Chapter Text
“…It’s comforting.” Castiel’s voice was typically granular, deep - like gravel on fire.
“Excuse me?” Dean asked, his deep voice croaky from extended silence, imposing a judgemental tone both with the crook of his eyebrow and the twist of his torso. He wasn’t unused to Cas’ spontaneity, and his apparent confusion was more show than tell.
“Your physical acquiescence…it pleases me.”
“Boy, you always know what to say, cryptic cutie. But you’re gonna have to try harder if you want to seduce me,” the hunter winked at him, eyes sparkling, clicking his tongue flirtatiously. “And also, try to make actual sense in the future.”
Dean went back to cleaning the eviscerated components of his gun; heavy, greasy, lethal. He sat on the edge of a generic double motel bed that was stiff and tormented with the inadequately scrubbed remnants of hundreds of transient guests. His well-worn leather jacket had been tossed carelessly into the bed, and was trailing on the floor.
Castiel stood awkwardly against the wall, looking as uncomfortable in his own vessel as always, frowning as he contemplated his own thoughts. Nature’s night was black and cold, and human sleep was overdue. Garish neon light overlooking the parking lot shadowed the angel and everything in the room with dark brilliance. Dean was working by the feeblest of motel lamps, accustomed as he was to darkness and ingrained privation.
The earlier interaction in question had been simple - Castiel had, hours previously, placed a hand on Dean’s jacketed shoulder in an impulsive gesture, squeezing abruptly - a masking adaptation, a mimic. Something that he copied to fit in, but also something that he had felt instinctively would be a pleasurable thing for him to deliver, and for Dean to receive.
In the immediate aftermath, however, Castiel had been conflicted. Not only had it felt like….what people called the comforting concept ‘home’ in human poetry and music, something which he was experiencing a growing appreciation of, but he had sensed a reciprocation. Not just in the bright, toothy and glorious dimpled grin that Dean flashed him in utter surprise, but the unconscious heat, tremor, and honest joy in the other man that only divinity could detect - pure and raw.
Cas’ blossoming humanity was truly a double-edged sword, and it managed to cut him both ways as long as he gave his troubling thoughts the grace to manifest. Castiel stared openly, intensely at Dean. He didn’t flinch when an explosion of thunder shivered the thin windows, grey-black with nightfall and frail with low budget, a tenuous barrier between the heavens and the mortal.
“What do you mean by ‘try harder?’ You’re already ‘flirting’ with me,” the angel said impatiently, gesturing double finger quotes in the air. His inability to express himself was an ongoing source of frustration. “I would appreciate clarity, and I know you understand my social…shortfalls.” Castiel’s brow furrowed, his shoulders stiff, his voice was distractedly guttural. “I’m trying to converse with you. About us. Please try and take it seriously for once. You disregard things so easily.” the angel chided.
“Jeez, alright, calm down, Cas,” Dean shrugged nonchalantly - an insincere action, as always. He was privately taken aback by Castiel’s sudden intensity and desire for discussion, (especially the concerning ‘us’ part) but he rose to the challenge. Gotta be cool, gotta joke, gotta be dismissive. Gotta be hard. It’s gonna hurt, maybe him and me. I deserve it.
“Well, at this moment in time you’re not feathering off into the ether,” Dean suggested, fluttering his fingers in illustration, “So I’m guessing you want to stick around and get something off your chest.”
“Dean,” Castiel uttered, his deep voice torn and twisted, not entirely either an answer or a question.
“Yup? So talk to me. Bring it on.” If Dean knew anything, it was how to push people’s buttons, to rile them up. His fondness for Cas made this not only easier, but also more satisfying when his angel grumbled and frowned in response. And right now, Castiel seemed pissed.
“...I think…I think you’re testing me.” There was an uptick of a query, of innate uncertainty, in Cas’ mumbled response. Outside the motel’s tenuous walls, nocturnal rain began battering down with fierce suddenness, rattling the windows, drowning out casual speech. Dean cleared his throat, elevating his voice for Cas’ benefit, even though he knew that the angel didn’t need audio in order to hear him.
“Testing how?” Dean asked with genuine intrigue, setting aside the oil and weight of his gun on the bedside table, wiping his hands clean on a rag. He focussed his most devastating green-eyed, pure-souled expression at his angel, knowing its effectiveness. It had worked before, and in far more crucial circumstances.
“You’re…you’re being attractive. On purpose,” Cas grimaced, tilting his head. Nothing about the celestial being indicated falsehood.
