The Game of God: Day 156 - part 6

’A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’

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— Day 156, continued —

Kara is working front desk, and Dean waves at her as they come in. Castiel notes how her gaze lingers on Dean, and Dean grins back, as if unaware doing that might very well be the equivalent of a naturally occurring compulsion, requiring all that behold his smile to immediately feel an overwhelming need to throw themselves at him. “Have a good night. Try to get in bed by dawn, okay?”

“Night, Dean,” she answers, expression wistful. “And Cas,” she adds, looking startled at his existence, and he bites back a laugh, nodding seriously at her self-conscious expression; this is probably not an appropriate time to tell her Dean has this effect on everyone with (and sometimes without) a pulse.

“I’ll get dinner,” Castiel tells Dean, who nods absent agreement, and Castiel watches him thoughtfully before starting toward the mess.

Fortunately, part of tonight’s dinner is still available; carne guisada (with a surprising and gratifying multitude of preserved peppers and onions swimming in the rich gravy), rice, and sliced nopales, still crisp within their foil wrapping. He doesn’t bother seeking out two plates, simply finding the largest and placing enough for them both on it before placing it in the microwave, a miracle of the modern times that mortality has taught him to appreciate.

Placing a wet paper towel over it (reason unclear but the word ‘moisture’ was involved in Brenda’s explanation), he sets the timer for a minute and thirty seconds (then check and stir, if he remembers correctly) and collects a portion of the tortillas that Alonzo prepared this morning, a skill he’s teaching Brenda as well.

Leaning back against the counter, Castiel watches the timer and finds himself thinking about their food supply. Even his most optimistic calculations on what Ichabod has available and what they received from both the local towns as well as the Alliance don’t account for feeding this many for this long, and he knows that no one goes hungry for lack of a meal.

Ichabod’s herds are very large, he knows; they are only beginning to breed stock, but a great deal they’ve collected from the wild over the last two years, escaped from abandoned farms. When possible, they hunt for meat to increase the number of domestic animals available for breeding and to provide themselves with milk and butter not limited to cows but also goats and their small herd of sheep, the latter of which provide wool as well.

When the microwave pings, Castiel takes a fork with him, checking the temperature before stirring carefully and replacing the paper towel before closing it and setting the timer again.

Nothing is wasted; leather is made from the hides of the animals they kill if possible, fat, rendered into a variety of substances including lubricants, creams for skin protection and treatments, and soap; organs carefully preserved for their nutritional value or medical use. They’re prudent in harvesting, everything that can be preserved canned or jarred, held as insurance against failed crops or natural disaster, and they never would have begun to branch into crops raised for trade if they were anything other than stable, but even with all that, they could not have this much food.

What did Joelle tell him when she brought the casserole (as it turns out, one of several that would arrive that day): rice.

When he returns to the room with the plate, silverware, and a jug of water and two plastic tumblers, he finds the bed (somewhat) made and Dean frowning at his hand.

“Hey,” Dean says, hiding his startlement badly, and Castiel pretends not to notice. “What—oh, carne guisada? Hell yes.”

Setting the tray on the mattress, he pours them both water before joining Dean, who takes the fork with surprising alacrity.

“Joelle said they were in no danger of running out of rice,” he tells Dean half-way through the meal. “I assumed she was trying to reassure me on availability of food, but…”

“Yeah, I was wondering about our never-ending supplies,” Dean agrees after swallowing an enthusiastic mouthful. “I meant to talk to Alison or Lanak about that. I mean, they can’t have much more—”

“They shouldn’t have any at all,” he interrupts. “For the last two days at least. Not without slaughtering most of their breeding stock, and that doesn’t account for the vegetables, though rice I can believe; it stores well. They probably searched every empty town for fifty miles to get anything that wasn’t perishable.”

Dean’s fork stops mid-way to his mouth. “You’re sure about that?”

“There are no riots and no mysteriously disappearing people,” he says, and Dean frowns before his eyes widen in horror. “This isn’t human flesh. Obviously.”

“Way to kill the appetite.” Noticeably, he still eats the bite on his fork. “So you don’t think maybe the other towns…”

“They contributed much, and the Alliance did as well,” he says, doing rough calculations again to make sure. “

“I’ll talk to Alison tomorrow.”

When they’re done, Castiel puts the tray in a corner of the room out of the way to return to the kitchen for later. As he returns to the bed, he sees Dean looking down at his right hand with a bewildered expression. “Dean?”

Dean drops his hand into his lap before he slides to the edge of the bed and gets to his feet. “I’m gonna—”

Without thinking, he reaches out. “Is your hand bothering you—”

Dean jerks it away, retreating a step toward the bed, and Castiel freezes. He’s not sure which is worse; that Dean pulled away or that, from the look on his face, he didn’t mean to do it.

“Sorry,” Dean says quickly, staring at him in shock before abruptly dropping onto the mattress, shoulders curling in on themselves like withering leaves. “Sorry, it’s—I don’t know. Long day, I guess. It’s fine, just a little sore.”

“Dean—”

“Long day,” Dean repeats, looking at his own hand like he’s wondering where he can hide it. “It’s just, you know, tired.”

Even from here, Castiel can see how tightly his fingers are curled against his palm and wonders in horror how he missed this. “How long has it been like this?”

“It’s just tired,” Dean grinds out, staring at the floor. “It pulled the trigger on twenty-six people and a fuckload of Croats yesterday. My fuck up, I fix it, Cas; you shouldn’t have to.”

There are many ways Castiel could respond to that; he chooses none of them. “Your boots—would you like me to get them for you?”

Dean nods jerkily. “Sure, yeah. Thanks.”

