Work Text:
The eternal night dominates the sky, the ominous blackness forever shadowing the overgrown forest, the paradise of pain, pen of those condemned by their paranormal natures. The only rips of light that leak in from the inky pallet are the stray, faint beams from Heaven, the pale white light akin to the earthly moon bleeding through the tiniest tears, those barely detectable from the grounds below.
Only so much can be seen from the ground, from the rocky and hard soil that expands endlessly in all directions, covered with slender, prickling needles—fragile as the pines yet piercing as sharpened metal—and rough, jagged rocks—the broken glass of Mother Nature embedded in the dirt. The splintering woods of Purgatory, those that go on and on, a standing army of so slim trees with brittle, creeping branches and slithering, swirling roots. The few sparse blessings of light scarcely penetrate the thick entanglement of woody arms, weaving together as they shed their browning leaves whenever the wind blows through the canopy.
A gust huffs against the crackling fire, raising the flames of orange and yellow and red, sparks coupled with clumps of ash leaping from the circle of stones locking in the kindling, starving to burn whatever dead blade of stiff and trodden grass or flat and crushed leaf they could jump for. The smoke dances with the fire, the two caught in a hot tango, one flicker of fire stepping one way, the plume of ash mirroring its partner's move. Up and up the grey rises, dusts floating up in the cloud of darkness, carrying the scent of smouldering wood, reeking of rot and fungi festering for untold millennia, existing before Man or Monster.
Heat radiates from the swaying blazes, as welcomed as a lover's caress, warm and tender in the hollow and cold world of the feral and the violent, where the only feelings are all primal and pure. Here, everything is raw, instinctive, the true paragon of survival of the fittest. It's not like Animal Planet, or Discovery Channel, or any of those shows that sugar-coat the scenarios and distance people with clips that flashes in pixels across a flat screen; it's raw and wild and real.
Dean inhales the breath of the fire, skin warming under the caked mask of mud and blood, dried to his features, concealing the freckles and the pores, while revealing the great hunting prowess so respected and feared.
His fingers—hard with calluses and rough with blisters—stroke over the edge of his stone blade, running from the chunky handle to the pointed tip. Cuts scar superficial layers of skin, the deeper marks surrounded by reddened flesh; but all normal sensitivities feel so insignificant, the lightest pin pricks, all ignorable in this place, this place where pain is an adaptation, where pain is an engrained element carved into the soul, where pain is part of every bound, every blink, every breath.
He sighs, chest heaving, trying to ignore the ache, the ache associated with living, with being, with existing. His foot swipes across a patch of dirt, sweeping out some dying grass, the sole of his boots thinning more and more each day, melding more and more with his heels and toes. He turns the knife, pads rubbing the flat face of the blade, then letting it slip down so the handle clunks onto the ground, the muted but resounding noise enough to perk his ears; keen awareness of any sound is too vital.
On the other side of the fire, sitting with an axe of stone leaning against one bent leg, Benny peers over, keeping close note on Dean's eyes, watching the fire's reflection swirl in his glaring olive eyes; not glaring at Benny, or at the fire, but at something only he can see, something in his mind, a deep thought entrenching Dean in a hole of pensiveness iced over with frustration.
He may be a vampire, a creature of the night, a monster, but he still understands emotions, feelings, all the unspoken everything encoded in looks and body language. There's something on his mind—oh something on his mind indeed—the type of thing a feller never likes saying out loud.
Being around for decades, for centuries, well, it’s taught Benny a lot, a lot about human behaviour, a lot that’s hidden in their subtleties and signals, the littlest details that clue in all sorts of things people would rather save for their dying word; or even take it to their grave. But people don’t always need to say what’s on their mind; the simple matter of deduction can unlock the secrets most want kept deep in the darkness of themselves, so far within that they won’t even know it’s there. It’ll be a part of them, sewn inside, another instinct that requires no explanation.
Dean’s eyes flicker over to Benny, peering across the blazes. He doesn’t just look at things anymore, Dean; he surveys. Nothing’s really safe, and trust isn’t exactly Dean’s strong suit, not something he’ll give away to just anybody. And that’s not a secret kept from anyone, even someone he’s grown closer to over the dark and dank days, the dirty and desolate nights, the twilights and dawns all painted with the same colour pallet. It’s as clear as the dried crimson dying his face; Dean barely lends his oh too valuable trust to anyone. In Purgatory, trusting anyone is usually a fatal mistake.
Only one person here, one being in this whole land of timber and terror, has the privileged prerogative of Dean Winchester’s full and unwavering trust.
The angel, they whisper, the angel lost in Purgatory. The angel sought after by the human. The angel wanted by leviathan and monster alike. The angel of Thursday, known to the mortal and heavenly realms as Castiel, known to Dean as simply Cass, the angel bound to the hunter, walking with featherless wings on the borders of insanity, the largest of bounties on his head.
Their agreement from the start was simple: Dean gives Benny a ride out of Purgatory, but first they find Castiel. Nothing complicated, not in the slightest. So long as Benny still gets his ticket out, he’s content with nights sitting round the campfire with a progressively feral Dean Winchester sitting across the flames, waiting and waiting for that fit moment to steal away, steal away and do what no one here would ever dare try: pray.
Dean’s eyes flit down to the knife, staring at the stony blade a long, long second. Time gets away from him often, time merely a human figment desperately trying to apply itself to such an inhuman and inhumane place. These days, as long as they feel, might be nothing in typical worldly time, just like how it was in Hell, those forty years of undocumented torment carved into his bones. And now, now Purgatory is leaving its own scars, scars that fester and infect more and more each grey-slate day he spends. But he can’t get out without Castiel; that’s a fact.
He flips the blade around, gripping the handle tightly as he slowly rises to his feet. The dulled ache of tired muscles and worn bones flows through him, as natural as blood through veins, almost unnoticeable at this point. Only as he lets his shoulders sag and his spine straighten does he feel the keen, sharp sting of the day’s pain, something he merely dismisses with a hardened gulp.
Benny leans his head back, eyes a cold stone blue, aflame courtesy of the blaze before him. A sleazy Southern grin spreads across his face, the slack smile that exposes teeth too white, the tips of another pointed row peeking out from beneath his gums.
“Where you off too so quick, partner?”
Dean first looks around, eyes scoping the area for no predators of any breed, and then lets his stare settle on Benny. A flicker of warmth illumes the olive, a softening touch of tangerine and carmine, a cool smile curving on his lips.
“Got business to attend to,” He answers, partially picking up on that goddamn Deep South drawl. He knows it’s been too long when the accent adoption kicks in, over exposure bringing out a change in voice, one he knows to be followed by a change in person. Given, of course, he still is a person after all this is over.
