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obstinatrixTitle: Bring It On Home, 1 of 2
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obstinatrix
Recipient:exmanhater in the Secret Angels IV exchange.
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Spoilers: General through S4 and 5, but nothing specific.
Word Count: 14,871
Notes/Prompt(s): This ended up as a sort of conglomeration of the prompts I was given, taking little bits from all of them. So in this fic you will find: matchmaking; Sam and Cas joining forces to influence Dean (sort of); lots of pining and longing on Cas’s part; vague rom-com action, and (hopefully) an edge of BAMF!Castiel.
Summary: Cas is beginning to display emotions. This wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for the fact that the emotions seem to be centring themselves on Dean. Dean is oblivious, of course; Sam, on the other hand, is not. Sam’s never tried his hand at matchmaking before, but it can’t be so hard, right?
NB: This post is for archiving purposes only. This fic was originally posted anonymously, here, and all comments (and my replies to them) are there.
One
Castiel still wasn't clear on why the magazine was, as Sam had asserted, 'typical, Dean; absolutely fucking typical of you. And completely useless.'
A cursory glance had shown, it was true, that it featured a considerable number of scantily-clad females: undoubtedly, a focus typical of Dean. Closer inspection, however, had proven the magazine to be utterly atypical of Dean's usual habits and tastes, in a variety of ways. Firstly, a lot of it seemed to be pink. Dean did not seem fond of pink things; indeed, Castiel even suspected him of particular avoidance of the colour (what Sam referred to as his 'overcompensating'). Moreover, it exhibited a certain investment in the intricacies of human emotional behaviour, something absolutely foreign to Castiel from his own interactions with Dean - and something, also, both useful and fascinating.
Dean had defended himself against Sam's accusations with regard to the publication - "What are you talking about, man? There's all kinds of crap in there about Relationships and Self Pleasure and shit. Says so right on the cover." He brandished the article in Sam's face, just to be clear.
Sam had appeared unconvinced. "Dean, it's for women. It's not going to help Cas deal with his Rising Angel problem."
"Yeah, well, it's got 100 Ways To Please Your Man In Bed, right? I'm sure he can work from that. Right, Cas?"
Cas had been, by this point, more lost than anything. He glanced uncertainly from Dean's expectant face to Sam's sceptical one. He had been far from sure of what he was being expected to agree with, but Dean's hopeful expression, all wide green eyes and eyebrows in a triumphal arch, was so - compelling. "...right."
"Right," Dean said, grinning, and slapped him on the back. "Okay then. I guess we're done here."
The answering expression that had materialised then on Sam Winchester's face had not been a grin. Castiel wasn't sure he was yet equipped to properly interpret it. But perhaps, with the aid of the magazine (perhaps, as Dean insisted, useful after all) he might begin to figure it out.
After he'd dealt with the Other Thing.
The Other Thing had been Dean’s name for it from the moment Cas had brought up the issue with him, over a week ago, now. Really, the issue had been coming up (rather literally) for a good while longer than that, but Cas had paid very little attention to it until it had begun to - well - to hurt. It was more of an ache, really, low and strange like a headache in some ill-defined part of him, but Castiel didn’t like it. It made him feel urgent, somehow, as if there were something very important he had forgotten to do before leaving the house. As if, maybe, he’d left the gas on and now could not get in to turn it off and prevent an untimely explosion. Was this, he’d asked Sam, an analogy that might make sense to humans?
Sam, for some reason, had found it far more humorous than Cas thought appropriate, although he had calmed himself after a minute. “I don’t know if you want to avoid an explosion, here, Cas,” he said slowly, biting his lip so that his words sounded a little mushy and strained around the edges. Humans seemed to do that a lot when explaining their bizarre ways to him. Cas wondered whether it was some sort of superstitious custom. “Why don’t you go ask Dean about it? He’ll explain it to you properly. You guys already covered the difference between day time clothes and pyjamas, and why Dean thinks it’s okay to sleep naked even when it’s totally inconsiderate, right? This is really a very logical next step.”
The strained pull to Sam’s voice didn’t seem to be dissipating, which Cas always found a little unnerving, but he looked earnest enough. Sam Winchester always looked earnest. It was very disarming. He had looked earnest when he had first explained to Dean that it would be a good thing if he were to educate Cas a little about human behaviour, so they never again had to find him showering in trenchcoat, suit and shoes. Dean had been reluctant, but Sam’s earnest face seemed to hold a strange sway over him, and the outcome had been good - now, for example, Castiel knew that one had to pay for things one wanted in gas stations, and not simply attempt to leave with packets of Cheetos stuffed into one’s pockets. Sam’s earnest face, Cas concluded, usually led to good things.
So he had asked Dean - casually, in the dairy aisle of a rundown Walmart, while Dean was explaining why only pussies ever bought skim.
“Dean,” he’d said, “I think I understand about the milk now. If we’re done here, do you think we could cover how to quell bodily urges?”
Dean almost dropped a quart of milk (full-fat, naturally). When he recovered himself, he was clutching it protectively to his chest like a baby, or possibly more like a human shield. Cas couldn’t be sure. “Urges?”
“Of the loins,” Cas explained, patiently. Dean screwed up his face in protest, and glanced furtively up and down the empty aisle.
“Of the - dude, I am not going to explain your dick to you, okay? You don’t need a frickin’ road map to jerk off.”
“To - ?” Cas tilted his head to one side, curious. “Are such explanatory maps available?”
Dean had become swiftly impatient. The next thing Cas knew, he was half-running to keep up as Dean stalked across the supermarket, coming to an abrupt halt in the newsprint aisle. “Here,” he said gruffly, after a moment’s inspection of the shelves. “Road map.”
Cas had inspected the magazine in his hands for a long few seconds, eyes widening. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. And now let’s never speak of this again, all right?”
And, because he had not really been offered any other option, Cas had agreed. Sam’s intervention, when he and Dean had returned to the motel, had done little to alter Dean’s stance on the issue. Later that evening, from his own room (which Sam had procured for him, claiming that the least they could do for Cas was give him some space, if Dean wasn’t going to be any goddamn help) he had heard them arguing through the wall.
Cas sighed, and looked back to the magazine. Dean seemed to be becoming impatient with regard to The Other Thing. Cas wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much. Sam alternated between pointed looks away from Cas’s crotch area and quiet suggestions that he visit the bathroom, when the problem arose, but Dean seemed to find it altogether more distasteful. Perhaps this was only because it seemed to happen so much more frequently when Dean was close to him. Dean didn’t seem to like that at all. This afternoon, he had reared up particularly violently from his narrow little bed when Cas had seated himself awkwardly beside him. “Goddammit, Cas, didn’t you figure out how to take care of that yet?”
“Maybe,” Sam said, slow and pointed, “he could use a little more help than that goddamn magazine, Dean, like I said.”
“I didn’t need any help!” Dean pointed out, gesticulating wildly. “Hell, you didn’t need any help, beyond ‘try putting your hand actually inside your underwear, bitch’, and you’re - well - sexually retarded!”
Sam stood up abruptly, wearing that expression that said he wasn’t sure where to begin with the many objectionable things Dean had just suggested. “I am not - oh, for Chrissake.” Sam sighed, hands up and spread as if in surrender. “Look, Dean - I was a thirteen year old kid, okay? Cas isn’t a kid. He’s never been a kid. He’s a frickin’ angel of the Lord wearing a devout, promise-ring tax accountant. Cut him some slack, yeah?”
Dean frowned. “I gave him a magazine!”
“And we already know what I think about that!”
Cas glanced from one of them to the other, uncomprehending.
“I could give him a different kind of magazine - “
“Or you could talk him through it?”
Dean put a hand over his eyes. “Jeez, Sam, if it bothers you that much, why don’t you help him?”
“Because,” Sam said, low and firm, “I think he wants your help. Dude, he’s your angel.”
The look that appeared on Dean’s face after that was - well. Castiel couldn’t read it, but something about it distressed him. Heat was rising in Dean’s cheeks, and that set an answering pull tingling at the base of Cas’s spine, even while prickles of discomfort chased each other over the nape of his neck.
“I can manage without,” he announced, standing up. “Obviously this is something too intimate to be discussed further. I do not wish to cause anyone any further discomfort.” He opened his trenchcoat, revealing the magazine tucked into the inside pocket. “If thirteen year old boys are able to figure this out on their own, I’m sure I can, too.”
Sam spread his hands in silent protest. Dean glowered at the floor. Cas indulged himself in a little disappearing act, even though his head ached dully when he rematerialised on the other side of the wall. Pointless, really, but sometimes the only way to soothe your pride was to remind people of all the ways in which you really were less ignorant and more useful than a thirteen-year-old. Really.