Dean chuckled spontaneously, scrubbing one calloused hand across his brow, unable to negate the vicious blush that drowned his freckles and flushed his ears and jaw, visible even in the rain-soaked, lamplit gloom.
“On purpose? No offence, Cas, but I can’t really help that. And I’m not really available to guys.”
“Why not?” Cas was utterly deadpan, voice questioning, but flat.
“Why not? Well, I guess I never accepted the invite,” Dean shrugged. “It’s only ever been…” the hunter stuttered and silenced himself, surprised at his own unexpected candidness and feeling suddenly drained by this new exposure of old wounds under fresh duress. “…Actually you know what, I don’t wanna talk about this, can’t we just have a drink and go to bed?”
“…No, we can’t,” Cas responded, expression blank and dark and intense.
“…You can be scary Cas, you know that? I mean, you’re freaking scary and impressive. I’m getting the feeling you’re gonna beat me up if I don’t answer your questions the way you like,” Dean sighed, and unscrewed the lid of the Winchester’s ubiquitous whiskey bottle which rested on the bedside table alongside the greased gun. He knocked a few glugs into two glasses and offered one to his angel with an inviting expression, raised eyebrows and smirked lips.
He was aware of his own disingenuousness, and it shamed him because he believed that Cas would be able to see right through him. Not through celestial omnipotence, but through the simple fact that Castiel was one of the closest, dearest people to him. Dean didn’t even consciously use puns, diversion and charm to obfuscate anymore. It was second nature, albeit one that he recognised and detested. He never considered, however, that Castiel’s growing humanity allowed for the newfound existence of naivety, forgiveness and acceptance in the face of overwhelming opposition. It allowed for a sometimes-crippling sense of trust and devotion towards those the angel cared for, and therefore he sometimes suffered oversights in cataloguing all of Dean’s flaws and falsities.
The angel was relieved to sense that no true fear was exhibited in the other man, not in his pulse or breath or soul. After everything Dean had been through, it would have absolutely destroyed Castiel if this conversation frightened him more than anything else.
“…I’m not trying to threaten you,” Cas frowned, stepping forward and accepting the glass of amber heat. He peered intensely at Dean for a few more seconds, as if he could intuit his motives just by looking through him. “Look, Dean, I could read your mind in order to know what you’re thinking. But I’d rather not, because it’s intrusive. I suspect something, but I’d rather learn it…organically.”
“What are we even talking about?” Dean burst out suddenly, spreading his hands in apparent confusion.
“We’re talking about you and me.”
Dean took in a sharp, shaky breath, and then downed his own drink in one go, wincing briefly at the sweet, forgiving burn and wondering how a simple evening had come to this. “…You want me to speak plainly,” the hunter shrugged, deep voice cracked with fresh alcohol and old stress. He glared at the angel combatively. “About you and me.”
“That would make things easier, yes.”
There was a long, long pause that rattled with heavy rain and tension. One of the neon motel lights outside flickered and died and the room became incrementally gloomier.
“……Fine. It pisses me off that you haven’t already figured it out. Your angel senses might be sharp but you are the most clueless person I ever met.” Dean inhaled sharply, punctuating his words. “ I’m not sure you’d even know what to do with the truth if I told you,” he finished coldly.
A few bitter beats of silence stretched before the angel replied.
“And I think that’s unfair, and cruel.” Castiel frowned, moving forward and settling himself on the bed beside Dean, blue eyes briefly distant as he contemplated his next words. A few more seconds, and he too had gulped down his whiskey, knowing that alcohol would never impact him the way it did a human, but willing to try his hardest to succumb.
“I understand more than you realise. Is it really so difficult to just be honest with yourself?” Cas asked, peering at Dean’s profile as the other man gripped his empty glass tight, his cold gaze stoically on the carpet, jaw set tensely.
“You have no idea,” Dean replied humourlessly. His previously bright mood had soured so rapidly that he started to feel nauseous.
Castiel inhaled softly, looking down at his own empty glass for a few moments before speaking again.
“I know you’ve thought about taking me to your bed.”
The hunter gasped so hard in shock that he aspirated and began choking, coughing and blushing ferociously in the dim light.
“For sex,” Castiel clarified, deadpan, and Dean groaned massively when he had recovered, head in hands.
“Cas, you need to shut up now.”
“You have experience with other men.” It wasn’t a question.
“Cas!” Dean snapped, turning his head and finally meeting calm blue eyes. “I mean it. I’m not gay, and I am not gonna talk about this with somebody who doesn’t even have a heartbeat.”
