Fic: Heaven or Las Vegas (Dean/Castiel, Sam/Ruby)
TONIGHT! Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night, tonight there will be no Morningstar…
Well, actually, there will, which is kind of the problem. I CAN’T WAIT.
Until then, I thought I’d leave you with some more Swear Jar ’verse, which seems fitting, as that’s what I started with. (Oh yeah, and previous ficlets are here.)
Title: Heaven or Las Vegas
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Ruby
Spoilers: Very AU, so pretty darn safe.
Length: ~3,650 words
Summary: Third installment of the Swear Jar ’verse, this comes chronologically between Quarters and Sharing Is Caring. A more in-depth look at the scenario Castiel describes to Ruby in “Sharing”-namely, his and Dean’s first time with the sexin’.
Notes: I started writing this a couple months ago-and almost immediately thereafter, TWO other people posted fics in which Dean and Cas do sex in a posh Vegas hotel. So I put it aside. Then I remembered: this is fandom. Do we really need to set a cap on things like that? I think not! Thanks to aesc for her help and encouragement, once again!
Heaven or Las Vegas
There have been jobs when after ganking whatever evil sonofabitch they were up against, Dean and Sam have had to flee town, and there have been jobs in which they’ve rescued people and still been lucky to come away with a begrudging thank you. But there have also people been who’ve been grateful. Really, really grateful. And sometimes they gave Sam and Dean stuff.
A rough list of Dean’s favorite things he’s been given, in no particular order:
1. Free shots.
2. Homemade strawberry rhubarb pie.
3. Tickets to a White Sox game.
4. An original restored Impala clutch cross shaft (and bracket!).
5. A picture of him and Sam saving the day, made from macaroni (presented proudly by the seven-year-old artist himself).
6. Blow jobs.
And for comparison, some of Dean’s least favorite gifts:
1. A packet of toasty oat cakes for the road.
2. Tickets to a Clay Aiken concert.
3. A picture of Dean reclining naked on a chaise, made from macaroni (presented proudly by a sweaty 43-year-old).
4. On occasion, offers of blow jobs. Especially when made right in front of a spouse. That’s just tacky.
But this? Free rooms at a glitzy Vegas hotel-plus access to the all-you-can-eat buffet? This Dean could get behind.
Or at least he could until it became clear that somewhere in between the four of them ousting the spirit haunting the slot machines and the hotel owner practically throwing free game chips and a complimentary bottle of champagne at them, someone totally got the wrong idea about something. Because one of the rooms was the honeymoon suite.
“Aww, Sammy,” Ruby said, holding her arms out, “are you going to carry me over the threshold?”
“Yeah.” Sam’s arms were stiff at his sides. “I can’t say I’m really all that comfortable with that.”
A series of looks passed between them, devolving quickly into glares. Dean knew enough to stay well out of it. Eventually-though in truth it had only been a few seconds-Ruby hurled several choice words at Sam, chucked a poker chip worth quite a number of quarters at Castiel, and turned on her heel with a scowl. “I’ll be at the bar.”
“Nice work,” Dean said, plucking the champagne bottle from his brother’s hands and handing it to Castiel, who regarded the label curiously. “You gonna go after her?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, after slightly too long a pause.
Dean reminded himself that he was staying out of it, he was staying so very far out of it, there was absolutely no temptation on his part to play relationship counselor to his brother and his brother’s demon girlfriend. “Okay then,” he said, ushering Cas into the room and giving Sam one last sympathetic look before turning it into a smile. “Try not to spend all your money on hookers and blow.”
He shut the door on the image of Sam rolling his eyes.
Only then did Dean turn around and finally, fully take in the opulence before them. “Whoa,” he said. That was a lot of red and pink, right there. The walls were padded with crimson fabric and hung with a bunch of chintzy pictures of hearts and flowers and tiny winged cupids with bows and arrows; Castiel was examining one of the latter with a frown. “Someone you know?” Dean asked.
“Different department,” Cas said seriously. Then he ruined it by shooting a glance at Dean, checking to see if his joke had been understood as such.
“I gotcha, Cas,” Dean assured him. His heart felt suddenly as ridiculously large as the godawful ugly bed. He walked over to it, pausing along the way to snag the champagne from Cas. Dropping down onto the mattress, he experimented with a playful bounce.
“I have never understood humans’ fascination with this organ,” Castiel said, sitting down beside him. “What is the connection between the cardiac muscle and love?”
“Uh, I think it’s symbolic or something. You should ask Sam.” The room was weirding Dean out a little. It was too…expectant. He got up again and went to the bar, where he retrieved a couple of glasses. “Here, have some of this champagne with me.”
The thin flutes felt fragile and a bit silly in Dean’s calloused hands. Castiel held the one Dean handed him just as awkwardly. “I’m afraid I won’t be fully able to appreciate it.”
Dean shrugged. “Hey, I’m more of a Miller man myself. Cheers,” he added, and sort-of-at-the-last-second decided not to go in for the clink. Castiel wouldn’t notice its absence, anyway.