“Off to pray for your angel?” The amusement spices Benny’s words heavier than a smoking shrimp gumbo fresh from the Louisianan stewing pot, the ribbon laces of humour marinating his tone like heavy melting margarine, thick as molasses itself. “Or’re you just gonna churn yourself som’ore nut butter, ‘gain?”
“Psch,” Dean rolls his eyes, lower body already turning away.
“I take it you’re gonna try both,” Benny muses, nudging at one of the stones at the edge, letting the fire braise the grey speckled face, turning it darker, darker, darker just like this place does to everyone here.
“A man in prayer’s a sacred thing,” Dean says, smugness tugging at his smirk, “’S hard to think of much else when you’re on your knees.”
Benny’s tongue pushes at his cheek, eyes wandering back to the baking rock before cracking a smile, “Didn’t think you much of the prayin’ type.”
“Never used to be,” Dean simply says, taking his first few steps out of the orange glow.
“’M guessin’ he changed your mind ‘bout that?” Benny calls after Dean, his silhouette blending with the black, melding with the thin trees and morphing with the crumbling ground.
Dean hesitates, pausing just at the first tall trunk, the first indicator that he was venturing out of the clearing and into the woods, into the sector that fosters those born for the kill: “Yeah... Somethin’ like that.”
Benny chuckles, low chortles which rattle like chains hanging carelessly from the side of a beaten boat. Even with his back turned to him, Dean can see that smile on his face, that satisfied smirk he chooses to shrug off.
Then, the laughter ceases, the notes of ‘ha’s and ‘ho’s and ‘he’s collapsing between huffed lips, all swirling together in a euphonious wind out between puckered lips, a chilled whistle. Sometimes Benny entertains himself with the classics, other times sweetly southern folk tunes, but tonight he picked his favourite victory tune: Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King set to a loafing tempo that drags the brief piece out, out, out in slow building suspense.
And as Benny whistles his tunes with the skills he learned in Dixie, Dean takes another one step, two step, one two three steps deeper into the deadly forest, the shrouded brush that holds privacy and danger. The notes of the song die down, drowned out and smothered by the snapping twigs and crackling grass, the crippled foliage breaking beneath Dean’s feet. He knows how to keep quiet, knowing that once he finally can’t tell an A flat from a C minor he need to map his steps out more carefully, plan each one so he can cloak himself; then and only then can he at least be partially assured that no other will disturb him.
If a person spends too much time here, the animal inside inches out just a little more each day, that beast meant to keep surviving, keep surviving while there’s no real need for living, no need because there’s no reason. Life here isn’t real; it’s all just a dangerous game where dogs eat dogs and the last one there doesn’t live to see the next day. It’s all about survival, endurance trumping humanity, personality only useful when twisted around to manipulate another.
It takes a lot to keep Dean from losing it, but he doubts his efforts still. Just how human is he going to be after this? Just how much can be retained when so much time is spent losing just oh so much? Just how can he walk out of this and be the same man he was?
The answer is something he’d rather not think about.
All the trees look the same—hell they very well could be the same, each one merely a copy of a copy, a knock off of His creations, those rejected from Eden and duplicated time and time again—the bark all etched with marks of claw and of teeth, aged with the unspoken cries of mournful souls with no other place to dwell, not eligible of Heaven nor Hell.
Funny to think how too flawed humans are, here, considered the salt of the earth. At least when they die they can ascend to paradise, or even plunge into the pits of inferno, but never frolic in the fields of eternal wood, wandering in the thickets and brushes, guided by their enhanced senses and yearning lusts for blood.
Everything tastes a little more acrid, smells a bit more pungent, feels a little more poignant. A pop, a patter, a distant pulse all echo as loud as drums, long pauses drawn out like lagging knives scratching at the roof of the skull, pressuring crevasses, goading them to break, break, break.
Purgatory is the breaking point, the exact temperature when an egg fries on a hot bed of asphalt, the precise altitude when oxygen grows so sparse that a man can barely breathe. It’s all about restraint and control solely to keep from becoming another casualty, a death celebrated by the hunter for one sunrise and forgotten by the time the blanket of night covers the skies.
Secluded in a darkened copse, a sublet of the greater forest all around, Dean finds a place to pray, the roots as intricate as human veins, the ground as warm and soft as flesh freshly hauled from a newly upturned grave. He drops to his knees, a grunt escaping with a sharp exhale, bones clamouring for some rest, some relief, some time out from the constant rough and tumble of constant combat.
The knife sinks into the ground, forced down by one thrust of Dean’s arm, the tip penetrating the soil, delving down layer after layer until the net of roots too strong for mere stone to slice grinds it to a halt. Dean’s hand remains clenching the hand one, two, three four seven ten moments after, his eyes closed as he listens for anything around him, any beast that may hop out at him, may pounce because they assume him prey, taking advantage of this too vulnerable stance in hopes of nibbling on scraps of human meat tonight.
Clear, he decides, for now it’s all clear. While reluctant to release the blade, his fingers lingering as he retracts, hesitant to join his other hand in a clasp of beseeching, preparing to call upon the one of holiness and grace, the only one he’s ever felt true faith towards, more loyal than God and more virtuous as the Son, the one friend he hopes is not now looking more like the Holy Spirit in these horrid times, in this horrid place, where all yearn for their deaths so they can piss on their graves.
Dean licks his lips, the sweat stinging his tongue, salt prickling his taste buds. It’s one quick swipe—upper, then lower, then retreat back behind the rows of teeth—a swallow doing away with the dirt, the perspiration, the blood creeping around his mouth, leaving a harsh burn worse than any brand name vodka as the salvia slips down his throat.
"Castiel," Gruffly, huskily, he speaks, speaks to the angel flying who knows where. He tightens his clamp, joints whitening, bone stretching skin. Between his hands, torrid, humid air moistens his palms, rubbing off a film of grime and smearing the filth, "I was kinda hoping you could take a few to get your feathery ass over here... that'd be real nice."
.
Dean does not know what's nice, or at east from Castiel's viewpoint. Then again, he's well aware that the human perspective, with all its problematic formulations and dubious distinctions, perceives things highly different (and highly less logical) than that of an angel's.
Castiel hears these calls every night, the ringing bells bringing forth whispers of guilt that him above the trickles of the toxic brook. He perches on the bank, the mud so pasty beneath his feet, watching out for the thousands of creatures on the prowl, the leviathans so vengeful and so adamant on killing the fool who first freed them, the son of a bitch who sent them back.
And should he stay by Dean's side, should he return and explain the reason behind his vanishing act, he would only put Dean in greater peril. The leviathans prefer hunting angel, taking down the more powerful foe rather than squandering their time picking at the sack of meat they predict can't survive another day.
