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“I never told you how I made you, did I?”
Dean turns his head to glance up at Castiel, brows drawn. It’s been quiet in their room for a while now. Getting back home from hunts usually is, as they fall into a practiced routine. Dean will shower first and make some food while Sam takes care of his stuff and Cas unpacks their duffel. It’s easier for them to share one now. Not that Cas needs many things, but when Dean goes to bed he likes to have Cas there, preferably not in a full suit and trench coat. Cas isn’t quite Dean’s size, but Dean likes the way seeing Cas in one of his old Zeppelin tees makes him feel. He’s nowhere near as possessive as Cas is, but he has his moments.
They’ve just gotten back from taking down a nest of vampires in Tulsa, which wasn’t a difficult job. Castiel’s grace had healed all Dean’s superficial injuries, as he tends to do for even the smallest of scrapes these days. Dean doesn’t mind the opportunity to get Castiel’s hands all over him, nor does he get too snide when Cas tends to ignore Sam’s injuries unless they’re a sprain or worse. The feeling of Cas’ grace moving over his skin, that’s too intimate a touch, and Dean wants to keep it to himself.
“I don’t think so,” Dean says after a moment. He thinks he would have remembered Cas telling him. Years later, he still tries not to think about hell, about all the horrors he endured down there. They’ve been back countless times since then, but never again has Dean had to encounter tortured souls, and he’s better off for it.
Dean’s not sure he’s even ever spoken to Castiel about hell, save the few nights he’s woken up from nightmares. They don’t come often, but when they do it feels like he’s back there again. Having Cas there to help him through them means that he’s had to mention some details, but mostly in broad strokes, nothing specific. Still, Cas is particularly gentle with him for a few days after any nightmares, to the point where Sam has even noticed, not that he would dare ask Dean about his feelings.
“You were...” Castiel starts, and then trails off, considering. Dean can’t see his face, not with Cas leaning against the headboard and Dean leaning against him, Castiel’s strong arms keeping him held close, but he’s sure that Cas is squinting in concentration. “I’m having trouble coming up with a word that will not offend you.”
“Offend away,” Dean says, mostly joking, at which Castiel huffs. He’s always trying to get Dean to “work on his self-esteem,” and Dean just scoffs and says he’s not interested in a shrink.
“You were in a bad state,” Castiel finally says. “Body and soul alike. Your body was most important to get right for my superiors. They needed the Michael sword, the vessel of the archangel, the righteous man. None of the other angels cared much for your soul, other than that it be in your body so that you might rise from the grave.” “Y’know, I never did ask you why you left me to dig myself out,” Dean says, accusing, but without heat behind the words.
“I will explain in time,” Castiel says. “When I was told that I would be the one to raise the righteous man, it was the most important assignment I had received in my millions of years alive. No one else in the garrison knew why I had been chosen. The order came down through the ranks and I was sent to survey hell and plan your, as you might say, jailbreak.”
Still, all these years later, Castiel has retained his predilection for air quotes. Dean feels Castiel’s fingers tickle his side as they move against him, the gesture oddly intimate when they’re laying as they are. Dean shifts slightly, pressing back into Cas’ warmth, and tilts his head to press a kiss to Cas’ jaw. Cas turns his head down to catch Dean’s mouth when he goes for it again, and they kiss unhurriedly until Dean’s neck aches from how it’s twisted.
“Survey hell, huh?” Dean asks. “And what did you see down there?”
“Alastair,” Castiel says the name with disgust in his tone, and Dean frowns. He hasn’t let himself think of that name in years. “He was doing his best to make you into something you are not. To make you into the kind of monster that he was.”
“He was succeeding,” Dean says quietly. Most of his memories of hell are of being tortured, but he has too many vivid recollections of the time after he picked up the knife. He never did more than carving, breaking down, nothing like what was done to him. Alastair made sure that he was as completely broken as possible, that not a shred of humanity was left.
“He wasn’t,” Castiel says. “You did not see yourself, Dean. Your true self, the one underneath all the violence and destruction. But I saw your soul. In the midst of the darkness I saw a light brighter than I had ever seen before. I’d been on Earth before, looked down at the humans for as long as they’ve been in existence. I had seen souls of countless men, women, children. Souls of ordinary people, souls of people who have changed the world for good and for bad. Of brilliant and evil minds. Each one a little different than the next, some more pure, some more blemished. But your soul, Dean. I think the moment I saw your soul I was at a loss for words, a loss for everything. I could not stop looking at that light.”
