Fic: Interlude For The Troops (Dean/Castiel, R)
Title: Interlude For The Troops
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Words: ~4,500
Summary/Warnings: This is a coda to 6x18, 'Frontierland'. It is not about cowboy hats. I wrote it for my best beloved candesgirl, who wanted some exploration of Castiel's hurt, with at least a little Dean-comfort. ♥
A/N: And now someone needs to please write me the alternate, cheerful coda to this episode, which is to say, S/D with cowboy hats. ;)
Something has changed in Castiel. At first, Dean thought it was only the weight of Balthazar's words that seemed to reshape him, rebirth him as a new enigma in Dean's eyes, but now he is sure: something is wrong.
Sure, wrong is relative; Dean knows that. He's always been kind of resistant to change, and yes, there have been times when forward progress has registered in his mind as painful flashes of betrayal, unacceptable deviation from a norm he had established on his own. But Dean isn't stupid; his creeping sense of the darkness is unparalleled, and right now, something is wrong with Cas.
It isn't only that he's tired. Initially, perhaps, Dean might have chalked it all up to exhaustion after the impromptu soulonoscopy and Cas's retrieval of the Winchesters from the old West, but Castiel's weakness has pinned him in one place for Dean to look at him longer than he has in over a year, and this...this isn't only tiredness. Cas is stretched to his limits on every front, Dean knows, but there's something in the hollows of his eyes, way back where his grace lives, that seems to jar, the way a house rings wrong when its spirits are uneasy. Hell, it could be PTSD or some shit for all Dean knows, some symptom of the kind of combat madness often noted in generals whose battles endure longer than their nerves. It could be that, and there's no reason for Dean to presume anything else, certainly not on the basis of a throwaway remark from a holy shit like Balthazar.
Dean has no reason to feel that the darkness in the pits of Castiel's eyes is in any way his business, but nevertheless, he finds that he cannot tear his mind or his eyes away from it.
Even depleted angels, it seems, do not sleep, provided that they haven't begun to fall, and Castiel shows no signs of flagging when the others begin to. He is quiet, Dean notices, uncharacteristically so, and when Bobby announces his intention to retire to bed it takes him a moment to notice and say his goodnights.
Sam stands up a moment after Bobby does, chair scraping coarse and loud across the floor as he pushes it back. Castiel doesn't even blink at the noise. Dean wonders whether he's actually there; whether his soul, animus, whatever, hasn't wandered off somewhere, leaving them with the shell of him. Dean's had enough of empty shells, he thinks, to last him a lifetime.
He doesn't intend to say no when Sam asks if he's coming to bed. Sam's yawning, one hand braced on Dean's shoulder, casual contact of the kind they've engaged in a lot of lately, as if Sam needs to be anchored; needs the warmth of Dean to balance Lucifer's cold burn, however deeply buried it may be. He doesn't know why it should cross his mind that Cas, too, perhaps, might need anchoring.
"Not yet," he hears himself tell Sam. "I'll be up when I get tired."
His eyes are scratchy and sore already, and he's yawned enough to make the lie obvious, but Sam only smiles a little, as if he half-expected it. Dean doesn't know what the hell to make of that; almost wishes he knew exactly what Sam is expecting. But then, he probably doesn't want to know. Sam's too goddamn clever for his own good, and sometimes it leads him into the weirdest assumptions.
It's not that Dean intends to make any kind of move based on some douchebag's catty gossip. It's just that something maybe twisted in his stomach when that chick - Rachel, that was it - made her little soapbox speech, and Dean maybe wants to make sure there wasn't anything in it that might be weighing on Cas. Dean is nothing, after all, if not responsible for his own goddamn mistakes. Whatever the hell Sam is smiling about as he galumphs his heavy-ass way up the stairs is his own business, but Dean has no particular motives beyond the natural thrum in his blood that says protect.
Castiel doesn't blink as Sam's footsteps fade away, tucked up against the arm of Bobby's couch and staring down fixedly at his knees. He looks curiously small, and Dean is reminded unwillingly of the way a body seems to pare itself down when the spirit departs, leaving it oddly shrunken, inhuman. Like this, something about Castiel looks inhuman, for all Jimmy's body is still perfectly intact, still personably unkempt in its suit and stress-skewed tie. For the first time, without the shadow of wings on the wall, Dean sees him as he is, beyond his vessel; sees the surge of grace inside, so much displaced power and fury.
He's afraid, he realises. Dean is not easily frightened, but seeing Castiel this way, he is afraid.
He doesn't know what draws him closer unless it is his own contrariness, some perversion in the core of him that strains, like a moth, to skirt the edge of every fire. There is no sound in the still house but the steady ticking of Bobby's grandfather clock, thunderous, and Dean wants to hear Castiel's voice, its flat, familiar tones, the product of a human larynx and human lips. The space between them seems to yawn like a cavern, and Dean is shifting before he's fully sure that he wants to, settling at the opposite side of the couch and ignoring the way his heart is thumping in his throat, his pulse mounting like panic.
Part of him wonders if Castiel will register his presence, even with so little space between them, but Castiel turns towards him slowly; lifts his head and blinks at Dean. For a brief, horrifying second, his eyes shine strangely silver like mirrored glass. Then he turns slightly, shifting out of the glare of the table lamp, and the effect is gone, leaving Castiel's face tired and drawn but present, the blue of his eyes washed dark. His voice, when it comes, is low and rough with disuse. "Had the armchair become uncomfortable?"
