oh, nice,” Dean remarks, with a flash of teeth, self-congratulatory. Castiel can’t help but laugh, even when Dean reasserts his grip on his handful of fabric and tugs smartly upwards, throwing Castiel down onto his back as Dean tugs slacks and underwear up his upraised legs and over his feet.
“You’re insane,” Castiel tells him. Both his arms are flung up loosely over his head, fingers curling lax into his palms, body entirely open to Dean’s scrutiny. It ought, he knows, to make him feel vulnerable, uneasy, but for some reason he no longer feels exposed so much as heated, wanted. Castiel doesn’t even know Dean’s last name, he realises, and a mild twinge of embarrassment registers in him at that, but it is mild, the guilt of it rather more forced than felt. The fact of it is that Dean’s eyes on him make Castiel feel things he hasn’t felt in years, and never so openly; and while Castiel never anticipated his day of deluge culminating in this, he certainly has no intention at all of rejecting it.
Dean is grinning at him as he lifts his own shirt unceremoniously over his head, tosses it aside. The hair on his arms is fine and pale, glinting gold like coins in the light of the fire, and his chest is broad and smooth, muscles shifting when he moves. “Not insane,” he corrects. “Perfectly rational. I said I was gonna sort you out, didn’t I?”
Castiel snorts. “Yes, but I didn’t think you meant like this.” It’s easy, somehow, to banter back and forth like this, to grin across the room as Dean unbuckles his belt, steps out of his trousers; and it’s that, as much as anything, that banks up the warmth in Castiel, makes him reach out for Dean.
“Why’d you think Sammy was so grumpy?” Dean climbs onto the bed on his knees; takes hold of Castiel’s ankles, and a slow, sinuous heat begins to crawl up Castiel’s spine as Dean gently spreads his legs.
“He knew?” Castiel gets out, breath hitching in the wake of the sudden coil of new wanting.
“Guessed,” Dean acknowledges, shrugging.
“And how did you know?” Castiel demands. “That I -”
“C’mon now.” Dean cuts him off; smirks up at him slow, and the flickering light makes his green eyes gleam golden. “The way you looked at me when you saw me - you wanna watch that, if you don’t want perceptive people making assumptions.” He turns his face; presses a kiss to the knob of bone on the smooth inside of Castiel’s left ankle.
“I didn’t mean to,” Castiel breathes, skin jumping under Dean’s mouth.
“Glad you did,” Dean tells him, and skims his thumb up the inside of Castiel’s calf; onto the softness of his inner thigh. Castiel squirms under him, raises his knees and clutches at Dean’s shoulders.
“Dean - get up here -” The Gaelic comes to him only with increasing difficulty. Dean laughs, not at all unkindly, and pulls himself upward, shifting until his hips are between Castiel’s splayed thighs. Castiel draws in a sharp breath at the shock of so much skin-on-skin contact, Dean’s dry and hot against his own, still damp, still drying.
“Hush,” Dean whispers, carding his fingers through the tangle of Castiel’s hair. “I got you, mo ghraigh.”[1] He tugs, and Castiel goes willingly, lets things be simple.
Dean’s mouth is hot, and the blood beneath his skin is hotter, pouring off him and into Castiel at every place their bodies make contact. With Dean’s hands restless as they are - palming Castiel’s neck, his arms; mapping his sides and the smooth outsides of his hips - that’s a lot of places, and all the while their hips rock incrementally against each other, the firm line of Dean’s cock between them the hottest place of all. Castiel wants to touch it; wants to get his hands between them and run his fingertips over all the heated silk of it, learning its ridges, its shape, now that his fingers can feel again. Above him, though, Dean doesn’t give him opportunity, licking down hard into Castiel’s mouth, effectively disabling him with deep, sucking kisses to the hollow of his throat, raising bruises under the skin. Castiel claws at his shoulders, at his nape, but Dean is clever and quick, cock painting trails of slick low on Castiel’s abdomen as he thrusts down against him.
“Dean,” Castiel grits out, tossing his head as Dean licks at the line of his clavicle; “Dean, Christ - ” and then Dean shifts, tongue circling Castiel’s nipple, and Castiel fists his hands in the bedsheets, hips snapping upward hard and reflexive.
Dean’s laughter is a low vibration along the surface of Castiel’s skin as he moves, thumb replacing his mouth on Castiel’s nipple, making slow circles that set Castiel leaking and shivering while all presence of mind slips away.
“This is what you wanted earlier, wasn’t it?” Dean murmurs low against Castiel’s sternum; against the muscle above his diaphragm. “When I took your boots off.” He nips at Castiel’s stomach; slides smoothly lower, circling his tongue around the rim of Castiel’s navel.
The muscles in Castiel’s stomach leap at the contact, and he bites back a cry in his throat. “You wanted me to want it,” he manages; and only when he’s spoken realises that he spoke in English.
“What?” Dean prompts him, smile curving his lips as he looks up at Castiel under his eyelashes, and the pink of his mouth is wanton, damp and slightly open. “What do you want, Castiel?”
His name on Dean’s tongue sounds bizarrely right, his stupid, foreign name emerging somehow in tune with Dean’s burred, gravelled English. Castiel’s hard, has been hard for minutes and minutes, now, and Dean undoubtedly knows it; shifts a little so the tip of Castiel’s cock brushes his chest, drags stickily against the golden skin. Castiel bites his lip, bucks up, and Dean laughs again; pins his hips and demands, “What do you want, Castiel?” in sex-roughened Gaelic.
Castiel closes his eyes against the burst of heat that flares up behind them, the ridiculous levels of wanting rising up in him, cresting the thick wave of embarrassment. “Suck me,” he grits, because Dean’s close and Castiel wants it, and Dean wants to hear it, and he hasn’t a thing to lose except his composure. He gropes blindly for Dean’s hair; fists his hands in it. “Dean. Please.” He tugs; chokes back a whimper of desperation.
The meaning of what Dean says in response is lost on Castiel entirely. He cannot determine whether this is due to the fact that his brain is beginning to disintegrate, or simply because he is still unfamiliar with the sexual vocabulary of Gaelic, but the next moment, Dean’s breathing against him, warm and open-mouthed, and Castiel gives up the exercise of caring entirely.
