Pedes conjunctim.

“Hey,” Dean said brightly. “So I kind of told everyone.”
“I heard,” Castiel replied, dry as anything. “Would it be inappropriate to kiss you here.”
Dean laughed then, riding high on adrenalin and triumph and adoration, and held out a hand. “It’s bonfire night, Cas. Give it an hour and kissing will look pretty tame.”

Gawayn on blonk ful bene	Gawain on his horse full hale
To þe kyngeȝ burȝ buskeȝ bolde,	To the king’s court courses boldly,
And þe knyȝt in þe enker-grene	And the knight in forest green
Whiderwarde-so-ever he wolde.	Whitherward-so-ever he would.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, anonymous, c. 1380s, translation mine. (The Green Knight and Sir Gawain part ways, fitt 4.)

(Mouse-over underlined Latin for translation.)

Concordatum est:

That the angels will be welcome within the bounds of these lands until the last demon within said lands is dead; and that, following the death of the final demon, the terms of this charter shall be re-negotiated into a long-term treaty.

Item, that no human shall seek to hunt or harm any angel, or otherwise compass his or her injury or death.

Item, that no angel shall seek to kill or harm any human, or otherwise compass his or her injury or illness or death.

Item, that the angel hounds shall no longer be augmented to disorient angels with their cry, and that Rufus Turner and Dean Winchester shall train them not to bay in the presence of angels.

Item, that Samuel Colt shall quench no more blades or bullets or arrowheads or any other weapon in hound’s blood to make them capable of injuring an angel nor suffer any such to be so quenched at his forge, and such weapons of said forging as exist shall be collected by Jody Mills and locked away in a place of her choosing.

Item, that no angel shall conjure his or her blade in the presence of a human except by negotiation or against a mutual enemy.

Item, that no angel shall use magic in a human’s presence, with the exception of shielding.

Item, that the sigils of angel-warding on the Wall and above the Gate shall remain intact, so that the only passable entrance for angels is under the lintel of the Gate; and that no angel shall come within a hundred yards of the outside of the walls except at the Gate.

Item, that no member of either species shall make a deliberate attempt to taunt or provoke any member of the other.

Item, that no person previously killed at the hands of a member of the other species is to be mentioned in mixed company.

Item, that the angels are guests, and are to be treated as such by humans in all ways.

Item, that the humans are allies, and are to be treated as such by angels in all ways; in which regard Ellen Harvelle, Robert Singer, Jody Mills, and Missouri Mosely are to be considered equivalent to archangels in status.

Item, that no human shall touch an angel’s wings without said angel’s explicit permission, except in the case of an emergency situation such as a medical or physical threat when soliciting permission is impractical.

Item, that any patrol or hunt consisting of both angels and humans shall include at least two of each species, and no angel hounds.

Item, that all people on any joint patrol or hunt shall make all reasonable attempts to ensure the safety of all their companions, regardless of species.

Item, that angels may establish semi-permanent camps or buildings outside the Wall in areas to be negotiated, no nearer than the two-headed fell to the north, the long marsh to the east, the near edge of the badlands to the south, and the bald summit to the west.

Item, that Castiel shall be answerable for the conduct of all angels within these lands, and shall maintain a complete list of all angels within said lands.

Item, that each angel newly arrived shall be brought to the town as soon as practical, and shall be greeted at the Gate by one or more of Ellen Harvelle, Robert Singer, Jody Mills, and Missouri Mosely.

Item, that no angel shall enter the Walls without permission of whomsoever may be stationed at the Gate at the time, and without entering their name into the ledger at the Gate.

Item, that within the Wall an angel must always be accompanied by a human outside the town, that is to say beyond the tannery to the north, the mill to the east, and the bonfire field to the south.

Item, that in addition to this restriction no angel shall enter the smithy, the barns, or the record hall unaccompanied; nor shall he or she enter any private home without permission of the owners.

Item, that there are no restrictions on trading with Gabriel as with any other pedlar, but that within the walls he shall be subject to the same restrictions regarding movement as is any other angel.

The which items and terms may not be renegotiated except by all six of Castiel, Hanael, Ellen Harvelle, Robert Singer, Jody Mills, and Missouri Mosely, or in the event of death by their successors as agreed by all survivors.

In quorum omnium testimonium we present do affix our names in token of oath to uphold and defend the above.

Jody Mills

Robert Singer

Ellen Harvelle

Hanael

Charlene Bradbury

Samuel Colt

Victor Henriksen

Samuel Winchester

Rufus Turner

Missouri Mosely

Rachel

Castiel

The bonfire leaped and roared, bright and eager-hot, sparks dancing up out of sight against the dusky sky.

