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It’s a little like going mad.
Dean is the only one of them who needs to wash – to breathe, to eat. He lives as the strange, warm centre of their triad; flanked either side by angel and vampire, one of them soft-eyed, the other distant, and lost.
Castiel says nothing, for the first day. He keeps to himself; wanders off to the edge of camp, never straying too far but never coming too close, either. Benny and Dean, used to the rhythm of this – build a camp, sleep, travel on – sit by the fire, and watch him.
Benny says, “He’s a freak,” Quietly, with a strange reverence. Dean snorts.
“Yeah, well. He’s got a right to be.”
Benny looks at him oddly, but doesn’t ask. It strikes Dean sometimes how little they know about each other; Benny doesn’t know about Castiel, knows little even of Dean except that he has a brother back home that he’s itching to return to. Dean knows nothing, nothing about Benny, except that he’s been down here for fifty years or more. The two of them track the angel with their eyes, campfire flickering between him and them, reminding Dean of – different days. He breathes in.
“He’ll get used to it eventually,” he assures Benny as Castiel, across the clearing, crouches to peer at the mud. Benny flops onto his back with a whump, and closes his eyes.
“Yeah, he will. He don’t have a choice.”
---
Eventually, Castiel speaks again.
At first it’s a hesitant murmur – and to Dean’s surprise, it’s not to him, but to Benny, that he speaks.
“What do you plan to do?” he says, trudging alongside Benny, not looking at him. The vampire clears his throat.
“You talkin’ to me?”
“Yes,” Castiel replies, steely. “What do you plan to do? When you get out of here?”
Benny looks down at him, eyebrows furrowed, then shrugs. “Live,” he says, reasonably. “’Least, that’s my intent.”
Castiel nods, apparently satisfied. Benny grunts, after a moment or so. “How ‘bout you?”
Castiel shakes his head. He says nothing, attention apparently elsewhere; there are butterflies in purgatory, big ones, slate-grey and white. They make Dean wonder if they’re monsters, or if Purgatory was a different place once, not so full of blood and beasts. Castiel follows one of the butterflies with his gaze as it flaps past, large wings beating. He looks at Dean, then, but doesn’t clarify his stare, or its intent. Dean lets it go.
---
They’ve been travelling together for three weeks, total, when Benny kisses him.
It is not his mouth that he kisses, but his arm. They’re lying side-by-side, campfire now a dying throng of embers, and Benny just turns over and plants one on him, wet slap of lip against the curve of his upper arm; strange. Dean looks down at him, at his eyes, and Benny grins.
“Yeah,” he says mildly, glancing once at where Castiel sits, a little ways from the camp. “Yeah, okay,” he murmurs, after a weighty silence, where Benny’s grin gets slowly wider, more careful. He rolls over, faces him so they’re chest to chest, on their sides. Does not reach up to kiss his mouth – Benny makes no move to do so, either – but instead skims his hand down Benny’s thick, barrel chest and grinds his heel against his clothed crotch. Benny hisses, but looks even more pleased with himself; Dean loves how easy he is, no need to coax the humour out of him. Everything is a joke, albeit sometimes a nasty one, and Dean feels no hesitancy in picking up Benny’s hand with his free one, and bringing it to push against his own dick through his pants, groping him all the while.
It’s quiet; silent, almost. He doesn’t know if they’re being mindful of Cas, or if it’s because of the monsters, or if it’s just because it feels right, but Benny leans his forehead on Dean’s and grins and grins and grins, slotting their thighs together so they can rub up on each other, movements making soft, dry noises on the leaf-strewn ground.
“Missed this, huh,” Benny drawls, and Dean chokes a laugh; pulls Benny’s hand away from his crotch so he can grind against him properly, and when that isn’t enough he works both their jeans open, pulls them both out, pushes his naked dick against Benny’s thicker one. Benny makes a soft, grateful noise like it’s a reward, and gets two handfuls of Dean’s ass, pulling him so close that the denim of their jeans rasps when they move against each other.
