[FIC] Unconditionally Horny + Eternally Sad (pt.5)
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Jo hands him a beer the minute he walks in the door, and he takes it graciously, chugging half in one breath and scanning the crowd in her living room. He knows most of the faces, but never took the time to learn their names. Maybe he should start now. He notices the way some of them look at him and maybe that’s what Jo meant when she called him a hot commodity what feels like a lifetime ago. He dubs those days P.D.- pre-Dean, dark days, days when Dean was a star and he was a satellite and they had yet to collide. And then they did and it was so, so bright. Castiel misses that brightness, misses the way Dean lit him up: when they were touching, when they were driving, when they were talking, walking, laughing, fighting, kissing, hands everywhere just warmth and skin and sparks and- he takes a deep breath, and then another, one at a time because that’s all he can do nowadays, breathe and hope it’s enough. He finishes his beer and gets another.
He begins to approach a dark-haired girl who’s been watching him across the room and stops, halfway, sick with panic at the thought and makes his way to the couch instead, flopping down and nursing his beer. A pair of boys and a ditzy-looking blonde come over with a bottle of vodka and Cas doesn’t get their names but they all become friends, beckoning over two more people and begging a set of shot glasses from Jo. She obliges, and joins them for a while, tilting their heads back and downing one shot after another without hesitation. Cas’s head is spinning when someone climbs into his lap, and he guesses he must have invited them because his mouth is open against her eager lips, but not quite kissing back, his hands are knotted loosely in her hair. His eyes are open and he sees her lashes fluttering against her cheeks, a hand creeping down his side. His gaze wanders around the room, watching people. And then Dean enters the room from the kitchen and seems to immediately find Cas. He expects his face to fall, or anger to cloud his delicate features- something, some sort of brimming, passionate upset, but he only seems to sigh with his body, a half-smile quirking his lips. He crosses the room and carefully pushes the girl off. She looks confused for a moment, but doesn’t protest.
“I don’t think that’s your job,” he says quietly, pulling Cas to his feet and gripping his shoulders when he sways.
“Hey, Cas,” he says.
Cas just stares at him, not quite sure how to respond. He’d broken up with Dean, or at least he thought he had, and it might feel like someone stabbed him with a rusty knife and left it in his side, but he knew what was supposed to happen and this definitely wasn’t it.
“I was occupied,” he says gruffly, trying to scowl at Dean, but finding it difficult at the softness of the turned-down lights in the living room, and the little extra bit of gel in his hair.
Dean half-laughs. “And you weren’t enjoying it. Your eyes were practically screaming help me.”
Cas’s head is still swimming and Dean smells faintly of vanilla and it’s taking all of Cas’s motor skills to not just lean into Dean and start nuzzling his neck.
Jo’s half-brother Ash finally gets the stereo system working and hollers from the other side of the room as music starts pumping through the house and Dean’s eyes crinkle at the sound.
“Bratty indie shit,” he says and Cas feels like smiling, but doesn’t.
“Yeah, I like them.”
“This is dancing music,” Dean says, a hand going around Cas’s waist, fingers hooking into his belt loop and pulling him close, his other hand resting lightly on Cas’s forearm. They’re toeing a line, Cas can tell that much, but he’s not sure what side of if they’re on, or what side he wants to be on.
“I guess it is,” he replies quietly.
Dean smiles.
“I don’t dance.”
“I’ll teach you.”
Castiel doesn’t consent, but allows Dean to pull him even closer, moving against him, laughing as Cas impulsively moves to mirror Dean and suddenly the room is full of people, jumping up and down to the screeching guitars, limbs and smiles all one writhing knot and Castiel feels like they’re the center of it and all he can see is Dean’s face. For a minute he forgets the aching and the decimated remains of his ship because Dean is his ship and also his shore and he could sail with him on this sea of sound forever. Dean moves forward, in time to the petulant voice of the singer, mouthing against his neck and whispering “This is my downfall,” and the words swell in Castiel’s chest, bright in Dean’s eyes too and he pulls him into a kiss, more teeth than anything, just the scrape of frantic mouths begging Don’t leave me and Dean is pleading the three words too now and Castiel gasps them into his mouth, “Don’t leave me. I’m sorry,” and they burn in his throat and his blood and Dean just replies, “I know you are,” and kisses him again, as the floorboards shake from the weight of jumping, hopeful feet. The music builds in a crescendo around him, and he takes Dean’s hand and leads him upstairs to a guest room he once worked in with Jo for a project.
Dean closes the door behind them and Cas crowds him up against it, licking the seam of his lips and then the roof of his mouth, hands sliding beneath his shirt, nails scraping his sides as he tugs it over his head before stripping his own. He pulls him to the bed and hesitates as he sits on top of Dean, feeling his erection against his own, through their jeans. Dean’s eyes are open, watching Cas, chest rising and falling frantically, hands tracing patterns against his bare skin and he’s so open Cas is ready to flee the room and call it off and take his losses, but Dean pulls him down and kisses him like he’s been dying for it and it’s only been a week but maybe he has been. It’s not impossible because Cas has been dying for it and he doesn’t even really like kissing that much (although it’s been growing on him) and Cas works at their flies without breaking apart. Dean groans into his mouth at the first touch of Castiel’s fingers as they dip beneath the waistband of his boxers and skim over the flushed skin of his cock.
