Fic: In Touch
Here's the SRS BSNS angsty porn I promised. It was supposed to be done weeks ago, but life got in the way, so I guess... HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAVE SOME PORN.
Title: In Touch
Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam
Ratings/Warnings: NC-17/SPOILERS up to 5.10 "Abandon All Hope."
Word Count: 3600
Summary: Castiel doesn't understand why Dean's upset, but he's trying. Angst, drunk!Dean, porn, and text messages - not necessarily in that order.
Human emotions were violent, unwieldy things. They flashed and rolled like lightning - one moment, still, the next, illuminated with feeling branching across the mind. It took the slightest charge to set them off. Castiel saw through his companions’ hard-set expressions to the storms below, and he was glad, for once, that he felt so little. His own reaction to the Harvelle women’s death was nowhere near so dramatic, or so dangerous.
He felt certainty, mostly - certainty that their clean souls would be granted rewards in his Father’s realm. And certainty that his brief time with Ellen and Jo was beneficial for him. Through them, Castiel gained experiences. He drank shots. He rode in a car. He even became part of an inside joke during their journey together - when one of the women was asked about her current state of being, she would answer, “I think I’m starting to feel something,” and both would laugh so heartily it raised a smile from him, even if they were making fun of him. He'd been able to make them laugh with the joke himself once, at a truck stop where the waitress asked how he was doing before taking his order. It felt good.
Other things were uncertain: the fate of the earth, the next step, the hunters’ faith. Castiel found these issues far more concerning than the deaths of two soldiers who had offered their lives for the cause.
So on the fourth day after Carthage, when Sam Winchester called him to tell him that Dean had disappeared with the Impala after an argument, Castiel didn’t understand why.
“He told Bobby and me to screw ourselves and took off,” Sam said on the other end of the line. “Seemed like things were really starting to get to him.”
“What ‘things’?” Castiel replied, frowning.
There was silence on the other end, and for a moment he suspected the phone’s minutes had run out again. Then Sam sighed and said in a tight voice, “Look, Cas, I don’t have time to sit you down with Bambi right now and explain it. Can you just-can you try getting in touch with him? He’s not answering when I call.”
“I’ll try,” he said, and hung up on Sam.
Castiel leaned forward on the park bench he’d been occupying all evening, frowning at the glowing screen of his phone in the dying light. Having spent so much of the last year around Dean Winchester, he knew that if Dean didn’t want to be found, he would be difficult to locate. And with the cloaking sigils across his ribcage-
The phone buzzed and lit up, illuminating the walking path at Castiel’s feet. He scoffed at the name that flashed on the screen and read the new text message.
blcckwater inn outsied omaha rm 11 cn u come alone cas?
It took Castiel a moment to parse out the misspellings. Then he sent back his usual reply:
I’ll be there immediately.
The park blurred and disappeared around him, and a moment later a dirty motel room landed beneath his feet. It was dressed in browns and greens with a mural of birches along the far wall, and Dean sat hunched on the double bed, a bottle in one hand and his cell phone in the other.
“Dean,” Castiel said.
The cell phone in Dean’s hand made an alert sound. He read the screen and gave Castiel a small, hollow smile. “Beat your own text. That’s gotta be some sorta record.”
“Sam said you’d-”
“Sam,” Dean sighed, wincing as if the word hurt his mouth. “Look, this’s got nothin’ to do with him.”
Castiel took a moment to study the room. Dean’s duffel bag lay on the floor near the bolted front door, its flattened form indicating a hard and sudden landing. A spiderweb of cracks rent the screen of the television, a remote in pieces on the carpet. Empty liquor bottles clustered on the nightstand, their forms illuminated by the art deco lamp behind them, and even from the entrance he could smell their former contents.
The damage seemed past, but he sensed the storm that had brought it on still roiling inside Dean. “Come on,” he said, extending a hand toward the bed. “We should get back to Bobby’s.”
“Si’down, Cas,” Dean replied, not making eye contact.
“They’re worried about you. I can transport you there if you like, or I could ‘mojo’ the alcohol from your bloodstream so you’re safe to dri-”
“Sit. Down,” Dean commanded, his voice slightly too loud.
Castiel sighed. There was no point in arguing with him when he was in this state. The motel room was sparse on furniture, so Castiel sat on the edge of the bed beside Dean. The hunter passed the bottle to him, and he frowned at it, thinking of shots with Ellen. “If you won’t come back with me, why did you ask me here?”
“Because,” Dean said, slapping his cell phone down on the nightstand, “nobody was talking in that goddamn house, they were just holding it all in like we always do. An’ I can’t do it anymore, Cas. I’m too tired to put up that front. But with you-” He smiled a little - the first time Castiel had seen him smile since they’d left Bobby’s on the last mission. “I dunno, I don’t need it so much around you. Maybe it’s ‘cause you wear all your emotions on your face.”