The politely inquisitive tone is so wholly Cas that Dean exhales heavily despite himself, the shallow in his chest expanding in relief. Cas is still in there, still Cas, whatever is wrong with him. Dean smiles a little, shakes his head. "Just, you know. Wanted to check in." He shifts, spreads his hands, backs flat to his knees, palms upward. It's a nervous gesture, but Cas is making him nervous, for reasons he doesn't care to examine. "You okay, Cas? You seem - I don't know...down."
He knows as soon as the word leaves his lips that it's beyond inadequate as a description of how Castiel must be feeling. It's insulting, even, and Castiel's hollow little laugh is as dry as Dean could have expected.
"I'm fighting a war, Dean," Castiel says. There's something like a smile quirking the corners of his mouth, but it's wry, twisted with bitterness. "What it's taking out of me, it - " He bites his lip, stops short. Dean raises his eyebrows and, without meaning to, edges a little closer, anticipatory.
"I know you're dealing with a metric buttload of crap right now, Cas. I just..." He hesitates. "I'm sorry if we've been making that worse, you know? What Rachel said - "
"Rachel was out of line," Castiel interrupts, and Dean feels immediately that this is his general's voice, sharp and clear and sure.
"She might have had a point, though, Cas," he says, gently. "If we're dragging you down here when you need to be somewhere else - "
"Dean," Castiel says, in a voice that stops Dean in his tracks immediately, "I had thought I'd made it very clear that neither one of you has the power to drag me anywhere." A muscle jumps in his jaw, and Dean is left feeling weirdly as if he's being disciplined by a well-meaning but stern high-school principal. Then Castiel sighs a little; says, "If I'm here, it's because I want to be. As I think I told you, I'm actually here a lot less than I'd like."
Dean swallows carefully, gripping nervously at his knees, palms rubbing over the knobs of bone through his jeans. Castiel's eyes are downcast, now, and the high school principal is gone as swiftly as he appeared, leaving behind him only Cas, for whom nothing at all is easy, on the earth or above it. Dean's hand creeps over hesitantly, finds Castiel's shoulder. It's not as if he really expects it to be much of a help, but he thinks for a moment of Sam, how tightly he grips Dean these days and how much it seems to steady him, and decides that, at least, it cannot hurt.
Cas doesn't flinch, as Dean had half-feared he would. On the contrary, he lowers his eyes, lashes casting long spider-shadows on his cheeks from the lamp, and something shudders out of him under Dean's touch, his shoulders settling. It's mesmerising, the way his body slackens as if immersed in warm water, and Dean can't help himself; begins stroking his thumb in repetitive motions over the spur of Castiel's shoulder. Castiel breathes out softly, closes his eyes. "Dean - "
The word lifts at the end, incomplete, and Dean waits for more, but no more comes. "Cas," he prompts carefully, after a moment. His hand inches upward, upward, until his thumb brushes the soft skin of Cas's neck above the collar of his shirt, and Castiel shivers spasmodically, breath hitching. He's softening, Dean thinks; his grace and his humanity knitting together again under the anchoring touch of Dean's hand, and Dean can't bring himself to let go now, as the tension begins to drop out of Castiel's face. It would be cruelty, the way Cas is responding; as if he needs this, needs Dean. As if he loves him.
Dean blinks the thought away, but it settles somewhere behind his eyes, quickening his breath as his hand drifts inexorably, detachedly upward, brushing the hollow behind Cas's ear, the soft space under the bolt of his jaw. "Cas," he repeats, and his palm slides into place under the sharp line of Castiel's jawbone, forming a cradle of warmth for Castiel to sink into. "It's okay."
For a brief, brittle moment, nothing moves. And then, abruptly, Castiel is in flux, collapsing into the touch like a split lung, breath shuddering out of him in a long, low gasp that is almost voiced. Dean's arm jerks in response, jolted by the suddenness of it, but Castiel is turning already, turning his face into the cup of Dean's palm as if he could hide there, and this is no time for introspection. "It's not," Castiel is saying, dark and dry, "Dean - I can't - "
"Hey, hey," Dean soothes, "hey, no, come on," and he's shifting instinctively, arm curving around Cas's shoulders to pull him in, pull him down, every dormant nurturing part of him kicking into gear to shore itself against Cas's ruins. "Cas, come on, I got you." The flat of his hand finds the centre of Castiel's back unerringly; presses hard and rubs broad circles as if he were soothing a child. "You're gonna be fine, it'll be fine, you'll see."
He doesn't know why it is he says these things, whether to soothe the people he loves or to soothe himself, I've got you and I'll fix it and it's not even that bad, Sammy. Castiel isn't responding, his hands clenched tight against Dean's chest, pinioned between their bodies, but the shift in his muscle tells Dean that he doesn't mind; even, perhaps, that it's helping. He bites his lip, nuzzles blindly at the curve of Cas's throat. "Seriously," he says, baseless and viciously sincere, "Cas, we'll fix it. Anything you need."
He doesn't expect the way Castiel's voice catches hard in the back of his throat; nor the way he surges up like a wave in Dean's arms, crushing his mouth ineptly against Dean's. It's not a kiss so much as it's a bruise, and Dean stills, blinking stupidly. Cas, fingers gripping tight to Dean's biceps now, is shaking his head frenetically, his eyes burning indigo and torn.
"Anything?" he says, and Dean can hear in his tone that he expects to be rejected, is making a point that he thinks will end in a triumph of hopelessness. "You can't fix it, Dean. Not any of it."
