A little creativity was all it took to get him and Cas over what was keeping them apart. This discovery had Dean beside himself with some horny species of hope. When his brain briefly took command over his rowdy nether regions, Dean was formulating a plan.

When Sam and Cas were off on a fact-finding assignment one day, Dean used one of the contacts he'd found during his ultra-top-secret research into the fetish community.

"That's very easy to do. No, it shouldn't take long," the reassuringly bland voice said when Dean finally made the call. "We're not busy early in the day. How's 1:00?"

Dean was there with everything he needed along with a bundle of nerves and excitement he couldn't quite untangle. That the erotic photography studio was just an office in an office building was a little anti-climactic, so to speak. There was a no-nonsense receptionist, a bed whose sheets were removed from a plastic package before his eyes, a large bowl of condoms, a few props, and a conspicuous odor of disinfectant.

"A lot of people don't want their faces on video, but it's a shame to leave out so much of your body," the photographer said, his eyes appreciating every inch of the hunter who'd explained his requirements.

Cameras were set up to capture him from behind and from the side, but the windowless room only had lights pointed on his back, rear, and legs—all the parts of him that weren't distractingly male.

Feeling utterly foolish, Dean stripped off and prepared the instrument he'd brought with him. "Think of how much this is going to drive Cas crazy," he told himself encouragingly. This was just the thing to get Castiel thinking of him as unbearably hot but without a distracting gender. In no time at all he was too into it to care. He loved the idea of them being able to watch together as his body exulted in the motions.

"That's hot, baby, but why don't we get a few shots with one of these?" the photographer threw a plastic package at him.

It took Dean a few moments to determine that the maze of stretchy fabric was a jock strap.

"A lot of guys like how this emphasizes their assets. Not that you need it," the man licked his lips. For a second, Dean was afraid that the strict no-touching policy he'd seen in the contract was about to be violated as he slipped on the article and looked in the mirror.

He looked so doable it was probably illegal in some states.

They spent a few more minutes getting all the footage he'd asked for, and then Dean cleaned himself up in the bathroom and came out to talk one more time with the proprietor.

"You didn't say if you wanted sound, but I think whoever you made this video for might want to hear you fantasizing about him."

"Oh, thanks," Dean said, blushing before the man who had seen him in total abandon. "How long will it take for you to edit it?"

"You'll have the secure download link in your inbox by Friday. It's only good for a week, so I recommend you save it someplace safe like password protected online file storage. Unless you're planning on making it public?"

"Nah, man, I'm not quite ready for that, but you may have really helped me out here. Thanks," and Dean passed over a cash tip in addition to the fee he paid by credit.

When the link appeared in his inbox, it was all Dean could do to wait for a private moment to watch it full size on the computer. In the meantime he'd taken the man's advice and bought some file space online rather than trying to hide it somewhere on the hard drive of Sam's computer. He waited until the other two guys were asleep and took the laptop to the bathroom. While the file was being transferred to its new home, he streamed it.

It was a turn-on like Dean had never experienced. He'd created the illusion that Cas was with him in the bed, and it was like watching the ex-angel of his desires possessing him. He was surprised to see that the photographer had slowed down certain portions so you could clearly see his anatomy moving in counterpoint with the rest of him shimmying in the half-light.

He looked like someone who was for rent, and cheap. A multi-angle view of his pert behind in motion was decadent enough. But the sound of him whimpering and crying out for more—the camera guy was right. It was out of the world. He didn't make it to the end before he succumbed.

"If you're just watching porn in there, can you do it somewhere else so I can take a leak?" Sam's voice grouched.

"A guy needs his privacy," Dean grumbled, computer in hand. He watched the rest of it on mute while Sam was in the john and then removed all trace of his surprise for Cas.

"Clear your schedule tonight," Dean whispered to Castiel in the morning. "I have a present for you."

Cas' face lit up in one of those surprising displays of emotion he had these days, and then it went blank again. "Your creativity has always impressed me," he whispered.

It took two days for them to get their time alone together, the job being what it was, and Sam clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop with Dean's transformation into a "stud-muscle health nut" as he'd heard Sam saying to one of his contacts over the phone.

