Fic: What Is And Never Was
Title: What Is And Never Was
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: All of season 4
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: "A man lived and died in this skin, he gave it to you to use to save the world. I think you're the one that should have a little respect."
AN: 'Show me this thing you call love' cliche, for cliche_bingo .
Sometimes the victories don't even feel like victories, sometimes they were just better than the alternative.
At the moment it feels like every battle they win comes at the cost of good people. Good people who don't even know they're fighting a war at all. Good people that pay the price, are still paying the price, because of them.
And no matter how right this is supposed to be Dean still feels a little like he's bleeding out piece by piece.
Which is why it's so hard, so damn hard, to remember how much of this isn't right. How much of it didn't come from anywhere good. That they're making up not just for lost time but for their own bad choices, and for the choices they didn't realise in time were the wrong ones.
The apocalypse isn't epic, it's not destruction on a massive scale, it's not even global. Instead it's a relentless creep towards ground zero, the world turning rotten in tiny little pieces. It's endless and ceaseless, and exhausting, and nothing is good enough to tip the balance back. Ever-expanding circles of death and violence, where monster and man are drifting closer together every day.
It's not getting better, it's not getting easier,
They're living, barely, in an endless stream of motels bedrooms and motel bathrooms endless stretches of moving road, patching up larger and larger wounds every fight, never enough time to heal between jobs. Never enough space to breathe, to sleep, to take five minutes by himself to crack open and feel some of his rage and frustration and let it go.
This bathroom is no different from any other, nothing's different enough to be really memorable. Dean's fingernails are still red brown, shoulders tight and aching, he's still exhausted but so far away from sleep it physically hurts.
Sam's facedown next door, sleeping because he can, because it's his turn, because Dean made him. It's been a while since Dean's been able to tell Sam what to do, but here, now, Sam has a lot of guilt to work off, and though Dean's not going to take advantage of it, he's not going to pretend it isn't there either.
He watches Castiel wipe blood off of his jaw, a strangely absent gesture, as if it's just dirt on the skin. As if it means nothing. When Dean's done the same thing a thousand times and never once felt nothing.
It makes him suddenly, almost unbearably, angry. Too much energy under skin that's already burned out and aching, so he leans into the wall, breathes through his teeth and doesn’t say a goddamn word. He doesn't dig his nails into the half open wound, he won't make it angels versus humans again, no matter how much he wants to.
He leaves his face blank under the fluorescent lights and watches as Castiel cleans a human being's whole life off of his skin.
"They're going for more populated areas," he says quietly, and he gets points for his voice being dry, calm and cool, just another one of the facts.
Castiel turns his head to look at him, instead of looking at his reflection in the mirror.
"Your fragility is a temptation for them, for some of them it's been centuries since they saw flesh, it makes them bold."
That stings in a way that makes Dean want to lash out, but he's gotten too used to holding it all in and his anger feels like it'll choke him if he lets it. It's too damn easy to be angry at Castiel, easier than it should be. It should be better now he's closer, now he's one of them. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's better than easy. When they're fighting, when they're out there, it's easy there. It's only when it's quiet, when they're safe, that they push at each other. Dig at each other's weaknesses, each other's stubborn refusal to bend.
Dean's never sure where it starts, just that it does.
"You're wearing one of us, in case you didn't notice." The words are fierce, almost an accusation. But that feels right too, that Castiel should feel that.
"But I'm not so fragile."
It's another sting, left to hang in the air under the hum-flutter of the unnatural lights. Dean shakes his head.
"That just makes you different, it doesn't make you better."
Castiel pauses, frowns at Dean's reflection. There's something almost disappointed in his expression. But Dean's starting to get used to it. He's seen that on too many faces to think he'll ever hope to shake free of it.
"I'm sorry," Castiel says quietly and it occurs to Dean, that the disappointment wasn't for him. That the disappointment was maybe closer, heavier, and more personal. Though what personal was for an angel he didn't want to guess.
"Why? Why are you sorry?" Dean demands through a frown, voice too sharp. "You throw that word around but you don't really know what it means."
"That's not true." It's said so quickly, so certainly.
Dean takes two steps forward, catches the impossible solidity of Castiel’s shoulders and forces him closer to the mirror. Castiel doesn't try and stop him, he simply frowns at his own reflection, like he still doesn't understand. Though he doesn't protest the manhandling, he doesn't try and pull free and this is why Dean tries not to make a habit of touching him. Because he thinks maybe this could be too easy too. That he'll get lost in that place where Castiel is in some way 'his' angel, and if that isn't a dangerous thought then he doesn't know what is.
"Dean-"
"Shut up." One of his boots upsets the chair by the door, flinging both his leather jacket and Castiel's coat to the floor. He digs his fingers into Castiel's shoulders and holds him there. There's no warmth under his hands. The white fabric of his shirt is cool. Dean's not arrogant enough to think that Castiel couldn’t make him let go if he really wanted to but he keeps his fingers tight like he can hold on anyway.
"He's real, this isn't just a suit you're looking at-"
Castiel's expression is still blank, and damned if Dean has ever been able to tell if he doesn't understand or just doesn't care.
Dean's sick of it, he's sick of decisions being made by people who couldn't care less. By people who'd quite happily smash them all underfoot to prove how righteous they are.
It makes him so angry he can barely breathe. Refusing to admit that there's no win there. Because it's not just about what Dean wants, and much as he wants- god- much as he wants Cas here with him- with them. Though he's with them Dean can't shake the idea that he still doesn't understand.
Dean pushes, and when that doesn't seem good enough he digs a hand in Castiel's hair, pulls his head up. He makes him face his own reflection.
"A man lived and died in this skin, he gave it to you to use to save the world. I think you're the one that should have a little respect."
Castiel's head twists in the mirror, far enough to catch Dean's eye over his shoulder, and there's a faint edge- Dean doesn't know if it's confusion or warning but he's too far in to care, heart beating too fast to slam to a stop, and damned if he's going to be afraid of any threat of divine retribution when it feels like that's all it's been for months and months, threats and orders and obedience and the great white grinding machinery of heavenly righteousness that doesn't feel worth a damn.
Dean's hand clenches, forces his head back to the mirror.
"Look at him!"
Castiel looks.
"We're not meat, we're not your damn puppets. Whatever you think we are, we deserve better."
"Dean-"
"I don't give a damn about acceptable casualties, or sacrifice, or whatever the hell else you tell yourself to try and make it ok. We deserve better! We don't save people so you can just use them as cannon fodder in your holy war. It's all of us or none of us!"
"This is your war too," Castiel's voice is low and hard.
"Damn right it is, because you put us there, you put us right there in the middle of it." That's the bit that hurts, the bit that really hurts. For all that it's Dean's fault, for all that they screwed up and they broke what they shouldn't have broken it feels like it was all supposed to happen like this. The whole damn mess of it laid out years ago. Whether humanity had wanted it or not; no one had given a damn about what it would mean for the world.
"Dean-"
"No, damn it, if you want to be on our side, then be on our side!" He's breathing too hard, hand still buried in the weight of Castiel's hair, but the angel doesn't pull out of his grip. His expression is utterly unreadable, where Dean's is a mess, an untidy ragged mess of anger and frustration and just plain honest tiredness. But there's some flavour of desperate want underneath it all, and he doesn't want to look at it, he can't.
His hand slides free from Castiel's hair and the fact that his fingers ache tells him just how hard he was holding. One day he thinks he's going to push too hard, push further than Castiel will let him. He'll lose what he's pushing so fucking hard to get right.
But not today, Castiel's shoulders very slowly shift, as if to soothe ruffled feathers, before he turns his head to face him.
"I am on your side." The angel's voice is quiet, but there's a low thrum of intensity under the words, and assurance. Like he wants, like he needs Dean to believe him.
Dean shakes his head, like he doesn't want to, even though the question was never asked, never intended, or maybe wasn't even there at all.
"You're not truly angry at me," Castiel says softly but firmly, and god knows why he's not angry, but he isn't. Though Dean probably deserves it, more than deserves it.
"How the hell would you know?"
"You're uncomfortable with things you can't control, and so you look for ways to control them."
"Or maybe sometimes I just need to be angry, because we don't get to control things, not the things that really matter, we just fucking dance for your amusement don't we, and there's no way to cut the strings."
"I'm on your side," Castiel says again, quieter this time.
Dean breathes out, a shudder of air and anger, the rest of it he shoves back, grits his teeth over. Because there isn't time to break, not even a little bit.
"For all your own strength you're only human Dean, what else were you supposed to do."
"Don't do that." Dean tells him and though he wants it to be fierce it's more a breath of irritated disappointment.
"Do what?"
"Don't make it about me being weak."
"Do you think it's a weakness?"
Dean shakes his head rather than say what he really believes. Because it's been proved time and time again that what he believes is wrong. That the universe is more fucked up than even he gave it credit for. He's left in a place where he's almost sure that there really is nothing good but what you make for yourself. What you take and hold on to, and fight for and refuse to let go of.
He doesn't want Castiel to admit that he's right. Right here, right now, he doesn't think he could deal with that. So he shakes his head; throws the whole conversation away in one movement.
Castiel doesn't push, but he stands there, uncertain and too stiff, like he's on the edge of something. Like he thinks now is an appropriate time to touch him, some sort of random human gesture of connection, but he isn't quite sure how. Dean kind of wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
Six months ago he wouldn't have even tried.
The old Castiel was kind of a dick. The old Castiel had been flat and alien and completely hollow. Obedient and faceless and righteous. He would have held the entire world over Dean's head if it had been necessary. He'd pushed and threatened, but he's slowly bent the way Dean pushed until he'd hoped that maybe, just maybe they weren't all fucked after all.
