The Nature and Kynde of a Lyon (6/6)

[whit_merule]

 

Backward.

Gabriel was sprawled out in a chair by the window, evening light falling through the mottled glass over the easy splay of his wings in a flurry of silver and gold specks, and Dean’s blood slow-boiled.

He studied him, a familiar old text with new meaning that gave extra colour and depth to every word and turn of phrase. He could smell the extra notes under Gabriel’s well-known scent now, the authority and the weight of him, the rich source of the family scent that all the adult members of the flock carried, and laid over it all the low simmering arousal. Gabriel’s fingers, crooked idly against the page of his book, weren’t just Gabriel’s fingers anymore. There was promise in the slow tap-tap-tap of his middle finger against the parchment, the sweep of his thumb down to the corner to twitch it up for a page turn: it spoke of the way they might move over living skin, instead of the stretched and treated deerskin. Dean could make out every fine crinkle around the knuckles, the ragged spot at the edge of the nail on the index finger where Gabriel chewed when he was totting up figures for the storage caves, the callouses at the tips and sides and the vulnerable skin between the fingers. He could see it all, and now he could imagine the taste, the texture of it against his tongue. Maybe even the sounds Gabriel would make.

Gabriel’s nose twitched, and he looked up.

He didn’t smile, not exactly. His eyes lit up hot, that look he sometimes got like he was looking right into the back of your mind. Only this time they went black too, so fast he must have been dizzy with it, and there was intent there too, an intent that Dean was more than okay with. He didn’t know what Gabriel saw, exactly – probably never would – but there were stories, stories about alphas going all kinds of primitive when confronted with an unclaimed gamma in heat. About what it did to them. Especially gammas who were already part of their flock, who were meant to smell like them but didn’t, not yet. Who smelled wild instead.

Dean caught his gaze, held it, tipped his head against the lintel to show off his throat, and smirked.

Gabriel’s fingers on the arm of the chair dug hard into the fabric; and the great hackle-feathers along the top of his wings, the ones that said I am alpha, this is mine, began to rise.

He kept still, though, except for his eyes, the lazily possessive heat of that gaze travelling slowly down the length of Dean’s body: arms crossed over his chest, the cock of his hip against the lintel, the dried traces of his and Castiel’s leavings over his stomach and thighs, the bare heel of one foot propped against the ankle of the other

Dean let him look, and enjoyed it, a slow daring burn of pride in his gut and cheeks. His body was good, he knew that, good and strong and well-formed. He was used to enjoying it, relishing the satisfying burn of muscles as he pushed himself, the seamless coordination between hand and wing and eye and shoulder that it took to slide sideways out of the sky and slot a knife into the eye of a stampeding buck and lift up again unscathed. He and his body got on pretty well, thanks, and he kind of liked it. He’d never got around to thinking of it as delicious before, though.

The lion’s grin slunk back onto Gabriel’s face. He closed the book.

“I should thank you. Quietest afternoon I’ve had in a long time,” he murmured, all honey and teeth, then, “Have fun?”

“Mm.” Dean ran his tongue over his mouth, and eyed the fall of Gabriel’s soft brown robe across his thigh. “Hungry.”

Gabriel stretched under his gaze, luxurious and lithe, and propped one foot up against the arm of the chair. The robe slipped loose, just far enough for a hint of shadows underneath, higher up. “Help yourself,” he offered smoothly. “Everything in this room’s yours.”

Hell.

This. This whole thing, sex and heat and being in here, in this space. It wasn’t just pleasurable, and satisfying, and all that other shit people said about deep-rooted biological needs and so on. It was fun, was what it was.

Dean moved on soft feet, not toward him but around the wall of the room, with the table between them. He wasn’t really interested in what was on the table, not right now. But Castiel had said he needed to keep eating, and there was the beginning of an empty gnawing in his stomach that he was pretty sure had nothing to do with sex (though he was still working out exactly what that felt like anyway, so he wasn’t exactly sure he could tell the difference yet).

Besides…

He broke eye contact long enough to slide his gaze over the table, swiped a roll of flat bread wrapped around cheese and some kind of cold meat, licked his lips, and bit off the end. Sure enough, Gabriel watched every flicker and movement like an eagle.

This was a game, with only one possible end except the end wouldn’t be an end, because it could happen lots of times in lots of different ways. And they could take the long, circling, scenic route, or fly straight and fast, however they liked.

Also, the food was good.

Dean made an appreciative sound, then made it again deeper and slower when Gabriel’s teeth snagged on his lower lip.

