Work Text:
In the beginning, there was God. Then there were angels and Heaven and demons and Hell, earth and space and water and life.
There was an angel named Castiel, and a demon named Dean. Castiel was, well, Castiel: obedient and pleasant and slightly gruff, embodied in his time on earth as a mild-mannered librarian type with bright blue eyes and messy bedhead that Dean called sex hair, much to the angel’s disdain. Dean was Dean: all bravado and posturing and lewd jokes and eyes that blazed green with hellfire. His love for classic cars and '80s rock bordered on obsessive, something Castiel pointed out when they argued yet again about the ethics of being able to listen to music that was eons from being written.
Neither of them really seemed to fit into the heavenly or fiendish hosts to which they respectively belonged. Castiel’s temper got the better of him too often—although more often than not, his lapses in patience were entirely Dean’s fault—and Dean wasn’t particularly malicious for a demon, just enjoyed annoying lawyers and bankers and anyone too self-righteously straightlaced.
They’d first met shortly after humanity began—after the business with the apple and the Garden was all said and done, but a blink of an eye compared to the age of the universe. Castiel had found Dean in Sodom at the start of that whole nasty business, dick-deep in one prostitute with several others waiting nearby, keeping each other…entertained in the meantime. The demon had grinned at him, given him a black-eyed wink.
“Come to join the party, feathers?”
Castiel had stuttered something and promptly vanished. Gabriel had howled with laughter when his younger brother told him of the encounter and proceeded to tease him mercilessly.
Four days later, while he was busy lighting houses on fire and trying to ignore the screams of dying sinners echoing through the streets, he’d seen the demon watching him, face grim but eyes curious, studying.
“You just toasted my favorite.”
“Um, sorry?” Why he felt the need to apologize to a demon, he couldn’t say—perhaps something to do with those bright green eyes staring at him like they could see through to the celestial being cased in his fragile human body.
The demon snorted, eyes flicking from green to solid black. “Yeah, sure you are. Not like there won’t be plenty more where he came from, am I right?” The demon smiled at him. “What’s your name, feathers?”
“I- I don’t really think it’s appropriate—”
“Dude, I’m not here to corrupt you, so calm down. I go by Dean.”
“I’m…Castiel.”
“Of course you are. Nice to meet you, Cas.”
“I prefer to go by—”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m still gonna call you Cas.” A half-naked woman ran by, screaming as fire licked at her skin and her hair. Dean snapped his fingers and the woman exploded into giant meaty chunks of flesh. “Whoops, guess I kind of sabotaged my own team there. But the wailing and bitching just gets annoying after a while.”
Castiel just stared at him. This is one of his first assignments on Earth, and he hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time fraternizing with the enemy, lower-ranking demons or otherwise. Were they all so…talkative?
Dean noticed his confused stare and snorted. “What, do I have a chunk of dead whore on my face or something?”
“No, I just…you’re not really what I expected a demon to be like.”
Dean grinned. “What, some of us are fun. Which you’d know if any of you ever got the stick out of your ass. Or well, not.” He creeps closer, dodging more naked, terrified humans running for the city limits—close enough that Castiel can smell campfires and a sweet scent of decay. “Besides, if you want evil, well, I can definitely do evil.”
The look he’d given Castiel was downright seductive, and it made the angel all sorts of uncomfortable. “I- I should probably—”
The demon stepped back with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, get back to your smiting. I’ll leave you and your virtuous self to it.” He flickered out of the human plane, then reappeared for a moment with a wink.
“Be seein’ you, Cas.”
The angel blinked, then turns away toward the city outskirts to check on Lot’s family.
Over the years, Castiel and Dean meet again. In Egypt, Castiel helps with the plague of locusts while Dean dresses as an Egyptian guard and moons him from the rooftops. The angel’s reaction is priceless, if the demon does say so himself. And if Castiel happens to notice that Delilah’s eyes are a certain unmistakable shade of green, he doesn’t bring up that fact to his superiors. They both attend David’s celebratory feast for the ark, but the radiant joy of the faithful keeps Dean and his fellow demons lurking outside the light of the torches while Castiel mingles with the humans, feeling oddly content. Though his superiors frown on spending so much time with humans, he finds them fascinating, and Gabriel just claps him on the back and tells him it’s because he has so much heart, pride for his younger brother shining in his eyes.