That betrayal had hurt, the fact that it had come from an angel. From an angel he'd thought was-
But then Castiel had chosen him, and suffered for it; become something different.
Like someone had spilled a little of whatever made humans human into him.
Only there's too much room for it to slosh around and he isn't sure where it goes or what it does.
It had made him real, made him touchable, and Dean was damned if that didn't make him want to touch, though he knows it's wrong, knows he shouldn't- It's just another messed up part of him. He's too used to doing what he's told while pushing back against it, and he shouldn't be surprised. So he touches less, and he pretends it's not there.
He can't pretend he doesn't want to know what happened to him, but he notices the differences, the flickers of reaction that weren't there before. The way he feels more immediate. Like Jimmy's empty body is no longer just somewhere he's inhabiting, like it's actually his.
Maybe it is now.
Dean had to wonder if he'd ever gotten lost inside his own skin.
Inside Jimmy's skin, before heaven burned him out, or took him, or whatever the hell they'd done to the poor bastard.
If he'd ever lived in it. Not just worn it but felt the wind on his skin and the rain and the smell of hot asphalt and the sheer weight of it. The whole weight of it all. He wonders if Castiel has ever felt real, real like them.
"Yes," there's a quiet simplicity to the word.
"What did I tell you about looking inside my head." Dean says fiercely, stepping back out of his space, because that's not something he'll put up with. Cas loses the moral high ground the moment he starts pulling things out before Dean says them. Before he even means to say them.
"Would you have asked me?" Castiel asks quietly, following him in slower steps, but Dean's damned if he's backing up further. "Would you have asked me out loud if I'd ever felt like you do?"
He shakes his head, shakes it in angry denial, even though that isn't the point, not even close to it.
"No, but you can't just see whatever you want to answer and answer it. My head's my own." Even if nothing else is any more.
Castiel actually does look guilty at that. A brief, bright flash of it that's genuine and hurt.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "It was wrong of me."
"That never seemed to matter to you before." Dean can't resist the dig, but he bites it off before it can go deeper.
"I had a purpose before, and I didn't see- I saw but I didn't understand." Castiel frowns, looks to Dean, as if maybe he might have the answers, and that's a huge cosmic joke isn't it.
"The end justified the means," Dean reminds him roughly.
"Sometimes it shouldn't." Castiel's voice is quiet, but then his face shuts up completely like there's something sharp underneath, something too raw for Dean to see.
"I'm sorry too," Dean gives him, reluctantly, because more than part of that is his fault and he's aware that whatever Cas was, he isn't any more and whatever was done to him, he's still here. He still has faith, even when Dean doesn't. Even when he's sure he could happily drink himself to death and nothing in the slightest would change. He presses his hands together, then just lets them hang down, heavy scraped up knuckles bright red in the artificial light.
"You're doing more for the people than you realise," Castiel says quietly, though he looks conflicted, like Dean might accuse him of rifling through his head again.
Dean decides he'll let this one go.
"I definitely like you better now you give a crap about the people."
"I always did, but maybe for the wrong reasons, or maybe for one person in particular more than I should have." Castiel's voice is low and serious. In a way that almost makes Dean believe he means it. He shakes his head, shakes it off. Then he looks up, stares at the mirror, but Cas is facing him and all he can see is his profile. He looks more human from that angle, more real, smaller without his coat, shirt almost too big on his frame.
Like the body had lost weight since Cas had moved in.
His wrists are too narrow, it always catches Dean as wrong every time he realises that Cas is a lot smaller than he expects.
He thinks he'll get used to it eventually.
It's just now, where he's always so close, always there, hovering on the edge, strange and quiet and just a little bit wrong, but not as much, not nearly as much as he was before.
And he is on Dean's side. There aren't a lot of people that he can say that about.
He's tired and he's messed up and he needs a night where he can sleep and pretend everything will be ok the next day and the next. But he knows he can't have it, so he takes this instead, and maybe it's better than before. Better when it was just him in the nights where Sam was god knew where.
But this time he isn't alone, because Cas is there, right there, no matter how hard Dean shoves he stays right there and it's like Sam, only it's really not.
Because what Dean wants, right at this very moment, is to press him into the wet glass of the mirror and kiss him until the world, the whole damn up mess of it, just doesn't matter any more away.
He thinks it would be jarringly strange, the rough edge of his face against his own, the solid, alien, weight of him under his hands. But he doesn't care. He just doesn't care.
And that is ever so slightly fucked up.
He rubs a hand over his face and scowls at his own reflection.
"Is that what you want?" Castiel asks quietly, curiously, and there's a strange moment where Dean can't remember the last thing he said, can't remember what Cas is asking about. Until he realises that he isn't asking over a question, he's asking after a thought.
"What the hell did I tell you not five minutes ago?" Dean's slips over and back from the edge of furious. Because that was really not something he wanted Cas to see, hear, read, what-the-fuck-ever.
"The thought was very loud, I thought perhaps-" Castiel frowns, as if he isn't sure how to finish the sentence, but Dean's damned if he's going to let him.
"You've watched me long enough to know that you're wrong." He waves a hand, as if to indicate when really it's obvious, it's right there. And he's telling himself as much as he's telling Cas. But not for the same reason, and he makes a hysterical little noise of refusal. "Seriously I know I can put it about a bit but guys aren't really my thing. No matter what I think about." It's easy to paper over lies with anger, far too easy. He's been doing it for years.
"I'm not-"
"You are," Dean interrupts, loudly and fiercely, shoving a hand back and forth through his hair. "Dude, you quite clearly are, at least at this very moment in time. You can be a glowing yellow squid on the inside but on the outside- the outside is quite definitely a man."
"You want me nonetheless." Castiel says firmly, and he's closer without Dean even realising it, too close, staring up at him like he can open him up and Dean thinks maybe he can. But he doesn't want to go back to that. Doesn't want to remember that under it all Castiel is old and terrifying and other. "And perhaps that is best, perhaps that's what you need, a way to vent your fury that isn't destructive-"
Dean slams a hand into the sink, hears it crack.
"Let it go," he says angrily into the mirror, voice hoarse and stilted. His hands are pale where they're pressed into the blank whiteness of the sink. "Just let it go."
"The way you look at me, the way you think about me," Castiel says softly.
"That's the whole point, damn it, that's why you can't go into my head!" he forces the words out, looks at himself in the mirror and then instantly regrets it when he catches a glimpse of his expression. He looks at Castiel instead, a whole world of premium-rate blankness again. Why the hell does he have to pull that out when Dean would kill for an expression. "Stuff like that, stuff that I'm never going to say it stays in there, in stays in my brain and no one gets to have an opinion on it."
"You need something your brother can't provide," Castiel continues in his sensible voice.
That's like a slap in the face, made worse by the fact that it's clearly bad enough that the angel has noticed, and maybe Sam too, but Jesus, he hopes not.
"If you're denying yourself as some sort of punishment-"
Dean knows he doesn’t want to hear the end of that.
"And you can provide it can you? You're telling me you're willing to whore yourself out for my emotional well being. What sort of an angel does that make you?"
Castiel blinks slowly, if there's an insult there he doesn't feel it.
"You know I'm not entirely what I was," he says instead. Not that he's admitted what it was he lost, what it was the archangel broke, or took from him. He still feels the same, he can still come and go if he feels like it, can still burn demons out with a touch. Whatever it is he is now, Cas clearly doesn't want to talk about it.
"You're not even close to human though," Dean says roughly, like that helps. "And you didn't answer the question."
There's the slightest pause.
"Yes," Castiel says slowly, as if there's a chance Dean might misunderstand. "I would be willing."
"Jesus," Dean says harshly, because he honestly can't think of anything else to say.
He shakes his head, stares into the mirror, at his own reflection, smeared out under dirt and lines of old blood and his eyes look raw in his face, dark and too damn old. He's not anything close to what anyone should want. He's nothing, nothing.
He shakes his head again and turns, shoves open the door of the bathroom, he hears the smack as it hits the wall, but he's already through it, into the lighter warmer air of the room.
He's breathing too fast and he knows that's not anger, not just anger. He knows it's a mess, and anger is only part of it.
He sits down on the end of the bed, angrily tugs off his boots and socks and lets them rest wherever they fall, bare feet on the carpet and that's pretty much the only place he never got any scars. The only part of him that was just skin and bone. He doesn't know why that's important suddenly, but it just is.
They look the same since he got out of hell. Since the whole world changed. Pretty much the only part of him that never had to be made smooth and new.
He pulls his shirt off and tosses it across the room, towards their bags.
He feels the bed shift when Castiel sits down, and how he manages to make the room feel so much warmer when he's so cold Dean doesn't have a clue.
"We could just go back to before, pretend this never happened, pretend you didn't know. It works like that, we work."
"Don't you think you pretend too much already?" Castiel's voice is soft, he leans, or shifts, and his arm is pressed into Dean's back, gentle and wordless and when did he learn that. When did he start feeling real?
He tugs away, shakes his head.
"It's just sex," Dean says roughly. "I don't-" he's willing to finish, to push whatever he needs to say through his teeth to make Cas stop and get up and go back in the bathroom and finish cleaning himself up. But for all that he needs to, he can't force any more words through his throat.
Because he doesn’t even know what this isn't, let alone what it is, and he's sick and tired of lying.
"Does that make it easier?" Cas's voice is soft and so impossibly calm, like nothing that happened here could be bad.
"Don't, just don't ok, I'm trying really hard to not let this happen."