Cas wants to say I’m sorry over and over, but he can’t seem to. He just moves down Dean’s body, mouth wet and open against any inch of skin, until he’s just above his waistband. He sucks a mark below his navel and pulls his boxers and pants down enough to bare his erection. He glances upward briefly, but Dean isn’t looking at him, head tilted back towards the ceiling. Cas doesn’t pause, doesn’t take it slowly, just gets it over with and takes as much of Dean as he can into his mouth, wrapping a hand around the rest and running his tongue along the underside and over the head, pressing into the slit and Dean moans, the sound traveling down his body. Cas closes his eyes and bobs his head and he still doesn’t know what he wants because he didn’t want the shattering bottles at the back of the school but he doesn’t want this- half naked in a friend’s guest bedroom sucking cock and he wants to cry again, suddenly, uncontrollably and everything sickens him. He retches, then chokes and begins to cough. He tries to keep going, lips sliding against Dean’s length, but Dean pushes him off, just like in the Travelodge, but when Cas looks up from the floor, shirtless and jeans undone, there’s none of the worried tenderness in his face from before.
“What the fuck?” he swears angrily, sliding off the bed and standing above him.
Cas says nothing; he has nothing to say.
“Jesus, Cas, can’t you just fucking-”
Cas gets to his feet, glaring at Dean. “Can’t I just fucking what Dean?”
“Fucking-exactly-why can’t you just fucking fuck whatever the fuck fuck me!” Dean gesticulates wildly.
“Your use of the word fuck does not enhance your meaning!” Cas yells at him, and for the first time he is well and truly angry with Dean. Not at Gabe, not at his father, not at his mother, not at himself, just Dean.
Dean grabs a lamp from the bedside table and hurls it at the wall behind Cas. It breaks with a crash and Castiel flinches, turning towards Dean tearfully.
“You’re my boyfriend, Cas, and you should fucking act like it!” he yells.
“If you don’t remember, I broke up with you,” Castiel shouts back spitefully.
“You’re the one who choked on my cock, okay?”
“Because I was trying to be a good boyfr-”
“I don’t want you to have sex with me just because I want to!”
“You could have fooled me!” Cas retorts.
“You want me to call you on your bullshit?” Dean steps into Cas’s personal space, face twisted in rage. “Well I can, okay!” He pushes his shoulders aggressively and Cas staggers backward a few steps. “You are full of fucking shit, Castiel, and you have no idea what you want so you just make other people feel as terrible as you do even though it’s not their fault. I tried so hard, Cas, and for some reason it wasn’t e-fucking-nough for your and I’m done, okay, I’m done with your bullshit and your fucking panic attacks and poor me I have a shitty home life.” He stops for a moment, brow furrowing as if in shock at what he just said. He takes a step toward Cas, fingers brushing his arm cautiously, “Cas…”
Cas pushes his hand away and staggers backward, the hole in his stomach roiling and roaring and almost laughing at him and he trips and is falling falling falling and there’s no air left in his lungs and he isn’t even trying to take in more. “I hate you,” he says numbly, looking Dean right in the eye.
Dean stares at him blankly before turning and leaving the room without a word, slamming the door behind him.
Cas watches him go, listens to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and the hushed silence sweep over the crowd downstairs. He follows after the sound of a second slam, knowing Dean is well and truly gone.
It’s utterly quiet when Cas follows down the stairs and into the lobby, and he pushes his shoulders back and holds his head high as somewhere close to a hundred pairs of eyes fall on him. He pushes his hair out of his face and focuses on the front door ahead of him, trying not to make any eye contact because he doesn’t think he can handle the affirmation of the fact that there are other people alive on this planet. He knows a million love stories are told every day, and most are forgotten, and he is filled with a sense of waste, indignity, embarrassment, that not a single one will be his. The sorrowful aching is leaking from his skin and he can imagine it dripping from his fingertips and splattering on his shoes, staining Jo’s carpet as the crowd parts before him as he walks. He sees Jo and somehow she catches his eye and she steps forward, arms out, but he keeps walking, and the tears start to fall, and then he’s running, every joint in his body bruised and sore, but he won’t stop, devouring blocks of suburban concrete. You’re my favorite person You’re my favorite person You’re my favorite SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BE NORMAL SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BE SHUT THE FUCK UP JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP. The Aching is screaming a victory scream and Castiel pulls the four-way folded post-it from his pocket and crumples it in his fist, dropping it without ceasing running. The air is frigid against his bare chest, but nothing burns more than his own memories, dark and purple-blue, the ugliest of bruises on the backs of his retinas, so he keeps his eyes open, bared to the wind, and he keeps running, because that’s all he has left.