Dean knows, even in his desperate optimism, that he can't fix the heavenly battle in Cas's favour; can't bring back Rachel or kill Eve single-handed. He can't fix the disarray that followed the averted Apocalypse, or Raphael's resistance or the fallacy of God. Dean is only a single man, and, no, he can't fix everything.
But that doesn't mean he can't fix this. Castiel's himself like this, even in this state: these are his eyes and his arms and his lips, still flushed from where they pressed against Dean's. The memory tugs behind Dean's eyes again, the other angel - the one who's in love with you. Dean needs that angel, needs him close, where he can feel the grace in him, untarnished and clean. So much is difficult right now, but this, amidst it all, is easy, wells up in Dean in a wash of sudden clarity and faith.
"Cas," he says, and his fingers trace the curve of Cas's cheek, slide up into his hair. "Let me try for a second, would you?"
The last thing he registers before he brings their mouths together is the wide-eyed look of incomprehension on Castiel's face, the tiny furrow between his brows. Then Castiel's features blur into an indistinct muddle as Dean leans in, their breath bumping between their mouths. It's still not quite a kiss at first, Cas signalling his alarm in a stuttered gasp as Dean's lips settle against his, but Dean is patient, and they have all the time in the world. Dean has decreed it, and so, within the boundaries of this room at least, it's true.
He kisses gently at first, carefully, soft brief nudges of his barely parted lips against Cas's, one hand warm and bracketing his cheek. Every time, though, it's better; after every fractional retreat and careful return, Cas sinks a little further into it, until Dean isn't alone in arranging the fit of their lips, the nuzzling rub of their noses. Dean leans more heavily into it instinctively, tilts his head, and Castiel's breath is coming ragged and strained between them, fingers twisting in the cap sleeves of Dean's t-shirt. Then Castiel angles his head sideways a little, presses harder back against Dean, and it's as if they slot suddenly into place, the kiss dragging out and out until Cas breaks away from it, gasping, and the swell of his lower lip is damp from the wet inside of Dean's. Dean blinks dazedly, struggling for surety in the face of Castiel's obvious displacement, but his stomach is whirring with the newness of this, with how warmly and closely they fit, as if they had been made that way.
The thought snatches at him for a second that perhaps he was; perhaps Castiel, in refashioning him, reformed him ever so slightly in his own image. Stupid, of course, but Dean feels stupid suddenly, everything around him too bright and surreally charged. Castiel's eyes are hotly blue and Dean's voice is rough when he says, "Okay?"
Cas barely takes the time to nod before he's rocking in again, and when his mouth catches open on Dean's it seems only natural that Dean should curl his tongue out to lick along the seam of Castiel's lips, pressing closer to touch the smooth inside of his mouth. Castiel makes an abortive sound through his nose, but even if he's never done this before, his human body knows how to go about it, tongue sliding warm and careful against Dean's and then licking more strongly over his teeth. Dean hitches a breath and pulls Cas closer, heat leaping fierce in his stomach.
"Does this help?" he breathes against Cas's mouth. The muscles in his arms seem to have rebelled against the modulation of his brain, gripping Cas's body more and more fiercely against him until Castiel is almost in his lap, but Castiel appears not to mind, thighs splaying obligingly wide to facilitate the fit. His hands move restlessly over Dean's shoulders, nose still nuzzling fitfully against Dean's even in the absence of a kiss.
"Yes," he says, "yes, yes, Dean - " and then there are his fingernails, digging into the flesh of Dean's back through the thin cotton shirt. "Dean, I think - please - "
Dean's own breath is shallow and shocked in his throat and his fingers move gently through Cas's hair, but Cas seems wound too tightly to be calmed, all shivers and gasps, desperate to lose himself. Dean leans in, nips at his mouth. "Okay," he chides, "Cas - "
But Cas is back on him like a fever the moment his mouth makes contact, fingers clamping down on the nape of his neck. He runs hot, Dean registers dimly, the skin of his face and his throat burning under Dean's palms, and his tongue works anxious and deep in Dean's mouth, curling over his teeth. Cut loose like this, it is as if he is run aground, rudderless, and Dean can do nothing but hold on, letting Cas hitch himself breathlessly closer until his thighs bracket Dean's entirely, knees pressing into the sofa. They're moulded together everywhere now, barely space for air between them, and Dean registers dully that the heat nudging against him is the swell of Castiel's cock in his pants, flush against the thick weight of Dean's.
God, this is not what Dean stayed down here for. It's not, he tells himself hotly, even as his hands dip down to the base of Cas's spine, hold him in place while he lifts his hips. He didn't expect the heat that's smouldering out of Cas's every pore now, nor the frenetic rolls of his pelvis that begin with Dean's first slow shove, raw and unconscious and swiftly urgent. He didn't expect him to be so human, when everything had pointed to his humanity being lost somewhere among civil war and stress and some obscure darkness that Dean, perhaps, had imagined. Dean hadn't expected such an overwhelming earthly impulse in Castiel, but now that he has it under his hands, he wants to ride it out; wants to bleed it dry and swallow it all, to shore against the next broken moment of uncertainty.