"Why?"
"Because it makes me feel like the bad guy," Dean says, too fast and too loud and too damn honest. Though that doesn't make him want it any less.
"You know that you aren't," Castiel's voice is soft. "I wouldn't offer if you were."
The silence drags on for a long time.
"You're an angel," he says at last, for want of something, anything else to use as an excuse.
"Not so much as I was."
The silence this time ends when Castiel's hand touches his shoulder, fingers sliding across bare skin in one curious line. Dean wants to shake it free, he wants to so badly but he doesn't. Maybe his self protective instincts aren't so messed up after all. And he's left with the parts of him that don't screw everything up on a regular basis screaming that he's braver than this.
So he doesn't shake it off.
Instead he catches Castiel's wrist, and he can feel the bones under the skin, the tendons, for all that means.
He pulls it down, fingertips skidding over his chest and stomach, and there's a brief, surprised flicker of resistance. One quiver of iron hard, unreal, tension. But it only lasts a second, and then his hand is loose in Dean's, fingers trailing the open edge of his jeans.
"You want to be worshiped," Castiel says softly.
Like this thing isn't blasphemous already.
Dean still expects some sort of rebuke at that, something that reminds him what he is, reminds him of his place. But there's nothing, just Castiel's fingertips on his skin.
"What do you want?" Dean demands. "Do you even want?"
"I want you to say yes," Castiel says quietly and there's a strange honesty there that Dean doesn't even have a hope of unravelling.
There's no way he can be honest in turn, because how could he put his honesty up against an angel's.
But Castiel just looks at him, that endless look through eyes that aren't quite human and there's no judgement, there's nothing there but quiet patient expectation.
"I want you," Dean admits finally, a rush of words that aren't supposed to be. "I know I shouldn't and I can't but I do."
"Show me," Castiel asks, though there's more than an edge of demand in the words too.
Dean exhales roughly, leaves Cas's fingers against his skin, raises his own hand to pull at his neck instead and Castiel comes obediently- no, he comes willingly.
There's no hesitation in his mouth and, god, this is wrong, this isn't for him, this isn't what he deserves. But Castiel is soft, and so close, and he leans into him like he's just been waiting for Dean's hands to catch him.
He understands, though he starts in small uncertain movements that are more theory than practice, he follows where Dean pushes, opens when he pushes a little harder. The inside of his mouth is cool and his skin everywhere Dean touches is just the slightest bit wrong. He's too hard, too strong underneath.
When Dean pushes a hand in his hair and tips his head back there's a fraction of a second of impossible resistance before he shifts into the movement.
Dean breaks away from him.
Cas's mouth is wet, a slant of shining skin underneath eyes that aren't as clear or as wide as they were before.
There must be something in Dean's face, some confusion or question, because he frowns.
"What's wrong?"
"You don't feel human," Dean says honestly and it's more of a curious observation than anything else.
"I'm not." It's a quiet admission, but Castiel frowns, as if he finds the distinction suddenly important, a mark against him. Like he thinks maybe he won't be enough. That he's too wrong. His fingers, loose where they lay against the bare skin of Dean's waist, are suddenly pressed in more tightly, like he expects Dean to pull away from him. Like he doesn't want him to.
Instead Dean drags at the white edge of his shirt, fabric slithering out of his pants and bunching in Dean's fist on every steady pull.
"But you know how this works right? You must have seen it done." He prays to god that he's not a total innocent, before realising what an incredible blasphemy that is, and there's no way to take it back.
"Yes," Castiel says simply, and when Dean doesn't say anything, just looks at him with one eyebrow raised, he seems to search for something else, something that Dean wants. "Thousands of times, hundreds of thousands."
"Have you ever been tempted?"
Castiel's expression changes into something surprised, almost insulted, as if the idea of it is utterly foreign and Dean can't resist a little huff of laughter at that.
"No."
Another thought occurs to Dean, one he forces through his throat even though he isn't sure he really wants to. Isn't sure he wants to hear the answer.
"Are you even allowed to do this?" His fingers are carefully working shirt buttons through their holes, knuckles sliding against his chest in slow, uneven drags.
"I'm doing nothing," Castiel points out, which is the truth, but it's hedging and Dean knows it. He pushes open the fabric as he goes, leaves bare skin in its place and that's enough to make his fingers stop their task and push under the still closed edge of it.
"Are you allowed to let me do this?"
Castiel inhales sharply when Dean's hand moves higher, fingertips gliding over his ribs.
"The things I've already done far outweigh anything that I might do here, with you."
Dean stops, fingers spread on the unnaturally still coolness of Castiel's skin.
"Disobedience is worse than this?"
"Yes," it's a simple admission and Dean's hand presses down, just a little. It's already too late, much too late. He thinks about telling Cas that he should have told him. But then he should have known. He should have known.
He pushes the shirt over the curve of a shoulder, drags it down Castiel's back and leaves it crushed there. When he sets his teeth on the skin, it gives under pressure, hitches on a breath and he catches Cas's waist and holds him there, holds him right there.
He's soft where he should be, softer than Dean, all fine lines and narrow bones and he can't quite help the way his mouth strays over the skin, finding the differences, the hard planes where there should be curves, strong lines where there should be fragile ones.
He finds a nipple and can't help the quick instinctive need to make it wet, to drag his tongue over it and Castiel makes a stunned, needy noise in his throat and tries to pull his arms free of the tangled edges of his own shirt.
Dean leans up, catches it where he's left it bunched up. White fabric slides down both arms when he pulls, and Castiel spends a moment slipping his arms free before he lays one hand uncertainly on Dean's arm. When Dean doesn't say anything, when he just breathes, it slides higher, one slow curious movement, until it catches the back of his neck.
Dean's prepared for a pull, prepared to fold under it, but it never comes, there's an uncertain frown on Cas's face, like he wants to, but his fingers just twitch meaninglessly against the skin.
Dean shifts his weight over, presses down into him and Castiel sighs like that was exactly what he wanted.
When Dean leans down again he finds the line of his neck, the rough edge of his jaw. He breathes there, leaving Cas's skin warm, leaving it wet, bruised red wherever his teeth press into the skin.
Castiel's fingers twitch, then close in Dean's hair, before relaxing again, as if he isn't quite sure what's allowed.
"Show me what you want," Dean says into the skin, leaves a bite which pulls a gasp out of the angel and then the fingers do catch on his skin, pull him up and round with impossible strength until they're kissing again. Deep wet kisses all enthusiasm and greed.
Dean opens his hands on his skin, still half-convinced that he shouldn’t but unable, unwilling, to stop. Castiel is smooth and heavy where he moves through his hands and Dean's briefly distracted by the urge to press in, to hold, and pull.
Cas breathes into his mouth, proves he knows how, but it's a shaky mess and Dean can't help but feel just a little smug about that, until he gets distracted, leans into the warmth of it, loses himself.
Dean, one handed, finds the belt and the zip of his pants, opens both and then slips his hand in, pushes it down, finds him half hard. He makes a noise, something quick and deep and greedy, pushes his hand down further until he can cup, and then press down, fingers sliding helplessly around.
"Can you feel this?" Dean asks, curious and tense,
"Yes," There's a shake in Castiel's voice, something thin and lost. He shifts in small movements underneath him, presses into Dean's hand in a way that's new and greedy.
Dean doesn't ask if he can feel it like them, because he doesn't need to.
His own cock gives a heavy echoing throb of sympathy where he's pressed into Castiel's thigh.
"Wait," he says into his mouth, more breath than word. "Just wait."
His hand slides free, before he swears and slips down the bed, tugs off Cas's shoes and socks, before dragging off his pants, sliding greedy hands into his shorts and drawing them down his legs too.
He shoves at the edge of his own jeans, lets them take his boxer shorts with them, and he doesn't know where they fall, doesn't care. Because this time Cas does pull him back, hands on his waist and then his hips, drawing him in and down and it's more than clear that he wants to kiss him, because he keeps pulling until Dean is close enough to do it again. Their legs slide together, close enough that they can feel each other, all hard lines and hands and Dean can't for the life of him remember why this was ever wrong. When his heartbeat is slamming through his body, fingers dug into Cas's smooth soft waist while his legs slip-slide open around him and his mouth is half breath and half kiss and Dean is gone, he's completely fucking gone.
"Dean," Castiel manages, and his hands are pulling but Dean doesn't quite have enough brain power to work out what he wants for a long second, but his hand is pressed flat into the twitching skin of Dean's stomach, fingers curious and uncertain. "Tell me what you need-"
His voice fades to nothing when Dean takes his wrist and draws his hand down, folds his fingers round where he's hard, presses them all the way down.
Castiel opens his mouth like he wants to speak again, but there's nothing, nothing at all.
"Maybe I'm not the only one of us who needs?" Dean's voice is quiet, and it's just words, but he feels the answering catch of fingers on his skin, and the breathless confused demand of Cas's mouth on his. He lets him demand, lets him take what he wants rough push of stubble and teeth and it's nothing like he imagined, nothing. It's better, it's harder and it's more. It's like being drunk only he can't stop, can't stop his hands from moving, spreading Castiel out, touching every bare curve and line of him.
Cas's hand moves, careful but insistent, one steady movement like he knows how, like he's watched him, and Jesus, the thought of that sends a flare of arousal through him.
"You know what I want," Dean breathes shakily into the stolen warmth of his mouth, and it sounds more like a demand, though he doesn't mean it to.
"Yes," Castiel says simply.
"Then say it, I need to know you know what you're asking for here."
There's a quiet inhale that sounds almost stunned.