Castiel is thankful how much the underestimate Dean, how much they overestimate him, giving Dean time to figure a way out so he can hopefully kiss the green and lively grasses and reunite with Sam, too conscious of the younger Winchester left alone on Earth.
But Dean just never makes it easy, too invested in Castiel, the most unworthy of his wings, and praying night after night. Does Dean know how much it pains him to stay away? How he hates how abandonment was the only route to protection? How every day it gets a little bit worse and every ounce of self control liquefies into internal coercion?
He bows his head, blue eyes gazing at the greyed waters, his wings crowding in. As much as he wants to go, he abstains, the words he thinks so often, the words he speaks into the wind in hopes the whisper carries to his friend, the words finally leaving his chapped lips with a simple sigh no one else will hear:
"I'm sorry..."
.
Silences falls, heavy as rock, thick as blood, no answer meeting his plea. Expected, though, considering all the nights before—hours spent knelt before an ancient oak or crippled pine, calling out for Castiel again, and again, and again and again—when Dean returned to a burnt out fire and reclining ally, empty handed and ignored. But never does the rejection hamper him, never do the doubts about his angel thwart his hopes, beating them out each time with determination and stamping out the rest with pure stubbornness. Castiel will come; he believes too much to think otherwise.
"Cass, buddy..." Tenderness creeps into his voice, the nickname warming up his tone, toasty and endearing, "I need you in this.”
And it's true; Dean does need him. He needs him to keep himself level, to grasp onto a pair of wings, swallowing down a fear of flight to soar far, far from the clamouring and clawing instincts, those striving to taint his blood with animal attitudes and suckle away any and all traces of humanity.
He can't do this alone, and while he has Benny there is only so far a monstrous acquaintance will go, will go before converting his fellow into one like him. It's not a strictly biological change, for Dean knows that monsters live in human form, their bodies uninhabited by clouds of black smoke, but their brains working so similarly to those of brimstone and ash; warped in ways those of sound and innocent mind can't fully imagine, but those edging closer to the cusp of sane and deranged start seeing it more and more clearly every step nearer they take.
Dean won't become a monster—or at least not any more of one than he already believes he is—but the harshness of human nature, the tempting sing-song of cruelties that bring out the traumatised four-year-old living inside, the one crying for a burning mother and lamenting the woes and burdens strapped to his back when he can barely stand.
Desperate times call for desperate measures; it’s a dog eat dog world; a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do—he gets that. But that doesn't mean he likes it, doesn't mean he likes the satisfaction he gets from the thrill. In Hell, he ripped apart souls, the sadistic pleasure he felt in those bloody ten years a spectre that still haunts him. His regrets strangle like a thorny noose, his repulsion bubbling within like acidic bile, and all the shame, the remorse, the fear resurfacing in nightmares, singeing him as he starves for atonement.
And, oh, while he is still referred to as the Righteous Man he sees none of that within himself. In his eyes, the reflection gazing back at him is nothing but a no-good sinner, following a path of penance but seeing each mile trekked as a mere two steps, never thinking himself good enough.
But Castiel does, and he knows that. He knows that and, while Castiel he sees still as the better man than him (so to speak), the added dose of support showing him that all hope is not lost, that he can stay a better man and not descend into savagery.
“I'm not leaving without you."
It's more than a promise, more sacred than a holy vow of matrimony, more concrete than an everlasting kiss of death. Sincerity and gravity sound so petty, so piddling and picayune. How can a meaning so profoundly deeper than conceivable be described in mere words? Mere words when each one sounds so insultingly vapid, so bluntly flat in comparison to the bond, the bond of Soul and Grace which far surpasses bones and cartilage, muscle and vein, skin and oil or hair and root.
Dean is not leaving without Castiel; it's either together they go or forever they say.
.
But that's just so illogical. And so benevolent, so forgiving, so merciful.
Amazing, it is, how even at such distance—miles and miles by imperial standards, he assumes—Castiel can hear the heavy heartbeat, the pounding, steady pulse of a bleeding heart so large and tattered shadowing his words, each and every syllable dripping the crimson of candour.
And it hurts, hurts physically, the ethereal veil woven from moon beams and silver linings pierced, splicing the delicate fibres and incising emotion into his very core with the chisel of humanity. And all the tastes and smells and sounds and touches are starker, are stiffer, are coarse and flagrant and naked and raw. It's crude and callow and intense and austere, so terrifying and conflicting and painful and maddening.
The wise thing for Dean would be to forget, for Dean to move on and escape, use his energies to find a way out, not drown Castiel with prayers of loyalty, prayers of devotion and faith invested in a lost cause, in an angel who has fallen in virtually every way. Imploring for aid to one only capable of destruction and woe is as wise as making a crossroads deal with the King of Hell himself.
He has to block out Dean’s voice, try distracting himself from his true vice, his weakness, and overcome the tantalising coos and calls of what he wants, forcing an air of sanity and reason which he knows will keep his love safe in the end.
Castiel’s hands slowly near the surface of the slender stream, half wondering if he’d dip his fingers into acid or be nipped at by unseen piranhas, slicing and shredding the layers of skin and muscle with their sharp, sharp little teeth.
A touch creates a ripple, one typical of any commonplace creek. Why, the water even keeps its calming, refreshing attributes, soothing and cooling, inviting as Castiel let’s his fingers disappear beneath the liquid glass, the weaker currents whisking away the spots of grime, plucking them from the crevasses of flesh and lining the bank with the soil.
Castiel loves Dean too much to risk his life, to endanger him anymore than already. And so he waits by the river, staring at the surface of the water, ripples painting his sad and despondent reflection in the little wave, wave, waves. He wishes that he could be truly deaf to Dean’s words, unable to hear each and every word, for the punishment of doing Dean a too valuable favour is to suffer in relentless agony.
This is not Purgatory; this is Hell.
.
Dean’s cheeks puff as he lets out another sigh, breaking the anticipated but unwelcome empty silence following his call. As he exhales, he feels everything inside him tense, tense from the frustration, from the anger, from the hard work and ache, from the running and slashing, from the this and the that and the so on and so forth. It’s not even from the prayer, not entirely; it’s from the day, the life, the everything.
There’s only so much a man can take, so much before everything feels crushing, crushing, crushing. Thinking starts to hurt. Blinking is a pain. The very beat of a heart feels like a constricting squeeze, blood gushing through the streams, backing up at the atriums before there’s the slightest release, one that lets a few drops trickles in before again being forced out and elsewhere.
Everything is packed in, slapped on top of him over and over, weighing heavy as corpses and reeking with decay, rotting flesh burying Dean as the blood stains his mind. It's so much pulsing in rapid chaos, pumping against each other and bumping, bloating, bulging; he needs it to stop, needs peace.