For all his teasing, Dean is remarkably decisive when once he sets himself to task. He curls his fingers around the base of Castiel’s cock, and Castiel has barely time to draw in one steadying breath before Dean’s suckling at the head, the thumb of his free hand stroking ticklish paths up over the smooth protrusion of Castiel’s hipbone. Castiel jerks under him, breath hitching, and Dean slides effortlessly lower, mouth stilled on Castiel’s dick for a long moment of heat. Castiel glances down at him, eventually; the anticipation building to a level beyond what his overtaxed body can take, and the look in Dean’s heavy-lidded eyes shoots a bolt of heat right through him, as Dean must have known that it would.
“Fuck,” he gasps, in blunt, unpolished English, and thrusts up into the slick heat of Dean’s mouth, hips jerking in shallow little pulses. Dean hums around him, evidently pleased, and sucks hard on Castiel’s outward stroke, drawing forth a whine that Castiel cannot repress.
After that, Castiel’s head is swimming, all pretence at politeness gone. It’s good like this, this slow, silk-slick fuck, but it isn’t enough, and Castiel grasps the back of Dean’s head, pulling him down as his hips roll up, up, inexorably into his throat. Dean shifts his hand, splaying it on Castiel’s hip, pinning him flat to the bed, and he’s ready to keen his protest when Dean takes pity on him, sinking down onto Castiel’s cock until the softness of his throat flutters against the head.
“Jesus Christ!” Castiel throws an arm up over his face; sinks his teeth into flesh and holds tight for dear life, dick jerking in Dean’s mouth as he fights the urge to thrust up hard, sheathe himself deep in the heat of Dean’s throat. Dean’s moaning around him now, the vibrations skittering hotly up Castiel’s spine as he speeds the bobbing motions of his head, swallowing Castiel almost to the root, sucking hard as he pulls off. When his tongue makes a circle at Castiel’s tip, probing curiously at his slit, Castiel bites down something like a scream; tightens his fingers hard enough to hurt. Dean’s moving quickly, now, swallowing and releasing him wetly, spit and precome dribbling out of his mouth to pool on Castiel’s belly. Beneath him, Castiel feels his muscles tightening, his mind going white at the edges, and he paws at Dean’s shoulder; grits out, “Dean - gonna - Dean!”
Dean hums softly in acknowledgement; sucks hard and presses his tongue again to Castiel’s tip, and that’s as much as he can take. He rears up, head and shoulders off the bed, as he comes, pulsing hot into Dean’s mouth, fingers clenched overtightly in Dean’s hair. It’s long, and breathless, accompanied by some half-strangled sound, but Dean only holds him through it, sucking gently until it hurts a little, when Castiel’s fallen back against the pillows; thumbs at Dean’s mouth to indicate that he should stop.
“God,” Castiel pants, eyes wide on the low-beamed ceiling. “God. God.”
“Not quite,” Dean says, and it’s the oldest line in the book, but he’s smiling so Castiel can hear it, and for some incredible reason, it’s rather charming.
“Come here,” Castiel tells him, limply, when some of his composure has returned, along with his Gaelic. Dean laughs; shifts up the bed, settling himself in Castiel’s arms. When he leans down, pressing his mouth to Castiel’s, his tongue is salt-sour, and Castiel sucks at it, licking slackly at the insides of his lips.
“Mmmm,” Dean breathes, shifting his hips a little, and Castiel laughs; skates a hand down Dean’s body.
“Got you,” he whispers; reaches up to nip at Dean’s lower lip. “God, fuck, you’re wet. Dean.”
When Castiel’s hand closes around his cock, Dean’s entire body seems to shiver, hips rolling forward into the tunnel of Castiel’s fingers. He’s slick, so slick, as if the warmth of Castiel’s cock in his mouth was enough to set him leaking all over himself, and even Castiel’s spent dick sees fit to twitch feebly at the coil of heat that thought engenders. The slickness makes things easier on Castiel’s wrist, still fluttering and lax with orgasm, as Dean fucks breathlessly through his fist, slipping in his own precome. He isn’t quiet, either, soft little sounds escaping him as Castiel strokes him, fingers now open, now closed; thumb flicking deftly over the head on the upstroke so that Dean jerks his pelvis and cries out.
“Fuck,” Castiel breathes against Dean’s mouth; licks the sensitive spot at the corner of it that makes Dean twist and shudder. “God, you’re beautiful. Dean, come on.”
Dean’s grip on Castiel’s shoulder is near-bruising, fingers tightening as his thrusts speed, as his body clenches up, nearing its completion. Castiel only grits his teeth and strokes faster, sucking at the fullness of Dean’s lower lip, smearing precome around the head of Dean’s cock as his whimpers dissolve into shuttered cries, oh - oh - oh -
He moves on a gradient, thrusts picking up like a steam engine nearing full-pelt, and when he comes, his mouth falls open soundlessly under Castiel’s, body thrashing in his arms.
“That’s it,” Castiel murmurs; nips at Dean’s mouth as he strokes him through the spurts. “God, like that. Dean. Dean.”
Afterwards, the bedclothes are stickied, the floorboards strewn with garments tossed haphazardly as confetti. It’s remarkably comfortable, though, curled into the shelter of Dean’s armpit. Castiel is certainly warm, which is an improvement on most of his prior experiences in Scotland to date. He lets himself doze; nuzzles at the babyfine skin at the juncture of Dean’s arm and shoulder.
Dean allows this, for a minute, until he bites back a laugh and shifts a little. “Ticklish.” He tugs at Castiel’s hair, ruffling it through his fingers. “This dried,” he remarks, lightly. “Looks sort of madcap, though?”
“Hrrm,” Castiel says, noncommittally, and burrows back down. “D’you mind?”
Dean grins. “No.” He strokes more gently, smoothing the hair back down. “Hey - where’d you say you were staying, again?”
Castiel thinks of the bare little two-room cottage, of his one small suitcase, the narrow single bed. “Hut,” he says, in a tone that aims for neutral but misses it slightly.
“Huh,” Dean says, shortly. Then, in what Castiel presumes is an attempt at manly nonchalance, “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in - I don’t know - moving your stuff over here? We have, you know. Beer.”
Castiel laughs; pulls himself up on an elbow to look at him. “Would you charge me for the room?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth goes up. “Could I take it out in service?”