"You want to be inside me," Castiel's eyes flick upwards, meet his own and Dean's close enough that there's no possible way he can pretend they aren't that sharp unnatural shade of blue. That this is both very real and almost certainly wrong. Wrong shouldn't make it good but it does, and a quick guilty shiver of need rolls down his spine and threatens to break him open.
His hand finds Cas's, stops it, eases it free.
The bag beside the bed holds bottles of oil, never intended for this, but good enough, and though Dean's never thought of it. Never thought of it anywhere but in the darkness and inside his own head. He wants it, wants every obscene second of it, and he gets oil on the sheets and across his own thigh before he gets it on his fingers.
Cas doesn't speak, he just draws his leg up, knee sliding on the sheets, opening himself to Dean's quick pushes. It's too easy to move into the space to press close, to press deeper, two fingers, then three.
There's nothing he wants more, the steady ache of it, pressed into Cas's skin. Watching the angel open under him, watching him breathe through every new sensation, turn his head into every kiss without ever having to be asked, or pulled.
But Dean forces himself to wait, god, until every breath saws out of him.
"You can't hurt me," Castiel says quietly, and Dean makes a noise into his mouth that's somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
He takes him at his word, eases his fingers free, hands smoothing over the skin of his thighs, pushing into that space, leaning down and taking himself in hand, pressing in-
Castiel inhales, something that's almost a gasp. He shuts his eyes, makes a sound that's soft and surprised, far too close to wounded and Dean can't do anything but slide deeper, too wet and too desperate to do anything else, and Cas's fingers dig into his arms, hard and then harder.
Dean's fairly sure that when he said he couldn't hurt him he lied.
Cas breathes his name, too quiet to be heard but Dean knows the shape of it, and he loses all his breath in one go, a shaky wet exhale that's too loud and too honest.
He knows he should stop, just for second, just for long enough to let the angel breathe.
But Cas moves underneath him, a long slow shift of muscle, and Dean can't, he just can't.
Castiel's hand falls, stretches out as if he's reaching for something, only to twist and tangle in the sheets and Dean can't help the way his own hand drags the white material free and shoves in in its place. Castiel's fingers bite into the back of his hand and there's something there that's too much, that's something different and more complicated. But his own fingers dig in as hard as they can, hold him there while he pushes down, long hard thrusts that are just on the edge of careless.
It's messy and graceless and completely human, the way Castiel's teeth dig into his lower lip, the way he gasps air between every push. Over and over.
When Dean slides in deep, Cas's head tips back, long thick noises of pleasure and protest sliding out of his throat, tangled up so close together that it's neither one nor the other.
Dean is completely fucking lost.
Castiel's isn't quiet any more, air shaking out of him every time Dean presses up and in. Tiny cracked noises that he doesn't know how to hold back. They fall into groans, deep, desperate and shockingly human, and Dean has to close his eyes and push his face into the hot curve of Cas's neck because they go all the way through him. It's a stab of sensation he doesn't need when he's so close already. So damn close to the edge.
He find the wet length of oil on his thigh, pushes his hand through it then slides it round Castiel's cock. Then he drags him to the edge with quick wet strokes, turns Castiel's breathing into a ragged fall of air and need, hoarse and broken.
Until he's lost, and Dean's fingers are wet where they slide and shift against his stomach, fierce and then slower, shuddering edges of release that leave Castiel making soft helpless noises.
He's shaking underneath him, tight around him and Dean only manages a handful of short pushes before he's groaning into the damp skin of Castiel's throat, listening to the sound of breath and shock while the whole world liquefies.
He's left whimpering unattractively, too sensitive to still be alive.
He's breathless for a long moment, before slithering free, but not rolling away. He stays pressed close enough that they're both going to be a mess but he doesn't think he cares. He turns his head to breathe and finds Castiel's skin thumping underneath him. He has Castiel's heartbeat under his ear and the realisation surprises him.
"Your heart is beating," he says quietly, curiously.
There's a long pause, Castiel shifts minutely, as if he's testing his skin.
"Yes," he says simply, he still sounds out of breath, like Dean has shaken all the human in him to the surface. He's not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
~~~
When Dean wakes up his face is pressed into the pillow, frustrated pieces of sleep leaving him sluggish in the dark. He stretches an arm out, finds the bed beside him cold.
He pushes himself up, half certain he's alone, but his mouth is halfway round Cas's name anyway.
He isn't alone, the bed shifts ever so slightly and he rolls, finds Castiel sat on the edge, face turned to look at him.
"I forgot you didn't sleep," Dean says into the darkness. Cas had once told him he wouldn't know how. Dean wishes sometimes he didn't have to sleep, but he knows he'd last a week before he went mad.
Castiel's too quiet, skin still bare in the half light, he hasn't dressed and he hasn't gone.
There's no blank surety, no command, the air of invulnerability is still missing in a way that feels jarring when he's that far away. The long naked curves of him look too fine, too easy, like there's something missing, something tilted out of balance.
Dean thinks he did something wrong, something really wrong.
"Cas, are you okay?"
"Yes," Castiel's voice is soft, thready, like he's been asleep after all. But Dean doubts it.
Things are never right when Castiel is uncertain. Dean knows that much. He can't help but think, immediately, that maybe what they'd done, what he'd said yes to- maybe he shouldn't have done. That living a whole lifetime of not getting what he wants should have taught him something. Should have taught him better.
Dean thinks about offering to pretend it never happened but he knows, he just knows, that isn't the right thing to say. Knows that will make it worse, will make it sound like it was something wrong.
But he has to fix this, he has to.
"Cas-"
He stops because Castiel's eyes are nothing like they should be, sharp and warm and a slow heavy blue that isn't the same as before at all. It's something like anger, and at the same time, nothing like it.
Whatever Dean was going to say is just gone. He doesn't move, doesn't reach out.
Castiel's fingers shift slowly in the sheets, half pushed towards him in the silence, like he wants to touch him.
For a second Dean doesn't understand
Because it doesn't make sense.
Unless...
"You weren't ready for that were you?" Dean says quietly, carefully, and the way Castiel's shoulders tighten and draw up is too human a reaction to be anything else. "You gave me something I wanted and now you don't know how to deal with it. And it's my fault."
"No," Castiel says fiercely. "It wasn't your fault." He shakes his head, but doesn't seem to be able to find anything else to say. The quiet drags, and Dean moves forward, knees crushing the sheet underneath them.
"I didn't understand," Castiel says eventually, and it almost sounds like an apology. "I didn't understand what I was-" He stops again, looks at his hand like he's lost.
Dean reaches out, touches his arm. Castiel inhales the moment his fingertips touch. Like he wasn't expecting it, like everything is different.
"Cas," Dean's fingers curl round his arm and hold it, but it's utterly unnatural under his hand. Too hard and too cold. "Damn it, come here." He doesn't mean to sound angry but Castiel sighs and stops resisting.
Suddenly he's soft again, as close to human as he was next to him, underneath him.
"If I did something wrong-" Dean starts awkwardly, because he's not good at this.
Castiel shakes his head, long slow and certain.
"You did nothing wrong."
"It sure feels like I did."
"This wasn't for me," Castiel tells him, slow honesty, tangled round something else, something confused and brittle. And it hurts more than Dean thinks it should.
"Bullshit."
"It wasn't," Castiel protests.
"Really, you want to make me feel bad about this?" Dean says fiercely. "You want to pretend you weren't there with me?"
Castiel's head turns, like he can't look at him, like he won't and Dean doesn't want him that far away, doesn't want him remote where he can't reach him, can't touch him. He lifts a hand, finds his neck, strangely warm now under his fingers and he pulls, doesn't stop pulling until Castiel turns to look at him.
"Look at me, I won't do this if you don't want to, if you can't, I know you're not- you're not human, and I'm pretty much as bad as we come. I know everything is different." Dean's thumb pushes, moves across the sharp line of his jaw and Cas's eyes flutter shut before he makes a low noise of agreement. Before Dean tells himself he should stop. "I know you wanted it too, maybe not at the beginning, maybe not, but you wanted it, and if you didn't- Jesus, if you didn't like the way that made you feel-"
Cas goes very still under his hands.
"It's okay," Dean finishes. "I won't push, I won't-"
Castiel drags his head down and kisses him quiet. Strong, warm hands on his face and Dean catches his wrists, holds them loosely and then tightly, Castiel doesn't stop kissing him for a long time.
And then they're both simply breathing, and Dean realises how much there is there, enough that he's left without words for a long time, because he doesn't quite believe it.
Cas doesn't let him go until he does.
"I am not used to being overwhelmed," Castiel says eventually, voice quiet. "It was..."
"Overwhelming?" Dean suggests.
The corner of Castiel's mouth tilts, just a fraction.
"Yes."
Dean breathes relief into his mouth while Castiel holds him up.
"I'm not different, not in the way you think," he says carefully, and Dean says nothing, even though that thought was taken straight out of his head. "You haven't changed me, you haven't changed what I am."
Cas leans into him, not quite human, all impossible strength and strangeness and Dean doesn't complain. He just digs his fingers in and nods against his skin.
"There are too many real things to be afraid of," Castiel chastises quietly, and Dean makes a hard noise in his throat because he suspects kisses will come with lectures now, but he's pretty sure that's ok with him.
"Just tell me you'll stay with us," Dean demands, quietly, forcefully. "Tell me you'll stay with us and be on our side for as long as you can."
Castiel looks at him, really looks, and for once Dean doesn't give a damn if he sees all the way down to where he's fragile, to where the ugly cracks run deeper than they should.
"I promise." Castiel's voice is low and firm, like it's a solemn vow.
