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Castiel had never given any thought to how he might fall in love—and even less thought to something as foreign as lust—at any point in time during his long, long existence.
Of course, that wasn’t acceptable, to some of the beings he’s met in his life. Meg. Daphne. The Reaper that had possessed April. Hannah. Perhaps Balthazar. He even has wondered at times if Crowley might have pushed him in such directions, given the chance.
(And those aren’t the only ones. They’re just the most recent.)
Yet, the fact remains—he had never given it any thought.
So to say that hearing a man call him “brother” is worse than he’d imagined…
Well, that just wouldn’t be true.
And he thinks he’s glad now, that he hadn’t thought of it. Hadn’t dreamt of romance, or of sex, or anything of the kind, even while he was human and seemingly “meant” for such things. Even after he’d supposedly had it, with the Reaper—even if that had gone well—it still likely wouldn’t have been a fantasy of his, and that’s, a good thing.
Because the disappointment he’s feeling right now might have killed him, if he had ever even halfheartedly planned for anything else.
As it is, it hurts, like being carved into something damaged and broken with an angel blade; he doesn’t think he could have survived anything more than this.
“Thank you,” he barely manages to say in response, his eyes falling to Dean’s hand on the seat beside him and scrunching slightly with the pain of wishing he could, hold it.
Dean would never accept such feelings from a “brother”, and Castiel would do well to remember that, rather than endear himself even less by trying for more.
When the decision is made, that Dean will go to Amara—that Dean will be a bomb and thus, even if they win, will be destroyed in a way that not even Chuck could reassemble—Castiel knows with even more clarity that he is, in love. If only because a pain so profound he’s amazed that he can remain standing, takes over his entire body, upon realizing that Dean will die, for good this time.
He wants desperately to pull Dean aside, somehow, to beg him to stay even as the sun fades away. To plead for another way, and tell Dean he won’t allow this to happen whether they find one or not. To go with him, if Dean truly must do this, so that they’ll have more time.
But he doesn’t get the chance, and it is too difficult to allow himself to crumble, with so much of an audience. So he swallows the unspeakable agony down to where it cannot show, and hugs Dean, and promises to look after Sam for him.
I love you, he thinks as Dean disappears to where Amara is. Then he turns and meets Chuck’s pitying eyes, because there’s no point in hiding it from God.
He can only pray, that Chuck won’t-
That pain goes through him again as he remembers: Chuck won’t have the opportunity, to tell Dean. Dean… will be long gone, and none of them will ever see him again.
When Castiel returns to the Bunker, likely hours behind whatever plot the woman who’d Banished him has concocted, the first thing he sees is a familiar figure with red hair, sitting at the map table. Or, well, more like slumped over it as though she might fall asleep at any moment.
Castiel hurries down the stairs, for the moment distracted from the everpresent heartache of Dean’s dissipation by his shock and delight at seeing her again.
“Charlie,” he says, stopping very near her and wishing he were the kind to, hug someone easily.
(At least, someone who’s not Dean.)
“Hey, Cas,” she says with the tiniest smile, as audibly tired as she is visibly.
“I-I don’t understand,” he says, full of equal amounts of awe and confusion. “How are you- ”
“Alive? Funny story, but I think you’d rather have Dean tell it than me.”
Castiel’s breathing stutters and his heart starts to pound in a way he can only now recognize is familiar—a way that Dean often inspires. “Dean?”
“Mom’s down for the count. Guess coming back to life does a number on- ” he hears from behind him, and he whirls around so quickly that it’d probably be comical, if anything could be right now.
“Dean,” he breathes out, feeling a stinging behind his eyes as he stares at Dean, alive and whole right in front of him.
He doesn’t give his limbs permission, but they’re moving anyway, until he’s stumbled into Dean’s arms and fallen against his chest, squeezing those stinging eyes closed against his shoulder.
“Hey,” is murmured near his ear, and he’s just figured out that his body has begun to tremble, when Dean repeats it, arms tightening around him, “Hey, hey, hey. We’re good, Cas. I’m good. You don’t need to be like this. Not for me, man.”
If only he knew. Castiel wouldn’t be like this about anyone else. He cannot help that.
Not even Sam—and with that Castiel remembers why he was so desperate to get home even before he knew about all this.
“Dean, I think the woman who Banished me, may have taken Sam.”
There’s not a lot of time to discuss Dean’s (or Charlie’s, or…Mary’s?) miraculous survival after that.
Sam’s return only adds to the chaos that is their lives—if it isn’t too unkind to think such a thing. Between what’s been done to him (apparently by the British Men of Letters), and what’s suddenly happened to Mary and Charlie (apparently, Amara revived one and Chuck the other), there isn’t a lot of time to even think about what Castiel has learned of himself, much less worry about it.
Even if Dean did feel the same, he likely would have ignored it to take care of everyone, the way he does in the next days.
Castiel withholds any kind of rumination on his own, aches and pains of any kind. He doesn’t want to be someone else for Dean to mother. Even Dean’s own mother needs that, more than he does.
(In fact, if he had his way, he’d be caring for Dean, but Dean won’t allow it beyond bringing him a beer or a burger from a diner once in a while.)
As such, there’s nothing for them to do but work, and so work they do. On separate cases, unfortunately, Dean with Sam and Mary and Castiel with Crowley, while Charlie recuperates enough to grasp the world she had left so recently.
It takes Castiel several days of research “in the field”, before he starts to grasp, that Chuck and Amara have done something else when they left Earth.
…They have taken Lucifer with them, and so his sojourn with Crowley is quite pointless and leaves him very much at a loss.
At least that’s reason to leave Crowley, and return to the Bunker while the Winchesters do, whatever they’re doing.
(The last he heard, it had something to do with a crying baby.)
Crowley seems reluctant, to return to Hell, but Castiel doesn’t much care, what Crowley does or doesn’t do. He is not welcome, in the Winchesters’ home, the way that Castiel jealously guards being. He is certainly not welcome around Charlie, whom his mother annoyed to death.
When he says goodbye, to Crowley, it’s an enormous relief. Especially as Crowley had begun to, pick at him, about his relationship with Dean, and Castiel is not very adept at doing anything to deter him.
But then he says hello to Charlie, who’s mostly been sleeping, eating, and using a laptop to catch up on what she’s missed, and well…
The first thing she says is, “You really miss Dean, huh?”
Castiel is glad that he cannot eat, as he surely would have choked upon being pinned with Charlie’s intent gaze and asked such a thing.
As it is, he does a strange double-taking motion, trying to look away and not be rude simultaneously, which is probably just as revealing.
He doesn’t know how to respond, either. Will it damn him, if he says yes? Will she know he’s lying, if he says no? And what if she tells Dean, the extent of how much Castiel misses him after mere days apart?
In the end, he does neither. Just shrugs his shoulders and drops his gaze away from hers, aware of her hazel eyes on him but unsure what to do about it.
“Yeah,” she says in a low voice. “Been there, dude.”
Castiel blinks up from the kitchen floor to watch her making her sandwich. “I’m not sure that I qualify as a- ”
Charlie’s eyes widen as they meet his. “Oh, no, no, I totally meant that in a gender neutral way, I promise.”