“You- you’re exaggerating or something, Cas, come on,” Dean says. He feels his cheeks heat up more the longer Castiel speaks.
“No, Dean,” Castiel says. He sighs and his arms tighten around Dean for a moment before he shifts them, turns Dean around so that Dean has to look him in the eyes when he continues speaking. “You were beautiful, brilliant. The only speck of hope in that dark place. I knew I had been sent down to raise you for a higher purpose, that I was a messenger of the heavenly host, but in that moment, for the first time in my existence, I experienced something I never imagined I would. Selfishness. Jealousy. I was to bring you back to Earth to be Michael’s vessel, but all I wanted was to keep that soul for myself, and never let you go.”
“Cas,” Dean says, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “You can’t just-”
“I can and I will,” Castiel cuts him off. “I know how you think of yourself. I’m not blind to it, nor would I want to be, not if it means I can help you. I just want you to be quiet and listen. Can you do that for me?”
Dean nods and blinks against the sting in his eyes, and Cas goes on.
“I knew it was wrong of me to feel that way. To feel at all. I couldn’t let myself lose sight of the mission. Still, I had to do something. Lay my claim, as it were. You might have been made for Michael, but I would remake you for myself. I started with your soul. Souls are incorporeal on this plane of existence, but in the others, in heaven and in hell, they are malleable, able to be altered and cleaned of damage. Any other angel might have taken your soul, tainted as it was by Alastair’s torture, and simply placed it back inside your body. Instead, my grace cleared away all the damage that was done, which left a mark on you that can never be removed. It is the most intimate place, a human’s soul, much like an angel’s grace, and ours have been inextricably bound since I first touched you in hell.”
Dean wants to say a hundred different things, but he had promised to say nothing. Instead he closes his eyes and takes a breath. He and Cas have been together for a while now, and it feels like even longer because they’ve been best friends for over a decade. Still, any time Cas tries to say something nice about him, compliment him, especially to someone else, he gets flustered and uncomfortable. In the heat of the moment, when Castiel has him spread out on their mattress and Dean thinks there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, Cas can murmur something about his freckles or his lips or his eyelashes and Dean will be nearly drawn out of his headspace, unable to process whatever praise Cas is trying to give him. Cas has tried to corner him about it before, asking him if he thinks he doesn’t deserve to be loved, even after all these years. Dean always manages to get him to drop it, but not tonight, apparently. All of Dean’s insecurities are being laid out in front of him, and all he can do is listen and hope it ends soon. He has a feeling Cas isn’t about to let this go so easily.
“I didn’t know what love was, back then. I don’t know if it even was love as much as it was devotion. I knew that you had the purest, most perfect soul I’d ever had the fortune to see, to touch, and I was determined to spend however long it took to convince you of that, and to convince you to allow me to stay by your side, to keep you from further harm. I cleansed your soul until all that was left was the warmth of your brilliant light, and it and my grace threatened to burn down everything in our path in hell. When I actually pulled you out, before we caused true damage, the mark that I left took on a physical form, which manifested on your body when I restored it. At that point, four months after your death, your body was quite decayed. I had to search through your past to find a model off which to base your new body. I made you free of scars that you’d gotten on hunts, removed all the blemishes from your skin just as I had from your soul. I placed each freckle where it had been and added a few of my own. Your eyes, the most vibrant green, lips a perfect pink. Each part of you I built up from nothing until I had the perfect body in which to house the most exquisite soul. At that point the other angels, my superiors, were calling for me to come back. I had called out when I raised your soul from hell that Dean Winchester is saved, and they were wondering why I had not yet returned to heaven. I was forced to leave you to dig yourself out of your grave, but I had faith you would make it out and I would see you soon enough.”
It’s quiet for a stretch, while Dean absorbs everything that Cas has said. He wonders if Cas will let him ask questions now, but also if he’ll even be able to form a coherent thought to ask about. He’s torn between pressing impossibly closer to Castiel and tearing himself away, just to get out from under the gaze of those clear blue eyes trained on his own, trying to read his expressions. Castiel can see him like no one else can, and while it’s sometimes useful, now it’s slightly unnerving, mostly uncomfortable.
“You can say something now, as long as you don’t put yourself down again.”
“What the hell am I supposed to say to that, huh?” Dean asks. Again, there’s no heat behind his question. The words are almost a whisper, unsure.
“You don’t have to say anything. But whether you believe me or not, all of that is the truth.”