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: All of season 4
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: "A man lived and died in this skin, he gave it to you to use to save the world. I think you're the one that should have a little respect."
AN: 'Show me this thing you call love' cliche, for cliche_bingo .
Sometimes the victories don't even feel like victories, sometimes they were just better than the alternative.
At the moment it feels like every battle they win comes at the cost of good people. Good people who don't even know they're fighting a war at all. Good people that pay the price, are still paying the price, because of them.
And no matter how right this is supposed to be Dean still feels a little like he's bleeding out piece by piece.
Which is why it's so hard, so damn hard, to remember how much of this isn't right. How much of it didn't come from anywhere good. That they're making up not just for lost time but for their own bad choices, and for the choices they didn't realise in time were the wrong ones.
The apocalypse isn't epic, it's not destruction on a massive scale, it's not even global. Instead it's a relentless creep towards ground zero, the world turning rotten in tiny little pieces. It's endless and ceaseless, and exhausting, and nothing is good enough to tip the balance back. Ever-expanding circles of death and violence, where monster and man are drifting closer together every day.
It's not getting better, it's not getting easier,
They're living, barely, in an endless stream of motels bedrooms and motel bathrooms endless stretches of moving road, patching up larger and larger wounds every fight, never enough time to heal between jobs. Never enough space to breathe, to sleep, to take five minutes by himself to crack open and feel some of his rage and frustration and let it go.
This bathroom is no different from any other, nothing's different enough to be really memorable. Dean's fingernails are still red brown, shoulders tight and aching, he's still exhausted but so far away from sleep it physically hurts.
Sam's facedown next door, sleeping because he can, because it's his turn, because Dean made him. It's been a while since Dean's been able to tell Sam what to do, but here, now, Sam has a lot of guilt to work off, and though Dean's not going to take advantage of it, he's not going to pretend it isn't there either.
He watches Castiel wipe blood off of his jaw, a strangely absent gesture, as if it's just dirt on the skin. As if it means nothing. When Dean's done the same thing a thousand times and never once felt nothing.
It makes him suddenly, almost unbearably, angry. Too much energy under skin that's already burned out and aching, so he leans into the wall, breathes through his teeth and doesn’t say a goddamn word. He doesn't dig his nails into the half open wound, he won't make it angels versus humans again, no matter how much he wants to.
He leaves his face blank under the fluorescent lights and watches as Castiel cleans a human being's whole life off of his skin.
"They're going for more populated areas," he says quietly, and he gets points for his voice being dry, calm and cool, just another one of the facts.
Castiel turns his head to look at him, instead of looking at his reflection in the mirror.
"Your fragility is a temptation for them, for some of them it's been centuries since they saw flesh, it makes them bold."
That stings in a way that makes Dean want to lash out, but he's gotten too used to holding it all in and his anger feels like it'll choke him if he lets it. It's too damn easy to be angry at Castiel, easier than it should be. It should be better now he's closer, now he's one of them. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's better than easy. When they're fighting, when they're out there, it's easy there. It's only when it's quiet, when they're safe, that they push at each other. Dig at each other's weaknesses, each other's stubborn refusal to bend.
Dean's never sure where it starts, just that it does.
"You're wearing one of us, in case you didn't notice." The words are fierce, almost an accusation. But that feels right too, that Castiel should feel that.
"But I'm not so fragile."
It's another sting, left to hang in the air under the hum-flutter of the unnatural lights. Dean shakes his head.
"That just makes you different, it doesn't make you better."
Castiel pauses, frowns at Dean's reflection. There's something almost disappointed in his expression. But Dean's starting to get used to it. He's seen that on too many faces to think he'll ever hope to shake free of it.
"I'm sorry," Castiel says quietly and it occurs to Dean, that the disappointment wasn't for him. That the disappointment was maybe closer, heavier, and more personal. Though what personal was for an angel he didn't want to guess.
"Why? Why are you sorry?" Dean demands through a frown, voice too sharp. "You throw that word around but you don't really know what it means."
"That's not true." It's said so quickly, so certainly.
Dean takes two steps forward, catches the impossible solidity of Castiel’s shoulders and forces him closer to the mirror. Castiel doesn't try and stop him, he simply frowns at his own reflection, like he still doesn't understand. Though he doesn't protest the manhandling, he doesn't try and pull free and this is why Dean tries not to make a habit of touching him. Because he thinks maybe this could be too easy too. That he'll get lost in that place where Castiel is in some way 'his' angel, and if that isn't a dangerous thought then he doesn't know what is.
"Dean-"
"Shut up." One of his boots upsets the chair by the door, flinging both his leather jacket and Castiel's coat to the floor. He digs his fingers into Castiel's shoulders and holds him there. There's no warmth under his hands. The white fabric of his shirt is cool. Dean's not arrogant enough to think that Castiel couldn’t make him let go if he really wanted to but he keeps his fingers tight like he can hold on anyway.
"He's real, this isn't just a suit you're looking at-"
Castiel's expression is still blank, and damned if Dean has ever been able to tell if he doesn't understand or just doesn't care.
Dean's sick of it, he's sick of decisions being made by people who couldn't care less. By people who'd quite happily smash them all underfoot to prove how righteous they are.
It makes him so angry he can barely breathe. Refusing to admit that there's no win there. Because it's not just about what Dean wants, and much as he wants- god- much as he wants Cas here with him- with them. Though he's with them Dean can't shake the idea that he still doesn't understand.
Dean pushes, and when that doesn't seem good enough he digs a hand in Castiel's hair, pulls his head up. He makes him face his own reflection.
"A man lived and died in this skin, he gave it to you to use to save the world. I think you're the one that should have a little respect."
Castiel's head twists in the mirror, far enough to catch Dean's eye over his shoulder, and there's a faint edge- Dean doesn't know if it's confusion or warning but he's too far in to care, heart beating too fast to slam to a stop, and damned if he's going to be afraid of any threat of divine retribution when it feels like that's all it's been for months and months, threats and orders and obedience and the great white grinding machinery of heavenly righteousness that doesn't feel worth a damn.
Dean's hand clenches, forces his head back to the mirror.
"Look at him!"
Castiel looks.
"We're not meat, we're not your damn puppets. Whatever you think we are, we deserve better."
"Dean-"
"I don't give a damn about acceptable casualties, or sacrifice, or whatever the hell else you tell yourself to try and make it ok. We deserve better! We don't save people so you can just use them as cannon fodder in your holy war. It's all of us or none of us!"
"This is your war too," Castiel's voice is low and hard.
"Damn right it is, because you put us there, you put us right there in the middle of it." That's the bit that hurts, the bit that really hurts. For all that it's Dean's fault, for all that they screwed up and they broke what they shouldn't have broken it feels like it was all supposed to happen like this. The whole damn mess of it laid out years ago. Whether humanity had wanted it or not; no one had given a damn about what it would mean for the world.
"Dean-"
"No, damn it, if you want to be on our side, then be on our side!" He's breathing too hard, hand still buried in the weight of Castiel's hair, but the angel doesn't pull out of his grip. His expression is utterly unreadable, where Dean's is a mess, an untidy ragged mess of anger and frustration and just plain honest tiredness. But there's some flavour of desperate want underneath it all, and he doesn't want to look at it, he can't.
His hand slides free from Castiel's hair and the fact that his fingers ache tells him just how hard he was holding. One day he thinks he's going to push too hard, push further than Castiel will let him. He'll lose what he's pushing so fucking hard to get right.
But not today, Castiel's shoulders very slowly shift, as if to soothe ruffled feathers, before he turns his head to face him.
"I am on your side." The angel's voice is quiet, but there's a low thrum of intensity under the words, and assurance. Like he wants, like he needs Dean to believe him.
Dean shakes his head, like he doesn't want to, even though the question was never asked, never intended, or maybe wasn't even there at all.
"You're not truly angry at me," Castiel says softly but firmly, and god knows why he's not angry, but he isn't. Though Dean probably deserves it, more than deserves it.
"How the hell would you know?"
"You're uncomfortable with things you can't control, and so you look for ways to control them."
"Or maybe sometimes I just need to be angry, because we don't get to control things, not the things that really matter, we just fucking dance for your amusement don't we, and there's no way to cut the strings."
"I'm on your side," Castiel says again, quieter this time.
Dean breathes out, a shudder of air and anger, the rest of it he shoves back, grits his teeth over. Because there isn't time to break, not even a little bit.
"For all your own strength you're only human Dean, what else were you supposed to do."
"Don't do that." Dean tells him and though he wants it to be fierce it's more a breath of irritated disappointment.
"Do what?"
"Don't make it about me being weak."
"Do you think it's a weakness?"
Dean shakes his head rather than say what he really believes. Because it's been proved time and time again that what he believes is wrong. That the universe is more fucked up than even he gave it credit for. He's left in a place where he's almost sure that there really is nothing good but what you make for yourself. What you take and hold on to, and fight for and refuse to let go of.
He doesn't want Castiel to admit that he's right. Right here, right now, he doesn't think he could deal with that. So he shakes his head; throws the whole conversation away in one movement.
Castiel doesn't push, but he stands there, uncertain and too stiff, like he's on the edge of something. Like he thinks now is an appropriate time to touch him, some sort of random human gesture of connection, but he isn't quite sure how. Dean kind of wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
Six months ago he wouldn't have even tried.
The old Castiel was kind of a dick. The old Castiel had been flat and alien and completely hollow. Obedient and faceless and righteous. He would have held the entire world over Dean's head if it had been necessary. He'd pushed and threatened, but he's slowly bent the way Dean pushed until he'd hoped that maybe, just maybe they weren't all fucked after all.