"Cas," he murmurs, licks at Cas's jaw, and Cas groans against him, rocks down hard. They're shifting against each other tight and breathless, Cas's cock sliding every time against Dean's through their trousers. Objectively, Dean's fairly sure that this is all getting out of hand; that this is one hell of a dumb idea that's going to end in awkwardness and sticky undershorts and possibly some kind of hellish torture, ultimately, on a level even Alastair never conceived of. Then Cas moans, bucks his hips and digs his fingers hard into Dean's shoulders, and the part of Dean that is hopelessly subject to his cock and his heart (often, though not always, hopelessly entangled) rises up and overwhelms the little helpless dam of logic. This is Castiel, who all evening held himself in, suspect and subdued, and Dean can give him this, make him glow in a way that has nothing to do with his grace, take him apart with the pleasures of the flesh like knives. He's gasping, whimpering tight in the back of his throat as he grinds down against Dean, and Dean isn't going to stop this, however it may end. In the first place, he owes Cas anything it is in his power to give, and in the second, he owes the same to himself. It isn't as if this is the first time this thought has crossed his mind, and Castiel like this leaves him pained before the prospect of another denial.
"Dean," Castiel groans; rubs his face against Dean's cheek and Dean turns blindly into it, lifts his head.
"Yeah," he says, "yeah," and pulls Cas down towards him by the nape of the neck, licks into his mouth and kisses him, filthy-wide and wet and furious.
Everything after that is like madness, like the world collapsing around them, Castiel in his lap the only solid certainty left. It's ludicrous, when all this is is kissing and a frantic grind of the sort Dean last engaged in at seventeen, but Cas is melting with it, and his urgency sweeps Dean up and subsumes him like a breaker. Through their clothes like this, everything is muted, dulled by the fabric between, but Castiel's pressure is blunt and direct, a hard and constant coaxing that tugs the orgasm down through Dean's spine like a length of rope. He moans into Castiel's mouth, flattens his tongue against Cas's until he can draw it out and suck, and Cas redoubles his efforts as Dean knew he would, keening low in the back of his throat as he grips Dean's shoulders and thrusts.
When Dean slides his hands down to Castiel's ass and grips it, Cas breaks away on a cry that stutters out into a succession of broken breaths against Dean's mouth. Dean swallows them, returns them, and their mouths rub slackly together as he works himself hard against Cas, the pressure of his cock almost painful where it's pushing out his seam. "Cas," he gets out, "Shit -" but Cas is beyond forming words, only moans and lets his head fall back, his throat glinting palely in the lamplight.
As far as Dean is concerned, this is for Cas, so it takes him utterly by surprise when his climax seizes him fierce and unrelenting at Castiel's moan, the revelation of so much unblemished skin in need of marking. He bites his lip on the cry that startles its way out of his throat, and then he's coming in slick, efficient pulses, right up against the spine of Castiel's twitching cock.
He hasn't recovered his breath before Castiel's losing his to a cry too sharp and loud to be released in Bobby's living room, hips jackhammering down against Dean's own still-shifting pelvis. When he comes, it's palpable, hot spurts that make Dean's softening dick give a last valiant twitch, and Dean heaves a breath, blinking against the spots behind his eyes.
Cas collapses forward like a drunkard, as loosely as if it had never even occurred to him to make the attempt to hold himself upright. Dean doesn't mind; strokes a hand down his back and rubs a wide circle over the small of it while his own breaths slow. God, Cas, he thinks, as if it is all he is capable of thinking: God, Cas. Cas wants this. Cas wants him.
The curve of Castiel's throat smells like soap and laundry detergent, obscurely, but under it is the smell of skin, and something of the ozone that demarcates angel. Dean presses his face there, indulging himself a moment, and breathes and breathes.
For long, long moments, neither of them moves. Dean's heart is thundering, but when Cas says, hesitantly, "Dean - " he can't help but hush him, carding fingers through his hair. The afterglow is warm and lazy enough to override the discomfort of his sticky trousers, and he doesn't want to think tonight, not if it will spoil this.
"Later, Cas," he says, soft and sleepy. He presses something like a kiss to the soft place below Castiel's ear, open-mouthed. Cas makes a indistinct sound.
"I should go," he says, uncertain. His own fingers play through Dean's hair with the slowness of disbelief, still trembling faintly from the shock of orgasm. Dean grips his waist.
"Stay," he says. "You were wiped already; this can't have restored you any, huh?"
For a second, Castiel is quiet. Then he laughs, and there's a sadness in it, but his smile, when he pulls back to look at Dean, is sincere, kind, somehow. It isn't often that Dean would think of anyone's expression as kind, but there is no other word for this one.
"On the contrary," Castiel says, softly. "Thank you, Dean."
Dean's smile back is involuntary, drawn out of him by the strange deep warmth in Castiel's eyes, the edge of something else behind it that Dean wants to erase. Some of it is gone, he notices, with a swell of irresistible pride, but Dean wants all. Perhaps tomorrow.
"Anything, Cas," he says; leans in to press his mouth damp against Cas's. "Like I said."
Castiel tilts his head a little, and suddenly, in that instant, he is once again entirely alien, even with his cock still softening against Dean's, his fingers in Dean's hair. "You did," he says, gently, and his voice is a little distant, as if he knows something Dean doesn't. Dean doesn't like the way his spine crawls at the sound; leans in again to catch Cas's mouth, stopper it before their space of peace is spoiled.
"Sssh," he breathes against Castiel's lips, "sssh. Just tonight, huh?"
And Castiel lets Dean pull him down, shelter him in the shadow of arms which, while not wings, suffice. He will be gone in the morning, Dean knows; may be gone for weeks without a word; but this is tonight. Dean kisses the nape of his neck softly, mouthing warm over the upper vertebra of his spine. This is tonight, and for its span, Castiel will stay.