Dean rolled the last of the barrels from Ellen’s cellar into place against the wall of the woolshed that faced onto the field, and looked around for his people. No Castiel in sight, but Sam was easy to find: tall on top of the hay wagon, shirtless and gleaming with sweat in the firelight, muscles working in his back as he flung bales of hay down to Victor and Demian and Jo. No bonfire night was right without hay bales furnishing the field, stacked up into ridiculous towers by the tipsy, shoved up in haphazard groups around the fire, pushed further back as the night progressed and it burned hotter, further back still when it sank low and couples started to creep into the shadows away from the fire and under the trees to get heated and sweaty for reasons that had nothing to do with flames.

The “hoorah, Bobby can walk again” booze-up that Dean had originally proposed hadn’t ended up happening, what with one Lucifer-related injury and another. But now, with the leader of the demons slain and a good solid plan to wipe them out once and for all and an agreement struck that said no more angels killing humans or vice versa, with a real chance at life and future... yeah, they had reason to celebrate properly.

“I think,” Castiel said carefully to his hands, “if you were to return, you would be idolised. And resented.”

Dean froze, and took a step back into the shadows behind the woolshed. Not that it would make a difference if either of them were to look up. Angels and their night vision.

Gabriel’s face was carefully doing absolutely nothing.

“Only one archangel,” Castiel went on in a monotone. “Even if we called you a figurehead and had a council for making real decisions, everyone would look to you. For the smallest things. You would hate it. And it would fall apart.”

Gabriel was staring blindly at the reflected flicker of the bonfire on the stone wall that bordered the field, like he wasn’t hearing a word, but his shoulders were tight as a drum. Castiel turned Dean’s favourite old mug between his hands, the one Dean had filled for him earlier with mulled cider because Castiel had never tried it and he liked sweet things. He kept on, voice low and inexorable.

“When I found you were alive, I thought... It was relief. Because everything seemed so impossible. Unmanageable. I never asked for this, for... leading. But, Gabriel. We are children still, at making our own choices. And like children, we made the wrong ones, and are frightened to make another. We need to learn to do that. We are accustomed to being ruled by a few: if we can be persuaded that those few need not be archangels...”

Castiel trailed off, and he snuck a look sideways, at his brother’s profile.

“A council, as the humans do it perhaps. On merit and experience. And perhaps the next generation of archangels will join it, when they are born and grown, but not at the head of the table. Not unless they earn it. It is... not impossible. Maybe even Raphael, eventually, if he emerges from his stupor.”

Gabriel ducked his head, and smiled a sickly kind of a smile.

Castiel took a breath, and hardened his voice into that unarguable tone that always shut Dean right up and made him listen. “So no, Gabriel. I am not asking you to come home. And I am not resentful if you do not choose to come home without my asking. Not anymore.”

Gabriel said nothing.

The certainty ebbed away, and left Castiel sounding oddly young, sort of gruff. “But I would like to see you. From time to time. I have missed having a brother.”

The silence was a long one, and painful.

Gabriel broke it suddenly, low and uncharacteristically diffident in the silence. “Castiel. Tell me what Balthazar was like.”

Castiel took a deep breath, soft and hurt like he drew when a nightmare woke him up; and Dean slunk away, and left them to it.

“Hey.”

It was Gordon’s voice, and Dean felt Sam’s shoulders bunch up next to him.

Sam had had to have it out with Gordon more than once in the last few weeks, because Gordon just wouldn’t let go of the idea that Sam couldn’t be defending the angels unless he’d come back part monster himself. Dean ignored him, kept right on talking to Victor, because sure, he and Victor didn’t exactly see eye to eye on angels, but he was a decent guy.

Only Gordon, with the belligerent stubbornness of the drunk, wouldn’t be ignored. “Hey, Winchester,” he called, far louder than he needed to when he was right at Dean’s shoulder. “Where’s your shadow?”

Okay. So apparently Dean was his gripe today.

“Go sleep it off, Walker,” Victor advised, mild enough.

“Angel let you off the leash for the night?”, Gordon said, louder again, and people were starting to look, smelling a fight. Waiting to see what Dean would do.

And sure, Gordon was a bit messed up lately, what with the death of his little sister and being outed as a screwed-up selfish son of a bitch in the ravine and being kind of shunned since then, but that didn’t mean Dean was going to take his shit.

“Fuck off, Walker,” he said, clear and firm, barely turning his head, and he let his weight settle forward onto the balls of his feet, shoulders loose, knowing Gordon would read it for a warning. “You’re drunk.”