Castiel smiles a little before he can stop himself. “I wasn’t aware that that word could be, neutral.”
Charlie chuckles in an obvious good-natured manner. “Well, stick with me, Cas, I’ll show you things about being queer you were super unaware of.”
Castiel double-takes again—again before he can stop himself—at that choice of words. “Why- why would I know anything about that?”
Charlie gives him another long look he doesn’t understand, as she’s screwing the lid back on the jar of mayonnaise, and then says, “I don’t know, Cas. Why would you?”
Suddenly more nervous than before, Castiel starts to ramble, “I have seen queer people, of course. I was Earth’s guardian for a very long time. I know what it is and I know that it’s different for everyone, and I know that you are…”
“Queer,” Charlie puts in. “Lesbian, specifically.”
“Yes, that.” Castiel swallows, worrying that he’s screwing something up here, as he says the word she said—one that he’s never said before. “Queer. But I’m- I mean- I don’t- ”
Charlie’s face looks… softer somehow, as she abandons the mayonnaise and comes close enough to gently touch Castiel’s shoulder. “Cas, it was just a question. I don’t expect you to say… anything specific, about you or,” she hums, “anyone else.”
Castiel blinks back at her, uncertain in many ways about this conversation—and all ways that she does not seem to suffer from. “What… would I say?” he asks, his voice weaker than he expected it to be.
Charlie squeezes his shoulder where her hand rests, and then lets go. “If we’re really gonna sit down and talk about this, I’m gonna need a drink. You want one?”
Castiel shakes his head, still stunned at her implications. “I can only taste…”
“Molecules. Right. You told me that about the pizza, before uh- ”
“Before you… died,” Castiel finishes for her, chewing his lip as she flinches.
“Yeeeah. Basically.” She clears her throat, and nods at the wooden table. “So park it while I put this stuff away and figure out what Dean’s got to drink here, and then we’ll… chat.”
At a loss for what else he could possibly do, Castiel follows her instructions and ‘parks it’ at the table, watching her warily as she puts away the sandwich things and digs in the refrigerator until she unearths something violently pink in a bottle with a soft, “Ha, I knew he didn’t just drink the gross kind.”
Then she picks up her plate and the bottle and comes to sit across from him at the table. Staring hard at him over her sandwich as she takes a bite. He remains, nervous, as he stares back.
“So.” she begins around a bite of what appears to be ham and cheese and mayo and a kind of spread he thinks Dean makes himself. “For starters, if you’re not a dude…”
Castiel can feel it as his heart pounds at this, but the truth is, “I’m not sure what I am. It would appear that I am comfortable, in this body, but… that’s all I really know. Angels don’t exactly, explore such things.”
Charlie gives him another long look. “But you wanna, don’t you,” she says, and the fact that it’s more of a statement than a question unnerves him.
Especially because she’s not wrong.
“I have… considered doing so. When I was human, I never had the opportunity, to learn more than what I’ve witnessed… but I know there’s something, that’s different than, being merely a man.”
Charlie hums, around another bite of sandwich. “Yeah. I could see that.”
Castiel blanches, before he’s even thought to. “You can see that?”
Charlie grins, as she swallows. “Nah, Cas. Just an expression. I actually had no idea, until you said it. After all, Sam and Dean sure think you’re a guy.”
Castiel winces, because she’s not wrong about that either. He’s uncertain how to bring up such a thing with Dean, when Dean seems to so relish that they’re the same in that way.
“That brings me to my next point,” Charlie says, picking at the bottle of violently pink liquid. “‘Cause for sure, you can be queer without it, Cas, but. But. For my own curiosity…”
She trails off there, and Castiel tilts his head.
“What?” he asks. “What are you ‘curious’ about?”
Charlie looks away for a second, chewing what might be, thoughtfully. “I just… I wonder, how you feel. About Dean.”
Castiel’s nostrils flare as he inhales sharply. “I- ”
“Because like, I read the books, right? I know all about your story. With Dean. All the way back to Uriel telling Dean you liked him. So yeah. I’m curious, I guess.”
Castiel’s brows furrow. He wasn’t aware that Uriel had ever said that; though, he supposes it shouldn’t surprise him, with the hindsight that he has of Uriel’s distaste for it. He had nearly never liked Dean, and liked the way Castiel felt about him even less.
“I…” he tries again, but the words won’t come. The lie won’t rise, to fly off of his lips and tongue into the air. He can only think the truth, and he’s terrified, that if he opens his mouth for any longer, he’ll speak it.
“Let’s try something a little easier,” Charlie says gently, handing him the drink so that he can pop the cap off of it with ease and hand it back.
“Easier?” he asks, hoping that she’ll move off of the Dean topic entirely.
“Yeah. Like, how did you feel about Dean then?”
Castiel blinks, thinking deeply of how to answer that one. It’s a different answer, than now’s would be.
“I was… fascinated,” he admits. “I didn’t understand him, and yet… in some ways I did, more than I’d understood any other being as long as I lived. I wanted to, be friendly with him. Friendlier than I was allowed to be, because I was there to, coax him toward Heaven’s whims.” Castiel pauses, surprised by how quickly the response came to him. “They demoted me, because my sympathies had shifted away from Heaven—because I wanted good things for him more than for them. And then…”
“And then?” Charlie is coaxing, herself, her voice barely a breath. Castiel doesn’t know why he follows her coaxing. Perhaps locking all of this inside himself for so long has had some sort of, effect.
“…And then, I Fell, because everything he’d said made such sense. Because I knew, that the only way to be fair to him—and to be friendly with him—was to Fall. Because we wanted…” Castiel marvels at the clarity of this, even as he continues, “…the same things, then. Much more than I could claim, of Heaven.”
Charlie hums again, and then laughs to herself. “Guess you fell in all the ways, huh?”
Castiel blinks, startled by that question, and then shakes his head. “No. I don’t think that I did. I- I chose,” he pauses again, shocked at the choice of words, “-to Fall to join him, but my feelings weren’t- I wasn’t- ”
He falters, but says it anyway, “I wasn’t… in love with him, then. Or, if I was, it… it wasn’t why.”
Then he looks up at the silence that follows the words, and sees that Charlie is just as shocked. Her mouth hanging open (with a bit of bread inside it, unfortunately), her eyes wide, her eyebrows high on her forehead.
“Charlie?” Castiel becomes somewhat aware that he’s, trembling, as a long moment passes without her saying anything. This is the first time the words have existed, outside of his own mind, and he’s not entirely sure that he likes that, if it’s to cause reactions like this.
“You’re- ?” Charlie takes a deep breath and then tries again, “You’re in love with Dean?!” It comes out almost as a screech, making Castiel flinch.
A very scared part of Castiel wants to check his phone, this minute, to be certain that there’s no possible way Dean could have heard that. The rest of him, just bows his head and nods, because he’s already said what he’s said, and short of taking Charlie’s memory (something he would never do unless perhaps she asked him to), there’s little he could ever do about it.
“Okay, uh. Wow. So.” Charlie swallows audibly and then clears her throat. “We’re working with, multiple kinds of queer at this point, Cas.”