Castiel stared at him impassively, trying to decide if that was a joke.
Dean nudged the bottle in his hand. “Drink, you stupid bastard.”
“It won’t affect me.”
“Yeah, but you make entertaining faces when you drink.”
“If you wanted entertainment, you shouldn’t have broken the television,” Castiel said, but he tipped the bottle to his lips anyway and drew a long swallow of whiskey. His throat tightened as the burn crept down its walls, but he didn’t feel the pain he knew would be there for a human. He envied Dean for that, in a way - all he had for himself were grayer shades of human sensation. While he didn’t want to feel pain - especially to the level that Dean was wallowing in it now - it seemed almost a fair trade to also be able to feel a human degree of joy, to experience the world in full color. Sometimes, he understood why Anna had chosen to fall.
Dean watched him drink - at first with a smirk, but as his eyes fell away from the bottle his expression sank into despair.
“You’re upset,” Castiel said.
“You’re observant, Holmes,” Dean replied miserably.
“Who?”
“Movie detective. Just-just forget it. Keep drinking.”
Castiel took another drink from the bottle, studying its contents as they sloshed toward and then away from his mouth. “If not talking makes you want to run away and get drunk,” he said thoughtfully, “maybe you should talk.”
“I don’t-” Dean dropped his head into his hands, the motion making him sway slightly. He drew his hands back through his hair. “I don’t even know where I’d start.”
“What’s upsetting you at this time?”
“Take your pick. I mean, Christ. Everybody who gets close t’me dies. I spent ten years ripping people apart in Hell. I started the goddamn apocalypse, an’-” Dean blinked back tears and gave a hollow laugh. “And I can’t stop it, Cas. Because of me, two of my friends’re dead.” He blinked again, but this time it did nothing for the tears. “Nah, screw that. Bobby says family is the people you let make you miserable, and if it’s that simple, Ellen and Jo have been my family for a long time. And I got ‘em hurt an’ killed, ‘cause that’s just-that’s just what I do to family.”
“They’re at peace now,” Castiel said.
“They’re dead.”
“They were good people, and their souls have been rewarded in Heaven.”
“They’re dead, Cas!” The words came out half-hissed, half-slurred, and pure rage. It made Castiel lean away, startled. Dean glared at him. “What the hell’s your problem? I’m not some idiot kid with a dead goldfish! That bedtime story BS isn’t gonna help!”
“It’s not a bedtime story,” Castiel said, his shoulder moving defensively between him and his companion’s angry face.
“It’s a crock of-”
“It’s home,” he insisted. “And they were soldiers who offered their lives for a cause.”
“Wake up, Cas!” Dean said, waving one arm in a wide arc like a preacher speaking to the audience of bottles. “Case you haven’t noticed, we lost! Game over, out of quarters lost. They died so I could shoot a toy gun at the devil, and that’s not a goddamn reward. You knew them, for Christ’s sake! You partied with them! You went into battle with them! How can you not care about this?”
Castiel clenched his jaw. Coming here had been a bad idea. He didn’t understand what Dean wanted him to discuss, and now the man was denying his Father’s glory and making accusations. Castiel sighed. “I should go.” He reached to set the bottle on the nightstand.
As he released the bottle, Dean caught his arm. “Don’t.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause if you leave, I’m alone with this.” Dean looked him in the eye, his expression as pleading as it had been in front of the Toreador months ago. “An’ I can’t handle it, Cas. It’s too much, too dark. I’d kill for the kind of angelic numbness you’ve got.”
“You don’t want to feel things as I do, Dean.”
“I want-” Dean studied him, licking his lips carefully, and Castiel sensed a shift in the storm. Dean pulled Castiel’s arm aside slowly, his eyes laser-focused on his face. Then, cupping his other hand at Castiel’s neck, he surged forward and kissed him.
It was…strange. Just a hard, stationary press of lips against lips for a moment, and then Dean’s mouth moved softly, and Castiel felt his own move in response, like an ingrained reaction. Surprise hit Castiel belatedly, and he pulled back, the back of his hand flying to his mouth.
Dean looked like he would have laughed at the reaction had it not worried him. “M’sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I wanted-I thought-but I’m pretty wasted, and that wasn’t… That was stupid, m’sorry.”
That, Castiel realized, was Dean without the front. Maybe his presence here was helping after all. Dean rarely left himself so exposed, even around his brother. And if it was helping, Castiel couldn’t rationalize leaving now. “You wanted what?” he asked.
“To feel something other than this,” Dean said.
“Oh.” Castiel peered into the man’s mind and found what he meant exactly. “With me? Why?”