“Going soft, is that it?” Gordon crowed, and beyond Victor Dean saw Bobby turn to frown in their direction, and Anna too, thoughtful and unreadable, wings richly coloured in the firelight, and Barnes beyond them, hunched and skinny and not quite touching Demian’s hand. “Angel fucking with your head?” and there was definitely something lewd in the way he said that, in the sneer and curl of his lip, making Sam press in against Dean’s shoulder, a solid wall of right-there-with-you that Dean had never doubted.

He handed Sam his beer and turned to face Gordon, solid and square. If this had to come to blows, Dean was happy to do that. And it wasn’t defending Castiel’s honour, or anything girly like that. This was something that had to be settled by humans, between humans.

“Okay, you know what?” he said, loud enough to be heard. “Forget the Charter and all those rules. Castiel is a guest in my house, and if you’ve got a problem with him you’ve got a problem with me. You got something to say, Gordon?

“In your house?” Gordon’s teeth were a startling flash of white in his dark face as he sneered, like what he was about to say was something unanswerably vile, the sort of impossible insult to be hinted in hushed tones. “Or in your bed?”

“Okay, that’ll do,” Victor said, and stepped in to take Gordon’s arm. Dean barely noticed: he was staring in disbelief, because, out of all the little passive-aggressive hints and slurs he’d had in the last couple of weeks, no one had ever actually mentioned anything about sex. And it was Gordon who’d hit on it, like it wasn’t something he even believed, just something so unimaginable that he could use it as a weapon because no one would know how to parry it.

Gordon ignored the hand on his arm, lips stretching in triumph at Dean’s silence. “Just how tight has the angel got his bit between your teeth?” he hissed, like he was waiting for a punch to be thrown, for Dean to rage at him in shame and denial, and, and...

This was ridiculous.

Whatever Gordon thought he was hinting at, he made it sound so sickly and wrong, like lying with another man wasn’t just a bit strange but something deeply gut-wrenchingly vile. Nothing to do with warm sweet morning wakings between the sheets, and the wondering gleam of Castiel’s eyes.

Dean didn’t want to hide Castiel away. Dean wanted to shout aloud, to crow to the whole world about how damn lucky he was.

He threw back his head and laughed.

“House and bed, you sorry son of a bitch,” he said, and shoved forward into Gordon’s face, speaking steady and clear so everyone can hear him. “Castiel is my betrothed. I’m in love with him as much as any bridegroom ever was, and it’s fucking awesome. You got a problem with that, you can go yell it to the wodewoses, because I don’t give a shit.”

Gordon gaped, script torn up and flung in the joyous crackling bonfire. Then before he could decide what to do, before any of the expressions of shock that Dean could glimpse here and there around them could resolve into confusion, or disgust, or awkwardness, or determined tolerance, or anything at all, Charlie spun up out of nowhere and whooped, hooked an arm around Dean’s neck and kissed his cheek.

“Woo, congrats! When is it?”

Dean blinked down at her beaming face. “Uh. Haven’t decided yet. But we’re gonna do it the human way here, then the angel way whenever we head back to his lands to tidy up things on that end.”

There was a rustle of “congratulations” and similar sorts of sentiments from around him, like people had needed to be prodded into remembering the polite thing to say. And some of them were a bit stiff (Victor’s included), and there were going to be questions and probably a hell of a lot of confused innuendo because that was how guys dealt with things they weren’t comfortable with, but hey. No one was shooting anyone, and Bobby was shaking his head into his beer like he had so many young idjits to put up with that he was losing count, and Barnes and Demian were blinking at Dean with identical expressions of shock, and Sam was draping himself over Dean’s back and spreading his hand out over Dean’s heart and crooning “Aw look, my big brother, all growed up and getting married” in his most annoying little brother voice, and Gordon was... not important anymore. And also being guided away by Mark, who gave Dean a curt sort of a nod when he caught his eye.

Charlie winked, like she was proud of him, which, yeah. Maybe she’d been hinting, now he came to think of it.

Then Sam’s weight was gone from Dean’s back and there was a smaller hand wrapping strong around Dean’s belt at the small of his back, and he turned, grinning sort of sheepishly, to meet Castiel’s eyes. The fire was reflected in them, all that heat and light packed into one tiny reflection, brighter and more intense and far more alive, and Castiel was smiling, just a bit.

“Hey,” Dean said brightly. “So I kind of told everyone.”

“I heard,” Castiel replied, dry as anything. “Would it be inappropriate to kiss you.”

