the bluebells blush when they sing

by fleeceframe

Summary:

"Most times when somebody sees their husband in a fucking thong shop they assume he’s cheating on them.”

Castiel blinks. “But… You’re not cheating on me…”

“I know I’m not cheating on you.”

“Which is why I assumed you were buying clothes for Eileen.”

Dean swears under his breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look- Let’s just- Let’s forget this even happened, okay?” Even though it’s phrased as a question, Castiel understands it as closer to the command that it actually is.

But Castiel doesn’t want to forget this happened. Something is awkward and lingering in the air between them, in the way that Dean shifts from foot to foot and won’t meet Castiel’s eyes. And if Dean wasn’t shopping for Eileen, and he wasn’t shopping for another woman… The options for who was being shopped for are dwindling by the second.

Dean’s face is still pink. Castiel’s heart squeezes tight and forces itself up into his sternum.

“You were… shopping for yourself,” he says lowly.

The clerk at the counter, whose nametag reads Molly in handwritten marker, raises an eyebrow of interest from behind her glasses when Castiel sets his book down next to the register.

“Oooh, a bird guide! This is cool.” As she speaks, Molly scans the book’s barcode with the red laser projecting from its tiny electronic box, and the register makes a high-pitched beep in acknowledgment.

“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “It has facts about many of the local species I was looking for.”

It has taken multiple years, but Castiel has finally realized that small talk is something most normal humans do, even during- especially during- interactions as inconsequential as purchasing a product. This is something that he had to learn on his own, as neither Sam nor Dean were ever much for small talk unless they were actively trying to get information out of a witness. But Dean doesn’t hunt anymore, and even though Sam and Eileen are still running a hunter support system out of the Bunker, neither of them has been involved in any sort of interrogation in over a year.

It’s given the brothers some time to brush up on their manners. Dean chit-chats with the local barista at the coffee shop they frequent, and Sam talks about the weather with the cashier at the grocery store, and Castiel is finally understanding what it’s supposed to be like to have polite conversation without the world constantly ending in the background.

Molly smiles at his remark as she looks up from the register, and her eyes are squinted in jovialness. “Do you birdwatch, then?”

“Yes, I- I rather recently moved and I noticed a dramatic increase in the number of birds I was seeing. I set up a birdfeeder at first, but now that they visit even more often I feel strange not knowing much about them. They’ve become my friends, in a way. It’s a little rude to remain ignorant when I enjoy their company so much.”

That makes Molly laugh. “I’m sure they were happy with the treats they were getting, and I’m sure they’ll be even happier once you get to know their names and routines. I feel like birds love a good routine.” She puts the hardcover book into a plastic bag.

“My birds certainly do. They frequently stop by at five in the morning, right before the sun rises. My husband finds it extremely annoying.”

Sometimes Castiel is wary of saying things like this in front of strangers, especially to strangers in a state like Kansas. But he and Dean had made a day trip to Kansas City to shop, and the larger, more liberal populace seems nonplussed by the fact that Castiel has been holding Dean’s hand all day. And Molly’s smile softens at Castiel’s words.

“Sounds like your husband’s the one who could use the book. Maybe he’d appreciate them a little more if he knew them like you do.” She glances back at the register screen and adds, “It’s gonna be 20.71 for you today.”

Castiel takes out the credit card Dean had given him from the right-hand pocket of his trench coat and inserts it into the slot at the bottom of the card reader that faces him. He thinks about Molly’s words, and he warms at the thought of Dean sitting outside with him on their back patio steps, the summer day cooling into a dusk that would hold them both as the birds gathered at the feeder for one last meal before nightfall.

“You’re right, maybe all he would need is further education on the subject.”

The card reader beeps at him, and then Molly is handing him his bag and wishing him a good rest of his day, and then he’s stepping out through the automatic doors into the June glare. It reflects up off of the sidewalk under him as he rounds the exterior of Barnes and Noble to get to the actual entrance of the mall, hidden behind the shadow of the other store.

There are more automatic doors that part for him as he steps into the air conditioning of the new building. He doesn’t understand the excessive usage of things that are automatic, specifically doors. What are the difficulties of turning a doorknob? Is it a task considered so frustrating that it has to be eliminated altogether? He could ask Dean, but the response he would get would be entirely sarcastic and almost completely incomprehensible to any person who had known Dean for less than five years. That is to say, it would hardly be worth Castiel asking the question at all.

A family of four passes him through the doorway as they head out to the parking lot, and he steps through a second set of automatic doors that finally grant him entry into the mall complex. Now, to find Dean. He had abandoned Castiel after thirty minutes of book scouring, muttering something about getting some of his own shopping done. At first, he’d seemed reasonably entertained by the comic book section, and then he had stopped to look at the large book sets of Game of Thrones, which had limited edition covers. By minute twenty he had wandered over to where Castiel was flipping through wildlife books and had peered at the pictures over Castiel’s shoulder. Even now, even with a wedding band on his left hand, Castiel is still enamored by the closeness. He still wants to close his eyes to savor the pyre of Dean’s body pressed along his back.

Through the years, there are things Castiel wishes he had done differently. Things he felt he had done wrong and things he had been told he had done wrong- but loving Dean… Castiel has always been very good at that.

He thinks that he keeps getting better at it. Dean makes it easy these days.

His… husband. Castiel smiles at nothing but the stale indoor air.

Where is his husband, anyway?

He approaches the kiosk that has a color-coded map that’s lit from the inside, depicting stores within the mall on it, representing both the first and second floor. He squints at it. There are multiple stores that Castiel could guess Dean had gone into based on his interests alone, but Dean is nothing if not an enigma of a person, and there’s just as much of a chance of Castiel finding him in a Yankee Candle as there is of finding him in the DVD and record store.

Perhaps the easiest course of action would be to just text Dean.

The easiest, but apparently not necessary, as Castiel looks up to scan the crowds, people walking in either direction down the large main corridor of the mall that functions as its living artery, and finds Dean exiting the Victoria’s Secret across the way. He’s frowning. He looks both ways as he steps out of the pink and black threshold of the store, and Castiel watches as Dean’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs. Castiel tilts his head.

Dean still hasn’t seen him, instead weaving his way through the crowd towards an unoccupied, uncongested area near one of the many trash cans in a line down the center of the hall. The expression on his face is distracted, pulled worn with disappointment.

What is going on?

Castiel glances back up at the Victoria’s Secret and then back at Dean again, but he garners no more information than he had the previous moment. Why is Dean shopping at a women’s lingerie store? Although, one side of it that reads PINK seems to be selling actual clothing. The only woman that Dean is particularly close with both emotionally and distance-wise at the moment is Eileen. She had briefly mentioned that she needed new clothes now that the summer heat is setting in, the last time that both couples had gotten together for their weekly dinner.

Yes, that makes sense. Dean must have been shopping for Eileen. But did he not purchase anything? He’s carrying no bags in his hands.

It’s with this confusion sitting at his back that Castiel makes his way to Dean, narrowly avoiding being run into by a teenage couple, both of whom are chatting loudly and wearing cowboy boots.

“Dean,” he greets when he gets close enough.

It makes Dean look up at him, and the frown on his mouth disappears to make way for a genuine smile. “Hey, you. Did you grab the book you wanted?” He nods down towards the plastic bag in Cas’s hand.

“Yes, I finally found one that included local bird species.” Castiel’s eyebrows pull together. “But you didn’t purchase anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“From ‘Victoria’s Secret’. Whoever Victoria is.”

Castiel isn’t sure what reaction he was expecting, but it was not for Dean to blanch as he turns bright red. “Dude!” he squeaks. “What?”

“I just saw you exiting the store…” Castiel trails off. He squints his eyes in confusion. “I assumed you were looking for summer clothes for Eileen.”

“Dude,” Dean repeats. This time he’s shaking his head and his mouth hangs open in obvious bewilderment. “Why in the hell would I be buying clothes for Eileen?”

Okay, this isn’t Castiel’s fault. His logic makes perfect sense.

“Because Eileen is your closest female friend, and you just exited a women’s clothing store.”

“Keep it down,” Dean whispers at him, and his face is still overcome by that same flush. He grabs Castiel by the arm and tugs so that Castiel is forced to take a step nearer, lessing the space between them as if something secret is happening. Maybe it is. “You don’t need to yell it for the whole damn mall to hear.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Castiel responds dryly.

The words make Dean swipe a hand over his entire face, lingering at his mouth where his thumb and pointer finger pull down the corners. Then he takes a deep breath in through his nose. “Okay, well, let’s back this up for a second. You thought I was buying clothes for Eileen? At Victoria’s Secret?”

“What was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know, most times when somebody sees their husband in a fucking thong shop they assume he’s cheating on them.”

Castiel blinks. “But… You’re not cheating on me…”

“I know I’m not cheating on you.”

“Which is why I assumed you were buying clothes for Eileen.”

Dean swears under his breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look- Let’s just- Let’s forget this even happened, okay?” Even though it’s phrased as a question, Castiel understands it as closer to the command that it actually is.

But Castiel doesn’t want to forget this happened. Something is awkward and lingering in the air between them, in the way that Dean shifts from foot to foot and won’t meet Castiel’s eyes. The defensive line of his body. And if Dean wasn’t shopping for Eileen, and he wasn’t shopping for another woman… The options for who was being shopped for are dwindling by the second.

Dean’s face is still pink. Castiel’s heart squeezes tight and forces itself up into his sternum.

“You were… shopping for yourself,” he says lowly.

This makes Dean’s head snap in his direction, jaw held tight to the south of his scared eyes. Maybe to anyone else they would look more threatening than fearful, but this is Castiel’s husband, and Castiel knows his husband very well. He knows that bottom lash line. He knows that shivering pupil.

It’s a testament to the ways that Dean has flowered in the last year that he doesn’t immediately deny what Castiel has implied, even if it was true. Especially if it was true.

“It’s nothing, Cas,” Dean says. Not defensively. Almost discouraged. Almost like he’s upset that it’s nothing because he’s wishing it was something.

Castiel is so raw for him, so in love with him. He doesn’t care if the crowds in Oak Park Mall are staring or not as he sidles up even closer to Dean until the lines of their thighs are very nearly pressed together.

“You didn’t buy anything.” His voice gets deeper when he speaks softly like this, the sad sympathy of it.

Does Dean not understand that Castiel thinks he is so wonderful? That if Dean had come out of that store with a bag in hand Castiel genuinely wouldn’t have questioned it, wouldn’t have thought any more or any less of him. Or the way he looks in the mornings when his hair is wild and the sun is on him. Or the way he looks at the stove with an apron tied around his waist, the strong line of his back visible through his t-shirt. Or the way he looks covered in machinery grease with only his feet sticking out from underneath the Impala.

Or the way he would look in soft pastel fabric that would cling to his broad shoulder but be loose on his hips.

Every miraculous version of him.

Families, children, couples pass on the left and the right but he and Dean are the only people to exist in this moment.

Dean’s breath leaves him slowly. “There were complications.”

“What sort of complications?”

The angle of Dean’s eyebrows twitches downward when he turns away from Castiel to look at his shoes instead. He glances back up again and blinks a few times. Castiel waits.

“They didn’t have what I wanted in my size,” Dean finally says. “I’m not exactly their corner of the market. I mean, maybe it’s for the better, huh? The universe is trying to tell me something-”

“Yes, it’s telling you to try shopping elsewhere. Somewhere that doesn’t have cheap, size-exclusive lingerie.”

Castiel watches as Dean huffs a laugh, the artificial light of the mall catching in his eyelashes, the luminance of life creeping back into his crow’s feet. “Oh, you think so?”

Grabbing Dean’s hand in his free one, Castiel guides them both into the stream of moving people. They quickly find themselves on the sidelines of the rush as they stroll at their own pace. The Barnes and Noble bag sways with each of their steps and hits Castiel against the knee on every off beat.

“I do think so. I also think that we have access to a substantial amount of money that used to belong to morally reprehensible people, and that if you are going to buy a gift for yourself… it should be nice.”

“Nice?” Dean balances the word in his mouth like he’s not quite sure what Castiel means.

“High-quality. Well-fitting. Whatever you genuinely want. The internet is a vast, terrifying, and extremely convenient place to shop, Dean.”

Their shoulders bump together.

“Save the lecture, sweetheart, you’re talking to the eBay wizard. I know just about every back alley that’s shown its ass under a dot com, including the illegal stuff. I think I can find my way around a few Google searches,” Dean teases. He’s cocky, the way he’s always been, but the swaggering confidence has a much softer place to lay its head these days.

He shoots Castiel a no-good smirk and Castiel thinks it’s very sexy.

But kissing Dean would only lead to another kiss, into what Dean would refer to as a ‘makeout sesh’ on one of the public mall benches, and Castiel doesn’t particularly want to find out what it’s like to get kicked out of a shopping center. So instead of a kiss, Castiel just hums in response.

They’re quiet again as they meander on, past a shoe store and a place called ‘Hallmark’. Dean’s palm is warm against Castiel’s, and the pressure of their respective grips makes the smooth metal of his wedding band press into the inner bend of his ring finger. Miraculous and joined together. Gold means nothing to a being who has orbited literal stars, but this gold is not just any gold, and it means everything. The rising of the emotion makes Castiel want to trip over his own feet, but he is a divine creature who doesn’t struggle with coordination so instead his pace only falters slightly.

Dean side-steps closer to him. Maybe Castiel will trip after all.

“So you really don’t mind,” Dean mumbles, “the, uh- that I want-” and then he doesn’t finish the sentence.

I think you’re so wonderful.

“I don’t mind.”

“Mm,” Dean nods, but he seems distracted. A moment later, “You- uh- didn’t seem very surprised.” The tone of his voice tilts up in nervousness.

Castiel has realized these are the moments that Dean needs to hear a joke, to laugh, teetering on the edge of anxiety that will fall into shame if not handled gently and rapidly enough. And so, even though there are many lovely things he could say to Dean, Castiel wears a smirk of his own.

“You forget that I rebuilt your literal soul, which means-” he leans in close to mutter, for dramatic effect, of course- “I know about Rhonda Hurley.”

And his methods of comfort prove successful, because when he chuckles to himself Dean elbows him in the ribs. But Dean’s smiling, too. Oh, he’s smiling. Beautiful like he exists in a place that’s equally as beautiful as him, not a public mall in Kansas City.

“It would be my luck that my husband’s a holy friggin’ know-it-all. Wipe that smug look off your face, people are gonna think you’re constipated.”

“This is just what my face looks like, Dean.”

“I must’ve won the lottery, you’re a know-it-all and a smartass. Hey-” Dean cuts himself off, tugging at Castiel’s arm and grinding their walk to a halt. He’s looking in the opposite direction of Castiel, over his own left shoulder. “There’s a Yankee Candle here.”

It’s a sudden shift in the subject that Castiel allows easily. They can talk about it later if they need to. Dean pulls him towards the white, wooden exterior.

Castiel would follow him anywhere.

…

The orange of the sunset shines in through the open patio door and illuminates the fingerprints and smudges on Dean’s laptop screen. Damn, he needs to clean this thing. Again, for what feels like the tenth time in as many minutes, he glances towards the deck that’s snug against the house, where Cas is sitting a yard or two off at the top of the steps, his back to Dean. He’s looking up at the stand-alone bird feeder that is currently the place to be for all things feathered. That includes a singular angel.

And- Christ- Cas is talking to them. His voice drifts into the kitchen the same way the sunlight does.

“Hello, Finley, it’s good to see you ag- Oh, please leave Linden alone. He hasn’t gotten any sunflower seeds yet. Madeline, you look particularly striking this evening…”

Dean turns back to his computer screen and he can’t keep the little, secret smile off of his face, fondness sitting light in his chest and in the shake of his head because he knows he should think it's weird but he doesn’t think it's weird at all. Sometimes he wonders if the birds can legitimately understand what Cas is saying. Wouldn’t be the hardest thing to believe out of the phonebook list of shit that’s happened in Dean’s life, by, like, a long shot.

But when his eyes find their way to the images on the screen, the columns of merchandise that depict an assortment of women’s lingerie knock the warmth in his chest off of its orbit.

He feels weird about this whole goddamn thing. Dirty shame that tells him to avert his eyes. Turn back now, before you’re in too deep. Looking and thinking and participating are all different things, each with more consequences than the last, and he can’t even believe he had the guts to go into that Victoria’s Secret in the first place.

Surrounded by silky things with frilly collars that he…

And he closes his eyes now.

Humiliation stings the back of his neck until the wires of good things and bad things all tangle up into a mess that chokes him. He shouldn’t want this, and he knows that, and maybe if he punishes himself for it now then he can still have it. That’s what he wants to tell the universe, convince it that the shame he already feels outweighs what he’s about to do.

Because it’s one thing to be nineteen and horny and drunk, a pretty red-head with pretty underwear, who snakes the underwear up Dean’s legs, over the swell of his thighs until it sits snug over his crotch. Soft and pink. They had a little bow in the middle of the waistband. He’d liked it so much, and he remembers the way his face had burned, how he’d stuttered out a laugh to hide it from Rhonda. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t know. But she hadn’t laughed along with him, instead, she’d cupped his dick in her palm and she’d kissed his cheek and she’d said, These look even better on you than they do on me.

He swallows hard, and he’s back at his kitchen table again.

“I bought a book. It has facts about you all, pictures as well. Of course, don’t worry, Madeline, they’re all very flattering,” Cas says outside.