• • • • • • • •
Castiel checks his watch, biting his lip. 7:12. Two minutes. He glances out the window of the bus, tightening his grip on the handhold as it jerks around a corner. 7:13. He changes the song on his iPod and changes it back. 7:14. Castiel sighs and shifts his grip, skipping forward several more songs. The bus veers around a corner and he nearly stumbles into an older woman. 7:15. The bus pulls to a stop and Cas climbs off, jostled on all sides by people maybe just as sad as he is. The house is empty again, but he still can’t sleep. He crosses the corner and stands at his connecting stop and watches the Impala drive by, not even slowing down, and swallows the lump that rises in his throat so readily he almost tricks himself into thinking he likes it.
He moves slowly, as if trying to walk along the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool, and all sound seems as if it’s reaching him through a filter. People look up from their lockers and conversations when he passes and he ducks his head, trying to dodge the mixture of sympathy and disdain in their eyes, unable to even muster the energy to hold onto his pride and keep his head up.
A whisper ripples down the hall and he sees Dean familiar figure at the end of the hall. His heart stutters for a moment, a mixture of longing and regret rising like bile in his throat, a tight knot of pain in his stomach. He quickly opens his locker and tries to duck his head into it as Dean approaches, but it’s slammed shut and he’s forced to look up from the warped metal and meet Dean’s intense, green gaze. He swallows thickly, mouth dry, and he doesn’t understand why Dean can’t stop haunting him and just leave him in peace, call it quits and take his losses and let both of them just fade to a set of bittersweet moments that met an unfortunate and probably avoidable end in each other’s brains. He braces himself, unsure of what to expect, but nothing good, even though he wants nothing more than to throw himself against Dean and cry and beg him to stay and apologize over and over because this time he should be sorry. He says nothing, waiting for what he hopes is finally the last goodbye.
“You don’t hate me,” Dean says first.
Cas says nothing.
“And you’ll never make me believe otherwise.”
He can feel everyone in the hall watching them. The air thickens between him and Dean and a shiver runs down Cas’s spine.
“So it’s like that time we bought ice cream and I let us get vanilla even though I don’t like vanilla, but you do, so it was okay.”
Cas stares at him disbelievingly, mouth hanging slightly open because Dean is rambling but he knows Dean well enough to understand what he’s saying, except he tells himself he doesn’t because there’s a line he has to draw in what the world has allotted him and this is so much more than that.
“And I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m just trying to make you fall in love with me as hard as I fell for you.”
Cas wants to tell him I did I did I did I already have and asks himself Why not?
“I’m sorry I choked on your cock,” he exclaims before grabbing fistfuls of Dean’s shirt and crowding him against the locker, laughing into Dean’s surprised gasp, choking out “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” in between his frantic kisses, tugging on Dean’s lips, all hesitation knocked out of him. Someone wolf whistles, and Dean starts laughing and Castiel hates it because it makes kissing him so much harder. But then he starts laughing too because he realizes people are clapping and he wonders why life is so ridiculous as Dean wraps his arms around him and kisses him like it’s the end of the world, or maybe the beginning it’s so joyous. Castiel smiles as he pulls back and takes his hand and tugs him towards the front doors as the bell rings because it’s the ridiculous moments, he realizes, that makes life worth living.
“What about school?” Dean asks.
“Fuck school,” Cas replies teasingly, giving his hand a squeeze; Dean squeezes back.
• • • • • • • •
Cas fumbles with the lock to his house, gets it open, and pulls Dean inside, so single-minded he isn’t even tempted to stop and kiss Dean in the hall.
“Cas?” Dean asks, and Cas pauses, looking over his shoulder at Dean.
“Yes?” Cas snaps impatiently, trying to pull Dean the rest of the way to his room. Dean stays put.
“What are you doing?” Cas rolls his eyes in exasperation because from the hooded, heated look in Dean’s eyes he knows exactly what Cas is doing.
He obliges him. “I’m taking you to my room so you can fuck me.”
Dean grins lasciviously and tugs on Cas’s arm. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“Fuck you,” Cas says, pulling Dean into his room and closing the door behind him because he doesn’t want to take any chances in case Gabe comes home.
They strip quickly, standing in front of each other at the foot of the bed, wasting no time with teasing. Dean sits down on the edge of the bed and takes Cas’s hands, pulling him between his legs and smiling softly up at him. He places his hands on Cas’s hips and mouths at the pale skin of his stomach, licking a line from the bottom of his ribcage to the dip of his hipbone, nipping at the tender skin there. Cas’s breath catches as his skin leaps at Dean’s touch, hair on the back of his arms standing up. He cups the back of Dean’s head with one hand as he takes his time exploring the planes of his stomach with his tongue, deliberately ignoring Cas’s bobbing erection and enjoying his frustration. Cas takes a handful of Dean’s hair and jerks his head back. His face is flushed, a slight sheen of sweat across his brow, and his eyes are glazed with focus and Castiel leans forward, kissing him deeply. Dean wraps his arms around him, pulling him backwards on the bed. They wriggle gracelessly upwards on the too-small mattress, so their feet don’t dangle off the edge and Dean’s relentless grin is contagious and Castiel smiles as he kisses him. Dean’s hands circle his waist and he feels a hand move down his back and for a moment Cas is scared again, but Dean murmurs in his ear, mouthing a line of soft kisses along his jaw and Cas cups Dean’s face and brings his mouth to his, trying to tell him how badly he really does want this.