Dean laughed, riding high on adrenalin and triumph and adoration, and held out a hand. “Bonfire night, Cas. Give it an hour and kissing will look pretty tame.”

Then he had an armful of warm angel, and a hand delicate and deliberate on his cheek, and Castiel’s mouth opening up hot and fervent against his, and Dean made an appreciative noise into it and curled a hand around the back of his neck and let him in.

And if there was a spot of awkward throat-clearing here and there, there were as many “aw, isn’t that sweet” noises, and screw it, everyone else got to kiss their fiance or husband or wife in public, so anyone who didn’t like it would just have to deal.

“So when are we leaving?”

Sam was towering over Gabriel, just a bit too near, and he was wearing his stubborn jaw of Liquid Courage Is The Best Kind. Gabriel was lounging back on a hay bale, eyes lazily half-lidded and glinting warily underneath it in the firelight.

“We?” he drawled, nice and uncomprehending; and Dean’s stomach went suddenly cold and empty. The voices of Gwen and Ash and Jo and Andy, even the soft responses of Castiel beside him, smoothed out into a buzz of meaningless background noise. Because he knew where this was going.

“Yup.” Sam rocked back on his heels and took a swig of his beer. “You promised, and I’m not forgetting. And I know you’re not going to settle down and play domestic with Castiel and the others.”

There was a twist of hay in Gabriel’s hand, and his eyes were glued to that as he wove it back and forth between his fingers. “Since when is demon-hunting domestic?”

“Gabriel.”

“Oh, sorry, forgot I’m talking to a Winchester. You probably keep a few small demons in the bread bin so you can crack their necks over tea and biscuits.”

“Gabriel.”

“Sam.” The hay crackled between Gabriel’s third and fourth fingers, frayed, and fell to his lap in pieces. “I meant it when I said I’m not good for you, kid.”

Sam scowled, belligerent as someone who’d never screwed up a choice. “And I meant it when I said I don’t give a shit. Maybe I’m good for you.”

Dean must have been scowling or stiff or something, because Castiel’s shoulder was suddenly there, a solid weight against Dean’s, and his knuckles were knocking against the back of Dean’s hand. Dean caught his eye, and cocked his head toward Sam and Gabriel, swallowing the sick lump in his throat.

“You could do better,” Gabriel was saying, not like he was mocking or brushing Sam off with a joke or even really arguing. Quiet, and sort of weighted, like he was asking instead.

“Don’t want better,” Sam snapped back at once. “You’re my friend, you clueless bastard.”

Gabriel tipped his head back to stare at him, dark and expressionless.

Then, “I’ll steal all your socks,” he shot at Sam all at once.

Sam blinked, swayed a bit, and shot back, “I’ll burn soup to the bottoms of your pots.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a deal-breaker. I’m doing the cooking. And I’ll make everything far too spicy for your innocent little provincial tastebuds.”

“I’ll talk your ear off over weird obscure shit and kick your ass if you mess with my guns.”

“I’ll freeze you out for fucking days if you get on my nerves.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pissed off at the world for about an hour after I wake up, so fair’s fair.”

“I’m making you feed and water the horses every morning,” Gabriel decided promptly.

“I hate you,” Sam informed him, grinning stupidly.

Gabriel stole his beer and waved it like he’d made a point. “Told you.”

“You never did, dickwad. Give me that.”

Gabriel managed to chug half of it before Sam wrestled it back off him, spilling more in the process. Then Sam flopped down beside him, all legs and hair draped over the hay.

“’M a freak already anyway,” he mumbled warmly, like that whole technically-a-dog thing was something that they could just be casual about. “Might as well skip town with the other freak.”

“Your brother’s going to kill me,” Gabriel pointed out, just loud enough that he was obviously raising his voice to carry to where Dean and Castiel were sitting silent, shoulder pressed to shoulder.

Sam glanced over, caught Dean’s eye and kept it, bright and warm and so fucking happy that Dean couldn’t look away.

“Nah,” his little brother said, and grinned at him. “Dean’s good. Besides, he and Cas are being all honeymoonish all over the house. He won’t even miss me.”

Miss me. Miss Sam. Life without Sam. Shit.

Dean dropped his eyes to his beer, to Castiel’s hand against his. This was big. It was fucking massive, and it ached already, and Dean was going to hate it.

But the thing was, this wasn’t a new thought. He’d been ready to let Sam go months ago, before all this had started. Been ready to be left behind. The lonely freak of an eternal bachelor who couldn’t get on without his kid brother. But now...

