Fic: Set the fire to the third bar = episode 18
Fic: Set the fire to the third bar = episode 18
Author: Seraphim Grace
Fandom = Supernatural
Pairing = Castiel x Dean (god is love in all its forms)
Rating = NC17
spoilers = yes for season 4, set between Great pumpkin and the one after that I've forgotten the name of
AUish - set in the world of american gods and sandman but also the spn universe, I just stretched it a little
prompts - Dean wonders how much is too much when you've already past that line and just how changed he is from being in hell.
suggested by keire_ke
betaed by bellajayd who deserves more praise than me for this - she's certainly doing more work
Not enough coffee in the world
In the hotel dusk
tea with thrones
The House of Five aspects
The Banshee in the Bathroom
Time is never time enough
let the bodies hit the floor
I could sleep forever
The smell of hospitals in winter
Here be dragons
The Queen of Sheba
You can't count on me
with my spear and mighty helmet
The cabin in the woods
Grace
wrapped in Grace and in sin
Set me as a seal upon thy arm
episode 18
In which Dean discovers that looks are often very deceiving and things are very rarely what they seem
Soundtrack:
Deftones - shut up and drive (far away)
----------------------
Ben Constantine is a holy terror, especially since he is under the thrall of the church. He decides that the Salisbury steak that Mrs Doyle has made for him isn’t fit for rats and throws a tantrum that would make Veruca Salt proud. It makes Dean wonder if there aren’t perks in forever being the baby. Castiel takes one look at the plate of mystery meat and Dean regrets being unable to find a pizza flyer.
He’s not sure he would have eaten it either.
As children he and Sam were often left on their own for long stretches of time, but every now and again there was someone that John felt comfortable enough leaving his kids with. It was usually Pastor Jim or Bobby, Caleb once, but one time he had left them with an old Houdun witch in Baton Rouge.
At the time Dean hadn’t known she was a witch, though he suspected that she might have been, not because she practised magic but because she was a mean old bitch.
She taught Dean several important lessons, one it was better to mend than buy new and the same stitches used to darn a sock would do skin. She taught him how to drink, although he was about eight at the time. And she taught him how to cook several cheap filling meals quickly.
John had never known about this, because Dean already felt kinda like his wife. So, when it was just Dean and Sam sometimes it was Spaghetti-O’s and sometimes it was a homemade tuna casserole. Their Dad just thought the chicken soup was Sam’s favourite.
Dean quickly finds what he needs in the pantry cupboard: a tin of tuna, a tin of condensed chicken soup, and a bag of pasta shells. From the draining board he takes the glass oven dish, pours pasta into the bottom, then adds the tuna and the chicken soup followed by a cup of water, and then he slaps it all in the oven. “Takes about forty minutes,” Dean tells them. Both Castiel and Ben seem surprised that he can cook, even something that basic. “It's good eating. If you’ve got any chips we can crush them to make a topping.”
“I don't like tuna," Ben says regaining his equanimity and disdain at the same time.
“Tough, it’s tuna or that.” He looks at the slimy mystery meat on the plate.
“Tuna it is then,” Ben chirrups happily. “Can I have some coffee?”
Castiel is the one to look around the kitchen, at the severity of it, and the fact that every instrument capable of making coffee is out of his reach and says, “No, have more juice.”
The conversation gets stilted and awkward then because no one is sure what to say. Ben has been left alone with strangers by his housekeeper, and they have no idea what to say to entertain a child.
“So,” Ben says, “hunters and angels don't come around just to cook for me and drink all my tea, and tell Azriphael I want that pot back by the way, so what brings you to Wyoming?”
“Why are you in Wyoming?” Dean asks, “I mean, if you’re this big dude on campus.” He’s still obviously sceptical.
Castiel answers before Ben can. “I was told that he told the Pontiff to place his triregnum upon the Great Snake of Kundalini.” The words are chosen carefully and although Dean recognises the language as English most of it passes him by.
“No," Ben corrects, “I told the Pope to take his crown and shove it so far up his,” Castiel covers the boy’s mouth before he can finish.
Dean wants to snicker. He’s glad he doesn’t have to look out for this kid, but in the short term he’s fun. "I can see how that worked out for you.” He looks around the house, “not bad really, nice house, all the books you can read.”