“Because…you’re here. And I like you. And you do that thing with your lips when you’re gonna say something serious.” He smirked. “Yeah, like that.”
“I won’t take advantage of you when you’re inebriated.”
“Cas,” Dean said, giving him an almost pitying look, “I may be drunk, but you’re an angel. I think we’re on a level playing field here.”
Castiel frowned and touched two fingers to his companion’s forehead, sapping the alcohol from his bloodstream.
“Hey!” Dean objected, “Don’t mojo me when I’m trying to seduce you!”
“You’re not doing a very good job of it.” Castiel watched him suspiciously. “If you even still want to, when sober.”
Dean touched his finger to the tip of his nose. “Z, Y, X, W, V-look, if I told you this could be our last night on earth, what would you say?”
Castiel took in what he sensed coming from Dean. He was still upset, but no longer a tangle of lightning and noises. This idea seemed to collect him, dulling and pushing aside the painful thoughts. He was focused. He had a goal in mind. And that was an improvement worth exploring.
Castiel swallowed. Then he reached out his hand and ran his fingers experimentally down the line of Dean’s jaw. Stubble scraped at his fingertips, and the man’s chin shivered slightly under his touch. Castiel leaned toward him, allowing his lips to part, and Dean met him halfway.
This kiss was warmer and smoother, and Dean’s tongue ventured into his mouth, teasing at his. The sensation was oddly pleasant, and he felt his body reacting without his command again, heat spreading up his front and hairs rising on his arms. He hadn’t gotten this far in the brothel - nowhere near, actually - and he hadn’t anticipated his body knowing more than he did about the subject.
Dean’s hands parted his coat and suit jacket and explored underneath, following the curves of his torso beneath the button-down shirt. His mouth pulled away long enough to ask, “Do you ever take this stuff off?”
“I’ve never had a need,” Castiel answered against his lips.
Dean kissed him firmly, then pulled back to focus on removing the trench coat and suit jacket. “This is like Christmas morning. Y’know, for kids that had a Christmas morning.”
Need was a part of it, yes, but Castiel had also always felt that the clothes were a part of his vessel, like hair or fingernails. They were Jimmy’s, and so they must remain intact for when the body was returned. But returning it was no longer in the plan, and for all intents and purposes, the body was Castiel’s, to keep clothed or unclothed as he wished.
The trench coat landed in a heap on the floor beside the bed, and Dean captured Castiel’s mouth with his, pushing him farther back on the bed. When he went to remove Castiel’s shoes, Castiel pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at his body, his head tipped sideways.
“There’s not a lot of it, is there?”
“A lot of what?”
Castiel tested words mentally before settling on one: my vessel, this body, me… “My body,” he compromised. “It looked like more, with the coat on.”
“That coat’s about three sizes too big for you, dude.” Dean tossed one shoe behind him, then the other, then the socks. Climbing back onto the bed, he flattened himself against Castiel and kissed him deeply, one hand sliding up under his shirt. His hand was cold, and Castiel inadvertently arched his back at the touch.
The same thing happened when Dean’s hips rocked against his, something stiff rubbing at him through the fabric. Heat spiked upwards from Castiel’s groin, and he let out a surprised sound into Dean’s mouth. His companion chuckled and reached for his belt buckle.
This was no storm or flood of sensations, though - it was just his body reacting to something base and familiar. It was what bodies did. Castiel felt it like he felt himself being stabbed or punched - a dim rush of something happening to his flesh, the flesh reacting distantly, and his own mind growing slightly dazed in the wake of it.
He wished he could get the full impact of it - especially when Dean took his time pulling down the slacks, running his fingers over the insides of his thighs all the way down with that smug expression.
And when Dean unbuttoned his shirt and diligently tongued both his nipples until they - and other parts of him - rose in appreciation.
And when Dean had his tongue in Castiel's mouth and lubed fingers inside him, stretching him out.
Castiel didn’t say anything of it because he didn’t want to spoil it for his partner. So instead of thinking about how much he wished he could feel all this, he watched Dean feel it.
When Dean eased inside of Castiel, his breath sucked in and he closed his eyes, the hard lines around them softening. Leaning in for a kiss, he pushed Castiel’s knees up farther, tangling their bodies together. His breath caught for a moment, and then he began to move around and inside of Castiel, his hands hitting key reaction points on the upper body while he filled him.
Castiel leaned into the motion and placed his hands on Dean’s body, mapping its contours - the slow rise of his pectorals, the damp line of his spine where sweat collected, the strength in each flex of his buttocks. Chasing a bead of sweat down the side of Dean’s face with his tongue, Castiel realized he was enjoying himself, even if it wasn’t in the ideal way.
