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Wings spread wide under the midday sun, warm stone heating his underbelly, Castiel closes his eyes and puffs dust and grit away from the timeworn rock that serves as today’s headrest. He stretches before nestling down fully, rolling out the joints of his wings, forelimbs, and legs in turn. Above him, wisps of clouds sail slowly across a gradient of light blue.
He is full.
He is comfortable.
He is content.
The slightest of breezes brings dirt and pebbles down against the ridges of his spine. Periodically, he flicks the minor debris away with a pass of his tail. In stillness, there is heat. He might rise upon it into the sky, later, should flight appeal more than basking.
Time passes, as it always does, and though the heat of the day begins to recede, the light has yet to.
Castiel cracks an eye open, the top eyelid only, and he gazes skyward into a second, much closer sun.
He closes his eye.
He breathes steadily, calmly, as if nothing of grave importance has occurred.
Then and only then, he opens both eyes and rises with the grunt of change, shifting into the bipedal form that best facilitates conversation between angels and dragons. Certainly, angels can communicate perfectly well in humanoid form without their dragon opposites shifting, but most angels dislike such a mismatch in shapes. Though they remain ultimately more powerful, angels seem to resent being small.
And Castiel does not wish to be resented.
“You sure you want to talk out here?” the angel in question asks, unfolding out of a blaze of light, one bare foot and then the other making contact with stone smoothed by Castiel’s own scales. “Promise we could held back to yours without me messing with your hoard.” With that, Dean grins at him, a tease playing across his temporary features.
“Out here is fine,” Castiel answers, standing stiff and still on two legs. Dean may always manifest solidly with some variation upon a robe, but Castiel is at home with his simplicity. Usually, at least. With Dean, there is always something unnerving in standing bipedal. Perhaps it’s the exposed stomach and the rib cage that stops well before his waist. Perhaps it’s the change in balance, his wings and tail encouraging this shape to stoop forward into a cringing hunch. In front of others, Castiel cares little, but something about Dean—perhaps Dean’s reputation—gives reason to reconsider clothing.
With other angels, the power difference is as it is. With Dean, the differences between them make Castiel somehow… naked. Exposed, even with his scales neat and hard across his vulnerable areas.
Sometimes, Dean even looks at the closed slit above the apex of Castiel’s thighs.
Sometimes, Dean looks even when he knows Castiel has noticed the attention.
If Castiel were to permit Dean into his lair, he has no doubt Dean would end up looking his fill.
Thus sated, there would be no further cause for looking.
Abruptly aware of his own silence, Castiel clears his throat. A day of disuse has already left it rough. “I assume you’re here on business.”
Dean rolls his eyes and plucks at the single shoulder of today’s wrap of a robe. “Man, you always assume that.”
Castiel raises an eyebrow.
“And yeah, okay, I am.”
Castiel nods. “Another edict, so soon?”
“Well, maybe less of an edict,” Dean answers, continuing to adjust the white cloth he’s only partially draped in. It seems to be snagged on his right wing. “Some of the spheres are getting butthurt over tribute.”
“Angels don’t ask for tribute,” Castiel states. He keeps his eyes on Dean’s face. Also Dean’s hands. He does not stare at wings so different from his own, this many layered construction of sleek softness. He does not dwell on the fact that angels must groom their wings in ways that dragons needn’t, and he does not linger on the knowledge that Dean has permitted many dragons to do this for him. Castiel wets his lips before asking, “What do they really want?”
“Let’s just say that some of you guys—not you, Cas, other dragons—are pushing for levels of tribute and dedication with humans that it’s towing the line on worship. And we can’t be having that. We all need to eat.”
“I understand the issue,” Castiel replies, because he truly does. “I don’t understand what it has to do with me.”
“Well, y’know. Gotta tell everyone. Can’t be seen playing favorites.”
“Dean, you play favorites all the time.”
Dean places a hand over his sternum in mock-offense. “No I don’t. Other people play favorites with me. Whole different thing.”
