Sunrise, Sunset
Title: Sunrise, Sunset 5/?
Author: radioheading
Rating: R, language and violence.
Characters/Pairings: Cas/Dean
Warnings: AU. Really, really, really AU.
Word Count: For this part, 2760
Summary: Reeling over the death of his brother, Dean drives to the middle of nowhere with a gun in his hand, unsure. But he doesn't know someone, something else is there, watching, who misinterprets a young man sitting alone in a car holding a gun. **Dean isn't and has never been a hunter, and Castiel is definitely no angel here**
Dean is adrenaline and a buzz of cells set alight by nerves, the jagged edge of pleasure that's been crossed by fear, even if he tells himself he's not afraid of the big bad vampire. Other people believe his lies. He doesn't. And he knows, somewhere deep, past his masculinity and pride, the strength he still has coiled in muscles that have yet to fail him, that with Castiel, he is always on the edge of a blade, walking slowly, one foot in front of the other in hopes not to be tipped either way. There is tenderness in the man, he knows that, can feel it in the flush of Castiel's tongue as it passes over his lips, the way hands cup his jaw and neck, not holding on but supporting, body taking advantage of a distracted mind, pressing close and they can, touching everything they can reach. The slide of long fingers behind his ear makes him gasp-laugh into Castiel's mouth. But to ignore the vampire's anger, the inwardly-turned malice, would be a fatal error. However human Castiel looks, there is a part of him that is all animal.
And that's what makes Dean feel. The danger, the risk-it's breaking through the numbness of Sam's death. And that's the truth. But Dean is good at denial, so very good at ignoring what needs to be forgotten in favor of just keeping his head down and plowing through the roadblocks. So he loses himself in the mulled-wine of Castiel's kiss, groans at the thickening of his sex when the other man trails nips and bites down flushed skin to his collarbone, all but tearing the seam if Dean's shirt as he stretches it to reveal more, to lave at the sharp ridge like a kitten cleaning its claws. Deliberately, carefully.
“Fuck, Cas,” his hips move in time with his heart, short stutter-beats that leave his mind floating just behind the call of his body.
“Cas?” The vampire mumbles, moving upward to the junction of Dean's neck and head, pressing small, heated kisses just under his jaw.
“Name's too fucking long right now,” Dean replies, wrapping his arms around the vampire's back to give himself leverage, to rut up against his very obvious arousal.
“Ah, Jesus!” The soft glide of fanged teeth is unmistakable; they make no move to do anything but trace along the surface of Dean's skin, but their presence is enough to still him, to send his heart racing into his throat. The tips are narrow, sharp as the glint of a new knife but warm, as is the breath that mists on his neck, glancing across his jaw as it rises. Castiel has him, can do whatever he wants to with Dean, whose humanity is no match to the speed and strength the vampire's shown. It sparks something within, a pleasure-streaked sort of tumble in his stomach, torn between the heat of pleasure and the chill of fear.
Fear.
The dig of Castiel's teeth, the silent, adrenaline-spiked threat of what they're capable of draw Dean's thoughts to his brother, a car-crash well of sadness and the question of whether Sam knew what was happening, whether he felt the snap of arteries tearing at the base of his skull (“Circle of Willis,” the doctors had said on the phone, ignoring Dean's impatient-pitched questions. Is my brother alive?), letting the blood pool and pressure build until it all came crashing down, until his body was released from the control of his mind and everything just stopped. Did he know? In the seconds before his heart gave way, did he understand that the breath coming through his lungs was his last?
The wall behind Dean is sturdy, a smooth surface he barely feels until it's guiding him down, Castiel following, opening his legs to straddle Dean's, who doesn't notice the change in angle until he's staring up at the vampire through swimming eyes, heat that drops heavy and fast, tracing over his cheeks to his chin where they'll hang on until gravity proves to be too strong. They'll fall into the fabric of his shirt and it will be like they never existed (like Sam).