Now it wasn’t just Sam vanishing with a half-known pedlar, maybe never to return. Now it was Sam, who could fucking well take care of himself, skinwalker or not, travelling with an archangel who was almost Dean’s brother-in-law and who would lay his life on the line for Sam. And Dean was going to have his hands and his house full here at home. And Sam would come back, every year. Dean could believe that.

Castiel’s fingers traced a little circle over the back of Dean’s hand, and he looked up. His angel – his betrothed – had his head cocked to one side and a soft furrow between his eyes, an unmistakeable “alright?” face.

Dean nodded, around the sting in his eyes. “Already knew, kinda. He’ll be okay. He’ll be happy. Thrilled.”

Castiel gave him a warm sort of “I can see right through you, you know” stare, and leaned in to press his mouth against the corner of Dean’s.

At least this time it didn’t feel like Dean was being left behind.

And when Sam plopped down beside him later and slung an arm around him and nuzzled in beerily against his cheek, the way his hussy of a little brother always did when he was drunk, and said “Dean. Dean,” with big earnest eyes, Dean could honestly snort and mess his hair up and say “Don’t bust a vein, puppy, you’ll be fine.”

Sam ducked away and gave him a wounded look, with half a grin in it. “God. Such a jerk. I was just going to say I’ll be back every six months anyway.”

Dean’s heart tried to do a little happy dance and squeeze up tight all at once, because six months was still a hell of a long time.

“Doesn’t Gabriel’s trade circuit take a year?”

“He’s cutting out some of the farthest ones.” Sam scowled vaguely, then looked conspiratorial. “Says there’s been war brewing way out east and he’s not chancing it just for a few bolts of silk. Except he had his shifty face on. I think he’s lying and just wants to keep an eye on Cas and all, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Dean frowned, then smirked, and hitched an arm around Sam’s waist to keep him from slithering drunkenly down to the floor. “Or something.”

Gabriel eyed the tall glass suspiciously. “What’s that for?”

Dean smiled nicely down at him and looked completely trustworthy. “You know what it’s for, angel.”

“So it’s poisoned, then.” Gabriel nodded to himself, like this was entirely to be expected, and took a gulp.

“Nah.” Dean settled down beside him (not too close), and stretched out aching legs. Too much dancing, after too long chasing feisty half-grown lambs who could dodge like mayflies. “Charter says I’m not allowed. Gotta play nice.”

“Sweetheart, the day you start playing nice with me I will personally do this town a service and run you through with a silver blade,” Gabriel informed him kindly.

Dean ignored him, because sometimes you had to. “So. Silk, huh?” He took a casual minute to polish off the last of the burger he’d swiped for himself from the barbecue arrangement Rufus and Bobby had going in one corner. “Gotta be one of the most profitable things to carry, by weight and bulk.”

Gabriel blinked inscrutably at him. “And still not worth getting caught in someone else’s bloody squabbles.”

“Sure,” Dean agreed easily, because he was just as much of a bull-shitter as Gabriel and knew bravado when he saw it. Then he licked the juice running down his wrist, and muffled the word “Softie” into the skin.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes into evil little slits of doom, but Castiel was looming up over them looking all diffident and fire-flushed, so all he said was a very bright “Oh hey look, it’s the Winchester shadow.” Which was almost exactly what Gordon had said, and nothing like it at all.

Dean beamed up at Castiel and pulled him down to share his hay bale. It wasn’t really big enough for two, but Dean could solve that by sitting sideways so Castiel’s shoulder was pressing into his chest and Dean could lean forward to nuzzle at his neck whenever he wanted, so it worked.

They were quiet for a bit, Dean lulled by a full stomach and the warm angel against him. Sam and Anna and Jo and Charlie and a bunch of other younger people were dancing bright and tipsy-laughing in the firelight, and they watched them dance.

Jo was still holding on to rage over her dad, but the angels who weren’t Castiel seemed to have kind of slipped off her radar. There was no hesitation there, when she spun away from Sam or Charlie and found Anna’s hand stretched out next in the line, in reaching out to take it. Even Castiel, with the sort of earnest awkward air he usually had in social situations, was earning more glares from her now than white-blank freezing, as if she couldn’t quite remember how to hate him properly when he was right there.

When she’d dropped by the house this morning to tell them that Ellen was proposing a bonfire night, she’d found them making breakfast. That is, Dean had been sitting at the kitchen table fighting a grin (only not very hard), Sam had been poking grouchily at coffee, and Castiel had been cooking with soft pants and bed-mussed hair and feathers, singing tunelessly and dancing a bit without rhythm, the way he did when he cooked, if he was happy.