The rumble of his voice is its own warm home. Dean bites his lip, takes a deep breath, and clicks Proceed to Checkout while ignoring the massive price tag that flashes at him.

He doesn’t give himself time to wallow in it as he stands with a start and closes the laptop with his right hand, turning towards an evening sun that was once orange but is now a sherbet pink. His body follows the call of it, one foot after the other until he’s out on the wood of the patio that his socked feet make very little noise against. At the last second he worries about scaring the birds away, but it seems like Finley, Linden, Madeline, and all the others are so overjoyed with their meal that they very adamantly ignore Dean’s presence.

Cas, though, looks up from the book he has spread across his lap, open to a page about Meadowlarks. His eyes never leave Dean as he sits down beside him, groaning lowly at the ache in his knees. It’s a pain that’s gone the next second, though, where it disappears under the warmth of Cas’s palm and the grace that circulates through it. Cas squeezes Dean’s kneecap before he lets go again.

God, Dean is such a lucky bastard.

“Got yourself a good crowd out here tonight, honey.”

The corner of Cas’s mouth ticks. “I think they like the new seed mix I’m buying more than they liked the last one.”

“Which means I’m gonna get to hear them at four in the morning instead of five now.” He’s not actually annoyed, though… Alright, maybe a little bit. He’s earned his beauty sleep, okay? Sue him if he’s irritated that instead of it being ruined by God, it’s being ruined by chatty robins.

“Maybe if you knew them the way I know them you’d consider it a pleasant wake up call,” Cas replies with an air of superiority.

Dean laughs under his breath, but that’s all he can do right now with the way his stomach is still in knots. The type of nerves that merit confession, like he needs to tell someone, needs someone to know what he just did. Cas sits there beside him, studying the list of Meadowlark facts. Dean studies the straight line of his nose until the love in him outweighs the rotten feeling.

“Cas,” he murmurs. He knows, objectively, that his time retired has softened him, but it’s moments like this that he feels the full force of that release. The lessened resistance between him and the things he wants to say and wants to feel. The sun is almost all the way set now. At the bird feeder, the birds chirp and ruffle their feathers as they fight for free spots at the holes where the seeds come out. Castiel looks over at Dean with those tender blue eyes, and the chokehold on Dean’s throat lets go. “I- um- Remember yesterday?”

It’s a stupid question. Firstly, Cas is an angel who remembers everything. Secondly, yesterday was literally yesterday and also an entire day, not just the narrow point of conversation that Dean’s trying to refer to.

But Cas just replies, “Yes, I remember.”

Dean clears his throat. “Well, I- You said if I wanted to buy myself something that it should be nice.” He’s being painfully and purposefully vague. Cas doesn’t mention it. “So I bought something. A couple something’s.”

It feels like the world should fall apart, but instead, Cas smiles soft at him like he doesn’t understand why this is so terrifying.

“That sounds exciting. Did you want to show me? Or is it going to be a surprise?” Cas tilts his head, funny like one of his birds. Before Dean can reply, Cas is blinking and adding, “Obviously, you don’t have to show me at all. If it’s just for you.”

Obviously.

“No, I mean, I wanna show you.” Dean says it before he thinks about it, but he finds that once the words are out of his mouth, he means them. “I think I want it to be a surprise, though, if that’s cool.”

“It’s more than cool,” Cas says. “It’s very cool.” As always, he’s as earnest as anything.

There’s nothing else to say, or at least, Dean can’t think of anything. If he tried to talk he’d probably do something embarrassing like start crying. So instead of responding he makes himself as small as possible in order to press close to Cas, trying to fit into the give of his body. His head ends up tucked into the nook of Cas’s neck.

Cas’s arm raises to wrap around his shoulders and hold him closer. Sometimes Dean wishes that Cas was a church and that he was a church mouse so that he could live safe inside of Cas’s solidity and never have to leave.

“Love you,” he says and he means.

“I love you, too.” Dean feels the shift of Cas’s body against his when Cas turns to press a kiss into his hair. “Of course.”

Of course.

…

The morning is so ripe that the sun hasn’t even risen yet, but already birds are scuffling and singing at the feeder. Castiel looks just over Dean’s shoulder to the clock sitting on their bedside table. He holds back what would have been the whispers of a laugh. Dean had been right after all. 4:09 AM blinks in an unsavory red pulse from the clock’s rectangular, electronic face.

Even with the added noise, the chirping is still new enough, soft enough, that Dean hasn’t stirred in the cage of Castiel’s arms. A lovely warm weight against Castiel’s chest that is already overflowing with bloomed love because the bloomed love has never lost its petals, in constant flower under the sun that is Dean’s shining soul and freckled cheeks. The back of his neck that’s directly in front of Castiel’s mouth.

Perhaps they themselves are two birds in their own little nest.

Castiel pushes forward to breathe in the scent of Dean’s hair. The strands are fuzzy and ticklish against his eyelids, web weaving themselves into his eyelashes. His hair is longer now than it ever has been, even if only by a small amount. Dean had tried to grow it out more thoroughly during the springtime, but the following summer heat had proven too much for him, where he would swipe at the sweaty hair clinging to his temples and the nape of his neck with a look of disdain. So it had been mowed down along with the grass of their lawn.

Not that Castiel would ever tell Dean in fear of swaying him away from his own wants and needs, but he prefers it at this length. It is boyish and charming, young and wonderful, where it marks the shift from Dean Winchester into just Dean. And he can’t help himself these days, when Dean wakes mussed and pliant, he finds his fingers curling through that downy hair and tugging just gently.

Dean’s tired matte eyes blinking at him. No distrust, like the pout of his lips wouldn't even know the definition of the word.

Castiel would pluck at the cowlick at the crown of his head and say, Good morning, little duckling.

The sentiment would make Dean grumble, certainly, but for that split second before he realized that he should be protesting Castiel’s teasing affection, his eyelids would flutter shut and he’d turn a happy pink. The spell of the moment would be broken by Dean half-heartedly slapping at Castiel’s hand and mumbling a barely audible, Shud’ub. However, he very specifically doesn’t ask Castiel to stop, and so he doesn’t.

Little duckling, indeed, Castiel can’t help but think now, where Dean’s hair smells like the woody fragrance of his shampoo and the natural heat of his skin. Castiel just wants to be closer. The itch in his bone marrow that is hardwired to keep Dean safe has been irritatingly present since their conversation on the patio steps just this previous evening. Where Dean had made himself so small and had looked so afraid.

Though there are many things, hangups, about humanity that Castiel will never understand, he does understand the emotion of shame, and he understands it very well. When there is something you do, or something you feel so immensely, that the only logical consequence is terrible. There is a difference between being ashamed and feeling shame, though Castiel wouldn’t be surprised if Dean was experiencing both of those things during this predicament. But being ashamed is a byproduct of action, while shame is at the core of you and eats you alive.

Shame is being different and being watched while you do it. It is knowing that you are your own cyanide pill and not knowing how to stop it, or how to make the crawling animal inside you be quiet because you are the only crawling animal in the room. Castiel remembers what it felt like to be outside of his holiness looking in. He didn’t even truly want to be holy, he just knew that any other option was a bad one.

He wonders if that’s how Dean feels now. That to Castiel, the idea of women’s undergarments is practically indistinguishable from any other type of clothing because they are both made of fabric and they both are worn on the body, but to Dean, a pair of satin panties is that internal crawling animal. The expectations of presentation from the outside world, from even just John alone, turned what would have been an innocuous curiosity into a hole. That masculinity is Dean’s holiness, and it is his only lifeline at the same time that it suffocates him.

And it’s much easier to brush off the residue of this embarrassment by telling yourself that you don’t want the thing that outcasts you. Pretending that Castiel did not want to feel. Dean pretending that he did not want more than gruff Americano. Perhaps the shame only comes after the admittance.

Dean had more than admitted his desires, he’d acted on them.

Not for the first time, Castiel wonders what this must mean to Dean if he was willing to pay such a high price in shame to achieve it. He wishes he could suck that poison out between his teeth, and spit it far away like Dean spits cherry pits off of the front porch, but something tells him this is going to be Dean’s battle to fight.

He breathes in Dean’s hair again. He feels so much love. It may not be Castiel’s battle but that will not stop him from raising his sword.

One of the robins, Finley by the sound of it, sings a particularly merry melody that causes Dean’s even breathing to hitch and his heartbeat to change from a pitter into a patter. He turns his head to bury his face into his pillow and snuff unhappily, consequently putting distance between his nape and Castiel’s nose. “Wha’ time issit?”

Castiel almost wants to lie just because he knows that telling the truth will get him bitched at. Still. “4:26.”

As expected, Dean groans. “I told you.”

“I know you did.”

“Gonna-” Dean mumbles. He turns over in Castiel’s arms so that he’s no longer facing their bedroom window and is instead facing Castiel’s chest, where he presses close as though to smother the noise from his ears. “Gonna string up your birds and hang ‘em from the rafters.”

“No,” Castiel reprimands even as he rubs a soothing hand up and down Dean’s clothed back. The repetitive motion makes Dean relax against him. “Maybe you should listen for a moment. Appreciate their musical prowess.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“I think you’d enjoy the beauty of their voices if you gave them a chance.” Castiel lets his cheek rest against Dean’s temple, and he lowers his voice to a hush with the new proximity to Dean’s ear. “They’re singing about the new day. The beauty of the sunrise that will happen soon and signal the beginnings of their birdly duties. They’re enjoying the sunflower seeds in the feeder mix. They’re thinking about the worms they will find in the soil and the chicks whose hungry tummies those worms will feed.”

Dean’s breathing slows into velvet draws.

“Do you hear how sweetly they’re singing? Without even asking for thanks or applause?”

A hum directly into Castiel’s collarbone that sounds a lot like a semi-defeated Whatever. His hand keeps up its rubbing motion, soothing away the last of the tension still caught in Dean’s spine.

“About the nests they will fly home to, and their mate who will be overjoyed to hear that the feeder mix has miraculously become even more delicious somehow. They’re singing about the birdbath that’s in the front yard of the woman who lives down the road. They’re singing so their loved ones can hear their song.”

Dean is soft in Castiel’s arms. It is okay to be soft now, Dean. In every shaking, budding way that you would like to be soft.

Including the way he falls back to sleep. Castiel himself doesn’t need to sleep, but he closes his eyes anyway to better focus on the tempo of Dean’s heart and the sentiments the birds chirp out over that baseline rhythm.

This moment is so fragile in his massive, clumsy, divine hands. As though he is trying to sew together a broken moth wing with a knitting needle. The smallest sound of a heartbeat that is less than a fraction of a millisecond in Castiel’s life, and the chirping of birds that have only begun to evolve into what they are within the last blink of Castiel’s eyes. But still, though it has taken years, he thinks he finally knows just the right amount of helium pressure to apply in order to hold them.

He holds Dean tighter.

“Don’t tell,” Castiel breathes, knowing that Dean can’t hear him in his rest, “but you are my favorite out of everything and everyone who has ever been.”

…

Dean gets a notification that there’s a package waiting for him at the post office in town, and his stomach balls up so tight that he’s almost nauseous. Pukey when he makes the drive over. Pukey when he signs for it. Pukey when he takes the box out of the worker’s hands. Pukey when he drives it home, a ticking bomb on the passenger side of the bench beside him.

Now it sits at the foot of his and Cas’s made-up bed and stares at him with its cardboard flaps and right-angle corners, two of them dented in from the bustle of the shipping process. The box is as innocuous as anything, but Dean knows what’s folded up underneath all the packaging tape; something that looks a lot like silk and feels a lot like the scariest thing Dean has ever allowed himself to think about, let alone act on.

He takes a deep breath in through his mouth and forces his shoulders to relax. Puts on his game face. His pocketknife is already held tightly in his fist, clutched like the final lifeline that it is, until Dean has to loosen his fingers in order to pop the blade out of its sheath. He uses it to cut a smooth line through the packaging tape, and the movement is swift and efficient in a way that would have reminded him of a kill only a few months ago but that now just makes him think of cutting up fresh peaches to put in his pies.

When he reaches behind himself to put the pocketknife down on the dresser pushed up against the wall across from the foot of their bed, the flaps of the box pop open to reveal its holdings, and the dusty blue silk camisole that had cost him a disturbing amount of money stares up at him, folded neatly. He wants to lean over the box and bury his face in it, feel the luxury fabric against his stubble, his nose, his cheeks. Close his eyes and savor the soft nest. There’s no one in the room to watch him do it if he did it, and it feels like a form of permission that he still can’t even get himself to take.

Before this exact moment, the closest he’d ever gotten to real silk was the underwear of a grad student he’d hooked up with ten years back. Law school on daddy’s dime. Her whole apartment had been filled with granite countertops and leather furniture, and she’d had on a matching lingerie set under her clothes that made Dean think that he had been the fly led into the honeypot this time, and not the other way around.

Not that he minded much. She was certainly enthusiastic.

And even though the bra had been made of silk, too, it had been tossed to the wayside not long after they stumbled through her front door together. The panties, though, Dean had gotten up close and personal with. Bright red that looked maroon in the low-lighting and so smooth they were cold with it even as her skin heated up, like touching water. It was easy to pretend that he was pressing his cheek against her hip in order to tease her, even as his brain had latched onto the loveliness of that specific sensation.

And he had thought… Just for that one second, he had thought I wish I was wearing these.

But that minuscule desire was overshadowed by the lively rounds of mutual head that followed, where it had then disappeared like it had never happened at all. But it had happened.

Now, he stares at the camisole that doesn’t belong to anyone but him.

It’s technically the least terrifying thing that he’s purchased out of the whole lot because at the end of the day it’s still a shirt. A glorified, girly shirt, but a shirt. But under it-

“Dean, is everything alright?” Cas calls through the closed door between them.

Dean can tell by the directionality of Cas’s voice that he’s sitting on the ground, probably leaning back against the protruding door frame. He’s supposed to be waiting for the surprise of Dean’s new purchase, but Dean thinks maybe they both know he’s also there for moral support.

With the way things are going in Dean’s noggin right now, he might end up only being there for moral support.

He glances at the door just to find the hunch of his own body reflected at him from the full-length mirror that hangs off of it. When he swallows, the second version of him swallows too. “I’m fine- It’s fine- I’m- I just opened the box.”

“Okay,” Cas responds, muffled through the wood. “Well, I’m here.”

That makes Dean close his eyes with an emotion that’s halfway to comforting. Cas is here. Right. And Cas is super strong, and literally righteous, and not scared of anything, and a really good husband- the best husband- and he knows exactly what Dean is doing right now, and he’s not mad about it or- or thinks it’s gross or bad. He’s the one who had encouraged Dean to do it in the first place.

He uses the thumb of his left hand to spin his wedding band around in nervous habit.

“I know you are, Cas,” he finally calls back softly.

“Good,” Cas says and then doesn’t say anything else. He always knows when to give Dean space like that.

It’s what gives Dean the courage to reach into the box and take the camisole out. He holds it up between both hands, his fingers laced through the spaghetti straps so that it’s hanging loose, gravity unraveling its folds. It really is a pretty blue. There’s lace, too, around the neckline and the hem of it, that’s an off-white color that reminds Dean of something nostalgic. Like vintage dresses or 80s kitchen curtains.

He gulps and doesn’t let himself think for another second as he puts the camisole down beside the box on the bed in order to pull the t-shirt he’s currently wearing off over his head. He balls it up between his hands and throws it towards the corner of the room, to be forgotten about until he picks it up later when this whole debacle is over. The summer sun beats on the other side of the closed blinds of the bedroom window, so the air in the room is warm enough to be comfortable even shirtless like this.

Warm enough to be comfortable in a tiny, silky tank top. And everything skimpy that’s going underneath it.

Jesus. If he doesn’t do it in one go he won’t do it at all. That’s how he ends up popping the button on his jeans and pulling the zipper down before curling his fingers in the waistband of both the cotton of his boxers and the denim of his jeans, pushing them off in one fell swoop. When he steps out of them, he kicks them across the floor in the direction that he’d tossed his shirt.

No excuses now that he’s naked.

He picks the camisole up and throws it over his head. The spaghetti straps get a little fussy for a second, but they untangle after some coaxing so that the fabric of the top finally settles down over his chest the way it’s supposed to. Without a second of pause to evaluate the situation, he moves on to the other garments in the box. It’s a race, see. Which will happen first: getting his body covered or having the shame strangle him.

So the panties are in his hand before they register in his brain, and then they’re hooked around either leg, then up. Up until his dick isn’t hanging out and instead has somewhere to settle. And he’s scrambling for the socks- Christ, he bought socks, too- They’re made of white cotton and the cinch of their hem comes to just under his knee cap when he tugs them on, hopping on one foot and then the other.

When the dust settles it’s a shock to the body.

Everything that’s touching him is so… soft. Soft and bare with so much skin showing. His collarbones and the crest of his shoulders, the length of his arms and the vulnerable insides of his thighs. A draft where he’s definitely never felt a draft before.

He turns to face the door that he knows Cas is on the other side of and he’s unprepared to meet his own gaze, his own bluebell apparition.

A trembling step towards it, then another, until he’s standing just a foot off from the door’s mirror. It turns him into a painting.

