Fic: "When Play Turns Bitter - Chapter Six: Tiger in My Tank" [SPN - Dean/Cas, Dean/OMC]

[nanoochka]

TITLE: "When Play Turns Bitter - Chapter Six: Tiger in My Tank"
AUTHOR: nanoochka
RATING: NC-17 for language, violence and graphic descriptions of sex.
PAIRING: Dean/Castiel, Dean/OMC, Sam/OFC, mentions of Dean/Lisa and Cas/Balthazar
SUMMARY: “You’re happy with your world/ But there is something small in the back of your head/ Your concerns are still free/ You fall into the trap/ Without knowing what you want/ And there’s nothing left but a foolish idea/ Everything goes back into place.” Remember that play turns sour when playing with a fire; but Dean is as tired of pretending like his life hasn’t begun, as he is waiting for Castiel to notice.
WARNINGS: OMC slash
SPOILERS: General S6
WORDCOUNT: WIP
DISCLAIMER: Supernatural and all associated content is the property of The CW and Eric Kripke. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been wanting to write a Dean/Cas epic in the frame of Dean/OMC for a while-there’s so much fic out there that situates their relationship within Dean’s involvement with Lisa, which is obviously all very well and good (and canon); but I’m more curious about how Dean would handle getting involved with another man. There are a lot of fun implications not only for his sexual identity, but how Castiel might respond to such a thing, so I figured to just forge ahead and see how things work out. The title is from the traditional Welsh standard written and sung by Caryl Parry-Jones, “Chwarae'n Troi'n Chwerw” (“When Play Turns Bitter” or, “When Play Turns Sour” - lyrics here); chapter title from Eels. Thanks to fossarian for taking point as head cheerleader/alpha, and shane_mayhem for the incisive beta and Portland-related cultural-geographical coaching. The beautiful artwork is by my boo, daggomus_prime.

Part Five

“When Play Turns Bitter” by nanoochka

Chapter Six: Tiger in My Tank

Dying sunlight was still filtering in through the enormous front windows of the loft when Dean slid open the door to Kurt and Nadia’s home. The city lights were just beginning to glimmer to life and the Willamette was a blaze of gold-touched blue beneath the fading spring day, and Dean smiled to himself at the picture it painted. He was still a little awed by the beautiful interior of the flat, but it tended to pale in comparison to the view. Wisely, Nadia and Kurt had set aside another section of the loft to serve as the TV “room”; the main sitting area, organized around a large stone fireplace and flanked by the kitchen and dining room, was too serene and perfect to have to compete with the-frankly ridiculous-entertainment unit. While it did nothing to make the space less intimidating, Dean had to admit that it wasn’t as cold or industrial as it had first appeared to him at Nadia’s birthday.

The sound of the door closing made Kurt look up from the sofa, where he was changing the strings on an acoustic guitar. Dean nodded at him in greeting, lips quirking, but he was quickly overtaken by a sheepish smile when he saw the look of unrestrained pleasure on Kurt’s face. He held up two bottles of red wine as proof that he came bearing gifts-a dubious peace offering, however unnecessary, because the extent of Dean’s wine savvy was what Jessie had recommended to him. Immediately interested, Kurt sprang to his feet. Barefoot and wearing a white track jacket striped with the colours of Germany’s flag, he padded over, brushing off his hands on his dark blue jeans.

“Well, hello there,” he chirped playfully while Dean shrugged out of his jacket and simultaneously handed over the wine.

Kurt eyed the bottles with a raised eyebrow, but Dean could tell he was pleased with the selection. He considered it well worth the money, since Kurt drunk and goofy was one of the more entertaining things he’d seen in a while.

“Y’all are trying to get back into my good graces, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I’m not that complicated a guy,” Dean answered with a smirk. “I’m just trying to get you smashed.”

It had been a few days since he’d last hung out with Kurt, and Dean was amazed by how much he’d missed his easy, boyish charm. He was beginning to realize that it was the same kind of warmth he got around Cas, or the rare girl he’d liked enough to date in the past. Instead of feeling alarmed by the comparison, however, he accepted it as a good thing. Sometime in the last few weeks, Dean had begun to stop drawing a line in the sand between what felt good, and what felt normal. Being honest with himself, he had no idea what normal was; so it made the most sense to go with what seemed right, what he most enjoyed. Unsurprisingly, Kurt, with his coy sense of humour and relaxing presence, was at the top of that list; Dean felt awful that it had taken Cas’s careless dismissal to get his head on straight.

To prove it, Dean pulled Kurt to him for a kiss. Smiling, Kurt held the bottles of wine out of the way and allowed himself to be caught, opening his mouth against Dean’s in a sinuous, hungry slide. It was exactly the right mix of need and forcefulness that Dean had been looking forward to, and his cock gave a well-meaning twitch in response.

Much to his chagrin, it was Kurt who pulled away with a lingering sigh. “Wow,” he said, already a little breathless.

Dean flushed, pleased with himself. “Wow?” he echoed.

Kurt hummed with approval, giving a lopsided smile which, in combination with the bright spots of colour that had formed on his cheeks, made him look like a college junior who’d accidentally wandered out of an Abercrombie catalogue. He brushed one last kiss against Dean’s jaw that ended with a bite to his chin. Dean inhaled at the nip of Kurt’s sharp eye-teeth on his skin, but the sensation wasn’t at all unpleasant.

“You need to make shit up to me more often, man,” Kurt suggested.

“Oh yeah?”

He laughed. “Totally. I can be pretty forgiving when I want to be.”

“Do you even know what you’re forgiving me for?”