“Invaded by angels and hunters and fed that,” he looks at the plate, “instead of the delicious Italian I used to get in the Vatican, you’d think they’d have forgiven me by now.” Ben gets up from the chair. “So I get the impression you’re not here to feed me, what do you want?”
Castiel’s answer is abrupt, “Dean has questions that I cannot answer. Genesis and the Sons of God.”
Ben makes an “O” shape with his mouth, then he looks Dean up and down critically, “This guy, really?” He purses his bottom lip, “I always thought that they’d be,” he narrows his eyes, “well, bigger.”
Dean just looks between the two of them.
“Eats a lot?” Ben asks going to the fridge to get more juice and then just staring at it, “tremendous appetite for the other ...?” He lowers his head, “Well I’m going to need some Mountain Dew.” He sharply turns to Dean and accuses, “What? I’m not old enough to drink.”
***
Ben has built himself, in one of the spare rooms that he refers to as the dining room although no one could eat in there for the mountain of books, a fort made from said with books. From within the fort comes a series of crashes and bangs and one of the pillars topples outwards, but the books are packed so tightly that rather than collapse they just sort of lean against another pile which gave up the ghost years ago.
“What are you doing in there?” Dean asks when he comes back with the case of Mountain Dew.
“I’m channelling the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe,” the pile of books replies, “what does it look like I’m doing?”
Dean drops the soda as a single slippered foot appears in a gap. He takes the opportunity to snatch at it, pulling Ben out by his ankle and then holding him aloft as he flops about trying to get back in. “Let me down you,” he pauses his face screwing up and getting redder by the moment, “piicha.”
“Watch your tongue,” Castiel says like a thunder crack from the doorway, “there is no need for that kind of language, it is disgraceful, someone of your age should know better.”
“Yeah," Ben says from where he’s hanging, “never curse in front of an angelei unless you want your mouth washed out.”
Dean is left wondering what the insult could have been because Castiel only chides him for blasphemies. He lowers the boy to the floor who immediately goes to scamper back into the book-fort so Dean just grabs him by the back of his Speed Racer pyjamas. “Let me down you,” he pauses again, “Schwanzlutscher.”
“Look, kid, you can call me all the names you can think in that fancy ass language of yours but I aint letting you go in there, it’s dangerous, it’s like Jenga for librarians.” The kid is too angry to laugh at what Dean considered quite a funny joke. “Now what does the book you want look like and I’ll get it because if the books fall on me I’ll just be badly hurt and not squished.”
There is a tirade of curse words from the squirming child. “Father, forgive me,” Castiel mutters and presses two fingers to the boy’s forehead. Ben is asleep before he has removed his hand.
Dean goes to say something but instead hefts the boy up against his shoulder to carry him to whichever bed belongs to him.
It turns out to be a racecar with dinosaur bed spread and a very bedraggled old Steif Bear on the pillow. Castiel pulls back the quilt and Dean lays the boy down, tucking the bear, bald and sucked on, into the boy’s arms. “And this is the greatest biblical scholar in the Church?” He asks.
Sleeping Ben looks peaceful and like butter wouldn’t melt in his foul little mouth. Dean is reminded of another little boy with the same name, but he never was able to see that one sleep.
“By some margin,” Castiel says and smoothes the kid’s brown hair as Ben smacks his lips in his sleep. “We shall await his guardian down stairs.”
***
Mrs. Doyle’s version of, “An hour, two at most” is more like three and when she comes back she seems amazed find the house still standing. “He didn’t give you boys any trouble did he?” She asks as she fusses around in her purse, “I know that the agency was still funny about sending baby sitters but I didn’t think it needed two of you.” She hands Dean two crumpled twenty dollar bills.
Castiel takes the money from him and hands it back, “We are not babysitters, we came in search of information, but young Master Constantine had a hard day and is asleep.”
Mrs. Doyle beamed, “I love it when angels come. He always sleeps so soundly when you use that juju on him.” She looks at Dean, “Oh most blessed creature, oh heavenly messenger.” Dean makes a gun shape with his hand and points at Castiel and she gives a grin that would have been lovely when she was a girl and is now strangely anachronistic. It just makes her look old. “Oh great heart, oh wondrous and divine.”
“He’s Dominions,” Dean adds looking at Castiel’s expression. The angel might be preparing to smite her, or cataloguing the contents of his sock drawer, Dean finds it hard to tell.
