Chapter Text
The kiss surpasses Castiel’s imagination. His whole body is alight, is trembling, at the warmth and softness of Dean’s mouth. His thoughts are in disorder, and as he tries to grasp at them, they slip away. His mind is nothing but a blur of instinct and feeling.
This should be for Dean, all for Dean, to provide him the comfort that he needs. It should be gentle and sweet. Yet Castiel is kissing him harder and more urgently. He finds himself moaning with his own tremulous want, the overwhelming desire that he has been pushing down and down, that is now erupting inside him. He’s not giving, he’s demanding, and for some reason Dean is yielding, letting Castiel press him down against the bed to climb on top of him. Castiel breaks the kiss to let out a harsh gasp as their bodies move sinuously together.
“Fuck, Cas. Yes,” Dean mutters gruffly, and Castiel has no words any more so he just kisses him again, revelling in the sensation of Dean’s lips and tongue sliding against his, Dean’s hands caressing his hair and neck and shoulders, Dean’s leg hooking around him to tug their groins firmly together. He doesn’t understand why humans ever do anything else if sexual congress can be this exhilarating.
Dean’s body is muscular and solid, yet pliant and responsive under Castiel’s touch. As he trails a hand over Dean’s smooth, bare chest, he hears Dean whimper, and feels a heady flutter of power, followed by a surge of unadulterated lust. He has given up the pretence that this is about friendly comfort. He needs completion. He needs release in Dean’s arms. Anything else either of them might need is lost in the haze of frantic desire that ensues.
When it’s over, Castiel collapses on top of Dean, their sweaty bodies lying feeble together for a brief, delicious moment. But then he quickly rolls off onto his back, afraid the weight of his body is uncomfortable for Dean. He’s suddenly conscious of such things again, now that his lust is sated.
As he lies there, still panting, he hears Dean’s similarly heavy breaths beside him, but he can’t quite make himself look over. They’re both half-naked and dishevelled, Castiel’s smart new pants scrunched round his thighs, and he feels a slight chill over the wetness of his bare crotch and stomach. But his body is enveloped in heavy satisfaction, and he doesn’t bother to wipe himself up or straighten his clothes.
Eventually, Dean breaks the silence. “Fuck,” he breathes out into the musky air.
Castiel wonders if that’s a good reaction. He’s never been with a man before, but Dean climaxed immediately after him, so he supposes he did at least an adequate job.
This suspicion is confirmed when Dean, after pulling up his boxers and shucking off his jeans onto the floor, rolls over to clasp Castiel’s head and press a wet kiss to his forehead. “Thanks,” he says. “You’re awesome.”
Awesome. Like he’s talking about a cheeseburger or something. Castiel will accept that, though. In his post-coital contentment, he feels nothing but tenderness for Dean.
He gets up to grab some clean clothes from Dean’s closet. When he lies back down, it’s in a t-shirt and boxers. Dean moves closer, and they settle instinctively into a wordless embrace, with Castiel stroking his hands over the bare skin of Dean’s back. He can feel the slight ridges of scars, of old wounds, and the intense tenderness surges in him again. It makes him feel strong and protective and incredibly close to Dean.
Yet when he wakes up the next morning and Dean is nowhere to be seen, he isn’t particularly surprised.
*
Castiel cautiously enters the kitchen, but he only finds Sam washing dishes.
“Morning,” says Sam with a friendly smile. “You slept in.”
Castiel is immediately arrested by the possibility that Sam realises he wasn’t in his own room last night. But there’s nothing suspicious or teasing in Sam’s voice, so he dismisses the idea.
“Yes, you two have already finished breakfast, haven’t you?”
“Dean headed out somewhere,” replies Sam, as though he sensed Castiel’s unspoken question.
“I’ll just have some cereal, then.”
Castiel feels somewhat awkward around Sam ever since that conversation with Eileen. He thinks Dean is in love with you. That thought is more difficult than ever for him to push aside this morning, as he goes around the kitchen opening and closing cupboard doors.
“Actually, I’m not hungry,” he declares, and hurriedly walks out.