Dean watched Kurt saunter towards the kitchen, spinning one of the bottles around on his fingertips like a drummer twirling his drumsticks. It was rather impressive, considering Dean’s next move would have been to drop it. As far as his question went, though, Dean suspected the answer was no. He’d yet to actually see him angry about something, not even when watching Kurt lose a round of pool to a blatant hustler at The Underground. When Dean pointed it out afterwards, Kurt had shrugged and said, “If he needs the money so badly that he’s gotta cheat in front of a room full of people, he can keep it,” whereas Dean would have punched the asshole out in the back alley. He figured that was one of the most glaring differences between them-Dean was always about an inch away from flying off the handle, and Kurt seemed impossible to piss off.

Predictably, Kurt shrugged his shoulders and said, “Nope. I got the pleasure of your company and a fucking ‘07 Barolo. There’s not a damned thing I can see wrong with this scenario, Dean.”

Unlacing his boots and toeing them off by the door, Dean plunked himself down onto the cream leather sectional, which was surprisingly cushy given how stiff and modern it looked. He grabbed Kurt’s Takamine off the cushion and strummed the only chords he knew, which also happened to be the opening few bars of “Ramble On”. The man responsible for teaching him smiled in recognition and came over, settling himself at the other end of the couch and assuming a comfortable sprawl so that their legs tangled.

“That’s awfully out of tune,” Kurt pointed out.

“How many of these damn things do you need, anyway?” Dean shot back.

Kurt and Nadia shared an office towards the back of the loft, neatly divided between Nadia’s desk and Kurt’s massive drafting table and mock-up area, but Kurt had repurposed a spare walk-in closet as a storage area for his numerous guitars and keyboards. The Steinway from Nadia’s birthday also belonged to Kurt. When asked, he’d bashfully admitted that he’d bought it with his college scholarship money and worked the rest of the way through school, a combination of bartending and-yeah, amidst no small amount of embarrassment and blushing-modeling. These days Kurt was in a better position to afford one, but sacrificed owning a car in favour of buying more instruments, which at around $4000 a pop, was only vaguely blasphemous to Dean.

With a mock growl, Kurt pounced and wrestled away the guitar, though he merely proceeded to tune it while perched half in Dean’s lap. It was fascinating to watch him work his way through all six strings without referring to the piano or a tuning aid. There was a look of such concentration on Kurt’s face that Dean had the impulse to reach out and stroke his hair, thick and inviting like cocoa-coloured silk, so he did. Kurt’s eyes shifted over to him at the touch, and his expression softened to something fond as he tilted his head into Dean’s palm, rubbing like a cat. That look was beginning to terrify Dean a great deal less than it had at other points in his life, including in the last twenty-four hours.

He handed the guitar back to Dean once it was tuned, but Dean just placed it a safe distance away on the sofa and dragged Kurt more fully on top of him. Kurt went easily, shimmying his weight around so that he was straddling Dean’s hips. He pulled Dean up to him for another kiss, this one more demanding than the one before, and as he ran his tongue along the seam of Dean’s lips, Dean made a sound between a laugh and a groan. The more time they spent around each other, the more obvious it became how they found themselves forgetting the original purpose of hanging out in the first place. He was open to the possibility that Kurt’s lips emitted some quantifiable gravitational pull.

Long accustomed to being the larger body in his choice of partners, Dean noted that he was effectively pinned to the sofa with Kurt in his lap and unable to do more than enjoy the attention. They were about the same height, Kurt perhaps a hair sorter, but Kurt definitely had a few pounds on him due to the avid swimming and soccer. He was built more like Sammy, who was increasingly more muscular than Dean these days. Without the constant physical rigours of hunting, fitness came down to running and anything he could do on the floor or a playground jungle gym, since Dean refused to join a club with his brother. (They were still the punchline of numerous gay remarks when they went out, and working out together wasn’t the best way to remedy that.) Now that he was no longer eating burgers and diner food each day, Dean found himself sliding back towards the leanness of his mid-twenties and into a whole other weight category than Kurt and Sam.

Thinking about his brother while he had his tongue in another man’s mouth was decidedly inappropriate, though. His stomach also chose that time to give an insistent growl of hunger.

Kurt broke away with a chuckle, and slid one hand down to pat at Dean’s belly. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Nah.” Dean enjoyed making the slightly longer fringe above Kurt’s forehead stick up in a tousled, sexy way. The brown eyes looked back at him in amusement, fully aware of what kind of mess Dean was making of him. “I don’t want you to cook,” Dean instructed, after a moment’s thought. “Let’s just say fuck it and order in, I am completely down with ridin’ this sofa for the rest of the night.”

“You make a compelling argument,” Kurt answered. “But should I be jealous of the fact that the sofa gets more action than I do?”

Once the words were out, Kurt cringed. So far he had been patient with Dean’s apparent disinclination to make any leaps, sexually, but this was the first sign he’d given that he might be frustrated with the slow progress. Reluctantly, Kurt untangled himself from Dean’s limbs and withdrew to a spot a couple feel away, no longer touching.

Dean understood and probably would have borne the plight with far less equanimity, but he was doing his best. Kurt had to sense by now that he was actively pursuing damaged goods, in more ways than one; normal people didn’t fling themselves at meaningless sex without batting an eye and treat prospective boyfriends like potentially-radioactive waste. Portland might have been good for Dean in the first respect, but he still needed some convincing that he was anything approaching relationship material. Maybe he was reading Kurt all wrong, but that seemed to be where they were headed.

He couldn’t say any of this out loud; Dean didn’t know where to start.

“The night’s still young,” he murmured instead. More brightly, he added, “So, Chinese-or Thai?”