She changes tack without so much as a blink. “Oh most terrible, most feared, oh honoured sword of heaven.”
“The child sleeps,” Castiel interrupts her.
“Let me get you boys,” she stops herself, “you, some coffee, I’d offer you tea but . . .”
“Aziraphale stole the pot, we know.” Dean finishes.
“I have bags but they’re just not as good for making tea.”
Castiel nods. “We must be leaving and we shall return in the morning, perhaps then the young Master will be in a better mood.”
“Do you see it raining frogs?” Mrs. Doyle asks under her breath. “You can stay here, there is plenty of room, it will only take me a moment to make it up.”
“It is fine,” Castiel assures her and puts his hand on Dean's shoulder to guide him out, “there is a small motel we noticed off the highway, it will more than suit our needs.”
Dean’s sure that if he didn’t know better he might think that Mrs. Doyle disconcerts Castiel. She doesn’t seem that bad to him, but she’s certainly fangirling the angel. She’s a tall thin woman with her hair cut short and dyed in blonde streaks on top.
“We shall return in the morning and we must thank you for your hospitality. Come along, Dean.” The angel has Dean by the elbow and although he appears to be smiling he’s beating a hasty retreat.
***
Castiel clearly wants Dean to think that they ended up in a hotel, not a motel, because of the noises that he intends to make Dean moan, and people being less likely to question. The hunter is not averse to the hand down his jeans and cupping his ass almost as soon as they’re through the door but even he can recognize a deflection when it squeezes him. Dean has questions and Castiel doesn't want to answer them.
And Castiel might be a lily livered chicken but he has the absolute best hands and when they kiss Dean wonders if Castiel isn’t trying to scoop out his soul with his tongue and that’s a good thing too.
The heels of the angel’s hands are rough against his skin, while the rest of him is cool and almost baby soft. He smells of frankincense and myrrh and lingering hints of the mint shower gel that Dean prefers.
It’s a heady mixture. He could get high on it, and the way that Castiel’s cool lips bear down on his own, licking up the stray drops of spit from the skin around his mouth.
There are places where the smell of Castiel is strongest, folded into the skin with sweat, and Dean breaks his mouth away and buries his face in the crook of Castiel’s armpit and breathes him in through the cheap Walmart tee he’s wearing, wanting skin on skin, to tilt his head and lick the skin and hair there.
He wants to find a place in the paper-thin skin between thigh and pelvis, that silk soft crease, and just live there, apart from the world, safe from the apocalypse and all its woes, and breathe Castiel where he is most pungent; where he is most base. In that piece of skin where he can feel the sluggish beat of his human heart and his holiness most keenly.
With his face pressed against that stretched taut, parchment soft skin Dean is willing to accept everything Castiel is: powerful and divine.
In that place, where the skin is almost hot, where Dean’s hand fits so perfectly, there he would be happy, all five senses drunk on Castiel, on myrrh and salt and sweat and almost hot and safe, so perfectly safe.
Dean would build a house there.
He would live there and be happy.
The skin there has the texture of rose petals and Dean doesn't like that analogy, it’s the sort of thing a chick would think, but it’s true. The rest of Castiel’s skin has the texture of fine butter suede, like that really expensive pair of shoes he saw in that shop in New York, and there are places where the skin is crinkled, dry and rough, and those places Dean likes to kiss when the angel is not looking.
Dean’s not sure when he got to his knees and pressed the side of his cheek against the denim of his own jeans hung on the angel’s frame and pushed against that place on the left side. The fabric pulling at the skin of his cheek and Castiel’s hands around his like a benediction.
The only thing Dean knows for sure is that this isn’t about love or passion or need, it’s about the smell of it and the feel of it and the security of it. Kneeling like this, on this crappy hotel carpet with his face trying to rub its way through the fabric of his own cheap jeans, he feels safe.
He doesn't even remember the last time he felt that.
It feels strange in his stomach, like he’s eaten too much and he really needs to belch. It’s a good feeling, but new and alien.
And Dean doesn’t know when he starts, but he’s talking and talking and talking and he can’t stop and Castiel just drinks it in as if it was more than just nonsense. Dean’s not even sure that they’re even words, just that they’re pouring out of him and it’s like a deluge and when they're gone, when he’s done, he feels emptied. Then Castiel, with a tiny smile playing at the corner of his lips, falls to his knees in front of him, cups his jaw in those cool hands and kisses him hard.