“Where’s your husband?” Gabriel asked, lips barely moving; and there was just a bit of that tease in it that he usually had when he called Castiel that, only this time Dean didn’t feel like rolling his eyes because his stomach was doing that strange warm thing again at the idea.

“Gone,” he said, mouth full, swallowed, and got distracted by the tug of the food against the tender back of his throat on its way down, by the memory of Castiel’s back pressed against the wall as Dean had filled his mouth with as much of him as he could, fingers curled tight into his thighs, to say goodbye. (Castiel had scolded him for that – too much too soon, he said – but Dean hadn’t been able to resist the way Castiel’s mouth went slack and his hands bunched up and the soft, surprised noises that crept out of his mouth.) “Back soon. Figured if he waits much longer people’ll start worrying he’s been out too long. ’Sides, he needs to tell Sammy that I’m fine so can to give over fretting, ’cos you know how he is.”

“Yeah, well.” Gabriel leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands dangling down between his calves, and watched as Dean bolted a handful of nuts. He looked… not relaxed exactly, so much as poised, like he was ready to spring. Which wasn’t weird in the context of a kids’ wrestling game, but which looked unexpected on a grown-up. Or would have yesterday. “Brothers are allowed to worry about brothers. Special dispensation. You know that,” he added, and there was a rueful sort of warmth in there that didn’t really work with the whole crouching predator vibe he had going on, but Dean got it.

He popped two baked baby potatoes into his mouth, wiped his hands off on his thighs (which was kind of pointless), and grinned around the bulges in his cheeks. “Speaking of brothers. Shouldn’t Balthazar be sticking his head in to look smarmy by now?”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed a bit. “By now? Not for another day or two, usually. Why, you eager?”

Dean snorted, inelegant, sucked butter off his fingers, and slunk around the corner of the table, round to Gabriel’s side of it. Balthazar was all very well in small doses, but his tongue was sharp at the edges, and you couldn’t guess when that sharpness was going to be turned against you. Dean wasn’t in any hurry to roll over for him while his head was all stuffed with fuzz and lust, when he couldn’t give as good as he got.

“Hardly. Rather keep you two.”

“His poor ego,” Gabriel murmured, brushing a thumb over his own wet lips, mirroring the damp trail that Dean’s fingers left across his chin as Dean came closer. “Wait a week or two. Tumble him with Castiel – little bro brings out his soft side.”

That thought froze Dean’s feet against the smooth stone for a moment. Seeing Castiel with someone else, someone he was comfortable with – being allowed to watch Castiel do what he’d had to pretend not to notice for two years – getting to be a part of that himself, of Castiel’s hands running firm and stern down Balthazar’s back and making his smug quick mouth lose all its words – that was… an interesting thought.

The gleam in Gabriel’s eyes seemed to read it in Dean’s, even as the curl of his mouth distracted him, called his attention right back to the prospect in front of him.

He huffed out something like a growl, and let the tantalising thrum in his blood curl his fingers into claws, fluff his wings out into a challenge.

“You know,” Gabriel commented, stretching out and tucking his hands behind his head so his body was one lithe line of compact muscle under the soft tease of the cloth. An invitation. “Some people get nervous about this bit.”

“Yeah?” Dean took half a step sideways, reached out a hand to run two fingers down over the half-fanned primaries on the wing splayed out against the window sill. It pressed into his touch, just a bit, like Gabriel wanted to be petted too. “You too?”

“Me?” Gabriel double-blinked. A trace of his usual amber flickered back into his eyes for a minute as he looked away and laughed, like it was a ridiculous question that no one had ever bothered to ask him before.

“See anyone else in here?” Dean smirked, and lay one hand down on the arm of the chair, splayed wide.

Gabriel snorted, and inched his hand over to run a thumb over the backs of Dean’s fingers, four languorous little drags of skin on skin. “Smartass.” Dean leaned in, drawn by the heat of Gabriel’s body, the easy curve of his throat tilted open and exposed against the chair, and the uncharacteristic trace of self-consciousness in the way his eyelashes fell forward to hide his eyes.

“Hardly remember,” Gabriel went on, brash and off-hand like it didn’t matter, reaching out to curve his hand around Dean’s wrist like it did. “Joshua was… kind. Sort of reserved, though. Always felt like there was something I was missing about the guy, you know?”

He tugged, just a bit, shifted on the chair to make space in the right places; and Dean, hovering, let out a messy breath and took him up on it, set a knee heavily on the chair high up beside Gabriel’s thigh, leaned his weight in there instead.