Castiel thinks about his notebook, Observations From Scotland. Probably, tonight’s activities cannot be said to have constituted the appropriate sort of observations for the study; but then, that isn’t to say that Dean couldn’t be useful. After all, he is a native Gaelic speaker.
Castiel furrows his brow as if in thought, although, really, his thought process has already reached a satisfactory resolution. “That depends. Would you be willing to help me with my grammar of Scots Gaelic?”
Dean grins. “You seem fairly competent to me,” he points out, skirting his thumb up the smooth skin of Castiel’s side.
“I find,” Castiel tells him, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “that my vocabulary is deficient. My catalogue of sexual terms is entirely substandard.”
Dean snorts. “Sexual terms?” The thumb trips downward, nudges at Castiel’s hipbone, and Castiel feels the skin jump, his pelvis shifting incrementally forward.
“Yes,” he says; rubs his mouth against the corner of Dean’s. “You help me with that, and you have my permission to take payment any way you want.”
Dean licks a stripe of heat over the curve of Castiel’s lip; slides his palm down to cup his backside. “Any way I want?”
“Any way,” Castiel promises, breath hitching in the back of his throat as Dean’s hand wanders.
Dean hums approval; says nothing, but lets his hand trip lower, knuckling at the dark space behind Castiel’s balls. The bolt of heat that licks at the base of Castiel’s spine makes his breath punch out of him, his hips jerk upward as his dick twitches on his stomach, attempting to fill.
“What’re you doing?” He tugs at Dean’s hair; shifts a little underneath him. Dean only laughs; slides his fingers further backward.
“I’m claiming an advance,” he says, and hooks his arms under Castiel’s thighs until he can lift him bodily.
The Gaelic for what Dean does next is entirely beyond Castiel, the slick thrusts of his tongue defying any descriptors he knows.
In the morning, though, he can have Dean explain it. There is no need to hurry.
***
[1] Technically, this term means 'dear one' or 'darling', but, like the Irish acushla, is commonly used between men in a way that its English 'equivalents' would not be.
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~7,000
Disclaimer: This is 100% made of lies.
Summary: AU. It's a dark and stormy night - no, really. It's a dark and stormy night in the highlands of Scotland, and university linguist Castiel is gathering material for his newest work when he gets caught out by the rain. Of all the isolated hilltop inns in the country, he has to stumble into Dean's.
NB: I am fully aware that the premise for this is probably entirely unattractive to most people, and also, insane. Insane. I have no excuses to offer. FWIW, this is intended to take place in around 1870, but could conceivably fit anywhere within a timeframe of about 1850 - 1900.
~ ( far am bi mi fhìn is) ann a bhios mo dhòchas ~
( where I will be is) where my hope lies
The gorse splinters, slippery-slick, under Castiel’s boots, in angered defiance of his hob-nails. On a dry day, the staggered highland-sides are nigh unnavigable, but like this, under cover of darkness and deluge, they are nothing short of murderous. Castiel’s fingers fumble for purchase only fruitlessly, wet grass tearing free at its roots from the muddied hill-face at the subtlest urging. The rain intensifies on his bared nape, soaking his hair, and the hills seem to roll on forever, uninterrupted.
Altogether, Castiel’s situation is disastrous.
Ordinarily, he is not a careless man. On the contrary, Cas is a man of caution and reserve, of tobacco and tweed, yellowed vellum and pencilled notes, lest ink should end up where it oughtn’t. Castiel is, for goodness’ sake, a historian, and he is nothing if not meticulous.
The problem is that highland winters do not look too kindly upon meticulousness. The newspapers may well say that darkness is due to fall no earlier than half past three, but the newspapers take their measurements from Inverness, where words like ‘due’ are understood. Out here, amidst these miles and miles of heathered hills and empty sky, the whims of the land obey neither man nor god. If the light decides to begin fading at three, then fade it swiftly will, and by quarter past the hour, the world will be nothing but lowered clouds and blind, midwinter darkness.
It wouldn’t have been so impossible without the rain, but then, Castiel is a fool for failing to anticipate that.
On the outward leg, this morning, his journey took him perhaps two hours’ walking, at no point terribly strenuous. The sky was clear then, if washed white with winter, the grass damp only with dew. From time to time, Castiel came across tiny clusters of houses too small to be called hamlets, and the folk he found there, albeit wary at first, proved surprisingly obliging once Castiel had explained himself in halting Gaelic. By early afternoon, he had a notebook full of useful suggestions for the Gaelic grammar he means to spend Lent term writing, and the drizzling rain that picked up around noon time was no obstacle to his satisfaction. He wasn’t to know that ‘early afternoon’ was all the warning he would have before sunset.
The stormfront came down only shortly after the darkness, heralded by a low grumble of thunder. At first, Castiel shouldered his difficulties manfully, lowering his head against the sheeting rain, pressing on back towards the whitewashed two-room cottage let for the duration. But then an hour went by, spun out on the disorienting threads of water and shadows, and after it, another, and now Castiel no longer has the capacity to be manful. Frankly, he thinks, as clumps of grass fall apart like false hope in his hands, it has reached the point where any sign of civilisation will be greeted with voluble celebration and thanksgiving.
The road swims into view unexpectedly, its secret sinews given away only by the lighted windows of a building that stands with its face to the hills. The moment Castiel sees it, and recognises it as something other than a mirage, he can barely contain his relief. The rain has soaked him down through the thick wool of his overcoat, through the bulky sweater beneath, right through his shirt to the skin. His boots are a muddle of mud and grass and dead flowers, caked between the hobnails. He has no idea, from this distance, what the building is, but precisely no part of him cares. He makes towards it hastily, with no thought but to throw himself upon the mercy of the inhabitants, whoever they may be, and God save him from highland murderers.
Much as he has cursed the powers that be in his hours of aimless wandering over the hills, Castiel cannot but offer up a fervent prayer of gratitude when the building resolves itself, finally, into an inn, its crooked sign proclaiming its name to be Alltshillach. In Scots Gaelic, this approximates to ‘dripping stream’. It’s horribly appropriate.