It’s not the first time Dean has had a vision when Castiel kissed him, but this vision is different.
Often they are like dreams, fanciful light things of the two of them recumbent and indolent in each other’s skin, but this is a vision of war, of the apocalypse.
It is Dean, but it is not Dean.
It is a shining great force of will and it is wearing golden armour emblazoned with flames, and there is fire all about him even his hair is fire, bound behind his ears with golden wire and he is holding aloft a great halberd with flames licking their way up its shaft and he knows the wood for it has come from the great tree Yggdrasil. He is riding a great red Re’em and its mane and tail are fire and it’s cloven hooves split the ground and there is gore hanging from its single golden horn.
Upon a white Re’em, wearing icy silver armour and carrying aloft a great spear is Castiel in all his wonder.
When Dean pulls his mouth away from Castiel he looks at the angel from close up with the most amazing sense of awe because that was the Heavenly Host armed and ready for war and crackling between them in their kiss.
Dean comes to his senses quickly enough, “Okay the spears I get,” he says, “but what’s with the fucking unicorns?”
And Castiel blinks once, twice and then he laughs, low and deep, and Dean can’t help but laugh with him.
The laughter dissolves into kisses and Castiel murmurs into his ears between licks and sucks and short sharp bites. “Heaven is gestalt,” he purrs, “and yours for the taking, my cherished one.” And Dean does what he always does when Castiel talks like that, he moves his hand somewhere more interesting and ignores the words.
When Castiel picks him up and drops him on the bed by what could be his belt loops Dean just grins up at him, with his best shit eating grin and says, “Well come on then.”
Castiel peels off his shirt and puts his knee on the bed, and Dean has already found the radio and turned it on loud to some classic rock station where they’re playing the Eagles who are singing the lyrics, “I’m looking for the daughter of the Devil himself, I’m looking for an angel in white,” and that just makes him laugh harder.
Castiel has him now, his arms around Dean’s waist and Dean knows the radio is still not quite loud enough but he really doesn’t care anymore.
It has been a long time since there was laughter in this, in fact, he thinks, it’s been a long time since there was laughter.
next chapter
Author: Seraphim Grace
Fandom = Supernatural
Pairing = Castiel x Dean (god is love in all its forms)
Rating = NC17
spoilers = yes for season 4, set between Great pumpkin and the one after that I've forgotten the name of
AUish - set in the world of american gods and sandman but also the spn universe, I just stretched it a little
prompts - Dean wonders how much is too much when you've already past that line and just how changed he is from being in hell.
suggested by keire_ke
betaed by bellajayd who deserves more praise than me for this - she's certainly doing more work
Not enough coffee in the world
In the hotel dusk
tea with thrones
The House of Five aspects
The Banshee in the Bathroom
Time is never time enough
let the bodies hit the floor
I could sleep forever
The smell of hospitals in winter
Here be dragons
The Queen of Sheba
You can't count on me
with my spear and mighty helmet
The cabin in the woods
Grace
wrapped in Grace and in sin
Set me as a seal upon thy arm
episode 18
In which Dean discovers that looks are often very deceiving and things are very rarely what they seem
Soundtrack:
Deftones - shut up and drive (far away)
----------------------
Ben Constantine is a holy terror, especially since he is under the thrall of the church. He decides that the Salisbury steak that Mrs Doyle has made for him isn’t fit for rats and throws a tantrum that would make Veruca Salt proud. It makes Dean wonder if there aren’t perks in forever being the baby. Castiel takes one look at the plate of mystery meat and Dean regrets being unable to find a pizza flyer.
He’s not sure he would have eaten it either.
As children he and Sam were often left on their own for long stretches of time, but every now and again there was someone that John felt comfortable enough leaving his kids with. It was usually Pastor Jim or Bobby, Caleb once, but one time he had left them with an old Houdun witch in Baton Rouge.
At the time Dean hadn’t known she was a witch, though he suspected that she might have been, not because she practised magic but because she was a mean old bitch.
She taught Dean several important lessons, one it was better to mend than buy new and the same stitches used to darn a sock would do skin. She taught him how to drink, although he was about eight at the time. And she taught him how to cook several cheap filling meals quickly.
