Passus X: Pes sinister.

“Dean,” he rasped simply; only Dean’s name had never sounded like that before, all that possession and promise and wonder. And what had Dean ever done to deserve that?

Þe scharp schrank to þe flesche þurȝ þe schyre grece,	The blade bit the flesh, through the pale fat,
Þat þe schene blod over his schulderes schot to þe erþe.	So that the bright blood over his shoulders shot to the earth.
& quen þe burne seȝ þe blode blenk on þe snawe,	And when the knight saw the blood gleam on the snow,
He sprit forth spenne-fote more þen a spere lenþe,	He leaped forth light-footed more than a spear’s length,
Hent heterly his helme, & on his hed cast,	Caught quickly his helmet, and on his head cast it,
Schot with his schuldereȝ his fayre schelde vnder,	Swung with his shoulders his fair shield to place,
Braydeȝ out a bryȝt sworde, & bremely he spekeȝ;	Brandishes his bright sword, and boldly he speaks.
Neuer syn þat he watȝ burne borne of his moder,	Never since that he was babe born of his moder
Watȝ he neuer in þis worlde, wyȝe half so blyþe:	Was he ever in this world wight half so blithe.
“Blynne, burne, of þy bur, bede me no mo;	“Cease, sir, of thy strife, and strike me no more!
I haf a stroke in þis sted with-oute stryf hent,	I have borne your blow by my bond without blenching
& if þow recheȝ me any mo, I redyly schal quyte,	And if thou render’st me any more, I readily shall requite,
& ȝelde ȝederly aȝayn, & þer to ȝe tryst!”	And give it you gladly again - and thereto you may trust!”

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, anonymous, c. 1380s, translation mine. (Gawain endures the Green Knight’s return blow, releasing him from his vow: fitt 4.)

Beer was good. Beer made everything so much simpler.

Like, point one. Beer was good.

That was an important point. Cleared the head. Made it all nice and fuzzy. Got rid of all that stupid stuff around the edges.

Point two. Castiel was fucking hot. And Dean could think that now, because he knew what he was thinking, and he could think about Castiel and those pictures, and... wow. The curve of his neck against the dark linen of his shirt, when he cocked his head to listen to whatever Ellen was saying to him over there, all solemn and interested. Dean wanted to lick that.

(“Dude, you’re staring,” Sam hissed in his ear as he slid into place beside Dean with more beer.

Dean beamed at him. Sam was the bringer of beer. Sam was awesome, and his thigh was nice and warm and human up against Dean’s under the table. “Pretty,” he explained, and waved a hand vaguely in Castiel’s direction, just as Castiel snuck a glance in his.

Sam cracked up, snorting into his hand and hair flopping all over the place and fist thumping the table. “I am so telling him you said that.”

Dean stole his beer, because traitors don’t get beer, and also it was the quickest way to distract a drunk Sammy. Castiel looked away, and Dean was almost sure he looked halfway flustered.)

Point three: why was Sam even here at all when his shiny new bestest friend was curled up in the main bedroom of Charlie’s farmhouse, sleeping off the exhaustion of healing? Unless Gabriel had gone all moody again and refused to let Sam hang around. Which did actually sound like him, especially since Sam had been kind of mopey that Gabriel had preferred sleeping way away in the orchards instead of taking Sam’s bed. Mopey Sam was exhausting, after all.

Point four: huh. Where was Anna sleeping, then?

Speaking of, where had Demian and Barnes gone? They’d been here not that long ago, practically in each other’s laps, huddled in their own corner. And Barnes hadn’t spent that much time since he’d got back with his actual family, not since Demian had come charging out to meet him (out through the Gate, past the wall that he’d never passed in his life before) and actually kissed him, in front of everyone, and then pretended he hadn’t, and… oh.

Oh.

Okay. So that was point five. Definitely. That made… huh, a lot of sense actually. Bit weird, but… well, apparently Dean wasn’t one to talk.

Point six. Point six was even better, because it was about Castiel’s hands, and the way every morning – every morning when they’d been making out, because that was what it was, and Dean could think that now, and it was awesome – every morning those hands were so careful, and so tender, and so goddamn warm, but now he replayed it in his head (which he could, because beer was good at letting you really dwell on that kind of thought) there had been this sort of curbed strength and hunger in there too, in the way they had clutched and tugged and hovered just north of Dean’s waistband, swept again and again over the back of his shoulders, thumbed at his jaw, tilted his head back so Castiel could go to town on his throat, and...

Point seven wasn’t so awesome, because it was about how easy it was to get horny in public when there was too much beer.

Dean distracted himself with point eight, which was actually mostly terrifying: Mark was trying to put the moves on Anna over by the bar. Least he wasn’t pretending the angels were invisible anymore. Hot girls, the best way to get around a guy. Even Rachel was – well, okay, not smiling, but talking almost friendly and thoughtful to Victor by the bar. That was maybe the most words she’d spoken to any human since she’d got here. Dean was going to have to polish up the Winchester charm, butter her up a bit. Since, you know, it looked like they were going to be hanging around.

(He didn’t really count all the words he’d got out of her earlier in the evening, when he’d caught her just outside the Roadhouse and dragged her aside where no one could hear them. That had been about Castiel, and you couldn’t get charm points for getting a lady talking when the subject was the thing they were most devoted to in the world.

“You knew about this whole tempting Lucifer shit?”

“I knew he was pretending to emulate Lucifer to draw the demon out. I hadn’t realised until today how far he’d gone. Or rather, I hadn’t realised how far he believes he has gone.” She had looked towards the window of the Roadhouse, through to where Castiel was sitting at one of the tables talking gravely with Jody and Bobby, sitting a little stiffly but with the bruises already fading on his face. “I asked him to stop, months ago. It was changing him.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean had scowled at the window. “He’s not a demon. He’s a good guy, and people are allowed to screw up and muddle their way back again. He’s still him.”

“Convince him of that,” she had snapped.

Dean had winked at her, his patented ‘boyish charm’ look that either melted older women or made them deeply suspicious. “Oh, I will. And I’ll tear him a new one if he tries to pull anything like that again.”

It had only earned him a dubious look, like she wasn’t sure she knew how to read all these strange human facial features even though they were exactly the same as an angel’s. But he hadn’t got smited, or smitten, or smote, or whatever, so he was counting it as a win.)

Point nine came, with the most welcome clarity of all, when Sam slipped an arm around Castiel’s shoulders (and hey, when had the sneaky son of a bitch got over there?) and said something that turned the conversation lighter and a bit raucous. Because when he felt Sam’s touch, Castiel, who’d been poised all careful and serious on the bar stool, turned into him just a little and relaxed. And even though they weren’t talking to each other, even though they were both facing outwards toward the rest of the group, there was Castiel’s dark head leaning in just a little towards Sam’s brown one, easy and comfortable as anything, and now Castiel was actually smiling, which he hadn’t for two days, and... yes. Just, yes. To all of it.

And just like that, all the doubts and confusions of the past few months came together into something simple and obvious. Like. Like... curds poured into a hoop, pressing each other into delicious cheese. Or something.

Dean knew what he wanted.

It was that simple. Had to be.

Beer was good.

Beer also made it easy to forget certain important facts, like the one that he hadn’t actually told Castiel any of this yet. So when, about an hour later, Dean came back in from a little bladder-relieving exercise around behind the stables and saw Castiel with his back to Dean talking to Rufus and Missouri and Rachel, it seemed the simplest thing ever to stumble – walk – up behind him, like any betrothed man might, and wrap his arms around his waist so that he could nuzzle into the back of his neck.

“Hey there, handsome,” he purred into dark sweet-smelling curls. “How’re you holdin’ up?”

Castiel hesitated for a moment, then leaned back a little bit into Dean’s arms, where he was all warm and felt good and the fold of his wings just cupped the front of Dean’s shoulders. “Dean,” he said, and sounded a bit resigned, “are you drunk.”

Rufus snorted. “Does a chicken have wings? No offence, angels.”

Rachel blinked bemusedly at Rufus, and Dean considered Castiel’s question seriously.

“Yes,” he decided after a minute. “Come sit with me. Miss you.”

Castiel’s hand settled carefully over one of his, and Dean was too busy thrilling inside over that to pay much attention to his “Would you excuse me, please,” and whatever the others said, before Castiel was turning in his arms and tugging him gently toward the door.