The only peace here, the only one attainable that is, is that of release. Not of mind or body, but of substance. It's a basic root need that runs within the veins of all humans, one of those primeval things that shows so prevalently when tracing back to ancestors of ape and animal and bacteria unknown.
Muscles relax, pain vanishes, and general, sensual pleasure calms all qualms between nerve ending and capillary. It's the near euphoria that alleviates and regenerates, expelling tension in the most literal sense.
The last thing a person would think to do—most would think—is resort to masturbation. Most assume that life is more important than such frivolous indulgences, but they underestimate the qualities of relief wrapped around it, and the too convincing coo meant to usher in a lover, usher him in so they may together seek this relief in one another.
That's what Dean tells himself lately, says he does it as a sort of 'convincing method' or to 'let off steam' or some such thing, if Benny asks. He knows Castiel isn't easily bought—especially when the promises are all solely sexual, a ghostly voice comparing it to near prostitution—but he knows that Castiel has got to be listening; he's got to. And maybe that's just the thing that makes him get off.
"Cass," The name comes out throaty, harsh as a wash pan, parched as an arid tundra. Dean leans back a little, cringing as he rests on the sore balls of his feet. His clasped hands slowly lower, drifting apart too casually as they near the button and zipper of Dean's jeans.
A part of him feels stupid, the kind of stupid that teenagers feel when their first boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever talks them into some kinky game wandering outside of vanilla high school sex. Dean savoured the stupidity when he was young and nineteen, wearing pink panties for Rhonda Hurley, damning the rouge tinge on his face as his dick rubbed its head against the too silky fabric, tingles running all the way up his spine as he wondered for a second why guys only get the scratchy polyester blends while the ladies wore the good stuff. It's the kind of stupid that feels sort of good, because he knows it's pretty fucking stupid and he's doing it anyway, jejune and reckless but that's something to brag about.
But it's still a little embarrassing, a little shameful, a little desperate. A blow below the belt barely summarises it, but Dean thinks that, whether he's above the hem or not, he's at some new brand of low; though what happens n Monsterland stays in Monsterland.
His thumb strokes over the single button, smudging the dirt until the flat pad of his finger felt the shallow engravings, grains of dirt loosened from their vapid nests. His fingers brush down, feeling the end of his zipper, the loop chipped off leaving a toothy pronged edge tipped with soil.
Dean closes his eyes, mind filtering out everything outside his too specific profile: vivid blue eyes, dark tousled hair, a stubbly angular jaw and a beaten beige trenchcoat. This is not as simple as predator and prey, as hunter and quarry, as lust and desire. As much as these urges are, in basis, ferine; they go beyond the dictations of animal law, expressed with the human innovation of deeper feelings, romantic in description but all still holding true.
But it’s all sloppy, all messy and confusing, sticking to Dean’s fingers so he can’t totally tell what to make of it afterwards. There’s disgust and gratification, and all feelings on those ends on the spectrum mixing and mating, resulting in a barren, tired feeling that all really amounts to Castiel not appearing before him. That’s when the empty wins and Dean takes his tools and walks back to camp, ready to lay by a dying fire as he and Benny exchange snide remarks and laugh because it’s all in jest.
He doesn’t want to make it out right now; there’s no time to make it out right now. Intrinsic needs beat out rational thought, Dean’s craving for company—not lust for sex but hunger for companionship of the one he feels genuine love towards—driving him to do things he can’t explain, things he guesses he might regret on some days and might pretend to forget most others.
He just wants his angel here so maybe—just maybe—there won’t be so much he feels the need to forget.
“Cass, it’s kinda hard without you,” Normally he’d laugh over some hidden innuendo, but normal is a surreal and distant Dali painting while he lives in this now. His fingers hover over his zipper, tapping on the forked end, pricks paining his finger as the thin points drive into a blister, attacking the weakened patch of skin and causing Dean to bleed clear.
He holds his breath, suspended in the moment just before, just before. Maybe it’s because he thinks Castiel is there, invisible, spying on him but refusing to show himself. Maybe it’s because he needs assurance that he’s not being snuck up on and ambushed by any of the thousand creatures gunning for him.
In that moment, everything is still, everything is beyond pure, a rift in time Dean sits in, floating among the fragments of what is. It’s a story on a movie, every scene scrawled out on strips of film, the life on pause. Silence in the cinema as the projectionist cuts, going from reel one to reel two, the moment kissed in the corner with a cigarette burn.
Dean’s caught in that moment, but slowly it slips away from him, fading as he slides down his zipper, the mouth opening and letting out crumbs of soil stuck beneath the steely teeth. Every little bit wider the two sides split apart, every more Dean returns, his thoughts strong and centred, all on the angel.
All to imagine the angel.
“If you can hear me...” He goes on, lower. Almost as low as Castiel’s voice, pebbles of that gravelly tone rolling into his voice, smooth small rocks plopping down his throat, skipping along a fluid surface before diving deep below. Below where one’s nature is engrained in his bone, storage of all life’s impulses packed and tucked within the marrow, waiting to be roused, if their time ever comes.
He chuckles, laughs hoarse and pressed, dry as the brittle twigs, their staccato fervour filling the air. A zipper, a button, a tug at some cotton, a pull; can't be heard over what soon digresses into stifled groans, hints of laughter still escaping, but most humour ebbing away, fading into pleasure.
Sweet. Dazzling. Pleasure.
“Fuck,” Another tease, tease, tease at the corner of his lips, the bottoms of his teeth peeking out from their warm, moist cave, glossed over with spit, tinted with light varnish of blood. The iron of the blood, the blood of monster of all shape, all size, all sort, still remains a prevalent taste on his mouth, the rogue splatters that got a little too messy tainting his mouth with the vile essence of the vile beings; and his stomach growls with sickness at the vile taste.
He tongues over his lips, salvia burning the opened wounds, the shallow cuts on his chiselled lips, quick little stings that last less than a second, too short to be felt but long enough to be remembered, drawing back the tip so he licks, licks again, prolonging its life as an open gash.
Again, the smile prevails, “I know you can, Cass...”
.
Bony fingers quiver beneath the waters of the brook, the small waves slapping at his submerged hands.
That certain awareness, calling him out like that; it breaks him from his centre. He can’t keep himself estranged with something so downright direct, with Dean acknowledging Castiel’s lying ignorance.
Of course, Dean’s only guessing, assuming, because who would doubt his loyalty to Dean?
Castiel has to hear him, and the saddest part is that he does.
His back stiffens, eyes shutting, closing off his shaking reflection as he explores. Painted on the backs of his lids, he sees Dean, Dean crouched on the ground, Dean in the darkness looking to the sky, Dean with a hand on his...
Castiel’s eyes flutter open.
.