The movie they ended up watching was neither Die Hard nor a rental, but Let the Right One In, which was Kurt’s recommendation from his and Nadia’s collection. Despite his dislike of subtitles and the dubiousness of a foreign vampire movie-vampire movies in general were a trial to endure, especially after his one brush with immortality-Dean was completely engrossed by the film within minutes. During the opening credits Dean had remarked upon the transparency of the ‘movie rental’ ploy, though to Kurt’s amusement he was too fascinated by the interpretation of vampire lore to fidget through the first half until it seemed appropriate to hijack the movie in favour of groping. There was some of that, too, Kurt’s hand having slid beneath the neckline of Dean’s t-shirt to massage his shoulders, but they had lemongrass chicken and drank wine and made it through to the credits without incident.

Dean would have loved to point out to Kurt all the ways in which real vampires were different, though the movie was so creepy that even he didn’t care. Cas reminded him in some ways of Eli, though without the blood-drinking and death. They had the same sense of protectiveness, of cherishing an intimate confidence and slowly changing in response to the world around them, even if they never aged a day. Like Eli, Cas would always be a bit of a mystery. Dean wondered if that made him Oskar.

Kurt was hardly a chatterbox at the best of times, but Dean thought he seemed a little more subdued than normal, cheerful but distracted. It wasn’t enough to warrant commenting upon, not that Dean was the type to do so anyway, but he watched Kurt out of the corner of his eye to be sure that he wasn’t imagining it. He told himself that the wine was probably just mellowing him out, since Dean himself had drained his fourth glass to a feeling of lazy contentment and the strong desire to curl up for a nap.

Instead he refilled his glass with the dregs of the second bottle and followed Kurt, carrying the empty takeout boxes, out of the TV room to the kitchen. Dean was on board for hanging out in front of the fireplace for a while longer while Kurt massaged his scalp or played softly on the piano or guitar, which was a pretty awesome way to spend an evening even if it didn’t end in sex. When the hell had he become so resigned to not getting laid? Maybe they’d make out and Dean would see how much further he could push himself tonight, how much closer he could come to settling the matter that he was too far down the road of bi-curious experimentation to start kidding himself now. Worst of all was that it wasn’t for lack of desire; most of the time Dean drove home with an aching hard-on or muscles knotted from the effort of not going all the way, to say nothing of the frustration he felt on the inside. Often it seemed that Kurt understood, but they didn’t talk about it and Dean didn’t know what to apologize for.

Bad dates happened, but the evening took a definite turn for the worse the moment that Kurt bent over to open a drawer behind the kitchen island and Dean lost the ability to concentrate with Kurt’s ass just there in front of him. As if in perfect symphony, Kurt turned around just as Dean’s foot caught on the drawer; he stumbled and the wine glass went flying out of his hand. Hunter reflexes still intact, Dean caught the stem and saved it from breaking, but had absolutely no control over the glass’s contents, which splattered unceremoniously onto the front of Kurt’s white top. His hands darting out to catch Dean’s shoulders, Kurt only just saved them from plowing over into a heap on the ground.

His eyes were wide and startled when he looked up at Dean’s face, and Dean literally heard the seconds ticking by on the wall clock as no one said anything and the wine started to turn the fabric a darker purple, brown and ugly where it had splattered the Deutschland yellow. A muscle ticked in Kurt’s jaw; a couple of hours previous, he explained that the track jacket was a prized possession from when he lived in Germany for a year. For weeks he’d worn it in support of his country during the World Cup. Dean was pooched.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Kurt glanced down at the destroyed garment and Dean fought very had not to pipe up that he knew a few tricks for getting tough stains out of clothing. He released Dean’s shoulders and his face was completely expressionless.

“We’ve been living down World War II for a long time, Dean,” he said. “Haven’t the Germans suffered enough?”

Dean frowned. He had about ten seconds left to worry that Kurt was going to punch him out before he noticed that he was, in fact, trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

He said, “Uh.”

Shoulders shaking, Kurt withdrew and covered his mouth with his hand to stifle his laughter, propping himself up against the island for support. Dean toed the drawer shut to prevent any more accidents and set the wine bottles in his other hand down.

“Jesus,” Kurt said. “I’m glad I don’t keep you around for your sense of grace and poise.”

“No, I’m here to feed you MSG and wreck your clothing.” Dean tried to quirk a smile of his own, but found himself reaching out to touch the damage instead.

When Kurt caught his concerned look, he frowned and snatched up Dean’s hand. “It’s not the end of the world,” he promised. “I’ll slip my dry cleaner a bit extra and it’ll be good as new. Plus I think I’ve got some club soda kickin’ around somewhere.”

“Oh, I definitely know it’s not the end of the world,” said Dean blithely. Kurt didn’t get the joke and he coughed. “It’s my bad, man, I hope you’ll let me pay for it.”

“How bout I stick you with the clean-up instead?” Kurt pursed his lips and lifted his eyebrows in such a way that Dean chuckled. He started to unzip the top, just enough so that Dean could see a hint of chest hair, and Dean heard the minute drop in Kurt’s voice that made him shiver. “Or, it could wait,” Kurt added. “A shower wouldn’t be a bad idea. So that I don’t reek of wine all night.” Stepping closer, Kurt halted only when he would have risked getting wine onto the front of Dean’s own shirt. Their eyes met.

Dean knew that the correct answer would have been to help Kurt unzip this top the rest of the way, to push him back against the countertop and kiss him senseless; but he felt something jam up in his chest even while his cock started to take an interest in the idea. The familiar itch in his hands returned and his cheeks started to grow warm, and typically this was long past the point where Dean made a move. He would have, maybe, if it didn’t feel so much like he was closing a door on something by doing so. The second he considered reaching out he froze up like a gear shift stuck between third and fourth, clutch locked and useless.

“I’ll clean up,” Dean assured him in as steady a voice as he could manage. “Go shower, I’ll hang out here for a bit til you’re done. Cool?”

