Dean was a cuddler, though he'd never admit it (at least when he was sober), and when it was just him and Sam he just had to bury all the shit deep inside of him and keep going, because John Winchester had drilled it into him that men were tough, men didn't let their emotions get in the way.
With Cas, though, it was different.
Cas had seen Dean at his very worst – a place Sam could never even dream of imagining. With Cas, Dean could be a little more himself, because Cas didn't judge him as his father had done. Cas just accepted him as he was, fucked up and broken. But even then he didn't know how to ask for what he needed sometimes. The sweets made it easier, because he didn't need to say anything.
After a hard fight and Sam had gone to bed, he'd quietly pass a sweet to Cas without a word – Hug me – while he continued doing whatever he was doing, and the angel would wrap his arms around him. For a moment Dean would let himself sink into the gentleness of Cas's embrace before he quickly pulled away, because after Hell and Purgatory – and fuck it, even his life – he still craved those little moments of feelings loved, but he was too afraid of getting used to them to enjoy them, because Cas always left. And thankfully Cas seemed to understand that, because he never said anything.
And after yet another argument with Sam over the trials, during which Dean had shouted at Sam that it shouldn't be him doing them because it's always been Dean's job to look out for him and Sam had screamed back that he could do it if Dean would just let him, Dean would pull Cas into a hug before he zapped off to do whatever he needed to do. Only he and Cas would know that he's used that hug to drop a sweet into Cas's pocket – Text me – and the angel would make an extra effort to remain in contact with him, even if he couldn't drop by. And if Sam made stupid comments about how it sounded like he'd gotten himself a needy girlfriend if the amount of times his phone rang was anything to go by, well, he could let it go because he needed Cas.
And if one night he wanted someone to take his mind off everything, just for a couple of hours, but couldn't get it up for the girl he picked up and instead bought himself a bottle, shut himself in his room, and drank to the point that he allowed himself to entertain thoughts he would usually bury, and passed a sweet to Cas – Kiss me – he could just put it down to his good friend Jack. Or at least, he could have done had the angel not padded silently over to him and softly pressed his lips against the corner of Dean's mouth; had Dean not moved his head ever so slightly to swipe his tongue across Cas's lower lip; had Cas not shoved him against the wall and full on kissed him, tongue and all; had he not kissed him back until his pants got a little too tight.
Cas disappeared on him then, leaving him flushed and embarrassed with a hard on that was begging to be touched. So he jerked off to the memory of Cas; of his smell and his taste and the touch of his burning hot fingers digging into his hips. He came harder than he could ever remember, and the next morning when he showered he discovered the bruises that Cas had left. Bruises that took two weeks to disappear, and that got him hard just by looking at them and thinking about Cas's hands on him.
He tried it again a few weeks later, when he'd had a little less to drink and had a little more control over his body – just to see what Cas would do, he told himself – and his hands had barely ghosted over the curve of Cas's ass when the angel disappeared on him.
Dean used the sweets to ask Cas for the things he was too afraid to ask out loud for – comforting gestures that John would have told him made him weak – but somewhere along the line Dean stopped asking only when he needed, and started asking when he wanted.