Chapter Text
Dean’s instincts were acting up again. The need started prickling under his skin around lunchtime, between his morning and afternoon class. He had to force himself to sit still and act normal for his friends throughout the entire time he sat with them during lunch. Thankfully, Charlie and Ash were so busy arguing about some piece of code or other that they didn’t notice Dean was more fidgety than normal. Benny was making love to his pulled pork sandwich, and Cas was staying back to ask his professor about something, so Dean was able to fly mostly under the radar. He was particularly grateful that Cas was gone; if there was anyone who could sense when his instincts were starting to tug at him, it was the blue-eyed Dom.
After lunch, Dean stole into the restroom to splash some water on his face, cursing the fact that he had to wear a hoodie today. He’d run out of concealer two nights ago, so he hadn’t been able to cover up the Mark on his right forearm. He’d been wearing long sleeves since then, waiting for his stupid makeup order to come in. Practice today, with its hot and sweaty conditioning, would be hell.
As Dean was shaking his dripping hands out in the sink and looking around for the paper towels, the door to the bathroom banged open. He didn’t even notice who had come in until they smacked into him as he reached for the paper dispenser.
Dean banged his hip into the sink as he stumbled off-balance, grunting in surprise and pain. From behind, he heard the person mutter, “Get outta the way, bitch.”
“Do you have a fucking problem?” Dean demanded, whirling around. He found a stocky guy with a patchy beard shuffling toward a stall, looking innocent enough that Dean almost thought he had the wrong guy, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the bathroom was empty except for them.
“Huh?” the guy asked, turning to look at Dean as if he’d forgotten he was there.
“What the fuck, dude?” Dean asked. “There’s plenty of space in here, ‘f you hadn’t noticed.”
The asshole blinked at him slowly, as if comprehending his words was one of the most difficult things he’d done all day. After what felt like a small eternity, he started turning toward the stall he’d been headed to and said over his shoulder, “Oh, shut up. Sit and stay, or whatever.”
The stall door banged behind him. Dean stared after the guy, too stunned to think up a snarky response.
“Sit and stay” was an old term, one that had long fallen out of favor among most of society. It was the kind of thing someone might have heard at a 1970’s submissive rights protest, not in the bathroom of a college in the twenty-first century. Even if there’d been Dominant power behind the statement when the guy had said it, Dean probably could have resisted the order, but it didn’t change the fact that it was a command that could be given to a sub or a dog alike.
He stood there, staring at the closed stall door, for way longer than he should have. When he finally turned on his heel and hurried out of the bathroom, his ears and face had turned completely red with humiliation. He wiped his still-wet hands on his jeans as he joined the flow of students in the hallway outside, feeling nearly sick with anger.
It was appalling that the Dom in the bathroom had said that to him. But what was even worse was the fact that he hadn’t said anything in return. He’d just stood there like the dumb submissive the guy thought he was, gaping at him with his mouth open and his Goddamn fucking hands still dripping with water. How had that fucker even known Dean was a sub? Had he just been guessing? Or was there something about Dean that just screamed submissive?
The itch under his skin felt like it had multiplied by a hundred. Dean chewed on his bottom lip as he hurried blindly through the halls toward his afternoon class, wondering if he was legitimately going to be sick.
Humiliation and self-hatred made for a nasty cocktail. Dean’s stomach churned as he rushed through the halls of his university, his mind spinning with all the responses he could have given to the Dom in the bathroom. By the time he’d reached his class, his brain was still blank. All it took was one offhand comment from a Dominant and Dean turned stupid.
He barely paid attention throughout class. The itch under his skin had turned into a slight burn, making his muscles feel like they were cramping. A familiar buzzing had started in his head, barely audible, but definitely present. The tugging in his gut grew and grew as the lecture went on, until finally Dean reached into his backpack and pulled out his phone.
Castiel Novak’s name in his phone was just “Cas” with an angel emoji. Dean pulled open their conversation and stared for about five minutes at the exchange they’d had last night about who was going to the store to pick up ingredients for dinner.
When he finally gained the courage to type what he was gonna type, his fingers shook ever so slightly.