His hair has been growing out recently. Not anything crazy, but enough that there’s a fuzz to it that was never there before. Sometimes Cas calls him little duckling as he pinches Dean’s hair in between his fingers, and it always makes Dean blush and swat Cas’s hand away. He hasn’t gotten around to asking Cas to stop. Maybe he never will. Now, the downy feather of it seems overly appropriate for the outfit he’s wearing with the way it softens his brow line.

And his stubble… When he raises his hand to palm at the scruff, he catches a glimpse of his armpit hair peeking out from over the frill of the camisole’s edge- Fuck- It’s freaky and too much, the way his body is exactly the same it was three seconds ago but just wrapped in a different paper, like a reminder knocking at his door that he’s a dude in lady clothes.

The worst part is, he thinks he likes it.

He stares at himself in that full-body mirror and he stares back. What wants to be soft is calculating, and what wants to give refuses to bend. The line of his shoulders is sturdy under the spaghetti straps of the silk tank top and he likes it and he hates it. Wants to love it. Wants to love it.

Maybe it isn’t him staring back at all. Somewhere in there, in the line of his nose, in the space between his eyebrows, in the set of his jaw, John Winchester is screaming in violence. Inside Dean’s head in a way he hasn’t been in years, not since before he died, and he’s on a warpath that flashes across Dean’s gaze and that has him flinching-

“Dean, is everything okay? You’ve been quiet.”

The interruption makes Dean jump. Jesus, he’d sorta forgotten Cas was even there. Blinking, tearing his eyes away from his own body and moving them up to the safety of the ceiling, he comes back to reality.

In reality, all he can think to say is, “Uh-”

“So everything is not okay,” Cas says stoically.

It makes Dean laugh even though all of this is the furthest thing from funny. Laughing is easier than whatever else his body is trying to do.

“I’m sorta pissing my pants right now.” His fingers ball into a fist. Open, close, open again. “And I’m not even wearing any pants.”

There’s a pause before Cas asks, “Do you want me to come in?”

Dean doesn’t think he could take another pair of eyes on him right now. Even his own are too much.

“No.” He shakes his head even though Cas can’t see it. “No, I just- need a second.” The lace of the camisole’s hem brushes against his thighs when the breath he takes in makes his chest expand and shift the fabric. “It’s a lot.” His line of vision goes down, down, until it lands on the way his soft dick looks outlined through the cream-colored panties. “Yeah.”

“Will you… Could you describe it to me? I’m trying to picture it.”

Cas’s voice is low and thoughtful, maybe a little bit confused. Only Cas could basically make the come-on of What are you wearing right now? and have it be completely innocent. More than innocent, it’s trying to understand. It’s not What are you wearing right now?, it’s Describe what the Rubik’s Cube looks like so I can solve it from the other side of the door.

Dean can imagine Cas’s exact expression. He’s probably sitting with his back curled forward, his knees pulled up towards his chest, while he studies his hands that are interlocked in his lap. He’s probably frowning in thought, and he probably has a line between his eyebrows. Cramped up as close as he can be to the door like a worried friend.

That’s what he is, though, right? I mean, sure he’s Dean’s husband, but who wants a husband who’s not your best friend in the first place?

Dean looks down at the crack at the bottom of the door and sees the areas where Cas’s body is blocking the hallway light, turning the carpet brown and gray in a best friend shadow. His socked feet are within the periphery of the sight, and he wiggles his toes as he focuses on them. The motion makes the socks’ seams dance around.

“Uh, well, I got a shirt. It’s called a camisole, or whatever, but it’s basically a tank top. It’s got, uh, spaghetti straps. It’s blue. Like a light blue, reminds me of a 1965 Ford Fairlane. Made of silk. It’s soft. And it’s got, um, frilly stuff on the edges.”

“Yes, alright,” Cas prompts. He has one side of the Rubik’s Cube solved.

“There’s socks. Cheapest thing I ended up buying. I think they’re just cotton, come up to my knees, sorta like, uh, like a schoolgirl. I guess.” His face is so fucking hot. Why did he just say that? It’s true, but that doesn’t mean he had to say it like that.

But Cas just says, “Okay.”

Dean’s eyes drift back to the place that they’ve been so adamantly avoiding that he also can’t stop glancing towards, a comet in the gravitational orbit of a planet that it doesn’t quite crash into. So close, then gone again. Close, close, he sees his treasure trail leading down to where his pubes are peaking out- He jolts his gaze back up to the safety of the ceiling.

Why is this shit so hard? It shouldn’t be, right? Talking about what he’s wearing right now is technically nothing but a factual statement, same as if he were wearing a red flannel or a jacket or socks with little pictures of race cars on them. But then, those are boy clothes. Good, okay clothes.

And if this were some sort of prank, maybe, a dare where someone shoved him in a closet and said Put these on, Winchester, it’d be more than easy to laugh and call through the door, Yeah, I’m wearing the fucking panties. You owe me ten bucks.

No one asked him to wear this, to buy all this. No one forced him to.

Maybe it’d be easier if it just meant nothing. You know, if he was unrealistically well-adjusted and a pair of panties was nothing more than the satin fabric they were made of. And maybe he’d put them on and think, Man, this is really smooth against my balls and This style makes my ass look terrible, and then he’d take them off and the world wouldn’t end and there’d be no big crisis about liking them.

But it does mean something, and Dean does like them, and it’s not just that they’re satin, it’s that they’re panties in the first place. Something that girls wear all the time, but especially when they wanna feel good about themselves, when they have something special in mind. Dean- He likes- He wants to feel like that.

And the want is heavy. It means something more than the way that satin feels. It’s a weight that he’s about to put in Cas’s hand, that feels like a rock that Cas could kill him with, if thrown hard enough and from the right angle. Dean’s own vulnerability. Open up my chest so you can see my heart, that’s where your knife goes.

“Dean?”

Cas is good with knives, daggers, blades, all sorts of things, but they’re always pointed in the opposite direction of Dean’s throat. The hilts of those sharp edges form posts for a little fence that wraps around the house they have together. They play house together, and it’s playing because it’s fun and not because it’s pretend.

Besides, the only rocks that Cas throws are the flat ones he likes to skip on the nearby lake.

And maybe it is entirely possible that Dean himself is more likely to be holding that rock up for the killing blow than Cas is.

“I bought panties, too,” Dean finally says, and the words come out freer than he thought they would. “They’re sorta white. I got them ‘cause they’re the same color as the frilly stuff on the tank top and I thought it should all match, ya know.”

“Well, it sounds wonderful,” Cas says like it really does. He’s not freaking out, almost obviously so, like he knows if the inflection of his voice so much as lilts the wrong direction Dean will have a total breakdown. And he’d be right, so Dean appreciates the efforts even though they feel a lot like he’s being handled with baby gloves. Dean probably needs the baby gloves. “But you know I think you look wonderful in anything.”

That’s not the baby gloves talking, that’s just the truth.

It makes Dean chuckle in a way that doesn’t hide his nerves at all. “Yeah, well, that’s ‘cause you’re a friggin horndog.”

He’s waiting for Cas to say, I’m not a dog, nor do I have horns, Dean, just because he likes to annoy Dean like that, even though Dean is almost entirely positive Cas understands the slang Dean throws around more than he pretends to.

To Dean’s surprise, Cas doesn’t feign his usual confusion. “I can’t be faulted for that now that you’re my husband. I’ve earned my status as a ‘horndog’. You’re extremely attractive in all ways, and it makes me horny, so… I don’t know why you expect me to be apologetic about this.”

When Dean laughs this time it's genuine and it bubbles in his belly before breaching the surface.

“I’m not expecting you to apologize, I’m just saying that I could be wearing a hula skirt and a sweater vest, and you’d be doin’ the potty dance to hide your boner. Pro’ly tell me I’m your sexy little Hawaiian librarian.”

“Is that so awful?” Cas asks with his grumbly attitude.

Dean laughs again and closes his eyes. He raises a hand up to rub at his forehead. “I don’t know. I mean, shit, Cas.”

His words are followed by a lull of silence. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, because it’s easier when they’re closed. Because the real thing that he’s afraid of isn’t his husband on the other side of the door, it’s something in the bedroom with him, something in his own body with him. The easy laughter of their conversation may have eased the tension out of his shoulders but not out of the coil of his clenched jaw.

He waits for Cas to say something, but he never does.

A deep inhale, like that’s gonna do anything. The camisole moves against his skin. The residue of his half-life smile turns into a frown turns into a trembling thing in one fell swoop.

“Honey?” Dean breathes. He clenches his already closed eyes until he can feel the warm wrinkles of his own skin touching itself. “You, uh, you know that I’m stalling… don’t you?”

“Yes, I know, Dean,” Cas says so gently.

“I’m-” His throat is getting tighter. “I’m fucking terrified right now.”

“Of how I’ll react?

“Of how I feel. Like I can- Like I can hear John’s voice in my head and I can’t get it to stop.”

A pause. “Your father.” Cas’s tone is sympathetic and slanted.

“I just feel like it’s- it’s him looking back at me, ya know? My dad. Waitin’ to do worse than give me hell. God, if he would’a seen me in something like this,” Dean shakes his head and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth against the way that his eyes are burning. “He would’a beat the shit out of me.” A shaking laugh. “I mean, I- There wasn’t much I was more afraid of than him, ‘cause he always knew how to make me feel- make me feel so small. How to kick me when I was down. Like everything I was doin’ was wrong, even if it was exactly what he was doing.”

He makes himself meet his own eyes in the mirror, and they’re red-rimmed soggy now. His fingers fidget with the lace at the bottom of the camisole.

“The older I got, the more I- The better I got at doing what I wanted, the way I wanted to do it, but the more I thought I looked like him, ya know? I mean, he was my dad, I know how genetics work. And when I do somethin’ like this, look at myself or feel-... It’s like all I can see is him staring at me, just- Like I’m disgusting. Like this would be worse than me just being dead. That I wanna wear girl clothes. That I like it. That I wanna feel…”

Even this, he can’t make himself say. His lips part for the word but all that comes out is a shaky breath. The dust of the bedroom is quiet with him.

He hears Cas shift on the other side of the door, causing the fabric of his sweater to rustle against wood. Then, an easy prompt, “What do you want to feel?”

Dean wants to say it as much as he doesn’t. Contrasting pressures that keep him stuck. Sometimes his new life is easy and sometimes it’s a balancing game of a good night's sleep and corroding adrenaline ticks, and right now he really wishes he could make sense of any of it.

“I can’t, Cas,” he whimpers. No one else would’ve been able to hear him through the door, but Cas can, he knows it.

There’s a quiet thunk against the wood, and Dean can almost imagine it’s Cas’s head pressing in, trying to get closer, or at least as close as physically possible.

“Sweetheart. There’s nothing here that’s going to hurt you.” Tears push up fast enough that Dean has to knuckle his eyes to keep them in place. And Cas is still talking, saying, “Not John, not me, not your new attire or the birds outside. Not our bed. Not Chuck.” A pause. “And not you, Dean. You think you look like John, but you’re not John, and you are so much braver and kinder than him in every way. Please, listen to me, and just- just hear what I’m saying. You don’t have to be afraid of yourself, either.”

“But it feels-” Dean’s lip trembles. “It’s so fucked up.”

“Don’t say something like that when I’m stuck on the other side of a door and unable to hold your hand.”

Cas is teasing at the same time that he’s not teasing at all, and a water-logged bark of a laugh gets caught in Dean’s throat. He takes a step closer to the door and closes his eyes so that he doesn’t have to see his reflection in the mirror. The shiny surface of it is cool on his skin when he pushes his forehead against it, just for the sensation to disappear entirely when he lets up on the pressure in order to sit down on the carpeted floor, heels under ass. The wispy fabric of the camisole floats down with him, an overturned daffodil, a fairytale dress, and the silk settles neatly over the hair on his thighs. He takes a breath. He reaches up to the doorknob that’s now just above his line of sight and turns it until the latch on the door gives. Pushes until it displaces by an inch.

Sliding his hand across the carpet, closer and closer to that fine opening, he finally sticks the thin width of his pinky through the crack. A moment later, his pinky is overlapped by the warmth of Cas’s pinky.

Cas doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to, as Dean watches the way his little finger curls around Dean’s in a protective hold. It’s as human as it is holy.

Dean stares at the tiny intersection and he knows if he called this whole thing off, changed back into a t-shirt and blue jeans, Cas wouldn’t say a word to condemn him. He’d be right there on the other side of their bedroom door waiting for Dean no matter what.

“Cas,” he whispers to the crack of the door like he’s trying to get his husband's attention, even though Dean already knows that it’s on him. Cas’s pinky finger curls tighter over Dean’s second knuckle.

“Yes, Dean?” whispered back.

The whole house is silent and empty around them, but this secret is too precious for even the baseboards to hear.

Dean breathes in and then lets the confession go on the exhale. “I wanna feel pretty.”

He can hear the soft noise Cas makes; a coo, a low sigh. Then he just says, “Dean.”

The door starts to move as Cas pushes it open, and Dean doesn’t try to stop it, just shuffles on his knees until he’s out of the way enough for it to swing open fully. And Cas is right there in the spot that Dean’s reflection just was, almost in the exact same position.

There isn’t any time to feel self-conscious about his attire. For one split second Cas is holding Dean’s gaze with an expression like fleece on his face, and in the next second he’s nearly toppling forward in his haste to give Dean a hug. The dude’s as clingy as an octopus and he’s built like a brick house, and his arms have become as much of a resting place as their home has.

Dean’s insides are still skittering with nerves and he has this feeling like he’s gonna shake out of his own skin, but Cas is holding him together. Cas is so warm. A hand smooths through his hair, just to tug a little at the end of its path, the way Cas does to Dean’s bedhead in the morning.

“Oh, my Dean,” Cas rumbles. He rocks their bodies back and forth together.

For now, for this moment, Dean lets himself be a little boat. Let’s himself believe it when Cas says everything is okay and that he loves him, not in spite of the girl clothes or even because of the girl clothes, but because the girl clothes are on Dean in the first place.

“I’m here. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

The words make Dean squeeze his eyes shut against Cas’s neck. “I know, I know.” It’s been a year of retirement in the process, a whole lot of self-help books that only get partially flipped through, and even more of Cas’s patience, but when Dean adds, “You got me,” he means it.

“I got you,” Cas agrees. And then he holds him for as long as Dean holds on right back.

It’s only when Dean shifts that Cas squeezes him extra tight, just on the side of inhuman, before he releases Dean to pull back the few inches it takes to be able to meet his eyes. They look at each other with so much warmth they may as well be rubbing sticks together, and then Cas is raising a hand to brush at Dean’s bangs and Dean gives him a lopsided smile that’s no confidence and all charm.

Cas smiles back. “May I?” he nods down towards Dean’s attire.

It’s like that’s all the permission that Dean needs in order to get genuinely eager at the thought that not only can he feel this but he can share it. He wants to share this- this- craving that is penny reflective, like a tiny, shining piece of him that says Look at me! Look at this! Isn’t it great?

He sniffs in real deep and he swipes at his eyes with the backs of his hands as he replies, “Yeah. Let me just-” He feels cleaner for it, lighter for it, when he stands up fully and is buoyed by the look on Cas’s face.

It’s a good look. Sweet and enamored and just a little bit hungry, coming from a few feet below Dean because Cas is still on his knees. What a fucking sight. He wonders what Cas is seeing on his end of things, and if Cas likes the way the camisole pulls just on the edge of tight across Dean’s chest.

“It’s wonderful. You have an eye for the aesthetics of this sort of thing.”

“Uh, thanks.” He wants to keep fiddling with the camisole’s lace but it feels like a weird thing to do now that Cas is studying him. “So you dig it? Don’t think I look too stupid?”

“I think you look utterly nectarean.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think you can guess.”

Cas’s eyes, which had just been lingering on Dean’s crotch, raise to meet Dean’s, and they’re expanded and waiting. Dean gulps.

“Heh. Yeah- Think I can, actually.”

“Is that alright?” Cas asks lowly.

“What, that you wanna eat me for dessert?” Dean’s only playing a little stupid, because he knows the way that Cas gets when he says shit like that, and sure enough, Cas’s expression burns like smoke.

“That I find you wearing this arousing.”

The warm momentum of the conversation scratches like a record. Dean blinks. “It’s literally lingerie, dude. That’s kinda the point, isn’t it?”

“You tell me. That’s why I’m asking. It’s more than possible for you to enjoy wearing this just because you do. Or because it makes you feel… good. Or that you just think it’s fun. Those are all options that have nothing to do with sex.”

Cas is right, of course. If all of this was just for the sex, Dean wouldn’t have had a meltdown over it. He’s done plenty of freaky shit when it comes to the sheets and he certainly hasn’t drawn the line at something as innocuous as a little roleplaying, but he came out the other side of all that just fine. Maybe it’s the fact that with Cas, stuff like this is even allowed to mean more than the orgasm at the other end of it.

And it does. The lace of the top’s neckline brushes against his collarbones. It does.

“I mean,” and this time Dean gives in to the urge to fidget with the camisole’s hem after all, “it is ‘cause I like it.” He nods to himself and clears his throat. “Just- I like it- outside of fucking. It’s good. But, uh, I like that you like it, too.”

“Of course I like it, but that doesn’t mean-”

“I like that you think I look sexy, okay?”

The corner of Cas’s lips twitches up in a little smile. “You are sexy.” Then his head is tilting to the side. “Does that also mean that you’d like to have sex while you wear it?”