The champagne was…fine. Sort of bubbly and nice. Dean didn’t really get it, though, and it was pretty clear Cas didn’t, either, though he sipped it politely, made the same expression of mild interest that he wore whenever Dean made him try some sort of food or drink. Dean frowned. “What does that taste like to you?”
Castiel licked a lingering drop of champagne off his lips. “Cold?” he suggested.
Dean brow creased further. “Okay. And?”
Castiel thought. “Wet,” he pronounced.
Dean set his glass down, leaving a moist ring on the dark wood. “You can’t taste it at all, can you?”
“Dean,” Castiel came as close as he ever did to sighing. “I’ve explained this before…”
“You don’t feel anything, do you?” Dean said, voice dead. Maybe Sam and Ruby had inspired him; maybe it was this goddamn room, judging him with its fugly décor, but suddenly he was itching to pick a fight. This particular fight. “Even when we-”
“I like to kiss you, Dean.” Castiel’s eyes were solemn. “It makes me feel close to you.”
“But you don’t feel it.”
Castiel shook his head, no.
“How much do you get?” Dean pushed closer; what he was feeling was not precisely anger-it was something else, a bluer flame. “A weight, a pressure?” He laid a hand on Cas’ arm, over his coat. “Is that all you get?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” Dean dropped his hand and turned around. “It’s not your fault.” Retrieving his glass, he downed the liquid in a gulp. “I’m gonna go try out that whirlpool tub.” Don’t wait up, he was mature enough not to add.
Kind of implied, though.
The bathroom was palatial, if a bit too much in keeping with the hearts ‘n’ flowers theme. Dean dropped his clothes on the mat (red, shaped like a certain organ) and turned on the tub full blast, with the water heated up to scorching. He sank into it with a sigh. The whole lack of sensation thing was definitely the angels’ loss, because this felt fucking fantastic.
Dean wiped some perspiration off his cheek and wished he’d brought the champagne in here.
Like a true guardian angel, Castiel chose that moment to appear with the bottle. He was gripping it by the neck and the look in his eyes was searching, wild. “Lightning,” he said. “It tastes like lightning.”
The tub was slippery, so Dean was having a little trouble sitting up. “Cas-”
“No.” He raised the bottle to his lips, took another sip. Came closer, almost stumbling. “It tastes like the air right before there’s lightning. Dean.” He set the bottle down and knelt before the tub. “It tingles.”
“Are you drunk?” Dean asked, but even before Cas shook his head, he answered his own question. “No. You did something.”
Castiel nodded and held his hand up before them, so they both could see. “I’m very close,” he said. “I thought about it, and I realized that if I pushed myself very close to the edge…”
Dean’s heart began to race; the water was suddenly too hot, way too hot for comfort. “Of falling?”
Castiel instantly sobered. He dropped his hand. “No.” He swallowed, then repeated, even more vehemently: “No. Close to the edge of this body. Normally, it is considered appropriate to remain at a remove, but.” He hesitated. “But there is no reason, now, for me not to make use of these nerves, this skin…”
His hand swept over the cool rim of the porcelain tub. His eyes on Dean, then, his hand moved lower, fingers dancing above the water like a tentative swimmer. Dean couldn’t take it any longer: he grabbed Castiel by the wrist and guided his hand so that the water from one of the jets coursed over it. Cas let out a hiss, his head rocking back on his shoulders. When he looked forward again his eyes were dark.
Their movements went by too quickly after that: Cas sliding forward, Dean pulling; Dean’s back hitting the side of the tub and Cas falling on top of him, fully clothed and wet, moaning. His mouth searching for Dean’s and finally finding it, and then some of the most intense kissing Dean could remember experiencing, Cas eager and grasping, heavy from the weight of his soaked clothes, sliding all over Dean’s naked body. Whispering something between kisses: “How do you stand it? How do you stand it?”
Dean shuddered against him. “Here,” he said. “We gotta get these clothes off of you. Okay? Help me out here, Cas.”
Cas managed a nod and together they tugged the coat off his shoulders, flung it sopping across the room. The tie was easily removed, left to float away from them on the water. Dean moved to unbutton Cas’ shirt and realized with a start that he had never actually seen him naked before. It struck him, again, how utterly bizarre this was: they were undeniably a…a them, and yet they’d never…
“Did you mind whammy me or something?” Dean asked.
Cas looked a bit whammied himself; he had trouble processing the question. “What?”
Dean shook his head. “Nothing, never mind. Let’s see what you’re hiding under all those layers.”
He was hiding a skinny, lightly-muscled white guy with hairy legs and (understandably) no boobs to speak of. Dean knew, logically, that this should do nothing for him (except maybe make him uncomfortable due to the proximity of his own naked body in a hot tub). And yet he looked at those narrow hips, at those flat, dusky pink nipples, at that increasingly interested cock curving up to greet him, and all he saw was Cas, his Cas, and desire ripped through him so sharply he thought it might bowl him over.
