The Nature and Kynde of a Lyon (3/6)
Backward. Forward.
Part Three.
Castiel had heard the stories. He was trying not to think of them now.
There were too many of them, tales of what could happen to gammas whose first heat went wrong somehow. If there was no alpha there to take care of them - or worse, no other angel at all - or if the sex that they did get was wrong, somehow, not quite what that angel needed, or violent, or insincere. Angels left terrified by the workings of their own bodies, or cowed, or rudderless. Angels who couldn’t believe they were owned and loved, who ran off to live as omegas, wild and dangerous and mad; or whose minds stayed intact but for whom instead something broke in their hearts, so that they were left sharp and bitter, or isolated, or unpredictably violent, according to their nature. Whatever form it took, the injury must fester over the years, and leave them wrong.
Not that Castiel was thinking of those stories. After all, they might be exaggerated in the telling.
But even Lisa - the only angel, beside Castiel, who had had the misfortune to prime under Azazel’s rule - well, she was level-headed enough, but she didn’t want a husband or wife, and had next to not interest in sex when she wasn’t in heat. And even when she was, she preferred Castiel to either Gabriel or Balthazar, which Castiel was sure couldn’t be natural.
Three to five days, so critical for determining Dean’s health and happiness for the rest of his life. The first one by far the most crucial, and here was only Castiel, barely eighteen and only a beta and not nearly skilled enough for this.
Castiel would not lose control of his emotions. Castiel could be rational.
Dean, wings long and narrow as an eagle or an albatross, perfect for soaring flight, could outstrip Castiel if he chose, at least in these air currents. Castiel had his advantage in agility, though: his wings were shorter and rounder like a hawk’s or a diving bird’s, more like Sam’s, and he was still discovering all the strange tricks and turns that the second pair made available to him. He kept lower, therefore, not pressing too close, using the choppy little updrafts that Dean couldn’t catch at his height, ready to cut in if Dean should try to descend or change course.
The wind sliced over the treetops, sharp with the memory of the snow on the mountains behind it, and Castiel saw it coming and compensated for the shock of it. Dean - fists clenched and eyes fixed on the winding ribbon of the river ahead - was buffeted off course, and fumbled in the air with a snarl.
Castiel took his chance and soared upward, slid in beside him, a silent offer of windbreak and prop if he should need it. Dean’s eyes fastened on him, bright hot gold and all that startled fervour from earlier, as if the sight of Castiel was somehow more brilliant than he could stand. He swerved, and swooped in closer to Castiel, so that they were flying almost wing to wing.
Dean was beyond rational thought. The shallow hasty scoop of his strokes when he beat his wings, the heavy sweet scent of desperation, his failure to object and veer away when Castiel drew near as if he had forgotten that this flight had begun as a pursuit - all of this indicated that his arousal and his emotions were powerful enough now to prevent reasoned judgement, or the perception of cause and consequence.
But this was not merely any priming delta - this was Dean, and even in this state he would be capable of clinging stubbornly to a single fixed idea, in defiance of every other concern, especially if that idea was born of protectiveness.
Every current of his body must be crying out by now for Gabriel’s touch, to sate and to soothe and to affirm, to give him a centre and a home. But even in this state, Dean would never consent if he believed that Castiel might come to harm by it.
So Castiel would be rational for both of them. He could control himself that far, if he put his whole mind to it.
He could. He had the knowledge, and he had the self-control. He could see Dean through this. If only he could stop thinking of him as Dean, and just think of this as any other delta who needed his help.
He took the lust and the panic and locked them away stern and safe in the back of his mind, focussing on Gabriel’s voice in his memory instead.
No point talking to them when they’re in that state, kitten, not if you want them to understand. It’ll do as a nice soothing noise, but that’s about it. If you want to get a message across when they can’t even think in sentences you’ve got to go wordless: growls, purrs, whimpers, trills, body language, whatever. They come from the gut, from the blood: words, speech, that’s all too civilised. That’s culture. If they’ve forgotten your name, they’re way beyond civilisation.