Maybe it's hysteria, the crazy all swelling up in his boldness and brashness, cheek and gall flushed to a tender pink, throbbing as a smile grows on Dean’s lips, just thinking of his angel seeing this, ready for him.
Castiel might not be human, but sometimes he flies a little lower, feet skimming along the banks of humanity, trying not to stumble, but too intrigued to rise higher and blur his view. No, he’s an angel with feelings, an angel who has uncovered the clockwork of a human through the days and the nights.
And Dean knows that, for the most part, when he sports an erection, it doesn’t take Castiel long to get one, too.
His spine trembles with shudders, his fingers sliding down the length. He tries imagining his rough touch as that of Castiel’s, the fingerprints covered with grime changing, softening the blisters and sores, thinner and taller, elegant in their own graceful way.
Mimicking his strokes, the pet of an angel, is impossible; Dean isn’t stupid, he knows that. But god—oh God—he can see how wild his imagination can run, how creative he can be, see if he can be swept up as a quivering leaf and feel the sweetness of the air’s soft blow.
Soft and warm, like the inner walls of two cheeks, traces of moisture carried in a hot undercurrent, one which swirls round and round, guiding it away from the curved and sturdy edges of alabaster. Encompassing him and relishing his sensitivities, done with such finesse despite the lack of much prior experience.
He chokes a bit, arching his shoulders in a jolting fashion, fingers brushing over the shaft. He can’t rush this—well, he can (and probably should) but he won’t—can’t get ahead of himself. These moments are sacred—it is prayer, after all—holy in their own lustful way, sacrosanct sin and the hallowed hunger, the dirtiest of the divine.
.
Castiel rubs his hands over and over in the water, concentrating so hard on the grime washing into the stream. All his focus, his fixation, it all redirects from Dean and settles on his hands.
Clean, clean, clean the dirt as if it was blood, as if it was guilt, make it clean, clean, clean.
He avoids blinking, seldom taking a single half-second to shut his eyes. He’d close them and just see Dean, see him surrendering himself to him in the heart of wooded danger. Castiel is well aware of how Dean views sex—a relief mechanism utilised over the years, a chance of exposing small pieces of behaviours less favoured by the hardened hunting world—but this isn’t just sex.
No, no, the sexual aspect wandered in with the inborn, basic element found in all his Father’s creations (angels to a far lesser extent; or more embedded so deep he hope they never find it). He knows this because his relationship with Dean is not purely sexual; it’s emotional as well.
Emotional isn’t Dean’s favoured route. No, he’s had to shut people out most of his life, a necessity which turned habitual, distancing himself so others along with himself won’t get hurt. But not with Castiel: what they share is special.
The recollection of Dean comparing his love for Castiel to that of a brother floats in the back of his mind. Dean never had anyone closer than Sam, and thus comparing any form of love to that of a brother is the most intimate of displays. He doesn’t love Sam less than Castiel or Castiel less than Sam; they are merely different forms love can take, for somewhere along the lines Castiel’s more fraternal status branched off into, well...
He cringes as a moan echoes, stirring the memories of other times Castiel heard Dean like that, those times with Dean splayed under him, nodding his head for Castiel to go on, or those other times when Dean has his forehead pressed to Castiel’s, his fingers laced with Castiel’s as he bucked forward on top of him. The groan just short of a howl, a howl which begs and begs to keep going, keep going.
Castiel folds in his lower lip. His hands sink deeper below the water, pressing into the clay along the bottom, ignoring the standing hairs and the forming beads of sweat. His head lolls back, shoulders sagging in a dramatic stretch of his muscles. He even shakes and ruffles his wings. Anything to take his mind off of—
“Cass.”
.
“’Could use some help here,” Dean rasps with a smirk. His fingers curl, a hand wrapping around and gripping tightly. First it’s too tight, Dean swiftly easing. No, if he’s going to pretend this is Castiel, he’s going to emulate him correctly.
Start out gentle, careful, with smooth motions—right, forward, left, back, right and forward and left and back—accompanied by the more subtle rubs just under the head.
Stimuli, feeding a wire with electrical current, one so strong and so fluid, lightning in Dean’s veins, generation of the delicious high produced only through the hormones of arousal. That’s step one: step two is the build, the friction; step three is the release, the blissful moment of orgasm; and then step four is the afterglow, the cloud of relief that, these days, tends to foster a melancholy air, one only absolved through the arrival of Castiel.
This time, he’s hoping that the glum dankness can be replaced with ecstatic joy, for then he won’t have to pretend much longer and end the trail of blood that has followed him all along his journey for his angel.
A gasp, a heave, another gasp, and gasp again.
Choppy, his breaths start out as, evening out as he adjusts to the rhythm, subduing the rising tension. The tension that has lingered and loitered within him all day, never fully satiated, tightening his muscles as the pad of his thumb inches closer to the head.
Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, inhale through the mouth, exhale through the nose.
Carnal exhilaration peppers each breath, such a sweet and flaring burn blazing through him, scent melting to taste, the spice stinging the back of his tongue—but, oh, in the best of ways; how he welcomes that burn. It makes every gulp of salvia another drop of salvation, shots of bliss coursing through and colouring his skin a dark and savoury rubicund.
His shoulders arch, spine tingling, grin still playing at his lips. The shades of heat fall upon him, bringing with them the florid flush, rouge painting his cheeks and head.
A flick of the wrist, and then another moan: “Cass.”
.
He wavers, holding his breath. He ignores—or tries to ignore —the tingling on his skin, the rippling quiver too soft to see making him tremble, feeling the heated gasp gust against cheek and chin, pant on neck and stubble.
The licks of moisture nearly engulf him, simulated flicks of a skilful and invisible tongue nipping at the line of his jaw and the curve of his jowl. Ravenous, starving, plucking grains of salt from pores of skin before slicking over patches of short facial hairs.
He closes his eyes, slowly letting the lids sag bit by bit, finally stopping with just a slim crack of faded light peeking in, the ajar sliver of dulled silver dusted with eyelashes all that keeps Castiel connected to the clearing, keeps him from plunging blindly into the drifting reality somewhere far away, calling his astral form and leaving his body prey for any prowling predator.
The image reappears, details refined on the watercolour facets, Dean's face going from a blurred swirl of peaches, browns, and sun kissed tans to a portrait so fine Castiel can distinguish even the smallest of dotted freckles from a forming droplet of sweat. He can see the sores on Dean's lower lip, the edges of his front teeth lowering in the cushion of soft reddened flesh. Even under the thickly caked dirt, tints of rouge gleam from sparse spots in the earthy mask, cheeks flushing and warm—Castiel feels it.
