No warnings apply I thin, except for maybe dom/sub overtones. Sub!Dean for your reading pleasure.
It starts when Dean is sixteen years old.
When he goes inside to that first bar that's crawling with men twice his size (reeking of a fresh hunt, blood spilled on the lapels of their jacket and the insides of their wrists), his palms tingle and his hearts pounding hard against his ribcage, threatening to burst. A few look at him, cock their gazes, but they read something in his stance, something that says I'm one of you, and don't jeer, don't leer, don't sneer. They avert their eyes (probably murmuring to themselves about how they keep getting younger and younger), take a sip of their beers.
Dean doesn't need an ID in a place like this (still has one, at the ready, but it's been in use since he hit puberty), just sits at the counter and eyes the bartender, says in a voice deeper than his own, "Whiskey, dry." (His dad's drink.)
And he looks, he watches, he gauges who is who and who wants what. He knows what people like, has learned it through hours of furtive glances at old porn tapes and magazines he hides from the world, through kneeling behind old crates and watching a couple in an alley; a girl hoisted against the wall, a boy on his knees. He's not stupid, he's touched girls, he knows. Never a man though (besides Johnny but that was one time and he was fourteen and drunk and Johnny had never been kissed so Dean showed him before he was shoved off and called "Queer!" and punched in the face).
That man over there is looking back at him, a curl to his lip, and Dean thinks he's a sick fuck who likes them young but then again, Dean has enough daddy fucking issues on his plate to want a guy like that. He doesn't have to saunter over, doesn't have to swing his hips in the way Wendy the stripper from six months back showed him, doesn't even have to lick his lips and meet the guy's gaze with hooded eyes. in fact, all he has to do is throw a bill on the counter and walk out, don't look back.
(Doesn't, as his skin singes and his heart's in his throat and if Dad found out, no, God, if dad found out he'd be flayed alive over a fire pit like a God damn monster.)
The man is on him moments later, mouth on the back of his neck and a hand on his hip, and the man says, "Aren't you a little young to be in a place like this?"
Never, Dean wants to say. Never too young to hunt.
It's sloppy and bad, what follows, but the man doesn't care, just lets Dean learn, throwing words at him like "Good boy," (likes to dom, then, what Dean needs), and "Come on, go a little deeper". It's the first time he's called a slut, and it won't be the last.
(Later when he gets back to the motel room to a sleeping Sam, his mouth tastes like salt and he's never felt so alive.)
~X~
Jim's a nice boy, Dean thinks when he meets him during his senior year.
He's all golden hair and bright blue eyes, wears clunky glasses that never sit quite right on his face no matter how he tries to adjust them and bend them to conform to the shape of his nose. When Dean meets him, he's running a hand through his hair and moaning about the English test fucking up his dyslexia . He's wearing a fucking Star Wars shirt and that's when Dean knows.
At first they argue about Star Trek vs Star Wars (Dean always wins), but soon they're brushing hands under the lunch table or in the Impala while Dean drives them to the far reaches of town; soon, they're passing quick kisses under a moonlight and Dean feels like a fucking girlbut God, it's so good, and his name sounds so great in Jim's mouth.
(They almost get caught, once, by John; lost track of time, skipped school and spent the majority of their day passing a beer back and forth and losing each other in kisses and body worshiping (Jim asked questions about Dean's scars; Dean didn't tell him). They were only inches apart, dressed for the moment, but still touching, when John walks in and Dean was so afraid John knew everything by the blush in dean's face and the shaking of his hands, but John was too busy following a lead and didn't pay any mind. A God sent.)
Dean still thinks about Jim, sometimes, when he's alone in the dark with a hand around his cock; thinks about how Jim made him feel so fucking alive and on fire and he misses Jim. But never for too long.
~X~
It's a pattern, then.
He goes into a bar, itching all over, hunches himself over to hide the sinewy muscles of his arms and chest, fluffs his hair and widens his eyes and acts like the fucking twink he is, takes it like the twink he is; comes out with an adrenaline rush he doesn't get from a hunt. (Won't ever tell Dad, that.)