And wordless utterances were not only more instinctive, but easier to hear through the rush of flight.
Castiel whistled a follow-me suggestion, and began to circle down towards the great red stone shelves and coarse pebbly sand of the riverbank.
Dean banked above him and yowled, tired and confused, and so plaintive that his voice was barely Dean. Castiel almost fumbled his landing, and obliged himself firmly to fold his wings neat and soft when he held out his hands to call Dean down to him.
(Gotta look like you know what you’re doing, like this is easy and you know nothing’s gonna hurt them. Just firm enough so that you’re in command, so they can relax and know that someone here knows what the hell’s going on, even if they’re going all mixed-signals on you and you haven’t got a clue whether they need you to back off and let them come to you or to push them to the ground and sink your teeth in.)
Gabriel had taught him. Castiel knew this. He knew, he had learned, how to look into an angel’s eyes and see aggression and uncertainty and coax it away, until a hand stroking from wrist to elbow felt like a promise, not a threat.
He could do this.
But none of them had ever been Dean. Never had there been written in that heated gold so much ferocious desire for Castiel himself, for all of him, not just for his beta status and his knot and his semen, or the brief respite of friendship.
Dean landed in a crouch, hands splayed wide on the rock and mouth open, breath hissing harsh over his teeth.
Castiel rumbled his name, deep in his chest, and sank down onto his haunches. Dean went very still, only watching.
“Come to me,” Castiel said, soft but not a question.
(Dean would be the same as the others. He must be the same, until this first whirlwind was past and they had taken stock of the damage.
Because there would be damage. Castiel could not see how it might be avoided. He could only do his best to see that the worst of it fell on his own head, so that no permanent damage might be done to Dean.)
Dean’s tongue lapped at his lower lip, a flash of pink and heat that made Castiel’s stomach dip hotly, and his eyes burned brighter for a moment.
Then he leaped, a driving blow of the wings that sent the sand flaring around him, and barrelled into Castiel with all his weight. Castiel rolled with him (childhood wrestling made strange), fingers digging hard into Dean’s ribs and the pebbles. Dean’s foot scuffled against the ground, and the sweep of his wing thudded dully in Castiel’s ear as they both scrabbled for purchase against the sand and the air and each other.
Dean’s breath was coming shallow and wet against Castiel’s neck, one knee jammed between Castiel’s thighs, and his whole body trying to burrow in against Castiel’s side and stomach and hips, trying to wrestle him into submission and bury himself in him at the same time. Probably not even knowing what he was trying to do.
And Castiel wanted, so very badly, to loose the dam inside himself, to give in. But it was far from the first time that he’d had to bite off the urge to press Dean down and sink his teeth into his neck and his hips into his body, to claim and to have. Even if, this time, for the first time, Dean’s body would have spread for him and arched up into him and thrilled with it. But Castiel knew, with knowledge deeper and darker than logic, the consequences of simply releasing the beast inside to follow its nature. He would not sink those claws into Dean, the way Azazel had sunk his into Castiel.
(Castiel had spread for Azazel, after all. Not the first time - definitely not the first time - but locked in the chambers for five days after that, when his own body had betrayed him, then he had fought and begged for it at the same time. And that had been the worst of it, Castiel’s body wilfully making itself over to Azazel. He’d never trusted it since.)
Castiel had risked enough in that regard already, when it came to Dean. Even if both he and Dean had meant well enough at the time.
He twisted against Dean, trapped one arm behind his back, and snarled heavy and warning into his ear. (And oh, the sweet pressure of Dean’s body like this, hot and demanding and wanting all along the length of Castiel’s!)
Never let them get the better of you in a heat, not for a moment. Not even when they’re clear-headed, not even in play. They gotta know, every minute, that your strength is their strength. Don’t try to be nice and reason, well, I’ll just let them win one round. Nice is all well and good outside, but that’s why we use the chambers for this. Different place, different rules. You’re in charge. Be in charge.
Castiel could stop fighting and speak assurances instead, let Dean pin him down and demand with his body until they lay as he wanted. But Dean didn’t know what he wanted. Castiel’s inertia would not reassure.