“Hey,” the vampire's whispering, feather-light words into his wet cheeks, lips pressing there to absorb some of the salt and swallow it down. His mouth, only slightly parted, allow the tips of his too-long teeth to press into view, drawing attention to nature's way of screaming 'danger, predator!'
“What's the matter?” His head is cocked to the side, eyes searching, ticking back and forth over flushed skin and a pressed-thin mouth, a display of emotional eruption that's desperately trying to be contained.
“I-,” Dean begins, concrete filling his bones, the admission too sharp to let go yet, too hard to say. He imagines his lips shaping the words, my brother is dead. Sam is dead and I am alone and-but his vocal chords clench when the words try to slip through, carried by the wind of his breath. If he says it, it's real and there, right in the palm of the vampire's hand. It would be stupid to trust Castiel, for Dean to give him anything, but he's fraying at the seams, too close to someone that looks human, that looks normal and caring, someone who's looking at him flecks of concern in grey-sky eyes. Everything in him wants to just curl up with the other man, to let the tsunami within pour out until he's withered and dry.
Castiel is quiet, waiting. Dean uses the back of his hand to wipe away the last of the grief he couldn't keep below the surface and lets it drop to the vampire's knee, drawing small circles into the denim. He allows himself to be hypnotized by his own movement, focused only on the way his fingers skate over the vampire's leg. It's hesitant, a question Castiel answers by tipping Dean's chin up, laying snow-soft grazes, presses of his cheek and chin under the harsh angle before weaving up, kissing at the corner of Dean's turned-down mouth before settling over the fuller part of the pout.
Help me forget, Dean asks silently, losing space and time to the kiss, shutting his eyes tight and surging into the vampire, the still-stinging wound Sam had left behind burning into their embrace, sparking it with passion Castiel growls at, a cat's purr hum that vibrates between them.
“If you..” Dean explores Castiel's mouth, a carefully-orchestrated dance that keeps the vulnerable muscle away from the tips of the fangs, then drawing back enough so he can feel the other man sway forward, his reluctance to let go. “If you just bite me,” eyes still closed, Dean arches his neck back, “Do I become a vampire?”
“No.” If the words are stilted, Dean doesn't notice, too busy convincing himself to take the next step, to feed into the flush building under his skin and just let go.
“Come on, Cas,” he breathes, high on his recklessness, expectation knotting his stomach. “Bite me. Please.”
A draft's sudden chill across his fevered cheek is the only indication of any reaction from Castiel. The room is quiet enough to hear the faint adjustments a house makes at night, the creaking protests of wood as the temperature changes, and his own panting breath. Like a dream, he is shaken from his fantasy, the sprint he'd thrown himself into, an escape, if just for a moment, from Sam. When he opens his eyes, blinking to clear the haze of lust left behind, Castiel stands a few feet away, looking down at him with bruised-red lips and the wild darkness of thinly-veiled restraint in his gaze. In the next moment, though, Dean finds himself in front of a stranger, a cold, closed expression fixed on Castiel's face, drawn tight like a rope just before it snaps from pressure.
“Get out of my sight,” he commands, reducing Dean into a child banished to his room. Castiel has been drained of his blue-flamed flicker burning beneath the surface, has collapsed into a steely authority Dean doesn't dare challenge. When he gathers himself, the vampire watching, gauging every movement, he is still achingly hard, sex twitching with unfulfilled need that only fuels the shame that lies like grease on his tongue. A glance over the shoulder, a chance to catch Castiel's face is made in vain; the room is empty.
***
Castiel's existence is reduced to a shadow, a barely-there dinner companion who speaks bitten-off syllables when spoken to, as if each word burns his tongue on the way out. For a few days, Dean allows the silence to settle, a veil obscuring their gazes from one another as they tiptoe around whatever, exactly, has happened. But patience is not a virtue Dean finds any worth in, so when he wakes one morning from dreams that leave a film of confusion and doubt, twisting images and faces, he finds himself unable to hold back the words that are scratching at the back of his teeth, waiting to be set free.
