A/N: This, below, is what I do when I need a break from long plotty thinky stories like Parallax- I write pure, plotless smut, with the sole intention of making every one of my former English teachers cry. Seriously, people, I ought to be arrested for comma abuse. It started as a monster one-shot, but I chopped it in half, both to make it manageable and because the tone changes enough that it warranted it.
Warnings: Quite a few, so far. Rated M for a reason. Swearing. Slash. Canon het pairings- DeanxCassie in this half. A bit of rough sex, although nothing too serious. Bad car metaphors. Underage drinking, because it's college. I think that's it.
If you quote your favorite line, you get a cyber cookie.
The first time Castiel and Dean meet- the real first time, not what they think of as their first time- is on a plane. Dean had already been a nervous flyer at seven, and unfortunately, he had been sitting behind five-year-old Castiel, and had taken to kicking the back of his chair in order to share the discomfort he could not dismiss. Ultimately they ended up lobbing honey-roasted peanuts at each other over the headrest of Castiel's seat, Castiel's older brother Gabriel encouraging their little war by slipping both boys a second bag of ammunition. As the Winchesters were taking a connected flight on the same plane, they stayed on board while Castiel's family got off, thus meaning the two boys never actually laid eyes on each other.
So Castiel and Dean meet without ever really meeting a good fifteen years before their second first meeting.
The second meeting is at college.
Sam started there in the fall. It's a state college, not Stanford like he'd wanted but oh well, and Dean is in full support of this college thing because my god the parties he's invited to, as the cool older brother of the cute freshman. He visits in January as a sort of late holiday thing and ends up staying for eleven days, a good nine days longer than he'd planned.
Because of some student housing SNAFU, Sam gets to share an apartment with an older student. He's weird, is all Sam will say about him- weird but quiet, and the token protest about how Sam himself is not the former and the latter can actually be a good thing every once in a while.
Dean starts out with a cheap hotel room but ends up crashing on the couch of Sammy's apartment. 'Quiet' does the roommate justice, he thinks- there are very clear signs of two people living here, but it takes Dean six of those eleven days to actually meet the guy. Once he does, it's by accident. The first time since he's been there that he gets up early enough to need breakfast, he encounters the roommate in the kitchen.
All Dean really notices is blue eyes and pale skin and dark hair. He introduces himself as Castiel and Dean thinks that Castiel's voice is everything that is great about sex. He sounds hoarse, like he's been crying out all night, and the tousled hair and sleepy hooded eyes and that voice are working in tandem and doing funny things to Dean's libido.
Then Castiel says he has an early class and leaves with a simple goodbye Dean and Dean jerks off in the shower to the memory of what that rasping voice does to his name.
The last night he's there, they get invited to a party at a frat house. Sam goes in order to tut in disapproval at his drunken slob of a brother, only to end up one himself. Dean isn't sure how it happened- he only took his eyes off the kid for three seconds and Sam disappears. He finds Sam an hour later sitting in a kiddie pool full of green jello with a redhead nibbling on his earlobe.
Dean leaves him there- the kid isn't going anywhere, even if he could move- and goes looking for help, because Sammy is freakin' huge and only looking to get bigger and gone are the days when Dean could pick him up and sling him around like a stuffed toy.
He isn't quite sure what to make of it when he encounters Castiel. It's not really his scene, apparently. Castiel's shoulders are up by his ears and he's holding his bottle of beer like he's going to use it to cave in the skull of anyone who dares to approach. Dean decides two rescues are in order and goes over to him, watching the beer warily just in case, and requests his help. Castiel is almost desperately grateful to get out of there.
Between the two of them, they manage to convince Sam to leave the jello pool and start staggering on home. He collapses before he gets a hundred feet and both Dean and Castiel end up with one arm over their shoulders, hauling the deadweight that is Sam Winchester, who has never imbibed before and likely never will again.
Castiel is drunk, Dean realizes somewhere along the way. Dean himself in a comfortably buzzed state. But Castiel is odd- he looks and sounds sober, but his eyes are too bright and he stares at Dean in a more direct manner than normal and his words are more carefully pronounced, as if overcorrecting to prevent slurring, and his movements a little too controlled.
They make it back to the apartment, which is enough of an accomplishment that they call it quits in the living room and drop Sam, falling-tree-style, onto the couch.