Crouching, he forces himself not to look at Dean’s hand and instead concentrates on easing off each boot and then each sock, buying himself time to acknowledge he doesn’t know what to do. If Dean were ill or injured, he’d make him soup and sandwiches without crusts and read to him and fetch endless wet cloths for his fever; if Dean were threatened, he’d kill it; if Dean were bored, he’d find something to capture his interest; if Dean wanted sex, they’d have it; this is none of those things, where there is something to do, and if he didn’t know how to do it, he could learn. All he knows of easing pain is how to forget it, at least for a little while.

You couldn’t do it wrong. Being you was all you had to do to get it right.

Standing up, he looks down at the bent head, the defeated bow of his shoulders, and without thinking, strokes an errant strand of dark hair. “Look at me,” he says quietly, and slowly, reluctantly, Dean looks up. “You’re not a monster.”

Dean stills, green eyes dark, then abruptly tips forward, resting his head against Castiel’s stomach with a sigh, hands coming to rest on his hips, fingers tight enough that he hopes there will be bruises come morning.

Unthinkingly, he moves closer, breath catching as Dean leans more heavily against him, letting Castiel take the precious weight of his body, freely offering what is beyond all price. He threads his fingers through Dean’s hair more firmly and is rewarded by a muffled sound, shoulders starting to shake beneath his hands, breath fast and hot through his t-shirt. Slowly, patiently, he strokes the dark hair, dragging the tips of his fingers against his scalp and down the smooth, soft skin at the back of Dean’s neck. He runs his thumb over the knob of his spine, feeling the lingering ache of muscles bunched too tight for far too many hours like they’re his own.

“How old was Andy?” The words are breathed against the now-damp material of Castiel’s shirt but audible all the same, carrying new tension to his shoulders and back. “I didn’t even—I should know that.”

“Twenty-six as of October eighteenth,” he answers. “He and Kat had a private celebration, from what I understand, which led to the much belated consummation of the decision not to be just friends.” Stroking Dean’s hair back, he feels Dean move into the touch and thinks he may have a plan. Or at least a course of action. “Let me assist you to prepare for bed.”

Dean lifts his head, red-rimmed eyes narrowing. “You have a thing for undressing me or something? Boots, coat today… this a thing or something?”

“Dressing and undressing you, yes,” he agrees. “Especially when they’re my clothes.”

Dean’s mouth drops open. “What?”

“Arming you, disarming you, the list goes on. Even doing our combined laundry carries—something of this, it’s very odd. I didn’t realize I was being subtle,” he adds. “I’m not sure whether it’s reassuring or depressing that you didn’t notice, but it’s consistent, at least.”

Dean closes his mouth with an audible click.

“Stand up,” he says firmly, and Dean gets unsteadily to his feet. Reaching for the hem of his sweater, Castiel tugs it up his chest, raising an eyebrow, and Dean belatedly raises his arms so he can pull it off. The thermal follows, but he pauses at the t-shirt—Grateful Dead, excellent choice—and shakes his head; extending gratification is perfectly legitimate and there are other things to deal with first. “You can put your arms down.”

“Uh.” He cuts off when Castiel unbuttons his jeans, breath catching audibly when Castiel kneels to drag the thermal underwear over his hips and down his legs. “Huh.”

“Sit down,” he says, and sees the mattress bounce in his peripheral vision. Pulling jeans and thermal free of Dean’s feet, he tosses them to the pile near the chair, Castiel looks up curiously. “You were saying?”

Dean blinks at him, pink tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Let’s go with what?”

“Even when the potential for sex wasn’t involved—which until very recently it wasn’t—it was oddly satisfying,” he answers as he stands back up. “Move to the center of the mattress.” Circling the bed, he goes to get the lotion that Dean took from Alison’s kitchen that inexplicably ended up among their bags when they moved to headquarters. “Sometimes, I’d craft very elaborate scenarios in which circumstances vague required me to select all the clothing that you’d wear that day. Despite our limited selection, it would take some time to choose exactly the right ensemble before dressing you in it.”

“You’d…” Dean drops down on the center of the bed with a very odd expression. “You’d jerk off to—to imagining picking my clothes and dressing me?”

“That would make sense, wouldn’t it? No.” Finding the half-empty bottle of lotion at the bottom of his bag, he wonders uncertainly if they should pretend they have no idea what bottle Alison is talking about when she finds it missing or offer something in trade. “I mean, obviously yes, sometimes,” Dean makes an inarticulate noise, “but most of the time it had nothing to do with sex. It was simply a very enjoyable way to pass the time. Soothing.”

“Soothing.”

“Like meditation, now that I think about it,” he agrees. “Next time Teresa invites me to meditate with her, I’ll try visualizing that. Also, fun.”

“Like, what, a girl with her first Barbie?” Castiel frowns, reviewing his limited experience with the daycare, but from what he remembers, interest in dolls wasn’t limited to a single gender or sex. “You’re fucking with me!”

“I’m not sure,” he admits, unwilling to dismiss any potential explanation. “Like—cooking for you. Rescuing you from Hell. Driving you to various locations.”

Standing back up, he turns to see Dean staring at him in horror (or more accurately, attempting horror and not quite achieving it: interesting).

“Some of it is primate social bonding behavior, yes, or at least, how I seem to be interpreting it, but the rest… I can’t explain it,” he admits, “but as so little of humanity is explicable, my best guess is territoriality—”

“What?” Dean exclaims, but something in his expression tells Castiel perhaps he did notice… something. He should find out one day. “I’m not territory!”

“Tell that to my hindbrain.” He joins Dean on the bed, settling cross-legged across from him and opening the bottle of lotion. “I assure you, I see you as an independent person and not an object, but the hindbrain contains primal instincts that date back before you were even sentient and it responds not at all to arguments that we live in more enlightened times and there’s no need to visually mark you as mine to all that might behold you. One adjusts, or so I’ve heard. Give me your hand.”

