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Dean slid into wakefulness, soft and confused. His back was aching--he'd fallen asleep watching his laptop, having slid into an awkward position from his nest of pillows. He closed it on the "Are you still watching?" page and slid it onto the bedside table.
Groping groggily around himself for his phone or anything else he shouldn't sleep on or push to the floor in the night, he touched a warm, hard hipbone behind him, heard a sleepy grunt, and almost panicked for a second. Glancing over his shoulder, he let out a small sigh. Just Cas, sleeping off one beer and apparently far too precipitate an introduction to the panoply of British humour. It felt weird and dangerous to spend time doing things purely for fun with people he enjoyed.
But Dean for once wasn't going to overthink this. The looming crisis was averted, the next one hadn't raised its inconvenient head yet, and Dean Fucking Winchester was gonna bank some extra rest, do silly things just for fun, and spend time repairing and growing his relationships while he had the chance.
Take Cas, for instance. Dean rolled over and huffed a minute chuckle at the angel sleeping huddled into the narrowest possible strip of space at the edge of the bed. He tugged at Cas' rumpled sweatshirt until he turned toward Dean and into a marginally less cramped posture. Probably having a bad dream, the poor, little, tiny, awesome instrument of divine will.
Castiel surely didn't technically need to sleep anymore, but seemed to have picked it up like a bad habit from his time as a mortal man. The same way some people only smoked in bars, Cas seemed to only sleep while safely in the bunker with some combination of his hunting family around him.
After the constant drama of the last few years and the multiple levels of actual and metaphorical hell they'd all put each other through, Dean considered it a personal triumph that they didn't all sleep in separate, double-locked and barricaded rooms with arsenals under each pillow. The fact that Cas returned to the bunker as often as possible to do 'human-y' things with his human family was both humbling and moving. Baking, cooking, tv and movies, gaming and day-trips, and idle research with the Winchesters offered plenty of mundane bonding moments, but voluntarily sleeping, at risk of nightmares when you could hang out as a wavelength of celestial intent instead? That took balls.
It had taken some serious (and some hilarious) work to get to this level of easy companionship, but it was worth it, both for the end result and for the journey. Of course he'd always been close to Cas; closer than he'd been with anyone but Sam, but the relationship had always been fraught. So intense, and so stretched thin with the complications of warriors, who do the necessary things and try, at least, to put the innocents first.
Each of them had made so many mistakes and had jeopardized each other so many times, usually with the best intentions. You'll make no faster friend than the soldier who chooses to have your back in the foxhole, Dean reflected, but when you hang out peacetime, you won't know at first how to behave like civilians. And on that overwrought note, he made a mental note to show Castiel Band of Brothers and snagged a last beer out of the tiny fridge built into his nightstand.
Screaming red with chrome trim, the microwave-sized refrigerator held a six pack of tall-boys at the perfect temperature, and not much more. Sam and Cas had bonded for weeks over finding and customizing it, down to the engraved plate on the door that read "Dishonor Bar." Then Dean had spent another ten days making them 'help' him design and build a custom table to house it. The side closest to the bed bore a bar-style bottle-opener that caught the caps and everything.
Dean smiled and opened his beer, then got up to kill the lights. As he climbed back onto the bed, Castiel began to grump and grouse in his sleep and Dean spared a second to soothe his palm across the angel's forehead and hair, murmuring comforting sounds. Like Sammy, Cas deserved that much from him, and would by-god get it. Unlike Sammy, the familial nurturing he wanted to give Cas was always freighted with a frisson of the tension that their unspoken mutual attraction caused--and which could wait until they were a little more recovered from the most recent traumas to be resolved.
He sat up against the headboard and leisurely sipped his beer, trying to identify the slightly queasy but mostly warm emotion he was feeling. As he finished and slotted the bottle into an old soda crate he kept under his very own bed for empties, he decided he was experiencing contentment. Cas had quieted into a sounder sleep, and Dean slid down the bed and scooched until they were laying almost back to back. He was asleep in minutes.
—•—
"Oh, no!" Charlie roared, "Another chick flick moment, Dean has to drink!" She'd come specifically to throw a slumber party celebrating the world's apparent unwillingness to fall apart even if a Winchester dared to relax and be happy. She'd brought supplies for several days worth of a ridiculous movie night/drinking game of her own device; watch the silliest, fluffiest rom-com you can get your hands on, and try to drink enough ludicrous alcohol during the runtime that you'd cry like a little bitch at the end. Tonight was Win a Date With Tad Hamilton and Boones Farm Fuzzy Navel, and Dean despaired of drinking enough of it, ever, to make the fat tears already welling up look alcohol-induced. "Six kinds of smiles, my ass!" he growled, and upended his second personal bottle of peach flavored booze.