There’d been a moment when she hadn’t seemed to know what to do with it – apparently the picture didn’t fit properly with her idea of a cold-hearted father-slaughtering monster – and Dean hadn’t helped her any, just grinned at her and offered coffee like this was completely normal. But she’d shaken herself out of it, delivered her message to Dean and Sam and the air just above Castiel’s left shoulder, shot Dean a “you’d better not fuck up” frown, and left.

It was a step up from death glares.

“By the way,” Dean mentioned casually, as Sam spun Charlie up into the air all effortless and laughing, feet carefully planted so the drink in his system wouldn’t send them both sprawling, “screw him over and I’ll hunt you down and end you. Just so you know.”

Gabriel snorted lazily. “Likewise. And I won’t even have to do the hunting part, you sedentary asswipe.”

“If my brother and my betrothed insist on flouting the Charter every time they meet,” Castiel mused, “perhaps we should give up on peace now. Or should I beat it into their heads.”

Dean nuzzled his way into the curve of Castiel’s throat, breath going sharp and hot at the thought of Castiel stretched out over him, eyes thunderous and dark, pinning him to the mattress. “Please. Threatening people into taking good care of your little brother is practically neighbourly.”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed, far too composed for someone who had Dean’s fingers creeping in between the laces of their tunic to curl sly and cool over the skin of their back. “And if one of your real neighbours was to overhear Gabriel threatening you, Dean, or believe that you could threaten Gabriel with impunity, hearing nothing of the context, this could all come undone far too quickly.”

Gabriel sighed and flopped his head dramatically back on the bale, getting hay in his hair. “Fine. We’ll keep the death threats for polite company. Little bro, you are way too sober.”

Dean laughed a bit, felt Castiel’s skin shiver with it, and turned his head to rub his cheek affectionately into warm feathers. Because Castiel was probably right: they’d been lucky, very lucky, to have things going as well as they were. Still a long way to go, still a lot of things that could go wrong. But if things had been just a little different. If people hadn’t been desperate enough to jump at the chance. If there had been just one little misunderstanding while the angels had been inside the walls, the spark to set panic alight. If there had been a couple more people as violently stubborn as Gordon, or a couple fewer as bull-headed and overbearing as Bobby on their side. If angelic healing mojo didn’t work on human injury or illness, so that it hadn’t been able to be presented as a powerful argument in favour. If any of a hundred little things had gone wrong in the last couple of weeks while the angels had been in here, and the simmering tension had flared into violence...

“Hey, Trickster.” Charlie spun up to where they were sitting and held out her hand to Gabriel, wiggling her fingers. “Come dance!”

Gabriel looked pointedly out past her to where more people were dancing, all ages, mostly in couples now instead of group dances. Then he did something suggestive with his eyebrows, and leered at her. “Shouldn’t you be dancing with my cousin, little apple-nymph?”

Charlie went pink, and Castiel looked puzzled and scanned the dancers for Anna’s shape.

Which meant that there was at least one other person around here besides Dean who never noticed these things.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what? You and Anna?”

Gabriel sighed obnoxiously. “Castiel, I am so sorry. If I could screw with time, I would personally travel backwards and undo every single time this poor bull of a fellow got knocked on the head. Just for you, bro.”

“Thank you, Gabriel. Your concern is touching.

“Oh, screw you both,” Dean tossed at them, and squinted curiously at Charlie. Because if two guys could get it on, after all, why not? “Really?”

She grinned a bit, but it was thin, halfway between anxious and I-can’t-believe-I’m-having-to-explain-this. “Lunete and Laudine, baby. You’re not going to be a dick about it, are you?”

“What, no. Hey, no. No.” He snuck a hand around Castiel’s hips, tugging him in a little closer against his chest, hoping that made some kind of point that he wouldn’t have to say aloud. “If you’re happy. You’re happy, right?”

“Words,” Gabriel said wisely. “Dean can do them.”

“I will shove your head into the pigslop bucket,” Dean informed him.

“Can’t wait for you to try it, big man,” Gabriel purred lazily, and okay, so maybe he’d had a point way back when he’d said he was flirting with Dean.

Dean nestled his hand in deeper under Castiel’s wing, just to be sure, and helpfully pointed out, “You’ve gotta sleep sometime. I can wait.”

Charlie made an undignified snorting noise. “Men. Yes, Dean. Gabriel, you coming?”

“Good,” Dean tried to stick in, because this should probably be significant, but Gabriel was already drawling, “Ask me again after you dance three with Hanael. If you haven’t found anything better to do by then.”

Charlie saluted and whirled away, and Dean was left squinting at her back, thinking very complicated thoughts.

