By the way, don't forget to check out my new novel – there are links in my profile, and I'd love to sell a few more
The fact that he doesn't even consider walking away says a lot about how much Dean loves his brother.
Because, Dean is straight. So straight in fact, that he makes a crow's flight path look slap dash, makes rulers look like corkscrews. Dean's heterosexuality is like the fucking sphinx – long standing and undeniable.
But, confronted with a naked man, and the ultimatum that, to get the mystical cure that is his brother's last hope, he has to venture into previously unexplored territory. Dean doesn't even pause to think.
For longer than say...fifteen seconds.
He presses his teeth together, as if reminding himself that they're still there, rolls his saliva backwards and swallows, setting his face into a firm non-expression. Then, he raises his hands and strips his jacket off mechanically. He starts on his belt, and looks up when he senses Castiel's eyes on him.
They're woefully sad eyes, like he'd rather Dean was actually planning to hack the horn off of his head.
"What?" Dean asks.
"I just..." Castiel hunches a little, almost imperceptibly. "I thought it would be different...after I'd waited so long."
"Well, pro tip." Dean mutters, standing on one foot to remove a boot. "First times? Pretty much suck."
"I realise that." Castiel sighs. "I was not waiting for a fairy tale...But, I expected a little more than...sullen resignation."
Dean feels his face colour. "It's not personal...I just don't...you know."
Castiel looks at him with his 'please continue' face.
"I don't bend that way." Dean elaborates.
"Ahhh." Castiel says.
Dean freezes with his boot in his hand.
"Does that mean..." he feels his stomach turn icier than the slush on a January street. "Do you not want to do this? Because I..." He catches himself, he doesn't want to beg.
"You need my horn." Castiel says quietly. "Your brother does, anyway. I wouldn't deny you that, for the sake of my feelings."
Dean drops the boot to the ground and stands there, one boot still on, belt open, feeling like a total asshole. Castiel was getting a pretty rough deal, getting him as his first time ever – and Dean knew he was lucky to be getting the horn that he needed to cure Sam – without so much as a demon deal or a pound of flesh having to trade hands.
Outwardly, he sighs, and takes off his other boot.
He looks up and finds Castiel watching him, nerves evident on his face, the felt blanket still drawn tight around him.
"Just...lie down, ok? I've got this." Dean promises, raising a hand to get Castiel to lie down. Surprisingly, Castiel does as he's told, even if he doesn't relinquish his death hold on the blanket.
Dean strips out of his shirt in one quick movement, tugging off his socks and sliding out of his jeans with rather less elegance, and getting quickly onto the bed next to Castiel, pulling one of the blankets over to cover himself.
Then there's a long, awkward silence.
Castiel takes a breath.
"Give me a second." Dean cuts him off, and Castiel remains silent.
Dean bites at the corner of his lip, looking up at the bejewelled cave ceiling. He can do this? Right? It's just sex, a different kind of sex, with a different kind of body, but sex none the less. He can feel Castiel's warm body weighing down the makeshift bed next to him. He can't pretend that this is normal for him. Castiel is a man – and that fact is not going anywhere. Dean hadn't gotten a good look (or any kind of look) at what Castiel had going on down below, but he was going to have to get very familiar with it in a second.
It felt a bit like preparing to stick his hand into a basket of snakes.
It couldn't be that difficult, could it? Dean knew more than enough about himself to work the same process from the other way round.
Even if this was going to get very off base very fast. If Castiel expected them to go 'all the way'.
Castiel shifts nervously next to him.
Dean breaths out deeply, trying to calm himself.
"Ok." He mutters. Then, "Ok."
He rolls over, one hand coming down on the bed on the other side of Castiel, the other ending up by Castiel's head. Dean closes his eyes tightly, and finds the smaller man's mouth more from luck than skill.
His thoughts, in order are -
Stubble – wrong.
Lips – chapped – wrong.
Hard body under his – Wrong.
Breathy MALE moan – WRONG.
Dean snatches his mouth away with a gasp, coming up for air and opening his eyes before he has time to veto the impulse.
Castiel is looking up at him, mouth rounded into a plump 'o' of surprise. He blinks slowly, breathes shakily, and then tilts his mouth upwards, hesitantly seeking another kiss.
Dean closes his eyes and goes in again, like a deep sea diver taking his last gasp of natural air.
After a while, he gets the rhythm of it down. It still feels as weird as trying to sleep on sandpaper, but at least he can zone out for a couple of minutes at a time. They stop every now and again, wetting their lips, taking in air, and after a while, Castiel gets up the nerve to reach up and put his hands on Dean's shoulders.