"You can take his room tonight," Castiel says, as Dean contemplates going and getting a beer out of the fridge- since clearly that's what he needs right now, more alcohol.
"You know, if you were a girl, I'd do you," Dean tells him, because somehow it's relevant to what Castiel just said, and Castiel blinks at him.
"But I'm not," he says, with the infallible logic of the drunk man.
"So now what?" Dean asks, and Castiel shrugs.
"You're the one imposing restrictions," he says, and it really shouldn't be that hot that someone so drunk could pronounce three-dollar words. But it is. And suddenly Dean is kissing him.
He could lie and say it was a great kiss. He could exaggerate and say it was a good kiss. In the defense of both parties, they're drunk, and judging from Castiel's reaction it's not quite his first kiss, but it's close enough.
Dean pulls away a little, catches his breath and herds Castiel back against the wall. He carefully places his hands on either side of Castiel's face, wary of possible retaliation. Those big blue eyes blink at him, expectant and patient. Dean slides his hands back a little, tangling his fingers in that dark hair and resting his thumbs on Castiel's jaw. Then he leans in again, urging Castiel's mouth open with slight pressure from his thumbs.
With Dean coaxing and coaching, Castiel figures out what he's doing right and wrong quickly enough. He grips tight at Dean's shirt and rolls his body, waist to shoulder, against Dean's and Dean gasps into Castiel's mouth. Then Castiel slips one leg between Dean's thighs, slides his hands down to Dean's waist and pulls, encouraging Dean's grinding against him, and Dean almost whimpers.
Then he pushes away, hard and panting and wanting nothing more than to strip Castiel naked and fuck him into the wall.
But Sam is in the room, is right there, and though he's a single shot of tequila and a beer chaser away from comatose, he could wake up at any second, probably will right when things are getting most interesting because little brothers are contrary bastards like that. And they are entering into serious mental scarring territory here.
"Right, so I'll just…" Dean begins, gesturing blankly over his shoulder towards the bedrooms.
"Good night, Dean," Castiel says, and it really isn't fair that he doesn't sound bothered in the least by the sudden halt to something that had been getting interesting.
Sam has the Hangover From Hell the following morning. Dean is unsympathetic, as he's battling his own demons- namely, the 'I could've gotten laid last night but had to do the noble thing instead' guilt. Self-control is overrated, and such a bitch.
Castiel is gone. Dean supposes he should be grateful that temptation has removed itself. Instead he remembers the feel of Castiel's thick soft hair, the taste of his mouth, the blue eyes narrowed and smiling.
He leaves that day, once he's sure Sam isn't going to do something stupid like chug a glass of drain cleaner in order to escape the pain. It's well past time he moves on, anyways, and to be perfectly honest Sam is better off without him hanging around too much.
It occurs to him, about forty miles out, that he'll probably never see Castiel again. It's enough that he eases off the gas, considers turning around- no regrets, that's how he likes it, and not taking Castiel when he had the chance is looking like one that'll hang around for a good long while.
Instead, he turns south.
Dean is a transitory, a moving target. He lives out of his beloved '67 Impala and crappy motel rooms with questionable stains on every surface. He does odd jobs in the various towns, works as a bartender or handyman when the finances call for it, plays poker and hustles pool and occasionally signs for a credit card with a name borrowed from a rock star or a movie character.
When his wandering takes him into the land of southern belles and honeyed accents, he hooks up with Cassie. It's not the healthiest thing he could manage- the sex on a good day is great, but the make-up sex is always incredible, so they're always breaking up over stupid little things- but's it reliable, in its own fucked up way.
He's there for three days before they have their first big blowup. For a few hours, Dean makes himself at home in the bar, where they know him well enough to not need to ask. Then Cassie comes and gets him, manages to lift his keys when he's not looking and threatens the welfare of the one girl that always comes first, and the bartender rolls his eyes and says yes Dean I'll put it on your tab before Dean can even ask.
Small towns. Gotta love 'em.
They make up in the back seat of the Impala, which has always been one of Dean's favorites. He lets her pin him down, and remembers the flavor of control in the kiss with Castiel, the feeling of a strong male body tucked between Dean and the wall, the strength in the hands on Dean's body, the stubble against his skin. He remembers leaning into Castiel harder than he would dare with a woman.