It’s been so long, so fucking long; Dean’s been having a dry spell for the last few years, but not even getting a hand on himself since they arrived here has been hard enough. He’s embarrassingly into this, making noise, losing himself; he pushes against Benny’s hands, against his cock; earns himself a chuckle from Benny, only half-mocking, and pushes his forehead hard against Benny’s when one of his big, thick hands comes between them to grab them both, slick with spit.
He goes blind; his cock slips easily through Benny’s fist, friction fucking incredible, flesh sliding against Benny’s own. He grunts and gasps and fails utterly to keep himself quiet, whispering a quiet litany against Benny’s cheek, “Fuck, you fucking bastard, fuck.”
Benny laughs at him – whispers, “You’ll wake blue-eyes, brother,” with amusement high in his voice; and Dean looks over his shoulder, pushing frantically into his fist, and catches Castiel’s cool, interested gaze as he comes, mouth open, sealing over Benny’s shoulder, biting down.
Benny laughs again, as if Dean’s orgasm is a joke he’s planned, and is playing. He lets go of their cocks to haul Dean in again, hands spread wide to clutch his ass. He pushes against Dean, strong, as if Dean weighs nothing at all; ruts his cock all over Dean’s stomach, pushing, pushing, until he is gasping and laughing again, a cut-off chuckle, and soaking Dean’s shirt front with come.
Dean pushes him away almost immediately, making Benny laugh a fucked-out, breathy howl. He rolls onto his back and looks up at the starless purgatory sky, arm tossed onto his forehead, grin wide on his face. His dick softens against his stomach and he is fucking filthy with mud and come.
“Not the cuddly type, huh?” Benny’s voice comes from beside him, and Dean slides his gaze to Benny’s.
“What, you are?”
“For someone as pretty as you? Sure,” he can hear the grin in Benny’s voice, and he laughs half-irritated when Benny grips him around his waist and pulls him against his chest. “Keep me warm, huh?”
Dean half-heartedly kicks him in the shin, but doesn’t argue. In a moment of strange, post-coital haze, he calls Cas’ name.
“You okay, Cas?” it’s just words; just an excuse to speak to him. Castiel’s voice replies, thin, across the camp.
“Fine, Dean. I’ll keep watch.”
He doesn’t sound offended; doesn’t sound anything at all. But his eyes on Dean’s had been warm, stifling as he came, and Dean wonders what it was that he was really seeing, as he watched.
---
They live so closely, so in each other’s pockets, that it was bound to happen eventually.
Dean and Benny bathe whenever possible, though the waters of Purgatory are filthy, and freezing cold. There’s no tension between them; no awkward silence, no gap. They simply are, and if Benny wants a couple of hands to help him out some nights; if he can offer Dean his easy strength, his fingers in return; then Dean isn’t going to make a fuss about it. But he worries for Cas, the air has changed between them, and he doesn’t know if that’s for better or worse.
In the water, naked, as Benny kicks off on his back to swim further out, Dean wades towards Castiel, who sits on the shore with his shoes off, feet skimming the surface.
“C’mon, Cas; don’t you wanna sluice a little of that off?” he gestures at Castiel’s filthy arm, and Castiel lifts it to examine it.
“I’ll be alright,” he claims, and Dean shrugs.
“Okay, but if you change your mind, the water’s fine,” he grins; Castiel’s expression changes to consider him.
“Dean,” he says, like it’s important, and Dean pauses in walking away.
“Yeah?”
Castiel pushes himself off the bank so he is standing calf-deep in the water, his pants going dark, saturated. He walks over to Dean, and takes his face in his hands. Dean, at a loss, just stares at him.
Like he’s examining him somehow, Castiel tilts Dean’s head from side to side, both palms fit to his cheeks. “I missed you,” he says quietly, and Dean lets himself grin, just a little.
“Well, hey, I missed you too,” he says, carefully – it’s the truth, as well. Castiel nods.
“You are lovely, like this,” Castiel says, quieter, and Dean swallows.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. And the other night, when you looked at me; when he was touching you,” Dean balks, embarrassed, flushing, “Lovely then, too.”
