Castiel wakes, dry eyed and cotton mouthed, on his side. The sheet over him, he can tell by the feel, is trailing just below his hips, an awkward angle that makes the fabric lax and tickly over the naked skin of his thighs and groin. It's an almost innocently pleasant sensation, and it's only when Castiel realises that his bared back is attached to those bare thighs, and that his shins and arms are seamlessly uncovered also – that he is in short, naked – that he begins to crease his brow in growing distress. Struggling towards wakefulness with sated limbs, Castiel cracks an eye and recognises the warm bulk on the bed next to him as Dean. Castiel is facing him, curled in on himself and into Dean's chest and abdomen, with his legs tangled with Dean's own under the scanty sheet.
Castiel closes his eyes to quell the wave of unpleasant revelation.
But unfortunately, his body keeps mopping up sensory data. Dean's skin is warm against his own. There's something clotted in the hair that peppers the space between his legs, that pinches a little as he moves, snagging the hairs and pulling them. Dean's groin is resting lightly against the space between Castiel's stomach and the top of his left thigh. Rough, scratchy hair, and the burning hot length of Dean's almost hardened penis, rest alarmingly on Castiel's skin. He flinches despite himself, at that.
Dean makes a disgruntled sound as Castiel draws away from him, flinching back from Dean's heat and touch. Castiel looks at Dean's face, relaxed in sleep. He's staring into the features of a man who's kissed him, who's touched him and had him...and he's unnerved by it. As he moves he discoverers new aches that tell the story of the previous night, that remind him of what he allowed Dean to do, what he relished as it was done.
Dean's arm moves to rest over his waist and Castiel's attempts to dislodge it gently prove pointless.
Castiel closes his eyes and goes still on the bed, allowing the arm to stay where it is.
Hopeless. In a word, is a how he feels. This is the greatest of his mistakes by far, and it is the one he cannot return from. Sooner or later it had to happen, and he is without a doubt in too deep.
You wanted him. You sought this out. You let him.
His mind forces him to accept these things as true. He did want Dean, and, beyond the shock of lying next to him naked when he'd slept and forgotten his own desire... he is quite content where he is, the warmth is no longer quite so disquieting, the aches in him are more pleasant than he had at first decided.
His legs and arms feel new, as if he's just become aware of all the tendons and muscles there. His spine bends and moves with him as he shifts on the bed and when he swallows he feels for the first time the shape of his mouth, the line of his teeth and the workings of his throat.
Dean turns over and lies against his side, arm cinching closer and the hand at the end of it rubbing flat and warm into his hip. Dean's face buries itself in Castiel's neck, and he twitches a little as Dean exhales there, a low groan attached to the end of the sigh as Dean's hips slowly grind against his thigh. Castiel hisses as a warm trail of sticky fluid is marked on his skin, the full hardness of Dean shifting impatiently against his skin. He can feel his own length hardening rapidly as Dean alternately squeezes his hip, grinds into his thigh and huffs against his throat.
He turns to face Dean, watching his face change, shifting between pleasure and discontent. Reaching up a hand, Castiel traces the side of it.
How does he feel, about this man?
Dean has been, by turns, indifferent, derisive, downright unpleasant, pleased, affectionate, desirous and...
What was last night? A hand on his pulling him into the shadowy cabin, a gentle warning against the pain that Dean'd reluctantly cause him, an hour or so of bodily pleasure that surpassed anything he'd heretofore experienced...and now this morning, a mostly still asleep and highly aroused man at his side. A warm bed and rain still falling outside.
He kisses Dean hesitantly, tasting salt on the dry skin of his mouth and feeling the softness of his lip underneath.
Dean grumbles in his sleep.
He's known Dean for little more than a week, and since Castiel met him he's only wanted to live up to his own high expectations – to surprise Dean and make him think of him as a decent man, a good man.
He presses closer, breathless, until their foreheads meet, then he kisses Dean again, waking him in the process and turning the touch of lips into something deeper, wetter and infinitely more satisfying. Dean moans against his mouth, hand on Castiel's hip pulling him closer, rubbing them together. Castiel doesn't protest when he's rolled onto his back, Dean eagerly nudging on top of him.
"You're still here." Dean murmurs happily, sounding surprised.
A slight, cold doubt forms in Castiel's stomach.
"If you want me to go..."
"No." Dean presses down on him, eliciting a sigh and a small whine. "God no, I just thought...maybe you'd get scared...run away."
"You're not so frightening." Castiel wriggles underneath him, offering his hips up at the right angle to rub Dean's hardness over the still wet cleft of himself. His own breath stutters and Dean outright groans as he presses just a little way into him. There's a little pain, but not enough for him to balk at.
"You're not so innocent." Dean says, once he's acquired the breath to form words, he moves closer and kisses Castiel's panting mouth.
