Warnings: This chapter contains profanity, explicit sex (m/m pairing), some discussion of sexual abuse, and some discussion of homophobia including offensive language.
This chapter is set during 5.14: "My Bloody Valentine", but I went a little off script because we all know that Cas's deepest, darkest desire is not cheeseburgers. Also I'd like to say that I did not originally intend for this story to be about homophobia and its devastating effect on relationships, but that's the direction it went so I'm rolling with it.
Shout out to pona and dean-winchester-is-our-king for their lovely reviews. If you review, you too can see your name in print at at the beginning of the next chapter. Happy reading.
As soon as Dean got back from the coroner, he stripped off his clothes and turned on the motel shower as hot as it would go which was only a few degrees above lukewarm. He'd seen some gruesome things in his time, but this had to be the worst. How the fuck did two people eat each other alive? You'd think the pain would have forced them to stop at some point, but no, they'd gone all the way down to the bone before the blood loss got them. There had to be a witch behind this. A really, really pissed off witch.
He scrubbed at his already clean hair until his scalp tingled, trying to wash the gory images out of his brain. His subconscious already had more than enough nightmare material, but he just kept giving it more. He was like one of those hoarders who filled up their house with old newspapers and broken record players until they couldn't find the door and they starved to death surrounded by junk.
That's it, he thought. If I survive the apocalypse, I'm quitting and moving somewhere where I'll never see a dead body again … So the moon maybe.
He honestly wasn't sure if he meant it. He always thought this way during a bad case, and then they'd catch an easy one and he'd remember why he loved his job. But lately even the easy ones had been bad, and the bad ones had been getting worse and worse, and a simple life was looking more and more appealing, especially if that life included Cas. Especially if it included sex with Cas. Frequently.
Other images began to fill the darkness behind Dean's closed eyelids, chasing away the nightmares. Almost without conscious thought, his hand slid down between his legs and encouraged the nascent erection caused by the memory of Cas stretched out on top of him, the angel's face screwed up with ecstasy, his gravelly voice calling Dean's name because he had to shout something as his body spasmed with pleasure, and even though he spoke thousands of languages, "Dean" was suddenly the only word he could remember.
With his eyes still closed, Dean thought he'd imagined hearing the rustle of wings, but then warm, wet lips pressed against his, and a tongue snaked into his mouth, and fuck, his imagination wasn't that vivid. Not with the good stuff anyway.
He opened his eyes, and sure enough Cas was in the shower with him. The angel was naked, rivulets of water running over his skin in a way that made Dean very jealous of those lucky molecules. His black hair was slowly getting plastered to his head, but his wings were perfectly dry because the water was falling right through them.
"Hello, Dean," he said, giving the words the same inflection he always did. Nothing about the greeting suggested that he'd just caught Dean jerking off, or that Dean was still touching himself, or that Cas was visibly aroused by the sight.
"Hey, Cas," Dean said, trying and failing to match the angel's casual tone. "I was, um … I was just thinking about you."
Cas's eyes darted pointedly downward. "I can tell," he said. Then he unceremoniously batted Dean's hand away and replaced it with his own while simultaneously pushing Dean up against the tile wall and kissing him like both their lives depended on it.
"Fuck," Dean gasped between kisses. "I … mmm … missed you so mmmph … so much, Cas." He groped blindly for Cas's cock — partly to return the favor and partly to have something to hold onto — and immediately felt it swell to full readiness in his hand.
Cas muffled a moan in Dean's neck, teeth digging in ever so gently. He could heal any mark he made, but he was still careful not to cause Dean pain if he could help it. "Missed you more," he mumbled, soothing the bite with his tongue and healing it at the same time. "Where's Sam?"
"Interviewing a witness. Could be back any minute."
Cas gave a frustrated huff and said, "We'd better hurry up then."
Dean nodded and sped up his rhythm. Cas did the same until they were jerking each other frantically, racing headlong toward climax. It wasn't what either of them really wanted, but it was more than they'd had in weeks. Between the mounting urgency of stopping the apocalypse and the necessity of keeping their relationship a secret from Sam, they'd had to make do with heated kisses and a little groping. Dean felt like a teenager again, and not in a good way. He was horny all the time, and it was making him moody and short tempered. He knew that one orgasm wasn't going to solve the problem, even if it came from Cas's hand instead of his own, but it couldn't make things worse, and his brain wasn't currently in the driver's seat.