Dean had been picking up chicks since he came back, and he'd even bedded a couple to see how he felt about it. Most of the time he was feeling bad for imagining the skin-to-skin contact was with someone different. The girl he got with the night after he saw the video received the full force of his arousal about sharing it with Cas.

Dean arranged to get separated from the group and waited for Cas to volunteer to find him. "What's the surprise?" Cas said when he walked into their assigned meeting place.

"That's you?" Cas grasped, watching the bouncing rear Dean had queued up on his phone.

"Yeah, you'll like it even better when you can see it on a bigger screen." Dean said, studying his face. He was pleased to see that Cas took himself in hand after just a few moments of viewing. After a moment, Dean risked doing the same and they took care of business simultaneously.

"You're going at it like you need it," Cas said unexpectedly. They both jumped a little at the statement. "What I mean to say is, I find this tremendously alluring."

"Call me a slut, I don't care. I was thinking of you the whole time."

In the end, Castiel gave in before the video, Dean while watching Cas watching it.

Cas grabbed him for a much less cautious kiss than usual afterwards. Then he held Dean at arm's length. "There are so many things to discover about you, Dean. I can't believe that you would go to such lengths to please me. How did you find this service?"

Dean described the whole process of being filmed and saw Cas growing distant while listening. "The man was interested in you? You didn't feel tempted?" came the question.

If push came to shove, Dean wasn't sure what turned him on more—Cas, or Cas' jealousy. This was very different than what had aroused him not very long ago.

"You've not been with a man since you realized it was of interest to you?" his companion pursued.

"No, though I get some interested looks from time to time. Actually, a lot more than that." He grinned at Cas' frown. "It would be really easy to do. The right glance a the gym or a bar." His hand crept over to Cas. "Some of these guys are pretty burly. It might be hot to have these muscular arms pinning me against the wall of one of the showers…"

He didn't really want that, but he liked making Cas jealous with the idea that Dean was going to open up shop to all comers and do it right in front of the former angel. He discovered his companion was so interested in the fantasy Dean was narrating that Cas didn't seem to be paying attention to whose hands surrounded his arousal. Dean helped stroke and added in a third guy to the scenario so that he was getting it coming and going.

Suddenly, Cas grabbed him, marking Dean's back with his pleasure.

"Do you have it?" Cas asked throatily.

"What?"

"The instrument you used in the video. I would very much like try it on you."

"Uh, no, I was afraid of Sam catching me with it," Dean said, a little flustered and still aching for release. "I can get one, though, for next time."

A single digit was their stand-in for the moment, and soon Dean brought himself over the edge.

"You look so, perfect, lying there like that," Cas said as Dean panted in a heap. "Although one of those garments like you wore in the video might be even better."

It was much easier to roll up a jockstrap in a sock than hide a solid object, so Dean said, "I'll be wearing one when you least expect it."

Cas mashed his mouth against Dean's and didn't appear to notice that he his mouth was attached to a man's until he looked down and saw the evidence. "I just suddenly wanted to do that," he said, embarrassed, while he moved back a few inches.

"Do that any damn time you please," Dean gasped. "You should see by now that I want you, and I'm not too particular how I get it."

Cas gave him an appraising look and got dressed.

Several days later, Dean got the text from Cas and met him in the hotel room. "Who is that and why is he using our shower?" Dean inquired about the man who emerged from the bathroom with wet hair. Could Cas be getting with other men, but not him?

"This is Paul. He was cleaning up after I performed a ritual upon him." Cas smiled at the nervous-looking hunky man and then whispered to Dean. "He will use a condom regardless but I wanted to make sure that he was not lying about his health status."

"He a pro?" Dean asked suspiciously as he tried to figure out what the condom was for.

"Nah, man, I wanted to see that body up close and personal," Paul piped up while his eyes devoured one body part in particular. "Sure I can't have a copy of that video?"

"No!" the other two men said together. "Now, I want you to make that story you told me come true," Cas instructed.

Dean wasn't sure how he felt about getting with this complete stranger, but having Cas stimulate himself while Dean was being hammered turned out to be deeply arousing. He gave in to passivity, existing only to be moved the way Castiel instructed.

"Take him. Take him in just that way," Castiel moaned.

Then Cas came over to join them. The fantasy Dean had created for his benefit was complete. "You can leave now," Cas said brusquely after they had all gotten off. "Here's some money for your trouble."