Castiel’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I have a heartbeat.” Before Dean could say anything else, the angel took hold of his free hand, used it to nudge aside his trenchcoat, and directed it flat against the white fabric of his shirt, holding it over the steady bump of a heartbeat in the left side of his chest.
“……Wow, good for you,” Dean rasped irritably, averting his eyes and trying to ignore the living heat and pulse of the angel’s body under his palm. “Why the hell are you doing this to me, why now?” he sighed, voice cracked.
“I feel it’s been escalating for some time.” Castiel lightened his grip upon Dean’s hand so that he could stroke the other man’s rough knuckles, and the hunter snatched his hand away, exhaling a shivery breath.
“Don’t. Just…don’t. I’m not gay,” Dean insisted.
“I know. But you do want me.”
“You don’t…what makes you even think that?” Dean asked almost frantically, laughing. His eyes were starting to shimmer with unshed tears in the dim nocturnal light. He knew, he knew, that every question he asked of his angel, every invitation he extended to keep the conversation going, would only wound him deeper. But he was stubborn, and defiant, and had never backed down from a fight or feared the possibility of pain in his life.
Equally stubbornly, but with far less overt expression, Castiel answered.
“You’re constantly flirting with me, but you never follow through. You resist getting physically close to me but you enjoy it when I take the initiative and touch you. You like my eyes. You like my mouth. You’re curious about my body and what exactly you could do with my vessel. You want to know if I’m able to experience climax. You wonder if it would be the same as with a human. Or if it would be better. And you’re terrified that making love to a man you actually care about would feel too good to keep ignoring.”
Dean was totally shell-shocked for a few seconds, but gradually recovered enough to speak. “…I thought you said you weren’t gonna read my mind. Liar,” he tutted, shaking his head exhaustedly and rubbing his temple. He tossed the empty glass to the carpet carelessly, watching it roll away. He felt utterly miserable.
“I didn’t.” Castiel replied pointedly.
The hunter froze, then glared at him. “Then how the hell-“
“It’s obvious. Even Sam has noticed.”
Dean saw red.
“Now you’re gonna bring my brother into this?!” Dean stood up abruptly, sweat-damp fists clenched and breaths seething shallow and fast, rapidly entering panic territory and seizing for any diversion from this conversation. His green eyes flashed dangerously, his deep voice raised high in volume and passion. “The fuck is wrong with you?”
Dean rarely cursed that strongly, and the angel cleared his throat, trying to defuse the situation. He placed his own empty glass on the table, then spoke slowly and clearly, not making any sudden moves or inflammatory statements.
“The point I’m trying to make is that the only one fighting you is yourself.”
“I don’t need your therapy, or your sympathy, or your goddamn interrogation, alright?!” Dean yelled, striding away from the bed long enough to retrieve the whiskey glass from the carpet and hurl it against the far wall in a deafening shower of sharp fragments. It was far from the first time that Castiel had seen him lose his temper like this, and he merely sat and let Dean vent until he tired himself out.
The hunter was running his hands through his short hair in exasperation, looking anywhere but Cas as he paced the small room, practically talking to himself. “Why’d you have to even bring this up, God dammit. It was going just fine.” There were a few tell-tale snuffles and groans, and Dean was smearing his eyes angrily, cheekbones damp with tears. He visibly inhaled tight breaths to ground himself, shoulders trembling, and Cas waited.
A few minutes of depleted wordlessness lingered, the rain pattering, the darkness close, and then the angel attempted conversation again.
“I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t intend to distress you.”
Dean laughed tiredly, and sloped back to the bed to sit beside Castiel again, worn out from emotion. His deep voice was throaty and sore-sounding, his gaze still on the floor. “I just don’t understand…why are you suddenly trying to torture me with this? Why can’t you just leave it alone?”
“Like I said before - the fact that you enjoy my presence, that you reciprocate body and soul when I touch you - it’s comforting. Pleasing.”
“You outed me just to tell me that?” Dean asked tiredly, but not without a thread of quiet humour. He couldn’t really deny the body and soul part. He glared coolly at Castiel, whose face was open and untroubled.
“If it makes you feel better, you were already ‘out.’ I know you’ve been with men before.”
“And how exactly do you know that?” Dean asked incredulously, finally shifting on the stiff bed so that he faced the angel, and could properly read his expressions.
“Sam…may have mentioned it.”
“Of all the…” Dean raised his eyes heavenward and then shook his head, stupefied. “The hell have you two been talking about behind my back. I gotta have some serious words with that damn bastard.” He was silent for a few seconds, and then something dawned on him. He suddenly frowned at the angel, expression disbelieving. “Wait, wait a sec…all that ‘acquiescence’ shit you said earlier…was that you trying to flirt with me?”