“I know you wouldn’t lie about it, Cas, I just-” Dean sighs, somewhere between frustrated and resigned. “I don’t know. It’s a lot.”
“Do you love me?” Castiel asks, and Dean’s eyes widen at the question, at the sudden change of topic.
“Of course,” he says, without having to think about it. Cas hums.
“Why?”
This gives Dean pause. He doesn’t think about it, really, the reasons why. It just comes naturally. When they’re out working cases, if someone assumes they’re together, if the person behind the desk at a motel office offers them a single without being prompted, Dean has stopped feeling uncomfortable about that. He’s stopped flinching when Castiel takes his hand while they wait in line at the little grocery store in town, stopped looking over his shoulder and expecting judgement from someone whose opinion he couldn’t be bothered to care about. The actions are innate, but the thought behind them is not something he often considers. It’s easier to give in to the years of pushing all thoughts aside than actually consider them.
But this is Cas. If anyone deserves space in Dean’s head, it’s Cas.
“I-” Dean starts, and stops. “I’m not blowing you off, I swear, I just need a second. I, you know I’m not good with words. With feelings and shit.”
“Take your time,” Castiel says. He means it, too. Dean tucks his head underneath Cas’ chin so he doesn’t have to look him in the eyes when he speaks.
“You’re always there,” Dean says. “I don’t even have to think about it. Since that first time I told you that the bunker is your home too, you haven’t left, even though you can go anywhere you want to. And really, the bunker isn’t my home. My home is where you are. You always said you would go with me, and god, I want you to, but I would also follow you anywhere if you asked me to.”
“I think you’re better with words than you give yourself credit for,” Castiel says, and Dean can detect notes of emotion in his voice, can tell that Cas is as affected as he is by their conversation. “What you just told me, it might not be as many words as what I told you, but the sentiment behind it is the same. You may not think of all those things every time you look at me, but you are aware of them. Of the reasons you feel the way that you do. Just as I am aware of my own reasons for loving you, now that I can definitively say that love is what I feel for you.”
“That’s not all,” Dean says. Now that he’s started, he has too much on his mind. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I like it when you call me out on shit. I never thought much of myself, but you make me want to be better. It’s far from easy, but the way you look at me, I can’t ignore the fact that you think there must be something worth looking at.”
“I want you to be better for you, not for me,” Castiel says, and Dean would roll his eyes if this wasn’t a serious moment.
“I know that, Cas, but it’s gotta start somewhere, right?”
“So are you done fighting me when I tell you that you’re beautiful?” Cas asks. Dean feels his cheeks flush again, but he burrows closer into Cas’ embrace.
“No, but I’ll keep the thoughts to myself.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” Castiel says. “Instead of fighting me on the whole idea, tell me what you’re feeling, and we can help you work through it. It might take time, but Dean, you’re worth all of my time and more.”
“I’m not beautiful,” Dean says, because he may as well start. “Guys aren’t beautiful.”
“It makes you uncomfortable because you think that descriptors should have genders attached to them?” Cas asks, like he’s genuinely confused, like Dean hasn’t rolled his eyes and looked away every other time in the past that Castiel has called him beautiful, called any part of him pretty or gorgeous or any number of other words that make his gut twist, make heat crawl up the back of his neck.
“I didn’t say they should, they just do,” Dean says.
“No, they don’t,” Castiel counters. “I don’t think you would like me to get up and find a dictionary to prove my point, but I’m sure you know this already. I think you merely are uncomfortable at the idea that someone you are attracted to finds you equally desirable, especially when I take the form that I do.”
“That’s not it, Cas, you know that,” Dean says. “I have no problem with you being a dude.”
“I also think you view gender as an either-or, when in reality for many people it’s more fluid than that,” Cas continues, ignoring Dean’s protests. “What if I were to take out that pair of women’s undergarments that you think you have so cleverly hidden at the back of your sock drawer and tell you to put them on for me? Would you let me call you beautiful without fighting me then?”
“Cas,” Dean says thickly. He’s at a total loss for words now. Not that he ever imagined he could hide it from Castiel forever, but he never expected that Cas would just find them.
The panties were an impulse buy so many years before, when Dean was getting tired of the same old thing, of keeping up appearances even to himself. He never really let himself think that, but looking back, that’s exactly what it was. A long dry spell, everything boring him to death, pining for his best friend who he thought could never want him in the same way. He’d thought back to all those years ago, when he first put on a pair of panties, about how he felt wearing them.