He pulls back. “Hold on,” he grunts, moving to the edge of the bed and rifling through the mess on his bedside table. He turns back towards Dean, the small bottle of lube they stole from Gabe’s car in his hand. He climbs back into Dean’s lap, grinning and Dean whispers, “I love you,” right before Cas kisses him and Cas has to bury his face in Dean’s neck so he doesn’t see the tears that fill his eyes, but he’s sure he feels them and is thankful he says nothing. He wraps his legs around Dean’s waist, sitting cross-legged in his lap, chests pressed together, and rolls his hips, letting out a low whimper at the feeling of their cocks sliding beside each other. Dean slides a finger in during the moment of pleasure and Cas gasps in shock, still surprised at the sensation. He pushes back experimentally, working with the difference in position from last time they started this. He moans and Dean curls his finger, stretching him for a minute before adding another. He pushes them both up to the second knuckle and twists, scissoring the fingers and Cas stifles a yell, half in pain and half in pleasure as Dean hits his prostate with one of his fingers. He brings them both together and goes back to the spot, carefully thrusting them against it and slowly adding a third. Cas groans, pushing back on the fingers eagerly, covering Dean’s neck and face with frantic kisses, trying to encourage him.
“Cas? You good?” Dean asks, voice low and rasping and Castiel can tell he’s enjoying it as much as he is, even if he hasn’t been touched yet, their cocks pressed between their stomachs as Cas writhes against Dean’s fingers. Cas tries to say Very, but just moans and nods, his face pressed into Dean’s shoulder. Dean withdraws his fingers and flips Cas carefully onto his back, kissing him once before pulling his legs back up around his waist.
“Ready?” Dean asks hoarsely. Cas nods again, wrapping his arms around Dean’s neck and lifting his hips as much as he can. Dean braces them with one arm resting beside Cas’s head, fingers stroking his ear lightly. The other spreads lube over down his length before wrapping around Cas’s waist, holding him up as he carefully presses the head of his cock to Cas’s entrance. Cas clenches his teeth, forcing himself to relax as Dean slowly enters him. He digs his nails into Dean’s back as he bottoms out, and they stay still for a long moment, Dean trembling from the effort of keeping still, Cas panting heavily as he adjusts.
“You with me?” Dean asks, and Cas presses his forehead against Dean’s, nodding and taking a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dean pulls out, almost all the way, and adjusts his grip before pushing back in, letting out a strangled noise. He tries to stay still again, give Cas more time, but Cas doesn’t let him, locking their lips together and pushing upwards with his hips. Dean pulls out again and thrusts in, harder this time, and cries out when Cas clenches around him. He sets a steady pace then, keeping it slow and groaning as he sinks up to the hilt with each thrust, Cas’s spine curling as he raises his hips to meet him, making soft, surprised noises every time. Cas holds onto Dean tightly, scratching long, red lines into his back as he tries to urge him on, unable to form coherent words. Dean just moans louder with each one, snapping his hips harder against Cas’s ass. Cas raises one arm above his head, getting a grip on the headboard to give them leverage, tightening his legs around Dean’s waist. Dean moves his hand from Cas’s back to grip his thigh, lifting his leg higher and spreading it wider, changing the angle, and he hits Cas’s prostate on the next thrust, ratcheting his strangled gasps up to a shout. Dean moves his other hand to grip Cas’s slick cock, leaking precome against his stomach. He increases his pace, thrusting faster, breath uneven and leaping in great gasps as he approaches his climax, hammering into Cas’s prostate. He pumps Cas’s length as his own rhythm falters, and Dean cries out as he comes. His hips slow as he brushes his thumb over the slit and Cas grunts as he thrusts upward, every muscle in his body clenching as he comes, Dean working his cock through his orgasm. His legs drop from around Dean’s waist as his body drops in a final sigh, sagging with sudden post-coital exhaustion. Dean pulls out and flops down beside Cas, pressing a kiss to his damp temple and wiping a few sweaty locks from his forehead.
“Cas, are you god?” he asks in disbelief.
“That’s a nice compliment, but no,” Cas slurs, unable to keep his eyes open. He turns onto his side and snuggles up against Dean, who tugs the blankets over them and slings an arm around Cas. Dean smiles fondly at him and traces the back of his calf with his foot. Cas sighs appreciatively and moves closer, folding his arms up and resting his hands on Dean’s chest.
Cas loses his virginity the time he counts it on a Tuesday. They forget to take their socks off and laugh at their feet poking out from beneath the tousled sheets in the aftermath. He is filled with a tired, restless energy and looks at Dean and feels the ache soothe itself and start again when Dean stirs, and he calls it happiness. He hums a song for the unconditionally horny and eternally sad and knows, for once, he is.