Not that he didn't notice his friends and brother giving him the occasional wary side eye--he'd cut back enough on his drinking that two bottles of so-called Apple wine (his absolute minimum for crying over the romance stylings of anyone named Topher) and a hot shower would put him out like a date with the Ambien walrus. Shockingly he was now in a place where he found himself having a couple drinks for the taste and enjoyment of it, rather than for the oblivion at the bottom of the bottle.
They'd started out lined up across the long sofa in appropriately grim/giggly drinking-game style, but Sam was now draped ridiculous and sock-footed over the positively massive armchair Dean, Cas and Charlie had brought him as the spoils of their successful hunt though what felt like every furniture store in Kansas. Billed as a 'chair and a half,' it was the size of an overgrown love seat, reclined to a nearly dangerous degree, and still barely held the giant. Charlie had decamped to the floor and was holding a bizarre private mad tea party on the commandeered coffee table, knocking back shots of sweet malt liquor out of the daintiest teacups she could find in the bunker.
Dean and Cas now had the sofa to themselves, and the angel had oozed down to fit himself into the angle of the couch's arm like a cat, so Dean had slid down the cushions until he was stretched prone with his face on Castiel's rib cage, wedged partially into the crack in the sofa cushions. Cas had immediately curled his legs up onto the seat and tucked his long, cold feet against Dean's stomach. Their position would inevitably lead to Cas throwing his arm around Dean's head at some point, calling him his "armpit buddy" and attempting a noogie, thanks to Sam. Unless the divine instrument was already down for the count on--Dean checked--less than a half bottle of three-dollar wine.
"So, same rules as last night? Whoever cries last has to pick tomorrow night's dreck?"
Charlie took a second to focus in Sam's question, then shook her head. "No, nono no, no. Tomorrow night is the weepiest chick flick ever committed to film. We quaff plum wine like it was mead in Valhalla and weep like widows until we die of dehydration."
"Damn, Charlie! Beaches or Steel Magnolias?" Sam was making silly faces behind her back as he asked.
"Eeeeeennntt!" Charlie made a dismissive buzzer noise and showed him a dismissive palm flip without glancing back at him. "Thanks for playing, Sam." Her eyes suddenly honed in on Dean, scary and sober. "Dun! Dah! Dunnn! The Notebook!" She laughed an evil laugh, obviously pleased with herself. "I'm gonna see Dean Winchester ugly-cry like a winning beauty queen or die trying."
"Un-huh, no, no, no. No Sparks; it makes me nauseated and gives me the diabetes. If it's gotta be 'White People Almost Kissing,' why not Sleepless, or, y'know, literally anything with Meg Ryan? I promise I'll cry for French Kiss or Joe vs. the Volcano. Or we could watch something based on a good book, like Time Traveler's Wife or Where the Heart Is or Legends of the Fall?" Dean feels fingers wiggling into his hair to massage his scalp, so Cas must be at least a little awake. "Not that I know what any of those are. Look, let's do stupid-good scotch and Fury Road, I'll squeeze you out 'one perfect man tear,' we'll call it square?"
Charlie is shaking her head no when Cas pipes up. "But Dean, that movie is like, four fucking hours long. Everyone will get alcohol poisoning." His sleepy voice is even lower and rumblier than normal, and it sounds different, vibrating Dean's ear against the angel's meaty ribs. "Besides, when we watched it you were stone sober and you started crying at 'we are not things," and never really stopped. Both showings."
He knows if the lights were higher he'd be taking shit for how hot and red his face is, but Cas' confused head tilt and Charlie's and Sam's delighted guffaws salve the burn. He rolls his face tighter against Cas' side and sighs, mock-aggrieved but not-too-secretly basking in the amusement and pleasure of those who know him best.
—•—
"Cas, hang on a sec. Can we have a little bit of a serious talk for a minute?" Cas' hands slow, then stop where he's been tracing what might be Enochian symbols, or might just be aimless loops across Dean's torso with either practiced nonchalance or serious naïveté about which zones are erogenous. Stopping the fingertips doesn't really help Dean focus, as they're now telegraphing a heat and pressure seemingly past their tips, through Dean's skin and muscle, searing the angel's fingerprints into him, onto his soul, like a brand.