“Thanks, Cas,” he manages, and Castiel smiles; slow, eager. He pushes his face close to Dean’s and treats him to a soft, chaste kiss on his mouth, then draws away. He walks back over to the edge of the river and pulls himself up onto its side once more, pants hanging heavy at the lower leg, shiny with water, thick with the mud.
Dean stares after him, heart beating a mile a fucking minute. Benny, behind him, whistles; they have been found.
With no concern for their nakedness, the boys in the river crawl out, grabbing their things; Castiel rises, and follows after. There is no time to talk about kisses, to suss the nuance of a relationship, in a place like this. Dean allows himself a taut, frantic glance at Castiel; has to reassure himself that it actually happened; but he runs on, knife in hand, tugging his jeans over wet hips with a grimace.
---
It is easy, after, to ask for what he wants.
They’re on watch; well, Castiel is, and Dean is keeping him company. Whilst Benny rests (never sleeps, but rests), they sit beside each other at the foot of one of the huge, sprawling trees, talking about nothing in particular; about the day, about how far they might move the next.
Dean, tired of wondering, turns to him and says, “Cas, I wanna see what you look like.”
For a moment, Castiel is silent; Dean wonders if he’s crossed a line; if Castiel even feels what he feels, that liquid rush in his gut, that stuttering of breath. But then Castiel hums and says, “Okay,” and that’s how Dean finds himself kissing him, hard; shoving a hand roughly down the back of his pants, backing him up against a tree, stifling Castiel’s quiet, surprised groans with his mouth.
He pulls back; says, “Cas?” and laughs when Castiel looks irritated and pulls them back together, hands fisted in the front of his jacket. They get carried away, pushing against each other, Castiel’s hips finding a rhythm against his own; but Dean wants more, wants to taste the heat of him, and he kisses him once more, firmly, before he drops to his knees.
He spends a moment, more, pushing up Castiel’s shirt, and thumbing at the dark hair that trails from his navel to his crotch. With the shirt pushed high, he hooks a thumb around the waistband of Castiel’s pants and pulls them down just far enough to get Castiel’s cock out. He smells more like the forest down here; deep and loamy and human, wet and thick like the streams. Dean sinks his mouth over Castiel’s cock without a second thought, hand gripping the back of his thigh, and looks up just in time to see Castiel’s expression switch from curious to wrecked. At Dean’s eye-level, Castiel’s hand grips and clenches on the bark of the tree, tendons thick and straining.
This place seems to have eaten them all, and this is the only way Dean knows to bite back. He’s wanted this for so long; with Benny it is comfort, solace; he has large hands, and they hold easily; but with Castiel this is something that has been building, and Dean has wanted to get his mouth on him, his hands, everything, for so long that it seems to have rewritten him fundamentally, more than Purgatory could ever hope to.
He sucks him, hard, and Castiel sags against the tree. His hands, wide and long-fingered, scrabble for purchase; Dean lifts his own, the one not gripping Castiel’s thigh, and links his fingers with Castiel’s. He pulls off, carefully, and noses at the hair around the base of Castiel’s cock, lips wetly brushing against his dark curls.
Castiel just stares, and stares, and stares; then turns away from Dean to look across the camp. Dean, confused, follows his gaze; worries that it’s some beast, come for them; and technically he supposes it is. Benny lumbers across the camp, wordless; smiling. He stands beside them, and just looks. At Dean, fully clothed, kneeling, panting hard; at Castiel, exposed, eyes unfocused and blurry.
Castiel looks at him and something passes between them – some acknowledgement, some rite – and then Benny dips to kiss Castiel’s cheek, hand plunging roughly into his hair as he does. They stay close after, eyes locked, breaths in tandem. Dean presses his face against Castiel’s hip, wary of where this might end up.
“Not interruptin’, am I?”
Dean thinks of the kiss; that, he doesn’t want to share. That soft, damp moment in the river, Castiel’s eyes repentant; speaking of eons.
But this, he can give. They both can. He shakes his head as Castiel does; two bodies will only keep them warmer, after all, and Benny knows what he’s doing; gives direction with an ease that suits the broadness of his frame.