For a moment, he simply stood there while the blood resettled itself behind his eyes, breathing heavy and irritable through his nose. The blood between his legs, though, did not resettle with his anger, the dull throb of it a taunt to him now, and a challenge. Castiel sat down abruptly on the end of the bed, his legs slightly spread to accommodate the swollen heat of his groin. On the other side of the wall, the deep timbre of Dean’s voice rumbled on, Sam’s sharper tones rapping over it, evidently displeased. Castiel sighed, and lowered himself down onto his back.
The ceiling seemed to loom over him, an off-white expanse whose imperfections mocked his inadequacies. Next door, Dean was talking again, the low hum of his voice audible, if indistinct. Cas swallowed, feeling the blood pulse in his loins. Tentatively, he pressed his hand there; felt the rush of heat throb again against his palm, albeit through two layers of fabric.And, yes, the pressure was good, a clear step in the right direction, if the responses of this vessel were to be believed; the way his hips rocked up without conscious signal, seeking a firmer touch. Castiel indulged himself in this desire, sliding his hand down a little further between his spread legs, pressing firmly, and then drawing it up again until the vessel bucked into the touch. This was, after all, a task entirely for the purposes of relieving the vessel, Castiel mused. It seemed sensible to allow himself to be guided by its instincts, its natural impulses. The principle of the thing did not seem to be beyond the mindless drives of this body, even with its human occupant departed; perhaps the magazine’s benevolent advice would prove, after all, unnecessary.
His clothing, though. He remembered what Dean had said - try putting your hand actually inside your underwear, bitch. The diffuse pressure of his hand and wrist were a vague suggestion only of what his body sought. Evidently, this task correctly required nudity, an untrammelled communication between fingers and flesh. Castiel had learned already about clothing, about the boundaries between the man and his garments, and although buttons continued to be something of an affront to his sensibilities, he reached down to fumble resignedly with his fly; shoved his trousers roughly down his thighs. Freed from the constraints of the flat-fronted suit pants, Cas’s cock, he now saw, swelled obscenely, the fabric of his undershorts so distended that the waistband pulled away from his skin. Cas shifted his hand, the heel of it ghosting up the heated length of him where it tented the material, and the increase in sensation was so unexpectedly great that he whimpered in reaction. The scent of his groin was detectable now, too, musky and thick. Cas took a deep breath, inhaling, and peered at the head of his cock, making a bid for freedom.
“Inside,” he reminded himself, quietly, “your underwear. Inside.”
It was ridiculous, really, to speak when there was nobody to hear it. Castiel knew this, but the fact remained that this vessel seemed to find the illogical habit soothing, and at this moment, Castiel needed to be calm. Carefully, so carefully, he set his fingertips to the fine skin over one hipbone; trailed them slowly over the shallow concavity of his stomach, dipping just slightly beneath his waistband. Beneath his touch, his skin leaped and shivered, sharp rolling sparks spiralling outward from the point of contact. His cock strained with his closeness, leaping of its own accord like some sentient, some desperate, despairing thing.
“Patience,” Castiel told it (for there was nobody to listen), and slid his right hand, firm and swift, into his undershorts, down to grip the base of his cock.
The surge of his body at that simple touch, the way it reared upward into his hand, caught Cas off guard; left him gasping on the rocks of the sensation. It took him a moment to realise that, while the circle of his fingers was still loose and unmoving, his cock was, nevertheless, moving already through his fist, back and forth with the involuntary rocking of his hips. It was good, again, a good, right sort of feeling, and Cas sustained it, intensified it, tightening his grip. The strange thing was, or seemed to be, that the goodness could be felt not only under his hand, in the heated sheath of fingers on his flesh, but everywhere: thrumming in his stomach, prickling up the side of his neck so that his head arched backward; creeping over the arches of his feet. Cas clenched his toes within his shoes, as if he could channel the sensation back towards its source, redouble it with reciprocal pressure. “Oh,” he gasped out; rolled his hips and half-choked on the resulting jolt of feeling, a fierce wave of spiked heat that made him arch his back, chin upraised, a cry indistinct on his lips. “Oh!”
Evidently, then, Castiel was at least as capable as a thirteen year old boy. Something about this was working.
The human body, he thought, with its ingrained knowledge, was a fascinating and a troubling thing. The pistoning motion into which his hips had settled was not something he had learned, but simply something his flesh knew. Was it the fundamental sin within the vessel that carried that knowledge? Castiel wondered, half-consciously, as he shivered and tightened his fingers around himself, whether a vessel’s sin was not cancelled out, somehow, by the presence of grace. If this were so, could the instinct be a heavenly one? It seemed strange, that such knowledge should come from heaven, when those beings full of grace would never be touched by it. Humanity and the Host, grace and the Fall, were points of difficulty for Castiel at the best of times, but now the twisted logic of his argument swam behind his eyelids in dull spots of colour as he rocked into his hand. The knowledge was there, said his body; its source did not matter. Cas’s fingers shivered apart on an upstroke, thumb sweeping half-accidentally over the head of his cock, and the riptide of pleasure that resulted pressed his conscious mind into agreement.
And it seemed impossible, that there should be yet more to this; that the constant thrum of heat in his blood should leap still further when he thumbed the leaking crown, smearing the fluid there down to ease his attentions to the shaft. The pistoning motion of his hips was becoming erratic, his ankles and feet seeking to press down against something even as his pelvis torqued in reaction, wanting something more than Cas was giving. It was what his body wanted, this stroking of his fingers up and down the slick shaft of his cock from the root to the oversensitive tip, but it was not enough; it was not everything. Castiel bit back a frustrated sound, feeling the need for something else in some strange, indefinable space behind his sternum; floating somewhere just out of his eyeline. He sank his teeth into his lower lip, and struggled towards consciousness, trying to recall anything he had read that he might be forgetting. The physical urges of his body were, very evidently, all in play, but the magazine, he was sure, had suggested additional factors.
Fantasies. That was it; the memory burst through the haze of his pleasure in fragments of pink and bold type. The most important sex organ is the brain! the article had informed him, cheerily and unequivocal. But, where the part of the penis in sexual gratification was apparently quite straightforward, the part of the brain seemed more obscure. With what, Castiel thought frustratedly, should he attempt to occupy his thoughts? Dean, he supposed, would fixate upon the unclothed female form; the breasts of the barkeep from the evening before, burgeoning under her blouse, or the way her ass looked in her jeans as she walked away. Castiel attempted, accordingly, to summon an image in his mind. The girl that emerged was very nicely put together, her clothing skimpy and her smile inviting. Castiel did not understand the lack of interest his penis showed in the image. If anything, the exercise of creating his vision seemed to have pushed that Something a little further out of reach, the fantasy a distraction from his goal. Either the magazine was wrong, then, or his interpretation of its instructions had been fallacious. Castiel sighed, and tightened his fingers, redoubling his efforts.
It was ridiculous that there should be things of which he was incapable, things that human beings like Dean Winchester managed with ease every day. After all, his body was equal to theirs, and his mind was superior; there was no reason why he should be unable to do everything humans did. But there was a sensuality to Dean, something earthy and unhurried about the way he moved, the way he held himself, that made it very simple to imagine him doing this, fisting his cock with a slick-sticky ease that made his body roil with pleasure. The image seemed so natural that Cas’s own body flushed too, as if in sympathy, a thick pulse of heat dragging through him from his toes to the sweat at his hairline. For Dean, no doubt, this was second nature; no fully-clothed fumbling for him, anxious and struggling; not when he could spread himself naked on his unmade bed, sweat shining in the hollow of his throat when his head fell back in ecstasy. The thick silver ring flashing against the heat of Dean’s cock; the smoothness of it hard against Dean’s nipples as he explored the newness of himself, the unblemished perfection that Castiel had remade. Dean’s hand on his own flesh was so easy a thing,uncomplicated and expert and beautiful, and Castiel’s own fingers echoed it. In his mind, Dean’s long body was taut with tension, his breathing coming harsh, half-vocalised, as Castiel’s was, a sound with every stroke. Dean shivered with it; glowed with it; thrust his hips right up from the bed and into his hand as his climax spilled itself, copious and white over his hand.
It was a moment before Castiel recognised that the cry still dying away on the air had not been Dean’s, but his own. The crest of his efforts had caught him up like a wave, like grace, like light tearing out of him in every pore, and now his stomach was slick with his emissions, growing tacky. Castiel took heaving breaths, and trailed his fingers through it, curious. His body felt numb, detached, as if he were not quite touching the mattress beneath him.