Castiel looked peeved. “Well, I-“
“Damn it Cas, I thought you were just…I dunno, being weird and observing random crap out loud like always.”
“I may…have done it wrong.” The angel’s scowling face looked equal parts irritated and disappointed.
“Man, this whole conversation could have been so much easier.”
“You’re the one who complicated it,” Cas retorted. “I just wanted you to know that I like being close to you.”
The angel’s honesty softened Dean’s heart and obstructed the sarcastic response he had been ready to give. Instead, he grinned. “So…’They love me, they really love me,’ right?” he quoted in a high-pitched voice.
Castiel’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s ‘they?’”
“No, it’s a…” Dean sighed, chuckling affectionately. “It’s a reference. Never mind.”
“Your obsession with pop culture is endlessly troubling to me, Dean.”
“Yeah, alright, I get it, you’ve been living in a cave for the last 14 billion years.” The hunter flinched minutely as a catastrophic rumble of thunder seemed to explode immediately over the motel, and the lamp’s low light tremored warningly.
“There’s a storm,” Cas observed flatly.
“Bingo, baby,” Dean laughed, and then silenced himself, regretting the flippant use of the pet name. “…Well, I have no idea how to move on from this weird-ass situation. And you still haven’t vanished into thin air yet, that’s gotta be a record.”
“I thought I might stay and try and kiss you.”
“You…” Dean started, then stopped, seeing the utter seriousness in Cas’ cool blue eyes. “You’re gonna ‘try’ and kiss me?”
“Well, you didn’t like the heartbeat or the hand-holding.”
“Yeah, well, that was…I stopped you because I liked it.”
“…That makes no sense.”
“Welcome to the world of humans, Cas.”
“I wonder if that’s just the world of Dean.” The hunter rolled his eyes, but Cas continued before he could speak. “Where he refuses to be happy even though he’s perfectly capable.”
“Wow, okay, that was a bit close to the bone. It’s complicated, okay? These kinds of things aren’t easy for me.”
“It’s appeared to be extremely easy for you in the past.”
“Hey come on, enough. Time out with the smart remarks. You’re not so good at expressing your feelings either, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
The angel looked a little saddened, his voice deep and coarse. “I want to try, though. I think I’m improving.”
“Well, hopefully I am too,” Dean relented, gazing at Cas’ petulant face for a few seconds, before his eyes wandered to the full , sharply defined cupid’s-bow of the angel’s top lip, and he cleared his throat in embarrassment and looked away. “Say, uh…let me feel it again.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your heart.”
Castiel looked a little surprised, and then proceeded to shrug off his ubiquitous trench coat, folding it and placing it neatly on top of Dean’s soft-worn brown leather jacket on the bed.
When Cas was sitting complacently, Dean extended his right hand, using his fingers to nudge aside the loose blue tie that hung bedraggled from a tired collar. Castiel wasn’t wearing his black jacket, and the hunter glanced at what appeared to be strong biceps under the white shirt sleeves. Hooking two fingers into the gap at the top of Cas’ shirt where a few buttons were unbound, he mapped the angel’s bare clavicle briefly with his calloused fingertips before sliding his palm back down over the outside of Castiel’s shirt, landing on his heartbeat. He was secretly thrilled to note the now-elevated pulse rate.
“Does this feel good to you?” the hunter asked curiously, eyes searching the angel’s face for reactions.
“It’s…exhilarating,” Castiel swallowed and affirmed in a breathy and shallow voice that was brand new to Dean.
“Well, that’s a good start,” Dean shrugged, his face rising in heat and colour as the place just under his skin burned with quiet excitement.
“Let me,” Castiel mumbled, and raised his own hand illustratively to Dean’s chest. When the hunter nodded mute permission, Cas tucked his hand inside the open plaid shirt that was layered over a black tee, mirroring Dean as he felt the other man’s heartbeat.
Green eyes wide, the hunter’s heart somersaulted when his angel flashed him an extremely rare grin, which sweetly crinkled ocean-blue eyes and the bridge of his nose.
“Our rhythms are matching,” Castiel announced happily.
That was about as much as Dean could take. He batted the angel’s hand away from him sharply, catching Castiel’s initial frown of surprise and disappointment, which immediately became an awed moue when Dean leaned in close and cupped his stubbled face roughly with both hands. They stared at each other at a dangerous proximity for a few seconds, rapid breaths dampening each other’s faces, before Castiel sensed an ardent apology in the other man’s soul. A second later, Dean had forcibly pushed their mouths together.