Dean even smelled fascinating like this: a combination of whiskey, sweat, and something musky that made Castiel’s nose reach for his neck - pheramones, probably. He tasted the same, minus the whisky.
“Oh Christ,” Dean said as he quickened his pace, and Castiel decided to let it slide.
Then Dean’s hand slid between them and wrapped tight around Castiel’s erection, making his body thrust up into Dean’s hand.
“You like that?” Dean said in his ear.
“Yes,” Castiel answered, because it was definitely pleasant. He curled his fingers in Dean’s hair and held him close, feeling his hands clench tighter as his companion stroked him.
“You ever come before?”
“No.”
Dean pulled his head back to kiss him, the movements of his mouth becoming sloppy. His hips bucked, and Castiel closed his own legs around his companion’s lower back to keep them both steady.
“Cas,” Dean said against his lips, his voice ragged, “I’m gonna-get you off.” Then he gasped and muffled a curse against Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel held onto him firmly, entranced by the way the muscles of his back quivered - first in quick succession, then a few specific areas, and then just a lingering twitch that faded as Dean’s whole body relaxed.
Everything but his hand relaxed.
Dean kissed him again. “Let me know where you’re at.”
Castiel frowned at him. “Omaha.”
Dean grinned and inched himself down the bed, coiling between Castiel’s legs. “I swear to God, it’s like you don’t even have TV up on those clouds.”
“There aren’t clouds. Heaven is a metaphysical manifestation of-what are you-”
The wet heat of Dean’s mouth took him by surprise, and his legs jerked.
“Dean, you don’t have to do that.”
Dean wasn’t listening. Or if he was, he was choosing to ignore the words.
Pressure built in Castiel’s groin, and he laid back, resting his hand in partner’s hair and hoping that his body would just get this over with quickly. It wouldn’t be the technicolor ending that Dean wanted it to be, and having him spend the effort to so little payoff seemed unkind somehow.
Fortunately, Castiel’s body responded to Dean’s mouth with a new sort of vigor, heat blossoming up it, toes digging into the mattress, muscles clenching. His breath hitched, and his vocal cords acted without permission, tearing a nonsense syllable from his throat.
“I’m-” he said, gripping Dean’s hair again. “I think-I’m-ah-”
It absolutely blindsided him.
For a moment, Castiel felt every spec of himself like he was fully restored and flying. Pleasure rolled across him - the full scope of it, not just observed from a distance - and he arched into it, unable to breathe or speak. For the first time, he felt the entirety of his body as it was intended to be felt - the whole charged, sweaty, base, familiar shape of it. It was his.
As he wound down, his palm pressed to his forehead and his eyes staring widely at the ceiling, Dean hoisted himself up on the bed and spread out next to him. The hunter lay on his side, propping up his head on his hand. “You were saying?”
Castiel licked his lips and swallowed. “I think I’m starting to feel something,” he said plainly, and smiled, anticipating a laugh.
It didn’t come. It took him a moment of blinking and reassembling his thoughts to realize that Dean wasn’t in on that particular joke, that it had been an inside joke between himself, Ellen, and Jo. A way to tease the angel in the backseat, to make him feel like a part of the group, and to entertain themselves on the long trip to Carthage when the radio would only play Evangelical sermons.
And he realized, with a very clear sinking sensation in his stomach, that there was no one left to laugh at it. The shared experience, the thing they’d built together, was gone forever.
Dead. So that was what Dean meant.
Dean frowned. “Cas, are you crying?”
“No,” Castiel said, and when his companion raised an eyebrow at him, he took a swipe across his own left eye. His fingers smudged wet. Castiel stared at them and took a deep breath. Then he wiped them off on the comforter and cradled Dean’s face in that hand, reaching up for a chaste kiss. “How are you?”
Dean’s smile wavered. “I figure I’ve got a minute or two of bliss left, and after that? I dunno.”
Castiel offered him a smile and turned over to face him. “If it helps, I’ll stay with you.”
Dean let out a sigh and nodded. “That helps.”
Castiel settled in, one hand on Dean’s cheek and another tugging the comforter around his companion. “I have a proposition for you.”
Dean leaned toward him, nearly burying his face in the comforter. “Give me a while to recharge, Cas. I’m not a sex toy.”
“Not that,” Castiel said, running his thumb gently across the rise of Dean’s cheekbone. “We talk about them. Ellen and Jo. You tell me about your time with them, and I’ll tell you about mine.”
Dean nodded, closing his eyes. “Yeah. We could do that.”
A while later, Castiel’s cell phone buzzed on the floor, lighting up the side of the bed with Sam’s name.
Cas did you get in touch w/him? Do you know when he’ll be back?