From next door, after a moment, there came the sound of voices again, low-pitched, debating. The tone of the Dean-timbre was exultant. Sam’s voice, in response, sounded more sceptical, unwilling to be drawn. Even as the last vestiges of his bliss ebbed out of him, Castiel remembered that cry, the force with which his climax had ripped it from his throat. He sighed. Evidently, Dean had discerned that his efforts had been successful, and was pleased. Castiel was unsure why this realisation should make him feel so - disgruntled - but uncertainty did not change the facts. Castiel did not wish to return to the others while Dean sounded like that. He did not wish, in fact, to leave this room at all.
He sighed again, heavily, and rolled over onto his stomach, pressing his face into the pillow.
*
Castiel stayed pointedly in his own room for the next fourteen hours and forty-five minutes. Some instinct - whether his own or his vessel’s, he no longer knew or cared - told him that emerging after a period of sleep was the best way to evade a knowing glance from Dean, a snide comment. Potentially, of course, this would not be entirely successful, but it was worth the attempt.
As it happened, Dean was too sleepy at first to remember all the things he had, no doubt, thought of saying the previous evening, and on the one hand, this was excellently suited to Castiel’s purposes. On the other, a sleepy Dean was a languid, half-dressed tumble of boy, tousle-haired and soft, and the fact that this now made Castiel want, with a very definite sort of wanting, to push him back down onto the bed and jack him to climax was problematic.
So Castiel’s comfort was limited.
By the time Dean had been urged gently towards a cup of coffee, drowsy blankness giving way to knowing looks and slow, crooked smirks, Castiel was actively agitated. He squirmed in his seat at the little diner across the freeway from the motel, staring down his teacup like the barrel of a gun. Dean, God flay him, noticed the avoidance immediately.
“Hey.” Castiel could hear the grin in his voice even before Dean’s foot collided, under the table, with his ankle; and wasn’t it strange, that an expression could be so unmistakably audible? “So, sounded like you hit it out of the park last night, huh?”
Dean winked elaborately. Sam glanced at his brother, brows drawing together, and then returned his attention hastily to his bowl of fruit.
Castiel looked back at Dean with studied incomprehension. “I hit nothing.”
He was well aware of the common usage of baseball-derived terms as metaphors for sexual endeavours in American English, in constant currency for decades, but Dean was often easy to confuse in this way. Castiel had no wish to engage him.
Dean, however, looked undeterred, digging his elbow into Sam’s side and grinning more broadly. “You didn’t, huh? Coulda sworn you hit something a little like heaven.”
He was doing that thing he sometimes did, where his face scrunched itself up smugly, eyebrows gesticulating, head nodding, lips pursing outwards through the grin. Castiel felt a not entirely human desire to smite.
“Good goin’, Cas,” Dean said. “We’ll make a man outta you yet.” He leaned back in his chair, kicking out his feet. One of them - whether by accident or design, Castiel could not tell - ended up between Cas’s ankles. He felt himself flush, which only exacerbated his discomfort.
“Dean,” Sam said, cautioning. Cas dug his fingernails into his palms, and stood up.
“If I ever decide to descend to your level, Dean, you will be the first to know.”
His tone was cold, but Dean only tipped his head a little to the side, and laughed. Castiel pressed his lips together, irritated. His fists twitched, indignantly and entirely without his permission, at his sides. On the far side of the diner, a row of ketchup bottles leaped spontaneously from a shelf.
By the time Dean and Sam were done craning their necks to see what had happened, Castiel had disappeared.
*
When he returned, a little calmer, at around seven-thirty, Dean was shaving the underside of his jaw in the bathroom mirror. Castiel stood quite still, just behind his left shoulder, and watched. This was fine for about thirty seconds, until Dean half-turned to pull the shaving cream across the counter, realised he was not alone, and had his fist most of the way towards Cas’s face before he had fully processed the fact that his unexpected companion was not a demon.
“You are shaving,” Cas commented, lowering Dean’s fist and uncurling his own fingers from it.
“No shit, Sherlock!” Dean retorted, sharp and scowling.
Castiel didn’t bother pretending not to understand the reference. There wasn’t an angel in the Host who hadn’t encountered Mr Holmes at some point or other. He made himself very useful.
“I was under the impression that shaving was a morning activity,” Castiel observed.
Dean shrugged. He had, Castiel noticed, apparently recovered from his surprise, and was now rinsing the razor under the faucet. “Doesn’t seem to be much of an activity for you at all,” he commented. “Which, by the way, we might have to change. Getting a little stubbly round the edges, there, Cas.”
Castiel frowned, and brought up a hand to investigate. Sure enough, there was a distinct edge of roughness under his thumb as he traced the contour of his jawbone, scratchy against his skin. “This has never happened before,” he said, consternated.
“Like a lotta things, then,” Dean pointed out, smiling at him, not nastily. “‘s okay. I’ll show you. Then, if we can get you all nice and smooth again, you can come hit the hotspots with me. Huh?”
Castiel tilted his head, considering. The tone of Dean’s voice was light, now; pleasant. Castiel liked Dean’s voice when it was like this, all warm and obliging. It made him feel warmed and obliged, and that was good. And Dean had ceased making baseball references. Perhaps Sam had berated him for his behaviour in the diner; or perhaps Dean had sensed his error all on his own, and was showing contrition, in his own way. In any event, Cas no longer felt any inclination to smite him.
“I would like that,” he conceded. He glanced around the small bathroom. “Would it be easier if I sat down?”
“Uh.” Dean scratched his head. “Well, you’ll probably need the mirror, if you don’t want to end up covered in cuts.”
Cas frowned slightly. “I thought you were going to show me?”
Dean’s eyes widened. “You want me to - ?” He paused, breathed, and Cas could almost see Sam’s influence, there. Just - step back, Dean, okay? Be patient with him. He’s not a kid, but he’s not a man, either. You can’t just expect him to know all the stuff we know, if nobody ever showed him.
“Okay,” Dean said, after a second. “I guess.” He shrugged. “I shaved Sammy his first time. Easier to know what you’re trying to do yourself when you’ve got what it’s meant to feel like for reference.”
He ushered Cas towards the closed lid of the toilet, razor in hand. Castiel noticed, as he sat, that there was something oddly like a blush creeping up Dean’s cheeks. Strange.
“Lift your chin,” Dean said, clipped and blunt. He had raised his hand, fingers poised by Castiel’s jaw. Cas wanted, with a sudden, visceral wanting, to feel those fingers on his skin. He lifted his face.
“Is this suitable?”
“Sure, that’s great,” Dean said, absently. His fingers moved away, fumbling with the lid of the shaving cream, and Cas suppressed a pang of disappointment. The next moment, though, they were back, covered in white foam, and Castiel had barely time to breathe before the foam was being smeared across the lower part of his face, Dean’s hands brisk and expert as they worked it into his jaw and around his mouth. “Don’t talk,” Dean added, grinning.
Castiel pressed his lips together and widened his eyes, to demonstrate his acquiescence. Dean seemed satisfied.
“Okay. Kids are normally taught to start out going with the grain, all right? But that’s ‘cause their stubble starts out kinda fine, and their faces are all sensitive and shit, and I think we’re past that here. So I’m just gonna do it against the direction of growth - “ he demonstrated, slow pull of the razor up from Cas’s jawline over his cheek “ - ‘cause that’s quicker. It’s the way most guys do it.” He shook the foam and hair from the razor into the sink, rinsed it, and returned it to Cas’s face. Cas hummed understanding.
Dean was quick with the razor, casually expert. He didn’t hold onto Castiel’s face the entire time, somewhat to Cas’s disappointment, but from time to time he would steady it with fingers under his jaw, or on the back of his neck, gripping. The smell of him, from this close, was overwhelming and everywhere, warm and inviting as a waiting bath. Cas sighed through his nose.
“So,” Dean said, as he worked the razor up towards Cas’s left ear, “I’m gonna have plenty more to show you tonight.” He winked. It was the elaborate wink again. Castiel felt suddenly uneasy.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” Dean craned his neck, stretching to see what the razor was doing under the bolt of Cas’s jaw. His fingers curled around the nape of Cas’s neck, after a moment, tilting his head gently sideways, giving himself more room to manoeuvre. His fingertips were warm in the soft hair above Cas’s collar, and for a moment, Cas forgot his suspicions, leaning into the sensation.
“I mean, you’ve got the basic mechanics down, right?” Dean went on. “And it wasn’t exactly difficult, was it? I was kinda surprised you didn’t just go right off like a rocket, your first time, but hey, I guess if you’ve already got the stamina built in, that’s even better.”
It took a moment for Castiel’s mind to work its way back out of the haze into which Dean’s ministrations had submerged it. When the words processed, he glanced up sharply at Dean’s face; but there was no mocking smile there. Cas frowned. Perhaps Dean was, after all, simply curious, anxious to know that all was well. If that were true, there could be no benefit to anyone in a refusal to respond.