Dean: hey, man. i need some help. can we watch a documentary tonite
As soon as he hit send, he put the phone away, bile burning at the back of his throat. Shame churned in his gut along with the humiliation and self-hatred from before, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. He told himself he wasn’t gonna check his phone again until he got to practice, but when he felt it buzz in his hand a few minutes later, he opened the message without even thinking.
Cas: Of course, Dean. Do you have practice today? What time will you be home?
Cas: Don’t worry about dinner. I can make spaghetti tonight.
Dean swallowed, staring down at the texts with a mixture of relief and shame. He had to release a long, shaky exhale before he was able to tap out a reply.
Dean: thanks. will b home at 5
After that, he powered off his phone completely, uninterested in answering any questions about how he was feeling that Cas might send his way. He already felt guilty for basically taking away any free time his friend had been planning tonight. He didn’t wanna worry him any more with whatever distant, half-assed responses he’d be able to manage right now. The less he was able to take up Castiel’s time and energy, the better. God knew he already took enough.
He dreaded wrestling practice after class. He had about an hour between his afternoon class and when he had to be at the gym, which he used to get homework done. He felt a little better after he’d had time to focus on something other than all the nasty thoughts in his head, but he still felt faintly sick as he finally packed up and headed toward the athletic facilities on the south side of the campus.
The wrestling team at his university wasn’t the best in the country, but it was pretty damn close. Wrestling wasn’t a sport that got a lot of funding or attention, but the university still found the money to build a state-of-the-art building meant solely for the wrestling team. It was a massive structure of shining glass and steel, the many windows allowing plenty of sunlight to illuminate the spacious mat rooms and weightlifting areas inside.
The practice room was boiling hot, as usual. Dean started sweating the moment he got inside, which he supposed was kind of the point. As soon as he walked into the practice room, he tried to push his previous thoughts to the back of his mind; this was not a place to show weakness.
In the past few years, submissives had started breaking into the world of college-level sports. As it stood, Dean was the fifth ever submissive to be allowed onto a D1 sports team, and the only submissive to ever make it in the sport of wrestling. There were some people who weren’t happy with that, and who were more than willing to make it clear to him. Dean had spent most of his freshman year proving himself worthy of being on the team over and over again, fending off bullying and hazing from the upperclassmen until he qualified for Nationals and they were finally convinced he deserved a spot among them.
Now that he was a sophomore, Dean was mostly an outsider. Certain boys, like Victor and Benny, were friendly to him. He appreciated them. Most of the rest of the team was distant at best and cold at worst. Dean was just grateful that so far this year, no one had tried to stain his shoes green or cut holes in his singlet.
Today was a conditioning day, which Dean was glad for. Conditioning was something he could do; it was hard work, but it was simple. He didn’t have to think about a thousand different things to run fast. He just had to put his head down and get shit done. He wasn’t the best runner or the strongest person on the team, but he was near the top. He found that as long as he was finishing in the upper fourth of the team during workouts, no one bothered him. As long as he kept to himself, he could go virtually unnoticed.
“Our match with Iowa is on the schedule,” their coach told them after practice, when they were stretching and cooling down. “It’s about three months from now. We’re gonna spend every minute of that time preparing to meet them until then, ya hear? I’m not listenin’ to that asshole Jameson gloat about winning the division for the third time in a row. It just ain’t happenin’.”
Dean listened to the rest of what he said as best he could, which was to say, not very well at all. His head felt like a swarm of bees had been trapped inside it, buzzing and ringing filling his ears faintly with every second that passed. His limbs felt heavy in a way that even a good, hard workout couldn’t achieve, and that burning need inside of him was beginning to become uncomfortable.
Dean remembered when he’d been able to go days at a time feeling like this. He remembered when the progression was slower, when the descent from being normal to being a needy bitch didn’t take less than half a day. He remembered being able to go weeks in high school without Cas’s help. He missed those times. It scared him, how fast his body reacted to the idea of domination now. It was as if the promise of what was to come after practice had heightened his senses, making the need burn like fire under his skin.