Jo hands him a beer the minute he walks in the door, and he takes it graciously, chugging half in one breath and scanning the crowd in her living room. He knows most of the faces, but never took the time to learn their names. Maybe he should start now. He notices the way some of them look at him and maybe that’s what Jo meant when she called him a hot commodity what feels like a lifetime ago. He dubs those days P.D.- pre-Dean, dark days, days when Dean was a star and he was a satellite and they had yet to collide. And then they did and it was so, so bright. Castiel misses that brightness, misses the way Dean lit him up: when they were touching, when they were driving, when they were talking, walking, laughing, fighting, kissing, hands everywhere just warmth and skin and sparks and- he takes a deep breath, and then another, one at a time because that’s all he can do nowadays, breathe and hope it’s enough. He finishes his beer and gets another.
He begins to approach a dark-haired girl who’s been watching him across the room and stops, halfway, sick with panic at the thought and makes his way to the couch instead, flopping down and nursing his beer. A pair of boys and a ditzy-looking blonde come over with a bottle of vodka and Cas doesn’t get their names but they all become friends, beckoning over two more people and begging a set of shot glasses from Jo. She obliges, and joins them for a while, tilting their heads back and downing one shot after another without hesitation. Cas’s head is spinning when someone climbs into his lap, and he guesses he must have invited them because his mouth is open against her eager lips, but not quite kissing back, his hands are knotted loosely in her hair. His eyes are open and he sees her lashes fluttering against her cheeks, a hand creeping down his side. His gaze wanders around the room, watching people. And then Dean enters the room from the kitchen and seems to immediately find Cas. He expects his face to fall, or anger to cloud his delicate features- something, some sort of brimming, passionate upset, but he only seems to sigh with his body, a half-smile quirking his lips. He crosses the room and carefully pushes the girl off. She looks confused for a moment, but doesn’t protest.
“I don’t think that’s your job,” he says quietly, pulling Cas to his feet and gripping his shoulders when he sways.
“Hey, Cas,” he says.
Cas just stares at him, not quite sure how to respond. He’d broken up with Dean, or at least he thought he had, and it might feel like someone stabbed him with a rusty knife and left it in his side, but he knew what was supposed to happen and this definitely wasn’t it.
“I was occupied,” he says gruffly, trying to scowl at Dean, but finding it difficult at the softness of the turned-down lights in the living room, and the little extra bit of gel in his hair.
Dean half-laughs. “And you weren’t enjoying it. Your eyes were practically screaming help me.”
Cas’s head is still swimming and Dean smells faintly of vanilla and it’s taking all of Cas’s motor skills to not just lean into Dean and start nuzzling his neck.
Jo’s half-brother Ash finally gets the stereo system working and hollers from the other side of the room as music starts pumping through the house and Dean’s eyes crinkle at the sound.
“Bratty indie shit,” he says and Cas feels like smiling, but doesn’t.
“Yeah, I like them.”
“This is dancing music,” Dean says, a hand going around Cas’s waist, fingers hooking into his belt loop and pulling him close, his other hand resting lightly on Cas’s forearm. They’re toeing a line, Cas can tell that much, but he’s not sure what side of if they’re on, or what side he wants to be on.
“I guess it is,” he replies quietly.
Dean smiles.
“I don’t dance.”
“I’ll teach you.”
Castiel doesn’t consent, but allows Dean to pull him even closer, moving against him, laughing as Cas impulsively moves to mirror Dean and suddenly the room is full of people, jumping up and down to the screeching guitars, limbs and smiles all one writhing knot and Castiel feels like they’re the center of it and all he can see is Dean’s face. For a minute he forgets the aching and the decimated remains of his ship because Dean is his ship and also his shore and he could sail with him on this sea of sound forever. Dean moves forward, in time to the petulant voice of the singer, mouthing against his neck and whispering “This is my downfall,” and the words swell in Castiel’s chest, bright in Dean’s eyes too and he pulls him into a kiss, more teeth than anything, just the scrape of frantic mouths begging Don’t leave me and Dean is pleading the three words too now and Castiel gasps them into his mouth, “Don’t leave me. I’m sorry,” and they burn in his throat and his blood and Dean just replies, “I know you are,” and kisses him again, as the floorboards shake from the weight of jumping, hopeful feet. The music builds in a crescendo around him, and he takes Dean’s hand and leads him upstairs to a guest room he once worked in with Jo for a project.
Dean closes the door behind them and Cas crowds him up against it, licking the seam of his lips and then the roof of his mouth, hands sliding beneath his shirt, nails scraping his sides as he tugs it over his head before stripping his own. He pulls him to the bed and hesitates as he sits on top of Dean, feeling his erection against his own, through their jeans. Dean’s eyes are open, watching Cas, chest rising and falling frantically, hands tracing patterns against his bare skin and he’s so open Cas is ready to flee the room and call it off and take his losses, but Dean pulls him down and kisses him like he’s been dying for it and it’s only been a week but maybe he has been. It’s not impossible because Cas has been dying for it and he doesn’t even really like kissing that much (although it’s been growing on him) and Cas works at their flies without breaking apart. Dean groans into his mouth at the first touch of Castiel’s fingers as they dip beneath the waistband of his boxers and skim over the flushed skin of his cock.