Castiel just shakes his head, moaning agreement. He is not innocent. He's in love. Possibly the quickest way to lose anything milk fed and ignorant about himself.
This time, when Dean finishes with a quiet groan, face buried in the pillow beside Castiel's head, Castiel wraps his arms of the other man's trembling back. Dean goes still for a second, then submits to the hug, rubbing his morning scruff into the smooth skin of Castiel's shoulder.
"Mmmm...we should clean up." Dean says after a long, lazy while, getting to his elbows over Castiel's prone body. "You're a mess." He says, with half affectionate bluntness.
When Castiel slings his legs over the side of the bed and sits up he outright winces at the pain. Dean frowns sympathetically, a slight smirk still finding its way to his face.
"Probably should have warned you about that." He says sheepishly, as Castiel stands and winces again, sucking in a breath at the pain as his body attempts to adjust itself back to virgin tightness against the soreness of his complaining insides. Dean leads him patently into the small bathroom, just a tub with a toilet opposite. He turns the hot and cold water on full blast and checks the temperature in a vague way before settling Castiel at the smooth end of the tub. Dean himself presses his back to the facets awkwardly, their legs a tangle in the middle of the narrow space.
Dean has a bar of white soap, the logo stamped on it blurred by prior use, and a wash cloth, shaving brush and safety razor in a bowl on the side of the tub. They take turns with the scant equipment, Castiel washing his face and chest clean of dried sweat, cataloguing the marks there as the water sluices dried and drying fluids from his lower body. He's never bathed with anybody before, and as ridiculous at it seems even to himself, it is as startlingly intimate as sleeping beside Dean, as having him inside of him.
"You thinking deep thoughts over there?" Dean interrupts, gently nudging his foot against Castiel's thigh.
Castiel blinks at him owlishly, not really knowing what to say. It seems an inappropriate moment to be struck by shyness. Dean rolls his eyes.
"Come here."
He manoeuvres them until Castiel is sitting with his knees bent and Dean kneeling between them, soap and shaving brush in hand. Castiel sits placidly as Dean soaps the fine bristles on his face and gently sweeps them away with the razor. When he's done, Dean wipes the remnants of soap away with a wet hand and pauses before kissing Castiel neatly on the mouth, hand still touching the smooth line of his jaw. Dean breaks away and sits back a little.
"You feeling better now?" He asks, brow wrinkling in concern. "Less sore I mean."
Castiel wriggles experimentally.
"I'll live." He says quietly. Dean kisses him again, smelling of plain soap and wet skin.
The other man pulls back and looks at him for a long moment, leaving Castiel feeling a little odd at the appraisal.
"So...uh..." Dean rinsed the shaving brush in the bath water. "Do you think you'll...are you gonna want to do this again?" he asks, awkwardly.
"Yes." Castiel says, quietly. "But...my father said he's cutting our trip short."
Dean actually looks disheartened at that.
"But." Castiel says, the look on Dean's face prompting him to try and make this better somehow. "John Kellerman loves my Father, he's his doctor and his best friend...and he's not going to hear of him leaving early." As he says it he realises that it's probably true. "And my sister, Anna? She's really excited about the end of season show."
Dean's hopeful eyes on his warm him more thoroughly than the bath water.
"So...I'd like to come back." Castiel says steadily, holding the other man's gaze. "If you'd like me to come back."
"Of course I want to see you again." Dean looks at him thoughtfully.
"You know...when we met I really didn't like you." He touches Castiel's hand gently. "Honest to God you seemed like...like one of the guests you know? All...dull and looking down on us for having fun, for being what we are..." He bites his lip. "But then, I danced with you..." he looks Castiel in the eye. "Even though I'm really good at...well, finding men like me, knowing them from the regular kind...you were confusing as hell – like you had no idea what you wanted."
Castiel feels the heaviness of Dean's inner workings settle over him, this is what he's been thinking, this non-demonstrative man who's driven his actions since he came here. These are his thoughts and opinions, the way he felt. Castiel knows that this must be a rare thing - he treasures it as he would a declaration of his own prowess.
"And...you just kept surprising me." Dean half laughs to himself. "You're...really goddamn hard to read, you know that? All this time I've been watching you and trying to work out if you were interested in me...if you'd just run for the hills if I touched you wrong...and, when I did..." a contemplative, wanting look crosses the other man's face. "It felt like you'd been waiting for me to make a move."
"I didn't know I was." Castiel says shakily, after a pause.
Dean looks at him strangely, as if this confirms something in his mind, then he sighs and stands up, water running off him, seemingly unabashed by his own forthright nakedness.
"I guess that makes you something new then." He says quietly, picking up a towel for himself and offering one to Castiel.
Castiel doesn't know what to make of that.