John had never known about this, because Dean already felt kinda like his wife. So, when it was just Dean and Sam sometimes it was Spaghetti-O’s and sometimes it was a homemade tuna casserole. Their Dad just thought the chicken soup was Sam’s favourite.
Dean quickly finds what he needs in the pantry cupboard: a tin of tuna, a tin of condensed chicken soup, and a bag of pasta shells. From the draining board he takes the glass oven dish, pours pasta into the bottom, then adds the tuna and the chicken soup followed by a cup of water, and then he slaps it all in the oven. “Takes about forty minutes,” Dean tells them. Both Castiel and Ben seem surprised that he can cook, even something that basic. “It's good eating. If you’ve got any chips we can crush them to make a topping.”
“I don't like tuna," Ben says regaining his equanimity and disdain at the same time.
“Tough, it’s tuna or that.” He looks at the slimy mystery meat on the plate.
“Tuna it is then,” Ben chirrups happily. “Can I have some coffee?”
Castiel is the one to look around the kitchen, at the severity of it, and the fact that every instrument capable of making coffee is out of his reach and says, “No, have more juice.”
The conversation gets stilted and awkward then because no one is sure what to say. Ben has been left alone with strangers by his housekeeper, and they have no idea what to say to entertain a child.
“So,” Ben says, “hunters and angels don't come around just to cook for me and drink all my tea, and tell Azriphael I want that pot back by the way, so what brings you to Wyoming?”
“Why are you in Wyoming?” Dean asks, “I mean, if you’re this big dude on campus.” He’s still obviously sceptical.
Castiel answers before Ben can. “I was told that he told the Pontiff to place his triregnum upon the Great Snake of Kundalini.” The words are chosen carefully and although Dean recognises the language as English most of it passes him by.
“No," Ben corrects, “I told the Pope to take his crown and shove it so far up his,” Castiel covers the boy’s mouth before he can finish.
Dean wants to snicker. He’s glad he doesn’t have to look out for this kid, but in the short term he’s fun. "I can see how that worked out for you.” He looks around the house, “not bad really, nice house, all the books you can read.”
“Invaded by angels and hunters and fed that,” he looks at the plate, “instead of the delicious Italian I used to get in the Vatican, you’d think they’d have forgiven me by now.” Ben gets up from the chair. “So I get the impression you’re not here to feed me, what do you want?”
Castiel’s answer is abrupt, “Dean has questions that I cannot answer. Genesis and the Sons of God.”
Ben makes an “O” shape with his mouth, then he looks Dean up and down critically, “This guy, really?” He purses his bottom lip, “I always thought that they’d be,” he narrows his eyes, “well, bigger.”
Dean just looks between the two of them.
“Eats a lot?” Ben asks going to the fridge to get more juice and then just staring at it, “tremendous appetite for the other ...?” He lowers his head, “Well I’m going to need some Mountain Dew.” He sharply turns to Dean and accuses, “What? I’m not old enough to drink.”
***
Ben has built himself, in one of the spare rooms that he refers to as the dining room although no one could eat in there for the mountain of books, a fort made from said with books. From within the fort comes a series of crashes and bangs and one of the pillars topples outwards, but the books are packed so tightly that rather than collapse they just sort of lean against another pile which gave up the ghost years ago.
“What are you doing in there?” Dean asks when he comes back with the case of Mountain Dew.
“I’m channelling the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe,” the pile of books replies, “what does it look like I’m doing?”
Dean drops the soda as a single slippered foot appears in a gap. He takes the opportunity to snatch at it, pulling Ben out by his ankle and then holding him aloft as he flops about trying to get back in. “Let me down you,” he pauses his face screwing up and getting redder by the moment, “piicha.”
“Watch your tongue,” Castiel says like a thunder crack from the doorway, “there is no need for that kind of language, it is disgraceful, someone of your age should know better.”
“Yeah," Ben says from where he’s hanging, “never curse in front of an angelei unless you want your mouth washed out.”
Dean is left wondering what the insult could have been because Castiel only chides him for blasphemies. He lowers the boy to the floor who immediately goes to scamper back into the book-fort so Dean just grabs him by the back of his Speed Racer pyjamas. “Let me down you,” he pauses again, “Schwanzlutscher.”