After everything, the tension of the moment, all Dean can do is make a nervous, giddy noise. “Yeah. Fuck yes. Let’s have sex.”

“Right now?” Cas asks hopefully.

“Right now, big boy.”

It’s Cas’s turn to chuckle. The corners of his eyes wrinkle like they’re Dean’s home. “Yes, I like the sound of that.” Eager when he leans forward to kiss Dean’s left kneecap just above where the sock ends, moving to do the same thing to the right side. “What do you want to do? Whatever you want, it’s your moment.”

“Geez, okay. Let me think for a sec. That’s- I’m drunk with power right now.”

“Sure,” Cas quips back, but he lets Dean put a hand in his hair and pet through it anyway.

And for a second, that’s all there is. All there needs to be.

“You look good on your knees,” Dean says unprompted just because it’s true.

Cas looks up from under his eyelashes, Dean’s hand still in his hair. He’s smirking. “I could suck you.” His eyes skip back down to Dean’s groin that’s just inches in front of him. “I could- lick you through your panties.”

“Mmm,” Dean bites at his bottom lip just to feel the edge of his own teeth, and knowing that they’re his in this body that Cas loves and that Cas wants to mouth at through his panties. “Wouldn’t that be a sight, huh?”

“But it’s not what you want.”

“You tryin’ to put words in my mouth?”

“I could hear it in your voice. You want something. Tell me what you want.”

Here comes Cas reading Dean like he’s nothing but tea leaves at the bottom of a porcelain cup before Dean even knows what that sooty organic is spelling out, what pictures it’s creating. And Cas had said You want something like it was a truth instead of a question. So… So… Dean must want something.

He goes down the list. Good place to start.

He wants to stay exactly here, for as long as he can bargain it. He wants Cas to lick him through the satin, despite Cas’s insistence that that’s not quite true. He wants to hold Cas’s hand and suck on the fingers until they hit the back of his throat and wring him out. He wants Cas to push all this fine material into his skin so that he’s forced to feel it, really feel it, and he doesn’t want an escape. He wants to be held real gentle-like, fucked like he’s a flower petal.

He doesn’t just want to be pretty on the outside, he wants to be seen as pretty, treated as pretty, all the way through to his muscles and his bones until the doubt goes away.

“What about…” he starts slowly. A pause when his eyebrows furrow in a cross between thought and hesitation. Cas is watching up at him like he’s the sun. “if you were sweet on me?”

Cas doesn’t look confused as much as he looks intrigued. “How so?”

“Ya know, treat me like we’re on a first date and we both got an itch to scratch, but you have to be a real gentleman about it. Common courtesy and all that.” As Dean talks, he warms to the idea the same way his cheeks do. “Make me feel special even if we both know we’d fuck even if you didn’t.”

“So… Like a roleplay?”

“Kinda.”

“Where I am the gentleman and you are…” The words trail off, not in uncertainty, but almost as though to leave a blank space for Dean to fill in himself.

And again, Dean’s coming up empty.

The lady is the obvious answer, but it doesn’t feel like the right one. Not to mention it’s too scary to look at even if Dean’s standing far enough away that he has to use binoculars to see it.

Dean swallows the saliva collecting in his mouth. When he speaks, his voice is gruff. “How ‘bout I’m just someone who needs taken care of.”

Cas’s expression softens as both of his hands come up to find resting places on Dean’s thighs, like not touching Dean isn’t an option. “In that case, I think I’m the gentleman for the job.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, okay. Good.”

“Good,” Cas agrees with a sturdiness that Dean clings to because of how unstable he feels. And then Cas is rising to stand and he’s so close that Dean can smell the ancient redwoods on him. “How would you like to proceed?”

Cas could pin him in with those blue eyes every day and Dean still doesn’t think the thrill will ever go away, the anticipation of it.

“I don’t know, you’re supposed to be the gentleman here.”

The pink of Cas’s lips part for the wet of his tongue and Dean feels simultaneously like an altarpiece and like a three-course meal.

“Of course,” Cas says lowly. Dean watches as he leans in, closer, until Dean’s eyes can’t stay focused with the proximity of their faces. Cas’s breath is on Dean’s mouth, and Dean closes his eyes for a kiss that doesn’t come, instead being replaced by the words, “May I kiss you?”

Dean swallows so loud there’s no way Cas doesn’t hear it. Maybe Cas can even feel the way the bob of Dean’s throat shifts the air particles around them into crashing waves. He doesn’t know what he expected, because when is Cas anything other than earnest? Anything other than completely invested in the task at hand?

And it is that earnestness that makes the hesitation in him stumble, because if Cas can be earnest about this, so can Dean.

“I’d like that.” He nods just barely, but they’re so close that even the minute movement makes their noses bump together.

With permission granted, Cas finally presses in. These days when they kiss it’s familiar, no hesitancy and no ulterior motives, just a want to kiss and then the follow-through of it… but somehow this is not that. No, instead it's tentative. It’s Cas’s hand coming up to cradle Dean’s cheek to hold them both steady as Cas ever so gently licks at Dean’s bottom lip.

Just as Dean’s about to press in to deepen the kiss, Cas pulls away an inch. “Tell me if I’m going too fast,” he rumbles.

Fuck. It’s sexy how competent Cas is. How quickly he can read the room or a situation, his tactical history coming out of the woodworks to adjust, reassess, and then act. And when he uses all that genius juice on making Dean’s wants become reality… It makes Dean feel as significant as any war or any God.

Cas is kissing him again, the hand that isn’t holding Dean’s cheek now reaching to grip Dean’s waist. The tension of Cas’s fingers bunches the silk of the camisole under them, making the hem of it raise to reveal a sliver of skin at Dean’s hip bone, and he wants Cas to touch him there, touch him on that vulnerable flash of skin.

He doesn’t think it's too presumptuous of him to reach up blindly to grab hold of Cas’s wrist and tug on it until he coaxes Cas’s left hand away from his face and down in the same direction that his right hand already is. But instead of closing Cas’s fingers around his waist on this side as well, he guides Cas’s hand to the lace of the camisole’s hem and then up underneath it just the barest amount. The pads of Cas’s fingertips graze in exploration where Dean is sensitive and ticklish, and for some reason when they’re pretending like this it feels like so much more than what it is. Like instead of it being about Cas touching him, it’s about Dean letting Cas touch in the first place.

It’s good, and Dean wraps his arms around Cas’s neck the way girls used to do to Dean when he would dance with them to the music playing from the jukebox at whatever no-name dive bar he and Sammy had wandered into. He fights a shiver when Cas’s fingers move towards the center of his stomach where his treasure trail is, petting down until they hit the obstacle of the elastic waistband of Dean’s panties. The new angle makes Cas’s wedding band press cold into Dean’s hot skin.

He sighs into the kiss when Cas strokes his finger back and forth there.

Cas sucks Dean’s breath into his own mouth before he breaks the kiss, pressing the tip of his nose into Dean’s cheek with enough pressure that he can feel the indent it causes.

“Perhaps we should lie down.”

God, all Dean can do is nod. Lets his body go weak and lets his feet stumble back behind him with each step that Cas is leading. Right foot then left foot then right foot until the bottom corner of their mattress hits the back of Dean’s bare thigh. There’s an awkward moment for rearranging their bodies, but then Dean is sitting down on the foot of the bed and crawling backwards with his hands while Cas watches after him. When Dean settles, still propped up on his elbows, he feels his gut roll when Cas crawls up over him.

He lets his head be led down onto the pillow, his breath getting caught in his throat and staying there as Cas looms over him like the moon. It’s not the first time they’ve been in this exact position, or even the twentieth, but something about the sentiment of the thing… It has Dean starry-eyed.

His insides squirm in a pleasure that still isn’t sure how to make itself at home. The way that Dean gets hot, gets hard, from the masculinity of the set of Cas’s eyebrows and the five-o’clock shadow of his jaw. That Cas is so big and strong, and- And it’s one thing to enjoy it because he enjoys Cas in general, and it’s another thing to seek it out separately in comparison to Dean himself. The way his toes want to curl thinking about being taken care of, while Cas smells like aftershave and does all the tending to.

He’s selfish for it and he’s suffocated by it, the wanting. Like Dean wants to be worth being careful with even though he’s supposed to be unbreakable.

And Cas is so careful with him now. Has this look in his blue eyes like he can see right through Dean into this imaginary dynamic he’s craving, holding Dean in regards outside of love and just inside of romance.

Dean wants to say something, but the breath that’s still trapped in his throat stops him.

Not that it matters when Cas puts one strong hand on the pillow beside Dean’s head in order to hold his weight up, effectively pinning Dean in. Making Dean small. His breath sparks back to life.

Then Cas is leaning down to kiss him and Dean lets his lips get caught and taken without trying to throw his hat in the ring the way he usually would. The constant pull in his muscles and uncertainty in his head is going loose inside of him, eager to get gone under Cas’s steady, low affection. Warm like a candle and not like a fire. Kiss after wet kiss that Dean opens his mouth to but doesn’t try to command.

It’s a pressure that lets up when Cas kisses down Dean’s chin instead. Down further in a crawl until his lips hit the underside of Dean’s jaw, and Dean is left to stare up at the ceiling as he feels all of it. The tender dampness, gone and then back again, and the way the satin of his panties is starting to pull as his dick fills out.

He feels like he’s trussed up like a goddamn present, and why is that doing it for him?

Cas kisses down Dean’s neck at a pace so precise that in any other situation it would make Dean want to crawl out of his skin. Now, it feels like building. It’s slow because it’s important that Cas is careful with Dean, because Dean is pretty and fragile and scares easy, maybe, so patience is of the essence. Cas’s breath is a damp heat at Dean’s pulse point that makes Dean’s brain fizzle.

It’s what makes him reach out to touch Cas in return, but only as far as both of his hands closing on Cas’s waist, just to give Dean something to stay grounded to. Just to feel the muscles of Cas’s abdomen shift under his thumbs.

And, god, is he glad he found some sort of solid footing because it’s almost entirely yanked away from him when Cas’s fingers glide across the crest of Dean’s shoulder to where the flimsy spaghetti strap of the camisole is, just to push it off to the side so it falls limp around Dean’s bicep. It’s a classic move that’s made even more cliche when Cas’s hand wanders down over Dean’s collarbone and under the triangularity of the camisole's neckline to where Dean’s right pec is. Just shy of his nipple in a way that has Dean wanting to arch up, up-

“Is this okay?” Cas asks into his neck.

It’s a genuine question at the same time that it’s part of the game they’re playing. Dean’s breathing faster now like he can’t help it. Laying there and letting Cas feel him up, but of course, Cas is so polite about it. A real gentleman.

“Uh-huh.”

Those tanned holy fingers move down the last centimeter it takes to bump Dean’s nipple until they’re rubbing over it in an act of friction. It tightens up so quick that it smarts a little, and it feels so fucking good that Dean has to close his eyes. His chest kicks with it, a twitch up into Cas’s touch that Cas doesn’t acknowledge because he’s too preoccupied with kissing Dean’s neck again. The room is so quiet that all Dean hears is the sound of them, each wet smack, that makes him feel like a treat to be eaten.

He thinks he gets why Cas gets all weird and horny when he makes comments about stuff like that.

Cas catches Dean’s nipple between his fingers at the last second to give it a tug, just to let it go afterwards. The sensation of that tension makes Dean’s eyes clench shut, and before he can even process it, Cas is taking his hand out of the top of Dean’s shirt so that he can keep on his downward journey, along the centerline of Dean’s torso. He’s kissing the whole way, one peck after the other, across the transition from Dean’s skin to the lace of the camisole to the silk of the camisole itself. By that point, it’s no longer the sensation of a kiss but the pressure of it that pushes the soft fabric against Dean’s belly.

He wonders if Cas likes the way it feels on his stubble, too, the way Dean does.

And then Cas is over his belly button, then he’s down to the frilly hem, and Dean thinks Fuck yes, kiss my dick through my panties. This is it. This is it.

Oh, but Cas stops. Right there at the elastic waistband. The arousal in Dean turns dense and floundering in its confusion, and he opens his eyes to peer down the line of his nose to where he can feel Cas’s weight resting over his thighs. Cas is already looking up at him, catching Dean in that stare and holding him with it.

His chin is hovering right over where Dean’s cock is getting harder by the second, making the panties strain, and if Dean really wanted to he could thrust up to grind against it. Part of him is tempted to reach down and tangle a hand in Cas’s hair, but all he ends up doing is fisting the comforter on either side of him.

He doesn’t know what to do with Cas’s blue eyes on him like this. Just that they make him want to be still at the same time that he wants to squirm. He watches as Cas presses the tip of his nose into the soft give right below Dean’s belly, where his treasure trail is.

“You’re very beautiful.”

Dean’s jaw clenches against the blush forcing its way to his cheeks. He wants to look away from Cas’s expression even though he forces himself to hold it. He wants to look up at the ceiling and feel all of this and feel none of it at the same time because it feels so good. Laying here in a king-sized bed where the quivering parts of himself that should be left for dead are being nursed back to health by the gentlest, strongest hands known to man. Better than Dean ever thought he’d get. It’s difficult to look at the sun head-on.

Before he can fall any further down that rabbit hole, Cas is continuing, “As always, of course. There is never a moment when you aren’t beautiful. But I can’t help but think you look…” And then Cas’s eyes are closing like he’s savoring this and it’s so hot- “particularly pretty today.”

Hard. Dean is so hard.

He presses his head back even further into the pillow because if he sees that expression on Cas’s face for one more second he’ll start rutting against it and won’t stop until he comes. That taffy heat is so full-up inside him that he has to let out a stream of air from his nose to release the pressure.

Dean doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t matter when the tip of Cas’s nose wanders up the inch it takes to hit the lace hem of the camisole. And then his hands are getting in on the action, skirting across the sliver of bare skin at Dean’s belly with fingertips grazing that sensitive area as they push upward until his knuckles catch on the shirt.

Cas isn’t going down, he’s coming back up again. And he’s bringing the camisole with him.

Closing his eyes, Dean just feels it. More and more of his stomach becoming exposed to the warm bedroom air, to the barest touch of Cas’s fingers. He’s been shirtless an innumerable amount of times but he’s never felt exposed like this before, like Cas is revealing more than just skin, stripping Dean down to his soul and how that soul translates sensation from every single molecule.

A pause in the motion. Cas’s breath is hot and damp on Dean’s belly button, and the strange fascination Cas has with it that’s become a joke between them seems really, really not funny right now.

Cas kisses the indent of it and lingers there for a long second. Dean holds himself stock still in anticipation that breaks when Cas licks in with a wet, little flicker of tongue. Another lick that turns into a smack of lips so loud that Dean can hear it, and that draws a punched-out hum from Dean’s throat while his abdominal muscles tense. The whole thing is as strange and curling as Dean’s desire to be treated like something fragile, and Dean thinks he likes that he and Cas are strange together. Sweaty and horny and strange.

Strange thinking about Cas’s tongue going inside, the way you tease someone when you’re eating them out. Thinking about things going inside in the first place. Dean’s bottomed plenty of times, sure, but what’s the difference between getting fucked and being penetrated? What does it mean that when Cas licks at his belly button, it makes Dean wish he had a pussy that could get wet and loose to let Cas’s cock in the way it should be welcomed into the body. Not in direct contrast to getting fucked in the ass, but in a new way of getting Cas inside, and turning Dean into a vessel for it.

And Dean’s slept with plenty of girls who’d sooner push him against a wall than bend over for him, but maybe Dean wants to be the kind of girl who bends over to get taken. Maybe he wants Cas to take him. Maybe he doesn’t want to think, and he wants Cas’s hand on the center of his back, and he wants Cas slipping into him so easily, and he doesn’t wanna feel like he should have to put up a feigned struggle to prove his masculinity beforehand. He doesn’t want to be masculine at all. He wants- He wants-

Cas continues his mission upwards, kissing at every few inches of skin revealed until the camisole is all the way past Dean’s pecs. Dean sits up to let Cas take it off of him completely, just to startle when Cas’s palm finds his left shoulder and pushes him back down all the way into the bedding.

“Now,” Cas murmurs as he carefully rolls the silk up with his fingers, the way you’d roll a cigar, and pushes the bunched fabric underneath Dean’s armpits to hold it in place, “why would I want to remove such a delicate article of clothing? Such fine material?” He’s at Dean’s collarbones so Dean has to crane his neck down to meet Cas’s eyes from the close proximity. “Especially when you look so lovely in it?”

It’s only Dean’s utter stubbornness and craving for this moment to never end that stops him from pleading Please, please, I need you to fuck me.

Even though he doesn’t say it, the sentiment must be obvious on his face because Cas says, “You enjoy me saying that about you.” His tone is only slightly too kind to be actually teasing.

Dean licks his lips. “Yeah.”

“That’s fortunate, given that it’s all true.” He angles his head to kiss the underside of Dean’s jaw. “And that I enjoy saying it as much as you enjoy hearing it.”

Then he’s leaning back down to kiss the flat center of Dean’s chest.

“Beautiful Dean,” he whispers. Another kiss. “Lovely Dean.” Another kiss. More hot breath pushed into Dean’s skin. “Pretty Dean.”

Dean’s scalp prickles and goosebumps raise on his arms while the tips of his ears grow warm. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but he doesn’t get a chance because Cas leans over to lick lazily at his right nipple. No formed words leave Dean’s parted lips, just a quiet noise.