Solomon may have had hundreds of wives, but Dean knows firsthand that the king did not just summon women to his bed. When he had bragged as much to Castiel, he’d seen anger in the angel’s eyes for the first time, indignant and righteous, and the angel had refused to speak to him for centuries after that. It was almost disappointing, as he’d grown fond of harassing the guy after such a long acquaintance, and he'd felt something uncomfortable, almost like regret, until he’d shoved it down and gone to steal some grain from one of the region’s major suppliers and cause massive rioting and price inflation.
The next time he saw the angel was a time neither of them liked to remember. The Son of God was led through crowded streets, beaten and battered, and hung to die on a cross on a rocky hill. Dean had found the angel on a rooftop across the city, face in his hands.
“Hey, Cas.”
The angel had looked up, face distorted by tears and an expression of sorrow so deep that it made Dean’s metaphorical breath catch.
“Get away from me.” The order was flat, emotionless, and the angel’s eyes were dull, the wings Dean could see on the other plane drooping and unkempt.
“Please, Dean, just go. Not today, not now.”
It was the first time Dean ever hated himself, hated what he was and did and followed. But unlike for the angels, there is no punishment when demons doubt beyond what they inflict upon themselves.
Dean hesitated, then sat beside Castiel as the angel sobbed.
They meet again briefly during the Crusades, then again in the early 1300s when Dante’s Divine Comedy arrives in the world. Dean shows up with a copy one day and takes to reading passages of it out loud to Castiel, particularly from the sections discussing Heaven. Those he reads in a high-pitched tone of mock awe that Castiel stands for a few months before he finally snaps. A quick jab of Grace has the demon swearing, shaking the arm Castiel touched to get rid of the pins-and-needles feeling.
“Ow, dude, what the fuck?” He tenderly prods the blistered skin on his human body and glares at the angel, eyes black.
“I don’t appreciate you mocking me, Dean.”
“Did you miss the part where Dante thinks Satan is a giant hung upside down in ice in the middle of the eighth circle?”
“It’s not the same, Dean. I have respect for my Father, while you make a mockery of everything.”
“Bullshit! You think just ‘cause you’re sitting up on some cloud contemplating how great Daddy is that you’re better than me?”
“I do not sit on clouds, Dean. And yes, I am.” Castiel says it matter-of-factly, without disdain or malice, because it’s indisputable.
“Well fuck you too, Mister High and Mighty! You’re just the same as I am, you know. Don’t tell me you haven't killed in the name of your Father, just like I have, ‘cept I know what I’m doing. I’m not some little robot saying yes because I don’t know how to say no.”
“Enough, Dean!” Castiel replies, his tone and the bluish glow building in his eyes a warning that the demon doesn’t heed.
“Aw, am I making the widdle cherub upset?” Dean retorts in a mocking tone, and the insult to Castiel’s rank is the last straw. His punch lands solidly on Dean’s jaw, snapping his head back. They both freeze, until Dean cracks his neck back into place as his mouth widens into a feral grin.
“Fine, that how you wanna play it?”
Then Dean is on him, punching him in the eye. Castiel retaliates with a jab to the stomach that has Dean retching, and soon they’re a blur of teeth and nails and fists, destroying the pristine forest surrounding them. Hours later, they collapse against each other, panting and exhausted.
“Why do you enjoy tormenting me so much, Dean?” Castiel asks in a weary tone.
“Honestly, man? You’re so easy to get a rise out of, but any of your brothers would have already nuked my ass. So maybe a better question is why you haven’t gotten sick of putting up with me yet.”
The angel shoves Dean away and adjusts his clothing, mending tears and summoning a new pair of shoes because his landed in the river about two hours before and are long lost to the current. Dean tries to adjust his shirt, but it’s a lost cause, so he strips it off, leaving his tanned chest bare. Castiel catches himself staring, then looks away, but not before Dean notices.
“See something you like?”