He backed Cas up against the side of the tub, touched for the first time his bare shoulders, the smooth skin of his sides, the jut of his hipbone. And yes, okay: his cock, there, take it in hand, and oh my god, what a thing to watch Castiel’s eyelashes flutter, to watch his chest heave and his hips buck. “Waited so long,” Dean murmured. “Waited so long to touch you, to have you feel me. I’m going to make you feel so good, Cas. So good.”
“Well.” Cas let out a choked laugh, smiled at him. “You better.”
The water coursed around their bodies, churned around their entangled thighs. Dean stroked Cas, experimented with the pace, catalogued his reaction. Everything seemed to set him off, everything. Dean tried to imagine what it would be like to have one of your first full-blown sensations ever be a handjob: no waiting first through sweaty gym shorts clinging to your thighs, or gravel biting into your feet, or bee stings, or a dislocated shoulder. No, straight to the good stuff, the best stuff. He got to give Cas that.
Dean pressed up against him, kissing and stroking, and holding Castiel through his first-ever orgasm, there at Dean’s hand.
When it was over, Cas put his fingers to Dean’s chin and guided Dean’s face to his. He said, “More.”
Dean was up for more. He was up for so much more. He half-dragged, half-led Cas out of the tub and wrapped them both in the huge, fluffy towels-which felt amazing even to his been-around-the-block skin. Had to give the hotel points for the towels, in spite of the fact that they had “Mister” and “Missus” stitched on them (something he failed to notice until he already had “Missus” draped around his own shoulders). It was pretty incredible just to dry Castiel’s skin, to watch him react to the soft scrape of fabric, the warmth, Dean’s hands on his body-guiding him back into the bedroom, kissing him, feeling him tremble and twitch.
“You okay?” Dean asked as Castiel lowered himself onto the bed, as he swept a palm over the quilt. There was extra weight to the question: Dean couldn’t help feeling that this must be dangerous, that anything this good had to be, or else why wouldn’t you do it all the time? But Castiel nodded, and Dean chose to believe him. He had to believe him.
“What comes next?” Castiel asked.
Dean grinned. “Hopefully both of us.”
The look he received was blank. “Okay, we’ll work on that one,” Dean promised. He stepped forward. “How ’bout I suck you?” he asked, feeling flush, feeling brave. “Would you like that?”
And the blankness was gone, like it had never been there. “I would imagine so.”
Dean wondered if Cas had ever thought about it-about sex, what it would be like-when he was just another angel, watching from afar. Dean had certainly never given much thought to blowing another guy, and yet here he was, on his knees, running his hands up Castiel’s thighs. “Gonna put my mouth on you,” he said-said it and made it real, took Cas in his hand and stroked him to hardness (god, he had the refractory time of a teenager-lucky bastard), then lowered his mouth and sucked tentatively on the tip. Cas made this sound, and encouraged, Dean ran his tongue around the crown before taking Cas deeper. He could take him. God, he wanted to take him, take all of him, just to feel him shake, hear him moan, feel the heat of his thighs, feel him feel- He gave the vein a final sweeping lick before he got overly ambitious and embarrassed himself. Cas, propped on his elbows, stretched across the heart-shaped bed, looked up at him, practically mewling. “God, Cas, I want to fuck you. Can I fuck you?”
Cas nodded. He said, “Please.”
It was a good thing this place was classy: there was lube and condoms along with the little bottles of alcohol in the minibar. Dean returned well supplied to find that Cas, ever the quick study, had already scooted farther up the bed, was propped with his legs spread and his cock arching toward his stomach. He was stroking it with a curiosity just shy of scientific, and when it leaked, he rubbed the fluid on his fingers and brought them to his mouth.
His eyes met Dean’s.
“How do you want me?” he asked.
Dean’s brain kind of went offline for a while after that.
His body, though: his body knew what it wanted. It wanted Cas’ mouth on his, and it wanted Cas’ hips rocking up against his, and it wanted his fingers, slick and wet, circling around Cas’ hole, pushing inside, opening him up. Cas was mumbling to himself, some prayer or incantation, and when Dean kissed him he felt like he was sucking the words into his own mouth, like Cas was inside him even as he thrust into Cas, lifting him up, driving them together until they were joined.
Dean’s eyes never left Castiel’s. In that way this was like what they used to do, like everything that had come before: Dean could look at him and still feel like Castiel was gazing into Dean’s soul-and like Dean was seeing his. They were already that intimate, and there were some-Cas, he had thought; Cas would say that that was enough, that this was superfluous, but clearly he didn’t think so. Clearly, he felt, like Dean did, that this was everything they’d had and more, and he hitched his legs without being told higher up on Dean’s shoulders, and he grabbed Dean’s biceps as Dean rocked into him-so hot and tight, all his-and Dean pulled kisses from Castiel’s mouth and gave words back to him, words he never thought he’d hear himself say: God, Cas, I love you, I love you so much; You; God, yes, Cas, you.
