Worth (D/C; NC-17)
PWP for nightrider101, who requested that exhausted!Dean be “helped to relax.” I spent about two weeks trying to think up an actual plot before giving up on that and just embracing its PWP-ness.
Spoilers Up to 6.16/And Then There Were None
Wordcount 4,542
Dean is so out of it pondering for the nth time why it is the pillows in Bobby’s spare room always smell like the old man’s dogs that he doesn’t hear the beat of wings or feel the usual displacement of air waft cool across the skin of his back, just startles with a jolt as his legs are lifted up a few inches and his boots are tugged off his feet.
“Your back is badly bruised,” the voice observes somberly.
Dean cranes his head painfully and fixes the angel with a baleful stare. “No shit, Sherlock. You must pride yourself on your deductive reasoning skills.”
Castiel ignores him, shrugs off his trench coat and jacket, folds them fussily and lays them on the moth-eaten chair in the corner of the room, and when he turns back his brow is furrowed and his expression earnest. “Sam thinks this happened because you’re exhausted. He said you haven’t been sleeping. That you’ve been having nightmares. Why didn’t you tell me you-”
“It was a troll,” Dean deflects pissily. “Great big one. Fat, hairy. Bad breath, pimples, the whole nine yards. Threw me into a tree.” He pauses a beat to throw up in his mouth at the memory. “I hate fuckin’ trolls. They need to die. Hard. And I was wide-awake at the time. Sam’s talking crap.”
Castiel crosses to sit on the bed next to Dean, reaches over and deftly tweaks the bottle he’s cuddling from his grip.
“That’s medicinal,” Dean protests vainly.
“It’s bad medicine.” Castiel sets the bottle down on the floor, touches his hand lightly to Dean’s shoulder blade, and Dean can’t help the shiver that runs up and down his back. The angel trails calculated fingertips up to the nape of Dean’s neck, rests them on the jut of vertebrae there. “You should be more careful,” he admonishes mildly. “If I keep fixing you, I could become little more than a deus ex machina. I’d rather you didn’t take me for granted, Dean, it could make you complacent. Nietzsche argues that the deus ex machina creates a false sense of consolation that shouldn’t be sought in phenomena. That said, this may-”
“Jesus fuckin’ Chrysler, Cas, give it a rest,” Dean barks irritably, even as the first spark ignites in his groin and he rounds the top of his back up into his friend’s hand almost subconsciously. “A troll threw me at a tree. I don’t expect you to fix me every damn time, I know you have better things to do. And I was careful. While making it suck donkey balls.” He smirks. “Like all trolls should.”
Castiel fixes him with a laser glare. “As I was going to say before you interrupted, this may be a somewhat simplified view of the deus ex machina. The device may in fact allow mortals to probe their relationship with the divine.”
Dean thinks on that for about ten seconds before he creaks stiffly up onto his elbows, pokes out the tip of his tongue, and runs it suggestively along his top lip. “I’m all for probing the divine,” he leers. “Especially as the divine’s been probing me since whatever the fuck this crap is with you and me started.”
Castiel starts tugging at his tie. “You know exactly what this crap is, Dean,” he says, and Dean thinks he sounds cheerful about it. “You’re just in denial.”
Dean huffs out in derision. “I like women,” he insists, flopping his face back into the musty pillow. “And you don’t have to sound so damned smug about it. You messed with my mind when you put me back together. Crossed a wire or something.”
In the next second, the flat of Castiel’s hand is warm relief on Dean’s lower back, and a finger insinuates itself just under the waistband of his jeans. It’s the promise of more, and Dean doesn’t have to raise his eyes to know his friend is leaning down over him, because he can feel the static of proximity dancing pleasantly across his skin, raising every single downy hair. “You may like women, but you like this too,” Castiel whispers right into his ear, so that Dean can feel his breath like humid vapor. “You may want them, but you need this. You wear my brand, Dean, and we both know that in the end, you’re bound to me.”
It’s possessive, decisive, absolute, even if the words are breathed out like silk, and it throws another log on the embers smoldering low in Dean’s belly and curls up, content and comfortable, in front of the warmth that floods through him at the feeling of being owned, cared for, at the feeling he’s precious.
Castiel presses soft lips to the line of Dean’s jaw before he sits up again, and Dean can hear him humming under his breath, slants his eyes to see him unbuttoning his shirt. And he wants to say he doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand what this really is, can’t honestly fathom why he should be so important to something like Castiel. “Why are you even here?” he bitches instead, for the sake of appearances, even though he can feel his cock pressing tentatively at his fly and knows that any minute now it’ll be hammering furiously at the barricade with both fists, hollering to be let out. “I’m in no shape for wall slamming. Or car slamming. And say the word probe again.”
Castiel gives him a long-suffering look. “Probe,” he repeats, with infinite patience. “And you know I’m not just using you for sex, Dean, as enjoyable as that may be. Sam called me down and asked me to check on you in Bobby’s absence.”
Dean lifts his head again and goggles at that, momentarily distracted from his rapidly growing hard-on and his inability to comprehend why a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent would give him the time of day, much less make him shudder and moan its name as he falls apart under the body it wears. “He prayed to you and you beamed down in the middle of his date?”
Castiel shrugs dismissively. “He was most insistent about talking to me.”
Dean scowls. “When you say he prayed, was it like a rescue ring prayer?” He chews his thumbnail, mulls it briefly. “No,” he decides. “That makes no sense. She looks at him like she’s about to jump him any minute.” He glances up again, sees a blank stare being directed back at him. He rolls his eyes, elaborates. “You know, rescue ring? You get a buddy to call you a half-hour into a blind date, so if she looks like Abe Lincoln you can tell her there’s an emergency.”