***
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Words: ~4,500
Summary/Warnings: This is a coda to 6x18, 'Frontierland'. It is not about cowboy hats. I wrote it for my best beloved candesgirl, who wanted some exploration of Castiel's hurt, with at least a little Dean-comfort. ♥
A/N: And now someone needs to please write me the alternate, cheerful coda to this episode, which is to say, S/D with cowboy hats. ;)
Something has changed in Castiel. At first, Dean thought it was only the weight of Balthazar's words that seemed to reshape him, rebirth him as a new enigma in Dean's eyes, but now he is sure: something is wrong.
Sure, wrong is relative; Dean knows that. He's always been kind of resistant to change, and yes, there have been times when forward progress has registered in his mind as painful flashes of betrayal, unacceptable deviation from a norm he had established on his own. But Dean isn't stupid; his creeping sense of the darkness is unparalleled, and right now, something is wrong with Cas.
It isn't only that he's tired. Initially, perhaps, Dean might have chalked it all up to exhaustion after the impromptu soulonoscopy and Cas's retrieval of the Winchesters from the old West, but Castiel's weakness has pinned him in one place for Dean to look at him longer than he has in over a year, and this...this isn't only tiredness. Cas is stretched to his limits on every front, Dean knows, but there's something in the hollows of his eyes, way back where his grace lives, that seems to jar, the way a house rings wrong when its spirits are uneasy. Hell, it could be PTSD or some shit for all Dean knows, some symptom of the kind of combat madness often noted in generals whose battles endure longer than their nerves. It could be that, and there's no reason for Dean to presume anything else, certainly not on the basis of a throwaway remark from a holy shit like Balthazar.
Dean has no reason to feel that the darkness in the pits of Castiel's eyes is in any way his business, but nevertheless, he finds that he cannot tear his mind or his eyes away from it.
Even depleted angels, it seems, do not sleep, provided that they haven't begun to fall, and Castiel shows no signs of flagging when the others begin to. He is quiet, Dean notices, uncharacteristically so, and when Bobby announces his intention to retire to bed it takes him a moment to notice and say his goodnights.
Sam stands up a moment after Bobby does, chair scraping coarse and loud across the floor as he pushes it back. Castiel doesn't even blink at the noise. Dean wonders whether he's actually there; whether his soul, animus, whatever, hasn't wandered off somewhere, leaving them with the shell of him. Dean's had enough of empty shells, he thinks, to last him a lifetime.
He doesn't intend to say no when Sam asks if he's coming to bed. Sam's yawning, one hand braced on Dean's shoulder, casual contact of the kind they've engaged in a lot of lately, as if Sam needs to be anchored; needs the warmth of Dean to balance Lucifer's cold burn, however deeply buried it may be. He doesn't know why it should cross his mind that Cas, too, perhaps, might need anchoring.
"Not yet," he hears himself tell Sam. "I'll be up when I get tired."
His eyes are scratchy and sore already, and he's yawned enough to make the lie obvious, but Sam only smiles a little, as if he half-expected it. Dean doesn't know what the hell to make of that; almost wishes he knew exactly what Sam is expecting. But then, he probably doesn't want to know. Sam's too goddamn clever for his own good, and sometimes it leads him into the weirdest assumptions.
It's not that Dean intends to make any kind of move based on some douchebag's catty gossip. It's just that something maybe twisted in his stomach when that chick - Rachel, that was it - made her little soapbox speech, and Dean maybe wants to make sure there wasn't anything in it that might be weighing on Cas. Dean is nothing, after all, if not responsible for his own goddamn mistakes. Whatever the hell Sam is smiling about as he galumphs his heavy-ass way up the stairs is his own business, but Dean has no particular motives beyond the natural thrum in his blood that says protect.
Castiel doesn't blink as Sam's footsteps fade away, tucked up against the arm of Bobby's couch and staring down fixedly at his knees. He looks curiously small, and Dean is reminded unwillingly of the way a body seems to pare itself down when the spirit departs, leaving it oddly shrunken, inhuman. Like this, something about Castiel looks inhuman, for all Jimmy's body is still perfectly intact, still personably unkempt in its suit and stress-skewed tie. For the first time, without the shadow of wings on the wall, Dean sees him as he is, beyond his vessel; sees the surge of grace inside, so much displaced power and fury.
He's afraid, he realises. Dean is not easily frightened, but seeing Castiel this way, he is afraid.
He doesn't know what draws him closer unless it is his own contrariness, some perversion in the core of him that strains, like a moth, to skirt the edge of every fire. There is no sound in the still house but the steady ticking of Bobby's grandfather clock, thunderous, and Dean wants to hear Castiel's voice, its flat, familiar tones, the product of a human larynx and human lips. The space between them seems to yawn like a cavern, and Dean is shifting before he's fully sure that he wants to, settling at the opposite side of the couch and ignoring the way his heart is thumping in his throat, his pulse mounting like panic.
Part of him wonders if Castiel will register his presence, even with so little space between them, but Castiel turns towards him slowly; lifts his head and blinks at Dean. For a brief, horrifying second, his eyes shine strangely silver like mirrored glass. Then he turns slightly, shifting out of the glare of the table lamp, and the effect is gone, leaving Castiel's face tired and drawn but present, the blue of his eyes washed dark. His voice, when it comes, is low and rough with disuse. "Had the armchair become uncomfortable?"