Having left Sam futzing with his hair like a girl, Ruby figured she’d be the first one down at the buffet. So she was surprised to see Castiel holding court at one of the big corner booths, a feast of food in front of him. Even more surprising, as she watched he dipped his finger into a swirl of whip cream that sat perched atop a waffle, brought the finger to his lips, and slowly and-Jesus-sensually licked it off.
If Ruby were stupid enough to carry holy water about her person, she’d have been flinging it all over the damn place by now.
Instead she marched over to the table and sat down. “Cas,” she said.
He looked up at her, and though his expression remained blank, she could tell that he saw her true face. “Ruby.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting for Dean.”
“No, with the-” She pointed a finger to the corner of her own lip, a gesture he did not seem to grasp the significance of. With a sigh she dropped her hand. “You have whip cream on your face, angel.”
“Oh.” He dabbed ineffectually at his mouth with a napkin, and Ruby would have sworn she saw two points of color rise on his cheeks.
She narrowed her eyes. “There’s something different about you, Castiel.”
Yes, there: definitely a hint of a blush. Ruby stared, stared and resisted the urge to lean closer, to smell him. It didn’t matter. Even from the other side of the table, she got a pretty good sense of him, and he seemed less to her. Not quite the persistently terrifying angelic presence he had been just the night before.
“Did you-are you masking yourself somehow?” It was sort of rude to ask questions about someone else’s meat, but the two of them were as in each other’s pockets as an angel and a demon were ever likely to be, so. “It’s like you’re barely there and instead it’s just…” A frisson of fear ripped through her. “There’s no way that’s within that body’s safety codes.”
As she spoke, his mouth thinned, his shoulders straightened, and then suddenly he was back, a wave of angelness washing over her. Ruby could feel her eyes go black. “Do not presume to understand me or the workings of my kind,” he said, and he didn’t add, Demon, but she saw him visibly bite back on the word.
“Fine,” she stood up, her chair squeaking on the floor. “But when you burn through that body or-” And likewise she bit back on the word in her mouth (four letters, rhymes with bawl, crawl, stall). “-I sure hope it’s worth it.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dean had come up behind her, laden down with plates; he was speaking around a mouthful of…something. “This place is amazing! Worth every penny.”
“We’re getting it all for free.”
He flopped down in the booth next to Castiel. “Even better. Here,” he said, pushing a dish of strawberries in front of the angel. “You gotta try these.”
Castiel’s eyes flicked to Ruby-a warning? She retreated a step, but Castiel had turned back to Dean and already he was shrinking, growing smaller right in front of her, until in her secondary perception, the one that didn’t require eyes, it was as if there were simply two men in front of her. Just two men: grinning at each other, licking strawberry juice off their fingers.
“I’m going to go find Sam,” Ruby said quietly, unobtrusively.
Sam was possibly the only person in the buffet’s history to take advantage of its lonely pot of oatmeal. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said back. She stuck her hands in her back pockets and just looked at him. His hair was still wet from the shower, curling gently against his neck.
He caught her staring, looked up. His mouth was set, but then something in his face softened. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about before. I overreacted.”
“Ancient history,” she said. It really was. She honestly wasn’t sure why he was bringing it up again: she’d clearly forgiven him already, already slept with him.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I just feel bad, I guess. We kind of let the room go to waste.”
She looked down her nose at him. “Your brother and angelboy used it.”
“Yeah, but-” He sure was cute when he got flustered. “They didn’t use it.”
Ruby glanced back over to where Dean and Castiel were sitting. Dean was watching as Castiel ate a piece of bacon in a totally unsexy manner, but in fairness, bacon’s one real flaw as a food was that it was nearly impossible to eat sexily. “You sure about that?”
Sam moved his tray down the line and selected a couple of pieces of wheat toast. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
“I don’t know, Sam.” She kept replaying that look Castiel had shot her in her head: the dark flash of his eyes, the way he had turned toward Dean afterward. He’d looked- He’d almost looked guilty.
“I bet you they’re doing it.”
Sam snorted. “I’m not going to bet-”
“Five dollars, or you admit your brother and his angel boyfriend are having crazy-dirty ass-slapping wing-flapping gay sex every single night right next door to where you’re sleep-”
“All right!” Sam’s eyes had gone comically wide. “It’s a bet. Just stop talking.”
Ruby held out a hand, silently.
“You’re totally wrong, anyway,” Sam said, pressing his palm to hers. “You’ll see: it’s not like that at all.”
Ruby raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
They shook on it.
NOTES:
1. Obviously, this is a bit more serious than the previous two installments, but if I’m going to keep going with this ’verse, it needs to grow a plot, so. I hope people don’t mind that development! I’ve already started the next part, and if I don’t suffer fic fatigue too badly from the past 15 days, hopefully I’ll have that to you soon.
2. Speaking of…OMG I DID IT. Remember when I said I didn’t quite have enough ficlets? I actually only had 10. So five of these toward the end have been all-new. I…need a nap now.
3. Except, wait, I don’t, because there’s new Supernatural in just over 12 hours! OMG! Please wish me, as I wish you all, a swift day at work.