Dean automatically extends his hand. “Do you even hear what you’re—” He stops short, staring down at his hand while Castiel peels away the brace, closing a hand firmly around Dean’s wrist in case he tries to pull away. “How did you…”

“Distraction, habit, and proof of the effectiveness of positive reinforcement in classical conditioning. You’re not the only one that understands how useful it can be.” Frowning, he turns Dean’s hand over and bites his lip against a curse; the fingers are curled tightly, probably overextension of the tendons. “Can you extend your fingers? Slowly: don’t force it.”

Dean nods shortly, and Castiel watches closely as he slowly extends his fingers, the tremor increasing exponentially until he stops just short at less than one third extension. “That’s it,” he breathes, and Castiel doesn’t need to ask how much pain he’s in.

“Relax your hand.” Pressing his thumb to the center of Dean’s palm, he feels the rigidity beneath the developing calluses, following it carefully over the heel and wrist and mapping the scar tissue extending up Dean’s forearm inch by inch. What Dean can no longer feel with his destroyed nerves Castiel learned to do by touch, marking each miniscule change, turning Dean’s arm slowly to track the shift of muscle and bone against the pads of his fingers before returning to check each individual tendon in his wrist one by one. Dean would probably be aware of a tear, but nerve misfire has been a problem more than once, and if Dean was busy (he has been) he might not even have noticed, much less remembered. “How long has it been like this?”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s not important, I fucked up—”

“How. Long?” Castiel asks flatly, watching Dean’s face. “Since yesterday, the Croat attack?”

He nods, and Castiel wonders how on earth he could have missed this very obvious explanation for Dean’s clumsiness bandaging his arm that evening. Because he’s an idiot and this is Dean.

“Have you taken anything? Name and dosage.”

“Ibuprofen, 800 MG, last night,” Dean answers shortly. “Hot water helped relax it. At least until now.”

Castiel scrolls through the available drugs in Vera’s kit as well as their own and wishes he’d confirmed what Ichabod had on hand. “A muscle relaxant—”

“They fuck with my head.” He wants to argue the point, but he knows from experience that the benefits of pain relief won’t compensate for the inevitable result of artificial sedation. Dean has few defenses against what haunts his sleep far too many nights, and he won’t risk compromising Dean’s ability to awaken himself or Castiel doing it for him if needed. Having now experienced something of the range of what dreams can do, he understands far better why a lack of escape is not something to be discarded with impunity. “So?”

“What?”

“So, how bad did I fuck it up?” He snaps his gaze to Dean. “Just—just tell me, okay?”

“You didn’t.” Reaching blindly, he tugs a pillow from the headboard and sits it in his lap before placing Dean’s hand on it, fingers curling reflexively inward, and retrieves the lotion. “I should have been paying closer attention. I am now.”

“Cas, it’s not your job—”

“It is my job,” he interrupts. “It will always be difficult if not impossible for you to judge injury to your hand due to the damage from the infection; I can.” Though in this case, there is no possible way Dean wasn’t aware, but that’s irrelevant.

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“I want to.” Dean swallows, looking away. “It’s a privilege I have no intention of being denied.” Pouring the lotion into his hand, he waits for it to warm a little before reaching for Dean’s hand. Starting at the heel, he starts to knead, feeling the tightly knotted muscles slowly begin to loosen. “Now relax.”

Dean lets out a startled breath, and Castiel slowly and carefully works his way to Dean’s palm, keeping his touch light at first and following the cues of Dean’s body on when to increase pressure and how much.

“Is this helping?” he asks, glancing up to observe Dean’s half-closed eyes in satisfaction.

“Yeah,” Dean breathes huskily. “Keep. Doing that.”

Concentrating, he feels each individual muscle loosen, and thinks that this would be an excellent time to offer suggestions.

“Lie down,” he says invitingly, smiling when Dean’s eyes slit open suspiciously and moving the pillow into position. “Endorphins are best enjoyed while supine.”

Dean makes a face even as he drops onto the mattress with a sigh, curling on his left side, and Castiel helpfully moves closer, stretching Dean’s arm across his lap to reduce potential strain. Getting more lotion, he starts again, shifting to the knuckles and watching Dean’s body carefully, and not entirely for the simple pleasure of doing so (though there’s that as well).

Dean’s threshold for pain is astronomically high, and far more relevant, minimizing it while in public view is reflexive to the point that Castiel’s fairly sure he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. If he’d noticed earlier (perhaps when Dean was fresh from a three-mile long escape from a small army of Croats after a fight at the ward line? Or any time after) and taken him somewhere private to see to it, his hand wouldn’t be in this condition at all; Dean doesn’t hide from him, not anymore.

Fortunately, Dean has no inhibitions whatsoever in showing what he enjoys, which is excellent for diagnostic purposes and devastatingly effective in eliciting lust. No one wearing faded blue and red plaid boxers should be able to do that so effortlessly, but it’s appallingly likely Dean could make quite literally any article of clothing seductive.

Working each individual finger in turn, he watches Dean stretch out by degrees across the length of the mattress like slow-motion visual pornography for extreme masochists with a fetish for a PG rating. The accompany soundtrack of sighs, breathless moans, and a random assortment of single consonants that inexplicably require at least three syllables to articulate is—

Dean makes an obscenely contented sigh as Castiel finishes with the tight webbing between finger and thumb, t-shirt rucked up just enough to reveal a thin strip of pale skin. Endorphins, he reminds himself firmly; they do this, it’s—something, he doesn’t care, but another shower is in his immediate future, and he doesn’t care about water rationing, he’ll dig them a well to make up for it.

Taking a deep breath, he gets more lotion and methodically goes over Dean’s hand again before saying, in what he hopes is at least some semblance of a normal voice, “Try to extend your fingers again. This time, stop if there’s any pain at all.”

Dean slits open his eyes and slowly extends each finger to just over two-thirds extension before making a fist and smiling drowsily. “Better,” he confirms, adding after a long moment, “When can I use it again?”