He meets so many people, so many, some of them that leave bruises crawling up his arms and down his hips, leave his thighs sore enough to be unable to walk for a week ("Think that vamp blew my back out, Dad."), leave hickies across his chest but never his neck. (His favourites.) Others are much kinder to him, hold him and worship him like he's something worthy, not just a pretty sub to take whatever they want to give, the ones that kiss him full on the mouth, cup his face, breathe in his ear. Those are the ones that make him hate himself the most.
In those rare moments, he finds the ones that listen to what he says, listens to tales of a mother burned and a brother he'd do anything for (would die for, over and over until the Devil himself wouldn't want him), of a father who isn't there ("My dad works a lot"). But they're rare. So rare.
~X~
(John never really made homophobic comments, didn't really beleive in that shit - "Humans are humans, just like monsters are monsters" - but once he sneers the word queer - just once, on a bad day when he was thinking of Mary - and so Dean doesn't tell a soul.)
~X~
He stops for a while, stops trying to feel alive because there's no point anymore, he won't ever. Sometimes he meets a pretty girl that likes to straddle him and pin him down, and he likes those ones, and they're enough for a bit.
For some reason, they always end up looking like Lisa Braden, if not Cassie, but he can never quite put his finger on it.
`~x~
But then.
Then there's Castiel.
Cas, fucking bastard wearing a pretty vessel who had a wife and daughter; who took everything Dean never wanted to be and presented it with a large grin and apologetic eyes.
(Once Dean dreams that Cas plunges a fist into Dean's chest and pulls out his heart, hands soaked in blood and smiling so big with teeth so white, wearing Jimmy Novak's face, and saying, "Look, Dean, look what I did for you, look" and shoving his own fucking heart in his face and showing him the scars and the stitches and breathing, "I fixed you" and -)
~X~
Castiel ruins him.
Tears him apart over and over, and every time he does, that fucking itch comes back, burning, and he has to get away, has to, flees to the nearest bar and finds the first guy and lets himself get fucked and he hates himself so much God, he does, and he hates Castiel. But not as much. Never as much.
Because Cas doesn't even know what he's doing.
~X~
It's a long tale, the story of Castiel and Dean (Dean and Castiel), and there's too many plot holes and long about twists and characters that feel as real as the air in Dean's lungs, but eventually, they end up together in a bunker with Sam and Kevin and for the first time in a long time(read, ever) Dean is happy.
It's a foreign concept that scares him so much (like an iron fist to his chest every time the sun rises and sets), that he ends up drowning himself in brandy and whiskey and even vodka every chance he gets. It worries Sam, as everything does, and Kevin steals some of it to ease his headaches, but Cas just fucking looks at Dean just looks at him with those stupidly wide blue eyes and shivering hands and his skin crawls and itches like his whole body is one big mosquito bite.
He doesn't go out though, not with Castiel eyes fixed to his soul like a cancer.
Castiel learns to be human like a newborn baby, and one day Dean finds him elbow deep in a pot of chili with bowls and plates and flour and rice scattered around the kitchen and dashed across the floor. "Dean!" Cas lights up like a fucking Christmas tree when Dean wanders into the room, hair stuck up and still hungover and wondering what the hell is going on.
"What the hell is going on?"
"I'm - cooking," Cas says with a frown and stares down at the giant chili pot still encasing his hands. "I don't think it's going very well."
Dean sighs but a part of his heart blooms like a flower and for a minute the itch is gone.
~X~
Sometimes Dean just listens.
He closes his eyes and listens to Castiel, breathing to Kevin the wonders of Heaven (doesn't call it home anymore, which turns the Itch (that's gotten so familiar it deserves a capitalization) into a burning), using his arms as wings and his voice as a halo. He listens to Charlie (who comes to visit often) and Sam gasp over Breaking Bad or whatever AMC show they're hiding behind this week and he listens to the crackling of dinner still cooking in the kitchen and listens to the sounds of home and a part of him feels like it's missing but he couldn't tell you what should fill it.