“It was not overly difficult, no,” Cas agreed. Dean’s thumb was under his ear, now, urging his face in the other direction, and he blindly obliged. “There was a moment when it seemed as if I had stranded myself on some sort of inescapable plateau, but I remembered that the magazine had suggested the construction of fantasies as a means of combating that sort of issue.”
Dean did laugh at that, but more in easy triumph than derision. He slapped his thigh. “I knew that magazine would be useful.” He shook his head, and resumed his task, still smiling. “So, what’d you come up with, huh? Cheerleaders? Hot nurses?” He winked. “Or were you indulging that little thing you got going for Ellen?”
“I did attempt to begin with images of the bartender you were admiring the evening before last,” Cas admitted, dreamily. The scrape of the razor over the line of his jawbone was soothing, comforting. It was difficult to think clearly through the sensation. “However, ultimately I found it most efficacious to visualise you stimulating yourself. It was as if the imagined climax acted as a trigger for the physical one. Is that common?”
Castiel noticed the sudden absence of the razor at his jaw before he registered the taut silence that had fallen. He frowned, and opened his eyes. Dean was staring back at him, eyes wide in what might have been horror, razor poised in his hand. “Dean?”
Dean took a step back, and set the razor down on the counter. He looked as if he was struggling for breath. “That,” he managed, after a long moment, “is not - common - okay? That’s just - you’re not supposed to think about other guys jerking off while you jerk off. That’s not how it works.” He shook his head. “I know it’s not your fault, when you don’t exactly have much to draw from, but there’s an easy solution to that, okay?”
He drew a hand over his face. It did not escape Cas that the hand was trembling finely.
“Bar,” Dean said, firmly. “Five minutes. We’re gonna fix this.”
And without another word, he strode out of the bathroom, leaving Cas alone with his partially-shaven face and a growing sense of impending doom.
*
The closest bar was a dubious-looking thing by the side of the road that looked more like an enormous tin can than a slick and buzzing hotspot, but the neon sign blinking by the door promised beer at obscenely low prices, so, naturally, it was stuffed to the gills with people. Dean eyed it through the driver’s side window with an expression of grim determination.
“No way are we dragging Cas in there,” said Sam.
The door of the establishment opened as they watched, and a blonde girl in a minuscule dress stumbled out of it into the leaked square of yellow light on the sidewalk. “Hot chicks,” Dean protested, spreading his hands.
The girl tottered a few steps, swayed worryingly, and then proceeded to vomit the contents of her stomach into the grass.
“Classy,” Sam said, dryly.
“Eh,” Dean returned, switching off the engine. “Happens everywhere.” He slid unconcernedly out of the car, slamming the door behind him. “C’mon, Cas. Let’s go get some.”
Truthfully, Dean was almost surprised that Cas was still here. After their little disagreement in the bathroom, he’d half expected to go back five minutes later and find the place empty, only the sense of Cas’s disapproval hanging in the air like a scent. But Cas had followed him, eventually - although not without a couple of cuts on the side of his face where he’d failed to finish what Dean started - and gotten into the car as directed. And okay, yeah, there was something about his pinch-lipped silence that made the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck prickle uneasily, but that was probably just ‘cause Cas was embarrassed. After all, the guy had a right to be. Everything would be easier when they’d gotten him off somewhere with some good-time girl (or two), and he had things straight in his head again. Dean didn’t anticipate having much trouble finding someone who’d go for Cas, provided he kept his mouth shut and didn’t start babbling in Enochian or some shit while he was fucking her. He was handsome enough, despite the majorly uncool outfit he refused to part with - all pre-fingered bedhair and eyes like endless pools, or whatever, and that mouth -
Dean jerked open the back door of the car and thought really hard about breasts. He obviously needed to get laid. “Come on, Cas.”
“If he doesn’t want to go with you,” Sam said, from inside the car, “I can’t say I blame him, Dean. You can probably get gonorrhoea just from breathing the air in there.”
“I want to go,” Castiel said, calmly, expressionless. He climbed out of the car, and looked at Dean. And - looked - at Dean. Dean squirmed, and felt suddenly desperate for Sam to join them, even though Sam was a cock-blocking loser who thought research was more interesting than pussy.
“I think I’ll wait here,” Sam said. Dean made outraged eyebrows at him. Sam responded with a bitchface that brooked no argument, and Dean sighed heavily.
“Fine. Whatever. You stay here and read about your frickin’ dragons, see if I care. Just don’t mess up my car.”
Sam waved his hand, signalling them to get the fuck on with it.
Dean felt Castiel’s eyes on the back of his neck all the way to the bar.
Apparently, when Cas said ‘I want to go with you’, what Cas actually meant was ‘I want to come stand creepily close to you and wither everyone who looks at you with my laser eyes’ - or at least, that was pretty much the best Dean could come up with, under the circumstances. He tried tending to the situation with a couple of doubles, but even though the lights looked a little brighter now, Cas still looked exactly as pissy as he had before. And he was still so close he was breathing on Dean’s fucking neck. Dean’s neck was sensitive; it sent all kinds of fucked up messages to other parts of his body, whoever’s breath it was making him goosepimply, and the last thing they needed was for Cas to get the wrong idea. Again.
“Dude,” Dean said, when he couldn’t stand it any more, “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think anyone’s getting laid tonight if you don’t stop staring down every chick who so much as looks over. Plus - “ he waved a hand, indicating the barely-there distance between them “ - I’m sorry, but this looks a little gay.”
Cas’s face darkened. Literally darkened, right there while Dean watched, and if he’d thought Cas looked pissy before, it was nothing to the way he looked now, with his brows furrowing and his jaw set and his eyes glinting dangerous steel in the cheap striplight glare. He looked as if he might have taken a menacing step forward, if there’d been anywhere left to step. Dean swallowed.
“At the moment,” Cas said, in a voice as dark as his expression, “I am very far from gay, Dean.”
Dean blinked. That was - well. Uh. “Good,” he got out, nodding his head encouragingly. “That’s good. But you just need - “
“There’s nothing good about it!” Cas’s hand came down on the bar with a crack no burst of human irritation could have produced. Dean was suddenly, creepingly, unhappily reminded that Cas, despite recent developments, wasn’t just some guy with behavioural difficulties. Cas was someone you really didn’t want to see wrath from. Dean licked his lips nervously.
“Look, Cas, I just - “
“You just.” Cas’s other hand found purchase on the edge of the bar, too, and somehow Dean had ended up between them, caged in the unforgiving embrace of Cas’s arms. The edge of the bar pressed into his back, and Cas was still fucking breathing right there on the side of his neck. Except, now Dean’s quietly pissy companion was gone, and in his place was a very, very unhappy angel. “You always just, Dean. You were just teasing. You were just trying to explain. Well, I am just somebody trying to figure out all this complicated, ludicrous human shit that I’m only dealing with because of you, because of what I’ve done for you, and I know you’re disgusted by the fact that I want you, you backward, bigoted little self-loathing jerk, but the least you can do is accept that it’s your own fault, and show me some fucking respect.”
Dean was very aware that he must look utterly ridiculous, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, heart thumping a furious tattoo in his throat. But before he could find it in himself to say anything at all, Cas’s fingers were twisting in the collar of his jacket, lifting him with terrifying ease, and slamming him down onto the bar hard enough that his teeth rattled. And then he was leaning in, leaning over him, all hot breath and bared teeth and the violent blue of his eyes, hissing, “I built you up from rot, Dean Winchester. Sometimes I wonder why the hell I bothered, will of God or not.”
When Castiel released him, it was violently, so that Dean’s head snapped back painfully, colour flaring behind his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled alone on the bar, dishevelled and humiliated and (what the fuck) tenting his jeans.
The weight of the stares of the people around him was like a physical pressure on his throat, stopping his breath. Dean tried a smile, and got stoniness and a couple of leers in response. Yeah, not so much that, then. There didn’t even seem to be any sympathetic chicks lining up to come kiss him better - whether because they thought he’d just been soundly beaten in a fight, or because they thought Cas was his overbearing boyfriend, Dean really didn’t want to know.
He did know that this was absolutely not how he’d wanted to end his night.
God dammit.
He heaved himself off the bar, threw a last, desperate little smile of apology at the glowering barman, and scuttled out in search of the sanctuary of the Impala.
Part 2
Author:
obstinatrixRecipient:
exmanhater in the Secret Angels IV exchange.Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: None
Spoilers: General through S4 and 5, but nothing specific.
Word Count: 14,871
Notes/Prompt(s): This ended up as a sort of conglomeration of the prompts I was given, taking little bits from all of them. So in this fic you will find: matchmaking; Sam and Cas joining forces to influence Dean (sort of); lots of pining and longing on Cas’s part; vague rom-com action, and (hopefully) an edge of BAMF!Castiel.