When he stumbles into the front room, Castiel’s sodden clothing begins immediately approximating its own alltshillach onto the floor, in a way that transgresses all language barriers. There’s a hatstand by the door, and he sheds his overcoat hastily, relishing the strange sense of weightlessness as its wet, uncomfortable mass peels away from his shoulders. It’s warm in the inn, the atmosphere thick with the scent of water steaming up out of wool, and Castiel takes a moment to breathe deep of it, taking account. His hair is plastered flat across his forehead, little rivulets coursing down his face from the ends of it. Castiel pushes at it helplessly, sluicing rain from his cheeks two-handed and then shoving wet handfuls of hair up onto the top of his head, but it doesn’t do terribly much for his comfort.
“You got caught out good and proper, I see.”
Castiel pauses in the act of wringing out the sleeve of his sweater; squints into the room through eyelashes spiked with damp. As far as he can gauge, the place is fairly typical of the sort of country pub one might find anywhere in the British Isles - a dark-panelled room fitted out with bar, fireplace, and a number of low tables strategically arranged; but - not surprisingly, given the inclemency of the weather - it is largely empty. By the fireplace, a couple of dark shapes are huddled in close conversation; by the window, another man sits alone, cradling a beer. And, immediately opposite the door, the man who spoke leans languidly against the edge of the bar, stance dripping scorn.
Castiel clears his throat. “Yes, you could - you could say that.” He closes cold fingers around the sodden mass of his sleeve; watches the water puddle on the floorboards.
“Just did,” the man points out, dryly. “You might do better, you know, if you just took the damn thing off.” He inclines his head slightly, indicating Castiel’s sweater. “‘stead of flooding my floor right in the doorway where folk’ll have to swim through the lake.”
Castiel colours. “I was - trying to, um - to contain the mess, I suppose.”
“Well,” says the man, “contain it somewhere else, can you? Get on in here, if you’re getting.”
There’s something so quietly authoritative about the low, sceptical voice with its heavy Highland drawl that Castiel’s already moved shamefacedly into the indicated place by the bar before the obvious occurs to him. “How did you know I'd speak English?”
The man laughs. “Some poor soul stumbles in in a thunderstorm, lookin’ like a drowned rat, and starts trying to wring the water out of his ganzie ‘stead of just taking the damn’ thing off like a normal person?” He snorts. “How could I not?”
Castiel can’t help but laugh a little at that, and something in the other man seems to soften when he does, mouth turning up a little at the corners. Seeing him now properly, in the light of the fire, Castiel judges him to be about his own age, or perhaps a little younger - early thirties, nicely put together. The eyes that meet Castiel’s are remarkably green, and the features of his face are noticeably finely-cut, even beneath a layer of sandy scruff. When the man actually begins to smile a little - still a cynical quirk of a smile only, but not unkind - Castiel tears his eyes away. Castiel knows well enough to keep his proclivities concealed even in Cambridge, even in London, and he isn’t anything like so stupid as to allow himself to let his guard down in a highland backwater.
“It’s good,” he says hurriedly, for the sake of something to say as he tugs at the lower hem of his sweater. “I, uh, your English. Aren’t you local?”
“Born and bred,” says the man, with a shrug. “But I was ten years in the Dragoon Guards. Nobody else speaks God’s tongue any more, ‘cept us up here.” He lets his own tongue roll over the words, God’s tongue, in self-deprecation or regret, Castiel can’t be sure. A lot of this man’s expressions seem to come out as something that sounds like plain cynicism, but there’s something about his face that belies it, some lingering good naturedness in his eyes.
“I do,” Castiel says, in Gaelic. The man laughs, genuinely surprised, and Castiel can’t help but congratulate himself a little.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, in the same language. “What, three words?”
“More than that,” Castiel contends. “I’m writing a grammar. That’s what I’m doing out here.”
“Huh.” The man eyes him for a moment, looking, Castiel thinks, reluctantly impressed. “Well, your accent sounds like it crawled out of a bull’s backside, but other than that, you do seem to have the hang of it.”
Castiel translates and retranslates the words, just to be sure of them, and then laughs. “Is that an idiom I can put in my book?”
“Sure,” the man says, airily. “S’long as you credit it to me.” He shifts his hips; crosses one leg over the other and scrubs the toe of his boot idly against the wooden floor. His legs curve interestingly, bowing outward to the knee, and Castiel idly wonders why; whether he was born like that, or if the blame could be placed upon horse-riding, or mild rickets.
“I don’t know your name,” Castiel tells him, before his mind can derail itself further on the subject of this man’s thighs.
The man swings himself up off the bar, his movements leisurely, as if he has all the time in the world to move in and an endlessly fascinated audience to watch him do it. There’s something of a swagger to the way he walks, three or four steps to the edge of the puddle Castiel has been dripping on the floor all the time they’ve been talking. His hands fist in the fabric of Castiel’s sweater, low at his waist, and Castiel’s heart seizes up breathlessly in his throat.
“I’m Dean,” says the man, smirking at the look on Castiel’s face as he braces his muscles and lifts. Castiel’s sweater lifts with him, the water weighting it down until it feels like a mailshirt hanging on Castiel’s shoulders, draping in leaden swathes over the man’s - Dean’s - hands. “You looked like you needed a little help,” he explains, and Castiel laughs shortly.
“It’s heavy,” he allows.
“Not kidding.” Dean grunts with exertion as he heaves the wet mass up towards Castiel’s shoulders. “What the hell is this thing made of?”
“I got it on Arran,” Castiel mumbles, raising his arms so Dean can work the sweater off over his head. “It’s just wool.”
“Crazy sons of bitches on Arran,” Dean remarks cryptically, as he heaves the sodden wool up and off. It falls to the floor with all the grace and impact of a ton of bricks, and makes almost as much noise as it collides with the floorboards, spraying both their shins with water. Dean curses, and takes a quick step back.
“Sorry,” Castiel says, hastily, pointlessly. “I, um - I can -”
“Dean?”
The interruption makes them both glance over as one, Dean still shaking stray droplets from the legs of his trousers. The door behind the bar, Castiel sees, is standing open, and next to it, hand on hip, stands the hulking, dimly-lit shape of undoubtedly the largest person Castiel has ever seen. For a moment, Castiel entertains brief wild thoughts of Dean as some highland secret-keeper, making his inn a refuge for various beasts of myth and legend. Then the shape moves forward into the light, and Castiel sees that it’s only a man, looking bemused and a little irritated in an off-white linen shirt that just barely contains his massive shoulders.