“I see.” Castiel’s expression goes thoughtful. “He didn’t appear to be trying to escape,” he muses finally. “Or to need rescuing. In fact, they were both only partially clothed, and he was about to…” He trails off at Dean’s raised finger, and Dean could swear he sees the angel’s lips twitch slightly at the corners. “Some time had elapsed since the prayer,” he concedes. “He did say you weren’t badly injured, so I didn’t rush. I was… busy.”
Despite the almost-smile there’s a fleeting, human weariness in Castiel’s tone, exhaustion that tracks across his face so fast Dean thinks he might have imagined it at first, but now he’s alert to it he can see it lingering in his friend’s eyes, fading their blue to washed-out gray as he looks down and away. “Are you alright?” he queries automatically, and as soon as the question trips off his tongue it suddenly occurs to him that as fundamental as it is, months have gone by since Castiel showed up in Easter and he hasn’t asked it until now. The sudden awareness gives him a hollow, uncomfortable twist of guilt in his gut, and he’s more careful when he continues. “You, uh - don’t really tell me much.”
Castiel flicks his gaze back up, ignores the question, and his eyes are narrow and critical now as he sidetracks brusquely. “Is it wise for your brother to be entertaining the local sheriff?”
The tangent catches Dean on his back foot, and he rolls clumsily onto his side, stifling a yelp as sharp pain streaks up his back. “She’s cool,” he defends. “She knows the deal, anyhoo. Their eyes met over the chewed remains of her husband, and they bonded while ganking her zombie kid. I think she can handle Sam’s baggage. And God knows, he needs to get laid. He needs something good to happen for him. He deserves it.”
Castiel contemplates Dean some more, clears his throat. “The wall… it’s holding?”
His tone is neutral, but the awful possibility underlying the words still makes Dean shiver, makes him think of his brother’s very essence skinned raw, mutilated, depraved and corrupted like he was. It paralyzes him with sickly disgust at what he did there, at what his brother might have endured there, and in that instant he can hear the discordant, shrieking din of Hell inside his head and his mind’s eye blinks away scarlet-drenched horror as he stares dumbly at the angel.
Castiel’s expression flashes bleak for a second before it softens into compassion, because he knows Dean like no one ever has or will, knows what Dean is thinking as if he can see right into his head, even though Dean knows he’d never look without an invite. “Don’t,” he says simply. “His Hell wasn’t the same as yours. And it wasn’t your fault. And you’re forgiven.”
Castiel has whispered it to Dean more than once through his cries in the night, hushed, restrained comfort, sighed-out declarations and pledges that cut through Dean’s strident, crashing terror as if the angel were shouting the words through a megaphone. But still Dean’s chest constricts with relief at hearing the absolution he craves, and his heart flops with appreciation and with something else he has only ever really expressed with the language of hands and fingers, lips, tongue, and teeth, with his skin, his sweat, and his come, offered up in the dark, where Castiel can’t see what might be in his eyes to give him away. They never talk about it in the cold gray of morning, when they become killer and soldier again, and out of nowhere, Dean wonders if he maybe doesn’t really know how to convey his gratitude in the light, with words. He finds that he wants to try, wants to make some gesture to get past the secret of what he feels, and the sheer austerity of what he gives compared to what he gets back.
He swallows down the lump in his throat, and goes for it. “Maybe it was all that destiny crap, Cas, and maybe I was steered, but my brother wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gone there. Thinking that helps me deal. He’s worth it, worth every second of it, every bad memory, every flashback, every nightmare. But more and more I…” Dean stops, manages a weak grin as Castiel tilts his head curiously, then continues, stilted and unsure. “More and more I think about how you wouldn’t be here either if I hadn’t gone there. And that gives me perspective. I guess what I mean is - I wouldn’t do it any different if it meant not having my brother here. And if it meant… you know.” He lets it hang there. “Something like that, anyway,” he finishes off awkwardly.
There’s a long, complicated pause as Castiel stares at him, and Dean sees the second when it clicks, because the angel’s eyes widen fractionally and his lips quirk just barely. “You don’t have to tell me things like that, Dean,” he says quietly. “I don’t expect it of you.”
He seems pleased all the same as he pushes up, his shirt slipping down and leaving him bare to the waist. He toes off his boots, stretches luxuriantly, his upper back bunching and rippling, his shoulder blades briefly prominent, his arms stretched above him, lithe and flowing, and his fingers fanning out. Dean hears the pop and crack of bone, imagines the powerful flex of invisible wings, tendons and sinews contracting and expanding, the softness of feathers. Just for a second, he thinks he can see their shadow folding gracefully back in, and it makes his mouth go dry.
He roves hungry eyes up and down Castiel, all pale skin, wiry limbs, and angular points, and fuck, but he can feel his cock aching with his need for this, even through the spasms in his back. And now Castiel is stepping out of his pants, the dark fabric puddling on the floor next to him, and there’s something so damned gratifying about the fact Castiel just assumes he can stay, doesn’t ask or even doubt that Dean wants him right here, stripping off and crawling in the bed with him. Dean contentedly tracks the dark fuzz that sprouts just below Castiel’s navel and wends its intriguing way down below the waist of his boxers, and in the back of his mind he’s musing that Castiel might be pretty scrawny compared to him but his slight frame is just the veneer for inhuman strength and stamina, and he’s all lean, supple muscle, and just the thought of Castiel’s fingertips giving him more bruises on his hips to match the ones on his back-
“Dean?” Castiel is standing with his head canted in the usual quizzical-fond-perplexed way.