Summary: Cas is beginning to display emotions. This wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for the fact that the emotions seem to be centring themselves on Dean. Dean is oblivious, of course; Sam, on the other hand, is not. Sam’s never tried his hand at matchmaking before, but it can’t be so hard, right?
NB: This post is for archiving purposes only. This fic was originally posted anonymously, here, and all comments (and my replies to them) are there.
One
Castiel still wasn't clear on why the magazine was, as Sam had asserted, 'typical, Dean; absolutely fucking typical of you. And completely useless.'
A cursory glance had shown, it was true, that it featured a considerable number of scantily-clad females: undoubtedly, a focus typical of Dean. Closer inspection, however, had proven the magazine to be utterly atypical of Dean's usual habits and tastes, in a variety of ways. Firstly, a lot of it seemed to be pink. Dean did not seem fond of pink things; indeed, Castiel even suspected him of particular avoidance of the colour (what Sam referred to as his 'overcompensating'). Moreover, it exhibited a certain investment in the intricacies of human emotional behaviour, something absolutely foreign to Castiel from his own interactions with Dean - and something, also, both useful and fascinating.
Dean had defended himself against Sam's accusations with regard to the publication - "What are you talking about, man? There's all kinds of crap in there about Relationships and Self Pleasure and shit. Says so right on the cover." He brandished the article in Sam's face, just to be clear.
Sam had appeared unconvinced. "Dean, it's for women. It's not going to help Cas deal with his Rising Angel problem."
"Yeah, well, it's got 100 Ways To Please Your Man In Bed, right? I'm sure he can work from that. Right, Cas?"
Cas had been, by this point, more lost than anything. He glanced uncertainly from Dean's expectant face to Sam's sceptical one. He had been far from sure of what he was being expected to agree with, but Dean's hopeful expression, all wide green eyes and eyebrows in a triumphal arch, was so - compelling. "...right."
"Right," Dean said, grinning, and slapped him on the back. "Okay then. I guess we're done here."
The answering expression that had materialised then on Sam Winchester's face had not been a grin. Castiel wasn't sure he was yet equipped to properly interpret it. But perhaps, with the aid of the magazine (perhaps, as Dean insisted, useful after all) he might begin to figure it out.
After he'd dealt with the Other Thing.
The Other Thing had been Dean’s name for it from the moment Cas had brought up the issue with him, over a week ago, now. Really, the issue had been coming up (rather literally) for a good while longer than that, but Cas had paid very little attention to it until it had begun to - well - to hurt. It was more of an ache, really, low and strange like a headache in some ill-defined part of him, but Castiel didn’t like it. It made him feel urgent, somehow, as if there were something very important he had forgotten to do before leaving the house. As if, maybe, he’d left the gas on and now could not get in to turn it off and prevent an untimely explosion. Was this, he’d asked Sam, an analogy that might make sense to humans?
Sam, for some reason, had found it far more humorous than Cas thought appropriate, although he had calmed himself after a minute. “I don’t know if you want to avoid an explosion, here, Cas,” he said slowly, biting his lip so that his words sounded a little mushy and strained around the edges. Humans seemed to do that a lot when explaining their bizarre ways to him. Cas wondered whether it was some sort of superstitious custom. “Why don’t you go ask Dean about it? He’ll explain it to you properly. You guys already covered the difference between day time clothes and pyjamas, and why Dean thinks it’s okay to sleep naked even when it’s totally inconsiderate, right? This is really a very logical next step.”
The strained pull to Sam’s voice didn’t seem to be dissipating, which Cas always found a little unnerving, but he looked earnest enough. Sam Winchester always looked earnest. It was very disarming. He had looked earnest when he had first explained to Dean that it would be a good thing if he were to educate Cas a little about human behaviour, so they never again had to find him showering in trenchcoat, suit and shoes. Dean had been reluctant, but Sam’s earnest face seemed to hold a strange sway over him, and the outcome had been good - now, for example, Castiel knew that one had to pay for things one wanted in gas stations, and not simply attempt to leave with packets of Cheetos stuffed into one’s pockets. Sam’s earnest face, Cas concluded, usually led to good things.
So he had asked Dean - casually, in the dairy aisle of a rundown Walmart, while Dean was explaining why only pussies ever bought skim.
“Dean,” he’d said, “I think I understand about the milk now. If we’re done here, do you think we could cover how to quell bodily urges?”
Dean almost dropped a quart of milk (full-fat, naturally). When he recovered himself, he was clutching it protectively to his chest like a baby, or possibly more like a human shield. Cas couldn’t be sure. “Urges?”
“Of the loins,” Cas explained, patiently. Dean screwed up his face in protest, and glanced furtively up and down the empty aisle.
“Of the - dude, I am not going to explain your dick to you, okay? You don’t need a frickin’ road map to jerk off.”
“To - ?” Cas tilted his head to one side, curious. “Are such explanatory maps available?”
Dean had become swiftly impatient. The next thing Cas knew, he was half-running to keep up as Dean stalked across the supermarket, coming to an abrupt halt in the newsprint aisle. “Here,” he said gruffly, after a moment’s inspection of the shelves. “Road map.”
Cas had inspected the magazine in his hands for a long few seconds, eyes widening. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. And now let’s never speak of this again, all right?”
And, because he had not really been offered any other option, Cas had agreed. Sam’s intervention, when he and Dean had returned to the motel, had done little to alter Dean’s stance on the issue. Later that evening, from his own room (which Sam had procured for him, claiming that the least they could do for Cas was give him some space, if Dean wasn’t going to be any goddamn help) he had heard them arguing through the wall.
Cas sighed, and looked back to the magazine. Dean seemed to be becoming impatient with regard to The Other Thing. Cas wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much. Sam alternated between pointed looks away from Cas’s crotch area and quiet suggestions that he visit the bathroom, when the problem arose, but Dean seemed to find it altogether more distasteful. Perhaps this was only because it seemed to happen so much more frequently when Dean was close to him. Dean didn’t seem to like that at all. This afternoon, he had reared up particularly violently from his narrow little bed when Cas had seated himself awkwardly beside him. “Goddammit, Cas, didn’t you figure out how to take care of that yet?”
“Maybe,” Sam said, slow and pointed, “he could use a little more help than that goddamn magazine, Dean, like I said.”
“I didn’t need any help!” Dean pointed out, gesticulating wildly. “Hell, you didn’t need any help, beyond ‘try putting your hand actually inside your underwear, bitch’, and you’re - well - sexually retarded!”
Sam stood up abruptly, wearing that expression that said he wasn’t sure where to begin with the many objectionable things Dean had just suggested. “I am not - oh, for Chrissake.” Sam sighed, hands up and spread as if in surrender. “Look, Dean - I was a thirteen year old kid, okay? Cas isn’t a kid. He’s never been a kid. He’s a frickin’ angel of the Lord wearing a devout, promise-ring tax accountant. Cut him some slack, yeah?”
Dean frowned. “I gave him a magazine!”
“And we already know what I think about that!”
Cas glanced from one of them to the other, uncomprehending.
“I could give him a different kind of magazine - “
“Or you could talk him through it?”
Dean put a hand over his eyes. “Jeez, Sam, if it bothers you that much, why don’t you help him?”
“Because,” Sam said, low and firm, “I think he wants your help. Dude, he’s your angel.”
The look that appeared on Dean’s face after that was - well. Castiel couldn’t read it, but something about it distressed him. Heat was rising in Dean’s cheeks, and that set an answering pull tingling at the base of Cas’s spine, even while prickles of discomfort chased each other over the nape of his neck.
“I can manage without,” he announced, standing up. “Obviously this is something too intimate to be discussed further. I do not wish to cause anyone any further discomfort.” He opened his trenchcoat, revealing the magazine tucked into the inside pocket. “If thirteen year old boys are able to figure this out on their own, I’m sure I can, too.”
Sam spread his hands in silent protest. Dean glowered at the floor. Cas indulged himself in a little disappearing act, even though his head ached dully when he rematerialised on the other side of the wall. Pointless, really, but sometimes the only way to soothe your pride was to remind people of all the ways in which you really were less ignorant and more useful than a thirteen-year-old. Really.
For a moment, he simply stood there while the blood resettled itself behind his eyes, breathing heavy and irritable through his nose. The blood between his legs, though, did not resettle with his anger, the dull throb of it a taunt to him now, and a challenge. Castiel sat down abruptly on the end of the bed, his legs slightly spread to accommodate the swollen heat of his groin. On the other side of the wall, the deep timbre of Dean’s voice rumbled on, Sam’s sharper tones rapping over it, evidently displeased. Castiel sighed, and lowered himself down onto his back.