“Okay,” he hears Sam saying behind him, and even if he sounds puzzled, Castiel has bigger things to worry about.
Dean finally shows up that afternoon, while Castiel is attempting to distract himself from his unruly thoughts by reading a hefty tome about vampires. Vampires ought to be interesting, he reasons, but everything seems terribly dry compared to the urgent anxieties that are plaguing him, and at the point that Dean enters the library he’s just finished reading the same paragraph for about the fifth time.
“Hey,” says Dean as he approaches.
“Hello, Dean,” replies Castiel, his eyes trained on the book. Sixth time’s the charm.
There’s a brief silence.
“We should talk,” says Dean eventually.
Castiel says nothing at first. This is it, he supposes. Where Dean says he regrets their encounter, or he didn’t enjoy it, or it was all a mistake and Castiel should probably just leave the bunker and move on because this is all too uncomfortable for him to cope with.
Castiel feels his hand trembling as he attempts to casually turn the page. “If you like.”
“You–” begins Dean, then takes a deep breath and starts again. “Last night was really shitty of me.”
Castiel looks up at him abruptly. That was not what he expected at all.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” says Dean.
“I don’t understand why you’re apologising to me,” says Castiel sharply. He frowns. “Do you think I didn’t take pleasure in it? I assure you, I very much did.”
Dean looks thrown by that, perhaps embarrassed. He tips his head, his eyelashes fluttering, and he licks his lips nervously.
“No, I mean, I shouldn’t have taken advantage.” At Castiel’s bemused face, he adds quietly, “I don’t want to make you think there’s something there that isn’t.”
Castiel is developing a headache, an insistent pulsing pain in his temple. He puts it down to the strain of navigating this conversation without triggering Dean’s self-hatred.
“You did nothing wrong, Dean,” he says carefully. “You needed comfort, and I hope you got it from me. I enjoyed the experience. What is there to apologise for?”
For a moment, Dean is quiet. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. Castiel continues to stare at him placidly.
“But you understand, right,” says Dean eventually. “I can’t give you more than that.”
Castiel feels anger rising in him, and for once, he fails to stuff it down. His head is pulsating too much.
“I never asked you for more,” he says fiercely. “I never asked you for anything.” He stands up, stacking his books loudly on top of each other. “If you regret what we did, I’m truly sorry. I got caught up in it. It was selfish of me.”
“Selfish?” Dean seems strangely offended by that. “What the fuck, Cas.”
Castiel feels his temper is on the verge of unravelling, and he makes to leave.
“I was thinking only of myself,” he mutters as he brushes past Dean.
“Well maybe you oughta,” Dean calls after his retreating back. Castiel detects confusion mixed in with the indignation in his voice. “You gotta look out for yourself, man.”
Castiel lets the door fall shut with a bang, and does his best to ignore Dean’s words. He doesn’t succeed very well. There are tears forming in his eyes.
He retreats to his room, and instinctively curls up on his bed, pulling a blanket over him. He clutches at it tightly. It’s strange how much comfort his human form derives from such trivial things.
Castiel thought he could not feel more for Dean than he already did. He may have been wrong. The swell of affection induced by hormonal release is something he had not reckoned with. That intense feeling is no longer something he can bury away and hide from himself out of convenience. He feels it slowly curdling to resentment in his stomach.
As he lies there, he thinks about texting Eileen. She might have some advice. But then he would have to explain the whole situation, and tell her how he lied the other day about wanting Dean. Tell her that Dean still doesn’t want him, not like that, seems to outright dismiss the notion of them being together romantically, despite being aroused by him physically.
He realises belatedly that Dean was right. If he had no sexual interest in men at all, his rejection would be easier to take.
Castiel stays cocooned in his room until Sam calls them for dinner. He’d rather skip it, but his wretched mortal body needs feeding. Again.
Dean’s already sitting in the kitchen when he arrives. Castiel studiously ignores him. When Sam comes over to the table with the pot of pasta, he barely glances at the two of them before sighing deeply.
“Not this again, guys.”
Neither of them respond. Sam rolls his eyes.
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Sam turns to Castiel pleadingly.