Castiel furrowed his brow at the worried text message for a while, and then wrote back:
Dean is with me. We’ll be there eventually.
THE END!
Title: In Touch
Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam
Ratings/Warnings: NC-17/SPOILERS up to 5.10 "Abandon All Hope."
Word Count: 3600
Summary: Castiel doesn't understand why Dean's upset, but he's trying. Angst, drunk!Dean, porn, and text messages - not necessarily in that order.
Human emotions were violent, unwieldy things. They flashed and rolled like lightning - one moment, still, the next, illuminated with feeling branching across the mind. It took the slightest charge to set them off. Castiel saw through his companions’ hard-set expressions to the storms below, and he was glad, for once, that he felt so little. His own reaction to the Harvelle women’s death was nowhere near so dramatic, or so dangerous.
He felt certainty, mostly - certainty that their clean souls would be granted rewards in his Father’s realm. And certainty that his brief time with Ellen and Jo was beneficial for him. Through them, Castiel gained experiences. He drank shots. He rode in a car. He even became part of an inside joke during their journey together - when one of the women was asked about her current state of being, she would answer, “I think I’m starting to feel something,” and both would laugh so heartily it raised a smile from him, even if they were making fun of him. He'd been able to make them laugh with the joke himself once, at a truck stop where the waitress asked how he was doing before taking his order. It felt good.
Other things were uncertain: the fate of the earth, the next step, the hunters’ faith. Castiel found these issues far more concerning than the deaths of two soldiers who had offered their lives for the cause.
So on the fourth day after Carthage, when Sam Winchester called him to tell him that Dean had disappeared with the Impala after an argument, Castiel didn’t understand why.
“He told Bobby and me to screw ourselves and took off,” Sam said on the other end of the line. “Seemed like things were really starting to get to him.”
“What ‘things’?” Castiel replied, frowning.
There was silence on the other end, and for a moment he suspected the phone’s minutes had run out again. Then Sam sighed and said in a tight voice, “Look, Cas, I don’t have time to sit you down with Bambi right now and explain it. Can you just-can you try getting in touch with him? He’s not answering when I call.”
“I’ll try,” he said, and hung up on Sam.
Castiel leaned forward on the park bench he’d been occupying all evening, frowning at the glowing screen of his phone in the dying light. Having spent so much of the last year around Dean Winchester, he knew that if Dean didn’t want to be found, he would be difficult to locate. And with the cloaking sigils across his ribcage-
The phone buzzed and lit up, illuminating the walking path at Castiel’s feet. He scoffed at the name that flashed on the screen and read the new text message.
blcckwater inn outsied omaha rm 11 cn u come alone cas?
It took Castiel a moment to parse out the misspellings. Then he sent back his usual reply:
I’ll be there immediately.
The park blurred and disappeared around him, and a moment later a dirty motel room landed beneath his feet. It was dressed in browns and greens with a mural of birches along the far wall, and Dean sat hunched on the double bed, a bottle in one hand and his cell phone in the other.
“Dean,” Castiel said.
The cell phone in Dean’s hand made an alert sound. He read the screen and gave Castiel a small, hollow smile. “Beat your own text. That’s gotta be some sorta record.”
“Sam said you’d-”
“Sam,” Dean sighed, wincing as if the word hurt his mouth. “Look, this’s got nothin’ to do with him.”
Castiel took a moment to study the room. Dean’s duffel bag lay on the floor near the bolted front door, its flattened form indicating a hard and sudden landing. A spiderweb of cracks rent the screen of the television, a remote in pieces on the carpet. Empty liquor bottles clustered on the nightstand, their forms illuminated by the art deco lamp behind them, and even from the entrance he could smell their former contents.
The damage seemed past, but he sensed the storm that had brought it on still roiling inside Dean. “Come on,” he said, extending a hand toward the bed. “We should get back to Bobby’s.”
“Si’down, Cas,” Dean replied, not making eye contact.
“They’re worried about you. I can transport you there if you like, or I could ‘mojo’ the alcohol from your bloodstream so you’re safe to dri-”
“Sit. Down,” Dean commanded, his voice slightly too loud.
Castiel sighed. There was no point in arguing with him when he was in this state. The motel room was sparse on furniture, so Castiel sat on the edge of the bed beside Dean. The hunter passed the bottle to him, and he frowned at it, thinking of shots with Ellen. “If you won’t come back with me, why did you ask me here?”
“Because,” Dean said, slapping his cell phone down on the nightstand, “nobody was talking in that goddamn house, they were just holding it all in like we always do. An’ I can’t do it anymore, Cas. I’m too tired to put up that front. But with you-” He smiled a little - the first time Castiel had seen him smile since they’d left Bobby’s on the last mission. “I dunno, I don’t need it so much around you. Maybe it’s ‘cause you wear all your emotions on your face.”