His clothes felt too rough and his backpack too heavy as he finally dragged himself out of the practice facility at four-thirty. He made his way to where he’d parked Baby slowly, every step feeling like a desperate struggle. When he finally got to his car, he heaved himself into the driver’s seat and mentally calculated how long it would take him to get home.
About fifteen minutes. He could make it.
Dean was pretty sure he’d once read that driving while his body was craving a drop was the equivalent of driving drunk. If that was even true—and it was doubtful; he was fairly sure he’d read it in some obscure, bullshit biology book—then he was just gonna have to take his chances. No way was he gonna be driven around like some weak submissive from the Victorian era. Dean could drive his own damn horse and buggy, thank you very much.
Despite that, it was probably a miracle he made it home safely. It felt like he blinked and then he was parking in his usual spot at the apartment complex where he and Cas were renting a small two-bedroom. How he’d made it there was a mystery, his memory a blur of traffic lights and the white painted lines of the road.
It felt like he was carrying a sack of bricks as he made his way up to the second floor of the complex with his school backpack and wrestling bag. It took him a minute to find his keys and another five to actually get the damn key into the keyhole. By the time he’d managed that, he was practically shaking with frustration and irritation. He hated his fucking instincts. He hated how fucking weak they made him. He hated how Goddamn hard everything was when he body was craving release. He just wished he was a Dom, or at the very least a Neutral; they didn’t have to rely on other people to stop making them needy and pathetic every other week or so.
Biting his lip hard enough to taste copper, Dean let himself into the apartment and tried not to slam the door behind him. From the living area, he heard a familiar voice call, “Dean, is that you?”
At the sound of his friend’s familiar rough, gravelly voice, Dean exhaled. As the breath left his lungs, some of the stress left his body. He was more tired than angry when he replied, “Yeah, it’s me.”
Down the narrow hallway that ran from the entrance of the apartment to the wider space where the living room and dining area were, Castiel’s shadow moved on the cream-colored walls. A moment later, he was poking his head around the corner, giving Dean a warm smile that didn’t quite cover up the concern in his blue eyes. “How was your day? How was practice? You look exhausted.”
“Yeah, it was a conditioning day,” Dean said, glad for the easy excuse. He prayed Cas wouldn’t notice how fatigued he was as he dragged himself down the hallway. “I’m gonna go take a shower. It smells amazing in here, by the way. Thanks for offerin’ to make dinner.”
“Of course,” Castiel said easily, pulling away from the corner of the hallway as Dean made his way past him. “After you shower, we can eat and then perhaps watch that documentary. I found a new series on jungle ecosystems that I’ve been wanting to watch, so your timing is perfect.”
Lies, Dean wanted to spit on instinct. Instead, he gave Cas a half-hearted smile and hobbled down the hall toward the bathroom before his friend could make any other comments.
“Watching a documentary” had become a code phrase for Cas taking Dean out of his head for a little while. And really, if Dean chose to think about it, the only point of having a code phrase at all was because it was the only way he could stand to acknowledge that he needed help controlling his instincts. He couldn’t handle the thought of just asking Cas to take him down, so he had to come up with some fancy, stupid, roundabout way of asking for it. And of course, being the kind, all-too-nice friend that he was, Cas indulged him.
Sometimes, Dean wondered what would happen if Cas was as mean to him as he probably deserved. If his friend just snapped one day and told him to take his problems somewhere else, that he was done coddling him. They were both very aware that Dean could go to practically any club anywhere on campus and get laid for the night, enough to give him a clear head for a while. Dean had no idea why Cas kept indulging him instead of telling him to stop wasting his time, but his friend didn’t have a great track record of denying Dean anything.
The spaghetti sauce on the stove smelled so good that Dean couldn’t help how hungry he felt, even as he headed to the bathroom to shower with shame churning in his gut at the thought of what was to come. He could only eat a little bit tonight, since he needed to make weight on Friday, but he could have a little pasta and some sauce. His main concern wasn’t eating, which was why his stomach felt like a playground rope net. He knew he needed to go down so he’d have a clear head for his match. Dean had wrestled while his body was craving a drop before. It wasn’t a mistake he would ever make again.