Dean blinks, confused. “Uh. Sorry. Were you talking?”
He can hear the amusement in Castiel’s voice. “I said, you don’t have to worry about slamming of any kind. I don’t intend making love to you.”
Dean crumples back down onto his front, scowls into the bedding. “Don’t call it that,” he snips out churlishly. “It’s sex. We fuck. That’s all it is.”
Castiel doesn’t answer, and Dean hears the sound of puttering, things being lifted and shifted, hears Castiel hum in satisfaction again, and then feels the bed dip on each side of him as his friend clambers over him, a knee planted on each side of his thighs, hands each side of his shoulders, a purr in his ear.
“We don’t fuck, Dean. We never have.” Castiel snakes his hands under Dean’s hips. “Up.”
Dean doesn’t argue, raises his ass up, sucking in air as his muscles complain. Nimble fingers unbutton his fly and he groans, thrusting his wood into Castiel’s palm as it plays briefly across his groin, thinks of the possibilities, the slow burn of Castiel pushing into him, filling him up, biting at his neck and sobbing out his name as he comes. “Please tell me Sammy’s onto a sure thing,” he mutters. “I don’t need him walking in on this.”
His jeans and shorts slide down his legs, the bedsprings creaking as Castiel crabs his way backwards. “Sam knows what we do, Dean,” he says matter-of-factly.
“But I like women,” Dean points out again, more feebly this time, he knows.
“Do you think that matters to your brother?” Castiel replies, and he sounds distinctly unimpressed. “He went to Hell for you, as you did for him. He knows you need this, and he’s happy you have it. In any case, he says we transcend gender.”
“He would,” Dean retorts scornfully. “He’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”
Castiel has warm fingers clamped around one of Dean’s ankles, his sock half off, and he sounds skeptical when he replies. “That’s an admirable goal, Dean, but I doubt it’s realistic. There are time zones involved, after all, and language differences that would make harmonizing difficult to achieve.” A brief silence follows, then an audible sigh of dawning realization. “Oh. That was you being-”
“Yes. It was. Still a tad slow on the uptake there, buddy.” Dean flexes his toes, hopes his feet don’t stink. “And we transcend fuckin’ species. And I still don’t need him walking in on this.”
Castiel is tugging Dean’s other sock off now. “He told me to tell you he made second base before they left the house. From where I was standing, he was in the process of making third, and a home run looked eminently possible. I don’t think he’ll be walking in on this.”
He scrambles back to where he was, and Dean muffles out a random noise into the pillow as the angel settles his butt on the backs of his thighs and lays a warm hand on his ribcage, where Dean knows the bruises are already clouding purple. “You should be more careful,” Castiel says again, and his voice is faint and troubled, the atmosphere in the room abruptly heavy.
Dean swallows. “If anything happens to me you can just bring me back,” he says, with forced lightness. “Remember, you’re the deus ex machina.”
He hears Castiel huff out above him. “It isn’t wise to interfere with the natural order, Dean, you know this. Moreover, I can’t always be here. And if anything happened to me, then-”
Dean doesn’t expect the chill that streaks through him as he cuts in. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he snaps roughly. “You’re a fuckin’ angel of the Lord. With super powers.” He bucks his ass up, irate, bites off a yelp at the pain that shoots in both directions, up to his neck, down his left leg to his toes. “So put them to use, because I just got the ever-loving shit kicked out of me, and my back is destroyed.”
Castiel makes exasperated clucking noises under his breath for a minute, and then he grazes a careful fingernail down Dean’s spine. “Dean,” he murmurs. “Dean…” He stops his finger three-quarters of the way down. “I believe deep tissue massage may ease your pain.”
His voice is low, dry like dead leaves, and Dean can feel the thrill of it clench his balls, wonders dirtily if that soft nub of flesh nudging at his crack, right where he wants it most, is Castiel’s dick and if it’s getting hard yet. “Is that a fact?” he responds breathlessly. He senses the angel reaching for something, flinches as he feels wet warmth stippling his skin, smells a spicy, woody aroma that seems familiar, though he can’t quite place it. “What is that?” he manages, and he swivels his head to see Castiel’s hands glistening with a film of fluid he’s pouring from the dull metal urn he must have rooted out of Dean’s duffel when he was puttering. “Holy oil?” Dean gapes. “Is that even allowed?”
The ghost of a smile lights up Castiel’s face. “Since God is absent without official leave, I’m optimistic we won’t be found out.” He rubs his hands together, places them each side of Dean’s backbone, smoothes them up, sure and confident, the liquid satin-slick under his palms, and Dean feels his insides tingle and go hot as the angel anoints him. He groans out his pleasure as the oil melts through his pores, sears into his bones, and all the time he can feel that insistent prodding along the seam where his glutes meet. He pushes back against it, and then Castiel’s lips are suddenly close to his ear, his breath caressing the lobe.
“Did you know the word massage means to touch, Dean? To feel, to handle… to work and manipulate the body?”
The angel’s voice is a suggestive growl now, baked as crusty as if it were fresh out of the stove, burnt brown and charred black in places, and Dean exhales long and deep, stress flooding out of him, leaving him feeling pliant and lethargic. “You’re doing the sex voice again,” he slurs contentedly. “I fuckin’ love the sex voice. It’s so Barry White.”
Castiel licks the spot right behind his ear, clever fingers kneading his right shoulder. “It troubles me that you have so many knots here, Dean,” he laments gravely. “These muscle fibers are bunched in ways that must cause you much tension and discomfort in your cervical spine, but-”
“Ow! Jesus, Cas!” Dean winces as the dull ache flares to an acute, fiery twinge, sucks in, feels the healing balm of warm lips, a damp stripe licked across the sore spot, a line of kisses, as Castiel’s fingers are replaced by the heel of his hand gently sliding the oil in apologetic circles over the area.