Cassie rides him hard enough that the car shakes. And Dean lets her, because she isn't strong enough to take it. And when she comes, he superimposes a pair of wide blue eyes over her brown eyes, a rough harsh sex-blown voice gasping out his name, and when he goes over the edge after her he has to bite his lip hard enough to draw blood to stop himself saying the wrong name.
He goes wandering again a few days later. Cassie's too used to it to care, although he sees the sadness in her eyes as he drives away and figures one of these times she won't welcome him back. Maybe one day he'll turn up and she'll have a tasteful diamond on her left ring finger. Or maybe one day he'll turn up and she'll tell hms this isn't healthy and he really needs to settle down and not necessarily with her. Or maybe one day he just won't turn up at all.
He meanders his way up to Sioux Falls and bugs the crap out of Bobby for a week or two before taking his show on the road and drawing a big looping circle over the country, hitting just about every state with more than a hundred miles of national border. Then he turns to the beating heart of the country and parks it at the Roadhouse in Nebraska.
Ellen isn't thrilled to see him, never really is, he reminds her too much of his daddy and there is serious history there. But he begs forgiveness for whatever it is John Winchester did that Dean's catching crap for and Ellen reluctantly allows him to crash on the cot in the back room for however long he chooses to stay there.
She tells him, straight-faced and terrifyingly calm, that she will cut his balls off and mount them on a plaque on the wall if he so much as looks at her daughter.
Jo is a tiny little thing, petite and blonde and delicate-looking- even though she isn't delicate, is in fact most likely tougher than Dean himself. Dean isn't terribly concerned, since blonde and tiny isn't really the way his tastes have been trending lately.
He works as a bartender-cum-bouncer, even though Ellen and her old friend Remy the Double Barrel do a fair job of handling the crowd on their own. The men get rowdy fairly often, because it's that kind of crowd and that's what guys do. Dean only steps in if the tussling is bothering the regulars.
He gets a call from Sam, one day in early May. He's got a late admission in to Stanford and is transferring schools come summer. By then Dean's managed to mostly put it out of his head but when Sam tells him that, the memories all come rushing back in a blur of green jello and cheap tequila, and Dean spends an uncomfortably long time that night remembering how Castiel had looked last time Dean had seen him, with mussed-up hair and hooded eyes, looking very well-kissed and so fuckable and god damn Dean's an idiot.
He tells Ellen his baby brother's moving cross-country and he needs to go help, and she believes him because he doesn't lie about Sammy. She tells him there's always room here for him, and he promises to return. She knows him well enough to translate that correctly- he'll roll into town again someday, but he makes no promises on when or how long he'll be here.
Then he goes back to college.
Sam is suspicious when Dean shows up on his doorstep. But Dean possesses no alternative motives Sam can identify- he asks, very carefully, about parties and girls and gets a negative every time, and somehow it never occurs to him to ask if Dean's actually here to screw his roommate's brains out. So Sam takes his presence as some sort of unexpected gift from on high, and promptly puts Dean to work as his packhorse.
Castiel is there. Dean catches sight of him a few times, watches Castiel notice him in turn. There's recognition and a hint of something else in those blue eyes, but what that says about Dean's odds, he can't tell.
It takes him a few days to get Castiel alone for any length of time- goddamn college schedules- and once he manages it, he almost chickens out, because Castiel is giving him literally nothing in terms of cues. Still, he gets the plastic bag he'd gotten at a nearby pharmacy out of the car, because there's nothing wrong with hope, and goes to knock on Castiel's bedroom doorframe, since the door itself is open.
"So I left in kinda a hurry last time," he says, when Castiel looks at him. "I just wanted to say, it had nothing to do with you."
The kid could take Vegas for all its money with that poker face of his. Dean is getting absolutely nothing from him.
"This is where you say something," Dean says after a small eternity of awkward silence. He isn't sure Castiel is even blinking.
"Did you want something?" Castiel asks.
"To finish what we started," Dean offers, because you don't get anything if you never ask.
And it pays off once more, because Castiel pushes away from his desk and gives Dean a long, measuring look.
"Fine," he says finally, and it's not exactly the most gracious invitation he's ever gotten, but Dean has done more with less.