BE STRONG, PEOPLE! And I shall endeavor to be as well. See you on the other side!
Well, actually, there will, which is kind of the problem. I CAN’T WAIT.
Until then, I thought I’d leave you with some more Swear Jar ’verse, which seems fitting, as that’s what I started with. (Oh yeah, and previous ficlets are here.)
Title: Heaven or Las Vegas
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Ruby
Spoilers: Very AU, so pretty darn safe.
Length: ~3,650 words
Summary: Third installment of the Swear Jar ’verse, this comes chronologically between Quarters and Sharing Is Caring. A more in-depth look at the scenario Castiel describes to Ruby in “Sharing”-namely, his and Dean’s first time with the sexin’.
Notes: I started writing this a couple months ago-and almost immediately thereafter, TWO other people posted fics in which Dean and Cas do sex in a posh Vegas hotel. So I put it aside. Then I remembered: this is fandom. Do we really need to set a cap on things like that? I think not! Thanks to aesc for her help and encouragement, once again!
Heaven or Las Vegas
There have been jobs when after ganking whatever evil sonofabitch they were up against, Dean and Sam have had to flee town, and there have been jobs in which they’ve rescued people and still been lucky to come away with a begrudging thank you. But there have also people been who’ve been grateful. Really, really grateful. And sometimes they gave Sam and Dean stuff.
A rough list of Dean’s favorite things he’s been given, in no particular order:
1. Free shots.
2. Homemade strawberry rhubarb pie.
3. Tickets to a White Sox game.
4. An original restored Impala clutch cross shaft (and bracket!).
5. A picture of him and Sam saving the day, made from macaroni (presented proudly by the seven-year-old artist himself).
6. Blow jobs.
And for comparison, some of Dean’s least favorite gifts:
1. A packet of toasty oat cakes for the road.
2. Tickets to a Clay Aiken concert.
3. A picture of Dean reclining naked on a chaise, made from macaroni (presented proudly by a sweaty 43-year-old).
4. On occasion, offers of blow jobs. Especially when made right in front of a spouse. That’s just tacky.
But this? Free rooms at a glitzy Vegas hotel-plus access to the all-you-can-eat buffet? This Dean could get behind.
Or at least he could until it became clear that somewhere in between the four of them ousting the spirit haunting the slot machines and the hotel owner practically throwing free game chips and a complimentary bottle of champagne at them, someone totally got the wrong idea about something. Because one of the rooms was the honeymoon suite.
“Aww, Sammy,” Ruby said, holding her arms out, “are you going to carry me over the threshold?”
“Yeah.” Sam’s arms were stiff at his sides. “I can’t say I’m really all that comfortable with that.”
A series of looks passed between them, devolving quickly into glares. Dean knew enough to stay well out of it. Eventually-though in truth it had only been a few seconds-Ruby hurled several choice words at Sam, chucked a poker chip worth quite a number of quarters at Castiel, and turned on her heel with a scowl. “I’ll be at the bar.”
“Nice work,” Dean said, plucking the champagne bottle from his brother’s hands and handing it to Castiel, who regarded the label curiously. “You gonna go after her?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, after slightly too long a pause.
Dean reminded himself that he was staying out of it, he was staying so very far out of it, there was absolutely no temptation on his part to play relationship counselor to his brother and his brother’s demon girlfriend. “Okay then,” he said, ushering Cas into the room and giving Sam one last sympathetic look before turning it into a smile. “Try not to spend all your money on hookers and blow.”
He shut the door on the image of Sam rolling his eyes.
Only then did Dean turn around and finally, fully take in the opulence before them. “Whoa,” he said. That was a lot of red and pink, right there. The walls were padded with crimson fabric and hung with a bunch of chintzy pictures of hearts and flowers and tiny winged cupids with bows and arrows; Castiel was examining one of the latter with a frown. “Someone you know?” Dean asked.
“Different department,” Cas said seriously. Then he ruined it by shooting a glance at Dean, checking to see if his joke had been understood as such.
“I gotcha, Cas,” Dean assured him. His heart felt suddenly as ridiculously large as the godawful ugly bed. He walked over to it, pausing along the way to snag the champagne from Cas. Dropping down onto the mattress, he experimented with a playful bounce.
“I have never understood humans’ fascination with this organ,” Castiel said, sitting down beside him. “What is the connection between the cardiac muscle and love?”
“Uh, I think it’s symbolic or something. You should ask Sam.” The room was weirding Dean out a little. It was too…expectant. He got up again and went to the bar, where he retrieved a couple of glasses. “Here, have some of this champagne with me.”
The thin flutes felt fragile and a bit silly in Dean’s calloused hands. Castiel held the one Dean handed him just as awkwardly. “I’m afraid I won’t be fully able to appreciate it.”
Dean shrugged. “Hey, I’m more of a Miller man myself. Cheers,” he added, and sort-of-at-the-last-second decided not to go in for the clink. Castiel wouldn’t notice its absence, anyway.