“Twenty-four hours of rest, if possible,” he says, and Dean makes a face but nods, not surprised or simply far too relaxed to care; it could go either way. “I’ll repeat in the morning and tomorrow night—and on request, of course. No permanent damage, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Dean nods, rolling bonelessly onto his back, heel sliding sensuously against the bedcover. His eyes fall closed as he stretches, slow and full-body, back arching off the bed for a period of time comparable to the primordial soup of the oceans developing sentient life (twice) before dropping back onto the mattress with a suggestive bounce. He didn’t realize those could even be suggestive; humanity is indeed filled with surprises.

Appalled, Castiel realizes this image won’t be the fuel of a very questionable masturbation session in the shower; recall alone will be all that’s required, water, clothes, and physical stimulation optional. Even those first deeply bewildering and distracting weeks after his libido asserted itself so dramatically and all at once, it wasn’t like this; if it had been, he wouldn’t have survived.

Then the green eyes open, and he forgets to breathe.

Pushing himself up on his left arm, Dean licks his lips glossy before turning in place, and in a single, fluid moment straddles Castiel’s lap. “Got any plans for tonight?”

Cupping Dean’s hips, he strokes his thumbs in the hollows beneath the soft cotton before sliding his palms over the curve of Dean’s ass and jerking him closer, hearing Dean’s breath catch at the press of his cock against Castiel’s own.

“I do now,” he murmurs, fixing on Dean’s mouth. Sliding a hand up the length of Dean’s back, he knots his fingers in his hair and tugs him unresisting into a kiss.

He thinks of those endless hours in their bed in Chitaqua, making out for what felt like forever, learning the feel of his lips and taste of his mouth, the sound of his breathless sighs, the shape of his body, greedy to discover everything he could and realizing anew each night the vastness he still had yet to learn.

He slides his tongue along the seam of Dean’s lips, coaxing them apart before skimming over his palate and tasting his tongue, drawing his thumb through the thick stubble against the grain. Dean tilts his head, changing the angle and deepening the kiss, and he hums his approval when Dean’s teeth scrape over his tongue before sucking it deeper.

Eventually, he has to breathe; drawing back, he takes in the reddened lips and half-closed eyes in satisfaction. “What do you want?”

Dean’s answer is barely a breath. “How about you show me?”

Castiel searches his face before drawing him back down into another kiss, relearning the shape of his mouth as he runs his thumb along the stretched elastic of his boxers and pushing up the ragged hem of his t-shirt, skimming his nails up Dean’s back and feeling him arch.

“Lift your arms,” he murmurs, gathering the soft cotton in both hands before skimming it up and over his head. He mouths a kiss against the soft skin of his breastbone before licking over one dark nipple, feeling it harden as Dean shivers before taking it between his lips.

“Cas,” Dean gasps, and Castiel catches his right hand, easing it back down to rest on his thigh. Delicately, he circles the aureole with the tip of his tongue, resting a hand on Dean’s back as he takes it between his teeth and then starts to suck. “God,” Dean breathes, left hand curving around the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

Bracing a hand between Dean’s shoulder blades, he lowers him down to the mattress, finishing with a final lick before drawing a line with his tongue to the other, holding himself above Dean just enough that he can’t easily rub up against him.

“Cas, come on,” Dean mutters, shoving his hips up. Reaching down with one hand, Castiel pins them to the bed.

Biting down once, Castiel sits up, shifting until he’s straddling Dean’s waist. “They didn’t know me.”

“What?” Dean asks distractedly.

“Those who decided my role in this,” he says conversationally. “If I were going to manipulate you, it certainly wouldn’t be to create a weapon to save the world.”

Dean frowns. “Huh?”

“I would do it to please myself,” he continues. “I wonder that I didn’t think of it before.”

Dean’s breath quickens. “How would you…” He pauses, wetting his lips. “How?”

“Seduce you, of course,” he answers, and feels him shiver. “I would have you in every way, any way that I pleased. Everything I knew, I would have taught you. I would have enjoyed it very much, and you would have enjoyed it, too.”

Dean sucks in a breath. “I…”

“I’d keep you in my bed, unseen by any eyes but my own,” he whispers. “I’d never let you leave. Feed you, bathe you, watch you sleep, and fuck you when you woke up; you’d deny me nothing. I’d keep you, and you’d let me, because you’d want me to.”

This time, Dean doesn’t answer, green eyes wide.

“It’s far too late now, of course,” he continues, “but we could pretend. If you wish.”

After a few long moments, Dean nods jerkily. “Yeah, we could—we can do that.”

“You’ll let me do with you as I will?” he asks, and Dean nods. “Yes or no: verbal confirmation is required.”

“Yeah,” Dean answers huskily. “Anything you want.”

Castiel reaches for the nearest pillow, lifting Dean’s head and tucking the pillow beneath it, taking a moment to smooth the tangles in Dean’s hair. “It is said,” he says conversationally, “that obedience is a virtue and virtue, of course, is its own reward.” Dean nods vaguely, tongue darting out to lick his lower lip. “However, I have no objection to offering more tangible benefits for your obedience. I’m going to fuck you with my fingers.” Dean inhales sharply, eyes dark. “If you obey me, I’ll suck you off while I do it. Do you understand?”

From the abrupt jerk of Dean’s hips beneath him, he does. “Yes or no, Dean?”

“Yeah.” Dean swallows, nodding. “Yeah, I can do—do that.”

“Good.” Bracing a hand on the mattress, Castiel kisses him, catching Dean’s right wrist before it can leave the bed and easing it over Dean’s head to rest on the pillow. “Twenty four hours of rest,” he reminds him. “If you move it again, you won’t be allowed to use either hand at all.” Anyone else, he would have offered the option of restraints, but he’s curious; Dean certainly didn’t need them last time, and he’d like to see what he can do when he’s tested.