Dean tries to shake that loose with a tiny shimmy of his head. Or maybe he's just so hot for what he hopes will happen soonish that he's not making any sense. Castiel flattens his hands and lays them, one atop the other, across the bottom of Dean's sternum. He perches his chin on his knuckles and looks up at Dean, their eyes meeting at that angle just a few degrees short of 'hold for momentary BJ' that always got him super riled up.
Dean lays his own hands gently across the backs of Cas' wrists. He'd come looking for the angel, his angel, and found him tucked into his favorite corner of the couch, deep in some ancient tome on beekeeping. Cas had barely looked up as he made room for Dean between his back and the upholstery. Sliding a leg around Cas' back and hip, Dean slid into the space and spread out, spooning gently as Cas continued reading.
It was a deeply companionable silence, and Dean had plenty to think about. They'd been sliding into a more physically affectionate relationship so slowly, and for so long, like easing into a scalding bath. The repairs to their tattered and hard-used friendship were ongoing, and it had felt natural to be gentle and tentative about everything. Now he was afraid he'd given himself the yips by overthinking everything, and wanted to skip a couple steps just to shake himself up. Doing so without wrecking everything or squicking out the angel would be the tricky part, but Dean thought he could finagle it.
At some point Cas had got up to make tea and re-shelve his book, and had come back to find Dean stretched the length of the sofa seat, gazing absently at the ceiling. He'd simply sunk a knee between Dean's and lain full length against him, his rib cage putting pleasant pressure on Dean's belt buckle, head on his chest.
Now Dean knew he'd given himself the yips, because having asked to speak seriously about them, he couldn't think of a single damned thing he'd wanted to say. Well, lead with the big headline, he guessed.
"Castiel," he begins, careful to pronounce his friend's name as close as he can to the way he's heard other angels say it. He has no idea if he's mangling it, but Cas doesn't stop him, so he continues.
"Cas, I think you know I feel pretty strongly toward you, but I don't know how well you understand what I'm feeling, or what you think about it, or even what a reasonable range of reactions would look like for you. At first it didn't bother me because we were both kinda right there anyway, but lately I've felt more and more like a creepy groper, and I just need to hear you say where you're comfortable." Dean's fingers slid up to stroke Cas' ears and the velvety skin behind them, brushing at the locks of hair there.
"Dean, I..." and the angel seemed to vapor-lock on the range of possible next words.
He tugged both Cas' earlobes gently down, then alternated massaging at each of them in turn. "Cas, I hope you know I love you forever. You're part of my family, full stop. I'll do my best to never abandon you or turn my back on you again, and I'm trying to be better about showing that and saying it and being responsible for my fuckups." Dean heaved a big breath, thinking loudly of how much Cas deserved to hear this directly from him, with no hedging or qualifiers, no matter the outcome. "I also hope you know I'm pretty fiercely physically attracted to you, babe." He made a manful effort and managed to meet his friend's eyes steadily. "I'm in love with you, man. I just need you to know that. Whatever that means going forward; and that's all in your hands; and however long it takes for us to work it out, I needed to be totally honest with you. You're so worth that."
Cas' jaw fell slightly ajar, slid shut, and immediately popped back open. Dean heard an actual 'click' as Castiel's epiglottis opened and closed on too many or not enough words, then he was catching at the man as he surged up Dean's body and into his arms.
—•—
They'd kissed for hours, for what felt to Dean like lifetimes. He pulled out all the stops and tried to give Castiel every kiss he'd ever tasted.
Lying full-length against each other, just receiving Cas' greedy, relatively inexperienced sloppy kisses until he got the giggles might have been his favorite, at least until it deepened into opened-mouthed lip drags across each other's faces and necks.
Moans and grunts were alternating with sighs and chuckles as they palmed and mouthed each other's skulls and torsos, and Dean abruptly wrestled them both upright when Cas' hands dipped lower and got grabbier. He pulled his angel's hard, thick thighs over his own, hooking his ankles together at Cas' tailbone and towing their chests together with a thunk.
Now they were kissing for keeps, a deep and searching exploration of tongues and lips and teeth, arms locked around each other however might get them more surface to surface contact. Dean grabbed a handful of each of Castiel's delicious ass cheeks and tipped them both back against the arm of the couch, scrambling to rearrange his legs without losing any of their absolutely necessary shoulder-to-hip grindage.