Castiel lifts his gaze from the table in front of him to stare at her, aghast. Even if he had guessed at such things, it’s quite different to be told.
“How many kinds?” he asks, more out of curiosity than any real need to label himself.
“Well. You’re not a dude, so unless you’re a lady, um. Pretty sure it’s queer all the way down, no matter who you love.” Charlie takes a sip of her pink drink and smiles at him. “Welcome to the club.”
Castiel ponders this for a second, muttering a half-thought-out, “I have possessed a woman. Two, if one counts Claire Novak, but she was only a girl then.”
Charlie blinks at him over the neck of her bottle. “Hmm, didn’t know that part, but it really only underscores the point, Cas. Even if you weren’t, in love with a guy…”
Then she pauses, giving him a look that he could almost compare to one of his own. Squinting at him with what’s obviously a burning curiosity.
“There’s one more thing we gotta discuss, though, to know if there’s more kinds to be had.”
Castiel just blinks back at her, unfazed. It’s amazing how much more at ease he feels, with someone knowing how he feels. “What’s that?”
“Is it just Dean?”
Ah. Of course, and this one he can answer honestly the first time.
“Yes.”
Charlie stares. “Really? With all of the people you’ve seen? It’s only ever been Dean?”
Feeling self-conscious again, Castiel nods hesitantly. “Is that… bad?” he asks, worried that this somehow sets him apart from others. Even more so than loving Dean at all separates him from his entire species.
Charlie leans across the table to squeeze his arm, setting her half-full bottle down. “No! No, ‘course not. It’s just… different than a lot of people.”
Castiel sighs, not dislodging her hand. “Of course it is. So, what does it mean? That it’s only Dean?”
Charlie’s tongue pokes out for a second as she appears to think, very hard, about this question. “You know… I don’t actually know that much about that. But I’m a pro at searching the web. I bet we could find it!”
Before he can say much more, she’s got her phone in one hand, licking mayonnaise and spread off of the other one’s fingers, and humming pensively as she does, something, with her phone that Castiel doesn’t really understand. He wouldn’t even know where to start, looking for information like this—about his, queer… identity?—but he just suspects that she does know. Whether she’ll tell him or not, is the question.
“Yes!” she suddenly shouts, getting up for what appears to be a paper towel and then returning to him where he sits at the table. “I think I found it!”
“Found… what?” he wonders, taking the phone she shoves in his direction on the table and looking away from her wiping her hands to the screen.
“‘Asexual.’” Castiel reads aloud, his eyes widening as he goes on. “‘Of or related to, having little to no attraction to any gender.’”
Castiel looks at this definition for a long moment. “I- ” he opens his mouth to say, but he doesn’t know what he intends to follow it with. The word feels… right, somehow, but not completely.
Charlie grins, when he looks up at her again. “Scroll to the next page, Cas.”
“‘Asexual with exceptions’.” he again reads aloud, as his eyes rapidly run down the paragraphs on the screen. His eyes catch on the word ‘bond’ and a shiver goes through him, what’s left of his wings sounding like a windchime of bones as he reads the specifics.
A more profound bond, he had said to Dean once, and he had meant it then, even if he hadn’t known how. Is that why? Why it could only ever be Dean? Because they’re bound?
It feels, appropriate to him, this choice of words. ‘Demisexual’. Almost frighteningly so, because if Charlie didn’t know the term, it’s likely that almost no one would. It does, set him apart, as he feared.
“Hey,” Charlie says quietly. “This is a good thing, Cas. You’ve got a way to describe what you’re going through now, and hey. That’s three ways you’re queer.”
Castiel drops his head into his hands, not looking at Charlie’s sympathetic face any longer, as he drops one to shove the phone back toward her.
“You’re an Ace! With grace,” she chuckles into the bottle. “How cool is that?”
It isn’t, cool, he wants to argue. It leaves him alone, among the people he loves. Strange and alien to them, as usual. Isolated away from anyone who could really understand.
Suddenly, he understands, why he had kissed Meg, while the Winchesters watched. Why he had shaken off, the wrongness of being with the Reaper, with them again watching, and why he had mentioned Hannah being a ‘female’ in the car after Dean was Cured. Even why he had allowed Dean to push him toward Chastity—even that far back in his life.
He was trying to protect himself, from the loneliness of not being like them.
Now he can’t, any longer. This truth has been told, and inevitably it will find its way to them, and Castiel…
Well, Dean was wrong. He’ll die the way Dean didn’t want, after all—never having experienced true sexual satisfaction—and disappoint his best friend in the process.
He’s always such a disappointment, and in this he will be no different.
Standing from the table, Castiel tells Charlie he would like to be alone.
A lie, in general, but a truth, in that moment, as his eyes burn and his grace churns inside him—almost making him feel ill.
He walks to the room that Dean gifted him with, and sinks onto the edge of the bed. Wishing, so contradictorily, that Dean was here, while simultaneously being utterly glad that Dean was nowhere near him and Charlie while they had that conversation.
He’s just thinking that he should go to Charlie and apologize, when there’s a buzzing in his coat. His phone, telling him someone is contacting him; he reluctantly takes it out of his pocket to look at what seems to be a text message.
moms being weird
While he’s looking at it, another one comes in—from Dean.
think the case got her freaked out or somethin
Castiel isn’t sure what to do, about Winchester family issues that he has no part in… but he does want to speak to Dean.
Did you ask her?
no
Then how do you know?
just a feeling man
Castiel has known Dean for too long to discount his “feelings”.
Perhaps she’ll settle after it’s over, he says in response. It feels woefully inadequate, but then, isn’t he always? He’s unprepared for human conflicts, and Dean cannot rely on him for such things.
heading back home now
Castiel sighs his relief. It’s much easier to talk to Dean when Dean isn’t asking him to navigate complex interpersonal relationships.
I’ll be here.
And so he will, when Dean returns and expects his family around him.
Dean is… despondent, after Mary leaves. Even Charlie’s effusive personality won’t rouse him from his funk, so Castiel obviously has no chance of such things.
That does not mean that he stops trying. If anything, it galvanizes him to make even more intense attempts—from bringing Dean a coffee in the morning to trying repeatedly to make jokes so that his friend will laugh.
He almost gets a smile once, even though the joke was surely not supposed to be told in that manner, and that spurs him on even further, until he’s saying things he probably shouldn’t be saying. Until one day, the words, “I think you’re beautiful,” fall from his lips, while the Winchesters are arguing over whether Dean should shave his “depression beard” before they go on a Hunt.
(Castiel won’t know for a long time, why he thought that might make Dean smile. It just occurred to him that it could stop them arguing.)
The Winchesters freeze immediately, and for some reason, Sam looks as though he might laugh, while Dean… looks somewhat…
What that expression is, Castiel can’t begin to discern, but he does recognize the pink in Dean’s cheeks from when he’s embarrassed him before, so he apologizes, for doing that now, just a muttered, “Apologies,” as he turns to leave the room.