“What’s going on?” the man asks dubiously, in Gaelic.
Dean notes the expression on Castiel’s face and grins. “Nothing to worry about, Sammy. Night like this, we have to expect a few stranded travellers, huh?” He throws Castiel an apologetic smile, nodding his head in the direction of the man behind the bar. “This is Sam, my brother. We run the place together, since Dad died. Sam, this is...?”
Castiel supplies his own name hurriedly, feeling abruptly foolish at not having offered it before. “I got lost,” he explains, feeling more than a little embarrassed and belittled between these two strapping young men, as if they must be thinking him an idiot, some silly city mouse.
Sam raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement, but says nothing, which doesn’t do much for Castiel’s self-confidence. Beside him, though, Dean’s smile has turned curious. “That a Bible name - Castiel?”
“Sort of,” Castiel allows, not wanting to go into it, and Dean seems satisfied enough.
“Well,” he says, “there’s no way you’re leaving here again in the state you’re in. Lucky for you, we have a room upstairs, so you won’t have to, provided you’re not broke as well as daft.”
Castiel blinks stupidly for a minute. “No, I, uh. I left my wallet in my coat pocket.” He gestures in the general direction of the door, sending a stream of water coursing out of the cuff of his shirt. Outside, the rain is still buffeting furiously against the windows, rattling the door on its hinges. Dean is, Castiel is forced to admit, entirely correct in his assessment of the situation.
“Good,” Dean says smartly, with a little nod of his head. “You want to go get it? - the wallet, I mean. Coat’ll dry faster down here. We can throw this thing -” stooping, he gathers up Castiel’s sweater - “over a chair or something to air out, although I’m not making any promises.” Suiting action to word, he arranges the garment over the wooden skeleton of a nearby chair, and, straightening, rubs his hands together, dusting off the dampness. “And I’ll show you up, help you get sorted. All right?”
Castiel nods. “Yes - thank you.”
“All right, then.”
The process of picking his way across the damp floor to the hatstand, retrieving his wallet from amidst wet folds of wool, and returning to the bar occupies mere seconds, but it does not escape Castiel that an entire silent conversation has passed between the brothers in the time he’s been gone. Sam, now leaning heavily on the top of the bar, is fixing Dean with a look of unrelenting scepticism that shows no signs of fading when Dean says, “Keys, Sam.” He lifts the little hinged section of the bar so that Castiel can come through, gesturing him towards the back door with an arm outstretched. “I’ll sort you out.”
“Sure you will,” Sam mutters, with a glance at Castiel. Dean shrugs him off with a laugh, taking the keys roughly from Sam as he guides Castiel ahead of him with a hand at the small of his back.
“Don’t mind him,” he says, his palm bleeding warmth through the clinging chill of Castiel’s wet shirt. “He’s grumpy because now he has to mind bar.”
“Not for long, surely?” Castiel says mildly, picking his way up a flight of narrow stairs. Dean smiles so Castiel can feel it, the warmth of it tickling the nape of his neck, but he doesn’t say anything. It seems to Castiel that these people are over fond of getting by on as few words as possible.
At the top of the stairs, Dean stops him, knuckling gently at the small of his back. “Second door,” he says, briefly. “Here.” He reaches a long arm around Castiel’s body, shifting Castiel gently to one side as he fumbles with the lock. The warmth of him is a welcome blanket of heat all down Castiel’s side, a shield against the chill that’s been deep in his bones for hours now, and when Dean shoves open the door and moves away, Castiel instantly misses the contact.
“Stupid,” he mutters under his breath, closing his eyes firmly. The cordial reception that has been offered him around these parts is something many travellers before have certainly not experienced, and Castiel will not ruin it with misinterpretation and stupidity. He follows Dean into the room, arms crossed over his chest as if to hold in what little body heat remains to him.
“What was that?” Dean asks, off-handedly. There’s a fire burning low in the little grate, and Dean leans down over it, taking firewood from a little stack by the hearth and throwing it into the flames. He stamps his feet, making the floorboards shift and the flames leap in protest, curling over the new wood until Dean is satisfied; straightens up and churns at the embers a little with the poker.
“Nothing,” Castiel assures him. Dean is still turned away from him, bent at the waist as he turns the coals, and Castiel takes the opportunity to run an approving eye over the curve of his backside; the long stretch of his legs. Castiel is cautious - careful - but there’s still no harm in looking, especially when one is perfectly sure the look can pass unremarked.
Dean shrugs his shoulders in a slow roll that moves up his spine from the dip of his waist to the bared nape of his neck. “All right, then,” he says, stepping past Castiel to close the door to the little room. “C’mere; you’re going to catch your death.”
Then his fingers are working at the buttons of Castiel’s shirt, thumbing them speedily through the eyes from the throat on downward. Castiel is so surprised that, for a moment, he merely stands there in silence, but then Dean’s nearing his navel and Castiel’s hands fly up to grip his wrists in protest. “What are you doing?”
“Sorting you out,” Dean says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Said I would, didn’t I?” He gives Castiel a moment, and then nods at Castiel’s fingers on his wrists. “Think you could unbutton anything with those hands?”
Castiel looks down as directed, at his red, shivering fingers. They are, indeed, still more than a little numb, strangely rubbery, and he has to concede that Dean does have a point. “Well -”
“Yeah,” Dean interrupts, and resumes unbuttoning. Castiel, no argument left to make, subsides and lets him do it.
It takes both of them to wrench the shirt off his arms where it’s tangled itself, serpentine. Dean, having evidently decided that this show is his to run, decides that boots must come next, and Castiel takes a moment to wish he hadn’t pulled his laces quite so tightly. He moves to sit down, at least, to make proceedings a little more straightforward, but Dean dismisses that idea with a snort. “And soak the sheets as well? I don’t think so.”
“You really don’t need to do this,” Castiel says. “I can - wait until I’ve warmed up a little and then do it myself, or -”
“You’ll never warm up in these clothes,” Dean tells him, dropping into a crouch. One hand comes up to curve around the outside of Castiel’s thigh, just above the knee, steadying. “Come on, lift your foot.”