Dean nods.

“Good.” Straightening, he rests a hand on Dean’s chest. “Don’t move until I tell you that you can. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he answers immediately.

“Good.” Easing off Dean, he retrieves the lotion and sets it beside Dean’s right hip before retrieving the other pillow to put beside it. Kneeling between his knees, Castiel reaches for the waist of his boxers. “Lift your hips,” he tells him, tugging them down his thighs and easing each leg out before dropping them off the floor. “Spread your legs for me, Dean.” Breath quickening, Dean does, heels sliding against the bedcover. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Just short of the limits of Dean’s flexibility, he stops him, easing a hand beneath each knee and bending them, giving Dean time for his feet to find purchase on the quilt before sitting back on his heels again simply to look at him. The view is utterly breathtaking, pale burnished to gold in the warm yellow light, perfectly still despite the flush spreading across the high cheekbones from his appraisal.

“’A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’,” he murmurs, and Dean’s eyes darken. “’Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.’”

Stretching out above him, Castiel kisses him, pleased when Dean’s right hand remains on the pillow while the fingers of his left hand curl warmly around the back of his neck. Nipping the tip of Dean’s tongue, he presses a kiss to his chin, skimming up his jaw before sucking a kiss against the ultra-sensitive skin just below his ear. Dean’s fingers tighten, breath catching, and licking the warm skin, he follows the strong pulse of his jugular down to the soft skin between neck and shoulder, feeling the quickening beat of his heart against his tongue.

Dean inhales sharply as he sinks his teeth into the tender skin without hesitation, fingers sliding into his hair in silent entreaty: more. Tracing the shape of his teeth with his tongue, he presses an open mouth kiss there, sucking until he can taste the iron pooling just beneath the skin.

As yet, he hasn’t had the opportunity to explore Dean’s body as much as he wishes (he suspects, however, that all of time would not be long enough to do it), and this is no different; Dean’s patience is not what anyone sane would call ‘in existence’ and his own seems to vanish entirely every time he touches him. The taste of him is addictive; he shapes the sharp bones of his collar with his mouth, lingering on the warm, silky skin of his chest, lean muscle shifting beneath his lips, and traces the outline of the anti-possession tattoo with the tip of his tongue before turning his attention to the hard, dark nipples demanding attention. Dean’s cock slides wetly against his belly, leaving a line of cooling pre-come as moves lower, mouthing the hard, almost concave planes of his stomach. Sucking a kiss just above the navel, he looks up to see Dean watching him, lips parted and eyes glazed.

Concentrate, he reminds himself firmly.

Biting on the sharp edge of his hip, Castiel sits back on his heels and reaches for the second pillow. “Lift your hips.” Sliding the pillow beneath them, he arranges Dean to his satisfaction, then reaches for the lotion, pouring it into his left palm to warm it while watching for any sign of uncertainty or distress. The former will be easily dispelled by action; the latter will be more difficult, as Dean will resent any effort at reassurance, or for that matter Castiel even noticing that it exists.

“You’re doing very well,” he says, slowly slicking two fingers on his right hand. “That deserves a reward.”

He doesn’t wait for a response; leaning forward, he takes the head of Dean’s cock in his mouth, and Dean makes an inarticulate sound, left hand knotting in his hair, but his hips are perfectly still. He fights the urge to take all of him at once—such things aren’t to be rushed no matter how tempting—running his tongue behind the head while sliding his thumb down Dean’s inner thigh and stroking wet fingers over the thin skin behind his balls before circling lazily around his tightly furled hole.

Dean tenses (expected), but Castiel does nothing else, allowing him to adjust to the concept of penetration in imminent fact instead of merely in theory. For in this he has patience and in full measure. Taking a quick breath, he slowly takes Dean’s cock into his throat, and Dean’s hand tightens as he breathes, “Cas.“

Running the tip of his finger against the clenched muscle, he rubs gently over it as he pulls back to suck luxuriously on the swollen head, ripe and sweet against his tongue, and feels the slight relaxation when he presses the tip of his finger against it.

“Just. Do it,” Dean says in a terrible facsimile of his normal voice—husky, thick, how sex sounds; he could listen to Dean like this all day (and one day, he’ll do just that). His hips almost jerk, then still by pure will, and Castiel lets the head of his cock pop out of his mouth. “Let me…” Dean sucks in a breath, obviously searching for words. “Just…”

“You can move,” he says, and almost immediately, Dean shoves a heel more deeply into the bed and pushes against his finger, taking it to the second knuckle with a sharply indrawn breath.

“Oh,” he breathes in surprise, stilling, and Castiel leans down to press a kiss against the trembling skin of his lower belly, watching Dean’s expression change to uncertain pleasure.
Feeling Dean make an effort to relax, he slides his finger more deeply into the tight heat of his body until the tip brushes against the tiny nub of his prostate, and Dean breathes in sharply. “Yeah, that… yeah.”

Sitting up, he reaches for Dean’s left hand and slowly licks the palm wet. “I want to watch you touch yourself,” he says, wrapping Dean’s hand around the base of his cock and squeezing. “Now.”

Lips parting further, Dean licks them before nodding, adjusting his grip nervously. He’s almost clumsy at first, jerking to a startled stop when Castiel pulls his finger almost out before easing it back inside and brushing almost incidentally against his prostate, shivering. The next easy slide, Dean moves into it, adjusting the rhythm on his cock to Castiel’s finger. Slowly, carefully, he increases the pace, and instinctively, Dean matches it, green eyes half-closed in concentration; he’s beautiful.

He’s so entranced by the sight of Dean losing himself in pleasure that he almost forgets what he’s doing. Sliding his finger out (much to Dean’s vocal displeasure), he slicks two of them again.