“Why,” he asks, running a hand through hair tousled from sleep's messy fingers, “Am I still here?”
Castiel is sitting at the dining room table, already dressed in jeans and a dress shirt that probably cost more than Dean makes in a month. Made in a month. Lips pursed, he takes in Dean's straight-from-bed form and raises an eyebrow.
“Why am I here, Castiel?” He curls his lip around the name, glaring at the vampire. That's right, he thinks. You fucking look at me. “You obviously don't want me around anymore, right? And, no offense,” he seethes, the words delicious in their malignancy, “But I'd prefer not to live with a guy who acts like a premenstrual teenager.”
“You're still here because I don't know if I can trust you, Dean.” Condescension drips heavy, like the juice from a peach.
“I'm not a fucking child,” he snaps back, huffing air into his chest before taking a step forward. Dean is a man of simple truths and logic, and Castiel isn't playing fair. There's something more to the story, a card hidden in a palm that says Dean's not getting his way. Ever. So he takes a stab, because rationality leaves the building when there's nothing left to lose.
“I'm familiar, right?” He's been putting the clues together, piecing what he can of the vision of Castiel's wife and the vampire's own words. “I have your wife's eyes and, what, her scent?”
“Be careful,” the vampire warns. His tone remains calm, the surface of a placid lake, but his hands tighten on the edge of the table, sending the blood away from his fingers.
“Are you denying it?” Dean's in the vampire's space now, watching his eyes narrow until only a slice of blue can be seen, their pale color made more striking by the length of his thick lashes. “Are you telling me you didn't take me as your prisoner because I remind you of the wife you murdered?”
“You want the truth, Dean?” Castiel is on his feet now and the room thickens with tension, the crackle of thunder just before lighting touches down. “I took you because I thought you were some pathetic loser who needed to be taught a fucking lesson. I thought you were going to blow your brains out in a classic car wearing a GQ suit. So I wanted to scare you, to get you off my property. And then you looked up, Dean. And Alexandria was staring back at me. And I breathed in. I breathed in and you were lily of the valley and the smell right before it snows, just like she was.” Now it's Castiel's eyes that shine, beacons that root Dean to the ground. A rock forms in the pit of his stomach; a man is breaking in front of him, a fissure erupting and all he can do is stand back and hope he doesn't fall into the pit because there's no one to pull him out. No one to save him here.
“And I haven't-It's been almost 100 years since I killed her. Since I dug my teeth in and drank until she was gone.” Red-tinged tears drip now and Dean is reaching, opening his arms and something deeper, something more important inside of himself, something he doesn't understand, not even when a faint spark of completion, contentment, hits as his fingers make contact, grasping the light fabric of Castiel's shirt.
“It wasn't-” Dean should be digging into the vampire, sharpening every word to wound the worst, but he can't. There's something else there, something that surges to the surface as he guides the vampire's face up. “It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault and she forgives you. She knows it wasn't you, that you couldn't control it. She knows.”
Castiel crumples, gasping for air Dean's not even sure he needs. There's something so right, though, about the way the vampire fits into the space between his neck and shoulder, the way they entwine, Dean supporting most of the other man's slight weight.
“Come on,” he whispers into slightly wet hair, the perfume of lemongrass and rose still strong from his shower. The vampire's lips move, but nothing comes. Dean doesn't need anything, just guides the other man upstairs and lays him down on his bed before climbing next to him, hands going to the buttons of his shirt.
“What-” Castiel starts, but Dean just shakes his head, lips quirking in a smile. The shirt comes off. Then the undershirt. Soon, the vampire is revealed, pale and coiled tight, worry and fear stark in his blown pupils. But he lifts his hands, tugs at Dean's shirt before lifting it, then edging down the pajama bottoms slung low on his hips.