He can hear them, nonetheless, as he’s hurrying to his room before he can eavesdrop for too long. Sam teasing Dean about being “beautiful” and Dean cursing at him and telling him to shut up, but agreeing that he will shave.
Unfortunately, hurrying takes him by Charlie’s room, and she pokes her head out before he can reach Room 15, brows knitting over eyes that are, confused.
“Where’s the fire, Cas?” she asks, and he blinks, confused himself by that phrase. She seems to catch on, somehow, and asks, “Why are you running?”
Thankful, suddenly, that Charlie knows, Castiel exhales heavily and runs a hand down his face as he says, “I just told Dean he’s beautiful.”
Charlie winces very visibly. “How’d he take it?”
Castiel doesn’t know, really, except that, “He blushed a little bit. I apologized and left, before he could say anything.”
Charlie looks to be deep in thought after that. “Huh. I would have expected something more than that. I mean, it’s you.”
Castiel stares at her with complete befuddlement. “Why would it being me, change his reaction?”
“That’s the part you keep not letting me tell you, Cas,” Charlie says with a little huff. “You keep running away, before I can say that he likes you too.”
Castiel is stunned by this, his “What?” merely a breath.
Charlie nods at him, making sure to glance behind him before she continues, “Maybe even loves you. I don’t know that part yet, but yeah, the way he describes you in the books? There’s something there, Cas.”
Castiel glances behind himself as well, thankful that Dean hasn’t followed him—as he’s nearly certain that Charlie is wrong. “But- ”
“Don’t give me any buts, Cas. You know how many terrible jokes you’ve told this week? Anybody else would’ve gotten probably the finger, or a ‘shut up’. But it’s you, so Dean endures.”
Castiel doesn’t much enjoy the idea of Dean ‘enduring’ anything he does, but before he can say that, Charlie goes on, “And you don’t see the way he talks about you, when you’re not around. Or how he freaks out, according to Sam, when you don’t answer him.”
Castiel has had a taste of the latter before, he assures Charlie, but he never thought it was anything other than the ‘brotherhood’ Dean confessed it to be. Dean acts similarly when Sam won’t answer, after all. It’s simply that Dean worries about losing the few people he has left.
Charlie makes a rude noise through her nose that makes Castiel’s nose scrunch. “It’s not that simple,” she insists. “Dean’s not like you, Cas, he doesn’t know himself like you said you do. Add to that his prick of a dad…”
Castiel shushes her, glancing over his shoulder again, anxious over Dean hearing that. “You don’t know that, about his father.”
Charlie rolls her eyes. “I do, actually. It’s in the books, and uh, it’s kind of obvious in there, even if I didn’t know Dean personally and totally see it in him.”
Castiel blinks, perturbed. “See what?”
Charlie lowers her voice even further, and says a word that Castiel has only recently understood. “Homophobia.”
Castiel frowns. “He’s not- that. Dean has never shown any indication of having a problem with, people like- like- ,” he pauses, having a realization, “-us.”
Charlie shrugs. “Again, in the books, Cas. He really did. But more than that, it’s about how he acts, you know?”
No. Castiel doesn’t know, so he tells Charlie that.
“He acts like a guy who’s into people he knows would make him queer, so he freaks and does all this over-the-top shit with women and masculinity and whatever.”
She looks at him pointedly, as she says, “One person in particular.”
Castiel shakes his head. “I know what you’re trying to say, Charlie, and you’re wrong. Dean and I are family.”
His voice is louder than he meant it to be, and it’s just occurred to him that the hallway, where it echoes so much, might not be the wisest place to talk about this, when bootsteps come up behind him and Dean says through his teeth,
“Cas, can I talk to you for a sec?”
Castiel whirls around so quickly he almost touches Dean by accident, his eyes wide. “Why?” he asks, aware of Charlie closing the door behind him and leaving him, to this.
Dean doesn’t answer, just nods in the direction of his bedroom and turns to walk in said direction, apparently not unaware that Castiel would follow him anywhere.
(Oh dear. He hopes that Dean isn’t aware of that.)
“Dean, what is it?” he asks when Dean closes the door behind them.
“Okay, first, you can’t say shit like that in front of Sam, okay? I am never going to hear the end of that.”
Castiel feels an unpleasant warmth that would probably be a flush if he were human, as he nods and agrees, “All right.”
For a long moment, Dean just looks at him, and Castiel wants to squirm under the gaze, but he doesn’t, just looks back and asks, mostly calmly, “Was there a second thing?”
Dean does start to flush, as he mumbles in a way that’s easily heard by Castiel, “I heard your talk with Charlie.”
Castiel’s mouth drops open, and his heart starts to pound in his chest, his wings rustling like they wish they could carry him away from this.
“I- I suppose I should, apologize again, then,” Castiel says on a soft sigh. “I’m sorry, Dean, I should never have- ” he pauses, unsure what else he should admit to doing, and then shakes his head at himself. “I know you don’t- ”
“You know, huh? You’re sure of it?” Dean asks, leaning against his desk with his arms crossed.
Castiel is startled, as his eyes start to burn again; he hadn’t expected Dean to be cruel enough to make him say it. “…Yes. It’s preposterous, the idea that you would… that you even could…” and he can’t say it, in any case. It hurts too much.
“…Like you? ‘Even love you’?” Dean asks, his face unreadable, and Castiel bows his head and nods miserably.
“I’m a demisexual, I’ll never want nor love another, but you don’t need to, fear anything from me, Dean,” he says quietly to his shoes. “I would never ask you for anything like that.”
For a minute or two, there’s nothing but silence, and the burn in Castiel’s eyes worsens, until he’s sure he’s going to humiliate himself with tears, right here in front of Dean.
“You’re a dummy sexual, if you think that it’s impossible for somebody to want you, Cas.” Dean says, and Castiel can’t even smile at the ridiculous play on words.
It’s too fraught of a conversation for that. He just shakes his head, and explains, “It’s not that I don’t think anyone does, Dean. It’s just that I know that you- ”
“Yeah, you said that already. That part’s pretty dumb, too.”
Castiel’s eyes come up from his own shoes to meet Dean’s. “Why- why is that ‘dumb’? I just- ”
“You haven’t even asked, Cas,” Dean says, his brows scrunched on his forehead.
Castiel is growing more confused by this conversation by the minute. Why would he ever have asked? Why would he ever put himself through such a thing?
For a second, he’s even angry with Dean for the suggestion, before it passes.
“I don’t need to ask,” he says, his frown pronounced. Asking would just be a-
A-
A form of… self harm, perhaps. Some way to remind himself, he’s not good enough, when he starts to feel better for even a moment about who he is.
Dean looks… annoyed, for his own second, before that passes, and he starts to walk, closer and closer to Castiel. “Yeah. You do.”
Castiel’s frown deepens. “No, Dean. I don’t.”
Dean is closing in on Castiel’s personal space now, and before Castiel knows what’s happened, Dean is lightly shoving at his shoulder, only to not let go of it.
“Yeah you do.”
Irritated by Dean’s insistence on torturing him, Castiel snaps, “Fine. Do you love me, Dean?”