“So walking in there…” Gabriel murmured, low and throaty, brushing his free hand against Dean’s knee, up his thigh to his hip, “and back where I used to be there was only one building and that was all it was used for, so I’d never had a roof over my head or walls around me before, and him somewhere in the dimness of it waiting for me…”

The other hand slipped loose from Dean’s wrist to linger on his ribs, the quick rise and fall of his breath; and Dean shoved forward and slid that knee into place too. The tie of Gabriel’s robe tugged loose at the waist, soft wool sliding with Dean and rumpling under his knees, then Gabriel was stretched out under him, bare skin tingling against his buttocks and the insides of his thighs, warm and smelling of temptation, his eyes bright with self-mockery.

“Felt like, here is the mystery, you know? This great big grown-up thing, and I didn’t know what he’d…”

Dean growled, didn’t buy into the levity of it, and pressed his mouth in hungry and open and possessive against Gabriel’s throat. “He didn’t hurt you,” he bit into the skin, didn’t make it a question, dared the shadows of the past to contradict him.

There was a huff of sarcastic breath against his hair. “You do know the whole protective thing’s kinda my job, tiger?” The voice thrummed under Dean’s mouth, dark and amused. And there, there was an idea, half-formed. He mouthed at the spot, pressed his tongue against the blood (alpha blood) rising to the surface, rocked his hips forward and set his teeth there harder. “No, he didn’t. He wasn’t the kind of man to hurt people. It wasn’t bad, just… strange. Not the windpipe, cowboy. Little to the left.”

The hand at his ribs rose to cradle the back of his head, and Dean (grudgingly) let it guide him to the corner of shoulder and neck, musky plains and valleys of the skin and muscle and the salty, promising smell of want. As he opened his mouth to get it in his teeth, Gabriel’s hand skimmed away from his skull, a light trail of scratches down between his shoulder blades that set Dean’s flesh singing.

He shoved forward against the warm skin of Gabriel’s belly and broke the skin under his teeth. Hot, hot, rich with flavour and colour and belonging, bursting into Dean’s mouth as he curled his tongue over the skin and lapped over the punctures again, and again as the blood welled fresh, chased the little rivulets of it that escaped the side of his mouth and licked them sweat-salty off the collar bone, tasted the rumble of Gabriel’s groan at the base of his throat.

It filled his senses, scent and taste and even his sight, clouding red over his vision and making him sway as the dizziness of lust struck at his head. Too many smells, intoxicating. Gabriel’s hands were hard on his hip and strong in the small of his back, but the second one was creeping lower, sliding down his tailbone, lingering for a moment just north of where Dean ached for the shove and the stretch of fingers, then pulling away to whisper across the top of his ass and settle in the curve of his waist.

Dean groaned and wriggled into it, swivelled his hips, testing the strength of Gabriel’s grip, the tingling chafe of skin against the sensitive skin inside his legs. He could almost feel the blood in his throat and belly, soaking out to the rest of his body, to the tips of his fingers, filling him and tantalising him with the shadow of completion. Of the main event. Of taking Gabriel into himself, and making him Dean’s. He could smell Gabriel’s cock too, he realised hazily, heavy among the other smells, and that was the head of it bumping tantalisingly against the base of his own here and there, with each roll of his hips; but the hands were too strong, and he couldn’t press forward, bury himself in Gabriel or Gabriel in him.

His body was humming with it, ready and relishing readiness, and Dean was entirely on board with this, and Gabriel’s chest felt good under his fingers.

“So. Dean Winchester,” Gabriel purred, liquid honey down Dean’s spine. “Good, or strange?”

Slippery tangle of hair around Dean’s fingers, a wordless dark noise pressed in against the side of Gabriel’s mouth, and he was dragging Gabriel’s head back with a hand tight at the base of his skull and licking his way into his alpha’s mouth, to taste and to have, devouring the vibrations of his laughter.

Gabriel tasted good when he laughed.

“Know what you want?” he asked, tongue curling over Dean’s. The hands on Dean slid down to his knees and back up, a slow tantalising drag against the grain. When they got back up, the thumbs were still spread wide, pressing into the crease where leg became groin and tickling against the hair there. Dean hissed into his mouth and bucked forward, landing full in his lap – and hell, the sweet relief of solid pressure against his dick, and the freaking tease of Gabriel’s cock sliding just in behind his balls, just shy of where he needed it.

“Got a few ideas,” he managed, almost voiceless, and bit at Gabriel’s lip.

“Good. Me too. Well, just one,” and did Gabriel never stop talking, even when his breath was coming hot and fast against your mouth?“Most people, the first time is rushed, a bit desperate. You just sort of have to ride the gale gently as you can until you get to the good bit. But you,” he drawled, drawn-out and low, one finger trailing maddeningly up the valley of Dean’s spine. “You’re enjoying this. And Castiel’s already taken the edge off. I can take my time with you.”