This freaks Dean out anew – strong calloused fingers? Wrong. Short nails? Wrong. Wide palms? Wrong. But he holds it together. They need to get this moving if he's going to get back to Sam in good time.
He wrangles his inner hysteria and moves on to kissing Castiel's neck – which raises another gruff little sound of pleasure. Dean drops one hand slowly to the other man's waist, then freezes as his mind is overwhelmed with unpleasantly unfamiliar sensory data. Castiel's hips and waist are not soft, which wasn't exactly expected – him being a guy and all. But there's other stuff that Dean hadn't even considered in his few seconds of consideration. There's more hair on Castiel's skin than on any waxed and plucked woman that Dean's been with. It's not gross, but, it's another red flag that this whole are is not for him. Castiel's skin is also rougher than he's used to – not dry, just, not scrubbed and moisturised, and whatever else women did to get themselves all smooth.
Castiel's whole body shifts, and Dean finds himself lying between his legs. His stomach jumps with nerves. A large part of his brain insists that there is no way, no how that his junk is going to touch another guys crotch. But it's only a thin blanket that is preventing just that.
Dean notices that Castiel is frozen, watching him. He raises one corner of his mouth into what he hopes is a competent smirk.
"So...this horse thing...that limited to your night runs?"
Unfortunately, the half baked innuendo earns him only a frown of confusion.
Dean shakes his head, mentally shouts 'Geronimo' and pulls the blanket between them aside.
Eww. Is his first thought. The sensation of his lower body, and all that that implied, pressed up against Cas's is far from pleasant. At least to start. But after a few seconds, once the initial shock of crotch to crotch contact has faded, he starts to vaguely appreciate the warm smoothness of it. There's a certain amount of softness too, at least on his side of things. Castiel is already mostly hard, and Dean risks sudden terrified paralysis to look down for a second.
Horse indeed.
He almost whistles.
Castiel is already pink in the face, and when Dean glances up, he finds that the other man was also engaging in a little admiration of the sight below. It's quite an arrangement, their two cocks side by side, Dean's nothing to sniff at, despite not being the least bit aroused. But it's not anywhere near hot - at least not for Dean. It's just...weird, and naked.
Castiel moves slightly, and the brush of him against Dean makes the hunter close his eyes, to better to hold onto the sensation. Ok, he's only human. It felt good. No longer unpleasant. Just new. Even if his spine is still tense as a steel cable from the total unfamiliar maleness of what's happening.
Dean takes a deep, steadying breath. Inwardly he's half trying to remember what he knows about anal. Not much, unfortunately. It was time consuming, that he remembered.
He leans forwards, kisses Castiel again – and this time it's like his fifth cup of coffee, back when he'd just gotten into drinking it - he's no longer surprised by the unpleasant details, the unexpected stubble and shape of Castiel's mouth - he focuses on the rush, the closeness. It's not sexy, at least not to him. But it's...nice. Catching blindly at Castiel's mouth, feeling.
It's with conscious effort that he puts his hand down into no-man's-land, and there's no point trying to pretend that his fingers are encountering anything but what is actually down there. It's...mostly ok, once he gets used to it. It's a familiar feeling anyway, because he's done this to himself, what? Ten thousand times?
Castiel at least restricts himself to soft, breathy little sounds, and Dean's grateful because he could not deal with some guy moaning and groaning. Knowing what has to come next, Dean tries to picture someone, anyone that he's been with in the last few years. Or a magazine cover, bus bench add – anything to get the motor to turn over, if not run smoothly.
It's actually easier than he thought it would be. He's warm, and Castiel is quite comfortable to lie mostly-on-top-of, so there's that. He's got a centrefold in mind, and things are going pretty well until he gets over confidence, and rubs the backs of his fingers up under Castiel's cock, knuckle massaging gently under the head.
The growl this extracts, is so unexpected, that Dean snaps his eyes open. The sound already detonating in a hundred unexpected ways in his stomach, trailing molten debris downwards.
It's only then that he realises just how close his face is to Castiel's. How much the other man is clearly enjoying this, however guiltily – and, for no real reason, Dean realises that he'd quite like to kiss Castiel.
It takes him a moment to realise that he's allowed to. That in fact he's already done it quite a lot.
And then he does it again – feeling weirdly self conscious.
Castiel moves his head the wrong way, and their teeth bump, but the next time Dean tweaks his cock, Castiel has the grace to open his mouth, allowing Dean a moment to slip him the tongue.
If Dean had to fill out some kind of progress chart for the Guild of Unicorn Deflowering – he'd probably cite that as the moment things got interesting.