The pair in his drawer, not that hidden, he’d bought them because they were a pretty close match to the first and only pair he’d ever worn up until that moment. Light pink and satiny, the fabric cool and smooth beneath his fingertips. Dean never buys anything for himself, so the panties were an indulgence, one he didn’t regret the few times he dared to wear them. Never when he went out on hunts, for fear that Sam might go through the wrong duffel bag and come across them. Only when they were in the bunker, not doing much of anything, waiting for cases to come on the radar, did Dean put them on.
The fact that Castiel knows about them, probably has for a while but has been waiting for the right time to bring them up, doesn’t bother Dean as much as it should. Maybe that’s growth.
“Dean?” Castiel asks, a touch of concern in his voice.
“M’okay, thinking,” Dean says. “You really just go for it, huh?”
“I see no reason not to be honest with you, Dean. Would you, then? Fight me?”
“I don’t know, Cas, why don’t you try it and find out?” Dean says the words in an almost teasing tone, but to anyone who knows him, it’s painfully evident that they’re the equivalent of begging. Dean’s sure that Castiel is going to dismiss the suggestion because they’re in the middle of a conversation, and Cas likes talking. Instead, Cas surprises him.
“Get up and take off your clothing, Dean.”
The authoritative shift of his voice has Dean jumping out of bed to follow the order immediately. Cas stands too, heading for the drawers that sit against the wall in the bedroom. Instead of watching Cas, Dean focuses instead on carefully removing his pants and shirt. It’s winter, but they keep the heat high enough in the bunker that when Dean shivers, it’s not from the cold.
“Do you want to put them on yourself, or do you want me to help you?” Castiel asks. Sometimes Dean hates when Cas gives him a choice. When it comes to sex, he would rather have the choices made for him, because Cas knows what he likes and will usually give it to him. But now, in this moment of uncertainty, where everything is new and terrifying, he appreciates the option, the ability to say what he wants clear and aloud.
“Help me, please,” Dean says. Castiel walks over to him, he panties held in one hand. The other he places against Dean’s cheek when he’s close enough to touch, and he runs a thumb over Dean’s lips, pulling away only when Dean tries to suck the digit into his mouth.
“In time,” Castiel promises. The hand moves from Dean’s cheek to run down his arm, his chest. Dean watches, eyes wide, as Cas bends down before him. He holds out the panties and guides Dean into them, standing back up as he settles them on Dean’s hips. Dean looks down, unable to meet Cas’ eyes. He stares instead at the pink satin, at the little bow on the front. They’re cut for women, not men, so the thin material doesn’t quite contain him, but then again they’re not meant for that. When Dean wears them, it doesn’t serve the same purpose that his boxers do. Usually they’re the only thing he’s wearing, when he’s alone in bed. Sometimes he’ll lay face down, press his hips down into the mattress just to feel the soft material against his sensitive cock. He hasn’t worn them since he and Cas got together, and he wasn’t sure at the time if he ever would again.
It feels right. To be here, with Cas, laid bare before him in a way Dean never believed he would be. After talking for longer than Dean probably ever has about his feelings, it feels good to let go of everything and just feel. That he’s never had a problem with; experiencing pleasure is nearly the only thing he’s good at besides hunting. And he’s gotten better at it since he stopped denying himself the things he knew he needed, so what’s one more thing added to the list?
“On the bed,” Castiel says, walking Dean backwards until he’s laying on his back, head on his pillow. Cas, still dressed in a pair of Dean’s pajamas, settles himself between Dean’s legs, placing a warm palm on each of his thighs. “You do look beautiful like this, Dean. Pink suits you, I think you should wear it more often.”
“Cas,” Dean says. “Cas, please, I need-”
“Tell me, Dean.”
“Please touch me,” Dean begs. He knows he looks and sounds desperate. Castiel has barely touched him, and yet Dean is already getting hard in his panties.
“Tell me what I want to hear, Dean, and I’ll give you what you need.”
Dean closes his eyes and turns his head into the pillow. He thinks he might be able to get the words out if he’s not looking at Castiel, if he doesn’t see Cas’ eyes on him, but he knows he won’t get away with that. He also knows that Cas isn’t doing this to be needlessly cruel, but because he cares about Dean, and wants Dean to see himself the same way that Cas sees him.
Things won’t magically change by tomorrow if Dean manages to say it. In fact, there probably won’t be a substantive difference in the way he looks at himself for a long time whether or not he’s able to get out the words that Castiel wants him to say. But Dean wants to do it, if only because he knows that Castiel will be proud of him for it. It’ll give him that same twisted feeling in his gut, the one he likes to pretend means he hates what’s happening, when it really means that he can’t get enough of it.