“Really?” Dean drew it out too, imitation and challenge and breathlessness, fingers digging into the meat of Gabriel’s shoulders as he tried to get leverage to shove down against him, to wriggle enough to get the hot throbbing press of him to slip just an inch back to where Dean was leaking for it, to slip inside. “Sure you can keep yourself reined in that long, big guy? Aren’t you meant to be going all alpha and possessive on me?”

Gabriel’s teeth scraped at his ear, and Dean shivered and arched his back. “Oh, honey. This, right here?” he murmured, a slow hot rasp of the tongue to set the nerves in Dean’s throat ablaze, and the tease of fingertips at the sensitive underside of where the wing merged with Dean’s back, answering the rough stroke of a thumb over the inside of his elbow. “Setting my tongue to every last inch of your skin, and some places you never even thought of? Working out all the sweetest ways to make you come, then making you beg when I don’t give them to you? Taking you apart until you don’t know what sounds you’re making anymore? This,” pressed in hard to the vulnerable curve of Dean’s throat, “this is me being possessive.”

 

---

 

“Dean.”

Dean dropped the towel at once – who cared about wet hair anyway – darted around the spring pool and back through the door into the main chambers as quick as he could, ignoring Gabriel’s utterly hilarious comments about Young Love behind him.

He wasn’t quiet. Castiel was already turning toward Dean as he emerged, smiling and ruffled and diffident and Castiel, so Dean slowed to a casual swagger and grinned at him, easy and inviting.

Castiel’s eyes went warm at the edges, the way they did sometimes, and he stepped forward to lay his fingers against Dean’s cheek. Dean kissed him, just because he could now and he liked it; then he kissed him again, because he really liked it, and it had been hours.

Castiel made a soft noise into Dean’s mouth, and Dean broke the kiss just to breathe and hold him for a bit. Castiel’s hands were gentle on his neck and shoulders and sure, sure of themselves the way they hadn’t been for a long time, the way Dean had missed. Dean’s body ached pleasantly all over, tingling in a sated, happy sort of way; and he could feel Gabriel behind him in the doorway, watching, a solid comfortable presence whose closeness promised warmth and safety and approval.

Castiel stepped back, just a little, just enough to look. Dean let him take his time: eyes and fingertips travelling all over, possessive and intense as Gabriel’s but softer, more like worry, lingering over every little detail like he could read the stories in them. The purplish bruise on the side of Dean’s neck in the shape of Gabriel’s mouth (Gabriel behind him, knot deep and thick inside him, hot against his spine and Dean’s thighs splayed open like a plea across his lap, hands teasing slow trails over his thighs and stomach and teeth, strong and sharp, pressing in under his skin like they belonged there). The faint reddened rings around his wrists (tied to the headboard with soft broad bands – because Gabriel had bet him the last sweet pastry that he’d like it – Gabriel’s weight across his hips and the hot clench of him supple around Dean’s length as he drove the pace, hands dancing over all the skin and muscle laid out for him while Dean couldn’t even grab for him to urge him on). The crescents cut into his palms in the shape of his own nails (face down on the bed cursing with words and snarls and noises that meant nothing while Gabriel’s tongue circled and flickered and opened him up with maddeningly slow shoves). The trickle of water down the side of his neck, pooling over his collarbone and dripping down his chest (the cool fingers of the spring lapping at his flanks and thighs as he drove hungrily into Gabriel, bent over the edge of the pool, fingers scrabbling on the stone with each thrust, and still not shutting up – “deeper,” “out almost all the way then shove back in,” “just a little higher, yes, yes, there” – until all his words had dissolved into babble and grunts).

Castiel let out a breath, soft and satisfied, and his hand came back to cup Dean’s cheek. “Dean,” he said again. “All is well?”

Dean snorted, and turned his head to nip at Castiel’s fingers. “All is well, you giant goof. Sammy?”

“Accepts that you are in good emotional and physical health,” Castiel intoned dryly, “or so he says. I don’t think he will entirely believe it until he sees you.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean hid his little grimace against Castiel’s palm, because it had already been longer since he’d seen Sam than they were ever apart in the usual way of things, and this was only day one. “Guess he’s just gonna have to wait this one out.”

Castiel’s eyes slid down and sideways, that little evasive flicker that meant he was being sly. “Perhaps,” he murmured, probably too soft for Gabriel to hear.

Dean stared at him in an “out with it” kind of way.