By the time the second boot has been tossed aside, to be swiftly followed by its sock, Castiel has never felt so grateful to be cold. Dean’s tongue pokes out a little when he’s concentrating, tugging at Castiel’s knots, its wet pink tip protruding between his teeth. From this angle, everything about him looks perfectly-crafted, softened by the glow of the firelight: his downcast, overlong eyelashes; the bow of his upper lip. The flames pick out the strawberry gold in his hair, the freckles on his cheekbones. When he looks up, Castiel feels the slow pooling of heat begin between his legs, even under the chill.
Dean stands like some beautiful thing unfolding, all long limbs and muscle and God, Castiel did not expect to find anybody like him in a place like the Alltshillach Inn. He turns his face to the side in a gesture of half conscious self-preservation. “Thank you. I really do appreciate your kindness.”
The words are a little stiff, but Dean doesn’t seem to take the tone amiss. “Welcome,” he says, and his fingers inch matter-of-factly beneath Castiel’s undershirt at the waist, green eyes still unwavering on Castiel’s own. “Close your eyes,” he says, and the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth has worlds in it that Castiel doesn’t dare to read.
The wet cotton peels away from his skin like it’s some unwanted, extraneous part of him; as if Dean were shelling him like a pea. When it’s gone, whipped over his head swiftly enough to leave his hair mostly standing on end, Castiel’s eyes remain closed. The sense of exposure, standing shirtless before Dean, is extreme, but with his eyes closed, it’s bearable, the room reduced to only soft sounds and the nearby heat of the fire. For a moment, Dean says nothing, and the lengthening silence tugs at the warmth in the pit of Castiel’s belly, making it shiver and spread.
“There,” Dean says, at length, and his voice is a little different, strangely breathless at the edges. Castiel presses his lips together, watching the blurred shapes of flames through his eyelids.
“Can I open my eyes?” he tries, after a minute, and Dean laughs softly, as if he’d forgotten.
“Wait,” he says. “Just a second.”
The second spins out like toffee, like honey stretching from a spoon, warmed by the fire and Dean’s shallow breaths. Castiel holds still; wills his mind to go blank of expectation, but the fine shivering in his spine is no longer from cold, as the warmth in his stomach only grows and grows. The first brush of Dean’s mouth against his, when it comes, is unexpectedly gentle, a butterfly touch to the bow of Castiel’s upper lip.
“Oh,” he says, involuntary, and Dean half-laughs again, almost nervously, but when Castiel doesn’t move, a hand drifts up to curl around the nape of his neck, as if buoyed by the wordless sound. Castiel lifts his face, unthinking, and then Dean’s warm mouth is on his, the press of it slow and firm, nudging at his lips. Dean’s broad palms bleed heat through the clammy skin at Castiel’s nape, at his waist, the dual points of warmth strangely anchoring, and Castiel leans upward, pressing into the contact in a way that is almost entirely instinctual. When Dean’s lips part, it’s only natural that Castiel should follow, flickering his tongue over the damp underside of Dean’s upper lip until it encounters the tip of Dean’s, stroking against it tentatively.
Dean makes a soft sound in his throat, fingers tightening on Castiel’s skin. The vibration of it shoots down Castiel’s spine like electricity, sparking between his legs, and Castiel pushes forward, mindless of his wet trousers, seeking more of Dean’s mouth. When Dean pulls away - gradually, but firmly - Castiel lets out what he is ashamed to hear is a whimper, his own hands clutching at Dean’s shoulders, at smooth skin under coarse cloth.
Dean laughs softly, but it’s breathless, unsteady with something that surely can only be arousal. Castiel feels lightheaded, swaying on his feet, and when Dean speaks, he hears the words distinctly, as the foreign things they are, his brain too addled to complete the translation automatically.
“Ceart gu leòr?” Dean prompts him, carefully, lifting Castiel’s face with a thumb under his jaw. Castiel takes a deep, slow breath; wills his mental faculties to recommence functioning. Is this all right?
“All right,” he tells Dean, quietly: ceart gu leòr. “Yes, I - it’s all right.”
As assurances go, it is brief, certainly, but clear enough, and Dean seems to find no fault with it. His smile, in response, is pleased, knowing, and his fingers are deft at Castiel’s waist, unbuckling his belt, unfastening his trouser buttons with a single flick of his wrist. Beneath the trousers, Castiel is wearing long underwear, and both garments are soaked to his skin, but Dean is undeterred, tugging it all together down over Castiel’s backside so violently that Castiel stumbles backward into a sitting position on the bed.
“Oh, nice,” Dean remarks, with a flash of teeth, self-congratulatory. Castiel can’t help but laugh, even when Dean reasserts his grip on his handful of fabric and tugs smartly upwards, throwing Castiel down onto his back as Dean tugs slacks and underwear up his upraised legs and over his feet.
“You’re insane,” Castiel tells him. Both his arms are flung up loosely over his head, fingers curling lax into his palms, body entirely open to Dean’s scrutiny. It ought, he knows, to make him feel vulnerable, uneasy, but for some reason he no longer feels exposed so much as heated, wanted. Castiel doesn’t even know Dean’s last name, he realises, and a mild twinge of embarrassment registers in him at that, but it is mild, the guilt of it rather more forced than felt. The fact of it is that Dean’s eyes on him make Castiel feel things he hasn’t felt in years, and never so openly; and while Castiel never anticipated his day of deluge culminating in this, he certainly has no intention at all of rejecting it.
Dean is grinning at him as he lifts his own shirt unceremoniously over his head, tosses it aside. The hair on his arms is fine and pale, glinting gold like coins in the light of the fire, and his chest is broad and smooth, muscles shifting when he moves. “Not insane,” he corrects. “Perfectly rational. I said I was gonna sort you out, didn’t I?”
Castiel snorts. “Yes, but I didn’t think you meant like this.” It’s easy, somehow, to banter back and forth like this, to grin across the room as Dean unbuckles his belt, steps out of his trousers; and it’s that, as much as anything, that banks up the warmth in Castiel, makes him reach out for Dean.
“Why’d you think Sammy was so grumpy?” Dean climbs onto the bed on his knees; takes hold of Castiel’s ankles, and a slow, sinuous heat begins to crawl up Castiel’s spine as Dean gently spreads his legs.
“He knew?” Castiel gets out, breath hitching in the wake of the sudden coil of new wanting.
“Guessed,” Dean acknowledges, shrugging.