“I’m going to add another finger.” He rests a hand on Dean’s hip before pushing the first back in for a few long strokes that make Dean curse before adding the second, patiently working open the tight rim first and confining himself to slow, shallow thrusts, enough for Dean to feel the difference without letting him try to take them both fully, not yet. Dean tenses at the stretch, but he doesn’t stop, hand slick and wet with pre-come as well.

The tight, hot grip of Dean’s ass is almost as good as watching Dean jerk himself off; it’s an effort to keep his concentration, ignore the hot flicker of heat traveling down his spine. To distract himself, he presses his mouth against the soft skin of Dean’s inner thigh, sucking a series of kisses until reaching the thickly corded muscle beneath the thin skin where thigh meets groin. Dean grunts softly as Castiel slides his tongue over it, the barest hint of invitation in the lift of his hips against his restraining hand. He’s never turned down one of those in his life; licking a circle, he sinks his teeth into the warm flesh.

“Christ,” Dean groans as Castiel starts to suck. “Gonna. Feel that one.”

The tightness around his slowly thrusting fingers abruptly gives, so quickly they slide halfway inside. Lifting his head, he meets Dean’s eyes, noting the tell-tale concentration beneath the glaze, thighs starting to tremble.

“Don’t come.” With a grimace, Dean’s hand stills, and he starts to let go of his cock. “I didn’t say stop.”

Immediately, Dean grasps his cock again; he’s very close. “Cas, please—”

“If you can’t obey me, tell me now,” he interrupts. “And I’ll stop.”

For a moment, he’s not sure Dean can, but squeezing the base firmly, he sucks in a breath and slowly begins to stroke, hand trembling. Castiel waits, perfectly still, until Dean picks up speed again, face twisting with the effort.

“Very good,” he says softly. Dean cuts off a groan when Castiel draws his fingers out, then gasps at the first rough thrust, back arching from the bed as Castiel establishes a slow rhythm for him to follow before increasing speed, fingers rubbing firmly against the prostate. “Perfect.”

Dean drops back, panting, but his hand never stops moving, thighs trembling from the strain, close but holding back; he won’t push him any harder, not this time.

“Count to ten,” he says, bracing a hand on the bed by Dean’s hip. “And you may come.” He licks the head before adding, “Out loud.”

Before Dean can comment—provided he has the breath, of course—Castiel eases Dean’s hand from his cock and takes it down his throat. And waits.

“One,” Dean gasps, and Castiel slides his mouth up his cock as he pulls his fingers almost out, sucking the head as he flexes his fingers at the sensitive opening. “T-two.”

Dean curses as he takes his cock, thrusting firmly and rubbing over the prostate. “Three. Four.” He’s learning. “F. Five.” In reward, Castiel tongues the sensitive area just below the head, and Dean chokes on “Six.” Leaving Dean to his count, Castiel selects a faster rhythm, feeling Dean starting to tremble. “Sev. Seven.” Dean twists helplessly against the sheets, and Castiel sucks the head idly, licking it clean, before going back down. “Eight.” Castiel twists his fingers on the downstroke and Dean makes a broken sound. “Nine!”

Stroking down Dean’s thigh, he listens to Dean panting, nearly inarticulate, and then, barely a breath, “Ten.”

He feels the head swell, Dean arching with an indrawn breath that slurs his name almost beyond recognition, and takes the first burst down his throat and eases back until just the head is in his mouth, the bitter-sweet taste flooding his mouth as he sucks, drawing it out until Dean collapses onto the bed. Swallowing, Castiel waits for Dean to soften before he sits back, wiping his lips as he eases his fingers free of the tight grasp of Dean’s body.

“Don’t move,” he says softly, and Dean’s eyes slit open, barely a glimmer of glazed green. Bracing a hand on the mattress, he shifts to straddle Dean’s chest, sliding his thumb down the stubbled jaw before sliding it in his mouth, still slick with Dean’s come. “I want to come on your face.”

There’s enough of the lotion on his right hand to make it easy; sliding two fingers in Dean’s mouth, he shoves down the loose sweatpants enough to take out his cock and slowly strokes himself, breath catching when Dean starts to suck his fingers, tongue sliding between them, wet and soft, and his concentration shatters. All at once, he’s aware of the heavy, growing tightness in his groin, the heat crawling down his spine; the touch of his own hand is almost overwhelming.

“Very good,” he breathes unsteadily, speeding up his strokes; just the memory of Dean’s hole tight around his fingers would be enough, but watching Dean suck like he’s imagining it’s his cock is inspiring. Thumb sliding around the head almost frantically, it’s only a few strokes before he pulls his fingers from Dean’s wet mouth and comes.

It’s several long moments before he can think enough to be relieved he didn’t collapse on top of Dean. Careful, he slides to the bed beside him, still shaking, an aftershock rippling through him at the sight of his come on Dean’s pretty, flushed face, green eyes half-closed, his right hand on the pillow, and long legs still spread wide.

“Beautiful,” he rasps, and Dean’s lips stretch in a faint smile. Pushing himself up, he wipes a thumb across Dean’s cheek and slips it between the parted lips, watching Dean suck it clean. He takes care of the rest himself, feeling Dean shiver with every brush of his tongue, licking away every trace of his come before kissing him again, and Dean’s tongue slides against his, following the taste.

Sitting up, Castiel brushes a final kiss against his lips, then reaches for the pillow under Dean’s hips. “Lift up,” he murmurs, and dreamily, Dean obeys. He eases Dean’s legs to the bed himself, slow and careful, then pauses to mark each forming bruise, red already darkening to purple, before retrieving the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and drawing it over Dean against the chill of the room and sliding in beside him.

Without prompting, Dean turns into his arms, burying his face against the warm cotton of his t-shirt with a sigh. Stroking back the sweaty hair, he closes his eyes, sliding his fingers up and down his spine.

