A/N

This chapter takes place in season 8. If you haven't seen that, I suppose it is a little spoilery.

(If you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled, don't continue reading)

This is the season in which Dean and Cas escape from Purgatory. This chapter is set the first time Castiel appears to Dean since he escaped Purgatory. If you don't remember, he appears in the bathroom right behind Dean, and Dean sees him in the reflection of the mirror.

Dean heard him first—the slight ruffle, the beats of what could only be wings—and his head jerked up. Cas. Right there, in the mirror, standing behind him with his scruffy Purgatory beard and his messed up trenchcoat. Dean's heart stuttered to a halt even though he didn't believe it. It wasn't real—Cas wasn't real—he couldn't be—and Dean knew when he turned around the angel would be gone again, and it would be another mistake, another delusion. He almost didn't want to move, to turn and look away for the split second it would take to face Cas. Yet he would turn. He did turn because he had to see, he had to know for certain, for sure.

He spun around, dread pooling in his stomach, and glued his eyes to the angel's still there. Still there. Real?

"Hello, Dean," Castiel grated.

Dean's heart exploded, and he gripped Cas's forearms, feeling the warmth beneath the dirty cloak—real?—and shoved Cas's sleeve up his arm, sliding a silver dagger across his flesh. "Ahh," grunted Cas, and that was all. No scream, no hiss, no shapeshifter. Real. Dean's eyes darted up, and tension filled his muscles, his tendons standing taut and sharp and strong. He pushed Cas back, back until his back met the wall. He didn't know what he was doing, he didn't know. And then his mouth slammed down on Castiel's. Not sweet, not slow, not gentle. Vicious and hard and desperate and needy. A growling whine rumbled in his throat, an anxious sound of yearning and want and passion, and their mouths moved, their jaws shifted, connected, harder, deeper. Dean's tongue traced Cas' lips and parted them, and then he bent his head and pushed deeper, Cas meeting him half way. His left hand came up to the angel's neck gripping, gripping, curling in the dark twirls and crushing Castiel to him, trapping him in the tiny space between the wall and Dean, without a chance of escape. His heart pounded, pounded, pounded, and somewhere in his mind he still didn't believe this was real.

What the hell are you doing? the thought slammed through his mind like a steak through the heart. Kissing Castiel. Kissing Castiel? The truth shattered like flickering crystalline shards, bits and pieces scoring his mind, and abruptly he broke away from Cas whose mouth trailed after him but didn't quite reach. Both their eyes flew open.

Forest green. Cerulean blue.

The hunter stared with parted lips and quick, gasping breaths while his angel inhaled somewhat slower yet deeply, deeply. The vibrating pulse of Dean's heart threaded in his fingertips and the scratches on his face and in his body and his lips. His lips. He stared at Castiel.

Swallowed. Thick, hard.

The angel tilted his head a fraction in that slightly confused, concerned way that Dean loved so much. But then he lifted his left hand as if to touch his cheek, and Dean grabbed the wrist in midair and stopped the movement in place. Cas couldn't touch him. If he touched him Dean would crack, and he couldn't crack.

He didn't know what he was thinking. He didn't know what he was doing. Cas was his friend. His friend, not this.

But he is. He is. He had been for so long, and Dean just wouldn't admit it, couldn't admit it, never admitted it.

He had never kissed another man before. That should have caused him some distress but somehow, it didn't. It was just a statement of fact in his otherwise slipping tornado of thoughts. And why were the tears forming in his eyes and why didn't he care about the words, and the excuses, and the explanations? And why did he just want grab Cas and meet his lips halfway?

The angel's gaze flicked away for a moment, uncertain, hesitant, then back again. His mouth moved as if he thought there was a need to say something and yet didn't know what to say.

"Don't talk," Dean hissed before he could, growled, choking back on the saliva in his throat. "Don't you dare talk, you bastard."

Castiel didn't blink at the angry words. He shut his mouth, instead. He stood still and silent. Then something in his eyes flashed, something decided in his mind, and he pushed back against Dean's grip, and Dean let him. He curled a hand around his neck, and pulled him down. And Dean let him. Met him half way. Crying. Twisting his arms around the angel, clutching at his back as Cas' wrapped around his neck. And he kissed him back.

Hard. And deep. And breathlessly.

They didn't talk anymore, not a word. They kissed and, though Dean knew that talking would have to come eventually, so much talking, he couldn't face that right now. He couldn't. He just needed Castiel, and Cas needed him, and that was all either of them could think about.

And when their mouths eventually broke apart Dean buried his face in Castiel's neck, not even able to smell the sweat and dirt and blood and musk of Cas through his wet breaths.

He just held him, and, for once in his life, he let Cas hold him back.