The politely inquisitive tone is so wholly Cas that Dean exhales heavily despite himself, the shallow in his chest expanding in relief. Cas is still in there, still Cas, whatever is wrong with him. Dean smiles a little, shakes his head. "Just, you know. Wanted to check in." He shifts, spreads his hands, backs flat to his knees, palms upward. It's a nervous gesture, but Cas is making him nervous, for reasons he doesn't care to examine. "You okay, Cas? You seem - I don't know...down."
He knows as soon as the word leaves his lips that it's beyond inadequate as a description of how Castiel must be feeling. It's insulting, even, and Castiel's hollow little laugh is as dry as Dean could have expected.
"I'm fighting a war, Dean," Castiel says. There's something like a smile quirking the corners of his mouth, but it's wry, twisted with bitterness. "What it's taking out of me, it - " He bites his lip, stops short. Dean raises his eyebrows and, without meaning to, edges a little closer, anticipatory.
"I know you're dealing with a metric buttload of crap right now, Cas. I just..." He hesitates. "I'm sorry if we've been making that worse, you know? What Rachel said - "
"Rachel was out of line," Castiel interrupts, and Dean feels immediately that this is his general's voice, sharp and clear and sure.
"She might have had a point, though, Cas," he says, gently. "If we're dragging you down here when you need to be somewhere else - "
"Dean," Castiel says, in a voice that stops Dean in his tracks immediately, "I had thought I'd made it very clear that neither one of you has the power to drag me anywhere." A muscle jumps in his jaw, and Dean is left feeling weirdly as if he's being disciplined by a well-meaning but stern high-school principal. Then Castiel sighs a little; says, "If I'm here, it's because I want to be. As I think I told you, I'm actually here a lot less than I'd like."
Dean swallows carefully, gripping nervously at his knees, palms rubbing over the knobs of bone through his jeans. Castiel's eyes are downcast, now, and the high school principal is gone as swiftly as he appeared, leaving behind him only Cas, for whom nothing at all is easy, on the earth or above it. Dean's hand creeps over hesitantly, finds Castiel's shoulder. It's not as if he really expects it to be much of a help, but he thinks for a moment of Sam, how tightly he grips Dean these days and how much it seems to steady him, and decides that, at least, it cannot hurt.
Cas doesn't flinch, as Dean had half-feared he would. On the contrary, he lowers his eyes, lashes casting long spider-shadows on his cheeks from the lamp, and something shudders out of him under Dean's touch, his shoulders settling. It's mesmerising, the way his body slackens as if immersed in warm water, and Dean can't help himself; begins stroking his thumb in repetitive motions over the spur of Castiel's shoulder. Castiel breathes out softly, closes his eyes. "Dean - "
The word lifts at the end, incomplete, and Dean waits for more, but no more comes. "Cas," he prompts carefully, after a moment. His hand inches upward, upward, until his thumb brushes the soft skin of Cas's neck above the collar of his shirt, and Castiel shivers spasmodically, breath hitching. He's softening, Dean thinks; his grace and his humanity knitting together again under the anchoring touch of Dean's hand, and Dean can't bring himself to let go now, as the tension begins to drop out of Castiel's face. It would be cruelty, the way Cas is responding; as if he needs this, needs Dean. As if he loves him.
Dean blinks the thought away, but it settles somewhere behind his eyes, quickening his breath as his hand drifts inexorably, detachedly upward, brushing the hollow behind Cas's ear, the soft space under the bolt of his jaw. "Cas," he repeats, and his palm slides into place under the sharp line of Castiel's jawbone, forming a cradle of warmth for Castiel to sink into. "It's okay."
For a brief, brittle moment, nothing moves. And then, abruptly, Castiel is in flux, collapsing into the touch like a split lung, breath shuddering out of him in a long, low gasp that is almost voiced. Dean's arm jerks in response, jolted by the suddenness of it, but Castiel is turning already, turning his face into the cup of Dean's palm as if he could hide there, and this is no time for introspection. "It's not," Castiel is saying, dark and dry, "Dean - I can't - "
"Hey, hey," Dean soothes, "hey, no, come on," and he's shifting instinctively, arm curving around Cas's shoulders to pull him in, pull him down, every dormant nurturing part of him kicking into gear to shore itself against Cas's ruins. "Cas, come on, I got you." The flat of his hand finds the centre of Castiel's back unerringly; presses hard and rubs broad circles as if he were soothing a child. "You're gonna be fine, it'll be fine, you'll see."
He doesn't know why it is he says these things, whether to soothe the people he loves or to soothe himself, I've got you and I'll fix it and it's not even that bad, Sammy. Castiel isn't responding, his hands clenched tight against Dean's chest, pinioned between their bodies, but the shift in his muscle tells Dean that he doesn't mind; even, perhaps, that it's helping. He bites his lip, nuzzles blindly at the curve of Cas's throat. "Seriously," he says, baseless and viciously sincere, "Cas, we'll fix it. Anything you need."
He doesn't expect the way Castiel's voice catches hard in the back of his throat; nor the way he surges up like a wave in Dean's arms, crushing his mouth ineptly against Dean's. It's not a kiss so much as it's a bruise, and Dean stills, blinking stupidly. Cas, fingers gripping tight to Dean's biceps now, is shaking his head frenetically, his eyes burning indigo and torn.
"Anything?" he says, and Dean can hear in his tone that he expects to be rejected, is making a point that he thinks will end in a triumph of hopelessness. "You can't fix it, Dean. Not any of it."