His fingers twitch, the basic longing, yearning desire to touch stroke, and feel Dean again building as he watches Dean's hands move, going for the fluid motions he can't mimic, unable to fool himself into thinking this is his touch.
Bones voice their muted cracks, muscles around them stretching as Castiel's fingers curl and roll over themselves, somersaulting on his palm until his hands form tightly clamped fists, constricting the bits of moistened river silt and squeezing them into nothing. He lets out a wispy sigh, one funnelled through the spaces between teeth, a poor relief that only expels the cosmetic surface layer of his tensions, scraping off the clear smooth film, not even breaking into the core of hardened distilled libido.
These things—human things—were never meant for angels, for each emotion cripples them to a crumbling, quavering mess from the sheer overwhelming feeling. The flat and temperate warmth of God's Love is nothing so severe as this—and this grows, it matures, it thrives. And all it cries for as it claws inside is for release, release, release; release from this languid bodily prison, for the carnal to run rapid and free, paws pattering against the ground has it melds with the wind and sweeps Castiel away.
Breathless and free.
.
A choked cry climbs up Dean’s throat, his head lolling back as he forces down the sound, swallowing it up before making a noise, making a signal of his location for whatever might be in the area.
Whatever’s out there doesn’t know, doesn’t know he’s there, and definitely doesn’t know what he’s doing.
After the would-be moan hits the bottom of his stomach, a violent cough springs up, Dean snapping his head so his chin presses to his collarbone, rationing out the coughs, all muffled and harsh, rocks banging in his throat, heavy and jagged.
They throw off his tempo momentarily, his hands slipping, fingers moving randomly, a few more unexpected shudders and chills spurring a few more softer tickles in his throat. He manages those down, soon silencing himself, his fingers still on the hot skin, eyes open, alert, and vigilant. The pause hangs over him, looming with its weight crackling down on him, quiet so Dean’s ears can scan and check for any sounds of intruders who might very well ruin his supplication.
Suspense already enhanced by the rushing adrenaline, the impulsive hormones crafted of lightning and whim, heightens. Tension intensifies, Dean remaining deathly still while his ears hone in on any and every sound in the area, from resounding movements of strong hind limbs of who-knows-what to the softest rustle of a treetop leaf.
He listens, listens: silence.
Absolute silence, like that of a church, Mother Mary contemplating the requests of a child while keeping her son safe under the protection of hallowed ground, a shepherd watching over the field and herding in the innocence while warding off the ravenous sinful beings creeping in the woods beyond the pasture. Or something like that.
Either way, it’s not the dangerous silence one expects in these forests; it’s the comforting atmosphere that lets Dean sigh in relief, unnoticed by creatures on the outside, able to continue until Castiel comes. Or until he does; hopefully both.
.
Puffs of breath burst from his lips, craning his neck down. Splashes lick his wrists, clouds of sand rising beneath the water’s surface, silent fireworks of a simple brown colour, their sparks of soil and silt dispersing as Castiel’s grip loosens.
His eyes widen, like a voyeur caught in the act, even though this is a show put on for him, one only he is meant to see. But they also open with stings of fear, fear that somehow Dean may sense him and be upset (unlikely, Castiel tells himself, knowing that the way Dean’s been goading him, trying to coax him into appearing in person, that Dean’s probably more upset that Castiel is just watching).
Blood rushes to his head, clouds of red pressing under his cheeks, letting the storm of blush rage coupled with its wave of heat. A hurricane spins in his mind, tossing about all trains of thought, a path of destruction left as the drizzles of desire, of longing, of sex rain down, seeping into the pink tissue ground of his brain and sinking deep, deep, deep.
But then, then he feels that tightness, one he’s familiar with, one he can recognise. Even in the loose bottoms of is medical scrubs—the white clothes of one institutionalised now dyed with the wild, the untamed, the dirty and destructive, the natural purity and pure nature—he feels tight, detained, limited by the constrictions of a simple garment.
“Oh no...” Castiel mumbles, dread dancing in the back of his mind.
This is just as bad as the first time, when it happened watching that video, confused over how the pizza man and babysitter loved each other when the pizza man’s firm hand continually slapped the baby sitter’s rear, welting it to a loud carmine red. Then he didn’t realise what was happening, not familiar with the awkward and uncalled for performance issues, unexpected stimulus tempting biological workings and ultimately resulting in the fabled unwanted boner.
Now, though, now he just doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want it because he doesn’t want to go here, not now. He can’t even pull out quotes of his Father, mumbling something of the Psalm of David, how the Lord is his shepherd and he shall not want; the Bible is completely irrelevant in every sense of the word, despite what some of his brothers and sisters may have said in the past. He can’t just say he doesn’t want this, control what he wants when wants like these are uncontrollable, when he’s at will of the human body’s functions and the basic sciences entailed.
He looks up above, above at the trees in their intricate woven canopy and their concealing leaves and the few spaces between drained green that offer some glance at the morose night. It’s better than looking down, looking down when he really doesn’t want to.
He shuts his eyes and counts to ten, hoping the simple human trick will somehow decrease his worry, promising that when he hits zero he’ll open his eyes again and look down for inspection purposes.
Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Nothing changes but he didn’t exactly expect a miracle from exercising basic counting skills. He still does, however, have to look down, be honest with himself and uphold the promise he just made to himself (even when having his actions rely on something silly as a countdown).
Grudgingly, with a grumble vibrating in the core of his throat, he slowly turns his head, eyes scanning down the trees, along the water, until he finally sees the bulge in his pants, tall and unwavering, not to mention begging for attention.
Castiel leans back on his heels some, his hands gliding along the sand, washing themselves upon the bank, dripping at his side. The brisk air sends cold chills through his hands, but they scarcely move, all of his concentration focused on his current problem.
No, not problem—he tells himself—inconvenience.
Minor inconvenience that he has to remedy somehow. And, really, there aren’t many options.
He tries dodging the answer, thinking of as many solutions he can that could and might work, hoping to somehow avoid the only one that he knows will solve the issue. All the other times this happened, well Dean took care of it, no need for any frantic spasms of panic over how to get it down or how to get rid of it.
No, Dean showed him the proper way to fix it—the same method he’s using to bait Castiel now.
But he can’t come, can’t put Dean at risk just because of...this. No, it’s a selfish way of endangering Dean beyond compare and an utterly weak move on his part. He’s an angel for Christ’s sake; warrior of God and one of timeless divinity. He can get rid of a boner himself.
Although, he really isn’t happy about what it implies; but he must.
Castiel wipes his hands on his thighs, pressing damp handprints into his upper legs, sliding around bits of the mud plastered onto the material. He bites the tip of his tongue, fingers hooking around the elastic brim of his pants, easily snatching onto the boxers provided as well.