He felt himself unraveling even as Cas's movements became more erratic, and of course that was when he heard footsteps outside the bathroom and Sam called through the door, "Dean?"
He did the only thing he could. He kissed Cas hard, sealing their mouths tightly together so that they swallowed each other's moans as they spilled over each other's skin. For a moment the world was perfect, small and warm and quiet except for the sounds of falling water and pounding hearts. Then Sam called again, "Dean? Are you okay in there?"
Dean had never hated his brother more, not even when Sam was guzzling demon blood and fucking Ruby. "Fine," he shouted. "Be out in a minute." His voice sounded funny, but hopefully Sam would think he'd just been entertaining himself. He looked at Cas. The angel didn't look quite as happy and sated as he usually did after sex. "Sorry," Dean whispered.
"It's okay," Cas said equally quietly, but it wasn't. Dean could see it in his eyes. The secrecy was wearing on both of them as Dean had known it would, but he hadn't anticipated how much worse it would be for Cas who hadn't had as much practice as Dean. They had to find a way to come clean without breaking Dean's promise.
Maybe he could tell Bobby and then sort of hint that it would be okay for Bobby to tell Sam. But something deep inside Dean balked at the idea. He remembered his father's anger and disappointment, the hateful, ugly words he had shouted. Fag. Dean still couldn't hear that word without flinching. Bobby was of the same generation as John. He wasn't religious unless hunting could be considered a religion, but he'd lived most of his life in Middle America where new ideas were slow to take hold. If he reacted the same way John had, if he hated Dean for this … Dean had little enough in the way of family. He couldn't lose another father.
"I should go," Cas said, stepping back from Dean and starting to unfold his wings.
Dean caught his arm. "Wait."
He knew it wouldn't fix anything, but he couldn't let Cas go away with that sad, dissatisfied look in his eyes, so he kissed the angel one more time, a kiss that was everything the sex hadn't been — slow and soft and lazy. Cas melted into it, clutching at Dean like he might fall over if he didn't hold onto something.
"Love you," Dean whispered when they parted. Every time he said it, it got easier.
"I love you too," Cas said, resting his head against Dean's for a moment. Then he was gone.
Dean washed the sticky mess off his stomach and hands, trying not to feel like he was washing away the evidence of a crime. It's not wrong. It's not wrong, he repeated silently. We're not doing anything wrong. I love him, and he loves me, and there's nothing wrong about it.
He believed it. He just wished the rest of the world believed it too.
~o0o~
Sam had brought home dinner, so Dean decided not to kill him. They exchanged updates on the case while they ate. Sam had ruled out ghost and demon, and he too was leaning towards witch, but he didn't think it was the roommate which had been Dean's first guess. He said she'd seemed genuinely traumatized by the carnage she'd witnessed. "Even if she wanted to kill her friend, she didn't seem like the type to do it so … messily."
Dean flashed back to the mutilated bodies at the morgue and immediately put down his half finished slice of pizza. "Well, the good news is that a witch powerful enough to do this ain't gonna stop. She'll have to come out of hiding to get her fix."
Sam snorted with bitter amusement. "You do realize how fucked up our lives are that that qualifies as good news, right?"
"Yes, I do, but I'll take what I can get."
Sam looked at Dean's plate and raised his eyebrows. "You're not gonna finish that?"
"Dude, if you had seen those bodies, you wouldn't want to eat either. Ever again." Dean pushed the plate towards his brother. "Have at it, you lucky bastard."
Sam didn't have quite the same relationship with food that Dean did — mostly because Dean had always made sure that if someone had to go hungry it was Dean and not Sam — but he still found it difficult to let food go to waste. "So I'm gonna do some research," he said around a mouthful of pizza. "Make sure we didn't overlook any possibilities. You can get going if you want."
Dean frowned. "Going where?"