Castiel stared at him impassively, trying to decide if that was a joke.
Dean nudged the bottle in his hand. “Drink, you stupid bastard.”
“It won’t affect me.”
“Yeah, but you make entertaining faces when you drink.”
“If you wanted entertainment, you shouldn’t have broken the television,” Castiel said, but he tipped the bottle to his lips anyway and drew a long swallow of whiskey. His throat tightened as the burn crept down its walls, but he didn’t feel the pain he knew would be there for a human. He envied Dean for that, in a way - all he had for himself were grayer shades of human sensation. While he didn’t want to feel pain - especially to the level that Dean was wallowing in it now - it seemed almost a fair trade to also be able to feel a human degree of joy, to experience the world in full color. Sometimes, he understood why Anna had chosen to fall.
Dean watched him drink - at first with a smirk, but as his eyes fell away from the bottle his expression sank into despair.
“You’re upset,” Castiel said.
“You’re observant, Holmes,” Dean replied miserably.
“Who?”
“Movie detective. Just-just forget it. Keep drinking.”
Castiel took another drink from the bottle, studying its contents as they sloshed toward and then away from his mouth. “If not talking makes you want to run away and get drunk,” he said thoughtfully, “maybe you should talk.”
“I don’t-” Dean dropped his head into his hands, the motion making him sway slightly. He drew his hands back through his hair. “I don’t even know where I’d start.”
“What’s upsetting you at this time?”
“Take your pick. I mean, Christ. Everybody who gets close t’me dies. I spent ten years ripping people apart in Hell. I started the goddamn apocalypse, an’-” Dean blinked back tears and gave a hollow laugh. “And I can’t stop it, Cas. Because of me, two of my friends’re dead.” He blinked again, but this time it did nothing for the tears. “Nah, screw that. Bobby says family is the people you let make you miserable, and if it’s that simple, Ellen and Jo have been my family for a long time. And I got ‘em hurt an’ killed, ‘cause that’s just-that’s just what I do to family.”
“They’re at peace now,” Castiel said.
“They’re dead.”
“They were good people, and their souls have been rewarded in Heaven.”
“They’re dead, Cas!” The words came out half-hissed, half-slurred, and pure rage. It made Castiel lean away, startled. Dean glared at him. “What the hell’s your problem? I’m not some idiot kid with a dead goldfish! That bedtime story BS isn’t gonna help!”
“It’s not a bedtime story,” Castiel said, his shoulder moving defensively between him and his companion’s angry face.
“It’s a crock of-”
“It’s home,” he insisted. “And they were soldiers who offered their lives for a cause.”
“Wake up, Cas!” Dean said, waving one arm in a wide arc like a preacher speaking to the audience of bottles. “Case you haven’t noticed, we lost! Game over, out of quarters lost. They died so I could shoot a toy gun at the devil, and that’s not a goddamn reward. You knew them, for Christ’s sake! You partied with them! You went into battle with them! How can you not care about this?”
Castiel clenched his jaw. Coming here had been a bad idea. He didn’t understand what Dean wanted him to discuss, and now the man was denying his Father’s glory and making accusations. Castiel sighed. “I should go.” He reached to set the bottle on the nightstand.
As he released the bottle, Dean caught his arm. “Don’t.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause if you leave, I’m alone with this.” Dean looked him in the eye, his expression as pleading as it had been in front of the Toreador months ago. “An’ I can’t handle it, Cas. It’s too much, too dark. I’d kill for the kind of angelic numbness you’ve got.”
“You don’t want to feel things as I do, Dean.”
“I want-” Dean studied him, licking his lips carefully, and Castiel sensed a shift in the storm. Dean pulled Castiel’s arm aside slowly, his eyes laser-focused on his face. Then, cupping his other hand at Castiel’s neck, he surged forward and kissed him.
It was…strange. Just a hard, stationary press of lips against lips for a moment, and then Dean’s mouth moved softly, and Castiel felt his own move in response, like an ingrained reaction. Surprise hit Castiel belatedly, and he pulled back, the back of his hand flying to his mouth.
Dean looked like he would have laughed at the reaction had it not worried him. “M’sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I wanted-I thought-but I’m pretty wasted, and that wasn’t… That was stupid, m’sorry.”
That, Castiel realized, was Dean without the front. Maybe his presence here was helping after all. Dean rarely left himself so exposed, even around his brother. And if it was helping, Castiel couldn’t rationalize leaving now. “You wanted what?” he asked.
“To feel something other than this,” Dean said.
“Oh.” Castiel peered into the man’s mind and found what he meant exactly. “With me? Why?”