Dean knows, even in his desperate optimism, that he can't fix the heavenly battle in Cas's favour; can't bring back Rachel or kill Eve single-handed. He can't fix the disarray that followed the averted Apocalypse, or Raphael's resistance or the fallacy of God. Dean is only a single man, and, no, he can't fix everything.
But that doesn't mean he can't fix this. Castiel's himself like this, even in this state: these are his eyes and his arms and his lips, still flushed from where they pressed against Dean's. The memory tugs behind Dean's eyes again, the other angel - the one who's in love with you. Dean needs that angel, needs him close, where he can feel the grace in him, untarnished and clean. So much is difficult right now, but this, amidst it all, is easy, wells up in Dean in a wash of sudden clarity and faith.
"Cas," he says, and his fingers trace the curve of Cas's cheek, slide up into his hair. "Let me try for a second, would you?"
The last thing he registers before he brings their mouths together is the wide-eyed look of incomprehension on Castiel's face, the tiny furrow between his brows. Then Castiel's features blur into an indistinct muddle as Dean leans in, their breath bumping between their mouths. It's still not quite a kiss at first, Cas signalling his alarm in a stuttered gasp as Dean's lips settle against his, but Dean is patient, and they have all the time in the world. Dean has decreed it, and so, within the boundaries of this room at least, it's true.
He kisses gently at first, carefully, soft brief nudges of his barely parted lips against Cas's, one hand warm and bracketing his cheek. Every time, though, it's better; after every fractional retreat and careful return, Cas sinks a little further into it, until Dean isn't alone in arranging the fit of their lips, the nuzzling rub of their noses. Dean leans more heavily into it instinctively, tilts his head, and Castiel's breath is coming ragged and strained between them, fingers twisting in the cap sleeves of Dean's t-shirt. Then Castiel angles his head sideways a little, presses harder back against Dean, and it's as if they slot suddenly into place, the kiss dragging out and out until Cas breaks away from it, gasping, and the swell of his lower lip is damp from the wet inside of Dean's. Dean blinks dazedly, struggling for surety in the face of Castiel's obvious displacement, but his stomach is whirring with the newness of this, with how warmly and closely they fit, as if they had been made that way.
The thought snatches at him for a second that perhaps he was; perhaps Castiel, in refashioning him, reformed him ever so slightly in his own image. Stupid, of course, but Dean feels stupid suddenly, everything around him too bright and surreally charged. Castiel's eyes are hotly blue and Dean's voice is rough when he says, "Okay?"
Cas barely takes the time to nod before he's rocking in again, and when his mouth catches open on Dean's it seems only natural that Dean should curl his tongue out to lick along the seam of Castiel's lips, pressing closer to touch the smooth inside of his mouth. Castiel makes an abortive sound through his nose, but even if he's never done this before, his human body knows how to go about it, tongue sliding warm and careful against Dean's and then licking more strongly over his teeth. Dean hitches a breath and pulls Cas closer, heat leaping fierce in his stomach.
"Does this help?" he breathes against Cas's mouth. The muscles in his arms seem to have rebelled against the modulation of his brain, gripping Cas's body more and more fiercely against him until Castiel is almost in his lap, but Castiel appears not to mind, thighs splaying obligingly wide to facilitate the fit. His hands move restlessly over Dean's shoulders, nose still nuzzling fitfully against Dean's even in the absence of a kiss.
"Yes," he says, "yes, yes, Dean - " and then there are his fingernails, digging into the flesh of Dean's back through the thin cotton shirt. "Dean, I think - please - "
Dean's own breath is shallow and shocked in his throat and his fingers move gently through Cas's hair, but Cas seems wound too tightly to be calmed, all shivers and gasps, desperate to lose himself. Dean leans in, nips at his mouth. "Okay," he chides, "Cas - "
But Cas is back on him like a fever the moment his mouth makes contact, fingers clamping down on the nape of his neck. He runs hot, Dean registers dimly, the skin of his face and his throat burning under Dean's palms, and his tongue works anxious and deep in Dean's mouth, curling over his teeth. Cut loose like this, it is as if he is run aground, rudderless, and Dean can do nothing but hold on, letting Cas hitch himself breathlessly closer until his thighs bracket Dean's entirely, knees pressing into the sofa. They're moulded together everywhere now, barely space for air between them, and Dean registers dully that the heat nudging against him is the swell of Castiel's cock in his pants, flush against the thick weight of Dean's.
God, this is not what Dean stayed down here for. It's not, he tells himself hotly, even as his hands dip down to the base of Cas's spine, hold him in place while he lifts his hips. He didn't expect the heat that's smouldering out of Cas's every pore now, nor the frenetic rolls of his pelvis that begin with Dean's first slow shove, raw and unconscious and swiftly urgent. He didn't expect him to be so human, when everything had pointed to his humanity being lost somewhere among civil war and stress and some obscure darkness that Dean, perhaps, had imagined. Dean hadn't expected such an overwhelming earthly impulse in Castiel, but now that he has it under his hands, he wants to ride it out; wants to bleed it dry and swallow it all, to shore against the next broken moment of uncertainty.