Sam gave him a funny look. "The nearest bar, I assume."
"Oh. Nah, I think I'll stay in tonight."
The funny look got even weirder, and the interesting thing about it was that it didn't seem surprised or confused. It was like this was the answer Sam had been expecting, but now he was waiting for something more. "Really?" he said.
"Yes," Dean snapped, that look getting on his nerves. "I don't go out and get drunk every night, Sam."
"No, but you usually do on Valentine's Day."
That brought Dean up short again.
"Don't tell me you forgot," Sam laughed. "Isn't it, like, your favorite holiday?"
Dean controlled his expression very carefully. It was true that in the past he'd never missed out on the hook up opportunities Valentine's Day presented unless he was seriously injured as had been the case last year. What Sam didn't know was that Dean had never spent Valentine's Day in the company of a woman. If there was even one gay bar in whichever po-dunk town he happened to be in when February fourteenth rolled around, he would find it, and he wasn't the only one. It was the loneliest day of the year for closeted gay men. Everyone was celebrating love, relationships, the sheer joy of laying claim to another person and telling the world, This one's mine. Get your own. And the only thing worse than sleeping alone on Valentine's Day was sleeping with someone you didn't feel anything for. The last time Dean had slept with a man other than Cas had been on Valentine's Day, three months before he went to Hell.
He actually had forgotten about it this year, but he wouldn't have gone out and picked up a guy anyway. He was with Cas. Cas had told him, You're the only one I've ever wanted. I want you to be mine. Only mine. Which was pretty much the definition of exclusive. And even if Dean had had the slightest desire for anyone else, which he didn't, he wouldn't dare cheat on a man who could literally burn his eyes out. He might be an idiot sometimes, but he wasn't stupid.
"Yeah. Guess I'm just not feeling it this year," he said.
"Really?" Sam said again, his eyes searching Dean's face for … something. Dean had no idea what. "You're not interested in bars full of desperate women?"
"Not tonight." Maybe not ever again. God, I hope so. "Let's just work."
Sam shrugged, but he seemed oddly disappointed as he opened his laptop. Dean chalked it up to Sam being a weirdo, or to put it another way, Sam being Sam.
Before Dean got down to research, he pulled out his phone and sent Cas a text.
Be my valentine?
It would probably confuse the hell out of the poor angel, but for Dean it felt like another milestone, another thing he'd never done with anyone else. God, he was turning into such a chick, and he didn't give one single, solitary fuck.
~o0o~
It looked like they were hunting a rogue Cupid, which wasn't the weirdest thing Dean had ever heard, but it was definitely in the top ten. And apparently Cupids were a kind of angel, which was a good excuse for Cas to tag along which made Dean's day. Of course it would have been better if they weren't working, and if Sam wasn't there, but you couldn't have everything. Despite the moose-man squeezed into the restaurant booth with them, Cas had no qualms about putting his hand on Dean's knee under the table.
At first Dean had no objection. Sam wasn't sitting in a place where he could see it, and everyone else could go to hell. But then the hand started to move, caressing the inside of his thigh, stopping just short of his crotch, then moving slowly back down and starting again. It was very distracting and was about to become very embarrassing if Dean had to stand up any time soon, so he took the hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before moving it over to Cas's leg.
It happened again at the police station. They had determined that Cupid wasn't the killer (after the fat, naked angel burst into tears when they accused him of just that), so now they were looking for other suspicious deaths not involving couples. Fortunately Sam wasn't with them. Dean had insisted he take the morgue this time. But a middle aged desk sergeant saw Cas put his hand on Dean's chest and slowly trail it lower … and lower.
The look the man gave them was decidedly hostile. "Fucking fags," he muttered not quite under his breath.
Dean tensed and glared back for a moment before dragging Cas out of there as fast as he could. By the time they got back to the car, he was shaking. He couldn't even tell if it was fear or anger. He rested his head on the cool metal of his Baby and took deep breaths.
"Dean, are you okay?" Cas asked, resting his hand on the back of Dean's neck.
Dean shook him off and growled, "Stop fucking touching me, Cas."