“Muscles that are knotted in spasm will be sensitive to the touch, Dean,” Castiel says, as he presses his chest against Dean’s back, his skin scorching in a way that has Dean gasp as it slithers across him on a film of sweet-smelling oil. “Massage relaxes the muscles, and this will afford you improved range of motion that may be useful to us in the next few hours.”
Just the thought of what Castiel might have in mind for his range of motion has Dean’s cock twitching so hard he thinks it might be punching the air in glee if he was lying on his back, and he’s full sure he can feel his slit smiling. And now his friend is mouthing at the patch of skin where Dean’s neck meets his shoulder, sucking and nipping at it so hard it stings, and Dean whimpers and squirms, because he can almost feel himself being marked, feel tiny capillaries exploding, bursting out blood that forms a purple rosette there, as if he didn’t already wear the stamp of ownership at the top of his other arm.
Castiel pinches a dedicated thumb and forefinger around each individual bone between Dean’s shoulder blades. “Such tightness here in the thoracic column, Dean,” he notes regretfully. He sleeks his knuckles moderately hard up either side of it, and the pain is shocky and delicious, so that Dean strains out a deep-pitched groan of pleasure and arches up to meet the firm, rhythmic pressure. “Massage also increases endorphin levels,” Castiel rumbles throatily then, right up against Dean’s nape, and he swabs it with his tongue and scratches it with his stubbled chin before he sits up and switches back to long, reverent strokes up and down Dean’s torso, his palms soothing, the heels of his hands pressing and kneading figure-eights on slippery skin. His fingers pinch and squeeze as he maps his way down Dean’s spine, the digits encroaching a few inches into the dark, past the sacrum, but never too far because Castiel is playing Dean like a fiddle, Dean knows, and Castiel is a virtuoso.
“Did you know that increased endorphin levels are one of the greatest benefits of massage therapy, Dean?” Castiel is leaning close again now, his voice a soporific, droned-out monotone, a puff of air vibrating across Dean’s cheekbone. “Endorphins are the chemicals the body produces that make you feel good… does this make you feel good, Dean?”
And Dean is more than good, good is a tiny spot on the horizon, good is a country mile behind him choking on his dust, because his skin is on fire with this. He wants to lie there forever with Castiel spooning him, and hell, if Castiel were to slip his magic fingers inside his ass any time now, that’d be just fine too. “Just - fuck,” he croaks out faintly. “Keep talking. And keep - God, Cas- doing-” He bites off a cry as Castiel sighs, traces his fingers idly down to where his body splits, dips them in deep, teases his entrance gently with oily lubrication before gliding out and across his butt and back up his ribcage, gasps out, desperate. “Jesus. Cas, please, I can’t-”
And there it is, a long, slow breach and push that has Dean forcing himself back onto Castiel’s hand at fuckin’ last. He flails his own hand around to scrabble at the oily slick of the angel draped over him, and he whines out animal sounds as gentle, relentless, expert pressure dragging across the gland has white hot sparks igniting inside him, reducing him to a trembling, sweating mess. He keens into the pillow, teetering on a knife-edge between ecstasy and pain, his cock is a steel pole he grinds into the mattress so hard he wonders if he might tunnel through it, and he knows his balls must be navy blue by now. Castiel plants kisses on his cheekbone and eyelid, and Dean writhes under Castiel’s worship, craves it because it’s sustenance, and he can feel his release building inside him. “Cas,” he sobs. “Please. Please.”
“Did you know the prostate is the root of the male sexual organ, D-”
“Fuck. Fuck.” Dean chokes it out, ruts into the bed, desperate for the friction he needs, and finally tumbles rapturously over the brink, shooting into the fabric underneath him like his cock is a fire hose pointing at the towering inferno. Castiel meets his mouth as he twists his head around, eager and frantic, swallows his own name as it cascades from Dean’s lips again and again, kisses him through the aftershocks, their tongues tangling wetly. And then he pulls away, buries his face in Dean’s shoulder, and Dean can feel the rock-hard, wet smear of his friend’s cock as he drives it slowly into the slot between Dean’s thighs along to a sibilant hiss of pleasure.
Dean tents his butt back, reaches around again to claw at Castiel’s thigh, pulling him in. He hears Castiel’s breath speed up, and the angel starts to stutter out soft, formless huffs and whimpers as he pumps into the space, slow and sensuous, controlled thrusts. Dean can feel the blunt head of Castiel’s dick scraping across the muscle, teasing it, feel the pads of Castiel’s fingers gripping his hips, digging into the bone. He feels Castiel’s shudder as it starts, and Castiel gasps and then groans low and harsh into the side of Dean’s neck as he climaxes, spurting warm and sloppy across Dean’s skin before slumping on top of him, a long, heated slab of flesh sucking in air.
Dean can feel his friend’s heart jackhammering against his back, and he grabs at the moment, holds onto it tight, murmurs it out just barely, but he knows it’s loud enough for Castiel to hear. “We don’t fuck, Cas. We never have.”
And then Castiel enfolds Dean like a living, breathing blanket, pulls him close and safe in his arms. “Would you really want me to bring you back if something happened to you, Dean?” he asks quietly, after a few moments when all that breaks the silence is their breathing.
Dean doesn’t answer for a second or two. Then, “No, I wouldn’t,” he says softly. He waits half a beat. “Would that be a problem for you?”