“Huh,” Dean observed with some surprise when he found himself already halfway across the square with an arm firm around his waist. “You’re strong.”

“You knew that,” Castiel pointed out, a bit indulgent and a bit distant.

Dean turned his head and nuzzled into the side of Castiel’s shoulder, because it was there and it was Castiel’s. “No, but. I’m barely walking here, man. Falling over. This s’all you.”

Castiel made one of his grouchy little why-do-you-never-take-things-seriously noises. “Which is why I’m taking you home.”

Dean would have made a disgruntled face, but Castiel’s mouth sort of brushed against his hair as he spoke, so that was okay.

The glass of water was cold when Castiel pressed it into his hands, and when he flopped down into the bed, that was cold too.

Cold like Castiel’s skin had been, when he’d got hurt. Cold like Lucifer’s had been, when Dean had touched his chest to drag out Gabriel’s sword.

Castiel’s hands hesitated at the buttons of Dean’s shirt, then moved away, leaving them where they were. Dean’s boots vanished, and the blankets settled into place on top of him.

“Hey.” Dean reached up for the shape and the warmth and the softness of Castiel and pulled him down, careful and firm. “Don’ giveacrap if you changed, y’hear me? Want you, this you, the one you are.” He shook him a little, held the awesome startled blue of his eyes, and struggled to make Castiel understand, all these deep important things without words that were spinning around Dean’s head. “Don’ get to throw y’self on the fire again,” was all he could find to shove out there. “Not ex- not ‘spendable, okay?”

Castiel exhaled, a soft startled noise like he’d somehow missed the memo that he was awesome, and Dean took shameless advantage to keep him there, turned his body just far enough to nuzzle in against his neck, just where it made him shiver.

“Nothing like demon, man. Too much, what’s it. Big blue eyes. Staring. Didn’t persuade me. You care too freakin’ much, Cas. Awesome. Stupid. Want you. Stay,” Dean murmured into the skin, because that was important and the bed was too big without him now.

Castiel’s breath hitched and roughened, then he tugged Dean’s hands away from his shirt and folded them carefully on Dean’s stomach.

“Not tonight.”

Dean made a noise of perfectly reasonable protest and reached out for him again, but he was gone.

“They’re my fucking wings,” Gabriel snarled.

“And this is my fucking intervention,” Anna returned sweetly. Now he thought about it, Dean could see the family resemblance. “You can’t do it yourself, and that’s what you’ve got us for. Now spread.”

Gabriel’s shoulders bunched up combatively. “Fuck off.”

Dean lounged back on the bench by the edge of the pond and grinned at him, nice and easy. “Come on, angel. You can cuss better than that. Creativity, dude.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Go boil your testicles in horse piss.”

Dean raised his water flask in salute, and took a swig.

“Um,” Sam said, and fidgeted awkwardly with one of the wide-toothed wooden combs that Anna had fetched from Gabriel’s wagon as soon as they’d brought it down inside the walls. “Why are we here, exactly?”

“To get in the fucking way,” Gabriel muttered.

“To help,” Anna said flatly.

Castiel lifted his gaze from his hands where they were hanging between his knees. “Please, Gabriel,” he said quietly. “Let us see.”

Gabriel’s mouth twisted up oddly, and his eyes skidded away from Castiel’s, out over the still water. Then he turned his back on them, unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off, and brought out his wings.

Dean blinked. “Holy shit.” No wonder Gabriel had been kind of squirmy and itchy all day.

Sam dropped the comb. “Gabriel. Can you even fly like that?”

Gabriel shifted uncomfortably, and tried to shake them out. Bits of dry mud clattered. “Not really,” he admitted grudgingly.

They were filthy. Mud and blood had caked and matted on in great chunks, rubbed deep in under the feathers, and dried like that. Rachel and Castiel and Anna had cleaned each other up yesterday, almost first thing after getting home, even while Castiel had still been shaky and barely there. Dean had seen them – had leant a hand, here and there – and knew that even Castiel’s hadn’t nearly been so bad as this, despite all his rolling around in the mud. On Castiel’s wings, most of the mud had caked over the top, kept from working any deeper by the neat, oiled shield of overlapping feathers. But Dean remembered how sleek Castiel’s wings had looked in the rain, and the way Gabriel’s had been all fluffed up, especially on the back, on the areas Dean was looking at now, at the areas where – right. Where Gabriel wouldn’t be able to reach himself.

Even Anna looked a bit taken aback, twisting her long red hair in delicate fingers far more often than she needed to before knotting it at the back of her neck. “Okay then. Let’s get them soaked.”

It took almost half an hour just to do that bit: half an hour of all five of them standing waist-deep in the pool with their forearms streaked in mud and their hands buried in mangled feathers and Dean trying not to think too many indecent things about the way Castiel’s clothes floated around him under the water and clung to him above it. (Or too many irritated and worried things about the way Castiel kept not looking at him. Besides, he was still kind of pissed at him for sleeping at the Roadhouse last night. Dean would have slept on the sofa if he’d asked.)

The awkward thing was, though, Gabriel obviously really didn’t want them touching him. Any of them. At all. Let alone four pairs of hands on him, two of them behind him where he couldn’t see them coming. And every time he flinched, or twitched, Anna would make a soothing sort of a sound, or a chiding sort of click with her tongue, and Gabriel’s shoulders would just bunch up firmer and he’d go even quieter, and Sam’s jaw would set harder and harder and the little temper tic in his forehead would start to twitch.

After a while, Dean complained about sore arms and kicked off to float on his back, ignoring Anna’s reproachful eyes at his defection. Castiel shot him a look that said “you are fooling no one” over the crook of Gabriel’s wing, so Dean grinned nice and slow at him and stretched out luxuriously in the water, showing off. Castiel ducked his head at once and kept on with his task, cheeks faintly flushed.

It was heady, that feeling, knowing what that look meant, knowing that Dean’s body wasn’t just the strong tool it had always been, but powerful, in a way he’d never really considered. It had never been important, before. There was always the occasional appreciative glance from a girl (or woman) to stoke Dean’s ego, but nothing like this: like Castiel’s gaze itself forged Dean’s body into something new and potent and thrilling.

Only Castiel kept looking away.

He was being polite. The son of a bitch. And all morning he’d been with people, in company, talking and negotiating, so Dean hadn’t been able to get him alone. Only the more he thought about this, all of this, the more he wanted it – impractical as it was – and he needed Castiel to know that, at least.

Apparently slaying some hopped-up king of demons together didn’t magically make the girl – or guy – fall into your arms, like everything was easy. Dean couldn’t help but feel like all those stupid romantic stories owed him one hell of an explanation for this shit.

When it was done, the worst of it, mud soaked and harried out with painstaking shrivelled fingers, Anna waded back to shore for the combs, with their broad leaf-shaped teeth and careful gradation of sizes. Sam got the full speech – which ones for which feathers, how deep to angle them, all that jazz – and when she reached out to drag one through the secondary coverts on the underside of one wing, Gabriel flinched so hard he nearly knocked them both over.

Anna actually made a frightened little gasp, like she thought he might go for them; and Gabriel swore, took a step backward in the water, and pulled his wings in tight, glaring away at the horizon.

There was a short, shaky silence. Then Anna drew herself up, glared at Castiel and Gabriel, and said in a thin voice, “At least I’m trying.”

“Can I,” Sam said tightly, and took one of the combs. “Um. Gabriel?”

“Sam,” Gabriel acknowledged with absolutely no inflection. Castiel just stood there with his arms hanging uselessly at his sides and a little crinkle in his forehead. Apparently being kind of screwed up was just something angels did.

Sam reached out the hand with the comb, not quite touching Gabriel’s wing, and looked kind of bashful through his fringe. “Would you show me?”

Gabriel breathed in slowly through his nose. Then he unfurled that wing halfway, raised a hand slowly but without hesitation, and laced his fingers through Sam’s to control the strokes.

“Anna,” Castiel said, in that quiet unarguable way he had. “Please come and walk with me.”

Anna gave him a deeply disappointed look, and didn’t move.

Only apparently Castiel didn’t ask nicely more than once. “Anna. With me,” and there was the steel and the growl of the commander, and Dean would have growled right back if that had been his cousin. But for some reason it made Anna relax, like it was such a relief not to have a choice, and she waded out of the water.

Angels were weird.