He avoided looking at his right forearm as he stripped and got in the shower. It was impossible to avoid forever, of course, and as he scrubbed his skin carefully to get all the sweat and dirt off, he was forced to look at the thin, dark band that ran in a perfect circle around his right forearm. It was halfway between his elbow and his wrist, about a quarter inch thick, and probably the worst thing that had ever happened to him. It looked like a tattoo. Sometimes, he daydreamed about getting a full sleeve of tattoos to cover up the Mark. So far, he had yet to find a tattoo artist that would do it.
Dean’s head was really spinning when he got out of the shower. He’d dropped his washcloth while he’d been cleaning his back and shoulders, and he’d had to sort of crouch down to pick it up. In that split second, the need to kneel and relax had been nearly impossible to ignore. Dean had had to fight hard to force his body back up to a standing position, his very bones feeling as if they were aching in protest.
Clothes felt like fiberglass against his skin. Dean could manage some boxers and a pair of sweatpants, but putting on a shirt nearly brought tears to his eyes. Gaze swimming with frustration and self-hatred more than pain, Dean hurled the shirt he was going to wear onto his bed and stalked out of his room with his hair still damp, intent on eating some dinner and getting this humiliating bullshit over with.
Castiel was just draining the spaghetti noodles when Dean entered the main area of the apartment. “I have the scale out for you,” the Dom said, frowning intently at the last pieces of pasta that were sticking to the pot as he scraped at them with a wooden spoon. “I don’t know how much you’re allowed to eat tonight, so I thought that you would be able to serve yourself.”
“Yeah, that’s great, Cas,” Dean said, managing a small, grateful smile for his friend. “Thanks so much for cooking. I’ll do the dishes later, yeah?”
He prayed the Dom couldn’t see how badly his hands were shaking as he grabbed a plate and set it on the scale so he could weigh his pasta. His body was reacting to the close proximity of a strong Dominant, and his instincts were screaming for him to get on his knees and offer himself to serve and please.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Dean thought as he shakily forked pasta onto his plate. I’d better not drop a Goddamn fork or something. I ain’t gonna be coming back up if I go down to grab it.
Later, he would be ashamed of how pathetic he was being. For now, it was all he could do to plate his food and make his way to the small, rickety dining table outside the kitchen, his knees literally trembling with the need to kneel for Castiel.
Unfortunately for him, his friend was as observant as he was caring. There was a line of concern between his brows when he eventually sat down across from Dean, his plate filled with his own healthy serving of pasta. “Dean,” was all he said, something too soft and too worried in his voice.
“Don’t,” Dean ground out, gripping his fork hard enough to turn his fingers white. “Just lemme eat.”
Castiel looked pained. “You should have told me earlier. You can’t let it get this bad every time, Dean. It’s not healthy.”
“After,” Dean managed, practically panting. “After we eat.”
The need to go down was always easy to sense, of course. It started building about a week or so after Castiel took him down, depending on how good the session was. Dean usually ignored it for another week, two if he was lucky, but then he eventually had to admit defeat. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t give in earlier; maybe it was to prove to Cas that he wasn’t a needy bitch that needed to be coddled every week, or maybe it was to prove that same thing to himself. Either way, he wasn’t about to start scheduling sessions with Cas, like it was some kind of maintenance appointment for his manicure or some bullshit. He was a Goddamn man before he was a sub; he could control his instincts.
At least, for a little while. They always won in the end.
Dean’s hands shook all throughout dinner. He barely tasted the food, even though it was delicious and also probably one of the last solid things he’d eat before he weighed in on Friday. He lived off of protein shakes and water during the competitive wrestling season, enough that he knew to savor solid food when he could have it. It was a shame his body was so fucked right now, since Castiel’s spaghetti was always good.
It was with simultaneous relief and dread that Dean finished his dinner and got up to put the plate away. He tried to find comfort in the methodical steps of cleaning the dish and putting it in the dishwasher, but he couldn’t shake off the buzzing need under his skin. He felt nearly sick with relief when he heard Cas’s fork scraping his plate, signaling the Dom was finished eating.