“No.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Dude, Cas, you can loosen up a bit, you know. A little skin ain’t gonna send you on a one-way downstairs trip. Besides, this body’s pretty hot if I do say so myself.”
The angel turns back to him, any trace of the blush faded from his face, and his eyes don’t leave the demon’s. “Dean, you know how I must conduct myself, even if you chose to disobey and fall. I don’t want to end up like—” He stops, but the words “like you” hang unspoken in the air between them, and any trace of mirth fades from Dean’s expression.
“Nah, man, I understand. I’m damaged goods, I know it. And I wouldn’t want you to fall either.” He tries to grin, but the smile is sad, and Castiel’s heart lurches. “Besides, you’d make a lousy demon.”
Dean vanishes before Castiel can reply, leaving the angel alone with something that feels a little like shame flickering through him.
During the long, horrible years of the Bubonic Plague, Castiel doesn’t see Dean. There are plenty of other demons claiming human souls, but those familiar green eyes and freckled skin are nowhere to be found among the mass graves of charred bodies and dimly-lit sickrooms. By now, Gabriel has vanished, nowhere to be found in Heaven or on earth, and Castiel misses his company. He has his own garrison now, and he and Anael are somewhat close, but he misses his brother’s roguish humor and easy affection.
He catches sight of Dean at the Tower of London, among the crowd at Lady Jane Grey’s execution, but when their eyes meet, Dean just watches him for a moment before vanishing again.
They don’t speak again until a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Castiel is perched in the rafters, unseen by the human masses below, as he watches the stage, enraptured at the rich melody of the words, so human and commonplace but also eloquent, fluid, magical in a way so different from the language of Heaven.
“Hey, Cas.” A soft voice says his name and he turns to see Dean sitting next to him.
“Hello, Dean.”
He wants to apologize, but he can’t, and they both know it. So Dean just nods at him, understanding in his eyes, and relief floods through Castiel.
“This your first time seeing the Bard?”
Castiel looks back down to the stage, where new characters have appeared, arguing about something, it seems from the gestures. “Hamlet, yes.”
“So, I hate to pry, and you’ll probably just give me that look and not tell me anything because, woo, cosmic secrets, but Shakespeare, is he, y’know, yours?”
“We all thought he was yours.”
Dean laughs at that. “Seems like Billy Shakes is his own man then. Huh.” His face relaxes into a familiar smile that Castiel returns, surprised at the warmth it brings.
“It’s rude to talk at the theater, you know.”
“All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a twist. Let’s watch the show.”
So an angel and a demon lurk in the rafters of the Globe while Shakespeare’s words are brought to life on the stage below.
In 1653, the Taj Mahal is completed, and Dean and Castiel spend days wandering the grounds. The angel is pleased with the mausoleum and tells Dean that it reminds him of Heaven. Dean just smiles at the angel’s awe and traces a hand down marble walls, careful to avoid leaving soot stains on the pristine stone.
The 1700s are mostly quiet, a golden age of music eclipsed at its close by the Reign of Terror and massive upheaval in France. Dean and Castiel meet at cafes and debate philosophy and art and music. Dean complains that rock and roll needs to be invented already while Castiel calls him a godless heathen for insulting the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. Dean waggles his eyebrows and admits to being guilty as charged and throws a scone at the angel.
Castiel comes to expect to see Dean when he’s on earth, and the realization that the demon’s company is not unwelcome affects him in surprising ways. He finds himself looking forward to visiting the human plane, and it’s more to do with a certain cocky demon than his human charges. Anna takes him aside and mentions that their superiors are concerned about him, and he takes on extra assignments to divert suspicion. The work gives him time to sort through his convoluted emotions, feelings that are more intense than they should be when he’s supposed to feel anything at all. It’s disconcerting, even more so because he knows he’s been affected for a while now—centuries, if he’s being honest with himself—and what’s affecting him is more of a who than a what.
Dean notices Castiel become more serious and withdrawn. He can’t put his finger on it, but the angel seems hesitant, more tightly wound, and he can’t place why. Human business is the same old same old—births, deaths, wars, music, miracles—nothing that would evoke this kind of change.
He mentions it one day in the early 1800s. “Cas, is everything all right?”