He tries going out. Tries going out with the swagger back in his hips and a talented tongue, but he always comes back to the bunker empty handed because every kiss just made him sick until he couldn't take it anymore and the Itch is never satisfied.
~X~
Something in Dean is broken.
He doesn't know when it started, maybe after Hell, maybe before, just that there was a crack that spiderwebbed out and everywhere and he plasters it with alcohol and empty fucks but it's not healing.
He tells himself that the furtive glances Cas gives him and the fleeting touches or quiet moments where Dean wants to bury himself inside Cas, wear the (ex)angel like a protective armour, don't mean anything; they don't, they're not like that. They don't help the Itch, couldn't.
He thinks of Jim, a lot, with his stupid glasses and his aversion to Star Trek (Cas loves Star Trek, has watched the reboot movies more times than Dean has seen the Original Series himself) -
He thinks of Cassie, a lot, with her easy smile and the fierceness to her spirit that Dean's never seen (except maybe in Cas, sometimes, when they're on a hunt and he's taken down the thing that hurt Dean or Sam or Kevin or Charlie) -
He thinks of Lisa, the most, with the heart that healed the cracks in him over for a awhile, that filled that missing something with her kind eyes and sweet smile (Cas does that sometimes, fixes him when he puts his hands on Dean's face and looks him in the eye and tells him he'd die for him) -
Dean tells himself all the time that all of it means nothing, but the truth is Cas means everything. Castiel is on par with Sam, he would do anything for both of them, either of them, would slaughter a whole nation (slaughter himself), would turn himself inside out and light it all on fire; he'd part the ocean and tear open the sky, let the stars fall just so Cas and Sam could scoop them up and put them in their pockets; he'd turn back the clock with his sheer will power, would hurl the three of them into space and beyond, would let the universe crumble into infinite pieces. He would. He would.
Dean thinks they would, too.
~X~
Dean doesn't think he'll ever feel alive again, but Cas gets him damn near close.
It ends when he's in his mid-30's.
~X~
Cas wanders into Dean's room, with irises that are the colour of all of time and space and a body that reminds Dean the Itch is still there, trailing his fingers on Dean's things. Dean wants to ask what he wants, what is it, I'm busy, but he doesn't.
Cas doesn't say anything for a long moment, lets his eyes fall on the picture of Mary Winchester that reminds Dean why he even wakes up, and then he turns to Dean. Dean's aware of Castiel in ways he's never been aware of anyone. His presence is like a second skin, an extra limb, a part of Dean in every way. Castiel looks at Dean like he feels the same way.
Castiel opens and closes his mouth a good thirty times, and Dean just stares. Eventually, Castiel breathes, "I'm sorry."
Dean doesn't understand. He conveys it with a blink.
Castiel shifts on his feet, turns his hands over themselves, and it's so human, like he was born that way, and says again, "I'm sorry, Dean, for - well, for everything. I've said it many times, I'll say it every day. I'm sorry I broke you. I never wanted that."
Dean stares at him. "You didn't break me, Cas."
Castiel's expression softens. "When I rescued you from Hell, I wove you back together from the stars themselves, but there weren't enough to make you whole. I left a hole, and I made it bigger every time I - to use your vernacular - fucked up. I never meant to."
"When'd you get so damn poetic," Dean says, but his voice is gruff.
"Sam lent me poetry books."
Dean laughs so hard he cries and he crosses the room and brings Castiel close to him and just says, "It's not your fault," and he doesn't understand anything, but that doesn't matter.
He kisses Castiel with the faces of everybody who ever deemed him worthy in his mind and the Itch is gone.
~X~
Castiel fills the hole in Dean that's been there since he was sixteen years old. He doesn't demean him, keeps him on the pedestal nextto him, but he gives Dean what he wants (what he didn't know he needed); loves him with every part of his human soul and touches him like Dean's more beautiful than all of Heaven.
The Itch never comes back.