Dean takes his time, opens Castiel's body with drawn-out kisses and playful nips until the vampire melts, boneless, into the bed, fingers straining in the sheets to keep down the hands Dean slapped away when they reached to reciprocate. Some spots draw hisses of surprised pleasure, others laughter, but it's all beautiful to Dean, who keeps his eyes down to conceal the wonder sparkling there. And maybe he's hiding something else, something he doesn't even realize, because every ministration, every dip and plane of Cas's body is somehow already memorized, as are the glory of the sounds that spill past his lips, the half-frantic pleas and compliments and calls to God that have Dean moaning or chuckling, depending.
“Kiss me,” Castiel finally orders, pulling Dean up, the friction chasing away any inclination he has to fight the command. Castiel snaps his hips toward Dean's, rolling and undulating so their lengths brush, velvet skin searing hot. Dean's losing himself, on the verge of vaulting into the stars when Cas tilts his head and finds the strongest pulse in Dean's neck.
“Do it, Cas.” Please.
“I won't hurt you this time,” Cas murmurs, words obscured as he stretches his mouth, fitting it to the vein. “I won't hurt you.”
“I kno-” His voice is pushed back down, drowned by a surge of ecstasy so complete he wonders, vaguely, if he hasn't left his body. He's turned inside-out and emptied of pain, of the hollow parts that were doing their best to eat him alive. He is whole, somehow, filled with a connection that blooms like a flower, its head tilted up toward the sun. It's light and heat and the race of hearts as they synch and find a melody in one another. If he could speak, if he could funnel what he felt at that moment, a gold-drenched instant, he might have pledged love. Instead, his eyes flutter shut and his vision goes black.
***
Waking without being certain how he fell asleep has never sat well with Dean; this instance is no different, but when he rolls over on slithery-silk sheets, his mouth pulls up without his permission and he stretches like a cat, back arching with the sweet burn of overtaxed muscles. The other side of the bed is empty, though there's a single piece of paper where Cas' head should be.
All it takes is three words. Three words to shatter the mood he'd woken up in, though he can't be sure why his stomach plummets at the sight of them.
I trust you.
Author: radioheading
Rating: R, language and violence.
Characters/Pairings: Cas/Dean
Warnings: AU. Really, really, really AU.
Word Count: For this part, 2760
Summary: Reeling over the death of his brother, Dean drives to the middle of nowhere with a gun in his hand, unsure. But he doesn't know someone, something else is there, watching, who misinterprets a young man sitting alone in a car holding a gun. **Dean isn't and has never been a hunter, and Castiel is definitely no angel here**
Dean is adrenaline and a buzz of cells set alight by nerves, the jagged edge of pleasure that's been crossed by fear, even if he tells himself he's not afraid of the big bad vampire. Other people believe his lies. He doesn't. And he knows, somewhere deep, past his masculinity and pride, the strength he still has coiled in muscles that have yet to fail him, that with Castiel, he is always on the edge of a blade, walking slowly, one foot in front of the other in hopes not to be tipped either way. There is tenderness in the man, he knows that, can feel it in the flush of Castiel's tongue as it passes over his lips, the way hands cup his jaw and neck, not holding on but supporting, body taking advantage of a distracted mind, pressing close and they can, touching everything they can reach. The slide of long fingers behind his ear makes him gasp-laugh into Castiel's mouth. But to ignore the vampire's anger, the inwardly-turned malice, would be a fatal error. However human Castiel looks, there is a part of him that is all animal.
And that's what makes Dean feel. The danger, the risk-it's breaking through the numbness of Sam's death. And that's the truth. But Dean is good at denial, so very good at ignoring what needs to be forgotten in favor of just keeping his head down and plowing through the roadblocks. So he loses himself in the mulled-wine of Castiel's kiss, groans at the thickening of his sex when the other man trails nips and bites down flushed skin to his collarbone, all but tearing the seam if Dean's shirt as he stretches it to reveal more, to lave at the sharp ridge like a kitten cleaning its claws. Deliberately, carefully.