“Look, kid, you can call me all the names you can think in that fancy ass language of yours but I aint letting you go in there, it’s dangerous, it’s like Jenga for librarians.” The kid is too angry to laugh at what Dean considered quite a funny joke. “Now what does the book you want look like and I’ll get it because if the books fall on me I’ll just be badly hurt and not squished.”
There is a tirade of curse words from the squirming child. “Father, forgive me,” Castiel mutters and presses two fingers to the boy’s forehead. Ben is asleep before he has removed his hand.
Dean goes to say something but instead hefts the boy up against his shoulder to carry him to whichever bed belongs to him.
It turns out to be a racecar with dinosaur bed spread and a very bedraggled old Steif Bear on the pillow. Castiel pulls back the quilt and Dean lays the boy down, tucking the bear, bald and sucked on, into the boy’s arms. “And this is the greatest biblical scholar in the Church?” He asks.
Sleeping Ben looks peaceful and like butter wouldn’t melt in his foul little mouth. Dean is reminded of another little boy with the same name, but he never was able to see that one sleep.
“By some margin,” Castiel says and smoothes the kid’s brown hair as Ben smacks his lips in his sleep. “We shall await his guardian down stairs.”
***
Mrs. Doyle’s version of, “An hour, two at most” is more like three and when she comes back she seems amazed find the house still standing. “He didn’t give you boys any trouble did he?” She asks as she fusses around in her purse, “I know that the agency was still funny about sending baby sitters but I didn’t think it needed two of you.” She hands Dean two crumpled twenty dollar bills.
Castiel takes the money from him and hands it back, “We are not babysitters, we came in search of information, but young Master Constantine had a hard day and is asleep.”
Mrs. Doyle beamed, “I love it when angels come. He always sleeps so soundly when you use that juju on him.” She looks at Dean, “Oh most blessed creature, oh heavenly messenger.” Dean makes a gun shape with his hand and points at Castiel and she gives a grin that would have been lovely when she was a girl and is now strangely anachronistic. It just makes her look old. “Oh great heart, oh wondrous and divine.”
“He’s Dominions,” Dean adds looking at Castiel’s expression. The angel might be preparing to smite her, or cataloguing the contents of his sock drawer, Dean finds it hard to tell.
She changes tack without so much as a blink. “Oh most terrible, most feared, oh honoured sword of heaven.”
“The child sleeps,” Castiel interrupts her.
“Let me get you boys,” she stops herself, “you, some coffee, I’d offer you tea but . . .”
“Aziraphale stole the pot, we know.” Dean finishes.
“I have bags but they’re just not as good for making tea.”
Castiel nods. “We must be leaving and we shall return in the morning, perhaps then the young Master will be in a better mood.”
“Do you see it raining frogs?” Mrs. Doyle asks under her breath. “You can stay here, there is plenty of room, it will only take me a moment to make it up.”
“It is fine,” Castiel assures her and puts his hand on Dean's shoulder to guide him out, “there is a small motel we noticed off the highway, it will more than suit our needs.”
Dean’s sure that if he didn’t know better he might think that Mrs. Doyle disconcerts Castiel. She doesn’t seem that bad to him, but she’s certainly fangirling the angel. She’s a tall thin woman with her hair cut short and dyed in blonde streaks on top.
“We shall return in the morning and we must thank you for your hospitality. Come along, Dean.” The angel has Dean by the elbow and although he appears to be smiling he’s beating a hasty retreat.
***
Castiel clearly wants Dean to think that they ended up in a hotel, not a motel, because of the noises that he intends to make Dean moan, and people being less likely to question. The hunter is not averse to the hand down his jeans and cupping his ass almost as soon as they’re through the door but even he can recognize a deflection when it squeezes him. Dean has questions and Castiel doesn't want to answer them.
And Castiel might be a lily livered chicken but he has the absolute best hands and when they kiss Dean wonders if Castiel isn’t trying to scoop out his soul with his tongue and that’s a good thing too.
The heels of the angel’s hands are rough against his skin, while the rest of him is cool and almost baby soft. He smells of frankincense and myrrh and lingering hints of the mint shower gel that Dean prefers.
It’s a heady mixture. He could get high on it, and the way that Castiel’s cool lips bear down on his own, licking up the stray drops of spit from the skin around his mouth.