Then they were gone, and Dean clambered out and lazed around on the bench in the sun for a while as his clothes dried and his little brother and an archangel carefully put the archangel’s feathers back in order. By the time Sam moved around to do the backs of the wings (one firm stroke of the left hand, any necessary corrections or insults from Gabriel, the comb in the right hand along the same path), they were bickering as comfortably as they ever had; and Gabriel had his eyes closed, and his face tipped up towards the sun.

Dean left them to it.

Castiel spent the rest of the day having serious talks in the Council chambers, with a bunch of people who’d been part of the negotiations from the start, and others who kept hanging around or wandering in to have their say. When Dean leaned in the door to watch, he looked determined and tired and more animated than he usually was talking to strangers, and all the details made Dean’s head spin. Even Gwen was looking kind of bored, losing interest with all the technicalities; but Sam was still going strong, arguing over all the complicated ramifications of every little detail for everyone years down the track.

Technically Dean could have gone in there to drag Castiel out, or hell, to join in the conversation; but it would have been a dickish kind of move to take him away from that just because Dean wanted to yell at him, and he didn’t really have anything to add that other people couldn’t say better. Mostly what Dean wanted was for no one to screw Castiel over.

And they must be almost finished. And he’d see Castiel that evening, anyway.

Castiel spent that night at the Roadhouse too.

Dean wasn’t sulking. He wasn’t. If Castiel needed time to get used to the idea, he could do that.

The small grumbling voice at the back of his head said Castiel had been just fine with the idea before. He muffled the voice by pulling out Gabriel’s book. If his dick wouldn’t pipe down and keep out of the discussion, clearly he needed to shut it up by sending it off into a happy little doze.

The thing was... lying in bed after, staring up at the ceiling, not sleeping because his brain wouldn’t stop, Dean knew all the reasons why this couldn’t work. Far from the smallest was the fact that Castiel already had a family, a people, and they were his to look after.

Castiel being here, in this town, in their lands in the first place, wasn’t because he’d come looking for a childhood memory. He’d come to heal his people’s wounds, to close the rifts of the war. And if that was the case, what Dean wanted – what Castiel wanted, even – just wasn’t going to cut it. Even if Gabriel decided to go back home and become grand high lord of angelkind, or whatever, and make Castiel all redundant, how could Dean ever ask Castiel to stay here with him to be just one angel in a town of aliens? Every argument they had, Castiel would be able to fling “but I don’t know how humans do this” and “but I left my world for you” into Dean’s face. And he’d be right to do it, too.

And Dean would screw it up. What was there to Dean to make someone like Castiel happy?

In the morning, there was a tiny bird carved from oak sitting on Dean’s windowsill, and a small black feather. It was beautiful work, all fine detail and scrupulous care, and it made Dean furious.

He was being courted. Courted with gifts, and distance, and politeness, like he was some delicate flower. Not like he was Dean and Castiel was Cas and they could argue it out and make something of their own. Like Castiel had decided what story they were in, and Dean was the –

To hell with that.

Castiel was feeding Missouri’s chickens when Dean found him, around mid morning.

Sure, they were in public, and Missouri was leaning on the low stone wall just over there chatting with Pamela, and people were milling around on the street just on the other side of the wooden fence that kept the chickens in, but screw it. Gotta keep the gossips busy somehow, right?

Castiel looked up at him warily as Dean stalked up, scattering indignant chickens.

“Not a fucking damsel, Cas,” he growled, and knotted his hand in the front of Castiel’s shirt and kissed him before he could put the bucket down. “Not gonna break. I wanted it, okay?” Because this much he had the courage to confess, to say out loud, no matter who was listening. “I want.”

Castiel didn’t push him away. His mouth fell open a little under the shove of Dean’s, but he didn’t kiss back. He half turned to place the bucket up on the fence, out of reach of eager beaks; and when he spoke he sounded a little tired, resigned in a way that hurt. “But what do you want, Dean.”

What did he want?

Well, while he was at it, he might as well lay it all on the line. He’d had months – years – of pretending to everyone and himself, and he was fucking done. Even if he couldn’t have it.

“Hell,” he breathed. “I want to marry you, Cas. That’s what this is. With all the sappy, mushy bits of it, and all the stupid everyday arguments, and yeah, the sex. But that’s big, man, that’s... enormous. And the dude thing aside, you’ve got other things you need to be doing – you belong with them. And I don’t think I’d be... very good at being a husband.”

Castiel’s eyes went very bright, the intense unwavering stare that looked right through Dean and held him up. Then they narrowed, and crinkled up just a bit at the edges.

“Do human marriage proposals traditionally foreground all the reasons against the match in question.”

“Shit.” That was what that had been, hadn’t it? Dean had just proposed. To Castiel. Dean had just asked Castiel to marry him. “Um. No. Pretty sure that’s just a Winchester bonus. I just mean. I get it, man. You don’t have to say -”

Castiel touched a finger to his lips, and Dean shut up at once. “I am not leaving, Dean. I won’t be in your lands all the time, and not often within the walls, but unless your people decide to drive us quite away you’ll see me regularly. Haven’t you been listening to the negotiations.”

Dean grinned madly at him, heart hammering. “I’m just too adorable for politics?”

Castiel tilted his head and gave Dean the scowl of I-will-not-be-distracted. “Three days ago you didn’t know that this – that sex, with two men – was possible. And now you suggest marriage.”

Wow. Add “hearing Castiel say that word” to the list of new things that Dean unexpectedly found hot.

“Yeah, well.” He rubbed the back of his neck and felt the grin dim a little into sheepishness. “Wouldn’t’ve called it sex, but I’ve had plenty of... thoughts. There’s a hell of a lot of things I want to try. Wanna take my time with you, Cas.”

Castiel’s eyes went dark and focussed, fixed on Dean’s mouth, full of ideas of his own. “Gabriel tells me – from personal experience, he assures me – that it is... physically possible, for a human male,” he murmured, stubborn and a bit anxious like this was a point he had wanted to clear up, to prove that he had considered. “And your own behaviour would suggest – and Demian’s, and Barnes’ – that you can feel…”

Dean’s fingers crept forward, possibly of their own accord, and curled possessive and absolutely freaking certain around the front of Castiel’s belt. The muscles of his stomach jumped against Dean’s knuckles.

“Pretty damn sure it’s possible,” he murmured, low and dark, and watched with gratified surprise as Castiel’s eyes narrowed and his tongue flickered out, a quick flash of pink, to dampen his parted lips.

“Castiel, honey?” Missouri prompted from the other side of the garden, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t the first time she’d said that. “You done with the hens? Jody wants the both of us over in the Chambers. Time to hammer this thing into a final shape.”

Castiel blinked muzzily at her past Dean’s shoulder, and Dean growled to himself and spread his hand out warm over Castiel’s stomach for a moment.

They weren’t done.

Feathers rustled beside him, faintly irritable.

“Hell. You go, okay? I’ll finish up here.”

Castiel glanced at him and nodded, a quick flash of shared warmth that curled up contentedly in Dean’s chest. Then he squared his shoulders and moved towards the gate, slipping on the soldier like a mantle, dusty and chicken-smelling as he was.

Missouri paused for a minute with her hand on the gate after he’d passed her.

“You two sweethearts?” she asked Dean, and there was nothing in her dark old eyes but thoughtfulness.

Sweethearts. Strange old word, that one, and kind of corny. But just in that moment, with that rich pleasure nestled in Dean’s chest, and with its lack of gender or condemnation, it felt welcome.

“Yeah,” he said, a bit gruff, and reached for the feed bucket to cover it up.

Missouri just nodded once, like this was nothing very remarkable, and closed the gate firmly so that the chickens wouldn’t get loose. “Anyone gives you any trouble, you let me know,” she said comfortably, and followed Castiel.

The doors to the council chambers were old carved oak. Abstract patterns: complete circles, and vines that looped around on themselves so they had no beginning or end, and complex unbroken knots. Not like the broken, distorted bodies painted on the walls. This was the centre of their home, not the edge.

They weren’t closed often. Serious debate – about the future of the whole town, or crimes, or the fate of someone who’d come back in from outside tainted and changed and infected – usually took place with the doors open, until everyone had said their say. Only then, if there was controversy enough to need it, would the doors be shut, so that whoever had been chosen to form an appropriate Council for the occasion could make a final decision. Hammer out the details, without interruption, unless someone from inside emerged to fetch a witness.