"Cas," he murmurs, licks at Cas's jaw, and Cas groans against him, rocks down hard. They're shifting against each other tight and breathless, Cas's cock sliding every time against Dean's through their trousers. Objectively, Dean's fairly sure that this is all getting out of hand; that this is one hell of a dumb idea that's going to end in awkwardness and sticky undershorts and possibly some kind of hellish torture, ultimately, on a level even Alastair never conceived of. Then Cas moans, bucks his hips and digs his fingers hard into Dean's shoulders, and the part of Dean that is hopelessly subject to his cock and his heart (often, though not always, hopelessly entangled) rises up and overwhelms the little helpless dam of logic. This is Castiel, who all evening held himself in, suspect and subdued, and Dean can give him this, make him glow in a way that has nothing to do with his grace, take him apart with the pleasures of the flesh like knives. He's gasping, whimpering tight in the back of his throat as he grinds down against Dean, and Dean isn't going to stop this, however it may end. In the first place, he owes Cas anything it is in his power to give, and in the second, he owes the same to himself. It isn't as if this is the first time this thought has crossed his mind, and Castiel like this leaves him pained before the prospect of another denial.
"Dean," Castiel groans; rubs his face against Dean's cheek and Dean turns blindly into it, lifts his head.
"Yeah," he says, "yeah," and pulls Cas down towards him by the nape of the neck, licks into his mouth and kisses him, filthy-wide and wet and furious.
Everything after that is like madness, like the world collapsing around them, Castiel in his lap the only solid certainty left. It's ludicrous, when all this is is kissing and a frantic grind of the sort Dean last engaged in at seventeen, but Cas is melting with it, and his urgency sweeps Dean up and subsumes him like a breaker. Through their clothes like this, everything is muted, dulled by the fabric between, but Castiel's pressure is blunt and direct, a hard and constant coaxing that tugs the orgasm down through Dean's spine like a length of rope. He moans into Castiel's mouth, flattens his tongue against Cas's until he can draw it out and suck, and Cas redoubles his efforts as Dean knew he would, keening low in the back of his throat as he grips Dean's shoulders and thrusts.
When Dean slides his hands down to Castiel's ass and grips it, Cas breaks away on a cry that stutters out into a succession of broken breaths against Dean's mouth. Dean swallows them, returns them, and their mouths rub slackly together as he works himself hard against Cas, the pressure of his cock almost painful where it's pushing out his seam. "Cas," he gets out, "Shit -" but Cas is beyond forming words, only moans and lets his head fall back, his throat glinting palely in the lamplight.
As far as Dean is concerned, this is for Cas, so it takes him utterly by surprise when his climax seizes him fierce and unrelenting at Castiel's moan, the revelation of so much unblemished skin in need of marking. He bites his lip on the cry that startles its way out of his throat, and then he's coming in slick, efficient pulses, right up against the spine of Castiel's twitching cock.
He hasn't recovered his breath before Castiel's losing his to a cry too sharp and loud to be released in Bobby's living room, hips jackhammering down against Dean's own still-shifting pelvis. When he comes, it's palpable, hot spurts that make Dean's softening dick give a last valiant twitch, and Dean heaves a breath, blinking against the spots behind his eyes.
Cas collapses forward like a drunkard, as loosely as if it had never even occurred to him to make the attempt to hold himself upright. Dean doesn't mind; strokes a hand down his back and rubs a wide circle over the small of it while his own breaths slow. God, Cas, he thinks, as if it is all he is capable of thinking: God, Cas. Cas wants this. Cas wants him.
The curve of Castiel's throat smells like soap and laundry detergent, obscurely, but under it is the smell of skin, and something of the ozone that demarcates angel. Dean presses his face there, indulging himself a moment, and breathes and breathes.
For long, long moments, neither of them moves. Dean's heart is thundering, but when Cas says, hesitantly, "Dean - " he can't help but hush him, carding fingers through his hair. The afterglow is warm and lazy enough to override the discomfort of his sticky trousers, and he doesn't want to think tonight, not if it will spoil this.
"Later, Cas," he says, soft and sleepy. He presses something like a kiss to the soft place below Castiel's ear, open-mouthed. Cas makes a indistinct sound.
"I should go," he says, uncertain. His own fingers play through Dean's hair with the slowness of disbelief, still trembling faintly from the shock of orgasm. Dean grips his waist.
"Stay," he says. "You were wiped already; this can't have restored you any, huh?"
For a second, Castiel is quiet. Then he laughs, and there's a sadness in it, but his smile, when he pulls back to look at Dean, is sincere, kind, somehow. It isn't often that Dean would think of anyone's expression as kind, but there is no other word for this one.
"On the contrary," Castiel says, softly. "Thank you, Dean."
Dean's smile back is involuntary, drawn out of him by the strange deep warmth in Castiel's eyes, the edge of something else behind it that Dean wants to erase. Some of it is gone, he notices, with a swell of irresistible pride, but Dean wants all. Perhaps tomorrow.
"Anything, Cas," he says; leans in to press his mouth damp against Cas's. "Like I said."
Castiel tilts his head a little, and suddenly, in that instant, he is once again entirely alien, even with his cock still softening against Dean's, his fingers in Dean's hair. "You did," he says, gently, and his voice is a little distant, as if he knows something Dean doesn't. Dean doesn't like the way his spine crawls at the sound; leans in again to catch Cas's mouth, stopper it before their space of peace is spoiled.
"Sssh," he breathes against Castiel's lips, "sssh. Just tonight, huh?"
And Castiel lets Dean pull him down, shelter him in the shadow of arms which, while not wings, suffice. He will be gone in the morning, Dean knows; may be gone for weeks without a word; but this is tonight. Dean kisses the nape of his neck softly, mouthing warm over the upper vertebra of his spine. This is tonight, and for its span, Castiel will stay.
***