The warm hand fell away and Dean felt the cold night air bite into him. He couldn't bring himself to look at Cas, to see the shock and hurt in those blue eyes, but he couldn't escape from it entirely. It was in the angel's voice too when he said, "Sam isn't here you know."
"But other people are," Dean snapped. "We're in the middle of the fucking street, Cas."
"So?" Cas was getting angry now. "You didn't promise your father that you would keep your sexuality a secret from the whole world. Just from Sam."
"This has nothing to do with my dad!"
That was a lie. It was John who had taught Dean that word. When he shouted it in Dean's face that awful day, Dean didn't even know what it meant, but he knew it was bad because the moment it was said, Eliot let go of Dean's hand and ran. Maybe that was a coincidence. Maybe it was the shouting that had scared him off, or the burly, bearded ex-Marine looming over him. But in Dean's thirteen year old brain, the two things were forever connected. That word made Eliot disappear forever, and the last of Dean's innocence went with him.
But John wasn't the only one who'd ever called Dean a fag. Far from it. It hadn't happened in a long while, but only because Dean had gotten more careful about what he allowed the world to see.
"I don't expect you to understand, Cas," he said more calmly. "You're not human. You've never had to deal with this shit. It's … It's fucking scary, okay?"
"I am risking my life by being with you, Dean," Cas said evenly. "I am breaking the laws of Heaven every time I make love to you. Do you really think that doesn't scare me?"
Dean froze. He hadn't thought of that. He'd known it, but he hadn't thought about it. He turned to look at Cas, flinching from the anger in the angel's face. Cas's wings were spread too, a sure sign that he was royally pissed off (or having an orgasm, but right now it was definitely the first one). "I'm sorry," Dean said. "I didn't —"
"You tell me you're not ashamed," Cas cut him off. "You tell me we're not doing anything wrong, but you act as though we are. You can't have it both ways, Dean."
Dean lowered his eyes again. This was it. This was when Cas decided he couldn't take it anymore and left. Just like Eliot. And Dean couldn't blame him. This was too much to ask of anyone. Dean wasn't worth all this trouble, not when he was thirteen and relatively innocent, and certainly not now. He felt Cas step closer, but he didn't look up, just braced himself for the inevitable.
"Look at me," Cas said.
Dean couldn't.
Cas put a hand on Dean's cheek and gently but firmly coaxed his head up until their eyes met. "I made you a promise," the angel said. "That I wouldn't leave you because of the laws of Heaven. Now you're going to promise me that you won't push me away because of what stupid, bigoted humans think or say. Will you promise me that?"
Once he wrapped his head around the fact that Cas wasn't breaking up with him, Dean was so relieved that he would have agreed to anything. "Yes. I promise," he said, and to prove it he kissed Cas right there in the street for anyone to see.
Cas responded enthusiastically, pushing Dean against the car and grinding their hips together.
Dean groaned and pulled his mouth away. "Cas, stop," he pleaded.
Cas stumbled back, looking a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I don't know why I did that."
"It's not that I wasn't enjoying it," Dean assured him. "I was enjoying it a little too much if you know what I mean. Kissing in public is one thing. Doing … that is over the line, and it would be even if one of us was a girl."
Cas nodded, but a second later he attacked Dean's mouth again with no warning.
Dean's brain and his dick wrestled for control, and brain won, but just barely. He disengaged from the kiss as gently as possible and said, "Cas." He was trying for a stern warning tone, but it came out more of a needy whine.
"I'm sorry," Cas panted, burying his face in Dean's neck. "I don't know why I can't … can't stop. I want …" His hips jerked mindlessly. "Fuck. I need you, Dean. Need you so bad." The last word was almost a sob.
That was when Dean realized that something was very wrong. Yes, it had been a long dry spell, and the shower sex earlier had barely taken the edge off, but Cas was never this out of control. There was something frightening about his kisses, something desperate and hungry.
Hungry. That was the clue. The mounting death toll in this town — overdoses, alcohol poisoning, the cannibal lovers. Hunger was the common thread. Whatever people wanted most — food, drink, sex, drugs — they suddenly couldn't stop gorging themselves on it.