Once the doors were closed, they were impassable. They only opened from inside. Outside, they were flawless, not even a crack to be seen, except for the dents where one man had tried to beat the doors in, generations back, when it had been his son’s life on the line.

They were closed now.

Dean couldn’t remember how that story had ended. Whether the son had lived or died. What had happened to the father.

Dean leaned against the Roadhouse wall opposite the Council chambers and glared at the doors, arms crossed, waiting. Just like all the other people milling around nearby, pretending they weren’t waiting too. Sure, Dean hated the endless punctilious debates that went on in there, but he hated even worse the feeling of doing nothing. And right now, all the action was behind those doors. Even if it was just talking action.

When the doors finally cracked open, sometime after four in the afternoon, it was with the sound of a bolt drawing back, then the creak of weight on stiff hinges, then the whisper of attention from all around the square.

Jody, Ellen, and Rachel emerged together, civilian and hunter and angel, and Ellen pinned up a long roll of parchment on the Roadhouse wall. A charter.

Dean wasn’t too interested in any long list of formally worded points, just in what Castiel and Sam thought of them, so he moved against the flow of curious shuffling feet and craning necks to make for the open door. Rufus and Colt emerged before he got there, in easy conversation with Victor, whom Dean hadn’t realised had been part of this. Then Missouri shuffled out, stiff as she always was after sitting down for hours, though she could work day and night in calving season without a rest if she had to and never show a sign of fatigue.

She laid claim to Dean’s arm to get down the steps, and issued a kindly warning about what was going on inside.

Dean stifled a groan. “Seriously? Why the hell did he drag those out?”

Missouri patted his arm sympathetically. Dean suspected darkly that she was laughing on the inside. “Well, three hours ago they were evidence. Now they’re just pictures of children. And seems like Anna and Charlie are rather fond of those.”

“Okay. ‘Scuse me, ma’am. I gotta go kill my little brother,” Dean decided, and stalked inside.

Sam, though, looked like he’d already got his. His face was beet red – what Dean could see of it, anyway, given it was buried in his arms where he was trying to cover as many of Dean’s old notebooks as possible and hide at the same time. The girls were cooing evilly over two more, Bobby was frowning down at another, and Castiel... apparently didn’t know what embarrassment was, because he was just staring at the last one like it was something alien, wearing his Thinking Deep Thoughts brow-furrow, no matter how much Anna purred about his precious little baby fluff.

Dean stole Charlie’s book, because he wouldn’t have put it past Anna to freeze him with angel mojo to save the cuteness, and used it to whack Sam around the back of the head while Charlie squeaked in protest. “Okay, show’s over, guys. You owe me big time, bitch.”

Sam yelped, and gave Dean an injured look. “Dean, they said I had a baby potato face. Tell them I didn’t have a baby potato face!”

“No, you did! It’s adorable! Look,” Charlie exclaimed eagerly, and snatched another notebook off Sam while he was distracted. “It’s that kind of blobby shape lots of toddlers get, where they just stare at you like they’re waiting for you to do something exciting!”

Dean eyed her, then eyed the sketch she was pointing to. “Chick’s got a point, dude,” he admitted, because he always had Sam’s back except when it was hilarious.

Sam made a sad, betrayed noise, and tried to steal the notebook back again. Castiel, away on the other side of the round table, gave him a worried sort of look, like he thought there might be some dark human secret hidden in pictures of cute kids that was going to cause Sam’s untimely doom any minute now and maybe he should do something to stop it.

“Beautiful big eyes, though,” Anna said soothingly, because angels were evil. “So expressive. I bet you could make grown-ups do whatever you wanted.”

“Yup. That he did,” Bobby chipped in, and stood up, jamming his cap back on his head. “Big hit with the ladies, that kid. ’Til he grew up.”

“I hate you all,” Sam opined to the table.

Castiel gave Dean a quizzical sort of look, and he grinned and shook his head. All in fun. Nothing bad.

Bobby didn’t pass Dean – he stopped, and handed back the notebook. It was the first one, the very first – no Sam in it, just Dean working out what Cas was, who he was, how wings and feathers worked. Just kids, having fun.

“Shoulda shown me these years ago,” Bobby said, halfway to gruff, and Dean couldn’t work out whether he was angry or uncomfortable or what under there.

He shrugged, and made an apologetic sort of grimace. “Kinda too late by then, Bobby. By the time it would’ve meant anything.”

Which wasn’t to say that Dean couldn’t fantasise about it, wish that he’d whipped out those books the first time anyone had seen wings against the sky, somehow argued everyone around, and walked out to meet the angels. Offered to help.

Though they probably would have taken him for a demon and killed him anyway.

“Hey.” Bobby cleared his throat, and nodded at nothing much. “You did good, boy.”

Dean blinked at him. “Seriously? I’ve been screwing the pooch at every turn since the get-go here, Bobby.”

“Yup. And you figured out which way to turn a hell of a lot quicker and clearer than the rest of us.” Bobby scratched at the back of his head with a loud grating noise, staring at the wall, like he wasn’t actually acknowledging feelings and shit. “You’re a better man than your daddy ever was. Shoulda trusted you earlier. So should you.”

“Huh.” Dean swallowed, and grinned a bit. “Go get drunk, old man.”

It meant “thanks Bobby,” and by the way Bobby nodded and clapped him on the shoulder as he left, he’d heard it.

“Give me that,” he heard Sam grumble through one of his shy smiles, so Dean left him to defend his masculinity and slipped around the table, to settle his hands experimentally on Castiel’s shoulders. They moved a bit under the touch, just a hopeful little twitch back into his hands, which Dean decided to count as a success.

“Good settlement?” he asked, though the fact that Sam was beaming and blushing and getting himself teased had already told him that.

Castiel’s wings flexed back subtly, so they were just resting against the outside of Dean’s hips and thighs. “It is,” he said, earnest and satisfied and tired, and left it there. Dean felt his heart swell at the quiet triumph under there, at knowing Castiel felt he’d “done good” too, but he didn’t know how to say it. So he dug his thumbs into the coil of muscle just behind each shoulder blade, the one that was barely developed on humans, where the weight of the wings pulled and Castiel got tense after too much talking; and Castiel exhaled softly, and let his head fall forward onto his chest.

“Course it was,” Dean said firmly, because it was all he had to offer. “You’re awesome.”

“We really are,” Sam stuck in, face splitting into a triumphant grin. “Gonna keep everyone happy enough, or at least with nothing real to grumble about, ’cos they gotta know we heard them at least and worked with it. Well, except for the die-hard ‘kill ‘em all’ freaks like Gordon.”

“And you got your bit about no wing-touching through,” Charlie piped up happily.

Sam beamed. “I did! Without that stupid list of places an angel may not touch a human to balance things out! Like any angel doesn’t know ‘thou shalt not grope a stranger’s junk’ isn’t covered in the whole good guest manners thing.”

“Go team us!”

Dean’s fingertips edged their way up over the knobs of Castiel’s spine, until they hovered against that invitingly bent neck. Castiel shivered a little; and Dean leaned forward until his lips brushed Castiel’s ear, leaving the others to their mutual congratulations and mockery.

“Everything you wanted?” he murmured, not because it was a secret but because the curve of Castiel’s neck, the fine fuzz of hair along the back, the delicate fold of his ear, beckoned to Dean and drew him in, making everything feel like something private and desirable.

Castiel made a soft rumbling sound in his throat that might have been agreement and might have been encouragement, and turned his head marginally so that the side of his cheek brushed against Dean’s nose and lips. “Better than I hoped. More restrictions to angelic behaviour than human, as guests in your land, and physically stronger. But we will be here until the last of the demons on your land is killed, which will be a year at the least, and maybe three. And there are no limits, Dean, on how much time I or any angel may spend within these walls, so long as our whereabouts is known.”

Dean hid his grin in the corner of Castiel’s jaw, let him feel it, and felt him swallow.

“Like the sound of that,” he said, low and dark. “So I’m not allowed to touch now, hmm?” and he let one hand (out of sight of the others) creep just inside the wing-slit of his tunic, teasing at the feathers where they lay against the firmer warmth of skin.

“Not without permission,” Castiel murmured back, a little deeper, a little gruffer.
“Which you always have, Dean.”