"Uh, okay," Paul said and was out the door with a few bills in hand.

"You," Cas breathed in Dean's ear. "You loved it." He received a mute nod. "Watching you being possessed by a man, it was—something I could watch many times."

"Hey, I'm not sure I want to be a pass-around-Patty, even for you," Dean said, his body saturated in some new kind of contentment.

"That's all right," Cas got up and went to a corner. "It may not have gotten everything, but this camera should have gotten some of our activities." He pried something off the molding. "Paul helped turn it on, but I trust you can figure out what to do with it?"

Dean was looking at the USB camera in his hand. "You went to this much trouble because you want to watch me getting it?"

"Very much, Dean," the tongue snaked into his ear. "It pleases me more than you can know."

On the one hand, Dean was in seventh heaven. Many of the original rules for their intimacy were falling away. Cas wasn't shy about laying a casual hand on a particular part of him in public when they were away from Sam. They had both become accustomed to kissing in such a way that no stubble could ruin the moment. They were so turned on by each other that they couldn't get enough time for sex.

Or Dean's new definition of sex, which had little to do with a certain nearly-nine-inches of him. Cas wouldn't touch it, tried not to look at it. Or more like, through practice, it didn't exist for him. It was a weird feeling, having part of his body, and not just any part, permanently invisible. Dean was allowed to touch himself, but that sector of his body felt a little lonely and left out sometimes. He thought about the bliss that would be Cas' mouth taking notice of it and then pushed the thought away. This body he'd worked so hard for was for Castiel's benefit, and Cas was far too interested in the rest of Dean.

It was magical to receive the ex-angel's arousal. Everything was the guy's first time, he told himself. The new human was eager to experience everything. He seemed to have lost a lot of interest in women. Dean couldn't bear to ask whether the girls Cas sometimes went home with were just for show, as Dean's were, but at least he had no doubt that the ex-angel's insistence upon condoms with everyone else had no exceptions. The new human struggled to accept that he could never be free of the microorganisms that used to be visible to his angel-eyes.

His lover had made several guys suit up before making a third to their party. Cas loved getting a full view of what Dean looked like while the action ensued, and the experience was heightened for Dean who imagined watching himself be taken on film.

The last time Cas had kissed him deeply while the guest of the evening took his due behind Dean. "Oh, Dean," the other man moaned with deep feeling sometimes when they were just the two of them, or not alone. Dean even had his chest stimulated once or twice, and he loved looking down at Cas's mouth worrying at him like that.

Then he always groaned too deeply and ruined the illusion. Rather, a carefully built reality, he chose to think of his intimacy. And the time they spent lying in bed or driving in the car or tracking one of their many enemies, just the two of them—there's no way that wasn't real.

Now he understood that look of self-sufficiency real settled couples had. He could tell Cas anything, with none of the drama he shared with his brother. It was a calmer, deeper way of knowing someone. Of being known.

"You are the one, Dean," he heard one night while he sewed up a wound for Cas in the motel bathroom. One of them had saved the other and they'd both gotten their asses kicked in the process. "Only you would be able to see a way out of our difficulties." And then he grunted at the last stitch going in and took a pull off the bottle.

"You guys about done in there?" Sam called. "I've gotta wash off this grave dirt."

"In a minute," Cas hollered back. "I'm so happy, Dean. Being alive with you-imagining it got me through many dark moments."

"That's what I don't get," Dean remarked. "I thought we were basically like animals that talked and created nuclear weapons and shit. Why would you be into that?"

"No," Cas whispered, pulling him down to face level. "Humanity is far more mysterious than that. I see this now. We never know what it going to happen, so I wanted to make sure you understood, no matter what comes to pass."

Dean's heart sank at this abrupt turn to the conversation. He had no idea what was about to happen but was sure he wouldn't like it.

"Guys?" Sam shouted.

"I'm gonna rush things the next time I stitch you up!" Dean yelled. "What's happened, Cas?" he asked in a subdued tone.

"I'm not sure, but your brother has been, how do you say, running a side game for a long time."

"You never thought to tell me this?"

"Since it is assuredly about either you, or you and me, it seemed the best way to prolong our time together was to keep silent." Castiel's fingers traced over Dean's face. "Is there anything you'd like to say to me?" Cas whispered.