That betrayal had hurt, the fact that it had come from an angel. From an angel he'd thought was-
But then Castiel had chosen him, and suffered for it; become something different.
Like someone had spilled a little of whatever made humans human into him.
Only there's too much room for it to slosh around and he isn't sure where it goes or what it does.
It had made him real, made him touchable, and Dean was damned if that didn't make him want to touch, though he knows it's wrong, knows he shouldn't- It's just another messed up part of him. He's too used to doing what he's told while pushing back against it, and he shouldn't be surprised. So he touches less, and he pretends it's not there.
He can't pretend he doesn't want to know what happened to him, but he notices the differences, the flickers of reaction that weren't there before. The way he feels more immediate. Like Jimmy's empty body is no longer just somewhere he's inhabiting, like it's actually his.
Maybe it is now.
Dean had to wonder if he'd ever gotten lost inside his own skin.
Inside Jimmy's skin, before heaven burned him out, or took him, or whatever the hell they'd done to the poor bastard.
If he'd ever lived in it. Not just worn it but felt the wind on his skin and the rain and the smell of hot asphalt and the sheer weight of it. The whole weight of it all. He wonders if Castiel has ever felt real, real like them.
"Yes," there's a quiet simplicity to the word.
"What did I tell you about looking inside my head." Dean says fiercely, stepping back out of his space, because that's not something he'll put up with. Cas loses the moral high ground the moment he starts pulling things out before Dean says them. Before he even means to say them.
"Would you have asked me?" Castiel asks quietly, following him in slower steps, but Dean's damned if he's backing up further. "Would you have asked me out loud if I'd ever felt like you do?"
He shakes his head, shakes it in angry denial, even though that isn't the point, not even close to it.
"No, but you can't just see whatever you want to answer and answer it. My head's my own." Even if nothing else is any more.
Castiel actually does look guilty at that. A brief, bright flash of it that's genuine and hurt.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "It was wrong of me."
"That never seemed to matter to you before." Dean can't resist the dig, but he bites it off before it can go deeper.
"I had a purpose before, and I didn't see- I saw but I didn't understand." Castiel frowns, looks to Dean, as if maybe he might have the answers, and that's a huge cosmic joke isn't it.
"The end justified the means," Dean reminds him roughly.
"Sometimes it shouldn't." Castiel's voice is quiet, but then his face shuts up completely like there's something sharp underneath, something too raw for Dean to see.
"I'm sorry too," Dean gives him, reluctantly, because more than part of that is his fault and he's aware that whatever Cas was, he isn't any more and whatever was done to him, he's still here. He still has faith, even when Dean doesn't. Even when he's sure he could happily drink himself to death and nothing in the slightest would change. He presses his hands together, then just lets them hang down, heavy scraped up knuckles bright red in the artificial light.
"You're doing more for the people than you realise," Castiel says quietly, though he looks conflicted, like Dean might accuse him of rifling through his head again.
Dean decides he'll let this one go.
"I definitely like you better now you give a crap about the people."
"I always did, but maybe for the wrong reasons, or maybe for one person in particular more than I should have." Castiel's voice is low and serious. In a way that almost makes Dean believe he means it. He shakes his head, shakes it off. Then he looks up, stares at the mirror, but Cas is facing him and all he can see is his profile. He looks more human from that angle, more real, smaller without his coat, shirt almost too big on his frame.
Like the body had lost weight since Cas had moved in.
His wrists are too narrow, it always catches Dean as wrong every time he realises that Cas is a lot smaller than he expects.
He thinks he'll get used to it eventually.
It's just now, where he's always so close, always there, hovering on the edge, strange and quiet and just a little bit wrong, but not as much, not nearly as much as he was before.
And he is on Dean's side. There aren't a lot of people that he can say that about.
He's tired and he's messed up and he needs a night where he can sleep and pretend everything will be ok the next day and the next. But he knows he can't have it, so he takes this instead, and maybe it's better than before. Better when it was just him in the nights where Sam was god knew where.
But this time he isn't alone, because Cas is there, right there, no matter how hard Dean shoves he stays right there and it's like Sam, only it's really not.
Because what Dean wants, right at this very moment, is to press him into the wet glass of the mirror and kiss him until the world, the whole damn up mess of it, just doesn't matter any more away.
He thinks it would be jarringly strange, the rough edge of his face against his own, the solid, alien, weight of him under his hands. But he doesn't care. He just doesn't care.
And that is ever so slightly fucked up.
He rubs a hand over his face and scowls at his own reflection.
"Is that what you want?" Castiel asks quietly, curiously, and there's a strange moment where Dean can't remember the last thing he said, can't remember what Cas is asking about. Until he realises that he isn't asking over a question, he's asking after a thought.
"What the hell did I tell you not five minutes ago?" Dean's slips over and back from the edge of furious. Because that was really not something he wanted Cas to see, hear, read, what-the-fuck-ever.
"The thought was very loud, I thought perhaps-" Castiel frowns, as if he isn't sure how to finish the sentence, but Dean's damned if he's going to let him.
"You've watched me long enough to know that you're wrong." He waves a hand, as if to indicate when really it's obvious, it's right there. And he's telling himself as much as he's telling Cas. But not for the same reason, and he makes a hysterical little noise of refusal. "Seriously I know I can put it about a bit but guys aren't really my thing. No matter what I think about." It's easy to paper over lies with anger, far too easy. He's been doing it for years.
"I'm not-"
"You are," Dean interrupts, loudly and fiercely, shoving a hand back and forth through his hair. "Dude, you quite clearly are, at least at this very moment in time. You can be a glowing yellow squid on the inside but on the outside- the outside is quite definitely a man."
"You want me nonetheless." Castiel says firmly, and he's closer without Dean even realising it, too close, staring up at him like he can open him up and Dean thinks maybe he can. But he doesn't want to go back to that. Doesn't want to remember that under it all Castiel is old and terrifying and other. "And perhaps that is best, perhaps that's what you need, a way to vent your fury that isn't destructive-"
Dean slams a hand into the sink, hears it crack.
"Let it go," he says angrily into the mirror, voice hoarse and stilted. His hands are pale where they're pressed into the blank whiteness of the sink. "Just let it go."
"The way you look at me, the way you think about me," Castiel says softly.
"That's the whole point, damn it, that's why you can't go into my head!" he forces the words out, looks at himself in the mirror and then instantly regrets it when he catches a glimpse of his expression. He looks at Castiel instead, a whole world of premium-rate blankness again. Why the hell does he have to pull that out when Dean would kill for an expression. "Stuff like that, stuff that I'm never going to say it stays in there, in stays in my brain and no one gets to have an opinion on it."
"You need something your brother can't provide," Castiel continues in his sensible voice.
That's like a slap in the face, made worse by the fact that it's clearly bad enough that the angel has noticed, and maybe Sam too, but Jesus, he hopes not.
"If you're denying yourself as some sort of punishment-"
Dean knows he doesn’t want to hear the end of that.
"And you can provide it can you? You're telling me you're willing to whore yourself out for my emotional well being. What sort of an angel does that make you?"
Castiel blinks slowly, if there's an insult there he doesn't feel it.
"You know I'm not entirely what I was," he says instead. Not that he's admitted what it was he lost, what it was the archangel broke, or took from him. He still feels the same, he can still come and go if he feels like it, can still burn demons out with a touch. Whatever it is he is now, Cas clearly doesn't want to talk about it.
"You're not even close to human though," Dean says roughly, like that helps. "And you didn't answer the question."
There's the slightest pause.
"Yes," Castiel says slowly, as if there's a chance Dean might misunderstand. "I would be willing."
"Jesus," Dean says harshly, because he honestly can't think of anything else to say.
He shakes his head, stares into the mirror, at his own reflection, smeared out under dirt and lines of old blood and his eyes look raw in his face, dark and too damn old. He's not anything close to what anyone should want. He's nothing, nothing.
He shakes his head again and turns, shoves open the door of the bathroom, he hears the smack as it hits the wall, but he's already through it, into the lighter warmer air of the room.
He's breathing too fast and he knows that's not anger, not just anger. He knows it's a mess, and anger is only part of it.
He sits down on the end of the bed, angrily tugs off his boots and socks and lets them rest wherever they fall, bare feet on the carpet and that's pretty much the only place he never got any scars. The only part of him that was just skin and bone. He doesn't know why that's important suddenly, but it just is.
They look the same since he got out of hell. Since the whole world changed. Pretty much the only part of him that never had to be made smooth and new.
He pulls his shirt off and tosses it across the room, towards their bags.
He feels the bed shift when Castiel sits down, and how he manages to make the room feel so much warmer when he's so cold Dean doesn't have a clue.
"We could just go back to before, pretend this never happened, pretend you didn't know. It works like that, we work."
"Don't you think you pretend too much already?" Castiel's voice is soft, he leans, or shifts, and his arm is pressed into Dean's back, gentle and wordless and when did he learn that. When did he start feeling real?
He tugs away, shakes his head.
"It's just sex," Dean says roughly. "I don't-" he's willing to finish, to push whatever he needs to say through his teeth to make Cas stop and get up and go back in the bathroom and finish cleaning himself up. But for all that he needs to, he can't force any more words through his throat.
Because he doesn’t even know what this isn't, let alone what it is, and he's sick and tired of lying.
"Does that make it easier?" Cas's voice is soft and so impossibly calm, like nothing that happened here could be bad.
"Don't, just don't ok, I'm trying really hard to not let this happen."
"Why?"