“And how did you know?” Castiel demands. “That I -”
“C’mon now.” Dean cuts him off; smirks up at him slow, and the flickering light makes his green eyes gleam golden. “The way you looked at me when you saw me - you wanna watch that, if you don’t want perceptive people making assumptions.” He turns his face; presses a kiss to the knob of bone on the smooth inside of Castiel’s left ankle.
“I didn’t mean to,” Castiel breathes, skin jumping under Dean’s mouth.
“Glad you did,” Dean tells him, and skims his thumb up the inside of Castiel’s calf; onto the softness of his inner thigh. Castiel squirms under him, raises his knees and clutches at Dean’s shoulders.
“Dean - get up here -” The Gaelic comes to him only with increasing difficulty. Dean laughs, not at all unkindly, and pulls himself upward, shifting until his hips are between Castiel’s splayed thighs. Castiel draws in a sharp breath at the shock of so much skin-on-skin contact, Dean’s dry and hot against his own, still damp, still drying.
“Hush,” Dean whispers, carding his fingers through the tangle of Castiel’s hair. “I got you, mo ghraigh.”[1] He tugs, and Castiel goes willingly, lets things be simple.
Dean’s mouth is hot, and the blood beneath his skin is hotter, pouring off him and into Castiel at every place their bodies make contact. With Dean’s hands restless as they are - palming Castiel’s neck, his arms; mapping his sides and the smooth outsides of his hips - that’s a lot of places, and all the while their hips rock incrementally against each other, the firm line of Dean’s cock between them the hottest place of all. Castiel wants to touch it; wants to get his hands between them and run his fingertips over all the heated silk of it, learning its ridges, its shape, now that his fingers can feel again. Above him, though, Dean doesn’t give him opportunity, licking down hard into Castiel’s mouth, effectively disabling him with deep, sucking kisses to the hollow of his throat, raising bruises under the skin. Castiel claws at his shoulders, at his nape, but Dean is clever and quick, cock painting trails of slick low on Castiel’s abdomen as he thrusts down against him.
“Dean,” Castiel grits out, tossing his head as Dean licks at the line of his clavicle; “Dean, Christ - ” and then Dean shifts, tongue circling Castiel’s nipple, and Castiel fists his hands in the bedsheets, hips snapping upward hard and reflexive.
Dean’s laughter is a low vibration along the surface of Castiel’s skin as he moves, thumb replacing his mouth on Castiel’s nipple, making slow circles that set Castiel leaking and shivering while all presence of mind slips away.
“This is what you wanted earlier, wasn’t it?” Dean murmurs low against Castiel’s sternum; against the muscle above his diaphragm. “When I took your boots off.” He nips at Castiel’s stomach; slides smoothly lower, circling his tongue around the rim of Castiel’s navel.
The muscles in Castiel’s stomach leap at the contact, and he bites back a cry in his throat. “You wanted me to want it,” he manages; and only when he’s spoken realises that he spoke in English.
“What?” Dean prompts him, smile curving his lips as he looks up at Castiel under his eyelashes, and the pink of his mouth is wanton, damp and slightly open. “What do you want, Castiel?”
His name on Dean’s tongue sounds bizarrely right, his stupid, foreign name emerging somehow in tune with Dean’s burred, gravelled English. Castiel’s hard, has been hard for minutes and minutes, now, and Dean undoubtedly knows it; shifts a little so the tip of Castiel’s cock brushes his chest, drags stickily against the golden skin. Castiel bites his lip, bucks up, and Dean laughs again; pins his hips and demands, “What do you want, Castiel?” in sex-roughened Gaelic.
Castiel closes his eyes against the burst of heat that flares up behind them, the ridiculous levels of wanting rising up in him, cresting the thick wave of embarrassment. “Suck me,” he grits, because Dean’s close and Castiel wants it, and Dean wants to hear it, and he hasn’t a thing to lose except his composure. He gropes blindly for Dean’s hair; fists his hands in it. “Dean. Please.” He tugs; chokes back a whimper of desperation.
The meaning of what Dean says in response is lost on Castiel entirely. He cannot determine whether this is due to the fact that his brain is beginning to disintegrate, or simply because he is still unfamiliar with the sexual vocabulary of Gaelic, but the next moment, Dean’s breathing against him, warm and open-mouthed, and Castiel gives up the exercise of caring entirely.
For all his teasing, Dean is remarkably decisive when once he sets himself to task. He curls his fingers around the base of Castiel’s cock, and Castiel has barely time to draw in one steadying breath before Dean’s suckling at the head, the thumb of his free hand stroking ticklish paths up over the smooth protrusion of Castiel’s hipbone. Castiel jerks under him, breath hitching, and Dean slides effortlessly lower, mouth stilled on Castiel’s dick for a long moment of heat. Castiel glances down at him, eventually; the anticipation building to a level beyond what his overtaxed body can take, and the look in Dean’s heavy-lidded eyes shoots a bolt of heat right through him, as Dean must have known that it would.
“Fuck,” he gasps, in blunt, unpolished English, and thrusts up into the slick heat of Dean’s mouth, hips jerking in shallow little pulses. Dean hums around him, evidently pleased, and sucks hard on Castiel’s outward stroke, drawing forth a whine that Castiel cannot repress.
After that, Castiel’s head is swimming, all pretence at politeness gone. It’s good like this, this slow, silk-slick fuck, but it isn’t enough, and Castiel grasps the back of Dean’s head, pulling him down as his hips roll up, up, inexorably into his throat. Dean shifts his hand, splaying it on Castiel’s hip, pinning him flat to the bed, and he’s ready to keen his protest when Dean takes pity on him, sinking down onto Castiel’s cock until the softness of his throat flutters against the head.
“Jesus Christ!” Castiel throws an arm up over his face; sinks his teeth into flesh and holds tight for dear life, dick jerking in Dean’s mouth as he fights the urge to thrust up hard, sheathe himself deep in the heat of Dean’s throat. Dean’s moaning around him now, the vibrations skittering hotly up Castiel’s spine as he speeds the bobbing motions of his head, swallowing Castiel almost to the root, sucking hard as he pulls off. When his tongue makes a circle at Castiel’s tip, probing curiously at his slit, Castiel bites down something like a scream; tightens his fingers hard enough to hurt. Dean’s moving quickly, now, swallowing and releasing him wetly, spit and precome dribbling out of his mouth to pool on Castiel’s belly. Beneath him, Castiel feels his muscles tightening, his mind going white at the edges, and he paws at Dean’s shoulder; grits out, “Dean - gonna - Dean!”