“Mmm,” Cas groans even louder in response, eyes closed and eyelashes curling dark over the crest of his cheeks.

He’s so damn gentle with it, makes Dean feel so- This time he doesn’t stop himself from threading his fingers through Cas’s hair and petting the soft strands off of Cas’s forehead and back until Dean’s palm is resting on the crown of Cas’s head. Cas’s lips close in a damp heat that’s almost too soft to bear and that makes Dean’s chest push up.

If he really consciously allows himself, he can close his eyes and let Cas’s attention make him feel like some pretty, breakable thing.

The sentiment catches in him.

“Oh,” he moans under his breath.

Cas gives one broad lick before he pulls away just far enough to ask, “Is this still alright?”

“Yeah,” Dean whimpers. Sighs as he plays with Cas’s hair. “Feels good.”

With that, Cas moves to the left side of Dean’s chest, leaving the right nipple shiny wet and open to the air. When he reaches the left nipple, he kisses it. “Good.”

God, if Dean can feel the pressure of Cas’s stomach against his boner, then Cas can definitely feel Dean’s boner against his stomach. Because Dean’s already getting there just from this. Just from the precision of Cas’s attention and the heavy petting of his hands, the wet give of his mouth.

The mouth that sucks at Dean’s nipple for a second longer before it’s pulling away. In fact, the heat of Cas’s body pulls away completely when he sits up into a kneel between Dean’s parted legs. Cas’s hands are big where they skim up Dean’s body all the way to his chest, spread open beneath both of Dean’s pecs to bracket them.

Dean’s eyes widen and his breath hitches.

Both of Cas’s thumbs journey higher to play with Dean’s nipples, and he can’t help the noise he makes in his throat.

The tooth of that too-good sensation breaks when Cas reaches to pull Dean’s camisole back down again, hiding all of that skin that Castiel had just kissed so nicely. “Would you be comfortable with turning over?”

Dean licks his lips. “Uh, you mean, like, laying on my stomach?”

“Yes. If that’s alright.”

“That’s- yeah, okay.” His brain feels soggy with all this, the trust of it and the receiving of the wantings, that he doesn’t even know what to do. Just- Just- Turn over, he guesses. It’s with less grace than he’d like to admit and Cas has to shuffle out of the way of Dean’s swinging legs, but eventually he winds up on his stomach, his arms coming up to rest on either side of the pillow.

This is the first real pressure his dick has gotten since the start of their little game, and the friction burns up hot in Dean’s veins. It’s one thing to have bricks and it's another thing to have the building. Cas’s gentle touches had been delicate, mounting things, but this- Dean gives one long roll of his hips into the mattress and bites back a groan.

He wonders what Cas would do if he didn’t stop. If Cas would watch him be filthy pretty in his panties as he got himself off by humping their bed. If Cas would coax him into stopping, or if Cas would touch him, or if Dean would just have to feel Cas’s eyes on him as he got himself off desperate and dirty. Come in his new panties and ruin them.

But he stops himself. Stills his hips and breathes into the cotton of the pillowcase that smells like dryer sheets.

The feeling of Cas’s hand caressing the bare skin of his shoulder startles him back to reality. Fingers that crawl up to wrap around the base of Dean’s neck and massage just gently. It makes Dean’s head fall forward, loose and waiting. He wants to be pliant. He wants to be good, feel good.

“You don’t even know how lovely you look like this. How captivating. I- I feel very lucky to be here with you in this moment.”

And Dean knows that this is not just part of their play-pretend. He closes his eyes and knows that there’s nothing that he needs to say.

Cas’s hand leaves Dean’s neck and then he’s scooting around somewhere near the foot of their bed again until he reinstates his original position between Dean’s legs.

A moment of stillness before the seat of Dean’s panties is being pulled down, and half-dressed must be the theme of the night because Cas doesn’t try to take them off all the way, just settles the elastic waistband under Dean’s ass cheeks. He feels like he’s being inspected, and the weight of Cas’s eyes on him makes him want to grind down into the silk of the panties and the firm resistance of the mattress. He stops himself, though, when Cas’s palm settles light on the newly-bared skin.

“Look at you,” Cas says.

Dean lights up inside.

“You are so beautiful. Spectacular, really.” And the way Cas says it like he really means it. One of Cas’s fingers, his thumb from the feel of it, grazes down Dean’s ass crack and has him huffing into the pillowcase. “All for me right now.”

Always, Dean thinks. But that’s not part of their fun for the moment. “Yes,” he goes to say, but the word turns into a groan when Cas’s thumb dips in further to press against Dean’s hole.

“I want to take care of you. May I take care of you?”

“Please.”

The sweater Cas is wearing drags across Dean’s back when Cas leans in to whisper, “Ready?”

He’s talking about his mojo, the step in the process if they’re doing something that involves any inside action where Cas will clean out the pipes. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not exactly pleasant to have your colon wiped with no warning.

“Go for it.” In the blink of an eye, Dean’s about a sixteenth of a pound lighter than he was a second ago. He relaxes into the bed again. “All clear.”

Cas’s warmth leaves Dean as he leans back to his original position. “Good. I have something for you that I think will make you feel… I think you will enjoy it.” Cas’s left hand is on the small of Dean’s back now, while the other is still on Dean’s ass. “I’m going to take care of you, sweetheart.”

A pause that has Dean thrumming inside of his skin, waiting.

And then the sensation of something liquid-wet is being dripped down onto his ass crack. He gasps in a breath and the air smells like flowers that Dean couldn’t possibly name because they’re too expensive to find in a supermarket. Rich and earthy and green.

Dean’s fists clench around the comforter to either side of his shoulders. “Fuck.”

It must be an oil of some kind because it stays slick even as it settles, even as both of Cas’s hands come down to massage Dean’s ass. His fingers start to stray towards the crack again, spreading Dean open and then nudging up against his hole again. Even more oil starts to pool there, until some of it leaks inside of him. Dean clenches his eyes shut and tries not to feel the friction of the bed against his cock.

That plan gets thrown out the window when Cas’s finger glides up along Dean’s crack, down again, a movement that makes Dean’s hips hitch until he has to consciously restrain himself from humping the mattress.

“I’ll get you wet for me,” Cas breathes in a low voice.

“Oh, shit-”

“Whatever you want, whatever I need to do to pleasure you. To get you ready to take me. I’ll do it.”

“Cas.”

“So pretty like this.”

One of Cas’s fingers starts to push inside to the first knuckle.

It sets something loose in Dean’s brain that wants to melt out of his ears and out of his mouth. If there wasn’t any fight in him to begin with, sitting quiet and letting Cas work him over, whatever he’s feeling now might classify him as a pacifist. He wants to give in so badly. He wants to stop pretending that there is any resistance to him just because Resistant is his default setting. That he’s a big man with a big gun and that means he has to be in charge, always, but he doesn’t want to be- He wants to be soft under Cas’s tending hands and he wants-

Cas’s finger pushes all the way in.

The noise that Dean makes is a whimper so high-pitched that he doesn’t think his voice has sounded like that in over three decades. He freezes. Oh. Oh no. And Cas is pulling his finger out, pushing back in again, working the slick of the oil into Dean’s body in a way that makes his eyes want to roll back in his head. Makes him want to forget why he was ever ashamed of any of this in the first place and let it all go, act like-

“Wait.” His voice halts and cracks over the single syllable. Behind him, Cas stops his movement. “Just, uh, hold on for a second.”

The finger in Dean pulls away entirely and leaves him empty.

“Are you alright?”

“Cas… I’m scared.”

It’s a little bit humiliating to admit when they’re already going hot and heavy, but it’s the truth, and it sits in Dean’s stomach like a stone. The fabric of Cas’s sweater rustles at Dean’s back and the comforting, looming weight of Cas’s body shifts as he makes his way back up the bed again. He settles with his chest pressed close, tucking his chin over Dean’s shoulder, arms sneaking between Dean’s waist and the mattress to hold him, and he’s perfectly heavy.

“Why are you scared?” Cas asks.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. How do you admit that you’re afraid of yourself? Of the things you crave and your reaction to those things? That the earnesty of any of this might just break Dean to pieces.

“I just feel like-” Dean mumbles. But the words aren't right and he starts over. “The stuff my brain’s doing, and- and the way I want to react, it’s like I can’t control myself.”

I have to control myself because I’m not allowed to do this, pretend to be this. It’s unforgivable, no-take-backs- worse than panties and worse than this roleplay moment that’s already so far over the line of acceptable that it’s in Greenland-

“You think that… whatever it is you can’t control, it will upset me?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Cas hums lowly. “Do you trust me?”

It takes a moment for Dean to respond, not because he doesn’t know the answer to that question, but because he’s overwhelmed by just how well he knows the answer. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘course.”

“Then you should act however you’d like, and trust that I can ‘roll with the punches’.” When Cas breathes out, the air is warm on Dean’s neck. It’s good. “You forget that I’m a horndog for you.” Cas pecks the hollow of Dean’s cheek. “Everything you do turns me on.”

“I don’t know about this, though, man.”

At his words, Cas lowers even more of his weight onto Dean’s body until he is a living blanket that won’t let Dean float away strung up to a balloon of his own anxiety. “You seem convinced that what you’re talking about is going to alarm me in some capacity.”

“Yeah, well, it feels pretty damn alarming.”

“Will you tell me what it is?”

A pause. It’s too big to say out loud. When he breathes and he feels Cas’s weight he thinks- Maybe, maybe, he himself is too small for it, but Cas is the size of the Chrysler Building and has known humanity since humans were nothing but molecules, duct tape, and a thought experiment, and maybe that is big enough for this. He swallows.

“I don’t just want to feel- the way a girl feels. I want…”

But still, the want clutches at the lining of his throat.

“You want to behave like one.”

Fuck. Fuck. Can Dean fucking suffocate himself in this pillow, actually? He doesn’t bother responding to Cas’s pinpoint accuracy.

“Dean,” Cas says with just a touch of teasing annoyance, “hiding in our bedding isn’t as effective as you think it is when the rest of your body is laying here in the open.”

“Don’t care,” Dean muffles out through the dampening cotton of the pillowcase.

Cas sighs above him. Still, he kisses the high point of Dean’s cheek that’s exposed to the air again, then again. “You need to understand that when I see your soul, I don’t see a man.” The words make every muscle in Dean’s shoulders tense, but Cas just keeps talking. “I don’t see a woman, either. I see an infinite amount of identities and possibilities, desires and dislikes. Humanity is so intent on creating boxes to check off that you never stop to consider that not everything needs to be categorized, and to feel like you have to be on one side of existence or the other is a disservice to how intricate you are. Almost every person in the world feels the way that you do, Dean.”

“That seems sorta far-fetched.”

“It’s the truth. The human soul doesn’t understand why you confine it, so it is constantly on the verge of breaking free. Of rebellion from its cages. It takes true bravery to be the one to let it out on your own accord the way that you’re doing now. So, if you are afraid of my reaction, that is one thing, but if you feel… If you are ashamed, understand that it’s not your wants that are misplaced, but the shame you feel about them.”

When Dean stays quiet, Cas fills the silence.

“You are a man because you choose to be a man, with every wonderful and complicated thing that implies. That doesn’t mean that that is all you are.”

Dean furrows his eyebrows against the pillowcase. “That’s what I mean, I just don’t want you to think that I wanna- like, I actually want to be a girl, ‘cause that’s not-...”

“Is that what you’re scared of? That I’ll misinterpret your desires?”

Oh. Well, shit, now that Cas put the words into Dean’s mouth for him it seems a little obvious.

“Yeah? Fuck, Cas, I don’t even know how to interpret my desires.”

At this, Cas lets out a long, long breath. “Mmmm,” and the noise sounds like a grumble. “Would it be rude of me to say that your fear is making you think too much?”

Dean gives a single incredulous laugh. “I mean, kinda.”

“Well,” then Cas pauses, starts again with an air of finality in his voice, “in my experience, there is only so much thinking that can occur before the only thing left is to do.” The heat that had pittered out into lukewarmth flares back to life when Cas licks the shell of Dean’s ear. “Be not afraid, my love. It is just you and it is just me who will be doing, and I won’t hurt you.”

The last of the resistance still in Dean’s chest begins peeking out, trying to see if this new territory is safe. If, given that he chooses to step into that unknown, he will sink or swim. If there is going to be solid ground to catch him.

“I know you won’t.”

“Then stop thinking,” Cas breathes out kindly, hotly, “and start wanting. You’re allowed to.”

I’m allowed to. I’m allowed to. I can want this. I can do this. It’s okay that I feel like this.

“It’s okay that I feel like this,” he wonders. His chest is so tight.

“It’s okay,” Cas agrees.

Nodding into the pillow, Dean finally lets that pressure in his chest unhook. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, honey. C’mon.” And this time, it’s not so terrifying to think about, let alone say- “Want you to treat me like a lady.”

“Yes,” Cas purrs like this is what he’d been waiting for.

Maybe it had been. Maybe Dean’s being a little bit conceited to think that he’s the only one who’s into this, and maybe the fact that Cas is into this too, selfishly, makes Dean more and more sure that the ground will not fall out from under him. Because Cas isn’t just blowing hot air. No, Cas thinks Dean looks nectarean.

How could Dean have forgotten after just thinking it himself a second ago? That he and Cas don’t have to be strange alone because they’re strange together.

The boner that Dean can feel pressed against his bare ass through Cas’s slacks is a real good indicator of that.

“And, Dean?” he says suddenly, still next to Dean’s ear.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Dean shakes his head and chuckles into his pillow with a smile that he’s sure is making the corners of his eyes wrinkly. “Yeah, yeah.” A pause, and then softer, “Love you, too.”

“Mmm,” is all that Cas responds with now. A kiss to Dean’s temple. “I’m going to take care of you.”

I know you will. But Dean doesn’t need to say it out loud for Cas to understand, so instead he just arches his back, just a little bit, so that his ass presses against Cas’s dick.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Cas groans into Dean’s ear. “You have no idea what you make me feel. What you do to me.” He pulls his arms out from under Dean’s stomach and settles them to either side of Dean’s head on the pillow, resting his weight on his forearms to give him more leverage against Dean’s grinding.

It’s easy to fall back into their rhythm now, and the creeping dissonance that Dean had felt when they had first started this whole thing seems to have vanished. No more lead in his stomach, no more scummy shame to clog up the pipes, and that absence leaves room for the want in him to swell. What he wants- What he could say- The fear only clings to him for a second before he shakes it off.

It feels like stretching an unused muscle when he lets the pitch of his voice float up a register to whine, “You’re so hard.”

“Do you enjoy that? How hard I am?”

“Yes.” Toes curling at the foot of the bed. Dean rocks up even more intensely into Cas’s weight that’s still pinning him down.

Cas doesn’t respond immediately, instead, the warmth of his body starts to leave as he pushes off of his hands so that he’s sitting back and straddling Dean’s ass. “Would you enjoy it if I…”

The words are followed by the sound of the zipper on Cas’s slacks being pulled down.

God, yes, Dean holds his breath.

A beat of silence before Cas is pushing up against Dean’s ass from behind. And where Dean expects there to be hot, bared skin, there is still fabric. It’s softer than the slacks had been, like some sort of cotton, and it takes a second for Dean to realize that it’s Cas’s boxers, worn so thin that Cas’s erection may as well be outlined directly against Dean’s ass, but it’s not- it’s-

“We can go slow,” Cas says in that voice. He gets his hands on Dean’s hips and all Dean can feel is heat and that barest friction from the boxers as Cas rolls against him. “We can ease into it.” Cas pulls back, thrusts forward again, back, forward again, and Dean’s mouth falls open when he realizes that Cas is play-pretend fucking him, humping against Dean’s ass even though there’s no penetration. Not even the glide of Cas’s cock against Dean’s asscrack, where the head would catch on Dean’s hole for just a second like a tease until Dean was squirming for it.

There’s not even any way that Cas is getting enough traction to get off with the movement, with the way he’s pressed against Dean one second and then gone the next, so the only thing Cas is getting out of it is the idea of fucking Dean.

“Oh,” Dean moans into the pillow.

Because he likes it. Maybe it’s a little weird, but he likes it. Likes laying there while Cas humps him like he’s trying to get Dean used to the sensation. Likes the immediacy of it all, where Cas is the boy and Dean is the girl and this position is as simple as it gets.

Cas’s hands move down from Dean’s hips to his asscheeks, one on either side, and he pushes them apart at the same time that he presses forward so that the clothed line of his cock sits heavy in between them. It’s so much, and Dean is still slick there from the oil Cas had fingered into him, and Dean feels his stomach clench at the thought of still being wet enough for the oil to seep into Cas’s boxers and stain the fabric dark.

This time, Cas really does grind against him. Dean closes his eyes at the low groan Cas lets out from over his shoulder.

“Please excuse my bluntness,” Cas’s voice shakes, “but I couldn’t help myself. I could feel how wet you are for me.”

Oh, Dean is wet alright. He’s pretty sure the precome leaking out of his dick is gonna ruin his panties.

“So wet for you,” he breathes. He likes the way it sounds and he’s too turned on to care if it’s a ridiculous thing to say.

“And the way that you look under me…” Cas trails off. Then the heat of his body and the fabric of his boxers is pulling away, leaving Dean’s ass out for show. Only for a second though, because Cas’s hands are on him again in a slip of skin against skin. Again, his right thumb wanders to where Dean is so sensitive- “I want to go inside.” The pad of his thumb pushes against Dean’s hole. “Please, tell me I can.”