“Because…you’re here. And I like you. And you do that thing with your lips when you’re gonna say something serious.” He smirked. “Yeah, like that.”
“I won’t take advantage of you when you’re inebriated.”
“Cas,” Dean said, giving him an almost pitying look, “I may be drunk, but you’re an angel. I think we’re on a level playing field here.”
Castiel frowned and touched two fingers to his companion’s forehead, sapping the alcohol from his bloodstream.
“Hey!” Dean objected, “Don’t mojo me when I’m trying to seduce you!”
“You’re not doing a very good job of it.” Castiel watched him suspiciously. “If you even still want to, when sober.”
Dean touched his finger to the tip of his nose. “Z, Y, X, W, V-look, if I told you this could be our last night on earth, what would you say?”
Castiel took in what he sensed coming from Dean. He was still upset, but no longer a tangle of lightning and noises. This idea seemed to collect him, dulling and pushing aside the painful thoughts. He was focused. He had a goal in mind. And that was an improvement worth exploring.
Castiel swallowed. Then he reached out his hand and ran his fingers experimentally down the line of Dean’s jaw. Stubble scraped at his fingertips, and the man’s chin shivered slightly under his touch. Castiel leaned toward him, allowing his lips to part, and Dean met him halfway.
This kiss was warmer and smoother, and Dean’s tongue ventured into his mouth, teasing at his. The sensation was oddly pleasant, and he felt his body reacting without his command again, heat spreading up his front and hairs rising on his arms. He hadn’t gotten this far in the brothel - nowhere near, actually - and he hadn’t anticipated his body knowing more than he did about the subject.
Dean’s hands parted his coat and suit jacket and explored underneath, following the curves of his torso beneath the button-down shirt. His mouth pulled away long enough to ask, “Do you ever take this stuff off?”
“I’ve never had a need,” Castiel answered against his lips.
Dean kissed him firmly, then pulled back to focus on removing the trench coat and suit jacket. “This is like Christmas morning. Y’know, for kids that had a Christmas morning.”
Need was a part of it, yes, but Castiel had also always felt that the clothes were a part of his vessel, like hair or fingernails. They were Jimmy’s, and so they must remain intact for when the body was returned. But returning it was no longer in the plan, and for all intents and purposes, the body was Castiel’s, to keep clothed or unclothed as he wished.
The trench coat landed in a heap on the floor beside the bed, and Dean captured Castiel’s mouth with his, pushing him farther back on the bed. When he went to remove Castiel’s shoes, Castiel pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at his body, his head tipped sideways.
“There’s not a lot of it, is there?”
“A lot of what?”
Castiel tested words mentally before settling on one: my vessel, this body, me… “My body,” he compromised. “It looked like more, with the coat on.”
“That coat’s about three sizes too big for you, dude.” Dean tossed one shoe behind him, then the other, then the socks. Climbing back onto the bed, he flattened himself against Castiel and kissed him deeply, one hand sliding up under his shirt. His hand was cold, and Castiel inadvertently arched his back at the touch.
The same thing happened when Dean’s hips rocked against his, something stiff rubbing at him through the fabric. Heat spiked upwards from Castiel’s groin, and he let out a surprised sound into Dean’s mouth. His companion chuckled and reached for his belt buckle.
This was no storm or flood of sensations, though - it was just his body reacting to something base and familiar. It was what bodies did. Castiel felt it like he felt himself being stabbed or punched - a dim rush of something happening to his flesh, the flesh reacting distantly, and his own mind growing slightly dazed in the wake of it.
He wished he could get the full impact of it - especially when Dean took his time pulling down the slacks, running his fingers over the insides of his thighs all the way down with that smug expression.
And when Dean unbuttoned his shirt and diligently tongued both his nipples until they - and other parts of him - rose in appreciation.
And when Dean had his tongue in Castiel's mouth and lubed fingers inside him, stretching him out.
Castiel didn’t say anything of it because he didn’t want to spoil it for his partner. So instead of thinking about how much he wished he could feel all this, he watched Dean feel it.
When Dean eased inside of Castiel, his breath sucked in and he closed his eyes, the hard lines around them softening. Leaning in for a kiss, he pushed Castiel’s knees up farther, tangling their bodies together. His breath caught for a moment, and then he began to move around and inside of Castiel, his hands hitting key reaction points on the upper body while he filled him.
Castiel leaned into the motion and placed his hands on Dean’s body, mapping its contours - the slow rise of his pectorals, the damp line of his spine where sweat collected, the strength in each flex of his buttocks. Chasing a bead of sweat down the side of Dean’s face with his tongue, Castiel realized he was enjoying himself, even if it wasn’t in the ideal way.