This time, Kurt didn’t bother to hide his disappointment-noticing Dean’s physical reaction to the offer, he’d started to breathe more heavily, too, fingers tightening around Dean’s hand. He let it drop unceremoniously and made a noise of disgust.

“Did you know your lips go really red and swollen whenever you’re turned on?” he asked. His eyes, when he met Dean’s, were a mixture of hard and sad. “Usually I love seeing it… I guess it’s your tell. I love making it happen. They’re like that now, but that almost makes it worse, in a way, that you turn me down every time I want to show you how crazy you make me.”

The zipper was dragged back up and Kurt shoved his hands into the pockets of the sweater. A blush had crept across his face at the quiet outburst, but Dean didn’t know how to respond, especially not since it was true. He’d probably looked about one second away from creaming himself since the day he’d first kissed Kurt, but his failure to seal the deal was the kind of thing that got boys ridiculed in high school, and that Dean had never anticipated experiencing.

“But it’s cool,” Kurt sighed. “Fan-fuckin’-tastic.” The resignation in his voice was a million times worse than anger. “I’ll be right back.” He side-stepped Dean and disappeared upstairs without another word.

A moment later the water started, and Dean made an aborted movement to punch the island countertop. He fell just short, which was probably wise considering that his hand was considerably more breakable than marble, and instead let out a growl of frustration directed only towards himself. Was this him now, really? How the fuck had he seduced Cas so easily? Not a lot of arm-twisting had been required there, true, but the man who had lured an angel into his bed that night had been all confidence and swagger, no trace of uncertainty to the way he undressed himself and then set to work disappearing Castiel’s clothing, trenchcoat giving way to that horrible suit, the suit giving way to milky white skin and a kind of electric energy that should have scared Dean half to death, but didn’t.

Castiel could have killed him with a thought, and yet the person Dean was terrified of was a man, just a man, who genuinely seemed to want to please him, who was already so painfully out of Dean’s league that it defied reason. Cas was out of his league, too, but Cas wasn’t a man, didn’t think by the same standards; he was so far beyond classification that for once Dean’s self-doubt had lacked focus. Perhaps Kurt didn’t contain multitudes the way Cas did, but he was special, in his way. Special enough for Dean to feel something, which was probably the most terrifying thing of all.

Problem was, it seemed pretty likely that Dean had blown it. Kurt hadn’t said as much, but Dean suspected that he wouldn’t be invited back here anytime soon. That was probably for the best; with Kurt looking towards better things, Dean would be able to go back to his quiet, sexually unconfused lifestyle of pursuing women and occasionally daydreaming about angels.

Except, he didn’t quite know that he wanted to.

Once the kitchen was reasonably tidied, wine cleaned off the floor from where it had missed Kurt’s sweater and the pizza boxes stuffed into recycling, Dean proceeded to pace around the den and dining room. He contemplated just leaving, since he couldn’t see how the night would possibly be salvaged after this; but since Kurt had become something like a friend, if not a lover, Dean figured he owed him a proper goodbye, if nothing else. He didn’t see any reason to stop going to The Underground if they parted on friendly terms.

The large mirror that hung over the fireplace caught his eye, and Dean paused to stare at it for a moment, lost in thought. Although aging wasn’t something that phased Dean greatly, considering that he’d already lived an extra forty years, sometimes it caught him off-guard to see his own face and not immediately recognize himself.

He looked good for his age, but tired; he didn’t remember there being so many lines before, or having such prominent crow’s feet. Dark circles under his eyes were nothing new, but Dean was supposed to be resting, semi-retired, enjoying life. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it, but since moving to Portland he’d started to feel more like a stranger than Dean Winchester, an actor whose lines were half-forgotten. He was more of a vagabond now than when he and Sam didn’t have a home, and meeting Kurt had only intensified the feeling that he was becoming someone altogether different. What confused him wasn’t that he didn’t like it; he was scared that he was beginning to like it too much, this new him, even without knowing whether he could find a way back.

Mood dark, Dean slumped over to the sofa and collapsed into a sprawl with his hand over his face. With no other sound in the house besides the gently crackling fireplace, Dean easily heard the water shut off, and Kurt’s footsteps returning a moment later. They sounded a bit hurried, which was weird, though it was more of a determined stride than a run. When Dean turned his head to see what the rush was about, a wet towel was flung into his face.

He started to say, “What the fu-” but, pulling the towel away, Dean stopped and immediately made a strangled noise at the sight of Kurt standing in front of him completely naked, still damp from the steam and looking quietly angry. He was also hard, cock flushed with blood and almost pressed tight to his stomach, which Dean noticed in between trying to take in everything else.

In all the time he’d spent alone in his shower jerking off to thoughts of Kurt, he hadn’t, as it turned out, done him anywhere near enough justice. His body was muscular and defined, which Dean already knew, but graceful in the way that only a swimmer’s could be, powerful but not unattractively bulky or cartoonish. Instinctively Dean wanted to be threatened by the impressive upper-body build and strong legs, but the most he could manage was not to come in his pants right there. Being Kurt wasn’t what he wanted; Dean just wanted him beneath his hands. Factoring in the beautiful caramel skin and dusting of hair across his pecs and stomach, Dean acknowledged that he didn’t have to be gay for Kurt to look like a fantasy come to life, though it didn’t hurt.

When Kurt turned to walk slowly around to the other side of the couch, treating Dean to a whole other six feet of skin for his brain to digest, the most he could utter was, “Holy shit.” He was so stunned that his earlier nervousness simply slid from between his thoughts like a thousand tiny fishes.

Kurt didn’t acknowledge this response. He bent low over Dean so that their faces were close. Dean recognized a taunt when he saw one. To keep them from touching, he supported himself against the back and armrests of the sofa, Dean caged between his arms in a way that was simultaneously safe and threatening. Each of his breaths puffed against Dean’s lips invitingly, but Kurt, as if knowing how distracting his body was, made sure that Dean met and held his gaze as he spoke.