“Are you ready?” Cas asked softly as he came up to the kitchen to wash his plate. Dean realized that he’d been gripping the edge of the sink and staring very hard at the soaking pan where the spaghetti sauce had been cooked.
He swallowed. Through clenched teeth, he replied, “Yeah.”
“Okay.” In an instant, Cas’s voice went from soft and normal to Dom-mode, which was still gentle but also backed with a hidden sort of steel that made Dean’s insides feel like they were curling in on themselves. “Go kneel next to the couch, Dean. Wait for me.”
Dean’s breath left his lungs in a quiet sort of wheeze. Relief flooded through him as he obeyed the clear order, the power of Castiel’s voice washing over him like a warm wave. His submissive instincts practically sang with joy as he did what he was told, walking from the kitchen to the living area to kneel beside Castiel’s favorite place on the couch. It felt so good to sink to his knees on the floor that Dean didn’t even have it in him to feel ashamed. He closed his eyes, settling into a waiting position, trying to keep his breathing slow and calm. He could hear Castiel washing his plate and putting it in the dishwasher. In the next few seconds, the Dom was crossing the space to him.
Castiel’s proximity made Dean’s muscles tremble. It felt like there was something inside of him that was reaching out to the Dominant, beseeching him to come closer, to touch and be near him. Dean was nearly pulled off-balance by the force of it.
The TV turned on. Castiel sat down with the remote controller, his gaze staying fixed on the screen as he navigated to whatever documentary he was going to be watching tonight. Dean trembled where he knelt, waiting for acknowledgement, for the Dom to look at him and deem him good or bad.
The sound of calming music filled the room as Castiel got his show up and running. Some guy with a soothing voice and a nice accent began talking about the beautiful cloud forests of Bolivia. Castiel looked down at Dean, his blue eyes so clear and bright, and he said, “Good, Dean.”
Dean clenched his jaw against the noise that wanted to escape him, squeezing his eyes shut so Castiel didn’t see the moisture that filled them at those words. No. No, he was not good. He was not good. He wasn’t affected by praise. He wasn’t some needy sub that had to be coddled and told pretty lies to make him feel better. He didn’t need praise. He didn’t need it.
Later, Dean would probably snap at Cas for saying that. When they’d first started this arrangement, Dean had laid out a few very firm rules. One was that Cas wasn’t allowed to touch him unless he absolutely had to. Two was that Cas wasn’t allowed to praise him. And three was that they weren’t supposed to talk about it afterward unless one of the previous two rules had been broken or Cas needed to clarify something. That would make it seem too official, if they talked about it. That would make it seem too real.
No unnecessary touching. No endearments. No getting attached.
The idea was to keep these sessions as clinical as possible. Dean figured if he gave his instincts too much of what they craved, he’d build up a tolerance and would need more and more domination each time he eventually gave in, like an addict. So he had to keep these sessions as cold and unfeeling as possible so he could starve his submissive instincts into… well, submission. So far, it had mostly worked. Except for the fact that Dean needed sessions like these more and often. That was still a bit of a problem.
A problem for another day, Dean reflected as he watched Castiel grab a throw pillow from the couch. He and Dean had argued about Dean kneeling on a pillow for about two weeks when they’d first started this. Cas had been worried about his knees or some bullshit, but Dean had shut him down. He didn’t need a fucking pillow to kneel on. If he was gonna be some pansy sub, he was gonna do it in the least-pansy way possible. At least, that was what his dad had always told him to do.
One battle Dean hadn’t won was the fact that Castiel wanted him laying his head on a pillow. For Dean to really go down, he needed to fully relax, and that usually meant laying his head on the couch. If he had it his way, he’d put his head on the rock coffee table and be done with it, but Cas wouldn’t have that. He made Dean lay his head on a couch pillow, and he refused to budge on that.
“Head on the pillow, Dean,” Castiel commanded now, setting the offending blue item in front of Dean. The sub shuffled forward a little on his knees, bending down to lay his head on the pillow. He was now pressed up against the couch, and with Cas’s leg so near to his left shoulder and the coffee table at his back, he felt boxed in and safe.