Like… “How does that even work, anyway?”

Castiel blinked at him, but apparently Gabriel was far better at followed sex-related thoughts. Colour Dean shocked.

“Fingers and tongues, baby. I have pictures somewhere,” he said, and waved one hand in vague circles that might have been meant to demonstrate girl-on-girl action. “I’ll find them for you.”

“... Okay. Why do you have pictures of girls getting it on together?”

Gabriel tipped his head back over the edge of the hay bale and smirked at him upside down. “Hey, people pay good money for that shit, Winchester. Speaking of, how’d you go with that book? Need someone to explain the long words?”

Dean groaned, and buried his face in Castiel’s shoulder. “I hate you.”

“Hey, just looking out for my darling little brother. Gotta make sure you don’t damage him, you know, and fuck if I’m going to explain it all.”

“He won’t damage me, Gabriel,” Castiel rumbled under Dean’s cheek in a long-suffering tone.

“That’s right, he won’t,” Gabriel replied brightly, and sat up enough to drain the rest of his beer, waving one finger in the air sententiously. “And you know why? Lube, kids. Lots of lube. Preening oil will do if you’re in a hurry.”

Dean snorted quietly into Castiel’s hair.

“Thank you, Gabriel,” Castiel said solemnly. “Somehow you manage to make every conversation ever so slightly terrifying.”

“Aw, baby,” Gabriel cooed, and reached over to pat Castiel on the knee. “You know I only do it because I missed out on your teen years and most of the delights of puberty.”

“I am very grateful for that,” Castiel returned deadpan, wings all soft and relaxed against Dean’s cheek like they so rarely were around Gabriel, and Dean thought, yeah. They’d be okay.

Sam stumbled over, loose-limbed and sleepy and beaming, and hailed them with a wordless shout. Dean shoved a hay bale in his direction with one foot, and Sam beamed at him like he was some sort of a genius and pushed it in against a couple of others like some giant prickly mattress so that he could sprawl out on his back over all of them at once.

“Greedy,” Dean commented lazily, and Sam flipped him off without opening his eyes. Dean watched him for a bit, contentment settling warm in his belly, just next to the simmering little heat from Castiel’s closeness. Sam was all lax and over-grown and happy, hands tucked under his head to take the prickle of the hay, and the blue-black mark Castiel had inked into his skin was dark and soft-edged on his forearm, soldering his humanity firmly inside him. Keeping the monster at bay.

“So, you and me,” he mused after a bit, in Castiel’s general direction. “Anna and Charlie. And I don’t even know about you, dude,” he tossed over at Gabriel.

“Anything that’ll have me,” was the prompt reply.

“Right, yeah, I was getting that vibe. Aren’t any angels into normal sex?”

Gabriel heaved a sigh and rolled up onto his elbow to jab a finger at Dean, halfway to combative. “Okay. Fine. Let’s have this out.” Dean scowled at him automatically, because, come on, he was just being lazy and curious and a bit drunk, there was no call for that tone. “You love him. He loves you. You like spending time together and braiding each other’s hair and snuggling up in bed and making each other breakfast for years and years and having hot bendy sex.” Sam made a squeaking noise of protest, which Gabriel ignored. “And all that other lovey-dovey monogamous shit that comes with being married. What’s weird about that?”

Dean blinked at him, because, come on. Did he really have to explain this? And also what was it with springing deep tricky questions when he was sleepy and tipsy?

He flailed for a minute, but all he could come up with was, “We can’t have kids.”

“Neither can some men,” Gabriel argued, completely ignoring the whole symbolic weight of the no-kids thing. “Neither can some women, especially if they had a childbirth go wrong earlier. Neither can anyone over about forty, unless they want to risk getting themselves and their baby killed and fucking over any kids they’d already had. Doesn’t stop that being a marriage. You live together, look after each other, face the world together. Anything else?”

Dean rolled his eyes at him and ran his fingers through Castiel’s coverts, because Castiel was frowning a bit. “You’re missing the point on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you had a point, bucko? Sorry, I thought you had a husband there instead.”

Sam snickered sleepily, the traitor.

“Yes, okay, fine,” Dean said patiently, “but see, if he’s the husband, what does that make me?”

“Husband. Unless you want to be a wife. You’d look gorgeous in a skirt, baby.” Sam’s snickering turned into a full-on cackle, and Gabriel’s eyebrows did a dangerous dance of innuendo. “Now get the fuck up there and dance together.”