Dean hums softly in acknowledgement; sucks hard and presses his tongue again to Castiel’s tip, and that’s as much as he can take. He rears up, head and shoulders off the bed, as he comes, pulsing hot into Dean’s mouth, fingers clenched overtightly in Dean’s hair. It’s long, and breathless, accompanied by some half-strangled sound, but Dean only holds him through it, sucking gently until it hurts a little, when Castiel’s fallen back against the pillows; thumbs at Dean’s mouth to indicate that he should stop.
“God,” Castiel pants, eyes wide on the low-beamed ceiling. “God. God.”
“Not quite,” Dean says, and it’s the oldest line in the book, but he’s smiling so Castiel can hear it, and for some incredible reason, it’s rather charming.
“Come here,” Castiel tells him, limply, when some of his composure has returned, along with his Gaelic. Dean laughs; shifts up the bed, settling himself in Castiel’s arms. When he leans down, pressing his mouth to Castiel’s, his tongue is salt-sour, and Castiel sucks at it, licking slackly at the insides of his lips.
“Mmmm,” Dean breathes, shifting his hips a little, and Castiel laughs; skates a hand down Dean’s body.
“Got you,” he whispers; reaches up to nip at Dean’s lower lip. “God, fuck, you’re wet. Dean.”
When Castiel’s hand closes around his cock, Dean’s entire body seems to shiver, hips rolling forward into the tunnel of Castiel’s fingers. He’s slick, so slick, as if the warmth of Castiel’s cock in his mouth was enough to set him leaking all over himself, and even Castiel’s spent dick sees fit to twitch feebly at the coil of heat that thought engenders. The slickness makes things easier on Castiel’s wrist, still fluttering and lax with orgasm, as Dean fucks breathlessly through his fist, slipping in his own precome. He isn’t quiet, either, soft little sounds escaping him as Castiel strokes him, fingers now open, now closed; thumb flicking deftly over the head on the upstroke so that Dean jerks his pelvis and cries out.
“Fuck,” Castiel breathes against Dean’s mouth; licks the sensitive spot at the corner of it that makes Dean twist and shudder. “God, you’re beautiful. Dean, come on.”
Dean’s grip on Castiel’s shoulder is near-bruising, fingers tightening as his thrusts speed, as his body clenches up, nearing its completion. Castiel only grits his teeth and strokes faster, sucking at the fullness of Dean’s lower lip, smearing precome around the head of Dean’s cock as his whimpers dissolve into shuttered cries, oh - oh - oh -
He moves on a gradient, thrusts picking up like a steam engine nearing full-pelt, and when he comes, his mouth falls open soundlessly under Castiel’s, body thrashing in his arms.
“That’s it,” Castiel murmurs; nips at Dean’s mouth as he strokes him through the spurts. “God, like that. Dean. Dean.”
Afterwards, the bedclothes are stickied, the floorboards strewn with garments tossed haphazardly as confetti. It’s remarkably comfortable, though, curled into the shelter of Dean’s armpit. Castiel is certainly warm, which is an improvement on most of his prior experiences in Scotland to date. He lets himself doze; nuzzles at the babyfine skin at the juncture of Dean’s arm and shoulder.
Dean allows this, for a minute, until he bites back a laugh and shifts a little. “Ticklish.” He tugs at Castiel’s hair, ruffling it through his fingers. “This dried,” he remarks, lightly. “Looks sort of madcap, though?”
“Hrrm,” Castiel says, noncommittally, and burrows back down. “D’you mind?”
Dean grins. “No.” He strokes more gently, smoothing the hair back down. “Hey - where’d you say you were staying, again?”
Castiel thinks of the bare little two-room cottage, of his one small suitcase, the narrow single bed. “Hut,” he says, in a tone that aims for neutral but misses it slightly.
“Huh,” Dean says, shortly. Then, in what Castiel presumes is an attempt at manly nonchalance, “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in - I don’t know - moving your stuff over here? We have, you know. Beer.”
Castiel laughs; pulls himself up on an elbow to look at him. “Would you charge me for the room?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth goes up. “Could I take it out in service?”
Castiel thinks about his notebook, Observations From Scotland. Probably, tonight’s activities cannot be said to have constituted the appropriate sort of observations for the study; but then, that isn’t to say that Dean couldn’t be useful. After all, he is a native Gaelic speaker.
Castiel furrows his brow as if in thought, although, really, his thought process has already reached a satisfactory resolution. “That depends. Would you be willing to help me with my grammar of Scots Gaelic?”
Dean grins. “You seem fairly competent to me,” he points out, skirting his thumb up the smooth skin of Castiel’s side.
“I find,” Castiel tells him, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “that my vocabulary is deficient. My catalogue of sexual terms is entirely substandard.”
Dean snorts. “Sexual terms?” The thumb trips downward, nudges at Castiel’s hipbone, and Castiel feels the skin jump, his pelvis shifting incrementally forward.
“Yes,” he says; rubs his mouth against the corner of Dean’s. “You help me with that, and you have my permission to take payment any way you want.”
Dean licks a stripe of heat over the curve of Castiel’s lip; slides his palm down to cup his backside. “Any way I want?”
“Any way,” Castiel promises, breath hitching in the back of his throat as Dean’s hand wanders.
Dean hums approval; says nothing, but lets his hand trip lower, knuckling at the dark space behind Castiel’s balls. The bolt of heat that licks at the base of Castiel’s spine makes his breath punch out of him, his hips jerk upward as his dick twitches on his stomach, attempting to fill.
“What’re you doing?” He tugs at Dean’s hair; shifts a little underneath him. Dean only laughs; slides his fingers further backward.
“I’m claiming an advance,” he says, and hooks his arms under Castiel’s thighs until he can lift him bodily.
The Gaelic for what Dean does next is entirely beyond Castiel, the slick thrusts of his tongue defying any descriptors he knows.
In the morning, though, he can have Dean explain it. There is no need to hurry.
***
[1] Technically, this term means 'dear one' or 'darling', but, like the Irish acushla, is commonly used between men in a way that its English 'equivalents' would not be.