“Fuck, Cas,” his hips move in time with his heart, short stutter-beats that leave his mind floating just behind the call of his body.
“Cas?” The vampire mumbles, moving upward to the junction of Dean's neck and head, pressing small, heated kisses just under his jaw.
“Name's too fucking long right now,” Dean replies, wrapping his arms around the vampire's back to give himself leverage, to rut up against his very obvious arousal.
“Ah, Jesus!” The soft glide of fanged teeth is unmistakable; they make no move to do anything but trace along the surface of Dean's skin, but their presence is enough to still him, to send his heart racing into his throat. The tips are narrow, sharp as the glint of a new knife but warm, as is the breath that mists on his neck, glancing across his jaw as it rises. Castiel has him, can do whatever he wants to with Dean, whose humanity is no match to the speed and strength the vampire's shown. It sparks something within, a pleasure-streaked sort of tumble in his stomach, torn between the heat of pleasure and the chill of fear.
Fear.
The dig of Castiel's teeth, the silent, adrenaline-spiked threat of what they're capable of draw Dean's thoughts to his brother, a car-crash well of sadness and the question of whether Sam knew what was happening, whether he felt the snap of arteries tearing at the base of his skull (“Circle of Willis,” the doctors had said on the phone, ignoring Dean's impatient-pitched questions. Is my brother alive?), letting the blood pool and pressure build until it all came crashing down, until his body was released from the control of his mind and everything just stopped. Did he know? In the seconds before his heart gave way, did he understand that the breath coming through his lungs was his last?
The wall behind Dean is sturdy, a smooth surface he barely feels until it's guiding him down, Castiel following, opening his legs to straddle Dean's, who doesn't notice the change in angle until he's staring up at the vampire through swimming eyes, heat that drops heavy and fast, tracing over his cheeks to his chin where they'll hang on until gravity proves to be too strong. They'll fall into the fabric of his shirt and it will be like they never existed (like Sam).
“Hey,” the vampire's whispering, feather-light words into his wet cheeks, lips pressing there to absorb some of the salt and swallow it down. His mouth, only slightly parted, allow the tips of his too-long teeth to press into view, drawing attention to nature's way of screaming 'danger, predator!'
“What's the matter?” His head is cocked to the side, eyes searching, ticking back and forth over flushed skin and a pressed-thin mouth, a display of emotional eruption that's desperately trying to be contained.
“I-,” Dean begins, concrete filling his bones, the admission too sharp to let go yet, too hard to say. He imagines his lips shaping the words, my brother is dead. Sam is dead and I am alone and-but his vocal chords clench when the words try to slip through, carried by the wind of his breath. If he says it, it's real and there, right in the palm of the vampire's hand. It would be stupid to trust Castiel, for Dean to give him anything, but he's fraying at the seams, too close to someone that looks human, that looks normal and caring, someone who's looking at him flecks of concern in grey-sky eyes. Everything in him wants to just curl up with the other man, to let the tsunami within pour out until he's withered and dry.
Castiel is quiet, waiting. Dean uses the back of his hand to wipe away the last of the grief he couldn't keep below the surface and lets it drop to the vampire's knee, drawing small circles into the denim. He allows himself to be hypnotized by his own movement, focused only on the way his fingers skate over the vampire's leg. It's hesitant, a question Castiel answers by tipping Dean's chin up, laying snow-soft grazes, presses of his cheek and chin under the harsh angle before weaving up, kissing at the corner of Dean's turned-down mouth before settling over the fuller part of the pout.
Help me forget, Dean asks silently, losing space and time to the kiss, shutting his eyes tight and surging into the vampire, the still-stinging wound Sam had left behind burning into their embrace, sparking it with passion Castiel growls at, a cat's purr hum that vibrates between them.
“If you..” Dean explores Castiel's mouth, a carefully-orchestrated dance that keeps the vulnerable muscle away from the tips of the fangs, then drawing back enough so he can feel the other man sway forward, his reluctance to let go. “If you just bite me,” eyes still closed, Dean arches his neck back, “Do I become a vampire?”