Castiel nuzzles his throat. “No. Whether we’re down here or up there makes no difference to me, Dean. We both know that in the end, I’m bound to you.”
Spoilers Up to 6.16/And Then There Were None
Wordcount 4,542
Dean is so out of it pondering for the nth time why it is the pillows in Bobby’s spare room always smell like the old man’s dogs that he doesn’t hear the beat of wings or feel the usual displacement of air waft cool across the skin of his back, just startles with a jolt as his legs are lifted up a few inches and his boots are tugged off his feet.
“Your back is badly bruised,” the voice observes somberly.
Dean cranes his head painfully and fixes the angel with a baleful stare. “No shit, Sherlock. You must pride yourself on your deductive reasoning skills.”
Castiel ignores him, shrugs off his trench coat and jacket, folds them fussily and lays them on the moth-eaten chair in the corner of the room, and when he turns back his brow is furrowed and his expression earnest. “Sam thinks this happened because you’re exhausted. He said you haven’t been sleeping. That you’ve been having nightmares. Why didn’t you tell me you-”
“It was a troll,” Dean deflects pissily. “Great big one. Fat, hairy. Bad breath, pimples, the whole nine yards. Threw me into a tree.” He pauses a beat to throw up in his mouth at the memory. “I hate fuckin’ trolls. They need to die. Hard. And I was wide-awake at the time. Sam’s talking crap.”
Castiel crosses to sit on the bed next to Dean, reaches over and deftly tweaks the bottle he’s cuddling from his grip.
“That’s medicinal,” Dean protests vainly.
“It’s bad medicine.” Castiel sets the bottle down on the floor, touches his hand lightly to Dean’s shoulder blade, and Dean can’t help the shiver that runs up and down his back. The angel trails calculated fingertips up to the nape of Dean’s neck, rests them on the jut of vertebrae there. “You should be more careful,” he admonishes mildly. “If I keep fixing you, I could become little more than a deus ex machina. I’d rather you didn’t take me for granted, Dean, it could make you complacent. Nietzsche argues that the deus ex machina creates a false sense of consolation that shouldn’t be sought in phenomena. That said, this may-”
“Jesus fuckin’ Chrysler, Cas, give it a rest,” Dean barks irritably, even as the first spark ignites in his groin and he rounds the top of his back up into his friend’s hand almost subconsciously. “A troll threw me at a tree. I don’t expect you to fix me every damn time, I know you have better things to do. And I was careful. While making it suck donkey balls.” He smirks. “Like all trolls should.”
Castiel fixes him with a laser glare. “As I was going to say before you interrupted, this may be a somewhat simplified view of the deus ex machina. The device may in fact allow mortals to probe their relationship with the divine.”
Dean thinks on that for about ten seconds before he creaks stiffly up onto his elbows, pokes out the tip of his tongue, and runs it suggestively along his top lip. “I’m all for probing the divine,” he leers. “Especially as the divine’s been probing me since whatever the fuck this crap is with you and me started.”
Castiel starts tugging at his tie. “You know exactly what this crap is, Dean,” he says, and Dean thinks he sounds cheerful about it. “You’re just in denial.”
Dean huffs out in derision. “I like women,” he insists, flopping his face back into the musty pillow. “And you don’t have to sound so damned smug about it. You messed with my mind when you put me back together. Crossed a wire or something.”
In the next second, the flat of Castiel’s hand is warm relief on Dean’s lower back, and a finger insinuates itself just under the waistband of his jeans. It’s the promise of more, and Dean doesn’t have to raise his eyes to know his friend is leaning down over him, because he can feel the static of proximity dancing pleasantly across his skin, raising every single downy hair. “You may like women, but you like this too,” Castiel whispers right into his ear, so that Dean can feel his breath like humid vapor. “You may want them, but you need this. You wear my brand, Dean, and we both know that in the end, you’re bound to me.”
It’s possessive, decisive, absolute, even if the words are breathed out like silk, and it throws another log on the embers smoldering low in Dean’s belly and curls up, content and comfortable, in front of the warmth that floods through him at the feeling of being owned, cared for, at the feeling he’s precious.
Castiel presses soft lips to the line of Dean’s jaw before he sits up again, and Dean can hear him humming under his breath, slants his eyes to see him unbuttoning his shirt. And he wants to say he doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand what this really is, can’t honestly fathom why he should be so important to something like Castiel. “Why are you even here?” he bitches instead, for the sake of appearances, even though he can feel his cock pressing tentatively at his fly and knows that any minute now it’ll be hammering furiously at the barricade with both fists, hollering to be let out. “I’m in no shape for wall slamming. Or car slamming. And say the word probe again.”
Castiel gives him a long-suffering look. “Probe,” he repeats, with infinite patience. “And you know I’m not just using you for sex, Dean, as enjoyable as that may be. Sam called me down and asked me to check on you in Bobby’s absence.”
Dean lifts his head again and goggles at that, momentarily distracted from his rapidly growing hard-on and his inability to comprehend why a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent would give him the time of day, much less make him shudder and moan its name as he falls apart under the body it wears. “He prayed to you and you beamed down in the middle of his date?”
Castiel shrugs dismissively. “He was most insistent about talking to me.”
Dean scowls. “When you say he prayed, was it like a rescue ring prayer?” He chews his thumbnail, mulls it briefly. “No,” he decides. “That makes no sense. She looks at him like she’s about to jump him any minute.” He glances up again, sees a blank stare being directed back at him. He rolls his eyes, elaborates. “You know, rescue ring? You get a buddy to call you a half-hour into a blind date, so if she looks like Abe Lincoln you can tell her there’s an emergency.”