He shot out one wing, slid it between Dean’s and the ground to thwart his purchase there, and took advantage of Dean’s stagger to roll. There was a scuffle of flailing wings and sand and pebbles and Castiel’s heart thudding too hard in his throat - if he hurt Dean like this! if Dean’s reflexes were too slow to tuck his wings in neat and they landed too hard on one at the wrong angle! - but Dean’s yelp held only surprise and fight, no pain.
Castiel ended up braced over Dean’s thighs, hands on his shoulders, staring down into his reddened face, clinging to slippery evasive thoughts through the burn in his lungs, in his blood.
“Gentle,” he rasped out, because that was the first word that came to mind, the only thing he remembered being spoken during his second heat (his first real heat), when he’d fought and raged against an alpha who wasn’t there anymore, and Gabriel had let him, and had never backed down. “Gentle, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
The words sounded too small in his mouth. Dean was just staring back at him, panting, eyes wide and bright and uncomprehending.
Castiel catalogued his own attitude: eyes too wide for calm, wings too tight and ruffled for authority, shoulders and the angle of his body such that would indicate fear, not confidence.
He sat back a little, forcing his body into the right attitude, letting his hands trail down Dean’s body to rest on his stomach. The muscles contracted and shivered under the tips of his fingers, and Castiel swallowed.
Dean smelled… he smelled like a confusion. He smelled like Dean, like family and home and everything Castiel had longed for (and castigated himself for wanting) since Gabriel had taught him what it was to desire - since before that, though more innocently, since Dean and Sam had coaxed him out of the shell he had hidden in after the death of his first family. He smelled like heat, like wanting and deliciousness, until Castiel’s own body thrummed with it, with the urge to claim and to sate. But he also smelled untethered, uncertain, a gamma without an alpha. As if he wasn’t one of theirs, one of Gabriel’s. Not Castiel’s to touch.
He smelled like everything Castiel wanted, and impossibly distant.
Castiel ought to have been prepared for this - for the sight of Dean, aroused and potent and so very possible. But he’d never expected for it to happen so far from home. This part of the business - Dean aroused but ignorant, uncertain, the transition from child to confident desiring adult - that was always to have been Gabriel’s.
Even though Gabriel wouldn’t be able to help noticing that Dean was not, in fact, a virgin.
“Dean,” Castiel said, more softly, and Dean went limp, let his head fall back to the ground and sucked in air to his lungs like a relief. The muscles under Castiel’s thighs and hands went soft - trusting? - and Dean’s wings settled out over the ground, a loose fan of red and cream and freckled mahogany.
Surrender. Surrender, and pleasure in it, judging by the rich surge of Dean’s scent and the heat Castiel could feel throbbing underneath him, firing the urgency of his own blood. Surrender that wasn’t Castiel’s to take, though it was Dean’s to give, and which Castiel certainly didn’t deserve.
But if he were to act solely as Gabriel’s beta here…
“Good,” he murmured, and spread one hand out over Dean’s stomach. Dean made a wordless noise, plea and delight, and as Castiel bent forward to kiss his jaw his eyes flickered open again, warm and bright and halfway to a grin.
Castiel nipped his skin and felt his own face slide into an expression far more familiar, the one that grin of Dean’s always seemed to conjure on it. They could wait this out, perhaps. No orgasms and no removal of clothes, but there were other needs to a heat beyond the sexual. Castiel could keep some of those in check, at least. And Gabriel would come to find them, eventually. Sam must have understood Castiel’s signal to fetch him. Gabriel would find them.
(There’s two beasts inside you when you’re in heat, right? Not just the one that wants to come, but the one that wants to belong. Screwing will settle both of them down, mostly, ‘cos of the whole exchange of fluids thing, but the second is subtler and sometimes gets forgotten. Any angel could settle the first beast, but it takes the taste and the touch and the seed of an alpha - or a beta - to soothe the second. You can’t just get them off. And they need to feel like you mean it too, because it’s a cranky needy beast. Skin on skin contact, kissing, all those little touches that make it mean something. Some people need that more than others. You, for one.)