“‘Course I do,” Dean retorts. “You’re my best friend, Cas. Sometimes you even get closer than Sammy does, and I changed that kid’s diapers.”
Castiel takes in a ragged breath, wishing he could fly away from this conversation.
“That’s not what I meant,” he says, soft and sure of the response he’s about to get. “You already know, what I did mean.”
Are you in love with me?
He can’t ask it, can’t speak the words aloud, knowing the outcome will drive a blade into his own chest. That it’ll be worse than being burnt by hellfire.
“Yeah,” Dean says, his own voice sounding a little ragged, “I heard enough to know.”
Castiel wants to back away, evade Dean’s hold, and leave, before Dean says it.
He doesn’t manage to, though, before Dean says something.
“I’ve got a good answer for you, too, man.”
Warier than he’s ever been in his life, Castiel looks up from where he’s staring at Dean’s hand on his shoulder, up into Dean’s face as it comes nearer and nearer to his own.
“What- ” is all he gets out, because then he’s being kissed. Kissed, by Dean; Dean’s mouth pressing his own lips apart, as Dean’s other hand falls to his waist and squeezes his hip under his overcoat and suit jacket.
Something inside Castiel melts, like the smallest cube of ice under the powerful heat of the sun, and before he’s sure of what he’s doing, he’s already moaned, lifting a hand to grasp Dean’s lapel and tugging him tighter against his mouth as the other arm wraps around Dean’s neck.
Dean moans, too, incredibly, and the hand on Castiel’s hip sneaks around to his back, to press him forward into Dean’s body. Until Castiel’s lower body is cradled by Dean’s hips, and until he can feel, that Dean is somewhat stiff in his jeans.
Castiel breaks the kiss with a shocked gasp, and blinks at Dean, who’s grinning at him.
“Good enough answer for you?”
Castiel wavers, wondering if he could get another kiss out of saying ‘No’. He wouldn’t say he’s entirely, satisfied with the first one—especially now that he himself is stiffening in his slacks. But the honest answer is, “If you mean, what you seem to mean, then yes.”
Dean snorts. “Still trying to get me to say it. Alright, fine then. You and I? We’re on the same page here, of the same book, on the same bookshelf, in the same damn library.” He ducks in and pecks Castiel’s lips, and then grins again. “Now is it good enough?”
Startled to his core, all Castiel can do is nod. That appears to be enough for Dean, who backs him the few steps to the closed door, and presses his back to it as he kisses him again, holding Castiel upright as he sags with pleasure against it.
Castiel distantly notes that he can feel Dean taking off his clothes, while the kissing holds most of his attention—to the point that he does not even think about Dean seeing him naked until it breaks. Only then does he look down and realize his tie is undone, his overcoat and suit jacket is on the floor, and Dean’s working his shirt off of him.
“Dean, what- ” he starts to ask, only for Dean to catch his breath and kiss him again. He has no problem with this, but he’s curious, what Dean intends to do, once Castiel is unclothed.
(Perhaps also a little worried, that he won’t be able to satisfy Dean, who knows more about sex than Castiel has ever learned in his entire long existence.)
The kiss breaks again and then Castiel finishes his question, “What are you going to do?”
Dean grins, in a way that makes his eyes sparkle and Castiel’s own eyes nearly water at seeing him so happy about this. “I’m gonna blow ya,” he says matter-of-factly.
Castiel doesn’t know that term, and he’s about to open his mouth and tell Dean, he still has no idea what “blowing” entails—he can guess based upon the things Metatron put in his head, but he can’t be certain he’s correct—but then Dean falls to his knees and, nudges at his erection with his face, and with a shudder and a soft exhale, he realizes what it likely means.
“Oh,” Castiel says faintly, grasping what Dean means to do just as Dean’s hands come up to unzip and unbutton his slacks. “I- Yes. Yes, please do that,” he begs, which apparently makes Dean chuckle.
“Never expected you to be this desperate for anybody,” Dean teases him, as he’s smoothing the slacks down Castiel’s legs and then untying his boots so that he can take those off too.
Castiel can’t manage much but a nod at first, his entire body hot and ready for Dean’s touch beneath where Dean is, for lack of a better word, nuzzling him. “I never… have been,” he admits.
Dean’s eyebrows rise up his forehead at that. “Not even the Reaper chick?”
Castiel shivers, unpleasantly this time, as he remembers the wet and wrong and terrifying feelings of that experience, and shakes his head abruptly, hoping that Dean will let this go. “No.”
Dean seems to notice, his discomfort, his brows furrowing with what might be concern. “And Meg?”
Castiel almost wants to step away from Dean’s hands where they’re absently sliding up and down his bare thighs, at the memory of that demon. Even while he was catatonic, she was far too liberal with her touching back then, and he couldn’t do anything about it… and then he woke up, and she wanted more from him. More than gratitude, and at most, friendship. More than he ever would have offered, to her, if she hadn’t been all he thought he had.
“No,” he says again, shaking his head.
Dean then frowns even more deeply, and asks, “Chastity?” in a tone that suggests he doesn’t want the answer.
“No,” Castiel answers a third time, pursing his lips at the memory of hers on his neck, while he babbled uncomfortably about her father in a desperate bid to connect with her somehow—to make that more than it could ever have been. It hadn’t been intentional sabotage, he doesn’t think, but he was relieved when it was.
Dean’s eyes drop from Castiel’s face, and for a moment, he’s not touching Castiel at all, his expression of shame too familiar to miss. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Cas.”
Castiel’s erection softens a bit more than it had from this conversation, at the self-loathing in Dean’s voice. “Why are you sorry?” he asks, confused, before his memory produces the sound of Dean saying, Don’t make me push you, and suddenly he understands. “Dean…”
“I should have asked what you wanted,” Dean says quietly. “I don’t know- Okay, I know now, but I didn’t then, why I was so obsessed with putting you and sex together. I just knew it was important. But still.”
Sighing silently, Castiel sinks to sit on his bottom, kicking off the one boot left on his foot and then shoving his pants off. “Dean, you didn’t know.”
“I should have!” Dean insists, not looking at Castiel. “I could have figured it out, if I thought about it for a damn minute instead of just pushing you.”
Grasping for Dean’s face, Castiel moves him gently until their gazes meet again. “Dean. I didn’t want you to know. So how could you have?”
Dean gives him a puzzled look, so rare that Castiel can’t mistake what it is. “What the hell are you talking about, Cas? You were pretty fucking clear about Chastity.” He sounds absolutely sickened, as he goes on, “Fuck, I remember it so well too. You were scared.”
Castiel can’t argue with that—he was—but he can remind Dean, “I wasn’t with Meg, though, was I? And I told you the Reaper, was ‘hedonism’, but I didn’t explain what I meant, because I didn’t want you to know.”
“What didn’t you want me to know, Cas. I don’t get what you’re saying.”
Castiel takes a deep breath and forces the words out, for the second time today. “I’m a demisexual, Dean. I only want you. I’ve only ever wanted, you.”
Dean gives Castiel another puzzled look. “Don’t know that one, Cas.”
“To simplify, it means I feel for you, and only you, because of our bond,” Castiel explains, gently brushing his thumbs over Dean’s cheekbones.