Dean closed his eyes as he laid his head on the couch pillow. He tried not to let the fantasies about this being Cas’s lap fill his mind, but he couldn’t stop himself. He resisted the urge to bury his nose in the fabric, searching out the scent of his friend’s cologne. No. This was supposed to be strictly platonic and clinical. He’d made that rule. It was worse than hypocritical for him to break it, even if it was just in his mind.
He tried to let his mind drift into that place where he could slowly spiral down, but it was hard. He kept tuning in to whatever was happening on the TV, or worrying about a paper he had to turn in, or thinking about how pathetic it was that he had to be here.
The volume on the documentary turned down. Without warning, a hand settled on Dean’s back, warm and familiar and very, very large. Dean froze up, internally cursing his decision not to wear a shirt after his shower because his skin was sensitive. Castiel’s hand had settled somewhere on his left shoulderblade, his big palm and long fingers resting on Dean’s back, setting him on fire wherever they touched.
“Rest, Dean,” Castiel commanded. The hair on Dean’s arms stood on end. “Go on, sweetheart. Submit.”
That wasn’t okay, that definitely wasn’t okay, they had never used endearments, never—
Dean’s breath left his lungs in a weak exhale. He closed his eyes and sagged against the couch and Castiel’s leg, his head flopping into the pillow. The muscles beneath Castiel’s large hand relaxed, the tension flowing from Dean’s body like water in less than ten seconds. His consciousness felt like it was floating up, as if he was on laughing gas at the dentist’s office. A sensation like his soul slowly spiraling in a trickle down his spine started, his body giving in to the sensation of going down.
Just before he lost the majority of his awareness, he heard Castiel murmur a quiet, “Good boy.”
Pleasure fluttered through Dean’s body, hitching his breath and making his stomach twist into little knots. He had no control over the quiet, needy noise he made, nor the few tears that slipped free of his closed eyelids. Castiel’s hand remained warm and firm on his back, a brand of comfort and security. I’m not going anywhere, it seemed to say. Despite Dean’s hatred of all the needy, clingy parts inside him, he couldn’t deny that the touch felt good.
It was always a mystery to Dean why this state was called “going down”, since it really felt like he was floating. He basked in the warm, safe place in his head as the documentary played somewhere, a soothing source of white noise. Castiel’s knee was warm and supportive against his left shoulder, the Dom’s hand a heavy, comforting weight on his back. Dean distantly allowed himself to think that he would stay here forever, if he could.
Relief trickled down his spine and through his veins. Dean hadn’t known how badly he’d been hurting until Cas had lifted the burden off of him. He had a momentary thought, a tiny pondering of why he let himself suffer so much, why he let it get so bad every time… but then he was sinking into the softness in his head once more, his mind blissfully free of thoughts.
Dean had no idea how long he drifted. It felt like five minutes and five hours at the same time. The voice of the documentary narrator murmured somewhere in the room, sometimes accompanied by the sounds of chattering monkeys and ringing birdsong. Castiel made no sound, other than when he shifted or exhaled. The points of contact between them became brands of warmth against Dean’s bare skin, melting into obscure pools of comforting heat that ran along his left side and in one spot on his left shoulderblade.
The floating feeling turned into a sinking sort of weight when he heard the sound of the documentary suddenly cut off, signaling that it had come to an end. The hand on his back shifted for the first time in what felt like forever, sliding gently along his skin until it finally lifted away.
“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice soft in the now-silent apartment. “Dean, can you hear me? It’s time to come back up now.”
Dean could have sworn he heard regret in his friend’s voice. He knew he sure as hell didn’t want this to end. But awareness was startling to trickle back in, and he forced himself to lift his heavy head, to shift his aching knees for the first time in a while.
“Wh’time ‘s it?” Dean slurred as he blinked tiredly at Castiel. Words were difficult to conjure, but he forced himself to work through the syrupy thickness in his mind, telling himself that his time for being weak and needy was over.
“It’s almost nine,” Castiel said, checking his watch.
“Don’t you have a… a thingy t’morrow?” Dean asked, squinting at the Dom. “You need’a… Bed. You gotta sleep.”