The angel blinks at him, and something flashes through his eyes that Dean can’t place. “Nothing is amiss, Dean. I have simply taken on more responsibilities from Heaven and have chosen to behave more in keeping with my new station.”
“So management got on your ass for having too much fun down here. That sucks.”
“Actually, I asked for it.”
Dean gives him a puzzled look. “Why the hell would you do that?”
Castiel doesn’t know why he tells Dean the truth. “My superiors were becoming suspicious, that I was growing too attached, too distracted. My loyalty to my mission, to them, and to my Father were being questioned, and choosing to work harder was a way of proving myself.”
“You aren’t in trouble or anything, though, right? Wait, too attached?”
Castiel flushes looks away, ignoring the latter half of Dean’s question. “No, I’m not in trouble.”
If Dean notices his omission, he doesn’t bring it up. “That’s good, Cas. I wouldn’t want…” Dean stays silent as Castiel waits, tilting his head to the side as his human body’s brow furrows. The demon clears his throat, and now he’s the one who can’t make eye contact. “…I wouldn’t want you to end up…like me.”
“Dean, it isn’t—”
“—But it is, Cas. You’re, y’know, all wing-y and good and I don’t want to fuck that up. So, y’know, I get it.”
“Dean, can I ask you something?”
The demon sighs, his eyes flicking back to green. “Yeah, sure, Cas.”
Even with permission, he’s hesitant to voice his question. But Dean is unlike any demon he’s seen before—he’s Dean. “Why did you fall?”
The question catches Dean off guard, and his eyes widen. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
A range of emotions, from rage to sorrow and beyond, appear and disappear from Dean’s human face in an instant, and the demon is gone.
The next time Castiel sees Dean, he doesn’t approach the demon. In fact, he stays far, far away, because the next time he sees Dean, the demon is splattered in blood and gore on the battlefield at Gettysburg, howling with gleeful pleasure at the carnage. For the first time, Castiel is afraid of his friend. And Dean is his friend, despite how wrong it is for them to be friends and the risks to Castiel’s status as an angel. But his superiors don’t seem to mind—they can’t not know, and yet, thousands of years into this strange acquaintance, they’ve done nothing to stop it.
But right now, the wrongness of seeing Dean relishing the butchery of war sits on Castiel’s chest like a weight. He’s a demon, this is what demons do, this is what evil does, he tries to remind himself, but somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten to see the embodiment of evil when he looks at Dean and instead just sees his friend, incorrigible and frustrating and cocky and rude. But there’s more to Dean than his charming demeanor, and the sight before him of Dean gutting a fallen soldier, tearing his innards from his still-breathing body, is a stunning reminder that shakes Castiel to his core.
He can’t be here, can’t watch this. When he returns home, Anael comforts him with soothing words about the horrors of the Enemy, and the wavelength Castiel shakes and splits and reforms in a nervous pattern, gaining little reassurance from Anael and the others. They don’t understand about Dean, and he’s not about to explain to them.
The First World War, as the humans call it, sees Dean spreading infection and pestilence with his fellow demons, relishing the chaos and mess and gore in the trenches. He forgets Castiel, forgets everything but tearing apart the world and remaking it in his Master’s image, frenzied and wild. He’s lost to the bloodlust, burying his shame and self-loathing and guilt in his work until hatred and malice consume him. Then the war ends, Germany is blamed, dominoes are set in motion, and one night he sees Castiel in Paris, just before those dominoes are set to fall.
The angel is seated by the window in a small café, sipping tea and flipping through Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Dean almost walks past, but at the last moment he halts and heads inside, using the door even though he doesn’t have to. Castiel looks tired, enveloped in a large tan trench coat, and he crumbles a biscuit onto the tea saucer with his free hand, lost in thought until Dean sits down across from him and startles him from his reverie.
“Hey, Cas.”
“Hello, Dean.”
They haven’t seen each other in almost a century. Neither speaks for long moments, until the shop owner has closed up and left and Castiel allows the candles at their table to glow with a light that humans cannot see either.
“I, uh…” Dean swallows thickly, trying to force himself to say the words that he then mutters quickly. “I missed you, man.”