Dean hums. “The profound one you were talking about that one day?”
Castiel nods. “That very one, yes. I’ve never been bound like this, to any other person, and I’ve never felt, for anyone else, the way I do for you.” He pauses, considering, “Of course, I wasn’t supposed to, in any case, if they weren’t an angel. But I didn’t, regardless.”
Dean’s frown returns. “So, what? Are they gonna bust down our door and take you away ‘cause we’re fucking?”
Castiel huffs a soft laugh. “No. I don’t think they care what I do anymore, honestly, Dean. And, I’ve broken every rule there is, why not add this one?”
Gently, as though not to spook Castiel, Dean puts his hands on Castiel’s bare knees, and leans back into his space to peck his mouth once.
“Break it?” he asks with a little hint of a smirk. “We’re gonna crush it to dust, Cas.”
A shudder goes through Castiel—pleasant again—and he nods, wrapping his arms around Dean’s neck to tug him into a deeper kiss. “Good,” he murmurs, just before Dean’s tongue delves back into his mouth.
He notices, again distantly, as Dean’s hands slip down his knees and to his thighs, until they’re sliding up under the hems of his underwear and gently drawing circles on his groin. Moans into the kiss, arching off of the floor toward that touch, and separates from Dean’s mouth for long enough to gasp, “Can we get back to, what we were doing?”
Dean gives him a long, serious look, despite his flushed cheeks and slightly dazed expression. “As long as you’re not like… scared now, about this.” Drops his gaze again, and mutters, “I wouldn’t blame you if you were, man. Sounds like you did a lot of faking for me, and I don’t want to see that ever again.”
Castiel shakes his head. “I’m not scared with you, Dean.” Smiles at Dean, lifting his head from the door to gently bump their noses and then tip his forehead against Dean’s. “I’m desperate, remember?”
Dean makes a soft, desperate noise of his own, and kisses Castiel again, for several long minutes, before he finally responds, “Yeah. Yeah, I remember now.”
Carefully, watching so intently as Castiel’s cock bobs out of them, Dean removes his briefs and tosses them over his shoulder. “All right, now you gotta stand up again, so I can get down to business,” Dean says, the tease back in his voice.
In the next moment, Castiel gets easily to his feet, despite how his socks want to slip on the floor, and looks down past his own erection, to Dean on his knees.
“I can’t believe that you’re going to touch me this way,” he says, quiet, just for Dean, as he brushes the backs of his fingers over Dean’s bearded jaw. “It seems much too good to be true.”
Dean ‘hmm’s and then chuckles. “Don’t start counting your chickens just yet, Cas. Haven’t done this in a while, so we don’t even know if I’m still good at it.”
Castiel very much doubts, that Dean’s skill will have dissipated, but he nods, allowing for the possibility.
“Right. Here goes,” Dean says under his breath, and then his lips are around the tip of Castiel, and it almost aches, it feels so good.
“Oh,” Castiel moans, his hands falling away from Dean’s face to grasp his shoulders and hold on tight, as Dean just rolls that part of him over his tongue for a second. “Oh. Dean.”
Pulling off, Dean grins. “Maybe I still got it after all.”
Then before Castiel can tell him either way, he slips his lips back where they were, and laps intently at the tip until Castiel’s body is set utterly aflame.
“Mmm, ah, ah,” Castiel nearly gasps, and then Dean makes it even better—his mouth sliding down to hold more of Castiel inside it and then, pulling on him somehow, until his knees are weakening and he almost puts all of his weight on the door behind his back.
(It’s only remembering that he might crush said door, if he does so, that stops him.)
“Dean, f- fuck,” he groans, the—suction?—such that he almost can’t concentrate enough to keep hold of his grace. Such that he’s, losing control of his body, and something is rushing inside him that isn’t grace. Something familiar, if never felt in a context he’d like to recall.
It’s barely been seven minutes, from what he can tell, when that something finally explodes in his lower body, sending heat and lightning through every limb, and pouring out of his cock, audibly choking Dean.
He wants to apologize, knows he should, but there’s so few words he’s able to speak, with these feelings still overpowering every inch of him. All he can really do is grunt and whimper, until they’ve worked their way through his body.
In any case, before he can do much but stare, chagrined, at the amount of fluid seeping from Dean’s mouth, Dean laughs. Startling Castiel again, he laughs, and says, his words a little garbled, “Well, hell, if I hadn’t… had good sex in my life, I’d have… come that much the first time, too.”
He stands and puts one finger up in front of Castiel’s face, then walks into the bathroom and spits audibly into the toilet, before running the sink. Returns, still smiling, with his face wet, and kisses Castiel, just lips to lips, for a long moment, before he adds, “That was fucking hot, Cas.”
Somehow, it’s wet but not wrong, with Dean, and Castiel is so relieved by that that he surges off of the door and kisses Dean with even more passion than before, letting Dean close his arms around him and bring his body up against the stiffness at Dean’s front.
“Mm.” He pulls away and looks down, at the ‘boner’ that’s not his this time, lips turning up with the slightest smile. “I- I think that I’d like to touch you, if that’s all right.”
Dean smirks, wiggling his eyebrows. “Where?”
Castiel watches Dean’s face carefully, as he drops a hand to gently cup the bump of Dean’s cock in his jeans. “Here, and now," he says, his hand unmoving as he then asks, “May I?”
Dean snorts. “Of course, Cas. Kinda how sex works a lot of the time, you know? I do you, you do me.”
He looks a little less than amused when Castiel’s thumb starts to brush over his tip over his jeans, however, so Castiel is gratified.
“F-fuck,” Dean whines, pressing his hips forward against Castiel’s hand. “God, I’ve been hard since you said you wanted me, and you’re just gonna give me this?”
Castiel tilts his head. “Why? What else do you want?”
“Whatever you’re good with, Cas, really. But if I had my choice? I’d get inside that ass, and I’d do it as fast as we can.”
Castiel looks down again, at that sizeable bump, and swallows. He knows the mechanics, knows that it will fit—and that it couldn’t even hurt him while he’s still angel—but it’s still an intimidating thought, for someone who’s never done such things before.
“We don’t have to, if you- ” Dean starts to say, but Castiel shakes his head, and kisses him quiet.
“I want to,” he assures Dean. “I want everything from you, Dean. It just… I need a moment.” He hums, “And according to the pornography, you’ll want some, lubricant.”
Dean scoffs, dipping into the pocket of his jeans, and pulling out a tube that looks well-used. “Never let it be said that Dean Winchester is unprepared,” he says, sounding almost offended by Castiel thinking otherwise.
Castiel chuckles. “All right. Then I suppose, I’ll just,” he starts to turn away, bracing his hands on the door, but Dean makes a protesting noise that stops him.
“What is it, Dean?”
“You even know what protection means now?” Dean asks, wincing as he asks it for some reason.
Castiel blinks. “I still have my angel blade,” he assures Dean, though he has no idea why he’d ever need it, in this context.