There are places where the smell of Castiel is strongest, folded into the skin with sweat, and Dean breaks his mouth away and buries his face in the crook of Castiel’s armpit and breathes him in through the cheap Walmart tee he’s wearing, wanting skin on skin, to tilt his head and lick the skin and hair there.
He wants to find a place in the paper-thin skin between thigh and pelvis, that silk soft crease, and just live there, apart from the world, safe from the apocalypse and all its woes, and breathe Castiel where he is most pungent; where he is most base. In that piece of skin where he can feel the sluggish beat of his human heart and his holiness most keenly.
With his face pressed against that stretched taut, parchment soft skin Dean is willing to accept everything Castiel is: powerful and divine.
In that place, where the skin is almost hot, where Dean’s hand fits so perfectly, there he would be happy, all five senses drunk on Castiel, on myrrh and salt and sweat and almost hot and safe, so perfectly safe.
Dean would build a house there.
He would live there and be happy.
The skin there has the texture of rose petals and Dean doesn't like that analogy, it’s the sort of thing a chick would think, but it’s true. The rest of Castiel’s skin has the texture of fine butter suede, like that really expensive pair of shoes he saw in that shop in New York, and there are places where the skin is crinkled, dry and rough, and those places Dean likes to kiss when the angel is not looking.
Dean’s not sure when he got to his knees and pressed the side of his cheek against the denim of his own jeans hung on the angel’s frame and pushed against that place on the left side. The fabric pulling at the skin of his cheek and Castiel’s hands around his like a benediction.
The only thing Dean knows for sure is that this isn’t about love or passion or need, it’s about the smell of it and the feel of it and the security of it. Kneeling like this, on this crappy hotel carpet with his face trying to rub its way through the fabric of his own cheap jeans, he feels safe.
He doesn't even remember the last time he felt that.
It feels strange in his stomach, like he’s eaten too much and he really needs to belch. It’s a good feeling, but new and alien.
And Dean doesn’t know when he starts, but he’s talking and talking and talking and he can’t stop and Castiel just drinks it in as if it was more than just nonsense. Dean’s not even sure that they’re even words, just that they’re pouring out of him and it’s like a deluge and when they're gone, when he’s done, he feels emptied. Then Castiel, with a tiny smile playing at the corner of his lips, falls to his knees in front of him, cups his jaw in those cool hands and kisses him hard.
It’s not the first time Dean has had a vision when Castiel kissed him, but this vision is different.
Often they are like dreams, fanciful light things of the two of them recumbent and indolent in each other’s skin, but this is a vision of war, of the apocalypse.
It is Dean, but it is not Dean.
It is a shining great force of will and it is wearing golden armour emblazoned with flames, and there is fire all about him even his hair is fire, bound behind his ears with golden wire and he is holding aloft a great halberd with flames licking their way up its shaft and he knows the wood for it has come from the great tree Yggdrasil. He is riding a great red Re’em and its mane and tail are fire and it’s cloven hooves split the ground and there is gore hanging from its single golden horn.
Upon a white Re’em, wearing icy silver armour and carrying aloft a great spear is Castiel in all his wonder.
When Dean pulls his mouth away from Castiel he looks at the angel from close up with the most amazing sense of awe because that was the Heavenly Host armed and ready for war and crackling between them in their kiss.
Dean comes to his senses quickly enough, “Okay the spears I get,” he says, “but what’s with the fucking unicorns?”
And Castiel blinks once, twice and then he laughs, low and deep, and Dean can’t help but laugh with him.
The laughter dissolves into kisses and Castiel murmurs into his ears between licks and sucks and short sharp bites. “Heaven is gestalt,” he purrs, “and yours for the taking, my cherished one.” And Dean does what he always does when Castiel talks like that, he moves his hand somewhere more interesting and ignores the words.
When Castiel picks him up and drops him on the bed by what could be his belt loops Dean just grins up at him, with his best shit eating grin and says, “Well come on then.”
Castiel peels off his shirt and puts his knee on the bed, and Dean has already found the radio and turned it on loud to some classic rock station where they’re playing the Eagles who are singing the lyrics, “I’m looking for the daughter of the Devil himself, I’m looking for an angel in white,” and that just makes him laugh harder.
Castiel has him now, his arms around Dean’s waist and Dean knows the radio is still not quite loud enough but he really doesn’t care anymore.
It has been a long time since there was laughter in this, in fact, he thinks, it’s been a long time since there was laughter.
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