“I see.” Castiel’s expression goes thoughtful. “He didn’t appear to be trying to escape,” he muses finally. “Or to need rescuing. In fact, they were both only partially clothed, and he was about to…” He trails off at Dean’s raised finger, and Dean could swear he sees the angel’s lips twitch slightly at the corners. “Some time had elapsed since the prayer,” he concedes. “He did say you weren’t badly injured, so I didn’t rush. I was… busy.”
Despite the almost-smile there’s a fleeting, human weariness in Castiel’s tone, exhaustion that tracks across his face so fast Dean thinks he might have imagined it at first, but now he’s alert to it he can see it lingering in his friend’s eyes, fading their blue to washed-out gray as he looks down and away. “Are you alright?” he queries automatically, and as soon as the question trips off his tongue it suddenly occurs to him that as fundamental as it is, months have gone by since Castiel showed up in Easter and he hasn’t asked it until now. The sudden awareness gives him a hollow, uncomfortable twist of guilt in his gut, and he’s more careful when he continues. “You, uh - don’t really tell me much.”
Castiel flicks his gaze back up, ignores the question, and his eyes are narrow and critical now as he sidetracks brusquely. “Is it wise for your brother to be entertaining the local sheriff?”
The tangent catches Dean on his back foot, and he rolls clumsily onto his side, stifling a yelp as sharp pain streaks up his back. “She’s cool,” he defends. “She knows the deal, anyhoo. Their eyes met over the chewed remains of her husband, and they bonded while ganking her zombie kid. I think she can handle Sam’s baggage. And God knows, he needs to get laid. He needs something good to happen for him. He deserves it.”
Castiel contemplates Dean some more, clears his throat. “The wall… it’s holding?”
His tone is neutral, but the awful possibility underlying the words still makes Dean shiver, makes him think of his brother’s very essence skinned raw, mutilated, depraved and corrupted like he was. It paralyzes him with sickly disgust at what he did there, at what his brother might have endured there, and in that instant he can hear the discordant, shrieking din of Hell inside his head and his mind’s eye blinks away scarlet-drenched horror as he stares dumbly at the angel.
Castiel’s expression flashes bleak for a second before it softens into compassion, because he knows Dean like no one ever has or will, knows what Dean is thinking as if he can see right into his head, even though Dean knows he’d never look without an invite. “Don’t,” he says simply. “His Hell wasn’t the same as yours. And it wasn’t your fault. And you’re forgiven.”
Castiel has whispered it to Dean more than once through his cries in the night, hushed, restrained comfort, sighed-out declarations and pledges that cut through Dean’s strident, crashing terror as if the angel were shouting the words through a megaphone. But still Dean’s chest constricts with relief at hearing the absolution he craves, and his heart flops with appreciation and with something else he has only ever really expressed with the language of hands and fingers, lips, tongue, and teeth, with his skin, his sweat, and his come, offered up in the dark, where Castiel can’t see what might be in his eyes to give him away. They never talk about it in the cold gray of morning, when they become killer and soldier again, and out of nowhere, Dean wonders if he maybe doesn’t really know how to convey his gratitude in the light, with words. He finds that he wants to try, wants to make some gesture to get past the secret of what he feels, and the sheer austerity of what he gives compared to what he gets back.
He swallows down the lump in his throat, and goes for it. “Maybe it was all that destiny crap, Cas, and maybe I was steered, but my brother wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gone there. Thinking that helps me deal. He’s worth it, worth every second of it, every bad memory, every flashback, every nightmare. But more and more I…” Dean stops, manages a weak grin as Castiel tilts his head curiously, then continues, stilted and unsure. “More and more I think about how you wouldn’t be here either if I hadn’t gone there. And that gives me perspective. I guess what I mean is - I wouldn’t do it any different if it meant not having my brother here. And if it meant… you know.” He lets it hang there. “Something like that, anyway,” he finishes off awkwardly.
There’s a long, complicated pause as Castiel stares at him, and Dean sees the second when it clicks, because the angel’s eyes widen fractionally and his lips quirk just barely. “You don’t have to tell me things like that, Dean,” he says quietly. “I don’t expect it of you.”
He seems pleased all the same as he pushes up, his shirt slipping down and leaving him bare to the waist. He toes off his boots, stretches luxuriantly, his upper back bunching and rippling, his shoulder blades briefly prominent, his arms stretched above him, lithe and flowing, and his fingers fanning out. Dean hears the pop and crack of bone, imagines the powerful flex of invisible wings, tendons and sinews contracting and expanding, the softness of feathers. Just for a second, he thinks he can see their shadow folding gracefully back in, and it makes his mouth go dry.
He roves hungry eyes up and down Castiel, all pale skin, wiry limbs, and angular points, and fuck, but he can feel his cock aching with his need for this, even through the spasms in his back. And now Castiel is stepping out of his pants, the dark fabric puddling on the floor next to him, and there’s something so damned gratifying about the fact Castiel just assumes he can stay, doesn’t ask or even doubt that Dean wants him right here, stripping off and crawling in the bed with him. Dean contentedly tracks the dark fuzz that sprouts just below Castiel’s navel and wends its intriguing way down below the waist of his boxers, and in the back of his mind he’s musing that Castiel might be pretty scrawny compared to him but his slight frame is just the veneer for inhuman strength and stamina, and he’s all lean, supple muscle, and just the thought of Castiel’s fingertips giving him more bruises on his hips to match the ones on his back-
“Dean?” Castiel is standing with his head canted in the usual quizzical-fond-perplexed way.
Dean blinks, confused. “Uh. Sorry. Were you talking?”