“You two are the kind of sweet that gets stuck in your teeth,” Anna observed, in exactly the same tone she’d been using about the notebooks, like they were sleepy kittens or something. Dean flipped her off, on behalf of kittens everywhere, and felt Castiel’s cheek heat up against his.

The notebook Castiel had been looking at was lying open on the table in front of him, with Castiel’s hand spread out over one corner, like he was trying to touch the memories in the pictures. It showed a series of quick sketches, none of them complete: the edge of Castiel’s wing, or the flash of a childish grin over a shoulder or between his legs or down through the branches of a tree.

“These are good,” Castiel said softly, when he felt Dean looking; and Dean shook his head minutely against Castiel’s.

“You wouldn’t stop moving, dude,” he whispered, and laid his hand out on the page beside Castiel’s, remembering like the movement of fingers against paper had engraved it into his mind: the smell of grass, and a wriggling angel child. “You used to laugh more, back then.”

“I had almost forgotten that you used to draw,” Castiel mused, and his little finger slid outwards to bump against Dean’s thumb. “It didn’t seem important, at the time. Making memories.”

“No, it didn’t.” Dean burrowed the fingers of his other hand a little deeper down under Castiel’s wing inside his tunic, to feel him arch his back a bit and draw breath. Then he looked at their hands against the old images, and hesitated.

“There are more recent ones,” he volunteered, husky and diffident into Castiel’s throat.

Castiel’s hand stilled in its slow creep towards Dean’s; and Dean felt him turning over all the implications of that, the timbre of Dean’s voice, the meanings underneath.

“How recent?” he grated out after a moment, all consideration and awkward weight.

Dean shot a look over at the others. They weren’t watching: Sam was gathering up the notebooks and Anna and Charlie had their heads bent in towards each other, murmuring something too low to hear. Anna’s smile was warming those big ethereal eyes of hers, lending them a kind of humour Dean hadn’t known was there.

“Last couple of months,” Dean supplied innocently. “Mostly after dreams.”

Castiel turned his head a little further so that his breath fanned over Dean’s cheek and the corner of his mouth, hot and uncertain. He was so close Dean could barely make out his face, just the angle of cheekbone and the dusty fall of lashes.

“Siren dreams?”

“Good dreams,” Dean pressed in against his stubble, hot and sure. “Waking up wanting to draw you. Get you on paper, at least. Drag my pen along the edge of you. Make you real.” He stopped to swallow, because Castiel’s breath was coming deep and slow and hungry against his mouth. “Not the sort of drawings you pass around the table.”

“Really,” Castiel growled, one low scrape of hunger and demand; and fuck, he needed to sound like that all the time, and also he needed to be stretched out all over Dean’s bed right the hell now.

“All from memory,” Dean ploughed on recklessly, because running his mouth off was what he did, and Castiel’s neck smelled really good. “Haven’t drawn you live since we were kids. Should do that. Lay you out and keep you there. Pin you down. Make you last.”

Castiel stood up abruptly. “Excuse us,” he said to the others, all politeness and gravel. “And thank you, all.”

It was a really really long way back to Dean’s house. Someone would pigeonhole Dean, wanting to clap him on the back and ask what had gone down; and in the time it took to say “go and read that charter they stuck up on the wall” someone else would be trying to worm details out of Castiel. And sure, anyone talking to any of the angels like normal people was a good thing, but right now Dean just wanted to get his hands and mouth all over him and maybe even get some of his clothes off, so it would be great if they could stop grabbing his angel right the hell now and let him get home.

By the time they were crowding into the nook of the back door, and Dean plastered up all along Castiel’s side, Dean’s chest was thudding rough with impatience, and Castiel’s fingers were moving sharp and curt, and shaking on the doorknob.

Dean crowded up against him in the doorway a bit, backing him in against the wood and stone, and Castiel let out all his breath in a rush and opened the door. They got through it in a sort of embarrassing tumble, and then they were in the kitchen, and Castiel was saying “I was trying to be patient” all breathless and sharp, and somehow Dean had Castiel backed up against the counter, with their noses barely an inch apart.

Castiel’s hips felt very finite and breakable under the span of Dean’s hands. His eyes were dark, and so very blue, like you could drown in them and never even notice.

What are we doing? Dean wanted to ask, to demand, maybe even scream across those eternal two inches of distance; but that would be admitting weakness, admitting fear, and Dean Winchester was too stubborn for that. So instead he turned his head a bit and brushed his mouth against the corner of Castiel’s lips, so he could feel it when Dean murmured “Hi,” all low and (maybe) seductive. And maybe he couldn’t feel the thud and the rattle of Dean’s heart, underneath it all. Driving it all.

Castiel’s hands, placed precisely on the side of Dean’s neck and the small of his back like he was following some instructive diagram, twitched and tightened. Under Dean’s lips, Castiel’s skin moved, blood throbbing hot and thick and vital underneath.

“Dean,” he rasped simply; only Dean’s name had never sounded like that before, all that possession and promise and wonder. And what had Dean ever done to deserve that?

“Hey,” he mumbled, and nosed his way up the curve of Castiel’s cheek to rest his mouth at the ridge of bone just before it curved back in towards his eye. “You good there?”

“Here?” Castiel frowned (Dean felt it against his mouth) and tugged, gathering Dean in towards him like he wasn’t already being crushed against the counter. “Wouldn’t your bed be more comfortable,” which hadn’t been what Dean had meant, but he was behind that plan all the way.

“Hell yes,” he agreed, with all appropriate eloquence, then lost all his powers of thought in a shower of white-hot sparks as he gave in to Castiel’s tugging and let their hips sink in together, against each other, and shit, he hadn’t known –

“Fuck,” he panted, when his mouth was working again. “So that’s. That’s what that’s. That’s why. Huh.”

Castiel made some wordless, whiskey-rough noise of agreement, right into the hollow behind his ear; and Dean took his time to shiver, fingers rubbing back and forth over the jut of Castiel’s bones under skin, hips working compulsive little circles against the hot delicious answer in Castiel’s.

Castiel’s hand brushed (startling) feather-tentative demand across the side of Dean’s face. Then it fastened more surely on his jaw, thumb and one fingertip pressing in firm and almost painful, and the valley of his palm fit itself snugly to Dean’s skin and bone, and ran hot, hotter than human, and Dean knew what this was, this was familiar. Castiel didn’t even have to push before Dean was tipping his head back, offering up his throat. And Castiel’s mouth found it at once, found that spot, the slick tease of his tongue and hungry slide of his lips, and the scrape of teeth just on the edge of things, like he could barely hold himself in.

A wave of dark red heat rushed down Dean’s spine, jolting his hips forward against Castiel’s again and tearing a jagged whine out of him. The echo of it pressed back into the skin of Dean’s throat through Castiel’s teeth, and. Hell. Brush of feathers, crowding in frantic along the backs of his hands. Castiel’s mouth, clever and hot, nibbling and mouthing at the skin there until it felt swollen and almost too sensitive, sending sparks straight to Dean’s dick at every touch.

“Okay?” Dean gasped, just in case he was hurting him (his whole body, pinned against the kitchen counter by the weight of Dean’s, rocking up against him, all lithe and beloved and Dean could feel every inch of him, from the breaths panting wet across his wet throat to the wings wrapped halfway around Dean’s sides to the ankle shoved between his, nudging them apart).

Castiel nipped him, a sudden shock of pain that spiralled away into pleasure, and slid the hand on Dean’s hip down and around to curve like a claim over a part of Dean’s body that he’d never really paid much thought to before that damned book of Gabriel’s. And holy shit, for a bunch of muscles that did nothing much but cushion his seat, it sure was eager to get in on the action. Dean’s legs widened, mostly of their own accord, because Castiel’s fingers just felt so damned good tracing in along the dip at the end of his spine, venturing lower where the fabric of Dean’s pants formed a bridge and kept them from digging in further.

And there, of course, once they were open just a little, it got real obvious real quick just how much better it would be to straddle them a little wider, just like that. Slide his feet forward so they were outside Castiel’s, not toe to toe with them; feel the living heat of him against the insides of his thighs, not the front; inch forward half cautious until he could feel the weight and eager length of him pressing snug and firm right there.

Yeah. Just like that. That worked.