The champagne was…fine. Sort of bubbly and nice. Dean didn’t really get it, though, and it was pretty clear Cas didn’t, either, though he sipped it politely, made the same expression of mild interest that he wore whenever Dean made him try some sort of food or drink. Dean frowned. “What does that taste like to you?”
Castiel licked a lingering drop of champagne off his lips. “Cold?” he suggested.
Dean brow creased further. “Okay. And?”
Castiel thought. “Wet,” he pronounced.
Dean set his glass down, leaving a moist ring on the dark wood. “You can’t taste it at all, can you?”
“Dean,” Castiel came as close as he ever did to sighing. “I’ve explained this before…”
“You don’t feel anything, do you?” Dean said, voice dead. Maybe Sam and Ruby had inspired him; maybe it was this goddamn room, judging him with its fugly décor, but suddenly he was itching to pick a fight. This particular fight. “Even when we-”
“I like to kiss you, Dean.” Castiel’s eyes were solemn. “It makes me feel close to you.”
“But you don’t feel it.”
Castiel shook his head, no.
“How much do you get?” Dean pushed closer; what he was feeling was not precisely anger-it was something else, a bluer flame. “A weight, a pressure?” He laid a hand on Cas’ arm, over his coat. “Is that all you get?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” Dean dropped his hand and turned around. “It’s not your fault.” Retrieving his glass, he downed the liquid in a gulp. “I’m gonna go try out that whirlpool tub.” Don’t wait up, he was mature enough not to add.
Kind of implied, though.
The bathroom was palatial, if a bit too much in keeping with the hearts ‘n’ flowers theme. Dean dropped his clothes on the mat (red, shaped like a certain organ) and turned on the tub full blast, with the water heated up to scorching. He sank into it with a sigh. The whole lack of sensation thing was definitely the angels’ loss, because this felt fucking fantastic.
Dean wiped some perspiration off his cheek and wished he’d brought the champagne in here.
Like a true guardian angel, Castiel chose that moment to appear with the bottle. He was gripping it by the neck and the look in his eyes was searching, wild. “Lightning,” he said. “It tastes like lightning.”
The tub was slippery, so Dean was having a little trouble sitting up. “Cas-”
“No.” He raised the bottle to his lips, took another sip. Came closer, almost stumbling. “It tastes like the air right before there’s lightning. Dean.” He set the bottle down and knelt before the tub. “It tingles.”
“Are you drunk?” Dean asked, but even before Cas shook his head, he answered his own question. “No. You did something.”
Castiel nodded and held his hand up before them, so they both could see. “I’m very close,” he said. “I thought about it, and I realized that if I pushed myself very close to the edge…”
Dean’s heart began to race; the water was suddenly too hot, way too hot for comfort. “Of falling?”
Castiel instantly sobered. He dropped his hand. “No.” He swallowed, then repeated, even more vehemently: “No. Close to the edge of this body. Normally, it is considered appropriate to remain at a remove, but.” He hesitated. “But there is no reason, now, for me not to make use of these nerves, this skin…”
His hand swept over the cool rim of the porcelain tub. His eyes on Dean, then, his hand moved lower, fingers dancing above the water like a tentative swimmer. Dean couldn’t take it any longer: he grabbed Castiel by the wrist and guided his hand so that the water from one of the jets coursed over it. Cas let out a hiss, his head rocking back on his shoulders. When he looked forward again his eyes were dark.
Their movements went by too quickly after that: Cas sliding forward, Dean pulling; Dean’s back hitting the side of the tub and Cas falling on top of him, fully clothed and wet, moaning. His mouth searching for Dean’s and finally finding it, and then some of the most intense kissing Dean could remember experiencing, Cas eager and grasping, heavy from the weight of his soaked clothes, sliding all over Dean’s naked body. Whispering something between kisses: “How do you stand it? How do you stand it?”
Dean shuddered against him. “Here,” he said. “We gotta get these clothes off of you. Okay? Help me out here, Cas.”
Cas managed a nod and together they tugged the coat off his shoulders, flung it sopping across the room. The tie was easily removed, left to float away from them on the water. Dean moved to unbutton Cas’ shirt and realized with a start that he had never actually seen him naked before. It struck him, again, how utterly bizarre this was: they were undeniably a…a them, and yet they’d never…
“Did you mind whammy me or something?” Dean asked.
Cas looked a bit whammied himself; he had trouble processing the question. “What?”
Dean shook his head. “Nothing, never mind. Let’s see what you’re hiding under all those layers.”
He was hiding a skinny, lightly-muscled white guy with hairy legs and (understandably) no boobs to speak of. Dean knew, logically, that this should do nothing for him (except maybe make him uncomfortable due to the proximity of his own naked body in a hot tub). And yet he looked at those narrow hips, at those flat, dusky pink nipples, at that increasingly interested cock curving up to greet him, and all he saw was Cas, his Cas, and desire ripped through him so sharply he thought it might bowl him over.