“Just now I went upstairs and had to stop myself jerking off in the shower, because I realized how goddamned stupid this is,” he whispered harshly.

Dean inhaled a sharp breath at the mental image and got a whiff of Kurt’s warm, soapy smell, which did nothing other than to light a low, slow-burning fire in the pit of his stomach and tighten the confines of his jeans. By ‘stupid’, he didn’t know whether Kurt meant this whole weird dance they’d been doing for the better part of a month, or just Dean. Most likely, it was the latter.

“Something tells me this is a big step for you, Dean, and I get that it isn’t easy-but I’m tired of waiting.” The words were firm, like he’d rehearsed the speech a few times before coming downstairs, but shook his head with far less conviction than he presented. Still, he wasn’t done. “No more excuses, no more delays. I just… I can’t deal with another night of seeing you and thinking, ‘Finally,’ and then having to jack off for hours afterwards because of how badly I want you to touch me. So if that isn’t what you want… if I’m not what you want…” He trailed off helplessly. “Then we just need to stop all of this right here. Spending time with you is amazing, but I don’t want to just be your friend. You get that, right?”

Kurt’s voice broke around the admission, and this was what prompted Dean to reach up and touch his face, the other hand curling around his hip tentatively and sliding against the water- and steam-slick skin. They both shivered at the contact and Kurt sank lower. A knee came down between Dean’s legs, and his thighs fell open a bit more in anticipation of Kurt pressing down on top of him fully.

Dean couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to have honesty like that come so easily, like it did to Kurt; he had no concept of how it would feel to say those things to Cas, though once, maybe, he’d wanted to. Would things have worked out very differently-would he and Cas have grown together instead of apart? The possibility ached in him, reminded him of how long it had been since Dean had actually wanted for there to be another person in his life, something real, not a hopeful delusion like it’d been with Lisa. Dean had long stopped convincing himself that family had anything to do with blood; he accepted that there were people like Bobby or Cas, or Ellen and Jo, who could come into your life to fill the empty spaces and seem as though they’d always been there. Dean was so full of holes that he should have been incorporeal, but he thought that a part of him was ready to accept Kurt that way, even if just as a possibility. He wondered if this was how second chances happened-not as a do-over, but an opportunity to avoid making the same mistakes again with other people, to move forward even if on unfamiliar terrain.

Bolstered by the thought, he summoned whatever courage he could from that spark of hope and said, “I don’t really want to be your friend, either.”

“So then, what?” Kurt turned his face into Dean’s hand, brushed his lips against the skin. “In the South, we don’t sit around debatin’ whether or not to fuck. It’s either ‘yes’, or ‘no’.”

“I’ve never been with a guy like this,” Dean burst out, after a pause. The words hung in the air like lead balloons. He wasn’t sure what they established, or how they justified his hesitation towards Kurt when he’d gone into this whole thing with eyes open; but they weren’t an excuse or an attempt to run, either. This was uncharted fucking territory, as far as he was concerned, wanting a man who wanted him back, wanting to actually open himself up and walk off that ledge into something new.

“Yes or no, Dean,” Kurt bit out a second time. “If you want me, here I fucking am.”

The only logical response was to tug Kurt down from his perch and let their skin collide. Kurt fell into him willingly, all pretense of restraint gone, and his skin was hot to the touch under Dean’s hands. Dean shifted so that Kurt was straddling his thigh and they were sprawled more comfortably and chest to chest, though Kurt arched his back and swept his eyes down the length of their bodies. The contrast between Dean clothed and Kurt not was, admittedly, sexy, and Kurt’s hips gave an experimental thrust. He gasped as his erection slid against Dean’s stomach, just beneath the hem of his t-shirt. Slippery with fluid, it found skin as if by instinct, and the feel of that hardness against him was incredible. The thought that Kurt had worked himself up to this point over him was intoxicating. Dean canted his hips to get more friction against his own crotch, and dug his fingertips into Kurt’s back and kissed him hard, sucking on his tongue until Kurt moaned into his mouth.

Pausing for a moment in their determined stroking down Dean’s shoulders and sides, Kurt’s hands eventually settled upon his belt buckle. His expression was tentative, wary. Seconds ticked by as he pulled away to consider Dean’s face and he unthreaded the belt, watching, Dean supposed, for any sign that he should slow down or stop altogether. Dean knew that he was either all in by this point, or all out, so he managed to flip Kurt onto his back using the quickest manoeuvre he knew, something that had come in handy a few times when wresting with demons or monsters in tight spaces. Kurt was surprised by how easy he found himself suddenly looking up at Dean, and even more surprised when Dean pushed himself off the couch entirely and to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Kurt asked in confusion. Naked and propped on his elbows against the sofa cushion, legs carelessly akimbo, Dean couldn’t think of a way to describe him that didn’t involve some combination of the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘feast’.

“Nowhere,” he answered, calm, though he exhaled slowly as he yanked his shirt over his head and finished unbuckling his belt.

Holding Kurt’s eyes, he started to pop the button on his jeans, but Kurt swung his legs around so that he was sitting upright, knees on either side of Dean’s legs. It sent a shiver through Dean to have his face virtually at crotch level, and he rolled his head back on his neck when Kurt picked up on the brainwave and hooked his fingers into Dean’s waistband, pressing his lips warm against the line of Dean’s stomach.

“May I?” he asked.

“Fuck yes, you may,” Dean said through a shaky laugh.