Castiel has gotten better at kissing, Dean discovers. For some insane reason that bothers him, imagining Castiel practicing with someone else, kissing someone, sleeping with them, and for no reason he can understand it irritates him. He yanks Castiel out of his chair and pulls him in tight, hand fisting in that dark hair, the kiss growing aggressive. Castiel fights him back, his own hands tugging at Dean's clothes, fumbling uncoordinatedly at Dean's belt.
It becomes a race, seeing who can get the other's clothes off fastest. Dean ought to win, since Castiel is wearing only a t-shirt and sweatpants, but Castiel cheats. He gets Dean's shirt off and drops to his knees and Dean's brain promptly short-circuits as Castiel shoots him a quick, smug look.
He doesn't realize he's backed up against the wall until Castiel wraps his lips around the head of Dean's cock and the back of Dean's skull impacts the wall. He barks out an oath and Castiel chuckles and he never realized he could actually see stars shooting off like that. Castiel is tugging his jeans down and Dean gasps and puts his hand on Castiel's head, holding him in place and rocking his hips a bit. Then Castiel's hands are free, and he is far too good at this to have never done it before.
"Get up," Dean orders breathlessly, catching Castiel's wrist and tugging. Castiel gives him one last lick and rises to his feet, and he's licking his lips and Dean can't stop himself grabbing Castiel's shirt and pulling him in for another kiss.
They tumble onto the bed, which isn't really the best idea because it groans warningly, and Dean puts concentrated effort into removing Castiel's clothing. Then he goes back to his jeans and grabs the plastic bag out of the pocket and dumps the lube and condom pack onto the bedside table. Castiel watches him, big blue eyes wide with eagerness and perhaps a touch of fear, and Dean leans in and kisses him again, until Castiel is calm and pliant under him.
He nips at Castiel's neck, at the sensitive skin just under his ear, while reaching over with one hand and grabbing the lube. He's never actually done this before, but the concept isn't all that complicated. When he slides the first finger in Castiel gasps and Dean freezes, because he knows his feel-good sounds and that was not one of them. Then Castiel moans, hands on Dean's shoulder, and rocks down against him, and Dean smiles at him.
The condoms are in a box and Dean has never realized how rebellious cardboard can be. He fights it for almost a full minute before Castiel says something, probably something very unkind, and grabs the box out of his hands. He gets it open in three seconds flat, naturally, and pulls one packet out and rips it open with his teeth. He then slaps Dean's hands away and rolls it on himself, which is something no one else has ever done to Dean. He takes his time at it, too, teasingly, and kisses Dean's thigh once he's done.
Dean pulls him away, flips him over onto his stomach, settles in behind him, then pauses. Castiel looks back at him, over his shoulder, and gives him a tiny reassuring smile. He pushes in slowly, one hand on Castiel's hip to control him, but Castiel isn't interested in fighting. He gives a bone-deep, shuddering sigh, as if this is something he has been waiting a long time for.
Once he's inside he stops, trying to compose himself so he doesn't rush this, only Castiel moans and Dean can't fight that. He starts moving, slowly at first, and Castiel is beautifully responsive, gasping and moaning and bucking up into him. Dean moves faster, tempo increasing until he's thrusting almost savagely into Castiel, and he wouldn't even have noticed how rough he's being if Castiel hadn't put a hand against the wall because if he braces himself against the headboard it'll punch a hole through the wall.
He pauses then, brief flash of guilt, and ignores Castiel's whimper.
"If I'm being too rough," he begins, and Castiel looks over his shoulder, giving him an unfriendly glare.
"If you stop, I will kill you," he says casually, in a just so you know sort of way, and Dean presses his laugh against Castiel's shoulder. Then he moves again, and Castiel groans and rolls against him. Dean slides his hand down Castiel's hip and wraps his fingers around Castiel's cock and god, the noise he makes then.
Three more hard thrusts, accompanied by three strokes, is all it takes. Castiel is arching up into him, hand tight around Dean's wrist, and crying out in that wreck of a voice of his, and it's better than anything Dean has imagined. Dean transfers both hands to Castiel's hips and drives into him, even harder, twice more before he's coming as well.