Dean tried to find his breath, which he’d lost somewhere in his throat. He ran one hand around from Castiel’s hip to slide up the powerful curve of his spine, and held him close, close and warm and safe. Castiel’s heart was thudding against his hand, right through the bone and muscle of him, and he felt suddenly fragile, so fragile, bracketed in like this, enveloped in Dean’s broader, taller body. Dean knew how fragile, he had pulled angels apart with less, for all their strength.

“Okay?” he asked again, gasped it out into Castiel’s hair; and the angel made a noise of frustration and heat and scraped his nails up into Dean’s hair.

“Dean. Yes,” he growled, like the big dog in a pack putting an upstart down with his jaws locked firm in its neck, and hell, that image had never been a turn-on before, but Dean’s dick was trying to dig right through two layers of clothing to get to Castiel’s and Castiel sounded so breathless that Dean had to run a soothing hand back down his spine and drag his face up and kiss him.

And there, the touch and gasp of Castiel’s mouth against his, the slide of tongue over tongue. The tease of the slick inside of his lips and the way his breath came out rough, halfway to a growl, straight into Dean’s mouth. All the little noises he made, the rasps and bitten-off moans like he kept forgetting he was allowed in. Familiar, known, but so shockingly different now that Dean knew what that meant. Not just Castiel enjoying it, like Chevy enjoyed having her ears rubbed: Castiel enjoying it, just like Dean was, revelling in every touch and shove, and that knowledge felt freaking miraculous. And the evidence was right there, hard and tempting and rocking into the cradle of Dean’s hips, in the rhythm of Castiel’s body moving against (with) Dean’s, writhing steady and maddeningly slow, testing this angle and that and moaning each discovery into the welcome of Dean’s mouth.

All those sounds, not just sounds anymore: weight and wanting behind them, and promises.

Dean could do this for the rest of his life.

Except for a certain increasingly pressing thing which was definitely not going to last that long. Not even another minute, the way Dean’s balls were drawing tight and his hips were taking on a mind of their own.

Only that wasn’t good enough. Not for this, not for Castiel. Not just getting off together, greed without self-control. Dean wanted to do this properly. Needed to let Castiel know what this was, how much it was. And he couldn’t do that with words, he’d spewed out so many words these past couple of days and he was all run dry there, but Castiel was more comfortable talking with action anyway.

He eased back, hips then stomach then chest then mouth, fingers digging into Castiel’s upper arms, foreheads bumping and pressing together, and just breathed.

Castiel was very quiet for a moment, breath puffing shallow against Dean’s lips, that one audacious hand inching its careful way back up to Dean’s belt like a dog hoping that if it slinks out the kitchen door abjectly enough no one will notice the biscuit in its mouth. Then it vanished from Dean’s back altogether, and reappeared, a soft ghost of a touch, against Dean’s neck.

“Dean?” he asked, and it was all ragged and unsure.

“I’m good,” he murmured into that inch or two of charged air, then couldn’t resist pushing in, just a bit, to steal one more slide of mouth against slick mouth. “Just,” a kiss tucked in against the corner of his lips, another softer and more deliberate just beside his eye, “we keep that up, this is gonna be over real quick.”

“Oh,” Castiel rasped blankly; then again, darker and deeper, “Oh.”

Dean grinned helplessly into his cheek. “Shut up. You’re fucking amazing, okay?”

Castiel’s hands shuffled carefully across Dean’s shoulders, and one slipped down to his chest. “Maybe we should,” Castiel offered abruptly, and Dean pulled back far enough to look at him. He was a mess, mouth bruised and wet and open, eyes wide and wrecked, and his hair had no business being all tangled like that when Dean hadn’t even got his fingers in there yet and he’d maybe never looked so goddamned deliciously gorgeous.

“Huh?” Dean offered, all intelligence, and Castiel made one of his annoyed noises and plucked ineffectually at the top button of Dean’s shirt.

“Oh!” Dean fell back a step, almost literally, and fumbled at his own buttons. “Yeah. We should. Do that. Definitely.”

Castiel’s eyes (dark, so dark, full of something Dean had no name for but felt burning in his own gut) dropped to fix on Dean’s fingers, which immediately forgot how buttons worked. Castiel wasn’t having the same problem, the lucky son of a bitch – his fingers were moving brisk and almost brutal from one tie to another, pull, flick, tug to loosen the laces, flash of skin underneath as fabric eased away from fabric. Flex and stretch of wings as Castiel swayed forward away from the counter, as they unfolded from where they’d been cramped up, as Castiel rolled both sets of shoulders and unhooked the collar of his tunic and the whole thing just sort of came loose and slithered to the floor in a rush of formless linen.

And suddenly Dean’s cowardly brain had lost its saddle and reins all at once. Because he hadn’t really been thinking – hadn’t let himself think – past mouths and hands and more of that heated groping of mornings in the murky dark, but this – this... they were actually going to do this. With skin, and not stopping. And dicks. And skin, skin everywhere. All those valleys and planes of Castiel’s body, and Dean was actually allowed to look, and to imagine.

And what if. What if Castiel wanted to do some of that really complicated shit on some of the later pages, the ones where Dean hadn’t been able to work out whose legs were whose? Was that normal? And Dean still wasn’t convinced any dick was going to fit in there, or any finger even (he’d tried poking at it a bit, okay?). Would Castiel be disappointed if...

“Dean,” Castiel said, and his hands were pressing Dean’s flat against Dean’s chest, and his eyes were right there, familiar and earnest and still more than a little bit uncertain, scowling through it, so that Dean wanted to reach out and pull him in and make it right. “Dean, may I.”

Like it was some great honour.

“Knock yourself out,” Dean managed, and took his hands away, which earned him one of Castiel’s suspicious that-makes-no-sense-to-my-over-literal-brain stares (and how awesome was it that Castiel had a whole series of stares just for that?) before the angel obviously decided that it meant consent.

“I have wanted,” he began, thick and awkward, and stopped, and just set to undoing Dean’s buttons.

Dean reached out and settled his hands cautiously, wonderingly, across the span of Castiel’s ribs. Too thin still – Castiel lost weight too fast when he was hurt, and you couldn’t pester the grouchy son of a bitch into eating more when he had no appetite – but still taut with muscle, thrumming with blood and whatever other magic angels kept under their skin that made them more than flesh. Something as mysterious and inevitable and inexplicable as the life under Dean’s.

Castiel moved slower in opening Dean’s shirt than he had his own. His lashes were low, almost hiding his eyes, and between the soft catch and release of each buttonhole Dean caught a flash of pink, the dart of a tongue between his swollen lips. Lingeringly, like each inch of Dean’s chest was something to be savoured, elegant pale fingers worked their way down from his throat to his belly, brushing light as breath in against the skin between each button, until Dean’s shirt hung open on him. Castiel glanced up, just a quick flash of blue between his lashes. Then his hands slid in low over Dean’s stomach, warm around his waist and over the top of his hipbones to his lower back, letting Dean’s shirt fall open with their motion.

Dean growled a bit and leaned in, nuzzling at the side of Castiel’s jawbone, shrugging and wriggling until the shirt fell loose down his arms. That meant he had to let go of Castiel for a moment to get it off, when Castiel huffed and tugged and made an irritated noise, but it wasn’t long before he had his hands back on Castiel, wandering up and down known flesh, Castiel’s back arching under his touch. And if this was good full-clothed it was even better shirtless, skin tingling against skin and the fine scratch of hair against sensitive nipples, and Castiel’s hands venturing low at the base of Dean’s spine so that his little finger was slipping under Dean’s waistband.

Then Castiel was pushing him off, gentle and determined, and Dean’s hands were running up his back and snagging through feathers because Castiel was sinking to his knees, looking up at Dean all hot and sweet and fucking worshipful, and shit, that put his mouth (his luscious clever feast of a mouth) right the hell there. Also his hands were on the front of Dean’s thighs, which meant his thumbs were almost touching the inseam, and one of them was lifting up front and centre to the buttons, only it had stopped in the air and – hell, that was permission, that stare, Castiel waiting for permission.

Dean gulped. Then he nodded, too fast. Castiel started on the buttons.

One, and the faint brush of fingers against fabric had Dean’s over-eager junk kicking, and it was right in front of Castiel’s nose, no way he could miss that. Two, and it felt like it might just take advantage of the opening to pop the last button straight off.

“Hope Sammy doesn’t decide to walk in the door right now,” Dean said, all quick and high and not babbling, not at all.