“I can take a nap after morning practice, Dean, it’s fine,” Castiel said. He had practice at dawn most days of the week, since he always said he preferred working out in the morning and having his afternoons free. But morning practice meant going to bed early, and if Dean had just fucked that up…
“No, no,” Dean said, pushing away from the couch. He smacked into the edge of the rock table, which hurt like a bitch. Wincing, Dean pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head violently to get the syrupy feeling in his brain to go away. “You’ve gotta get to bed. Sorry, I didn’t even think ‘bout how late it is. Sorry, I should’a—You’ve gotta get to bed, Cas.”
“Dean—” Castiel looked mildly concerned. He stood up from the couch in one smooth movement, a mockery of Dean’s current clumsy unsteadiness. “Dean, sweetheart, sit down. You’re not fully up yet, you might hurt yourself.”
The only reason Dean sat down was because he was a little dizzy. That was the only reason. It wasn’t because Cas had a nice voice and listening to it was pleasant, and it wasn’t because he had big, warm hands that felt good when they gripped Dean’s shoulders and guided him down to sit on the couch. It wasn’t because of that.
His limbs felt heavy with fatigue and exhaustion. He wanted to hang his head, but he kept it up; no use worrying Cas any more than he already had. His friend was sitting next to him now, looking at him with big, concerned blue eyes.
“‘M fine, Cas,” Dean mumbled, rubbing aggressively at his face to wake himself up. “Just a little sleepy. I’ll be fine in the morning.” A pause, and then he forced himself to add, “Thanks for helpin’ me out. That was a good one.”
He was thanking Cas because he was grateful for his friend’s generosity. He was ashamed he’d had to ask for it in the first place, but he was grateful Cas was willing to give it. Dean didn’t know where he’d be without his friend.
Probably in a club somewhere, getting the skin stripped off his back by some sadist Dom. As much as Dean tried to pretend he was a masochist, that just wasn’t true. He’d probably find himself in practice tomorrow with a bunch of welts on his back and his head no clearer than before. Cas was a better choice than going to the club. At least, that was what he told himself.
“I’m gonna go do the dishes,” Dean said when his thoughts had become a little less slow and syrupy. “You go get ready for bed. I know you gotta get up early.”
“How about you drink some water first?” Cas offered, still looking concerned. “I don’t know if you’re fully up yet—I wouldn’t want you to drop, Dean.”
Dean couldn’t withhold his snort of disgust at that word. “I ain’t gonna drop, Cas. That’s a myth.”
“It most certainly is not—”
“Well, it doesn’t happen to me. I’ll be fine. Go get ready for bed ‘n stuff. I know you’re tired.” He gave the Dom as winning of a smile as he could manage. “You already helped me plenty. You don’t gotta worry about me any more.”
Cas looked doubtful at best. “You’ll tell me if you start—If you start feeling down? Or if you start feeling sick or something?”
Dean internally rolled his eyes. “‘Course, Cas. Don’t worry about me, okay?”
It took a little more coaxing, but eventually he got the Dominant to stop hovering concernedly and go get ready for bed. With the apartment to himself, Dean got up slowly and began to make his way to the kitchen so he could get some dishes done, trying to distract his mind from the inevitable shitstorm of shame and self-hatred that was going to descend onto it.
He wished this wasn’t his reality. He wished he wasn’t a weak submissive, unable to go even a few weeks without asking for help from a nearby Dom. He wished he was able to just cut that part of himself out, just like he’d tried to cut his Mark off his skin back when he’d been sixteen and unable to believe this was his life now. He wished, he wished, he wished.
He ignored the part of him, deep down inside, that wished that what had just happened tonight could happen more often. The part of him that wished he could lay his head on Cas’s lap instead of a pillow next to it, that wished he could be one of those subs that was blissfully happy with their Doms—weak and pathetic, maybe, but definitely happy too. As Dean finished cleaning up the kitchen and headed off to bed, he thought bitterly that he’d never be able to have that. He got in the way of himself too much.
And if there was one thing he knew by now, it was that wishes never turned out the way he wanted them to.