The ceiling seemed to loom over him, an off-white expanse whose imperfections mocked his inadequacies. Next door, Dean was talking again, the low hum of his voice audible, if indistinct. Cas swallowed, feeling the blood pulse in his loins. Tentatively, he pressed his hand there; felt the rush of heat throb again against his palm, albeit through two layers of fabric.And, yes, the pressure was good, a clear step in the right direction, if the responses of this vessel were to be believed; the way his hips rocked up without conscious signal, seeking a firmer touch. Castiel indulged himself in this desire, sliding his hand down a little further between his spread legs, pressing firmly, and then drawing it up again until the vessel bucked into the touch. This was, after all, a task entirely for the purposes of relieving the vessel, Castiel mused. It seemed sensible to allow himself to be guided by its instincts, its natural impulses. The principle of the thing did not seem to be beyond the mindless drives of this body, even with its human occupant departed; perhaps the magazine’s benevolent advice would prove, after all, unnecessary.
His clothing, though. He remembered what Dean had said - try putting your hand actually inside your underwear, bitch. The diffuse pressure of his hand and wrist were a vague suggestion only of what his body sought. Evidently, this task correctly required nudity, an untrammelled communication between fingers and flesh. Castiel had learned already about clothing, about the boundaries between the man and his garments, and although buttons continued to be something of an affront to his sensibilities, he reached down to fumble resignedly with his fly; shoved his trousers roughly down his thighs. Freed from the constraints of the flat-fronted suit pants, Cas’s cock, he now saw, swelled obscenely, the fabric of his undershorts so distended that the waistband pulled away from his skin. Cas shifted his hand, the heel of it ghosting up the heated length of him where it tented the material, and the increase in sensation was so unexpectedly great that he whimpered in reaction. The scent of his groin was detectable now, too, musky and thick. Cas took a deep breath, inhaling, and peered at the head of his cock, making a bid for freedom.
“Inside,” he reminded himself, quietly, “your underwear. Inside.”
It was ridiculous, really, to speak when there was nobody to hear it. Castiel knew this, but the fact remained that this vessel seemed to find the illogical habit soothing, and at this moment, Castiel needed to be calm. Carefully, so carefully, he set his fingertips to the fine skin over one hipbone; trailed them slowly over the shallow concavity of his stomach, dipping just slightly beneath his waistband. Beneath his touch, his skin leaped and shivered, sharp rolling sparks spiralling outward from the point of contact. His cock strained with his closeness, leaping of its own accord like some sentient, some desperate, despairing thing.
“Patience,” Castiel told it (for there was nobody to listen), and slid his right hand, firm and swift, into his undershorts, down to grip the base of his cock.
The surge of his body at that simple touch, the way it reared upward into his hand, caught Cas off guard; left him gasping on the rocks of the sensation. It took him a moment to realise that, while the circle of his fingers was still loose and unmoving, his cock was, nevertheless, moving already through his fist, back and forth with the involuntary rocking of his hips. It was good, again, a good, right sort of feeling, and Cas sustained it, intensified it, tightening his grip. The strange thing was, or seemed to be, that the goodness could be felt not only under his hand, in the heated sheath of fingers on his flesh, but everywhere: thrumming in his stomach, prickling up the side of his neck so that his head arched backward; creeping over the arches of his feet. Cas clenched his toes within his shoes, as if he could channel the sensation back towards its source, redouble it with reciprocal pressure. “Oh,” he gasped out; rolled his hips and half-choked on the resulting jolt of feeling, a fierce wave of spiked heat that made him arch his back, chin upraised, a cry indistinct on his lips. “Oh!”
Evidently, then, Castiel was at least as capable as a thirteen year old boy. Something about this was working.
The human body, he thought, with its ingrained knowledge, was a fascinating and a troubling thing. The pistoning motion into which his hips had settled was not something he had learned, but simply something his flesh knew. Was it the fundamental sin within the vessel that carried that knowledge? Castiel wondered, half-consciously, as he shivered and tightened his fingers around himself, whether a vessel’s sin was not cancelled out, somehow, by the presence of grace. If this were so, could the instinct be a heavenly one? It seemed strange, that such knowledge should come from heaven, when those beings full of grace would never be touched by it. Humanity and the Host, grace and the Fall, were points of difficulty for Castiel at the best of times, but now the twisted logic of his argument swam behind his eyelids in dull spots of colour as he rocked into his hand. The knowledge was there, said his body; its source did not matter. Cas’s fingers shivered apart on an upstroke, thumb sweeping half-accidentally over the head of his cock, and the riptide of pleasure that resulted pressed his conscious mind into agreement.
And it seemed impossible, that there should be yet more to this; that the constant thrum of heat in his blood should leap still further when he thumbed the leaking crown, smearing the fluid there down to ease his attentions to the shaft. The pistoning motion of his hips was becoming erratic, his ankles and feet seeking to press down against something even as his pelvis torqued in reaction, wanting something more than Cas was giving. It was what his body wanted, this stroking of his fingers up and down the slick shaft of his cock from the root to the oversensitive tip, but it was not enough; it was not everything. Castiel bit back a frustrated sound, feeling the need for something else in some strange, indefinable space behind his sternum; floating somewhere just out of his eyeline. He sank his teeth into his lower lip, and struggled towards consciousness, trying to recall anything he had read that he might be forgetting. The physical urges of his body were, very evidently, all in play, but the magazine, he was sure, had suggested additional factors.
Fantasies. That was it; the memory burst through the haze of his pleasure in fragments of pink and bold type. The most important sex organ is the brain! the article had informed him, cheerily and unequivocal. But, where the part of the penis in sexual gratification was apparently quite straightforward, the part of the brain seemed more obscure. With what, Castiel thought frustratedly, should he attempt to occupy his thoughts? Dean, he supposed, would fixate upon the unclothed female form; the breasts of the barkeep from the evening before, burgeoning under her blouse, or the way her ass looked in her jeans as she walked away. Castiel attempted, accordingly, to summon an image in his mind. The girl that emerged was very nicely put together, her clothing skimpy and her smile inviting. Castiel did not understand the lack of interest his penis showed in the image. If anything, the exercise of creating his vision seemed to have pushed that Something a little further out of reach, the fantasy a distraction from his goal. Either the magazine was wrong, then, or his interpretation of its instructions had been fallacious. Castiel sighed, and tightened his fingers, redoubling his efforts.
It was ridiculous that there should be things of which he was incapable, things that human beings like Dean Winchester managed with ease every day. After all, his body was equal to theirs, and his mind was superior; there was no reason why he should be unable to do everything humans did. But there was a sensuality to Dean, something earthy and unhurried about the way he moved, the way he held himself, that made it very simple to imagine him doing this, fisting his cock with a slick-sticky ease that made his body roil with pleasure. The image seemed so natural that Cas’s own body flushed too, as if in sympathy, a thick pulse of heat dragging through him from his toes to the sweat at his hairline. For Dean, no doubt, this was second nature; no fully-clothed fumbling for him, anxious and struggling; not when he could spread himself naked on his unmade bed, sweat shining in the hollow of his throat when his head fell back in ecstasy. The thick silver ring flashing against the heat of Dean’s cock; the smoothness of it hard against Dean’s nipples as he explored the newness of himself, the unblemished perfection that Castiel had remade. Dean’s hand on his own flesh was so easy a thing,uncomplicated and expert and beautiful, and Castiel’s own fingers echoed it. In his mind, Dean’s long body was taut with tension, his breathing coming harsh, half-vocalised, as Castiel’s was, a sound with every stroke. Dean shivered with it; glowed with it; thrust his hips right up from the bed and into his hand as his climax spilled itself, copious and white over his hand.
It was a moment before Castiel recognised that the cry still dying away on the air had not been Dean’s, but his own. The crest of his efforts had caught him up like a wave, like grace, like light tearing out of him in every pore, and now his stomach was slick with his emissions, growing tacky. Castiel took heaving breaths, and trailed his fingers through it, curious. His body felt numb, detached, as if he were not quite touching the mattress beneath him.
From next door, after a moment, there came the sound of voices again, low-pitched, debating. The tone of the Dean-timbre was exultant. Sam’s voice, in response, sounded more sceptical, unwilling to be drawn. Even as the last vestiges of his bliss ebbed out of him, Castiel remembered that cry, the force with which his climax had ripped it from his throat. He sighed. Evidently, Dean had discerned that his efforts had been successful, and was pleased. Castiel was unsure why this realisation should make him feel so - disgruntled - but uncertainty did not change the facts. Castiel did not wish to return to the others while Dean sounded like that. He did not wish, in fact, to leave this room at all.