Castiel narrowed his eyes without looking up. Then the door slammed and locked itself, and the shutters on the window swung to with the familiar little snick of the latch.

Dean jumped, then sort of jumped again at the way the first jump jolted really sensitive bits right up into the curve of Castiel’s hand, and hell, even through the fabric that was all kinds of perfect, like it belonged there.

“Dude!” he managed, when he had got himself steady with one hand on a kitchen chair. “Was that you?”

Castiel sat back on his heels, hands slipping down to Dean’s knees, and did that pissy look of his that managed to be kind of fond at the same time (and also lustful, just now).

“No, Dean,” he replied, dry as a heifer’s teat, “it was the other angel in the room.”

Dean stared at him for a heartbeat, a handful of seconds, while Castiel’s eyebrows rode that fine line between peeved and worried. Then laughter hit him like a punch to the gut, like a drink of cool water on a haying day in the hot sun, and he lost himself in it, doubled up sideways over the chair while Castiel’s hands squeezed carefully on his lower thighs and Dean’s dick tried to push its own way out of his pants, and fuck but he loved this hopeless, grouchy, sly, ballsy, awesome little dork of a guy.

“Don’t even, man,” he gasped out. “I wouldn’t put it past your brother to sneak in here and watch. Then leap out at a really awkward moment.”

Castiel leaned in and smirked – actually smirked – against the inside of Dean’s thigh, mouth a swell of pressure and promise through the cloth. “No, you probably shouldn’t.”

Dean’s hand crept into Castiel’s soft birds-nest of hair, because he was beautiful and amazing and Dean had to touch because he loved him so much it hurt, and he grinned down at him, all brazen. “Come on, man, you gonna leave me hanging here all day?”

Castiel growled, mouth open hot and vibrating close in to Dean’s inner thigh, and shit, Dean could even feel the wetness of his breath through the wool, almost like the fabric wasn’t there at all. Then Castiel’s hands were moving, deft and ruthless, and shit, that was the last button gone, and Dean’s pants and undershorts were being tugged down his legs and the air was cool on his ass and the backs of his thighs and everywhere else, and cloth was gathering around his ankles and he was naked except for that and his boots, and Castiel was still incongruously (beautifully) on his knees there, on his knees for Dean. His hands were running soft and incredulous up the backs of Dean’s thighs, and his eyes were wide and shining, and his mouth was opening slow and reverent against the crease between Dean’s hip and thigh.

And the sight of his own dick there, standing hard and proud so fucking close to Castiel’s cheek that he could actually feel the heat of it, had to be one of the weirdest things Dean had ever seen (and down, down boy, Dean thought hysterically, because shoving in and coming all over Castiel’s cheek would not be polite). And Castiel wasn’t running screaming, or flinching away, or anything like that. His eyes were all hot and wanting, lashes sweeping in a really tempting little tickle across the hyper-sensitised skin of Dean’s lower belly, and turning his face in actually toward Dean like he was really, really tempted just to open his mouth a little further and -

“Holy shit, Cas,” Dean breathed, and tightened his fingers in Castiel’s hair, pressing in delirious little points against his scalp, because it was that or lose it. “Bed. Right the fuck now.”

Only it turned out that backing away with your ankles wrapped in clothes was a bad idea, so Dean was flailing and almost falling backwards, then Castiel was on his feet with one arm unanswerably firm around Dean’s waist, which (shit!) pressed all of Dean’s parts up against linen and hot skin under it. Castiel stomped down on the tangle of fabric between Dean’s feet, humming “Why do I put up with you” into his ear, and Dean made a face and wriggled his feet out of boots and tangles, doing his best perky smile and blurting out a breathless “Because I’m adorable and you’re gonna marry me” and fumbling daringly with Castiel’s belt.

Then Castiel went very still all along Dean’s front and side, and it was only then that Dean realised just what he’d said. What he’d assumed. Because every fucking touch from his end was a promise, an assumption, nothing Dean would ever want to share with anyone else, but what if...

Because Castiel had never actually said yes, had he? Barely said anything – Dean had done all the talking, all the vowing and the pleading.

But Castiel just made a quiet little noise against Dean’s ear, curved a hand around the back of his hip and ran it warm and possessive down over the swell of his ass to the back of his thigh, dropped a kiss at the corner of his jaw, and said “Yes. That sounds reasonable.” Like nothing remarkable had happened at all.

And before Dean could take another breath, which was sort of lucky because he hadn’t come up with any plans for using it, Castiel had him by the shoulders and was walking him backwards in an addled stumble toward Dean’s bedroom and the vast luxurious plains of his mattress. Which was unacceptable, because Dean Winchester wasn’t going to be just pushed around, even by Castiel, so he glared and slid his fingers into Castiel’s belt and pulled him over the threshold.

Castiel went all wobbly when Dean’s fingers slipped under the cloth, in against the lowest slope of his abdomen, so the push-and-pull game sort of ended up with Dean landing on his ass on the edge of his bed and Castiel stumbling against him and Dean wrenching with all the subtlety of a bull loosed on the cows at the buckle of his belt. Castiel tried to help, after the first ten seconds, but Dean was determined, and swatting his hands away might not have been the most romantic gesture ever but this much Dean was going to do himself.

Then it was loose, and Castiel was shoving it away, disentangling himself where his pants were caught on – well, on him, hell, and there, hungry with blood and glistening at the head and a little darker than Dean’s but otherwise pretty much the same as any other, springing up to stand tall against Castiel’s belly, and holy shit. Dean needed a moment to process this. Castiel’s dick was right there, practically between Dean’s hands.

Dean dragged his eyes up, because that was just weird, staring at another guy’s junk, and his hands were torn between getting all up in that and high-tailing it away like a couple of startled rabbits back up to Castiel’s shoulders, or something, and Castiel…

Castiel, who was the one who knew about this sort of thing (even if only in theory), who’d been the one to push and lead every step of the way so far, Castiel who growled and took, was just standing there staring down at him with his hands halfway to clenched and his eyes big and wild and confused, like he was about to burn. Like he wanted to demand but didn’t know how it was done.

Dean’s heart aimed a solid kick at the inside of his ribs. And this whole thing was fucking terrifying – so much on the line that Dean wasn’t used to putting out there, that could really break him – but it was just him and Castiel here. This was as close as he would ever get to safe.

He lay back, letting himself down carefully (self-conscious), Castiel’s eyes tracing every shift of muscle hungrily, abdomen, chest, thigh. Then Dean half sat up again, leaning up on one elbow, because lying down with Castiel staring up the length of his body like that was weird too, and also Dean’s dick was basically pointing right at his face.

Dean was struck again by the weight of that gaze, the power of it, like he was changing Dean just by seeing him, witnessing him, thinking about him. Making him into a different sort of animal.

“C’mere,” Dean sort of whispered, and held out a hand.

Castiel blinked dumbly, tilted his head, and stared at Dean’s hand. Then, very carefully, he took it, put a knee up on the bed, and stretched his body out to lie on his side next to Dean, one long line of cautious heat and wanting.

Dean forgot how to breathe. Again.

He looked at him, too close for detail, lying there awkward and naked and hoping on Dean’s bed, all striped with late afternoon sunlight through the shutters.

Screw it. This was a decision that had been made a long time ago, well before Dean had even known what it was. Back when he’d still thought everything he felt for Castiel could be encompassed in the word brother.

He rolled over, lifted himself up to clear the damaged wing as Castiel followed the motion by sinking down onto his back (because they moved well together, always had), slid one leg over the nearest of Castiel’s, spread a hand out over his stomach (felt the muscles bunch under his touch), and kissed him.

Castiel made a sound like a growl, or a sob, and knotted his hands viciously tight around the back of Dean’s head, and kissed him back.

It wasn’t languorous, like Dean half felt it ought to be. It was too far gone for that – they were too far gone. It was urgent, and messy, almost a struggle but struggling together, and Dean’s jaw ached with it. But this, this, Dean could do, press all his love and his fierce determination and all his promises and incredulity and wonder into the shape of Castiel’s mouth, whisper it with no words but the movement of his own skin into Castiel’s. Castiel’s body was arching up against him, strong and lithe as a cat’s, and it was absolutely fucking glorious.