Castiel’s eyes widen and his hand stops halfway to his cup. A tentative smile twitches on his lips, spreading into a full-blown grin that wrinkles his nose and brightens his eyes. All is forgiven for now, it seems.
“I missed you, too, Dean.”
Castiel offers him tea, but Dean counters with a request for alcohol that’s denied, and soon they’re bantering as if the events of the last century and a half are all but forgotten. They talk late into the night, unseen by the pedestrians that pass by the little café.
When the dominoes do fall, Dean finds Castiel clinging to the hand of a dying child with dark hair and a yellow star pinned to her dress. The angel staggers away from him, away from the pit holding the bodies of the girl’s family, friends, and neighbors. Dean follows Castiel deeper into the snowy woods, away from the sound of gunshots and screams. When the angel staggers and falls, Dean feels a sudden pang in his chest, an ache that goes deeper than this body’s heart. He kneels down, hesitating for a moment before he reaches a hand out to the angel’s shoulder.
“Cas, Cas…” he whispers, knowing nothing he says will ever make any of this right. This stain, a malevolent blemish on the annals of human history, will never fade, but for him, it’s a hollow victory.
The angel weeps silently, shuddering with noiseless sobs, leaning into the touch of Dean’s hand until his face is buried against Dean’s chest, his tears soaking the demon’s front. But Dean doesn’t pull away, wrapping his arms around the angel and holding him close as Castiel mourns for millions.
Castiel listens to the radio broadcast as Neil Armstrong takes his first steps on the moon and beams with pride in humanity. The radio turns staticky, so Dean reaches over and fiddles with the dials of his 1967 Chevy Impala. The vehicle suits him, all broad leather seats and sleek black paint, a behemoth humans could hear rumbling their way for miles. He doesn’t remind Dean that demons can transport themselves without human vehicles, because the demon is well aware and seems much too attached to the Impala already. He’s named her Baby.
“Well, the mud monkeys finally grew up and learned a thing or two! Cheers, Cas!”
Dean tips back the bottle of scotch and takes a deep swig, savoring the smoky burn. When Castiel holds his hand out, Dean just gives him a confused look until Castiel gestures for the bottle, then almost drops it in surprise as he hands it over to the angel.
Dean stops laughing around the time Castiel stops coughing and choking.
“Next thing you know, you’ll be stripping your clothes off and climbing into my lap,” he jokes, but the angel’s eyes go saucer-round and he flushes bright red.
“Oh. Oh.” Well, someone decided to hit Dean over the head with the clue by four a few minutes too late, because he’s just realized that stripping his clothes off and climbing into Dean's lap might be something the virginal angel sitting next to him would like very much to do if he thought he was allowed. Because no one, not even Cas, gets that flustered and fearful and downright discombobulated at the thought of sex, unless…
Castiel takes another drink, wipes his hand across the back of his mouth, and leans in to press his mouth to Dean’s. Before Dean can react, the angel’s gone, booze and all, and Dean’s left sitting alone and bewildered in the Impala, wondering what the hell just happened.
When Castiel and the host fight their way into Hell to rescue the soul of the Righteous Man, Dean is busy at the racks. He’s spent more time down here lately, still reeling from Castiel’s kiss and trying to figure out what, if anything, it meant.
He knows the demon he’s training is the Righteous Man, and soon he knows that the angels are coming for him. What he doesn’t know is that Castiel has been chosen to led Heaven’s army into Hell and find the Righteous Man. So when the angel appears, Grace-tempered armor streaked with soot and blood, eyes blazing blue with holy, righteous glory and wings spread wide, Dean can’t look away.
Dean can’t let Castiel take the Righteous Man. If he loses this pawn, he’s going to suffer, and yet, when Castiel approaches, sword sheathed, he knows he’s already lost.
“Dean, it’s you?” Of all the demons, it would be Dean, here, now.
“S’pose you’re here for this sad sack, right?” He wishes he could pull his human body on, hide in his meatsuit. His true form is hideous, twisted, a far cry from a human shape, and the angel looks so damn good, all pure and healthy and whole.