Kissing Castiel felt impossibly novel but heart-rendingly familiar all at once, and Dean sighed audibly into the clumsy, closed-mouthed kiss in sheer relief and bliss at having finally crossed this line. There was no movement of lips, just static, warm, dry pressure, and it was spectacular.
Cas had just lifted his hands reactively to Dean’s wrists, anchoring him in the kiss, when a sharp, electric-sounding whine sounded loudly throughout the room, startling them. The sad bulb in the bedside lamp combusted with a pop, plunging them into near pitch-darkness as the motel television buzzed on, bright-screened, at blaring volume for a few seconds, then zapped off with an audible voltaic crackle. A jarring cacophony of deafening car alarms started variously honking, beeping and wailing out in the parking lot.
Dean pulled back reluctantly, the room now blue-black with gloom and the smell of ozone, the neon lights of the car park dimmed to an ugly dark red, flickering feverishly. Heavy rain still battered the motel with steady ferocity, drenching the street outside.
“Was that you or the storm?” Dean asked with husky amusement.
“…I actually don’t know,” Cas replied honestly.
“I feel like we should avoid touching any metal in here now,” Dean said with a huff of laughter. “This place was already a freaking deathtrap without horny angel vibes electrocuting everything in sight.”
“I’m not sure how that happened, or whether I’m responsible. But I was very aroused,” Cas stated simply.
Dean grinned, eyeing the blush on Castiel’s cheeks. “You’re a lot more human than you give yourself credit for.”
“…Perhaps we should leave it at that. For now. I’m open to trying sex with you but I feel like this is what qualifies as a ‘mood killer,’” Cas shrugged, finger quotes used unironically.
“If you shorted out the entire street just from a kiss, I’m scared to think what might happen if we go all the way. Maybe I should get a hazmat suit. This Ghostbusters stuff is a bit more than I can handle.”
“I…have no control over these reactions, I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. If it turns out that making love to you would cause injury, I’m content to abstain.”
Dean chuckled, enamoured with Castiel’s deadpan earnestness. “You really are…”
The angel frowned, questioning. “What?”
“You really are something,” the hunter beamed, green eyes crinkling, smile utterly unrestrained. He seized Castiel’s face once more, hungry and worshipful. “You’re lucky you’re so damn lovable.”
The angel’s eyebrows raised comically, staring at Dean. He had heard plenty of disparaging adjectives used about himself over millennia. He certainly had never expected to hear something so positive, and from his favourite person in the world, no less.
“I think…you’re probably mistaken about that,” Castiel suggested, the expression in his blue eyes showing concern for his hunter, who was beaming at him, his green eyes shimmering.
“Nah, I don’t think so. But if I’m wrong, then we’re both unlovable, and we deserve each other.”
“Is that a…good thing?” Castiel queried, and Dean chuckled.
“I don’t think it even matters, Cas. I mean…you like me, I like you…everything’s peachy, right?”
“…Are you feeling alright?” the angel asked, before he was stifled with another hard, punching kiss, and he groaned softly against Dean’s mouth prior to being abruptly released again.
“Never better. You wanted me to be happy, right? In World of Dean? Believe it or not, I think I actually might be.”
“Even if we can’t have sex?”
“What do you take me for,” Dean huffed, amused. “Besides, we can burn that bridge when we come to it. I mean, if I’m totally wrong, and you’re not into me, say so now. I don’t wanna think this is all some giant celestial misunderstanding on my part.”
“You certainly…had a rapid change of heart from breaking glasses to what is apparently rapture,” Castiel noted, though he didn’t resist Dean’s hands, which continued cradling his face and thumbing over his skin.
“You know me, my personality is charmingly…” Dean searched for the right word.
“Unhinged?” Cas suggested, and the hunter tutted, rolling his eyes.
“I was gonna say ‘capricious.’ Look…after years of dealing with all kinds of crap – both of us know that life is far too freaking short not to try and grab hold of whatever brief, tiny piece of joy that you can, right?”
Castiel nodded sagely, and placed his hands over Dean’s, trailing fingertips comfortingly over rough skin.
“Good. Now I’m thinking, you and me had better make a move before we get tailed for arson, criminal damage…whatever the hell else you just did to this motel,” Dean grinned. “It’s a long drive to meet Sam tomorrow but for now, let’s just make tracks away from here, over state lines.”
“Can I come with you? In the car?” Castiel asked tentatively.
“Instead of just…disappearing? If you want,” Dean shrugged, finally releasing the angel’s face. “But driver picks music.”
~*~*~*~*~