With a smile in response, Kurt set his fingers to finishing what Dean started, undoing the rest of the button fly in a couple tugs. He slid the jeans and Dean’s underwear down his legs together, careful not to yank the elastic on his erection-this, a detail that women rarely heeded. The gentle scrape of nails against his skin made his dick jump when Kurt found the sensitive spot on his hips; Dean hadn’t been this seriously affected by a person since his teens, when every touch and experience was still new, overwhelming. Each of his heartbeats sent a rush of blood through his system that actually ached by the time it reached his dick.

“I’m sorry for not doing this sooner,” he murmured, brushing a hand through Kurt’s hair.

Kurt’s gaze was so appreciative of Dean’s body that he almost didn’t appear to hear the apology, though he smiled up at him in that wry, lopsided way he had. “Then let’s not waste any more time,” he suggested. “C’mere.”

Dean went.

Following a will of their own, Dean’s hands found purchase against Kurt’s knees as he lowered himself to the ground, and slowly slid up his thighs, grazing dark hair as they travelled to the prominent cut lines of his pelvis and rested there a moment. Kurt shivered at the contact, arching his hips into the bracket of Dean’s hands; the shiver turned into a gasp when those fingers continued upwards and brushed the sensitive skin of his ribs. Dean smiled to himself, memorizing the slight give of muscle beneath his fingertips, the contrast of his hands against the darker tan of Kurt’s complexion. Though still untouched, Kurt’s cock twitched at the slow caresses, his eyes tracking Dean’s movement with crackling intensity.

Unlike Dean, he didn’t need to make demands, choosing instead to enjoy the attention and trust that Dean would arrive at his destination eventually. His responsiveness was captivating enough, each twitch of fingers or sweep of breath seeming to elicit a sigh or a quiet moan of encouragement. His own hands gravitated to Dean’s shoulders to communicate his approval through light touches or needier presses of skin. Dean noticed that Kurt didn’t touch the handprint upon his shoulder. Since being raised from Hell, almost all of the women Dean had been with had gotten a kick out of it, pressing their hand into the scar as though it was a novelty and not a defining aspect of who he was. Maybe Kurt was just more polite, but Dean thought he treated it with a kind of respect, like he sensed that it was something sacred and not for him to claim as his own.

Dean straightened until he was almost at face level with Kurt, and craned his neck slightly to brush a gentle kiss across his mouth. He withdrew quickly, savouring Kurt’s sharp exhale of frustration as he reversed the quiet path of worship, following his hands with lips and tongue, growing bolder. Kurt’s legs had shifted to grip at Dean’s hips possessively, but Dean pushed them aside firmly enough that Kurt knew enough to just let him have his way for a while. The reward came in the form of gentle bites to his nipples, and the moment Dean’s teeth closed down upon one of the brown, fleshy nubs, Kurt’s back arched sharply and he cried out, the word a garbled curse broken by a rueful smile.

Grinning, Dean’s hands released Kurt’s sides and drifted to his chest to stroke across the fine hair. It was dark but not overabundant, concentrated just beneath his collarbones and down to circle his nipples. Dean found it almost amusingly patchy, but it served to sculpt rather than obscure the definition of his pectoral muscles. Without warning, he pinched his nipples again, a bit harder. Kurt flinched like he was trying to get away from the pain but just pushed himself further into Dean’s hands.

“Like that, huh?” Dean teased.

“It fucking tickles,” Kurt bit out.

“Dude, you are so going to regret telling me that.”

Dean smiled up at him, but gave off torturing him in favour of a more generous application of his tongue, sweeping wetly around one nipple and then the other, using just enough teeth to get Kurt going again, just enough to get himself going. He was already so turned-on it hurt, but Dean didn’t care. The sounds Kurt made were like a drug, addictive and painfully sweet; Dean was pulling his hips forward to the edge of the sofa before he made the conscious decision to do it, not thinking about the implications of what he wanted to do beyond how much he wanted to make Kurt fall the fuck apart. It had been a while since he’d sucked dick, but he’d been good at it once and Dean thought that he could still have a knack for it. Nerves made the hairs on his arms prick up but, with the task now in front of him, Dean found that he was a lot more eager than apprehensive.

Catching on to the direction of Dean’s thoughts, Kurt’s hips gave an involuntary little jerk. He said, brokenly, “Please.”

With a smirk, Dean bent to kiss and suck a line down Kurt’s abdomen, making his destination clear but in no hurry to jump to the main event despite its insistent presence so close to his face. There was a perfect notch of bone at his hips that Dean could worry with his teeth, mark up red and beautiful against Kurt’s skin, but the other man’s fingers tightened on his shoulder.

“Please, what?” Dean murmured, meeting Kurt’s eyes.

“Don’t think teasing me’s gonna have any effect; I got no issues with begging,” Kurt said, voice guttural and so thick with the South that the words were like pure honey. “I want that perfect fuckin’ mouth of yours on my cock, I don’t care what I have to say to get it.”

That was a tempting thought, because Dean had a suspicion that Kurt would probably sound eight different kinds of sinful, dirty-talking him like that; but at this stage he didn’t know how much more he could take, since he already felt far too gone and hadn’t even been touched yet. Teasing was fun, sure, especially with Kurt so receptive, but he caved instead and bent closer to nuzzle at the side of Kurt’s erection, immediately overwhelmed by the heat and velvety skin against his cheek.

“You’ve said quite enough,” he whispered, and then opened his mouth to take Kurt upon his tongue.