“I don’t want to fight you, Dean.” The angel’s mouth is set in a grim, trembling line, and his hand reaches for his sword, but Dean shakes his head, clenches his fists, and delivers the soul to the angel.
“I don’t wanna fight you either, Cas, I can’t. So just take him.”
“But—” Castiel knows what this means, for Dean and for the Righteous Man and for all of them.
“Just go, Cas, okay? Get out of here while you still can.” He stalks away, fighting to look back at the angel for what could be the last time but forcing himself to leave.
When Castiel finds him, Dean is in a warehouse in Des Moines, having his skin slowly stripped away by one demon while another prepares more acid to apply to his newly exposed layers. His friend doesn’t even look up at the sounds of Castiel manifesting, insensate from pain and drugs and despair.
Moments later, the two demons are destroyed, their vessels smoking piles of ash, and Castiel has taken Dean down from the rack and transported them away. Dean screams in pain when Castiel touches his shredded flesh, but the angel sets him into a soft bed and brushes his fingertips against the demon’s forehead, healing his wounds with a thought.
When Dean is once again capable of conscious thought, he comes to with Castiel perched in a nearby armchair, reading a thick book with his chin resting in his hand. They’re in a hotel of some sort—penthouse, judging by the décor and the room size—in London.
“Cas?” His voice cracks hoarsely as he sits up. The angel may have healed his physical wounds, but his soul or spirit or whatever the demon equivalent of Grace may be is still hurting.
The angel looks up from his book and is at Dean’s side in an instant, that ridiculous coat billowing from the rapid movement. “You’re awake.”
“All in once piece, too, looks like.” He leans back against the pile of pillows holding him upright.
“Dean, I—you—” He’s never seen Castiel this flustered and distraught before.
“Hey, buddy, slow down, take a deep breath, and spit it out.”
When he’s visibly calmed, Castiel tries again. “You were tortured for helping me rescue the Righteous Man. You knew you would be punished, yet you still aided me.”
Dean smiles softly, a tender look he would never allow himself to make if he realized what it looked like. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Cas.”
“I asked you, a long time ago,” the angel hesitates, hands clasping tightly where they rest on his thigh as he looks away, unable to meet Dean’s eyes, “and I’d like to know, if you’re willing to tell me now…why did you fall, Dean?”
Tears, sudden and bright, fill Dean’s eyes, and he blinks to clear them, but they spill anyway in wet trails down his human body’s cheeks. “B-because I couldn’t let him be alone.”
Castiel leans in and kisses the tears from Dean’s cheeks, then lets his mouth press softly against Dean’s. There will be consequences to this, but if this means he falls, then Dean would be worth the loss, after all this time.
So he pushes thoughts of losing his Grace to the back of his consciousness and comforts Dean with kisses, cupping the demon’s face in his hands and pressing closer, until he’s straddling Dean’s lap and Dean is kissing him back. He pulls away with a quiet groan and lets his mouth wander to Castiel’s throat, feels the flutter of nervous Grace there because Castiel’s every instinct is to fight or flee the demon’s presence. A sharp nip of Dean’s teeth has Castiel gasping, and the angel writhes on his lap when Dean sucks a chain of dark, bruising marks into his pale skin, from his throat to his collarbone and farther, as he unbuttons Castiel’s shirt and bares more skin.
Castiel slowly lets his own hands slide down to Dean’s waist to sneak under his shirt and explore Dean’s chest. Dean sits forward, hauls his own shirt off and throws it away, then strips Castiel of his coat, jacket, and shirt, leaving them both half-naked.
“Dean…” The way the angel says his name, utterly wrecked in that gravel-rough voice, sends his blood rushing south. Castiel may be a virgin after eons of existence, but Dean certainly is not, and he wants—no, fuck that, needs—to teach Castiel what it’s like to come undone at another’s hands. He tackles Castiel to the bed, pinning the angel’s hands above his head, and kissing him roughly, letting his tongue lap at Castiel’s lips until the angel gets the hint and opens up to him. His hips grind down, pressing his dick against Castiel’s and practically purring at the hard length he feels pressed against his own.