Cas wants to say I’m sorry over and over, but he can’t seem to. He just moves down Dean’s body, mouth wet and open against any inch of skin, until he’s just above his waistband. He sucks a mark below his navel and pulls his boxers and pants down enough to bare his erection. He glances upward briefly, but Dean isn’t looking at him, head tilted back towards the ceiling. Cas doesn’t pause, doesn’t take it slowly, just gets it over with and takes as much of Dean as he can into his mouth, wrapping a hand around the rest and running his tongue along the underside and over the head, pressing into the slit and Dean moans, the sound traveling down his body. Cas closes his eyes and bobs his head and he still doesn’t know what he wants because he didn’t want the shattering bottles at the back of the school but he doesn’t want this- half naked in a friend’s guest bedroom sucking cock and he wants to cry again, suddenly, uncontrollably and everything sickens him. He retches, then chokes and begins to cough. He tries to keep going, lips sliding against Dean’s length, but Dean pushes him off, just like in the Travelodge, but when Cas looks up from the floor, shirtless and jeans undone, there’s none of the worried tenderness in his face from before.
“What the fuck?” he swears angrily, sliding off the bed and standing above him.
Cas says nothing; he has nothing to say.
“Jesus, Cas, can’t you just fucking-”
Cas gets to his feet, glaring at Dean. “Can’t I just fucking what Dean?”
“Fucking-exactly-why can’t you just fucking fuck whatever the fuck fuck me!” Dean gesticulates wildly.
“Your use of the word fuck does not enhance your meaning!” Cas yells at him, and for the first time he is well and truly angry with Dean. Not at Gabe, not at his father, not at his mother, not at himself, just Dean.
Dean grabs a lamp from the bedside table and hurls it at the wall behind Cas. It breaks with a crash and Castiel flinches, turning towards Dean tearfully.
“You’re my boyfriend, Cas, and you should fucking act like it!” he yells.
“If you don’t remember, I broke up with you,” Castiel shouts back spitefully.
“You’re the one who choked on my cock, okay?”
“Because I was trying to be a good boyfr-”
“I don’t want you to have sex with me just because I want to!”
“You could have fooled me!” Cas retorts.
“You want me to call you on your bullshit?” Dean steps into Cas’s personal space, face twisted in rage. “Well I can, okay!” He pushes his shoulders aggressively and Cas staggers backward a few steps. “You are full of fucking shit, Castiel, and you have no idea what you want so you just make other people feel as terrible as you do even though it’s not their fault. I tried so hard, Cas, and for some reason it wasn’t e-fucking-nough for your and I’m done, okay, I’m done with your bullshit and your fucking panic attacks and poor me I have a shitty home life.” He stops for a moment, brow furrowing as if in shock at what he just said. He takes a step toward Cas, fingers brushing his arm cautiously, “Cas…”
Cas pushes his hand away and staggers backward, the hole in his stomach roiling and roaring and almost laughing at him and he trips and is falling falling falling and there’s no air left in his lungs and he isn’t even trying to take in more. “I hate you,” he says numbly, looking Dean right in the eye.
Dean stares at him blankly before turning and leaving the room without a word, slamming the door behind him.
Cas watches him go, listens to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and the hushed silence sweep over the crowd downstairs. He follows after the sound of a second slam, knowing Dean is well and truly gone.
It’s utterly quiet when Cas follows down the stairs and into the lobby, and he pushes his shoulders back and holds his head high as somewhere close to a hundred pairs of eyes fall on him. He pushes his hair out of his face and focuses on the front door ahead of him, trying not to make any eye contact because he doesn’t think he can handle the affirmation of the fact that there are other people alive on this planet. He knows a million love stories are told every day, and most are forgotten, and he is filled with a sense of waste, indignity, embarrassment, that not a single one will be his. The sorrowful aching is leaking from his skin and he can imagine it dripping from his fingertips and splattering on his shoes, staining Jo’s carpet as the crowd parts before him as he walks. He sees Jo and somehow she catches his eye and she steps forward, arms out, but he keeps walking, and the tears start to fall, and then he’s running, every joint in his body bruised and sore, but he won’t stop, devouring blocks of suburban concrete. You’re my favorite person You’re my favorite person You’re my favorite SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BE NORMAL SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BE SHUT THE FUCK UP JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP. The Aching is screaming a victory scream and Castiel pulls the four-way folded post-it from his pocket and crumples it in his fist, dropping it without ceasing running. The air is frigid against his bare chest, but nothing burns more than his own memories, dark and purple-blue, the ugliest of bruises on the backs of his retinas, so he keeps his eyes open, bared to the wind, and he keeps running, because that’s all he has left.