"Because it makes me feel like the bad guy," Dean says, too fast and too loud and too damn honest. Though that doesn't make him want it any less.
"You know that you aren't," Castiel's voice is soft. "I wouldn't offer if you were."
The silence drags on for a long time.
"You're an angel," he says at last, for want of something, anything else to use as an excuse.
"Not so much as I was."
The silence this time ends when Castiel's hand touches his shoulder, fingers sliding across bare skin in one curious line. Dean wants to shake it free, he wants to so badly but he doesn't. Maybe his self protective instincts aren't so messed up after all. And he's left with the parts of him that don't screw everything up on a regular basis screaming that he's braver than this.
So he doesn't shake it off.
Instead he catches Castiel's wrist, and he can feel the bones under the skin, the tendons, for all that means.
He pulls it down, fingertips skidding over his chest and stomach, and there's a brief, surprised flicker of resistance. One quiver of iron hard, unreal, tension. But it only lasts a second, and then his hand is loose in Dean's, fingers trailing the open edge of his jeans.
"You want to be worshiped," Castiel says softly.
Like this thing isn't blasphemous already.
Dean still expects some sort of rebuke at that, something that reminds him what he is, reminds him of his place. But there's nothing, just Castiel's fingertips on his skin.
"What do you want?" Dean demands. "Do you even want?"
"I want you to say yes," Castiel says quietly and there's a strange honesty there that Dean doesn't even have a hope of unravelling.
There's no way he can be honest in turn, because how could he put his honesty up against an angel's.
But Castiel just looks at him, that endless look through eyes that aren't quite human and there's no judgement, there's nothing there but quiet patient expectation.
"I want you," Dean admits finally, a rush of words that aren't supposed to be. "I know I shouldn't and I can't but I do."
"Show me," Castiel asks, though there's more than an edge of demand in the words too.
Dean exhales roughly, leaves Cas's fingers against his skin, raises his own hand to pull at his neck instead and Castiel comes obediently- no, he comes willingly.
There's no hesitation in his mouth and, god, this is wrong, this isn't for him, this isn't what he deserves. But Castiel is soft, and so close, and he leans into him like he's just been waiting for Dean's hands to catch him.
He understands, though he starts in small uncertain movements that are more theory than practice, he follows where Dean pushes, opens when he pushes a little harder. The inside of his mouth is cool and his skin everywhere Dean touches is just the slightest bit wrong. He's too hard, too strong underneath.
When Dean pushes a hand in his hair and tips his head back there's a fraction of a second of impossible resistance before he shifts into the movement.
Dean breaks away from him.
Cas's mouth is wet, a slant of shining skin underneath eyes that aren't as clear or as wide as they were before.
There must be something in Dean's face, some confusion or question, because he frowns.
"What's wrong?"
"You don't feel human," Dean says honestly and it's more of a curious observation than anything else.
"I'm not." It's a quiet admission, but Castiel frowns, as if he finds the distinction suddenly important, a mark against him. Like he thinks maybe he won't be enough. That he's too wrong. His fingers, loose where they lay against the bare skin of Dean's waist, are suddenly pressed in more tightly, like he expects Dean to pull away from him. Like he doesn't want him to.
Instead Dean drags at the white edge of his shirt, fabric slithering out of his pants and bunching in Dean's fist on every steady pull.
"But you know how this works right? You must have seen it done." He prays to god that he's not a total innocent, before realising what an incredible blasphemy that is, and there's no way to take it back.
"Yes," Castiel says simply, and when Dean doesn't say anything, just looks at him with one eyebrow raised, he seems to search for something else, something that Dean wants. "Thousands of times, hundreds of thousands."
"Have you ever been tempted?"
Castiel's expression changes into something surprised, almost insulted, as if the idea of it is utterly foreign and Dean can't resist a little huff of laughter at that.
"No."
Another thought occurs to Dean, one he forces through his throat even though he isn't sure he really wants to. Isn't sure he wants to hear the answer.
"Are you even allowed to do this?" His fingers are carefully working shirt buttons through their holes, knuckles sliding against his chest in slow, uneven drags.
"I'm doing nothing," Castiel points out, which is the truth, but it's hedging and Dean knows it. He pushes open the fabric as he goes, leaves bare skin in its place and that's enough to make his fingers stop their task and push under the still closed edge of it.
"Are you allowed to let me do this?"
Castiel inhales sharply when Dean's hand moves higher, fingertips gliding over his ribs.
"The things I've already done far outweigh anything that I might do here, with you."
Dean stops, fingers spread on the unnaturally still coolness of Castiel's skin.
"Disobedience is worse than this?"
"Yes," it's a simple admission and Dean's hand presses down, just a little. It's already too late, much too late. He thinks about telling Cas that he should have told him. But then he should have known. He should have known.
He pushes the shirt over the curve of a shoulder, drags it down Castiel's back and leaves it crushed there. When he sets his teeth on the skin, it gives under pressure, hitches on a breath and he catches Cas's waist and holds him there, holds him right there.
He's soft where he should be, softer than Dean, all fine lines and narrow bones and he can't quite help the way his mouth strays over the skin, finding the differences, the hard planes where there should be curves, strong lines where there should be fragile ones.
He finds a nipple and can't help the quick instinctive need to make it wet, to drag his tongue over it and Castiel makes a stunned, needy noise in his throat and tries to pull his arms free of the tangled edges of his own shirt.
Dean leans up, catches it where he's left it bunched up. White fabric slides down both arms when he pulls, and Castiel spends a moment slipping his arms free before he lays one hand uncertainly on Dean's arm. When Dean doesn't say anything, when he just breathes, it slides higher, one slow curious movement, until it catches the back of his neck.
Dean's prepared for a pull, prepared to fold under it, but it never comes, there's an uncertain frown on Cas's face, like he wants to, but his fingers just twitch meaninglessly against the skin.
Dean shifts his weight over, presses down into him and Castiel sighs like that was exactly what he wanted.
When Dean leans down again he finds the line of his neck, the rough edge of his jaw. He breathes there, leaving Cas's skin warm, leaving it wet, bruised red wherever his teeth press into the skin.
Castiel's fingers twitch, then close in Dean's hair, before relaxing again, as if he isn't quite sure what's allowed.
"Show me what you want," Dean says into the skin, leaves a bite which pulls a gasp out of the angel and then the fingers do catch on his skin, pull him up and round with impossible strength until they're kissing again. Deep wet kisses all enthusiasm and greed.
Dean opens his hands on his skin, still half-convinced that he shouldn’t but unable, unwilling, to stop. Castiel is smooth and heavy where he moves through his hands and Dean's briefly distracted by the urge to press in, to hold, and pull.
Cas breathes into his mouth, proves he knows how, but it's a shaky mess and Dean can't help but feel just a little smug about that, until he gets distracted, leans into the warmth of it, loses himself.
Dean, one handed, finds the belt and the zip of his pants, opens both and then slips his hand in, pushes it down, finds him half hard. He makes a noise, something quick and deep and greedy, pushes his hand down further until he can cup, and then press down, fingers sliding helplessly around.
"Can you feel this?" Dean asks, curious and tense,
"Yes," There's a shake in Castiel's voice, something thin and lost. He shifts in small movements underneath him, presses into Dean's hand in a way that's new and greedy.
Dean doesn't ask if he can feel it like them, because he doesn't need to.
His own cock gives a heavy echoing throb of sympathy where he's pressed into Castiel's thigh.
"Wait," he says into his mouth, more breath than word. "Just wait."
His hand slides free, before he swears and slips down the bed, tugs off Cas's shoes and socks, before dragging off his pants, sliding greedy hands into his shorts and drawing them down his legs too.
He shoves at the edge of his own jeans, lets them take his boxer shorts with them, and he doesn't know where they fall, doesn't care. Because this time Cas does pull him back, hands on his waist and then his hips, drawing him in and down and it's more than clear that he wants to kiss him, because he keeps pulling until Dean is close enough to do it again. Their legs slide together, close enough that they can feel each other, all hard lines and hands and Dean can't for the life of him remember why this was ever wrong. When his heartbeat is slamming through his body, fingers dug into Cas's smooth soft waist while his legs slip-slide open around him and his mouth is half breath and half kiss and Dean is gone, he's completely fucking gone.
"Dean," Castiel manages, and his hands are pulling but Dean doesn't quite have enough brain power to work out what he wants for a long second, but his hand is pressed flat into the twitching skin of Dean's stomach, fingers curious and uncertain. "Tell me what you need-"
His voice fades to nothing when Dean takes his wrist and draws his hand down, folds his fingers round where he's hard, presses them all the way down.
Castiel opens his mouth like he wants to speak again, but there's nothing, nothing at all.
"Maybe I'm not the only one of us who needs?" Dean's voice is quiet, and it's just words, but he feels the answering catch of fingers on his skin, and the breathless confused demand of Cas's mouth on his. He lets him demand, lets him take what he wants rough push of stubble and teeth and it's nothing like he imagined, nothing. It's better, it's harder and it's more. It's like being drunk only he can't stop, can't stop his hands from moving, spreading Castiel out, touching every bare curve and line of him.
Cas's hand moves, careful but insistent, one steady movement like he knows how, like he's watched him, and Jesus, the thought of that sends a flare of arousal through him.
"You know what I want," Dean breathes shakily into the stolen warmth of his mouth, and it sounds more like a demand, though he doesn't mean it to.
"Yes," Castiel says simply.
"Then say it, I need to know you know what you're asking for here."
There's a quiet inhale that sounds almost stunned.