“No.” If the words are stilted, Dean doesn't notice, too busy convincing himself to take the next step, to feed into the flush building under his skin and just let go.
“Come on, Cas,” he breathes, high on his recklessness, expectation knotting his stomach. “Bite me. Please.”
A draft's sudden chill across his fevered cheek is the only indication of any reaction from Castiel. The room is quiet enough to hear the faint adjustments a house makes at night, the creaking protests of wood as the temperature changes, and his own panting breath. Like a dream, he is shaken from his fantasy, the sprint he'd thrown himself into, an escape, if just for a moment, from Sam. When he opens his eyes, blinking to clear the haze of lust left behind, Castiel stands a few feet away, looking down at him with bruised-red lips and the wild darkness of thinly-veiled restraint in his gaze. In the next moment, though, Dean finds himself in front of a stranger, a cold, closed expression fixed on Castiel's face, drawn tight like a rope just before it snaps from pressure.
“Get out of my sight,” he commands, reducing Dean into a child banished to his room. Castiel has been drained of his blue-flamed flicker burning beneath the surface, has collapsed into a steely authority Dean doesn't dare challenge. When he gathers himself, the vampire watching, gauging every movement, he is still achingly hard, sex twitching with unfulfilled need that only fuels the shame that lies like grease on his tongue. A glance over the shoulder, a chance to catch Castiel's face is made in vain; the room is empty.
***
Castiel's existence is reduced to a shadow, a barely-there dinner companion who speaks bitten-off syllables when spoken to, as if each word burns his tongue on the way out. For a few days, Dean allows the silence to settle, a veil obscuring their gazes from one another as they tiptoe around whatever, exactly, has happened. But patience is not a virtue Dean finds any worth in, so when he wakes one morning from dreams that leave a film of confusion and doubt, twisting images and faces, he finds himself unable to hold back the words that are scratching at the back of his teeth, waiting to be set free.
“Why,” he asks, running a hand through hair tousled from sleep's messy fingers, “Am I still here?”
Castiel is sitting at the dining room table, already dressed in jeans and a dress shirt that probably cost more than Dean makes in a month. Made in a month. Lips pursed, he takes in Dean's straight-from-bed form and raises an eyebrow.
“Why am I here, Castiel?” He curls his lip around the name, glaring at the vampire. That's right, he thinks. You fucking look at me. “You obviously don't want me around anymore, right? And, no offense,” he seethes, the words delicious in their malignancy, “But I'd prefer not to live with a guy who acts like a premenstrual teenager.”
“You're still here because I don't know if I can trust you, Dean.” Condescension drips heavy, like the juice from a peach.
“I'm not a fucking child,” he snaps back, huffing air into his chest before taking a step forward. Dean is a man of simple truths and logic, and Castiel isn't playing fair. There's something more to the story, a card hidden in a palm that says Dean's not getting his way. Ever. So he takes a stab, because rationality leaves the building when there's nothing left to lose.
“I'm familiar, right?” He's been putting the clues together, piecing what he can of the vision of Castiel's wife and the vampire's own words. “I have your wife's eyes and, what, her scent?”
“Be careful,” the vampire warns. His tone remains calm, the surface of a placid lake, but his hands tighten on the edge of the table, sending the blood away from his fingers.
“Are you denying it?” Dean's in the vampire's space now, watching his eyes narrow until only a slice of blue can be seen, their pale color made more striking by the length of his thick lashes. “Are you telling me you didn't take me as your prisoner because I remind you of the wife you murdered?”