Dean nudged at the side of Castiel’s chin, halfway between experimental and familiar. Castiel slid off to one side, so that he would be bracing himself over Dean rather than lying on top of him, and turned his mouth to meet Dean’s.
This, at least - the sweet slide of Dean’s mouth, the startled heat of it as it opened for the first time to another and felt the pleasure of it, the bewildered appreciation of his gasp, the first recognition of the thrill of kissing with desire - this, Castiel could take, and keep for himself.
---
Ten minutes, and Dean was writhing and moaning, catching with his hands for more of Castiel than he could get.
Twenty, and he had learned to roll his hips and arch his back, yearning for friction.
Thirty, and he was begging, wordless and desperate - although Castiel, driven to voraciousness himself, had given up on kissing and was pressing his face into Dean’s hair, hand tight on his hip to keep Dean from rolling over to nestle in against him and seek his own completion.
Forty minutes, and Castiel was unfastening Dean’s pants and guiding Dean’s hand down there, talking him through finding temporary relief that way. It took only a few strokes the first time, once Dean had the knack of it, before his head was tipping back against the sand and his mouth gaping silent astonishment at the air. Castiel had to look away to keep himself from leaning down and holding him through it, anchoring him with his hands and mouth and body, and making this first climax Castiel’s.
Forty-five minutes, an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, passed in a haze. Dean’s head heavy on Castiel’s thigh, and tree bark rough against the skin of Castiel’s back, the sound of Dean’s startled, impatient little gasps and of his hand on his flesh or slick between his legs, his frustrated, exhausted panting between times, the murmur of the river, and Castiel’s voice low and hoarse in his own ears, useless constant chatter and instructions and poems and promises, to keep Dean grounded. It was past midday, and Dean must have been in heat for over eight hours now, and still his body hadn’t got what it demanded. Castiel began watching for fretfulness, clinginess, rubbing at temples or eyes or the back of the head - any of the signs of the beginnings of the headache that would be the danger signal, a sign that the body was giving up and the heat was beginning to close down, unfulfilled. If that set in… Castiel would have to act, scruples or not.
Two and a half hours, and Castiel managed to coax Dean out into the middle of the river, to drink where the water ran clearest, and to groom dust and sand and salt out of his ruffled wings. No food, though, and if Castiel’s belly was already beginning to ache Dean must be ravenous, especially after that flight, and all the energy his body was pouring into running so hot. Fish might be caught, but not cooked, and Castiel could hardly leave Dean long enough to forage or hunt in the woods.
Three hours, then three and a half. A desultory snack of cold river mussels and raw crocodile eggs sat heavy and unsatisfying in Castiel’s stomach. Dean had wolfed down his share, and had even devoured the frog spawn that Castiel hadn’t intended to collect. And Dean was in the first ebb of his heat - nothing dangerous, only a minor slackening in its pace that would pick up again soon enough - enough to clear his head just a little. Close enough to coherent to argue.
It was just Castiel’s name at first, with all the weight and meaning behind it that Dean alone could master. “No, Dean,” was all Castiel could reply, because he knew what was being asked, and the looks he received in response were worth whole sentences.
Then came the little phrases, the “come on, man,” halfway between a whine and a growl, and the wriggle of the hips where they were tilted up against the ground to fill in all the words left blank.
And then, when Castiel still refused, the actual arguments. Little broken half-sentences, lustful and angry and coaxing and protective by turns, trusting Castiel to unpack things like “won’t let him” and “dammit, Cas, mine” to get at what Dean meant. Until finally, with an effort, Dean came out with “He’s vicious, Cas,” and when Castiel stared at him (because that couldn’t be Gabriel), “vicious about people doing, doing shit like that to kids. You know that, Cas.”
Castiel’s patience snapped. “He’s vicious because of me, Dean,” voice a rough lash of a thing that he barely recognised. “Because of what Azazel did to me. He will punish me but he won’t - won’t injure me. No more than I deserve.”