"You want to be inside me," Castiel's eyes flick upwards, meet his own and Dean's close enough that there's no possible way he can pretend they aren't that sharp unnatural shade of blue. That this is both very real and almost certainly wrong. Wrong shouldn't make it good but it does, and a quick guilty shiver of need rolls down his spine and threatens to break him open.
His hand finds Cas's, stops it, eases it free.
The bag beside the bed holds bottles of oil, never intended for this, but good enough, and though Dean's never thought of it. Never thought of it anywhere but in the darkness and inside his own head. He wants it, wants every obscene second of it, and he gets oil on the sheets and across his own thigh before he gets it on his fingers.
Cas doesn't speak, he just draws his leg up, knee sliding on the sheets, opening himself to Dean's quick pushes. It's too easy to move into the space to press close, to press deeper, two fingers, then three.
There's nothing he wants more, the steady ache of it, pressed into Cas's skin. Watching the angel open under him, watching him breathe through every new sensation, turn his head into every kiss without ever having to be asked, or pulled.
But Dean forces himself to wait, god, until every breath saws out of him.
"You can't hurt me," Castiel says quietly, and Dean makes a noise into his mouth that's somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
He takes him at his word, eases his fingers free, hands smoothing over the skin of his thighs, pushing into that space, leaning down and taking himself in hand, pressing in-
Castiel inhales, something that's almost a gasp. He shuts his eyes, makes a sound that's soft and surprised, far too close to wounded and Dean can't do anything but slide deeper, too wet and too desperate to do anything else, and Cas's fingers dig into his arms, hard and then harder.
Dean's fairly sure that when he said he couldn't hurt him he lied.
Cas breathes his name, too quiet to be heard but Dean knows the shape of it, and he loses all his breath in one go, a shaky wet exhale that's too loud and too honest.
He knows he should stop, just for second, just for long enough to let the angel breathe.
But Cas moves underneath him, a long slow shift of muscle, and Dean can't, he just can't.
Castiel's hand falls, stretches out as if he's reaching for something, only to twist and tangle in the sheets and Dean can't help the way his own hand drags the white material free and shoves in in its place. Castiel's fingers bite into the back of his hand and there's something there that's too much, that's something different and more complicated. But his own fingers dig in as hard as they can, hold him there while he pushes down, long hard thrusts that are just on the edge of careless.
It's messy and graceless and completely human, the way Castiel's teeth dig into his lower lip, the way he gasps air between every push. Over and over.
When Dean slides in deep, Cas's head tips back, long thick noises of pleasure and protest sliding out of his throat, tangled up so close together that it's neither one nor the other.
Dean is completely fucking lost.
Castiel's isn't quiet any more, air shaking out of him every time Dean presses up and in. Tiny cracked noises that he doesn't know how to hold back. They fall into groans, deep, desperate and shockingly human, and Dean has to close his eyes and push his face into the hot curve of Cas's neck because they go all the way through him. It's a stab of sensation he doesn't need when he's so close already. So damn close to the edge.
He find the wet length of oil on his thigh, pushes his hand through it then slides it round Castiel's cock. Then he drags him to the edge with quick wet strokes, turns Castiel's breathing into a ragged fall of air and need, hoarse and broken.
Until he's lost, and Dean's fingers are wet where they slide and shift against his stomach, fierce and then slower, shuddering edges of release that leave Castiel making soft helpless noises.
He's shaking underneath him, tight around him and Dean only manages a handful of short pushes before he's groaning into the damp skin of Castiel's throat, listening to the sound of breath and shock while the whole world liquefies.
He's left whimpering unattractively, too sensitive to still be alive.
He's breathless for a long moment, before slithering free, but not rolling away. He stays pressed close enough that they're both going to be a mess but he doesn't think he cares. He turns his head to breathe and finds Castiel's skin thumping underneath him. He has Castiel's heartbeat under his ear and the realisation surprises him.
"Your heart is beating," he says quietly, curiously.
There's a long pause, Castiel shifts minutely, as if he's testing his skin.
"Yes," he says simply, he still sounds out of breath, like Dean has shaken all the human in him to the surface. He's not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
~~~
When Dean wakes up his face is pressed into the pillow, frustrated pieces of sleep leaving him sluggish in the dark. He stretches an arm out, finds the bed beside him cold.
He pushes himself up, half certain he's alone, but his mouth is halfway round Cas's name anyway.
He isn't alone, the bed shifts ever so slightly and he rolls, finds Castiel sat on the edge, face turned to look at him.
"I forgot you didn't sleep," Dean says into the darkness. Cas had once told him he wouldn't know how. Dean wishes sometimes he didn't have to sleep, but he knows he'd last a week before he went mad.
Castiel's too quiet, skin still bare in the half light, he hasn't dressed and he hasn't gone.
There's no blank surety, no command, the air of invulnerability is still missing in a way that feels jarring when he's that far away. The long naked curves of him look too fine, too easy, like there's something missing, something tilted out of balance.
Dean thinks he did something wrong, something really wrong.
"Cas, are you okay?"
"Yes," Castiel's voice is soft, thready, like he's been asleep after all. But Dean doubts it.
Things are never right when Castiel is uncertain. Dean knows that much. He can't help but think, immediately, that maybe what they'd done, what he'd said yes to- maybe he shouldn't have done. That living a whole lifetime of not getting what he wants should have taught him something. Should have taught him better.
Dean thinks about offering to pretend it never happened but he knows, he just knows, that isn't the right thing to say. Knows that will make it worse, will make it sound like it was something wrong.
But he has to fix this, he has to.
"Cas-"
He stops because Castiel's eyes are nothing like they should be, sharp and warm and a slow heavy blue that isn't the same as before at all. It's something like anger, and at the same time, nothing like it.
Whatever Dean was going to say is just gone. He doesn't move, doesn't reach out.
Castiel's fingers shift slowly in the sheets, half pushed towards him in the silence, like he wants to touch him.
For a second Dean doesn't understand
Because it doesn't make sense.
Unless...
"You weren't ready for that were you?" Dean says quietly, carefully, and the way Castiel's shoulders tighten and draw up is too human a reaction to be anything else. "You gave me something I wanted and now you don't know how to deal with it. And it's my fault."
"No," Castiel says fiercely. "It wasn't your fault." He shakes his head, but doesn't seem to be able to find anything else to say. The quiet drags, and Dean moves forward, knees crushing the sheet underneath them.
"I didn't understand," Castiel says eventually, and it almost sounds like an apology. "I didn't understand what I was-" He stops again, looks at his hand like he's lost.
Dean reaches out, touches his arm. Castiel inhales the moment his fingertips touch. Like he wasn't expecting it, like everything is different.
"Cas," Dean's fingers curl round his arm and hold it, but it's utterly unnatural under his hand. Too hard and too cold. "Damn it, come here." He doesn't mean to sound angry but Castiel sighs and stops resisting.
Suddenly he's soft again, as close to human as he was next to him, underneath him.
"If I did something wrong-" Dean starts awkwardly, because he's not good at this.
Castiel shakes his head, long slow and certain.
"You did nothing wrong."
"It sure feels like I did."
"This wasn't for me," Castiel tells him, slow honesty, tangled round something else, something confused and brittle. And it hurts more than Dean thinks it should.
"Bullshit."
"It wasn't," Castiel protests.
"Really, you want to make me feel bad about this?" Dean says fiercely. "You want to pretend you weren't there with me?"
Castiel's head turns, like he can't look at him, like he won't and Dean doesn't want him that far away, doesn't want him remote where he can't reach him, can't touch him. He lifts a hand, finds his neck, strangely warm now under his fingers and he pulls, doesn't stop pulling until Castiel turns to look at him.
"Look at me, I won't do this if you don't want to, if you can't, I know you're not- you're not human, and I'm pretty much as bad as we come. I know everything is different." Dean's thumb pushes, moves across the sharp line of his jaw and Cas's eyes flutter shut before he makes a low noise of agreement. Before Dean tells himself he should stop. "I know you wanted it too, maybe not at the beginning, maybe not, but you wanted it, and if you didn't- Jesus, if you didn't like the way that made you feel-"
Cas goes very still under his hands.
"It's okay," Dean finishes. "I won't push, I won't-"
Castiel drags his head down and kisses him quiet. Strong, warm hands on his face and Dean catches his wrists, holds them loosely and then tightly, Castiel doesn't stop kissing him for a long time.
And then they're both simply breathing, and Dean realises how much there is there, enough that he's left without words for a long time, because he doesn't quite believe it.
Cas doesn't let him go until he does.
"I am not used to being overwhelmed," Castiel says eventually, voice quiet. "It was..."
"Overwhelming?" Dean suggests.
The corner of Castiel's mouth tilts, just a fraction.
"Yes."
Dean breathes relief into his mouth while Castiel holds him up.
"I'm not different, not in the way you think," he says carefully, and Dean says nothing, even though that thought was taken straight out of his head. "You haven't changed me, you haven't changed what I am."
Cas leans into him, not quite human, all impossible strength and strangeness and Dean doesn't complain. He just digs his fingers in and nods against his skin.
"There are too many real things to be afraid of," Castiel chastises quietly, and Dean makes a hard noise in his throat because he suspects kisses will come with lectures now, but he's pretty sure that's ok with him.
"Just tell me you'll stay with us," Dean demands, quietly, forcefully. "Tell me you'll stay with us and be on our side for as long as you can."
Castiel looks at him, really looks, and for once Dean doesn't give a damn if he sees all the way down to where he's fragile, to where the ugly cracks run deeper than they should.
"I promise." Castiel's voice is low and firm, like it's a solemn vow.