“Please, Cas.”

The blunt curve of Cas's thumb starts pressing until it eases past the rim and then it's in him. Dean arches his hips for it, and he likes the idea that he looks wanton. Wants Cas to be watching that spot where his thumb disappears because Dean’s body is open for it.

“Uhhh.”

“I’ve got you,” Cas says. His thumb is pulling out, pulling away, but before Dean can even make a noise of complaint Cas’s thumb is being replaced by his pointer finger.

“Yeah,” Dean breathes. Cas’s finger is so agile and long, beautiful hands, sewing hands, and it starts to twist inside of Dean to rub against his walls. “Yeah. Yes-” When Cas’s finger hits his prostate, Dean’s abs clench and his body contorts. “Oh-”

“That’s it, my sweetheart. It’s allowed to feel good, it’s supposed to. So hot inside to welcome me in. So beautiful.” And then Cas is adding another finger that starts curling in search.

The pillowcase is turning damp from the sweat of Dean’s chin. He huffs against the cotton as he rocks back onto Cas’s fingers.

“Please,” he pleads in a voice that isn’t his own. “I want- want-” More oil drips down his crack, along where Cas’s fingers are inside of him, and then all the way down until his thighs drip. “Oh my gooood.”

“Oh, pretty Dean, what a lovely, wet pussy.”

Cas is rubbing circles on his prostate now, and Dean’s jaw is dropped even though the noise that wants to punch out of him is so big that it gets stuck in his throat. Nothing, just the tense hunch of his shoulders. Just the grind of hips into the mattress.

It’s so much that it freezes him in place. His brain shifts to slow motion perspective where each second of sensation happens one after the other, individual and strung out like his body. The rasp of Cas’s voice is one thing, and then the oil on Dean’s thighs is another. The floral smell in the air and the silk of the camisole and the tightening of his balls. He’s closer than he thought he was to that ever-nearing edge, and he feels the sharp teeth of that release nibbling at his gut.

The big noise that wants to force out of him surrenders to nothing more than a quiet, “Fuck.”

He jolts and shudders again when Cas doesn’t let up inside of him. The satin of his panties is a gliding friction against his cock that feels too good until he has to bear down against the arousal in order to halt it.

“Cas-“ he whines. He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his teeth. “Cas, if you don’t stop I’m gonna come.”

From over him, Cas makes a delighted noise. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“No!” he gasps. “No, you gotta fuck me first. If I come- Cas, need you to fuck me.”

And he thinks Cas will agree, will stop with all the too-much pleasure, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even hesitate.

“Trust me,” Cas says instead, in that sturdy tone that knows too much and doesn’t leave any wiggle room. His fingers are pin-point shooters, excellent marksmen, where they pet Dean from the inside. “Just trust me. Just feel it. You don’t have to hold on to control. I’ll take care of you.”

“Cas.”

“That’s it. Take your pleasure, beautiful Dean.” Fingers inside him with one hand while the other grips Dean’s hip. Cas uses that leverage to push down and guide, practically rolling Dean’s crotch down into the mattress for him.

Dean can feel the seams of himself threatening to pop. His fingers scratch at the sheets to either side of him trying to bunch up enough of the fabric to get a grip on it, and when that doesn’t work he ends up fisting the pillow that he’s moaning into. The momentum of his hips that Cas has started for him won’t stop, like the centrifugal force of the planet being spun by the sun where it has no choice and where it doesn’t halt, the stars a blur around it, always tilted, always pulling on the moon.

Sweat drips from his hairline down onto his temple as he grunts and ruts and chases. He’s chasing that sensation now, where he’ll break in two, and he can almost taste that chasm.

“I- I’m-”

“Perfect. You’re so good, sweetheart.”

Dean’s stomach drops, rushing down towards finality.

And then Cas’s fingers are so deep and he’s saying, “My wet girl. My pretty girl.”

That heat inside of him is scalding where it boils over, thrusting back and forth between Cas’s hand and the mattress under him, and both of them hold him. Both of them feed him so good that he’s choking. Head blurry and cock twitching when he comes into his panties that just barely hold him in. It’s a ruthless pleasure that has him in its maws, locking his muscles and curling his toes and forcing him to witness the sensation of his own body.

Moaning half into the pillow and half into the air, his body shudders through the climax. When he clenches his thighs together, it makes him tighten even further on Cas’s fingers, and he likes that, too.

He loves Cas’s fingers in him and he loves being filled up and he loves being Cas’s pretty girl.

Loves it even when he starts to go soft.

Cas’s free hand lets go of Dean’s waist in favor of petting down the line of his spine, stopping near Dean’s tailbone to put pressure on the tense muscles there to massage the last of Dean’s shuddering away. Usually, that type of touch would be a little too much for Dean when he’s on the other side of an orgasm like this, but for some reason, all it does is play friendly with the embers that are turning to ash inside of him. He keeps waiting for that initial drop to happen, the sharp death of arousal that turns his brain off and makes him want to sleep, but it doesn’t come.

Those embers might be burning low in his belly, but they’re decidedly still burning.

He blinks up at the headboard.

“Cas.”

“Hmm?”

“What did you do to me?” he asks pointedly.

A pause. “Do you not like it?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “You don’t get to answer my question with another question.”

“So you don’t like it.”

“Dude. I wanna know why it feels like I could get hard again.”

Cas doesn’t answer with words, instead pulling his fingers from Dean very slowly and thoughtfully, his pointer finger just barely brushing the inside of Dean’s rim like a caress before it is gone completely, and with its withdrawal the come in Dean’s underwear disappears. More silence, and then Dean feels both of Cas’s hands pushing the camisole upwards to bare skin that Cas’s breath then lands on before he presses a gentle kiss to the small of Dean’s back.

“I’ve temporarily shifted your hormonal responses to mimic those of a cisgender woman.”

“You mean… You mean like-”

“I’ve done enough meddling that you could achieve multiple climaxes, yes.”

“And… what I feel right now. That’s how girls feel after they come?”

“I’d say it’s a very close approximation.”

Dean frowns into the pillow. “Damn. Now I get why they’re so cranky if they only get off once. This would suck.”

“Yes, it would,” Cas agrees, but in that way where he doesn’t actually care about what he's agreeing with. More focused on kissing the small of Dean’s back again, then again, then lower, until those lips hit Dean’s tailbone.

He didn’t realize he was sensitive there until all of Cas’s attention was on that one spot. The way Cas is kissing it feels like a calculated decision with a purpose to it, somewhere between tugging Dean’s chain and feeding Castiel’s own hunger. And he probably is hungry, considering he hasn’t even come yet.

Just as the thought occurs to Dean, Cas licks a broad stripe across the dimple just above the start of Dean’s asscrack.

It makes Dean ask “You want me, don’t you?” He knows the answer. He likes that asking Cas implies that there is any doubt at all, and he likes the way even the joking sentiment of the question makes Cas burn up inside, hot with the need to take and to prove. “Gave me the superjuice and then started kissing me all nice.”

Cas’s teeth graze skin. “What I want is for you to feel good.”

Dean isn’t used to the way his belly blooms when he’s like this. Usually coming his brains out lands him with a one-way ticket to Snoozeville, but now, it’s more like a waning than an ending. More like the wax of the candle than the flame of it, where the fire blows out sharp and sudden but the puddle it leaves takes hours to solidify. Cas could push into him, right now, and Dean’s body would let him.

“I’m still pretty open,” Dean responds with far less confidence than he’d just had a second ago. How it’s not a tease for Cas’s sake anymore, and instead it’s a scapegoat of an admittance, knowing that Cas is more than smart enough to read between those lines and knowing the way that exposes Dean to the light.

“You are,” Cas agrees. “And wet, too.”

Dean buries his burning face in the pillow. He wants to stick his ass up in the air for Cas to push inside of him, give him easy access, and he wants that to be okay. It is okay. He swallows.

“Yeah. I am.”

“You are.” Cas coos. He’s kissing even further down now, a rake through those embers in Dean’s stomach, as a hand plants itself on either one of his ass cheeks and spreads him open slowly. Cas’s hot breath is on him. “Absolutely stunning.”

It’s weird how the arousal in him dances from this side of things, and how he knows that he can’t get off again yet, and how he’s not even half-hard, but that Cas’s attention still makes him desperate as if he was. Like what would usually take five minutes to get him begging makes him want to start begging right now.

But he doesn’t. He waits stock still for whatever Cas will do next, ass still spread to the air of the room and hopefully to the heat of Cas’s mouth.

It never comes. Instead, Cas says, “Tell me what you want, Dean.”

“What?” he croaks.

“You can tell me. I want to be able to give you exactly what you want.”

He wants Cas to love him enough to take him apart at the same time that he holds Dean together. A puzzle is only as good as having all of its pieces, even when it's undone, and sometimes Dean’s afraid that if he shuffles his own picture around something will go flying and get lost under the couch, never to be seen again. But Cas has always been good with holding.

“I want…” And even after all of this time, it’s hard to want things when he knows that he can have them. Like it is programmed into his existence that desire only goes hand in hand with absence. He breathes in. “I want you to eat me out, make me come again. Then I- I want you to fuck me.”

“Yes,” Cas says in this low voice that makes Dean’s pulse race. “What else?”

“What else?”

“I can feel your longing but I can’t read your mind. And I can feel that there is something… There is something else you’d like to tell me.”

As soon as Cas says that, Dean knows what the something is. A veil pulled off of a fucking stoplight that’s flashing red with intent and with no question of what it means. It fills Dean’s chest cavity with that siren light until he’s sure that even if Cas can’t read his mind, he can still see the flickering from the outside.

He tries to find the words. Really tries. Still, he comes up blank on getting his mouth to make the shapes that his brain is telling it to. “I don’t know if I can say it.” And he chuckles because it stings too much not to.

But Cas is crawling up his body again to lay over him blanket-style the same way he had earlier. He tucks his face into the side of Dean’s neck. “Maybe if you can’t say it… you could whisper it to me?”

“I-” The thing is, it’s just stupid enough to work. “Shit. Okay. Uh-” He stops, and when he speaks again his voice is nothing but a hush. “Cas?”

“Yes?” Cas whispers back.

Cas is okay with it- Has to be okay with it because he was the one who said it to Dean in the first place. And if Dean wants to keep playing this game he can, because Cas just wants what Dean wants, and Dean is allowed to want at the same time that he receives. He licks his lips, closes his eyes, and swallows.

“I wanna be your pretty girl.”

Maybe it’s not so scary when Cas pulls away far enough to kiss the crown of Dean’s head and rumble, “I’d like that. If you were my pretty girl.”

“You just sayin’ that to make me feel better?”

“Oh, it is very much the truth.” Cas pulls away again, kissing down the bare skin at the top of Dean’s back and further until he hits the silk of the camisole, further until he hits skin again and is back in the position he’d started in. “You truly have no idea what you do to me. It’d be amusing if it weren’t slightly frustrating, because it is beyond me how you could ever think I would not be ‘into this’. That not only are you sharing this experience with me, but that you look so…” Cas takes in a breath deep enough that Dean can hear it. “You’re wearing stockings, and fine fabrics lined with this beautiful lace, all while you’re exposed for me. This slick, pink hole that I get to put my tongue into.”

Unconsciously, Dean pushes his ass up higher.

“You lay here and look so lovely while you wait for me to pleasure you… What is there not to like?” Again, he uses his hands to spread Dean open. “When I want you so badly, pretty girl.”

Yes, yes, Dean wants to say, I’m your pretty girl. The way it rolls over in his head, the way it grazes the surface of him like one of those plants whose leaves curl up if you try to touch them. Cas and his gardening hands that always seem to know exactly where to pet.

Cas who kisses that dimple above Dean’s ass again, then again, then again. Dean resists the urge to squirm, but it's even harder to stay still when Cas moves down far enough that his lips are just above Dean’s hole. “Look at this pussy, nice and wet for me.”

Dean’s shoulders hunch and he parts his lips to mouth at the pillowcase, turning it even more damp with spit.

Then Cas is licking at him and Dean’s toes are curling. “Uhhhh.”

It’s so easy to get lost in the rhythm of this and the hot give of Cas’s mouth, the flat press of Cas’s tongue that’s intent on tugging at the thread that’s holding Dean’s stuffing inside. Cas doesn’t know how to do anything halfway, doesn’t know anything other than his own authenticity, and he’s eating Dean out like this because he wants to- he likes it. Sloppy and desperate, moaning like Cas is the one who’s getting off from this. Maybe he is.

“Fuck,” Dean grunts with his eyes clenched shut.

Cas licks in deep before pulling away, panting heavily. “Give it to me, pretty girl. You don’t have to hold back. You don’t have to pretend in front of me.”

“Oh-h-” This time when Dean moans it’s broken. Strung-out and high-pitched.

“Just like that. Yes.” Cas points his tongue to press it in, and even though it’s a short, uncoordinated pressure, it’s less about the physical sensation and more about the idea of it anyway.

Dean reaches back behind himself blindly, fumbling until his hand hits Cas’s hair where he weaves his fingers into the strands to hold Cas’s head in place. It’s only been a few minutes since his first orgasm but he’s already there again. He’s being heated back up from the inside out, from a state that hadn’t even fully cooled off in the first place, and it turns him elastic and needy. Needs to chase that fuse that looks innocuous now but that’s burning its way closer and closer to the dynamite.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t-” He’s pushing back into Cas’s tongue.

But whatever traction of sanity he thought he’d managed to hold on to gets ripped from him when Cas grabs a hold of the hand Dean has in his hair and pins it down to the mattress at the side of Dean’s body. And the hand that he’d had fisted in his pillow flies down without his permission, forced into movement by Cas’s grace until it mirrors the other, and Cas grabs onto that wrist too. When Dean pulls, Cas doesn’t let go.

A blurry feeling is coming for his brain now. Enveloped with pleasure from all sides that he’s being held down and forced to feel without escape.

He cries out into the pillow.

Cas leans away just far enough to growl, “That’s it, just let me give it to you, let me make you feel good. Hump the mattress, sweetheart. Come in your panties.” Then he’s at it again, that mouth taking Dean apart by the second.

Dean doesn’t have a choice but to follow Cas’s commands, where he has no leverage to do anything but rock back and forth between the bed and the heat of Cas’s mouth. Sensitive from having already come and unused to the option of coming again, his body shakes.

“H-holy shit- Holy-”

Cas moans against his ass and catches his tongue on the inside of Dean’s rim.

It makes Dean jolt. And again, when the movement makes his arms yank there is no give in Cas’s grip. Dean’s eyes roll in his head. His back arches hard enough that his head lifts from the pillow and his sweaty red face gets a blast of fresh air to it while his hips push themselves down into the resistance of the mattress. His shoulders are forced back, proud, from the hold Cas has on him.

“Oh- oh- oh- Ahh-”

There’s sweat building in the crease of his shoulder blades as he ruts, chasing that lit fuse. His stomach doesn’t draw up the way it normally would but instead feels like a bucket under a running tap, filling up, up, up, until that split second when it finally overflows. The water is rushing so fast and there’s steam coming off of it and Dean is going to be full-

“I’m- C-Cas- Don’t stop- Please-”

He fucks the mattress while Cas’s tongue fucks him, mouth falling open and eyes clenching shut. His legs try to force themselves together but Cas is in between them, keeping Dean from getting away. Can’t escape the too-good trap of Cas’s making that Dean wants to live in. Wants to be a pretty girl, good girl. The bucket is tipping. The bucket is leaking.

“Oh, fu-uuuuuck!”

Dean’s hips gallop as he comes, head swinging back and forth and arms yanking even though it’s no use. He’s making these noises he’s never made before. Saliva catches at the rim of his lips as he cries and whines, as he once again empties himself into the satin of the panties. The come spreads there, caught inside the cage of the fabric, and the sensation of wetness alongside the way that Dean is still rutting makes him pulse again.

He groans as he falls face-first twitching into the pillow. Cas kisses his hole one last time and lets go of his wrists, massaging them between his fingers because Cas cares, and Cas loves him. Dean can’t think, can’t do anything but be touched. A sunflower tracking the heat of that bright star across the blue sky. Trust that turns him liquid against their bed’s comforter.

…

“It’s alright. That’s it. I have you, my sweetheart.” Dean is so wonderfully pliant in Castiel’s hands when he pulls him up by his hips. “I’ve got you.” He watches the way that Dean’s thighs shake from the tension the new angle puts on them, and Castiel is quick to pull Dean all the way upwards and into his arms, cradling him near. The wild nest of Dean’s hair brushes against Cas’s jaw when Dean tilts his head to look up at him. And those green eyes are blown and soft. Trusting.

Every time they are intimate, Castiel wonders how he could love someone so much and be so hungry for them in equal measures. Surely, there are limits, because otherwise he would be split in twain by his adoration.

That this is his husband, his Dean, who is showing Castiel this utmost vulnerable part of himself even though at first he was frightened.
Yet that love does not exist in exclusivity to the teeth of Castiel’s arousal. The jaws that want to bare in order to protect Dean at the same time they nip at his skin, the way that Dean likes. The beautiful give and take of it where neither of them need be left lonely or wanting anymore. Now, they can have.

“Oh, my pretty girl,” he murmurs. Dean practically purrs against his neck. “How do you feel?”

Dean gives a long and content sigh and becomes even heavier in Castiel’s hold. “Awesome.”