"Call me your boyfriend." He mistook Cas' reaction. "Or don't."

"I should have thought that there would be human customs I would omit. This is important, of course." He took Dean's hand. "Dean Winchester, you are my boyfriend."

Feeling all of his past selves converging on this surreal moment and being surprisingly cool with it, Dean leaned up for a kiss and then withdrew from Cas' rigid body.

"Oh, yeah, I could shave," Dean rubbed his face as Cas backed away.

"Dean, there's someone waiting to see you, and I don't want him to run off." Sam pushed a guy into the bathroom. "Dean, meet Tim McCreedy."

The average-looking guy meant nothing to him. "He a case or something? Office hours are closed. You can come back in the morning. Not too early." The visitor was just standing there. "Oh, man, was that your girlfriend last night? She said she was single."

"Cut the crap, Dean. I know everything," Sam broke in. "More than you do. Starting with: Tim here, aka your friend Tim McCarthy, was no friend to you."

"Dean, I was so sure you were the right one," began a familiar voice, minus several doses of self-confidence.

"Tim? You look—"

"Normal. Unobtrusive. The opposite of a knockout. You can see why I would want to make a change, but you, Dean, you're already drop-dead gorgeous. And I was pretty sure you had someone in your life. It didn't seem like that big of a change, so it wouldn't upset the universe that much."

Cas put his hand on Dean's arm and left it there. "I think we should talk about this like civilized people." He grabbed the bottle from the bathroom counter and moved them all into the bedroom.

The two of them sat dwon closer than they normally would when around others.

"For starters, everyone in Heaven, Hell and in between has known you guys have a thing for each other," Sam said.

Cas slung an arm around Dean. "You knew?" the elder Winchester said in horror to his brother. "And you knew he knew?" he said to Cas.

"I endured my share of teasing before I incarnated, so it doesn't surprise me that human circles noticed I was partial to you."

Sam shook his head sadly. "When Cas became human and nothing happened, I figured he needed to sow his wild oats, or maybe he'd made his move and you felt so bad about not feeling the same way, Dean, that it had gotten between you. Or maybe you were into Cas all this time but you were still kidding yourself, brother." The elder Winchester frowned. "When you decided to up and leave, I thought you were trying to face things, if that's what you wanted."

"Dude, you make me sound retarded! It wasn't all simple like that. There's a lot of shit you don't know—" he looked over at Cas. "That we don't have to tell you. We deserve some privacy. Which is why Tim Mc-whatever, who I apparently didn't know at all, sitting smack in the middle of my life over there is really pissing me off."

The visitor shrunk a little bit further into the shrunken version of himself. "Let me explain."

"He got a hold of a good-luck talisman, made a wish, it went bad, and then he figured out how to pass it off on the unsuspecting hunter, which by the way should be an oxymoron," Sam summed up.

"You knew I was a hunter?" Dean was feeling seriously out of the loop.

"My Ouija board told me after I first fixed on you as a good candidate, yeah," Tim said sheepishly. "I really am related to one of the Salem witches. And I really am freaked out by Ouija and anything else beyond the Tarot cards that told me you were something a little more than a regular guy I met at a gym."

"And you said you wouldn't go to a fortune-teller," Dean recalled. "Because you'd screwed up your fate and wanted to get rid of it."

"Basically." Tim gave a perfectly normal smile.

"I had put together a few of these pieces," Cas said, his hand on Dean's leg. "My neural programming was changing at such a rapid rate. But I wanted it to," he rubbed the jeans-clad thigh soothingly.

Now Sam looked confused. "Jimmy was a poster boy heterosexual, making Cas into me but not in that way." Dean hated admitting this out loud.

"Which was one of the explanations I came up with," Tim put in. "All of your Tarot readings were hot with the love vibe, and yet something was in the way."

"So you guys knew how you felt about each other and were scoring chicks every night? Why?" The younger brother struggled to catch up. Then Sam wheeled on Cas, belatedly comprehending all of Dean's moodiness. "You could have been a little more sensitive, Cas. Dean's gone through hell over you."

"What I feel to be two separate areas of my life are one and the same for Dean. I had offered to leave. But we've been looking for solutions."