Another deep breath, filling his lungs with crisp air, then blowing it all out in an even gust as he slides the front down, shifting so his ankles can securely clamp the extra fabric while he reveals bare skin, paled from hiding beneath pant legs, slight scared and bruised with crimsons and violets and indigos and browns patched all over.
He keeps one hand holding down the pants, making sure they don’t spring up somehow or do anything to make this any more awkward than it has to be. Meanwhile, his other hand, steady and free, reaches for his flushed tip, gently shutting his eyes as his fingers near, tracing back to Dean in hopes he can repeat...
.
Dean’s eyes open and close, open and close, open to stare at his hands, again firm, fingers resuming position after their startled interruption. The pads run along the sensitive skin, shifting back to the areas known so well for their extreme tenderness, the natural little quivers tickling Dean’s bones, from the base of his spine to the edge of his shoulders, even reaching so far as the tips of his toes with their growing nails now purple from bruises to the curving eyelashes that quiver as his lids slam shut, an unwise move for a survivalist, but one made for lecherously creative purpose.
His teeth grind, top along bottom, as he resumes, the pleasure shocking his own body, the alarm heightening before melting back into the tense relaxation, falling for the friction, drowning in it, it and the memories hidden in the watery depths of midnight blue, where the colours go darker, darker, bright.
Vivid blue eyes stare up at him. Gaping chapped lips open in a perfect O. Nails dig in Dean’s back as Castiel forces him to the side, then down, flipping it around. The distinct smell of the angel—always something natural, like a breath of spring complete with sprawling pine saplings and blooming rowan blossoms and the breeze of the arctic mountain tops as their glacial caps begin melting into the streams trickling down the cracks of the rocks—all peppered with sweat, hair sleeked with grease and body shined from head to toe, the beads lining the edge of his hair and slipping down as gravity commands.
His hands fluidly run over Dean’s arms, then go back to brush over the shallow wounds inflicted by the stumpy nails, soothing the red marks as they dissolve, erased so it matches the other fair pigments, doing away with the damage. Then a hand moves up Dean’s neck, wipes over his cheek and nose, covering his face as Castiel’s breathing evens. His fingers trace over Dean’s mouth, carefully thumbing over his lips, easing his thrusting as he pays the closest attention to detail, as close as a figment of a memory can without breaking the fourth wall and ultimately pulling Dean out of it.
This was the last night they had, the last night they made something of anything, the night before they went to duel the big bad boss of Leviathan kind, in the garage where they spread out clothes as blankets for their quick confirmation of happy reunion. But the unconventional atmosphere sprinkled with odours of petrol and metal and whatever else they stored never disrupted them, never put them off or distracted them from the important matter: one another.
Because then, in those moments, when they thought they might not return, or might not be together, whether by capture or death or worse, that really was what was important to them. It was important that, while they finally forgave each other, while they confessed that the fights and arguments that nearly pushed them to the brink of crumbling could all be left in the past, while they acknowledged their feelings and knew—wholly knew—that this was as big a battle as the apocalypse; and there may not be a God or team of angels at the ready to bail them out.
So, best make the most of the time while they still have grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and that’s just what they did.
Dean’s legs tighten, swallowing heavily as he recalls how he squeezed them around Castiel’s hips, thighs resting in the dip, slightly chafed from the sharpness of the bone, feet hooking onto one another as a lock, keeping Castiel in place. He nods his head forward, an odd gesture to an on-looker in Purgatory, but in the manifesting memory, one that surrounds him, its faux realism ushering him out of the woods onto an industrial floor, he tries to bump his forehead to Castiel’s, even feeling the other’s nose brushing against his.
A croaking groan rolls off his tongue, swearing for a second that he really can taste Castiel’s skin, even feel the cryptic spirals of his fingerprints, but there is no finger blocking him, not like then. His tongue sticks out, the same red as his cheeks, then swiftly retreats after a quick lick over his upper and lower lip.
Dean blinks, a reminder that this is just his imagination—and bravo! for once he believed it for a second!—before falling back in, favouring the sight of Castiel’s face with lips pulled into a teased slight smirk to the broken twigs and branches strewn across the ground around him as he sits crouched in a copse with a hand around his cock and pre-cum dripping down into a puddle on a decrepit curling leaf.
He just closes his eyes a bit tighter, and makes his handiwork more pronounced; he has all his faith in the final stretch.
.
From this distance, Castiel can’t read Dean’s mind, but he can still read his face. While Castiel has his issues with the social rituals of humans, he can read faces, well versed in the language of the unspoken, especially fluent in the way Dean moves his features in the subtlest of ways, conveying an entirely different emotion just through the pinch of his lip, the scrunch of his brow, the crinkle of his forehead.
He recognises these faces, these faces of the memory, their shared memory. That night and all it meant for them, what they did and said still fresh in his head. However long ago it was—counting days here are as meaningless to Castiel as counting down from ten—he still remembers, stirring up those same feelings, lightning forming in his Grace.
Then, he falls prey to it too, to imagination’s temptations, that which amplifies the beat of his heart, racing in his chest and speeding up his blood flow, sharpening each sound and sensation, overwhelmed and oversensitive.
His shoulders arch, a stifled moan caught in his throat, copying Dean’s motions as a part of him flips through the files and travels back, back to their last night together.
The heat and the atmosphere and the details of every little thing: The rough and sturdy flatness of the stark trench coat; the bits of gravel stuck between his toenails after scraping against the pavement; the warmth of Dean’s perspiring body pressed against his; the sheer green of his olive eyes glazed with the dewdrops of roses, the sort of loving gleam that rivals the gaze of Adam to Eve, sparking envy of those never tasting the delicious fruit of love, savouring it the way Dean and Castiel do.
.
“Fuck,” Dean pants, lungs so heavy they feel like lead, lead about to implode and sink down, collapsing him from inside out.
The heaviness is manageable—hell, that means he’s doing something right—but the pleasure, oh that’s entirely different.
It’s a frenzy, a fire blazing in his head, in his body, in his blood. It singes everything it touches, burns it with delight, scorching over every inch of him with some sensation, stealing his breath so he can but pant as his arms work, work, work their way back and forth, back and forth.
His hand tightens, mind journeying again to that night, with Castiel looking down at him, his hands running all over his face, like a blind man reading brail. The clump of dark brown hair Dean clutched felt oily, his fingers brushing through over and over until the strands knotted around his fingers, that same slick feeling tingling the fingers of his free hand.
Castiel mouthed something, he remembers, the lip movements alien and abrupt, and from what he guesses some kind of Enochian talk that randomly slipped in while the angel’s mind swam in emotion, forgetting that Dean didn’t understand the words of the supernatural tongue.