He presses a kiss down to Dean’s temple. With the touch, he vanishes the come from Dean’s underwear. “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy to hear that.”

“And you’re so hard,” Dean says in a register higher than he normally speaks, and then he’s grinding down into Castiel’s lap. The friction makes Castiel’s breath catch and his hand clench around the silk of Dean’s camisole. “I can feel it. It’s all for me. Mmm, you’re gonna fuck me, aren’t you?”

Castiel is a holy creature of light, but even he doesn’t think he has the strength for this. For the delicacy of Dean in his lap, crooning and pleading like this.

“Only if that’s what you want. I assure you, there’s no pressure to uphold the request you made earlier if it no longer suits you.”

“It suits me. Want you- Want you to-” Dean slurs just gently.

“Shhh. It’s alright, I have you. I know.”

“Take good care of me,” Dean smacks his lips. “You’re so good at that. Ugh, and strong and really smart and shit. You’re the best.”

Castiel is so pleased he may just melt into their bedsheets. “Thank you. The feeling is very mutual.”

Dean doesn’t bother to respond to the comment with more than another happy sigh, not that Castiel minds.

“Love it when you hold me like this,” he says instead. “When you manhandle me. Show me how strong you are. Make me feel all small and special.” He’s rocking down into Castiel’s lap again, where he is still contained inside of his boxers, and Castiel isn’t even sure how aware Dean is that he’s doing it. “’Cause I know you’ll make sure I’m good. Make sure I’m okay. So it’s good when you take control, ‘cause- ‘cause I know you got me.”

Castiel presses his hard cock up against Dean’s bare ass like a promise. “Is that what you want? You want me to have you?”

“Uh-huh, so bad.” There’s no way those words would have left Dean’s mouth in that tone in any other situation besides this one, but that is what makes them even rarer. Even more precious in its valuability.

There is love in the cavity of Castiel’s chest. “I’ll have you,” he whispers in promise. “I have you.” He presses his nose behind Dean’s ear “You want me to take control?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dean breathes deeply, evenly. His eyelashes are feathers fluttered shut in something tired and shy. “Be sweet on me. Make me feel good.”

Castiel squeezes his own eyes shut while he kisses the fuzz of hair curling gently at the side of Dean’s head. “It would be my honor.”

The strength that Castiel usually holds in check makes itself known now, where he wraps his arms around Dean’s waist and flies them the yard it takes for him to be sitting at the foot of their bed with his legs hanging off of it, Dean still in his lap.

He enjoys the weight of Dean, the sturdiness of him, always, so when Castiel usually holds him he allows his grace to waver ever so slightly. When he is with Dean he does not need to be so strong. But now, he holds onto Dean’s hips and lifts the man as though he weighs nothing, up a few inches before turning him around so that he mirrors Castiel’s own position. This way Dean’s back is to Castiel's chest, and Castiel can keep his arms around him to hold him steady. Keep him safe.

“Whoa,” Dean says. He lets his head fall backward on Cas’s shoulder.

Castiel hums in his throat as he lets his hands wander up underneath Dean’s camisole so that he can pet all of that warm, living skin. When he touches the vulnerable pouch of Dean’s belly, it twitches. The rest of Dean’s body, however, is lax and lain across him, a Dali clock over the branch of a tree, and the heat of him and the sweat of him is so irresistible that Castiel feels as though he could tremble from it. Instead, he kisses the tendon stretched tight in Dean’s neck.

“I’m going to play with you now, pretty girl.”

He watches over Dean’s shoulder and down the silk-covered line of his chest to where his own hands create mountains in the blue fabric. Mountains that move and climb higher in order to brush against either of Dean’s hardened nipples. They’re so sensitive, and he loves the way that Dean reacts when he touches them, pinches them. And now is no different, when Cas catches them between his middle and pointer fingers and worries them, and Dean starts up a huffing breath. Starts shifting back and forth in Castiel’s lap against the line of his erection.

But more than any friction it is about the concave of Dean’s chest and the hitch of it. The way he pushes it back out again into Castiel’s touch. It is easy to get lost in the eroticism of sex- the way that it feels and the physical validation it provides- but Castiel refuses to lose sight of the quiet of this moment. Where it is just the two of them, and they are safe. Where they love and feel and touch each other’s bodies like curious animals who want to hear each other’s songs. Where something miraculous and as commonplace as bundled nerve endings can make his Dean feel so wonderful.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, he means, as he touches Dean’s nipples. He’s not even sure if Dean is listening with the way his head is lolling and his body is gravity, but somewhere deep inside, Dean is hearing.

“Ahh- ah-”

And Dean does not hide. Dean does not restrict himself from the pleasure that curious animals feel. Does not stop himself from crooning the loving songs that they sing out.

That to be curious at all is not terrifying for its perversion or its otherness, but is the natural calling of freedom, where eyes are allowed to rove and ideas are allowed to breach the surface into a reality that need not punish them. Where the punishment is shame and where shame is only ever found in the patches of shadow that love has yet to reach.

But Castiel is many things, including light.

“My pretty girl.”

Because Dean is Castiel’s pretty girl in this exact moment, because Dean can exist exactly as he wants to without need for mediation. And tomorrow, or even in twenty minutes, Dean will no longer be Castiel’s pretty girl, but Castiel’s very loving, very handsome husband, and that is good. That each moment exists individually even as they overlap inside of this bedroom, without ever growing fuzzy or losing meaning. Where magenta need not bow its head to cyan in order to make violets.

“My pretty girl feels good, doesn’t she? She feels good when I touch her like this.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean moans.

“And I bet she’s getting so wet for me. I bet her nipples are very sensitive and when I touch them like this, without reprieve, it makes her feel like she can’t think clearly.”

This time all Dean does is whimper, still writhing in Castiel’s lap.

After a handful of seconds, Castiel finally lets up on his ministrations in order to move his hands lower again, over the divet of Dean’s belly button and then the flesh of his stomach. He stops there, just shy of where the top inch of Dean’s erection has crept past the elastic of the panty’s waistline. It’s already red and leaking at the slit like some omen telling Castiel to touch, but he won’t, not yet. Instead, he holds it very gingerly in his fingers and ignores the noise that Dean makes as he tucks it back into place as well as he can.

“There,” he murmurs, “that’s better.” And then he starts petting over Dean’s cock through the satin of the panties. Because this is what Dean wants. Wants to be toyed with, teased, pleasured slowly because to do something that takes care and time implies that it was worth doing at all. Wants to be treated as special, and he is so very special, where he is worth every effort it takes to bring him closer and closer to that edge without ever pushing him over it.

Wants this to last.

So Castiel trails his pointer finger back and forth across the hard length of the satin-covered shaft, every now and then pausing to rub circles on the underside of the crown. It makes Dean buck and shake wild in Castiel’s arms, but the movements are nowhere near strong enough to break from Castiel’s hold, or even enough to make him apply more pressure to maintain it. Dean chokes out flourishing, beautiful noises of pleasure that cause the hairs on Castiel’s neck to stand on end.

“The way you sound for me, sweetheart. I’m so hard. I can’t wait to sink myself into your pussy.”

Dean throws his head back and forth against Castiel’s shoulder. “Please,” he begs, “please, please, please-”

“I know you can ask me even more sweetly than that.”

“Pretty please,” he whines shamelessly. Utterly wonderfully shamelessly. “Pretty please, Cas- Castiel-”

“Tell me that you’re wet for me.”

“I’m so wet for you, I’m so- Need you in me so bad. Please- fuck my wet pussy. Please.” He’s shaking now in Castiel’s hold, and he is incredible.

Castiel nips at the side of his neck. “I have you. I’ve got you. I’m going to give you exactly what you want.” He kisses the tendon under his mouth before leaning away, bringing both of his hands down to Dean’s hips in order to push him forward just slightly, down towards Castiel’s knees. “Let me-” With little more than a thought, Castiel rematerializes his pants and boxers far enough down his thighs that his erection is free to the open air. “There. Are you ready for me, pretty girl?”

“Please.”

He uses the grip he still has on Dean’s hips to pull him back again, trapping his own erection between his stomach and Dean’s back. Leaning into Dean’s ear, he murmurs, “I’m going to pick you up, and I’m going to set you down on my cock. We’ll go slow.”

He doesn’t make Dean beg anymore, just does as he says he was going to do and lifts Dean up the few inches it takes to have him hovering over Castiel’s erection.

Dean groans, “You’re so strong.”

“Very strong,” Castiel agrees. “I could hold you like this for hours, maybe even days, without my muscles fatiguing if I wanted to. I could tease you-” he moves his hips just enough that his erection sways and catches crudely against Dean’s hole once, twice- “Keep you exactly here without moving even a millimeter, wondering when I will finally fill you up. When I will finally lower you enough to push inside.”

Above him, Dean twitches and squirms like a fly caught in a spider web. He doesn’t say anything in response to Castiel, instead only makes noises that click in the back of his throat and that chirp at the roof of his mouth. Oh, he loves this. And so Castiel loves it even more. The sharp arousal in his gut that he had been ignoring begins to bloom into unregulated forestry.

He watches his own cock that’s wet from the oil he’d fingered Dean with as it slides back and forth in the mess. He does not tamp down his own selfish wantings- his own selfish enjoyments- because how is he supposed to remain unmoved by such a thing. He and Dean, they are allowed to be selfish together. There is a possessiveness to his adoration because Dean has trusted Castiel to adore him, so Castiel will be the only one to do so.

“Oh, pretty girl, I love it when you get this desperate.” He purrs. “I’ll give it to you. I’m going to give it to you.” When the next sweep of his hips makes the head of his dick catch against Dean’s hole, he presses up until there’s enough give for him to start pushing inside. The feel of it makes his lips part on an exhale. “Someone’s nice and open for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

Castiel swallows. “Now, what if I decided I was done holding you up? What if I let you begin to slip-” He purposefully loosens his hold on Dean in order to let gravity pull at his body. Sinks in another inch.

Dean answers with a moan. He doesn’t try to break Castiel’s hold and he doesn’t try to push his hips down and he doesn’t try to get more, he just takes it. Let’s Castiel move him like a ragdoll. And Castiel can’t keep his eyes off of that spot of connection where Dean is spread for him.

“Do you want more?”

“Uh-huh.”

He lowers Dean with purpose now, using enough pressure that he’s pushing in little by little as Dean adjusts. The seconds tick by, full of Dean’s whimpers and Castiel holding his breath, until Dean is sitting fully in his lap with Castiel inside. So much of their bodies are pressed together even with their states of dress. Castiel curses the fact that he never took his sweater off because if he had, he’d be able to feel the sticky heat of Dean’s skin and the way it peeked around the coverage of the silk camisole.

But this moment as is would only be underappreciated by a fool. They are so very close now. Dean is fluorescently radiant where he shimmers in his beautiful clothes and the muted sun through their blinds, and Castiel gets to see it, witness this holiness with his own two eyes. Somehow, this world has smiled at him. Somehow, the years filled with so much darkness had led them here to the safety of a bedroom, the safety of a home, the safety of each other, while birds create families outside in the trees of their backyard.

The most caring man in the world is held inside Castiel’s arms. And it reminds him of the moment they first met, when Dean was not Dean but a very precious, very valuable weapon that would be treated as the perfect sacrifice for the sake of God’s commandment. But when Castiel had landed in the brimstone, ash on his wings and sulfur in his maw, he had seen a weeping beast instead of a sword. And this crying thing has been awe-inspiring. Had made Castiel fall to his knees in reverence and he didn’t understand why because he had not understood what he was feeling was Dean Winchester’s own spilling love.

But he understands now.

So much of Dean’s life had hardened him, and he is choosing to allow Castiel to see him softened. Made vulnerable in his curious body.

Castiel would fall to his knees for the rest of eternity in order to love that velvet.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” he breathes soothingly.

Dean’s head dangles back onto Castiel’s shoulder as his body hitches, but there’s something peaceful about him even as he starts grinding down. When he whimpers, it’s because he wants to, and because he feels good. Castiel thinks if nothing else, feeling good should be Dean’s natural state.

He closes his eyes and rocks ever so slightly up into the heat of Dean’s body. “My pretty girl gets what she wants.”

Wrapping his right arm around the narrow of Dean’s waist in a full-body hold, Castiel brings his left hand up higher, higher until his fingers hit the grain of stubble and then the spit slickness of lips. They’re already parted to form a welcoming cave that Castiel’s fingertips explore. In to the second knuckle, when Dean closes his lips again around the two digits and plays with them with his tongue, so that when Dean breathes out slowly through his nose, Castiel feels the wind of it down the back of his hand.

He grinds up with what little leverage he has between the close confines of their bodies. The friction and the heat feel so wonderful where he is hard, and it turns his resolve into putty. He wants. The halo of him flickers like a neon sign.

Turning his head to the side, he kisses Dean’s jaw. “You feel incredible. So slick with arousal, you let me inside so easily. Such a pretty sight to watch you take my cock. Oh. Can I fuck you, sweetheart?”

Dean doesn’t stop sucking Castiel's fingers even when he nods his head.

With Dean’s legs dangling over the edge of the bed like this, he has no way to create motion, so it is Castiel’s job to do so for him. He uses the full-arm hold that he has around Dean’s waist to lift him up and sets him back down again as though he’s nothing more weighted than the scant fabric that he’s wearing.

The force makes Dean moan sweetly around Castiel’s fingertips.

“Oh, she makes such wonderful noises.”

A pace starts to build now, the way that Castiel will lift and then drop again, and the way that his hips have gotten in on the rhythm so that they thrust in opposition to the downward movement and send him so deep into Dean’s body that Castiel’s eyes clench shut. He is a being of endless patience, but the life-span of stars did nothing to prepare him for the divine fever that surrounds him now. His dick that had gone without attention for so long while Dean, his pretty girl, had looked like this. Had looked so mouth-watering, so tempting, so open, and Castiel had to restrain himself against the urge to push inside.

He does not restrain himself now. Instead, he moans in tandem with Dean as they fuse together and come apart- one coalesced undulating creature.

They don’t speak again, instead taking each other apart silently while their heads knock together on each stroke. Dean’s teeth graze the flat stretch of skin between Castiel’s first and second knuckles, back and forth with the rock of their bodies, so many times that Castiel knows if he does not heal it there will be red abrasions there.

Each time Castiel lifts Dean to pull out Dean gasps, and each time Castiel pushes back in Dean whines.

“I’m close,” Castiel grits out.

Dean nods rapidly while his torso stretches with physical exertion.

“Does that please you?”

Dean nods again, pushing down into Castiel’s upwards thrusts even more forcefully, as though to draw the orgasm from him through conviction alone. Castiel pulls his fingers from Dean’s mouth and they’re wet with saliva as he curls them around Dean’s jaw.

“Hah-” he licks Dean’s ear- “You want my come, don’t you?”

Dean groans, body limp. “Yeeesssss.”

“You do. You want it so badly. I’ll fill you up, sweetheart.”

“Fuck, oh- yes- please-” Dean tries to move his head but he can’t with the grip Castiel has across his jaw, and the resistance of it makes Dean cry out. “Come in me! Come in me, come in your pretty girl- Use me to- feel good- oh-”

Castiel growls as his stomach throws itself against his pelvis, causing his dick to twitch and his testicles to tighten against his body. His spine is taut as he pulls Dean back downwards roughly to fully seat himself inside.

He tilts his head back and moans up at the ceiling as he comes. The union is holy every time. No one can see it, but he’s giving something from inside of himself to the inside of Dean, and it is about far more than human pleasure or the results of it. Dean writhes in his lap. Dean is so pretty. Castiel fills his pretty girl up, uses his pretty girl just how she wants him to. The dangling handles on their dresser clatter and bang. The blinds on the window fold back and forth. Outside, the trees shake, shooing the birds away, leaving the two of them in their own nest and in privacy. Castiel himself buzzes at the frequency of stained-glass windows with his splendor.

It wrings out of him like an offering only to pitter into weak pulses that match the uncoordinated twitch of his hips. When he opens his eyes, finally slotted back into his own body, Dean is unmoving and breathing unevenly.

Castiel drops Dean’s jaw in favor of kissing it again.

I love you.

But no, not quite yet. There is still a lovely girl in his arms that is in need of closure.

“Sweetheart,” Castiel says softly.

Dean whimpers.

“I’ve got you.” And that is a promise.

His newly freed hand goes on a searching mission downwards to where Dean’s dick has once again breached the confines of the panties. This time instead of tucking it back away, Castiel pulls the waistband down lower until it’s at the same level in the front as it already is in the seat, down around the very top of Dean’s thighs. The freedom of it makes Dean sigh dreamily, and that makes Castiel smile.

He lifts his hand a few inches and turns it so that his palm is facing the ceiling, curling his fingers until his hand forms a cup that he then uses his grace to manifest oil into, the same way he’d done earlier. It fills the room with a pleasant smell, a mixture of jasmine, almond, and sandalwood, and it is good for these sorts of intimate things. It is expensive and rich, the way that things that touch the sensitive parts of Dean’s skin should be.

“Look.” He nudges Dean’s cheek with his nose to get his attention.

Dean’s head rolls to the side so that the weight of it rests against Castiel’s neck instead of his shoulder, tilting forward just slightly from the new angle. He whimpers a delicate noise when he sees what Castiel is presenting to him.