He sighed again, heavily, and rolled over onto his stomach, pressing his face into the pillow.
*
Castiel stayed pointedly in his own room for the next fourteen hours and forty-five minutes. Some instinct - whether his own or his vessel’s, he no longer knew or cared - told him that emerging after a period of sleep was the best way to evade a knowing glance from Dean, a snide comment. Potentially, of course, this would not be entirely successful, but it was worth the attempt.
As it happened, Dean was too sleepy at first to remember all the things he had, no doubt, thought of saying the previous evening, and on the one hand, this was excellently suited to Castiel’s purposes. On the other, a sleepy Dean was a languid, half-dressed tumble of boy, tousle-haired and soft, and the fact that this now made Castiel want, with a very definite sort of wanting, to push him back down onto the bed and jack him to climax was problematic.
So Castiel’s comfort was limited.
By the time Dean had been urged gently towards a cup of coffee, drowsy blankness giving way to knowing looks and slow, crooked smirks, Castiel was actively agitated. He squirmed in his seat at the little diner across the freeway from the motel, staring down his teacup like the barrel of a gun. Dean, God flay him, noticed the avoidance immediately.
“Hey.” Castiel could hear the grin in his voice even before Dean’s foot collided, under the table, with his ankle; and wasn’t it strange, that an expression could be so unmistakably audible? “So, sounded like you hit it out of the park last night, huh?”
Dean winked elaborately. Sam glanced at his brother, brows drawing together, and then returned his attention hastily to his bowl of fruit.
Castiel looked back at Dean with studied incomprehension. “I hit nothing.”
He was well aware of the common usage of baseball-derived terms as metaphors for sexual endeavours in American English, in constant currency for decades, but Dean was often easy to confuse in this way. Castiel had no wish to engage him.
Dean, however, looked undeterred, digging his elbow into Sam’s side and grinning more broadly. “You didn’t, huh? Coulda sworn you hit something a little like heaven.”
He was doing that thing he sometimes did, where his face scrunched itself up smugly, eyebrows gesticulating, head nodding, lips pursing outwards through the grin. Castiel felt a not entirely human desire to smite.
“Good goin’, Cas,” Dean said. “We’ll make a man outta you yet.” He leaned back in his chair, kicking out his feet. One of them - whether by accident or design, Castiel could not tell - ended up between Cas’s ankles. He felt himself flush, which only exacerbated his discomfort.
“Dean,” Sam said, cautioning. Cas dug his fingernails into his palms, and stood up.
“If I ever decide to descend to your level, Dean, you will be the first to know.”
His tone was cold, but Dean only tipped his head a little to the side, and laughed. Castiel pressed his lips together, irritated. His fists twitched, indignantly and entirely without his permission, at his sides. On the far side of the diner, a row of ketchup bottles leaped spontaneously from a shelf.
By the time Dean and Sam were done craning their necks to see what had happened, Castiel had disappeared.
*
When he returned, a little calmer, at around seven-thirty, Dean was shaving the underside of his jaw in the bathroom mirror. Castiel stood quite still, just behind his left shoulder, and watched. This was fine for about thirty seconds, until Dean half-turned to pull the shaving cream across the counter, realised he was not alone, and had his fist most of the way towards Cas’s face before he had fully processed the fact that his unexpected companion was not a demon.
“You are shaving,” Cas commented, lowering Dean’s fist and uncurling his own fingers from it.
“No shit, Sherlock!” Dean retorted, sharp and scowling.
Castiel didn’t bother pretending not to understand the reference. There wasn’t an angel in the Host who hadn’t encountered Mr Holmes at some point or other. He made himself very useful.
“I was under the impression that shaving was a morning activity,” Castiel observed.
Dean shrugged. He had, Castiel noticed, apparently recovered from his surprise, and was now rinsing the razor under the faucet. “Doesn’t seem to be much of an activity for you at all,” he commented. “Which, by the way, we might have to change. Getting a little stubbly round the edges, there, Cas.”
Castiel frowned, and brought up a hand to investigate. Sure enough, there was a distinct edge of roughness under his thumb as he traced the contour of his jawbone, scratchy against his skin. “This has never happened before,” he said, consternated.
“Like a lotta things, then,” Dean pointed out, smiling at him, not nastily. “‘s okay. I’ll show you. Then, if we can get you all nice and smooth again, you can come hit the hotspots with me. Huh?”
Castiel tilted his head, considering. The tone of Dean’s voice was light, now; pleasant. Castiel liked Dean’s voice when it was like this, all warm and obliging. It made him feel warmed and obliged, and that was good. And Dean had ceased making baseball references. Perhaps Sam had berated him for his behaviour in the diner; or perhaps Dean had sensed his error all on his own, and was showing contrition, in his own way. In any event, Cas no longer felt any inclination to smite him.
“I would like that,” he conceded. He glanced around the small bathroom. “Would it be easier if I sat down?”
“Uh.” Dean scratched his head. “Well, you’ll probably need the mirror, if you don’t want to end up covered in cuts.”
Cas frowned slightly. “I thought you were going to show me?”
Dean’s eyes widened. “You want me to - ?” He paused, breathed, and Cas could almost see Sam’s influence, there. Just - step back, Dean, okay? Be patient with him. He’s not a kid, but he’s not a man, either. You can’t just expect him to know all the stuff we know, if nobody ever showed him.
“Okay,” Dean said, after a second. “I guess.” He shrugged. “I shaved Sammy his first time. Easier to know what you’re trying to do yourself when you’ve got what it’s meant to feel like for reference.”
He ushered Cas towards the closed lid of the toilet, razor in hand. Castiel noticed, as he sat, that there was something oddly like a blush creeping up Dean’s cheeks. Strange.
“Lift your chin,” Dean said, clipped and blunt. He had raised his hand, fingers poised by Castiel’s jaw. Cas wanted, with a sudden, visceral wanting, to feel those fingers on his skin. He lifted his face.
“Is this suitable?”
“Sure, that’s great,” Dean said, absently. His fingers moved away, fumbling with the lid of the shaving cream, and Cas suppressed a pang of disappointment. The next moment, though, they were back, covered in white foam, and Castiel had barely time to breathe before the foam was being smeared across the lower part of his face, Dean’s hands brisk and expert as they worked it into his jaw and around his mouth. “Don’t talk,” Dean added, grinning.
Castiel pressed his lips together and widened his eyes, to demonstrate his acquiescence. Dean seemed satisfied.
“Okay. Kids are normally taught to start out going with the grain, all right? But that’s ‘cause their stubble starts out kinda fine, and their faces are all sensitive and shit, and I think we’re past that here. So I’m just gonna do it against the direction of growth - “ he demonstrated, slow pull of the razor up from Cas’s jawline over his cheek “ - ‘cause that’s quicker. It’s the way most guys do it.” He shook the foam and hair from the razor into the sink, rinsed it, and returned it to Cas’s face. Cas hummed understanding.
Dean was quick with the razor, casually expert. He didn’t hold onto Castiel’s face the entire time, somewhat to Cas’s disappointment, but from time to time he would steady it with fingers under his jaw, or on the back of his neck, gripping. The smell of him, from this close, was overwhelming and everywhere, warm and inviting as a waiting bath. Cas sighed through his nose.
“So,” Dean said, as he worked the razor up towards Cas’s left ear, “I’m gonna have plenty more to show you tonight.” He winked. It was the elaborate wink again. Castiel felt suddenly uneasy.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” Dean craned his neck, stretching to see what the razor was doing under the bolt of Cas’s jaw. His fingers curled around the nape of Cas’s neck, after a moment, tilting his head gently sideways, giving himself more room to manoeuvre. His fingertips were warm in the soft hair above Cas’s collar, and for a moment, Cas forgot his suspicions, leaning into the sensation.
“I mean, you’ve got the basic mechanics down, right?” Dean went on. “And it wasn’t exactly difficult, was it? I was kinda surprised you didn’t just go right off like a rocket, your first time, but hey, I guess if you’ve already got the stamina built in, that’s even better.”
It took a moment for Castiel’s mind to work its way back out of the haze into which Dean’s ministrations had submerged it. When the words processed, he glanced up sharply at Dean’s face; but there was no mocking smile there. Cas frowned. Perhaps Dean was, after all, simply curious, anxious to know that all was well. If that were true, there could be no benefit to anyone in a refusal to respond.
“It was not overly difficult, no,” Cas agreed. Dean’s thumb was under his ear, now, urging his face in the other direction, and he blindly obliged. “There was a moment when it seemed as if I had stranded myself on some sort of inescapable plateau, but I remembered that the magazine had suggested the construction of fantasies as a means of combating that sort of issue.”