They collapse into a boneless, sated heap together. Dean can feel Castiel's fine tremors and tugs him in close, tucking Castiel's head against his neck. He'd left bruises scattered across that fair skin, he sees, and wonders if there is someone else who will see them.
"We are doing this again," Castiel says.
"Oh yeah," Dean agrees.
"But not right away. I have a class in twenty minutes."
Dean laughs a little at that, glances at the bedside clock.
"Good luck with that," he says.
It takes some effort, but Dean manages to get Castiel to himself at least once a day. They explore each other, with fingers and mouths and words because Castiel's not an idiot and can clearly see that his voice has a profound effect on Dean, finding out what the other likes, what makes them gasp and twitch and buck up off the bed like they've just touched a live wire.
Sam has a day-long class one Saturday, and Dean takes full advantage of it. He pins Castiel down and proceeds to torture both of them, using long slow strokes until Castiel is too close to do anything more than shudder and beg. And Dean keeps him right there, until he's only producing broken little noises that might have once been words, and Dean can't remember what it was like when every nerve in his body wasn't begging for release.
It's one of the best times in Dean's life.
"You could call me Cas, the way everyone else does," Castiel says to him one time.
Dean frowns, wonders why it hasn't occurred to him before. Then he shrugs.
"I'm not everyone else," he says, fingers tracing the line of his collar bone under his skin, and Castiel shivers and gasps and nods.
Sam finds out, of course. It's not as awkward as walking in on them, although that might have been preferable, since that would mean Sam would either have to avoid them for the foreseeable future or die of embarrassment. No, he figures it out because he's not an idiot, and one morning he sits down across the crappy kitchen table from Dean and does a Bitch Face Dean has never seen before.
"Please tell me I'm completely misreading everything and you aren't actually sleeping with him," he says. Dean takes another spoonful of Froot Loops and shrugs.
"Sure thing, dude, but I'd be lyin'."
"I don't- Is that why you're here? Because you have this- this- thing with my roommate?"
"Nope," Dean says around another mouthful of cereal, because Sam's brain is riding the clutch and the fastest way to end this conversation is to stall it out. "That didn't start 'til this time."
"I don't want to know," Sam half-screeches, and Dean gives a sharp little laugh.
"Then why'd you ask?" He leans over to grab the cereal box and pours more on top of the multi-hued glop congealing in his bowl. "You owe us, anyway. We only stopped last time 'cause you were there."
"You were-" Sam begins. He makes an odd, arm-waving sort of gesture, as if to take flight.
"Night of the party. Remember that? You were passed out on the couch."
"You were making out in the apartment while I was there?"
"Dude, we were in the same room," Dean tells him.
Mission accomplished. Sam stares at him, wide-eyed and horrified, and gets up. He's almost out the door when he does one of those full-body shivers.
Dean gets a new bowl and congratulates himself on a job well done.
School ends not long after that, and Sam and Dean have to leave to schlep Sam's crap to California. Castiel, lacking a roommate, isn't sure if he's staying in the apartment. It's looking like goodbye for real, except Castiel stops Dean just before he leaves and hands him a green post-it note with a number.
"My sister," he says. "She'll put you in touch with me. If you're ever in town, stop by."
"Good. Uh," and Dean pauses, glances around, looks back at Castiel without meeting those blue eyes. "You know I'm not…"
"Interested in commitment?" Castiel finishes for him, when it's apparent Dean has run out of steam. "I noticed, Dean. I'm not asking you to change."
Dean kinda falls in love, just a little bit, right there.
And for a few years, thus is life.
Dean gets Castiel's new number from his sister, Anna, and stops by whenever he gets that itch no woman can scratch. If Castiel's number doesn't go through, for whatever reason, Dean calls Anna again and she gives him the new one. He has no idea what she knows about this, what she thinks about Dean. And if Castiel is in any way unhappy with their arrangement, he never says so to Dean.
It never occurs to Dean to wonder about it, about how Castiel never seems to change or move on. He's just happy someone is stuck in neutral with him.
Sam gets taller and broader and meets a girl named Jess and promises dire, painful things if Dean even thinks about causing trouble with her. Ellen finds herself a mulleted live-in genius named Ash who does something for the Roadhouse, Dean is never quite sure what. Bobby gets older and more cantankerous. And Castiel always, inevitably, remains the same.
Then it all changes.