He can hear the amusement in Castiel’s voice. “I said, you don’t have to worry about slamming of any kind. I don’t intend making love to you.”
Dean crumples back down onto his front, scowls into the bedding. “Don’t call it that,” he snips out churlishly. “It’s sex. We fuck. That’s all it is.”
Castiel doesn’t answer, and Dean hears the sound of puttering, things being lifted and shifted, hears Castiel hum in satisfaction again, and then feels the bed dip on each side of him as his friend clambers over him, a knee planted on each side of his thighs, hands each side of his shoulders, a purr in his ear.
“We don’t fuck, Dean. We never have.” Castiel snakes his hands under Dean’s hips. “Up.”
Dean doesn’t argue, raises his ass up, sucking in air as his muscles complain. Nimble fingers unbutton his fly and he groans, thrusting his wood into Castiel’s palm as it plays briefly across his groin, thinks of the possibilities, the slow burn of Castiel pushing into him, filling him up, biting at his neck and sobbing out his name as he comes. “Please tell me Sammy’s onto a sure thing,” he mutters. “I don’t need him walking in on this.”
His jeans and shorts slide down his legs, the bedsprings creaking as Castiel crabs his way backwards. “Sam knows what we do, Dean,” he says matter-of-factly.
“But I like women,” Dean points out again, more feebly this time, he knows.
“Do you think that matters to your brother?” Castiel replies, and he sounds distinctly unimpressed. “He went to Hell for you, as you did for him. He knows you need this, and he’s happy you have it. In any case, he says we transcend gender.”
“He would,” Dean retorts scornfully. “He’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”
Castiel has warm fingers clamped around one of Dean’s ankles, his sock half off, and he sounds skeptical when he replies. “That’s an admirable goal, Dean, but I doubt it’s realistic. There are time zones involved, after all, and language differences that would make harmonizing difficult to achieve.” A brief silence follows, then an audible sigh of dawning realization. “Oh. That was you being-”
“Yes. It was. Still a tad slow on the uptake there, buddy.” Dean flexes his toes, hopes his feet don’t stink. “And we transcend fuckin’ species. And I still don’t need him walking in on this.”
Castiel is tugging Dean’s other sock off now. “He told me to tell you he made second base before they left the house. From where I was standing, he was in the process of making third, and a home run looked eminently possible. I don’t think he’ll be walking in on this.”
He scrambles back to where he was, and Dean muffles out a random noise into the pillow as the angel settles his butt on the backs of his thighs and lays a warm hand on his ribcage, where Dean knows the bruises are already clouding purple. “You should be more careful,” Castiel says again, and his voice is faint and troubled, the atmosphere in the room abruptly heavy.
Dean swallows. “If anything happens to me you can just bring me back,” he says, with forced lightness. “Remember, you’re the deus ex machina.”
He hears Castiel huff out above him. “It isn’t wise to interfere with the natural order, Dean, you know this. Moreover, I can’t always be here. And if anything happened to me, then-”
Dean doesn’t expect the chill that streaks through him as he cuts in. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he snaps roughly. “You’re a fuckin’ angel of the Lord. With super powers.” He bucks his ass up, irate, bites off a yelp at the pain that shoots in both directions, up to his neck, down his left leg to his toes. “So put them to use, because I just got the ever-loving shit kicked out of me, and my back is destroyed.”
Castiel makes exasperated clucking noises under his breath for a minute, and then he grazes a careful fingernail down Dean’s spine. “Dean,” he murmurs. “Dean…” He stops his finger three-quarters of the way down. “I believe deep tissue massage may ease your pain.”
His voice is low, dry like dead leaves, and Dean can feel the thrill of it clench his balls, wonders dirtily if that soft nub of flesh nudging at his crack, right where he wants it most, is Castiel’s dick and if it’s getting hard yet. “Is that a fact?” he responds breathlessly. He senses the angel reaching for something, flinches as he feels wet warmth stippling his skin, smells a spicy, woody aroma that seems familiar, though he can’t quite place it. “What is that?” he manages, and he swivels his head to see Castiel’s hands glistening with a film of fluid he’s pouring from the dull metal urn he must have rooted out of Dean’s duffel when he was puttering. “Holy oil?” Dean gapes. “Is that even allowed?”
The ghost of a smile lights up Castiel’s face. “Since God is absent without official leave, I’m optimistic we won’t be found out.” He rubs his hands together, places them each side of Dean’s backbone, smoothes them up, sure and confident, the liquid satin-slick under his palms, and Dean feels his insides tingle and go hot as the angel anoints him. He groans out his pleasure as the oil melts through his pores, sears into his bones, and all the time he can feel that insistent prodding along the seam where his glutes meet. He pushes back against it, and then Castiel’s lips are suddenly close to his ear, his breath caressing the lobe.
“Did you know the word massage means to touch, Dean? To feel, to handle… to work and manipulate the body?”
The angel’s voice is a suggestive growl now, baked as crusty as if it were fresh out of the stove, burnt brown and charred black in places, and Dean exhales long and deep, stress flooding out of him, leaving him feeling pliant and lethargic. “You’re doing the sex voice again,” he slurs contentedly. “I fuckin’ love the sex voice. It’s so Barry White.”
Castiel licks the spot right behind his ear, clever fingers kneading his right shoulder. “It troubles me that you have so many knots here, Dean,” he laments gravely. “These muscle fibers are bunched in ways that must cause you much tension and discomfort in your cervical spine, but-”
“Ow! Jesus, Cas!” Dean winces as the dull ache flares to an acute, fiery twinge, sucks in, feels the healing balm of warm lips, a damp stripe licked across the sore spot, a line of kisses, as Castiel’s fingers are replaced by the heel of his hand gently sliding the oil in apologetic circles over the area.