Castiel blinked uncomprehendingly at him, then glanced up to the streak of moonlight high across the walls. It came through the skylight opposite, the little window cut into the side of the hill to let in light and air without letting any giggling peeping teenagers see in. Only right now there was a shadow in that moonlight, a little crouching shadow that moved a bit as Dean watched.

Dean leaned in and pressed a grin to Castiel’s ear.

“Hey, beta,” he murmured, slipping his hands around to nestle in the warm spot between Castiel’s wings. “You encouraging kids to peek into the chambers while they’re occupied now?”

“I spoke no words of encouragement,” Castiel informed him serenely, and Dean had to give him another kiss for being sneaky.

Gabriel cleared his throat pointedly behind him, so Dean swung around, all innocence, and tugged Castiel in one-armed against his side.

“Hey look,” he said brightly. “Castiel’s back!”

“Which is just one more reason why we’re all in awe of your towering intellect and staggering observational skills,” Gabriel replied sweetly, and held out his hands. Dean felt Castiel’s shoulders square up under Dean’s arm before he went; but Gabriel just pulled him in and wrapped him tight in arms and wings, hand cradling the back of his skull like it was delicate as an eggshell, and held him there.

“Hey,” Dean heard, and looked away, because it sounded private and kind of raw. “Been neglecting you, kitten.”

“Never,” Castiel swore, low and firm.

“I have, though,” Gabriel mumbled; then, louder and brighter, almost making Dean jump where he’d been craning his neck to see if he could still make out the Sam-shadow on the wall, “Hey, tiger. Think you can look after yourself for an hour or so?”

Dean yawned, stretched, and nodded, taking a step or two backward towards the bed. “Think I’m about to crash anyway,” which was almost true, because he could feel the bone-deep exhaustion dragging at his body, stronger even than the constant low-grade arousal, but he needed to do this one last thing first. “Cas, you’re staying the night, right?”

Castiel looked at Dean over the crook of Gabriel’s wing, then like a quick guilty question at Gabriel, who just arched an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, Dean,” he said after a moment, like there could ever have been any other answer.

“Good, you’re a mess,” Gabriel informed him brightly, kissed the middle of his palm, and stepped backward into the spring room, eyebrows dancing a dance of suggestiveness. “Come and let me wash you.”

Dean waited for the heavy curtain to fall back into place, cutting off the spring room from the rest of the space. Then he stretched his wings and reached for the air, heavy short strokes in the confined space.

Sam was curled up against the skylight, one knee wedged awkwardly against the rock to keep himself in place.

Dean flapped and hauled his way onto the tiny ledge on the inside wall, hooked his arm around the bar in the middle of the window, and grinned.

“Couldn’t go a day without me, squirt?”

The bitch-face was epic. “Dean. Pants, god.”

Which was a bit unexpected, actually. “Never bothered you before.”

Sam screwed up his face, reddening, and flapped a hand in the general direction of Dean’s legs. “Yeah, but now you stink. Jerk.”

Dean reached an arm out through the window to mess up Sam’s hair and make him glower. “Better get used to it, bitch.”

Sam’s face went all mortified. “Oh god. You and Cas are going to be at it all the time now, aren’t you? I’m never going to get any sleep,” and it was mostly a grumble, but there was something forlorn under there too, and that wasn’t okay.

“Hey.” Dean pushed at his shoulder a bit, not quite a shove. “You’re still sleeping with us, just like always, okay? Cas didn’t ditch us after he primed. Not gonna be a problem, you hear me?”

Sam’s “Yeah, okay” was a bit small, but he leaned into Dean’s touch like he believed him. Then he brightened, just a bit, back into obnoxious little brother mode. “Hey, so. Ellen made apple pie today.”

It was the wrong time of year for it, which meant she’d made it from last year’s stored apples, and she’d only do that if someone was in a bit of a mess and needed looking after. Three guesses who.

Dean didn’t mention that, though, just squeezed Sam’s shoulder a bit harder and groaned like Sam wanted him to. “Oh, man. And I’m stuck in here.”

Sam grinned, bright and wide, and broke away to scuffle around on the rock behind him. “Please. Like I didn’t save some for you.”

“Dude. Best little brother ever.”

 

---

 

When Dean drifted up into semi-consciousness, sometime in the small hours, Castiel was burrowed up against his chest, breathing slow against his collar. He ached a little, here and there, muscles stretched with unfamiliar exercise, and the heat in his gut was a lot simmer, dormant for now under the warm weight of drowsiness. There was a body draped over his back, too – not Sam – and three heavy wings tucked over him and Castiel that smelled like home.