Someone might well have flipped a switch, for all Kurt’s abrupt moan split the quiet of the living room and hacked away a little more at Dean’s sanity. His cock was, Dean had to admit, a pretty intimidating and beautiful piece of equipment. While he’d once assured Cas that he would have nothing to be ashamed of in a locker room, Dean had never stopped to consider another guy’s junk that way before. With Kurt now at his mercy, though, he started to understand why blowjobs most certainly weren’t a chore for some people. Unlike going down on a woman, which was amazing and brought with it a certain pride if done correctly, Dean also felt a sense of power to sucking a guy off. He’d felt it with the johns, yes, but at the time that had been more ego than anything; Dean had enjoyed feeling worshipped more than he cared how much they enjoyed it, as though his being there was enough. Sometimes he’d done little more than lay back and let them please themselves by pleasing him, daydreaming about girls and ganking monsters until the thirty minutes were up. This was nothing like that-he wanted to be present for Kurt’s every noise and shudder, the challenge and gratification of giving him as much pleasure as possible.

He worked mostly by improvisation but closely watched Kurt’s responses for what he liked, what sent his chest heaving and breath hitching, but consulted the knowledge of what he himself found rousing and which touches had made Castiel’s vessel respond positively. Like Cas, Kurt seemed to want to watch every swipe and flick of Dean’s tongue, fingers gently tracing the stretch of Dean’s lips around his cock; and so Dean concentrated on putting on a show, holding eye contact for as long as he could until it became too intense. The wet suction Dean applied to Kurt’s balls made his mouth fall open in what looked like surprised pleasure, vocal breaths falling past his lips that sounded almost delicate, feminine. They were delicious, but it was when Dean hollowed his cheeks around the head of Kurt’s cock, foreskin pulled back, and stroked his tongue against the frenulum, that Kurt cried out in a broken voice and threw his head back against the couch cushion, fingers clenching and back arching. Without realizing he was doing it until he felt the touch of his own hand, Dean started stroking himself at the same time, needing something that would build and relieve the pressure simultaneously. Dean worked at the head of Kurt’s dick and the slit until the point he knew it would become too sensitive, gently easing off to kiss and lick his way down to the base, hand pumping his own cock in time.

He felt a touch to his cheek, and when he looked up Kurt tried to draw him away, pulling him back to eye-level on the couch. “Never would be too soon for you to stop what you’re doing,” Kurt said at Dean’s look of confusion, “but if you don’t, this is all gonna be over too fast.”

Dean couldn’t help but feel-and look-smug. “I affect you that badly, huh?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kurt said simply. “But also, you’re way too amazing at that for your own good.”

He gave another sharp tug so that Dean got the hint and climbed the rest of the way onto the sofa. Limbs tangled as they fell onto the cushions together, and Dean grunted as Kurt took his weight easily, trying not to rut up against him like a teenager when their cocks bumped off each other. Eyeing his swollen lips hungrily, Kurt craned his neck to kiss Dean, hard, and wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist in some kind of superhuman octopus grip. Dean kissed him back eagerly, loving the pleasurable burn of Kurt’s bites with his mouth still so tender.

They shifted so that they were laying side by side, legs slotted together to give them more leverage to rub and thrust, erections sliding in a combination of Dean’s saliva and their pre-come. That was a first for Dean, feeling how easily they could bring each other off with no more than this lazy, adolescent humping. As Kurt kissed and nipped his way down his neck, Dean could feel himself getting close. Understanding why Kurt had been so quick to reach the edge, despite being long out of their teenage years and past the point of being minute men, Dean made himself a quick promise to never go this long without sex again, especially not if it was sex with Kurt.

A low, urgent groan from the man in question urged Dean out of his thoughts and back into the present, conscious that Kurt was rushing towards that bright edge with his mouth slack and forehead creased in concentration. The attention Dean paid to his responses seemed to push him along even further, his head coming forward to bump against Dean’s, hips working determinately. Shoving aside his own release for a moment, Dean reached between them to grasp Kurt’s cock in his fist. After a moment, he felt Kurt’s hand close around his own. Together they pumped in long, firm strokes, working the foreskin up and down over the head of Kurt’s dick to wring every ounce of sensation from it. Dean couldn’t hide his grin as Kurt’s voice rose, gaining in pitch and volume, and the moment before he came his teeth latched onto the juncture between Dean’s neck and shoulder, biting down as his cock twitched and his body heaved.

“Oh fuck,” he breathed into Dean’s skin, while Dean held him through it and enjoyed the subsequent boost to his ego.

Kurt, to his credit, didn’t slide into an immediate orgasm-coma. Levering himself against Dean’s shoulder, he rolled them so that Dean was back on top and being slowly pulled up Kurt’s body. Dean laughed at the awkwardness of trying to straddle Kurt and knee-walk up the touch, but Kurt had that look on his face that suggested he wasn’t about to be distracted from his task.

“What’re you thinking?” Dean asked, confused.

“I want to suck you off,” Kurt answered plainly, continuing to mobilize Dean until he was settled upon Kurt’s chest and kneeling on either side of his head.

Dean gasped at the first brush of his cock against Kurt’s lips, his mind going back to that evening in the bathroom stall and that mouth that went from flashing playful smiles to working the most sinful magic in the space of seconds. Like Kurt moments earlier, he was precariously balanced upon the knife’s edge and ready to tumble over into complete senselessness. As though he understood, Kurt didn’t waste any time, feeding himself Dean’s dick and pulling him in close with his hands clutching at Dean’s ass. The angle of his head against the sofa cushion was blissfully perfect for deep-throating, and Dean made a noise consisting almost exclusively of vowel sounds as Kurt took him to the root, swallowing around his cock so that his throat fluttered and constricted in impossibly good ways.

“Christ, Kurt,” Dean hissed. “Please don’t stop, don’t stop, I’m almost there.”

The suction increased and had Dean not already been kneeling his legs might have given out. He stroked a hand into Kurt’s hair and tugged gently, following the bobbing motions back and forth and managing very well not to think about the vague resemblance to Cas. Sensations and memories conflicted and pulled him in opposite directions that somehow still converged to bring him closer to that bright point just within his grasp. He thrust shallowly in counterpoint to the movement of Kurt’s head and wanted to shake at each stroke of tongue, each delicate scrape of teeth.