• • • • • • • •
Castiel checks his watch, biting his lip. 7:12. Two minutes. He glances out the window of the bus, tightening his grip on the handhold as it jerks around a corner. 7:13. He changes the song on his iPod and changes it back. 7:14. Castiel sighs and shifts his grip, skipping forward several more songs. The bus veers around a corner and he nearly stumbles into an older woman. 7:15. The bus pulls to a stop and Cas climbs off, jostled on all sides by people maybe just as sad as he is. The house is empty again, but he still can’t sleep. He crosses the corner and stands at his connecting stop and watches the Impala drive by, not even slowing down, and swallows the lump that rises in his throat so readily he almost tricks himself into thinking he likes it.
He moves slowly, as if trying to walk along the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool, and all sound seems as if it’s reaching him through a filter. People look up from their lockers and conversations when he passes and he ducks his head, trying to dodge the mixture of sympathy and disdain in their eyes, unable to even muster the energy to hold onto his pride and keep his head up.
A whisper ripples down the hall and he sees Dean familiar figure at the end of the hall. His heart stutters for a moment, a mixture of longing and regret rising like bile in his throat, a tight knot of pain in his stomach. He quickly opens his locker and tries to duck his head into it as Dean approaches, but it’s slammed shut and he’s forced to look up from the warped metal and meet Dean’s intense, green gaze. He swallows thickly, mouth dry, and he doesn’t understand why Dean can’t stop haunting him and just leave him in peace, call it quits and take his losses and let both of them just fade to a set of bittersweet moments that met an unfortunate and probably avoidable end in each other’s brains. He braces himself, unsure of what to expect, but nothing good, even though he wants nothing more than to throw himself against Dean and cry and beg him to stay and apologize over and over because this time he should be sorry. He says nothing, waiting for what he hopes is finally the last goodbye.
“You don’t hate me,” Dean says first.
Cas says nothing.
“And you’ll never make me believe otherwise.”
He can feel everyone in the hall watching them. The air thickens between him and Dean and a shiver runs down Cas’s spine.
“So it’s like that time we bought ice cream and I let us get vanilla even though I don’t like vanilla, but you do, so it was okay.”
Cas stares at him disbelievingly, mouth hanging slightly open because Dean is rambling but he knows Dean well enough to understand what he’s saying, except he tells himself he doesn’t because there’s a line he has to draw in what the world has allotted him and this is so much more than that.
“And I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m just trying to make you fall in love with me as hard as I fell for you.”
Cas wants to tell him I did I did I did I already have and asks himself Why not?
“I’m sorry I choked on your cock,” he exclaims before grabbing fistfuls of Dean’s shirt and crowding him against the locker, laughing into Dean’s surprised gasp, choking out “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” in between his frantic kisses, tugging on Dean’s lips, all hesitation knocked out of him. Someone wolf whistles, and Dean starts laughing and Castiel hates it because it makes kissing him so much harder. But then he starts laughing too because he realizes people are clapping and he wonders why life is so ridiculous as Dean wraps his arms around him and kisses him like it’s the end of the world, or maybe the beginning it’s so joyous. Castiel smiles as he pulls back and takes his hand and tugs him towards the front doors as the bell rings because it’s the ridiculous moments, he realizes, that makes life worth living.
“What about school?” Dean asks.
“Fuck school,” Cas replies teasingly, giving his hand a squeeze; Dean squeezes back.
• • • • • • • •
Cas fumbles with the lock to his house, gets it open, and pulls Dean inside, so single-minded he isn’t even tempted to stop and kiss Dean in the hall.
“Cas?” Dean asks, and Cas pauses, looking over his shoulder at Dean.
“Yes?” Cas snaps impatiently, trying to pull Dean the rest of the way to his room. Dean stays put.
“What are you doing?” Cas rolls his eyes in exasperation because from the hooded, heated look in Dean’s eyes he knows exactly what Cas is doing.
He obliges him. “I’m taking you to my room so you can fuck me.”
Dean grins lasciviously and tugs on Cas’s arm. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“Fuck you,” Cas says, pulling Dean into his room and closing the door behind him because he doesn’t want to take any chances in case Gabe comes home.
They strip quickly, standing in front of each other at the foot of the bed, wasting no time with teasing. Dean sits down on the edge of the bed and takes Cas’s hands, pulling him between his legs and smiling softly up at him. He places his hands on Cas’s hips and mouths at the pale skin of his stomach, licking a line from the bottom of his ribcage to the dip of his hipbone, nipping at the tender skin there. Cas’s breath catches as his skin leaps at Dean’s touch, hair on the back of his arms standing up. He cups the back of Dean’s head with one hand as he takes his time exploring the planes of his stomach with his tongue, deliberately ignoring Cas’s bobbing erection and enjoying his frustration. Cas takes a handful of Dean’s hair and jerks his head back. His face is flushed, a slight sheen of sweat across his brow, and his eyes are glazed with focus and Castiel leans forward, kissing him deeply. Dean wraps his arms around him, pulling him backwards on the bed. They wriggle gracelessly upwards on the too-small mattress, so their feet don’t dangle off the edge and Dean’s relentless grin is contagious and Castiel smiles as he kisses him. Dean’s hands circle his waist and he feels a hand move down his back and for a moment Cas is scared again, but Dean murmurs in his ear, mouthing a line of soft kisses along his jaw and Cas cups Dean’s face and brings his mouth to his, trying to tell him how badly he really does want this.