“Very good,” he whispers against his hair in dramatic understatement. “Take all the time you like.”

---

An hour and a half, two glasses of water, a thorough (and extremely fun) clean up, and a trip to the bathroom later, Dean finds himself stretched comfortably on his stomach in the center of the bed, still naked (because Cas), blankets and sheet pooling around his waist in concession to the temperature (again, because Cas). He’s just tired enough to be against moving, but not quite tired enough to sleep. There’s multiple points of soreness, a sharp burn when he moves his left leg (reason obvious), and an odd awareness of a not-quite-soreness in the area of his ass.

Adjustment, right: in his ass. He checks for any potential weirdness (Fingers. In his ass.) just in case, but yeah, he’s as okay with this after the fact as he was enthusiastic during. To be sure, though, they should definitely do that again, like soon. Repetition, always useful.

Also okay with: being the center of Cas’s undivided attention, in which his only job is to lie there and let Cas ply him with water, blankets, warm, wet washcloths, and lots of petting. And he doesn’t even have to be dying, feverish, Croat-infected, or with the worst cold in history to get it; it’s great.

“Dean?” Cas asks solemnly, and Dean slits his eyes open, waiting for it. “How are you feeling?”

Only Cas. “Not bad,” he says after enough of a pause to make his point. Cas rolls his eyes, but noticeably the stroking doesn’t stop. “So that ‘keep me in bed forever’ thing—that’s still on the table, right? I’m saying, you want to go dark side, I’m here for you.”

Cas makes a face like yeah, he’s kind of regretting that lack of Machiavellian strategy in their lives, too. “I wouldn’t survive a week,” he admits, nails sliding up the back of his neck in little trails of warmth. “In fact, it’s very possible if we were in Chitaqua right now, not here with regular death-defying distractions, I would be very close to a stroke.”

Dean summons just enough energy to look dubious and hopes to God he’s not flushing. “Scheduled. Orgies.”

“That was different,” Cas argues. “This is more like… puberty. Again.”

“You didn’t go through puberty.”

“Imagine, if you will, everything that had until that point been suppressed all becoming active at once, but in an adult body that had—technically speaking—never actually experienced it before, as this one was the one my Father remade.” Cas’s expression changes to vague suspicion, adding darkly, “Though He might have considered this rather amusing. My Father’s sense of humor can be questionable.”

Talk about non-sequitur. “Catch me up?”

Cas sighs, looking pained. “Do you remember when I was—unhappy with you. It was a very long time ago, I told you sex with humans was…”

“A degradation,” Dean says helpfully. Sure, water under the bridge, but not like he can’t still see the river. “Barely.”

Cas wrinkles his nose. “That, yes. Millennia ago—and I mean many of them—I might have been somewhat… judgmental… regarding the demands of the flesh. It all seemed so ridiculous.”

Dean might just die right now from not being surprised. “Really.”

“Pride goeth before the fall,” he quotes glumly. “And chastity before the demands of the libido. It’s… balance, I suppose.”

Dean nods: Cassiel, the karma and the balance. “So punished with sex; wouldn’t have called that one from God.”

“Punishment only teaches you not to do something,” Cas answers slowly. “It’s only effective as a deterrent, and those have their place. My Father’s lessons… more often than not, their purpose is to teach you what you should do and why you should want to.”

“That,” Dean states, burying his skepticism deep enough that Cas doesn’t see it, “is even weirder.” It works; Cas snorts into the pillow, and Dean flexes his right hand lightly; it feels stiff, but about a thousand times better than it’s been in days.

Tucking his left arm under his head, he lets out a contented breath as Cas scratches gently just below his hairline, followed by his lips, a barely-there warm brush that trails down to beneath his ear. “What time is it, anyway?”

“An hour until midnight,” Cas breathes against his skin, and Dean doesn’t argue, though his body tells him it’s gotta be at least three in the morning; as it turns out, that kind of thing happens when someone fucks with time. “It was roughly five hours in semi-suspension.”

“So outside the barrier it’s what, five hours later than now?”

“No, she pulled us out of time before forming a bubble and slowing it,” he answers. “When she left, she set us back inside at exactly the moment she pulled us out. Those not affected, however, are roughly five hours younger than those who were, but…” He shrugs. “Linear time isn’t constant even when not being manipulated—”

“Stop there,” Dean says; he can almost understand this and he likes that. “So it won’t be—I don’t know—weird.”

Cas meditates that for a few moments, leaning closer to brush a kiss against the back of his shoulder. “I’m not entirely sure I know what qualifies as weird any longer,” he admits, lips moving against his skin.

“I mean,” Dean persists, because he has a reason for this, “will everyone give you a migraine if you look at them wrong because they’re—whatever I do to you.”

“Oh.” Cas lifts his head, meeting Dean’s eyes. “Vera.”

That’s where he was going with this, yeah. “When the goddess left, she looked at me—same look on your face when you first saw me, but less pot and more vertigo.”

Pressing more closely against Dean’s side, Cas folds his arm under his head. “That was the lingering effects of short-term possession, that’s all. Much like her sudden acquisition of Hindi, though that she might actually retain, since the addition to her language centers wouldn’t be considered damage.”

“Free gift with possession?” Dean snorts, settling more comfortably, aware of Cas watching him. “Spit it out already.”

There’s a brief pause. “Why did you ask me to leave you at the fire tonight?”

Dean knew he wouldn’t get away with that, so it’s not like he’s surprised: Dean Winchester, infer self-torment. “How many people did Dean shoot when they were infected?”

Castiel doesn’t check his slow stroke down the length of Dean’s spine. “Fifteen. That I’m aware of.”

“Twenty-six.” Absently, Dean flexes the fingers on his right hand against the mattress. “Ten of ‘em, I was holding the gun, but I’m the one that gave the order for the rest; they’re all mine. Before or after they change, this is how it’s always gonna end, either with a needle or a gun, I get it. I just thought…”

Cas waits.