"Can I tell my story now?" the stranger asked.

Tim recounted his life as an average-looking guy who felt he'd never lived up to the looks-focused gay circles he tended to frequent. He was considering plastic surgery, when it occurred to him that the white magic talents he'd picked up from his family could be used to help him become the man he wanted to be.

"I found out about this stone that would grant a wish if you said the right charm over it. Naturally, I wanted to be hot."

"You were smoking," Dean said and then realized the past tense was insensitive.

"Everyone else thought so," Tim agreed. "I was ecstatic at first, meeting guys I'd had my eyes on for ages but who'd never given me a second look."

"How is that bad?" Dean interjected. "Me getting fit has been nothing but good for me, for us," he leaned into Cas.

"It won't be," Tim said with a nervous glance at Sam. "I mean, I thought it might be better for you, because you were used to being attractive and probably had someone who already loved you, meaning there was no chance people would turn you into an object. You couldn't tell because of the temporary antidote I'd been taking so that people would stay the hell away from me. Either most guys are creeps or they become creeps when they're with someone too hot to be real. No one would fall in love with me for me, and my life was worse than ever. And then it got so I couldn't walk down the street without getting assaulted." He grimaced. "Sorry if I put you through any of that."

The word "object" clicked something into place for Dean and Cas, because they exchanged a look laden with all the perversities they enjoyed so much. "Honestly dude, don't sweat it. We're all into it," Dean said, blushing, and then recoiled from Sam's disgust.

He said to the group, "Listen, whatever this curse-that-I-don't-think-is-really-a-curse is, it makes Cas more into me. In the way that we both want." He offered his mouth and Cas took the opportunity to take his breath away. He scowled at his brother for staring. "We're working against this Jimmy dude, who was a great big prude. If Cas knew this neural programming was going to be an issue, he would've figured out somebody else's body to model his after, wouldn't you, Cas?"

"I have regretted my short-sightedness every day." The men gazed sadly at one another.

Sam looked thrown for a moment. "Regardless, guys, this is going to go south. The two of you have been like zombies for a couple of months already, running off at odd times and thinking about anything but hunting. It's dangerous in more ways than one, and both of you should know better than trying to controvert the natural order of things.

"Dean, you go back to being your regular self, which is still the hotter brother, don't think that all the girls don't tell me so," Dean was surprised at this surrender of an oft-contested title. "And you guys work it out some other way. I mean, Dean, you do realize you look exactly like you did in high school, which was the last time you were really into working out."

"Dude, I didn't have a—, there's no way," Dean disagreed. He would have noticed if everywhere he went people were coveting his luxurious behind.

"You had an everything," Sam disagreed. "This is all a confidence thing for you, Dean. All of this unexpected stuff with Cas has you all self-conscious where you have no reason to be, so you're trying to recapture something you never really lost in high school. Back then, you were in excellent shape because being a jock was the easiest way to get through school without anyone noticing that you didn't understand the classwork." Dean made a disgusted noise and looked at the visitor, not wanting to go into this with someone outside the family.

"All I'm saying is, keep doing your yoga and drinking those herbs, which were just for kidney function and stuff. I checked right off. You and Cas can make it happen. There's no need for a curse to keep you together—he's dug you from the get-go, remember?"

"You made me wait around for two months because you wanted me to think I'd earned my muscles," Dean suddenly put together. Tim nodded.

"Yeah, I thought if you didn't know you were receiving a curse you would be less likely to act as if you were cursed. Plus, it's not like my transformation. My own mother didn't recognize me. You barely look any different now than when I first met you."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Sam concurred.

A silent conversation that had been taking place between the couple concluded. "This is about a problem that is a little more than skin deep. Tim, I would like you to help illustrate our plight," Castiel said, making an encouraging motion with his hand. "Then Sam will understand what we are up against." Sam looked skeptical. "Go on."

Tim grabbed Sam and tried to kiss him.

"Dude, step back," Sam objected, wiping his mouth. "I like you, Tim, but you know I'm the Winchester totally not into that kind of thing." The other three men gazed at him sadly. "Oh."

"We're basically fucked, or not, without this curse," Dean said. "Sorry, Sam, but this is where we part ways."

Within five minutes, he and Cas were on the road.