He pulls back. “Hold on,” he grunts, moving to the edge of the bed and rifling through the mess on his bedside table. He turns back towards Dean, the small bottle of lube they stole from Gabe’s car in his hand. He climbs back into Dean’s lap, grinning and Dean whispers, “I love you,” right before Cas kisses him and Cas has to bury his face in Dean’s neck so he doesn’t see the tears that fill his eyes, but he’s sure he feels them and is thankful he says nothing. He wraps his legs around Dean’s waist, sitting cross-legged in his lap, chests pressed together, and rolls his hips, letting out a low whimper at the feeling of their cocks sliding beside each other. Dean slides a finger in during the moment of pleasure and Cas gasps in shock, still surprised at the sensation. He pushes back experimentally, working with the difference in position from last time they started this. He moans and Dean curls his finger, stretching him for a minute before adding another. He pushes them both up to the second knuckle and twists, scissoring the fingers and Cas stifles a yell, half in pain and half in pleasure as Dean hits his prostate with one of his fingers. He brings them both together and goes back to the spot, carefully thrusting them against it and slowly adding a third. Cas groans, pushing back on the fingers eagerly, covering Dean’s neck and face with frantic kisses, trying to encourage him.
“Cas? You good?” Dean asks, voice low and rasping and Castiel can tell he’s enjoying it as much as he is, even if he hasn’t been touched yet, their cocks pressed between their stomachs as Cas writhes against Dean’s fingers. Cas tries to say Very, but just moans and nods, his face pressed into Dean’s shoulder. Dean withdraws his fingers and flips Cas carefully onto his back, kissing him once before pulling his legs back up around his waist.
“Ready?” Dean asks hoarsely. Cas nods again, wrapping his arms around Dean’s neck and lifting his hips as much as he can. Dean braces them with one arm resting beside Cas’s head, fingers stroking his ear lightly. The other spreads lube over down his length before wrapping around Cas’s waist, holding him up as he carefully presses the head of his cock to Cas’s entrance. Cas clenches his teeth, forcing himself to relax as Dean slowly enters him. He digs his nails into Dean’s back as he bottoms out, and they stay still for a long moment, Dean trembling from the effort of keeping still, Cas panting heavily as he adjusts.
“You with me?” Dean asks, and Cas presses his forehead against Dean’s, nodding and taking a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dean pulls out, almost all the way, and adjusts his grip before pushing back in, letting out a strangled noise. He tries to stay still again, give Cas more time, but Cas doesn’t let him, locking their lips together and pushing upwards with his hips. Dean pulls out again and thrusts in, harder this time, and cries out when Cas clenches around him. He sets a steady pace then, keeping it slow and groaning as he sinks up to the hilt with each thrust, Cas’s spine curling as he raises his hips to meet him, making soft, surprised noises every time. Cas holds onto Dean tightly, scratching long, red lines into his back as he tries to urge him on, unable to form coherent words. Dean just moans louder with each one, snapping his hips harder against Cas’s ass. Cas raises one arm above his head, getting a grip on the headboard to give them leverage, tightening his legs around Dean’s waist. Dean moves his hand from Cas’s back to grip his thigh, lifting his leg higher and spreading it wider, changing the angle, and he hits Cas’s prostate on the next thrust, ratcheting his strangled gasps up to a shout. Dean moves his other hand to grip Cas’s slick cock, leaking precome against his stomach. He increases his pace, thrusting faster, breath uneven and leaping in great gasps as he approaches his climax, hammering into Cas’s prostate. He pumps Cas’s length as his own rhythm falters, and Dean cries out as he comes. His hips slow as he brushes his thumb over the slit and Cas grunts as he thrusts upward, every muscle in his body clenching as he comes, Dean working his cock through his orgasm. His legs drop from around Dean’s waist as his body drops in a final sigh, sagging with sudden post-coital exhaustion. Dean pulls out and flops down beside Cas, pressing a kiss to his damp temple and wiping a few sweaty locks from his forehead.
“Cas, are you god?” he asks in disbelief.
“That’s a nice compliment, but no,” Cas slurs, unable to keep his eyes open. He turns onto his side and snuggles up against Dean, who tugs the blankets over them and slings an arm around Cas. Dean smiles fondly at him and traces the back of his calf with his foot. Cas sighs appreciatively and moves closer, folding his arms up and resting his hands on Dean’s chest.
Cas loses his virginity the time he counts it on a Tuesday. They forget to take their socks off and laugh at their feet poking out from beneath the tousled sheets in the aftermath. He is filled with a tired, restless energy and looks at Dean and feels the ache soothe itself and start again when Dean stirs, and he calls it happiness. He hums a song for the unconditionally horny and eternally sad and knows, for once, he is.