He backed Cas up against the side of the tub, touched for the first time his bare shoulders, the smooth skin of his sides, the jut of his hipbone. And yes, okay: his cock, there, take it in hand, and oh my god, what a thing to watch Castiel’s eyelashes flutter, to watch his chest heave and his hips buck. “Waited so long,” Dean murmured. “Waited so long to touch you, to have you feel me. I’m going to make you feel so good, Cas. So good.”
“Well.” Cas let out a choked laugh, smiled at him. “You better.”
The water coursed around their bodies, churned around their entangled thighs. Dean stroked Cas, experimented with the pace, catalogued his reaction. Everything seemed to set him off, everything. Dean tried to imagine what it would be like to have one of your first full-blown sensations ever be a handjob: no waiting first through sweaty gym shorts clinging to your thighs, or gravel biting into your feet, or bee stings, or a dislocated shoulder. No, straight to the good stuff, the best stuff. He got to give Cas that.
Dean pressed up against him, kissing and stroking, and holding Castiel through his first-ever orgasm, there at Dean’s hand.
When it was over, Cas put his fingers to Dean’s chin and guided Dean’s face to his. He said, “More.”
Dean was up for more. He was up for so much more. He half-dragged, half-led Cas out of the tub and wrapped them both in the huge, fluffy towels-which felt amazing even to his been-around-the-block skin. Had to give the hotel points for the towels, in spite of the fact that they had “Mister” and “Missus” stitched on them (something he failed to notice until he already had “Missus” draped around his own shoulders). It was pretty incredible just to dry Castiel’s skin, to watch him react to the soft scrape of fabric, the warmth, Dean’s hands on his body-guiding him back into the bedroom, kissing him, feeling him tremble and twitch.
“You okay?” Dean asked as Castiel lowered himself onto the bed, as he swept a palm over the quilt. There was extra weight to the question: Dean couldn’t help feeling that this must be dangerous, that anything this good had to be, or else why wouldn’t you do it all the time? But Castiel nodded, and Dean chose to believe him. He had to believe him.
“What comes next?” Castiel asked.
Dean grinned. “Hopefully both of us.”
The look he received was blank. “Okay, we’ll work on that one,” Dean promised. He stepped forward. “How ’bout I suck you?” he asked, feeling flush, feeling brave. “Would you like that?”
And the blankness was gone, like it had never been there. “I would imagine so.”
Dean wondered if Cas had ever thought about it-about sex, what it would be like-when he was just another angel, watching from afar. Dean had certainly never given much thought to blowing another guy, and yet here he was, on his knees, running his hands up Castiel’s thighs. “Gonna put my mouth on you,” he said-said it and made it real, took Cas in his hand and stroked him to hardness (god, he had the refractory time of a teenager-lucky bastard), then lowered his mouth and sucked tentatively on the tip. Cas made this sound, and encouraged, Dean ran his tongue around the crown before taking Cas deeper. He could take him. God, he wanted to take him, take all of him, just to feel him shake, hear him moan, feel the heat of his thighs, feel him feel- He gave the vein a final sweeping lick before he got overly ambitious and embarrassed himself. Cas, propped on his elbows, stretched across the heart-shaped bed, looked up at him, practically mewling. “God, Cas, I want to fuck you. Can I fuck you?”
Cas nodded. He said, “Please.”
It was a good thing this place was classy: there was lube and condoms along with the little bottles of alcohol in the minibar. Dean returned well supplied to find that Cas, ever the quick study, had already scooted farther up the bed, was propped with his legs spread and his cock arching toward his stomach. He was stroking it with a curiosity just shy of scientific, and when it leaked, he rubbed the fluid on his fingers and brought them to his mouth.
His eyes met Dean’s.
“How do you want me?” he asked.
Dean’s brain kind of went offline for a while after that.
His body, though: his body knew what it wanted. It wanted Cas’ mouth on his, and it wanted Cas’ hips rocking up against his, and it wanted his fingers, slick and wet, circling around Cas’ hole, pushing inside, opening him up. Cas was mumbling to himself, some prayer or incantation, and when Dean kissed him he felt like he was sucking the words into his own mouth, like Cas was inside him even as he thrust into Cas, lifting him up, driving them together until they were joined.
Dean’s eyes never left Castiel’s. In that way this was like what they used to do, like everything that had come before: Dean could look at him and still feel like Castiel was gazing into Dean’s soul-and like Dean was seeing his. They were already that intimate, and there were some-Cas, he had thought; Cas would say that that was enough, that this was superfluous, but clearly he didn’t think so. Clearly, he felt, like Dean did, that this was everything they’d had and more, and he hitched his legs without being told higher up on Dean’s shoulders, and he grabbed Dean’s biceps as Dean rocked into him-so hot and tight, all his-and Dean pulled kisses from Castiel’s mouth and gave words back to him, words he never thought he’d hear himself say: God, Cas, I love you, I love you so much; You; God, yes, Cas, you.
Having left Sam futzing with his hair like a girl, Ruby figured she’d be the first one down at the buffet. So she was surprised to see Castiel holding court at one of the big corner booths, a feast of food in front of him. Even more surprising, as she watched he dipped his finger into a swirl of whip cream that sat perched atop a waffle, brought the finger to his lips, and slowly and-Jesus-sensually licked it off.