“Cas, I meant, uh.” Dean digs into his other pocket and pulls out his wallet, with a shiny packet that’d apparently been tucked into it. “I meant condoms. Like. That’s what I meant back then, too, and we’re damn lucky the gal creeping on you was a Reaper and not like… a real woman who could get knocked up.” Dean blanches at something Castiel can’t see—perhaps a memory—and adds, “Trust me, I know the Reaper sucked but that’s worse, man.”
Castiel makes a silent vow to ask what’s making Dean look that ill, before he answers, “No. I didn’t know what you meant. But we don’t need them, Dean. Neither of us could possibly infect the other, so long as my grace is intact.” And obviously, pregnancy wouldn’t be an issue, with their genitalia being what they are.
Dean nods, seemingly lost in thought, and then says, “K, then, we’ll just go with lube.” as he’s stuffing the packet back in his wallet and tossing it on his bed.
Castiel nods, and finishes turning around, his palms braced on the door.
“So wait, if you’re- Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” Castiel has no idea what any of that means, until he feels that Dean’s on his knees again, his breath puffing over the bareness of his backside. “Can I, Cas?”
“Can you what?” Castiel asks, unsure what Dean’s mouth needs to be there for. He would have figured Dean would kiss over his neck or something, while he… lubricated Castiel, but Dean must be thinking of something else.
“I want to fuck you with my tongue first,” Dean says, and Castiel is so startled that he pulls away. “What? No good?”
“You- you can’t really mean to do… that.” Castiel says, aware that his utter shock is audible and unable to do anything about it.
“Oh yeah I can,” Dean says. “Like you said, you’re clean as hell, and I’m dying to know what that tastes like.”
Slowly, cautiously, Castiel bends back toward the door and shoves his backside out toward Dean’s face again. “…Okay.” It’s not as though it sounds bad; just, confusing for Dean to want.
“You sure?”
Bowing his head until his forehead touches the door, Castiel nods. “I’m certain, if you really do want to do that.”
“Hell yes,” Dean mumbles, nearly over that tiny, nerve-filled point of entry to his body, where he’s parted Castiel’s buttocks.
Castiel knows, in theory, that he is probably quite sensitive there, and this is going to feel… very different than the “blowing”, but he could not possibly tell you what it will feel like.
And then Dean drops the lubricant on the floor, squeezes his buttocks, and pulls him toward Dean’s mouth, starting to lap at him the way he had the tip of his cock, and Castiel knows.
It’s incredible. When he focuses on the feeling, putting aside any dampening by grace, it’s… it’s better than the “blowing”.
That’s even before, Dean works his tongue inside him. Something about that slick penetration makes it even better, and before Castiel realizes it, he’s begun to push with Dean’s pulls, working himself back onto it with breathy, desperate moans. His erection, also returning, as Dean gets further and further inside him.
“Oh, ohh, Dean- Dean please,” he’s saying mindlessly, thinking that he might end up in the throes of another orgasm soon, when it all stops abruptly.
Dean smacks his lips, it sounds like, and says, “Taste amazing, Cas,” but doesn’t get back to what he was doing. Castiel whimpers, half-hard and at a loss.
“S’okay, babe, I’m coming,” Dean says, his voice tenderer than Castiel has ever heard, and then.
And then.
There’s a finger, at that entrance, soft, rough, and slick, and Dean starts to press it up inside him.
Something in Castiel just, relaxes, at the feel of it, even as his body is still dangling near orgasm. He sits back entirely, until it’s buried in him, and sighs out a soft noise of pleasure. That feels almost as good as Dean’s tongue.
Then it starts to move, brushing over the prostate, and no, he was incorrect. It’s better. Dean keeps changing his mind, about the best thing he’s ever felt.
Over the next few minutes, three fingers join the first, and Dean does that again and again—changes his mind, again and again—as he rubs insistently on the prostate with his fingertips. By the time he pulls them free of Castiel’s body, Castiel is amazed that he’s still standing upright, his thighs shaking and his cock stiff and wet as his body pleads with him for relief.
He doesn’t get a second to be nervous or even to be desperate again, before Dean is audibly taking off his clothes and lubricating himself, reminding him of what will come next. Then, what’s barely a minute afterward, Dean’s naked body is up against his back, and Dean is pushing slowly, slowly inside his body.
It feels strange, at first, to have that entire channel full of Dean. Wonderful, beloved Dean, who only wants to make this the most beautiful experience for Castiel that it can possibly be, and Dean is inside him. It’s like a dream, if Castiel had ever had a sexual dream in his entire existence.
Then Dean moves—really fucking Castiel, for the first time—and brushes over his prostate again, and slips out just a little only to shove back in, and oh, it’s…
Magnificent seems too unkind a word, for how he feels then. Especially when Dean’s hands come up to press over his on the door, and Dean starts to bite at his earlobe, making pleasured sounds around the flesh as he pushes in and pulls out, again and again and again until Castiel could almost be dizzy with it.
He’s so distracted by the other feelings, that it doesn’t hit him until he truly focuses on what’s going on in his lower body, just how awe-inspiringly good he feels, being fucked by Dean. By then, he’s already made a lot of noise about it to Dean, but having that focus changes everything. His eyes flutter shut and he lets out a shocked cry, only not moving because Dean has found the most perfect angle there could possibly be.
“Yeah, Cas,” Dean finally breathes over his ear, letting go of the lobe and hissing the words over his skin. “Yeah, I know, it feels so good, right? Like you might come out of your… fucking skin…”
Castiel hopes he won’t ‘come out of his skin’, as he doesn’t particularly want to leave this body right now, but he thinks he knows, what Dean means. Dean isn’t wrong, either.
“Now you’re gonna… come for me… right?” Dean asks breathlessly, one of his hands sliding slowly, slowly down Castiel’s arm, over his side, along his hipbone, until it can clutch at his cock.
Castiel remembers just in time, just what that word means, and nods, whimpering where his face is pressed against his own arm when the sensations blend inside him until he can’t think anymore. Moans, “Yes,” and isn’t sure what he’s answering at this point—only has to express just how much of that is inside him right now.
“Good, Cas,” Dean huffs, panting over his ear, “I want you… to come. All over my hand—all over my door, even. If you gotta. Do it. Do it.”
And unbelievably, his hand speeds up even more on Castiel’s cock, until Castiel is shouting Dean’s name and doing, he hopes, exactly what Dean wants. Spurting fluid over Dean’s fingers, and leaving drops of it on his door and on his floor. His entire body going taut and then shuddering hard through it, as Dean fucks him from beginning to end.
He’s just becoming able to think again, when Dean bellows, “Cas!” and starts to fill him with heat. Just able to understand things enough, to move back into Dean’s thrusts as Dean, comes, along with him.
“Fuck, I love you,” Dean gasps, clinging to Castiel’s back and rolling his hips in and out of Castiel’s body. Castiel barely manages not to freeze with shock.
“I love you, too,” he turns to whisper into Dean’s hair, where Dean’s forehead is pressed to Castiel’s shoulder as he groans and whines over Castiel’s back.
“What? Nngh. Cas?” Sensing that Dean’s about to collapse, Castiel takes a step toward the door, until it will hold them both up (so long as he doesn’t put his full weight on it).