“Harder,” Dean says finally, looking away. “I thought it’d be harder. Five months ago, I couldn’t have done it—I probably would have tried and stopped anyone who tried. Yesterday—the only thing I felt when we were done was relief I didn’t choke.”

It doesn’t take him any time now to work out Cas’s expression before he says the words. “I’m sorry. If I could have—”

“I’m not.” That’s the part that’s been bothering him, and saying it out loud—yeah. Like a lot of things, it’s not as bad as it sounded in his head. “They deserved someone who could get the job done. I don’t want to be the guy who makes ‘em suffer because it’ll make me feel bad to end it.” The hand on his back starts to stroke again, which Dean takes as he said that right; it doesn’t happen often, so he’ll enjoy it. “Only thing I regret is I didn’t go get the bodies myself. Should have been the first thing I did when—”

“Dean—”

“—Andy was gone,” he finishes, and that’s easier, too. “I saw you out there—mano e mano with a goddamn Hellhound—because I didn’t get my shit together and finish what I started.”

“Technically speaking,” he admits, resting his cheek on Dean’s upper arm, “that part wasn’t a facet of the original plan.” Dean snorts: surprise. “How long were you—”

“Got there just in time to see for myself exactly what Chuck was talking about when he said you weren’t faster than a bullet,” he answers wryly. “Just fast enough not to be in front of the barrel when they’re about to pull the trigger. Or a Hellhound trying to rip out your heart and you getting some brand-new scars for your collection of all the ways you worked out how to only get non-fatal wounds.”

Cas’s expression is all math right now. “How did you get there in time—”

“How’d you figure out what we were doing outside the walls and what you needed to do?” And waits.

That Cas didn’t notice doesn’t surprise him, not anymore; it makes sense. If there’s one thing he’s figured out about Cas, he isn’t one to question good things in his life due to the sheer novelty. Sleep, food, being able to tell when your best friend/future SO/current SO is feverish, sick, awake, in need of attention, running for his life and needing him to do something, those things are things that Cas likes (or at least finds really useful). Dean, on the other hand, questions his good fortune right into the goddamn ground, so yeah, he noticed; he’s got to make sure it keeps happening.

“How long…” Cas trails off uncertainly, like maybe he’s expecting Dean to abruptly react badly or something, which yeah, only Cas.

“I don’t remember a lot about when they brought us in after you made the wall,” he answers. “Vera said she could tell how well the drugs worked when you went down, because that’s when I stopped fighting.” Cas is still absorbing that when he adds carelessly, “It’s not like that anymore. Stopped dropping when you woke up, though, been like this since.” It’s settled, he thinks, examining that Cas-shaped space again, so familiar now it’s effortless.

(And he can’t prove it, but sometimes, he thinks it likes the attention, like maybe it would have kept dropping if Dean hadn’t concentrated on it, trying to keep it from fading. Sure, that sounds crazy, but he’s not wrong, either.)

“I didn’t think about it,” Cas says distractedly, and he just stops himself from grinning: of course he didn’t. “When you were outside the walls, it—seemed the logical conclusion. I didn’t question why.”

Pretty much what he thought, yeah. “All I had to do was get to the door; I knew you’d take care of the rest.” Lifting his right arm, he slings it over Cas’s shoulders, drawing him closer.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugs; because Cas doesn’t question what he likes but gets really worried when Dean does. It’s not that Dean won’t argue him down, but why rush to the argument part?

“This wasn’t part of—what we agreed this would do,” he starts, which is Dean’s cue to assemble something half-assed; sure, Cas will argue, but this isn’t going to be a hard sell. “Dean, if you—”

Slinging his right arm over Cas’s shoulders, Dean tugs him closer and stops the words, shivering at the memory of the taste of himself—of both of them—in Cas’s mouth. The flicker of want across his nerves is enough to tell him dawn sex is in their future. Maybe something new; sure, unlike Cas, Dean has a working gag reflex, but hey, he’s heard good things about practice and he should see what he can do right now anyway.

“I know the spiel,” Dean murmurs against his mouth. “Nothing’s changed. Answer’s still yes.”

Cas fails at glaring. “You also offer your most dangerously useful body fluids to anyone, no questions asked.”

Dean laughs softly. “Nah, just to you,” he breathes. “Anytime you want.”

---

They’re both nearly asleep when Dean remembers something that’s been bothering him. “So you wouldn’t rescue me?”

There’s an impression of movement against his back, arm tightening around his waist. “What?”

“From the fey women,” he clarifies. “You’d just leave me there with a lot of disappointed—well, not a lot, but some—fairies? Wouldn’t even try to rescue me?”

And waits; it’s going to be good, he can tell.

“I’d give them one chance to release you,” Cas answers without hesitation. “Then I’d set C4 covered with rock salt and powdered cold iron around their sacred tree and in a counterclockwise spiral reaching to two point three miles using the tree as the center point. After going a safe distance, I’d detonate them in sequence from the tree, causing a chain reaction that would obliterate the tree and the bindings on their home beneath-the-earth, which would probably kill half of them outright from sheer shock. The rest I’d execute by knife, use their blood to write my name on the court floor as a warning to others who might encroach on my territory, and then retrieve you. Of course.”

“Of course,” Dean echoes, unable to stop grinning. Great Fey War, triumphant victor: Cas. Of course. “And me—I’d be on the couch for a while?”

Dean waits out the thoughtful pause. “I’m certain the slaughter would have worked out my feelings regarding your infidelity. Perhaps a discussion after we got home, but we’d both be rather tired. Perhaps you could make me breakfast.”

Dean takes a deep breath, then another, but no; burying his face in the pillow, he laughs like he’ll never stop.