If Ruby were stupid enough to carry holy water about her person, she’d have been flinging it all over the damn place by now.
Instead she marched over to the table and sat down. “Cas,” she said.
He looked up at her, and though his expression remained blank, she could tell that he saw her true face. “Ruby.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting for Dean.”
“No, with the-” She pointed a finger to the corner of her own lip, a gesture he did not seem to grasp the significance of. With a sigh she dropped her hand. “You have whip cream on your face, angel.”
“Oh.” He dabbed ineffectually at his mouth with a napkin, and Ruby would have sworn she saw two points of color rise on his cheeks.
She narrowed her eyes. “There’s something different about you, Castiel.”
Yes, there: definitely a hint of a blush. Ruby stared, stared and resisted the urge to lean closer, to smell him. It didn’t matter. Even from the other side of the table, she got a pretty good sense of him, and he seemed less to her. Not quite the persistently terrifying angelic presence he had been just the night before.
“Did you-are you masking yourself somehow?” It was sort of rude to ask questions about someone else’s meat, but the two of them were as in each other’s pockets as an angel and a demon were ever likely to be, so. “It’s like you’re barely there and instead it’s just…” A frisson of fear ripped through her. “There’s no way that’s within that body’s safety codes.”
As she spoke, his mouth thinned, his shoulders straightened, and then suddenly he was back, a wave of angelness washing over her. Ruby could feel her eyes go black. “Do not presume to understand me or the workings of my kind,” he said, and he didn’t add, Demon, but she saw him visibly bite back on the word.
“Fine,” she stood up, her chair squeaking on the floor. “But when you burn through that body or-” And likewise she bit back on the word in her mouth (four letters, rhymes with bawl, crawl, stall). “-I sure hope it’s worth it.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dean had come up behind her, laden down with plates; he was speaking around a mouthful of…something. “This place is amazing! Worth every penny.”
“We’re getting it all for free.”
He flopped down in the booth next to Castiel. “Even better. Here,” he said, pushing a dish of strawberries in front of the angel. “You gotta try these.”
Castiel’s eyes flicked to Ruby-a warning? She retreated a step, but Castiel had turned back to Dean and already he was shrinking, growing smaller right in front of her, until in her secondary perception, the one that didn’t require eyes, it was as if there were simply two men in front of her. Just two men: grinning at each other, licking strawberry juice off their fingers.
“I’m going to go find Sam,” Ruby said quietly, unobtrusively.
Sam was possibly the only person in the buffet’s history to take advantage of its lonely pot of oatmeal. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said back. She stuck her hands in her back pockets and just looked at him. His hair was still wet from the shower, curling gently against his neck.
He caught her staring, looked up. His mouth was set, but then something in his face softened. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about before. I overreacted.”
“Ancient history,” she said. It really was. She honestly wasn’t sure why he was bringing it up again: she’d clearly forgiven him already, already slept with him.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I just feel bad, I guess. We kind of let the room go to waste.”
She looked down her nose at him. “Your brother and angelboy used it.”
“Yeah, but-” He sure was cute when he got flustered. “They didn’t use it.”
Ruby glanced back over to where Dean and Castiel were sitting. Dean was watching as Castiel ate a piece of bacon in a totally unsexy manner, but in fairness, bacon’s one real flaw as a food was that it was nearly impossible to eat sexily. “You sure about that?”
Sam moved his tray down the line and selected a couple of pieces of wheat toast. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
“I don’t know, Sam.” She kept replaying that look Castiel had shot her in her head: the dark flash of his eyes, the way he had turned toward Dean afterward. He’d looked- He’d almost looked guilty.
“I bet you they’re doing it.”
Sam snorted. “I’m not going to bet-”
“Five dollars, or you admit your brother and his angel boyfriend are having crazy-dirty ass-slapping wing-flapping gay sex every single night right next door to where you’re sleep-”
“All right!” Sam’s eyes had gone comically wide. “It’s a bet. Just stop talking.”
Ruby held out a hand, silently.
“You’re totally wrong, anyway,” Sam said, pressing his palm to hers. “You’ll see: it’s not like that at all.”
Ruby raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
They shook on it.
NOTES:
1. Obviously, this is a bit more serious than the previous two installments, but if I’m going to keep going with this ’verse, it needs to grow a plot, so. I hope people don’t mind that development! I’ve already started the next part, and if I don’t suffer fic fatigue too badly from the past 15 days, hopefully I’ll have that to you soon.
2. Speaking of…OMG I DID IT. Remember when I said I didn’t quite have enough ficlets? I actually only had 10. So five of these toward the end have been all-new. I…need a nap now.
3. Except, wait, I don’t, because there’s new Supernatural in just over 12 hours! OMG! Please wish me, as I wish you all, a swift day at work.
BE STRONG, PEOPLE! And I shall endeavor to be as well. See you on the other side!