Dean did laugh at that, but more in easy triumph than derision. He slapped his thigh. “I knew that magazine would be useful.” He shook his head, and resumed his task, still smiling. “So, what’d you come up with, huh? Cheerleaders? Hot nurses?” He winked. “Or were you indulging that little thing you got going for Ellen?”
“I did attempt to begin with images of the bartender you were admiring the evening before last,” Cas admitted, dreamily. The scrape of the razor over the line of his jawbone was soothing, comforting. It was difficult to think clearly through the sensation. “However, ultimately I found it most efficacious to visualise you stimulating yourself. It was as if the imagined climax acted as a trigger for the physical one. Is that common?”
Castiel noticed the sudden absence of the razor at his jaw before he registered the taut silence that had fallen. He frowned, and opened his eyes. Dean was staring back at him, eyes wide in what might have been horror, razor poised in his hand. “Dean?”
Dean took a step back, and set the razor down on the counter. He looked as if he was struggling for breath. “That,” he managed, after a long moment, “is not - common - okay? That’s just - you’re not supposed to think about other guys jerking off while you jerk off. That’s not how it works.” He shook his head. “I know it’s not your fault, when you don’t exactly have much to draw from, but there’s an easy solution to that, okay?”
He drew a hand over his face. It did not escape Cas that the hand was trembling finely.
“Bar,” Dean said, firmly. “Five minutes. We’re gonna fix this.”
And without another word, he strode out of the bathroom, leaving Cas alone with his partially-shaven face and a growing sense of impending doom.
*
The closest bar was a dubious-looking thing by the side of the road that looked more like an enormous tin can than a slick and buzzing hotspot, but the neon sign blinking by the door promised beer at obscenely low prices, so, naturally, it was stuffed to the gills with people. Dean eyed it through the driver’s side window with an expression of grim determination.
“No way are we dragging Cas in there,” said Sam.
The door of the establishment opened as they watched, and a blonde girl in a minuscule dress stumbled out of it into the leaked square of yellow light on the sidewalk. “Hot chicks,” Dean protested, spreading his hands.
The girl tottered a few steps, swayed worryingly, and then proceeded to vomit the contents of her stomach into the grass.
“Classy,” Sam said, dryly.
“Eh,” Dean returned, switching off the engine. “Happens everywhere.” He slid unconcernedly out of the car, slamming the door behind him. “C’mon, Cas. Let’s go get some.”
Truthfully, Dean was almost surprised that Cas was still here. After their little disagreement in the bathroom, he’d half expected to go back five minutes later and find the place empty, only the sense of Cas’s disapproval hanging in the air like a scent. But Cas had followed him, eventually - although not without a couple of cuts on the side of his face where he’d failed to finish what Dean started - and gotten into the car as directed. And okay, yeah, there was something about his pinch-lipped silence that made the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck prickle uneasily, but that was probably just ‘cause Cas was embarrassed. After all, the guy had a right to be. Everything would be easier when they’d gotten him off somewhere with some good-time girl (or two), and he had things straight in his head again. Dean didn’t anticipate having much trouble finding someone who’d go for Cas, provided he kept his mouth shut and didn’t start babbling in Enochian or some shit while he was fucking her. He was handsome enough, despite the majorly uncool outfit he refused to part with - all pre-fingered bedhair and eyes like endless pools, or whatever, and that mouth -
Dean jerked open the back door of the car and thought really hard about breasts. He obviously needed to get laid. “Come on, Cas.”
“If he doesn’t want to go with you,” Sam said, from inside the car, “I can’t say I blame him, Dean. You can probably get gonorrhoea just from breathing the air in there.”
“I want to go,” Castiel said, calmly, expressionless. He climbed out of the car, and looked at Dean. And - looked - at Dean. Dean squirmed, and felt suddenly desperate for Sam to join them, even though Sam was a cock-blocking loser who thought research was more interesting than pussy.
“I think I’ll wait here,” Sam said. Dean made outraged eyebrows at him. Sam responded with a bitchface that brooked no argument, and Dean sighed heavily.
“Fine. Whatever. You stay here and read about your frickin’ dragons, see if I care. Just don’t mess up my car.”
Sam waved his hand, signalling them to get the fuck on with it.
Dean felt Castiel’s eyes on the back of his neck all the way to the bar.
Apparently, when Cas said ‘I want to go with you’, what Cas actually meant was ‘I want to come stand creepily close to you and wither everyone who looks at you with my laser eyes’ - or at least, that was pretty much the best Dean could come up with, under the circumstances. He tried tending to the situation with a couple of doubles, but even though the lights looked a little brighter now, Cas still looked exactly as pissy as he had before. And he was still so close he was breathing on Dean’s fucking neck. Dean’s neck was sensitive; it sent all kinds of fucked up messages to other parts of his body, whoever’s breath it was making him goosepimply, and the last thing they needed was for Cas to get the wrong idea. Again.
“Dude,” Dean said, when he couldn’t stand it any more, “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think anyone’s getting laid tonight if you don’t stop staring down every chick who so much as looks over. Plus - “ he waved a hand, indicating the barely-there distance between them “ - I’m sorry, but this looks a little gay.”
Cas’s face darkened. Literally darkened, right there while Dean watched, and if he’d thought Cas looked pissy before, it was nothing to the way he looked now, with his brows furrowing and his jaw set and his eyes glinting dangerous steel in the cheap striplight glare. He looked as if he might have taken a menacing step forward, if there’d been anywhere left to step. Dean swallowed.
“At the moment,” Cas said, in a voice as dark as his expression, “I am very far from gay, Dean.”
Dean blinked. That was - well. Uh. “Good,” he got out, nodding his head encouragingly. “That’s good. But you just need - “
“There’s nothing good about it!” Cas’s hand came down on the bar with a crack no burst of human irritation could have produced. Dean was suddenly, creepingly, unhappily reminded that Cas, despite recent developments, wasn’t just some guy with behavioural difficulties. Cas was someone you really didn’t want to see wrath from. Dean licked his lips nervously.
“Look, Cas, I just - “
“You just.” Cas’s other hand found purchase on the edge of the bar, too, and somehow Dean had ended up between them, caged in the unforgiving embrace of Cas’s arms. The edge of the bar pressed into his back, and Cas was still fucking breathing right there on the side of his neck. Except, now Dean’s quietly pissy companion was gone, and in his place was a very, very unhappy angel. “You always just, Dean. You were just teasing. You were just trying to explain. Well, I am just somebody trying to figure out all this complicated, ludicrous human shit that I’m only dealing with because of you, because of what I’ve done for you, and I know you’re disgusted by the fact that I want you, you backward, bigoted little self-loathing jerk, but the least you can do is accept that it’s your own fault, and show me some fucking respect.”
Dean was very aware that he must look utterly ridiculous, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, heart thumping a furious tattoo in his throat. But before he could find it in himself to say anything at all, Cas’s fingers were twisting in the collar of his jacket, lifting him with terrifying ease, and slamming him down onto the bar hard enough that his teeth rattled. And then he was leaning in, leaning over him, all hot breath and bared teeth and the violent blue of his eyes, hissing, “I built you up from rot, Dean Winchester. Sometimes I wonder why the hell I bothered, will of God or not.”
When Castiel released him, it was violently, so that Dean’s head snapped back painfully, colour flaring behind his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled alone on the bar, dishevelled and humiliated and (what the fuck) tenting his jeans.
The weight of the stares of the people around him was like a physical pressure on his throat, stopping his breath. Dean tried a smile, and got stoniness and a couple of leers in response. Yeah, not so much that, then. There didn’t even seem to be any sympathetic chicks lining up to come kiss him better - whether because they thought he’d just been soundly beaten in a fight, or because they thought Cas was his overbearing boyfriend, Dean really didn’t want to know.
He did know that this was absolutely not how he’d wanted to end his night.
God dammit.
He heaved himself off the bar, threw a last, desperate little smile of apology at the glowering barman, and scuttled out in search of the sanctuary of the Impala.
Part 2
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-01-21 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-16 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-24 10:17 am (UTC)And then the scene at the bar. Oh wow. Cas went from "confused and adorable and mockable" to "holyshitBAMF. Dean, do not fuck with this shit". So, so awesome.
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Date: 2012-06-21 01:34 am (UTC)Of Course dean's being oblivious and shit.
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Date: 2013-09-08 06:50 pm (UTC)You've taken my fanfic virginity lol, & it was everything I could hope for.
I don't read much due to health issues.
I read a snippet on Tumblr, & searched high & low for this piece.
Thanks for your great writing, & making Cas a top (my headcanon).
I need a cigarette now, even though I don't smoke... maybe a cold shower instead? ;)
Great writing; thanks for sharing.
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Date: 2015-04-11 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-11 11:49 pm (UTC)