He’s wanted this for so long. He’s wanted Castiel, with his stupid hair and intense eyes, and Castiel wants him, for who knows what reasons, but all he cares about is that Castiel wants him, and he’s going to worship the angel every way he knows how.
Castiel writhes under Dean, pressing their groins together until the demon hisses in pleasure, eyes lidded. An idea suddenly manifests, and with a thought, they’re both completely naked, the rest of their clothes gone, and the contact of skin on skin startles Dean. He blinks down at Castiel in shock, lust thundering through his veins, and then slides down, keeping as much contact as he can as he drags himself to nip at Castiel’s hips, then his thighs, hands splayed across the angel’s chest, toying with his nipples.
The first touch of his mouth to Castiel’s erection has the angel bucking off the bed and crying out Dean’s name. Dean grips the angel’s hips, pinning him to the mattress, and swallows him down whole. The Enochian that spills from Castiel’s lips is the filthiest language he’s ever heard from the angel, and he wants to hear more.
By the time Dean pulls his mouth away, Castiel is sweating, panting, and looks absolutely wanton, his hair a mess and his lips bitten red with the effort to keep his moans and shouts from shattering every glass surface in the room. Dean grins at the sight, unable to keep his eyes from flicking to solid black, but the sight just makes Castiel want him more. Everything in him is screaming wrongdemonwrong but he pulls Dean in for another scorching kiss. When his hand tentatively wraps around Dean’s dick, the demon hisses, “Fuck, yes, Cas,” and thrusts into his grip.
Dean is on the edge when he pulls Cas’s hand away, willing himself not to come. “Cas, wait, I wanna—” He can barely string the words together, but Castiel comprehends, freezing in Dean’s embrace and watching the demon with nervous eyes.
Dean’s heart sinks, and he starts to move away, self-loathing and disappointment already beginning to build, but Castiel stops him. “No, wait, I want this, I want you. Just…just let me?”
Dean has no idea what Castiel means, but he nods, understanding dawning as Castiel pushes Dean up to sit against the pillows again and straddles his lap. The angel sends blasphemous thanks to heaven that no preparation is required, no long minutes coaxing his body to let Dean in. Instead, he kneels up, positions himself, and sinks down onto Dean’s cock, moaning at the sheer pleasure that shivers through him.
“Cas, Cas, fuck—” Dean’s hands hold Castiel’s hips hard enough to bruise, were he human, and Castiel allows the pain, savors the feeling, as he starts to move, rocking in Dean’s lap as the demon thrusts up into him. Dean kisses him again, heated and trembling, and the pleasure makes Castiel practically mewl. The simple fact that Dean is inside him, that this is actually, finally happening, that he’s made his choice and now must live with it, is overwhelming, and he clings to the demon as he rides him.
“You’re so gorgeous like this, sweetheart,” Dean growls into his ear, and the words are smooth and dark like sin, fuel for the lust that rages through their veins. Dean’s strokes become harder, more erratic, and Castiel’s eyes slide open, watching where they meet, the slick slide of Dean’s cock into him, and he feels like he just might fly apart.
“Dean, I, I think I’m—” His vision is starting to fade to white, but he realizes something and his eyes fly to Dean’s in horror. “M-my Grace, you’ll—”
“I’ll be fine, sweetheart, it’s okay.” Dean’s voice is rough, like he’s barely holding himself back from coming, and it does nothing to slow Cas’s rapid descent. “Come for me, Castiel.”
His orgasm hits him, and everything fades to white.
When he returns to his physical body, he’s lying on top of Dean, who is somehow not dead, and the sheer relief has him choking back a sob and ignoring the fact that they seem to be in the middle of a corn field somewhere in the Midwestern United States.
Dean groans and his eyes flutter open, inky black. “M’okay, Cas. Just moved us…to a cornfield?” The demon looks confused. “The, er, hotel kind of got destroyed.”
“Are you all right?” Castiel slides off of Dean, wincing as his softening cock catches on Castiel’s rim when they part. He cleans them up and dresses them with a thought, and lets his fingertips fall lightly on Dean’s chest as if reassuring himself that the demon is in fact still there.