“I can be patient,” Castiel says, moving his hands away from where they were resting on Dean, and that’s the final straw.
“I-” Dean says, turning his head back, looking Cas in the eyes. He imagines drowning in that ocean of blue, and he can’t think of any reason he might want to come up for air. “I like how they feel, Cas. The- the panties. They’re - fuck, Cas, they make me feel-” Dean takes in a shaky breath, and Castiel nods, encouraging. “They make me feel pretty. Just wanna look good for you, Cas, please.”
“You’re such a good boy for me, Dean,” Cas says, and then his hands are on Dean’s hips and he’s bending low and mouthing at the precome that’s leaking in Dean’s panties. He fits his lips around the head of Dean’s cock through the satin, and Dean might be considering buying more pairs if this is how Cas will treat him while he’s wearing them.
Dean loses himself in the small sensations, in the warmth of Cas’ mouth and the damp fabric that separates it from his cock, at Cas’ fingers toying with the hem of the panties and dipping underneath to feel bare skin. He tries to thrust up once, but Castiel’s hands tighten on his hips, keeping him right where he is.
“Don’t try to feel too much at once,” Castiel says, breath ghosting over Dean’s straining erection. “Just take what I give you, I promise you’ll like where it ends.”
Contrary to his words, at which Dean expected to be teased all night long, Castiel soon allows Dean’s cock to slip free of his panties entirely, and he takes Dean in his mouth to the root. Cas doesn’t always give head, but when he does it’s something that Dean can’t begin to describe. The wet heat of a mouth around his cock, the subtle vibrating hums that start in Cas’ throat leave Dean entirely breathless, moaning into the empty air.
It’s an embarrassingly short time before Dean comes, hands fisting the blanket beneath him, and he falls deeper into the mattress, boneless. He only half registers Cas lowering his own pants enough to get his cock out, taking himself in hand and stroking himself until his come is hot and sticky on Dean’s chest, some of it on his panties.
“Beautiful,” Castiel says reverently, running two fingers through the mess on Dean’s chest. He brings them up to Dean’s lips, and Dean accepts them easily, sucking the come off and then letting them rest against his tongue for a moment. “You are everything I have ever wanted and more, Dean. Your soul shines as brightly as it did in hell, if not brighter still.”
“Y’know, Cas, you’re not so bad yourself,” Dean says, huffing a laugh. Cas looks like he wants to roll his eyes at the deflection, but it’s at least progress that Dean isn’t actively protesting the praise laid upon him. “Maybe we can get me cleaned up?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Cas says, summoning a damp washcloth from nowhere. He slides the panties off Dean’s hips and tosses them towards the hamper in the corner of the room before running the washcloth over Dean’s body. The cloth ends up in the hamper too, and then Castiel moves Dean, despite his protests, until they’re under the covers, in a similar position to how they started out the night. Castiel is half-sitting up against the headboard with Dean curled up at his side, head against his chest. Castiel’s hand is on Dean’s bare hip, thumbing at the place where the panties were a few minutes ago.
“Dean,” Castiel says. Dean hums, listening, but close to falling asleep. “You don’t feel that I pressured you into that, do you?”
“Cas, no,” Dean says. “Why would you even say that?”
“I have known about your secret for some time now, but I have been waiting for the right moment to tell you. Really, I was waiting for you to tell me yourself, but I thought you might not ever do that.”
“You’re probably right,” Dean says. “I wouldn’t’ve said anything, but I wanted to. Sometimes I just need a push in the right direction.”
“We may need to do that a few more times, I think,” Castiel says. “To make sure you’ve learned what you needed to.”
“Not while I’m ‘bout to fall asleep, Cas,” Dean says, eyes closed, slurring his words already.
“I will still be here when you wake,” Castiel says, so Dean sleeps.
And he dreams. He dreams of hell, of the smell of burning flesh. But it’s not real, it’s not there for long. He dreams of a high-pitch sound ringing in his ears, of the true voice of an angel. He dreams of a light brighter than he’s ever seen before, coming from within him, and another brightness, enveloping his own, the two lights twining together in some sort of dance. He dreams of joy in its purest form. He dreams of love, the everlasting love between the dancing lights, beginning in the deepest depths but rising, rising, until they reach the heights of the clouds, ready to begin anew.