“Of course.” Castiel shakes his head faintly, and the twisting shadows of his horns play across Dean’s chest, insubstantial, never truly touching. “In any case, I’m sure you have-”
“Finished my rounds already!” Dean interrupts, stepping forward, widening his grin. “Saved you for last.”
The question of why shoots through Castiel’s mind, but the answer arrives just as quickly. Nodding, Castiel says, “Because I’m the easiest.”
Dean enjoys challenges. Conquering. Most dragons wouldn’t take well to a warning to pull back on demanding tribute. Castiel is a strange one, and therefore an afterthought in Dean’s day.
“‘Easiest,’ huh,” Dean repeats, an odd look in his eyes as the sun glints his green bright. “I’d never call you ‘easy,’ Cas.”
Castiel does not flush.
He does, however, become inwardly warm in a way that has nothing to do with fire.
“Then you wished to speak with me regarding…?”
Dean unfolds his wings from his back, flapping them out with so many different types and layers of feathers. Unlike Castiel’s stretched skin, these invite touch and speak of beauty over practicality.
Castiel keeps his hands at his sides.
Dean displays all the time, and he will keep doing so as long as Castiel fails to react.
To react immediately, that is. Castiel always reacts later, in private, in safety.
“I wanted to see the results of whatever it is you’ve been up to,” Dean says, acting like impending flight is the sole reason he’s bandying about his wings. “You’ve been doing a lot of different stuff? I wanna see. Your lair’s off that way, right?” With that, Dean leans his head forward to look up through his eyelashes, and on someone without horns, the motion does actually seem submissive. “Show me?”
“The results are at human settlements, not here,” Castiel answers.
“Yeah, okay, but they gave you stuff for, uh. ‘Working’ for them. What do you even pay a dragon?”
Food, at first.
Tribute. Trinkets.
Songs. Stories.
Smiles. Laughter. Relief.
Purpose.
Satisfaction.
“I… like them,” Castiel says, as he has said to no one else.
“The stuff they gave you,” Dean says, clearly confused.
Castiel shakes his head.
He considers.
He even hopes.
“I’ll show you,” he says, and unfurls his wings.
With a smile as strong and blinding as the rest of himself, Dean takes off into the air in the way of angels. Wind and thermals mean nothing. Gravity has no hold. Dean could hover in place, steadier than a hummingbird, as motionless as bedrock. Beside him, Castiel’s flight is deeply physical, innately mental, processing stimulus into response. Dean’s flight is effortless, Castiel’s natural.
“Hey, wrong way!” Dean calls, changing direction with impossible speed, a mockery of velocity.
“We’re not going to my lair!” Castiel calls back.
Humanoid, it’s a lengthy flight.
Humanoid, Dean won’t immediately frighten the humans. Dean will be able to watch and see.
Dean will watch and see him .
The entire journey, Castiel has his interest, and landing comes too soon.
He touches down on the outskirts of the town after flying over it. From most dragons, this would prompt terror and screams, even at only a bipedal form, but the residents have grown to know Castiel’s sky blue underbelly as well as his mountain tan back. Shouts rise up, but only of greeting, and the town’s children run toward rather than fleeing away.
The sight of Dean—an angel, manifest—takes them all aback, but when Castiel takes the risk of introducing Dean as his friend, tensions somewhat ease.
Adult humans soon join the gathering crowd around them, and Castiel speaks to those he’s worked with in turn, explaining:
“Dean, these are the tile makers. They give me food in the mornings, and entertain me through the nights I keep their kilns hot.
“Here are the wood colliers. The charcoal kilns are good for sleeping on.
“These are the coopers. I help them steam wood to bend into barrels, and they give me drink.
“Here are the smiths,
“bakers,
“brick-makers,
“smelters,
“glass workers,
“everyone,” Castiel concludes. He looks at all their small human faces, looking back at him. Some still wary, some still awed, most respectful, and many fond.
He smiles.
Still smiling, Castiel looks to Dean.
“Oh Cas,” Dean says and sighs, looking truly, deeply sad as his eyes begin to glow. Looking, abruptly, regretful:
“What did I tell you about not stealing our worship?”