“Your eyes…”
Dean groans and stretches. “Yeah, I gotta feeling they’ll be like this for a while.” He jolts upright. “Are you—Cas, is your Grace all right? You haven’t—you didn’t—”
In his anxiety, he hadn’t even thought about it. But he cleaned and dressed them with no large effort, and his Grace is still thrumming steadily inside him, somehow.
“I’m—” he whispers, and Dean grabs his shoulders, looking terrified. “It’s—it’s still there. I haven’t fallen.”
Dean sags in relief and pulls Castiel into a hug that would probably have killed a human. “Oh, thank fuck!”
Castiel is still in the embrace of Dean’s arms, too confused to be relieved. “But why? Why haven’t I lost my Grace?”
“Cas, who cares? I’m not dead, you’re not dead or fallen, and we just, y’know, so I think things turned out okay.”
“I need to return to Heaven.”
Dean pulls away from him, frowning. “Now? After we just…”
Castiel leans in and kisses him softly, silencing any protest. For a few more minutes, he allows himself to hold Dean close.
“I need to find out if what I’ve done…what we’ve done…is going to have consequences. I need to know.”
Dean sighs and turns away. “All right, Cas.” There’s a sudden rush of wind, and the angel is gone, leaving Dean feeling more alone than ever.
A month passes in human time. Dean doesn’t dare return to Hell, since sleeping with the enemy is frowned upon just as much as it probably is in Heaven, when it isn’t for any nefarious gain. And if they found out that he’s, that he thinks he might be in—that he cares as much as he does for Castiel…
But he knows time passes differently in Heaven, so he waits. Each day that he lives in human time seems to last an eternity, even when he takes the Impala out for long drives and gets lost in booze at smoky bars where the men eye his body and whisper offers in his ear with stale breath. Those men don’t make it home that night, but their bodies will be found at some point. He watches pay per view porn and eats greasy diner food and waits.
Then one day, he’s cruising along a dirt highway somewhere in New England and Castiel appears in the backseat, and Dean almost drives off the road. The Impala screeches and swerves until he brings it to a rest on the shoulder. When the car finally stops, he turns and looks at the angel.
“Cas? What the fuck, man?”
“He’s gone, Dean.”
“What?”
“He’s gone. My Father…no one can find him.”
Dean clambers over the seat with no little effort to sit next to Castiel, who looks calm enough that Dean can tell he’s barely holding himself together.
“Heaven…I hadn’t realized, but there are so many factions, so many feuds, because no one has heard from my Father in centuries, if not longer, and we were all too blind to notice.”
Dean tentatively reaches for Castiel’s hands, take them in his own, and the angel doesn’t pull away.
“So are you all right?”
“No one noticed, Dean. No one cares about what we did, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or…” He shrugs, his mouth in a thin-lipped, exasperated frown, and his eyes are stormy.
“Cas, hey, c’mon, it’ll be okay, promise.”
“How can it be, Dean? How can you promise something like that?”
“Because I—” He can’t bring himself to say the words, even now, but the angel’s eyes widen in realization. “Fuck, I’m such a fucking idiot, never mind—”
Castiel doesn’t let him finish. The angel’s mouth presses against his in a hard kiss, and any further protests are silenced as Castiel kisses them away. But then the angel lets them both breathe, even though neither really needs to, and gives him a look that says everything Dean couldn’t.
“I love you, too.”
This time Dean undresses both of them, slowly. With every button undone, he presses another kiss to the angel’s pale skin, so that by the time they’re both naked, Castiel is flushed and hard and eager. The angel clings to him as if for dear life as Dean thrusts inside him, and he whispers reassurances into Castiel’s ear.
When they’re both sated and sleepy—there’s an advantage to being able to choose how much to feel in their human forms, and that advantage is the post-orgasm relaxation—Castiel pulls Dean close and brushes his fingers through the demon’s short hair. Dean closes his eyes, almost able to feel the brush of wings from another plane against his side, their cool touch soothing.
“Dean?”
“Hmm?”
“What do we do now?”
“Well, You-know-who’s left the building and it’s chaos up there, probably down home too. So I guess the question is,” Dean says, looking up at the angel with a grin, “what do you want to do?”
Castiel smiles and pulls Dean in for another kiss.