And apparently what Cas craved more than anything was Dean.
~o0o~
Dean drank whiskey straight from the bottle and did his best to tune out the shouted curses and threats coming from Bobby's panic room. Of fucking course Sam's craving would be fucking demon blood.
And it didn't help that he'd used the power it gave him to kill Famine and save Dean. No, that actually made this worse because it made the painful withdrawal Sam was suffering through now at least partly Dean's fault. Even though Dean was somehow immune to Famine's power, he still hadn't been able to stop the Horseman before the demons got to Sam, or rather, before Sam got to the demons.
"It's not really him," Cas said from the other side of the room. He'd been keeping his distance from Dean all day as though he still didn't quite trust himself. Dean hated it, but he didn't want to push. As scary as it had been for him to see Cas lose control like that, it must have been ten times more terrifying for the angel who had never before been a slave to his body's needs like humans were.
Silence fell behind the panic room door, and then the curses turned to pleading. Sam insisted that it was over now, that it was safe to let him out. Dean didn't move. This had happened three times in the past hour. It never lasted more than a few minutes before …
Sam kicked the door and threatened to rip them all apart when he got out. Dean had an incongruous flashback — a picture book he used to read to Sam when they were kids. The big bad wolf dressed up as a harmless sheep and tried to trick the three little pigs into opening the door for him. But when the pigs weren't fooled, the wolf lost his temper and suddenly it was all, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down. Well, Sam could bang on that door all he wanted. That panic room wasn't built out of no damn straw. Bobby was a smart little pig.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside Dean, but he drowned it in whiskey.
"He just needs to get it out of his system," Cas continued.
"Cas," Dean gritted out between his teeth, and then he stopped himself. He didn't want Cas to leave, but he couldn't stand to be reassured and comforted right now. He didn't deserve it. He reached out with the hand that wasn't holding the whiskey bottle and said, "Just shut up and come here."
Cas hesitated.
Dean sighed. "I know you're not going to molest me anymore, okay? Will you please just let me hold you?"
Cas relented and went into Dean's arms, wrapping his wings around both of them. Dean set the whiskey bottle on the floor and held onto Cas with both hands.
"I'm sorry," Cas murmured, resting his chin on Dean's shoulder. "For the way I behaved when I —"
"That wasn't you," Dean interrupted firmly.
"But I almost hurt you. I would have hurt you if you hadn't trapped me in holy fire. I would have …" Dean felt Cas's throat work as he swallowed hard in disgust. "I would have done anything to satisfy my own need."
Dean shivered a little and held Cas even tighter. "And I would have forgiven you," he said. "Because it wouldn't have been your fault. Anyway it didn't happen. We have enough actual shit to deal with without worrying about things that didn't happen."
Cas didn't reply, but he relaxed a little more in Dean's arms. They held each other in silence. It wasn't a completely platonic embrace. Dean was pretty sure he and Cas had never done anything completely platonic, but this was probably the least sexual interaction they'd ever had.
"Why were you unaffected by Famine's power?" Cas asked after a while.
Dean shrugged. "Don't know. I have a theory."
Cas pulled back just enough to see Dean's face. "What is it?"
"You," Dean said with a small smile. "If I was gonna get hungry for anything, it would be you, but I already have you." He patted his shoulder. "Right here. All the time. Maybe I did get hungry, but that was enough to keep me satisfied."
Cas nodded thoughtfully. "You may be right. Of course, now that Famine is dead, we have no way of knowing for sure."
"Now that Famine is dead, it's a moot point," Dean said. "And I ain't complaining."
"No, neither am I," Cas said sincerely. He moved closer to Dean again and nuzzled his neck, but it wasn't foreplay. It was more like a child seeking the comfort of a human touch after waking from a nightmare.
Dean rubbed his back and kissed his hair lightly. He had no doubt that they would get past this and have sex again, probably sooner than later, but this was what they both needed right now.
Neither of them noticed Bobby watching them from the top of the basement stairs. Dean would have been relieved to see the soft smile on the old hunter's face, but right then all his attention was on the angel in his arms. The rest of the world could wait.