Castiel cleared his throat uncomfortably, and Dean abandoned his death glare at Gabriel at once. “Angels... rarely consider the gender of a romantic partner. Some have a more marked preference than others, but it is not something that is... socially enforced.” He paused for a moment, with a trace of the uncertainty from a couple of days ago tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Gabriel assures me that there are other communities of humans in which the possibility of coupling with one’s own gender is known, and tolerated. And even here, there are those who turn a tolerant eye on Demian and Barnes, and...”

“Cas,” Dean interrupted, and leaned forward to kiss that little shadow away. “Dance with me.”

Castiel frowned at him. “The act of dancing together has romantic symbolism?”

Dean gave him his best charming smile. “In bucketloads. Well, it can,” he added hastily, forestalling the question he saw forming in the perplexed little drawing together of his eyebrows. “Charlie wasn’t propositioning Gabriel, or anything.”

“I don’t dance well,” Castiel said carefully, like he was worried that would turn out to be some deep metaphor that would sabotage everything before they even got started.

“Then you won’t show me up,” Dean informed him breezily, and stood up, holding out his hand. “Coming or not?”

Two dances later, when they’d mostly stopped tripping over each other’s feet and were just sort of swaying around and not quite kissing and Dean’s dick was comfortably hopeful in his pants, Gabriel whirled by, dancing a nice minimal-contact dance with Gwen. Dean wouldn’t have noticed, except Gabriel sort of shoved at his shoulder in passing, and nodded past him. Bobby and Jody were dancing, which was gratifying – Dean had sworn the old dog still had some game in him. Anna and Charlie were dancing too, not so close as Dean and Castiel but there was definite heavy flirting going on, though they’d already been doing that by the time Dean had dragged Castiel out onto the grass, so that wasn’t anything new.

The only difference was that now, amidst the other clusters of couples, there was another one with two guys. Demian and Barnes had got up their courage to join the dance floor.

Dean grinned into Castiel’s neck, and tugged him closer.

The moon was full and the old oak grove was black and silver in the light of it, far beyond the bonfire’s reach.

Castiel, stretched out naked on the grass among the grey roots, writhing slow and luxurious between Dean’s knees, was black and silver too. Like he’d grown there, ancient and wanton, a creature of earth and sky and blood. Like the tree roots here remembered him from years ago, and were echoing the arch of his body, frozen in time.

Dean traced one hand down the centre of his chest, feather-light with incredulity.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he breathed.

The heat of fire and dancing and mead was still running in his veins, and the wind-cool skin of Castiel’s stomach when he arched up against Dean’s thighs and buttocks was a sweet, delicious shock.

“You’re still wearing a shirt,” Castiel rumbled, gravel-rough and amused, and reached for it.

Dean caught his hands and pinned them to his chest, grinning down into his face, thrilling with the novelty of this game. “Hey, can you...” and he gestured down at his own buttons. “No hands?”

“Fingers are far more practical for delicate operations,” Castiel informed him, almost archly.

“Spoilsport,” Dean snorted, and dragged those fingers up to kiss them.

Castiel’s mouth was a fumbling, determined thing, hot as blood on him. Dean shoved up into it: earned a glare and two hands strong as cast iron pinning his hips down, and moaned helplessly through it.

One finger, Dean was willing to admit, was... not so bad. Kind of weird, like so much of this: someone else inside the boundaries of his body, alive and welcome within it. Not an invasion or a wound or something broken, but... potentially awesome. Definitely potentially awesome.

And when he returned the favour, spread Castiel out below him and took his time licking and mouthing and touching until Castiel opened right up, body stretching willing and shockingly hot around his fingers... the startled little sounds he’d made, the way he writhed and shoved and wriggled into it like he didn’t understand but needed... that was pretty fucking persuasive.

(Gabriel was right about the preening oil.)

“Hey,” Dean mumbled sleepily, and dragged his hands through cooling sweat in the tiny curls at the back of Castiel’s neck. He had a blanket of warm angel draped all over him, enveloping him in skin and arms and wings tucked soft and downy along his sides, and he was considering just staying here for always. Letting the grass grow through him, keeping him here in the oak grove. At least until Sam came by to point and laugh in the morning.

“Tomorrow we should go hunting,” he murmured into the dozy softness of Castiel’s neck. “You, me, Sammy. Some of the others, if they want. Out past the wall, out into the marches, together.”

Castiel’s answering smile felt sweet against his skin.

Fin.

Continue on, by means of the ‘forward’ button below, to the author’s notes and extras. If you missed it, there’s a Sam/Gabriel timestamp up, linked from the extras page, and I’ll put up a few more extras (though not of the same scale!) over the next couple of days. Thank you for reading!