“Muscles that are knotted in spasm will be sensitive to the touch, Dean,” Castiel says, as he presses his chest against Dean’s back, his skin scorching in a way that has Dean gasp as it slithers across him on a film of sweet-smelling oil. “Massage relaxes the muscles, and this will afford you improved range of motion that may be useful to us in the next few hours.”
Just the thought of what Castiel might have in mind for his range of motion has Dean’s cock twitching so hard he thinks it might be punching the air in glee if he was lying on his back, and he’s full sure he can feel his slit smiling. And now his friend is mouthing at the patch of skin where Dean’s neck meets his shoulder, sucking and nipping at it so hard it stings, and Dean whimpers and squirms, because he can almost feel himself being marked, feel tiny capillaries exploding, bursting out blood that forms a purple rosette there, as if he didn’t already wear the stamp of ownership at the top of his other arm.
Castiel pinches a dedicated thumb and forefinger around each individual bone between Dean’s shoulder blades. “Such tightness here in the thoracic column, Dean,” he notes regretfully. He sleeks his knuckles moderately hard up either side of it, and the pain is shocky and delicious, so that Dean strains out a deep-pitched groan of pleasure and arches up to meet the firm, rhythmic pressure. “Massage also increases endorphin levels,” Castiel rumbles throatily then, right up against Dean’s nape, and he swabs it with his tongue and scratches it with his stubbled chin before he sits up and switches back to long, reverent strokes up and down Dean’s torso, his palms soothing, the heels of his hands pressing and kneading figure-eights on slippery skin. His fingers pinch and squeeze as he maps his way down Dean’s spine, the digits encroaching a few inches into the dark, past the sacrum, but never too far because Castiel is playing Dean like a fiddle, Dean knows, and Castiel is a virtuoso.
“Did you know that increased endorphin levels are one of the greatest benefits of massage therapy, Dean?” Castiel is leaning close again now, his voice a soporific, droned-out monotone, a puff of air vibrating across Dean’s cheekbone. “Endorphins are the chemicals the body produces that make you feel good… does this make you feel good, Dean?”
And Dean is more than good, good is a tiny spot on the horizon, good is a country mile behind him choking on his dust, because his skin is on fire with this. He wants to lie there forever with Castiel spooning him, and hell, if Castiel were to slip his magic fingers inside his ass any time now, that’d be just fine too. “Just - fuck,” he croaks out faintly. “Keep talking. And keep - God, Cas- doing-” He bites off a cry as Castiel sighs, traces his fingers idly down to where his body splits, dips them in deep, teases his entrance gently with oily lubrication before gliding out and across his butt and back up his ribcage, gasps out, desperate. “Jesus. Cas, please, I can’t-”
And there it is, a long, slow breach and push that has Dean forcing himself back onto Castiel’s hand at fuckin’ last. He flails his own hand around to scrabble at the oily slick of the angel draped over him, and he whines out animal sounds as gentle, relentless, expert pressure dragging across the gland has white hot sparks igniting inside him, reducing him to a trembling, sweating mess. He keens into the pillow, teetering on a knife-edge between ecstasy and pain, his cock is a steel pole he grinds into the mattress so hard he wonders if he might tunnel through it, and he knows his balls must be navy blue by now. Castiel plants kisses on his cheekbone and eyelid, and Dean writhes under Castiel’s worship, craves it because it’s sustenance, and he can feel his release building inside him. “Cas,” he sobs. “Please. Please.”
“Did you know the prostate is the root of the male sexual organ, D-”
“Fuck. Fuck.” Dean chokes it out, ruts into the bed, desperate for the friction he needs, and finally tumbles rapturously over the brink, shooting into the fabric underneath him like his cock is a fire hose pointing at the towering inferno. Castiel meets his mouth as he twists his head around, eager and frantic, swallows his own name as it cascades from Dean’s lips again and again, kisses him through the aftershocks, their tongues tangling wetly. And then he pulls away, buries his face in Dean’s shoulder, and Dean can feel the rock-hard, wet smear of his friend’s cock as he drives it slowly into the slot between Dean’s thighs along to a sibilant hiss of pleasure.
Dean tents his butt back, reaches around again to claw at Castiel’s thigh, pulling him in. He hears Castiel’s breath speed up, and the angel starts to stutter out soft, formless huffs and whimpers as he pumps into the space, slow and sensuous, controlled thrusts. Dean can feel the blunt head of Castiel’s dick scraping across the muscle, teasing it, feel the pads of Castiel’s fingers gripping his hips, digging into the bone. He feels Castiel’s shudder as it starts, and Castiel gasps and then groans low and harsh into the side of Dean’s neck as he climaxes, spurting warm and sloppy across Dean’s skin before slumping on top of him, a long, heated slab of flesh sucking in air.
Dean can feel his friend’s heart jackhammering against his back, and he grabs at the moment, holds onto it tight, murmurs it out just barely, but he knows it’s loud enough for Castiel to hear. “We don’t fuck, Cas. We never have.”
And then Castiel enfolds Dean like a living, breathing blanket, pulls him close and safe in his arms. “Would you really want me to bring you back if something happened to you, Dean?” he asks quietly, after a few moments when all that breaks the silence is their breathing.
Dean doesn’t answer for a second or two. Then, “No, I wouldn’t,” he says softly. He waits half a beat. “Would that be a problem for you?”
Castiel nuzzles his throat. “No. Whether we’re down here or up there makes no difference to me, Dean. We both know that in the end, I’m bound to you.”