“You want the truth, Dean?” Castiel is on his feet now and the room thickens with tension, the crackle of thunder just before lighting touches down. “I took you because I thought you were some pathetic loser who needed to be taught a fucking lesson. I thought you were going to blow your brains out in a classic car wearing a GQ suit. So I wanted to scare you, to get you off my property. And then you looked up, Dean. And Alexandria was staring back at me. And I breathed in. I breathed in and you were lily of the valley and the smell right before it snows, just like she was.” Now it's Castiel's eyes that shine, beacons that root Dean to the ground. A rock forms in the pit of his stomach; a man is breaking in front of him, a fissure erupting and all he can do is stand back and hope he doesn't fall into the pit because there's no one to pull him out. No one to save him here.
“And I haven't-It's been almost 100 years since I killed her. Since I dug my teeth in and drank until she was gone.” Red-tinged tears drip now and Dean is reaching, opening his arms and something deeper, something more important inside of himself, something he doesn't understand, not even when a faint spark of completion, contentment, hits as his fingers make contact, grasping the light fabric of Castiel's shirt.
“It wasn't-” Dean should be digging into the vampire, sharpening every word to wound the worst, but he can't. There's something else there, something that surges to the surface as he guides the vampire's face up. “It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault and she forgives you. She knows it wasn't you, that you couldn't control it. She knows.”
Castiel crumples, gasping for air Dean's not even sure he needs. There's something so right, though, about the way the vampire fits into the space between his neck and shoulder, the way they entwine, Dean supporting most of the other man's slight weight.
“Come on,” he whispers into slightly wet hair, the perfume of lemongrass and rose still strong from his shower. The vampire's lips move, but nothing comes. Dean doesn't need anything, just guides the other man upstairs and lays him down on his bed before climbing next to him, hands going to the buttons of his shirt.
“What-” Castiel starts, but Dean just shakes his head, lips quirking in a smile. The shirt comes off. Then the undershirt. Soon, the vampire is revealed, pale and coiled tight, worry and fear stark in his blown pupils. But he lifts his hands, tugs at Dean's shirt before lifting it, then edging down the pajama bottoms slung low on his hips.
Dean takes his time, opens Castiel's body with drawn-out kisses and playful nips until the vampire melts, boneless, into the bed, fingers straining in the sheets to keep down the hands Dean slapped away when they reached to reciprocate. Some spots draw hisses of surprised pleasure, others laughter, but it's all beautiful to Dean, who keeps his eyes down to conceal the wonder sparkling there. And maybe he's hiding something else, something he doesn't even realize, because every ministration, every dip and plane of Cas's body is somehow already memorized, as are the glory of the sounds that spill past his lips, the half-frantic pleas and compliments and calls to God that have Dean moaning or chuckling, depending.
“Kiss me,” Castiel finally orders, pulling Dean up, the friction chasing away any inclination he has to fight the command. Castiel snaps his hips toward Dean's, rolling and undulating so their lengths brush, velvet skin searing hot. Dean's losing himself, on the verge of vaulting into the stars when Cas tilts his head and finds the strongest pulse in Dean's neck.
“Do it, Cas.” Please.
“I won't hurt you this time,” Cas murmurs, words obscured as he stretches his mouth, fitting it to the vein. “I won't hurt you.”
“I kno-” His voice is pushed back down, drowned by a surge of ecstasy so complete he wonders, vaguely, if he hasn't left his body. He's turned inside-out and emptied of pain, of the hollow parts that were doing their best to eat him alive. He is whole, somehow, filled with a connection that blooms like a flower, its head tilted up toward the sun. It's light and heat and the race of hearts as they synch and find a melody in one another. If he could speak, if he could funnel what he felt at that moment, a gold-drenched instant, he might have pledged love. Instead, his eyes flutter shut and his vision goes black.
***
Waking without being certain how he fell asleep has never sat well with Dean; this instance is no different, but when he rolls over on slithery-silk sheets, his mouth pulls up without his permission and he stretches like a cat, back arching with the sweet burn of overtaxed muscles. The other side of the bed is empty, though there's a single piece of paper where Cas' head should be.
All it takes is three words. Three words to shatter the mood he'd woken up in, though he can't be sure why his stomach plummets at the sight of them.
I trust you.