“Come,” Dean says, rocking his head. The word just blurts out, Dean almost unaware that it came from his own mouth, so hoarse and gruff he barely recognised it as his. It isn’t a part of the memory—or he doesn’t think it is, doesn’t remember saying that, not as a translation or command—and how in tune with reality he is, well, he can’t say it was voluntary.
But either way he says it, and Dean feels the friction in his upper arm build, pressure inside him climbing so, so high as he thinks on, on to the moment when Castiel closed his eyes for just a second and came, Dean letting out a hushed and gentle cry, lingering as he adjusted.
.
Castiel lets out the same gasps and pants he did then, breathy and wispy, like the smoke of a candle that just flickered out, the sweating candle letting its wax harden into place as the ember of his afterglow warms him.
In his reality he only just feels the approach of release, of course, but his mind still stays in that moment then ago. Of all parts of sex Castiel mostly prefers the moments just after, when the pleasure settles and he again maintains control, especially favouring when Dean still teeters at the edge of climax, hovering just there, just in that moment, so Castiel can stare down at his wide open eyes and wide open mouth and see him poised in the flurry of feeling, of emotion and passion, mouth wet with bliss and eyes bright with pleasure.
Of all expressions, Castiel can’t help but love this the most, not because Dean’s vulnerable, but because it’s so emotionally raw, every single feeling mixed somewhere on that masterpiece of his face, features representing any and all things. Some may call it weak but, oh, it’s oh so powerful, telling of all Dean is, as informative as a peak at his glowing and glimmering soul. Because that’s the moment when he’s truly stripped of the mask he puts on for the world, when he’s naked and exposed; that’s real purity.
And that’s enough for Castiel, as he works with his dexterous, deft fingers, to gulp down a soft cry of pleasure, already feeling closer to release (and a part of him already regretting his eagerness to just get over the situation).
While his head stays fogged and clouded with reminiscences, he latently sees Dean where he kneels in the forest, making that same face as he tries to reach the breaking point and finally release, too close to coming but just not there.
An impulse whispers for him to be there in person, in person to bring forth the climax and caress Dean’s rugged face as he bathes in afterglow; but he resists.
.
Dean hates the restraint, the fact that he can’t just break this barrier the way he did so many others, how untamed madness of Purgatory doesn’t affect matters like this. No, that’s not how it works, because the carnal nature is typically as close as many humans get to freedom, their one degree of expression that truly paints themselves as they are inside.
But now, now Dean just wants Castiel—needs Cass—to come finish him off and finish the misadventure in this vile place, so they can escape together and share many a more nights the way they did before. It breaches desire and becomes necessity, because he won’t rest until he has Castiel back with him.
On top of that he craves him, craves for Castiel to appear in front of him and catch him breathless, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him back, their lips roughly locking together, tongues invading one another’s mouth before Dean has a chance to say a word. And then with the reunion brusquely upon them Castiel can slide a hand down around Dean’s cock, relieving Dean’s hands from their duty so they may wander all over Castiel’s back, and instilling their angelic touch so he may—
“Caaaaaaaahhh--!”
Release.
.
Castiel shudders, watching the patch of forest floor turn a creamy off-white, some dribbling onto Dean’s fingers before plopping onto the leaves and branches and soil. He only hones in on that because the last night he saw that, saw beads of white dripping from Dean’s pink tip, was when it was between his body and Dean’s, when he had to reach down and give Dean the peace he needed, send him over the edge so he can join him in the calming of the ardent seas, pouring water of white on the fire so he can breathe again.
He doesn’t even have to see Dean’s face to know what happens: extreme everything, from shock to happiness to alarm to excitement, and then to calm serenity, the sort that spreads a tranquil smile on his face, finally slowing in all his motions and movements. Things balance out, evening as they were before, but all accented with the twist of delight which, for people like Dean and Castiel, is so rare to obtain.
Castiel does turn his gaze to Dean’s face, watching the wash of peace cleanse his face of worries, of anxieties, of woes and so. For at least a moment he can live in some contentment, though when his imaginative fantasy ebbs away, that very well may fade with it.
He tries not to think of that, tending to matters of his own, thinking more of how, when he saw that face last, brushed along his chin, feeling the coolness of the cum splashed on his flat stomach, inhaling Dean’s gasps of relief. He moved out of Dean so he could lie at his side, only for Dean’s arms to wrap around Castiel’s neck and keep him pulled as close as possible.
.
Dean pretends he got what he wanted, pretends that he opens his eyes and sees Castiel, a hand massaging his cock, fingers and palm coloured with his cum. Then he’d have him back, be able to look up and croak out a “Hey Cass,” and feel a little better about the trembling.
He could look into those blue eyes and feel safe, then tell Castiel that they’d both get out because their escape only has meaning if they leave this place hand-in-hand.
But the only touch he feels is his own, eyes peeling open and seeing nothing but a knife in the ground, a damp hand, and spots of white dotting dead leaves; no sign of an angel anywhere.
The smile on Dean’s face, like the memory, like the fantasy, vanishes.
.
Conversations replay in Castiel’s head, the light exchanges of this and that Dean and Castiel often shared afterwards. He remembers Dean smiling, talking about how he thinks he has rug burn on his ass from sliding against the drill coat too roughly, then a comment about being careful with the delicate merchandise.
Then laughter, Castiel mostly laughing because he knows it’ll make Dean laugh, a sound more precious and dear than any other in the world.
Then warm silence, because the truth of forgiveness hangs over them, bringing comfort and joy, along with acceptance of their choice to go together into this, because together they should stay.
And then Dean smiles, and that’s enough for Castiel to gasp, gasp and release, but the afterglow befalling him bittersweet. Because when he opens his eyes, Dean’s not smiling there, and they’re not together as they said they’d stay, because Castiel ran away.
To protect Dean, yes, but that doesn’t make him feel any better, blinking away the images of Dean both in the past and in the present.
He pulls up his pants, a bit clumsily but that doesn’t matter, and puts his hands back in the water, washing away the white and wishing he could wash away the sadness.
.
Dean waits minutes after he’s done; wiping his hands off on a tree root and tucking himself back into his pants. He waits because he still wants hopes Castiel will come, waits with one hand on his knee and the other on his knife, ready to go but still stuck in hesitation.
The moments of silence pass, long and dragged, but he has to give up.
He lets out a sigh and yanks out the knife, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket as he rises to his feet. Once more his eyes survey his little area, his small temporary haven where he found brief sensual asylum. What he looks for, though, he can’t find, can’t find because Castiel won’t be here; he knows that.
Faith lives on in Dean though, faith which Dean never had before Castiel that beats on with his heart, that strong and sure (or, as Castiel may see it as, stubborn). He’ll find him, he will.
With one last glance, Dean turns to leave, intending to pray night after night until he holds Castiel in his arms once again.