“Look, I expect this crap from Dean. But you, you’re like literally thousands of years old, can you not be an adult and, like, use your words?”
Castiel fixes him with a glare, and doesn’t hold back the directionless contempt that has been festering in him. Sam visibly shudders.
Dean pushes his plate away. “I’m not hungry,” he declares, sliding his chair back.
“Come on, man, I spent time making that.”
“Sorry,” says Dean, shaking his head as he gets up. “No appetite. I’m not myself today.”
He sounds extremely tired, and Castiel glances up in concern despite himself.
“But Cas, I– for what it’s worth?” As he catches Castiel’s cautious gaze, Dean’s eyes soften. “It helped.”
He walks out of the room, and Castiel is left with Sam staring at him in curiosity, as relief and self-chastisement mingle in his chest.
*
Gradually, the tension between them thaws. Castiel sits and watches Dean cleaning his guns, and passes him things when asked. Dean spends hours labouring over a homemade pecan pie, Castiel’s favourite. He lets Castiel pick their evening movie twice in a row; Castiel gets to watch Legally Blonde without a peep of resistance.
A few words exchanged here and there soon morphs back into their easy banter. Sam voices his relief that they’ve made up. Dean rolls his eyes. Within a week, things are back to the way they were. Except—
Except Dean doesn’t touch him any more, and Castiel, unconsciously and later consciously mirroring him, doesn’t touch Dean either.
The fact that this vacuum of physical contact is so noticeable only highlights to Castiel how much Dean used to touch him – on the arm, the shoulder, the small of his back, to comfort or to guide him. How their hands would brush because they walked so close together, speaking in low, secretive voices, not because they had something to hide, but simply because they were so wrapped up in each other.
He misses that intimacy. His skin aches for it. It begins to bother him so much that he does something he is loth to – he prays to Jack for help.
Since Castiel came back to Earth, he has prayed a few times, presuming Jack could hear him. He has expressed his gratefulness, his fatherly love (what an absurd thing, to be a father to God), his wish to see Jack again even if only in dreams. He has never asked for anything.
Yet he finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed after another day with that strange distance between him and Dean, asking Jack for guidance. He prays for help in regaining Dean’s trust and intimacy, prays for something to show him the way. In the back of his mind there is the small, treacherous thought that his existence was much simpler when he had only to obey orders.
Jack would never give him direct orders. He would probably never even give firm advice. But Castiel hopes that at the very least, by focussing on and contemplating his love for Jack, he might come to some breakthrough in his efforts to be loving and forgiving towards Dean.
*
The next day, as he’s helping himself to a pair of pants from Dean’s closet, something falls out of the pocket onto the floor with a soft click and rolls away. Glancing down, Castiel doesn’t see anything, so he gets on his knees to peer under the bed.
It’s only a coin, an old quarter glinting at him from a couple of feet under the bed, far enough that he has to duck his head and reach to fetch it. As he does so, he notices something else under the bed, tucked in the corner between the wall and the nightstand. A folded piece of clothing.
His curiosity gets the better of him, and he pulls it out to examine it. It’s a worn green jacket, but unlike most of the floor under the bed, it’s not particularly dusty. Unfolding it, he feels a strange chill come over him as he spots the dark brown of dried blood.
It takes him a second or two to put things together, to recognise his own handprint on the shoulder. A memory flashes through his mind of pushing Dean to the floor, mere seconds before the Empty came for him, mere seconds after–
He hurriedly folds the jacket up and puts it back where he found it, paranoid that Dean might come in and catch him looking at it.
Having replaced the jacket, he gets up off his knees and sits on the bed. He looks down at the dull quarter in his hands, wondering at his own flustered reaction. What would it matter if Dean did come across him looking?
It matters, he supposes, because the jacket must have some kind of significance to Dean, if he has kept it unwashed and hidden away where no one would normally find it. Castiel doesn’t understand what significance precisely. But he takes it readily as his sign from Jack, a sign that he should persist in showing patience and love for Dean, that eventually they will get their friendly intimacy back. He holds onto the coin, as a reminder.