He felt like he needed to increase his mass until he pushed Cas through the sofa and the bunker foundations, through the crust of the Earth until they were subsumed into each other in its fiery core. His nipples had never been harder or more raw, just from rubbing Cas' through fuck knows how many layers of clothing, and the heady scent of both their cocks leaking as they rubbed together through their pants (seriously, who wears this many clothes?) was practically getting him high.
Dean knew he was dangerously close to coming his jeans like a teenager, and he prayed he'd have the restraint to edge his orgasm at least a bit so he could show Cas a good time. And, whoops, prayers were definitely getting through because he hadn't seen a look that filthy on Castiel's face since Future!Cas' orgy prep.
—•—
Dean’s about to lose himself into the searching leer on Cas’ face and the heady abandon of their make-out session again when his stupid, wonderful brain assaults him with a montage of images of his friend.
Strung-out and lost in that long ago future, desperate just to feel something. Shy and proud and sheepish in the aftermath of the reaper. Calm and strong and like-but-unlike himself, one hand in Daphne’s. Stepping onto that porch as Steve, waving Dean away. All the times someone has used him for their own designs. All the times Dean has.
Every time they’ve touched. The hugs and shoulder-clasps, and the beatings and confrontations. Not enough tenderness, not by a long shot. He’s suddenly acutely aware that he came in here intending to communicate about this, and yet Cas hasn’t said a damn word. Not good enough. Not good enough by half, not for Cas and not for the relationship Dean hopes they’re building.
Slowly, and with what feels like a monumental effort, he moves his hands to cup the angel’s face, bouncing their foreheads together playfully while simultaneously sliding back across the couch cushion, pulling them back upright. Enough distance to cool things down but not so much, hopefully, that Cas feels shut down or rejected.
He makes a strangled, wanting sound and scrabbles his fingers at Dean’s hips, his shoulders, his ribs; Dean tries hard not to find it kissably adorable. He’s worked so hard these last months to learn to communicate, even and especially in the most emotionally charged instances.
Not specifically or only for this, but definitely partly for this. To be a better brother and protector, to be a better friend and teacher and partner; to be happier and more at peace. Sammy calls it, “how Dean Winchester learned to stop worrying and love the chick-flick moment.” Dean barely even makes rude gestures anymore when he says it.
And it’s been actual work—the emotional work leaves him heaving like the end of a grueling hunt or an exceptionally taxing vehicle rebuild—but just finding the resources and making himself use them has been a rough row to hoe. Who knew it’d be so hard to find emotional- and mental-health professionals in the ass-end of a rural red-state? Charlie’ precipitate return has been a God-send in more than the literal sense.
She’s got pretty much all the hotline numbers memorized and helped him set up a regular phone appointment with a counselor for the things he can’t (or shouldn’t) unload on her, Sammy, or Cas. She made him try out the frankly surprising amount of self-help meetings available locally. Not many were for him, but he’s got a couple he can visit when he needs them. He’s pretty proud of the progress he’s made, but this, with Cas, is too important to not be absolutely clear about.
He sighs deeply and slides his arms down and over Cas’ shoulders. “Baby, I want this so much. I want anything we can have together but we have to talk about it just a little. Just to make sure we’re on the same page and nobody’s getting hurt. Because I love you, sweetheart.” Dean’s feeling exposed and vulnerable and weirdly also like he’s being mean, but he’s firm.
“Dean.” Cas’ voice is deep and liquid and holds the edge of a whine. “Dean!” He’s no longer making the world’s sexiest grabby hands, but his fingers are gripping Dean’s hips and his breath is coming out fast and hot between their lips.
“Castiel. Babe. Come on! Just a little talking! Please.” Cas has had plenty of sex-ed questions that have been variously fielded by whomever was closest and felt best able to answer. This isn’t that. Dean’s talked to him about consent and safer sex and speaking up for himself no matter the circumstance, over and over again. He’s sure the others have done so as well. Cas has an angel’s understanding of consent and bodily autonomy—absolute, but troublingly one-way.
“Cas, baby. Talk to me. What do you want?” Dean shivers as Cas moans his name again.
“This, Dean, you; touch me!” Cas’ hands tighten and his face nuzzles closer to Dean’s. He takes a shuddering deep breath and speaks more calmly. “Dean, I promise. I’ll say if I’m uncomfortable or I want to stop or slow down. I promise I’ll say no. I...Dean, I want, I, please, can we just see where this is going?”
Now Cas’ dirty grin from earlier has made its way to Dean’s face. “Yeah, Cas. Oh yeah, babe.”