A word that was caught between “Cas” and “Kurt” escaped from his throat, lost on the tail of a keening whine that almost didn’t sound as if it came from him. Dean choked it back in alarm at the same time that he was slapped by the force of his orgasm, slamming into him like a blow to the chest that knocked the wind out of him and sent him slumping forward. He caught himself on his elbows against the arm of the couch, so as not to totally smother Kurt; his moan seeped into the creamy leather as he felt Kurt swallow his come without pause or apparent effort, even though Dean hadn’t given much warning.

When the tremors stopped and control returned to his limbs, Dean pulled free of Kurt’s mouth, shuddering in delighted bliss as Kurt continued to suck him clean, swiping lazily at the head until the sensation became so intense that Dean had to twitch away. He slithered back down the sofa until he could bury his face into Kurt’s shoulder, breathing hard. They manoeuvred around until they were more or less lying in the same position as before, side by side and loosely tangled.

“God damn,” Dean rasped, feeling the quiet rumble of laughter from Kurt. Tiredness suddenly pulled at him, like a tether snapping him back from the force of orgasm and into near-immediate sleep. This was not cuddling; this was recovery. Sweaty and sticky didn’t seem to matter-the warmth of the body next to him and the post-coital lassitude left him ready to peace out at any moment.

“I second that.”

For a moment Kurt dug around beneath his shoulder for something and withdrew his hand clutching the towel he'd discarded earlier. It was still slightly damp, and he used it to wipe both of them down, paying careful attention to each of Dean’s fingers so that no stickiness remained. Glancing down at the sofa, Kurt frowned in concern and made a quiet ‘hmmm’ noise, before giving a couple of perfunctory rubs at the cushion.

“Milanese leather does not make for the best fuck couch ever,” he said after a moment.

“You gonna get it from Nadia?” Dean wondered. He understood; Sam had gone after him enough times for having sex with women on their couch, and he wasn’t even as terrifying as Kurt’s outspoken, diminutive roommate.

“Maybe not.” Kurt grinned suddenly, and tossed the towel away somewhere out of sight, where it landed with a muted plop. His arms tightened around Dean, who found himself on the receiving end of a very passionate and very excited kiss. “I don’t care,” said Kurt, breaking away. “We’ll deal with it later, I feel too fucking good right now to worry about god damn come stains.”

Such energy seemed untimely and uncanny to Dean, but the sentiment made him smile and, he could admit it, flush a little. Whether or not Kurt’s enthusiasm was meant to be taken as a rave review of his performance or just happiness in general, either way it was flattering. Dean was feeling pretty good himself and, kind of like the morning after Nadia’s birthday, a lot more calm than he’d expected. It was starting to look like the reality of doing things with Kurt was far less scary than anything he’d managed to work himself up over, because it felt good and surprisingly natural and, well… right. The further he strayed off the map, the less he wanted to go back. There were no dragons to be found anywhere; just Kurt’s crazy, enigmatic sexiness that was seeming a lot less intimidating by the second, as much as this new, evolving sexuality of Dean’s.

Returning Kurt’s smile, albeit in a more subdued way, Dean lifted his hands to cup Kurt’s face as he leaned in to kiss him slowly. All but purring into it, Kurt languidly pressed the whole lengths of their bodies together until Dean himself gave a moan that was half contentment and half unabashed comfort. Kurt licked at his lips until Dean’s spent cock twinged with interest, and he broke the kiss with a sigh.

Weights seemed to have attached themselves to his eyelids, and Dean let them fall closed. “Couch, or bed?” he mumbled.

“I can’t be arsed to move,” Kurt replied around a yawn.

“Good. Me either.” After a moment he felt a fingertip trace his eyebrow, and he cracked an eye open to see Kurt fighting off sleep almost as much as him. “What’s that look for?”

“Just… thanks.” The hand slid into Dean’s hair gently and palmed the back of his head. “I’m glad you came over.”

“That makes two of us.” This was way too much of a chick-flick moment for Dean to handle, but he figured it was okay if they didn’t turn it into a habit. With enough sex they could probably re-balance the scales, and he made a mental note to remedy that as soon as they were awake. “Thanks for not kicking my ass to the curb, man.” Considering that, he added, “And I guess for kicking my ass in general-I needed it.”

Kurt chuckled. “I might have had ulterior motives for givin’ you hell,” he pointed out, “since it worked out pretty well for me.”

Uncertain of whether or not he should try to explain his hesitation again or just drop the whole thing, Dean fell silent for a moment as he thought about what to say. When he decided that it was best to agree and move on to the promise of better dates in future, a gentle snuffling breath from Kurt stopped him before he could open his mouth to speak. Dean glanced down at the relaxed face of the man who was starting to look a lot more like a boyfriend and less like a threat to Dean’s nonexistent sense of normalcy. He realized that being around Kurt was the most normal he’d felt in, well, maybe ever, and he owed it to them both to stop meandering from one pointless excuse about commitment to another. Stability was something Dean had been looking for his whole life; was he really going to fight it just because it looked a bit different than he’d expected at the age of twenty, or thirty? The apple-pie life hadn’t worked out so great despite his best intentions, and instead of telling himself that he wasn’t capable of being happy, Dean was starting to think that maybe the trick was just knowing how to recognize happiness in whatever form it should happen to take.

Adjusting his body around Kurt so that neither of them would wake up to pins and needles in their limbs or a horrible crick in the neck, Dean brushed a kiss against the sleeping man’s forehead and sighed.

“It’s working out pretty well for me, too,” he murmured, and then followed Kurt into sleep.




Chapter Seven