He coaxes Castiel down, muttering to him all the while. Castiel, following Benny’s quiet words, pushes Dean down too so he’s flat on his back, then leans over him on all fours, arms braced above him, loose shirt hanging away from his belly, brushing Dean’s chest. He dips down; kisses his mouth again, lingering and careful and soft; then crawls up the length of Dean’s body so his cock hangs heavy above his face, dripping wet, flushed pink.
From where Dean is, he can see little but Castiel’s crotch, but when he lifts his head a little, looking down, he can see Benny kneeling behind Castiel, murmuring quiet questions as he pulls his pants down over the curve of his ass. Moments later, above Dean, Castiel’s body shakes; Benny laughs, but it is muffled, and Dean knows what he is doing, then; can see it in his mind’s eye, Benny’s face buried in his ass, licking at his hole, lavish and tender and laughing. A flush rushes through him; lust or comfort, he doesn’t know.
Castiel, still trembling, pushes his hips down, slurring his cock against Dean’s nose, his cheek. He leaves wet, slick trails with the head, and Dean is glad to take him in again. He can take him even deeper from this angle, and is content to let Castiel thrust down into his mouth, setting the pace as Dean does the best he can, mouth a warm, wet space for Castiel to drive into, filling the air with sound.
Castiel makes a thin, reedy noise and pushes his hips back in Benny’s direction; Dean imagines Benny fucking him with his fingers, wet with saliva, careful and sure. Imagines Castiel feeling that pressure, that ache, for the first time, and he has to shove a hand down his own pants, then; wrap a hand around his dick as his other finds Castiel’s cock, guides it back into his mouth, lets Castiel fuck back and forth between Dean’s mouth and Benny’s hand.
Benny is talking, but Dean can’t tell what he’s saying; over his own full, greedy moans, Castiel’s desperate hitched breaths, Benny just sounds like warm white noise, making heat pool in his belly; making Dean jack himself faster, suck on the tip of Castiel’s cock as he draws back and pushes in again, and again, and again.
Dean comes, shaking, and Castiel’s knees buckle; he all but falls into Dean’s mouth, pushing a little too deep, making him gag as he starts to come himself, and then pulls out of Dean’s mouth and empties himself over his face instead, so close and careless that Dean has to close his eyes.
Castiel crawls back – finds Dean, beneath him, and sits on his chest, wet cock pressed against his stomach, thighs either side. Benny must have finshed himself off over the backs of Castiel’s thighs, because those are wet, too. Castiel kisses Dean’s face, murmurs his apologies, but Dean just laughs and hauls him in closer with his arms, rubbing their faces together, eskimo kisses; smearing come over both of their cheeks.
Eventually Castiel rolls off him, and Dean lifts his head to find Benny again, realises he has wandered away, is restocking the fire with wood. He turns, and Dean beckons; Castiel hasn’t quite grasped the concept of contact yet, so Dean just presses as close to his side as he can, and smiles when Benny settles himself next to Castiel, on the opposite arm.
They don’t say anything; they don’t need to. But Dean finds himself laughing, softly, as he reaches down between himself and Castiel, and takes hold of his still-trembling hand.
---
They don’t do it every night, but sometimes it just happens; they slump, as a three, by the fire and rest, tangled together. The forest is never truly quiet, but with his friends either side of him, Dean gets the best sleep he’s had in years.
It’s a little like going mad. Accepting this so easily, falling in; but Purgatory is different, a space that is as terrifying as it is transcendent, as right as it is hideously wrong. They work together, sleep together; weave themselves together to become one thing, instead of three.
Dean is dimly aware that they have created a strange love, brothers and wed at once. He is glad of them; he turns to them, when he’s in need, and they to him. He has laughter against his skin; he has the contact of Castiel’s curious hands. He has both of them in battle, blades and bodies alike.
When they come into sight of the portal he slips his hands into their own. They stare, bittersweet, at each other, and Dean knows it was different down here, both better and worse.
Pure.