Dean even smelled fascinating like this: a combination of whiskey, sweat, and something musky that made Castiel’s nose reach for his neck - pheramones, probably. He tasted the same, minus the whisky.
“Oh Christ,” Dean said as he quickened his pace, and Castiel decided to let it slide.
Then Dean’s hand slid between them and wrapped tight around Castiel’s erection, making his body thrust up into Dean’s hand.
“You like that?” Dean said in his ear.
“Yes,” Castiel answered, because it was definitely pleasant. He curled his fingers in Dean’s hair and held him close, feeling his hands clench tighter as his companion stroked him.
“You ever come before?”
“No.”
Dean pulled his head back to kiss him, the movements of his mouth becoming sloppy. His hips bucked, and Castiel closed his own legs around his companion’s lower back to keep them both steady.
“Cas,” Dean said against his lips, his voice ragged, “I’m gonna-get you off.” Then he gasped and muffled a curse against Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel held onto him firmly, entranced by the way the muscles of his back quivered - first in quick succession, then a few specific areas, and then just a lingering twitch that faded as Dean’s whole body relaxed.
Everything but his hand relaxed.
Dean kissed him again. “Let me know where you’re at.”
Castiel frowned at him. “Omaha.”
Dean grinned and inched himself down the bed, coiling between Castiel’s legs. “I swear to God, it’s like you don’t even have TV up on those clouds.”
“There aren’t clouds. Heaven is a metaphysical manifestation of-what are you-”
The wet heat of Dean’s mouth took him by surprise, and his legs jerked.
“Dean, you don’t have to do that.”
Dean wasn’t listening. Or if he was, he was choosing to ignore the words.
Pressure built in Castiel’s groin, and he laid back, resting his hand in partner’s hair and hoping that his body would just get this over with quickly. It wouldn’t be the technicolor ending that Dean wanted it to be, and having him spend the effort to so little payoff seemed unkind somehow.
Fortunately, Castiel’s body responded to Dean’s mouth with a new sort of vigor, heat blossoming up it, toes digging into the mattress, muscles clenching. His breath hitched, and his vocal cords acted without permission, tearing a nonsense syllable from his throat.
“I’m-” he said, gripping Dean’s hair again. “I think-I’m-ah-”
It absolutely blindsided him.
For a moment, Castiel felt every spec of himself like he was fully restored and flying. Pleasure rolled across him - the full scope of it, not just observed from a distance - and he arched into it, unable to breathe or speak. For the first time, he felt the entirety of his body as it was intended to be felt - the whole charged, sweaty, base, familiar shape of it. It was his.
As he wound down, his palm pressed to his forehead and his eyes staring widely at the ceiling, Dean hoisted himself up on the bed and spread out next to him. The hunter lay on his side, propping up his head on his hand. “You were saying?”
Castiel licked his lips and swallowed. “I think I’m starting to feel something,” he said plainly, and smiled, anticipating a laugh.
It didn’t come. It took him a moment of blinking and reassembling his thoughts to realize that Dean wasn’t in on that particular joke, that it had been an inside joke between himself, Ellen, and Jo. A way to tease the angel in the backseat, to make him feel like a part of the group, and to entertain themselves on the long trip to Carthage when the radio would only play Evangelical sermons.
And he realized, with a very clear sinking sensation in his stomach, that there was no one left to laugh at it. The shared experience, the thing they’d built together, was gone forever.
Dead. So that was what Dean meant.
Dean frowned. “Cas, are you crying?”
“No,” Castiel said, and when his companion raised an eyebrow at him, he took a swipe across his own left eye. His fingers smudged wet. Castiel stared at them and took a deep breath. Then he wiped them off on the comforter and cradled Dean’s face in that hand, reaching up for a chaste kiss. “How are you?”
Dean’s smile wavered. “I figure I’ve got a minute or two of bliss left, and after that? I dunno.”
Castiel offered him a smile and turned over to face him. “If it helps, I’ll stay with you.”
Dean let out a sigh and nodded. “That helps.”
Castiel settled in, one hand on Dean’s cheek and another tugging the comforter around his companion. “I have a proposition for you.”
Dean leaned toward him, nearly burying his face in the comforter. “Give me a while to recharge, Cas. I’m not a sex toy.”
“Not that,” Castiel said, running his thumb gently across the rise of Dean’s cheekbone. “We talk about them. Ellen and Jo. You tell me about your time with them, and I’ll tell you about mine.”
Dean nodded, closing his eyes. “Yeah. We could do that.”
A while later, Castiel’s cell phone buzzed on the floor, lighting up the side of the bed with Sam’s name.
Cas did you get in touch w/him? Do you know when he’ll be back?
Castiel furrowed his brow at the worried text message for a while, and then wrote back:
Dean is with me. We’ll be there eventually.
THE END!