“I said, I love you,” Castiel says, only the slightest bit louder than before. It’s apparently loud enough for Dean, as he stiffens at Castiel’s back, in a not-so-pleasant manner.
“D-did I say that?” Dean asks, sounding nervous, and Castiel hums an affirmative.
“Shit,” Dean says, and Castiel goes suddenly cold, the haze of pleasure he was in dissipating quickly. Did Dean not mean it?
“Hey, you’re… getting all tense…” Dean pants into his ear, as he very carefully pulls his cock out of Castiel and drops his hand away from Castiel’s cock to his hip. “Don’t do that.”
Nodding, his heart feeling fragile again all of a sudden, Castiel turns them sideways, and leans Dean on the door, as he steps away and goes to find his clothing.
He had hoped, that by ‘on the same page, of the same book, etc.’ Dean had meant they were both in love, but maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Dean only grasped the sexual part of what he said; maybe that is all they share.
Castiel is clean, of his fluids and Dean’s, by the time that he picks up his briefs. He doesn’t look at Dean, as he pulls them up over his legs.
“I’ll go now,” he says softly, as he searches for his other clothes. “We all have a case to prepare for, and you have a beard to shave.” One he felt, the entire time they had sex; it made no difference to him, however. It was still Dean, and he would always want Dean.
“Wait, wait. Why are you leaving?” Dean asks, sounding as though his own haze is leaving him as well.
Castiel pauses, with his slacks halfway up his thighs, looking over and hoping that Dean can’t detect how close he is to shattering. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asks. Doesn’t Dean usually want to escape, after he’s had sex with someone? Castiel is just doing him a favor, as it’s Dean’s bedroom they’re in.
Dean’s face makes him pause for longer. Makes him stare at it for longer, trying to decipher what it means.
“You said you love me, Cas,” Dean says, and he sounds entirely sober now, as far from postcoital bliss as Castiel is.
“I’m aware of what I said,” Castiel says, still softly. Hoping that the lack of volume will hide, how he’s feeling just now. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Was the sex that bad?” Dean asks, and it doesn’t even sound like a joke—the way it usually would be. “You love me, but you’re leaving me anyway?”
Castiel looks up and sighs inwardly at the expression on Dean’s face. It’s an anger he’s used to—the one that comes when Castiel leaves, whether Dean’s in love or not—and he doesn’t want to face it right now.
So he says what he shouldn’t. “I do. But you don’t.” Sighs quietly to himself, as he continues, “If this is all I can have, then I’ll gladly submit to it, Dean. But I won’t pretend, that it doesn’t hurt. I won’t… stay, after.”
He’s so gladdened to be an angel, so that he doesn’t have to fully feel, the physical and emotional remnants of the sex they just had. So that he has more than enough energy left, to put on his shirt and retie his tie, as he’s speaking.
“What if I shave? Will that help?” Dean asks, and maybe Castiel is being too wishful, because it almost sounds like Dean is, hurting.
“Dean, this isn’t a joke,” Castiel says, because he definitely is.
“I know it’s not. I don’t get it, Cas. I just said I loved you—and I know you heard it ‘cause you said it back!” Dean steps over and picks up Castiel’s suit jacket where he was reaching for it, bare as the day Castiel remade him. “Will you fucking stop getting dressed and explain this to me?”
“I don’t know how you feel, Dean! I don’t know whether you meant that, or whether you wanted to say it to me. I don’t know if you’re, in love, or just caught up in the delight that I wanted to have sex with you.” It pours out of Castiel like venom out of a snake’s fangs, and just as poisonous, but he had to say it. “I just know that, I can’t be near you right now, if it’s the latter.”
He goes to snatch the suit jacket from Dean, but Dean won’t let go. He pulls on it, in fact, until Castiel has to stumble into Dean’s space in order not to rip his jacket. Into Dean’s arms, which wrap around him the moment he’s close enough, as Dean buries his face in his neck.
“It’s not,” Dean mutters into the skin. “It’s not… the latter, Cas. Yeah, I want you. I want to fuck you seven ways from Sunday—especially now that I know how good it is. But it’s not just that, okay? It’s- I- ” Dean exhales harshly, sounding exasperated, “I need you. Because I- ” Another exhale. “Because I love you.”
Castiel forgets to breathe, habit at this point or no. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure?” Dean lifts his head and gives Cas a disbelieving look. “Do I seem like the type of guy who says this, on purpose, and doesn’t feel it?”
“No, just- ” Castiel squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “It’s a yes or no question, Dean. Are you sure that that’s something you want me to know?” Swallows, hard, as he goes on, “Something you want to, act on?”
“Cas, I would have acted on it four years ago, if I knew you felt the same.”
Castiel looks hard into Dean’s face. “Four… years?” Thinks about what that means, and winces. “Purgatory.”
Dean nods, not looking away from his intent gaze into Castiel’s eyes. “Purgatory.”
Castiel doesn’t care that he’s getting fluid all over himself, as he presses further into Dean’s arms, chest to chest and hips to hips, and kisses Dean for a long few minutes. He’ll clean it in a moment; right now what’s more important is that Dean feels his apology in his lips and tongue, before he even says it aloud.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” he breathes into Dean’s mouth when Dean has to tug himself away to catch his breath. “I’m so sorry, for all of the times that I hurt you. I’m sorry that you loved me through all of it.” He pecks Dean’s lips again. “That you had to endure that.”
“Cas, I don’t endure loving you,” Dean says raggedly, dragging Castiel into his arms again. “Loving someone… it always sucks sometimes, okay? But that doesn’t mean… you’re something… I gotta get through.”
Castiel clutches Dean close and buries his burning eyes in Dean’s bare shoulder. It’s not easy to bear, hearing those words, but at the same time, he wants to wrap them around him like the down of his wings and live in the feeling he has now, for a very long time.
“I love you, so much, Dean,” he exhales into Dean’s skin. “And you are more than worth every bit of pain I’ve ever felt about us, as well.”
Dean laughs, but the laughter sounds a little, wet. “Thanks, Cas.” He sniffs a little, like he might be struggling with tears—the same way Castiel is. “And hey, just… don’t ditch me until I get the chance to prove it to you, alright?”
Castiel turns sideways and kisses Dean’s neck, his jaw, his cheekbone, and the corner of his mouth. “I won’t ‘ditch’ you ever, Dean. I may leave, but I will always, always return,” he murmurs, meaning every word.
Dean turns and catches Castiel’s mouth for another kiss. “Well, you don’t have to worry about me tapping out either, Cas. You’re it for me.”
Castiel smiles as he leans in for yet another, because he’s a demisexual, and Dean is also ‘it’.
Hours later, Castiel is lying in Dean’s bed, once again bare after dinner and case talk and a shower and then yet another sexual act. Watching a cleanshaven Dean sleep from the closest he’s ever been allowed, while Dean prepares for their Hunt tomorrow by snoring loudly.
It’s everything that he’s ever wanted, and Castiel is humbled by having it.
The only thing missing, is sleeping with Dean.
Something to discuss with his beloved in the morning.
For now, he is happy to be where he is, right here, right now.