The whimper grows louder and Dean squirms when Castiel cracks his fingers in order to let the oil slip between them, drizzling down onto Dean’s erection. It twitches from the barely-there contact

“Watch while I touch you. Understand how glorious you are, and how much you deserve pleasure.”

It is obvious that Dean is just as worn out as he is desperate after giving so much, after feeling so much, so when Castiel wraps his slick fist around that slick skin, he does it gently. Still, a tonal gasp punches from Dean’s throat as his hips kick, and his hand flies to grab onto Castiel’s wrist to anchor himself.

“So much pleasure, I know. Very, very sensitive. But that’s alright, too. You’re allowed as much pleasure as you’d like, and I will keep providing it until you are thoroughly satisfied. You deserve every satisfaction.” He moves his fist upwards, thumb lingering on the wet head of Dean’s cock. “You deserve every good feeling in every way possible.”

Dean doesn’t try to talk, but Castiel didn’t expect him to.

When Castiel moves his hand faster, the speed makes Dean hunch forward and moan like a birdsong. Castiel follows the new curve of Dean’s back so that they’re still pressed together, and he peers over Dean’s shoulder in order to see what his own hand at work.

“Beautiful,” he whispers. “So beautiful. So pretty. My lovely girl.”

Dean jerks against him, pushing his hips up, and now when he mewls he doesn’t stop. Noise after wonderful noise that strings together into melody. But he’s tense like he's using his physical body to hold back. Something is getting caught in him and causing a blockage, like perhaps Dean is afraid of how good it feels, and like if he feels all of that pleasure in the way that it wants to force out of him he will break apart. Castiel understands because he feels that way too, sometimes. But all that he ever truly needs in those moments is the reassurance that Dean will make sure he won’t shatter, and so he offers that comfort to Dean now.

“Don’t be afraid, I promise nothing bad will happen if you feel it all. You can come, sweetheart. You can come. I’ll hold on to you.”

Dean’s body shudders. “I-”

“I know,” Castiel sympathizes. He mouths at Dean’s shoulder. “Oh, pretty girl, you can do it. Just let it go.” His fist moves rapidly now, slick with the oil and making a noise on every stroke. Dean is a drawn bow against him. “Just let it take you. It wants out, let it out.”

The words make Dean choke. His hips buck in chase. So close. And yes- just one more push-

“I have you now. You can feel good. Let it take you. Let it break you open.”

When Dean comes, it is with a howl. It is with locked muscles and an open mouth and blaring soul so bright that if Dean had any grace of his own, their windows probably would have been unsalvageable. He pulses in Castiel’s hand and shoots up his own stomach, come landing on the silk of the camisole in a way that laundry detergent wouldn’t be able to get out but that Castiel will be able to when the time comes. And the arm he has around Dean’s waist holds tight as Dean thrashes, and he holds every vibrating molecule of Dean’s body in place against the onslaught.

“I have you.”

And he does. And he says it again, again, without pause, until Dean stops shaking.

…

Dean feels so good, so wonderfully limp. His head is stuffed with cotton and his limbs are made of lead and his heart is pounding. Sweaty enough that all the silk and satin on his body clings to him, an unsavory and very damp experience, while his bangs stick to his forehead. His cheeks are hot and he can’t make words come out of his mouth as he stares at their dresser that’s against the wall directly in front of him. He doesn’t know what to do with it all, where his cock is soft and even though he’s still wearing his girly clothes he’s made naked without the veil of arousal to hide him.

Cas does the thinking for him at that moment where he holds on to Dean’s waist and uses his unnatural strength to move them up the bed and turn them both onto their sides so that they’re spooning. Only then does Cas pull out.

“Okay,” Cas murmurs. “You’re alright, Dean. You’re safe.”

But the loss of Cas’s dick feels like a drain plug pulled so that Dean has no other choice but to spiral down in a whirlpool, and he can’t seem to focus his eyes on the bedroom wall he’s facing right now. His body doesn’t know how to adjust to the drop in stimulation, his brain doesn’t know how to adjust to being just Dean again.

There’d been this girl that he’d hooked up with on and off in high school named Olivia. They’d made out a few times, and had gotten a little handsy a few times. One day her parents weren’t home and he’d come over, and there’d been very obvious cards laid on the table for the types of activities they were both thinking about getting into. They’d been laying down on her bed, and Dean had just put a condom on, and she’d grabbed his arm and just looked at him for a second. He’d asked her if she wanted to stop, was just about ready to pull the condom off, when she’d shaken her head and said No, there’s just something I wanted to tell you before we started. Sometimes I cry after I have sex.

He remembers the record scratch in his head, the way he’d tilted it to the side. What do you mean?

I don’t know why, but it happens to a lot of my friends, too. Like, a hormone thing or something. No one really wants to talk about it, though. It’s sorta weird. I just wanted to tell you so you didn’t think you did something wrong.

She had cried after they’d fucked, and he’d held her and played with her hair and she seemed to like that. Had sniffled at him and blinked at him with her mascara smudged under her eyes and started laughing. That was awesome.

And he’d laughed right back with her.

It feels a lot less funny when he’s on this side of things. It’s not the first time that it’s happened, but it’s the first time in a while, and that’s enough to set Dean’s teeth on edge when his throat starts burning.

“Dean?” Cas’s gentle voice from over his shoulder.

He can’t get any words out. He shakes his head against the pillow, and the movement makes a little tear trickle from the corner of his eye and down his temple.

“Sweetheart.”

Dean is an irritation of energy when he flips over, so quick and uncoordinated that it's a miracle he doesn’t bash his nose against Cas’s chin. He’s curling up as small as he can against that strong body, face buried in Cas’s neck.

Cas holds him tight. “I’ve got you.” His voice is so tender that it’s like it’s wrapping Dean up right along with Cas’s arms. “Oh, my Dean. You were incredible. You were- awesome. You should be so proud of yourself. It was wonderful, wasn’t it?”

Even as he cries, Dean nods into Cas’s neck, because it was wonderful. And he thinks he knows exactly how Olivia felt all those years ago. It’s not that he’s sad, it’s that he’s feeling. Vulnerable and overwhelmed. Loved and safe enough for any of this to have happened in the first place. It’s just, sometimes your brain doesn’t know what to do with the mess, so it just shits it out through your tear ducts.

“And it was a lot to handle, too,” Cas reasons. Dean nods again. “You were so brave. So brave.” Cas is kissing Dean’s hair, and it all feels a lot like coddling but Dean doesn’t care because it also feels good. If Cas is saying it, it’s probably true, and that means that Dean was brave. The sentiment settles in his chest more kindly than he’s used to as Cas continues to shush him.

The tears keep coming, but they’re soft and they don't hurt too much. When Dean breathes in, he smells rain on Cas’s neck. That familiarity is its own balm, and it's only another minute before Dean feels the tension in his body start to fade out, eyes finally drying.

Cas is petting through the hair at the nape of Dean’s neck. He tugs the way that he does before saying, “Three orgasms are nothing to scoff at, even with altered hormones.”

Dean snorts and it sounds more like a big sniffle than anything else. “Fuck, no shit. Thought I left the fucking planet for a second.”

Cas laughs, a noise that turns into a vibration that Dean can feel against his cheek, soundwaves that penetrate into his skin and smooth him, quiet him from the inside out. All it takes to settle him fully is hearing that rumble of comfort. It’s okay. It’s okay. Dean takes a deep breath in through his mouth and feels the oxygen in the room hit the bottom of his lungs.

Then Cas kisses his hair again. “Welcome back to Earth, my love.”

Even though Dean had just stopped crying, he blinks through new tears that have nothing to do with the three brain-melting orgasms he just had. He clears his throat. “It’s good to be home.” And he means Cas’s arms.

“Here,” Cas nudges him away, “let’s get out of these- frankly, disgustingly sweaty clothes.”

And maybe it's okay that they abuse Cas’s grace left and right, because it means Dean doesn’t have to stand up in order to change. One second he is covered by the sticky, lovely-smooth texture of silk against his skin, and the next he’s blanketed in the familiar scratch of cotton from his robe, which Cas helps pull tight around his body. Dean groans in relief as he drags the back of his hand over his cheeks to get rid of the stray tears. “Fuuuuck yes.”

“Much better,” Cas agrees. “Those pants felt awful.”

“I don’t even know how you managed to keep them on,” Dean mumbles, because he really doesn’t. Cas is the incredible one, wearing pants around his thighs the entire time they were fucking. That’s real bravery.

All that Cas replies with is, “Mmm. You should lie back.”

Dean’s brain is too lovey-dovey to say anything other than, “‘Kay,” before doing just that, scooching so that his head rests on his pillow and he’s looking at the ceiling. Cas is at his side, propped up on his elbow, his other hand coming to move Dean’s bangs from his forehead.

Then he’s leaning in very slowly to place a kiss on Dean’s lips. Dean closes his swollen eyes, and for a long moment that’s all there is. Trading sweet, dry kisses like red wine that say I love you. Did you know I love you?

And when Cas pulls away, Dean is left looking up at the holy image of his best friend looming over him. Lovely halo, lovely blue eyes.

He doesn’t think about the words before they come spilling out of his mouth in a breath. “I’m glad we got married.”

Those lovely blue eyes soften until they crease at the edges. Cas pets back through Dean’s hair. “Me too.”

Dean leans into the touch and lets his eyelids flutter shut again. “You’re my best friend ever.”

“What a wonderful coincidence. You’re my best friend ever, too.”

“Okay, good.”

“Okay, good,” Cas repeats, earning him a weak elbow to the ribs.

After that, it’s quiet. Just them existing together, lying on top of their bed comforter that’s either gonna need some serious TLC from Cas’s grace or just a good go-round with their washing machine. But that can wait for later. For now, Cas is playing with Dean’s hair, blunt fingernail rasping against his scalp.

It’s another minute of this before the content silence is broken by Cas’s voice. “Dean?”

“Hmm?” Dean blinks his eyes open, squinting against the muted afternoon sunlight that presses in through their window blinds.

For a second, Cas seems to hesitate. Dean tilts his head. He’s unprepared for the look of love Cas is giving him, and it makes him brace himself for whatever Cas is about to say.

“You know that… If you want to feel pretty… or be my pretty girl- you can have that outside of us having sex, right?”

Cas is watching him so earnestly- what’s new?- and whatever self-deprecation or shame that usually starts to crawl up Dean's throat during a conversation like this has seemingly withered up to die. It never stood a chance against Cas’s sunlight. Of course. So instead of flinching away, Dean is left laid out on a picnic blanket on a summer day.

“I know now,” he says.

Everything, all of this, was worth it for the way that Cas is smiling at him. Ever so lightly, ever so delicately, Cas drops his thumb in order to brush it across the eyelashes that stand proudly off of Dean’s left eyelid. When Cas speaks, it’s a whisper of adoration. “My beautiful girl.”

For once, Dean lets those words touch him exactly how he wants them to. Right down to where his heart plinks like it’s never been more relaxed. Right where he is allowed to be whatever he wants to be, whenever he wants to be it.

And he thinks about being strange, and he thinks about being in love, and he thinks about how Cas is also strange and in love and that Dean never has to be alone again. He grabs hold of Cas’s hand to bring it to his mouth to kiss, keeping his eyes locked with Cas’s the entire time.

“You’re my beautiful girl, too.”

Cas’s face melts like butter in a skillet. “I’d like that very much.” He moves their joint hands just enough to free up Dean’s mouth so that he can kiss him. “We can be beautiful girls together.”

Those words make Dean chuckle and shake his head because he can’t believe it, really. “All the shit we went through, huh? Everything- Heaven, Hell, Chuck- and we did it, ya know? Now it’s- We ended up here somehow. Two pretty girls.”

Cas presses the sides of their noses together. “And isn’t it wonderful to think that we have even more time ahead of us than we do behind us?”

Dean’s swallowing down tears again. He bumps their noses back and forth.

“Yeah. It is.”

…
…

In the mornings, in these moments of miracle that Castiel has a hard time believing were not crafted by the hands of a loving God, the birds sing to the oncoming dawn. Dean has now learned how to sleep through the noise, and Castiel is only slightly regretful because of it. Sometimes he will hear those birds and be reminded of the times when Dean would curl up against him to drown out the noise, and he’ll pull Dean’s resting form nearer like some Pavlovian effect. Any excuse even when no excuse is needed. Be near me always. I love you.

This particular morning, after roughly three hours of being held in Castiel’s arms, Dean snuffles into a welcoming consciousness. When he moves his body to stretch, he shifts away from Castiel’s reach and further out onto the empty portion of the mattress.

There had been years on end when Castiel had touched Dean so few times that he could count each moment on his fingers, and each finger was a memory ingrained in him due to its precious nature. Little pearls polished under the terrible pressure of unfortunate circumstances. Castiel had learned to survive with that distance between them, and how to bite the inner lining of his cheek to keep himself from being tempted to reach out. He had survived those terrible, touchless years.

So why does it feel so much like torture to have Dean be on the other side of the sheets?

“You’re very far away,” Castiel grumbles from his pillow nest.

Dean glances over. The fresh sun has him now, and he is beautiful.

“I’m, like, six inches away from you.”

“Yes, exactly.”

But all Dean does is huff with mirth and roll off of the edge of the mattress to stand. Castiel is forced- in utter agony, of course- to watch as his husband rounds the first corner of the foot of the bed and then the other, instead of laying back down in Castiel’s arms. He watches Dean’s every step as Dean draws closer, standing over Castiel’s side of the bed.

“Needy bastard.” Dean’s hand comes down to smooth through Castiel’s hair and oh, yes, this is not perfect but it is acceptable.

“Yes,” Castiel looks up and tries his best to make his expression too sweet to deny, “I need to keep holding you. It’s pertinent.”

Unfortunately, his tactics don’t seem to be working, because instead of laying back down in their bed Dean just rolls his eyes and then leans in to press a kiss to Castiel’s forehead. It turns Castiel into down under the affection.

“Sap,” Dean mumbles accusatorially against the skin there.

“It's because I love you. I love you.” And despite their teasing, this isn’t a taunt at all. Oh, and if Castiel thinks about it for too long, Dean won’t have a choice on whether he gets started for the morning or not because Castiel will physically drag him back down into their bedding himself.

“I know.” And that’s not a tease either, but a reassurance. Castiel feels the tension that he didn’t realize had built up in his shoulders start to fade away. “Love you, too-” a tug from the fingers still wound up in Castiel’s hair- “little bird.”

Both the sensation and the words make Castiel start, but when he focuses his eyes Dean is already pulling away. He points a finger at his own chest, “Now, this duckling is gonna go take a shower.”

Castiel huffs but settles back down in the warmth of their bed sheets in defeat. Closes his eyes to the domestic sounds of Dean pulling out the drawers of the dresser at the foot of their bed, their metal handles clanging back into place when Dean lets them go, the sound of smooth wood against wood. The patter of Dean’s feet on the carpet as he leaves the room.

The advanced hearing of his grace allows him to pick up the sounds of the bathroom as well, even though it’s down the hall. He listens as each of Dean’s movements create a scene in Castiel’s mind. The toilet bowl seat makes a hollow noise as it hits the back of the toilet, followed by the sound of Dean urinating. He can even hear the sigh of relief that Dean lets out. It goes on like this through Dean’s shower routine, where every motion and creak of the shower floor becomes a new image in Castiel’s mind, the snap of a bottle cap that looks like suds and the friction of a towel being pulled from the rack that looks like little water droplets waiting to be dried from Dean’s tan skin. It is now one of Castiel’s favorite movies, but then, he had thought the same thing only two days ago when he was in this very same position, and maybe every single day here, in this house, with the birds, with Dean, is Castiel’s new favorite moment.

The bathroom door opens and then the wooden staircase groans with each step that Dean takes down it. He must be going to the kitchen to start coffee. And, yes, a familiar beep, a familiar smell.

There is only so much that the now-fading warmth of the bedsheets can offer Castiel that the new day cannot, so he rubs at his eyes even though there’s no real reason to and he tosses his legs over the side of the mattress to force himself into a starting position. Farmer's markets and libraries and birdwatching and Dean making coffee.

He follows that earthy smell through the hallway and then down the staircase along the same path that Dean had taken just a minute ago, each step of his bare feet causing the wood of the stairs to creak until he finally hits the tile of the first floor. When Castiel rounds the banister at the bottom to turn towards the kitchen, though, he’s greeted with a sight that stops him in his tracks.

There at the coffee machine is Dean, his back to Castiel, and that back is covered in the delicate silk of the dusty blue camisole. Underneath it, a pair of baby pink panties.

Castiel swallows as a fond smile breaks quiet on his face. Maybe there is only one thing he is hungry for in this kitchen. Maybe it has nothing to do with the coffee being made and everything to do with the person making it, dolled and delectable and divine by every right that Castiel can grant.

Adoration starts its pooling in his fingertips as he takes a step forward. Another.

He hears the soft, excited cut of Dean’s inhale.

Now, when the pretty days like these come, Castiel knows exactly what to do.

Notes:

wooooooo
hollly cow this baby took me FOREVER,, like as soon as i thought i knew what i wanted to do, it was like dean needed something different,,, like he needed to really hear what cas was saying and i just didn't feel like that was happening so the fic kept getting longer and longer
and then the sex scene alone ended up being practically 15k so like,, ah!
but im glad that dean got to be curious and loved and pretty!!!!
happy pride everyone

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of you see me in the lovely garden tending