Dean went very still, crouching where he was in the shallows with the water lapping at his stomach. When he looked up, his eyes, so wide and bright and with his own dear green lurking at the edges, said many things Castiel was afraid to hear. Some of it looked like hurt.
“I don’t. Don’t regret it, Cas,” he ground out at last, rusty like the sentence had cost too much thought.
Dean was too forgiving.
“I do,” said Castiel, and looked away.
Water broke and swished, some vehement movement. “Well, screw you then,” Dean snapped, and Castiel watched with the side of his eye the agitation of the waves in his wake until he felt damp hot hands dig into his upper arms, and Dean’s forehead pressed against the back of his skull.
Usually after an exclamation like that Dean would storm away. Apparently the rules were different now.
Dean’s fingers flexed against Castiel’s triceps, frustrated, as if they were trying and failing to speak for him.
It had never seemed necessary to talk about what they had done. It had been a precaution that events had rendered superfluous. They had left, he and Dean, and Sam of course - what better way for the unnatural alpha to vent his spite at Dean’s and Castiel’s disappearance? And with them, all the children of twelve or more that Sam had been able to gather up quickly and quietly, just in case Azazel decided to cast his eye downwards and force on them what he had forced on Castiel. They had left, and they had found Gabriel. And the longer Castiel had lived under his brother’s command, and the more he learned from him in the chambers, the more sickly he regretted not holding out when Dean had asked that of him.
“I just wanted,” Dean muttered, and his breath was a huff against the nape of Castiel’s neck. “Wanted you to enjoy it, Cas. Deserved to.”
Dean’s logic was failing him again, or he meant something that Castiel wasn’t understanding. “I will, Dean,” he promised, and lifted his hand to lay his fingers over Dean’s. “But you should lie with Gabriel first. It is the natural way of things.”
Dean growled, and Castiel shuddered under the scrape of teeth at the back of his neck. “Screw natural. Too chicken-shit to break alpha’s rules?”
These things Dean said sometimes, as if he had no respect at all for what an alpha did and was - as if he thought Gabriel’s position no more profound than that of the team leader appointed for a hunt. Castiel didn’t understand them.
“I have already broken a rule far more fundamental than that, Dean,” Castiel reminded him heavily.
“We.”
“And yes,” Castiel ploughed on, because that was an implication he couldn’t allow to stand, even if Dean wouldn’t understand his reply, “I am loyal to Gabriel. Even if your welfare was not at stake I would not disobey him for my own pleasure.”
“Cas.”
Dean pushed up close behind him, so close that Castiel could feel the beat of his heart against his spine, the answering pulse of heat against his tailbone.
“Dean.”
He turned around, into the demanding clutch of Dean’s arms, and Dean nuzzled in hungrily at the hollow under his ear and mouthed “That’s bullshit” into the skin.
Don’t take anything they say personally, babe. We all talk plenty of shit when our brain ain’t wired to our mouth. And ten to one they’ve lost track of the conversation anyway, or are only hearing you say what they’re arguing out in their heads.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” he said, instead of really answering, and kissed the side of Dean’s mouth.
Dean made a noise and turned to slide his tongue between Castiel’s lips.
Castiel groaned and let him, sunk his fingers into the soft feathers and hard muscle of the leading edge of Dean’s wings and tried to haul him closer. This, this, despite everything else, despite two years of looking at Dean’s mouth and longing and looking away again and lashing himself in his mind for the weakness, despite what Gabriel would think of him soon (and do to him) - this was an indulgence of wonders.
Gabriel’s searching whistle rippled through the air, high and clear overhead.
Dean’s hand bunched into a fist in the small of Castiel’s back.
Castiel sighed a little into his cheek and felt his own body relax, muscles soft and relieved with the inevitability of the event.
“Cas,” Dean pressed into the soft skin beneath his ear, a warning and a plea and the slow-rising beat of adrenalin.
Castiel leaned back, smiled, and touched his cheek. “Dean,” he said, and hoped that would do by way of an apology.
Then he stepped back, clear of Dean’s arms, and called out to his brother.
Backward. Forward.