Dean ground down into him, swallowed his groan, groaned back in some wordless encouragement that meant nothing in particular and absolutely everything all at once, adoration and hunger. One of Castiel’s hands swept sudden and imperious down Dean’s back, fingers dipping and lingering for a moment over the crack of his ass like he was considering it (and hell, if he asked, if he just touched, Dean’s legs would be spreading for him, insane as it was). Then they dipped lower, flicked over the fragile skin at the back of his balls (and Dean’s hips bucked back into that, quite of their own sneaky accord) to fit tight and demanding over the top of his thigh, just under where the swell of his ass began.

A tug, and Dean was shifting over, just a bit, just enough, until half his weight was on Castiel and on the knee hooked over his leg, and it was perfect. Dean’s dick was riding the hollow of Castiel’s hip, hot and bare and glorious, and Castiel’s was leaving slick trails against the top of Dean’s thigh, and any movement at all was heaven, and Castiel was a genius, full of geniosity. Dean was going to marry a genius.

He rewarded his genius with a groan, deepening the kiss, rocking down hard against Castiel, riding the surge of his body back up against him. And hell, even when Castiel couldn’t take much weight on his wings, spread out like that (like an invitation) he had some pretty damned magnificent leverage.

Dean snaked out one hand to comb through the small quivering feathers on the inside of the nearest wing, mostly experimental; and Castiel slammed his head back into Dean’s mattress and keened.

Huh. Neat.

So he bit at Castiel’s neck, rocked down with his hips, and did it again, blood mounting needy and besotted inside him. He wanted to look, to rake his eyes over everything, to touch and keep, but that stupid sense of weird kept hanging around, belying the greediness of his eyes. He used his whole body instead, hands and eyes and mouth nowhere they hadn’t been before, but all the rest of him moving with Castiel like a dance, a fight, a promise, step by perfect hasty step nearer and nearer to the edge.

Except, except. Speaking of promises. Just to make sure. Just to make it clear exactly what words they were he wasn’t speaking here.

“Gonna marry you,” he bit into Castiel’s neck, and the angel whined piteously and moved under him rough and strong and rhythmic as water.

Dean tore his mouth away, lifted himself up with a stupid amount of effort, every inch of skin screaming at him that they needed to be back there right now, plastered all over Castiel. He slid his second leg into the space between Castiel’s spread ones, so that he was the one cradled in Castiel’s body now, and tried again.

“Gonna marry you, Cas,” he said, clear and deliberate, seeking and holding Castiel’s sex-fogged eyes, because this was important. It was important that he knew it, what this was. Because even if he only had Castiel for a couple of years, that was still more than a lot of couples got lately. Even if it was just a year, a month, thirty days of honeymoon, Dean would make that vow.

Castiel’s eyes went puzzled under him, then wide and soft, then sort of stern, and Dean had no idea how they could do all that when barely a muscle moved, but it was there.

“Dean,” he said, low and imperative, and he stretched as he said it, a little squirm of impatience that made it really hard to think. “What is your marriage ceremony? Not the trappings, but the heart of it - the part that makes it so?”

Dean frowned, trying to work it out through the insistent shove of certain bits of his anatomy against the blindingly good slide of Castiel’s, through the awareness of just how slick things were getting down there. “Just. Everyone’s meant to see it, and the celebrant’s meant to ask the question so everyone hears, everyone knows. But the important bit is the words, just the words. I take thee, and I take thee.” He felt the flush heating cheeks that were already flushed, speaking those words aloud: the weight and history and ritual of them on his tongue.

Castiel leaned up and slid his mouth sweet and soft over Dean’s, drew his tongue into his mouth, like he could taste them there. Then he lay back and stared up at Dean, heavy and dark and sure.

“Then. Dean Winchester. I will take thee,” he said, vowed, and it sounded almost a threat, all low vehemence.

“You. You...” Dean broke off, buried his face in Castiel’s hair for a moment, breathed him in. “Thou,” he amended, and lifted his head to meet Castiel’s gaze, to make his promise without hiding. “I will sure as hell take thee, Cas. Castiel. You.”

Castiel’s eyes gleamed warm. “Then do.” And Dean settled deeper into the cradle of his hips as Castiel spread his legs wide, braced his feet on the mattress, and rode up commandingly against him.

Dean swore, pressed down into him, glared, and grinned, too breathless and heart-full to laugh. “You got it, sweetheart.” And screw techniques and positions and what fit where and all the fevered masses of impressions in that damn book, Dean wanted to hold him – to hold his angel, his betrothed – so he braced his weight on one knee and one elbow and shoved the other arm up under Castiel’s back, hitched it up close and sure between the wings, to lift him up against Dean’s body. Pulling them together, mouths and chests and hips and dicks, and Dean’s thighs snug inside Castiel’s, and Castiel’s legs winding greedily around his from the waist down, and they moved together.

Dean got lost in it, let himself get lost, because this was him and Castiel, and if they couldn’t find their way back together they’d make a better place anyway. Heat was shooting its tingling way up and down his spine, and his toes were curling where they were digging so hard into the mattress they might be tearing it, and Castiel was rocking up into him with quick sharp movements, strong as a bucking horse, in a way that said he didn’t have much longer, so it was a good thing Dean had got all the important words out of the way. Because what really mattered right now was the salty dampness of Castiel’s skin against his tongue, the desperate little hitches of his breath. The way his dick snagged on the head of Dean’s on every other stroke then slid by, unctuous as silk. Castiel around him, under him, inside him in all ways but one, a solid inescapable beloved presence.

Then Castiel rasped out his name, sex-rough and startled and right on the edge of falling, and that was all it took to drag Dean right over that glorious sun-bright edge with him, shouting and shaking with his face hidden safe in Castiel’s neck.

The aftermath was a bit awkward, in a weirdly sweet sort of way. Drugged-up urgency gone, eloquence taken with it so Dean couldn’t joke his way over that awkward realisation that, hey, twice as many dicks meant twice as much mess, who knew. Then there was the cleaning up while trying not to grope each other’s junk, sneaking glances anyway.

And there was that bad moment where Dean found the blood on the sheets, and Castiel had to push him down and growl at him to stop him babbling apologies before he could get it into Dean’s head that it hadn’t been Dean’s weight or clumsiness or anything, just Castiel shoving up a bit too hard against that wing and taking off a part of the scab. Only apparently Castiel getting all up in his business like that and snarling in his face while naked was actually kind of hot, which led to uncomfortable attempts at another boner and a suddenly bashful Castiel. Which was also kind of hot.

Maybe Dean was just well trained to think every flavour of Castiel was hot.

Once they’d settled down – neither of them was hungry enough to move, and Dean couldn’t be assed finding his sleep pants, so there might have been some daring naked leg tangling going on – Dean remembered to ask, “What about angels?”

Castiel made a sleepy sort of grunt into his neck.

“For marriage,” Dean explained, and fidgeted a bit with the feathers under his hands, at the back of Castiel’s ribcage.

Castiel grumbled his “that tickles” noise, and batted ineffectually at Dean’s hand. “Hand fasting,” he mumbled, deep and honey-rich with languor. “Knotted cords around both wrists. Then cut in half and braided into bracelets. Never removed. Like Rachel’s.”

“Huh.” Dean soothed down the ruffled feathers and thought of the smooth-worn bracelet shoved up above Rachel’s elbow, all intricate colours and knots, and the way all her ferocious energy and sadness was focussed on Castiel now. “No wonder she doesn’t want to talk about family. Should we. I mean, I’d like to. If you. I mean, it’d be only fair.”

Castiel opened one eye and peered at him, sleep-rumpled already between Dean’s shoulder and the pillow.

“Later,” he decided after a few slow heartbeats, kind of softly. Then he wrapped his fingers around Dean’s wrist, firm and possessive, and nestled back down. “When you come to meet my people.”

And there was a terrifying thought if ever Dean had heard one.

(Dean was woken sometime after midnight by Sam banging forlorn and irate at the locked door. He got up to let him in without remembering – bothering – to put any clothes on, and had to put up with Sam’s ranting when he tripped over the abandoned clothes in the kitchen, but hey. Totally worth it.

By the time he made it back to his warm, miraculously occupied bed, Castiel was awake, and reaching out for him with lazy demanding arms, and they didn’t fall asleep again for another three hours. Turned out getting your hands everywhere wasn’t nearly so daunting when one, it was dark, two, you were sort of laughing into each other’s shoulders over your little brother, and three, you had come in your hair.)